Popular Education Part 19

_Fourth of July common school celebrations_ have, within the past few years, become quite common in several states of the Union. This seems peculiarly appropriate, being a practical recognition of the importance of primary schools and universal education in a civil and political point of view. One of the most befitting celebrations of this day which I have ever known was held in Boston eight years ago, when an oration was delivered before the authorities of that city by the Secretary of the Ma.s.sachusetts Board of Education. The theme of the orator was the importance of national or universal education in a free government as the interest which underlies all others, and as const.i.tuting the only means of perfecting and perpetuating to the latest generations the inst.i.tutions we have received from our fathers, and "a demonstration that our existing means for the promotion of intelligence and virtue are wholly inadequate to the support of a republican government." Such celebrations should be held in every state of this Union, at every recurring anniversary of our national independence, until there can not be found a single individual in all our borders who does not know both his duties and his privileges as a freeman, and who has not virtue enough faithfully to perform the one and temperately to enjoy the other.

This, indeed, seems to be in keeping with that most impressive pa.s.sage of the celebrated Ordinance of the American Congress, adopted July 13th, 1787, which says, "RELIGION, MORALITY, AND KNOWLEDGE BEING NECESSARY TO GOOD GOVERNMENT AND THE HAPPINESS OF MANKIND, SCHOOLS AND THE MEANS OF EDUCATION SHALL FOREVER BE ENCOURAGED."

_The twenty-second of February_ has also been observed, to some extent, in several of the states, by holding such celebrations. Nothing can be more appropriate than these efforts to arouse the popular mind to renewed efforts to improve the common schools of the land, when we consider the import of that portion of the Farewell Address of him, the anniversary of whose birth we celebrate, which relates to popular education. "Promote, as an object of primary importance, inst.i.tutions for the general diffusion of knowledge." There can be no doubt that WASHINGTON here refers to the maintenance and improvement of common schools as the means of universal education.

The necessity of improving our common schools and of opening wide their doors to all our youth should not only be the theme at school celebrations, at educational conventions, and on the occasion of our national anniversaries, but it should be frequently presented by the civilian and the divine, as well as by the legislator and the journalist, until men generally well understand the importance of education, and are willing to make any sacrifices that may be necessary to secure its advantages to their own children not only, but to all our youth.

PROVISIONS FOR THE SUPPORT OF SCHOOLS.--The provisions which have been made for the support of schools may be reduced to three kinds: first, by means of funds; second, by taxation; third, by a combination of both of these methods.

Connecticut, which has a school fund of more than two millions of dollars, long ago adopted the first plan named. But the inefficiency of her system of public instruction, until within a few years, is proverbial, and affords conclusive evidence that a large school fund is of little or no avail in the absence of a correct public opinion and a due appreciation of the importance of education. The improvements in the schools of that state during the last few years are not in consequence of any increase in her school fund, but because the importance of the subject has been so frequently and impressively presented before the public mind, by means of lectures, public discussions, educational tracts, school journals, and in various other ways, as to overcome that popular indifference which had well-nigh precluded all advance. The late improvements in that state have taken place in spite of the school fund rather than because of any aid derived from it. Dr. Wayland has expressed the opinion that school "funds are valuable as a _condiment_, not as an _aliment_; and that they should never be so large as to render any considerable degree of personal effort on the part of the parent unnecessary." This is true only when a fund is so far relied upon as to slacken personal effort for the improvement of the schools, and to induce parental and popular indifference in relation to them.

The second plan is by taxation, and Ma.s.sachusetts furnishes an example of it. In most of the counties of this state there are small local funds, the avails of which are added to the amount raised by tax for the support of schools. There are also still less amounts appropriated from the income of the surplus revenue for the purpose of increasing the educational advantages of the children; not to be subtracted from, but to be added to, what the towns would otherwise grant. We may, then, consider the school fund of this state as embracing the entire taxable property of the state, from which such a sum is annually raised by tax as is necessary for the support of the schools. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, the schools are supported essentially as in Ma.s.sachusetts, the difference being chiefly in the mode of taxation.

Dr. Wayland, in a letter written some years ago, makes the following remark in relation to the support of schools: "The best legislative provision with which I am acquainted is that of Maine. They have no fund whatever, but oblige every district to raise for education a sum proportioned to the number of its inhabitants or its property. If a town or a district neglects to do this, it is liable to a fine."

