ficated, ignorance so gross, disqualification so glaring, immorality so shameless? The system of county superintendents was established to correct these and other kindred evils; to make reports on the conditions of the schools, school houses; the best method of imparting instruction, bringing before one district the successful experiments of other districts; exposing the defeats and evils that existed; awakening the dormant interests of parents; in short, diffusing generally the better means of education now enjoyed in the more advanced sections of the state. The principal provisions of the system were many years ago recommend. ed in the counties of Herkimer and Otsego; its value has been tested for more than a quarter of a century in Holland, and with equal success it has been introduced into every state of Europe, in which schools have received the permanent attention of government. fund like a rain drop in the ocean, then might we safely dispense with our deputy system, for then might we hope to see parents once more the faithful inspectors and supervisors of their children's schools. But if with no equivalent substitute, we abandon the present and relapse back into the past, shall we not be faithless to our trust, false to the true interests of the state, false to the sacred cause of popular education in all time to come! Your committee, after a full and deliberate investigation, have unanimously concurred in recommending the preservation of the deputy system; believing it to be, with the additional power now conferred, not only the most economical and efficient, but the most important provision in our complex and extensive organization of public instruction, and anticipating from its continuance the rapid and thorough reformation of the schools. Some may deem these expectations visionary, but the results of one year, and that the first, lead us confidently to look forward, in the more perfect working of the system, for greater and more widely dif fused physical, moral and intellectual good, than from any of the numerous measures of social amelioration that claim the thoughts and the aid of the statesman or the philanthropist. It has been recommended in New Jersey, Ohio and Kentucky. When in 1839, Connecticut awoke from her long apathy on the subject of schools, she passed an act enlarging the powers and stimulating the efficiency of her common school visiters, a class of officers which answer to our deputy superintendents. In 1842, when this renovated system had been little over two years in operation, the able Secretary of the Nor are these anticipations of coming good Board of Commissioners of Common Schools, vague and unsubstantial visions from the dream in his report says, no adequate substitute land of the theorist; but simple, practical imcan be provided for frequent, faithful, and in-provements-necessary reforms affecting the telligent visitation of schools, carrying along economical and sound administration of the with it wise counsel for the future to teach-schools-the prosperity and happiness of the ers and pupils, encouragement for past success, and rebuke for neglect, defective discipline and methods of instruction. The mode of visi. ting should be such as to make known to all the schools the superior methods of any one, and to awaken a generous rivalry between the teachers and scholars of the several schools." people-the honor and safety of the State. To the labor of these superintendents, aided by the suggestions of the distinguished head of the department, we look for an increasing and enlightened interest in the people; for greater faithfulness and efficiency in trustees; for a wiser expenditure of the public money on teachThe committee can but think those who are ers qualified to educate the youth of a free napetitioning that the office of the county deputies tion; for greater regularity of attendance, and may be abolished, on the ground that it is a use. the consequent lessening of the rate bills; for uniless expense, are looking too soon for results. formity of text books, thus saving thousands These officers have but entered upon the dis- annually to the schools; for improvements in charge of duties, when, in this state, they had our school houses, rendering them all fitter no light of past experience to guide them; the places for the education of children than for the territory was new and unexplored, they have herding of cattle; for a more judicious adminishardly been able to survey the extent, and much tration of local school interests, preventing and less to examine the nature of it. If here and healing those petty dissensions which so often there they have found a kindly soil, capable of divide districts and destroy schools; for greater receiving at once and producing, the greater por- zeal and competency in teachers, encouraging tion must be regarded as "fallow ground," to them by a juster remuneration and a higher be broken up and cultivated, ere the expected estimation, to enter the school-room as a life fruit matures. It would not be surprising if all occupation; for a better and more general apthe deputies had not come up to the expecta-preciation of that noblest of all systems