do we mean by education an eccentric culture, by which one faculty, or one set of faculties, is developed to the neglect and injury of all the others. The aim of States and parents should be the production of a nobler manhood and womanhood; the improvement of the race, physically, intellectually, morally, religiously; so as to leave behind them a hardier, more virtuous, high-minded, intelligent, and capable generation than that which preceded them. According to this broad view, education underlies every interest relating to human progress. And the present age is coming to appreciate this fact; and is waking up to the importance of light for the masses. Yet there is opposition still. Not that many doubt the desirability of a fuller and better education, but that few rightly estimate its relative cost and advantages. Owing to the unequal distribution of physical and mental powers, there has come to be, in all civilized countries, an unequal distribution of wealth. Hence, one half, more or less, of the community possesses surplus means of support and culture, while the other half is compelled to labor with the hands for bare physical subsistence, and has not the means of education. And the question involved is, whether, by suitable legislation, the wealthy shall be taxed to educate all. But will it pay the State to give its subjects the best education it can afford? Will the taxed portion of the community be amply benefited? Society at large, influenced too much by a blind ambition for material prosperity, limits this question, to dollars and cents. Many are the professedly christian parents, who have the welfare of their children at heart, and feel a deep sense of obligation to do everything possible to promote their happiness and prosperity, and who heartily wish they might be educated, who yet, by mistaken judgment, try to avoid educational taxation. They strive to accumulate material, perishable wealth for their children, but not to endow them with the imperishable riches of mind. The relation between Citizen and State being reciprocal, whatever improves or deteriorates the one necessarily produces the same effect upon the other. Like State, like Citizen; like Citizen, like State. Therefore, the objects and benefits of all classes of education have reference both to the Citizen himself and to the State, of which he is a part. The character and conduct of each member of society affects the condition and welfare of all the rest. All institutions, political, moral and religious, must be, first of all, provided with the material means of protection and self-preservation. Hence, society levies and collects taxes with which to pay legislators, attorneys, judges, jurors, sheriffs and jailors; to provide armies and navies; to maintain poor-houses, hospitals and asylums. In short, the individual is compelled to contribute to the support of society; for which, in return, he receives protection from violence; justice in matters between man and man; comforts for the body, when he is unable to acquire them for himself; and remuneration for what society takes away. These four things are actually provided. Society admits that it owes them to each man. There is one more important and excellent gift, the most indispensible of all, which the State owes to each of its citizens—that is, an education. Upon the possession of this gift by the people depends the ability of society to bestow all others. For to what end shall society protect a man's body from war and midnight violence; to what end give him justice in the courthouse, and repay him for what society takes to itself; to what end protect him from cold and hunger, nakedness and want, if he is left in ignorance, with no opportunity to improve his head, or heart, or soul. Without education, he still remains but a mere animal, a bone-and-muscle machine to serve the selfish purposes of wicked men. Ignorant of all the laws of his being, physical and mental, he violates every principle of his nature, and becomes a prey to disease and the countless vices of which only humanity is susceptible, and degrades himself infinitely below the mere animal creation. Man, lacking the unerring instinct of the brute, without education sinks as far below the brute, as, with education, he is capable of rising above him. Without this last gift, the greatest the State can bestow upon the Citizen, he remains unable to cope with his fellows, and unqualified to render to the community any but menial and feeble service. It is not by enlightening a few minds, that countless discoveries and important inventions have come to be universal and daily blessings to all, as well as a source of vast national wealth. These are results of educating the masses. Give every man an education, and from many heads will come reforms, improvements, discoveries and inventions. If the cost of educating a man is compared with the increased value of his labor, physical and mental, it will be apparent that no community can afford the ignorance of its subjects. Penurious parents and States have too long overlooked the important fact that, without education, society cannot discover genius, and so avail its profits and benefits. Hence, many an obscure hamlet might