The school and the schoolmaster. A manual for the use of teachers, employers, trustees, inspectors, &c., &c., of common schools

Part I. By Alonzo Potter, D.d.^

OF NEW-YORK.

Part II

BY GEORGE B. EMERSON, A. M.

OF MASSACHUSETTS.

BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY WM. B. FOWLE & N. CAPEN,

NO. 184 WASHINGTON ST.

184 3.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by

Harper & Brothers,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

MASSACHUSETTS EDITION

The subscriber has been authorized and requested by a distinguished citizen of Boston, Martin Brimmer, Esq., the Mayor elect of the city, — (whose name is here mentioned to satisfy a reasonable public curiosity, though wholly without his consent or knowledge,) to cause an edition o( thirly-Jive hundred co^iies of the following work, entitled "T/te School and the Schoolmaster,^^ to be printed, and to be distributed in the following manner, namely, — one copy to feach of the Public Schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, — and one copy to each Board of superintending school committee men.

Tt is the desire of the donor that these volumes shall be placed in the hands of the prudential committee men, or of such other persons as the districts respectively may select as their trustees, to be by them loaned to the teachers who may be successively employed in the schools, — and after the same have been read by the teachers, then to any inhabitants of the districts who may wish to peruse them. It is also his desire and expectation, that the copies given to the superintending school committees shall be considered the property of said committees, for the time being, and be delivered over by each Board, at the expiration of its official term, to its successors in office.

The range and compass of the subjects embraced in this volume, and the masterly manner in which they are treated, commend it to the careful perusal of every person engaged in the sacred cause of education, of every lover of his country and friend of mankind. The reputation of the gentlemen by whom it was written is a high guaranty of its excellence ; and it is believed that the more the work is examined and understood, the more will it redound to the credit of its authors.

It seems proper here to state, that " TTie School and the Schoolmaster " was originally prepared in compliance with the request, and at the expense, of that munificent friend and patron of Common Schools, the Hon. James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, New York, by whom a copy has been gratuitously sent to each district school in that Slate, — almost eleven thousand in number, — one to each deputy superintendent, one to each of the governors of the several States, &c. &c.

Although a month has not yet elapsed since the first edition was issued from the press, yet already is Massachusetts the second State, where the liberality of a public-spirited individual has secured the benefits of this admirable work to all who are engaged in our public schools, and to the whole of the rising generation. Thus may the States of New York and Massachusetts forever be compeers, if not competitors, in the Christian enterprise of educating the whole people ; and may these distinguished public benefactors, in addition to the gratitude of their own States, soon enjoy the happiness of seeing their example imitated in each of the remaining States of the Union.

The subscriber avails himself of this occasion to express an earnest hope, that all teachers, school committees and friends of education will not only give the work an attentive examination themselves, but will commend it to the attention of their fellow-citizens generally. In this way may the benevolent purposes of the donor be fully realized, the public mind be enlarged and quickened on the paramount subject of a universal education for the people, and the high destiny of our nature be fulfilled by a progressive improvement in the character and condition of the race.

The strong and sincere commendation which the subscriber gladly accords to the following work, ought not to be understood as an unqualified approval of every sentiment it contains. Probably no two indepouhmt minds ever existed whose opinions would perfectly harmonize in regard to all the particulars of so comprehensive a subject.

HORACE MANN, Secretary of the Board of Education.

Boston, Dec. 2ifh, 1812.

Note. In making up the, number of copies for each of the towns in the Commonwealth, the Abstract of the Massachusetts School Returns, for the year 1841-2, will be taken as a directory.

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PART I.

ITS OBJECTS, RELATIONS, AND USES.

■WITH A SKETC:

EDTJCATION MOST NEEDED IN THE UNITED STATES, THE

PRESENT STATE OF COMMON SCHOOLS, THE BEST

MEANS OF IMPROVING THEM,

ANB THE CONSEQUENT

DUTIES OF PARENTS, TRUSTEES, INSPECTORS, &c.