In those states whose systems of public instruction are best administered--which have the best schools, and the greatest proportion of the population in attendance upon them--the schools are generally supported almost entirely by a direct tax, the great principle that THE PROPERTY OF THE STATE SHOULD EDUCATE THE CHILDREN OF THE STATE being practically recognized. It not only appears, then, that large funds are not required for the successful administration of systems of public instruction, but that actually the best schools, and those which are doing most for the correct education of the rising generation, may be found in those states that are dest.i.tute of funds, and whose public schools are supported by a direct tax upon the property of the state.

The third plan of supporting schools is a combination of both of the others. New York until within the last year,[67] Rhode Island, and Michigan may be cited as examples of this plan. Where this plan has been adopted, the districts or townships have generally been required to raise by tax an amount equal to or greater than what has been received from the school fund. Where the expense of supporting the schools has exceeded the whole fund derived from both sources, the balance of the expense has generally been made up by a rate-bill, parents who are able being required to pay in proportion to the number of days their children have attended school. This feature is objectionable even where provision is made for the children of poor parents to attend without charge, for it offers a pecuniary inducement, although the schools be nearly free, to withdraw scholars from attendance upon them for the slightest causes.

This plan has obtained very generally in the states northwest of the Ohio River, which have received from the General Confederacy a grant of one section, or six hundred and forty acres of land in each township for the support of schools. In some of these states the additional tax is already sufficient, when joined with the avails of the school fund, to render the schools entirely free. If one plan is superior to both of the others, this is, perhaps, ent.i.tled to the pre-eminence. The school fund lessens the amount which it is necessary to raise by a direct tax; and still the sum which is levied in this way has a tendency to beget and maintain a lively interest on the part of capitalists in the administration of the educational department, and in the maintenance and improvement of the public schools.

[67] A year ago the schools of New York were made entirely free by law.

See the foot-note on the 267th page of this work.

Without a correct public opinion and a due appreciation of the importance of education, either of the three systems named, or any other which may be adopted for the support of schools, will, and, from the very nature of the case, must, be inadequate to meet the necessities of a free people. But let the public be alive to the advantages of education, and rank it first among the necessaries of life, and almost any system will be attended with eminent success. If, then, one system is superior to all others, it is that which is best calculated to beget in the popular mind a realizing sense of the necessity of educating all our youth in good schools. If this can be done in a state which has a large school fund, without diminishing the interest of the people in education, or relaxing their efforts to maintain improved schools, then may such a fund prove serviceable, as it will lessen the general tax.

But if the citizens of any state can not be brought to realize the importance of maintaining an elevated standard of common school education, and of rendering its blessings universal, without defraying the whole expense by a direct tax, then will a school fund prove to them a curse, and not a blessing.

Where there is a will there is a way, says the adage. Mr. Duer, as quoted at the head of this chapter, says, "I would recommend that each state should raise a fund sufficient for the entire support of the schools; that a suitable school-house and apparatus, with a convenient dwelling-house for the teacher, be furnished by the state for each district; and that every school-house be supplied with a well-qualified teacher, who shall receive from the state a suitable compensation." In this recommendation I fully concur. But with me it is immaterial whether the state raises a separate fund, set apart exclusively for the purposes of education, or regards the entire taxable property of the commonwealth, personal and real, as a general fund from which there shall be drawn annually a sufficient per centage to provide for universal education in free schools. This only do I insist upon, that the people be brought so fully to realize the advantages of a good common education as to place it high on the list of indispensables; then will they provide for rendering its blessings universal. The mode of doing this in any one state may, in view of the peculiar circ.u.mstances of a people, be different from that which it would be most advantageous ordinarily to adopt. If there is no other sure way of meeting the expense of common schools, and of begetting and maintaining a deep and abiding interest in popular education, then let the property of the state be regarded as a common fund from which there shall be annually drawn a sum sufficient for the maintenance of improved free schools, in which every child may receive a generous education, as this is the interest first in importance to individuals and families, to neighborhoods and communities, to states and nations.

_The state should maintain an Educational Department._ The magnitude of the interests involved renders this of the utmost importance. At the head of this department in every state there should be a minister of public instruction--whether he is called school superintendent, school commissioner, secretary of the board of education, or superintendent of public instruction--and he should be allowed time to make himself familiar with all the leading writers on the subject of education, in whatever age or language their works may have been written. Such an officer can not in any other way become qualified for the proper discharge of the duties which pertain to his profession. He should also be allowed time to acquaint himself with the current literature belonging to his department as it emanates from the press; to examine new school-books, and new kinds of school apparatus which claim to possess advantages, that he may be prepared to give to school teachers, school committee-men, and others whose opportunities for examination and investigation are less extended, and many of whom must be inexperienced, such advice as shall enable them judiciously to expend their means for their personal improvement or the improvement of their schools. He should likewise have time and opportunity to become so conversant with the practical operations of different school systems as to be qualified to give such suggestions in official reports as may be of service to the Legislature in perfecting their own, and to subordinate officers in its successful administration. All this would be necessary were we only to consult the pecuniary interests of the state in the judicious expenditure of the means which are annually devoted to the support of common schools. Of how much greater importance is it that there should be such an officer in every state, and that he should enjoy every possible means for increasing his usefulness, when we consider that the successful bestowment of his labors will contribute greatly to increase individual and social happiness, and the general prosperity of the state in all coming generations.

