/ / LECTURES EDUCATION. BY HORACE MANN, SeCRlilTARY OF THE MASSAC^pSETTS BOARD OF EDDCATIOH. '/ BOSTON: IDE & DUTTON 1865. l-^* Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1845 BY HORACE MANN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachuaett*. EDUCATHON DEFT* Stereotjn^ed by GEORGE A. CURTIS; BMOIiAMB TTPK AND 8TBRB0TTP* FOOWDRT. TO HIS EXCELLENCY GEORGE N. BRIGGS, GOVERNOR OF THE COMMOirWEALTH OF M^SACHUSETTS, AND ex officio CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, AND TO THE OTHER MEMBERS OF SAID BOARD, THIS VOLUME, PREPARED AT THEIR REQUEST, IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BT THE AUTHOR. / 54!72S CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGB Mbans and Objects of Common School Edu- cation, 11 LECTURE IL Special Peeparation, a Pre-requisite to Teach- •iNG, 63 LECTURE in. The Necessity of Education in a Republican Government, 117 LECTURE IV. / What God does, and what He leaves for Man to do, in the work of education, • • 165 LECTURE V. An Historical View of Education; showing ITS Dignity and its Degradation, . . 216 LECTURE VI. On District School Libraries, . . 269 LECTURE VIL On School Punishments, . . 303 1* PREFACE. The Act creating the Massachusetts Board of Education was passed April 20, 1837. In June following the Board was organized, and its Secre- tary chosen. The duties of the Secretary, as expressed in the Act, are, to " collect information of the actual condition and efficiency of the Com- mon Schools, and other means of popular educa- tion ; and to diffuse as widely as possible, through- out every part of the Commonwealth, information of the most approved and successful methods of arranging the studies, and conducting the educa- tion of the young, to the end, that all children in this Commonwealth, who depend upon Common Schools for instruction, may have the best edu-^ cation which those schools can be made to impart. The Board, immediately after its organization, issued an "Address to the Public," inviting the friends of education to assemble in convention, in their respective counties, in the ensuing autumn ; and the Secretary was requested to be present at those conventions, both for the purpose of obtain- ing information in regard to the condition of the schools, and of explaining to the public what were supposed to be the leading motives and objects of the Legislature in creating the Board. The author of the following Lectures was a member of the Legislature when the act establish- ing the Board was passed ; and he was intimately acquainted with the general views of its projectors and advocates. At that time, however, the idea VIU never entered his mind that he should be even a candidate for the Secretaryship; but when the Board was organized, and the station was oiFered him, he was induced to accept it ; — not so much from any supposed fitness for the ofiice, as from the congeniaHty of its duties with all his tastes and predilections, and because he thought that whatever of industry, or of capacity for useful- ness., he might possess, could be exerted more ben- eficially to his fellow-men in this situation than in any other. On accepting the appointment, therefore, it became his duty to meet the county conventions, which were held throughout the State, in the autumn of 1837 ; and the first of the following lectures was prepared for those occasions. Its object was to sketch a rapid outline of deficien- cies to be supplied, and of objects to be pursued, in relation to the Common School system of Mas- sachusetts. In the session of 1838, the Legislature pro- vided that a Common School convention should be held, each year, in each county of the Com- monwealth, and that the Secretary should be present at every convention. This law continued in force until the year 1842, when it was repealed. During the first five years, therefore, after the establishment of the Board, a Common School convention was annually held in each county in the Commonwealth ; — and in some of the large counties two or more such conventions were held. The Secretary made his annual circuit through the State, and was present at them all ; and the first five of the following lectures were respect- ively delivered before the annual conventions. The lecture on "District School Libraries" was prepared in view of the great deficiency of books in our towns, suitable for the reading gf children ; and was delivered before Teachers' Associations, Lyceums, &c., in diflferent parts of the State. In IX tlie year 1839, a number of the friends of educa- tion, in Boston, instituted a course of lectures for tlie female teachers in the city, and the lecture on "School Punishments" was delivered as one of that course. On almost all the occasions above referred to, a copy of the lecture delivered was requested for the press ; but the inadequacy of the views presented, when compared with the magnitude and grandeur of the subject discussed, always induced the au- tlior, (except in regard to the first lecture, which was printed in 1840, in order to make known, more generally, the objects which the Board had in view,) to decline a compliance with the re- quest. In the month of May last, however, the Board of Education, by a special and unanimous vote, requested him to prepare a volume of his Lectures on Education for the press, and to this request he has now acceded. In preparing this volume, the author was led to doubt whether he should retain those portions of the lectures which contained special and direct allusions to the times and circumstances in whicFf^ they were delivered ; or whether, by omitting all reference to temporary and passing events, ho should pubhsh only those parts in which an at- tempt was made to discuss broad and general principles, or to enlist parental, patriotic,and relig- ious motives in behalf of the cause. He has been induced to adopt the first part of the alterna- tive, both because it presents the lectures as they were delivered, and because it gives an aspect of practical reform rather than of theoretic specu- lation to the work. The author begs leave to add, that, as the lec- tures were designed for popular and promiscuous audiences, and pertained to a cause in which but very little general interest was felt, he was con- strained not only to confine himself to popular topics, but also to treat them, as far as he was able, in a popular manner. The more didactic expositions of the merits of the great cause of Education, and some of the relations which that cause holds to the interests of civilization and hu- man progress he has endeavored to set forth in his Annual Reports ; while his more detailed and specific views, in regard to modes and processes of instruction and training, may be found in the volumes of the Common School Journal. Each one of these three channels of communication with the public, he has endeavored to use for the exposition of a particular class of the views and motives, belonging to the comprehensive subject of education. Justice to himself compels the author to add another remark, although of an unpleasant char- acter. Some of the following lectures have been delivered not only before different audiences in Massachusetts, but in other States ; and, in sev- eral instances, the author has seen, not only illus- trations and clauses, but whole sentences taken bodily from the lectures, and transferred to works subsequently published. Should cases of this kind be noticed by the reader, he