ALONZO POTTER, D.D.,

PROFESSOB OF MORAL FKILOSOFHT IN UNION COLLEGE.

BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY WM. B. FOWLE & N. CAPEN,

NO. 184 WASHINGTON ST.

184 3.

Contents

Paso

Inteoduction 1

Chapter I. Education Of The People

Sec. I. What is Education ] 19

II. Prevailing Errors in regard to the Nature and End of

Education 28^

III. The same Subject continued .... 35

IV. Same Subject continued 50

v. What is the Education most needed by the American

People 1 64

VI. The Importance of Education, 1. To the Individual . 91

VII. " " 2. ToSocie- . . Ill

Chapter II. Commox Schools

Sec. I. Relation of Common Schools to other Means of Education 154

II. Present State of Common Schools. — 1. Schoolhouses.

2. Manners. 3. Morals 168

III. Same Subject continued. — 4. Intellectual Instruction.

5. Irregular Attendance 180

IV. How can Common Schools he improved? — 1. Discussion.

2. Female Teachers. 3. Union or High Schools.

4. Consolidation of Districts ..... 197 V. The Improvement of Common Schools (continued). Organisation in Cities. — 1. District System. 2. Monitorial. 3. Facher System. 4. American System.

5. Diversity of Class-books 218

VI. Same Subject continued. — Education of Teachers . . 236

Introduction

" Were the benefits of civilization to be partial, not universal, it would be only a bitter mockery and cruel injustice." — Duchatel.

A LATE writer (Laraartine) has spoken of the cross and the press as the instruments of the two greatest movements ever made in behalf of human civilization. To these may be added two other agents of mighty power : the steam-engine and the common school. The moral nature of man can be permanently raised and transformed by nothing short of the benignant influence of Christianity. His intellectual powers can be duly developed and wisely applied only under the guidance of knowledge ; and of knowledge the press is now the grand expositor and representative. To promote his physical well-being, we need industry ; and of that industry which subdues the earth, vanquishes time and space, and makes all things tributary to man's convenience, the steam-engine is unquestionably the most proper symbol.

It is worthy of remark, that as each of these great powers is necessary to the improvement of mankind, so each of them becomes more efficient in proportion as it co-operates with the rest. Christianity needs the press, the press needs the steam-engine ; and these, in their turn, are safe and beneficent agents only when they who wield them are animated and controlled by Christian principle. It is still more to our purpose, however, to observe, that no one of them can exert its appropriate influence, or dispense its proper benefits without the aid of the school. Minds, for instance, besotted by ignorance and unaccustomed to thought, A can hardly be reached by the more lofty and spiritual appeals which are sent forth from the cross of Christ. The press must speak in vain to those who cannot read, or who, to the mechanical art of interpreting its mysterious symbols, have never added habits of inquiry, or a desire for knowledge. And even industry, although it always brings some blessings to those whom it employs, can still do comparatively little for men who alienate their higher natures when they labour, or who waste its fruits in sensual indulgence, or in mental vacancy. It is only in proportion as minds are awakened by early education, that they can share in the fruits of an improved civilization. To shut them out from the school, is to deny them access to a large proportion of the best and noblest influences, which are supplied by Christianity, and by science and the arts.

But if the school is an essential agent of civilization, it is the Common School, that forms the appropriate agent of modern and democratic civilization — of that civilization which aims at the greatest good of the greatest number. A.S this end is peculiar to the social movements of modem times, so is the instrument which it employs. Schools have always been found in the train of civilization, as the only means by which her blessings could be preserved and perpetuated ; but the idea of schools which should secure to every human being, by improving his mind, a substantial . share in the triumphs of Learning, Liberty, and Religion, this, it is believed, was an idea unknown to the wisest of ancient sages and states. They wrote and speculated much about education ; but it was an education denied to more than foiu: fifths of the people, who, being barbarians, were bom, according to Aristotle, to be slaves, and who, as slaves, were denied all spiritual as well as civil rights. It was an education, too, by wliich the citizen was to be moulded for the exclusive service of the commonwealth, rather than one which was to unfold in due proportion all his powers, and prepare him for a course of free and generous self-culture.

