Author 
 
 * * * > 
 
 UBl 
 
 1Q..5A-. 
 ^.2... 
 
 Title 
 
 Imprint 
 
ADVANCEMENT 
 
 MEANS AND METHODS 
 
 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION 
 
 AT ITS FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY AT PITTSFIELD, MS, 
 
 BY DAVID P. PAGE, 
 Principal of the English High School,, Newburyport. 
 
 BOSTON: X*^ 
 
 WILLIAM D. TICKNOR & CO., 
 
 Corner of Washington and School Sts, 
 MDCCCXLIV. 
 
Pittsfield, August 16, 1843. 
 
 D. P. Page having delivered a Lecture on the " Advance- 
 ment in the Means and Methods of Public Instruction," 
 
 On motion of Mr. Pettes, voted that two thousand copies 
 of Mr. Page's Lecture be printed by the Censors for gratu- 
 itous circulation. 
 
 Solomon Adams, Sec'y. 
 
.-ft. 
 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 Olf 
 
 ADVANCEMENT IN THE MEANS AND 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. 
 
 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 
 1* 
 
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 speech," 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 ; 
 w r hen 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 w T onder 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' 1 
 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. 
 
 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 u 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 twelve 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 
 
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. 77 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 introduce 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 terms, 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. 
 
 1. 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 ivide;" 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 <c 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 
 andiron^, the " forestick" of a sled's length, to sup- 
 port the superincumbent mass of clefts, small-wood 
 p-.id 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 
 yay's burning? 
 
 7 have mentioned the sloping floor upon which it was 
 difficu't 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 
 2 
 
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 and 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. 
 
 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. Tt has indeed been said that ivriting 
 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 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 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 
 winter after winter, and yet saw but as "through a glass 
 darkly," — to how many such was this book on its ap- 
 pearance, their u 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 t 
 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 Ze- 
 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. 
 
 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 
 now; 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 THEF 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 Ceesar 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 
 ke 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 c 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? — gej^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, I 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 *s implied by entering it without prepara- 
 tion, and exercising it without judgment or tact. Yet it 
 must be said that in these respects there has been a great 
 gain. The number has increased, very much, of those 
 who do thoroughly understand the nature of a teacher's 
 duties, and the object at which he is to aim. The pro- 
 portion is very much greater of those who understand 
 the principles — the very elements of what they teach, 
 and who are more anxious to inculcate the " why and the 
 wherefore" than to store the memory with unintelligible 
 and barren facts. 
 
 Another improvement of the present teachers over 
 their predecessors, I conceive, consists in the better 
 methods of imparting instruction. Classification is more 
 thought of than formerly, and the new modes of con- 
 ducting recitations, in which the object is not simply to 
 apply a test of the scholar's application to his lesson, but 
 also to ascertain- how far the understanding has grasped' 
 the subject. Formerly recitations were generally so 
 conducted, that only one individual came in contact with 
 the teacher at a time; and even if he could and would 
 explain the principles of the lesson, his time thus poorly 
 economized would fail for the purpose. 
 3 
 
26 MR. page's lecture. 
 
 Visible illustrations are much more relied upon by 
 teachers now than formerly, and by means of the black- 
 board and other helps, a class of ten or fifteen may now 
 be as easily instructed, and on account of the saving of 
 time, very much more thoroughly instructed, than an in- 
 dividual could be under the old process. Except in 
 those schools where irregularity of attendance interrupts 
 and destroys all classification, very much is gained by the 
 new plan. 
 
 The introduction of system into our schools by most 
 teachers at present, is a great gain. By system, I mean 
 a definite arrangement in the day^s-work, so that every 
 class has something to do, and a definite time to do it in. 
 A very prominent defect in many of the old schools, 
 (and perhaps some of the modern ones,) was, that the 
 business of the day would come along u just as it happen- 
 ed" — by chance. If one scholar or class was not ready, 
 another would be called, and there being no particular 
 time for the various exercises, there would very likely be 
 no exercises for any time, and the teacher would hardly 
 know how to find employment for himself in the school. 
 
