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 ST^^TE or p.A.IL.IFOI?.l^q■I^A.^ 
 
 Hon. JOHN SWETT, 
 
 BEFORE THE STATE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE, 
 
 JJeld in Snn Vrancisco, May 7th, 1867 . 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 rowNE:'^&.- Bacon, Book and Job Printers, Excelsior Office, 
 
 No. 536 Clay Street, just below Montgomery. 
 1867. 
 

 EXCHANGE 
 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Four years ago, many of you now before me, were present at 
 the largest and most enthusiastic gathering of teachers that ever 
 assembled in this State. I remember well the circumstances under ' 
 which we met. The army of the Potomac had been driven back 
 from the disastrous field of Chancellorsville ; the rebel hordes were 
 already on their march into the heart of the North : and wounded, 
 bleeding, and exhausted, the nation seemed to be gathering its pow- 
 ers for the final wager of battle which should determine its fate 
 forever. The star of treason seemed to be in the ascendant. Reb- 
 els were exultant and patriots despondent. Yicksburg could neverj 
 be taken ; Port Hudson was impregnable ; and Lee would soon 
 lay New York in ashes. In two short months Grant had strangled 
 Vicksburg; Port Hudson had fallen; Gettysburg, made immortal 
 by victory, was consecrated by the graves of thousands of heroes 
 who died that we might live ; the tide of invasion was rolled back, 
 and the nation was saved. Then followed in swift and glorious"" 
 succession : Chattanooga, the fall of Atlanta, the annihilation of 
 Hood, Sherman's triumphal march through Georgia and South Car- 
 olina, the desperate struggles of the Wilderness, the decisive bat- 
 tle of Five Forks, the surrender of Lee, and the war was ended^ 
 
 The exultation of victory, and the gladness of peace were sad- 
 dened by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the last great 
 victim of the barbarism of slavery ; and a new political contest 
 began for the preservation of the civil rights which had been won 
 at the point of the bayonet. 
 
 Thanks to the wisdom, prudence and patriotism of the Thirty- / 
 ninth Congress, victory again crowned the banner of progress, and 
 the nation is to be reconstructed on the eternal principles of jus- 
 tice. No grander record of Freedom and Nationality was ever 
 made. 
 
 "^oerr^/i <r^#n> 
 
The work is done, and well done ; and we may exclaim with Wil- 
 liam CuUen Bryant : 
 
 O thou great Wrong, that through the slow-paced years 
 
 Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield 
 
 The scourge that drove the laborer to the field. 
 And look with stony eye on human tears, 
 Thy cruel reign is o'er ; 
 Thy bondmen crouch no more 
 In terror at the menace of thine eye ; 
 • For He who marks the bounds of guilty power, 
 Long suffering, hath heard the captive's cry, 
 
 And touched his shackles at the appointed hour. 
 And lo ! they fall, and he whose limbs they galled 
 Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled. 
 
 A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent ; 
 
 Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks ; 
 
 Our rivers roll exulting, and their banks 
 Send up hosannas to the firmanent. 
 
 Fields, where the bondman's toil 
 No more shall trench the soil, 
 Seem now to bask in a serener day ; 
 
 The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs 
 Of Heaven with more caressing softness play, 
 
 Welcoming man to liberty like theirs. 
 A glory clothes the land from sea to sea. 
 For the great land and all its coasts are free. 
 
 During this eventful period, amid the upheavals of the transition 
 epoch of the nation, in all the loyal States, the public schools have 
 quietly and steadily gained strength. The war has proved their ' 
 value, and demonstrated their necessity to the existence of a free 
 people. Where would the nation have been to-day, but for the 
 intelligence imparted by free schools during the last quarter of a 
 century ? Who fought our battles but the men drilled into patriots ^ 
 by the public schools ? In the great political campaigns since the 
 war, what but the general diffusion of intelhgence has kept the 
 people true to freedom ? The character and opinions of the men 
 whose will, expressed through the ballot box, makes and amends 
 constitutions, have been formed in the public schools. 
 
 Into the regions of rebellion and ignorance, free schools havei 
 followed in the track of Union armies. The gleam of intelligence j \ 
 already begins to illuminate the dusky faces of the children of a^ 
 race long enslaved. 
 