In the Middle Ages, when education was dispensed in monastic establishments, and enjoyed, for the most part, only by the clergy, we are not to wonder that the people were in ignorance. Even after the revival of letters, and when the art of Printing had awakened the slumbering intellect of Europe, little progress was made in popular education until the Bible had been translated into living languages, and the privilege of reading it had come to be reckoned as one of the most precious, among the rights of the Christian and the man. The rule which was then extensively adopted in the Continental churches, of admitting no one to his first communion who could not read the Scriptiu-es, coupled with another rule, which made this first communion necessary in order to qualify Mm for marriage or any civil employment — ^these regulations naturally served to make a certain degree of instruction universal throughout the north of Europe.

The same religious and enlightened spirit presided over the legislation of the early settlers of New-England. Both in Massachusetts and Connecticut, it was ordained by law, almost immediately after their settlement,* that the selectmen of the towns should see that " every parent or master insti-ucted the young members of his family (whether children, apprentices, or servants) in so much learning as would enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and have a knowledge of the capital laws ; that once a week he should catechise them in the grounds and principles of religion ; and that every young person should be carefully bred and brought up to some honest, lawful calling, labour, or employment." It will be observed that these regulations are, in

* In Massachusetts in 1642, in Connecticut in 1650.

truth, more enlightened and comprehensive than those which had been adopted in Europe at the era of tlie Reformation. In the latter, religions culture seems to have been almost the only object ; in the former, it was also an object to make enlightened citizens capable of self-government, and trained to habits of regular industry.

Not satisfied, however, with these provisions for domestic education, the inhabitants soon proceeded to lay the foundation of that Common School system which has been so long the pride and strength of New-England. As early as 1647, only twenty-seven years after the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, it was enacted in Massachusetts, in order that " learning," to use the language of the statute, " might not be buried in the graves of their forefathers both in church and commonwealth — that (the Lord assisting their endeavours) in every township containing fifty householders or more, one should forthwith be appointed to teach such children as should resort to him to read and write ; and that, in any township containing one hundred householders, they should set up a grammar-school to fit youth for the University." This law, planting elementary schools at the door of every family, was the first, it is presumed, adopted by any Christian state,* and may claim to be the parent of much

* It is somewhat humiliating to reflect, that the earhest law on record, providing for the universal diffusion of school education, was the work of a people whom we are pleased to style barbarians (the Chinese), and was in existence two thousand years ago. According to a late writer (Davis), it required that every town and village, down even to a few families, should have a Common School. He also states that one of their works, of a date anterior to the Christian era, speaks of the '^ancient system of instruction." It is proper, how ever, to add, that it does not seem to have been the object of the Chinese, as of the New-England system, to favour a free and full development of man's nature. The studies are confined by authority to one unvarying routine ; science, properly so called, is excluded ; the spirit of spontaneous inquiry is repressed, and the whole aim of the legislation on the subject of Popular Instructioa which has distinguished the last half centuiy.*

To maintain and peipetuate religious knowledge among the people was evidently the chief object with the framers of these early school-laws, both in the Old World and in the New. With some notion of the importance, as well to the state as to the individual, of a comprehensive and generous culture, which should awaken and train all the powers of the soul, it is still clear that they failed to recognise all its value in these respects. In Europe it is now admitted that the elementary education given in obedience to these regulations contributed but little to raise the character oi the

is to make an orderly and industrious servant of the state as now constituted. To use the language of another, " the whole channel of thought and feeling for each generation is scooped out by that which preceded it, and tiie stream always fills, but rarely overflows its embankments." It is also questionable whether the Chinese schools succeed in making the whole population capable, as is sometimes said, of reading. According to some missionaries, many of the inhabitants are unable to read at all, and others do it mechanically, and without any perception of the meaning of the author.

