UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 A REPLY TO 
 
 nir ( f 0!tii!ioit-^ff d |jratiflit. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF 
 
 The North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association. 
 
 '
 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 Our Common School Education. 
 
 REPLY TO PRESIDENT B. A. HINSDALE, 
 WITH 
 
 A Brief Sketch of the History 
 
 OF 
 
 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN AMERICA. 
 
 .A.:tT:E>:R. T, ^ic^oorrr, 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CLEVELAND. 
 
 
 
 ' /PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE NORTH-EASTERN 
 TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 CLEVELAND, O: 
 
 LEADER PRINTING COMPANY, 146 SUPERIOR STREET. f 
 
 1877.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IT having been understood that President HINSDALE had some severe 
 strictures to make concerning the graded common schools of the day, he was 
 invited to read a paper on the subject at the meeting of this Association which 
 was held December 9th, 1876. The address was listened to with great 
 interest; and though there were few, if any, who adopted his views, a copy of 
 the paper was solicited for publication. It was generally felt that the Presi- 
 dent had made the strongest possible presentation of the floating criticisms of 
 the day; and the way in which it has been received by the public, proves 
 that it is acceptable to those who hold views in anywise like his own. Cer- 
 tain it is, that his commentators have added little or nothing to his arguments 
 or repertoire of facts to sustain the position which he has taken. 
 
 The delay of this reply has been attributed by some to that timidity which 
 is naturally felt in attacking a strong antagonist; but it is believed that this 
 paper will show that the natural advantage of our position is so great that it 
 really requires no moral courage or forensic skill to defend it against any 
 arguments that have been or may be brought against it. The truth is, that I 
 hesitated greatly to accept the duty imposed on me by the Executive Committee, 
 because it seemed impossible for me to get the time necessary to make myself 
 certain as to the facts involved in the discussion, and to prepare such a paper 
 as might be acceptable to my highly respected associates. The result has 
 proved that my apprehensions were correct. I have been unable to prepare 
 my reply for the press till now more than^six months since its delivery. 
 
 Just here, and once for all, let me say that I shall aim to speak as an advo- 
 
 ^ cate for the best education of the people, and not as a partisan of the schools. 
 
 ^ I do not claim that the graded schools are perfect, or that they are as good as 
 
 ^ they can be made. It would be wonderful if mistakes were not made here as 
 
 v elsewhere in the affairs of men. I only claim that they are better than they 
 
 \4 have been at any previous period of their history, and what is still more 
 
 . encouraging, that they are rapidly improving. I might justly claim also that the 
 
 <vV improvement of the common schools and the establishment of the High and 
 
 Normal Schools have been mighty incentives and aids to the improvement of 
 
 rivate schools, academies and even colleges, but it is not necessary to raise 
 
 that question here, 
 
 I do not wish to be understood to deny that there have been good schools 
 in the past, for wherever there have been good school-masters there have 
 been good schools. From the first there have been men in New England and 
 in every State of the Union who have been good educators. They taught 
 
 4095J28
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 well whatever they attempted to teach; but the evidence which I shall submit 
 will show that they arose above the common level by the force of superior 
 manhood, and not by the aid of their surroundings. It would seem hardly 
 necessary to caution the reader against too wide a deduction from his own 
 limited experience. Because one's neighbor is an intemperate man, it is 
 hardly safe to say that intemperance is the habit of the community; so, if 
 one's schoolmaster chanced to be a good one, it is not certain that in the time 
 of his youth the education of the whole State was in good hands, or even that 
 good teachers were common. 
 
 One more paragraph and we are done with prefatory remarks. It does not 
 seem best to confine myself to a mere answer to Mr. HINSDALE. The evi- 
 dence of a few competent witnesses and a thorough refutation of his West 
 Point argument would be sufficient to meet every material point in his address. 
 But I shall avail myself of the opportunity to direct public attention to such 
 facts in the history of the common schools as may be of service in their 
 present and future management. The question, of overcrowding the course of 
 study being raised, it will be quite appropriate to show that that overcrowding 
 comes from the undue expansion of those branches which are honored with 
 the name of common school studies, not from the introduction of what are 
 styled the higher branches of education. Genera^ SHERMAN'S and Professor 
 CHURCH'S views on this subject, as quoted by President HINSDALE, are 
 superficial in the extreme.
 
