Education begins in the family, the very sanctuary of human life, where maternal love seasons and intensifies the new thought. Then comes the Primary School, in which knowledge and letters are taught by an authorized teacher. This school is watched over by anxious parents and by chosen trustees. Here the child's education is carried on for several successive steps through the more necessary studies. The rich and the poor have mingled together, and have learned to love one another. They have studied the same things, and are qualified alike. Now some must go to the business of life, and some to the High School or Academy. The decimated portion that go up, have become very much identified with the nine tenths who go out, and are the true substratum of society. The Academy carries on the education by several degrees, qualifying many for school teaching, and for entering upon professional studies or business pursuits, and from thence another decimation takes place for the College and University.

One of the incongruities of the New York system is found in the step from the Common School to the Academy. This step needs adjustment. There is a hiatus to be filled, not in scholarship, for the Common School in a thousand instances oversteps the Academy. It is in the change of the means in the two institutions for support. The one is now free, and the other is not; the Regents not having control of sufficient funds for very material aid to the student, except he be so fortunate as to have assigned him a free scholarship, which may be found in some

of the Academies, or he may attend for four months in preparation for teaching.

The allowance to the Academy is small, and a comparatively small number put in their claim for its enjoyment. Some fall back upon the Common School as the people's College, forgetful that a system involves the idea of higher and lower; and that by the system, the cultivation of the wisest is made to benefit the most ignorant. No one who can deduce a logical sequence from an admitted premise, will start a crusade against Colleges and Academies by way of improving Common Schools.

The educational system of the State consists of one University, under the care of twenty-one Regents appointed by the Legislature, with twelve Colleges, two hundred and four Academies not concentred in one favored place, but distributed all over the State, in which are taught the rudiments of science, and the classical, and some of the modern languages; with nearly twelve thousand District Schools, whose privileges are free to all; each school, in whatever secluded spot, and however small, having its licensed teacher, its common school library its supervising trustees, and every town its superintendent; and the town superintendents forming a County Board, with the State Superintendents holding appellate jurisdiction over the adjudications on the inferior officers in all matters of difference arising between districts, with regard to licenses, &c.

This organization includes every grade of instruction from the abecedarian to the man who passes out into the world to lead in counsel, teach in its semi

It

naries, or officiate in its learned professions. ignores all theories that distort into disproportionate importance one class of instruction to the prejudice of the others. It contemplates the Common Schools as a broad basis from which, and on which, must be superstructed the ornate columns of strength and beauty that dignify the Temple of Science. It counts its Common Schools not as a separate interest, or as a system, but as the first and indispensable part of a great system, suited to all conditions of society in whatever state of advancement.

With regard to Colleges, we often hear it suggested that they are less adapted to their work than they were fifty years ago. Now why is this? The answer is very obvious. It is this: that the circumstances of society have greatly altered; the Colleges, while they have increased in number, have altered very little. Academies, on the contrary, are not only more numerous, but better. Classical and boarding schools are multiplied and of higher character. Eminent lecturers open courses on literary and scientific subjects, in the treatment of which they often excel, both in ability and learning, the regular College Professors. These may be heard in all our cities and towns. There are also private schools which adopt collegiate courses, or courses that many prefer, because they seem better adapted to the wants of particular individuals. These make a diversion from, and divide the interest with the Colleges; and they are oftentimes fully equal to some of the inferior Colleges.

But these schools which enter the lists of compe

tition with Colleges and the University, like all things earthly, have also their faults, which should not be overlooked in the comparative estimate. There are probably some seen or unseen elective affinities, not deserving praise, that have brought their disciples together. They are of the same grade in society, they are alike rich, they go to the same church, are of the same political creed, or they are destined for the same profession. Now the circumstances of society in this country afford an argument against caste and clique, and all narrow and illiberal associations. Our children, when they reach their majority, must go forth into the world. If their experience and knowledge of the diversities of character are then to begin, they are but half educated. When our school system shall have been eliminated of all the fractional shreds of a by-gone theory, in which the classical and the practical are too much disjoined; when the emendations which have been suggested, have been incorporated into, or superimposed upon the ample foundation which a graduated official control and a munificent and wellsecured school fund afford; a citizen may sit down and contemplate with pleasure the educational advantages and privileges which are opening upon his children in common with society around him. An enlightened and patriotic man, looking to the wellbeing and influence of his son in after-life, may say: "Let his education be begun in the Common School, where he will meet with all classes of boys and all descriptions of character. To guard his moral feelings from contamination, let him be allowed and

encouraged to relate at home whatever he sees and hears among his playfellows, and let his parents approve or disapprove as the case may require. Let him thus early become acquainted with the distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, and taught to cherish the one and avoid the other. He will thus acquire a hardihood of character, a power over his own desires, and a strength of purpose and of will, far superior to the boy who has been kept out of harm's way, and furnished with a private tutor to make the path of learning smooth and pleasant. The stern discipline of a large Common School, composed of boys of every shade of character, is useful to break the will to rightful authority, and cultivate patience and fortitude under evils which must be borne for the sake of after benefit. He who fears to trust his son among the poor boys of the Common School, and therefore sends him to a select school, patronized only by the rich, should remember that the rich have their peculiar vices as well as the poor, and that the effeminacy and peevishness of the spoiled children of fortune, are quite as contagious, and more disastrous in their effects upon the character, than the rude manners, and hard, blunt passions of the sons of poverty."

"At twelve or thirteen, we may suppose the lad to have completed the studies of the Common School, and to be ready to enter upon a higher course of instruction. If then he can enter upon a course of higher studies without leaving the paternal roof, let him begin the study of Latin and Greek. And here let not a teacher stand at his elbow to remove every