inscribe over its church-yard: "Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, "But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, And froze the genial current of the soul." To have deprived a Watt, a Stevenson, a Newton, a Franklin, a Howe, or a Morse, of education, would have been to deprive the world of some of its greatest means of wealth. See what education has accomplished in bringing forth innumerable labor-saving machines, as illustrated by the loom, the printingpress, the sewing-machine, the telegraph; and by the employment of wind, water and steam as motive powers, in the place of muscle. Observe what education has achieved for the good of man by discovering the laws of physiology, rendering it possible to maintain his physical health and increase his longevity; by applying the science of chemistry to agriculture, by which his labor is made vastly more productive; by employing inanimate power to subdue the earth; by the unfolding of scientific truth. Knowledge is power." It is the only earthly power that can rescue the human race from penury, pauperism and crime, and lift it up to its higher life. It is the only power that can save man from political and religious bondage, and give all men a fair chance of success. Education is the difference between weakness and strength, coarseness and refinement, degradation and nobleness, barbarism and civilization, man and brute; between the devilish and God-like in man.-Schermerhorn's Monthly. THO DECLAMATION AND COMPOSITION. HOSE rhetorical exercises which occupy, in many schools, one afternoon a week, are often so conducted that they yield but little pleasure and no profit. Declamations and compositions are very generally the dread of pupils, whereas they may be easily made their delight. Less formal exercises than are customary would be an improvement, and these can be secured by the introduction of weekly reviews. Reviews sometimes fall short of their purpose because the sole reliance of the teacher for refreshing the memory is the repetition of the old questions which were asked in the advance. So much ground must be gone over, no matter how hurriedly; that is the governing thought when the end of the term draws near and the examination begins to loom up in the narrowing distance. The chief obstacle to successful oratory in the case of beginners, are timidity and self-consciousness. The boys are not asked to stand up and tell each other what they know, but are expected to make a show of themselves, or, rather, to exhibit a poor imtation of Chatham, Webster, or Choate. This leads to hesitation on the part of some, and to great artificiality on the part of others. The constrained manner, and the unnatural tones and gestures which are common in all our higher schools, are largely due to the want of suitable general exercises, in which pupils may unconsciously acquire the habit of expressing themselves before the whole school in correct language and with proper attention to the management of the voice. Composition, too, is a needless bugbear, and not unfrequently the preparation is wholly mechanical and imitative. No thought is put into the exercise, but the stock-sentences supposep to belong to the oft-repeated subject are strung together, the pupil's ambition being simply to avoid mistakes in grammar and spelling. There is a better way than this. Instead of separating declamation and composition from other studies, and thus compelling pupils to "make believe," let the teacher make these exercises the vehicle of conducting a general review. This presupposes the habit of using the pencil to write out answers, and of giving verbal answers in other language than that of the text-books. It also implies, on the part of the teacher, the habit of profuse illustration and minute explanation. These conditions being supplied, it will not be difficult to initiate the pupils in a kind of free-hand composition, to borrow a figure from the drawing-master. Let an hour be given in which they may produce the most interesting facts learned during the week in geography, history, or the reading-book. The first object is to test the vividness of the impressions made by study and recitation. If the explanations were not clear, if the recitations were not enlivened by sufficient illustration, we shall find that the memories of the children did not take the facts in charge. We shall also find, in any case, that minds differ in their selecting power, so that one boy will give prominence to facts which are overlooked by another. But these sketches should not be called compositions, nor should all of them be read to the school. Let it be understood that only the best shall be read; that this honor is to be sought for by careful attention to the teacher's explanations to the classes, and to her private corrections marked on the papers. The common faults of declamation can often be avoided by encouraging pupils to take the place of the teacher and explain some interesting topic with which they are familiar. Let it be a description, in familiar language, of something they have seen or read. "Tell us about it," should be the form of invitation. Let them not dream that they are "speaking pieces." It is better