 The old flag of a new nation now floats over every foot of the . 
 old republic, and everywhere under its protecting folds every 
 
 3^ 
 
human being may claim the right of free labor, free speech, free 
 thought, and free schools. 
 
 Turning from these grand historical events of the nation, to our 
 own young State on the outer verge of the continent, let us mark 
 its educational progress. 
 
 Since the Institute of 1863, our public schools have been quietly 
 and peacefully revolutionized. In the grand events of national his- i 
 tory, in the building of cities, the construction of roads, the settle- ^ 
 ment of land titles, and the excitement of life incident to a new ) 
 State, the progress of schools is hardly noticed except by those who / 
 are most directly interested in them. Then, we had little to be 
 proud of in our educational record ; now, California will not suffer 
 by comparison with the most progressive educational States in the 
 Union. 
 
 Then, the annual amount of money expended for public schools, 
 was ^80,000 ; noiv, it is nearly a million. 
 
 Then, there was no direct State tax for the support of schools ; 
 now, the State tax is eight cents on the one hundred dollars, giving 
 an annual revenue from this source alone, of $120,000. 
 
 Then, the State apportionment was $130,000 ; now, it is 
 $260,000. 
 
 Then, the amount raised by county and city school taxes was 
 $294,000 ; now, it is $470,000. 
 
 Then, the amount raised by district taxes, voted by the people, 
 was $7,000 ; last year the amount was $73,000, or more than ten 
 times the amount raised in 1862. 
 
 Then, the maximum county school tax allowed by law, was 
 twenty-five cents, and the minimum required to be levied, nothing 
 at all; now, the maximum tax is thirty-five cents, and the mini- 
 mum tax must be equal to three dollars per census child, which in 
 many counties requires the maximum rate of thirty-five cents. 
 
 Then, the amount raised by rate-bills of tuition was $130,000 ; 
 now, it is only $79,000, showing a rapid approximation to a free 
 school system. Three-fourths of the pupils now attend free schools 
 during the year, and all are secured by law the right of a free 
 school, either for three months or five months, in proportion to the 
 size of district. 
 
 Then, the amount paid for teachers' salaries was $328,000 ; now, 
 it is $550,000 — an increase of sixty-eight per cent. — while the num- 
 
ber of teachers, in the same time, has increased only thirty-one per 
 cent. 
 
 Then^ the total expenditure for schools amounted to a per cent- 
 age on the assessment roll of the State, of thirty cents on each 
 one hundred dollars ; noiv^ it amounts to more than fifty cents on 
 the one hundred dollars. 
 
 In 1862, the amount expended per census child, was six dollars 
 and fifteen cents ; last year, it was ten dollars and twenty cents. 
 
 In 1862, the amount expended for school houses, was $49,000 ; 
 in 1865, it was $257,000. During the school years 1864 and 
 1865, two hundred new school houses were erected. The total 
 amount expended for school houses in this State, since 1862, is 
 greater than the amount for the ten years previous. The limita- 
 tion of the tax for building school houses, which was forced upon 
 the friends of the Revised School Law, has somewhat interfered 
 with the erection of buildings during the past year ; but this limi- 
 tation will be repealed at the next session of the Legislature. 
 
 Then, the average length of the schools was less than six months 
 in the year ; now, it is seven and four-tenths months — an average 
 length of schools which is exceeded only by Massachusetts and 
 Nevada, of all the States in the Union. 
 
 Since then, while the number of census children has increased 
 twenty-six per cent., the average number attending the public 
 schools has increased more than fifty per cent. 
 
 The stronger hold which the schools have taken on public opinion, 
 the greater skill, earnestness and enthusiasm of teachers, the con- 
 sequent improvement in methods of instruction and classification ; 
 the use of better text books ; the deeper personal interest of pa- 
 rents ; the neater and more commodious houses : all these together 
 constitute an advancement which cannot be expressed by a contrast 
 / of statistics. 
 " Then, we had no State educational journal, and hardly a dozen ' 
 copies of the school journals of other States entered the Golden 
 Gate ; now, the California Teacher has a circulation of 2,700 
 copies. It reaches every school ofiicer in the State ; it goes into 
 the hands of every teacher, into every school library, and to every 
 newspaper in the State. Many of its items of information, and 
 educational articles are largely quoted and republished by the news- 
 paper press ; and the result is that the amount of reading relating 
 to schools, put before the people, has been increased a hundred fold. 
 
