ADVANCEMENT MEANS AND METHODS PUBLIC INSTRUCTION LECTURE DKI.IVKKKI* BEFORE THE AMERICAN IXSTITl TE OF INSTRUCTION, AT ITS FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY AT PITTS FIELD, MS A BY D A V I D P. P Art K, Principal of the English High School, Newburyport. BOSTON: WILLIAM D. TICKNOR & CO., Corner of Washington and School Sts. MOCCCXLIV. ADVANCEMENT MEANS AND METHODS PUBLIC INSTRUCTION LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION, AT ITS FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY AT PITTSFIELD, MS BY DAVID P. P AGE, V Principal of the English High, School, Newburyport. -—-A? BOSTON: WILLIAM D. TICKNOR & CO., Corner of Washington and School Sts. MDCCCXLIV. Pitts field, August 16, 1843. D. P. Page baving delivered a Lecture on the "Advance- ment in tbe Means and Methods of Public Instruction," On motion of Mr. Pettes, voted that two tliousand copies of Mr. Page's Lecture be printed by the Censors for gratu- itous circulation. Solomon Adams, Sec'y. LECTURE ON ADVANCEMENT IN THE MEANS AP METHODS OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. Among all the various blessings bequeathed to us by the ancestors of New England—if we except religious freedom—none has stronger claims for our attachment or demands more imperiously our warmest gratitude than their early institution of the Common School System. As if endowed with wisdom beyond the age in which they lived, and with a liberality far above the people from whom they came out, they were the first to declare—if not the first to entertain—the important doctrine, that religious and civil liberty, in the broadest sense, could have a permanent foundation only in a general diffusion of intelligence in the whole community. They were the very first men to declare positively against an exclu- sive aristocracy in mental cultivation ; the first to open 4 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. freely and fully to all classes and to both sexes the foun- tains of knowledge ; the first to establish and maintain at the public expense, wherever they felled the forest and founded a settlement—second in their affections only to the ordinances of religion—the means of public in- struction. And perhaps it is no censurable pride in us that we fondly—and, it may be, somewhat boastfully—repeat the fact, that the spot which is now the site of the city of Salem, in the county of Essex and commonwealth of Massachusetts, was the locality of the very first public free school the world ever saw ! To us, then, who are met within the limits of a State so honorably distinguished in the annals of human im- provement ; to us, who are the descendants of a New England ancestry and have been nurtured amid New England institutions; standing as we now do between the illustrious dead on the one hand and the rising progeny of such a noble parentage on the other ; charged as we are with the responsible office of ministering with pure hands and devoted hearts to the intellectual growth of a rising multitude, and of perpetuating to others yet to come the blessings we have richly received,—it cannot be uninteresting to pause a few moments, by the way, and in- quire what improvements have been introduced, and what advancement we have made in an enterprise so worthy of its founders and so necessary to our very existence as a free and self-governing people. The subject of this lecture, is the "advancement IN THE MEANS AND METHODS OF PUBLIC INSTRUC TION." It will scarcely be necessary, perhaps, to discuss the ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 5 question whether there has been any advancement in these matters ; the memory of any one present will fur- nish sufficient data to settle that point. The question for us to settle is, " How great has been the advance- ment and in what does it consist ? " No remark is more common than that so frequently made by those who now visit our school-rooms, or in any other way are brought acquainted with the condition of our schools, namely : " The youth of the present day have great advantages compared with those enjoyed by their parents." But while we may safely assume that some improvement has been attained, we should not be too confident as to the degree of it, until after due examination we are able to lay our hand upon the items of our educational thrift. We live in an age, it must not be forgotten, of experimenting ; an age which avoids too much, perhaps, the slow process of patient induc- tion, but which impetuously rushes forward to its conclu- sions by overleaping the premises ; an age in which the clamorous pretender is nearly as likely to be greeted and caressed, as the more worthy, but more rare com- modity—genuine worth ; an age in which a high-sounding name often—like the title of the book which Dr. John- son compared to a " cannon placed at the door of a pig- sty "—announces to the world but very insignificant reali- ties ; an age in some things over-credulous, and hence very frequently imposed upon ; and if the age have all these characteristics, it will involve no hazard to allege that such an age may be an age of " humbugs." I would not be severe upon the profession of my choice. I would be candid. But when we find ourselves sur- rounded by impositions ; when our politics have become 6 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. a profession, under the robes of which patriots suck out the life-blood of the republic to aggrandize their party, and withal to aggrandize themselves; when our public financiers and fund-keepers depart