is requested to compare dates before deciding the question of plagiarism. BoBTON, March, 1845. LECTURE I. MEANS AND OBJECTS OF COMMON SCHOOL EDU- CATION. Gentlemen of the Convention : In pursuance of notice, contained in a circular letter, lately addressed to the school committees and friends of Education, in this county, I now appear before you, as the Secretary of the Massa- chusetts Board of Education. That Board was constituted by an Act of the Legislature, passed April 20, 1837. It consists of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth, for . the time being, — who are members ex officiis, — and of eight other gentlemen, appointed by the Executive, with the advice and consent of the Council. The object of the Board is, by exten- sive correspondence, by personal interviews, by the development and discussion of principles, to collect such information, on the great subject of Education, as now lies scattered, buried and dor- mant ; and after digesting, and, as far as possible, systematizing and perfecting it, to send it forth again to the extremest borders of the State ; — so that all improvements which are local, may be enlarged into universal ; that what is now transi- tory and evanescent, na^ be established in per- manency; and that correct views, on this all- important subject, may be multiplied by the number of minds capable of understanding them. To accomplish the object of their creation, h »wever, the Board are clothed with no power, either restraining or directory. If they know of better modes of education, they have no authority to enforce their adoption. Nor have they any funds at their disposal. Even the services of the members are gratuitously rendered. Without authority, then, to command, and without money to remunerate or reward, their only resources, the only sinews of their strength, are, their power of appealing to an enlightened community, to rally for the promotion of its dearest interests. Unless, therefore, the friends of Education, in different parts of the State, shall proffer their cor- dial and strenuous cooperation, it is obvious, that the great purposes, for which the Board was con- stituted, can never be accomplished. Some per- sons, indeed, have suggested, that the Secretary of the Board should visit the schools, individually, and impart such counsel and encouragement as he might be able to do ; — not reflecting that such is their number and the shortness of the time during which they are kept, that, if he were to allow himself but one day for each school, to make specific examinations and to give detailed instructions, it would occupy something more than sixteen years to complete the circuit ; — while the period, between. the ages of four and sixteen, during which our children usually attend school, is but twelve years; so that, before the Secretary could come round upon his track again, one entire generation of scholars would have passed away, and one third of another. At his quickest speed, he would lose sight of one quar- ter of all the children in the State. The Board, therefore, have no voice-lhey have no organ, by which they can make themselves heard, in the distant villages and hamlets of this land, where 13 those juvenile habits are now forming, where those processes of thought and feeling are, now, to-day, maturing, which, some twenty or thirty years hence, will find an arm, and become resist- less might, and will uphold, or rend asunder, our social fabric. The Board may, — I trust they will, — be able to collect light and to radiate it; but upon the people, upon the people^ will still rest the great and inspiring duty of prescribing to the next generation what their fortunes shall be, by deter- mining in what manner they shall be educated. For it is the ancestors of a people, who prepare and predetermine all the great events in that peo- ple's history; — their posterity only collect and read them. No just judge will ever decide upon the moral responsibility of an individual, without first ascertaining what kind of parents he had ; — nor will any just historian ever decide upon the honor or the infamy of a people, without placing the character of its ancestors in the judgment-bal- ance. If the system of national instruction, de- vised and commenced by Charlemagne, had been continued, it would have changed the history ofy the French people. Such an event as the French Revolution never would have happened with free schools; any more than the American Revolution would have happened without them. The mobs, the riots, the burnings, the lynchings, perpetrated by the men of the present day, are perpetrated, because of their vicious or defective education, when children. We see, and feel, the havoc and the ravage of their tiger-passions, now, when they are full grown ; but it was years ago that they were whelped and suckled. And so, too, if we are derelict from our duty, in this matter, our children, in their turn, will sufter. If we permit the vulture's eggs to be incubated and hatched, it will then be too late to take care of the lambs. 2 14 Some eulogize our system of Popular Educa- tion, as though worthy to be universally admired and imitated. Others pronounce it circumscribed in its action, and feeble, even where it acts. Let us waste no time in composing this strife. If good, let us improve it ; if bad, let us reform it. It is of human institutions, as of men, — ^not any one is so good that it cannot be made better ; nor so bad, that it may not become worse. Our sys- tem of education is not to be compared with those of other states or countries, merely to determine whether it may be a little more or a little less per- fect than they ; but it is to be contrasted with our highest ideas of perfection itself, and then the pain of the contrast to be assuaged, by improving It, forthwith and continually. The love of excel- lence looks ever upward towards a higher stand- ard ; it is unimproving pride and arrogance only, that are satisfied with being superior to a lower. No community should rest contented with being superior to other communities, while it is inferior to its own capabilities. And such are the benefi- cent ordinations of Providence, that the very thought of improving is the germination of im- provement. The science and the art of Education, like every thing human, depend upon culture, for ad- vancement. And they would be more cultivated, if the rewards for attention, and the penalties for neglect, were better understood. When effects follow causes, — quick as thunder, lightning, — even infants and idiots learn to beware ; or they act, to enjoy. They have a glimmer of reason, sufficient, in such cases, for admonition, or im- pulse. Now, in this world, the entire succession of events, which fills time and makes up life, is nothing but causes and effects. These causes and effects are bound and linked together by an adamantine law. And the Deity has given us 15 power over the effects, by giving us power over the causes. This power consists in a knowledge of the connection estabUshed between causes and effects, — enabling us to foresee the future conse- quences of present conduct. If you show to me a handful of perfect seeds, I know^ that, with appro- priate culture, those seeds will produce a growth after their kind ; whether it be of pulse,^ which is ripened for human use in a month, or of oaks, whose lifetime is centuries. So, in some of the actions of men, consequences follow conduct with a lock- step ; in others, the effects of youthful actions first burst forth as from a subterranean current, in ad- vanced life. In those great relations which sub- sist between different generations, — between an- cestors and posterity, — effects are usually sepa- rated from their causes, by long intervals of time. The pulsations of a nation's heart are to be counted, not by seconds, but by years. Now, it is in this class of cases, where there are long intervals lying between our conduct and its con- sequences; where one generation sows, and an- other generation reaps ; — it is in this class of cases, y that the greatest and most sorrowful of human errors originate. Yet, even for these, a benevolent Creator has supplied us with an antidote. He has given us the faculty of reason, whose especial office and function it is, to discover the connection between causes and effects ; and thereby to enable us so to regulate the causes of to-day, as to predes- tinate the effects of to-morrow. In the eye of rea- son, causes and effects exist in proximity, — in juxtaposition. They lie side by side, whatever length of time, or distance of space, comes in be- tween them. If I am guilty of an act or a neg- lect, to-day, which will certainly cause the inflic- tion of a wrong, it matters not whether that wrong happens, on the other side of the globe, or in tlie next century. Whenever or wherever it happens, 16 it is mine ; it belongs to me ; my conscience owns it, and no sophistry can give me absolution. Who would think of acquitting an incendiary, because the train which he had laid and lighted, first cir- cuited the globe before it reached and consumed his neighbor's dwelling? From the nature of the case, in education, the effects are widely separated from the causes. They happen so long after- wards, that the reason of the community loses sight of the connection between them. It does not bring the cause and the effect together, and lay them, and look at them, side by side. If, instead of twenty-one yearSj the course of Nature allowed but twenty-one days^ to rear an infant to the full stature of manhood, and to sow in his bosom, the seeds of unbounded happiness or of unspeakable misery, — 1 suppose, in that case, the merchant would abandon his bargains, and the farmer would leave the in-gathering of his harvest, and even the drunkard would hie homeward from the midst of his revel, and that twenty-one days would be spent, without much sleep, and with many prayers. And yet, it can- not be denied, that the consequences of a vicious education, inflicted upon a child, are now pre- cisely the same as they would be, if, at the end of twenty-one days after an infant's birth, his tongue were already roughened with oaths and blasphemy; or he were seen skulking through society, obtaining credit upon false pretences, or with rolls of counterfeit bills in his pocket; or were already expiating his offences in the bond- age and infamy of a prison. And the conse- quences of a virtuous education, at the end of twenty-one years, are now precisely the same as they would be, if, at the end of twenty-one days after his birth, the infant had risen from his cra- dle into the majestic form of manhood, and were possessed of all those qualities and attributes, 17 which a being created in the image of God ought to have ; — with a power of fifty years of beneficent labor compacted into his frame ; — with nerves of sympathy, reaching out from his own heart and twining around the heart of society, so that the great social wants of men should be a part of his consciousness ; — and with a mind able to perceive what is right, prompt to defend it, or, if need be, to die for it. It ought to be understood, that none of these consequences become any the less certain, because they are more remote. It ought to be universally understood and intimately felt, that, in regard to children, all precept and example; all kindness and harshness ; all rebuke and com- mendation ; all forms, indeed, of direct or indirect education, afiect mental growth, just as dew, and sun, and shower, or untimely frost, affect vegeta- ble growth. Their influences are integrated and made one with the soul. They enter into spirit- ual combination with it, never afterwards to be wholly decompounded. They are like the daily food eaten by wild game, — so pungent and sapo- rific in its nature, that it flavors every fibre of / their flesh, and colors every bone in their body. Indeed, so pervading and enduring is the effect of education upon the youthful soul, that it may well be compared to a certain species of writing- ink, whose color, at first, is scarcely perceptible, but which penetrates deeper and grows blacker by age, until, if you consume the scroll over a coal-fire, the character will still be legible in the cinders. It ought to be understood and felt, that, however it may be in a social or jurisprudential sense, it is nevertheless true, in the most solemn and dread-inspiring sense, that, by an irrepealable law of Nature, the iniquities of the fathers are still visited upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation. Nor do the children suffer for the iniquities only, of their parents ; they suf- 2* 18 fer for their neglect and even for their ignorance. Hence, I have always admired that law of the Icelanders, by which, when a minor child commits an offence, the courts first make judicial inquiry, whether his parents have given him a good edu- cation ; and, if it be proved they have not, the child is acquitted and the parents are punished. In both the old Colonies of Plymouth, and of Massachusetts Bay, if a child, over sixteen, and under twenty-one years of age, committed a cer- tain capital offence against father or mother, he was allowed to arrest judgment of death upon himself, by showing that his parents, in the lan- guage of the law, "had been very unchristianly negligent in his education." How, then, are the purposes of education to be accomplished 7 However other worlds may be, this world of ours is evidently constructed on the plan of producing ends by using means. Even the Deity, with his Omniscience and his Omnipo- tence, carries forward our system, by processes so minute, and movements so subtile, as generally to elude our keenest inspection. He might speak all the harvests of the earth, and all the races of animals and of men, into full-formed existence, at a word ; and yet the tree is elaborated from the kernel, and the wing from the chrysalis, by a series of processes, which occupies years, and sometimes centuries, for its completion. Educa- tion, more than any thing else, demands not only a scientific acquaintance with mental laws, but the nicest art in the detail and the application of means, for its successful prosecution ; because in- fluences, imperceptible in childhood, work out more and more broadly into beauty or deformity, in after-life. No unskilful hand should ever play upon a harp, where the tones are left, forever, in the strings. In the first place, the best methods should be 19 well ascertained; in the second, they should be universally diffused. In this Commonwealth, there are about three thousand Public Schools, in all of which the rudiments of knowledge are taught. These schools, at the present time, are so many distinct, independent communities ; each being governed by its own habits, traditions, and local customs. There is no common, superin- tending power over them; there is no bond of brotherhood or family