 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 THAT the reader may be able to keep in mind the course of 
 Mr. HINSDALE'S argument, I shall, as I go along, present out- 
 lines of his discourse, under what seem to me appropriate heads. 
 I hope that they may be accepted as fair I certainly design 
 that they shall be. I shall aim to preserve as much as possible 
 the force and spirit of the original, to which the reader is 
 referred, if any point seems to be unfairly stated. 
 
 1. "In no country has the common school taken deeper root than in our 
 own." "Though we may not be equal to others in our liberal, technical and 
 art culture, we yield to none in our devotion to popular elementary instruc- 
 tion." 
 
 2. "Its influence" that is, of the common school system " in the promo- 
 tion of intelligence and prosperity in the Northern and Eastern States has 
 been rated so high, that every new State adopts it without question." (Quoted 
 by Mr. HiNSDALE from Dr. OILMAN.) 
 
 3. The common school system first appeared in Massachusetts. The 
 statute by which it was established is the germ of the American school system. 
 Dr. OILMAN is quoted as thus describing its essential features: "Local respon- 
 sibility, State oversight, moderate charges or gratuitous instruction; provision 
 for all, and not for the poor alone; and a recognition of three harmonious 
 grades: the primary school, the grammar school and the university." 
 
 4. The rapidity of growth is represented as remarkable. "The Massachu- 
 setts tree first overspread New England, where it became well-rooted more 
 than a century ago." "When emigration to the West set in, the tide bore 
 the school system along." "Cuttings from the New England tree were 
 thickly planted in the region of the Great Lakes, and in the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi as far south as the mouths of the Ohio and Missouri; they have been 
 carried over the Rocky Mountains and planted on the Pacific slope." " 'Our 
 public schools must be cheap enough for the poorest, and good enough for the 
 best,' has become the distinct aim and purpose of three-fourths of the States 
 and of the people of our Union."
 
 6 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 The present situation is thus stated : 
 
 " In our Centennial year our common schools constitute a highly complex 
 and differentiated, a vast and powerful system. " "In the towns and cities the 
 system has taken on a form especially complex and costly." "The statistics 
 of the system are overwhelming." "What is more, the expenditures are 
 increasing with surprising rapidity." Quoting Mr. FRANCIS ADAMS, Secre- 
 tary of the National Education League for England, it is said: " During the 
 twenty years expiring in 1870 the population had increased about seventy per 
 cent., and the aggregate amount expended for education had increa 
 six times the sum raised in 1850." " Well may the evolution of such a system 
 have required more than two hundred years." 
 
 In the outset I have to object to the history of the common 
 school as presented by President HINSDALE. From the above 
 sketch, with which he opens his paper, one would be led to be- 
 lieve that the development of the system had been a magnificent 
 and unobstructed progress from the time of the first settlement 
 of New England down to the present day. 
 
 Unfortunately for Mr. HINSDALE'S argument, and still more 
 unfortunately for our beloved country, his sketch is not his- 
 tory; it is only rhetoric. So late as fifty years ago the 
 schools of Massachusetts were little better than schools for 
 paupers. Up to within thirty-five or forty years, "cuttings from 
 the Massachusetts tree" were planted, not as schools for the 
 whole people, "cheap enough for the poorest and good enough 
 for the best," but as schools for the poor. If we may judge 
 from the way in which the early school laws were received in 
 Ohio and many other Western States, the common school, in- 
 stead of being welcomed and kindly cherished in its new home- 
 in the West, was treated as a tramp who begs his food from door 
 to door. 
 
