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SI 
 
 POPULAR EDUCATION, DOCUMENT NO. 2. 
 
 [Ifrom tlie Journal of Edixcatioii.] 
 
 THE THEORY OF 
 
 American Education 
 
 CO 
 
 .'■&Of 
 
 BY WM. T. HARRIS, >.i!!3 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ST. LOmS: 
 
 Chapter l. — Education in the Past. 
 
 I'UEFATOllV. 
 
 ]^'p) N this age of revolution and 
 self-styled reform, we are 
 called upon to listen to pro- 
 '^3 tests against every form of 
 
 e5^ existing reality. It is well 
 that the rationale of all we 
 have and are should pass under the 
 scrutinizing j-eview of the censor. 
 But it is better to be able to see posi- 
 tive features than merely to be able 
 to utter protests. Meanwhile the 
 merely negative is better than the 
 death of stagnation. 
 
 Our systems of education are no 
 better than they should be, — far from 
 it. But it does not follow that any 
 change would be for the better. 
 Only wlien we can see the full 
 grounds for tlie reality of a system, 
 can we then set about improving it 
 wisely. 
 
 Text-book education has been the 
 subject of much abuse for thiee- 
 fourths of a centurv among educa- 
 
 tional men in Europe and this 
 countr}-. The great writers of the 
 English language in the seventeenth 
 century have anticipated most of the 
 objections now urged. One will 
 find admirable statemoits of them in 
 Locke and Milton, and, what is 
 more, he will find them so temperate 
 as to escape the extremes into which 
 our later day protests have developed. 
 It is with a view of throwing some 
 light on this important question that 
 I commence its study afar oft' at the 
 beginnings of our system of school 
 instruction, and trace its affiliation 
 with the political history of modern 
 times. 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Four hundred years ago this ver\- 
 year, VVm. Caxton, the first English 
 printer, was engaged on the first of 
 his works — the history of Raoul le 
 Fevre — " Rccncil des histoires de 
 Troycy The same year printing 
 was intro(kiccd into Ivlilan :md Ven- 
 ice. It seems that the invention of 
 the art of printing dates back of this 
 
 ■Read at tlic- XatimuU Teach. rs' Associati;)n. held at Cleveland, An;,'', ig. iSyo. 
 
( 2 ) 
 
 some thirty years, and that th6 firm 
 of Johann Faust and Gutenberg 
 commenced the business of printing 
 books in the city of Mentz in the 
 year 1450. The epoch is a notable 
 one in history. 
 
 Three years after the partnership 
 of Faust-Gutenberg, Constantinople 
 fell into the hands of the Turks, and 
 the Eastern Empire closed its career. 
 The "Wars of the Roses" depopu- 
 lated England of her nobility to such 
 an extent that the royal power rose 
 nearly to absolutism in the dynasty 
 of kings that followed, and in the 
 next reaction, the power of the Com- 
 mons came uppermost. In Spain, 
 Ferdinand and Isabella united their 
 crowns, and drove out the last vestige 
 of Moorish power from Europe the 
 same vear that " Genoese Columbus 
 launched his adventurous fleet into 
 the Western ocean." The Medici 
 family were at the height of their 
 power in Florence, and Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent ascended the throne the 
 same year that Caxton completed the 
 history we have named. Under his 
 reign were born the great Michael 
 Angelo and the great Raphael. Mar- 
 cilius Ficinus, the reviver of the 
 profound study of Plato and the Pla- 
 tonists of Alexandria, was his scliool- 
 master. 
 
 What with the revival of learning 
 and the discovery of new worlds, the 
 mastery over the Moslem, the inven- 
 tion of printing, and the bloom of 
 romantic art, the *•' Time River," as 
 Goethe calls it, was indeed swollen 
 to overflowing, and in the age fol- 
 lowing thei'e arose in Europe the 
 modern States system, and the "Bal- 
 ance of Power" developed througli 
 
 the wars of Charles the Fifth with 
 Francis the First and Henry the 
 Eighth. At this epoch appeared the 
 Reformation, and the new impulse 
 toward independence of authority. 
 Luther, Erasmus and Melancthon 
 appear at the same time as Coperni- 
 cus, with the " true system of the 
 Universe," and Roger Ascham, the 
 schoolmaster, teaching Greek to 
 Qiieen Elizabsth. 
 
 With the spread of the art of 
 printing came the cheapening of 
 books and the stimulus to popular 
 education. According to Diesterweg, 
 the eminent German educator, "the 
 present system of common or public 
 schools — that is, schools wdiich are 
 open to all children under certain 
 regulations — dates from the discovery 
 of printing, in 1436, w^ien books 
 began to be furnished so cheaply that 
 the poor could buy them." He re- 
 marks : " Especially after Martin 
 Luthei- had translated the Bible into 
 German, and the desire to possess 
 and understand that invaluable book 
 became universal, did there also be- 
 come universal the desire to know 
 how to read. Men sought to learn, 
 not only for the sake of reading the 
 Scriptures, but also to be able to 
 read and sing the psalms and to learn 
 the catechism. For this purpose 
 schools for children were established 
 which were essentially reading- 
 schools. Reading was the first and 
 priiicipal study ; next came singing, 
 and then memorizing texts, songs, 
 and the catechism. At first the min- 
 isters taught ; but afterwards the duty 
 was turned over to the inferior church 
 officers, the choristers and sextons. 
 Their duties :.s choristers and sextons 
 
(3) 
 
 i 
 
 were paramount, and as schoolmas- 
 ters onl}' secondary. The children 
 paid a small monthly fee, no more 
 being thought necessary, since the 
 schoolmaster derived a salary from 
 ^the church." 
 
 X The mode of instruction at this 
 ,^ early period of public school history 
 is characterized by Diesterweg in the 
 following words : " Each child read 
 by himself; the simultaneous method 
 (that of classes) was not yet known. 
 One after another stepped up to the 
 table where the master sat. He 
 pointed out one letter at a time, 
 and named it ; the child named it 
 after him ; he drilled him in recog- 
 nizing and remembering each. Then 
 they took letter by letter of the words, 
 and by getting acquainted with them 
 in this way the child gradually learn- 
 ed to read. This was a difficult 
 method for him. Years usually passed 
 before any facility had been acquired ; 
 many did not learn in four years. It 
 was imitative and purely mechanical 
 labor on both sides. To understand 
 what was read was seldom thought 
 of. The syllables were pronounced 
 vv'ith equal force, and reading was a 
 monotonous atlair. The children 
 drawled out texts of scripture, psalms 
 and the catechism from beginning 
 to end. As for the actual meaning 
 of the words they uttered, they knew 
 almost nothing of it." This, with 
 "stern severity and cruel punish- 
 ments," completes his picture of that 
 stage of the school system.* 
 
 But the movement thus begun was 
 no superficial one ; it was wide and 
 
 * This, and the passages from Rousseau, are 
 quoted from translations given m BamanPs your- 
 nal. 
 
 deep as all European civilization, 
 and it signified nothing less than the 
 complete and full emancipation of 
 each and every individual from all 
 species of external authority. All 
 institutions of society were to be born 
 again, and from their Palingenesia 
 were to spring the humanitarian out- 
 growths of the present and the future. 
 National literatures arose ; three gen- 
 erations of men contested the new 
 ideas, first with words, then with 
 bitter persecutions, and then came 
 the Thirty Years' War, with its final 
 treaty, the peace of Westphalia, 
 wherein the States system, which 
 began to develop in the time of 
 Charles Fifth, now got fully recog- 
 nized, and with it free individuality 
 took a new status. 
 