 Now, a teacher is very justly estimated by the judg- 
 ment and tact with which he divides his time among his 
 own various duties, and the time of his scholars between 
 their studies and recitations. I consider this indeed the 
 principal key to success, both in government and instruc- 
 tion; and whenever I find a teacher who fails in this — 
 (and I am persuaded the number is much less than for- 
 merly) — I set it down that such a teacher is very far be- 
 hind the age, and has no claim as yet to the reputation of 
 an able and successful Instructor. 
 
 The following incident will illustrate this point. Hav- 
 
ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 27 
 
 to visit, in an official capacity, a school 
 which had been kept by a young teacher some two 
 weeks, she very naturally asked — " what shall I do 
 first?" " Do precisely as you would if I had not come 
 in this afternoon." She looked a little perplexed. At 
 length she inquiringly asked — ■" Is the geography lesson 
 ready?" " Yes, m'm"— " No, m'm"-— " Yes, m'm"— 
 was the ambiguous reply from the class. There was so 
 much of veto in the looks of the young geographers, that 
 st amounted to prohibition. u Well, are the scholars in 
 Colburn's arithmetic ready?" This was said with more 
 of hope, but the same ambiguous answer was vociferated 
 from all parts of the room. The teacher looked despair- 
 ingly, — but recollecting one more resort she said, u Ts 
 the grammar class ready ?" Again came the changes on 
 " Yes, m'm" and " No, m'm." The teacher gave up and 
 asked what she should do. She was again told to go on 
 as usual for that afternoon. At the close of the school a 
 single hint was suggested to her, — viz., that she should 
 make out a list of her scholars' duties, and the times when 
 they should be expected to recite their respective les- 
 sons. She was told that it would be well to explain this 
 plan of her day's work to her school in the morning — and 
 then never again ask if a class was ready. The hint was 
 taken; and on subsequent visitations, the several classes 
 were ever ready to respond to the call of the teacher. 
 
 The government of schools has changed within fifty 
 years, and it is believed the change is for the better. In 
 olden times the rod was the principal engine in securing 
 good order. A teacher who could whip "right smart" 
 was considered well qualified to govern. A word and 
 a blow was the motto, and we are told on good 
 
2S MR. page's lecture. 
 
 authority the blow frequently went before the word. The 
 sensibilities of parents were formerly less thought of than 
 at present, and few teachers had learned the art of ap- 
 pealing to the better feelings of pupils and of controling 
 youthful buoyancy and glee, and turning it even to some 
 good purpose. Something on this point has been gained. 
 Though there are some who are yet too old-fashioned to 
 abandon the rod altogether; who know, or think they 
 know, enough of human nature to convince them that 
 power must exist, to be applied in some extreme cases; 
 who, while they rely mainly for success upon those higher 
 and better motives which may be so addressed as to con- 
 trol forty-nine out of fifty, yet would not suffer even the 
 fiftieth to go on to his own ruin and to the injury of the 
 whole school, for the leant of a whipping; yet there are 
 but very few teachers now, who claim respectability in 
 their profession, who make whipping the u daily food" 
 of their pupils. Children are not yet quite so perfectly 
 governed at home as to render in all cases such aliment 
 entirely unnecessary; and until parents do attain to some- 
 thing like good discipline at the fireside, they certainly 
 should not too loudly complain of the teacher whose 
 trials are far greater than their own, and whose advantages 
 for gaining a knowledge of the temper and disposition of 
 those to be governed are far more limited. Whipping 
 is now getting to be the good teacher's strange iDork; it 
 is seldom resorted to by the good teacher, and then only 
 after other methods have been patiently tried without 
 success. It is given as calomel should be given, only 
 in cases where the disease cannot be cured by milder 
 and safer medicines, and, where uncured, it would prove 
 fatal. Calomel is better than death; and whipping, bad 
 
ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 29 
 
 as it is, is better than uncontroled self-will and self-de- 
 struction. But for ordinary purposes the good teacher 
 can find easier avenues to the mind and heart of ordina- 
 ry pupils, than breaking their heads or scoring their 
 bodies; and it is claimed for the existing generation of 
 teachers that these avenues are oftener chosen than for- 
 merly. 
 