It has done more to inform Trustees, to awaken professional pride / ' 
 among teachers, and to secure an efficient execution of the School 
 Law, than any other educational agency in the State. It has cost ; 
 the two editors who nurtured its feeble infancy some anxiety, and 
 many a day's extra work ; but they are fully satisfied that the labor 
 has not been given in vain. J 
 
 Then^ the State Normal School numbered thirty pupils ; now^ V 
 it has one hundred and twenty-five enrolled, has graduated sev- 
 enty-eight, and has sent out a hundred undergraduates. i 
 
 Then^ we had no system of professional examinations ; no educaT"! ^ 
 tional society ; no organization, and little professional pride. In 
 fact, a man generally apologized for being forced to resort to teach- 
 ing until he could find something else to do. 
 
 Then^ the " old schoolmasters " of San Francisco were examined 
 every year by doctors, lawyers, dentists, contractors, and business r 
 men, to " see if they were fit to teach the common school " they 
 had been teaching years in succession. There was no standard of 
 qualification, except the caprice of " accidental boards." 
 
 Throughout the State, examinations were oral, and in most cases, 
 resulted in issuing to everybody who applied, a certificate " to teach 
 school one year." 
 
 Now^ a new order of things prevails. Every Board of Examin- . 
 ation, whether State, City, or County, must be composed of pro- f 
 fessional teachers exclusively ; all examinations must be in writing, 
 and in certain specified studies ; and certificates are issued for life, 
 or for a length of time proportioned to the grade of certificate 
 issued. 
 
 California is the only State in the Union, in which teachers have 
 gained the legal right to be examined exclusively by the members 
 of their own profession, and we have just cause to be proud of the 
 fact. It has already done much to make the occupation of teach- 
 ing respectable. It has relieved good teachers from useless annoy- 
 ance and humihation ; it has increased their self-respect, stimu- 
 lated their ambition, and guarded the schools against quacks and 
 pretenders. 
 
 Concerning this provision of the law. Prof. Wm. Russell, of L 
 Massachusetts, who has been for many years the advocate of pro- | 
 fessional certificates for teachers in the older States, says in the"^ 
 December No. of BarnarcCs Journal of JEducation : 
 
" By the ' Revised School Law,' approved March 24th, 1866, 
 professional diplomas are classified as conferred by State, county, 
 and city boards of examination. The close attention to details in 
 these enactments, indicates the careful consideration with which 
 the measures contemplated have been prepared. The results al- 
 ready secured place the State of California on high vantage ground, 
 as a field of educational labor, inviting the attention of all worthy 
 candidates for the office of teachers ; and the State cannot fail to 
 reap a rich reward for the noble spirit of enterprise which, in this 
 respect, it has manifested. Its popular designation, ' The Golden 
 State,' will, ere many years shall have elapsed, bear a new and 
 higher meaning, referring to ' riches that perish not with the using.' 
 In coming years, the other and older States, in which but a partial 
 progress has as yet been made toward the results already secured 
 in California, will gratefully acknowledge the benefits derived from 
 \Jth.e influence of her example." 
 
 f^ Our School Law is the only one in the United States which has 
 taken broad, professional ground, by providing that the diplomas of 
 State Normal Schools in other States shall entitle the holders to 
 legal recognition as teachers in this State. 
 
 The State Board of Education has already issued thirty-three 
 " State Life Diplomas," and the State Board of Examination has 
 granted eighty State Educational Diplomas, valid for six years ; 
 eighty-four First Grade Certificates, valid for four years ; eighty-two 
 Second Grade Certificates, valid for two years ; and forty Third 
 Grade Certificates, valid for one year : making a total of three hun- 
 dred and nineteen State Certificates, or one-fourth of the whole 
 number engaged in teaching in California. 
 
 Throughout the State, the County Boards have established a fair 
 standard of qualification — the printed questions of the State Board 
 are generally used — and as a result, the old teachers have become 
 ambitious to secure the highest grade certificates, competent 
 teachers are secured, and the schools are protected against incom- 
 V petent ones whose only recommendation was that of teaching for 
 little or nothing. 
 
