The Revival of Education by Samuel J. May
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Title:The revival of education. An address to the Normal association, Bridgewater, Mass., August 8, 1855. By Samuel J. May … Pub. by the Association. Syracuse,

Author:May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph), 1797-1871.

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Print Source:The revival of education. An address to the Normal association, Bridgewater, Mass., August 8, 1855. By Samuel J. May … Pub. by the Association. Syracuse,

May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph), 1797-1871.

40 p. 21 1/2cm.

N. Y.,

J. G. K. Truair, printer,

1855.

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[F Et gtvival o f AN ‘:ADDRESS TO ‘t-ormat 550tia tt BRIDGEWATER, MASS., AUG. 8, 1855. t BY SAMUEL J. MAY, OF SYRACUSE, N. Y. PUBLISHED BY THE

ASSOCIATION. , SYRACUSE: J. G. K. TRUAIR, PRINTER, JOURNAL OFFICE. 1855. I Ii 1 i iim f. i.,

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AItN AtDiaR of (EWS. AN ADDRESS a. 7J. oN\ t  st~ TO THE NORMAL

ASSOCIATION, BRIDGEWATER, MASS. AUGUST 8, 1855. BY SAMUEL J. MAY, OF

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK. PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION. SYRACUSE, N.Y. J. G. K.

TRUAIR, PRITER. 1855.

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Nearly a third of the following address was omitted in the delivery, because of the length of the whole. But the request was especially made, by those who communicated to me the vote of the Association, that the Address should be published entire, as it was written. Nevertheless, I wish to be held solely responsible for the statements made, the opinions of men and systems advanced, and for the principles of education inculcated in this pamphlet. S. J. M. I

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THE REVIVAL OF EDU C ATIO N. FELLOW TEACiEiRS; FRIENDS OF EDUCATION: On an occasion like this, reminiscences and anticipations, I presume, will be more in harmony with the humor that brought us together, than would be any discussion of the principles and methods of Instruction. The most approved of these it is, I trust, the daily purpose and sincere pleasure of Normalites everywhere, as they have opportunity, to inculcate, and to apply. Moreover, it is highly probable, that since I left the Corps of Teachers, such improvements have been made in the profession, that my thoughts might seem to you somewhat behind the age. However that may be, we have come here to-day, that, amid the associations and influences of this consecrated place, and from the present position of the cause of education, we may look back in review of what has been accomplished; in order that we mnay be fired, by the example of our predecessors, to do what in us lies to carry forward the great improvements, which they began.

Many in this assembly are older than the commencement of that Revival of Education, that Reformation of our Common School System, of which we here see one of the most precious fruits. Some of us are of equal age with the men and women, who have done more than all others (since the generation that instituted Free Schools) to increase the 40 ,.,

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. amount and improve the quality of the instruction given to the young. It has been our privilege to know personally several of those benefactors. It will be one of the chief delights of this occasion to speak of them, and to hear them spoken of gratefully, admiringly. Should the sketches and commendations I may give, be, for the most part, of those, who have served in particular and illustrated the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it will be because they are more readily seen from this point of sight; and again because the field of our whole country, and yet more of the world, is too broad for a survey in an hour, minute enough to bring distinctly to notice many of the individual objects, that conspire to give expression and effect to the whole view. In advance, however, of any eulogiums, we may be prompted to bestow upon those friends of education, whose wise, ingenious and faithful services we have witnessed, let us first render our most hearty thanks to all (whether known or unknown) who have contributed to that revival of education in our country, which has signalized the last quarter of a century scarcely less than the questions of social reform, by which our body politic has been agitated, or the incidents of fortune or misfortune that have kept the pecuniary world in a stir. Into what minds first came the inspiration of those new thoughts, which have been the seeds of some great improvements in education, we often have been unable to ascertain.

Frequently, no doubt, it has been into here and there a mind too modest to vaunt itself as the medium of the divine communications; or, perhaps, unconscious of the value of the gift it was chosen to impart. Some devoted mother, in the earnestness of her desire to fill the God-given capacity for knowledge in her child-to quicken the germs of virtue implanted by the Creator in his heart, may have had her prayer answered by the revelation of some happy method of intellectual or moral development. That method with its blessed 4

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. effects, seen and admired by others, has been copied, and the knowledge of it disseminated, until it has become part of a system, claiming the consideration of all who would be educators of the young. Or some boy or girl, upon whose childhood the benign light of that revelation fell, went forth, reflecting it upon others, as one possessed of the gift of teaching. It is by gathering the contributions, that come thus from one and another of the heaven-inspired teachers of men, that we are enabled to construct the science and devise the arts of human culture.

Those persons who have been skilful in such constructions and devices have performed very important services. They have, of course, become more widely known; and, perhaps, like Americus Vespucius, are more highly honored, than the discoverers of what they have only reported and arranged. Who were the teachers of Franke, Pestalozzi, Fellenburg, Jacotot, Abbe Sicard, Seguin, Bell, Owen, Colburn, we do not know. If they were not the first recipients of the seminal ideas, that have been so prolific of good fruits, we have not yet learnt who were. They have not told us, to whom under God they were indebted for the thoughts which led them. Perhaps they themselves knew not their benefac tors. New England is renowned, the world over, as the birthplace of free schools. It is a praise of which we would not allow the land of our nativity to be robbed.

No other land, I ween, has on the whole, so good a title to it. It is a praise not to be lightly esteemed. The institution of common schools was almost coeval with the landing of the Puritans upon this Continent. They fled from the spiritual oppression and moral profligacy of the old world, mainly for the sake of their children; and they had scarcely found time enough to put up shelters for their persons, and a house for the worship of God, before they provided a place and a teacher for the education of all the young. Prompted by the same spirit, the descendants of the New 5

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. Englanders, wherever they have gone, have been foremost in establishing schools for the children of the whole body politic; and these free schools, imperfect as they have been, have everywhere cherished a spirit of intelligence among the great mass of the population. If no more, the arts of reading and writing were taught them, and these alone would bring each generation into communion with the past and the future; and keep them in some measure informed of the prominent events of their own times. But the causes which led to the institution of free schools in this country, were operating to similar results elsewhere.

They were the causes which led to the revival of learning in Europe and to the Protestant Reformation. In whatever nation, the people were brought to a consciousness of the spiritual domination of the Papal Hierarchy, and where any considerable proportion of them succeeded in throwing off that oppression, there a sense of the need of knowledge seems to have been awakened, and measures have been taken to supply it. The Parochial Schools of Scotland, almost anticipated the design, forestalled the praise of our New England Fathers. The foundations of that system were laid even before this continent was discovered. As early as 1494-more than twenty years before the Reformation culminated in Luther, it was enacted by the Parliament of Scotland, that “all barons and substantial freeholders throughout the realm should send their children to school from the age of six to nine years; and then to other seminaries to be instructed in the laws; that the country might be possessed of persons properly qualified to discharge the duties of sheriffs, and to fill other civil offices.” In 1560, more than half a century before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, John Knox, the leader of the Reformation in Scotland, put forth, with the consent of his compeers, the following memorable language in the “First Book of Discipline,” presented to the Nobility 6

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. “Seeing that God has determined that his kirk here on earth shall be taught not by angels but by men; and seeing that men are born ignorant of God and of godliness; and seeing also that he ceases to illuminate men miraculously, of necessity it is, that your Honors be most careful for the virtuous education and godly upbringing of the youth of this realm. Of necessity therefore, we judge it, that every several kirk have one school-master appointed; such an one at least as is able to teach grammar, and the Latin tongue, if the town be of any reputation. And further, we think it expedient, that in every notable town there should be erected a College, in which the arts at least of rhetoric and logic, together with the tongues, be read by sufficient masters. *