 In making the foregoing comparisons between the 
 present class of teachers and their predecessors, I have 
 spoken in general terms — of whole classes. There 
 were undoubtedly very many in by-gone years who 
 taught successfully and understanding^ ; who knew well 
 the means of access to the human mind, and the kinds of 
 diet upon which it should be nurtured. So now, it is 
 frankly confessed there are some who assume to teach 
 who are destitute — totally destitute — of the essential 
 qualifications, not only in a literary point of view, but in 
 regard to the intellectual abilities, judgment — tact — ener- 
 gy — perseverance. There are those, who, lacking the 
 proper motives, seek this employment, and having gained 
 admittance to the sanctuary of mind in a district for a 
 single term, do more to mar and deform the delicate yet 
 susceptible material they attempt so rudely to shape, than 
 the judicious labor of a skilful hand can restore in a 
 course of years. Yet it is believed the number of such 
 crude operatives is diminishing, and giving place to more 
 solid wisdom and worth; — and if this be true, if teachers 
 are to be found, who answer the demands of a more en- 
 lightened and scrutinizing age, and the number of such 
 is gradually increasing, then in this department we have 
 made some advancement. 
 
 I have wished somewhere in this lecture, to bear my 
 testimony in favor of what I consider another improve- 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 ment in our schools, but have been at a loss whether to 
 place it under the head of school discipline or some 
 other. I refer to the introduction of Music into some of 
 our schools as a distinct branch of instruction. To say- 
 nothing of the facility with which it may be taught to 
 pupils of tender age, or the advantages which would fol- 
 low from an increased taste for this acquirement in a 
 community, it is not to be despised as a means of disci- 
 pline. Music of itself is not destitute of power over 
 the moral feelings, and when associated with suitable sen- 
 timents, and sung by the "many voiced throng of a busy 
 school," I have never known it fail of producing good 
 results. It may be pursued without detriment to pro- 
 gress in other branches, as, when judiciously managed, 
 it fills up those portions of time which would be other- 
 wise lost in idleness. It serves as a pleasant recreation, 
 after the closer duties of the school, and seasonably in- 
 troduced, often proves a safety valve, through which a 
 love of vociferation and activity, that would otherwise 
 find an escapement in whispering and bustling, is allowed 
 to pass off in a more harmless and more pleasing way. 
 For these and many other reasons, I consider the intro- 
 duction of music into our public schools a decided im- 
 provement. 
 
 V. PUBLIC SENTIMENT HAS IMPROVED IN REGARD 
 TO PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 
 
 I have already shown that this sentiment has done 
 much directly to improve teachers. Yet I have not 
 covered the whole ground. For more than one hundred 
 and fifty years from the settlement of the country, the 
 public schools did not enjoy the highest place in the af- 
 
ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 31 
 
 fections even of those who established and supported 
 them. And even down to a very recent date, they were 
 regarded as the fit place for the education of the common 
 people, while most of those whose means would afford 
 the expense, sought better advantages for their children 
 at the academy or favorite private school. In this way, 
 some of the best influence has been withdrawn from the 
 public schools. As many of the best scholars were sent 
 away, — the very scholars whose parents could afford to 
 secure for them a constant and a somewhat permanent 
 attendance, — these schools became less interesting to 
 the teachers, who were obliged to labor with pupils 
 whose attendance was necessarily subject to much irregu- 
 larity and interruption. Besides, a notion seemed to be 
 entertained, that at the public school, there w r ere remark- 
 able facilities for acquiring vicious habits; in other words, 
 an impression seemed to prevail among those who could 
 afford to pay for private tuition, that their sons must of 
 necessity be contaminated by mixing with the ruder lads 
 of the " town school." Beyond this, moreover, the 
 scholars of the wealthy being provided for at the academy, 
 the parents took no interest in the success of the public 
 school, or the character of its teacher. No matter who 
 he was, or how little he might know, if he were but hired 
 at a low rate, so as to keep the taxes down, it was the 
 same to them. The affections of such parents being 
 given to those favorite private teachers to whom they had 
 entrusted their children, the public servant was seldom 
 noticed as a man, or cherished by their society as an ac- 
 quaintance. Hence a good instructor could scarcely be 
 found, who would be willing to teach a public school 
 longer than his own necessities required. He would 
 either desire the better pay, or the more flattering caresses 
 