 I hazard nothing in saying that the standard of qualification re- 
 quired for the teachers of ungraded county schools in this State is 
 uniformly higher than in any other State in the Union. It is the 
 testimony of County Superintendents that our thorough system of 
 
\ 
 
 examinations has doubled the efficiency of the common schools of 
 the State. 
 
 Strange to say, this new system of professional examinations was 
 violently opposed four years ago, and by none so vehemently as by 
 some common school teachers. 
 
 The world moves : is there a single teacher here who would de- I 
 sire to have the old order of things re-established ? But I never I 
 doubted, that once established, it would remain a part of our school I 
 system as long as schools were maintained. ^^ 
 
 ""'■ It was my sanguine hope, for many years, that, in this new 
 State, teaching might aspire to the dignity of a profession ; that 
 teachers might learn to combine their strength, respect themselves, 
 command the respect of others, and honor their occupation. I have 
 hved already to see the promise of the future. It has been and is /, . 
 my highest ambition to elevate the profession of teaching ; for I 
 well know that in no other way can the public schools be made the 
 great educators of the State and the nation. If the citizens of this 
 State desire to have good schools, they must pay professionally 
 trained teachers high salaries. If they want talent, they must / 
 buy it. ' 
 
 Already the result has been to materially raise the wages of 
 teachers, and to increase the demand for professional teachers, in- 
 stead of itinerants. 
 
 Four years ago, outside of San Francisco, there were not ten 
 schools in the State which paid an annual salary of $1,000 ; now, 
 there are a hundred teachers who receive from $1,000 to $1,200 a 
 year. 
 
 Trustees, in writing to the Department of Instruction for 
 teachers, say : " Send us a professional teacher holding a State 
 Diploma, and we will pay the very highest wages." 
 
 The salaries of good female teachers have been materially in- 
 creased. San Francisco pays the highest average salaries given 
 to female teachers in any public schools in the world. 
 
 The salary of the female assistant in the State Normal* School is 
 $1,300 a year, a salary exceeded by only three or four positions in ^ 
 the United States. St. Louis pays the female principal of the City ,' 
 Normal School $2,000 a year; but that is in currency, while CaU-J 
 fornia salaries are gold. 
 
8 
 
 A dozen women in this citj are paid $1,200 a year, and a score 
 receive $1,000 a year. 
 
 1 It is only by raising the standard of attainments that the occupa- 
 
 c< tion can become well-paid and well-respected. Set the standard 
 
 high, and high wages will follow : set the standard high, and good 
 
 schools will be the result : set the standard high, and teachers will 
 
 be content to remain in the schools. 
 
 ^^ Let all teachers who act on County, City, or State Boards of Ex- 
 amination, discharge their duty faithfully, without reference to the 
 pressure of friends, or the complaints of unsuccessful applicants, 
 v]^ ever bearing in mind the duty they owe to the schools, the people 
 and the profession of teachingll 
 
 Professionally trained teachers, well-paid for their work, will 
 bring the schools up to their fullest measure of usefulness, and will 
 ^secure from the people the most liberal support. 
 
 Four years ago. County Institutes were held in only two or three 
 counties in the State ; now, the law requires one Annual Institute 
 in every county having ten school districts, and further requires 
 that teachers shall attend, and that trustees shall allow their wages 
 to continue during the time of attendance. 
 
 In this particular it is the most progressive law on record. Al- 
 ready the Institutes have been productive of great good. i 
 
 Four years ago there was not a Teachers' Library in the State, 
 except a few odd volumes in San Francisco. 
 
 Now, all the large counties have begun a central library, and 
 some of them have quite extensive ones. 
 
 Four years ago we had public schools, but no organized system 
 of public instruction. 
 
 Now, we have a Central State Board of Education, with powers 
 ^more extensive than have ever been given to the State Board of 
 7\nj other State in the Union. 
 
 But these powers are for systematizing, not for controlling or 
 governing the schools in the details which properly belong to the 
 local school officers. 
 
