believed in a few centuries more; and in the course of another six thousand years, begin to be acted upon. I hope at any rate, that Connecticut will not be more than 6000 years behind the three adjoining states. DISTRICT SCHOOL JOURNAL. ALBANY, NOVEMBER, 1844. THE JOURNAL Freysbush, Oct. 9th, 1844. TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. as trustee in our district for several years, and always making it my practice to visit our schools once in two weeks, I have had a good opportu nity to mark the difference both in the method of teaching and the degree of acquirement between the old and the present system, as recommended by the Journal. We long since introduced it into our school library, and I am happy to say that it is read eagerly and with much interest by parents and scholars. Its influence on the reading portion of the community, is most strikingly exhibited, and a growing interest on the subject of education is manifested by all WE are certainly under very great obliga-around us. May it continue to circulate and its tions to our correspondent, whose note we sub-circulation increase, until a good and effective join, for the high opinion he expresses of the system of education shall be established throughout our land; that our sons and our daughters practical value and utility of our Journal as a may, through such means, be fitted for usefulness family and school paper. It has been our earn- and honor. GEORGE G. DUNCKLE, est and uniform aim, to give it this character; Trustee of School District No. 22, town of Caand it is gratifying to learn that we have in some najoharie. degree succeeded. It is due to ourselves, however, no less than to the cause we advocate, to say, that unless our Journal can find its way, through parents and teachers, into the family circle and the school, its object must, in a great measure, THESE institutions, which we are glad to perfail of accomplishment. The officers of the ceive springing up in different portions of the state, several school districts, to whom it is officially and increasing in value and efficiency by increas sent, are bound to keep it in their own posses-ed experience as well of their utility as of their sion, and preserve it for binding at the end of the economy, unquestionably owe their origin no less year. Its practical benefits can therefore only to the demand for a higher qualification of teachbe secured and widely diffused, by individualers in our elementary schools, than to the absence subscription among parents, and especially teach- of institutions expressly designed to minister to ers. The trifling price at which we are enabled this demand. The several departments hitherto to afford it, can scarcly be felt by those who order existing in a portion of the academies of this it, while by the general diffusion of useful educa- State, for the preparation of teachers, have, as tional information throughout the community, our readers are already aware, been discontinued. the most important and beneficial results to the The State Normal School, authorized by the act rising generation, and to the present and future of the last session of the legislature, has not yet destinies of our beloved country, cannot fail of gone into practical operation. And were this being realized. The publication of the Journal, otherwise, it is obvious that several years must in its present enlarged size, is kept up at a con- elapse before its practical results will be able, stant pecuniary sacrifice on our part; and we even under the most favorable auspices, to viaare reluctantly compelled to say, that unless a dicate the far-reaching and comprehensive wisconsiderable accession is made to our subscrip- dom of its establishment. The periodical or tion list from the sources we have indicated, we ganization of teachers' institutes, preparatory to must, in justice to ourselves, reduce our sheet to the summer and winter terms of our common one-half its present size. If we deserve to be schools, affords not only a most valuable opporsustained-and if the continued publication of tunity for teachers thoroughly to review their the Journal in its present size is desirable-wil attainments, but ample facilities for practical not parents and teachers, as well as the friends of knowledge in the art of instruction. These ineducation generally, appreciate our appeal? stitutes remain in session for two or three weeks; To the Editor of the District School Journal: the cost of atten lance is comparatively trifling— SIR-It is with feelings of no common interest, that of instruction nothing, or very light, being and most certainly with no sinister motive, that I either gratuitously furnished by the county supersay one word in praise of your useful and able peintendent, or for an inconsiderable sum, when riodical. Having been an attentive reader from its commencement, I have found all its doctrines distributed over a class of from fifty to a hunand illustrations to be most reasonable, and cal-dred, by literary and scientific gentlemen expressculated to awaken that interest on the subjectly engaged for the purpose. Valuable lectures which has so long lain dormant. Having acted on