Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions Part 4

"It is to be distinctly understood that the inst.i.tution is not to be considered a _place of punishment_, or its subjects as criminals. It is to be an inviting refuge, into which the exposed may be gathered to be saved from a course which would inevitably end in penal confinement, irretrievable ruin, or hopeless degradation.

"The inmates are to be considered hopeful and promising subjects of appropriate culture, and to be instructed and watched over with the care and kindness which their peculiar exposures demand, and with the confidence which youth should ever inspire.

"The restraint and the discipline which will be necessary are to be such as would be appropriate in a Christian family or in a small boarding-school; and the 'law of kindness' should be written upon the heart of every officer of the inst.i.tution. The chief end to be obtained, in all the culture and discipline, is the proper development of the faculties and moral affections of the inmates, however they may have been heretofore neglected or perverted; and to teach them the art, and aid them in securing the power, of self-government."

Under the influence of these sentiments, we pa.s.s, if possible, in the work of reformation, from the rigor of the prison to the innocent excitement and rivalry of the school, the comfort, confidence and joys of home. This inst.i.tution a.s.sumes that crime, to some extent at least, is social, local, or hereditary, in its origin; that the career of hardened criminals often takes its rise in poverty, idleness, ignorance, orphanage, desertion, or intemperance of parents, evil example, or the indifference, scorn and neglect of society. It a.s.sumes, also, that there is a period of life--childhood and youth--when these, the first indications of moral death, may be eradicated, or their influence for evil controlled. In this land of education, of liberty, of law, of labor and religion, we may not easily imagine how universal the enumerated evils are in many portions of Europe. The existence of these evils is in some degree owing to inst.i.tutions which favor a few, and oppress the ma.s.ses; but it is also in a measure due to the fact that Europe is both old and mult.i.tudinous. America, though still young, is even now mult.i.tudinous. Hence, both here and there, crime is social and local.

The truth of this statement is proportionate to the force of the causes in the respective countries.

We are a.s.sembled upon a sloping hillside, over-looking a quiet country village. Happy homes are embowered in living groves, whose summer foliage is emblematical of innocence, progress, and peace. We have here a social life, with natural impulses, cultivated worldly interests, moral and religious sentiments, all on the side of virtue. Crime here is not social. If it appear at all, it is segregated; and, as the burning taper expires when placed at the centre of the spirit lamp's coiling sheet of flame, so vice and crime cannot thrive in the genial embrace of virtue.

Circ.u.mstances are here unfavorable to crime; it is never social; but sometimes, though not often, it is hereditary. A family for many generations seems to have a criminal tendency. Perhaps the members are not in any generation guilty of great crimes, but often of lesser ones; and are, moreover, in the daily practice of vices that give rise to suspicion, neglect, and reproach. Here together are a.s.sociated, and made hereditary, poverty, ignorance, idleness, beggary, and vagrancy. Surely these instances are not common, probably not so common as they were in the last generation. But how is the boy or girl of such a family to rise above these circ.u.mstances, and throw off these weights? Occasionally one of great energy of character may do so; but, if the children of more fortunate cla.s.ses can scarcely escape the influence of temporary evil example, how shall they who are born to a heritage of poverty, ignorance, and ever-present evil counsel and conduct under the guise of parental authority, pa.s.s to the position of intelligent, industrious, respectable members of society? Some external influence must be applied; by some means from without, the spell must be broken; the fatal succession of vicious homes must be interrupted. The family has here failed to discharge its duty to itself and to the state; and shall not the state do its duty to itself, by a.s.suming the paternal relation under the guidance of that law of kindness, which we have seen effectual to control the insane, and melt the hardened criminal? But in cities we find vice, not only hereditary in families, but local and social; so that streets and squares are given up, as it were, to the idle and vicious, whose numbers and influence produce and perpetuate a public sentiment in support of their daily practices. This phase of life is not due to the fact that cities are wealthy, or that they are engaged in manufactures or commerce; but to the single fact that they are mult.i.tudinous, and their inhabitants are, therefore, in daily contact with each other, while, in the country, individuals and families are comparatively isolated. Yet some may very well doubt whether such an inst.i.tution as this, with all the benign influences of home which we hope to see centred and diffusive here, will save a child of either s.e.x, whose first years shall have been so unfavorable to a life of virtue.