The rich and potent may not be permitted to suffer their children to spend their youth in a vain idleness, as heretofore they have done; but they must be exhorted and, by the censure of kirk, compelled to dedicate their sons by good exercises to the profit of the kirk and commonwealth; and this they must do because they are able. The children of the poor must be supported and sustained on the charge of the kirk, &c.” * “In 1615 an act of the Privy Council of Scotland empowered the bishops, along with the majority of the landlords or heritors to establish a school in every parish in their respective dioceses, and to assess its lands for that purpose.” On the basis of this enactment, Scotland claims the merit of having originated the first school system, ever established for the education of the entire community. This act however, we would civilly remind our Scotch competitors, was inoperative until 1646, when the law was passed that laid the tax for the support of a school house, and the payment of a school-master’s salary, upon every parish in the kingdom; and moreover, it should be remembered, that even that law did not do its beneficial work long, for it was re pealed by Charles I. in 1696. “Then, and not until then, it became the permanent basis of the Parochial School System of Scotland. And by this system mainly, in less than fifty 7 I I

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. years that nation was regenerated. Instead of being what it was in 1690, the theatre of lawlessness and all sorts of immorality, it was made the abode of an orderly, industrious, thrifty and religious people. Persons of the humblest origin were enabled there to raise themselves to the highest eminence in every walk of ambition-and a spirit of forethought and energy was widely disseminated.” That we are justified in attributing this most beneficial institution to the spirit of Protestantism, is sufficiently evident in the light of this one fact, that it was one of the fundamental principles of that system, that the Bible and the Westminster Shorter Catechism were required to be taught in every school. Into Prussia, too, more than a century before she became an independent nation, the light and the spirit of the Protestant Reformation had gone, and had begun the redemption of the people from ignorance and vice. In the year 1525, Albert of Bradenburg, grand master of the Teutonic order, renounced the Roman Catholic religion, embraced Lutheranism, and was acknowledged Duke of East Prussia, under the sovereignty of Poland.

Almost from that period, a succession of patriotic and enlightened men seem to have arisen in that country, who have devoted themselves to the cause of public instruction, under the auspices of Monarchs, who have duly estimated and encouraged exertions in this behalf. Unitil it must be acknowledged that, since the year 1817, the most complete and thorough system of Popular Education has been established and vigorously maintained in Prussia, that exists anywhere upon earth. Still we are tenacious of the claim set up for the Fathers of New England, a claim which we think History, on the whole, awards to them-that they were the founders of Free Schools. And when we call to mind the condition of our ancestors on their arrival upon these shores in 1620, and for half a century afterwards, it cannot be spoken of in terms of too exalted commendation, nor exaggerated in its importance 8

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THE REVEVAL OF EDUCATION. upon the subsequent history of the nation they planted here, the noble fact, that they so soon recognized the obligations of the State, as well as of the Church, to the children of all the people; and made the best provisions in their power for the education of every one, at the public expense. Our protestant brethren of Scotland and Prussia should be the less unwilling to allow this laurel to rest on the venerated brows, where History has placed it-and where we, descendants of the New England Pilgrims, pertinaciously insist that it belongs-when they hear the concessions we shall be obliged to make to the superior excellence of some of their school systemns; and the obligations we gratefully acknowledge ourselves under to the enlightened and devoted friends of Education, especially in Scotland, Prussia, Germany and some other parts of Protestant Europe. However enlarged may have been the views, and generous the intentions of the founders of the New England colonies, their circumstances did not encourage, nor their means enable them to provide for their children an extended, or a very thorough education. The necessity of labor for the supply of the common wants of life laid its demands upon the youngest, who could be put to any available service. The need of subduing every rood of earth that was wanted for the better accommodation and support of their growing Commonwealth; the temptations offered to their adventurous spirits, to explore the boundless wilderness, in the edges of which they had effected their lodgments; the vigilance they were compelled to maintain at every point against the wily natives of the land they had come to possess, whose hostility they needlessly exasperated, and whose numbers and prowess they overrated-these and such like circumstances, created a demand for, and led the first generations of Anglo-Americans to acquire an education different from that, which is to be obtained from schools. A race of men and women sprang up on these shores as hardy, courageous and enterprising as ever went forth to subdue the wilderness-and people the solitary places of the 9

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. earth. Wherever they went they carried with them enough of the art of reading to enable them to study for themselves (as every Protestant claimed the right to do) the Book of Books, in which were to be found, they verily believed, the fundamental principles of civil government, pure morality and true religion. They carried with them also enough know ledge of the science of numbers to make the simple calcula tions, that were called for in the primary arts of civilization, besides which they were furnished with knowledge enough of the art of writing to make records of passing events, and to keep up their infrequent communications with the friends they had left, or with those who had left them for the deeper recesses of this then unexplored continent. These rudiments were sufficient to supply their literary wants; and stern ex perience, yes, dire necessity, was the teacher, from whom they learnt those lessons of self-reliance, patient endurance, heroic daring and pious resignation, that are the better ele ments to be found in the New England character. Among the early settlers of this country there were not a few men of high literary, legal and theological acquisitions; and women of native gracefulness, and more than ordinary culture. But they could not surround their children with circumstances similar to those, which had conspired to form their own characters. They had brought them-or had come where their children were to be born-amid new influences, which the parents could not fully appreciate, and therefore not always wisely consult, and direct. Ruder as well as har dier generations therefore arose to take the places of the gen tler, though not less resolute bands, who laid the first hearth stones, and built the first altars at Plymouth, Salem, Charles town, Dorchester, New Haven and Hartford. To wield the axe, to hold the plough, to tend the mill, to hunt, to fish and to war with ferocious beasts and savage men, were the em ploymnents, to which the early New Englanders were neces rarily trained; and these arts are not taught from books, nor inside of school rooms. The need of a learned ministry, however-of men who 10

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. should be able to expound to the people wisely the oracles of God, was acknowledged from the beginning; and generously provided for in the institution of Harvard College in 1638, and of Yale in 1O701. The legal and medical professions were also thought to require men, who had been regularly trained in the science and the arts of Law and Medicine. And each generation, from the first, has been adorned with some men, who would have been ornaments to their professions in England. But the common people, it was assumed, needed only the elements of the arts of reading, writing and arithmetic. Few of them, indeed, had leisure or inclination to seek for more. It was, however, a fact of momentous importance, in its effects upon the character of our Republic, that so large a proportion of the people of New England were always tauglht to read and writ. It were hard to subjugate a people who possessed the arts of receiving and of communicating thouht. “Words are things, and a small drop of ink Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands perhaps millions think Aspire and onward, upward move.” I have already hinted at the stern necessities, which withheld the children of the earliest fathers of New England from succeeding to their intellectual patrimony. Their ideal of an education was consequently lowered, and with it the standard fell. For a century and a half the people of this country were everywhere at work, making rather than studying history,-creating materials for the future story of our Republic’s rise, which began, not as most other nations began in the conflicts of demi-gods and semi-devils, but in the indomitable efforts of sturdy men and women, who drove before them untamable beasts and savage men; subdued the wilderness and prepared it for the products of agriculture, and the arts of civilized life. But hardly had they rested from their pioneer labors-fighting the Indians and felling the forests,-when they were summoned to conflict for Independence with their mother country, then the mightiest nation upon earth. Their revolutionary struggle began years before 11

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. its purpose was declared to the world, or even consciously conceived by themselves. Nor did it end with the last battle; but continued, long after their independence was conceded by England, in combatting the difficulties that beset the institution of a new and almost untried form of governmenta government committed to the people themselves, and requiring an amount of knowledge and a degree of moral culture, which very few of them at first possessed, or have yet attained. Hitherto the administration of the affairs of our States, and of the nation, has been in the hands, alternately, of rival parties, in the one or the other of which the whole population have been ranged, many of them not knowing why; and in behalf of the one or the other have been driven by their blind zeal to outrage all charity, if not all common justice. In one thing these parties have heartily agreed-each in accusing the other of egregious ignorance and gross immorality. The mutual, unsparing exposures of one another have concurred in showing the need of more knowledge and virtue among the whole people. Inquiries have been started, devices formed for a higher popular education; and both the political parties have been constrained to favor them. In this, more perhaps than in any other circumstance, may be found the beginning of our Revival of Education.