from their post and their country, because their funds and their integrity had first departed from them ; when our mercantile enterprise is often but speculation without a capital, and bankruptcy is a surer road to wealth than a continuance in a safe and honest business ; when the poor debtor can frequently afford to maintain a more splendid style- of living and a costlier equipage than his "rich" creditor; when our systems of reform have some of them come to need themselves a reform ; when the advocates of peace and moderation " get by the ears " among themselves, and quarrel and call hard names about the measures to be used in their warfare ; when the apostles of "free discussion," and " liberty of speechj" and "rights of conscience," some- times endeavor to hiss down an opponent, or perhaps essay to enter and forestall the forum or the pulpit dedi- cated to another cause and appropriated to other voices ; when even our holy religion is sometimes distorted by false lights and " new lights" and extravagances, which, while they humble and grieve the believer, invite the derision and the scoff of the infidel,—I say, when all these things abound, and a thousand others quite as in- congruous and quite as wild,—who can wonder that the cause of education should contract the general disease, and bring forth among its precious fruits some of the excrescences and Corruptions so common to the times? We might fairly anticipate such results., and accordingly we find them. We have our literary reformers, our ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 7 literary financiers, our literary bankrupts and pretenders, and our literary " new lights." I have remarked that our times are characterized by a fondness for high-sounding names. For examples of this, we may notice the business advertisements in our public papers, and the signs in our public streets. The dealer in house furniture, however limited his stock or his business, is sure to have the imposing "Warehouse" placed over his door. The man who sells oysters in some dismal ground room, or perhaps at the corner of the street from a board resting upon two flour barrels beneath an awning, solicits custom from the passer-by, with the attractive " Oyster Saloon," painted in black letters above his head. The man who lives by shaving his customers has ceased to hang his hopes for a liveli- hood upon the spirally-painted pole, so long the unequivo- cal mark of distinction for his craft; he now invites cus- tomers by the sonorous cognomen of " Gentlemen's Establishment." The industrious young lady, who has learned the art of fitting dresses for her neighbors, and has opened what was formerly a shop in the country village, now denominates it "Emporium of Fashion." Our rail-road people, in order to designate the place where may be seen the strange mixture of men and machinery, cars and coaches, hackmen and hangers-on, lumber and luggage,—the "great trunk, little trunk, band-box and bundle" of the traveling public, mingled in admirable confusion, have introduced among us that awkward foreign word "depot;" and as if there were a charm in the word, hucksters in every department have adopted it as best fitting their purpose; and we have our " Clothing depots," our " Furnishing depots," our " Pill 8 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. depots ;" and last, though not least, our dealers in cheap literature, having collected together all the varieties of trash which the press has vomited forth upon a surfeited people, from the vilest penny sheet to the latest transla- tion of a French love story, have taken to themselves the title of " Literary Depots." Precisely after the same style, the credulity of our people is not unfrequently addressed in the public papers, in which the skill of teachers and the excellence of cer- tain Academies, Institutes, Literary Saloons, Classic Halls, and the like, are so pompously heralded, that one is almost compelled to doubt whether he has not just awoke from the reverie of a hundred years, and found himself among the incredibles of the twentieth century. The " Royal Road" to learning, so long sought for, has ceased to be a desideratum. As for study and diligence, they are discarded as old-fashioned and unworthy means of becoming wise and great. In some of these adver- tisements, it is signified that the pupil shall be amused by the magic art of the teacher, unconsciously into the depths of learning, and that his severest toil shall be lis- tening to very attractive lectures, illustrated by uncom- monly brilliant experiments, which shall make him thor- oughly acquainted with great things, not only without study, but without thought. Reading is to be taught in a month; Philosophy, Natural and Moral, in another month; Chemistry in two lectures; Music and Arithme- tic in a fortnight ; Book-keeping in three days, and Penmanship, (I quote from an advertisement before me), " even where the hand is most awkward and cramped— to a pupil of any age, from seven years to sixty, impart- ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 9 ing the most finished style, in only tioelve lessons, occu- pying the short space of six hours." Nor is all this pretension uncalled for ; a demand in the community has called forth the supply; the cre- dulity has welcomed the imposition. Open almost any paper of wide circulation, and you may see that which will remind you of the imposing sign hung out by " A certain spectacle maker, I 've forgot his name;" and if you will look about you, you may also see those, who will