 Advances in school legislation have been so rapid within the 
 last forty years, that, as Mr. BARNARD says : 
 
 "We are already accustomed to speak of the New England system of 
 public instruction as being parts of a well-ordered plan of education <. stall 
 lished long since and tested by time. * * * It is impossible for the great mass 
 of the rising generation to bear in mind the fact that our present arrangements 
 for education, such as they are in New England, are the creation of active 
 men still on the stage; and that those men themselves, in their early training,
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 7 
 
 had scarcely any other advantage than the unwilling school-boy of Shakes, 
 peare's Seven Ages. " * 
 
 This is an important point in the discussion of the prevailing 
 education of the day. Its bearing is so obvious that I take some 
 space to review the history of the schools in the New England 
 Colonies, and to set forth as clearly as possible their condition as 
 affected by legislation from the time of the Revolution to within 
 less than a generation ago. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 It is to be noted that the early history of education in New 
 England, as honorable as it may be, was not rendered especially 
 illustrious by the establishment and liberal support of elementary 
 schools. It was to the education of the University that the 
 General Court of .Massachusetts gave its first attention. To Har- 
 vard College, founded only sixteen years after the first settlement 
 of the colony, fell the mites of the poor, the benefactions of the 
 rich, and the appropriations of the State. Nor is this strange. 
 At home they had not been accustomed to the thought of an 
 education of the whole people. The great universities and the 
 endowed grammar schools f England had been created for the 
 education of the clergy and the higher classes. It was natural 
 that the colonists should give their attention to the building up of 
 such kind of schools as they had been accustomed to, that they 
 should aim to perpetuate that learning with which their leaders 
 were familiar. It was not to be expected that their notions of 
 popular education should run much higher than that of the people 
 from whom they had just separated themselves, among whom the 
 opinion prevailed that the education of the masses, beyond a 
 limited ability to read and write, was not necessary for their 
 happiness, nor indeed for the best interests of the State. 
 
 It was therefore several years after the General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts had donated 400 for the building of a "college or 
 school," that the "classic statute" was passed, whereby it was 
 ordered that " in every town of fifty householders " one should be 
 appointed "to teach all such children as shall resort to him to 
 
 * Educational Services of Edward Everett, American Journal of Education, Vol. VII. 
 page 325.
 
 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 write and read," and that "where any town shall increase to the 
 number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set 
 up a grammar school,* the master thereof being able to instruct 
 youth as far as they may be fitted for the University," that is, in 
 the Latin and Greek languages.! 
 
 Let it be observed, that well defined and high qualifications 
 were exacted of the master of a "Grammar school," but that for 
 the lower schools it was only required that " one within the town " 
 should be appointed "to teach all such children as shall resort to 
 him to write and to read." 
 
 We have not time to trace the history of education from 1647, 
 the date of the "classic statute" which President GILMAN calls 
 the "germ of the common school system of New England," down 
 to the Revolution, a period of about one hundred and thirty years. 
 Though there were some distinguished schoolmasters in those 
 days, we can nowhere find that the town "grammar" school 
 was a very strong or flourishing institution. So far as we can 
 ascertain, most of the boys who entered college, even from an 
 early period, were prepared by private tutors, generally ministers 
 of the gospel. 
 
 The lower schools, during this period of a hundred years or 
 more, are almost lost sight of. It is* only in the biographies of 
 men who lived at the time, that we catch occasional glimpses of 
 a succession of summer and winter schools ; and as they appear 
 in this way, we find little to commend in them. Descriptions of 
 them, as they existed in the early part of the present century, are 
 doubtless as true of those of any preceding period. 
 
 At times the common education of the people was at a very 
 low ebb. Notwithstanding the stringency of the laws requiring 
 
 * A grammar school was then understood to be a school in which the Latin and Greek 
 languages were taught. So late as the time of the establishment of the Phillips Academy at 
 Andover, (1777,) we learn that nothing else was taught in these schools. They were designed 
 solely for the preparation of boys for college. 
 
 t There can be no question that in this very early day these languages were taught better 
 than they have been at later periods, though at the present time there is a considerable 
 revival in this respect. In that day Latin at least was taught as a living language. In 
 Greek the requirements were much less than they now are. The conditions for admission to 
 Harvard College required by President DUNSTP.R, for the year 1642, were as follows: 
 