 • Four years ago the County Schools were filled with an innume- 
 rable variety of different text-books : — Arithmetics of every date, 
 from Daboll's and Pike's down to Thompson's and Greenleafs; 
 Grammars, from Lindley Murray and Smith, to Brown and Greene ; 
 Readers, Spellers and Geographies enough to fill an antiquarian 
 
book-store : these books were changed, sometimes as often as the 
 teachers : there was no possibihty of classification or systematic 
 instruction : and migratory famiUes of half a dozen children, in 
 moving about, accumulated extensive libraries of books, which repre- 
 sented a considerable amount of capital not very profitably in- 
 vested. 
 
 Now, we have a uniform series of modern books, with which 
 teachers have become familiar ; the schools are classified, and thous- 
 ands of dollars are annually saved to the pockets of parents. None 
 of the evils, foretold by impracticable teachers, and trustees sus- 
 picious of monopoly, have come to pass. The only losers have been 
 the book publishers and dealers. 
 
 We have a course of study, established by law, by means of" 
 which teachers are enabled to pursue an intelligent system of in- 
 struction, in spite of the prejudices of parents who are too ignorant ( 
 to comprehend the purpose of a school. 
 
 We have judicious rules and regulations estabhshed by law to 
 aid teachers in enforcing discipline and order. In no other State 
 is the authority of the teacher so well established and defined by 
 law. Every district school in the State is placed under a judicious 
 system of general rules and regulations. 
 
 Four years ago, school statistics were notoriously unreliable ; the 
 records were kept without system, in old blank books or on scraps 
 of paper, and often were not kept at all : now, every school is sup- 
 plied with a State School Register, so simple in its style of book- 
 keeping that the most careless teacher can hardly fail to keep a 
 reliable record. 
 
 Then, trustees wrote their oi:ders to County Superintendents on 
 scraps of paper without much regard to business forms, and often 
 without keeping any accounts ; now, the neat order books, in the 
 style of bank check books, furnished by the Department of Instruc- 
 tion, allow of no excuse for failing to keep a financial record of 
 money paid out. 
 
 Then, the reports of Teachers, Trustees and Census Marshals 
 were complicated and cumbersome, and were required to be made 
 in triplicate form ; now, all these reports have been reduced to the 
 simplest possible business forms, and are required to be made in 
 single blanks to the County Superintendents. 
 
 In 1862, one hundred and fifty copies of the Report of the 
 
10 
 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction were allowed the office of the 
 State Superintendent for distribution ; now, 4,000 copies are pub- 
 lished, and the law requires that a copy shall be sent to each Board 
 of Trustees, each school library, each County Superintendent, and 
 that two hundred and fifty copies shall be bound for distribution to 
 . the School Departments of other States. 
 
 ^^Then, there were no school libraries ; now, a library is begun in 
 every school district, and a liberal provision is made for their enlarge- 
 ment by a reservation of ten per cent, of the State School Fund 
 annually. 
 
 The influence of a library in school is second only to that of the 
 teacher ; and, in many instances, the information self-gleaned by 
 the pupils from books, is the most valuable part of their common 
 school education. Books will give them a taste for reading, make 
 them alive to knowledge, and start them on a plan of self-culture 
 through life. A teacher may fail in the discharge of his duty, but 
 . the influence of good books is sure and lasting. 
 i^^ Then, most of the County Schools were destitute of maps, 
 charts, and globes ; now, most of them are suppUed. 
 
 Then, all school incidentals, such as pens, pencils, ink and sta- 
 tionery were furnished by the pupils themselves, and as a conse- 
 quence, half of the children were generally without these indispen- 
 sable articles ; now, they are furnished by the district to the pupils, 
 free of expense. 
 
 Without mentioning in detail other provisions of our Revised 
 School Law, it is enough to say that it has received the warmest 
 approbation from the most distinguished educators of the United 
 States. Hon. Newton Bateman, Professor William Eussell, Henry 
 Barnard, Wm. H. Wells, Jno. D. Philbrick, Jno. S. Hart, and 
 many others, unite in the opinion that the School Law of California 
 is one of the best in the United States, and in some points decid- 
 edly in advance of any in the older States. 
 
 Four years ago, the educators of the East hardly knew that pub- 
 lic schools existed at all in California. Now, our reports are found in 
 every large library and reading-room in the United States ; are in the 
 hands of all the prominent educators of the East ; are sent to the 
 Departments of Instruction in Europe ; and are still requested by 
 letters which arrive with almost every steamer mail. The Pres- 
 ident of the Smithsonian Institution, desirous of securing for publica- 
 
11 
 
 tion cuts and plans of some of the best school houses of the United 
 States, has just written to me to forward those of the Lincoln and 
 Denman school houses. 
 