aptly enough remind you of the swain, who in the hope of supplying a trifling defect in his early edu- cation, applied to him for " helps to read." Before we assume, then, that the cause of public in- struction has moved onward gradually, though slowly, from the settlement of New England to the present time- frankness demands that we should confess the impedi- ments that have clogged its course;—nay, ingenuousness and truth alike demand that we should point out the im- positions of the artful and the mistakes of the injudi- cious. Every innovation, then, has not been an improve- ment. When men began to discover that the old methods of teaching were somewhat too mechanical and in some instances too abstract, many went quite too far in explaining beforehand to the mind of the scholar, what it would have been better for him to study out by the exercise of his own ingenuity. School books soon followed, so filled with colloquial explanations and child- ish illustrations, as literally to "bury up" the little solid matter they contained; and in some, so abundant had this small talk become, that had their use been long con- tinued, I am persuaded that the minds not only of pupils, but of the teachers, must have been essentially cramped 2 10 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. and enervated by them. This was an extreme even worse than the one it was intended to cure, on the ground that too much assistance either to the physical or mental efforts of a child, is decidedly worse than' too little. So when it began to be discovered that the govern- ment in some of the old fashioned, schools was too aus- tere and too tyrannical—too much enforced by the severer modes of punishment, such as Solomon recom- mended as sometimes salutary, there- were many who rose up to favor the opposite extreme; and in their zeal to denounce all severity, were ready to sacrifice all order and respect on the part of their pupils. " This barba- rism," we were every where told, "was a relic of the dark ages, and, like a belief in witchcraft and apparitions, was to be abandoned, amid the daylight of the present age." This idea, promulgated by teachers, gained some popularity with parents, and a jubilee was forthwith pro- claimed to the pupils of very many schools; the rod, that old and faithful servant, was snatched from its digni- fied and time-honored resting place in the affections of the lovers of good order and subordination, and with ruthless zeal, excommunicated as a traitor and a tyrant,— and with reckless hand consigned to the doom of many an ancient martyr. In some instances, the reform was carried so far as to introduce a republican form of gov- ernment, in which the teacher scarcely reserved the " one man" power of exercising the veto. The general pro- clamation of the doctrine that punishment was unneces- sary, if not absolutely cruel,—announced as it was with applause by the public lecturer, and repeated at the fire- side by kind-hearted and indulgent parents, did very much to mtroduce a spirit of insubordination in many of ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 11 our schools, which it will require time and persevering firmness to subdue. Probably no cause has operated so strongly to make corporal punishment, of the severer kind, necessary, as this attempt to over-do a desirable reform. Many teachers worked their way into popular- ity by publicly declaring their conversion to the new doctrine; but many found the crown they thus acquired to be a very difficult one to retain. The doctrine once embraced and proclaimed in their schools, was attended by such unseemly developements in its results, that not a few teachers were reduced to the alternative of abandoning their new light, or of abandoning their pro- fession ; or, perhaps, adding a third horn to the dilem- ma, they found relief for themselves by taking charge of a female school. This, like the last mentioned extreme, is working its own cure; and as the light is most precious to such as have groped their way through darkness to seek it,—so, I doubt not, the cause of truth on this point will in the end gain much strength, on account of the fact, that so many of the profession have made the cir- cuit of this error to find it. Notwithstanding these admissions of error, it cannot be denied, I think, that the cause of public instruction, in its means and methods, has undergone a gradual, and in many respects a very decided improvement. Perhaps this improvement is a variable quantity—greater in some places than in others ; yet taken in general term's, it is capable of admeasurement, at least by approximation. The amount of improvement will be best Shown by tak- ing a few specific items, and running a comparison between their condition as it was and as it is. It will be the object of the following pages to institute such a comparison,-— 12 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. I. IN REGARD TO SCHOOL HOUSES. Whatever the structure and conveniences of the first school houses in New England were, there is no account of them to my knowledge handed down to the present generation. It is sufficient praise for our ancestors that they established free schools, and provided accommoda- tions for them of any kind. Nor is it necessary that we should go farther back than fifty years, to find structures, between which and the modern ones a comparison suffi- ciently striking for our purpose may be traced. Indeed I may go no farther than to some existing relics of a past generation,—and it may be that all who hear me have