During all the while that the people of this country had been expending their energies in the hard toil, protracted conflicts and exciting enterprises, incident to the establishment of a civilized community in a wilderness, the cause of education had been making progress in the Protestant States of Europe, under very different circumstances, and much more favorable to the discovery and development of the best methods of literary, scientific and aesthetical culture. The Reformation, which commenced before Luther, and is not yet completed, was the offspring of that desire, which is innate in the human mind to be free, to examine, judge and freely speak of all facts and opinions, it is called upon to accept as true. Therefore to open to all men the fountains of 12

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. knowledge has been everywhere the legitimate tendency of Protestantism. Without an egregious violation of its fundamental principles, the priceless boon of knowledge could not be offered to a portion of the people only. It must needs be made to all, if to any of the children of men. Hence we may see, that plans successively more and more comprehensive, as well as thorough, have been devised to give education to the people of all protestant lands; less in England than in any other, and more in Scotland, Prussia and some of the German States.

There, forbidden by their governments to take any overt and active part in political matters; not much if any more encouraged to aspire after the power of wealth; and with no inviting regions of unoccupied earth to tempt their enterprise, the people have not been diverted, as they have been and still are in our country, from the cultivation of letters, science and the fine arts. We ought not then to have been so incredulous, so much surprised and chagrined as we were thirty years ago, when, on waking uptoperceive the low state of our common schools, and to inquire what had better be done for their improvement, we received so many invaluable hints from different parts of Europe; and were brought to know that, under several monarchical governments, much more ample provisions were made, than in any part of New England even, for the literary, scientific and artistic education of the whole people. I well remember how stung we were by the unfavorable comparison. We had heard from our childhood, and had grown up in the assurance that, as Free Schools originated in New England, so they were better cared for here than in any other part of the world.

Her System of Common Schools was the peculiar boast of Boston; and as for Connecticut, she was more renowned, in that day, for her district schools and her immense school fund,* than for her cheap clocks and wooden nutmegs; more famous for her pedagogues than for her pedlars. * In 1795, the State of Connecticut sold her title to that part of Ohio, called the Western Reserve, for $1,200,000 and invested it to be a fund for the support of Common Free Schools forever. 13

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THIE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. In narrating to you some of the conflicts and woes of the friends of education, for the last thirty years, I might, without much immodesty, say in the words of Eneas to Dido “all of which I saw, and part of which I was.” Like other young men then, as now, in College, I spent some of my winter vacations in teaching country District Schools. Then it was that I first became cognizant of the utter poverty of our system of popular education; and was made to feel the need of a thorough reform both in the quantity and the quality of instruction given to the young. In the Spring of 1822,I was settled as the Pastor of a church in Connecticut. Everywhere in our country, as well as in Europe, it was taken for granted that Protestant ministers must appreciate the importance of the right culture of the young, and always be ready to promote their education. In several of the States both of Europe and of this country, ministers were by law held to be, ex-officio, supervisors of the common schools; and, whether so instated or not, in all our rural districts they were chosen to fill that important office. Hardly, therefore, had I received my ordinationin the church, before I was appointed upon the School Committee. I had gone into Connecticut with highly raised expectations of the character of her schools. It was reasonable to suppose that the people of that small State, who had so long ago as 1795, appropriated the income of twelve hundred thousand dollars to the education of children, must have been animated by a spirit, that would impel them to seek after the best methods, by which to make the bestowment as valuable as it might be. In the number of their schools and teachers, there certainly was no deficiency. The average throughout the State, in 1822, was about one for every thirty pupils-a good proportion all must allow, if so many children were regular in their attendance; and if the variety and quality of the instructions given to them had been such as they always and everywhere needed to receive. But neither the one nor the other was the case. Too many school rooms presented a 14

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUcAT10N. dull array of half empty benches. The branches of knowledge, which it was pretended were taught, were only a few of the most elementary; and the books and methods used in imparting instruction were, with some excellent exceptions, miserably adapted to enlarge the intellectual vision of any, who had not keenness of sight enough to see through” confusion worse confounded.” The hours that I spent in the schools, committed to my care, were sometimes intolerably tedious to me; and would have been so also to the children confined there, if they had been saddened, as I was, by the consciousness of the wrongs they were suffering. But you know, (blessed be the abounding goodness of God) there is in childhood an ever-brimming fountain of hilarity, which the slightest touch may open; and which no hand of authority however dread, can at once or wholly repress. Often havei seen that the rude attempts of mere power to stop the outgushings of childish merriment, only diffused the cooling drops more widely. And, if you will keep the secret, I will confess to you, I always enjoyed and rather encouraged the fun. For one of the first discoveries I ever made in the art of teaching, was, that a smile and a laugh will quicken the activity of youthful brains, and conciliate them to effort, much better than frowns and tears. I had been in some measure prepared by my own training to descry the sad defects in the common methods of teaching, if not to show how they could be remedied. Not to mention other advantages that I had enjoyed, in the winter of 1813 &‘14, during my first College vacations, I attended a mathematical school kept in Boston by the Rev. Francis Xavier Brosius, a Catholic priest, who had fled to this couintry from persecution in France. He was a man of much learning and of unaffected, cheerful piety. On entering his room, we were struck at the appearance of an ample Blac7e Board suspended on the wall, with lumps of chalk on a ledge below, and cloths hanging at either side. I had never heard of such a thing before. There it was-forty-two years ago that I first saw what now I trust is considered indispensable 15

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. in every school-the Black Board-and there that I first wit nessed the processes of analytical and inductive teaching. But what was better even than all that it was there that I felt the quickening influence of kindness and gayety in a teacher. The bosom of Mr.

Brosius was a well of benevolence. Little jets from that fountain were sparkling continually in his smiles, and playing from his lips, cheering and refreshing us in our severest efforts-making the two hours we spent daily with him, a recreation almost as much as a mental discipline. I longed to be myself, in the schools that I afterwards kept, as much like that excellent man, as my nature would allow me to be. And I used confidently to assure those, who aspired to be masters and mistresses of the schools under my supervision, that if they really understood what they were about to teach, if they had something to communicate and knew how to impart it, and loved to give of that which they possessed; if they sympathized with children, could appreciate the hardships they meet with in the road to knowledge, and patiently lead them to surmount their difficulties, so that their pupils might continually feel conscious of successful effort, they would find little difficulty in governing their schools. It soon became apparent to me that the School Fund in Connecticut had operated to depress rather than to elevate the public sentiment of education. If the spirit that prompted the people in 1795 to devote more than 1,200,000 dollars to the instruction of children, had been left to make continually renewed provision for that great interest, what improvements might not have been introduced in the course of thirty years.

But, as I soon learnt, the income of the fund being enough to pay all the teachers throughout the State, at low rates, their wages were fixed at those rates; and the people in most districts utterly refused to subscribe, or to be taxed to increase the compensation for teaching.