between them. They are strangers and aliens to each other. The teachers are, as it were, imbedded, each in his own school district; and they are yet to be excavated and brought together, and to be established, each as a polished pillar of a holy temple. As the system is now administered, if any improvement in prin- ciples or modes of teaching is discovered by talent or accident, in one school, — instead of being pub- lished to the world, it dies with the discoverer. No means exist for multiplying new truths, or even for preserving old ones. A gentleman, fill- ing one of the highest civil offices in this Com- monwealth, — a resident in one of the oldest coun-^ ties and in one of the largest towns in the State, — a sincere friend of the cause of education, — re- cently put into my hands a printed report, drawn up by a clergyman of high repute, which de- scribed, as was supposed, an important improve- ment in relation to our Common Schools, and earnestly enjoined its general adoption ; when it happened to be within my own knowledge, that the supposed new discovery had been in success- ful operation for sixteen years, in a town but little more than sixteen miles distant. Now, in other things, we act otherwise. If a manufacturer dis- covers a new combination of wheels, or a new mode of applying water or steam-power, by which stock can be economized, or the value of fabrics enhanced ten per cent., the information flies over 20 the country at once ; the old machinery is dis- carded, the new is substituted. Nay, it is difficult for an inventor to preserve the secret of his inven- tion, until he can secure it by letters-patent. Our mechanics seem to possess a sort of keen, grey- hound faculty, by which they can scent an im- provement afar off. They will sometimes go, in disguise, to the inventor, and offer themselves as workmen; and instances have been known of their breaking into his workshop, by night, and purloining the invention. And hence that pro- gress in the mechanic arts, which has given a name to the age in which we live, and made it a common wonder. Improvements in useful, and often in useless, arts, command solid prices, — twenty, fifty, or even a hundred thousand dol- lars, — while improvements in education, in the means of obtaining new guaranties for the per- manence of all we hold dear, and for making our children and our children's children wiser and happier, — these are scarcely topics of con- versation or inquiry. Do we not need, then, some new and living institution, some animate organization, which shall at least embody and diffuse all that is now known on this subject, and thereby save, every year, hundreds of children from being sacrificed to experiments which have been a hundred times exploded ? Before noticing some particulars, in which a common channel for receiving and for disseminat- ing information, may subserve the prosperity of our Common Schools, allow me to premise, that there is one rule, which, in all places, and in all forms of education, should be held as primary, paramount, and, as far as possible, exclusive. Acquirement and pleasure should go hand in hand. They should never part company. The pleasure of acquiring should be the incitement to acquire. A child is wholly incapable of appreciating the ulti- 21 mate value or uses of knowledge. In its early beginnings, the motive of general, future utility will be urged in vain. Tell an abecedarian, as an inducement to learn his letters, of the sublim- ities of poetry and eloquence, that may be wrought out of the alphabet ; and to him it is not so good as moonshine. Let me ask any man, whether he ever had, when a child, any just conception of the uses, to which he is now, as a man, daily applying his knowledge. How vain is it, then, to urge upon a child, as a motive to study, that which he cannot possibly understand ! Nor is the motive of fear preferable. Fear is one of the most debasing and dementalizing of all the pas- sions. The sentiment of fear was given us, that it might be roused into action, by whatever should be shunned, scorned, abhorred. The emotion should never be associated with what is to be desired, toiled for, and loved. If a child appe- tizes his books, then, lesson-getting is free labor. If he revolts at them, then, it is slave-labor. Less is done, and the little is not so well done. Nature has implanted a feeling of curiosity in the breast / of every child, as if to make herself certain of his activity and progress. The desire of learning alternates with the desire of food ; — the mental with the bodily appetite. The former is even more craving and exigent, in its nature, than the latter, and acts longer without satiety. Men sit with folded arms, even while they are surrounded by objects of which they know nothing. Who ever saw that done by a child? But we cloy, disgust, half-extirpate, this appetite for knowl- edge, and then deny its existence. Mark a child, when a clear, well-defined, vivid conception seizes it. The whole nervous tissue vibrates. Every muscle leaps. Every joint plays. The face becomes auroral. The spirit flashes through the body, like lightning through a cloud. Tell a 22 child the simplest story, which is adapted to his present state of mental advancement, and there- fore intelligible, — and he will forget sleep, leave food untasted, nor would he be enticed from hear- ing it, though you should give him for playthings, shining fragments broken off from the sun. Ob- serve the blind, and the deaf and dumb. So strong is their inborn desire for knowledge, — such are the amazing attractive forces of their minds for it, — that, although those natural inlets, the eye and the ear, are closed, yet they will draw it inward, through the solid walls and encasements of the body. If the eye be curtained with darkness, it will enter through the ear. If the ear be closed in silence, it will ascend along the nerves of touch. Every new idea, that enters into the presence of the sovereign mind, carries offerings of delight with it, to make its coming welcome. Indeed, Qi;ir^ Maker jcireated us ia^blank ignorance^ for the •v^jqz^^piij:gose^of_giyirig3s_^i£_^bo^^ e ndles s pl^a^ure_^MeaTriing^4i^w.^t^^ ; and the true paiiiiOTTfiehuman intellect leads onward and upward from ignorance towards omniscience, — ascending by an infinity of steps, each novel and delightful. The voice of Nature, therefore, forbids the in- fliction of annoyance, discomfort, pain, upon a child, while engaged in study. If he actually suffers from position, or heat, or cold, or fear, not only is a portion of the energy of his mind with- drawn from his lesson, — all of which should be concentrated upon it ; but, at that undiscriniinat- ing age, the pain blends itself with the study, makes part of the remembrance of it, and thus curiosity and the love of learning are deadened, or turned away towards vicious objects. This is the philosophy of children's hating study. We insulate them by fear ; we touch them with non- conductors; and then, because they emit no spark, 23 we gravdy aver that they are non-electric bodies. If possible, pleasure should be made to flow like a sweet atmosphere around the early learner, and pain be kept beyond the association of ideas. You cannot open blossoms with a northeast storm. The buds of the hardiest plants will wait for the genial influences of the sun, though they perish, while waiting. The first practical application of these truths, in relation to our Common Schools, is