educational topics are interspersed throughout. the course; adequate illustrations of the different sciences required to be taught, furnished; and every practicable facility afforded for the acquisition of sound views and enlightened systems of instruction, of government and of discipline. When these admirable institutions shall be found, as we trust they soon will be, in every county of the State and when, in addition to the advantages they now enjoy, under the supervision of the several county superintendents, aided by the talents and experience of veteran educators and scientific gentlemen from our own and other states, they shall be able to avail themselves of the knowledge and information which the gradu. ates of the State Normal School, from each coun. ty, may afford, we may reasonably expect from them the noblest and most gratifying results. In the meantime, we claim, with pride and pleasure for our excellent system of common schools, the credit of originating, and thus far, of efficiently sustaining these novel and useful "home departments" for the preparation of teachers. Fulton county established the first of these institutions through its efficient county superintendent, F. B. Sprague, and although this was but two years since, there have been similar schools opened and sustained during the present season in Allegany, Chenango, Cayuga, Seneca, Tompkins, Oneida, Fulton, Tioga, Otsego, Wyoming, Yates, Orleans, and if we mistake not, Genesee. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. creasing enlightenment, to make the most ample provision for a comprehensive and systematic education-what are the responsibilities which appertain to a people, the corner stone of whose free institutions rests upon the general diffusion of knowledge and the prevalence of virtuous dispositions and principles? Regarded merely as a vast political problem involving in its result the ultimate triumph or signal failure of the great experiment of self-govenment, the question is one of momentous interest and importance; but when viewed in all its aspects-as it regards the individual and collective welfare of the present and all coming generations-as it regards the progress and the fortunes of civilization and Christianity-as it is identified with all our hopes and prospects, and well-being in time and in eternity-it comes to us, fraught with considerations, which, above and beyond all other subjects of inquiry, demand our most urgent and serious attention. quently becomes matured in the great school of the world, or of that portion of it which bounds the experience of each individual and compre hends the circle in which it is his destiny to move. Nor will this process be in any respect retarded by inattention, neglect or mismanage What, then, is elementary education ? In its more general and comprehensive form, it may be defined to be that development, cultivation and direction of the various faculties, physical, intellectual and moral, appertaining to humanity, which determine the pursuits, habits, tastes and inclinations, form the character and mould the destiny of each individual of the race. In this view of the subject. the process of education commences with the earliest inhalation of the vital element, and progresses, with a constantly accelerated velocity, first under the auspices of the family circle, then of the elemen. THE benign results of a progressive civiliza-tary school and the family combined, and subse tion, based upon an enlightened Christianity, are in no respect more apparent than in the exertions which have been made and are now making, in this country and in Europe, for the promotion and improvement of Education in its ele mentary stages. If in those countries where the great mass of the people and of their chil-ment, however much it may be guided, elevated, dren are, for all the practical purposes of legislation and of government, regarded as of no ac count beyond the value of their physical ability to contribute to the sustenance of an overgrown aristocracy, elementary education is deemed of sufficient importance to warrant the concentration upon it of the highest talent and the ablest statesmanship-what should be the estimation in which this great and fundamental interest | glect, or ignorantly or intentionally pervert the should be held in our own young and noble Re- responsible trust committed to their charge. public ? If the despots of Europe the King of More than this. So sacred is the gift of an inPrussia, the Emperor of Austria, and even the telligent existence-so pure, holy and invigoratAutocrat of Russia-find it for their interest and ing are all the ministrations of Nature and Prothe interest of their people, in this age of in-vidence-so uniformly and invariably is "the enlarged and directed by a wise vigilance and a discriminating culture. The work of education— either for good or for evil, so far as the individual who is the subject of it is himself concerned, will go on from birth to maturity, whether those whose appropriate function and duty it is to conduct its successive developments and shape its course, faithfully discharge, or habitually ne wind tempered to the shorn