already in their own mind, and perhaps have had, at some past time connected with their own school-day experience, the very pattern, which will answer our present purpose. In examining quite a large number of these declining monuments of ill-adapted ingenuity, I have found that a few prominent characteristics mark them all. It seems to have been deemed essential that these edifices, built for the accommodation of all, should have a place in the very centre of the district, determined by actual admeasurement; and wherever the rods and links should fix that point, whether hill or valley, forest or meadow, " highway or byway"—there, and there only must the edifice go up, and thither must the children wend their course, perhaps far away from the village, far away from the principal road, (an object of no small consequence, particularly in winter), far away from a suitable site for any building, to gain their first impressions of school. ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 13 It would seem also to have been considered quite essential that each of these buildings should be furnished with the most ample fire places "gaping wide;" and at the same time with slanting floors—the seats rising one above another, suggesting to the modern visitor the idea that they were designed for vast roasting places, in which each victim could have an equal chance to see and appre- ciate the towering flames, as they rose in columns to the elevated mantel piece and roared up the incandescent flue. Of the capacity of these fire places, none can better judge than those who have taken their " turn" of a winter's morning, to " make the fire" for a country school, some twenty-five years ago. Who does not well remember the rotund back-log of a fathom long; the ample bowlders from a neighboring stone wall for andirons; the " forestick" of a sled's length, to sup- port the superincumbent mass of clefts, small-wood and chips, to the amount of the third part of a cord, to be consumed for an ordinary day's warming of the dis- trict school house? Who does not recollect the merry sound of axes, when the larger boys spent most of the afternoon in chopping at the door the fuel for the next day's burning? I have mentioned the sloping floor upon which it was difficult to stand at ease, if not to stand at all; and which in the ascent might remind one of the worthy Pilgrim's Hill of Difficulty, and in the descent, of his approach to the Valley of Humiliation, in which, in the quaint lan- guage of Bunyan, " it were dangerous for one to catch a slip." I might go on to mention the inconvenient fix- tures of these rooms; the seats from which dangled many an aching limb, hopeless of finding rest or a resting 14 MR. page's lecture. place; the forms without backs, upon which many a weary urchin sank—to sleep; and slept—to fall; and fell—to electrify the little community with an extempore solo, in which like some discarded politician, he deigned to " define his position." I might also mention the ill-jointed wainscoting by which the room was on all sides amply ventilated; the shattered ceiling; the scanty light; the marks of juvenile industry, in the shape of scorings and engravings upon the desks; the grotesque and even obscene drawings upon the walls; the scanty play-ground; the absence of all out-door accommodations; the dreary aspect about the premises of many of these buildings; the gloomy loneliness of the location, where, at certain- seasons of the year at least, in the language of Sprague, " the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the-wild fox dug his hole unscared." I might allude to the absence of taste, either in the style of the buildings themselves, or in any little decoration about them. But all this would be but re- peating what has been well and justly said before, and what every observing person has so often witnessed as to render the recital unnecessary. But I gladly, turn from a topic so unflattering to the taste arid ingenuity of those we otherwise cheerfully applaud, and would point you to the very many new and elegant structures which now adorn our towns and vil- lages. By the agency of -several associations and seve- ral distinguished individuals, a correct taste has been dif- fused through the community so generally, that an un- sightly, ill-constructed new school house is almost an anomaly. Much ingenuity has been concentrated upon the items of ventilating, lighting, warming and furnishing ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 15 the school room, so that in all these respects, little is left to be done, certainly little to be known. It has been again and again demonstrated that a small sum of money, expended in ornamenting a building of this sort, particu- larly in the way of painting both within and without, is capital well invested; and that a good return will be realized in the preservation of the property, not only from the wastes of the weather and the trespasses of time, but also from that swifter and more deplorable spoiling, which is the result of youthful activity coupled with youthful destructiveness. While an unsightly, ill- contrived and unornamented structure will, as it were, invite their depredations, they will reverence good taste and a fair finish so far, as to restrain the" love of mischief, ere it desecrates and despoils. The fitness of things has now become the question, and so widely diffused is the information on this point, that we confidently set down the improvement in the construction of school houses as one of the greatest achievements of the age, and one of the strongest proofs of advancement in the enterprize of public instruction.