THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION-from 1856 to 1873-comprises 24 Volumes (20,000 octavo pages), with 800 wood-cuts of structures for educational purposes and 125 portraits of eminent educators and teachers. Price, $120 in cloth; $132 in half goat; Single Volume in cloth $5.00, in half goat $5.50. Current Volume in four numbers (International Series), $4.00; Single number, $1.25. INTERNATIONAL SERIES. The International Series of the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION will consist of three volumes of at least 800 pages each-and will be devoted to the completion (as far as practicable) of subjects presented in the previous Series, and a Historical Survey of National Systems, Institutions, and Methods of Instruction in the light which the former volumes of the Journal may contribute, and the material brought together by the International Exposition of 1876 at Philadelphia is expected to furnish. Each number will contain 200 pages, and the three volumes will be illustrated by three Portraits from steel plates, and one hundred wood-cuts. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION for 1876 (Volume I. International Series) will be published quarterly: viz., on the 15th January, April, July and October. TERMS: For a Single Copy of the four consecutive Numbers in a year, $4 00 1 25 For a Single Number, All subscriptions payable in advance. All communications relating to the Journal and other publications of the Editor may be addressed to HENRY BARNARD, P. O. Box U, Hartford, Conn. CONTENTS OF NUMBER TWO. April, 1876. I. MATERIAL FOR HISTORY OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS, 1. NOAH WEBSTER-STATE OF LEARNING, 1789-1805, II. HENRY K, OLIVER-BOSTON SCHOOLS ABOUT 1800, II. EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, INFLUENCE ON MODERN CIVILIZATION, GLASTONBURY ABBEY-PAST AND PRESENT, II. EPISCOPAL SEMINARIES-COUNCIL OF TRENT, III. SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE, 1. PLAN FOR RURAL AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS, IV. EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS IN HIGH PLACES, 1. FREDERICK THE GREAT-First Article, II. MARQUIS OF POMBAL, EDUCATIONAL REFORMS IN PORTUGAL, V. SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS-HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, 325-336 I. HEBREW-GREEK-ROMAN-GERMAN, IL ENGLAND-SCOTLAND, VI. REMINISCENCES OF SCHOOL LIFE, L. ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS, II. SWISS SCHOOLS-AN ENGLISH STUDENT AT HOFWYL, 325 - 331 337-358 337 - 339 - 351 - 359 - 359 SCHOOLS AS THEY WERE SIXTY YEARS AGO. To understand the real progress which has been made in the organization, administration, and instruction of institutions of learning in this country, and at the same time to appreciate the importance of many agencies and means of popular education besides schools, books, and teachers, we must, as far as we can, look into the schools themselves, as they were fifty and sixty years ago, and realize the difficulties and deficiences under which some of the noblest characters of our history were developed. As a contribution to our knowledge of these difficulties and deficiences in our schools, we bring together the testimony of several eminent men who were pupils or teachers in these schools, and who assisted in various ways in achieving their improvement. LETTER FROM NOAH WEBSTER, LL. D. NEW HAVEN, March 10th, 1840. MR. BARNARD: Dear Sir-You desire me to give you some information as to the mode of instruction in common schools when I was young, or before the Revolution. I believe you to be better acquainted with the methods of managing common schools, at the present time, than I am; and I am not able to institute a very exact comparison between the old modes and the present. From what I know of the present schools in the country, I believe the principal difference between the schools of former times and at present consists in the books and instruments used in the modern schools. When I was young, the books used were chiefly or wholly Dilworth's Spelling Books, the Psalter, Testament, and Bible. No geography was studied before the publication of Dr. Morse's small books on that subject, about the year 1786 or 1787. No history was read, as far as my knowledge extends, for there was no abridged history of the United States. Except the books above mentioned, no book for reading was used before the publication of the Third Part of my Institute, in 1785. In some of the early editions of that book, I introduced short notices of the geography and history of the United States, and these led to more enlarged descriptions of the country. In 1788, at the request of Dr. Morse, I wrote an account of the transactions in the United States, after the Revolution; which account fills nearly twenty pages in the first volume of his octavo editions. Before the Revolution, and for some years after, no slates were used in common schools: all writing and the operations in arithmetic were on paper. The teacher wrote the copies and gave the sums in arithmetic; few or none of the pupils having any books as a guide. Such was the condition of the schools in which I received my early education. The introduction of my Spelling Book, first published in 1783, produced a great change in the department of spelling; and, from the information I can gain, spelling was taught with more care and accuracy for twenty years or more after that period, than it has been since the introduction of multiplied books and studies.