to School- house Architecture, — a subject so little regarded, yet so vitally important. The construction of schoolhouses involves, not the love of study and proficiency, only, but health and length of life. I have the testimony of many eminent physicians to this fact. They assure me that it is within their own personal knowledge, that there is, an- nually, loss of life, destruction of health, and such anatomical distortion as renders life hardly worth possessing, growing out of the bad construction of our schoolhouses. Nor is this evil confined to a few of them, only- It is a very general calamity. I have seen many schoolhouses, in central districts of rich and populous towns, where each seat connected with a desk, consisted only of an up- right post or pedestal, jutting up out of the floor, the upper end of which was only about eight or ten inches square, without side-arms or back- board ; and some of them so high that the feet of the children in vain sought after the floor. They were beyond soundings. Yet, on the hard top of these stumps, the masters and misses of the school must balance themselves, as well as they can, for six hours in a day. All attempts to pre- serve silence in such a house arc not only vain, but cruel. Nothing but absolute empalement could keep a live child still, on such a scat; and you would hardly think him worth living, if it could. The pupils will resort to every possible bodily / 24 evolution for relief; and, after all, though they may change the place^ they keep the pain. I have good reasons for remembering one of another class of schoolhouses, which the scientific would probably call the sixth order of architecture, — the wicker-work order, summer-houses for winter res- idence, — where there never was a severely cold day, without the ink's freezing in the pens of the scholars while they were writing; and the teacher was literally obliged to compromise between the sufferings of those who were exposed to the cold of the windows and those exposed to the heat of the fire, by not raising the thermometer of the lat- ter above ninety degrees, until that of the former fell below thirty. A part of the children suffered the Arctic cold of Captains Ross and Parry, and a part, the torrid heat of the Landers, without, in either case, winning the honors of a discoverer. It was an excellent place for the teacher to illus- trate one of the facts in geography ; for five steps would have carried him through the five zones. Just before my present circuit, I passed a school- house, the roof of which, on one side, was trough- like; and down towards the eaves there was a large hole ; so that the whole operated like a tun- nel to catch all the rain and pour it into the schoolroom. At first, I did not know but it might be some apparatus designed to explain the Deluge. I called and inquired of the mistress, if she and her little ones were not sometimes drowned out. She said she should be, only that the floor leaked as badly as the roof, and drained off the water. And yet a healthful, comfortable schoolhouse can be erected as cheaply as one, which, judging from its construction, you would say, had been dedicated to the evil genius of deformity and suffering. There is another evil in the construction of our schoolhouses, whose immediate consequences are 25 not so bad, though their remote ones are indefi- nitely worse. No fact is now better established, than that a man cannot live, without a supply of about a gallon of fresh air, every minute; nor enjoy good health, indeed, without much more. The common air, as is now well known, is mainly composed of two ingredients, one only of which can sustain life. The action of the lungs upon the vital portion of the air, changes its very nature, converting it from a life-sustaining to a life-de- stroying element. As we inhale a portion of the atmosphere, it is healthful ; — the same portion, as we exhale it, is poisonous. Hence, ventilation in rooms, especially where large numbers are col- lected, is a condition of health and life. Privation admits of no excuse. To deprive a child of com- fortable clothes, or wholesome food, or fuel, may sometimes, possibly, be palliated. These cost money, and often draw hardly upon the scanty resources of the poor. But what shall vi/^e say of stinting and starving a child, in regard to this prime necessary of life, fresh air ? — of holding his mouth, as it were, lest he should obtain a sufR- y ciency of that vital element, which God, in His munificence, has poured out, a hundred miles deep, all around the globe? Of productions, reared or transported by human toil, there may be a dearth. At any rate, frugality in such things is commendable. But to put a child on short allowances out of this sky-full of air, is enough to make a miser weep. It is as absurd, as it would have been for Noah, while the torrents of rain were still descending, to have put his family upon short allowances of water. This vast quan- tity of air was given us to supersede the necessity of ever using it at second-hand. Heaven has ordained this matter with adorable wisdom. That very portion of the air which we turn into poison, by respiring it, becomes the aliment of vegetk- 3 25 lion. What is death to us, is life to all verdure and flowerage. And again, vegetation reacts the ingredient which is life to us. Thus the equili- brium is forever restored; or rather, it is never destroyed. In this perpetual circuit, the atmos- phere is forever renovated^ and made the sus- tainer of life, both for the animal and vegetable worlds. A simple contrivance for ventilating the school- room, unattended with any perceptible expense, would rescue children from this fatal, though un- seen evil. It is an indisputable fact, that, for years past, far more attention has been paid, in this respect, to the construction of jails and pris- ons, than to that of schoolhouses. Yet, why should we treat our felons better than our chil- dren? I have observed in all our cities and populous towns, that, wherever stables have been recently built, provision has been made for their ventilation. This is encouraging, for I hope the children's turn will come, when gentlemen shall have taken care of their horses. I implore phy- sicians to act upon this evil. Let it be removed, extirpated, cut off, surgically. I cannot here stop to give even an index of the advantages of an agreeable site for a schoolhouse ; of attractive, external appearance; of internal finish, neatness, and adaptation ; nor of the still more important subject of having two rooms for all large schools, — both on the same floor, or one over the other, — so as to allow a separation of the large from the small scholars, for the purpose of placing the latter, at least, under the care of a female teacher. Each of these topics, and espe- cially the last, is worthy of a separate essay. Allow me, however, to remark, in passing, that I regard it as one of the clearest ordinances of nat- ure, that woman is the appointed guide and guardian of children of a tender age. And she 27 does not forego, but, in the eye of prophetic vision, she anticipates and makes her own, all the im- mortal honors of the academy, the forum, and the senate, when she lays their deep foundations, by training up children in the way they should go. A great mischief, — I use the word mischiefs because it implies a certain degree of wickedness, — a great mischief is suffered in the diversity and multiplicity of our school