 Out of one solution forth steps a 
 new problem, and that with frightful 
 portent. By the light of the new 
 principle of individuality, which took 
 the form of the "right of private 
 judgment," the old basis of society in 
 Europe looked hideously empty, and 
 a sham throughout. To a generation 
 of Newtons, Lockes, and Leibnitz's, 
 succeed a generation of Bolingbrokes, 
 Swifts, Rousseaus, Montesquieus, and 
 these again are followed by such as 
 Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, Lessing, 
 and Goethe. The French Revolution 
 is inevitable, and an immense explo- 
 sion rends the face of European civ- 
 ilization, threatening to merge in one 
 red ruin all the landmarks built up 
 for a thousand years. But " History 
 is only a conflict of ideas, and the 
 victory of the deeper one." Out of 
 the obscurity, when the smoke cleared 
 away, appeared again the same hu- 
 manity, only with a stronger tendency 
 
(^ ) 
 
 than ever to realize the possibilities 
 of the individual. In place of the 
 cramping formulism which had first 
 prevailed in the school-room, and 
 w^hich for two centuries had improved 
 very little, on account of the w^ars 
 which were constantly occurring, now 
 a new spirit came in. It was the spirit 
 we call Pestalozzian, and traces di- 
 rectly to Rousseau. The positive idea 
 of this reform has been stated thus : 
 "The child should be educated^ — not 
 for a trade or profession, but for the 
 comvion and absolute state of man I 
 Should not, therefore, subject himself 
 to any thraldom of habit, but be in- 
 dependent of everything about him, 
 and master of himself." II?iman 
 nature is distinctly recognized as an 
 ideal of expanded culture. " Indi- 
 viduality must be held sacred, and 
 carefully studied and encouraged." 
 All mechanical methods are eschew- 
 ed, — the teacher endeavors to excite 
 the pupil to self-activity, and thereby 
 render him independent of all assist- 
 ance. 
 
 These great ideas mark the epoch 
 of a clear consciousness of the true 
 province of pedagogy. They are 
 fundamental, and universally recog- 
 nized by the great educators of Eu- 
 rope and America. 
 
 But, like all great formative ideas, 
 the first realizations of the same are 
 prone to be self-contradictory. It is 
 the pi'ovince of all great national 
 ideas to find, after manifold experi- 
 ments, the fit instruments for their 
 realization. When this is accom- 
 plished they become victorious. At 
 first they are liable to select the old 
 instrumentalities which have been 
 created by the national ideas already 
 
 worn out. Then the new idea suf- 
 fers defeat, and must try new means, 
 until at last it hits upon the true 
 armor — the steel of its own forging, 
 and with this it is invincible — for the 
 time. 
 
 Our late civil war furnishes too 
 pertinent an example to be passed b}' 
 in silence. There was a ne^v out- 
 growth of the humanitarian idea, 
 which had found the instrumentality 
 of its realization in productive Indtts- 
 try. Its strength lay in mechanic 
 invention, thoroughly subordinated to 
 that system of industry. In the war 
 one party said : " I will have none of 
 it, but I will hold by that stage of 
 society whose instrument is serfdom." 
 The result of the first six months' 
 struggle was a self-contradiction on 
 the part of the South, for, in order to 
 carry on the contest equally, it was- 
 obliged to establish mechanic indus- 
 tries in every village ; without these 
 it could not be independent of for- 
 eigners. Thus it was conquered in 
 its idea before it yielded to the force 
 of arms. Both sides of the nation 
 were really in the same stage of hu- 
 manitarianism, but one had preceded 
 the other in discovering the true and 
 proper instrument for its lealization. 
 Now both see it in the same light.. 
 It is because of this inevitable mis- 
 take of instrumentalities that we are 
 forced in this essay to speak so much 
 of the system of " Text-Book Edu- 
 cation." It was the ■•most natural 
 thing imaginable that happened in 
 the case of the new and better spirit 
 which came to be recognized in Pes- 
 talozzianism. 
 
 Rousseau's influence. 
 
 The two wings of Rousseau's 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 school — if I may so express it — are 
 represented in Basedow and Pesta- 
 lozzi. The former is the extreme 
 disciple of his master, and tends 
 always to the grossest naturalism, 
 while Pestalozzi is moderated ever 
 iDy his deep instincts and religious 
 culture. But both antagonize them- 
 selves against the very appliances 
 which Reason has elaborated for her 
 realization. The printed book is 
 thrown aside with contempt, and the 
 living voice of the teacher substituted 
 therefor to an extent far from justifi- 
 able. 
 
 It is the true rationale of text-book 
 education to which I would call at- 
 tention here ; and this I would urge 
 with more zeal for the reason that 
 the question is, to a great extent, 
 before the mind of American educa- 
 tors to-day, and is the source of man- 
 ifold experiments, which may prove 
 expensive in the end. 
 
 This topic forms a leading one in 
 a discussion of the distinctive features 
 of school education in America, as 
 contrasted with the methods in vogue 
 in Europe. 
 
 From the date of the publication 
 of "Lienhard and Gertrud," by Pesta- 
 lozzi, the world has borne in mind 
 the invectives against books and the 
 art of printing. All the evils exist- 
 ing in society have been referred to 
 the deficient state of education, and 
 this again to the deficient modes of 
 teaching which have arisen from the 
 art of printing. But the I'oot of all 
 this objection to printing lies deeper ; 
 it is, as we have intimated, the eftect 
 of the writings of Rousseau, who 
 elevates a state of nature over a state 
 of culture. In 1749, at the age of thirty- 
 
 seven, Rousseau made his first success- 
 ful literary adventure, by writing an 
 answer to a prize question proposed 
 by the Academy of Dijon : "Whether 
 the progress of the Arts and Sciences 
 has tended to the purification of man- 
 ners and morals." "At the sugges- 
 tion of Diderot, who i-eminded him 
 of the greater notoriety which he 
 could gain on the wrong side, he 
 took the negative, and found his line 
 of argument exactly- adapted to his 
 modes of thought and feeling." 
 He wrote a violent, brilliant and elo- 
 quent denunciation of civilized life, 
 and at once found himself famous as 
 a "censor of civilization." If any 
 one has doubts as to the origin of 
 most that is called Pestalozzianism, 
 let him hear Rousseau talk in his 
 " Emile." " The pedagogues," says 
 he, " teach children words, nothing 
 but words, and no I'eal knowledge." 
 " Children should not learn by rote, 
 not even La Fontaine's Fables." 
 
 " Reading is the great misery of 
 children. Emile must, in his twelfth 
 year, scarcel}' know what a book is." 
 
 " What the human mind receives 
 is conveyed through the senses ; the 
 senses are the basis of the intellec- 
 tual. Our feet, our hands, our eyes, 
 first teach us philosophy." 
 
 " Xo writings are proper for a boy ; 
 no eloquence or poetry ; he has no 
 business with feeling or taste." 
 
 " Geographical instruction should 
 begin with the house and place of 
 abode. The pupil should draw maps 
 of the neighborhood, to learn how 
 they are made, and what they show." 
 
 " Robinson Crusoe might consti- 
 tute for a long time the entire library 
 of a child." 
 
( 6) 
 
 " The boy should do nothing at the 
 word ; nothing is good to him except 
 what he himself recognizes as good. 
 By your wisdom you rob him of his 
 mother wit ; he becomes accustom- 
 ed always to be led, and to be only a 
 machine in the hands of others. To 
 require obedience of the child means 
 to require that when grown up he 
 shall be credidous, — shall be made a 
 fool of." 
 