* The system of parochial schools in Scotland is sometimes appealed to, as the earliest example of a legal provision for universal education. The law, however, establishing these schools, was not passed till 169G, nearly 50 yfears after the enactment of the one in Massachusetts ; and the preamble of that law clearly shows that the previous efforts of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, and of the civil government in behalf of Education, had failed to make it general. This preamble states that " Our Sovereign Lord, considering how prejudicial the loant of schools in many places had been, and how beneficial the establishing and settling thereof will be to this church and kingdom, therefore his majesty, with advice and consent," &c., and then the act proceeds to order that a school be established and a schoolmaster appointed in every parish, and that the landlords be obliged to build a schoolhouse and a dwelling-house for the use of the master, and that they pay him a certain salar)-, exclusive of the fees of the scholars. A2 mass of the people. In New-England, much was probably ascribed to schools which resulted from other causes, such as the animating influence of a New World, with all its tempting prizes, its numberless incentives to enterprise and forecast, and the opportunities which it afforded, in its political and ecclesiastical institutions, for the cultivation and gradual development of knowledge and power.*

That these schools have exercised a vast and most happyinfluence, not only over New-England, but over all parts of our countiy, is unquestionable ; yet it is evident that even in Massachusetts itself, the very cradle of the system, their unspeakable importance has not been duly appreciated. While wealth and population Avere increasing, and education, of course, was growing more^ and more necessary, the statute-books of that state show for a long period only a declining interest in schools. The salutary rigour of the primitive laws was gradually relaxed, till in 1789 it was ordained that common schools need be maintained but six months in the year, and grammar-schools only when there were two hundred householders in a town; and in 1824 it was declared, that in towns having less than five thousand inhabitants, none but a teacher o( English need be provided. f It is grateful to add, however, that during the last five years this downward course of legislation has been arrested,^ and

* The influence which our institutions exert (especially as they unfold themselves in New-England) in developing intelligence, self-control, and activity, has been explained with great clearness and accuracy by De Tocqueville. See his Democracy in America.

t There was also a provision in the colony charter of Massachusetts, that towns of more than 500 families should support two grammar-schools and Iwo writing-schools. This provision disappeared in the later, commonly called the province, charter.

X The testimony of the present enlightened secretary of the Board of Education (in Massachusetts) indicates how much the schools had failed to accomplish their ends. Speaking of their state at the time of his appointment (1837), he says, "The Common School system that the most enlightened and liberal efforts are now making to raise the standard of public instruction in that ancient and honoured commonwealth.

In our own state, the Common School — as part of a system of public instruction, maintained and encouraged by law — is of recent origin. The act establishing the Common School Fund, which has formed the basis of the system, was passed in 1805 ;* but no revenue was distributed,

of Massachusetts has fallen into a state of general unsoundness and debility ; a great majority of the schoolhouses are not only ill adapted to encourage mental effort, but in many cases are absolutely perilous to the health and symmetrical growth of the children ; the schools are under a sleepy supervision ; many of the most intelligent and wealthy of our citizens have become estranged from their welfare ; and the teachers of the schools, although, with very few exceptions, persons of estimable character and of great private worth, yet, in the absence of all opportunities to qualify themselves for the performance of the most delicate and difficult task which, in the arrangements of Providence, is committed to human hands, are necessarily, and therefore without fault of their o wn, deeply and widely deficient in the two indispensable prerequisites for their office, viz., a knowledge «f the human mind as the subject of improvement, and a knowledge of the means best adapted wisely to unfold and direct its growing faculties."