 When we consider the generally depressed condition of business "l 
 in the State during the past four years ; the heavy losses during the 
 mining stock mania ; the losses by flood and drought ; the gradual 
 working out of placer mines, and the consequent depreciation of 
 property in many places ; the falling off in the trade of many 
 mining towns ; the unsettled condition of land titles in many of the 
 agricultural sections, and consequently the unsettled condition of 
 the people ; the slow increase of population from immigration, and 
 at times its actual decrease in consequence of attractive mines in 
 neighboring territories, and the slow increase of taxable property — 
 we have reason to be proud of the unexampled progress of our 
 Common Schools. 
 
 In the great work of settling and civilizing a new State — in the 
 building of cities, the construction of railroads, the cultivation of 
 farms, the development of quartz mines, the beginning of manu- 
 factures, and all the varied branches of industry — the influence of 
 schools is lost sight of in the figures of material statistics ; and it is 
 only when we consider that the 50,000 children now in the schools, 
 during the next twenty years will take their place in society as the 
 workers and producers, that we begin to realize the latent power of 
 the schools. They are silently weaving the network of mental and 
 moral influences which underlie civilization ; and when the children 
 shall become the masters of the material wealth of the State, the 
 influence of the schools will begin to be evident. ^ 
 
 While we may feel gratified with our progress, we must not for- 
 get that much remains to be done. Our schools still fall far short 
 of the work which is pressing upon them. We need better methods 
 of instruction ; we need to educate pubHc opinion to still higher ap- 
 preciation of the value and necessity of education. 
 ^1 The highest purpose of the public schools is to train the children I 
 to become good citizens. 'It is not enough that they teach the ele- V 
 ments of an intellectual education. They have a higher and nobler \ 
 duty. Education implies development, training, discipline ; a repres- / 
 sion of bad tendencies, as well as the culture of good ones. The 
 schools should train to habits of obedience and subordination, of 
 honesty and integrity. They should inculcate love of country and 
 
< 
 
 12 
 
 love of liberty. Thej should teach the duties, rights, privileges, 
 and honors of American citizenship. At present, how imperfectly 
 
 \As this great work done. 
 
 Fellow teachers ! the work is in your hands. All the machinery 
 of school law, all the money raised by school taxes, all the school 
 houses buil.t, are of little avail if you fail in the final work of 
 actually forming and moulding mind and character. But your 
 work is not, indeed, hmited to the school room alone. You must 
 make your influence felt on society. Attend the County Institutes, 
 write essays, and engage in debates and discussions. Write for the 
 local papers. Subscribe for and read carefully half a dozen of the 
 best school journals in the United States, and learn what is going 
 on in the educational world. Instead of complaining about the lack 
 of interest on the part of parents, visit every family in the district, 
 
 T'^nd wake up the fathers and mothers from their lethargy. Hold 
 frequent examinations and exhibitions, for the purpose of bringing 
 the people in direct contact with the school and its influences. 
 Start a subscription to increase the school library. A little money 
 directly from the pockets of the parents will lead to a better appre- 
 ciation of the value of books. Harass the trustees until they pur- 
 
 ""chase school apparatus, furnish new desks, or build a new school 
 house, if one is needed. If a special tax is necessary, canvass the 
 district for it with the zeal and earnestness of a professional poli- 
 tician. Visit other schools, read new works on education, and 
 adopt new methods of instruction. If you wrap yourselves up in 
 your own conceit, and imagine that nobody can tell you anything 
 about " keeping school," you will never rank among the pro- 
 gressives. 
 
 /*" If the teacher be a man among men, he will command respect ; 
 but if he confine himself to the school room, if he deal only with 
 books and boys, if he write nothing, say nothing, and do nothing, 
 society will be certain to estimate him by value received. The true 
 teacher should be a thinker and a doer. The scholarship required 
 of the teacher is a peculiar one. There is a sham scholarship 
 which prides itself on diplomas, flaunts Latinized phrases, and 
 ignores plain Saxon. There are pedants who hide their shallowness 
 under the 'veil of dullness. Like Wouter Van Twiller, the old 
 Dutch Governor of New York, they gain credit for knowing a vast 
 deal by saying nothing at all. But any teacher with his intellect- 
 
13 
 
 ual and spiritual faculties in good working condition, can be a 
 scholar, whether educated in the schools or out of them. 
 
