N 
 
'I'll K 
 
 PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 THE COMMON SCHOOLS: 
 
 THREE PAPERS ON EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 
 
 I'.Y 
 
 CHARLES F. ADAMS, Jr. 
 \ 
 
 I.— THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 ' II. — FICTION' IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES, AND EDUCATIONAL 
 CATALOGUES. 
 
 III.— THE NEW DEPARTURE IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS 
 OF SLUINCY. 
 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 EsTES ANi> Lauiuat, No. 301 Washington Street. 
 
 1879. 
 

 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 As a rule anything worth publishing at all should, I 
 think, explain itself, and stand in no need of a preface. 
 In the present case, however, I feel that some apology is 
 necessary for my — a mere amateur — offering to specialists 
 these discussions of matters relating to their calling. I 
 can only say that for quite a number of years now I have 
 been actively concerned in the management of the Common 
 Schools and Public Library of Quincy. Whether the ob- 
 servation and experience thus locally obtained are likely 
 to prove of any general interest, 1 do not care to discuss ; 
 meanwhile, as I may now claim a speedy discharge from 
 work of this description, on the ground of having done 
 my full share, I prefer, for my own satisfaction, to put ou 
 file some evidence of my ten years' participation in it. 
 
 Quincy, August 1, 1879. 
 
 314903 
 
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 A PAPER PREPARED FOR THE TeACHERS OP THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 OF QuiNCY, Mass., and read to them on the 19th of May, 
 
 1876. 
 
 As the result of a conversation I some time since had with our 
 School Superintendent, Mr. Parker, and at his suggestion, I pro- 
 pose this afternoon to say a few words to you about books and 
 reading ; on the use, to come directly to the point, which could be 
 made of the PubUc Library of the town in connection with the 
 school system in general, and more particularly with the High and 
 upper-grade Grammar Schools. I say '■'•could be made" inten- 
 tionally, for I am very sure that use is not now made ; and why it 
 is not made is a question which, in my double capacitj^ of a mem- 
 ber of the School Committee and a trustee of the Public Library, 
 I have during the last few 3'ears puzzled over a good deal. 
 
 You are all teachers in the common schools of the town of 
 Quincy, and I very freely acknowledge that I think your course as 
 such, especially of late, has been marked by a good deal of zeal, 
 by a consciousness of progress, and a sincere desire to accompUsh 
 good results. I am disposed neither to find fault with you nor with 
 our schools, — as schools go. I should like, however, to ask you 
 this simple question : — Did it ever, after all, occur to you, what is 
 the gi'cat end and object of all this common school sj-stem ? — Why 
 do we get all these children together, and labor over them so 
 assiduously year after year ? — Now, it may well be that it never sug- 
 gested itself in that way to .you, but I think it maj^ safely be 
 asserted that the one best possible result of a common-school edu- 
 cation, — its great end and aim, — should be to prepare the 
 children of the community for the far greater work of educating 
 themselves. 
 
 Now, in education, as in ahnost everything else, there is a 
 
6 
 
 strong tendency among those engaged in its routine work to mistake 
 the means for the end. I am always struck with this in going into 
 the average public school. It was especially the case in the schools 
 of this town fom* 3'ears ago. Arithmetic, grammar, spelling, 
 geograph}^, and history were taught, as if to be able to answer the 
 questions in the text-books was the great end of all education. It 
 was instruction through a perpetual sj'stem of conundrums. The 
 child was made to learn some queer definition in words, or some 
 disagreeable puzzle in figures, as if it was in itself an acquisition of 
 value, — something to be kept and hoarded lilve silver dollars, as 
 being a hand}' thing to have in the house. The result was that the 
 scholars acquu-ed with immense difficulty something which they 
 forgot with equal ease ; and, when the^'^ left our grammar schools, 
 the}' had what people are pleased to call the rudiments of educa- 
 tion, and 3'et not one in twent}^ of them could sit down and write an 
 ordinary letter, in a legible hand, with ideas clearly expressed, and 
 in words correctl}' spelled ; and the proportion of those who left 
 school with either the ability or deske to further educate them- 
 selves was scarcely greater. 
 
 Perhaps you ma^' think this an exaggeration on m}^ part. If you 
 do, I can only refer j'ou to the examination papers of the candi- 
 dates for admission during any year to om* High School. I have 
 had occasion to go over many sets of them, and I assm'e 3'ou they 
 warrant the conclusion I have drawn. 
 
 Going a step further and following the scholar out into grown-up* 
 life, I fancy that a comparison of experiences would show that 
 scarce^ one out of twenty of those who leave our schools ever fur- 
 ther educate themselves in an}' gi'eat degree, outside, of coiu'se, of 
 any special trade or calling through which the}' earn a li%'ing. The 
 reason of this, I would now suggest, is obvious enough ; and it is 
 not the fault of the scholar. It is the fault of a system which 
 brings a community up in the idea that a poor knowledge of the 
 rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic constitutes in itself 
 an education. Now, on the contrary, it seems to me that the true 
 object of all your labors as real teachers, if indeed you are such, — 
 the great end of the common-school system, is something more 
 than to teach children to read ; it should, if it is to accomplish its 
 full mission, also impart to them a love of reading. 
 
A man or woman whom a whole chilcUiood spent m the common 
 schools has made able to stumble through a newspaper, or labor 
 through a few trashy books, is scarcely better off than one who 
 cannot read at all. Indeed, I doubt if he or she is as well off, for 
 it has long been observed that a very small degree of book knowl- 
 edge almost universal!}' takes a depraved shape. The animal will 
 come out. The man who can barely spell out his newspaper con- 
 fines his spelUng in nine cases out of ten to those highly seasoned 
 portions of it which relate to acts of violence, and especially to 
 mui'dcrs. Among those who make a profession of journaUsm this 
 is a perfectly well known fact ; and any one who doubts it may 
 satisfy himself on the subject almost any day by a few words of 
 inquir}^ at a news-stand. Mr. Souther, in this town, I fanc}^, could 
 impart to any of j^ou, who happen to be curious, a considerable 
 amount of information under this head. A little learning is pro- 
 verbially a dangerous thing ; and the less the learning the greater 
 the danger. 
 
 Let us recur, then, to my cardinal proposition, that the great end 
 of all school education is to make people able to educate them- 
 selves. You start them ; that is all the best teacher can do. 
 Whether he is called a professor and lectures to great classes of 
 grown men at a university, or is a country school-master who ham- 
 mers rudiments into children, he can do no more than this ; but this 
 ever}' teacher, if he chooses, can do. How very few do it though ! 
 Not one out of ten ; — scarcely one out of twenty. It is here our 
 system fails. 
 
 I do not know that what I am about to suggest has ever been 
 attempted anj'where, but I feel gi-eat confidence that it would suc- 
 ceed ; therefore, I would like to see it attempted in Quincy. 
 Having started the child by means of what we call a common- 
 school course, — -having, as it were, le arned it to walk, — the pro- 
 cess of fm'ther self-education is to begin. The great means of self- 
 education is through books — through much readmg of books. But 
 just here there is in our S3'stem of instruction a missing link. In 
 our schools we teach children to read ; — we do not teach them how 
 to read. That, the one all-important thing, — the great connect- 
 ing link between school-education and self-education, — between 
 means and end, — that one Unk we make no effort to supply. As 
 
8 
 
 long as we do not make an effort to supply it, our school system in 
 its result is and will remain miserably deficient. For now, be it 
 remembered, the child of the poorest man in Quinc}' — the off- 
 spring of our paupers even — has an access as free as the son of a 
 miUionnaire, or the student of Harvard College, to what is, for prac- 
 tical general use, a perfect hbrary. The old daj's of intellectual 
 famine for the masses are over, and plenty reigns. Yet, though the 
 school and the library stand on our main street side by side, there 
 is, so to speak, no bridge leading from the one to the other. As 
 far as I can judge we teach our children the mechanical part of 
 reading, and then we turn them loose to take their chances. If the 
 child has naturally an inquiring or imaginative mind, it perchance 
 may work its way unaided through the traps and pitfalls of 
 literature ; but the chances seem to me to be terribly against it. 
 It is so ver}' eas}", and so very pleasant too, to read only books 
 which lead to nothing, — light and interesting and exciting books, 
 and the more exciting the better, — that it is almost as difficult to 
 wean ourself from it as from the habit of chewing tobacco to excess, 
 or of smoking the whole time, or of depending for stimulus on tea 
 or coffee or spirits. Yet here, — on the threshold of this vast 
 field, you might even call it this wilderness of general literature, 
 full as it is of holes and bogs and pitfalls all covered over with 
 poisonous plants, — here it is that our common-school system brings 
 our children, and, having brought them there, it leaves them to go 
 on or not, just as they please ; or, if the}^ do go on, thej^ are to find 
 their own way or to lobse it, as it may chance. 
 
 I think this is all wrong. Our educational system stops just 
 where its assistance might be made invaluable, — just where it 
 passes out of the mechanical and touches the individual, — just 
 where instruction ceases to be drudgery and becomes a source of 
 pleasure. Now, I do not propose for myself any such task as an 
 attempted radical reform of education. Each man has his own 
 work to do, and that is not mine. What I do want to suggest to 
 3'ou Grammar School teachers is that it is in the power of each one 
 of 3'ou to introduce a great spu'it of improvement into j'our own 
 schools, and at the same time the greatest pleasure and interest a 
 true teacher can have into your own lives. 
 
 You know it is said that poets are born, not made ; and the same 
 
9 
 
 is true of teachers. For myself, I don't thinlc I could teach ; — if 
 I had to take m}^ choice I would rather break stones in the high- 
 wa}' ; and yet other and better men than I would rather teach than 
 do anj'thing else. There is Dr. Dinuuock at the Academy', for 
 instance. He found his place in life, and a gi'cat one too, only 
 when he got behind the master's desk. He was born to teach boj's, 
 and, with much happiness to himself and them, he is fulfilling his 
 destin}'. But, though I never could teach myself, I can see clearly 
 enough that the one thing which makes the true teacher and which 
 distinguishes him from the mechanical pedagogue, which any man 
 may become, is the faculty of interesting himself in the single 
 pupil, — seeing, watching, aiding the development of the individual 
 mind. I never tried it, but I know just what it must be from my 
 own experience in other matters. I have a place here in town, for 
 instance, upon wliich I live ; and there I not only grow fields of 
 corn and carrots, but also a great many trees. Now, m}' fields of 
 corn or carrots are to me what a mechanical pedagogue's school is 
 to him. I like to see them well ordered and planted in even rows, 
 all growing exactly alike, and producing for each crop so many 
 bushels of corn or caiTots to the acre, one carrot being pretty nearly 
 the same as another ; — and then, when the Autumn comes and the 
 farming term closes, I prepare my land, as the pedagogue does his 
 school-room, for the next crop; — and the last is over and gone. 
 It is not so, however, with my trees. The}' are to me just what 
 his pupOs are to the born school-master, — to Dr. Dim mock, for 
 instance ; in each one I take an individual interest. I watch them 
 year after year, and see them grow and shoot out and develop. 
 Now let me apply my simile. You are, all of you, I hope, and if 
 you are not j'ou at least believe j'ourselves to be, born teachers, 
 and not mechanical jDcdagogues ; so, of course, your schools ought 
 to be to you, not mere fields in which 3-ou turn out regular crops of 
 human cabbages and potatoes, but they should be plantations also 
 in which yon raise a few trees, at least, in the individual growth of 
 which you take a master's interest. This feeling and this only it 
 is which can make a teacher's life ennobling, — the finding out 
 among his pupils those who have in them the material of superior 
 men and women, and then nurturing them and aiding in their de- 
 velopment, and making of them something which, but for their 
 
10 
 
 teacher, the}' never would have been. These pupils are to their 
 teacher what my oak trees are to me ; — but for me those trees 
 would have died in the acorn, probabh', — at most the}' would have 
 been mere scrub bushes ; — but now through me, — whoU}' owing to 
 my intervention and care, — they are gi'owing and developing, and 
 there are among them those which some day, a hundred j'ears, per- 
 haps, after my children are all dead of old age, will be noble 
 oaks. Then no one will know that I ever lived, much less trouble 
 himself to think that to me those trees owed theu' liA-es, — 3'et it is 
 so none the less, and those are my trees no matter how much I am 
 dead and forgotten. So of your scholars. If 3'ou, during your 
 lives as teachers, can, among all 3'our mass of pupils, find out and 
 develop through j'our own personal contact onl}^ a few, — saj' half- 
 a-dozen, — remarkable men and women, who but for yoii and your 
 observation and watchfulness and guidance would have lived and 
 died not knowing what they could do, then, if 3'ou do nothing more 
 than this, 3'ou have done an immense work in life. 
 
 This dealing with the individual and not with the class, is, there- 
 fore, the one gi'Ccit pleasure of the true schoolteacher's life. It can 
 only be done in one wa}', — 3'ou have to furnish the individual mind 
 the nutriment it wants, and, at the same time, gently du'ect it in 
 the way it should go. In other words, if the teacher is going to 
 give himself the intense enjo3Tnent and pleasure of doing this work, 
 he cannot stop at the border of that wilderness of literature of 
 which I was just now speaking, but he has got to take the pupil by 
 the hand and enter into it with him ; — he must be more than his 
 pedagogue, he must be his guide, philosopher and friend. And so 
 the teacher, with the scholar's hand in his, comes at last to the 
 doors of the Public Library. 
 
 AVhen he gets there, however, he will probably find liimself 
 almost as much in need of an instructor as his own pupils ; and 
 here at last I come to the immediate subject on which I want to talk 
 to 3'ou. I wish to sa3'' something of the books and reading of 
 children, — of the general introduction into hterature which, if 3-ou 
 choose, 3'ou are able to give 3'oui' scholars, and which, if 3'ou do 
 give it to them, is worth more than all the knowledge contained in 
 all the text-books that ever were printed. To 3-our whole schools, 
 if you onl3' want to, 3'ou can give an elcmcntar3' training as 
 
11 
 
 readers, and if in this matter you once set them going in the way 
 they should go, j'ou need not fear that they will ever depart 
 from it. 
 