that very simple narratives should be attempted at first. If necessary, let the more timid pupils retain their seats; at least avoid the conspicuity of the platform. A natural manner, the use of original language, and the absence of all the accessories of an exhibition, are indispensable to a right beginning in oratory. Declamation, according to the ordinary method, makes the poorest kind of actors-mere elocutionary machines; but talk, insensibly led, step by step, to assume the dignity of an address to a general audience, develops natural oratory. In the case of girls, the attention should be directed to the acquisition of an elegant conversational style. This accomplishment, which is too seldom regarded as worthy of special cultivation, must be planted and nurtured in early life, or subsequent efforts will not be likely to produce it. Woman, it is often said, is naturally fitted to shine in society; but unless her conversational powers are rooted in a carefully-prepared soil, they will bear but indifferent fruit. To know how to express one's thought clearly and elegantly is no mean result of instruction, and it very seldom grows up wild without instruction.— Schermerhorn's Monthly. , ADVANTAGE OF STUDY WITHOUT A MASTER.-One of the worst evils of the university system is, that not a step can be taken without a master. In place of exercising the pupils in the imitation of good models which would in part dispense with his aid, they are pushed in a false direction, where they seek their way painfully, and cannot advance without help; while the professor discourages them by corrections which are renewed without ceasing. Self-guidance is the first condition of a reasonable, improvable being. Children should learn at school how to study alone-to discover for themselves what they wish to know. In giving them no initiation, in denying them their freewill, we prepare them to resign themselves to the passive part imposed upon the nation by governments that take the initiative in all measures of social interest. We thus form subjects for atyrant, not citizens of a republic.—Popular Science Monthly. -In order that THE ECLECTIC TEACHER may be brought before the public as early as possible, we desire to secure a host of active agents, to whom a large cash commission will be given. Not more than one agency will be established in a county. Write immediately for special terms. ARTISTIC TEACHERS. IT BY J. P. WICKERSHAM. [T is beginning to be understood that assigning lessons, hearing recitations and keeping order are but a small part of the work of teaching school. They are, however, the most conspicuous part of it, the part that catches the eye of the unthinking, the part by which the multitude test the qualifications of teachers, and in view of which school boards make contracts with them. But, as has been said, a few are beginning to understand that this is the coarser, inartistic work of teaching, not unlike the miner who digs the rough ore out of which is made the polished blades of Damascus, or the costly cutlery of Sheffield; or that of the quarryman who cuts the shapeless block of stone that becomes in the hands of a master the beautiful statue, filling the whole world with admiration. Teaching is not yet a fine art, and the teacher is not yet an artist of the highest order. These are heights to be scaled in the future. But is not man the noblest work of God? And is not the art of forming as God designed, after his own image, the highest and noblest of arts? Why then should such multitudes of teachers content themselves with the mere routine, common-place duties of the school room, and aspire to nothing beyond? Why should they remain ignorant or forgetful of the high end which all teaching worthy of the name keeps constantly in view, the perfection of human nature? "What we want most is skilled workmen," said the head of a large manufacturing establishment to the writer a few days ago. "We can find plenty of men to do our coarser kinds of work, but the largest salaries do not procure the requisite skill in our designing and finishing departments." This language expresses quite exactly the great want in the work of education. There are thousands of teachers who can perform the ordinary duties of the school room, but have no conception of the art required to develope and train the whole human character. Good methods of giving instruction in the several branches, methods of school management, may be learned and practiced by a mere machine teacher, whose mind knows nothing of that nobler, that God-like process of a strong soul brooding over a weaker one, penetrating its inmost fibres with light and love, and lifting it up day by day to a higher, purer sphere of existence, ripening it as it were for time and eternity. Let us have fewer laborers and more artists in our school-rooms.-American Journal of Education. --Over sixty cents of every dollar you pay for taxes goes to pay such bills as: forty millions of dollars for crime, thirty-two millions for pauperism and twelve millions for insanity-all directly induced by intemperance. -When the million applaud you, seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; when they censure you, what good.—Colton. |