 " Do the opposite of what is usual, 
 and you will almost always do right." 
 
 In the 2Drinci23les embodied in these 
 quotations, one recognizes the confu- 
 sion which reigned in Rousseau's mind 
 as to the difference between nature in 
 general, and human nature. 
 
 NATURE vs. HUMAN NATURE, OR THE 
 SPIRITUAL ; HOW MAN LIFTS HIM- 
 SELF BY AID OF INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 Nature, as existing in time and 
 space, is the polar antithesis to the na- 
 ture of man as s^tyirit. Nay, man him- 
 self finds himself, as merel}' natural, 
 hisworst-foe. By nature he is totally 
 depraved ; that is, he is a mere animal, 
 and governed by animal impulses and 
 desires, without ever rising to the ideas 
 of reason. The greedy swine fight 
 over the jDossession of the acorn that 
 drops in their midst. It is a scene of 
 pure violence. Everywhere the being 
 of mere nature is impelled from with- 
 out and has no freedom. For free- 
 dom begins with making one's na- 
 ture, and not with mere unconscious 
 habit. Out of the savage state man 
 ascends by making himself new na- 
 tures, one above the other ; he real- 
 izes his ideas in institutions, and finds 
 in these ideal worlds his real home 
 and his true natiu'e. 
 
 The state of nature is the savasre 
 
 state. The state of h7iman nature 
 only exists as a pi-oduct of culture. 
 The world of nature in time and space 
 exists for man or human nature, on 
 condition that he have intelligence 
 and skill to use it. The natural man 
 who has not ascended above nature 
 and become its master, is more unfor- 
 tunate and unhappy than the brute. 
 To achieve his destiny, to become 
 aught that is distinctivelv human, he 
 must be able to combine with his fel- 
 \a\\ men and sum up the results of the 
 race in each individual. First there 
 is practical combination — civil society 
 organizing in such a manner that each 
 man reaps the united effort of the en- 
 tire community : the laborer who earns 
 his dollar for the day's work being 
 able to ^purchase therewith one dol- 
 lar's worth of an}' or all the productions 
 that himian labor has wrought out. 
 This kind of combination, whereby 
 man lifts himself above himself as an 
 individual (and to that extent trans- 
 cends his mere finiteness), permits 
 you and me to pursue quietly our vo- 
 cations, and yet enjo}' the fruition of 
 the labor of the world. For ftach citi- 
 zen, no matter how humble his birth 
 or station, is made, by commerce, a 
 centre from which ray out lines of 
 communication and exchange to all 
 industrial regions in the world. Each 
 for all, and all for eAch ! The coal 
 miner digging beneath the earth, and 
 shut out from the light of day, does a 
 work for all. Every stroke of his 
 pickaxe aflects to a certain extent the 
 price of coal in all the markets of the 
 world, and the price of coal affects 
 the prices of all other commodities. 
 The relation is reciprocal ; and every 
 vessel that crosses the ocean, every 
 
(7) 
 
 laborer on the distant plantation in 
 the Indies or Brazil, or even by the 
 far ort Nile or Ganges, every manu- 
 facturer in Birmingham or Manches- 
 ter, aftects in turn the well-being of the 
 coal miner in Illinois or Pennsylvania. 
 He is comforted and cheered by the 
 tea and coffee, nourished and sus- 
 tained hv the fruits, grains ajid spices, 
 the cotton, and silk, and linen that 
 have traveled to him around the earth. 
 Nay, the very drugs th;it make life 
 possible in our malarious climes, are 
 grown from six to twehe thousand 
 miles hence. Combination secures 
 not onh' tlie participation in all pro- 
 ducts on the part of each, it secures 
 that division of labor which results 
 in the highest skill of elabonition. 
 
 THE KKALM OK MIND, OR HOW MAX 
 BY COMBIXATIOX BECOMES OMXI- 
 SCIENT. 
 
 But -practical combination is not 
 all nor indeed the chief item of im- 
 portance in the elevation of man. 
 
 There is theoretical combination — 
 the scholar by diligent study and much 
 deep thinking being able to master 
 for himself, one by one, the great 
 thoughts that have ruled the world- 
 history. The scientific solutions antl 
 generalizations relating to the great 
 problem of human life — these are pre- 
 served in books, and each man. wo- 
 man and child may partake, for in 
 this realm too, all is for each, and 
 each for all. The great Sphinx of 
 nature has sat before man and asked 
 him questions, looking up at him with 
 quiet, stony looks, until despair has 
 forced from him the solution, or else 
 driven him to death. For every so- 
 lution in the shape of scientific dis- 
 cover}', or ethical maxim, has been 
 
 wrought out only through grimmest 
 toil and sweat. 
 
 liut the participation of each in the 
 labors of all is far more perfect in the 
 theoretical sphere than in the material 
 or practical sphere. For what one 
 eats up or wears out, perishes in the 
 using ; but thought, ideas, principles, 
 the products of spirit, increase in 
 the using. When you have a new 
 thought, and your neighbor is made 
 the vviser for your imparting it to 
 him, the new truth has two sources 
 of emanation in place of one as be- 
 fore. Instead of l)eing the poorer for 
 having parted with the exclusive pos- 
 session of your truth, }'ou really are 
 richer ; for by explaining \o\\x doc- 
 trine to others you learn to under- 
 stand it better yourself. This second 
 mode of combination is therefore bet- 
 ter than the first. 
 
 These two forms of combination — 
 the practical and the theoretical — are 
 the modes in which man the animal 
 becomes man the spirit, and each in- 
 dividual becomes a conscious partici- 
 jDant of the life of the entire race. 
 
 EDUCATION ITS FUXCTION. 
 
 It is not necessary for each mem- 
 ber of the human family to repeat in 
 detail tlie experiments of all his pre- 
 decessors, for their results descend to 
 him by the system of combination in 
 which he li\'es, and by education he 
 acquires them. With these he may 
 stand on the top of the ladder of hu- 
 man cultiu'e, and build a new round 
 to it so that his children after him 
 may climb higher and do the like. 
 
 The mere animal, lacking the pow- 
 er of generalization, cannot amass ex- 
 perience, but strictly confined to the 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 dreamy life of the senses, and never 
 rising to the region of abstract ideas, 
 each individual animal matures and 
 dies. Only the species lives on ; there 
 is no immortality for the individual 
 animal. It requires a being who can 
 combine in himself the product of his 
 entire species b}^ his individual ac- 
 tivit}' — just as man can — to fulfill the 
 conditions of immortality. 
 
 Education, as embracing this form 
 of active combination ^vith the race, 
 characterizes human nature and dis- 
 tinguishes it from animal nature. By 
 it man is a progressive being, and 
 his progress consists in subordinating 
 the material world to his use, and 
 freeing himself from the hard limits 
 that hem in all natural beings. 
 
 The nations and peoples of the 
 world rank high or low in the scale 
 according to the degree in which thc\- 
 have realized this ideal of humanit)-. 
 The rude tribes of central Africa and 
 the Polynesian Islands stand at the 
 foot of the ladder. The Oriental peo- 
 ples have achieved a higher degree, 
 though still ver}' defective. Where the 
 individual is unsafe from the freaks 
 and caprices of the ruler or su^^erior 
 in rank, nothing can compensate for 
 the uncertainty of his life and posses- 
 sions. Arbitrariness in the governinp- 
 principle is an essential ingredient 
 thereof, and is only compatible with 
 slavery in the people below it. 
 