 Now, in the first place, let me suppose that you want to start 
 your schools in general on certain courses of reading, — courses 
 which would interest and improve you, probabl}', hardlj' less than 
 3'our scholars, — how would 3'ou go about it? — Through individual 
 scholars, of coiirse. You would run your eye down 30m' rows of 
 desks and pick out the occupants of two or three, and with them 
 3'ou would start the flock. Human beings are alwa3-s and every - 
 where lilce sheep, in that the3' will go where the bell-wether 
 leads. Picking out the two or three, then, you turn to the shelves 
 of the libraiy. And now 3-ou 3-om-selves are to be put to the test. 
 You have dared to leave the safe, narrow rut in which the peda- 
 gogue travels, and 3'ou have ventured into the fields with your 
 pupils behind 3-ou, — do you know the wa3^ here ? — can 3'ou dis- 
 tinguish the film gTound from the bogg3^ mu-e ? — the good sound 
 wood from the worthless parasite? — If you can, you are indeecl fit 
 to be teachers. I hope 3'ou all can, and in that case the sugges- 
 tions I have to make will be little better than wasted ; but if, as I 
 suspect, we none of us know an3^ too much, what I am about to 
 say may be of some use. In the first place, then, in tr3ing to 
 inoculate children with a health3' love of good reading, — for this 
 is what we are talking of, the inoculation of childi'en with a taste 
 for good, miscellaneous reading, — in attempting that, the first 
 thing to be borne in mind is, that children are not grown people. 
 
 There are few things more melanchol3' than to reflect on the 
 "amount of useless labor which good, honest, conscientious men and 
 women have incm-red, and the amount of real suffering they have 
 inflicted on poor little children through the disregard of this one 
 obvious fact. "V\Tien I was 3-oung, I remember, m3' father, from a 
 conscientious feeling, I suppose, that he ought to do something 
 positive for m3' mental and moral good and general aesthetic culti- 
 vation, made me learn Pope's Messiah b3' heart, and a number of 
 other masterpieces of the same character. He might just as well 
 have tried to feed a sucking bab3" on roast beef and Scotch ale ! 
 Without understanding a word of it, I learned the Messiah b3'rote, 
 and I have hated it, and its .luthor too, from that da3' to this, and 
 
12 
 
 I hate them now. So, also, I remember well when I was a boy of 
 from ten to fourteen, — for I was a considerable devourer of books, 
 being incited to read Hume's History of England, and Robertson's 
 Charles V., and Gibbon's Rome even, and I am not sure I might 
 not add Mitford's Greece. I can't now say it was time thrown 
 away ; but it was almost that. The first thing in trj-ing to stimu- 
 late a love of reading is to be careful not to create disgust by trj^- 
 ing to do too much. The gi'eat masterpieces of hmnan research, 
 and eloquence, and fanc}"^ are to bo3'S pure nuisances. The}' can't 
 imderstand them ; they can't appreciate them, if they do. "VYhen 
 they have grown up to them and are ready for them, thej^ will come 
 to them of their own accord. Meanwhile you can't well begin too 
 low down. The intellectual lilve the physical food of children can't 
 well be too sunple, provided only it is healthy and nourishing. 
 
 Not that I for a moment pretend that I could now suggest a 
 successful course of grammar-school literature myself. The in- 
 tellectual nutriment which children like those j'ou have in charge 
 are fitted to digest and assimilate must be found out thi'ough a long 
 course of observation and experiment. I think I could tell 5'ou 
 what a boy in the upper classes of the Academy would probably 
 like ; but if I were to undertake to lay out courses of reading for 
 the scholars of our grammar schools, it would certainly soon become 
 very clear that I did not know what I was talking about. I am 
 very sure I should not give them the books they now read ; but I am 
 scarcely less sm"e the}^ would not read the books I would give them. 
 Nothing but actual trial, and a prolonged trial at that, will bring us 
 any results worth having in this respect ; and that trial is only 
 possible through you. 
 
 But, in a very general way, let us suppose that we are beginning 
 on the new sj^stem and that j-our school is studj'ing history and 
 geograph}^, — we will take those two branches and see what we 
 could do in connection with them to introduce your scholars into 
 general literature. History' opens up the whole broad field of his- 
 torical works and also of biography, — it is closel}' connected 
 with fiction too, and poetry ; geography' at once suggests the 
 hbrary of travels. Now, Ave find that of all forms of literature 
 there is not one which in popularity can compare with fiction. 
 From the cradle to the grave, men and women love story -tolling. 
 
13 
 
 i^'^i- 
 
 What is more, it is well they do ; a good novel is a gopd, thing, 
 and a love for good novels is a health}^ taste ; 3-et ther^i^ no 
 striking episode in history which has not been made the basis of 
 some good work of fiction. Onl}' it is necessary- for you to find 
 that work out, and to put it in the hands of your scholars ; they 
 cannot find it out unaided. 
 
 Next in popularity' to works of fiction are travels. A good, 
 graphic book of travel and adventure captivates almost every one, 
 no matter what the age. After travels comes biograph}" ; an}' girl 
 will read the stor}- of Mar}', Queen of Scots ; any bo}' the life of 
 Paul Jones. Now, here is our starting-point, and these fundamental 
 facts we cannot ignore and 3'et succeed ; human beings have to be 
 interested and amused, and they do not love to be bored, — and 
 children least of all are an exception to the rule. If, then, we can 
 iustnict and improve them while we are interesting and amusing 
 them, we are securing the result we want in the natm'al and easy 
 way. There is no forcing. And this is exactlj^ what any well- 
 infonned and older person can do for any child. They can, in 
 the hue of education, put it in the way of instruction through amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 Take for instance geography, and suppose your class is studying 
 the map of Africa ; — the whole gTeat field of African exploration 
 and adventiu'e is at once opened up to j'ou and your scholars. 
 Turn to the catalogTie of our Pubhc Library and see what a 
 field of interesting investigations is spread out, fii'st for 3'ourself 
 and then for them. Here are a hundred volumes, and you want 
 to look them all over to see which to put in the hands of j'our se- 
 lected pupils, which are long and dull, and which are compact and 
 stiiTing, — which are adapted to boys and which to girls, — and. 
 how you will get your scholars started in them. Once get them 
 going, and the map will cease to be a map and become a pictm'e 
 full of hfe and adventure, not only to them, but to you. You will 
 follow with them Livingstone and Stanley and Baker ; and the 
 Pyramids will become reahties to them as the}' read of Moses and 
 the Pharaohs, and of Cleopatra and Hannibal. The recitation then 
 becomes a lecture in which the pupils tell all they have found out 
 in the books they have read, and in which the teacher can suggest 
 the reading of yet other books ; while the mass of the scholars, 
 
14 
 
 from merely listening to the few, are stimulated to themselves learn 
 something of all these interesting tilings. 
 
 So of our own country'- and its geogTaphy. The field of reading 
 which would charm and interest any ordinary boy or girl in tliis 
 connection is almost unlimited, but they cannot find it out. They 
 need guidance. What active-minded boy, for instance, but would 
 thoroughly enjoy portions at least of Parkman's Discover}^ of the 
 Great West, or his Pioneers of France in the New World, or his 
 Cahfornia Trail? — And yet how many of you have ever glanced 
 into one of those absorbing books yourselves ? — Nor are they long 
 either ; in each case one moderate-sized volume tells the whole 
 story. 
 
 Mark Twain, even, would here come in through his " Roughing 
 It," and Ross Browne through his "Apache Country." Once en- 
 tered upon, however, it would not be easy to exhaust the list. The 
 story of Mexico and Peru, — Cortez and Pizarro, — the voj^ages of 
 Columbus and the adventures of De Soto, — they have been told in 
 fiction and in history, and it is to-day a terrible shame to us and to 
 our whole school system that we teach American history, and 3'et 
 don't know how to make the study of American history as inter- 
 esting to our children as a novel. 
 
 But, after all, as I have akeady said, when you come to miscel- 
 laneous reading you cannot lay down general rules applicable to all 
 cases ; you have got to try experiments and watch them as the}' 
 progress. To induce some of you to try these experiments has 
 been my object in thus meeting you to-daj'. I beheve 3'^ou would 
 find that so doing would lend a new life, a new interest, a new 
 significance to your profession. 
 
 When the catalogue of the Public Library was pulDlished a 3'ear 
 ago, I caused one copy of it to be specially bound for the use of 
 each Grammar School. I was in hopes that the teachers would 
 use them in connection with the studies in those schools, and 
 would induce the scholars to use them too. As I have visited the 
 schools since, I have usually taken occasion to ask for tho=;e cata- 
 logues, and I am sorry to sa}'' I have generally found th6m — 
 there are two or three notable exceptions to this remark — locked 
 away in some drawer of the master's desk, and looking on examina- 
 tion most suggestively fresh :md clean. My hint had not been 
 
15 
 
 taken. I now state the point more plainly. I want very much 
 indeed to see our really admirable Town Librar}' become a more 
 living element than it now is in oiu* school sj'stem, — its comple- 
 ment, in fact. Neither trustee nor librarian — no matter hoAv 
 faithful or zealous they may be — can make it so ; for we cannot 
 know enough of the individual scholars to give them that which 
 the}^ personall}' need, and which only the^^ will take ; — j'ou cannot 
 feed them until 3'ou know what the}- like ; and that, we, in dealing 
 with the mass, cannot get at. You teachers, however, can get at 
 it, if you choose. To enable you to do this, the trustees of the 
 librarj'^ have adopted a new rule under which each of 3'our schools 
 may be made practically a branch library. The master can hun- 
 self select and take from the Ubrar^- a number of volumes, and 
 keep them on his desk for circulation among the scholars under 
 his charge. lie can study their tastes and ransack the Ubrar}' 
 to gratif}^ them. Naj' more, if you will but find out what 
 3^our scholars want, — what healthy books are in demand among 
 them, — the trustees of the library will see to it that you do not 
 want material. You shall have all the books 3"ou will call for. 
 "Wlien, indeed, j'ou begin to call, we shall know exactly what to 
 buy ; and then, at last, we could arrange in printed bulletins the 
 courses of reading which 3'our experience would point out as best, 
 so that ever}^ book would be accessible. From that time both 
 schools and librar}- would begin to do their full work together, and 
 the last would become what it ought to be, the natural complement 
 of the first, — the People's CoUege. 
 
FICTION IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES, AND EDUCATIONAL 
 CATALOGUES. 
 
 A Paper read at the Third General, Meeting of the Americak 
 Library Association, at Boston, July 1, 1879. 
 
 In the course of a now somewhat prolonged connection, as 
 trustee, with the Public Library of the town of Quincy, my atten- 
 tion has more and more been called, especially of late, to certain 
 features in the management of our Public Library system, if such 
 it may be called, which it seems to me ought to be pretty carefully 
 discussed by both trustees and librarians, with a view to arriving 
 at some commonly accepted, as well as better considered results. 
 Before submitting what I have to say, I ought to premise that my 
 experience, somewhat amateurish at best, has been confined to a 
 purely Public Librarj^ of the average size and character, supported 
 on the educational principle by the annual appropriation of a town 
 in no respect different from the mass of other towns. My remarks, 
 therefore, have no bearing on the great endowed libraries, or the 
 libraries connected with our institutions of learning. Speaking 
 therefoi'c, as one coming dii'ectl}' from such a town library as I have 
 described, it is mypmpose, drawing directly on mj^own experience, 
 to call attention to two matters, one of which is connected with the 
 duties of the trustees of those institutions, and the other with the 
 needs of those using them ; — the former being the present indis- 
 criminate purchase of works of fiction for such libraries, and the 
 latter the art of cataloguing then' contents for popular educational 
 purposes. 
 
 In the first place as respects the purchase of fiction. Inasmuch 
 as every one who has paid any attention to the statistics of libraiy 
 reading is well aware of the fact, it is unnecessary to saj^that fiction 
 constitutes, on a rough average, two-thirds of the whole of that 
 reading. That it does so, and in spite of anything which can be 
 done to alter the fact will continue to do so, I am not at all dis- 
 
17 
 
 posed to lament. I look upon the appetite as a healthy and 
 natiu-al one, and the average as no more than fair. The lives ol 
 the mass of no community are over and above gay ; and when 
 those long hours of labor, the price of existence with the majority, 
 are over, the healthy nature craves amusement. Long before 
 Homer and Herodotus, the bard and the story-teller were the 
 authors in most eager request ; and it is juvenile fiction, and not 
 philosophy, which the children cry for now-a-days. I do not know 
 any more innocent way of getting this amusement which human 
 nature has ever craved than by losing one's-self in a novel. I 
 am glad, therefore, that other people do it as much as they do, and 
 am Sony that I do not myself do it more. 
 
 The single doubt which is forcing itself on mj' mind in this regard 
 is, whether furnishing any sort of amusement and relaxation of the 
 character referred to, — for education it is not, — is a proper func- 
 tion of the government. At present, so far as I am advised, all 
 trustees of Public Libraries do it. The demand on us for literature 
 of this kind is very great ; and, for some time past, the current of 
 loose public opinion has set strongly in favor of the supposed edu- 
 cational tendency of undirected and indiscriminate reading. Every 
 readable book which comes out, therefore, so it be of a not immoral 
 character, is at once forw&rded to the Public Library and placed 
 within the reach of every one. I am, however, more and more 
 inclined to doubt whether this wholesale purchase by us of trashy 
 and ephemeral literature is jvistifiable. We do not use the public 
 money to suppl}' every one with theatre, or concert, or even 
 lecture tickets. — Why then should we give them all the new 
 novels of the day? — Would not the more proper rule for the 
 guidance of us trustees be, that we would put upon the library 
 shelves, and bring within the reach of all, whether rich or poor, every 
 standard work, fiction or an^-thing else, within our means to pur- 
 chase ; but, so far as the passing publications of the day are con- 
 cerned, — the trashj^ and sensational novel in particular, — while we 
 sympathize entirel}" in the desire to read them, yet those who wish 
 to do so should be willing to pa}' for them, as thej^ do for their 
 theatres, their lectures, their concerts. Accordingly thej must seek 
 them at the counters of the circulating libraries, where, at a verj' 
 moderate cost, they will be always sure of finding them. The 
 
18 
 
 Public Library has a sphere of its own within ' the general line of 
 education ; the cu'culating library has a sphere of its own within the 
 general line of amusement. Following after false theories, per- 
 haps — possibly led on by a not unnatural desire to increase 
 the figures of our circulation, — to magnify our business, if 5'ou 
 please, — it seems to me that we trustees are rapidly causing the 
 Public Library to invade the sphere of the circulating library ; and, 
 in so doing, not only are we removing a very desirable as well as 
 natiu-al check on an excessive indulgence in one form of amuse- 
 ment, but we are doing it through a misapplication of public 
 money. " 
 
 My remedy for this evil would be a simple one, and I long since 
 suggested it in Quincy. The Public Librar}'' and the circulating 
 library should come to an understanding, so that they could work 
 together and not in competition. As trustees we should agree 
 with any person, desiring to keep a ckculating library, upon a list of 
 books and of authors into which we would not go and he should ; 
 and whoever wanted those books, or the works of those authors, 
 should be referred by us to him. These persons could then pay for 
 what they wanted, or they could go without ; but they could not 
 have it at the public cost. The demand for the sentimental and 
 more highly seasoned literature of the day, — the Southworths, the 
 Ouidas, the Optics, and the Kingstons, — would then be measured 
 and limited, as it should be, by the willingness to pay something 
 for it, and not stimulated by a free distribution, on something 
 which seems very like the panem-et-circenses principle. Such a 
 method of division would, I thinli, reduce the circulation of our 
 Pubhc Libraries nearly one-third ; — but the two-thirds that were left 
 would be worth more than the whole is now, for it would all be 
 really educational. As things are now going, say what we will, 
 this sensational and sentimental trash-gratis business is at best a 
 dangerous experiment, especially for bo^'s and gu-ls ; and I fear 
 the I'ublic Libraries arc, by degrees, approaching somewhat near 
 to what it is not using too strong a term to call pandering. 
 