The answer is plain: as in other reformatory inst.i.tutions, there will be some successes and some failures. The failures will be reckoned as they were; the successes will be a clear gain.

But investigation and trial will show a natural apt.i.tude or instinct in children that will aid in their improvement and reformation. There has been in one of our public schools a lad, who, at the age of fourteen years, could not recall distinctly the circ.u.mstances of his life previous to the time when he was a newsboy in the city of New York. He was ignorant of father, mother, kindred, family name, and nation. At an early age, he travelled through the middle, southern and south-western states, engaged in selling papers and trash literature; and, for a time, he was employed by a showman to stand outside the tent and describe and exaggerate the attractions within. When he was in his fourteenth year, he accepted the offer of a permanent home; his chief object being, as he said, to obtain an education. "I have found," said he, "that a man cannot do much in this country unless he has some learning." This truth, simple, and resting upon a low view of education, may yet be of infinite value if accepted by those who, even among us, are advancing to adult life without the preparation which our common schools are well fitted to furnish. And the case of this lad may be yet further useful by showing how compensation is provided for evils and neglects in mental and moral relations, as well as in the physical and natural world. Though ignorant of books, he was thoroughly and extensively acquainted with things, and consequently made rapid progress in the knowledge of signs; for they were immediately applied, and of course remembered. In a few months, he took a respectable position among lads of his age. The world had done for this boy what good schools do not always accomplish,--made him familiar with things before he was troubled with the signs which stand for them. There is an ignorance in manhood; an ignorance under the show of profound learning; an ignorance for which schools, academies and colleges, are often responsible; an ignorance that neither schools, academies nor colleges, can conceal from the humblest intellects; an ignorance of life and things as they are within the sphere of our own observation. From this most deplorable ignorance this boy had escaped; and the light of learning illumined his mind, as the sun in his daily return reveals anew those forms of life, which, even in an ungenial spring and early summer, his rays had warmed into existence, and nourished and cherished in their progress towards perfection.

And, ladies and gentlemen, let us indulge the hope that the events of this day and the faith of this a.s.sembly will declare that it is possible to save the children of orphanage, intemperance, neglect, scorn and ignorance, from many of the evils which surround them. Let it not be a.s.sumed and believed that the task of training and saving girls is less hopeful than similar labors in behalf of the other s.e.x. It has been found true in Europe, and it is a prevailing opinion in this country, that, among adults, the reformation of females is more difficult than the reformation of males. But an a.n.a.lysis of this fact, a.s.suming it to be true, will unfold qualities of female character that render it peculiarly easy to shield and save girls who are exposed to a life of crime; for, be it remembered, this inst.i.tution deals with mere children, who are exposed, but not yet lost. It differs, in this respect, from most inst.i.tutions, although many include this cla.s.s with others. And it may be well to remark, that every reformatory school in Europe, even those altogether penal,--as Parkhurst in England, and Mettray in France,--have had some measure of success. Eighty-nine per cent. of the colons, or convicts, at Mettray, have become respectable and useful; while, of the youth sent to the ordinary jails and prisons, seventy-five per cent. are totally lost. It is not fair, therefore, to a.s.sume that this attempt will fail. The degree of success will depend upon circ.u.mstances and causes, to a great extent, within human control.

There are, however, three elements of success, so distinct that they may well stand as the appropriate divisions of what remains for consideration. They are the right action of the government; the faithful conduct of superintendent, matrons, and a.s.sistants; the sympathy and aid of the people of the state in matters which do not admit of legislative interference.

The act of the Legislature, though voluminous in its details, contemplates only this: A home for girls between seven and sixteen years of age, who are found "in circ.u.mstances of want and suffering, or of neglect, exposure, or abandonment, or of beggary." The first idea of _home_ precludes the possibility of the inmates being sent here as a punishment for crime; therefore they are neither adjudged nor actual criminals, but persons exposed to a vicious life. Secondly, the idea of home involves the necessity of reproducing the family relation, as circ.u.mstances may permit. Hence, the members of this inst.i.tution are to be divided into families; and over each a matron will preside, who is to be a kind, affectionate, discreet mother to the children.