In the further consideration of the means of rendering the blessings of education universal, we shall introduce leading topics in the order in which they naturally suggest themselves.

GOOD SCHOOL HOUSES SHOULD BE PROVIDED.

A school ought to be a n.o.ble asylum, to which children will come, and in which they will remain with pleasure; to which their parents will send them with good will.--COUSIN.

If there is one house in the district more pleasantly located, more comfortably constructed, better warmed, more inviting in its general appearance, and more elevating in its influence than any other, that house should be the school-house.--_Michigan School Report_, 1847.

In considering the means of improving our schools, the place where our country's youth receive their first instruction, and where nineteen twentieths of them complete their scholastic training, claims early attention. It is, then, proper to consider the condition of this cla.s.s of edifices, as they have almost universally been in every part of the United States until within a few years past, and as they now generally are out of those states in which public attention has of late been more especially directed to improvements in education; for, before any people will attempt a reform in this particular, they must see and feel the need of it. Even in the more favored states, comparatively few in number, the improvements in school architecture have been confined mostly to a few localities, and are far from being adequate to the necessities of the case. Did s.p.a.ce allow, I would present statements made by school officers in their reports from various states of the Union: for, however wide the differences may be in common usage, in other respects there has heretofore been a striking sameness in the appearance of school-houses in every part of the country.

CONDITION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES.--In remarking upon the condition of this cla.s.s of edifices, as they have heretofore been constructed, and as they are now almost universally found wherever public sentiment has not been earnestly, perseveringly, and judiciously called to their improvement, I will present a few extracts from the official reports of Ma.s.sachusetts and New York, where greater pains have been taken to ascertain existing defects in schools, with a view to providing the necessary remedies, than in any other two states of this Union.

_School-houses in Ma.s.sachusetts._--The Secretary of the Board of Education of this state, in his report for 1846, remarks in reference to the condition of school-houses in the commonwealth as follows: "For years the condition of this cla.s.s of edifices throughout the state, taken as a whole, had been growing worse and worse. Time and decay were always doing their work, while only here and there, with wide s.p.a.ces between, was any notice taken of their silent ravages; and, in still fewer instances, were these ravages repaired. Hence, notwithstanding the improved condition of all other cla.s.ses of buildings, general dilapidation was the fate of these. Industry, and the increasing pecuniary ability which it creates, had given comfort, neatness, and even elegance to private dwellings. Public spirit had erected commodious and costly churches. Counties, though largely taxed, had yet uncomplainingly paid for handsome and s.p.a.cious court-houses and public offices. Humanity had been at work, and had made generous and n.o.ble provision for the pauper, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the insane.

Even jails and houses of correction--the receptacles of felons and other offenders against the laws of G.o.d and man--had in many instances been transformed, by the more enlightened spirit of the age, into comfortable and healthful residences. The Genius of Architecture, as if she had made provision for all mankind, extended her sheltering care over the brute creation. Better stables were provided for cattle; better folds for sheep; and even the unclean beasts felt the improving hand of reform.

But, in the mean while, the school-houses, to which the children should have been wooed by every attraction, were suffered to go where age and the elements would carry them.

"In 1837, not one third of the public school-houses in Ma.s.sachusetts would have been considered tenantable by any decent family out of the poor-house or in it. As an inducement to neatness and decency, children were sent to a house whose walls and floors were indeed painted, but they were painted all too thickly by smoke and filth; whose benches and doors were covered with carved work, but they were the gross and obscene carvings of impure hands; whose vestibule, after the Oriental fashion, was converted into a veranda, but the metamorphosis which changed its architectural style consisted in laying it bare of its outer covering.

The modesty and chast.i.ty of the s.e.xes, at their tenderest age, were to be cultivated and cherished in places which oftentimes were as dest.i.tute of all suitable accommodation as a camp or a caravan. The brain was to be worked amid gases that stupefied it. The virtues of generosity and forbearance were to be acquired where sharp discomfort and pain tempt each one to seize more than his own share of relief, and thus to strengthen every selfish propensity.