 "Whoever shall be able to read Cicero or any other such like classical author at sight, 
 and correctly, and without assislance to speak and write Latin in prose and verse, and to 
 inflect exactly the paradigms of Greek nouns and verbs, has a right to expect to^be admitted 
 into the College; and no one may claim admission without these qualifications."
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 9 
 
 under severe penalty an education so limited, the public records 
 of 1690 and many years thereafter show that " writing was by no 
 means a universal accomplishment, even within the narrow limits 
 of the ability to write one's own name." * 
 
 Shortly after the Revolutionary war the condition of affairs was 
 somewhat better, but a quarter of a century thereafter it had 
 become worse than at any previous time. 
 
 But it matters very little, in the present inquiry, to know by 
 what measures the colonies sought from time to time to recover 
 the spirit and fulfil the intent of their early laws. It is only 
 necessary for us to know that though the cause of popular educa- 
 tion may have moved forward at times, the general tendency was 
 downward. We shall therefore close this review by submitting 
 the testimony of three men as to the general condition of the 
 the schools in New England very little more than a single genera- 
 tion ago. 
 
 The witnesses are men of culture, and "exceptional opportu- 
 nities for observation." Mr. GEORGE B. EMERSON, a graduate of 
 Harvard in 1817, appointed in 1821 the first master of the 
 English High School in Boston, in 1842 the author of a work 
 entitled "The School Master," which was distributed gratuitously 
 throughout the States of Massachusetts and New York by tens of 
 thousands of copies, an active teacher down to 1855, and to-day 
 one of the most honored men of Boston, is certainly a competent 
 witness. Mr. BARNARD needs no introduction. His name is a 
 familiar word to American teachers, and so with Mr. MANN who 
 is said to have infused that fresh life of which Mr. PEABODY 
 speaks as already " petrifying and petrified." 
 * Mr. EMERSON, in a "Lecture on Education, Legislation and 
 History," delivered before the Lowell Institute, February i6th, 
 1 869, speaking of the period which followed the establishment of 
 the Phillips Academy at Andover, says : 
 
 "The common schools and the town grammar schools continued lo decline. 
 In the busy world of Massachusetts, men of ability found more profitable 
 employment; and the great truth was not yet discovered that women, as 
 teachers, managers and governors of boys even up to jnanhood, are often 
 gifted at least as highly as men." * * * 
 
 ; Report of 1876, by Hon. B. G. NORTHROP, Secretary of the Board of Education of the 
 State of Connecticut.
 
 10 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 "Academies and private schools grew more numerous; sometimes endowed 
 by public-spirited individuals, sometimes by grants of land from the State, 
 often by both, and usually supported in part by fees from the students. In 
 1834 there were more than nine hundred and fifty of these schools.* Those 
 under the supervision of resolute, judicious men, who knew the value of good 
 teaching and how to secure it, and sometimes others, which by a fortunate 
 accident or a gracious Providence had good teachers, flourished. Hut the 
 greater number were very poor schools; so also were most of the town schools; 
 and the belief and conviction that most of the common schools were wretch- 
 edly poor became, except amongst the most ignorant of the teachers them- 
 selves and the most benighted of the people, almost universal." 
 
 "The laws which we have noticed now became burdensome to the people 
 of Massachusetts. In 1789 a new law was passed which was a wide departure 
 from the original law. Instead of the continuous session of the schools |.n> 
 vided for towns of fifty families, a session of six months only was demanded. 
 The number of grammar schools previously required was reduced one-half: 
 that is, one for two hundred families, instead of one hundred as before. It 
 was not long before the Assembly stepped in again to relieve the towns of 
 their burden." 
 
 "In 1824, by an act facetiously called 'An net |>m\iding for common 
 schools,' the law of 1789 was repealed; and for all towns of less than five 
 thousand inhabitants, instead of a master of 'good morals, well instructed in 
 the Latin and Greek and English languages,' a teacher or teachers must be 
 provided ' well qualified to instruct youth in orthography, reading, writing, 
 arithmetic, English grammar and geography, and in good behavior.' 
 