 Thus it happens that individual 
 good behavior on the part of the 
 ruler is made so important a matter in 
 Oriental books. Read Saadi, or Fir- 
 dusi, Confucius, orMencius, the code 
 of Manu, or the Hitopadessa, and 
 you find everywhere the beha\ior to- 
 ward others, the conduct of life, as 
 
 individual members of society, the 
 theme. The most excellent maxims, 
 like the golden rule of Confucius, are 
 the staple of Oriental books, and 
 why? Because the behavior of the 
 individual is the essential thing. Hu- 
 manity had not yet built up a wall 
 around the individual such as to pro- 
 tect him from his own caprice and ai"- 
 bitrariness. With the ancient Greeks 
 and Romans great progress was 
 made over the highest Asiatic people. 
 But it is in modern times that we have 
 achieved the miracle in this respect. 
 For what do our modern Christian 
 States signify, except the realization 
 of constituted forms under which each 
 shall rcajD onh' the positive results of 
 all, and that each one who does evil 
 (is wicked and arbitrary) shall not 
 injure the rest, but shall himself suffer 
 for his own sins. It is the great heritage 
 of the man born now that he can 
 be protected b}' the forms of society 
 and state in the enjoyment of his own 
 labor. If he do good, positive deeds 
 in the community, he shall get back 
 the same from the rest ; but if he 
 works against the good of the com- 
 munity, he finds liimself at once cut 
 ort' from receiving good from it. 
 
 ROUSSEAU, AGAIN. 
 
 These aspects of the State and of 
 institutions generally, were not seen 
 by Rousseau, nor by the chief think- 
 ers of his time. 
 
 When Rousseau sent a copy of his 
 essay on '• The Origin of Inequality 
 among Men," to Voltaire, the latter 
 exposed its fallacy in the following 
 sarcastic st\le : "I have received 
 3'our new book against the human 
 race, and thank you for it. No one 
 could paint in stronger colors the 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 horrors of human society from which 
 our ignorance and weakness promise 
 themselves so many delights. Never 
 has any one employed so much 
 genius to make us into beasts ; when 
 one reads your book, he is seized at 
 once with a desire to go down on all 
 fours." 
 
 PESTALOZZI. 
 
 But Voltaire himself was too ex- 
 clusively absorbed in pulling down 
 institutions, to exercise any restrain- 
 ing influence. The reactionary cur- 
 rent against formulism had set in 
 deep and strong. These ideas be- 
 came the accepted doctrine in that 
 age of unbelief and intellectual clear- 
 ing up. In 179S, Pestalozzi unfolded 
 Rousseau's doctrine in his book en- 
 titled, " Researches into the Course 
 of Nature in the Development of the 
 Human Race." The first state of 
 childhood being (according to him) 
 the state of innocence and perfection, 
 he represents the social state as the 
 product of artificial conventionality. 
 For external, interested motives men 
 unite to form a state, etc. '• They 
 agree to give a part of their unre- 
 stricted freedom for the sake of secur- 
 ing certain benefits otherwise not at- 
 tainable." 
 
 Yet we hear it frequently said that 
 Pestalozzi labors to produce on the 
 part of the child " spontaneous ac- 
 tivity." But the freedom to do what 
 my arbitrary will dictates, is not 
 freedom, tor caprice destroys the 
 work of one moment by that of the 
 next. It is only self-consistent ac- 
 tivity that can be free. All other 
 is a perpetual self contradiction and 
 perpetually builds up barriers to its 
 own progress. But this self-con- 
 
 sistent activity is not possible for the 
 infant nor the savage. It has taken 
 ages to achieve its forms. They are 
 the Laws of the State, the Maxims 
 of Jklorality, the Conventionalities of 
 life, its habits and usages. Nay, 
 more, they are the state-form it- 
 self, the Religion, the entire complex 
 of civilization. In these forms alone 
 man can live so as to reap the fruition 
 of his own deed. In any other form 
 he will sow, and some one else will 
 reap. What is done through caprice 
 will be controlled by accident. 
 
 The forms of combination by which 
 each individual man is enabled to 
 reap the result of the united effort of 
 the entire community are the out- 
 growth of man's rational will as de- 
 veloped not in any particular man 
 but in society as a wlicjle, the product 
 of centuries of experience. The 
 downfall of States, the most terrible 
 ages, full of suffering and horror, these 
 arc all "laid up layer above layer in 
 the strata of human civilization," as 
 well as the ages of peace and pros- 
 perity which mankind have enjoyed. 
 This great complex of arts and 
 usages, of ideas and institutions, of 
 prescriptions and privileges, which 
 we call civilization, is the great Rev- 
 elation of Human Nature : its own 
 nature wrought out of the raw mate- 
 rial — not in peaceful quiet or passive 
 contemplation, but with agony and 
 sweat of blood. 
 
 The idle dream ot Rousseau and 
 Pestalozzi, of Basedow and Chateau- 
 briand — before this great social real- 
 ity which surrounds us — fades into 
 thin air. Its boasted ideal of human 
 nature shrinks into atomic insignifi- 
 cance before the actual fact itself! 
 
( 10) 
 
 The state of nature and the state 
 of culture are antitheses, and all true 
 systems of education must mediate 
 between. The problem is always : 
 how to take the individual as mere 
 animal and elevate him to free man- 
 hood. When one starts out — as those 
 theorists did — with the idea that man 
 as individual is the ultimate norm 
 and standard of all right and truth, 
 he reads the page of civilization bot- 
 tom side up and must needs howl the 
 dismal chant of revolution in the 
 ears of his fellow-men, or else retire 
 within himself to live in his dreamy 
 an idyllic life like that painted bj 
 Chateaubriand in his Atala. 
 
 Not the individual as such, with 
 his fmitudes and frailties, with his 
 selfishness and exclusiveness, his ani- 
 mal instincts and desires — not the 
 mere animal, is the end and aim of 
 human existence, but rather the in- 
 dividual who sacrifices himself as 
 animal in order to realize in himself 
 the life of spirit. In order to be an 
 end to himself^ the individual must 
 subordinate himself as a particular 
 person, and make himself a servant 
 of universal ideas such as he finds 
 already formulated in society and the 
 state, in Art, Religion, and Science. 
 Not to be 
 
 " Like dumb driven cattle," 
 an unconscious laborer in the world, 
 but to be a self conscious, intelligent 
 actor, is man's birthright and destiny. 
 And when the individual, however 
 humble his calling, has arrived at a 
 comprehension of the necessity that 
 binds the organic system of civiliza- 
 tion, and sees that it is only the action 
 of a giant will-power enlightened 
 by the accumulated intelligence of 
 
 all individuals — then he not only ac- 
 cepts his lot cheerfully, but rejoic- 
 ingly, and sees himself, not as a slave 
 in the mill of industry, but as a lord- 
 proprietor for whom all mankind are 
 fashioning the world into shapes of 
 use and beauty. It is the vision of 
 the whole that emancipates the indi- 
 vidual. Goethe has expressed this 
 exactly : "■ To the narrow mind, 
 whatever he attempts is still a trade, 
 [whether it be shoemaking or preach- 
 ing the gospel, school teaching or 
 poetizing] ; for the higher, an art ; 
 and the highest, in doing one thing 
 does all ; or, to speak with less para- 
 dox, in the one thing which he does 
 rightly, he sees the likeness of all 
 that is done rightly." 
 