lamb"--that, given far as in him lies, the obstacles which impede the elastic energies of a sound and healthy physical constitution, and the ordinary intellectual and moral faculties, the positive exertion of some counteracting external agency is required to pervert, to weaken or extinguish the natural tendency to knowledge, to wisdom and virtue and happiness. The desire for knowledge is implanted in the human mind as one of its uniform and constituent elements: and the budding plant does not more naturally or invariably put forth its earliest energies in search of light and its appropriate aliment, than does the expanding intellect grasp after knowledge-knowledge of itself-knowledge of the external world and all the manifold phenomena by which it sees itself surrounded. Full, however, as the world is of error, of vice, and depravation and guilt, those counteracting tendencies which repress the growth of the mind, pervert its energies, and lead it fearfully astray, seldom fail early to present themselves, even under the most favor. ing auspices, and to tinge with their dark hues the whole of future life. In estimating the power and the effects of the best and the most skilfully devised system of education, we are apt to lay far too little stress on the circumstances by which we are constantly surrounded, and which, like the air we breathe, and the infinitesimal particles of matter which incessantly float around us, are incorporated, to a greater or less extent, at every moment of our existence into our being. During that important portion of our lives ordinarily set apart for the specific communication of knowledge and intellectual and moral culture, these circumstances and asso ciations are most powerful, impressive and efficacious in the formation and development of character—most tenacious in their hold upon our memory and our affections, and least capable of separation from the lessons with which they are accompanied. Under these circumstances, neither the parent nor the educator can be said to have acquitted himself of the high responsibility which devolves upon him, by the most systematic and clear communication of knowledge in any of its departments, or by the most faithful and lucid exposition of moral truth-unless he has assiduously, patiently and perseveringly explored the depths of the mind he has undertaken to discipline and instruct-observed its constitution and its peculiar conformation-ascertained its elements both of weakness and of strengthtraced the principal dangers to which it is exposed, from within and without-removed, so its favorable development-or if that be found impracticable, furnished him with the mental and moral power, either triumphantly to sur mount, or wisely to avail himself of those obsta. cles. The cultivator of the soil, who should content himself with committing to the ground the best and most vigorous seeds, and leaving them to germinate, expand and bring forth fruit, flowers and vegetables, without regard to any of the various circumstances which ordinarily impede or promote their growth, claims in vir tue of this process the meed of applause for his enlightened system of agriculture, would be guilty of no more fatal error and ensure no more disastrous results than would the educator or the parent, who, shutting his eyes to the ever varying phenomena of surrounding circumstances and the necessity of assiduous culture and constant supervision, expects from the most perfect system of intellectual instruction or moral ethics, those just perceptions of truth and knowledge, and those harmonious and finished proportions of character which constitute wisdom and virtue. It is neither to be denied nor overlooked that "a change has come o'er the spirit of that dream," which, within the personal recollection of most of us, limited the mission and the func tions of the teacher to the abstract communica tion of the mere elements of knowledge; to the preservation of a due degree of compulsory order within the repulsive precincts of the school room; and to the fulfilment of the specific number of hours, days, weeks and months "nominated in the bond" by his personal attendance upon and supervision of a prescribed routine of tedious and monotonous exercises. It is not too much to say, that an entire revolution in this reand under our own immediate observation. In spect, has been effected within the last ten years, proportion as the value and importance of Education has come to be recognized and understood, in its relation to all our interests, personal and political, social, economical, and religious, has the necessity been felt of availing ourselves of the highest moral and intellectual qualifications for the proper development and cultivation of the mental faculties of the rising generation. In proportion as the pages of history, and our own observation and experience have forced upon us a clearer and deeper conviction of the great truths, that knowledge and virtue conjoined, are absolutely indispensable to the happiness and prosperity as well of communities and States, as of individuals, has there been a deeper and more extended interest in the practical results of the elementary