 The consequences are thus pointed out by Mr. KMKRSON: 
 
 "This act was the severest blow the common school system ever received, 
 not only because it shut from the poor children of all but a few towns the 
 path which had always laid open to the highest order of education, but 
 because it took away a fixed standard for the qualifications of teachers, and 
 substituted no other in its stead." * * * "The candidate for office of teacher 
 being released from the necessity of an acquaintance with the learned lan- 
 guages, which in most cases implied a certain degree of cultivation and 
 refinement, and amenable to no rule measuring the amount of mere elements, 
 which only were required, was too often found to be lamentably deficient even 
 in them." 
 
 "The effect of lowering the standard of instruction in the public schools 
 became to attentive observers every year more apparent. For a time the 
 better qualified teachers continued in the service, but they were gradually 
 supplanted in many places by persons who, from their inferior qualifications 
 were willing to do the work for a lower compensation." 
 
 * The population of the Slate, (Massachusetts, )as shown by the census of 1830, was hardly 
 four times as great as the present population of Cleveland.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. II 
 
 If further proof of the deterioration of the common schools of 
 Massachusetts be necessary, it will be found in abundance in the 
 earlier reports of HORACE MANN, the first Secretary of the Board 
 of Education of that Commonwealth. Speaking of this deterio- 
 ration, he says : 
 
 " Under this silent but rapid corrosion it recently happened (1836) in one 
 of the most flourishing towns of the State, having a population of more than 
 three thousand persons, that the principal district school actually run down 
 and was not kept for two years." (Page 50, First Annual Report.) 
 
 In the biography of Mr. MANN, it is said: 
 
 "In Massachusetts the common school system had degenerated in practice 
 from the original theoretic views of the early Pilgrim Fathers. Common 
 and equal opportunities of education for all was the primitive idea of those 
 men who had been so signally made to feel how unequally human rights were 
 shared. The opportunities, unparalleled in the world's history, which the 
 establishment of thfe Federal Union had opened to all classes of men to obtain 
 wealth, had caused the idea to be nearly lost sight of, and the common 
 schools had been allowed to degenerate into neglected schools for the poorer 
 classes only." 
 
 As an instance of the apathy of the people in regard to com- 
 mon schools, we may quote still further from the Life of HORACE 
 MANN an account of a Convention held in the city of Salem in 
 1837, pages 91 and 92: 
 
 " One gentleman, who made one of the first speeches, questioned the expe- 
 diency of endeavoring to get the educated classes to patronize public schools. 
 He spoke, he said, in the interest of mothers who preferred private schools 
 for their children; and he believed the reasons that they had for this would 
 always prevail; they would have their children grow up in intimacies with 
 those of their own class." 
 
 In his diary, and in numerous letters to Mr. COMBE, Mr. MANN 
 presents for nearly every town he visited the same dark picture. 
 Everywhere he met a degree of apathy or open opposition suffi- 
 cient to discourage any one who had not within him the spirit of 
 a hero. 
 
 The early history of education in the State of Connecticut was 
 almost identical with that of Massachusetts. In 1650, three years 
 after its enactment by the Court of Massachusetts, the " classic 
 statute" was adopted by the State of Connecticut in almost the
 
 12 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 same, if not the very words of the original. Step by step these 
 two States kept pace with each other in almost steady retro- 
 gression till after the Revolution. Shortly after the war had 
 closed, Connecticut became possessed of a considerable school 
 fund from the sale of public lands in the Western Reserve, and 
 relying exclusively upon this for the support of her schools, she 
 began to fall behind her sister State, or I should say rather to 
 pass her in the steep descent. In his Centennial Report already 
 referred to, Mr. NORTHROP says : 
 
 " The multiplication until about 1840 of academies and of select schools, 
 more or less permanent, for teaching branches now universally taught in the 
 public schools, gives clear indication of the inferiority and the unsatisfactory 
 condition of the common schools." 
 