Moreover, as the fountain whence the supply came, belonged alike to all, each man endeavored to get the accommodation of a puddle for his chickens as near as might be to his own door. A new dis 16

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TIIE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. trict, therefore was “set off,” wherever the tnumber of children in a neighborhiood was large enough to give a pretext for one; and anothlier subdivision of the income helped to keep the wages too low to comnmand the services of competent teachers. The average wages of male teachers in Connecticut in 1822, was twelve dollars a month. I knew some as low as six, and ” boarding round,” to use thle familiar phrase, which meant that the teacher was to go from house to house in the district for hiS food and lodging, tarrying in each a proportionate number of days. As the old Indian said, when he dropped a cent into the contribution box-” poor preaclh, poor pay,” so did I find the teachers ill the Connecticut schools, with some admirable exceptions, worth no more than they received. My associates on the Committee were witlh me anxious for improvement. We determined that no candidate should receive our approbation, who did not well Lunderstand, at least, the first elements of Reading, Writing, Arithlmetic, Grammar and Geography. Yet were we obliged to consent, that soime slhould take charge of schools, who were very deficient in tlheir knowledge of the last two named branches;- and to reject many because they were utterly ignorant of more. I wTell remember that one winter, for the nine schools in the smiall town where Ilived, we rejected six out of fifteen appli cas beeause they did not understand Notation and NNumeration; couild not write correctly simple sentences of good English; and knewl no more of the Geography of the earth thla-n of the Atecaniclue Celesse; anid yet they had comle to us well recommended, as having taught schools acceptably in o tir t.owns one, two and three winters. The defects in’lie schools under our chlarge were deplorable. The reports that came firin other towns, far and near, * In several instances, the District Committee man came to us with his teacher elect, saying you need not examine him in Grammar, or Geography, for he does not und(lerst,ld this or thathbranch, and the Districthave voted notto lave thlat branchtaughtin the school.” Moreova’r, the authority of the Central Committee to dictate in what branches of knowledge any particular pupil should be instructed, was more than once strenuously controverted. 17

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TIHE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. led us to the conclusion, that the condition of the Common Schools of Connecticut was generally no better; we there fore were impelled to do what we could to rouse the people from their insensibility to this most important social institution. Accordingly in the Spring of 1826,e we issued a call for a Convention ” to consider the defects of our Common Schools the causes of those defects, and the expedients by which they may be corrected.” It was I believe the first meeting of the kind, held in our country since the commencement of the present century. Appended to the call were a dozen questions, the answers to which we hoped would bring us the information we desired to possess, and which we intended to make public. More than a hundred delegates were present in that Convention, representing more than twenty towns and five counties. Several valuable letters were received from gentlemen, who could not attend in person. From these letters and from verbal and newspaper reports, we learnt, that in other parts of the State, especially in IHartford, New Haven, Farmington and Wolcott, there were men cf great intelligence and philanthropy rising up, with a power greater than ours, to improve and bless the Common Schools. There were Professors Olmsted and Kingsley of Yale College, Mr. William Russell of Farmington, two gentlemen in Wolcott, of whom I shall by and by speak more particularly, because they then came first to be known; and, more perhaps than all, the’ late most excellent Thomas II. Gallaudet, LL.D., the first Principal of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford. That gentleman, not only gave every day, in his instruction of his pupils, remarkable illustrations of the true principles and some of the best methods of teaching, but he interested himself directly and heartily in the improvement of all schools. * I am quite sure this was the date of the first Convention, although I cannot find a copy of the circular above referred to. There is now lying before me a copy of a circular by which a School Cnnvention was called together March 5, 1827. But I have reason to believe that was the second of the series of conventions held annually, for several years, in Brooklyn Conn., the town where I lived. is I

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THiE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. By all the representations and appeals that came to them from the above named and other parts of the State, the ensuinig Legislature were prompted to send out a reportI believe the first-conceding that the condition of the common schools was low, and that much ought to be done to improve them. Early in 1827 a Society was formed in Hartford ” for the improvement of common schools.” This did much to fix public attention upon the subject; to bring into co-operation the most earnest friends of the cause throughout the State; and to act effectively upon the legislators. Since that day the interest of the people and their rulers has not been suffered to die; until at length, under the lead and by the unremitted exertions of Henry Barnard, LL.D., one of the wisest and ablest of master builders, the System of Common Schools in Connecticut has come to be so much improved, that it need not shrink from a comparison with any other in our country. Among the letters received by the convention in Brooklyn in 1826, was one, which brought us acquainted with two remarkable men, Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott and Dr. William A. Alcott. A correspondence ensued, by which I learnt, thlat, in the hill country of Western Connecticut, two young men not known out of their immediate neighborhood, had penetrated the arcana of the educator’s art, and understood some parts of that most excellent art, better perhaps than any men of their age. The first named of these gentlemen had been for two or three years the teacher of a school in Cheshire. Alone and quietly, in that retired place, he had attained to results that have seldom been any where surpassed. Some idea of them may be had from the Programme of his school published in the Journal of Education for 1827 or 1828. That excellent periodical, which deserves to be gratefully mentioned as one of the pioneers of this reform, was published in Boston a number of years, from January 1826, by 1VfIr. William Russell, to whom I have already referred as of Farmington, Connecticut. Hie was a Scotch gentleman of 19

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. natural refinement and high culture; and his accession to the corps of American teachers was a public blessing, for he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the profession, wvhich he had made a study no less than a practice. lie was much interested in Mtr.

Alcott’s detail of to)pics and methods of instruction, and gave to the programme a high commendation. [Not long after, Mr. Alcott was invited to ]3oston to commence the first Ihfant School. In that novel institution he showed himself singularly skilled in finding access to the infant soul, imposing upon it self commanad, and guiding it to an harmonious development. ie afterwvards taught a private school. His methods and tlhe effects produced by themn were greatly adlmired by those who took pains to understand them; but they were so much ridiculed and denounced by transient, and superficial observers, tlat his school was abolished, and the Amnerlican Pesta]ozzi thrown out of the profession, which notwithstanding his defects, he was eminently fitted to elevate as well as adorn. Dr. William A. Alcott also removed to Boston. His very various and useful publications in thie department of edlucation are really too numerous to mention here. With some of thlem you are all doubtless acquainted. I need not tell you, therefore, how imuch the young, and the teachers of the yo-ung are indeblted to hiui, nor give youL any reasons for placing him on the l1st of our benefactors. In 1827, a gentleman commenced his labors in the cause of popular education vtho deserves a very grateful coimmemoration under your anspices. I refer to tihe liate Josiah Iiolbrook,* founder of the Americani Lyceum, or system of popular Lect’ures and interchLanges by correslon dence on scientific and literary subjects.” A prominent part of his plan was to improve the comnmon schools, not only by calling pu1blic attention to their importance and their wants, but by bringing the teachers and advanced pupils into associatlons *l ie lost his life about a year ago, while yet intent upon the pursuit of the object to which he had devoted himself for nearly thirty years-the collection of mninerals, and specimens in other departments of Natural Ilistory, for the use of schools. Itie fell from a precipice, upon the briink of which he had ventured. 20

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THlE RE~VIVL OF EDUCATION. with the best informed people in their several towns, for mutual instruction. I believe no one instrumentality has done more than the Lyceum didl in its day, to make the people conscious of their own as wrell as their childclren’s ignorance; and open their eyes to perceive how frequent the sources of kuovle}de are, if wNv3 kao-v where to look for them; and how accessible, if we approach them in a right direction. Some other popular lecturers (I particularly remember the late TI-arvey Wilbur, Esq.,) went throaugh the country with geographical, astronomical, geological, chemical and philosophical apparatus and illustrations. They did much by their lectures to inform teachers and parents of the better methods of imparting elementary knowledge-at thle same time opening to them new subjects of curiosity and inquiry. nBut I must hasten to make more especial ment.ion of two gentlemen, to whom, scarcely less than to any who can be spoken of to-day, we are indebted for the improvements, that have been made in our system of common schools, and our methods of instruction. In 1S23, there was published a small volume, which’gave not so much the theory as an example of what a school book ought to bie-” Colburn’s First Lessons or Intellectual Arithmetic upon the inductive method of instruction.” This little volume has not only changed thro.ughout our schools the method of teaching the science of which it treats, but the true method of teaching thie elements of all other sciences. I concur with all my heart in the highest commendations that have ever been bestowed upon this book. When observing with what ease, by his method, children have been led into the knowledge of all the principles of common arithmetic, without even suspecting that there were any serious difficulties in their way, I have sometimes lamented for myself, and my contemporaries, that w-e were born before the day of Warren Colburn. I-had we had the happiness to live after him, and to be guided by the light that was in him, we should not have 21