of state tion formed; that when all the duties were new, some should have erred, should have been indiscreet, inefficient, incapable; but these are evils and defects which every succeeding year will diminish. It is not expected that the appointment of deputies will at once create qualified teachers, build suitable school houses, infuse into parents an interest in their district schools; but who that reads their reports can doubt but that they have already done something, and are capable of doing much more in renovating our school system? If there is a probability that their efforts will greatly abate, if not eradicate the most prominent evils and abuses existing, can we hesitate as to our duty? Were our school deposite district libraries; and for that general reformation of the schools, so vitally essential to the perpetuity of our institutions, and the welfare of the great body politic, that shall make them, in the words of Washington, 66 schools of virtue as well as of knowledge;" common, not in the Hebrew sense, as degraded, unwholesome, and unclean, but even as the blessings of Heaven, light and air, common to all, because essential and beneficent to all! mon schools. He wishes to have the public and The demagogue opposes all tax to support comall around him ignorant, that he may be of the more consequence. Select schools are little nurseries in which to rear proud aristocrats. COMMON SCHOOLS OF SYRACUSE. same ratio that the youth are educated will Although it is not the duty of an inspector to report the condition and state of the common schools which he may visit, yet in view of the deplorable state of things that exist in our village, I am tempted to make some suggestions and submit some facts for the consideration of our citizens, and if possible to awaken an interest to the all important subject of our village schools. Not that I complain of the qualifications of our teachers, or of a neglect to provide suitable buildings, (with one exception, district No. 4,)-but the great evil is, that under the present organization of our districts nearly half of the youth of the village do not attend the schools, but are necessarily excluded from them for the reason that the six school houses of the village will not contain them. For instance, the largest and most commodious house in the village is situated in district No. 7, but it cannot possibly accommodate a moiety of the 500 children who reside in that district. Perhaps no part of our county is favored with better teachers than Syracuse, but of what avail is this to those who are deprived of their instruction! If we have six good common schools accommodating but a part of the young, we should have ten accommodating the whole. But it may be urg. ed that private or select schools, if established, will remedy this evil. I think not, for those now excluded are the children of the indigent, and illy able to pay the extra expense of tuition in such schools. We must mainly depend upon common schools, as the nurseries of the youth -nine-tenths are educated in these elementary institutions. The State, in its munificence, grants yearly over $3,000,000 for the support of common schools, but not a farthing of this EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TEACHERS. sum now enures to the benefit of those who are excluded from the common schools of our village. The following exhibits the whole number of children between five and sixteen years of age-the average number that have attended school through the past winter, and the number attending private or select schools unincorporated in each district in Syracuse: No. between 5 and 16. Average No. Select scholars. 1,590 571 330 We have then about 600 children in Syracuse who are in a fit course of training to become adepts in vice and proficients in crime; but who, if the plastic period of youth were spent in acquiring knowledge, might become ornaments to society, and better qualified to discharge their duties to their Maker, to their fellow-men, and to themselves. Statistics show that the inmates of our penitentiaries are composed almost exclusively of the ignorant. Ignorance and crime are necessary concomitants, for the human mind is so constituted that in youth it does not remain stationary, but is either retrograding or advancing. If this period is not spent in acquiring useful knowledge, the youth will indulge in a vicious course of life, and the mind will become the fit and willing instrument of all the baser passions of our nature. Then in the These questions I should like to see discussed through your paper, or some other mode proposed to remedy the existing evil. Here is a fine field open for the exercise of the philanthropy of our citizens, and I trust the subject will receive the careful consideration which its D. C. LE ROY, importance demands. Inspector of Com. Schools. Syracuse, March 6, 1843. The proportion of Female Teachers in our Public Schools, as compared with Males, is rapidly increasing. In 1841-2, there were but nine more male teachers than in the preceding year, while there were one hundred and seventy more females. During the last five years, the number of male teachers has increased one hundred and thirty-the number of females, six hundred and ninety-one The number of schools during the same time has increased but two hundred and eighty. This shows a great reinforcement to the corps of instructors, in addition to the improved quality of instruction now given. The number of female teachers, in all the Public Schools, last year, including both summer and winter terms, was... Of males.... 