* No English grammar was generally taught in common schools when I was young, except that in Dilworth, and that to no good purpose. In short, the instruction in schools was very imperfect, in every branch; and if I am not misinformed, it is so to this day, in many branches. Indeed there is danger of running from one extreme to another, and instead of having too few books in our schools, we shall have too many. I am, sir, with much respect, your friend and obedient servant, N. WEBSTER. Dr. Webster in an essay published in a New York paper in 1788, "On the Education of Youth in America," and in another essay published in Hartford, Ct., in 1790, "On Property, Government, Education, Religion, Agriculture, etc., in the United States," while setting forth some of the cardinal doctrines of American education as now held, throws light on the condition of schools and colleges in different parts of the country at that date. * The first error that I would mention is a too general attention to the dead languages, with a neglect of our own. * *This neglect is so general that there is scarcely an institution to be found in the country where the English tongue is taught regularly from its elements to its pure and regular construction in prose and verse. Perhaps in most schools boys are taught the definition of the parts of speech, and a few hard names which they do not understand, and which the teacher seldom attempts to explain: this is called learning grammar. * *The principles of any science afford pleasure to the student who comprehends them. In order to render the study of language agreeable, the distinctions between words should be illustrated by the difference in visible objects. Examples should be presented to the senses which are the inlets of all our knowledge. Another error which is frequent in America, is that a master undertakes to teach many different branches in the same school. In new settlements, where the people are poor, and live in scattered situations, the practice is often unavoidable. But in populous towns it must be considered as a defective plan of education. For suppose the teacher to be equally master of all the branches which he attempts to teach, which seldom happens, yet his attention must be distracted with a multiplicity of objects, and consequently painful to himself, and not useful to to his pupils. Add to this the continual interruptions which The general use of my Spelling Book in the United States has had a most extensive effect in correcting the pronunciation of words, and giving uniformity to the language. Of this change, the present generation can have a very imperfect idea. These essays were afterwards collected with others in a volume entitled "A Collection: of Essays and Fugitive Writings, etc." By Noah Webster, Jr. Boston: 1790. the students of one branch suffer from those of another, which must retard the progress of the whole school. It is a much more eligible plan to appropriate an apartment to each branch of education, with a teacher who makes that branch his sole employment. * * * Indeed what is now called a liberal education disqualifies a man for business. Habits are formed in youth and by practice; and as business is in some measure mechanical, every person should be exercised in his employment in an early period of life, that his habits may be formed by the time his apprenticeship expires. An education in a university interferes with the forming of these habits, and perhaps forms opposite habits; the mind may contract a fondness for ease, for pleasure, or for books, which no efforts can.overcome. An academic education, which should furnish the youth with some ideas of men and things, and leave time for an apprenticeship before the age of twenty-one years, would be the most eligible for young men who are designed for active employments. But the principal defect in our plan of education in America is the want of good teachers in the academies and common schools. By good teachers I mean men of unblemished reputation, and possessed of abilities competent to their station. That a man should be master of what he undertakes to teach is a point that will not be disputed; and yet it is certain that abilities are often dispensed with, either through inattention or fear of expense. To those who employ ignorant men to instruct their children, let me say, it is better for youth to have no education than to have a bad one; for it is more difficult to eradicate habits. than to impress new ideas. The tender shrub is easily bent to any figure; but the tree which has acquired its full growth resists all impressions. Yet abilities are not the sole requisites. The instructors of youth ought, of all men, to be the most prudent, accomplished, agreeable, and respectable. What avail a man's parts, if, while he is "the wisest and brightest," he is the "meanest of maukind?" The pernicious effects of bad example on the minds of youth will probably be acknowledged; but, with a view to improvement, it is indispensably necessary that the teachers should possess good breeding and agreeable manners. In order to give full effect to instructions it is requisite that they should proceed from a man who is loved and respected. But a low-bred clown or morose tyrant can command neither love nor respect; and that pupil who has no motive for application to books but the fear of the rod, will not make a scholar. From a strange inversion of the order of nature, the cause of which it is not necessary to unfold, the most important business in civil society, is, in many parts of America, committed to the most worthless characters. The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success; this education is sunk to a level with the most menial services. In most instances we find the higher seminaries of learning intrusted to men of good characters, and possessed of the moral virtues and social affections. But many of our inferior schools, which, so far as the heart is concerned, are as important as colleges, are kept by men of no breeding, and many of them, by men infamous for the most detestable vices. Will this be denied? will it be denied, that before the war, it was a frequent practice for gentlemen to purchase convicts, who had been transported for their crimes, and employ them as private tutors in their families? |