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THE RIEVIVAL OF EDUCATION. been provoked to sing as we often used to do, that foolish old stanza, “Multiplication is vexation, Division is as bad, The Rule of Three doth puzzle me, And Practice makes me mad.” The other gentleman was a classmate and friend of Mr. Colburn-the late Hon. James G. Carter. In 1824 he published an 8vo. pamphlet of 123 pages in Boston, entitled “Letters to the Hon. Wm. Prescott, LL. D., on the Free Schools of New England, with remarks upon the principles of instruction.” In the course of the following winter, the same gentleman published in the “Boston Patriot” a series of articles, which in 1S26 were republished in a pamphlet entitled “Essays upon Popular Education, containing a particular examination of the Schools of Massachusetts, and an outline of an Institution for the education of Teachers.” To these excellent works must be attributed, in no small measure, the revival of the public interest in our Common, Free Schools; and the improvement of their character. that has since been effected. Mr. Carter was master of his subject. ie appreciated its importance and comprehended its extent; and wrote as one who deeply felt that the hopes, aye the fate, of the State and nation were vested in the rising generation-not in the children of the favored fewbut in the children of the whole people-of the poor, not less than of the rich; and that the thorough education of them all should be-more than almost any thing else-a matter of common concern, and provided for at the common expense. Those Letters and Essays should not be allowed to pass into oblivion. They deserve to be read in our day-not merely as matters of historical interest-but for the sakle of the still valuable suggestions which they contain. In them, Mr. Carter descants wisely upon the inestimable influence of early education; pays a just tribute to the wise foresight of the founders of New England in providing for the culture of all the young; and shows the deteriorating effects which flowed 22

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. from the institution of Academies, unknown in Massachlusetts until since the Revolution. He then gives an exposure of the defects in the organization of tile Free Schools, as well as in the methods, or want of methods of instruction pursued in them; in conclusion shows that they can be made what they should be only by the careful preparation of teachers for them; and gives us some excellent hints of an Institution for the education of Teachers. This last was the great idea in the pamphlet. It has since been expanded, until it has grown into the present Common School System of Massachusetts, comprising a Board of Education, a number of Normal Schools, and a body of wholesome revised, or newly enacted laws, for the governance of the schools of different grades now required to be kept, at the public expense, in all the towns of the commonwealth. In other States besides this, improvement in the education of the people became, more than ever before, the topic of conversation, discussion, newspaper comments, Lyceum lectures and legislative consideration, especially in New York, Connecticut, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Journal of Education commenced in 1826 by Mr. William Russell, published several years under his editorial care, and afterwards under that of Rev. Wm. C. Woodbridge, did good service. The publication of Mrs.

Austin’s translation of Cousin’s Report on the state of Public Instruction in Prussia; and the accounts which were brought us by intelligent travelers from other European States, so soon as our ears were opened to hear, made known the mortifying fact, that, during the preceding half century, very much more had been done to give to the people of those monarchial governments a thorough knowledge of the elements of literature and science, than had been done in the freest and most enlightened States of this Republic to say nothing of the higher departments of Classical Learning, the Mathematics, the Natural Sciences and the elegant Arts, in which ours could bear no comparison with those in Europe. Rev. Charles Brooks, and others, went about the country lecturing upon the subject; every where telling 23

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TIrE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. to large audiences the story of our shameful deficiencies, and describing the European systems of educational seminaries, and the methods of instruction pursued in each, especially the primary and those which the children of the whole people were required to attend. The notion, then so common in our country, that almost any body was competent to keep a school-that the good matron, who had got reduced in her pecuniary ability, might very properly resort to the teaching of little children for a livelihood-and the less fortunate or less promising son of a family would do well enough for a school-master,-that notion was exposed and utterly condemned. In contrast with it was held up the fact, that in Prussia, Holland, Bavaria, France, Scotland and Austria, schools for the especial training of teachers were considered indispensable; and that no one in those countries was permitted to be a school master or mistress, who had not been prepared for the work. Upon the institution of seminaries for teachers, or Normal Schools therefore, the thoughts of the wisest friends of education in our country concentrated. Every where, in the free States of our Union, there were living men and women, alive to the future and not merely dreaming over the past, who had come to be fully persuaded, that the thorough intellectual and moral culture of the whole people, was a matter of vital importance to each of our States and to the entire Republic. Under this impression, on the 19th of August, 1830, more than three hundred persons, from eleven different States, met in Convention in the Representatives Hall in Boston, and formed “The American Institute of Instruction.” The avowed object of that Body was, and the direct tendency of all their doings up to this time has been, to diffuse the most useful knowledge in regard to the whole subject of Education-the true development of the physical, mental and moral natures of the children of men-the tlhings to be taught and the best methods of teaching them.

Much of what we now witness, and rejoice over, as evidences of great progress and of increasing interest in this all embracing good cause, can be traced back to the doings of this Institute 24

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. -the lectures and discussions at its Annual meetings-its publications afterwards, and the labors of its members in their own spheres of usefulness at home. Mlr. George B. Emerson, one of the most active members of the Mlassachusetts Board of Education, was the Secretary of the Convention, that formed the Institute; has since been for several years its President. That gentleman, though not yet old, has devoted almost as many years, as any man now living, to the work of teaching; and to the cause of education; and in every situation, that he has occupied in this high department of usefulness, he has set an example worthy of the imitation of those, who aspire to be instructers of the young. An association, similar to the Institute in its purpose and spirit, was soon after organized in Ohio, called the College of Teachers. Several volumes of the annual doings of that body have been published, and they all concur in assigning to the profession of the School Teacher a place second to no other; and in insisting that for it a thorough preparation ought to be made. I am reminded to make this allusion to that comparatively distant body of co-workers, by the significant fact, that its most prominent member, ”’ the man who honorably identified himself with the origin and progress of the present school system of Ohio”  the late iIon. Samuel Lewis, was a native of this good old Plymouth Colony, where he no doubt first imbibed the great idea, that all the children of men ought to be educated, and that the State in which they live is bound to see to it, that their education is well provided for. New York was the first of these United States to make any legislative provision for the preparation of Teachers for Common Schools. The necessity of suclh preparation, as I have already stated, was ably urged in 1824 by the Hlon.

James G. Carter. It had been suggested the year before by Prof. Kingsley of Yale College, in an elaborate article in the North American Review.