 Passing from this topic to m}"" other one, I wish to suggest that, 
 for the highest form of ordinary Public Library use, a perfect sys- 
 
19 
 
 tern of cataloguing it yet to he (lc\ised. Some years ago I tried 
 1113' 'prentice hand on a catalogue, and, though my work was most 
 kindlj'' received by those better able than I to judge of its relative 
 merit, I have since concluded that, so far as it was m}' work and 
 not that of a peculiarlj^ competent coadjutor, it was, except in the 
 excellence of its intention, all wrong, and must be done over agaiu 
 upon a wholly different plan. 
 
 We need, it would appear, thi-ee distinct kinds of catalogTje, and 
 the attempt now is to combine the three in one. Fu-st, there is 
 the general reader's catalogue ; second, the specialist's catalogue ; 
 and, third, the educational or Public Library catalogue. As re- 
 spects the fii'st two, here at least, I have nothing to sa}'. I doubt 
 if any improvement can be made on the genei'al reader's catalogue, 
 as exemplified in those specunens of the highest recent type with 
 which I am acquainted, — the catalogues of the Boston Athenoeum, of 
 the Boston Public Librar}', and of the Brookl3'n Mercantile Library. 
 These also, in their subject catalogues, provide to a certain, though 
 sadl}' limited extent, for the needs of the specialist ; and the Boston 
 Public Library and the Harvard College Librarj^ have recently 
 shown what could be done, if the work were not so well-nigh un- 
 limited, iu a series of what may be called monographic catalogues. 
 How much more ma}' have beeu elsewhere done iu these dkections 
 I cannot say. I do not for a moment pretend to have kept up with 
 this new science in all its ramifications, and I am here only to speak 
 of the single educational point to which I have referred ; and as 
 respects that even, I fear much may have been done or now be 
 doing with which I am not familiar. 
 
 So far as I know, however, not a single step in the right 
 du'cction has as 3-et been taken towards the Pubhc Library 
 catalogue for educational uses.^ A number of years ago the 
 
 1 At the time this paper was prepared I was not aware of the very valuable work in 
 the direction indicated which Mr. S. S. Gfcen, of the Worcester Public Library, now 
 has ill hand. Without being even yet fully acquainted with Mr. Green's plan, I have 
 no doubt that it will prove a great step in pdvance. This will especially be the case if 
 It is so arranged in detail as to permit of his work being made the common property of 
 Public Libraries. The immense cost of doing the same copy and press work over and 
 over again seems at present to bo the chief obstacle in the way of all educational cata- 
 logues. It is an obstacle which would seem, also, to require very little ingenuity to 
 overcome; there is, laoreover, money to bo made by some one in overcoming it. 
 
20 
 
 Boston Public Library incorporated into its catalogue a number 
 of elaborate notes, historical and otherwise, for popular use. It was 
 a fli'st step towards realizing a great conception ; and, as such first 
 steps always are, it was necessarilj- tentative. More recently, when 
 preparing the Quincy catalogue, I freely imitated those notes, and 
 in some respects elaborated the S3'stem. I have since, as I have 
 already intimated, come to the conclusion that, for the purposes at 
 least for which I designed them, the notes of the Quinc}' catalogue 
 were almost wholly useless. I came to tliis conclusion ver}' reluct- 
 antly', and I now have no time in which to carry out m}- more recent 
 ideas. I therefore submit them here for what they are worth, in 
 the hope that others ma}' see something in them, and do w^hat I 
 cannot do. 
 
 The difficulty with the notes of the Quincy catalogue, and, as I 
 should suppose, with those of the Boston Pubhc Library catalogue, 
 was that, as educational notes they were prepared on a preconceived 
 theory as to the capacit}- and acquu-ements of those for whose use 
 they were intended, — a theory that street children are the 
 same as professors' children, — that they can understand the 
 same instructions, and assimilate the same mental nuti-iment. 
 But they are not. The}' are, on the contrary', as distinct from 
 them as two things which natm-e made alike can become when 
 exjDosed all their lives to dilferent influences and conditions. The 
 difference will average the same as that between plants grown in 
 sheltered places and cared for, and those left to struggle up from 
 crevices in the north face of rocky exposures. Not to recognize it 
 is to ignore or denj- the efficacy of home education, and to insist 
 that the few hours passed in the school-room contribute alone to 
 the child's moral and mental make-up ; — but, if this is indeed so, 
 then the whole talk of the responsibility incurred b}' superior ad- 
 vantages becomes senseless cackle. In point of fact, however, 
 and theory- apart, the intellectual atmospheres which the laborer's 
 sou and the professors son breathe from the cradle up, have almost 
 nothing in common ; and this fact the Public Library, officered as 
 it necessaril}' is by professors, must recognize, if it is ever to begin 
 even to fuliil its educational functions. But in preparing the 
 notes in the catalogues I have referred to, the professors had only 
 their own children, and highl}' precocious children at that, in 
 
21 
 
 tlieir minds. Those note? were, accordingl}^ "caviare to the 
 general." Now, if there is one thing about a Public Library- 
 more instructive than another it is the realizing sense it gives 
 an^^ educated and observi ng man connected with it of the size 
 of that intellectual world in which we live. This, too, is in 
 Tenn3-son's language, " a loiindless universe," and within it there 
 " is boundless better, boundless worse." Take, for instance, the 
 (xlucational, intellectual, and litcrar}^ strata ; I have come to the 
 conclusion that we of the so-called educated classes know absolutel}' 
 nothing about them ; we live in an acquu'ed atmosphere of our own, 
 and we cannot go out of it, except on excursions of discover^-, — 
 from which, like our friend Pi'ofessor Sumner the other day, we are 
 apt to return in a ver}' dishevelled and panicky condition. I have 
 consequently found that, taking the mass of those who use the Pub- 
 lic Library, and especially the children in our pubUc schools who 
 are born and bred in the habitations of labor, — those offspring of 
 the dollar and the dollar and a half a day people whom we especially 
 wish to reach, — these cannot and will not read what, as a rule, I am 
 willing to recommend. "What I like is to them incomprehensible ; 
 and what the}' lilce is to me simply unendm-able. They are in the 
 Sunday police-paper and dime- novel stage. It is only when you 
 become thoroughly conscious of the existence and extent of this 
 class that you understand the why and the wherefore of the make-up 
 of the daily journals of our Western cities, with then* long sensa- 
 tional headings of murders, robberies, and deeds of violence. But 
 when, from actual observation, I did get a realizing sense both of the 
 magnitude and the torpid, uninformed condition of this stratum, I 
 am free to say that a strong sense of the humor of the thing over- 
 came me when I thought of mj somewhat elaborate notes in the 
 Quincy catalogue, intended for popular use, on the books relating 
 to French and English histor}-. So far as accomplishing the pur- 
 pose I had in view was concerned, I might as well have directed the 
 librarian to hand to each apphcant a copy of Kant's Critique of 
 Pure Reason in the original. The difficult}' was simply here : those 
 competent by education to use and profit by ni}' notes, could, as a 
 rule, be safel}' left to do without them ; while for those — and thej' 
 constitute the majorit}' — who reall}- need assistance, a whollj' dif- 
 ferent assistance was necessarj'. I did the work subjectively, — it 
 
22 
 
 should have been done objectively. In other words the professor, 
 out of his inner self-consciousness, knows nothing whatever about 
 the street child, and if he means to get hold of him he has first got 
 to study him. 
 
 Neither is the stud}" a difficult one. On the contrary- it is very 
 simple, if it is only begun in the true missionary spirit and with 
 an entire absence of any fixed notions of how things ought to be, 
 instead of how they really are. The first thing to be gotten rid of, 
 however, is that idea which is the bane of our present common- 
 school system, — the idea that information, knowledge, if you 
 please, is in itself a good thing, and that people in general, and 
 especially chikken, are a species of automatons or india-rubber 
 bags, into which we must stuff as much as we can of that good 
 thing in as many of its diflerent forms as possible. But we may 
 stuff and stuff, and in om' Public Libraries it will be just as it has 
 been and now is in our common schools, even those who are forced 
 or coaxed into receiving it, will be unable to assimilate it. Intel- 
 lectually, as physically, if you mean to impart nom-ishment you 
 must adapt the food to the digestive powers. In the matter of 
 reading, where those powers are natm-ally considerable, or have 
 been properly developed, the ordinary catalogue vdU supply all the 
 needful aid in the search for new food ; but with only a small por- 
 tion of those who come to our PubUc Libraries is this the case. 
 The difficulty, moreover, is vastty increased by the fact that the 
 great field of work at the Public Library is among the chilcken. 
 As respects reading, and self-education thi'ough reading, it is to be 
 remembered that the habits of life are acquired at a very early 
 age, and once fixed cannot l3e changed. In this matter adults may 
 be dropped out of consideration ; for bettor or for worse they are — 
 what they are. There is, indeed, probably no human faculty which 
 depends so much for its development on early habit and training 
 as the facult}' of acquiring information out of books. As the 
 phrase goes, you have got to catch them young ; and if you do not 
 catch them young, certainl}- in then* " teens," you will never catch 
 them at all. 
 
 The question simply' is, then, how J'ar Uie Public J^ibrary can 
 be so organized and equii)[)ed with appliances as to enable it to 
 leaven with its contents this inchoate mass while it is 3'et in the 
 
23 
 
 formative condition. Thus far we have only got to the JDoint of 
 thi'ustiug a complicated list of great collections of books into peo- 
 ple's hands, and telUng them to find out what they want, and 
 take as much of it as thej' please. The}' natm-ally took fiction, 
 and the weakest forms of fiction ; and then in due time followed 
 the comically absurd theory of mental evolution through indis- 
 criminate stor^'-books gi'atis. Now, that insipid or sensational fic- 
 tion amuses I fi-eelj' admit, but that it educates or leads to an^-- 
 thing bej-ond itself, either in this world or the next, I utterl}' deny. 
 On the contrary, it simply and certainly emasculates and destroj's 
 the intelligent reading power. It is to that what an excessive use 
 of tobacco, tea, coffee, or any other stimulant is to the nervous 
 sj'stem. 
 
 In this vast field of public instruction, then, in which, more than 
 anj-where else, direction is all important, no direction at all is 
 given. But the mass cannot do without it. Consequentl}' nothing 
 in m}' observation of owe library at Quincy has astonished me more 
 than the utter aimlessness of the reading done from it, — that, and 
 the lack of capacitj' for any sustained effort in reading. Few, 
 indeed, of those who come there have the com-age to begin any 
 work in several volmnes ; and of those few hardly anj^ get beyond 
 the fii'st. This is ti'ue of all authors except a few wiiters of nov- . 
 els. The number of those who have not the strength of literary 
 appetite to take up any volume, but want an illusti-ated magazine 
 or some book of short stories or papers, to turn over of a Sunday'' 
 or in the evening before going to bed, is enoiTuously large. So 
 much have I been impressed bj' this, that, studj-ing the subject 
 objectivel}' and from the educational point of "view, — seeking to 
 piovide that which, taken altogether, will be of the most service to 
 the largest number, — I long ago concluded that, if I could have 
 but one work for a PubUc Library, I would select a complete set of 
 Harper's Monthly. 
 
 Having said this I cannot resist the temptation of making a little 
 historical digression. If the world is not yet perfect, it certainly- 
 does move, as I now propose to show. To plant one's standard on 
 Harper's Monthly as the most valuable work for public librar}' uses 
 
24 
 
 in existence, is taking, as many of you may think, a tolerably ad 
 vanced stand in the long struggle betwe ^n liberaUsm and eonsers'a- 
 tism in library' management. "When we go back and see where our 
 fathers stood, this certainly seems to be the case. Could they exam- 
 ine oar modern shelves of books they would indeed rub their eyes 
 and gasp ! — In illustration of all this I propose at this point to con- 
 ti'ibute a rather amusing page to the historj^ of American Public 
 Libraries, — a page, too, which, unless I contribute it here and now, 
 will probably be overlooked and forever lost. 
 
 I doubt if the best informed of those who have devoted their 
 lives to Public Libraries have ever heard of Stephen Burroughs as 
 being one of theh founders ; — he, once known as " the notorious 
 Stephen Burroughs," — a gentleman who in the course of his life 
 was fated to repeatedly come in somewhat violent contact with the 
 laws of his country', and who has left behind him an autobiography 
 which is almost as amusing a specimen of impudent mendacity as that 
 of Benvenuto Cellini. It is full of que&r glimpses of New England 
 life just subsequent to the War of Independence. The Quincy 
 library boasts a copy of the book — a waif from some house-clearing 
 dispensation — and there, while cataloguing, I stmnbled over it, and 
 read it with great delight. Burroughs was the son of a New 
 Hampshu'e Presbyterian clergyman, who sent hun to Dartmouth 
 College, from which institution he suffered an earl}' and deserved 
 expulsion. Subsequently he became a preacher, a counterfeiter, a 
 jail-breaker, a schoolmaster, and, in consequence of his misdeeds 
 in this last capacity, he did not escape the whipping-post at 
 Worcester in the 3'ear 1790. Always a rogue, he was also a 
 philosopher, and two of his aphorisms have lived, at least until 
 receutl}', in the memor}' of the New England pedagogue ; for I m^'self 
 have often heard the late Dr. Gardner, of the Latin School, luul 
 them, always with their author's name attached, at the head of his 
 bo3's Avhen caught in the act. Those aphorisms, more worldly wise 
 than good, were thus expressed: the first, " Never tell a lie when 
 you know the truth will be found out ; " and the second, "■ Never 
 tell a lie when the truth will serve your purpose equallv well." 
 But here let me add that tlie man who has not read Stephen Bur- 
 roughs' extemporaneous sermon on the text • ' Old shoes and clouted 
 
25 
 
 on their feet" (Joshua ix., 5), has yet to complete his acquaint- 
 ance with pulpit eloquence. 
 