32 MR. page's lecture. 
 
 bestowed upon the private teacher, and as soon as an 
 opening should occur to gratify his aspirations, either to 
 money or popularity, he would leave the public school 
 to seek it. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable too, that during all the 
 period above described, the school committees generally 
 consisted of the very men who never sent their children 
 to the public school. Whenever they entered the school, 
 it was evident upon the very face of things, that they 
 were overlooking an institution in which they had little 
 confidence. Indeed, irr many places, and for a long, 
 dark period, the very name of " town school " excited in 
 the minds of perhaps the majority, some such idea as 
 we associate with the alms house, — a sort of necessary 
 evil to provide for those whose want of means prevented 
 their providing for themselves. It was not uncommon 
 to see a boy, who had arrived at fourteen or fifteen years, 
 and had attained to some scholarship, when asked by 
 others where he went to school? — with confusion hang 
 down his head, and with conscious mortification, make 
 the humbling confession in half stifled accents, that he 
 attended the " town school." 
 
 A sentiment of this sort gave rise a long time ago to a 
 large number of academies in different parts of New 
 England, which were excellent institutions in themselves, 
 but which worked, nevertheless, a very unfavorable in- 
 fluence upon public schools. It is not the design of 
 these remarks, of course, to undervalue these institutions, 
 particularly when established among a sparse population, 
 where public instruction in the higher branches could 
 not advantageously be maintained. Very great blessings 
 unquestionably have been secured by the facilities thus 
 offered to those who sought a more liberal education than 
 
ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 33 
 
 \ 
 
 could be afforded at the public expense. Yet whenever 
 they have been brought into competition with common 
 I schools, devoted mainly to instruction in the branches 
 there taught, dividing the youth in the village into two 
 classes — those who could and those who could not afford 
 the expense of tuition, and of course withdrawing the in- 
 terest and influence of the more wealthy portion of the 
 community from the public school, there their influence, 
 (perhaps without any designed hostility, except it were 
 shown in diminishing the public appropriations) — has 
 been most decidedly unfavorable to the cause of public 
 instruction. 
 
 This condition of things being introduced, went on to 
 increase; because the more academies were multiplied, 
 the worse would be the public schools, and hence the 
 people reasoned — "the worse the public schools, the more 
 need of academies." In consequence of this, in almost 
 every large town, the private schools became much more 
 numerous than the public, the money expended for them 
 swelling far beyond the sum appropriated for the public 
 schools; and in almost every country village, an academy, 
 painted white, with a bell and a steeple, while it added 
 beauty to the village, and gave literary laws to those of 
 the place who could afford it, wrought in many cases lite- 
 rary starvation to those who depended upon the town school 
 for mental training. So true is this, that it is relied upon 
 as a general principle, that where the private schools are 
 most numerous and fully attended, and where an academy 
 of the kind described is located and in flourishing condi- 
 tion, there you will find the public schools in the most 
 deplorable state, because they have fallen into the most 
 deplorable neglect. 
 