 The individual must lose himself in 
 order that he may find himself. He 
 must purify himself in the baptism of 
 institutions and wash off all traces 
 of selfish egotism. And the result 
 of such mediation all comes back to 
 the individual and finds him no longer 
 a mere animal, but a transfigured 
 spirit ; not an egotist, but one whose 
 personality is friendly to, and partici- 
 pant in, the labors of all mankind. 
 
 Chap. II. — The Present and Fu- 
 ture of Education. 
 
 The plausibility of all abstract sys- 
 tems, like those we have been discus- 
 sing, lies in the fact, that education 
 must start with the natural, the igno- 
 rant, the raw material. But its busi- 
 ness is to elevate the individual out of 
 this state of nature as quickly and 
 effectually as possible. From ani- 
 mal instincts and sensibilities, en- 
 thralled by his physical necessities, 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 he must be raised to the status of a 
 reasonable being, who looks before 
 and after, and subordinates all nature 
 to the service of spirit. 
 
 Education must elaborate its appli- 
 ances so as to take firm hold of the 
 pupil. Object lessons to strengthen 
 the attention of the new beginner, 
 conversations and stories, pictures and 
 games — all these have their j^hice in 
 any complete system of pedagogy. 
 The mistake lies in their too great 
 expansion, a danger very imminent 
 in our own rapid intellectual growth. 
 The nervous American child com- 
 mences this kind of education so early 
 that he is beyond the period of the 
 exclusive appliances of such things 
 before his sixth year, and when he 
 enters the school room, is ready for 
 the serious labor of mastering a text 
 book. The records of our schools 
 show that the majority of children 
 brought up in families where reading 
 is much carried on, can scarcely wait 
 for the school age, but take the mat- 
 ter into their own hands, and learn to 
 read by themselves and what assist- 
 ance they extort from the elder mem- 
 bers of the family. 
 
 Milk for babes is a useful and ne- 
 cessary article of diet, but when the 
 teeth grow, solid food is essential for 
 healthy development. 
 
 ORAL vs. TEXT BOOK INSTRUCTION. 
 
 A system of education that professes 
 to begin with oral instruction, and to 
 continue it as the best system, ignores 
 this vital point. 
 
 It is a mistake to say that the pres- 
 ent great educational systems of Eu- 
 rope follow this plan. Its defects are 
 nowhere so clearly seen as by educa- 
 tors in Prussia, where such men as 
 
 Diesterweg and Karl Von Raumer 
 have placed all its phases in the clear- 
 est light. 
 
 In no country in the world is the 
 printed book more highly valued than 
 in Prussia. Germany originated the 
 art of printing, and it is she that makes 
 the greatest books in science and art, 
 and condenses all the erudition of the 
 world upon any single point. Erudi- 
 tion cannot be gained by oril instruc- 
 tion. All the information that could 
 be given orally by the best of teach- 
 ers, in a course of ten years, would 
 not suffice to exhaust a single topic, 
 and it would be a very poor substitute 
 for the power a pupil would obtain by 
 mastering one single text book for 
 himself. 
 
 But it will be readily granted that 
 text book education begins earlier 
 and forms a more important feature 
 in this country than elsewhere. 
 
 The justification for this, I find in 
 the development of our national idea. 
 It is founded on no new principle, 
 but fundamentally it is the same as 
 that agreed upon all the world over. 
 Education should excite in the most 
 ready way the powers of the pupil to 
 self activity. Not what the teacher 
 does for him, but what he is made to 
 do for himself, is of value. Although 
 this lies at the bottom of other na- 
 tional ideas, it is not so explicitly re- 
 cognized as in our own. It is in an 
 embryonic state in those ; in ours it has 
 unfolded and realized itself so that we 
 are everywhere and always impelled 
 by it to throw responsibility on the in- 
 dividual. Hence, our theory is : the 
 sooner we can make the youth able 
 to pursue his course of culture for 
 himself, the sooner may we graduate 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 him from the school. To give him 
 the tools of thought is our province. 
 When we have initiated him into the 
 technique of learning, he may be 
 trusted to pursue his course for him- 
 self 
 
 Herein is the cause why university 
 education is not so prominent here as 
 in Europe. It is a frequent remark, 
 that w^e are behind Europe in this re- 
 spect. It is not denied that we have 
 scholars who deserve respect, but we 
 are told that they do not resort to uni- 
 versities. Nor should they. It is not 
 what we attempt to do here. We do 
 not isolate our cultured class from the 
 rest. It is our idea to have culture 
 open to every one in all occupations 
 of life. Elihu Burritt may learn 
 fifty languages at the anvil. Benja- 
 min Franklin may study Locke, make 
 experiments in electricity, master the 
 art of diplomacy. These are self- 
 taught men, and the self-taught man 
 is our type ; — not the man who wastes 
 his life experimenting to learn what 
 is already known and published, but 
 the man who reads and informs him- 
 self on all themes, and dii^ests his 
 knowledge into practice as he goes 
 along. A culture for its own sake is 
 a noble aspiration, and it is well to 
 have it advocated at all times. But 
 a culture belonging to a class that 
 rests like an upper layer upon the 
 mass below, who in turn have to dig 
 and spin for them, is not the Ameri- 
 can ideal — Not at all, even if we do 
 not produce men who devote their 
 whole lives to the dative case, or to 
 the Greek particles. And yet it is 
 the faith of Americans that they will 
 be able to accomplish all that any 
 other civilization can do, besides add- 
 
 ing thereto a culture in free individ- 
 uality to an extent hitherto unattained. 
 A civilization wherein all can partake 
 in the subjugation of the elements, 
 and possess a competence at such easy 
 terms as to leave the greater part of 
 life for higher culture, is the goal 
 to which every American confidently 
 looks. 
 
 The common man shall be rich in 
 conquests over the material world of 
 Time and Space, and not only this 
 but over the world of mind, the heri- 
 tage of culture, the realized intelli- 
 gence of all mankind. 
 
 In modern times the controlling 
 spirit is one of independence of all 
 authority. So it happens in our sys- 
 tems of Public Education that the 
 personality of the teacher is not 
 brought so much in contact with the 
 pupil as formerly. When the patri- 
 archal system prevailed in educa- 
 tion, the ipse dixit of the pedagogue 
 was all-sufficing. The pupil, in 
 fact, depended almost solely upon the 
 oral instruction of the teacher. Now 
 the tendency is to make the individual 
 independent of the personal teacher 
 and of the university, by means of 
 the printed page and its diffiision in 
 the shape of books and periodicals. 
 Once it was necessary to resort to the 
 universit}^ to hear the master speak 
 on his theme, for his knowledge 
 could not be found in books. Indeed, 
 books were not printed, but written 
 by scribes, and for this reason were 
 so costly that the individual could 
 not afford to own them. The uni- 
 versity is a place where all collect for 
 one purpose — it has been, in its 
 earlier days, a kind of grand market 
 fair for the traffic in letters. The 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 manuscripts, scarce and valuable, 
 could be collected at a seat of learn- 
 ing and all who wished to consult 
 them had to take up their residence 
 there. But when the ages of print- 
 ing came, then books began to mul- 
 tiply so rapidly that private individ- 
 uals of moderate means, could pos- 
 sess the most valuable treasures of 
 erudition and science. What the 
 hand-press of Faust-Gutenberg was 
 to the toiling scribe, the modern 
 power-press is to the former. The 
 cheapening of books goes on ; the 
 day is coming — nay it is here alread\', 
 when whatever information one 
 wishes to circulate, is committed^ at 
 once to paper. 
 