* Ten years eai'lier, a temporary appropriation (S50,000 annually for five years) was made " for the encouragement of schools." Owing to the state of the treasury, but about $150,000 of this appropriation was realized. The statute was in many respects imperfect, and was suffered to expire ; but it contained one important principle, which was afterward incorporated with the Common School system of the state. This was, that the supervisors of the counties should distribute the amount of the grant among the several towns, and that these towns should raise equal amounts by tax. By the existing law, however, the money is apportioned according to the whole population ; by the law of 1795 it was distributed according to the number of taxable inhabitants. The former is evidently the more equitable and benevolent provision ; and it may be doubted whether the principle of it ought not to be extended. The moneys granted from the state treasury are intended both to encourage and to assist nor was any system organized, till ten years later. But twenty-seven years have now elapsed since the organization was completed, and it is most cheering to consider, that within that brief space, ten thousand and five hundred schools have been established and supplied, with schoolhouses ; that nearly three millions of dollars are now annually expended in their support ; and that more than five hundred thousand children are reported as being under instruction.

A fund, amounting in all to more than five millions of dollars, is held sacred by the state for their use, and the annual revenue of this fund, together with an equal sum raised by taxation, is dispensed each year among all the School Districts of the state, in proportion to the number of children within the bounds of each, and on condition, that the school is kept open four months in the year, by a teacher who has been duly examined and licensed. That these schools have exerted a great and beneficial influence can hardly be doubted. In 1816,* when the first returns Avere

the people in educating their children. In both respects, it is often more needed, and would prove more useful, in sparsely settled districts, where the inhabitants are generally poor, than in districts which are rich and populous. It may be doubted, too, whether the distribution should not be so regulated as to stimulate improvement, both in the attendance of scholars and in the qualifications of teachers. By the present law, the amount. apportioned to a town depends on the whole population ; the amount apportioned to a district depends on the number of children in said district over Jive and under sixteen years of age. Would it not be an improvement if, leaving the apportionment to the towns as it is, the amount allowed to the districts were according to the actual attendance at school for any given period ]

* The present Common School system owes its organization to a law passed in 1811, authorizing the governor to appoint five commissioners, to report to the next Legislature a system for the establishment of Common Schools, and the distribution of the interest of the School Fund. These commissioners reported on the 4th of made, one fifth of all the children in tlie state, between the ages of 5 and 16,Avere not in attendance ; whereas, in 1839, but one eightieth part of the whole were in that condition.* And while this system has been thus rapidly extending in our own state, similar systems have been rising, both in the new states of the West, and in several of the older ones on the Atlantic coast. By law, one thirty-sixth part of all lands owned by the General Government, within the limits of the new states, is reserved for the support of common schools, besides large tracts which are appropriated to academies and colleges ; and thus provision is made that population, as it moves westward, shall carry education in its train, and be kept in constant contact with the genial influences of knowledge and civilization.

A similar movement in favour of the universal diffusion of knowledge by means of schools, has been made throughout a large part of Europe. Systems which had been gradually maturing for the last two centiu-ies — some under the auspices of governments, and some through private beneficence — ^but which were still incomplete and unorganized, have at length been thoroughly digested, and have become more or less incorporated with the state. In Europe, the whole subject of education — from that dispensed in the primary school to that which is imparted in the university — is placed under the supervision of some public functionary ; and by such means, the powerful aid of the government is employed in sustaining, directing, and stimulating the energies of the people, and the liberality of the benevolent. At

February, 1812 ; and on the 19th of the following June an act was passed, providing for the appointment of a superintendent, and the organization of a system substantially the same as the one now in force.

* See the able report of the superintendent for 1840 — Table marked T).

this moment, provisions adequate to the elementary instruction of all the children in the land, exist not only in Prussia, but also in Holland, in Saxony, Austria, and all the other states of Germany ; in France, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Even in Russia, so long the abode of barbarism, and associated now, in most minds, with little of refinement or civilization, a system of universal education is in the course of construction ; and already the genial influence of the District School is enjoyed in unhappy Poland, in the dreary wastes of Siberia, and in the wild and inhospitable regions beyond Mount Caucasus.* Indeed, the time seems to have arrived — let the Christian and the philanthropist hail it with joy — when the great truth, so long overlooked by statesmen and philosophers, is to be universally recognised throughout the most enlightened parts of Christendom — the truth that all are entitled to a share in the great heritage of knowledge and thought — that the development of his faculties by scholastic culture is a right which belongs to every human being, and that it is not more the duty of governments to recognise and protect this right, than it is their interest to cherish and extend it.