"At the time referred to, the school-houses in Ma.s.sachusetts were an opprobrium to the state; and if there be any one who thinks this expression too strong, he may satisfy himself of its correctness by inspecting some of the few specimens of them which still remain.

"The earliest effort at reform was directed to this cla.s.s of buildings.

By presenting the idea of taxation, this measure encountered the opposition of one of the strongest pa.s.sions of the age. Not only the sordid and avaricious, but even those whose virtue of frugality, by the force of habit, had been imperceptibly sliding into the vice of parsimony, felt the alarm. Men of fortune without children, and men who had reared a family of children and borne the expenses of their education, fancied they saw something of injustice in being called to pay for the education of others, and too often their fancies started into specters of all imaginable oppression and wrong.

"During the five years immediately succeeding the report made by the Board of Education to the Legislature on the subject of school-houses, the sums expended for the erection and repair of this cla.s.s of buildings fell but little short of _seven hundred thousand dollars_. Since that time, from the best information obtained, I suppose the sum expended on this one item to be about _one hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually_. Every year adds some new improvement to the construction and arrangement of these edifices.

"In regard to this great change in school-houses--it would hardly be too much to call it a _revolution_--the school committees have done an excellent work, or, rather, they have begun it; it is not yet done.

Their annual reports, read in open town meeting, or printed and circulated among the inhabitants, afterward embodied in the Abstracts and distributed to the members of the government, to all town and school committees, have enlightened and convinced the state."

_School-houses in New York._--About ten years ago, special visitors were appointed by the superintendent of common schools in each of the counties of this state, who were requested to visit and inspect the schools, and to report minutely in regard to their state and prospects.

The most respectable citizens, without distinction of party, were selected to discharge this duty; and the result of their labors is contained in two reports, made, the one in April, 1840, the other in February, 1841. "It may be remarked, generally," say the visitors of one of the oldest and most affluent towns of the southeastern section of the state, "that the school-houses are built in the old style, are too small to be convenient, and, with one exception, too near the public roads, having generally no other play-ground."--_Report_, 1840, p. 47.

Say the visitors of another large and wealthy town in the central part of the state, "Out of twenty schools visited, ten of the school-houses were in bad repair, and many of them not worth repairing. In none were any means provided for the ventilation of the room. In many of the districts, the school-rooms are too small for the number of scholars.

The location of the school-houses is generally pleasant. There are, however, but few instances where play-grounds are attached, and their condition as to privies is very bad. The arrangement of seats and desks is generally very bad, and inconvenient to both scholars and teachers; most of them are without backs."--_Report_, 1840, p. 28.

In another large and populous town in the northwestern part of the state, it appears from the report of the visitors that only _five_ out of twenty-two school-houses are respectable or comfortable; none have any proper means of ventilation; eight of them are built of logs, and but one of them has a privy.

According to the report from another county, where the evils already enumerated exist, "There is, in general, too little attention to having good and dry wood provided, or a _good supply of any_; or to have a wood-house or shelter to keep it from the storm." This neglect is very common. Another neglect, noticed by many of the visitors, is "the cold and comfortless state in which the children find the school-room, owing to the late hour at which the fire is first made in the morning."

Three years later--and after the appointment of county superintendents in each of the counties of that state, who collected statistics with great care--the Hon. Samuel Young, then state superintendent, after making a minute statement of the number of school-houses constructed of stone, brick, wood, and logs; of their condition as to repair; of the dest.i.tution of privies, suitable play-grounds, etc., remarked as follows:

"But 544 out of 9368 houses visited contained more than one room; 7313 were dest.i.tute of any suitable play-ground; nearly 6000 were unfurnished with convenient seats and desks; nearly 8000 dest.i.tute of the proper facilities for ventilation; _and upward of 6000 without a privy of any sort_; while, of the remainder, but about 1000 were provided with privies containing different apartments for male and female pupils! And it is in these miserable abodes of acc.u.mulated dirt and filth, deprived of wholesome air, or exposed, without adequate protection, to the a.s.saults of the elements; with no facilities for necessary exercise or relaxation; no convenience for prosecuting their studies; crowded together on benches not admitting of a moment's rest in any position, and debarred the possibility of yielding to the ordinary calls of nature without violent inroads upon modesty and shame, that upward of _two hundred thousand children_, scattered over various parts of the state, are compelled to spend an average period of eight months during each year of their pupilage! Here the first lessons of human life, the incipient principles of morality, and the rules of social intercourse are to be impressed upon the plastic mind. The boy is here to receive the model of his permanent character, and to imbibe the elements of his future career; and here the instinctive delicacy of the young female, one of the characteristic ornaments of the s.e.x, is to be expanded into maturity by precept and example! Is it strange, under such circ.u.mstances, that an early and invincible repugnance to the acquisition of knowledge is imbibed by the youthful mind? that the school-house is regarded with unconcealed aversion and disgust, and that parents who have any desire to preserve the health and the morals of their children exclude them from the district school, and provide instruction for them elsewhere?"