Andlong before even that, in 1816, Prof. Olmsted of the samoe University, in the oration which he de 25

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. livered, on taking his degree of Master of Arts, propounded a somewhat mature plan of an ” Academy for school masters.” But it was in the State of New York, that the law givers of the people first entertained the proposition, to make provision for the proper training of school teachers. The sagacious, far-seeing De Witt Clinton, then Governor, in his message of 1826, used the following language-” The vocation of a teacher, in its influence on the character and destinies of the rising, and all future generations, either has not been fully understood, or not duly estimated. It ought to be ranked among the learned professions. *

* I therefore recommend a Seminary for the education of teachers in the monitorial system of instruction, and in those useful branches of knowledge, which it were proper to engraft on elementary attainments.” The distinguishing commendation, here implied, of the mnontorial system, deducts somewhat from the merit, due to his Excellency, of being the first man in his official position who advised a public appropriation for the training of Teachers. A school, organized upon that system, and committed to the management of such a rare man as our valued friend, of indefatigable spirit, William B. Fowle, Esq., would undoubtedly produce large results within a very limited range. It was perhaps well adapted to that class of pupils, for whose improvement it was devised by Bell and perfected by Lancaster; but it is in no wise adapted to the proper teaching of the higher branches, in our Common Schools; and, in the hands of too many teachers, it would be apt to degenerate into mere mechanical repetitions, without promoting the culture either of the head or the heart. The following year, probably in pursuance of Mr. Clinton’s advice, the Legislature of New York passed an Act, providing for the establishment of a Seminary for the preparation of teachers. But it was never carried into effect; nor indeed was any thing more done in that direction’ until 1835. At that time a department for the preparation of teachers was engrafted upon eight academies, located one in each of the Senatorial districts; and annual appropriations from “The 26

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. Literature Fund” were applied to their support.

In 1838, this appropriation was increased, and more widely extended, so that eight more departments for the education of teachers were organized.

This attempt was not abortive. It was a beginning in the right direction.

These academies were resorted to by numbers of young men and women, desiring to become teachers in Common Schools. Those, who had been trained in such Academies, were supposed to be better fitted for their work, and commanded higher wages. The standard of common school instluction was somewhat raised; and the idea disseminated, that none should undertake to teach who had not been properly prepared. In this State, a Teachers Seminary was, in 1835, established at Andover, by private enterprise, and added its testimony, iterated and reiterated, wherever the pupils of that institution went, that careful preparation was needful, to fit the teachers even of primary schools for their work. We have come at last to the time when the effectual movement was made. In April 1837-after full discussion of the need of such a department, the Legislature of Massachusetts created “The Board of Education,” with authority to appoint and to fix the compensation of the Secretary. A few weeks after on the 29th of June, the Hion. horace Mann was chosen to that office. I-is election was a significant and imposing fact. iHe was a gentleman of high literary and scientific attainments. He was a lawyer of profound acquisitions in his profession. And, withal, he had been for the two or three preceding years, President of the Senate. So that he was thought to be pronminent on the ladder of political aspirants. That such a gentleman, at such a period of his life, should leave his profession and his prospects to become the worker in a new department, that as yet had no prestige of honored predecessors, the only and the avowed object of which was to superintend and improve the Common, Free Schools-was a fact that roused every one to look at these schools with a 27

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TIHE RIEVIVAL OF EDUCATION. new interest and increased respect. Would that I had time now and ability to tell those of you, who do not know, how ardently Ifr. Joann devoted himself to the work to which he put his hand; and how gloriously he accomplished more perhaps than any other man could have clone in that place. For twelve years, he gave every hour of his time, every faculty of his mind, every affection of his heart to the duties of his office; not for the sake of the salary, which was a pittance, but for the sakle of the work itself, which he felt to be none other, and no less, than the elevation of the whole body politic, intellectually and morally. For more than six years, I was a close observer of his toil-and never have I known a man who accomplished so mruch, and did it so well. He left the post reluctauntly in 1849, in answer to a call, alike honorable to himself and his colistituents-to go into tlhe Congress of our Nation, as the only man in his District worthy to stand in the place recently vacated by the death of the lion. J. Q.

Adamis, the old man eloquent. lie is now you know, president of a College in Oltio, standing upon the mnost elevated spot of land in that State, and destined, if the load of debt unhappily accumlLlated upon it, can be thrown off, and if his life shall be spared long enough for the development of his admirablle plan of education, destined to occupy the highest position in the literary department of that State, and to stand at the side of the best endowed Colleges in our country their generous rival for the pre-eminen ce. The year following bi. ]Iann’s election to the Secretaryshliip-in 1838-his fiiend, the late lIon. Edmund Dwight, of I.oston, placed at his disposal the sum of $10,COO, on condition that the State of ]viassachusetts should appropriate the same amount-the whole to be disbursed under the direction of the Board of Education: in qualifying teachers for the co,mmon schools.‘Ihe Legislature promptly accepted the donation by fulfilling the condition. The Board of Education, enlisting local co operation, were able to command still fur 28

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. ther means; and thus by combined public and individual liberality were enabled to establish, in the course of the ensuing eighteen mnonthls three Teachers Seminaries; the one at Lexington, afterwards at ATest Newton, and now at Framinghain; the other at Barre, and now at Westfield; and the third iih this place, where I trust it is likely to be retained. My acquaintance with the second named of these Normal Schools, has been too slight to allow me to say anything distinctively respecting it. I knew and highly esteemed the first Principal, Prof. Samuel P. NIewman. At the time of his appointment to the Normal School tlhenl at Barre-Mr. Newman had been for years a very popular professor in Bowdoin College; and was then the acting President of that excellent institution. The fact, that at the call of the Board of Education in this State, to take charge of a Normal School, he so promptly resigned what in the eye of the world was deemed a much more elevated and eligible position, was an expressive tribute (invaluable at the time) to the indispensable need of seminaries for the training of teachers for our common schools-the schools FOn oun R-OYAL FAMILY-TIIE PEOPLE. his death, less than three years after his devotion of himself to this great work, was justly regarded as a serious bereavement to the public. But the school, which lhe commenced so well, has been upheld by his successors, and made to be regarded as a blessing to that portion of the commnunity to which its influence extends. With thie ]Normal Schools at Lexington, and in this place, I have been more or less intimately connected from the beginning. In closing my long discourse with some reminiiscences of the rise and establishment of these slchools; and of the excellent and the loved ones who have faithfully served them, I am sure I shall’not add to, but rather relieve, the weariness that you have come to feel. In the selection of Rev. Cyrus Pierce, then of TNantucket, to lead in the new enterprise of teaching teachers,] Mr. Mann and the Board of Edu-Lcation were singularly wise and happy. Mr. Pierce had had 29

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. long experience in the work of school keeping.

iHe had tried every prominent method of teaching and governing the young; and had been, for years, before his appointment, eminently successful in the application of those methods, which he had found to be the best. The distinctive characteristic of Mr. Pierce’s mind-truthfulness assumed the same promninence in his teaching. Hie was sincere, faithful, exact in everything he did or said-and he required sincerity, faithfulness, exactness in all, with whom he dealt, in school and out of school. All shams were put to shame in his presence. This was the secret of his success in an untried enterprise and this was the substance of what he taught those who would be teachers. There are somne lines by our poet Percival, descriptive of the advances of Truth, which with slight changes, may be read as descriptive of our Normal father’s course  ” He came to the work with slow and doubtful step, Measuring the ground he trod on; and forever Turning his curious eye, to see that all Was right behind; and with a keen survey Chose he his onward path.” Impatient spirits thought him tedious; but even they were brought to see and own he had not made them wait in vain. Few, if any, went out to teach, with his approbation, who did not succeed. At the end of three years, he had accomplished results, which settled forever the question as to the utility of Normal Schools. ile had sent into various parts of the Commonwealth, teachers, so prepared for their work, that they, wherever they went, elevated the character of the common schools, and the profession of the School Teacher.

But unhappily at the same time, he had so far impaired his own health, that he was compelled reluctantly to resign his charge for two years. The greatest mistake, I ever knew Mr. Pierce to make, was that he united with Mr. Mann in persuading me to become his successor. And I had the temerity to undertake the task, he had been obliged to relinquish. My only apology is that I had become deeply interested in the experiment of 30

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THiE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. Normal Schools, and longed to do all in my power to ensure its success. But I did not consent to enter into the place vacated by Mr. Pierce, until I had induced a singularly gifted young lady-a member of the first class, graduated at this Bridgwater Normal School-to become my Assistant. In the district school, hard by the house where I lived six happy years, in another part of this county, I had frequently observed, among other very bright girls, one who seemed to me peculiarly intelligent and lovely. I followed her into the schools she was afterwards called to take charge of, and perceived that she possessed, in no ordinary degree, the gift of teaching. By my advice she caine hither,*
and passed a year or more under the admirable discipline of Mr.