4,282 2,500 1,782 A fact unprecedented in any other State in the Union, and one which would be deemed hardly credible in Europe, where the services of females for this purpose seem to be held in low estimation! With us, it is as uncommon to see females employed as laborers in the field, as it is there to find them engaged as teachers in the school-room. This employment of female teachers for our schools, seems to be increasing from year to "SCHOOLS FOR SMALL CHILDREN." year, in an accelerating ratio. It began from a conviction of its reasonableness and expediency; it is extending as the light of experience more and more clearly reveals its advantages. It is supposed that a meagre supply of literary All those differences of organization and tem- attainments will suffice for the education of perament which individualize the sexes, point to young children, as though errors were not far the female as the guide and guardian of young more baneful at the beginning than at any subchildren. She holds her commission from na-squent stage of their progress. If earliest imture. In the well developed female character pressions are most lasting, we shall be most there is always a preponderance of affection solicitous to have them correct. Over every over intellect. However powerful and brilliant thing which grows, those who exert the first inher reflective faculties may be, they are con- fluences have the greatest power. In pointing sidered a deformity in her character unless our course towards distant objects, a slight deover-balanced and tempered by womanly affec-viation at the outset will lead to a wide divertions. The dispositions of young children of gency in the result; and the earlier the point of both sexes correspond with this ordination of departure occurs, the wider shall we wander Providence. Their feelings are developed ear- from the point of destination. An unskilful lier than their judgment, and they aspire after bend given to the young germ or shoot, though the sympathy of a nature kindred to their own. so slight as scarcely to be detected by the line They need kindness and not force, and their and plummet, will enlarge in the full-grown better instincts are to be fostered by a congenial tree, into a deformity visible as far as the eye warmth, rather than their reason to be addressed can reach. Such being the nature of educa by a cold and severe logic. They can feel a tion, it is pre-eminently important to guard thing to be right or wrong before they can un- against erroneous impressions at first, for when derstand the rigorous demonstrations of the these become ingrained in the solid substance of moralist; and hence, appeals should be addressed character, it will be too late ever wholly to recto their sentiments rather than to their reflective tify the error. And hence, if any difference is powers. They are to be gently withdrawn, allowed, the first teachers of children should be rather than rudely driven, from whatever is the best-the most critically accurate in what wrong; to be won towards whatever is right they are to teach, the most scrupulously exemmore by a perception of its inherent loveliness plary in conduct, the most religiously faithful and beauty, which they can appreciate, than by in the discharge of duty. its general utility, which they cannot yet comprehend. Their conscience can be awakened to a sense of honesty and justice, before they can understand the commercial value and necessity of those qualities, or their conformity to the great law on which the moral universe has been constructed. The spontaneous impulses of love towards parents and family and friends, can be cultivated to an invincible strength, long before they can understand, that love must be a grand element of all happiness, both in this world and the next. In the correction of children, too, the stern justice of a man thinks more of the abstract enormity of the offence, and of the broad mischief which it would work in society, and he therefore rebukes or chastises it with a severity proportioned rather to the nature of the transgression, than to the moral weakness of the transgressor. Hence, in rooting out an evil he may extirpate much that is benevolent and generous; or, in subduing one propensity, may rouse into violent activity a brood of others, more pernicious than itself. It requires a gen. tler, a less hasty, a more forbearing nature, and a nicer delicacy of touch, so to remove the evil as not to extirpate the good. How difficult to unclinch a habit of deception, of falsehood, of profaneness, of quarrelsomeness, or of any other dissocial propensity, which, by being associated, during all the years of early life, with some idea of pleasure, has been rivetting its fetters closer and closer upon the soul. But, on the other hand, if