A volume might be filled with similar testimony; but one more quotation from another state must suffice. After noticing the common evils already referred to, the superintendent remarks as follows:[68] "But this notice of _ordinary_ deficiencies does not cover the whole ground of error in regard to the situation of school-houses. In some cases they are brought into close connection with positive nuisances. In a case which has fallen under the superintendent's own personal observation, one side of the school-house forms part of the fence of a hog-yard, into which, during the summer, the calves of an extensive dairy establishment have been thrown from time to time (disgusting and revolting spectacle!), to be rent and devoured before the eyes of teacher and pupils, except such portions of the mutilated and mangled carca.s.ses as were left by the animals to go to decay, as they lay exposed to the sun and storm. It is true, the windows on the side of the building adjoining the yard were generally observed to be closed, in order to shut out the almost insupportable stench which arose from the decomposing remains. But this closure of the windows could, in no great degree, 'abate the nuisance;'

for not a breath of air could enter the house from any direction but it must come saturated with the disgusting and sickening odor that loaded the atmosphere around. It needs no professional learning to tell the deleterious influence upon health which must be exerted by such an agency, operating for continuous hours."

[68] First Annual Report of the State Superintendent (Hon. Horace Eaton) of Common Schools, made to the Legislature of Vermont, October, 1846.

If such evils as have been considered have existed so generally, and still prevail to an alarming extent, even in the states where education has received the most attention, what need must there be for the dissemination of information on this vitally important subject, especially in those states where education has heretofore received less attention! In remarking further upon this subject, I shall consider several leading particulars in the order they naturally suggest themselves. I will, then, commence with the

LOCATION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES.--In comparatively few instances school-houses are favorably located, being situated on dry, hard ground, in a retired though central part of the district, in the midst of a natural or artificial grove. But they are almost universally badly located; exposed to the noise, dust, and danger of the highway; unattractive, if not absolutely repulsive in their external appearance, and built at the least possible expense of material and labor. They are generally on one corner of public roads, and sometimes adjacent to a cooper's shop, or between a blacksmith's shop and a saw-mill. They are not unfrequently placed on an acute angle, where a road forks, and sometimes in turning that angle, the travel is chiefly behind the school-house, leaving it on a small triangle bounded on all sides by public roads.

Occasionally the school-house is situated on a low and worthless piece of ground, with a sluggish stream of water in its vicinity, which sometimes even pa.s.ses under the house. The comfort, and health even, of children are thus sacrificed to the parsimony of their parents. Scholars very generally step from the school-house directly into the highway.

Indeed, school-houses are frequently situated one half in the highway and the other half in the adjacent field, as though they were unfit for either. This is the case even in some of the princ.i.p.al villages of all the states I have ever visited, or from which I have read full reports on the subject.

Strange as it may seem, school-houses are sometimes situated _in the middle of the highway_, a portion of the travel being on each side of them. When the scholars are engaged in their recreations, they are exposed to bleak winds and the inclemency of the weather one portion of the year, and to the scorching rays of the meridian sun another portion.

Moreover, their recreations must be conducted in the street, or they trespa.s.s upon their neighbors' premises. We pursue a very different policy in locating a church, a court-house, or a dwelling; and should we not pursue an equally wise and liberal policy in locating the _district school-house_?

In the states generally northwest of the River Ohio, six hundred and forty acres of land in every township are appropriated to the support of common schools. Suppose there are ten school districts in a township, this would allow sixty-four acres to every district. It would seem that when the general government has appropriated _sixty-four acres_ to create a fund for the encouragement of the schools of a township, that each district might set apart _one acre_ as a site for a school-house.

Once more: school districts usually contain not less than twenty-five hundred acres of land. Is it, then, asking too much to set apart _one acre_ as a site for a school-house, in which the _minds_ of the children of the district shall be cultivated, when _twenty-four hundred and ninety-nine_ acres are appropriated to feeding and clothing their _bodies_?