And here, for once, in Ma.s.sachusetts, a public inst.i.tution has escaped the tyranny of bricks and mortar; and we are permitted to indulge the hope, that any future additions will tend to make this spot a neighborhood of unostentatious cottages, quiet rural homes, rather than the seat of a vast edifice, which may provoke the wonder of the sight-seer, inflame local or state pride, but can never be an effectual, economical agency in the work of reformation. Every public inst.i.tution has some great object. Architecture should bend itself to that object, and become its servant; and it must ever be deemed a mistake, when utility is sacrificed that art or fancy may have its way.

Reformation, if wrought by external influences, is the result of personal kindness. Personal kindness can exist only where there is intimate personal acquaintance; this acquaintance is impossible in an inst.i.tution of two, three, or five hundred inmates. But, in a family of ten, twenty, or thirty, this knowledge will exist, and this kindness abound. Warm personal attachments will grow up in the family, and these attachments are likely to become safeguards of virtue.

Nor let the objection prevail that the expense is to be increased. It is not the purpose to set up an establishment and maintain it for a specific sum of money, but to provide thorough mental and moral training for the inmates. Make the work efficient, though it be limited to a small number, rather than inaugurate a magnificent failure.

The state has wisely provided that the "trustees shall cause the girls under their charge to be instructed in piety and morality, and in such branches of useful knowledge as shall be adapted to their age and capacity; they shall also be instructed in some regular course of labor, either mechanical, manufacturing, or horticultural, or a combination of these, and especially in such domestic and household labor and duties as shall be best suited to their age and strength, disposition and capacity; also in such other arts, trades, and employments, as may seem to the trustees best adapted to secure their reformation, amendment, and future benefit."

It is sometimes the bane of the poor that they do not work, and it is often equally the bane of the rich that they have nothing to do. The idle, both rich and poor, carry a weight of reproach that not all ought to bear. The disposition and the ability to labor are both the result of education; and why should the uneducated be better able to labor than to read Greek and Latin? Surely only that there are more teachers in one department than in the others; but a good teacher of labor may be as uncommon as a good teacher of Latin or Greek. There is a false, vicious, unmanly pride, which leads our youth of both s.e.xes to shun labor; and it is the business of the true teacher to extirpate this growth of a diseased civilization. And we could have no faith in this school, if it were not a school of industry as well as of morality,--a school in which the divine law of labor is to be observed equally with the laws of men.

Industry is near to all the virtues. In this era every branch of labor is an art, and sometimes it is necessary for the laborer to be both an artist and a scientific person. How great, then, the misfortune of those, whether rich or poor, who are uninstructed in the business of life! We should hardly know what judgment to pa.s.s upon a man of wealth who should entirely neglect the education of his children in schools; but the common indifference to industrial learning is not less reprehensible. Labor should be systematic; not constant, indeed, but always to be reckoned as the great business of life, never to be avoided, never to cease.

Labor gives us a better knowledge of the fulness, magnificence and glory, of the divine blessing of creation. This lesson may be learned by the farmer in the wonderful growth of vegetation; by the artist, in the powers of invention and taste of the human mind and soul; by the man of science, in the beauty of an insect or the order of a universe. The vision of the idle is limited. The ability to see may be improved by education as much as the ability to read, remember, or converse. With many people, not seeing is a habit. Near-sighted persons are generally those who declined to look at distant objects; and so nature, true to the most perfect rules of economy, refused to keep in order faculties that were entirely neglected. The laborer's recompense is not money, nor the acc.u.mulation of worldly goods chiefly; but it is in his increased ability to observe, appreciate, and enjoy the world, with its beauties and blessings. Nor is labor, the penalty for sin, a punishment merely, but a divine means of reformation. It is, therefore, a moral discipline that all should submit to; and especially is it a means by which the youth here are to be prepared for the duties of life. But industry is not only near to all the virtues; it is itself a virtue, as idleness is a vice. The word _labor_ is, of course, used in the broadest signification. Labor is any honest employment, or use of the head or hands, which brings good to ourselves, and consequently, though indirectly, brings good to our fellow-men.

The state has now furnished a home, reproduced, as far as practicable, the family relation, and provided for a cla.s.s of neglected and exposed girls the means of mental, industrial, moral, and religious culture. The plan appears well; but its practical value depends upon the fidelity of its execution by the superintendent, matrons and a.s.sistants. I venture to predict in advance, that the degree of success is mainly within their control. This is a school, they are the teachers; and they must bend to the rule which all true teachers willingly accept.