school, and in the degree of efficien- |cation. The IRREGULAR ATTENDANCE, will be cy which it is capable of realizing. No profes-the universal answer. For neither system, nor sion-no calling-can compare in utility-in the general improvement is practicable, where the influence which it exerts-in the good which it school is composed of different pupils every suc can accomplish-in the evil which it can avert-cessive day. Would a carpenter, or a blackin the prospects which it can open up-in the smith, or a farmer, undertake to teach a boy to happiness and well-being which it can secure-follow either business, if he could not have him with that of the teacher. No profession-no regularly and constantly under his care? And calling-should be so honorable or so desirable: has not a teacher a more difficult task? one reas none demands, for its faithful and efficient quiring more assiduity in the pupil and more fulfilment, so much and such varied mental fidelity in the master? culture and discipline-so much moral worthsuch unblemished purity of character and of deportment and such a combination of all the Christian virtues and graces. The reflex influence of these virtues and graces upon the affections, the heart and the life of the teacher, is his highest and noblest reward. THE WINTER SCHOOLS: SHALL THEY NOT BE BETTER THAN THE STATE In our private schools the absences do not exceed 7 per ct., in the district schools they run up to 40 per ct. Let there be an end of this folly, and if we cannot send our children but one month this winter, let it be thirty successive days. For more will be learned in thirty days of regular attendan e than in three months of occasional calls at the school-house. But this is a subject for a pamphlet, instead of a paragraph, and we must notice other duties which are essential to good winter schools. Trustees have their duties, and few are more important or more vexatious. They shall be: is the noble response from a thousand generous and devoted spirits, awakening to their high and sacred responsibilities; The school-house must be repaired-there is from county and town superintendents, who are glazing to be done, benches to be cut down, stoves leading on measures of reform with patience to be put up, and wood to be purchased. About that no apathy can weary, and with devotion two hours, out of the six school hours of the that no obstructions can long resist; from the day, are lost, in more than a thousand districts, teachers, in their crowded institutes, assembled from the want of suitable wood, and the exerfor mutual instruction and catching new zeal cises are consequently so hurried during the resi from the lips of their earnest and eloquent edu-due of the time, that but little can be accom. cators; and from the people, happy in witness plished. The good teacher bears up for a short ing the celebrations, which have at last brought time against these difficulties, but human nature home to their sympathies, this great interest of cannot long resist them, and all interest in his du. the fireside and the State. ties is gradually frozen out of him. The public money surely had better be saved and the schoolhouse closed, rather than be made a purgatory to both teacher and pupil. The trustees should also remember, that it is their peculiar duty to counsel and sustain the teacher amidst his various trials, and not leave him, a stranger perhaps, to the desolate feeling, that he is regarded on all hands as a necessary evil, next only to the tax gatherer in annoyance. But it is not enough to resolve; we must do: do what is seemingly of small consequence, and yet these duties are the source of those influences which sustain and renovate society. What are some of these duties? First-parents should listen to the plans of teachers and give them their confidence and sympathy; should require of them a faithful account of their children; should supply them with the necessary books; should frequently visit the school; should be slow to find fault with its government, remembering how difficult they find it to rule well their own small families, and should insist upon the REGULAR AT-first great duty of the teacher is to realize the TENDANCE of their children. The Teachers have their duties, more important and more difficult than all others, and if well done, exerting an influence that man can. not estimate, that time does not limit. And the sacred nature of his high vocation. That he is The importance of this last duty can hardly to unfold those powers, to form those habits, to be overrated. Ask the devoted teacher, what purify and strengthen those sentiments, which in disorders his school, clogs all improvement, their harmonious development make that noblest chills his hopes and disgusts him with his avo-work of God-a true man. And if from negli. gence or ignorance he perverts his noble office; if he stills the small voice of conscience, or inflames the passions, or stupifies the intellect, or breaks the spirits of the being that is forming under his influence, he does a wrong to his fellow creature, of infinitely deeper malignity, than the highwayman or the incendiary can perpetrate. But if he