 Oral instruction, as an exclusive 
 system, loses ground from day to day. 
 The shadow of it is still preserved in 
 Europe, and the imported shadow 
 of it has been set up in this coun- 
 try. But the spirit of the time is 
 too powerful for it ; it immediatel}' 
 draws everything into its own form. 
 The Pestalozzian system is now pro- 
 mulgated chielly through books writ- 
 ten in the style of the oral instruc- 
 tion. In these books their authors 
 attempt to preserve their best (most 
 brilliant) moments and free the sys- 
 tem from the defects that accompany 
 all systems which are mercl}' extempo- 
 raneous. The individual, in order to 
 make a powerful etibrt, must rein- 
 force the moment by the hours — he 
 must, by previous and severe prepa- 
 ration, assure himself of a strong and 
 steady flow during the period in 
 which he stands before his school as 
 teacher. Thus it was that even Pes- 
 talozzi was compelled to reduce his 
 system to a book containing tabulated 
 
 forms and long lists of mere names — 
 the driest and most soulless species 
 of book ever written. I say species 
 of book because that individual book 
 has been imitated, and now we have 
 many such in this country — books 
 which, by their minute exhaustiveness 
 in details, cramp the teacher and drive 
 out every trace of spontaneity from 
 him. And yet this prescription of 
 details — it is found ad nauseajn in 
 the superintendents' school-reports 
 from Maine to California — this pre- 
 scription of details is found abso- 
 lutely necessary in order to correct 
 the defects of oral instruction, for 
 arbitrariness and caprice pour in like 
 a deluge and wash away all land- 
 marks. "Unequal is man, unequal 
 are his hours." To-day the teacher 
 had ample time for preparation, and 
 is feeling well physically ; he comes 
 before his class and electrifies every 
 one of them ; to-morrow the opposite 
 occurs : his inspiration all gone, 
 some untoward accident deprived 
 him of the necessary preparation, 
 and the exercise benumbs ever}- pu- 
 pil in his class. Since the pupil is to 
 depend upon the teacher for every- 
 thing — his thirst for knowledge hav- 
 ing to be aroused and then sated too 
 by him — it follows that the teacher 
 is placed in the position of the 
 most ancient of patriarchal rulers. 
 EvcrtJiing rests on his shoulders. 
 When he flags, all goes down. 
 
 The man who can make the best 
 book is usually not the best person to 
 teach it. The subject stands in his 
 mind in too synthetic a form. It is the 
 analyst who makes the l)est teacher. 
 Oral instiuction is therefore con- 
 stantly liable to destroy the self ac- 
 
( 14) 
 
 tivity of the pupil — that is to say, the 
 very merit claimed for it is the one 
 it least accomplishes. The pupil 
 listens to the teacher's living voice. 
 The first impressions are all he gets, 
 even if he takes notes : it requires 
 time to reflect. Our first impressions 
 of things are never the most valu- 
 able ; for all subsequent observation 
 and reflection carry us deeper, and 
 hence nearer to the truth. The pupil 
 is dragged from one point to another 
 without fully digesting either. But 
 with a text book it is far otherwise. 
 The book in his hand is "all pa- 
 tience." It waits for him to consider 
 and reconsider a difficult passage 
 until he is ready to go on. The 
 statement in the book is a studied, 
 carefully prepared one. The author 
 has spent hours in I'evising and cor- 
 recting the defects of the one-sided 
 statement of the minute. He was 
 bound to see all properly related and 
 subordinated— all exhaustive and lu- 
 cid. The deference of the pupil 
 leads him frequently to take the 
 mere assertion of his teacher with- 
 out question or demonstration, 
 and thus allows him to be warped 
 into his teacher's whims and idio- 
 syncrasies ; it is not so with the 
 text book. The text book has 
 been carefully pruned before print- 
 ing. It frequently happens that a 
 man would blush to say before the 
 world on a printed page Vvdiat he un- 
 blushingly pi caches before his pupils. 
 But the heat of personality departs 
 from the printed page, and the scien- 
 tific interest increases in proportion. 
 Prejudice gives place to calm cir- 
 cumspection. The page of the book 
 is cool and dispassionate, and if not 
 
 conclusive and thorough-going, the 
 student has his remedy in another 
 book. Multiplicity of text books 
 has changed our mode of instruction 
 so that every year there is more con- 
 sultation of reference books and com- 
 parison of difl'erent views ; and hence 
 still another step is gained by the pupil 
 toward independence of mere external 
 authority. He shall read and compare 
 for himself and form his own opinions, 
 " thus doing his own thinking." 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 
 
 Not onl}^ is this the land of indi- 
 viduality, but we are living in an age 
 of individuality. That period in 
 which everything intended for the 
 people was digested by the ruling 
 class and handed down to them from 
 above, has well nigh vanished here. 
 It is disappearing fast, even in Eu- 
 rope. The age of the newspaper and 
 the telegraph is not the age of pre- 
 scription, is not the age of external 
 authority. According to the spirit 
 of the last centur}'', the ruling au- 
 thority measured out to the people 
 and ordained just how much of 
 this and how much of that should 
 be taught, always, of course, with 
 a view to preserve the existing order 
 of things. A monarchy, aristocracy, 
 or theocracy, found it very necessary 
 to introduce the scheme of external 
 authority early. We who have dis- 
 covered the constitution under which 
 rational order may best prevail by 
 and through the enlightenment and 
 freedom of the individual, ive desire 
 in our systems of education to make 
 the citizens as independent as possi- 
 ble from mere external prescription. 
 We wish him to be spontaneous — 
 self-active — self-governing. The gov- 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 ernment of the United States be- 
 comes better in the ratio tiiat the 
 citizen becomes self-directive. With 
 a race of shives — a race of men 
 where there is not '"one reasoning 
 brain to every pair of hands," but 
 only one brain to a whole '"gang" of 
 hands — our form of government 
 would prove a mistake. The mod- 
 ern state, as realized here, is a gigan- 
 tic system of machinery for the pre- 
 vention of tyranny. Think of the 
 formalities ami routines of the legal 
 process in order that the individual 
 officer shall not display his personal- 
 ity in the functions of his office ! 
 How carefully our race has learned, 
 through centuries of experience, to 
 separate the total function of the 
 government into three processes, and 
 then to take care that diflbrent individ- 
 uals shall perform these processes. 
 The judge must not be the accuser, 
 nor may the accuser be the judge. 
 The judge may not'be the law-maker. 
 The law-maker shall make his laws 
 in accordance with general princi- 
 ples, and not with the particular in- 
 stance staring him in the face. Be- 
 sides this, the law-executing power 
 shall be entire!}- sej^arate from the 
 law-making and law-distributing 
 powers. The man who fulfills either 
 of these functions cannot incur the 
 personal spite and hatred of the 
 criminal, or of the friends of the 
 criminal. The great sieve of govern- 
 ment has sifted out personalities and 
 left the 2^nrely rational element. In 
 like maiuier, civil society, with its 
 laws and usages, has sifted out the 
 selfishness from the individual before 
 his results reach the community. 
 The wrath of man is turned into 
 
 praise ; the selfishness, the greedy 
 avarice, the ambition of the individ- 
 ual, forces him to labor and toil he- 
 roically for the community in order 
 to gain those selfish ends. The indi- 
 vidual is therefore obliged to re- 
 nounce his selfishness in the very 
 act of gratifying it. The Christian 
 principle of Renunciation : " He 
 who loses his life for ni}- sake 
 shall find it," is here grown into the 
 vital organism of society ; and it is 
 well to note that the modern state is 
 only the outgrowth, tlie realization of 
 the Christian idea. So too is the 
 general system of inter-communica- 
 tion established in our civilization. 
 The newspaper and the telegraph 
 \vea\'e the net-work through which 
 the idiosyncrasies of selfish bigotr}', 
 opinions, conceits and prejudices, are 
 sifted out. Sectionalism and sec- 
 tarianism vanish before these instru- 
 mentalities, and with them disappear 
 the mists of ignorance. The distant 
 is brought near ; a kind of omni- 
 presence is attained. The mechanic 
 or common laborer goes to his daily 
 task after reading his morning news- 
 paper, with a consciousness of being 
 a citizen of the world at large ; he 
 revolves in his brain the rebellion 
 in China, the earthquake in Chili, 
 the movements of French and Prus- 
 sian armies, the Council of the Pope, 
 and the last sermon of Brigham 
 Young. Narrowness and meanness 
 are thus eliminated from him, and he 
 becomes a cosmopolitan, a Christian 
 in the most catholic sense of that 
 term. 
 