early habits have been made the antagonists of these vices, it will be almost impossible, in after life, to connect the idea of pleasure with them. Guided by the light of this principle, all on whom the care of children may be devolved, can do much to promote their futu: e well-being; but the natural sympathy, the sagacity, the maternal instincts of the female, pre-eminently qualify her for this sphere of noble usefulness. One of the concomitant evils of providing teachers of limited attainments for small children is, that very young persons are selected for the office. This adds inexperience in government to deficiency in knowledge and immaturity in character. The mind of childhood, at its most susceptible period, is subjected to the accumulated evils of ignorance in regard to instruction and inaptitude in forming dispositions. It has been well said, that" the primary school, so far from being the least, is the most important feature in our system of public instruction; for mistakes made there, are seldom if ever corrected afterwards. A blunder born in these schools, is apt to continue alive and active until it graduates from the high school, and goes forth into the world on its mission of disorder."* Now as females are almost universally em. ployed to teach our summer schools, and to some extent, also, even our winter schools, ought not their compensation to be so increased that they can afford to expend more money and time in qualifying themselves for the better discharge of their responsible duties? The price paid to the great majority of female teachers is less than is paid to the better class of female operatives in factories. But how can the guardians of the intelligence and virtue of the rising generation expect successfully to compete with manufacturers of wool and cotton, for the best skill and knowledge in the community, unless they also compete with them in the remuneration offered for their services? There are now many districts in the state which would be glad to add dollars to the pay of a teacher, could they find one who would supply the deficiencies and obliterate the errors occasioned by employing a cheap one in the beginning, in order to save shillings.-Report of Mass. Board of Ed. * Report of Newburyport School Committee SPELLING. It is matter for regret that so much of the time in our schools, which is appropriated to spelling, should be lost, in consequence of the unskilful manner in which the exercise is conducted on the part of the teacher. We propose at present to point out only one defect, but it is a serious and a prevalent one. It is that of mispronouncing the word to be spelled, in order to give the speller a clew to its orthography. If scholars are sent to school to learn, among other things, how to spell the words of the English language, then it is clear that English words, with the true English pronunciation, should be put out to them. It is of no use to put out such words to them as they never hear spoken or read, because to learn to spell any number of the latter does not inform them how to spell the former. Take the word fidelity, for instance, in which the sound of the vowel i, in the first syllable, is obscure, and, therefore, that syllable has almost or quite the identical sound of phy, in the word geography, or philosophy; suppose this word is put out with the correct pronunciation, and the scholar begins to spell it with the letters fe, when the teacher arrests him, and puts out a new-coined word, fi-delity,-giving to the vowel i the long sound, then the scholar may follow him, and call the letters right, but he has learned nothing, for there is no such word in the English language as fi-delity. Hence the scholar is in danger of acquiring a false pronunciation, fi-delity instead of fidelity, and of not being able to spell the word correctly when he shall have occasion to write it. In some schools, and with some teachers, this departure from correctness becomes very gross, so much so, as to indicate a distinction between the terminations, tion, sion, cion, &c., as ti-on, si on, ci-on, not s, &c. Such a practice as this obviously supercedes all necessity for studying the lesson. It supercedes even the exercise of the memory, at the time of the recitation. If the pupil foreknows, from custom, that the word will be substantially spelt for him, he will take no pains to prepare himself for the recitation; and if it is substantially spelled for him, at the recitation, he will forget it in a minute. To make this more plain, let us take some words whose orthography differs widely from the simple powers of the letters of which they are composed. For this purpose we have no occasion to search for long and difficult words. Almost any simple table at which we open in the spelling-book, will furnish illustrations. If we admit that a word is ever to be so pronounced as to give the speller and indication of its orthography, we may say de-ad for dead, he-ad for head, thre-ad for thread, law-su-it for lawsuit, re-cru-it for recruit, be-ef-ste-ak for beefsteak, &c. Something precisely analogous to this is often done in regard to the imperfect and past tenses, and past participles of the regular