Nor is this all. The last fifty years have witnessed another movement in regard to popular education, scarcely less cheering. It was once thought sufficient, if schools were established and maintained. But it is now known that all this may be accomplished, and yet little be really achieved for the cause of human improvement. That schools may, in some cases, be substantially useless and inoperative — that in others, they may be employed by a despotic government as convenient agents for keeping aloof the spirit of change and advancement — and that in others, again, they may, by a too exclusive cultivation of the intellect and by

* See the report of Prof. Stowe ou the State of Education in Europe.

ministering to the lower propensities, train up a factious and disorganizing spirit — these are sad but momentous truths, wliich have at last forced themselves on the attention of the friends of humanity. It has been discovered, too, that everything human tends to degenerate, and that a system of public instruction, however perfect, can be upheld in its vigour and excellence, only by unceasing vigilance. A profound conviction of all tliis has led to the cultivation of a new art, and, it may be added, to the formation of a new science.

Elementary teaching, which, it was once supposed, might be intrusted to any one, and which was, in fact, usually committed (would that such were no longer the case) only to those whom physical infirmity had rendered unequal to every other emplojnnent, is now beginning to be regarded as an art requiring skill and address, and as implying, also, an active exercise of the moral sentiments and affections. It is discovered that i^edagogy (as the Germans, by whom its principles have been most thoroughly investigated, term it) is a science founded on the nature of man, and to be deduced as well from the study of that nature as from the collective experience of manldnd ; that if it be absurd for a man to practise medicine or law, without any special instruction and training preparatory to his profession, so is it absurd in itself — fraught with danger to the subject, and with presumption in the operator — for one to attempt to develop, inform, and guide the faculties of a child without previous preparation. In connexion with improved methods of training teachers, there have been adopted more effectual means of supervising their labours, and of securing for them the co-operation of the public as well as the powerful aid of the government. Thus has arisen, in most of the countries of central Europe, a new branch of social science — one which occupies a prominent place in the eyes of the statesman, as well as in those of the philosopher.

The end of public instruction is no longer merely to have schools, but to have good schools ; schools which shall be sure to awaken mind and cultivate good principles — which shall be imbued with the spirit alike of progress and of conservatism — which shall contain within themselves the elements of permanent improvement, and be the perennial sources of a healthy and powerful influence to those whom they train.

In this great and benignant reform the people of the' United States have shared but partially. Though we are more dependant on education for our welfare than any other nation, it is still a melancholy truth that some of the most arbitrary governments of Europe have done more, within the last half century, to provide good schools and good teachers for their subjects, than has been done by the free people of this land, to make a similar provision for themselves. We are not left, however, without some grounds of encouragement. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the Common School system first saw the light, Central Boards have been instituted under the eye of the State Governments, and have been charged with the duty of awakening a new and 'more general interest on the subject of primary education among the people, and of leading them to the adoption of more uniform and efiicient methods. A gentleman of ardent zeal and enlightened views has also been appointed in each of those states, as well as in others, to carry out these plans by personal visitation and addresses, as well as through the medium of the press, and by assembling the people of different districts for mutual conference. In New-York — besides measures, recently adopted for training teachers and establisliing School District Libraries, which have been productive of the happiest results — a new element of vigour and improvement has been introduced within the last year, in the appointment of a Deputy Superintendent of Common Schools for each coimty. In the mean time, the press ev erywhere teems with the most earnest and searching discussion of all subjects which have a bearing on the welfare of schools ;* and though the experienced observer may see much in these discussions which is crude and visionary, they still show that the public mind is awake, and that it is bent on improvement.