The teacher must be what he would have his pupils become. This was the standard of the great Teacher; this is the aim of all who desire to make education a matter of reality and life, and not merely a knowledge of signs and forms. Here will be needed a spirit and principle of devotion which will be fruitful in humility, patience, earnestness, energy, good words and works for all. Here must be strictness, possibly sternness of discipline; but this is not incompatible with the qualities mentioned.

It is a principle at Mettray to combine unbounded personal kindness with a rigid exclusion of personal indulgence.

This principle produces good results that are two-fold in their influence. First, personal kindness in the teacher induces a reciprocal quality in the pupils. The habit of personal kindness, proceeding from right feelings, is a potent element of good in the family, the school, and the prison. Indeed, it is an element of good citizenship; and no one dest.i.tute of this quality ought to be intrusted with the education of children, or the punishment and reformation of criminals.

Secondly, the rigid exclusion of personal indulgence trains the inmates in the virtue of self-control. And may it not be forgotten that all apparent reformation must be hedged by this cardinal virtue of practical life! Otherwise the best-formed expectations will fail; the highest hopes will be disappointed; and the life of these teachers, and the promise of the youth who may be gathered here, will be like the sun and the winds upon the desert, which bring neither refreshing showers nor fruitful harvests. Every form of labor requires faith. This labor requires faith in yourselves, and faith in others;--faith in yourselves, as teachers here, based upon your own knowledge of what you are and are to do; and faith in others upon the divine declaration that G.o.d breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living soul,--not merely as the previous creations, possessed of animal life; but as a sentient, intellectual, and moral being, capable of a progressive, immortal existence.

"'Tis nature's law That none, the meanest of created things,

Should exist Divorced from good,--a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul, to every mode of being Inseparably linked.

See, then, your only conflict is with men; And your sole strife is to defend and teach The unillumined, who, without such care, Must dwindle."

And always, as in the beginning, the reliance of this school is upon the people of the commonwealth, whose voice has spoken into existence another instrumentality to give eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, a heart for the work of this life, and a hope for an hereafter, to those who from neglect and vicious example would soon pa.s.s the period of reformation. But may the people always bear in mind the indisputable truth, that schools for the criminal and the exposed yield not their perfect fruits in a day or a year! They must, if they will know whether the seed here planted produces a harvest, wait for the birth and growth of one generation, the decay and death of another. Yet these years of delay will not be years of uncertainty. The public faith will be strengthened continually by cases of reformation, usefulness, and virtue. But, whether these cases be few or many, let no one despond. The career of the criminal is, often in money and always in influence, the heaviest burden which an individual can impose upon society.

This is a school for girls; and we may properly appeal to the women of Ma.s.sachusetts to do their duty to this inst.i.tution, and to the cause it represents. We can already see the second stage in the existence of many of those who are to be sent here; and there is good reason to fear that the relation of mistress and servant among us is in some degree dest.i.tute of those moral qualities that make the house a home for all who dwell beneath its roof. But, whether this fear be the voice of truth or the suggestion of prejudice, that woman shall not be held blameless, who, under the influence of indolence, pride, fashion, or avarice, shall neglect, abuse, or oppress, the humblest of her s.e.x who goes forth from these walls into the broad and dangerous path of life. But this day shall not leave the impression that they who are most interested in the elevation and refinement of female character are indifferent to the means employed, and the results which are to wait on them.

The greatest delineator of human character in this age says, as the images of neglected children pa.s.s before his vision:

"There is not one of them--not one--but sows a harvest mankind _must_ reap. From every seed of evil in this boy a field of ruin is grown that shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in many places in the world, until regions are over-spread with wickedness enough to raise the waters of another deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a city's streets would be less guilty in its daily toleration than one such spectacle as this. There is not a father, by whose side, in his daily or nightly walk, these creatures pa.s.s; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible, in his or her degree, for this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."