Tillinghast. On her return, she was made Principal of the Union IIighli School in Scituate. There she soon made manifest to all intelligent observers, how much even one, who had a geniusfor teaching, could be benefited by the studies, discipline, experiments of a Normal School. Miss Tilden went with me to Lexington; and I was very soon assured, that if I was myself insufficient for the duties of the place, I had conferred an inestimable blessing upon the cause of education by bringing her into that situation. Never have I seen one, who could, like Caroline Tilden, quicken the most sluggish intellect, fix the most wandering attention, and inspire the most indifferent with the desire to know. Often have I suspended for a while the exercises of my own classes, that I might enjoy the feast of listening to her teaching, and catch some of the effluence of that spirit, which seemed to guide her every word and motion. She was ill the school continually as an angel of light and love. And there she lived and unsparingly labored five bright years, and thence ascended to those kindred “spirits, which do always behold the the face of my Father in Heaven.” Much as I attributed her admirable skill in teaching to the *Mr.

N. C. Nash, a wealthy merchant of Boston, a native of the same town with Miss Tilden, at my request, gladly consented to pay her expenses, so long as she should find it profitable to continue here. 31

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. inspiration of Hiim, from whom cometh every good and every perfect gift, she would always tell me with a glow of gratitude, how much she owed, under God, to her teacher at Bridgewater. The training which she here received from Air. Tillinghast was, I doubt not, of inestimable value to her. You, who have been his pupils, can tell me better than I can tell you, what there was in Mlr. Tillinghast’s methods and manners that summoned each faculty of the mind to do its duty in its time, place and measure; never to thrust itself forward to excite surprise and court admiration; but to content itself with contributing, as alone it could, in its time, place and measure, to the harmonious movements of the whole intellectual and moral being. Mr. Tillinghast’s aspect was at first forbidding. Ite had been subjected in his youth to the severe, unyielding, harsh discipline of a military school. At West Point Academy, the physical and mental powers I know are’ often admirably drilled. But I fear the discipline there sometimes exerts an unhappy influence upon the social, if not upon the whole moral character. The moral character of M,r.

Tillinghast you will all, I am sure, testify was unharmed; for hle has ever shown himself to be most conscientious and pure. But his training for a profession that he could not love, and I believe did not approve, when he came to witness its dealings with the common men, who are enlisted to ply the tools and work the machinery of horrid war; the many months of exile from the delights of domestic and social life, to which he was condemn,ed in his commands of military posts on our distant frontiers; added to his natural dcliffdecce, begat in him a reserve of manner, and sternness of aspect, that were, at first, repulsive. Towards a delinquLent pupil, he may sometimes have seemed too severe. ” Yet he was KIND-and, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault.” All his pupils, I believe, who remained long enough under his instructions to appreciate him justly, concur in bearing high testimony not only to his surpassing skill in teaching, but 002

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THIE REVIVAL OF EDUOATION. to his purity, elevation of purpose, and true though not forth putting benignity. He showed while here that he was fitted to instruct and to command; that he wielded a plastic power. The impressions that he made upon very many of his pupils were obvious and ineffaceable; not only on their intellectual but on their moral characters; not only in forming them to be school teachers, but to be true men and women in every relation of life. His great aim was to keep alive in himself, and to awaken in all about him, the deepest sense of oduty, its high behests-its sacred obligations. This is the true foundation of character. It can rest securely on God alone.” Every signal act of duty is altogether an act of faith.” And the daily and hourly unflinching adherence to that, which one fully believes to be true and right, is eternal life. I am told that a favorite passage, often repeated by M1r.

Tillinghast in school, was the following from Wordsworth: “What are things eternal? Powers depart, Possessions vanish, and opinions change, And passions hold a fluctuating seat; But-by the storms of circumstance unshaken, And subject neither to eclipse, nor wane, Duty exists.” Mr.

Tillinghast’s life as a Normal School teacher has ceased. Hlis account with his fellow men and with his Maker on that score, is made up, and cannot be changed. And this is an appropriate occasion, and here the fitting place for those of us who have known him best, through his long career of fourteen years of usefulness, to give our testimony respecting him. It is due to the public which he has served so well; it is due to him, worn out as we fear in that service. It is all the more due to him, as he is one whose unfeigned modesty is such, that he is ever wont to depreciate himself and the value of any thing he has done. I doubt not there are welling up from the hearts of many who hear me, memories of inestimable benefits received from Mr. Tillinghast and testimonies to the value of his services in this school, higher far than I have ventured to intimate. I cannot allow this occasion to pass, without turning the 33

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THIE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. admiring eye to one more bright star in the galaxy of our Normal sky. In the winter of 1844, a Committee of the Legislature of New York-Mr. Hiulburd and Mr. Dwight-came to Lexing ton, to see for themselves a Normal School; as they had de termined to introduce a Bill, providing for such a seminary in that State. After spending a day or two with us, and care fully noting all our ways and means; admiring particularly the exercises conducted by Miss Tilden, and Miss Electa N.

Lincoln, my 2d assistant, who was hardly less excellent than the first; they inquired of me, where they could find a man, who would come to New York and certainly make the Nor nal School, to be established there, all that such an institu tion purports to be. I replied, ” Gentlemen, go to the town of Newburyport; spend a day in the school kept by Mr. David P.

Page, and you will know that you have found the man.” On returning to Boston, they made the same inquiry of Mr. ‘Horace Mann. Hle commended Mr.

Page to them, with so profound an emphasis, that without going to see the gentleman, they fixed upon him as the one, to whose hand should ‘,be entrusted the great experiment, on the success of which the elevation of the Common Schools of New York seemed to be dependent. Mr. Page went there;‘and more than fulfilled all that was promised, all that was expected of him. Surrounded by anxious but somewhat doubtful friends and by confident and in one direction, bitter opponents, he took his stand, and commenced his work. Soon the clouds, that hung over the Normal School, began to break away; and the pure light of his personal character, and admirable skill in the Art of Teaching, was seen and acknowledged of all men. Even old, experienced teachers gratefully confessed, that they received invaluable hints from his methods, and a new impetus to labor from the spirit that animated his life. He was too unsparing of himself.

Hie poured himself out like water. Not only did he send forth class after class of young men and women, so far imbued with his spirit, and trained in his art, that they 31

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THE REVIVAL OF MDUOATION. have every where been distinguished as instructors of the young; but that portion of his time that should have been given to rest and recreation, he generously devoted to labor in the exercises of Teachers’ Institutes*; nor was this all, but he issued a large volume on the art of teachingt-second to no manual on the subject, if it be not the best of all. Alas! his strength was not equal to the work he was tempted to undertake. In less than three years from the commencement of his labors in New York, “he fell in the furrow,” with his hand on the plough, from which he had never for a moment looked back. Thus have I spoken freely as I think and feel of the dead and of the living.

Long since did I repudiate the old adage ‘ nil de mortuis nisi bonumn,”

(say nothing of the dead, unless it be good). And I am equally slow to accept the common maxim, that we should not praise the conduct of the living. So that what we have to say be true, and the occasion calls for it, it should be spoken with equal freedom of the living and of the dead, whether it be praise, or whether it be censure. Right and wrong, truth and falsehood are too diverse in their natures, and too momentous in their consequences, to be ignored in the living or the dead; or to be even obscured out of regard to the one or the other. Many of you, my young friends, have already entered, or are about to enter upon the great work of educating the children of men. The office of a teacher is second only in its importance and sacredness to that of a parent. The Church and the State are the offspring of the family. Never therefore will our bodies politic and bodies ecclesiastic become what they ought to be, until our bodies domestic are well ordered-the children obedient and respectful to their parents; and considerate of each others rights and feelings; living in peace and in love. “Young America,” (as our body politic is now flippantly named),-an irreverent, profane, headlong, *Had there been time, I should have enlarged upon the value of these Institutes, especially in New York. t Theory and Practice of Teaching. 35 3

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. roistering fellow-shows plainly enough what a deficiency there is in our country of parental wisdom and authority.