 In addition, however, to being a rogue, philosopher, and 
 preacher, St(>phen Burroughs was also the founder of a Public 
 Library ; and it is in that capacity, and as throwing a queer glance 
 of light on what was looked upon as popular reading about the 
 year 1791, that I take the Uberty of introducing him here. Having 
 fled from the Worcester whipping-post in 1790, Burroughs, in 1791, 
 set up as a school-master in a town on Long Island ; and presently 
 he goes on to say : — 
 
 The people on this island were very illiterate, making but a small calcula- 
 tion for information, further than the narrow circle of their own business 
 extended. They were .almost entirely destitute of books of any kind except 
 school-books and bibles ; hence, those who had a taste for reading, had not the 
 opportunity. I found a number of those young people who had attended my 
 evening school, possessing bright abilities, and a strong thirst for information, 
 which would lead to rapid improvement had they the opportunity. Therefore, 
 under circumstances like these, I felt very desirous to devise some method to 
 remove the evil. ... I finally thought of using my endeavors to persuade 
 the people into the expediency of raising money for the purpose of collecting 
 a number of books for the use of the young people of the district. 
 
 He then communicated his plau to the Rev. Mr. AVoolworth, the 
 clergj'man of the village, of whom he tells us "his genius was 
 brilliant ; his mind was active and full of enterprise. As a reasoner, 
 he was close and metaphj'sical, but as a declaimer, he was bungling 
 and weak." Mr. Woolworth, however, gave BuiToughs no en- 
 couragement, remarking that he had himself attempted something 
 of the sort but had failed, and the people "had no idea of the 
 benefit of books, or of a good education." A Mr. Ilalsey, to whom 
 he next stibmitted his plan, and who, he tells us, " was a man of 
 shrewd discernment and excellent judgment," took a different view 
 of the subject and intunated that the cause of Mr. Woolwoith's 
 failure was to be found in the fact ' ' that people are afraid thej^ 
 shall not be gTatified in such books as they want, so long as he has 
 the lead of the business. The}' generall}- expect the librarj- will 
 consist of books in divinity, and dry metaphj-sical writings ; 
 whereas, should they be assm-ed that histories and books of iufor- 
 4 
 
26 
 
 mation would be procured, I Lave no doubt they might be prevailed 
 upon to raise money sufficient for such a purpose." 
 
 On this hint Burroughs went to work, and soon raised the neces- 
 sary' funds. What followed can only be described in his own 
 language : — 
 
 I immediately advertised the proprietors of the library to hold a meeting for 
 the purpose of selecting a catalogue of books, and to make rules for the 
 government of a library, etc. At the day appointed we all met. After we 
 had entered into some desultory conversation upon the business, it was pro- 
 posed and agreed to choose a committee of five, to make choice of books. 
 Mr. Woolworth, myself. Deacon Cook, Doctor Rose, and one Mathews, were 
 chosen a committee for this purpose. Immediately after we had entered upon 
 business, Mr. Woolworth produced a catalogue of his own selection, and told 
 the meeting that he had consulted all the catalogues of the bookstores in New 
 York, and had chosen the best out of them all for this library ; and called for 
 a vote upon his motion. ... I requested the favor of Mr. Woolworth to 
 see the catalogue he had selected. After running it through, I perceived that 
 the conjectures of the people had not been ill-founded resiiccting the choice 
 he would make for them. His catalogue consisted wholly of books upon the 
 subject of ethics ; and did not contain a single history, or anything of the 
 kind. 
 
 Then- 
 
 I made a selection from a number of catalogues of such books as ap- 
 peared to me suitable to the first design of this institution. 
 
 No conclusion was reached at this meeting, but the number of 
 the committee was increased, and an adjournment had for a 
 week. 
 
 During the time of adjournment the clamor still increased against the books 
 which 1 had offered for the library. Mr. Woolworth and Judge Ilurlbut 
 were in a state of great activity on this subject, and their perpetual cry was, 
 " that I was endeavoring to overthrow all religion, morality and order in the 
 place ; was introducing corrupt books into the lihrar}-, and adopting the most 
 fatal measures to ovcrtlirow all tbe good old establishments." 
 
 At the next meeting, the different members of the committee had selected a 
 catalogue of books, peculiar to their own taste. Deacon Hedges brought 
 forward "Essays on the Divine authority for Infant Baptism," Terras of 
 CImrch Communion," "The Careful Watchman," " Age of Grace," etc., all 
 
27 
 
 pamphlets. — Deacon Cook's collection was, " History of Martyrs," "Riglits 
 of Conscience," "Modern Piiarisces," Defence of Separates," etc. — Mr. 
 Woolworth exhibited "Edwards against Chauncey," "History of Eedcnip- 
 tion," " Jenning's View," etc. Judge Ilurlbut concurred in the same. Doctor 
 Hose exhibited "Gay's Fables," " Pleasing Companion," "Turkish Spy;" 
 while I, for the tliird time, recommended "Hume's History," "Voltaire's 
 Histories," " Rollins' Ancient History," " Plutarch's Lives," etc. 
 
 Then followed a tumult of objections, but finall}^, after much 
 bickering and hard feeling, a compromise list was agreed upon, the 
 books were purchased, and, as Burroughs expresses it, "matters 
 seemed to subside into a sullen calm." The calm, however, did 
 not last long. One day the " History of Charles Wenthworth " was 
 purchased b}" the committee from the collection of Judge Hurlbut, 
 and speedil}' Burroughs got hold of a " deistical treatise" in those 
 volumes, and thereupon he, so to speak, proceeded to make it 
 uncommonly warm for the judge and his friend the Eev. Mr. 
 "Woolworth. A battle ro^^al ensued over this " so monstrous a pro- 
 duction," in which "the holy religion of their ancestors [was] 
 vilified thus by a xHe caitiff," and not only the committee but the 
 whole parish was convulsed. At last, after a fierce debate in a 
 sort of general convocation. Burroughs concludes with this deli- 
 ciously instructive paragraph : — 
 
 It was then motioned to have some of the obnoxious passages read before 
 the meeting, but this was overruled by Mr. Woolworth, Judge Hurlbut, 
 Capt. Post, and Dr. Hose. It was then put to vote, whether the book in 
 dispute should be excluded from tlie library, and the negative was obtained 
 by a large majority. The truth was this : there had been so much said 
 respecting the book, that each individual was anxious to gratify his curiosity 
 by seeing this phenomenon ; and each one who had read it, was more afraid 
 for others than for himself, therefore it was determined that the book 
 should remain a member of the library, in order for each one to be gratified 
 by the i)erusal 
 
 Could an3-thing better mark the advance which has of late years 
 been made in a correct understanding of that intellectual food which 
 the popular taste demands. From "Edwards against Chaunce}^," 
 and " Rollin's Ancient History" to Hax-per's Monthly! What 
 giants they must have been, or else what husks they subsisted on 
 
28 
 
 in those days ! I fanc}', however, that the children cried for bread 
 and they gave them stones then, and very few of them ; now, 
 without waiting for them to cry for it, we are giving them any 
 quantity of mild poison. Meanwhile the publisher of to-da}-, I 
 think, understands the popular appetite almost perfectly well. 
 With him it is a purel}^ business operation. He studies the market, 
 and not his own inner consciousness ; the result is that he publishes 
 what the market will talie, and not what he himself may fauc}^, or 
 think it ought to take. He does this at his peril, too, for mistakes 
 in judgment mean bankruptcy. The result with us is Harper's 
 Monthl}' ; not great, not original, not intended for the highl}' educated 
 few ; but always varied, always good, alwaj'S improving, and always 
 reflecting with the utmost sliill the better average popular 
 demand. 
 
 Meanwhile, the position of the librarian and cataloguer has been 
 wholly diiferent from that of the publislier. He has not worked for 
 a constituency whose tastes and desires he has been compelled to 
 study as the price of success. Consequently he has built upon a 
 plan of his own, and has catalogued for himself and a few others 
 who know all about books and authors ; and it is only recentl}^ that 
 an idea of the educational catalogue has suggested itself to him. 
 But what we need is a catalogue which in its conception and execu- 
 tion shall be as different from the standard catalogue as Harper's 
 Monthl}^ is different from Rollin's Ancient History or Plutarch's 
 Lives. To produce this the librarian has got to cut loose from 
 models and theories, and begin by patiently observing those who 
 come to his desk calling for books. In other words, he has got to 
 begin at the beginning ; — but has not Pope told us that ' ' the proper 
 study of mankind is man? " — The first duty of the Public Library- 
 cataloguer just at i^resent is, therefore, to make himself human. 
 As compared with the publisher, he is in his study of mankind 
 still back in that earlier stage which Burroughs happened upon. 
 
 When the librarian does thus go back and begin his new work 
 from the beginning and objectively, he will, unless I am quite mis- 
 taken, find and by degrees map out certain wide, deep currents of 
 popular taste, — and only when he fixes clearl}' the limits of these 
 currents, as affected by sex, b}- temperament, b}" age, b}' nationalitj', 
 and b}' education, — onl}' then will he be able to fm'nish each with 
 
29 
 
 that nutriment it needs, and wliicli only it can properl}' assimilate. 
 The world is not a Do-the-boy's Ilall, and it is no use tr3ing to serve 
 out brimstone and treacle to all liomthe same wooden spoon. That 
 one man's food is another man's poison is true in the matter of 
 books, perhaps, more than in anything else ; but is it not strange 
 that while the field of search is so large and the searchers so 
 ignorant, more pains have not yet been taken in the erection of 
 finger-boards? The fact would seem to be that, since the da3-s of 
 long-continued famine suddenly came to a close, some fifteen j'ears 
 ago, we have been passing through a period of indiscriminate 
 indulgence. We have been abusing our plenty. We are now just 
 beginning to doubt whether this excess of liberty does not verge on 
 hcense. Presently we will conclude that it does, and then a reac- 
 tion will set in. The world always moves in this way. To reduce 
 the reading of fiction among children, — for I care nothing about 
 the adults, — you have got to guide them to a substitute for fiction 
 which they will accept. The finding this substitute and the best 
 means of guidance to it I take to be the Pubhc Library problems 
 of this reactionar}' period. The comparison of notes here about 
 fiction, its use and abuse b}' the young, is of no worldly- use that I 
 can see, except as it leads to this practical result. 
 
 To come, however, immediately to the point, what is wanted at 
 Quincy I know ; and, if it is wanted there, I presume it is wanted 
 elsewhere. With the means and time at my dispostd it is evident 
 that I cannot pro^^de it for Quincy ; but, if the same need does 
 Indeed exist elsewhere, there is no better wa}' for me to get it pro- 
 vided for than b}*- stating it as clearl}' as I can here. What we 
 need at Quincy to fully develop our Public Library as an active 
 influence in our educational system, is a regular, scientifically pre- 
 pared series of annotated horn-book catalogues of popular read- 
 ing. They should be prepared for both sexes, or for either sex, 
 as the case might be ; the}' should be graded according to the ages 
 of readers, and should cover fiction, biography, historj^, travels, 
 and science, each by itself; the}' should be annotated in short, 
 simple, attractive language ; thej' should be unpretentious and com- 
 pact, and, above all else, they should be human. Four pages 
 should be the limit of size, for four pages cover a library of 250 
 volumes. A single page, if well selected, would do better work 
 
30 
 
 among cMldren than four pages. These catalogues should be sold 
 at a nominal price, or, if possible, distributed by the teachers in 
 om- public schools. Were they once prepared they could be used 
 indiscriminately by libraries, for no works but standard works 
 would be thus catalogued, and, the titles being kept permanently- 
 set up, it would merely be necessary to reset the shelf- numbers to 
 adapt the pages to any library. A combined action in the matter 
 is especially desirable, for through it a gi-eat sa\'ing, both of labor 
 and monc}', could be effected. If, through such a combined action, 
 the result I have endeavored to outhne could be brought about, I 
 feel so strong an assiu'aucc of the fact, iu the light of m}- own 
 practical experience both in connection with schools and Hbraries, 
 that I do not hesitate to exjDress the confident beUef that the Pub- 
 lic Library- would very speedily become a far more important and 
 valuable factor iu popular education than that whole high-school 
 system, which now costs us so much, and, in m}- opinion, accom- 
 pHshes so little. 
 
THE NEW DEPAKTURE IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS 
 OF QUINCY. 
 
 A PAPER PliEPARED FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL COMMITTEES 
 
 AND Superintendents of Norfolk County at its Spring 
 Meeting of 1879. 
 
 The more than local interest which has of late been evinced in 
 certain changes and, so to speak, experiments, ■which during the 
 last four years have been made in the common-school course in the 
 town of Quincy, would seem at this time to justify a more particu- 
 lar statement in regard to them. They are not without a general 
 value, as the condition of affau's which preceded and led to them 
 was by no means peculiar to Quincy, and the results reached there, 
 if of value, are easily attainable anywhere. It may perhaps be 
 best to concisely state the object of these changes and experiments 
 in the first place : — it was to secure, if possible, a thoroughly good 
 common-school education at a not unreasonable cost. The two 
 points of excellence and economy were to be kept clearly in view, 
 and neither was to be subordinated to the other. 
 