 In our time each family collects its^ 
 librar}^, counting, it may be, few 
 books, yet these are not insignificant. 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 A few volumes of Humboldt, or 
 Agassiz, or even of Hugh Miller, 
 open the world of natural history. 
 Shakspeare, Goethe or Homer — a 
 single volume of the works of these 
 world poets is enough to lead the 
 reader into the realm of Phantasy. 
 Grote, Gibbon, or Hume — whoever 
 reads them thoroughly, need not blush 
 for ignorance of Historj-. Then every 
 fomily owns a Bible, and it is remark- 
 able that the colloquial English — the 
 vocabulary of our language used in 
 common conversation — is to a large 
 extent the same as that used by the 
 translators of the Bible. This fact 
 shows ho\v constantl}- the people have 
 read that book. 
 
 What is the key to the library? 
 What preparation is indispensable 
 for the individual, in order that he 
 may enter into this communion with 
 humanity, and participate witli the 
 wisest and best of his race, though 
 sundered far in time or space? The 
 -printed page is the medium^ and the 
 capacity to read and understand it 
 is the initiation required to enter 
 into this realm of spirit. Not the 
 mere ability to read the loords of a 
 page, but rather the ability to study 
 it, and extort from it its full signifi- 
 cance by the crucibles of attention 
 and reflection. 
 
 This is the meaning of our system 
 of "text book" education, and it is 
 adapted to the life which the indi- 
 vidual must lead in our century. We 
 give the pupil the conventionalities of 
 a perpetual self-education. With the 
 tools to work A\-ith — and these are the 
 art of reading and the knowledge of 
 the technical terms employed — he 
 can unfold indefinitelv his latent 
 
 powers. Of what use would it be 
 to fill or cram him with knowledge 
 of special departments of science 
 while in our schools? How much 
 better this power of getting in- 
 formation when and Avhere he needs 
 it ! The attemjDt to pour into him 
 an immense mass of information, by 
 lectui^es and object lessons, is ill adapt- 
 ed to make the practical man, after 
 all. Mert oral instruction is at best 
 like the fitting out of an emigrant train 
 with an immense supply of sawn 
 lumber, and a store of grain or flour 
 to last for 3'ears. Text-book educa- 
 tion, on the contrary, is like loading 
 the train with saw-mills and grist- 
 mills, steam engines and seed-planters 
 and reapers, with a view to make 
 lumber from the forests in the distant 
 home as it shall be needed, and to 
 gather harvests there by the aid of 
 the tools transported thither. 
 
 The LIBRARY of modern times is, 
 as we said before, .what the Univer- 
 sity was of old. In the library, and 
 by it, are made the learned men of 
 the present. The pride of Ame/ica 
 is her self-educated men. All our 
 educated men are in one sense self- 
 educated ; for we adopt here that sys- 
 tem of education which does not so 
 much pour in preconceived theories, 
 and fill up the mind of the pupil with 
 ready-made doctrines, as it trains him 
 in the method of mastering the 
 printed book. With the acquirement 
 of this — and sometimes an earnest 
 mind gets this in a few months at 
 school — -the pupil goes forth and car- 
 ries on his culture independently. 
 Who are our learned men, and how 
 much do they owe of their learning 
 to universities? Even in England, 
 
( 1" ) 
 
 who \v;ks it that wrote the greatest 
 History of Greece the world has pro- 
 duced as yet? Grote was a business 
 man, and had a slight school educa- 
 tion to start with ; but his volumes 
 ha\x' served tc> instruct the professors 
 of universities concerning the very 
 details of their own special theme ! 
 
 But the method of teaching? The 
 how to study? We are continually 
 told of the mere memorizing of the 
 words of a book, and of its evil effect. 
 Tiiere are, it must be confessed, large 
 numbers of teachers whose teaching 
 is little better than the lifeless revolu- 
 tion of a treadmill. Their influence 
 in keeping the profession of teaching 
 at a low grade of estimation in the 
 community, cannot be counteracted. 
 Whatever thcv do is in the style of a 
 half-learned trade. They " keep 
 school," or the "school keeps them," 
 and know nothing outside of the 
 book — no, not e\'en that — they do not 
 know what is in the book unless it is 
 open before them. Such teachers 
 are, however, eminent in one tiling, 
 to-wit : dogin:itism. They crush out 
 every spark of originality in their 
 pupils to the extent of their ability. 
 Since they do not readi'y command 
 the respect of their pupiis, they en- 
 deavor to excite their fear. They 
 are apt to become cowardly and cruel, 
 oppressing the weak, but obsequious 
 toward the powerful. These men 
 bring odium on the very name of 
 pedagogue. They are instanced 
 by the enemies of our system as the 
 necessary results of text-book instruc- 
 tion. It is supposed by many that 
 these are the proper representatives 
 of what we consider the true stand- 
 ard of pedagogy. It is supposed that 
 
 the American ideal of tcachinj^ is 
 found in the teacher who sits behind 
 the desk and asks printed questions 
 of the pupils, one after another, and 
 requires the literal answer as? it is 
 printed in the book, no variation be- 
 ing allowed ; that no explanation is 
 made by the teacher, and no pains 
 taken to ascertain whether the pupils 
 understand what they repeat verbatim. 
 With such a view of our system it is 
 not surprising that Europeans liavc 
 hitherto cared but little to look into 
 it for a deeper and truer idea. They 
 have supposed that all the evils would 
 vanish at once if our teachers only 
 adopted a different s\stem — the oral 
 method. 
 
 A moment's reflection will convince 
 one that the treadmill teacher who 
 "I'eads no more than what he teaches," 
 would be vastly more injurious to the 
 pupil were he not tethered to a text- 
 book. To what extremities liis ignor- 
 ance and d(jgmatism would lead can 
 not be readily conceived by those vvha 
 are not old enough to remember the 
 oldest fashioned school of this coua- 
 try. Those who do remember that 
 school have a vivid recollection of 
 what dogmatism was in the days be- 
 fore text-books had come into frequent 
 use. 
 