This inst.i.tution, then, in the true relation of things, is not the glory of the state, but its shame. It speaks of families, of schools, of the church, of the state, not yet educated to the discharge of their respective duties in the right way. But it is the glory of the state as a visible effort to correct evils, atone for neglects, and compensate for wrongs. It comes to do, in part at least, what the family, the school, the press, the library, the Sabbath, have nest yet perfectly accomplished. As these agencies partially failed, so will this; but, as the law of progress exists for all, because perfection with us is unattainable, we may reasonably have faith in human improvement, and trust that the life of each succeeding generation shall unite, in ever-increasing proportions, the innocence of childhood with the wisdom of age.

ELEMENTARY TRAINING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

[Extract from the Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the Ma.s.sachusetts Board of Education.]

We are still sadly defective in methods of education. Until recently teaching was almost an unknown art; and we are at present struggling against ignorance without any well-defined plan, and attempting to develop and build up the immortal character of children, without a philosophical and generally accepted theory of the nature of the human mind. There are complaints that the duties and exactions of the schools injure the health and impair the const.i.tutions of pupils; that the progress in intellectual attainments is not always what it should be; that the training given is sometimes determined by the wishes of committees against the better judgment of competent teachers; that the text-books are defective; that the studies in the common schools are too numerous; that the elements are consequently neglected; and that, in fine, too much thought is bestowed upon exhibitions and contests for public prizes, to the injury of good learning, and of individual and general character. For these complaints there is some foundation; but care should be exercised lest incidental and necessary evils become, in the public estimation, great wrongs, and exceptional cases the evidence of general facts.

It is to some extent true that the duties and exactions of the schools seriously test the health of pupils; but it is, as I believe, more generally true that many pupils are physically unable to meet the ordinary and proper duties of the school-room. School life, as usually conducted, is physically injurious, and our best efforts thus far have been limited to the dissemination of elementary knowledge of physiology as a science, and to an acquaintance with a limited number of important physiological facts. Yet even here little has been accomplished in comparison with what may be done. In this department there is much instruction given that has no practical value, and children are often permitted to live in daily and uniform neglect of the most essential truths of science and the facts of human experience. Neither physiology nor hygiene can be of much value in the schools, as a study, unless there is an application of what is taught. Great proficiency cannot be made in these branches in the brief period of school life; but a competent teacher may induce the pupils to put in practice the lessons that are applicable to childhood and youth. If, however, as is sometimes the case, pupils are undermining the physical const.i.tution in their efforts to know how they are made, the loss is, unquestionably, more than the gain. Physical health and growth depend, first, upon opportunity; and hence it happens that, where physical life is most defective, there the greatest difficulties in the way of its improvement are found. Boys born in the country, living upon farms, accustomed continually to outdoor labors and sports, walking a mile or more every day to school, have but little use, in their own persons, for the science or facts of physiology; and it is a very rare thing, where such conditions have existed, that any teacher is able to exact an amount of intellectual service that proves in any perceptible degree injurious.

But these opportunities are not so generally enjoyed by girls, and the ma.s.s of children in cities are wholly deprived of them. In the country, and even in villages and towns of considerable size, there is no excuse, better than ignorance or indifference, for the lack of judicious and efficient physical training of children and youth of both s.e.xes. But ignorance and indifference are facts; and, while and where they exist, they are prejudicial to the growth of mind and body. The age at which children should be admitted to school has not been ascertained, nor can a satisfactory rule upon this point ever be laid down. If children are not in schools, they are yet subject to influences that are formative of character. When proper government and methods of education exist at home, the presence of the child in school at an early age is not desirable. Even when education at home is not methodical, it may be continued until the child is seven or even eight years of age, if it is at once moral, intelligent, and controlling. It is not, however, wise to expect a child who is infirm physically to perform the labors imposed by the necessary and proper regulations of school. When children enjoy good health, and are not blessed with suitable training at home, they may be introduced to the school, at the age of five years, with positive advantage to themselves and to society.

When the child is a member of the school, what shall be done with him?

He must first be taught to take an interest in the exercises by making the exercises interesting to him. That the transition from home to the school may be easy, he should first occupy himself with those topics and studies that are presented to the eye and to the ear, and may be mastered, so as to produce the sensation that follows achievement with only a moderate use of the reasoning and reflective faculties. Among these are reading, writing, music, and drawing. This is also the time when object lessons may be given with great advantage. The forms and names of geometrical solids may be taught. Exercises may be introduced tending to develop those powers by which we comprehend the qualities of color, size, density, form, and weight. Important moral truths may be presented with the aid of suitable ill.u.s.trations. In every school the teacher and text-books may be considered a positive quality which should balance the negative power of the school itself. In primary schools text-books have but little value, and the chief reliance is, therefore, upon the teacher. Instruction must be mainly oral; hence the mind of the teacher should be well furnished, and her capacities chastened by considerable experience. As the pupils are unable to study, the teacher must lead in all their exercises, and find profitable employment for the children, or they will give themselves up to play or to stupid listlessness. Of these alternatives, the latter is more objectionable than the former.