 In presenting to the town theu' annual report on the condition of 
 its schools in 1873, the Quincy committee took occasion to refer to 
 the state of what they termed ' ' immobiUty " at which those schools 
 had then arrived. They used the following language : — 
 
 A retrospect of ten years will discover no very remarkable results. Ten 
 .years ago, so far as we remember, tlic cliildren read and wrote and spelled 
 about as well as they do to-day ; and the fundamental rules of arithmetic 
 were as thoroughly taught then as now. And at present, as in the past, most 
 of the pupils who have finished the grammar course neither speak nor spell 
 their own language very perfectly, nor read and write it with that elegance 
 which is desirable. This immobility seems to show that a point has been 
 reached which is near the natural term of such force as our present system 
 of schooling is calculated to exert. 
 
32 
 
 In stating their conclusions in this way the committee certainly 
 used the mildest possible language which the circumstances per- 
 mitted. The Quincy schools at that time were neither better nor- 
 worse than those of the surrounding towns ; thej^ were, indeed, 
 fairly to be classed among those of the higher order, such as are 
 usually looked for in the more populous and well-to-do communities 
 in the immediate vicinity of Boston. As such they had gone 
 along 3'ear after year, and stood not unsuccessfully the test of the 
 formal committee examinations to which the}^ were annually sub- 
 • jected. Those examinations were a study for the humorist. A 
 day was publicly assigned for each school, and on that day the 
 children were present in their best clothes ; the benches were 
 crowded, and a tolerable representation of parents and friends oc- 
 cupied the vacant spaces of the room. The committee sat upon 
 the platform in dignified silence, and the teacher conducted the 
 exercises over safe and famiUar ground to a triumphant con- 
 clusion in some peculiarly unnatm^al bit of childish declamation. 
 Then the chairman and other members of the committee were asked 
 to gratif)' the children with a few remarks, which it is unnecessar}^ 
 to say were always of a highl}' commendatory character. The 
 whole thing was a sham. After it was over the committee knew 
 nothing more about the school than they did before it began ; and, 
 as for tests, there were none. 
 
 In 1873, however, a change was introduced. The examinations 
 assumed a wholly new character. A special branch of studies was 
 assigned to each member of the committee, and, during the ex- 
 aminations, the schools were taken wholl}' out of the hands of the 
 instructors. The result was deplorable. The schools went to 
 pieces. Among other things, for instance, it was found that the A 
 and B graimnar scholars throughout the town could parse and con- 
 strue sentences, and point out the various parts of speech with 
 great facility, repeating correctly and with readiness the rules of 
 grammar appHcable in each case ; yet when called upon to write an 
 ordinary letter they were utterly unable to appl}^ the rules and prin- 
 ciples they had so painfully learned, or to form single sentences, or 
 to follow any rule of composition. So, also, as respects reading. 
 Rote reading, so to speak, that is the practised reading of certain 
 familiar pieces in given Readers, had been brought to a point of 
 
33 
 
 very considerable perfection. If the examination was not earned 
 too far, the classes could be shown off to gi'eat advantage. "Where 
 the severer test of sight-reading, that is the reading of an ordinary 
 book which the scholar had never seen before it was put by the ex- 
 aniinor into his hands — when this test was applied, the result was 
 simi;!}- bewildering. The greater part of the scholars could merelj" 
 stannner and bungle along, much as a better educated person does 
 when reading a book in some language with which he is onl}' imper- 
 fectly acquainted. In other words, it appeared, as the result of 
 eight years' school-teaching, that the children, as a whole, could 
 neither wi'ite with facilit}' nor read fluentl}'. 
 
 Brought face to face with such a condition of affairs as this, the 
 committee certainly were not guilt}" of a too strong use of tenns 
 when they said in the extract from their report of 1873 which has 
 been quoted, that the pupils of the schools could " neither speak 
 nor spell their own language ver}" perfectly, nor read and wi'ite it 
 with that ease and elegance which is deskable." The fact was 
 that the examinations had shown that in far too manj^ cases they 
 could neither read nor wiite it at all. To the majorit}' of the com- 
 mittee the reason of this state of things was apparent. The school 
 sj'stem had fallen into a rut. A great multiphcity of studies had 
 in one wa}' and another been introduced, and each was taught by 
 itself. The ever-present object in the teacher's mind was to pass a 
 creditable examination ; and, to insure this, he unconsciously 
 turned his scholars into parrots, and made a meaningless farce of 
 education. Certain motions had to be gone through with ; for real 
 results he cared nothing. It was, in a word, all smatter, veneer- 
 ing and cram. So far as the Quinc}' committee of 1873 was con- 
 cerned, its members having reached then- conclusions, it was a 
 simple question whether the}' would leave things as thej^ found 
 them or attempt a wlioll}^ new departure. There was no middle 
 course open. As affairs stood, it was plain that a gi-eat waste of 
 the public money was steadil}^ going on ; — that is, the statistics 
 did not show that the town was spending an undue amount on its 
 schools, but of the amount it was spending not fifty cents out of 
 each dollar were effectively spent. This waste could only be 
 remedied in one way. The cost of the schools could not be re- 
 duced, but their quality could be improved. It was absolutely 
 
34 
 
 useless, however, to look for any steady improvement through the 
 efforts of individual members of the committee. They were bus}^ 
 men, and they were not specialists in education. Committees 
 elected by popular vote are entirely unequal to any sustained 
 effort ; and only through a sustained effort can the spirit necessary 
 to any permanent improvement be infused into teachers, and a 
 steady direction given to it. 
 
 It was determined, therefore, to ask the town to emplo}- a 
 superintendent of schools, and to put the working-out of the new 
 system in his hands. This was done, and in the Spring of 187.'3 
 the necessary authority was obtained. And now the first serious 
 difficulty presented itself in the practical selection of a superin- 
 tendent ; for it is a noticeable fact that, large and costlj^ as the com- 
 mon-school system of this country is and greatl}' as it stands in 
 need of intelligent dh'ection, not a single step has yet been taken 
 towards giving it such a direction through an educated superin- 
 tendency. Accordingly, very much as Bentham defined a judge as 
 " an advocate run to seed," the ordinary superintendent is apt to 
 be a grammar school teacher in a similar condition . Where he is ' 
 not this, he is usually some retired clergyman or local politician 
 out of a job, who has no more idea of the processes of mental 
 development or the science of training than the average school- 
 master has of the object of teaching Enghsh grammar. The blind 
 are thus made to lead the blind, and naturall}^ both plunge deeper 
 into the mire. That this should be so is certainl}'^ most singular, 
 for the idea of managing a school sj^stem as comphcatod as that ol 
 any populous New England town has now become, without the 
 assistance of some trained specialist, is manifestly as absurd as it 
 would be to tr}' to manage a coUege without a president. Yet the 
 superintendence' is not yet recognized as a distinct profession, and, 
 accordingly, trained men not being supplied for it, it has actually 
 fallen into a sort of discredit through the wretched substitutes for 
 trained men to whom towns have in their need been compelled to 
 have recourse. 
 
 All this the members of the school committee of Quincy did but 
 diml}' appreciate when they determined to try their experiment. 
 They had a definite object in view, in accomplishing which ever^'- 
 thiug depended on their selection of an agent. Their object was 
 
35 
 
 to improve the schools while not increasing their cost ; — to got 
 one hundred cents worth of value for every dollar of the town's 
 mone}'. According to their own admission in the extract from 
 the report of 1873, which has been quoted, there had been no per- 
 ceptible improvement during the ten preceding j'ears. Yet during 
 those years the annual cost to the town of educating each child in 
 the public schools had increased from six dollars to fifteen dollars. 
 To secm-e the senices of a better grade of teachers, those qualified 
 to give a direction of their own to then* instruction, — men and 
 women of ideas, of individuality, as it is termed, — would have 
 necessitated a general rise of salaries which would have increased 
 the annual cost from fifteen dollars to at least thirty. This was 
 out of the. question. The burden on the tax-payer was abeady 
 heavy enough. Even education can be paid for at too high a 
 price, and it is useless to have model schools if no one but the tax- 
 gatherer can afford to live in the town which supports them. The 
 only other wa}' to improve the system was to concentrate the 
 directing individuality' in one man, and trust to him to infuse his 
 spirit into the others. One man the town could afford to pa}' ; 
 twenty men it could not afford to pay. The tiling was, with the 
 means at their command, — the salar}- of an assistant college pro- 
 fessor, — to secure the services of that one man. 
 
 In this all-important matter, the Quincy committee were as a 
 whole most fortunate. After some desultor}' discussion of candi- 
 dates, they chanced across one who had not only himself taught, 
 but in teaching had become possessed with the idea that it was a 
 science, and that he did not understand it. Accordingly he had 
 gone abroad in search of that training which he was unable to get 
 in America, and at a comparativelj- matm-e age had made himself 
 master of the modern German theories of common-school education. 
 A self-educated and self-made man, with all the defects as well as 
 the virtues of men of that class, he was now eagerl}' looking about 
 for an opportunity to put his theories in practice. That opportunity 
 was offered him in Quinc}', and under circumstances pecuUarl}' 
 favorable to success. In the first place he found a committee 
 strong in the confidence of the town and holding oflEice with a 
 degTce of permanence most unusual, the members of which were in 
 a singularly disgusted and dissatisfied frame of mind. They had 
 
36 
 
 reached the conclusion that the whole existing system was wrong, 
 — a sj-stem from which the life was gone out. Acting on this con- 
 clusion, they had gone to work to remedy matters ; but, as usually 
 happens in such cases, the}' had succeeded only in destroying the 
 old system without developing a new one. They had bitterly 
 attacked the unintelligent instruction the}' found going on, and 
 they had made school after school go hopelessly- to pieces by 
 calUng on overgi'own children to practically make use of the 
 knowledge they had been so painfull}^ acquiring. When it came, 
 however, to substituting a better method of instruction for that 
 which they condemned, they had their own affairs to attend 
 to, and a few spasmodic, half-matured suggestions of something 
 they did not have time to think out, was all the}' could do for the 
 discom-aged and bewildered teachers. It gradually, therefore, had 
 begun to dawn upon them that they had taken a larger contract on 
 their hands than they had at all intended. A httle too much of the 
 innovating, questioning spirit had, in fact, broken down something 
 besides the school system of the town ; — it had broken down the 
 committee system as well. 
 
 Realizing this, — conscious of the fact that the}' themselves were 
 unequal to the work befoi'e them, — the members of the committee 
 were also sensible enough to know that an agent to be successful 
 must have a chance. He must not be continually hampered and 
 thwarted by unnecessary interference. They were not, as under 
 similar circumstances is too frequently the case, jealous of their 
 little authority. They had no fear of losing their power, and no 
 consequent deshe to make a mere huckster of their superintendent 
 by degrading him into a purchasing agent. They hstened to his 
 plans as he submitted them, and gave them the best consideration 
 they could ; then, once those plans were approved, he had a free 
 field in which to carry them out, with the understanding that by 
 the results, and the results alone, would he l)e judged. 
 
 Meanwhile the members of the connnittee had ideas of their own, 
 as well as the superintendent. Most fortunately, — for it was a 
 single chance in a hundred that it should so happen, and yet it did 
 so happen, — Mr. Parker, while he brought radical theories of his 
 own to the work in hand, fully entered into and s}'mpathized with 
 the less clearly defined ideas of the connnittee. There was no con- 
 
37 
 
 flict. His specialt}' was primaiy instruction ; the later methods 
 and practical outcome of the s^-stem were what they most severely 
 criticised. The result, naturally, was a gradual but complete revo- 
 lution, than which it may well be questioned whether the common 
 school s^'stem of Massachusetts has of late 3'ears furnished a more 
 interesting or instructive stud3\ 
 
 The essence of the new sj^stem was that there was no sj-stem 
 about it ; — it was marked tliroughout b}' intense individualit}'. 
 The progi-amme found no place anywhere in it ; on the contrar}', 
 the last new theory, so curiously amplified in some of oiu- larger 
 cities, that vast numbers of children should be taught as trains on 
 railroads are run, on a time-table principle, — that thej' are here 
 now, that thej- will be at such another point to-morrow, and at their 
 terminus at such a date ; — while a general superintendent sits in 
 his central office and pricks off each step in the advance of the 
 whole line on a chart before him, — this whole theor}' was em- 
 phaticall}' dismissed. In place of it the tentative principle was 
 adopted. Experiments were to be cautiouslj' tried and results from 
 time to time noted. The revolution, however, was all-pervading. 
 Nothing escaped its influence ; it began with the alphabet and ex- 
 tended into the last effort of the grammar school course. 
 
 The most noticeable change, however, and that which has ex- 
 cited the most general interest was at the verj" beginning, — in the 
 primaries. The old "dame school" disappeared at once.. In 
 place of it appeared something as different as hght from darkness. 
 The alphabet itself was no longer taught. In place of the old, Ij'm- 
 phatic, listless " school-marm," pressing into the minds of tired 
 and hstlcss children the mj'stic significance of certain hierogl3'plucs 
 by mere force of over-la3'ing, as it were, — instead of this time- 
 honored machine-process, j'oung women, full of life and nervous 
 entrg}-, found themselves surrounded at the blackboard with 
 groups of nttle ones who were learning how to read almost without 
 knowing it; — learning how to read, in a word, exactly' as they 
 had before learned how to speak, not by rule and rote and by 
 piecemeal, but altogether and b}* practice. The hours of school 
 were kept diversified ; the fact was recognized that httle children 
 were, after all, little children still, and that .long confinement was 
 irksome to them. A play-table and t03's were furnished them, and 
 
38 
 
 from time to time the exercises were stopped that all might joiu in 
 physical movement. That this system was harder for the teachers, 
 — calling upon them at all times to activel}^ throw themselves into 
 the instruction of their classes, to interest them and to keep the 
 school-room, as it were, in motion, — all this, goes without saving. 
 But, on the other hand, while more exhausting, it was also far more 
 inspiriting. The drudgery of the alphabet was gone, — so was the 
 listless, drawhng instruction ; — there was a sense of constant activ- 
 it}^ in the occupation, which gave to the teacher a consciousnesd 
 of individuality and a perceptible pride of calling. She felt, in 
 fact, that she was doing something in a new way, and doing it un- 
 commonly weU. 
 
 The effect produced by this changed school atmosphere on the 
 children was, however, the point of interest. It showed itself in 
 the way least possible to mistake : — going to school ceased to be 
 a home-sick tribulation. That this should be so seem.s opposed 
 both to child-nature and to all human experience ; and j'et that it 
 was so admitted of no denial. The children actually went to school 
 without being dragged there. Yet the reason of this was not far 
 to seek. The simple fact was, that they were happier and more 
 amused and better contented at school than at home. The drudgery 
 of the impossible primer no longer made infant life miserable. 
 The alphabet was robbed of its terrors, and stole upon them un- 
 awares ; while the most confounding thing to the members of the 
 committee was, that in hearing the primaries read not a child 
 among them could repeat its letters, or even knew their names ; 
 unless, perchance, to the teacher's increased trouble, they had been 
 taught them at home. 
 