 The teacher, above all others, should be endowed with that force 
 of character which stamps its impress on all that comes in contact 
 with it, for he is tested by what he does, not by what he knows. A 
 living man is wanted, not a walking library. He must kindle other 
 souls into enthusiasm by a spark of electric fire from his own. 
 
 It is often said that teaching narrows the mind, belittles the man, 
 and makes him merely a dray-horse in the monotonous round of the 
 limited circle of the school room. It may be so — it sometimes is 
 so ; but it is not a necessary result, if the teacher have in him any 
 elements of progression. The same holds true of other professions 
 and occupations : the thinker grows, and the imitator dwarfs and 
 sinks into a retailer of second-hand thoughts. 
 
 While teachers devote themselves to the training of boys and 
 girls, let them not neglect their own mental and spiritual develop- 
 ment, bearing in mind, with Plato, that "man cannot propose a( ^ 
 holier object of study than education, and all that appertains to 
 education." 
 
 We are apt to consider immediate results rather than their re- 
 mote causes ; and hence the power of the public schools is seldom 
 fully realized. 
 
 Light, heat, and electricity build up the material life of the globe 
 out of inorganic matter, yet so slowly and silently that we hardly 
 observe the workings of their subtle agencies. So the schools act 
 upon society, and organize its life out of the atoms of undeveloped 
 humanity attracted to the school rooms. 
 
 A few weeks since I visited one of the great quartz mills in the in- 
 terior of the State. I descended the deep shaft, where stalwart men 
 were blasting and delving in sohd rock. Above, the magnificent mill, 
 with fifty stamps, like some gigantic monster, was crushing and tearing 
 the white quartz with its iron teeth ; and I saw the immediate re- 
 sult of all this work in the heavy bars of pure gold, all ready to be 
 stamped with their commercial value, and to enter into the great 
 channels of trade. Then I entered a public school a few rods dis- 
 tant, where a hundred children were sitting, silently learning their 
 lessons. I realized the relation of the mill and mine to the mate- 
 rial prosperity of the State ; but the school, what did it yield ? 
 I rode over the line of the Central Pacific Railroad from the 
 
 P 
 
14- 
 
 spring time of Sacramento into the snowy winter of the Sierra, 
 and I saw the beginning of the great commercial aorta of a conti- 
 nent. On its cuts, and embankments, and rails, and locomotives, 
 more money had already been expended than has been paid for 
 schools since the history of our State began. I could see the 
 tangible results of the labor expended upon the road ; but where 
 should I look for the value received to balance the cost of the 
 schools ? After thundering down on its iron rails from the moun- 
 tain summits, I stepped into the Sacramento High School, and I 
 thought to myself: What are these boys and girls doing, compared 
 with the men who are paving the great highway of a nation ? 
 
 I go out into the streets of this great city ; I hear everywhere 
 the hum of industry ; I see great blocks of buildings going up 
 under the hands of busy mechanics ; I see the smoke of the ma- 
 chine shops and foundries, where skillful artizans are constructing 
 the marvelous productions of inventive genius ; I see the clipper 
 ships discharging their cargoes ; drays are thundering over the pave- 
 ment; the banks are open, and keen-sighted capitalists are on 
 'Change ; and when I go to visit some Uttle school room, where a 
 quiet woman is teaching reading and spelhng to the little children, 
 the school seems to be something distinct from the busy life 
 outside. 
 