 So far had this state of feeling been carried, that there 
 
34 MR. page's lecture. 
 
 were very many who were ready to declare against all 
 public schools as a positive evil, and who would have 
 been willing, at any moment, to cut off the supplies for 
 their support. Complaining of the hardship of paying 
 for schools they did not use, they would say, " The pub- 
 lic schools are so wretched that I cannot trust my chil- 
 dren there; if they were in such condition that I could 
 send to them, I should gladly pay for them!" Just as if 
 under this starving process, they could have been better! 
 and just as if it had never entered their minds, that by 
 first sending their children, and then giving their encour- 
 agement to the school, and their countenance and coope- 
 ration to the teacher, was the only way to make them the 
 very schools they desired. 
 
 But the time has at length come for the eyes of a blind 
 public to be opened. They have begun to make the 
 discovery that poor public schools — maintained just to 
 fulfil the letter of the law, is indeed but poor economy. 
 They have begun to perceive that paying for two sorts of 
 schools, when they need pay for but one, is paying but 
 " too dearly for the whistle." They have begun to learn 
 that public schools, and public teachers, if they be but 
 encouraged and patronized and smiled upon, may be as 
 good at least as private ones, — and they have somehow 
 found out that the rich and poor may meet at the same 
 school, sit at the same desk, recite in the same class, 
 and cherish and reverence the same teacher, and all this 
 without any more " contamination" than has been expe- 
 rienced elsewhere! In several of our large cities and in 
 most of our large towns, the tide of feeling has already 
 turned toward the public schools. School committees 
 are chosen who send to them, more liberal appropriation 
 is made for them, more is expected of them, and it is not 
 
ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 35 
 
 saying too much to add, that under these circumstances, 
 very much more is accomplished in them. 
 
 Thus much public sentiment has done. But this sen- 
 timent is a growing sentiment. In almost every town 
 and village in this state, there is an increasing interest in 
 the public schools. Through the labors and measures of 
 the Board of Education, by their able Secretary, a large 
 amount of statistical information has been laid before the 
 people, showing the comparative expense of public and 
 private instruction. And judging from the Reports of 
 school committees in every direction, and from the in- 
 creased amount of appropriation in a large number of 
 towns within a few of the last years, I think we cannot 
 err in viewing this change of public sentiment as a great 
 point gained toward improvement in the means of public 
 instruction. 
 
 If any should suppose, from the manner in which I 
 have spoken of private schools and academies, that I 
 have any hostility toward them or toward their instructors, 
 I entirely disclaim any such motive. I speak as I should 
 feel bound in truth to speak, if I were such a teacher 
 myself, and as I suppose every one must speak, who has 
 considered the subject, and who sincerely desires to see 
 the well-being of the whole people — " the rich and the 
 poor together" — in the highest degree promoted. My 
 own views have been openly uttered, not because (< / 
 love Ccesar less, but because I love Rome more." 
 
 Thus I have passed with great rapidity over a few 
 terns in which I think the cause of public instruction has 
 made a decided improvement on the whole. 
 
 I might remark still further on the diffusion of informa- 
 tion in the community, as to what is needed to render 
 our favorite system more perfect and complete. Several 
 
36 MR. page's lecture. 
 
 journals are now exclusively devoted to the cause, and 
 are widely circulated through the whole body of the 
 people. The whole business of Education is undergoing 
 a discussion, not only in the public assembly and the halls 
 of legislation, but at the smaller gatherings, and even 
 about the social board, and at the firesides of the com- 
 mon people. Improvements in the means or methods 
 of one teacher, are soon reported, and, by means of lec- 
 tures and the press, go forth to benefit others, and thus 
 become a part of the common stock. The people be- 
 coming better informed as to what a good school should 
 accomplish, expect more of the school which they sup- 
 port, — and their expectation is sure to find either its re- 
 sponse or its remedy. 
 