* II. A COMPARISON OF OLD AND NEW SCHOOL BOOKS WILL SHOW A DECIDED ADVANCEMENT. In the schools of the Puritan Fathers, the book in English chiefly relied on was the Bible. In those * Those who wish to see the most able essays on the structure of school houses, should obtain the address before the Essex County Teachers' Association by Rev. G. B. Perry, and the excellent Re- port of the Hon. Horace Mann, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. 16 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. schools little else than reading, writing and a very little of arithmetic, was aimed at. The writing was taught by the written copy of the teacher, and arithmetic was taught by his dictation and by exercises written by him- self in the cyphering books of the scholars. In these books he usually transcribed the more important rules, so that each scholar's manuscript book was little other than an arithmetic on a very small scale. Authors of new systems were not then found going about the country, proposing to supply schools with entire new sets in ex- change for old ones, in order to get their works intro- duced. All branches of learning beyond those above enumerated, were confined to the Grammar schools or the University, where Latin and Greek were perhaps more thoroughly taught than they have ever been in this country since the days of Cotton Mather. All who in that day learned grammar, learned it through those lan- guages. This account of the studies and school books of the earliest New England schools will apply with very little alteration to the whole period down to the Revolution. The Psalter and Dilworth's Spelling Book and the New England Primer had been added to the list; but the branches taught, and the manner of teaching them, continued very much the same down nearly to the close of the last century. It has indeed been said that writing and spelling were better taught in those schools than they are at present. If this be true, which, (judging from the orthography to be found in most of the old Record Books,—and those books, it is presumed, were the work of chosen men,) may be fairly doubted,—I say if this be true, it is no more than should be expected of them, as ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 17 these branches probably received more than one half the attention and time of both teacher and pupil. Several very valuable books for that day came to light near the close of the last, and the beginning of the pre- sent century. Authors began to multiply on this side of the water, and Arithmetics, Geographies, Readers, &c, some of considerable merit, began to appear. To- any one, however, who will examine the books used in the schools from twenty-five to fifty years ago, one prominent defect in them will be apparent. It is this;—they address the memory rather than the reasoning powers. They aim at imparting knowledge mainly, not at disciplining the faculties of the mind. They seek to be remembered, rather than understood. Had I time, and were it not invidious—for even old school-books must be treated reverently—I could point out various illustrations of the truth of this remark; as it is, I must rely on the memory and observation of those who hear me. I shall venture to mention the book which I consider the pioneer in this country in the great reform in school books. It is a book of small size, of no very loud pre- tensions, but it is the book which has done, more in this country^ not only for the particular branch upon which it treats, but for most other branches, by its indi- rect influence upon the character of teachers and authors, and the method of imparting instruction in general, than any other that has been written in our language. It is that little volume called "First Lessons in Arith- metic," by Warren Colburn. 'In this book of 172 pages, Mr. Colburn has opened the principles of arith- metic, in a strictly analytic way, as he says, after the 3 18 MR. PAGERS LECTURE. method of Pestalozzi, and in this book, the reason—the understanding is addressed, and led on step by step, till the whole is taken into the mind and becomes a part of it; the memory is little thought of, yet the memory can- not let it slip; for what has been drunk in as it were by the understanding and made a part of the mind, the mind never forgets ! To how many a way-worn and weary pupil under the old systems—to how many a proficient who could number up his half dozen authors and twice that number of manuscript cyphering books,—to how many a teacher even who had taught the old systems tvinter after winter, and yet saw but as "through a glass darkly,"—to how many such was this book on its ap- pearance, their " First Lessons in Arithmetic." Warren Colburn's name should be written in letters of gold for this service.* Subsequent to the year 1820, very great improve- ments have been made in most other branches. These improvements have consisted very much in the simplifi- cation, to a certain extent, of the subjects themselves, and in avoiding the errors of the old plan, and addressing mainly the reasoning powers by leading them onward by an inductive analysis to a clear comprehension of the subjects, rather than relying simply on the committing of forms of words to memory. I am aware, as I have before hinted, that this simplifying process has been abused. It has undoubtedly been in some cases carried too far. Authors have sprung up * It was not my design to mention by name any book published within the present century, but it was necessary to depart from this resolution in order to show where the reform began. advancement in public instruction. 