 Mr. BARNARD, in his Journal of Education, page 154, vol. V., 
 speaking of education in Connecticut, says : 
 
 " Private schools not only for the higher branches of an English education, 
 and for preparation for business or college, but for tfce primary studies, were 
 established in every town and society and liberally supported, not only by the 
 rich and educated, but by many who could only afford to do so by making 
 large sacrifices of comforts and almost the necessaries of life, rather than to 
 starve the intellect and impoverish the hearts of their children. Taxation for 
 school purposes had not only ceased to be the cheerful habit of the people, 
 but was regarded as something foreign and anti-democratic. The supervision 
 of the schools had become in most societies a mere formality, and the system 
 seemed struck with paralysis." 
 
 In the History of Education in RHODE ISLAND, by THOMAS 
 WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, it is said: 
 
 "The public school system of this State dates back, as distinctly as can be 
 the case with any institution, to the labors of one man." 
 
 JOHN ROWLAND, successively a barber, a soldier under 
 WASHINGTON, Treasurer of the first Savings Bank in Provi- 
 dence, President of the Rhode Island Historical Society, and a 
 member of the Mechanics' Association in 1789, began to work 
 for the establishment of a common school system through the 
 agency of the Association last named. His efforts were partially 
 successful. A law establishing a common school system was 
 enacted, but except in the city of Providence, the law met with 
 the most determined opposition throughout the State; the whole
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 13 
 
 measure was virtually defeated by non-enforcement, and the law 
 itself was repealed at the February session, 1803.* 
 
 On page 23, Mr. HIGGINSON says : 
 
 " For twenty-five years after the defeat of JOHN HOWLAND'S enterprise, 
 Rhode Island had no public school system even on paper." 
 
 In 1828 a "school act" was finally passed, and the machinery 
 of the common school system was slowly put in motion. How 
 tardy were the blessings which had been expected may be judged 
 by remarks made in the State Assembly of 1843, by Mr. UPDIKE, 
 on the introduction of a bill " to provide for ascertaining the 
 condition of the public schools in this State," etc. Mr. UPDIKE 
 stated boldly that 
 
 "The free school system, as it existed, was not a blessing to the State, 
 except in the city, of Providence, and possibly in a few other towns where 
 a similar course was pursued. * * Our teachers come from abroad, are 
 employed without producing evidence either of moral character or their fitness 
 to teach, remain in the schools two or three months, and within twenty-four 
 hours of the close of the month are gone to parts unknown. " 
 
 At the next session of the Assembly, in 1845, Mr. UPDIKE 
 said : 
 
 " There is a wide-spread dissatisfaction with the schools as they are; with 
 the inefficient manner in which the system is administered; with the shortness 
 of time for which the schools are kept, although they are quite long enough, 
 unless they can be kept by better teachers," etc., etc. 
 
 What the causes of this neglect of the primary schools may 
 have been, it does not concern us to inquire at any length ; but 
 the mention of one at least may not be without service. The 
 early settlers brought to America the class distinctions which 
 existed in the mother country.! The interests of those who 
 looked to a university education as essential for their boys, were 
 soon separated from the interests of the lower classes, especially 
 in the matter of education. The schools for the two classes, 
 except for children under seven or eight years of age, were not 
 
 * History of the Public School System of Rhode Island, by THOMAS WENTWORTH HIG- 
 GINSON, pp. 13-24. 
 
 t The Catalogue of Yale College was not arranged alphabetically, but in order of rank, 
 even down to 1773, only two years before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War.
 
 14 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 the same. The lower schools were in consequence neglected by 
 those whose care was essential to their efficiency in fact their 
 very life. In this day when the opinion appears to be growing 
 that the education of the laboring man should be confined to the 
 narrow limits of the "three R's," it may be of service to call to 
 mind that in America at least it is impossible to provide sepa- 
 rately for the education of people of limited means, and those of 
 the wealthier classes. The effort at this period of which we speak 
 as of later periods, was in vain. The education of both has 
 always suffered in common in this country. Especially has the 
 influence of the separation been fatal to the education of the 
 poor. As soon as the interest and patronage of the better 
 educated classes is withdrawn from the public schools, they must 
 go down.* The poor will not accept education as a gratuity from 
 the rich, unless provision be made for all alike. The common 
 schools cannot be made efficient unless it is to the personal 
 interest of the educated classes to make diem so. In public 
 education every class distinction must be obliterated save one 
 and that distinction is between the educated and the ignorant. 
 