books. Not more than twenty or thirty different kinds of books, exclusive of a school library, are needed in our Common Schools ; and yet, though I should not dare state the fact, if I had not personally sought out the information from most authentic sources, there are now, in actual use in the schools of this State, more than three hundred different kinds of books ; and, in the markets of this and the neigh- boring States, seeking for our adoption, I know not how many hundreds more. The standards, in spelling, pronunciation, and writing; in rules of grammar and in processes in arithmetic, are as various as the books. Correct language, in one place, is provincialism in another. While / we agree in regarding the confusion of Babel as a judgment, we unite in confounding it more, as though it were a blessing. But is not uniformity on these subjects desirable 1 Are there not some of these books, to which all good judges, on com- parison, would award the preference ? Could they not be afforded much cheaper for the great mar- ket which uniformity would open; thus furnishing better books at lower prices ? And why not teach children aright, the first time? It is much harder to unlearn than to learn. Why go through three processes instead of one, by first learning, then unlearning, and then learning, again ? This mis- chief grew out of tlie immense profits formerly realized from the manufacture of school books. There seems never to have been any difficulty in SIS procuring reams of recommendations, because patrons have acted under no responsibility. An edition once published must be sold ; for the date has become almost as important in school booksy as in almanacs. All manner of devices are daily used to displace the old books, and to foist in new ones. The compiler has a cousin in the town of A, who will decry the old and recommend the new ; or a literary gentleman in the city of B has just published some book on a different subject, and is willing to exchange recommendations, even; or the author has a mechanical friend, in a neigh- boring town, who has just patented some new tool, and who will recommend the author's book, if, the author will recommend his tool I Publish- ers often employ agents to hawk their books about the country ; and t have known several instances where such a pedlar, — or picaroon, — has taken all the old books of a whole class in school, in exchange for his new ones, book for book, — look- ing, of course, to his chance of making sales after the book bad been established in the school, for reimbursement and profits; so that at last, the children have to pay for what they supposed was given them. On this subject, too, cannot the ma- ture views of competent and disinterested men, residing, respectively, in all parts of the State, be the means of effecting a much-needed reform 7 There is another point, where, as it seems to me, a united effort among the friends of education would, in certain branches of instruction, increase tenfold the efficiency of our Common Schools. I mean, the use of some simple apparatus, so as to employ the eye, more than the ear, in the acqui- sition of knowledge. After the earliest years of childhood, the superiority of the eye over the other senses, in quickness, in precision, in the vastness of its field of operations, and in its power of penetrating, like a flash, into any interstices, 29 where light can go and come, is almost infinite. The senses of taste, and smell, and touch, seem to be more the servants of the body than of the soul ; and, amongst the infinite variety of objects in the external world, hearing takes notice of sounds only. Close your eyes, and then, with the aid of the other senses, examine a watch, an arti- san's workshop, a manufactory, a ship, a steam- engine ; and how meagre and formless are all the ideas they present to you. But the eye is the great thoroughfare between the outward and ma- terial infinite, and the inward and spiritual infi- nite. The mind often acquires, by a glance of the eye, what volumes of books and months of study could not reveal so livingly through the ear. Every thing that comes through the eye, too, has a vividness, a clear outline, a just collo- cation of parts, — each in its proper place, — which the other senses can never communicate. Ideas or impressions acquired through vision are long- lived. Those acquired through the agency of the other senses often die young. Hence, the immeas- urable superiority of this organ is founded in / Nature. There is a fund of truth in the old say- ing, that ''seeing is believing." There never will be any such maxim, in regard to the other senses. To use the ear instead of the eye, in any case where the latter is available, is as preposter- ous, as it would be for our migratory birds, in their overland passage, to walk rather than to fly. We laugh at the Germans, because in using their oxen, they attach the load to the horns, instead of the neck ; but do we not commit a much greater absurdity, in communicating knowledge through the narrow fissure of the ear, which holds com- munication only with a small circle of things, and in that circle, only with things that utter a sound, instead of conveying it through the broad portals of the earth ana heaven surveying eye? 3* 30 Nine tenths,- — may I not say ninety-nine hun- dredths, — of all our Common School instruction are conveyed through the ear ; or, — which is the same thing, — through the medium of written in- stead of spoken words, where the eye has been taught to do the work of the ear. In teaching those parts of geography which comprise the outlines and natural features of the earth, and in astronomy, the use of the globe and the planetari- um would reduce the labor of months to as many hours. Ocular evidence, also, is often indispensa- ble for correcting the imperfections of language, as it is understood by a child. For instance, (and I take this illustration from fact and not from imagi- nation,) a child, born in the interior, and who has never seen the ocean, is taught that the earth is surrounded by an elastic medium, called the at- mosphere. He thereby gets the idea of perfect cir- cumfusion and envelopment. In the next lesson, he is taught that an island is a small body of land surrounded by water. If he has a quick mind, he may get the idea that an island is land, envel- oped in water, as the earth is in air. Mature minds always modify the meaning of words and sentences by numerous rules, of which a child knows nothing. If, when speaking of the Deity to a man of common intelligence, I use the word ''power," he understands omnipotence; and if I use the same word when speaking of an ant, he understands that I mean strength enough to lift a grain ; — but a child would require explanations, limiting the meaning of the word in the one case, and extending it in the other. Other things being equal, the pleasure which a child enjoys, in studying or contemplating, is pro- portioned to the liveliness of his perceptions and ideas. A child who spurns books, will be attracted and delighted by visible objects of well-defined forms and striking colors. In the one case, he 31 sees things through a haze ; in the other, by sun- hght. A contemplative child, whose mind gets as vivid images from reading as from gazing, always prefers reading. Although it is undoubt- edly true, that taste and predilection, in regard to any subject, will give brightness and distinctness to ideas ; yet it is also true