19 who have assumed that neither teachers nor pupils who should use their books would possess to any extent the power of thought. These authors have not only minced their precepts so very fine as to have nothing left of them, but they have attempted to supply the mental gul- lets through which they were to be swallowed. They have filled their books with questions whose name is le- gion, and such questions as absolutely put to the blush the spirit of enquiry itself,—and then, as if mind could not think, from the plenitude of their own wisdom and benevolence, they have added the answers, and such an- swers as the idiot himself could scarcely miss. We have had " inductive" and " productive" systems, and systems in which the inductive and productive have been joined in matrimony, which, in some cases acting as positive and negative quantities, have cancelled each other, and left the covers of the books with nothing between them ! But while these abuses are justly despised, by judi- cious teachers, it is very certain there have been within twenty-five years, many solid improvements in this de- partment. III. A COMPARISON OF THE BRANCHES FORMERLY TAUGHT, AND THOSE NOW BROUGHT WITHIN REACH OF THE PUPILS OF COMMON SCHOOLS WILL SHOW AN ADVANCEMENT. Under the topic of school books I have mentioned the branches taught in the public schools up to the close of the last century. Among these English Grammar was not found. Except those comparatively few men who were educated at college, scarcely one in a thousand could know anything of the grammatical structure of his 20 mr: page's lecture. own language, till within the last half century. Teach- ers of the common schools even within twenty-five years, were not unfrequently found who did not pretend to any knowledge of this kind. And a very large pro- portion of the common teachers knew little more than the forms of declension and conjugation. Yet now grammar is one of the legally required branches, and scarcely a school can be found, except in some extremely unfavora- ble locality, where grammar is not respectably—though not now perfectly taught;—and the number of those who now speak and write grammatically,' compared with those who did so in an equal population thirty years ago, is not less than one hundred to one. I confess the imperfect teaching of this branch, and the imperfect learning of it note; I know there are many who acquire the shadow without the substance,—yet the gain is so very great, that it is alone quite an important item of advancement. So too, but a few years ago, the. books on Natural Phi- losophy and Algebra were prepared exclusively for col- lege students, and the common people were shut out from any. participation in a knowledge of these useful branches. These are now brought, to a certain extent, within reach of the common scholars, and most of the elements of these branches are grasped and mastered by the youth at the public schools. The same might be said of several other studies now successfully taught in the common schoo s. IV. A COMPARISON OF THE TEACHERS AS THEY WERE AND AS THEY ARE, WILL SHOW A CONSIDERABLE ADVANCEMENT. It would ill become one of an existing class to detract from the worth or the ability of his predecessors, and ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 21 engage in pronouncing a eulogium upon his cotempora- ries. This is a task I shall not undertake. I can by no means undervalue those venerable men who have, in past generations, unobtrusively labored, according to their opportunity, to give wisdom, strength and character to the minds of a growing people. Many of these were men who would grace any profession, and would be hon- ored in any age. Many of them, I doubt not, have ex- erted influences for good which shall extend in widening and in glorious results, and be felt with gratitude long af- ter the name of an Alexander, a Csesar or a Napoleon shall have faded from the memory and the praise of men. It shall content me then to leave the merits of past teachers to the living records they have made for them- selves in the memory and the estimation of those who knew them. Yet, excepting a few who rose above their circum- stances and the age in which they lived, I have supposed there would be no arrogance in assuming for the present occupants of the field a moderate superiority. The pub- lic sentiment surely demands more of a teacher now than ever before, and the legislation of several of the States following up this sentiment, or rather giving voice and utterance to it, has prescribed requirements which would have excluded a large portion of those in office thirty years ago. This sentiment has given rise to a spirit of enquiry and discussion which has resulted in the accumu- lation of a vast amount of light upon the qualifications, the duties, the modes of government and methods of in- struction, the motives to be addressed, the incentives to te employed, indeed upon every topic that regards the 22 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. success of the teacher. This same sentiment has given rise to the establishment of institutions in some of the States, expressly dedicated to the suitable prepara- tion of candidates for this important office. It has given rise to numerous associations, likewise, of those actually engaged in the service, together with others friendly to the object, the very