 A short time ago, I saw that ocean leviathan, the "■ Colorado," 
 swing majestically out into the stream, amid the shouts of thousands 
 of assembled spectators, and glide off through the Golden Gate, to 
 weave a network of commercial interests between the Occident and 
 the Orient ; and when, a few days after, I stood in the Lincoln 
 School House, where a thousand boys were reciting their lessons, 
 I asked : What are they doing for the city in return for a hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand dollars invested in the house, and $20,000 
 a year paid to the teachers ? The steamship comes back with its 
 passengers and freight, and makes its monthly returns of net profits ; 
 but when will the school show its balance sheet ? 
 V But when I pause to remember that the steam engine was once 
 but a dim idea in the brain of a boy ; that intelligence is the motive 
 power of trade and commerce ; that the great city, with banks and 
 warehouses and princely residences, has been built up by intelHgent 
 labor ; that in the construction and navigation of the ocean steamer 
 so many, of the principles of art and science must be applied — I see 
 
15 
 
 in the public school, with its busy brains, an engine mightier than 
 one of steam ; and the narrow aisles of the school room broaden into 
 the wide and thronged streets of the great city. I know that the 
 school boys will soon become w^orkers : that one will command the 
 steamship, and one will become the engineer ; one will be a di- 
 rector of the Central Pacific Railroad, and one will ride over it to 
 take his seat in the Senate of the United States ; one will own the 
 quartz mill ; another will build the machinery, and another still 
 will nivent some improved method of working its ores ; one will be 
 the merchant who shall direct the channels of trade ; one will be 
 the president of the Bank, and another shall frame laws for the 
 protection of all those varied interests — and the teacher, whose 
 occupation seemed so disconnected from the progress of human 
 affairs, becomes a worker on mind which shall hold the mastery 
 over material things. 
 
 I go out at night and wing my way in imagination from star to 
 star, from island-universe to island-universe, and to the dim 
 nebulae which lie like films of light on the darkness of space, and I 
 vainly strive to form some faint conception of the scale on which 
 the universe is built — of the mutual attractions, relations, and rev- 
 olutions of the atoms of starry hght that fill the universe with 
 splendor. 
 
 So, when I ponder on the subtle relations of the teacher to the 
 nebulous atoms of forming mind which must soon condense into 
 society ; when I think how his power over one mind will extend to 
 hundreds, the circle ever widening with time, until their relations 
 become as complicated as the complex attractions of the stars, and 
 their influence as far-reaching and as sure as that of gravity — I 
 vainly strive to measure the responsibilities of the teacher, or the i 
 results of his work. 
 
 The State Institute, four years ago, was a starting-point of pro- ' 
 gross ; let us hope that this Institute will give another fresh impulse 
 to popular education, and professional enthusiasm. 
 
 Four years ago, I left the school room, where I had been for 
 nine years continuously engaged in teaching, to enter upon the 
 duties of the office of Superintendent of Pubhc Instruction. I 
 did not deem the office a more honorable one than that of teaching ; 
 but it offered a wider field of usefulness. 
 
 My term of office is now drawing to a close ; and as I may not 
 
\ 
 
 I 
 
 16 
 
 again meet you officially, you will pardon a brief allusion to my 
 own work. I have not found the office a sinecure ; I have not 
 eaten the bread of idleness or ease : for the past four years' work 
 has been the hardest of my life. 
 
 Traveling and lecturing more than half the time ; attending 
 County Institutes ; editing the California Teacher ; conducting 
 State Examinations ; twice revising the School Law, and attending 
 three sessions of the Legislature to secure its passage ; preparing 
 rules and regulations • and course of study for the public schools ; 
 answering the extensive correspondence consequent upon so many 
 radical changes in school laws ; preparing State reports, and his- 
 torical sketches of education — my powers of endurance have been 
 taxed to the utmost limit. 
 
 I sought the office for the purpose of raising the standard of pro- 
 fessional teaching, and for organizing a State system of free 
 schools. I am willing to leave the verdict to the future. 
 
 If w^hen my present term of office expires, I fall back into the 
 ranks as a private, I shall feel proud of my profession, for I hold 
 none more honorable, and to it I expect to devote my life. 
 
 I love the State of my adoption ; I am proud of her educational 
 record. I hope to see Cahfornia as distinguished for her common 
 schools, her colleges, her institutions of learning, as she has been 
 for the enterprise of her people, and the mineral wealth of her 
 mountains. 
 
 I feel that her future prosperity is closely related to the educa- 
 tion of her people, for the solid wealth of any State consists in 
 educated and industrious men and women; and if the common 
 schools are kept up to the full measure of their usefulness, her 
 future glory will be not so much in her mines, her scenery, or her 
 cHmate, as, in the inteUigence, integrity, morality and patriotism of 
 a people that shall make wealth a servant of science, art, Hterature 
 and religion. 
 
'* 
 
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