verbs, where the ed is sounded as though it were an additional syllable -row-ed for vowed, sow-ed for sowed, &c. Why not, on the same principle, in putting out the table of abbreviations enunciate the very word or words, abbreviated? Why not say, A. B. Bachelor of Arts, to inform the pupil that he is expected to echo back, Bachelor of Arts? ing on the mind of the successive letters and syllables, and associating them with the true pronunciation, so that either one will have the power of calling up the other, nothing is done. All the time spent is lost, and worse than lost, for a bad habit is formed. Why does it not occur to all teachers, as it certainly does to all good ones, that it is no object to have all the words in the dictionary spelled right, at the recitation, if the power of spelling them right, a month, a year, or many years afterwards, is not gained? Another practice, hardly less pernicious, into which some teachers fall, consists in alternately checking and prompting the pupil; that is, in checking him, if he is going wrong, in prompting him, if he hesitates. The pupil, being about to spell a word, fastens his eye upon the teacher: if doubtful whether to use an i, an e or a y, he utters one of these letters hesitatingly, and if the wrong one, he is instantly apprized of his mistake by some wink, or shrug, or nod, or gesture of the teacher. Availing himself of the hint, he retracts the letter first used, and takes up one of the other candidates for the post; and then watches again, to learn if that will do. If mistaken the second time, he tries a third, and finally gets right by the the process of exhausting errors; as the quack dentist succeeded at last in extracting the aching tooth, after having pulled out all the sound ones. The only proper way for a teacher to conduct the spelling exercise is to put out each word distinctly, giving to it its true English pronunciation, announcing it, just as a good reader or speaker would do in reading or speaking it, without any special fulness of emphasis on any particular syllable, or bringing any difficult letter into improper relief; and without, in fine, giving the slightest hint, intimation or token, by wink, look or gesture, whether the scholar is or is not spelling it right, until he has done until the sounds have gone irrevocably forth. This throws the responsibility upon the pupil. He must then study in order to know how each word is spelled. He must attend in order to understand what word is put out. He must carry the word in his mind, without confusion or transposition of syllables, until he has spelled it. If the scholar cannot retain the true orthography in his mind, from the time when he studies his lesson to the time when he is called up to spell it, he will not be likely to retain it, and carry it into life, from having the order and succession of the letters intimated or communicate to him, during the period of recitation.—Com. School Jour、 HOW TO DO GOOD. The duties of life are not all of the great and exciting sort. There are many duties in every day; but there are few days in which one is called to mighly efforts or heroic sacrifices. I am persuaded that most of us are better prepared for great emergencies, than for the exigencies of the passing hour. Paradox as this is, it is tenable, and may be illustrated by palpable instances. There are many men who would, without the hesitation of an instant, plunge into the sea to rescue a drowning child, but who, the very next hour would break an engagement, or sneer at an awkward servant, or frown unjustly on an amiable wife. Ac The true process of learning to spell consists in the pupil's looking intently at the word, and taking the image of it into his mind-that is, noting each letter in it, the order of their succession, and the manner in which its syllables, if it is not a monoLife is made up of these little things. syllable, are divided. The whole is to be pictured in his memory, and the picture associated with the cording to the character of household words, English pronunciation, so that when called upon looks, and trivial actions, is the true temper of to spell, he may, as it were, read from the tablets our virtue. Hence there are many men reputed of his memory, just as he had before read from the good, and, as the world goes, really so, who printed pages of the book. Without this imprint-belie in domestic life the promise of their holiday and Sunday demeanor. Great in the large assembly, they are little at the fireside. Leaders, perhaps of public benevolence, they plead for universal love as the saving principle of the social compact; yet when they are among their dependents, they are peevish, morose, severe, or in some other way constantly sinning against the law of kindness. Why do you begin to do good so far off? This is a ruling error. Begin at the centre and work outwards. If you do not love your wife, do not pretend to such love for the people of the antipodes. If you let some family grudge, some peccadillo, some undesirable gesture, sour your visage towards a sister or daughter, pray cease to preach beneficence on the large scale. "On the best portion of a good man's life, In a scene