Schools are needed therefore, not only that children may enjoy the quickening influences of companionship and emulation in their studies; but also that they may receive instruction in the sciences, which too few parents are competent to give; and a wholesome moral discipline, which too many parents do not understand, or neglect to maintain. The first duty of the teacher is to lead his pupils to think, to observe and reflect on what they observe; to listen to the monitor that is placed in their bosoms, and consider reverently what they are required to do and what to forbear.

Children should be led to use their own powers and opportunities for the acquisition of all knowledge, especially the knowledge of God and his laws. The teacher shouid be to his pupils, whatever may be their age, not so much a dictator as a guide. The charm, the exceeding excellence of Colburn’s method of teaching Arithmetic is, that it leads pupils to observe, and to state distinctly what is self evident to themselves of the powers and relations of numbers; and to advance as they may, in the exercise of their own faculties, from the most obvious and elementary, to the discovery of the higher and higher arithmetical truths. The same rational method should be pursued in the teaching of all other sciences, not excepting the science of man and the science of God. We are prepared to accept intelligently, and to use wisely the revelations of truth on any subject, that have been made to other minds, only when we have well considered and defined the revelations made to our own minds. God hath never left himself without witness to any of the children of men. There is a law written by his finger upon the heart of each one; and by considering that law every child may be led, in some measure, to discover how wise and holy that Being must be, who inscribed it there. But teachers too seldom take the pains necessary to lead their pupils to listen to the witnesses of God, Which they have in their own souls. It is to be deplored that in primary instructions on all subjects, most teachers depend 36

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. so much upon books, treatises and manuals. These contain records of what other minds have discovered, reports of re suits to which other minds have come. Often they are inval uable, and should be communicated in due time and in the proper place. But in every instance, that communication should be preceded by a careful survey and thorough consid eration by the pupil himself, of all the truth which is within the immediate reach of his own perceptions. I have long been persuaded, that the first processes of teaching should be those, by which the youngest pupils may be led to the exercise of their own senses, in discovering knowledge, and to the con sultation of their own moral instincts and intuitions, in as certaining what is right. There was a deep meaning in the words of the Great Teacher, when he took little children in his arms and blessed them, saying, ” of such is the kingdom of I-Ieaven”-” their angels do always behold the face of my Father in hleaven.” Who does not know how the great moral questions, that now agitate our country, and about which our ablest states men seem to be bewildered, would be settled, if left to the decision of the moral intuitions of unsophisticated children? What child, not corrupted by his education, would not decide instantly, that one man can.have no right to hold another man as his property, and regard and treat him as a domesticated brute? What child not corrupted, would not instantly dis cern and condemn with loathing, the traffic in intoxicating drinks; the civil and social dependence and depression of the female sex; the horrid custom of war; the impositions which are too common in trade; and every kind of violation of the Golden PRule? Nay, how quickly and how wisely would un perverted children determine, could they understand, the questions of Theology, that have so long divided the church, and perplexed the grave Doctors of Divinity. No one should venture into a school as its teacher, who has not a reverence for the spirit that is in the youngest child; who does not deeply feel that he is about to deal with that, which partakes of the divine. He may find it, in some in 37

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUOATION. stances, already perverted by the mismanagement of its earlier guardians, or by untoward influences that preceded even its birth; but he should know that in itself there resides the recuperative power, which alone can restore spiritual health. To that he should know how to appeal, that he may bring the instrument into harmony again. If he lays upon it rudely the hand of power, he may aggravate the discord of the harp of a thousand strings. Only by touching, in the spirit of love, that part of the nature of a child, that is in tune, may he reasonably hope to restore the whole to harmony. Let all teachers go into their schools in the spirit of him who felt that he was sent especially to seek and to save the lost. Not upon the bright, beautiful, tractable, intelligent children, should teachers (as they will be continually tempted to do) allow their particular regards to fasten. Such children have already been favored enough, in the circumstances of their birth, natural temperament, and condition in life. They will need, in school, only the ordinary attentions and inducements to study and to subordinate themselves to wholesome rules.

It is the intellectual imbeciles, the spiritual cripples, the morally insane, who need and should receive the especial care of teachers. More or fewer of these-or individuals who are suffering in a greater or less degree under these infirmities-will be found in every school. And these infirmities may be coexistent with some admirable powers of mind, some excellent affections and holy aspirations. The great art of the school teacher is to gather these infirm ones in his arms, and carry them in his bosom; help them over the rugged passes that might wound or weary them; at the same time conciliating the approval and the generous co-operation of the healthy and strong in aid of the weak. “I say unto you,” are the ‘words of the greatest of Teachers, “I say unto you love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” These heavenly precepts should govern every act of those, who have the charge of wayward, perverse, rebellious children. It is-the spirit which dictated them, that 38 4

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. alone can subdue and reclaim a wicked child. I mean not now to raise the question of corporal punishment, to deny utterly the necessity of this dreadful expedient. I cannot, at this late moment, open the discussion of the question of school discipline. Let me only say, that no treatment of a child, that is not prompted by, and cannot be administered in the spirit of love, will benefit him. He or she who can govern a school thoroughly well, without blows, or angry words, possesses most of the art of governing. My estimation of the qualifications of any one for the office of a school teacher, declines directly as the amount of corporal punishment used by him or her increases. And he or she who cannot keep a school in good order, well and happily employed, without the daily or the very frequent exercise of the rod, the ferule, or some other kind of violence, is unfit to take the care of children, either as a teacher or a parent, and ought not to profane, by assuming, either office. .Oh, woe for those, who trample on a mind, That deathless thing! They know not what they do, Nor what they deal with! Man perchance may bind The flower his step hath bruised; or light anew The torch he quenches; or to music wind Again the lyre-string, from his touch that flew. But for the soul! Oh tremble and beware To lay rude hands upon God’s mysteries tkere.” Never forget in all your intercourse with the young, that they, who are children now, will soon be men and womencalled to take part in sustaining, if not administering, the ot fices of this great Republic, in which the people have assumed to govern themselves. Never forget that no individual can contribute aught to the success of this great experiment-to the strength of a democracy-who hath not the command of his own spirit; and that, therefore, you are training up the children committed to you, to be good citizens, only so far as you are training them to govern th1emselves. More than all, therefore, remember continually in all your intercourse witli the young, that your highest duty as teachers is not to bring your pupils into subjection to your own wills, but to bring them into willing subjection to the Law of God-that law, 39

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THE REVIVAL OF EDUCATION. which is written indelibly upon their own hearts, that law, which is more fully revealed, expanded, illustrated and enforced in the doctrines, the precepts, the life, the death of Jesus Christ. I hope that you are not to be troubled in Massachusetts, as we are in New Yorkl, by the question that has arisen between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, respecting the use of our Sacred Scriptures in the Schools. If you are, or shall hereafter be so troubled, let me only say, and it will be the best conclusion of the whole matter of my discourse, that if the Teacher has the spirit of Christ in his heart, he will carry with him, into his school, the best of all that is good in the Bible, although the book be left out; but that, in a school, whose teacher is not possessed of the spirit of Christ, the Bible, though it should be read every day, will become little else than a dead letter; for as the Germans are wont to say, ” as is the TEACHER so will be the SCHOOL.” 40 : i*.:

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