that bright and distinct ideas will greatly modify tastes and predilections. Now the eye may be employed much more exten- sively than it ever has been, in giving what I will venture to call the geography of ideas, that is, a perception, where one idea bounds on another, — where the province of one idea ends, and thait of the adjacent ideas begins. Could children be habituated to fixing these lines of demarcation, to seeing and feeling ideas as distinctly as though they were geometrical solids, they would then experience an insupportable uneasiness, whenever they were lost in fog-land and among the Isles of the Mist; and this uneasiness would enforce in- vestigation, survey, and perpetual outlook; and in after-life, a power would exist of applying luminous and exact thought to extensive combi- / nations of facts and principles, and we should have the materials of philosophers, statesmen and chief-justices. The pleasure which children en- joy in visiting our miserable toy-shop collections. — the dreams of crazy brains, done into wood and pewter, — comes mainly from the vividness, the oneness, wholeness, completeness, of their percep- tions. The gewgaws do not give delight, because of their grotcsqueness, but in spite of it. Natu- ral ideas derived through a microscope, or from any mechanism which would stamp as deep an imprint and glow with as quick a vitality, would give them far greater delight. And how different^ as to attainments in useful knowledge, would children be, at the end of eight or ten years, 32 accordingly as they had sought their gratifications from one or the other of these sources. And what higher dehght, what reward, at once so innocent and so elevating, as to explain by means of suitable apparatus, to the larger schol- ars in a school, the cause and manner of an eclipse of the sun or moon ! And when those impressive phenomena occur, how beautiful to witness the manifestations of wonder and of rev- erence for God, which spring spontaneously from the intelligent observation of such sublime spec- tacles; instead of their being regarded with the horrible imaginings of superstition, or with such stupid amazement, as belongs only to the brutes that perish ! If a model were given, every ingen- ious boy, with a few broken window panes and a pocket-knife, could make a prism. With this, the rainbow, the changing colors of the dew-drop, the gorgeous light of the sunset sky, could be ex- plained ; and thus might the minds of children be early imbued with a love of pure and beautiful things, and led upward towards the angel, instead of downward towards the brute, from this middle ground of humanity. Imbue the young mind with these sacred influences, and they will forever constitute a part of its moral being; they will abide with it and tend to uphold and purify it, wherever it may be cast by fortune, in this tu- nmltuous arena of life. A spirit so softened and penetrated, will be " Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled ; You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." At the last session of the Legislature, a law was enacted, authorizing school districts to raise money for the purchase of apparatus and Common School libraries, for the use of the children, to be expended in sums not exceeding thirty dollars, for the first 33 year, and ten dollars, for any succeeding year. Trifling as this may appear, yet I regard the law as hardly second in importance to any which has been passed since the year 1647, when Common Schools were estabhshed. Every district can find some secure place for preserving them, until, in repairing or rebuilding schoolhouses, a separate apartment can be provided for their safe-keeping. As soon as one half the benefits of these instru- ments of learning shall be understood, I doubt not that public-spirited individuals will be found, in most towns, who will contribute something to the library ; and artisans, too, who will feel an honorable pleasure in adding something to the apparatus, wrought by their own hands, — perhaps devised by their own ingenuity. " Build dove- holes," says the proverb, "and the doves will come." And what purer satisfaction, what more sacred object of ambition, can any man pro- pose to himself, than to give the first impulse to an improvement, which will go on increasing in value, forever ! It may be said, that mischiev- ous children will destroy or mutilate whatever is obtained for this purpose. But children will not destroy or injure what gives them pleasure. In- deed, the love of malicious mischief, the proneness to deface whatever is beautiful, — this vile ingre- dient in the old Saxon blood, wherever it flows, — originated, and it is aggravated, by the almost total want, amongst us, of objects of beauty, taste, and elegance, for our cliildren to grow up with, to admire, and to protect. The expediency of having District School Li- braries is fast becoming a necessity. It is too late to stop the art of printing, or to arrest the general circulation of books. Reading of some kind, the children will have ; and the question is, whether it is best, that this reading should be supplied to them by the choice of men, whose sole object is / 34 gain ; or whether it shall be prepared by wise and benevolent men, whose object is to do good. Prob- ably, not one child in ten, in this State, has free access to any library of useful and entertaining knowledge. Where there are town, parish, or social libraries, they either do not consist of suit- able books, or they are burdened with restrictions which exclude more than are admitted. A Dis- trict School Library would be open to all the children in the district. They would enter it independently. Wherever there is genius, the library would nourish it. Talents would not die of inaction, for want of some sphere for exercise. Habits of reading and reflection would be formed, instead of habits of idleness and malicious mis- chief The wealth and prosperity of Massachusetts are not owing to natural position or resources. They exist, in despite of a sterile soil and an inhospitable clime. They do not come from the earth, but from the ingenuity and frugality of the people. Their origin is good thinking, carried out into good action; and intelligent reading in a child will result in good thinking in the man or woman. But there is danger, it is said, of reading bad books. So there is danger of eating bad food ; shall we therefore have no harvests ? No ! It was the kindling excitement of a few books, by which those Massachusetts boys, John Adams and Ben- jamin Franklin, first struck out an intellectual spark, which broadened into magnitude and bright- ened into splendor, until it became a mighty luminary, which now stands, and shall forever stand, among the greater lights in the firmament of glory. But in the selection of books for school libraries, let every man stand upon his honor, and never ask for the introduction of any book, because it favors the distinctive views of his sect or party. A wise man prizes only the free and intelligent as- 35 sent of unprejudiced minds ; he disdains a slavish and non-compos echo, even to his best- loved opin- ions. In striving together for a common end, peculiar ends must neither be advocated nor as- sailed. Strengthen the intellect of children, by exercise upon the objects and laws of Nature; train their feelings to habits of order, industry, temperance, justice ; to the love of man, because of his wants, and to the love