 So daring an experiment as this can, however, be tested in but 
 one way : — by its practical results, as proven by the experience of 
 a number of years, and testified to by parents and teachers as well 
 as observed in children. The method has now been four years in 
 use in the schools of Quinc}^ and has ceased to be an experiment ; 
 its advantages are questioned by none, least of all b}' teachers and 
 parents. Among the teachers are those who, having for many 
 years taught class after class in the old way, found themselves called 
 upon to attempt with deep misgiving the new and to them mys- 
 terious process. They now join their testimony to the others and 
 
39 
 
 confess that, to human beings, even though the}' be children, the 
 ways of nature are the easier wa3's. After all the lesson is not a very 
 profound one, and it is strange indeed that it took so long to 
 find it out. A child learns to talk and to walk — the two most 
 diflleult things it is called on to learn in its whole life — without 
 any instruction and b}' simple practice ; the process of learning is 
 not painful to it or wearisome to others ; on the contrary, it is an 
 amusement to both. Whj' the same process should not have been 
 pursued in other and less difficult branches of education is not ap- 
 parent. One thing only is clear : it was not pursued. In place of 
 it an arbitrary system of names and sounds, having no significance 
 in themselves, and of rules and formulas absolutelj^ unintelligible 
 except to the mature intellect, was adopted ; and with these, gen- 
 eration after generation of children have been tortured. Onl}"" 
 now do we deign in imparting knowledge to give any attention to 
 natural processes, which have forever been going on before our 
 e3'es and in our families, and yet we profess to think that there is 
 no science in primarj' education, and that all that there is to it can 
 be learned in a few hours. The simple fact is, however, that within 
 these few 5'ears it required a man of absolute genius to discover 
 how to teach the alphabet. 
 
 The new departm'c, therefore, started with the Quincy primaries, 
 and it left little in them that had not undergone a change. The 
 reorganization was complete. This, however, was entirely the 
 work of Superintendent Parker ; the committee simpl}'' gave him 
 a free field to experiment in, and the result full}- justified them in 
 so doing. Ascending into the several gi-ades of gTammar schools 
 the case was somewhat different. The committee there had their 
 own views, and those \dews were little else than an emphatic pro- 
 test against the whole present tendenc}^ of the educational s^'stem 
 of Massachusetts, whether school, academic, or universit}'. If 
 there is one thing which may be considered more characteristic 
 of that system of late years than another, it is its tendency' to 
 multiply branches of stud}^ The school j'ear has become one long 
 period of diffusion and cram, the object of which is to success- 
 full}' pass a stated series of examinations. This leads directly to 
 superficiaUty. Smatter is the order of the day.. To enter college 
 the boy of seventeen must know a little of ever}'thing ; but it is not 
 
40 
 
 necessary for him to know anything well, — not even how to write 
 his own language. From this the vicious system has gone up 
 through the professional, and down thi-ough the high, to the very 
 lowest gi'ade of grammar school. No matter whether it can under- 
 stand it or not, the child must be taught a httle of everything ; 
 at any rate enough of it to pass an examination. Against this 
 whole theor}^ and sj'stem the Quincy school committee resolutel}' 
 set their faces. Thej^ did not beUeve in it ; they would have 
 nothing to do with it. Instead of being multiplied, the number 
 of studies should, they insisted, be reduced. It was impossible to 
 teach ever3i:hing in a grammar-school course, and for the vast 
 majority of children a thorough grounding in the elements of 
 knowledge was all that could be given. The attempt to give more 
 simply resulted in not giving that. In proof of this the examina- 
 tion papers for admission to high schools were appealed to. These 
 showed the acqukements of the more proficient scholars ; for as a 
 rule it is they who go to the high schools. Judging by these 
 papers the graduates of the grammar schools were very far from 
 being proficient in either writing, spelling or gi-ammar. Now, 
 these are things which the common schools can and should give all 
 children, no matter what else is sacrificed. The}' are not given, 
 however, for the simple reason that to give them requires prac- 
 tice, and the multiplicity of studies forbids practice in any one 
 stud3\ The results of the old system in Quincy, as brought to 
 light through the earlier examinations, have alread}' been referred 
 to ; the ridiculous knowledge, for instance, of parts of speech 
 and abstract rules of grammar, acquired in order to be able to 
 parse complicated sentences, but combined with an utter inabilit}- 
 to correctly write or decently spell the Avords of the most ordinur}' 
 letter. 
 
 Under these circumstances the general polic}' outlined by the 
 committee was sufficiently radical. Its execution was entrusted 
 wholly to the superintendent. Education was to recur to first 
 principles. Not much was to be attempted ; but whatever was 
 attempted was to be thoroughly done, and to be tested b}' its 
 practical results, and not by its theoretical importance. Above 
 all, the simple comprehensible processes of nature were to be ob- 
 served. Children were to learn to read and write and C}T^>her as 
 
41 
 
 they learned to swim, or to skate, or to play ball. The rule by 
 which the thing was clone was nothing ; the fact that it was done 
 well was ever;ything. As early as 1873 the committee had, in the 
 report ahead}' quoted from, expressed the opinion that, " as now 
 taught in our schools, EngUsh gi'ammar is a singularl}' unproiitable 
 branch of instruction." It was now immediately hustled out of 
 them ; and the reader was sent after the gi-ammar ; and the spell- 
 ing-book after the reader ; and the copy-book after the speller. 
 Then the process of simpUfication began. Eeading at sight, and 
 writing off-hand were to constitute the basis of the new system. 
 The faculty of doing either the one or the other of these could, 
 however, be acquii'ed only in one way, — by constant practice. 
 Practice took time, and neither school days nor school hours were 
 endless. Economy of time, therefore, was above all else neces- 
 sary ; and economy of time was wholly incompatible with multi- 
 plicity of studies. Under the old system, everjthing had been 
 taught separatel}'. The reading lesson, the writing lesson, the 
 spelling lesson had, in regular order, followed the lesson in gi-ammar, 
 and in arithmetic, and in geography, and in history. Two after- 
 noon half-hours a week, for instance, would be devoted to the 
 cop3'-books, a blotted pile of which on the master's desk testified 
 unmistakabl}' to the inadequate results reached. The children 
 then could glibly tell what a peninsula was, but the}' did not know 
 one when they hved on it ; they could stand up and spell in a 
 spelling-bee, but put a pen in then- hands and the havoc they made 
 with orthography was wonderful. Seven studies have been enmuer- 
 ated ; all considered elementary. Instead of adding yet others 
 to these, the direction of the committee was that they should 
 be reduced to three, — "the thi-ee R's," — reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic. 
 
 The process by which this was to be brought about was simple 
 enough. Reading and writing were to be regarded as elementary ; 
 as such they were to be taught in the primary schools. They 
 were to be taught there also by incessant practice, book and 
 pencil in hand ; and no scholar who could not read at sight and 
 write with comparative ease could be considered ready for promo- 
 tion. Then, in the grammar grades, concentration was reduced to 
 a system. Instruction in reading, Avi'iting, gi-ammar, speUing, ajid, 
 
42 
 
 to a very considerable degree, in history and geography were com- 
 bined in two exercises, — reading and writing. The old reader 
 having disappeared, the teacher was at liberty to put in the hands 
 of the class geogi-aphies, or histories, or magazine articles, and, 
 having read them first, the scholars might write of them after- 
 wards to show that they understood them. Their attention was 
 thus secured, and the pen being continually in the hand, the}' wrote 
 as readily as they spoke, and spelling came with practice. Under 
 this system the absurdity of ever having expected any adequate 
 results from the old one became apparent. How even the poor re- 
 sults which had been obtained, were obtained, was matter of surprise. 
 To illustrate this, it is but necessary to revert to some of the other 
 branches of education, and, realizing the method in which they are 
 acquired, to then compare it with the methods adopted in the 
 schools for imparting branches scarcely less difficult. Take, for 
 instance, walking and talking again, the examples already re- 
 ferred to. Every child acquires these perfectly ; he is whoUj^ at 
 home on his feet and talks with absolute facility. He acquires 
 them thus perfectly by constant practice. He never in his life 
 would learn to walli firmly or to talli fluentty if he were shut up in 
 a sitting posture, and, after being elaboratel}' instructed in the 
 principles of equilibrium and articulation, were practised in actual 
 walliing and tallving for half an hour a da}' each. Yet this was 
 exactly what was done under the old sj^stem of the Quiucy schools 
 as respects reading and writing. The gi-ammar and the copy-book 
 efi"ectually put a stop to all chance of facihty in either ; for children 
 are slow to learn, and the time given to the study of formulas is 
 time lost in practice. 
 
 In arithmetic no great changes or improvement in the methods 
 of instruction as yet seem possible. The faculty of dealing readily 
 with figures is given to some people and is withheld from others ; 
 that with sufficient attention and labor almost anj' one can acquire 
 a tolerable degree of proficiency with them is of course imdeniable ; 
 but that it can be acquired except bj' a strict regard to formulas 
 patiently learned, is, at least, doubtful. As respects gcogra])hy it 
 is by no means so, and in no stud}' has the new departure in the 
 C^uinc}' schools been more marked than in this. The old method 
 all are familiar with, for lliere are few indeed who have ever been 
 
43 
 
 into a regulation school who have not heard child after child gliblj 
 chatter out the boundaries and capitals, and principal towns and 
 rivers of States and nations, and enumerate the waters you would 
 pass through and the ports you would make in a A'oj-age from Boston 
 to Calcutta, or New York to St. Petersburg. What it all amounted 
 to is another matter. It approached terribly near the old rote 
 methods. Go, to-day, into the Quincy schools and in a few moments 
 two or three .young children, standing about an earth board and 
 handling a little heap of moistened clay, will shape out for you a 
 continent, with its mountains, rivers, depressions, and coast inden- 
 tations, designating upon it the principal cities, and giving a gen- 
 eral idea of its geographical peculiarities. I do not know whether, 
 so far as utility is concerned, the result obtained under this method 
 is ver}' different from that obtained under the other. Geography 
 is not lilvc reading, writing, or arithmetic. In the practical work 
 of ordinary hfe a knowledge of it is an accomplishment rather than 
 a thing of necessar3- daily use. But there is this difference between 
 the two methods : the study under the new method becomes full of 
 life and interest ; while under the old it was as tedious and as much 
 like arithmetic and gi'ammar as it could be made. 
 
 Such was the theory, and obviousl}' in that its aim was thorough- 
 ness, — which it sought to secure b}' attempting little, — it was a 
 complete negation of the whole present common-school system, 
 founded on a faith in the infinite capacity of children to know at an 
 early age a little of everything. By its results only could this also 
 be judged, and opinions seem to differ as to what is after all the end 
 and aim of a common-school education. On this point, however, 
 the Quinc}' coimuittee had early defined their position. In their 
 report of 1873 they had laid down utihty as the one and onl}' end 
 which should always be kept in view. They had then said, — " The 
 studies pursued in our common-school course should be so pursued 
 that they may result in sometliing of direct use in the ordinar}' 
 lives of New England men and women." This being the object 
 they had in view, the success or failure of their new departure was 
 to be measured by what it actually accompUshed in that wa}-, and 
 b)'' nothing else. The faculty of easily writing an ordinarj- letter 
 on a business topic, correctly spelled and properly expressed, is a 
 valuable faculty to have of every-day utihty. A knowledge of the 
 
M 
 
 rules of graminar may be useful to critics and scholars, but in the 
 lives of ordinary men and women it can be regarded only as a use- 
 less accomplishment. The complete expulsion of the grammar 
 from the schools seemed to take away the breath of the old-time 
 masters. It had been taught from the beginning ; it was a tradi- 
 tion ; it could not be but in ordinary life there was utihty in the 
 study. 
 
 " Ah, but traditions, inventions, 
 
 " (Said they, and made up a visage) 
 " So many men with such various intentions 
 
 " Down the past ages must know more than this age ! 
 " Leave the web all its dimensions ! " 
 
 But the web came down none the less. And what were the practi- 
 cal results ? — When, after three years, a class brought up under the 
 new system was put to the test, the examiner expressed a " doubt 
 if one scholar in ten knew what a noun, a pronoun, or an adjective 
 w^as, or could have parsed a sentence, or explained the difference 
 between its subject and its predicate. They could, however, put 
 their ideas into sentences on paper with correctness and facility ; 
 and, though they could not define what they were, the}' showed 
 that they could use nouns, pronouns and adjectives, in writing, 
 just as well as they could in speech." Out of 500 grammar-school 
 children, taken promiscuously from all the schools, no less than 
 400 showed results which were either excellent or satisfactory. 
 
 That the scholars could read at sight, without bungling and 
 stumbling over ever}' unusual word the moment the}' left the 
 familiar page of their Readers, — that the}' could write a simple letter 
 without being painfully conscious of an unaccustomed labor, — 
 these, though very considerable, were by no means the only or even 
 the most noticeable results of the new departure. In the tipper 
 grammar as well as the lowest primary there ^as an entire change 
 of spirit, and going to school was no longer what it had been. This 
 was recognizctl by the parents quite as much as by the teachers. 
 Not only was there a marked improvement in attendance, but the 
 attendance was cheerful. The "whining school-boy" was no 
 longer seen " wending like snail uuwilHagly to school;" and, re- 
 membering what had been, it was certainly most pleasant to go into 
 
45 
 
 the rooms and feel the atmosphere of cheerfulness, activity and 
 interest which prevaded them. Not that the cliildren lilced their 
 vacations less, but the}' liad ceased to dislike their school-rooms ; 
 and to those who remember as vividly as most persons over thirty 
 do, the wliolly unattractive, not to sa}' repulsive character both of 
 the old-time school teaching and the old-time school discipline, this 
 change is one for which those who enjoj^ the advantage of it may 
 w'ell be grateful. 
 