 Testimony similar to, and in support of that which I have- 
 already submitted, might be swelled to volumes. The enactments 
 of Legislatures, and the reports of committees almost without 
 number, are full of evidence that the common school system, in 
 the first quarter or half of the present century, was not in New 
 England regarded as a system "cheap enough for the poorest, 
 and i^ood enough for the best," but that, as a system for the edu- 
 tion of the whole people, it had died of neglect and starvation in 
 its mother's arms, f 
 
 I have said that "cuttings from this New England tree" were 
 planted in other States as schools for the poor ; that they were 
 not received "without opposition," as President OILMAN states; 
 
 * For evidence of this fact the reader is referred to the earlier Reports of HORACE MANN, 
 to the discussions in the Proceedings of the Western College of \ . .N 1 ami 11. 
 
 pnlilishcd 1835 and 1836; to the Reports of the Superintendents of Schools for the States of 
 Pennsylvania and New York; to tin- experience of Virginia and every other Southern Si. it.-. 
 as shown in letters, speeches and public documents too numerous for me to note 
 
 t "The common school idea may have worked independently from other centers; * * * but 
 if Virginia be the mother of States and of statesmen, Massachusetts is the mother of schools. 1 ' 
 (Mr. HINSOAI.K'S Address, page 16.)
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 1$ 
 
 but that almost up to the time of the late Rebellion they met with 
 opposition bitter and protracted wherever the effort was made to 
 domesticate them in new soil. 
 
 As an introduction to evidence on this point, I find nothing 
 better than an extract from a speech of Hon. JAMES A. GAR- 
 FIELD, who till within a few months ago had his home under 
 the shadow of Hiram College, and who was a highly respected 
 predecessor of Mr. HINSDALE as the head of that institution. 
 
 While the Bill for the Establishment of a Bureau of Education 
 was pending in the House of Representatives, June 8th, 1876, 
 Mr. GARFIELD, who had introduced the bill said : 
 
 " Gentlemen tell us there is no need of this bill; the States are doing well 
 enough now. Do they know through what a struggle every State has come 
 up that has secured a good system of common schools ? Let me illustrate this 
 by the example of Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the early declaration of 
 WILLIAM PENN: 'That which makes a good Constitution must keep it, 
 namely, men of wisdom and virtue qualities that because they descend not 
 with wordly inheritance must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education 
 of youth, for which spare no cost, for by such parsimony all that is saved is 
 lost;' notwithstanding that wise master-builder incorporated this sentiment in 
 his 'frame- work of government,' and made it the duty of the Governor and 
 Council ' to establish and support public schools;' notwithstanding BENJA- 
 MIN FRANKLIN, from the first hour he became a citizen of Pennsylvania, 
 inculcated the value of useful knowledge to every human being in every walk 
 of life, and by his personal and pecuniary effort did establish schools and a 
 college for Philadelphia; notwithstanding the Constitution of Pennsylvania 
 made it obligatory upon the Legislature to foster the education of the citizens; 
 notwithstanding all this, it was not until i833-'34 that a system of common 
 schools, supported in part by taxation of property of the State for the common 
 benefit of all children of the State, was established by law; and although the 
 law was passed by an almost unanimous vote of both branches of the Legis- 
 lature, so foreign was the idea of public schools to the habits of the people, 
 so odious was the idea of taxation for this purpose, that even the poor who 
 were to be specially benefited were so deluded by political demagogues as to 
 clamor for its repeal. " 
 
 I would like to quote at length Mr. GARFI ELD'S eloquent 
 tribute to THADDEUS STEVENS, then a member of the House, for 
 the noble stand which he had taken in behalf of this law ; but lack 
 of space forbids us to do more than give a brief extract relating 
 to the proceedings of the State Legislature at its session held in 
 1835 =
 
 1 6 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 " Many members who had voted for the law had lost their nominations, and 
 others although nominated lost their election. Some were weak enough t<> 
 pledge themselves to a repeal of the law; and in the session of 1835 there was 
 an almost certain prospect of its repeal, and the adoption in its place of an 
 odious and limited provision for educating the children of the poor by them- 
 selves." 
 