It is, of course, not often possible for a teacher to occupy herself six hours a day with a single cla.s.s in a primary school, especially if she confines her attention to the studies enumerated. In many schools, of various grades, gymnastic exercises have been introduced with marked advantage. There are many such exercises which do not need apparatus, and in which the teacher can properly lead.

These furnish a healthful variety to the studies usually pursued, and they prepare the pupils to receive appropriate instruction in sitting, standing, and in the modulation and use of the voice. Indeed, gymnastic exercises are indispensable aids to proper training in reading, which, as an art of a high order, is immediately dependent upon position, habits of breathing, the consequent power of voice, and expressiveness of tone. I am fully satisfied that much more may be done in the early period of school life than is usually accomplished. In the district mixed schools the primary pupils receive but little attention, and they are not infrequently occupied from one to three years in obtaining an imperfect knowledge of the alphabet. Usually much better results are attained by the combined agency of the home and the school, but there is an average loss of one-fourth of the time employed in teaching and learning the elements of our language.

Mr. Philbrick, Superintendent of Public Schools in Boston, has taught and trained a cla.s.s of fifty primary-school pupils with a degree of success which fully sustains the statement of the average waste in schools generally. Twenty-two lessons of a half-hour each were given; and in this brief period of time the cla.s.s, with a few exceptions, were so well advanced that they could write the alphabet in capital and script hand, give the elementary sounds of the letters, produce and name the Arabic characters and the common geometrical figures found upon Holbrook's slates. I saw a girl, five and a half years of age, write the alphabet without delay in script hand, in a manner that would have been creditable to a pupil in a grammar school.

I present Mr. Philbrick's own account of his mode of proceeding, in an extract from his third quarterly report to the school committee of the city of Boston.

"The regulations relating to the primary schools require every scholar to be provided with a slate, and to employ the time not otherwise occupied in drawing or writing words from their spelling lessons, on their slates, in a plain script hand. It is further stated, in the same connection, that the teachers are expected to take special pains to teach the first cla.s.s to write--not print--all the letters of the alphabet on slates.

"The language of this requirement seems to imply that the cla.s.ses below the first are to draw and write words, in a plain script hand, without any special pains to teach them, and that by such occupation they were to be kept from idleness. As I saw neither of these objects accomplished in any primary school, I thought it worth while to satisfy myself, by actual experiment, what can and ought to be done, in the use of the slate and blackboard, in teaching writing and drawing in primary schools. To accomplish this object, I have given a course of lessons in a graded or cla.s.sified school of the third cla.s.s. The number of pupils instructed in the cla.s.s was about fifty. The materials of the school are rather below the average; about twenty of the pupils being of that description usually found in schools for special instruction. The school-room is furnished, as every primary school-room should be, with stationary chairs and desks, and Holbrook's primary slates. Twenty-two lessons, of from thirty to forty minutes each, were given, about one-third of the time being devoted to drawing, and two-thirds to writing. As to the method pursued, the main points were, to present but a single element at a time; to ill.u.s.trate on the blackboard defects and excellences in execution; frequent review of the ground pa.s.sed over, especially in the _first_ steps of the course; a vigorous exercise of all the mental faculties requisite for the performance of the task; and a desire for improvement, encouraged and stimulated by the best and strongest available motives; the greater part of the time being bestowed upon the dull and backward pupils.

"The result has exceeded my expectations. About three-fourths of the number taught can draw most of the simple mathematical lines and figures, given as copies on the slates used, with tolerable accuracy, and write all the letters of the alphabet in a fair script hand. This experiment satisfies me that, with the proper facilities, the three upper cla.s.ses in graded primary schools can be taught to write the letters of the alphabet in a plain script hand, and even to join them into words, without any material hindrance to the other required studies; and, moreover, that the great remedy for the complaint of want of time, in these schools, is the increase of skill in the art of teaching."