 The improvement of the schools under the new departure, while 
 free]}- admitted l)y teachers, parents and committee, was made even 
 more clearly apparent by the general interest the experiment ex- 
 cited, and the number of those from all parts who came to see for 
 themselves what was being done. Before 1875 no visitor ever 
 entered the schools of Quincy, except some parent now and then, 
 or an occasional acquaintance of a teacher. In 1878 the number 
 of those coming to observe the new sj'stem, especially teachers and 
 specialists in education, was so great that it threatened seriousl}- 
 to interfere with instruction, and the committee found themselves 
 obhged to take measures towards regulating it. The teacher of 
 the lowest primary of the Coddington, the school under m}' more 
 particuhir charge, reported, for instance, 385 visitors during the 
 five months, February to June, and 113 in April alone. 
 
 But while the improvement was apparent enough, and did not 
 need to be pointed out, the all-important questions remained, — At 
 what money cost was it bought ? — If it involved a heavy addition to 
 taxes, no matter howgi-eat the improvement, it was none the less a 
 failure. The common-school S3stem of Massachusetts was, in view 
 of the committee, in ver}' great danger of crushing the community 
 it was meant to protect. The average annual cost of educating a 
 child in Quincy had increased five-fold in thkty ^ears, and the ex- 
 perience of Quincy in this respect was not exceptional. It has 
 ah'ead}' been suggested that there is such a thing as taxing a com- 
 munity to death, and it is quite apparent that the recent ratio of 
 increase in taxation for school purposes, will, if it goes on, soon 
 atford in the case of Massachusetts a practical illustration of the 
 process. The efibrt in Quinc}' had therefore been to so economize 
 expen<liture In' better and more intelligent direction that the town 
 should get in value received one hundred cents for each dollar spent, 
 
46 
 
 instead of fifty or perhaps only forty cents as had before been the 
 case. On this economical calculation the whole action of the com- 
 mittee was based. The money question was kept steadily in view, 
 and never for a moment did they allow the supei'intendent's zeal in 
 liis work to hide it. The whole thing was a failure unless at least 
 twice the educacational results were obtained for the same mone}'. 
 On this point the figures of their annual reports told the whole 
 story, and it was a plain and unmistakable stor3^ In 1875, when 
 the new departure was made, the annual cost of educating each 
 child was $19.24 ; three j-ears later, in 1878, it was $15. G8. AVhile 
 the qiiality of the instruction given had been immeasurably im- 
 proved, its cost had been reduced one-fifth. 
 
 So far as the cost of educating children in the pubuc schools is 
 concerned, the computations of the State Board of Education in- 
 clude apparentl}' onl}^ the amounts appropriated by the various 
 cities and towns for salaries of teachers and the heating and care 
 of school-rooms, and the important and constantly gi-owing item of 
 incidentals is omitted from them. The basis is, however, pre- 
 sumably the same in all cases, and, accepting it for the purposes of 
 comparison, the accompanying table is not without interest. It 
 covers through a period of twenty* j^ears the annual cost of pub- 
 lic school education per scholar in Quincy and twenty of the 
 principal cities and towns, selected at haphazard, from all sections 
 of the State. It will be noticed that not onl}" thi'oughout the whole 
 period, but during the last three years of change, and in the 3'ear 
 1878, of all the twenty-one cities and towns named, Quinc}' came 
 most nearly to the average of the whole Commonwealth. Both in 
 the earlier period, during which its schools were of the usual de- 
 scription, and during the later period of their reform, the cost of 
 educating each scholar in them was about 54 per cent, that of 
 educating each scholar in the schools of Brookline, Milton, Newton 
 and Boston taken together. It is exactl}^ 55 per cent, of it now. 
 The simple question is, and it is a most interesting question not 
 only for the other sixteen towns specified in the table but for the 
 whole State, are the results arrived at in the schools of Brookline, 
 Milton, Newton and Boston within a mere fraction of twice as 
 good as those arrived at in the schools of Quincy? — Are they any 
 better at all? 
 
m 1859 to 187S; and Amnial Arcrarje and Total 
 iod. 
 
 Vear. 
 
 1859 
 1%0 
 1861 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1S66 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 
 1870 
 1871 
 1N72 
 1873 
 1874 
 1875 
 1876 
 1S77 
 1878 
 Aver'ge 
 185;t-78 
 Aver'ge 
 1876-8 
 
 $7 90 
 
 7 77 
 
 7 82 
 
 7 67 
 
 7 00 
 
 7 19 
 
 7 92 
 
 9 70 
 
 10 13 
 
 9 90 
 
 10 57 
 
 10 63 
 
 12 70 
 
 12 94 
 
 13 90 
 13 85 
 13 48 
 
 13 61 
 12 96 
 15 98 
 
 10 68 
 
 14 18 
 
 $6 41 
 6 63 
 6 48 
 5 91 
 
 5 92 
 
 6 27 
 6 86 
 8 98 
 
 8 57 
 
 9 06 
 
 8 94 
 
 9 21 
 9 29 
 9 86 
 
 10 90 
 
 11 74 
 
 14 37 
 
 15 85 
 
 16 38 
 15 72 
 
 9 66 
 
 $6 78 
 7 24 
 7 53 
 6 74 
 
 5 67 
 
 6 02 
 
 7 36 
 9 75 
 
 11 19 
 13 18 
 15 10 
 
 15 30 
 
 16 00 
 
 18 01 
 20 15 
 23 64 
 22 71 
 20 47 
 
 19 97 
 16 46 
 
 13 46 
 
 18 96 
 
 $5 00 
 
 4 77 
 
 4 71 
 
 5 66 
 
 4 48 
 
 5 28 
 5 05 
 5 39 
 5 99 
 7 31 
 
 7 96 
 
 8 43 
 8 66 
 
 11 24 
 11 38 
 11 75 
 11 17 
 11 44 
 
 11 71 
 13 34 
 
 8 03 
 
 12 16 
 
 $7 27 
 7 50 
 
 6 60 
 
 7 90 
 7 83 
 
 7 90 
 
 8 82 
 8 Oi) 
 
 10 67 
 13 81 
 13 46 
 
 13 21 
 12 85 
 12 57 
 
 14 09 
 17 58 
 14 31 
 
 12 93 
 14 38 
 
 13 69 
 
 11 27 
 13 66 
 
 
 ■° ^-^ .^ ■- t & 
 2 i dZ £ J ■— ? 
 
 "■ i; o T " ^ ; 
 
 ii: ^-JD 3^ c 
 
 $6 a4 
 « 4a 
 
 6 41 
 O 44 
 
 6 04 
 
 G itH 
 
 T 82 
 9 OS 
 9 89 
 
 10 84 
 
 11 50 
 11 78 
 
 13 86 
 l:t »5 
 
 14 TO 
 14 96 
 14 81 
 14 81 
 14 :to 
 
 lO 31 
 
 14 64 
 
 $1,390,382 34 
 1,428,476 02 
 1,475,948 76 
 l,5UO,501 13 
 1,434,015 20 
 1,53(),:3I4 31 
 1,782,624 62 
 1,993,177 39 
 2,355,505 96 
 2,635,774 06 
 2 923,708 -70 
 3,125,0.)3 09 
 3,272,335 33 
 3,594,686 38 
 3,889,053 80 
 4,253,211 17 
 4,358,523 59 
 4,400,898 59 
 4,331,675 85 
 4,191,510 77 
 
 Relative order of cities and 
 
 towns specitied during 
 
 each period. 
 
 Amherst . . . 
 Boston . . . . 
 Brookline . . 
 Cambridge . . 
 Fall liivcr . . 
 Fitchburg . . 
 Lawrence . . 
 Lowell . ,. . . 
 Lynn . '. . . 
 W'ilton . . . . 
 New Bedford . 
 Newburyport 
 Newton . . . 
 Northampton 
 Pittsfleld . . . 
 Plymouth . . 
 Qiiincy . . 
 Salem . . . . 
 Springfield . . 
 Taunton . . . 
 Worcester . . 
 
 00 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 -A 
 
 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 20 
 
 19 
 
 15 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 19 
 
 15 
 
 9 
 
 14 
 
 1 
 
Animal Appropriation per Scholar i 
 
 >, Quincy, and twenty principal Towns and Cities of the State, through Twenty i'e 
 Amount raised throughout the State for support of PuUic Schools during s 
 
 ■s.from 1859 to 187S; and Anrnual Average and Total 
 ie period. 
 
 
 l^d 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J- ^^kfili 
 
 
 %^% 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■H 
 
 w 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '^:^ tj •" = = 5^ g 
 
 Year. 
 
 
 $a 54 
 
 s 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 O 
 
 2 
 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 S 
 
 S' 
 
 a 
 
 
 1 
 
 z 
 
 3 
 1 
 "A 
 
 3 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 ?• 
 
 J 
 1 
 
 
 i|||=|| 
 
 
 
 
 $10 27 
 
 $18 27 
 
 $S 94 
 
 $5 57 
 
 $:. 64 
 
 $7 06 
 
 $9 00 
 
 $7 54 
 
 $9 19 
 
 $10 13 
 
 $4 82 
 
 «9 00 
 
 $5 06 
 
 $3 92 
 
 $7 90 
 
 $6 41 
 
 $6 78 
 
 $5 00 
 
 $7 27 
 
 S6a4 
 
 S1,390,3S2 34 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 09 
 
 8 38 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 26 
 
 7 85 
 
 9 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 87 
 
 5 63 
 
 
 9 43 
 
 4 86 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 81 
 
 5 06 
 
 9 96 
 
 7 92 
 
 5 23 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 18 53 
 
 S 13 
 
 6 23 
 
 3 S4 
 
 6 66 
 
 8 73 
 
 5 76 
 
 9 32 
 
 8 35 
 
 4 88 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 37 
 
 6 99 
 
 5 94 
 
 7 32 
 
 10 14 
 
 7 15 
 
 10 86 
 
 10 30 
 
 6 74 
 
 
 5 34 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 28 
 
 6 48 
 
 6 59 
 
 7 81 
 
 
 7 02 
 
 13 81 
 
 10 62 
 
 6 96 
 
 13 36 
 
 6 00 
 
 
 
 
 9 75 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 33 
 
 8 12 
 
 
 
 17 82 
 
 11 59 
 
 7 71 
 
 16 84 
 
 8 13 
 
 6 99 
 
 10 13 
 
 8 67 
 
 11 19 
 
 
 
 
 2.355,505 96 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 74 
 
 19 SO 
 
 11 68 
 
 
 20 02 
 
 7 73 
 
 6 65 
 
 9 90 
 
 9 06 
 
 13 18 
 
 
 
 o ss 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19 19 
 
 9 13 
 
 7 47 
 
 10 67 
 
 8 04 
 
 15 10 
 
 7 96 
 
 
 lO 81 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 04 
 
 14 03 
 
 8 -S 
 
 
 13 51 
 
 9 24 
 
 21 40 
 
 9 56 
 
 10 02 
 
 10 63 
 
 9 21 
 
 16 30 
 
 8 43 
 
 
 11 56 
 
 3,126,0,.3 09 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 50 
 
 13 66 
 
 9 22 
 
 
 14 28 
 
 9 79 
 
 22 63 
 
 12 39 
 
 7 71 
 
 12 70 
 
 9 29 
 
 16 00 
 
 8 66 
 
 12 85 
 
 11 7S 
 
 3,272,335 33 
 
 
 
 
 1" 114 
 
 
 
 14 ■;:! 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 87 
 
 20 91 
 
 14 72 
 
 9 48 
 
 22 49 
 
 12 03 
 
 8 09 
 
 12 94 
 
 9 86 
 
 18 01 
 
 11 24 
 
 12 57 
 
 12 8« 
 
 3,694,686 38 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 72 
 
 11 85 
 
 22 54 
 
 15 37 
 
 10 22 
 
 24 40 
 
 12 43 
 
 9 00 
 
 13 00 
 
 10 90 
 
 20 15 
 
 11 38 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 23 32 
 
 
 IS 67 
 
 9 86 
 
 12 87 
 
 n 84 
 
 19 83 
 
 11 63 
 
 25 00 
 
 15 83 
 
 13 31 
 
 23 52 
 
 12 99 
 
 8 77 
 
 13 85 
 
 11 74 
 
 23 64 
 
 11 75 
 
 
 14 7« 
 
 4,233,211 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19 90 
 
 7 24 
 
 15 48 
 
 10 47 
 
 16 03 
 
 
 
 14 26 
 
 
 28 20 
 
 11 66 
 
 11 48 
 
 13 48 
 
 14 37 
 
 22 71 
 
 11 17 
 
 14 31 
 
 14 a» 
 
 4,358.523 69 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 71 
 
 
 22 33 
 
 10 80 
 
 
 10 93 
 
 15 06 
 
 14 55 
 
 22 18 
 
 16 54 
 
 11 24 
 
 29 09 
 
 12 74 
 
 11 43 
 
 13 61 
 
 15 85 
 
 20 47 
 
 11 44 
 
 12 93 
 
 14 SI 
 
 4,400.898 59 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 37 
 
 11 40 
 
 16 30 
 
 11 00 
 
 14 76 
 
 13 68 
 
 2S 57 
 
 17 36 
 
 12 57 
 
 26 03 
 
 12 03 
 
 
 12 96 
 
 16 38 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1878 
 
 62 
 
 13 94 
 
 10 97 
 
 22 40 
 
 27 84 
 
 19 OS 
 
 9 80 
 
 15 15 
 
 9 85 
 
 14 92 
 
 13 67 
 
 26 80 
 
 16 67 
 
 10 41 
 
 24 06 
 
 10 81 
 
 9 66 
 
 16 98 
 
 15 72 
 
 16 46 
 
 13 34 
 
 
 
 4,191,610 77 
 
 1859-78 
 
 44 
 
 lo an 
 
 9 49 
 
 17 2S 
 
 25 02 
 
 13 38 
 
 7 47 
 
 9 23 
 
 8 81 
 
 12 44 
 
 9 26 
 
 17 63 
 
 12 66 
 
 8 24 
 
 17 96 
 
 8 72 
 
 6 78 
 
 10 68 
 
 9 66 
 
 13 46 
 
 8 03 
 
 11 27 
 
 lo ai 
 
 
 187fr-8 
 
 49 
 
 14 40 
 
 11 77 
 
 22 96 
 
 31 S4 
 
 21 08 
 
 10 66 
 
 15 45 
 
 10 69 
 
 14 91 
 
 13 93 
 
 25 85 
 
 16 85 
 
 11 41 
 
 26 39 
 
 11 86 
 
 10 02 
 
 14 18 
 
 15 98 
 
 13 96 
 
 12 16 
 
 13 66 
 
 14 64 
 
 
 Appropriation i 
 
 » Twenty Principal Town 
 
 Milton .... 
 