earnestly, seriously, ardently devote himself to this glorious work, if he habitually cherish a deep sense of his responsibility to man and to God, if he measure his profession, not by the false judgment of prejudice or ignorance, but by the standard of truth, and determine not merely to seem, but to be the teacher of the young, then no man has a nobler sphere of action, or a higher and happier duty. COMMUNICATIONS. [For the District School Journal.] WHOLE MEN. make it only the means instead of the end of life; means to acquire dollars and cents. You make happiness from the lowest sources, and it is of a mind subservient to matter. You get your fleeting character. You neglect to secure to your offspring the harmonious and continuous action of their moral and intellectual faculties, and consequently a bliss that is beyond earthly fluctuations. But, says the parent, how do I do all this? Most evidently by the comparatively small time and means which you appropriate to the minds of your children; for where you spend cents for teachers, books and apparatus, and all other indispensables to a good education, you spend, in too many cases, dollars, for the food, apparel and decoration of their bodies. We must take higher and broader views of our existence here. We must become whole men. "Would an infinitely great and glorious Being create so glorious a creature as man for so mean a purpose?" If the exercise of one faculty of the mind in its natural sphere be a source of bliss to its possessor, would not the exercise of two be more? And would not the sum of plea. sure be in direct proportion to the number of powers brought out by exercise or proper edu cation? And if we practiced this logic, and acted from such inducements, in proportion to our means, should we not rapidly approximate to whole men? And would not such a degree of exalted pleasure as eye hath not seen nor ear heard" be the consequence of such cultivation? We talk of the aristocracy of wealth, but is there not an aristocracy of education? Is not intellectual without moral education a helpmate of aristocracy?-of infidelity? Mr. DWIGHT-If the following remarks shall be deemed worthy of admission into your most excellent Journal, they are at your service. That the nature of man is yet but imperfectly developed; that his intellectual faculties have scarcely received their first impulses; that the light of "Heaven's truth" illuminates not one in a hundred of the deathless minds of this great republic, is vividly apparent to him who takes an expansive and far-reaching view of man's Parents, teachers, men of this republic, readnature and existence. But while we contrast ers of this Journal: You have a great duty to the present with the past, and discover the in- do. The peace and harmony, the happiness and tellectual advantages which a development of elevation of your race, the expansion and develnature's resources and of man's mental power, opment of the mighty faculties of the present the munificence of legislative appropriations and generation depend upon you. Man must be individual sacrifices have secured to the people made whole. Those who are said to be educated of this "Empire State," we are constrained to are but partially so, when compared with that thank God that truth is onward, and progression cultivation which stops not short of the whole the order of the day and age. But while I thus mun. Some men are all body and no minddraw a general conclusion in relation to the rapid some are all mind and no body, but their lives progress of the people under our liberal system are short. Some have one, some two, some of Education, I have in my mind's eye" too several, mental or moral faculties in vigorous many (one is too many) school districts in which and profitable action. But it is rare that we a most lamentable apathy exists in regard to find a person that reaps enjoyment from all the the advancement and efficiency of their respec- powers of mind or body which God has given tive schools. For, while the parent, highly de- him, and which it is quite evident he designed sirous that his child's mind should be extensive.should be exercised for the bliss they afford their ly and efficiently instructed; while he acknowledges his own ignorance, and refers to the poor privileges which he enjoyed in his school days, and would shrink at the idea of bequeathing such a legacy to that child, yet when called upon to make use of the State's parental gifts, to use the powerful instruments in his hands, and give life and vigor to the school of his district, and make it a powerful and attractive centre, he too frequently either reasons not at all on the subject, or his parsimony prevails over his judg. ment, and his school (if such it may be termed,) fails to accomplish its wished-for object. But while I grieve at the thought of all this, I would say in pity and charity, to such parents, you "know not what you do." You forget the object of human existence; you make education a mere farce; a senseless, lifeless creature. You possessor, and the lofty and virtuous influences VERMONT. [Extract from the Message of Gov. Slade, Oct.] ALL will read with interest, the following |