design of whose meetings is to purify and elevate the profession of the teacher. Indeed this same public sentiment has gone so far as to demand that teaching should be a profession; that teachers, in the more important schools at least, should throw themselves upon their resources as teachers for support, and, giving up mainly other pursuits—except so far as to keep pace with the progress of the times—devote their time, talents, study, zeal and energy to their duty as a profession. Public sentiment has even gone farther, in some instances at least, and added the remuneration of a profession, thus leaving the teacher free from other cares, to devote him- self to what should be his only care—to be worthy of the age in which he lives. With all these facilities then, it is certain the teachers of the present day should be better than their predeces- sors. If they are not, under all these accumulated cir- cumstances in their favor, it is their own fault. Having dared to assume for the teachers of the present day some moderate degree of superiority over their pre- decessors even of no very remote age, it will reasonably be expected of me, that I should intimate in what par- ticulars such superiority consists. From this task I shall not shrink. In few words, I should say it consists in a more philosophical preparation for their duties, and in a more thorough knowledge of the principles of the branches ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 23 to be taught. Teaching was formerly entered upon by most aspirants to the office, without deep reflection as to the nature of the responsibilities assumed, or a clear per- ception of the importance of being specially furnished for one of the most delicate and difficult offices—that of operating upon the human intellect. It is true that very many in former times entered upon the responsibilities of teaching, as they " let themselves out" to perform manual labor, having a view almost entirely to the recompense; and apparently without the least suspicion that higher qualifications were necessary for the one employment than for the others. They could perhaps follow the for- mal letter of a book upon a given branch, but they knew but little of the why. and the wherefore, and they knew still less of the most successful methods of reaching and interesting the minds of the pupils, and exciting in them the spirit of inquiry. It is very much to be doubted whether one in a score of the common class of teachers twenty-five years ago had any higher ideas of an educa- tion, than the storing up in the memory of a collection of facts—which would constitute, as far as it went, a cer- tain amount of knowledge. They seemed, at least, nev- er to have dreamed that truly educating a mind consists first in inspiring it with a thirst for improvement—growth —enlargement; and then in disciplining its powers so far, that with the ordinary means it could go on to improve itself. They seemed not to consider that much more depends upon the formation of correct habits of study— of reasoning and of invention, than upon the amount of knowledge which can be imparted in a given time. I dare say many of us remember the manner in which any developements of the spirit of inquiry were wont to 24 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. be treated in our schoolboy days. I may never forget the passage I first made through the Rule of Three, and the manner in which my manifold perplexities respecting " direct and inverse" proportion were solved. " Sir," said I after puzzling a long time over " more requiring more, and less requiring less"—" will you tell me why I sometimes multiply the second and third terms together, and divide by the first—and at other times multiply the first and second, and divide by the third?" " Why be- cause ' more requires more' sometimes and sometimes it requires less—to be sure. Havn't you read the rule, my boy?" " Yes sir, I can repeat the rule, but I don't understand it." "Why, it is because ' more requires more and less requires less '!" " But why sir, do I mul-. tiply as the rule says?" "Why, because 'more re- quires more and less requires less,'—see the rule says so." " I know the rule says so, but I wished to under- stand why-----" "Why? why?" looking at me as if idiocy itself trembled before him—" why?—why because the rule says so;—don't you see it?—icj^More requires more and less requires less;"—and in the midst of this inexplicable combination of more and less I shrunk away to my seat, to follow the rule because " it said so;" and when I had wrought out all the problems and got the an- swers without comprehending a single step in the process, 1 was told that I was a very good scholar,—and to be sure I did not go unrewarded; for at the examination a few weeks after, the visiters were told that I had been through the Rule of Three; and as proof of my profi- ciency, 1 was called upon to recite the very rule, which I did, not failing to lay all suitable emphasis upon " more requiring more and less requiring less." ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 25 This indeed is a specimen of the manner in which many a boy was " carried through" arithmetic twenty years ago. The '■'■rule says so"—was the cure for all inquisitiveness in the scholar. It was so in other branch- es. The letter of the book was to be followed, and any attempt to peep behind the veil was discouraged and even frowned upon. It must be confessed that we have not attained even at this day to a complete triumph over such abuses of the profession, as