of God, because of his universally-acknowledged perfections ; and, so far as public measures, applicable to all, can reach, you have the highest human assurance, that, when they grow up, they will adopt your favorite opinions, if they are right, or discover the true reasons for discarding them, if they are wrong. An advantage altogether invaluable, of supply- ing a child, by means of a library and of apparatus, with vivid ideas and illustrations, is, that he may always be possessed, in his own mind, of correct standards and types with which to compare what- ever objects he may see in his excursions abroad ; — and that he may also have useful subjects of reflection, whenever his attention is not engrossed by external things. A boy who is made clearly to understand the philosophical principle on which he flies his kite, and then to recognize the same principle in a wind or a water-wheel, and in the sailing of a ship ; — wherever business or pleasure may afterwards lead him, if he sees that principle in operation, he will mentally refer to it, and think out its applications, when, otherwise, he would be singing or whistling. Twenty years would work out immense results from such daily observation and reflection. Dr. Franklin attribu- ted much of his practical turn of mind, — which was the salient point of his immortality, — to the fact, that his father, in his conversations before the family, always discussed some useful subject, / 36 or developed some just principle of individual or social action, instead of talking forever about trout-catching or grouse-shooting ; about dogs, din- ners, dice, or trumps. In its moral bearings this subject grows into immense importance. How many months, — may I not say years, — in a child's life, when, with spontaneous activity, his mind hovers and floats wherever it listeth ! As he sits at home, amid familiar objects, or walks frequent- ed paths, or lies listlessly in his bed, if his mind be not preoccupied with some substantial subjects of thought, the best that you can hope is, that it will wander through dream-land, and expend its activity in chasing shadows. Far more probable is it, especially if the child is exposed to the con- tamination of profane or obscene minds, that in these seasons of solitude and reverie, the cocka- trice's eggs of impure thoughts and desires will be hatched. And what boy^ at least, is there who is not in daily peril of being corrupted by the evil communications of his elders ? We all know, that there are self-styled gentlemen amongst us, — self-styled gentlemen^ — who daily, and hourly, lap their tongues in the foulness of profanity; and though, through a morally-insane perversion, they may restrain themselves, in the presence of ladies and of clergymen, yet it is only for the passing hour, when they hesitate not to pour out the pent- up flood, to deluge and defile the spotless purity of childhood, — and this, too, at an age, when these polluting stains sink, centre-deep, into their young and tender hearts, so that no moral bleach- ery can ever afterwards wholly cleanse and purify them. No parent, no teacher, can ever feel any rational security about the growth of the moral nature of his child, unless he contrives in some way to learn the tenor of his secret, silent medi- tations, or prepares the means, beforehand, of determining what those meditations shall be. A 37 child may soon find it no dij3icuU thing, to converse and act by a set o{ approved rules, and then to retire into the secret chambers of liis own soul, and there to riot and gloat upon guilty pleasures, whose act would be perdition, and would turn the fondest home into a hell. But there is an antidote, — I do not say for all, but for most, of this peril. The mind of children can be supplied with vivid illustrations of the works of Nature and of Art; its chambers can be himg round with picture- thoughts and images of truth, and charity, and justice, and affection, which will be companions to the soul, when no earthly friend can accom- pany it. It is only a further development of this topic, to consider the inaptitude of many of our educa- tional processes, for making accurately- thinking minds. It has been said by some one, that the good sense and sound judgment, which we find in the community, are only what have escaf>ed the gen- eral ravage of a bad edncation. School studies ought to be so arranged, as to promote a harmo- nious development o( the faculties. In despotic Prussia, a special science is cultivated, under the name of methodik^ the scope of which is to arrange and adapt studies, so as to meet the wants and exercise the powers of the opening mind. In free America, we have not the name ; indeed, we can scarcely be said to have the idea. Surely, the farmer, the gardener, the florist, who have established rules for cultivating every species of grain, and fruit, and flower, cannot doubt, that, in the unfolding and expanding of the young mini, some processes will be congenial, others fatal. Those whose business it is to compound ingredients, in any art, weigh them with the nicest exactness, and watch the precise moments of their chemical combinations. The mechanic selects all his materials with the nicest care, and measures 4 / 38 all their dimensions to a hair's breadth ; and he knows that if he fails in aught, he will produce a weak, loose, irregular fabric. Indeed, can yoii name any business, avocation, profession, or em- ployment, whatever, — even to the making of hob- nails or wooden skewers, — where chance, igno- rance, or accident, is ever rewarded with a perfect product? But in no calling is there such a diver- sity as in education, — diversity in principles, diversity in the application of those principles. Discussion, elucidation, the light of a thousand minds brought to a focus, would result in discard- ing the worst and in improving even the best Under this head are included the great questions respecting the order and succession of studies; the periods of alternation between them ; the pro- portion between the exact and the approximate sci- ences ; and what is principal and what is sub- sidiary, in pursuing them. /There is a natural order and progression in the development of the faculties : " First the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear." And in the mind, as in the grain, the blade may be so treated that the full corn will never appear. For instance, if any faculty is brooded upon and warmed into life before the period of its natural development, it will have a precocious growth, to be followed by weakness, or by a want of sym- metry and proportion in the whole character. Consequences still worse will follow, where fac- ulties are cultivated in the reverse order of their natural development. Again, if collectiv^e ideas are forced into a child's mind, without liis being made to analyze them, and understand the indi- vidual ideas of which they arc composed, the probability is, that the collective idea will never be comprehended./ Let me illustrate this position by a case where it is least likely to happen, that we may form some idea of its frequency in other 39 things. A child is taught to count ten. He is taught to repeat the words, owe, two^ &c., as words, merely ; and if care be not taken, he will attach no more comprehensive idea to the word tetiy than he did to the word one. He will not think of ten ones, as he uses it. In the same way, he proceeds to use the words, hundred, thousand, million,