of great reverses and real suffering in a mercantile and manufacturing world, there is occasion for the luxury of doing good. The happiest mechanic I ever knew was a hatter who had grown rich, and who felt himself thereby exalted only in this sense, that his responsibility as a steward was increased. It was sacred wealth. IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL ACTION. It is stated in the Cincinnati Chronicle, that at an education meeting lately held in that city, the Rev. Dr. Beecher related the following "dream," being a beautiful illustration of the importance of individual action-and showing that in our republican country, although it is only the mass which acts through the laws, it is the individual which moves the mass. ་ "He said he had a dream, which, like other dreams, did not wholly express itself, and in which some of the natural objects had the power of speech. He was travelling near the sources of the Monongahela, and, in passing over a rough country, at every short distance met a little stream, which he could step over; but all of them were going the same way. At last, he asked one where he was going? Why,' replied the little rill, 'I am going to New Orleans. I heard the people there want a great canal, a thousand miles long, and fifteen hundred feet wide, and I am going to help make it.' And pray what can you do? I can step over you. What can you do?I don't know what I can do, but I shall be there.' And so saying, it hurried on. He came to another, and asked the same question, and received the same answer. All were hurrying on to make the great canal, in which the steamships of the West, with their heavy burdens, were to be transported. On the heads of the Alleghany, the Sciota, and the Mississippi, he found thousands more of little streams, hurried on by the same impulses, and which, while he yet spoke to them, passed out of sight. None knew what he could do, but all were determined to do something. He passed on until he came to the mighty Mississippi, and there he found the canal was made. The noble steamships rode proudly on its surface; and as its waters diminished, they were again replenished to the brim by every mountain spring and every stream. Thus do the little rills make the stream, the stream the river, till the united waters of the whole pour on their way, rejoicing, to the glorious ocean. So is man to the mass, and the mass to the grand tide of human affairs. Each little mortal, weak and weary though he be, can human events, as it rolls on to the ocean of eterdo something in making up the mighty stream of For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart To sanctify the whole by giving part." The poorest man may lessen his neighbor's load. He who has no gold may give what gold cannot purchase. If religion does not make men who profess it more ready to render others happy, it is a pretence. We are to be judged of at last by this rule. The inquiry is to be especially concerning our conduct toward the sick, the prisoner, the pauper and the foreigner. The neighbor whom we are to love is our next door neighbor; that is the man who falls in our way. The Samaritan knew this. It was but a small pittance he gave; the poorest among us may go and do likewise. Do not allow a townsman, a stranger, or even an emigrant to suffer for lack of your endeavors. It will cost younity.—Temp. Ad. little, but it will be much to him. "Tis a little thing To give a cup of water; yet its draught Help others and you relieve yourself. Go out and drive away the cloud from your distressed neighbor's brow, and you will return with a lighter heart. Take heed to the little things-the trifling, unobserved language or action-passing in a moment. A syllable may stab a blessed hope; a syllable may revive the dying. A frown may crush a gentle heart; the smile of forgiveness may relieve from torture. He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. CHARLES QUILL. TO THE TEACHER.-A blow is much more easily given than a reason. The blow should be withheld and the reason given. Never strike a scholar when in a passion. STATE CONVENTION OF COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS. In accordance with the discretion vested in us, by the State Convention held at Utica in May last, and in compliance with the suggestion of several of the Deputies, the undersigned hereby give notice, that a Convention of COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS of Common Schols, will be held at the CAPITOL in the City of ALBANY, on A. M.; for the purpose of adopting such measures as WEDNESDAY, the 17th day of May, inst., at 10 o'clock, may lead "to promote Sound Education, elevate the character and qualifications of teachers, improve the means of instruction, and advance the interests of the schools committed to their charge." The important changes, which the law of the last session has introduced into our Common School System, renders it especially desirable that a full attendance should be had; as it is intended to be strictly a business Convention. THEODORE F. KING, Committee to call State Conventions. District School Journal. Is published on the 1st of each month-Office New State Hall. |