 Springfitld! '. 
 Cnmljrklge . . 
 Now Bedford 
 
 Average of Com- 
 monivealtlt ... 
 
 Norlliaiiiplon 
 Newliuryport 
 
 Three years, 1876-8. 
 
 .^pringfipkl . . 
 Ntw Bedford 
 
 Brooklinc 
 
 Milton 
 
 Newton . .■ 
 
 Boaton 
 
 Cambridee 
 
 New Bedford .... 
 
 epiingHeld 
 
 Plymouth 
 
 Salem 
 
 Fitchburg 
 
 Lowell 
 
 Average of Com' 
 mouivealth - . . 
 
 ftiilncy 
 
 Worcester 
 
 &;;;:::: 
 
 NorLlmniplon .... 
 Newburyport .... 
 
 Fallllivpr WW'.'. 
 Pittsfield 
 
 Itelative order of ciliei 
 
 towiiB specitied duri 
 eacli period. 
 
 Amherst . 
 BoBton . . 
 Brookline 
 Cambridge 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 " 
 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 15 
 16 
 
 8 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 IS 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 18 
 
 16 
 21 
 12 
 11 
 
 6 
 16 
 14 
 
 
47 
 
 Tho price paid b}' the citizens of Quincy is the average price paid 
 tiironi>li(>ut the Commonwealth. During sixteen years of instruc- 
 tion of the ordinary badness it was a trifle more than the average ; 
 during four years of exceptional!}- good instruction it has been a 
 trille less. The (iuinc^'comuvittee, therefore, now confidently claim 
 that they have demonstrated the second, and, from a practical point 
 of view, b)' far the most important of their two propositions. That 
 a good common-school education could be had at some cost, no one 
 ever doubted ; they claim that they have shown it could be had at 
 a reasonable and average cost. Under other circumstances, also, 
 they insist that a much better showing ought to be made ; for 
 in Quincy the number of children in the several schools is not 
 sufficiently large to admit of that perfect grading througii which 
 only the best educational results can be combined with the utmost 
 economy. For example, in one school of that town the salary 
 of the teacher alone averages $50 a year to each scholar taught, 
 while if the school was full it would average but $20. Taking 
 results as they are, however, under conditions not peculiarly- 
 favorable to good results, the conclusion of general interest to 
 be drawn from all this is, as the Quincy committee submits, that 
 the present average school appropriation of Massachusetts is 
 ample to sustain the common schools of the State at the high- 
 est point of excellence anywhere known to them. To do this, 
 however, it must be intelligently applied and not ignorantly 
 muddled away. Honesty and good intentions are not enough ; 
 some science is here necessar}-. At present, among other things, 
 well-meaning stupidity, gi'cediness of petty authorit}- and jealousy 
 of superior knowledge on the part of local school committees are 
 proving terribly exi^ensive luxuries to onr towns. Studied in the 
 light of the recent experience of Quincy, the statistics of the Board 
 of Education show clearl}- enough that under a moderate computa- 
 tion an annual waste of some two millions a 3-ear is now regularl}- 
 going on in Massachusetts from the lack of a pervading and intel- 
 ligent direction of expenditures for school purposes. A sufficientl}- 
 good education, an incomparabl}- better education than is now 
 given, can and should be given at an annual cost not exceeding 
 Si 7 per scholar at the utmost and including everything except new 
 buildings, and no good reason exists w-hy that amount should ever 
 
47 
 
 Tho pvice paid hy tlie citizens of Quiiicy is the average price paid 
 liii()u<ili(nit the Commonwealth. During sixteen years of instruc- 
 tion of the ordinary badness it was a trifle more than the average ; 
 during ibur ^'ears of exceptionally good instruction it has been a 
 trille less. The C^uinc^^ committee, therefore, now confidently claim 
 that they have demonstrated the second, and, from a practical point 
 of view, b}' far the most important of their two proi^ositions. That 
 a good connnon-school education could be had at some cost, no one 
 ever doubted ; they claim that they have shown it could be had at 
 a reasonable and average cost. Under other circumstances, also, 
 they insist that a much better showing ought to be made ; for 
 in Quincy the number of children in the several schools is not 
 sufliciently large to admit of that perfect grading through which 
 only th(^ best educational results can be combined Avith the utmost 
 economy. For example, in one school of that town the salar}' 
 of the teacher alone averages $50 a year to each scholar taught, 
 while if the school was full it would average but $20. Taking 
 results as they are, however, under conditions not peculiarly 
 favorable to good results, the conclusion of general interest to 
 be drawn from all this is, as the Quincy committee submits, that 
 the present average school appropriation of Massachusetts is 
 ample to sustain the common schools of the State at the high- 
 est point of excellence anywhere known to them. To do this, 
 however, it must be intelligently applied and not ignorantly 
 muddled away. Honesty and good intentions are not enough ; 
 some science is here necessar}'. At present, among other things, 
 well-meaning stupidity, greediness of petty authority and jealousy 
 of superior knowledge on the part of local school committees are 
 proving terribly expensive luxuries to onr towns. Studied in the 
 light of the recent experience of Quincy, the statistics of the Board 
 of Education show clearly enough that under a moderate computa- 
 tion an annual waste of some two millions a 3X'ar is now regularly 
 going on in Massachusetts from the lack of a pervading and intel- 
 ligent direction of expenditures for school purposes. A sufRcientl}' 
 good education, an incomparabl}' better education than is now 
 given, can and should be given at an annual cost not exceeding 
 $17 per scholar at the utmost and including everj'thing except new 
 buildings, and no good reason exists why that amount should ever 
 
48 
 
 or anywhere, except under some peculiar and temporary exigency, 
 be exceeded. Tlie community now spends the mone}-, but fails to 
 get its hundred cents of value returned for each dollar. 
 
 In conclusion, whatever degree of success has marked the recent 
 experience of Quincy, has been due to three concurring circum- 
 stances ; — the town, by its action, retained a committee in office 
 long enough to enable it to mature and carr^' out an educational 
 policy, — in fact to all intents and purposes it was a commission ; — 
 that committee had a distinct idea of something necessary to be 
 done, and of a method of doing it ; — and, finally, the assistance of 
 a competent and intelligent executive officer was secured. This 
 concurrence of circumstances is one not eas}' to be brought about, 
 and if it is not brought about there is no remedy, — the communitj' 
 must pa}' at least twice what they are worth for its schools. For 
 one only of these three conditions can any further pubhc provis- 
 ion be made ; that, however, is the most important of the three. It 
 has ah'eady been referred to as the organization of the superintend- 
 ency. In the State of Massachusetts alone, as the table facing 
 page 46 shoAvs, over four million dollars are now annuallj' raised 
 b}' taxation to be expended on the common school s^'stem. Of 
 this large sum it has been suggested that one-half is inju- 
 diciously expended. To say the least, no intelhgent du-ection is 
 given to it. It is exactly as if in cities and towns, mills or facto- 
 ries were kept in operation for public purposes, but the care of 
 them was entrusted to shifting conunittees chosen by popular vote. 
 Just those mills and factories are indeed running ; but, instead of 
 putting into them hemp, or cotton, or iron to be worked up, we 
 put in our children. The teaching of a human generation is such 
 a xerj simple business that any one can du-ect it ! — The result is 
 precisel}' the same as if a like pohcy were pursued in those iudus- 
 ti'ies which pay the taxes which support the schools. If mills and 
 founderies were run in this way, you would have very poor cloth and 
 iron at a ver}' high cost. So it is as respects the common school 
 system, — onl}' the human intellect is a much more delicate raw ma- 
 terial with which to deal than cotton or iron ore. The consequence is 
 that very few persons, whose attentioi: lias not been particularly 
 
49 
 
 called to the matter, have an}' idea what a wretched article of pub- 
 lic education we in Massachusetts arc now getting, in spite of the 
 large sum we pay for it. So far as mj' observation enables me to 
 judge, the old Commonwealth is in this matter living on its past 
 reputation. 
 
 Neither can any improvement in the present state of affairs be 
 hoped for from the school committee as it now exists. In a per- 
 manent point of view, indeed, the temporary presence of an active- 
 minded, restless man upon a committee is more apt to v»ork an in- 
 jury than otherwise. He introduces his changes, and does not carry 
 them out ; he rides his hobbj' for a ^-ear or two in school and com- 
 mittee room, and then goes awa^- leaving his hobby behind him. 
 Teachers and scholars after he has gone, mount the hobby and go 
 through the motions he has taught them, for a time, — but they are 
 no better than any other motions ; just as a rut, after all, is a rut, 
 and nothing else. Education is now a science, even common-school 
 education. Only within the last thirty years, however, has it l^ecome 
 so. Being a science, it must, lUiC all other sciences, be canied for- 
 ward by specialists, and not experimented on b}' amatem's. Indeed, 
 the wise amateur is he who will recognize his own insufficiency, and 
 call in the assistance of the specialist. In our larger cities, and most 
 noticeably so in the case of cities the size of Boston, the committee 
 system is, therefore, whoUy outgrown. It should long since have 
 given way to the commission. Spasmodic, lumbering, changeable 
 and incapable of that sustained effort necessar}' to carr}- out an}- 
 enlightened polic}', the school committee, once its work has out- 
 grown it, invariably becomes a mere focus of intrigue. Progress 
 through it cannot be said to be impossible ; but it is terriblj' slow, 
 and even more costly than it is slow. Our people have a demo- 
 cratic, and, perhaps, healthy prejudice against coimnissions ; but 
 they come to them at last. Though no one j^et has uttered the 
 word, it is probably not unsafe to predict that the next interest to 
 be entrusted to them for development will be the conunon schools 
 of om' larger cities. 
 
 As yet, however, in Massachusetts, so far as the common-school 
 system is concerned, specialists in education do not, as a class, exist. 
 Individuals there are fully qualified for the work, men of observant 
 chai'acter who have reflected much on their own experience and 
 
50 
 
 are self-trained ; but the science of training and developing the 
 human mind through a careful study of its laws is not as }' et recog- 
 nized here as a science at aU. It is looked upon as a business or a 
 knack, something to be acquired by practice or picked up by obser- 
 vation. Young men are elaborately trained in schools of theolog}^, 
 of law, of medicine, and of science ; but teaching itself is as yet 
 looked down upon by educationaUsts as something too ludicrously 
 sunple to caU for any special preparation. Any one can understand 
 the development of the human intellect ! — The normal schools are 
 consequently looked to to supply the want, if, indeed there is a 
 want. This, however, is not the mission of the normal schools 
 Their field of usefulness — and it is a very large field — is on a 
 whoU}'^ different plane. They supply teachers, and they have their 
 hands full in doing that. The teacher, however, even the suc- 
 cessful teacher, does not need to have the enlarging influence of an 
 entire liberal education. The superintendent does need it. From 
 the necessity of the case, also, the professional teacher of the 
 common school, especially the country common school, must be 
 a person contented with the smaller prizes of life. You cannot 
 have forty professors, or persons qualified to be professors, to 
 teach their A B C's or " the three R's" to the 1,600 childi-en of a 
 country town. It is possible, however, to have one professor, or at 
 least a part of one professor, to dh*ect and infuse with his spirit 
 the others. But before he can du-ect or infuse others with his spuit, 
 this man must himself have a spirit. In other words, he must have 
 acquired the principles of his science in the same way that ph3'si- 
 cians, and lawyers, and clergymen acquire those of then." sciences. 
 UntU. some public provision exists for this, every attempt at an 
 organized superintendency will only result, as those attempts 
 hitherto haver esulted, in a dangerous!}' large percentage of fail- 
 ures, bringing discredit on the sj'stem. Yet what is there which 
 does not fail when entrusted to incompetent hands ? — Is it a cam- 
 paign, or a ship, or a business, or a household, or a college? 
 
 In this matter our institutions of higher education would seem 
 to owe a debt of recognition to the cause of general education 
 which they have been somewhat slow to recognize. There is a 
 missing hnli here, and, in what should be an American specialty, 
 we seem to be behind o^her countries. The apparent attitude as 
 
51 
 
 yet taken by oiir universities towards our common schools is, 
 either that those who direct and develop the latter must, hke poets, 
 be born and cannot even be improved, or that any one is equal to 
 so simple a work. Certainly, training their graduates for every 
 other path in hie, they make no effort to train them for this. And 
 yet, taking into view the vast field of our common-school sj'stem and 
 its intimate connection with the mass of the people, it would not be 
 easy to conceive any position in which a competent teacher, a man 
 believing in his mission, could exercise a wider and larger influence 
 over the future of this country, than in the chair of pedagog}' of the 
 past graduate course of one of our gi-eat universities. He would 
 teach the teachers. It is encouraging to find, also, that an apprecia- 
 tion of this fact, — of the fact that our institutions of higher learning 
 owe something to the cause of general education, begins to find 
 acceptance. To the Universit}' of Michigan belongs, in this case, 
 the honor of the lead, through the recent estabhshment as part of 
 its course of a chair of the Art of Education. Unquestionably the 
 example wUl speedily be followed elsewhere, and a spirit of scientific 
 instruction wiU thus be generallj^ diffused. 
 
 The common schools are the one thing in regard to which there 
 is no division of opinion in America. The people of the country 
 cling to them and lavish appropriations upon them in the firm 
 belief that they are the ark of the national salvation. In Mas- 
 sachusetts one-fifth of the entire amount raised by taxation is 
 expended on them. That under these cu'cumstances the}' should 
 be no better than the}' now are is a significant fact, meriting more 
 than a passing notice. They are not what they should be, — indeed 
 they are very far from it. An}' practical experience which throws 
 light on the causes of then* defloienc}' is, therefore, of value ; any 
 intelligent experiment made with a view to remedying that dcfi- 
 cienc}^ cannot be unworthy of attention ; what is true of one is 
 probabl}' nou luitrue of aU ; — and it is a wide-spread public want, — 
 this pressing need of intelligent du'cction concentrating the costly 
 and misdu-ected efforts to a given end, and insph'ing them with a 
 consciousness of progress, — this advantage of a trained superiu- 
 tendenc}', which more than all or anj-thing else has been illus- 
 trated in the recent common-school experience of Quincy. 
 
 i( 
 
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