 The evils of the text-book system, 
 great as they are, are not to be com- 
 pared with those of the oral method. 
 Even by the niemorizhig- plan the. 
 pupil is obliged to concentrate his- 
 attention and arouse himself to hard^ 
 work, while by the oral method he 
 does not acquire the habit of regular 
 systeniatic stud\', even though he may 
 foster l:>rilliant, flashy habits of mind. 
 The tri'.e mode of teaching- does not 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 rely upon the memory nearly so much 
 as the object lesson system. The 
 recitation is consumed in analyzing 
 and proving the lesson so as to draw 
 out all its relations and implica- 
 tions. The child shall see what it is 
 while reading a book to have every 
 fiiculty awake, and to notice all that 
 is contained directly and indirectly in 
 it. After the first lesson the pupil 
 does not skim over the mere surface 
 so confidently. He knows that the 
 teacher will ask more of him. He 
 learns gradually to dive for the hidden 
 essences, and reproduce from the text 
 the whole idea which lived in the 
 author's mind. The parrot repetition 
 is checked — the good teacher, will 
 have none of it ; the nooks and cor- 
 ners must be all investigated — every 
 possible view implied in the lesson 
 •dragged out and discussed before the 
 class — and thus the pupil is transform- 
 ed into a student who possesses the 
 alchemy to convert dead parchment 
 into sibylline leaves ; and, by the spell 
 of mental discipline, to cause the old 
 enchanter who wrought the characters 
 that conceal his thoughts in the niys- 
 terious vesture of winged words, again 
 to stand before him and reveal his 
 secret. 
 
 Self-determination — the direction 
 of one's own practical endeavor — this 
 I know to be the object aimed at in 
 our schools, not only in the theo- 
 retical spheres, but in the sphere of 
 the Will. He is not counted a good 
 teacher who flogs his pupils into good 
 behavior; for all know that such 
 good behavior upoji cofistraint is not 
 permanent. The " form of Eternity" 
 is a self-related one. The teacher 
 who elevates his pupils to a feeling 
 
 of their own responsibility, is the one 
 that all value. Under him pupils 
 feel that it is a disgrace to allow any 
 one to govern them except them- 
 selves, and accordingly they take the 
 matter into their own hands, and be- 
 come free by acting like freemen. 
 This feeling of responsibility is so re- 
 markabl}^ developed in our population 
 that it attracts the first attention of 
 foreigners who visit our shores. It is 
 observable that children, even in 
 earliest infancy, do not rest in that 
 perfect feeling of security which 
 comes from implicit trust in outside 
 protection. The necessity for self- 
 . help makes its wa}^ into the conscious- 
 ness of the child before it can fairly 
 walk alone. 
 
 The immense weight of responsi- 
 bility which oppresses the individual 
 causes this influence to descend hered- 
 itarily to the children. Indeed, an 
 edict ha'- gone forth to the New 
 World ii our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence : "Woe unto that head 
 which cannot govern its pair of 
 hands." Unto the lower races who 
 fail in this, it reads the sentence : "If 
 you cannot direct your own hands by 
 your own intelligence you only en- 
 cumber the ground here, and can re- 
 main by sufterance in this place only 
 so long as land is cheap. You must 
 move back into the wilderness, like 
 the Indian, or else absorb our culture 
 and become intellectually productive, 
 or else — die out. This is the judg- 
 ment pronounced by the Anglo Saxon 
 upon the lower races. It seems cruel 
 — nay, the crudest edict ever pro- 
 claimed by a civilized race. It is not 
 the way of the Spaniard : the 
 Frenchman can sfet along- with infe- 
 
( 1^ ) 
 
 rior races ; the Spaniard can actually 
 mingle with lower races and lose his 
 identity. But the rule with the An- 
 glo Saxon is otherwise. He does 
 not esteem mei-e life — animal life as 
 such — worth preserving. It is onlv 
 intelligent — rational — life that is sa- 
 cred. But with this cruel alternative 
 he offers to the lower race the highest 
 boon as reward for his efforts in self- 
 culture — lie offers him free participa- 
 tion in the freest and highest civil 
 communtity. 
 
 Thus it is that the period of school 
 education is so much more important 
 in America than elsewhere. As a 
 simple creature of habit — with such 
 education as one derives from the 
 family nurture alone — a man stands 
 a poor chance of being highly valued 
 here. Only in proportion to his di- 
 rective power, is he likely to obtain 
 recognition. We can xnakc^. machine 
 that will perform mere mechanical la- 
 labor — one steam engine can do the 
 work of a thousand men. The activity 
 of our citizens is perforce turned into 
 higher channels. The workman in his 
 shop is known to be an American by 
 his quick comprehension of the ma- 
 chinery over which he is placed. He 
 
 not only studies to improve the prod- 
 uct, but to improve the machine that 
 makes the product. It is the age of 
 comprehension. The back-woods- 
 man can read Plato and Aristotle — 
 it has been done by hirn. The me- 
 chanic can master La Place and 
 Newton. It has been done. Even 
 an American lady, resident in Low- 
 ell, Massachusetts, threaded all the 
 intricate mazes of La Place's Ale- 
 chaiiiquc Celeste. What lofty goals 
 beckon on the American youth ! 
 What teachers we need for the work 
 of their instruction I Not the cramp- 
 ing, formalistic pedants who stiff* all 
 enthusiasm in the souls of their pu- 
 pils, but true living teachers are 
 needed. 
 
 The model teacher is a student 
 himself, and because he is growing 
 himself, he kindles in his pupils the 
 spirit of growth — tree from narrow 
 prejudices, his very atmosphere dis- 
 enthralls the youth entrusted to liis 
 charge. Animated by a lofty faith, 
 all his pupils reflect his steadfastness 
 and earnestness, and learn the great 
 lesson of industry and self reliance — 
 thus preparing themselves for the life 
 of free men in a free state. 
 
 WE PROPOSE TO PUBLISH A 
 
 Series of Educational Documents in this Form, 
 
 For the use of Teachei's and School Officers, 
 
 Price $3.00 per hundred, or 5 cents each for a less number. Enclose 
 stamps to pay postage. Address, 
 
 WeF;lerii FiiWisMog anil School FiirnisMiii Comiiaiii, 
 
 708 and 710 Chestnut Street, ST. LOUIS. 
 
5 
 
 OF 
 
 ARITHMETICS 
 
 / 
 
 '^ HE GREAT MERITS OF THESE BOOKS CAN BE APPRECIATED BY 
 V^l) those only who have used them, and witnessed the rapid and thorough 
 '?^^ scholarship invariably secured by their use. They are without a superior, 
 S5^ and, we think, with -ut a rival, in the following particulars : 
 
 1st. In brief, clear, accurate definitions. 
 
 2nd. In exhaustive statement and varied illustration of principles. 
 
 3rd. In concise and ri'jid demonstrations. 
 
 4th. In brief, practic .1 rules. 
 
 5th. In logical arrangement of subjects. 
 
 6th. In a careful observance of the distinction between the subjects of great and 
 those of minor importance. 
 
 7th. In their thorough treatment of important, and their excellent epitome of minor 
 subjects. 
 
 Sth. In their constant reference to general principles in the solution of problems. 
 
 9th. In their carefully selected examples illustrative of every principle, 
 loth. In their clear analytical outlines for the solution of everv class of problems, 
 nth. In their rigid deduction of rules from solutions based on the principles 
 
 enunciated. 
 12th. In tbiir regular and thorough reviews. 
 
 For th .bove reasons these books were introduced into the following St. Louis 
 Educatio' Institutions in the year 1S65, and have been used in them ever since : 
 
 Washington University, 
 
 Bonham's Seminary, 
 
 AND TJIE 
 
 St. Louis Public Schools. 
 
 In the last named schools they were not used during the year 1S6S, but have been 
 since, and are now being used. 
 
 Copies for examination and introduction will be sent by addressing 
 
 MADISON BABCOCK, 
 
 *A(/e;>t 0/ Cir^S. SCRISJYBTi & CO., 
 
 708 and 710 Chestnut Street, 
 lo Q ST, LOUIS, MO. 
 
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