It is well known that in this country and in Europe methods of teaching the alphabet have been introduced which materially diminish the labor of teachers, and lessen the drudgery to which children are usually subjected. The alphabet is taught as an object lesson. The object is usually an animal, plant, or flower. More frequently the first. The mind of the child is awakened either by the presence of the animal, or by a brief but vivid description of its characteristics. The children are first required to p.r.o.nounce properly the name of the animal. Here is an opportunity for training in the use of the voice, and in the art of breathing, with which the general health, as well as the vocal power, is intimately connected. The word which is the name of the animal is a.n.a.lyzed into its elementary sounds. It may then be reconstructed without the aid of visible signs, either written or printed. Next the teacher produces the signs which stand for the several sounds, and gives their names. The letters are presented in any way that suits the teacher. There may be no better method than to produce them upon the blackboard, as this course encourages the pupils to draw them upon their slates, and thus they are at once, and without formal preliminaries, engaged in writing.

An outline of the animal may be drawn upon the blackboard, which the pupils will eagerly copy; and though this exercise may not be valuable in a high degree, as preparation for the systematic study of drawing, yet it trains the perceptive and reflective faculties in a manner that is pleasant to the great majority of children. It is also in the power of the teacher, at any point in the exercises, and with reference both to variety and usefulness, to give the most apparent facts, which to children are the most interesting facts, in the natural history of the animal. This plan contemplates instruction in p.r.o.nunciation in connection with exercises in breathing, in the elementary sounds of words both consonant and vowel, in the names of letters, in writing and drawing, to all of which may be added something of natural history. It is of course to be understood that such exercises would be extended over many lessons, be subject to frequent reviews, and valuable in proportion to the teacher's ability to interest children. The outline given is suggestive, merely, and it is not presented as a plan of a model course; but enough has been done and is doing in this department to warrant increased attention, and to justify the belief that a degree of progress will soon be made in teaching the elements that will mark the epoch as a revolution in educational affairs. It is to be observed that the system indicated requires a high order of teaching talent. Only thorough professional culture, or long and careful experience, will meet the claims of such a course. It is quite plain, however, that no advantage would arise from keeping pupils in school six hours each day; and that, regarding only the intellectual advancement of the child during the elementary course, his presence might be reduced to two hours, or possibly in some cases to one: provided, always, that he could enjoy, with his cla.s.s a.s.sociates, the undivided attention of the teacher. In this view of the subject, it would be possible, where the primary schools are graded, as in portions of the city of Boston, for one teacher to take charge of two cla.s.ses or schools, each for an hour in the forenoon and an hour in the afternoon. This arrangement would apply only to the younger pupils; yet I am aware that parents and the public would be solicitous concerning the manner of employing the time that would remain. In the cities this question is one of magnitude, and there are strong reasons for declining any proposition to reduce the school day full one-half, which does hot provide occupation for the children during the remainder of the time. It is only in connection with such a proposition that projects for gymnastic training are practicable. When children are employed six hours in school, it is not easy to find time for a course of systematic physical education; and physical education, to be productive of appreciable advantages, must be systematic. When left to children and youth, or to the care of parents, very little will be accomplished. Children will partic.i.p.ate in the customary sports, and perform the allotted labors; but in cities these sports and labors are inadequate even for boys, and in country, as well as city, girls are often the victims of neglect in this respect. Availing ourselves, then, of the light shed by recent experience upon the subject of primary instruction, it seems possible to diminish the length of the school day with a gain rather than a loss of educational power. This change may be followed by the establishment, in cities and large towns, of public gymnasiums, where teachers answering in moral qualifications to the requisitions of the laws shall be employed, and where each child, for one, two, or three years, shall receive discreet and careful, but vigorous physical training. After a few years thus pa.s.sed in corresponding and healthful development of the mind and body, the pupil is prepared for admission to the advanced schools, where he can submit, with perfect safety, to greater mental requirements even than are now made. The school, as at present const.i.tuted, cannot do much for physical education; and it must, as a necessity and a duty, graduate its demands to the physical as well as the intellectual abilities of its pupils. But I am satisfied that it is occasionally made to bear a weight of reproach that ought to be laid upon the customs and habits of domestic, social and general life.