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ANNUAL REPORT.

In pursuance of a requisition of the Constitution, the Directors present to the American Institute of Instruction their Annual Report.

The Association has been steadily pursuing, during the past year, the objects for which it was established, and has become an educational organ of widely extended celebrity. It has been the pioneer of numerous important enterprises connected with schools, and its opinions and acts are often referred to by public bodies, as furnishing satisfactory authority for the utility of legislative enactments, as well as for municipal regulations. Its Annual Sessions are numerously attended by teachers and educators of both sexes, and new members are every year added to its roll. In 1851, at its meeting in Keene, N. H., forty-nine friends of education became members.

The annual volume for that year has been published, under the supervision of the Board of Censors, and proves to be equal in value to any of its predecessors.

The Lectures delivered last year by Messrs. Oliver and Hagar have been printed in pamphlet form, for general distribution, and have been read with avidity and advantage by thousands of teachers and others.

The Directors would respectfully recommend that teachers

provide themselves with the volume for their libraries, and that they give what circulation they can to the pamphlets above mentioned, and to all that are printed from year to year, for the general good.

By the Treasurer's Report it will be perceived, that a balance of $161.29, remains on hand, which, with the income of the current year, will enable the Institute to meet the cost of its annual volume, and incidental expenses. Still, it would be gratifying to see its pecuniary means enlarged, as it would thus be enabled to circulate an increased number of its best Lectures, thus benefiting persons abroad, who are unable to attend its meetings.

In conclusion, the Directors would congratulate the friends of human progress on what the Institute has done and is doing, hoping that its efforts will long continue to merit

their appropriate reward.

Respectfully submitted.

G. F. THAYER, for the Directors.

TROY, N. Y., AUG. 6, 1852.

LECTURE I.

INCENTIVES TO MENTAL CULTURE AMONG TEACHERS.

BY JAMES DAVIE BUTLER,

OF DANVERS, MASS.

WHILE listening to the lecturers who have so often, in these last days, fed us with the various food of sweetly uttered knowledge, I have said to myself more than once, "What shall the man do that cometh after the king?" Nor can I doubt but that those who assigned to us speakers the order of our appearance, reverenced the oriental custom, according to which, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse." Or, perhaps, as classical scholars, they may have imitated I'rometheus, who began to make man of finer clay, as it were of porcelain, but lacking material, was compelled to eke out his work with baser matter, at first intended for composing creatures of a lower race. My own apology for trespassing at all on your attention, now you have

* This lecture was the last in the course before the Institute.

been feasted to the full, is, that after many who were rich had cast in much money into the Jewish templetreasury, then, and not before, there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. Yet small as may be the value of the coin I contribute, its superscription, CULTURE, need not shrink from a comparison with the legend on guineas, napoleons, or double eagles.

Culture is clearly one great end of our being. God, indeed, "hath made all nations of men that they should seek the Lord."* How shall they seek him? One answer to this question is, "By doing good." But as the fountain must precede the stream, so he, who would do good, must first be good. And what is it to be good? Is it not to use our faculties as just views of their nature show they were intended to be used? Culture, then, moral, mental and physical, is one great purpose of our existence. I mention moral culture first, since it is not only our clearest duty, but is the best basis for all other culture; while physical culture alone would leave man a mere animal, and mental culture alone might only raise him to the bad eminence of the prince of Pandemonium. Holding, as I do, the laws of hygiene in such esteem as to think sickness more often a fault, than a calamity, and persuaded, as I am, that the darkest day the land of the Puritan ever saw, was that, when the phrase "New England Primer" ceased to be synonymous with "Westminster Catechism," (since many of her children have been hence common-schooled out of earth as well as heaven,) I trust

*Acts xvii. 27.

I shall not be thought neglectful either of the body or the soul, although in the present address, I say nothing more about them, but confine myself to the culture of the mind.

My subject, then, is, SOME OF THE INCENTIVES,

WHICH SHOULD URGE TEACHERS TO MENTAL ADVANCEMENT.

I seem to myself to follow a natural order of thought, by speaking first of those incentives which appeal to teachers in common with other men, and afterwards, of such as address themselves peculiarly to teachers.

The ends of all our actions, so far as they respect ourselves, are two, Culture and Condition. It is better to aim at culture, for many reasons. Thus it is more in our POWER to gain culture. Who can be sure of riches, when not one man in ten thousand, even among calculating Yankees, ever became a millionaire; or of office, seeing the worthiest and the wiliest of statesmen, pronounced alike unavailable; or of popularity, now that men change their opinions. as often and as willingly as their linen? External advancement is dependent on the favor of associates, or on accidents as unforeseen and surprising, as if there were no fixed laws of nature. Mental advancement is at the mercy of no fraudulent partner, no fall of stocks, no wind or weather. It is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus. He that will, may learn to read, and then, may so read as to investigate, and may then, by reflection, classify his facts, and by observation, illustrate his principles. Thus laboring, he secures culture. Vires

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