 In the preceding pages, I have been endeavoring to 
 make it evident that an advance has been made in the 
 means and methods of public instruction. Yet let 
 me not be considered as looking entirely on the bright 
 side of the picture, or as being moved by spirits too 
 buoyant, and a zeal excessively confident. I am per- 
 fectly aware that all great reforms have moved slowly, 
 and that, as a general thing, those enterprizes which have 
 accomplished most for mankind, have not burst upon the 
 world with the sudden and surprizing glare of the me- 
 teor's flash, but have dawned upon it, like the gentler 
 coming in of the summer's morning, the light and the 
 heat gradually increasing " unto the perfect day." And, 
 (to carry the illustration a little farther,) as, while the 
 light of the morning pours in upon the world, there are 
 always caverns " deep and drear," from which darkness 
 retires but slowly and reluctantly, and even the summer's 
 sun may scarcely dissolve the ice which reposes in their 
 depths, or dissipate the damps which hover about their 
 
ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 37 
 
 cheerless recesses, — so in the moral world, we seldom 
 find the work of reform perfectly triumphant, or its re- 
 sults universally successful. It is thus with the reform 
 we have been considering. Prejudices as chilling and 
 unrelenting as the iceberg, still are to be met with in cer- 
 tain quarters; and ignorance, as dense and impenetrable 
 as the darkness which hung over Egypt, still holds its un- 
 disturbed and cruel sway over many enslaved and craven 
 minds. Prescriptive usages, and an attachment even to 
 the errors and mistakes of ancestry, still oppose them- 
 selves to the progress of reform in many directions. 
 Avarice and short sighted calculation, are not without 
 their influence in retarding improvement among us. The 
 dread of innovation, based perhaps on the failure of some 
 past innovations, is a motive with many. And then, alas! 
 the adventurous, unchastened and misdirected zeal of 
 some of the friends of the cause; the wild and unwar- 
 rantable schemes of some of the dreamy movers of the 
 public opinion; the false and ridiculous pretensions of 
 the barefaced egotist, who advertises himself into the 
 favor of the credulous, in order to enrich himself with 
 their coin, and to impoverish them with his own counter- 
 feits, — all these, constitute no inconsiderable drawback 
 upon the progress of real improvement, and oppose a 
 formidable barrier to the confidence of an abused and 
 reasonably cautious public. 
 
 After all then, very much remains to be known and to 
 be done on this subject. The profession of teaching 
 has yet by no means attained the summit of perfection, 
 nor are all our systems free from impediments and abuses. 
 The public appropriations are in many cases graduated 
 by a mistaken policy, if not by the narrowest parsimony. 
 4 
 
38 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. 
 
 Then it not unfrequently happens that the voters in the 
 town meeting, after appropriating the money, limited as 
 that may be, either by an injudicious choice of commit- 
 tees, or by some ill-judged restrictions upon the measures 
 to be used, embarrass all parties concerned, and bring 
 down upon their offspring the deplorable calamity of in- 
 competent teachers, and miserable schools. Small as 
 the sums are, which are raised for the support of schools, 
 what an amount is annually raised to be misspent, if not 
 entirely thrown away! 
 
 It well becomes us, then, as a free people, as a people 
 whose very institutions are based upon the supposition of 
 a diffusion of intelligence through the whole community, 
 to see to it that we are not surpassed in our efforts, and 
 are actually outstripped in our onward progress by some 
 of the monarchical nations of Europe. 
 
 It well becomes us not only to be liberal in the appro- 
 priation of the means, but to be well informed as to the 
 methods of so worthy an enterprize; and if we are con- 
 vinced we have made some advances, either in the 
 methods or the means, let every citizen bestir himself to 
 attain more light and a better zeal; to open a more libe- 
 ral hand, and exercise a stricter oversight; to compre- 
 hend more fully our deficiencies, and to devise and en- 
 courage real improvements, till we can confer upon our 
 offspring privileges, such as no other people have ever 
 enjoyed, and hand down to our posterity, in coming time, 
 the system perfected, the institution of which our fathers 
 achieved for us. May our wisdom, our zeal, and our 
 efforts, merit the gratitude of our descendants as justly 
 and as richly as our ancestors deserve our own! 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 min 
 
 021 360 949 A