 From the fact that the law was finally sustained, it might be 
 inferred that the common school system was at length established 
 without condition or danger of repeal, and that its blessings were 
 thenceforward to be enjoyed by the children of the rich and poor 
 alike. Three years thereafter it was submitted to the vote of the 
 districts whether they should accept the provisions of the law or 
 not; and although it was adopted by all without exception, in 
 1853, nearly twenty years afterward, the Superintendent of In- 
 struction, ANDREW G. CURTIN, reported : 
 
 'That the common school system had sadly disappointed the expectations 
 of its friends. The State appropriation being received, in many districts no 
 schools were opened, no teachers employed; the money was applied to th e 
 repair of township roads, or transferred to the pockets of the directors them- 
 selves as compensation for their official services; in others, schools were estab- 
 lished that were a mere burlesque on the cause of popular education; many of 
 the school-houses were fitter subjects for the consideration of grand juries than 
 for the purposes of their dedications. All who could afford it carefully with- 
 held their children from the common schools; in short, the system of public 
 instruction was rapidly becoming a by-word and reproach to the Common- 
 wealth." 
 
 EDUCATION IN OHIO. 
 
 Let us take a more particular view of common school educa- 
 tion in our own State. We shall find that it was no exception to 
 the general rule. 
 
 Though it was decreed in 1785 that one thirty-sixth part of the 
 public lands of the State should be reserved for the maintenance 
 of public schools within the State; though the great Ordinance of 
 1787 proclaimed that religion, morals and knowledge being essen- 
 tial to good government, schools and the means of education 
 should forever be encouraged; though the Constitution of the 
 State, adopted 1802, proclaimed that the means of instruction 
 should be forever encouraged by legislative provision; though 
 taxes had been levied for school purposes for many years; though 

 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 17 
 
 funds were accumulating by the sale of school lands and from 
 other sources, Mr. COGGESHALL, in his " History of the Common 
 Schools of Ohio," says : " There were no public schools in Ohio, 
 in 1837," that is, thirty-five years after the admission of the Terri- 
 tory to the rank and dignity of a State. (Barnard's American 
 Journal of Education, Vol. VI., D.. 86.) 
 
 Again, Mr. COGGESHALL, in a sketch of the Life of SAMUEL 
 LEWIS, the first Superintendent of the schools of the State, says : 
 
 " He began his work in the spring of 1837. * * * He found that, except in 
 Cincinnati, there were no schools in the State practically open alike to rich 
 and poor." Barnard's Journal, etc., Vol. V., p. 729. 
 
 In 1845, ejght years after the first effectual steps towards the 
 establishment of the common school, the first Teachers' Institute 
 conducted in Ohio was held in Sandusky by SALEM TOWN of 
 New York, and M. F. COWDERY and A. D. LORD of this State. 
 Mr. COGGESHALL says of this Institute : 
 
 " It was the result however of local rather than general interest; but that 
 a general interest in such opportunities for teachers was then imperatively 
 demanded, may be inferred from the fact that in many districts directors 
 forbade the teaching of any branches but reading, writing and arithmetic, and 
 that certificates were given to teachers who were pedagogues only because 
 school-keeping was easier for their muscular system than chopping wood." 
 (Barnard's Journal, Vol. VI., p. 90.) 
 
 Let us look into the volumes of " Transactions of the Literary 
 Institute and Western College of Professional Teachers" which 
 were published from 1834 to 1840. But before citing some of the 
 evidence which is to be found in these records, it may be well to 
 glance at a list of the committees of the association in which we 
 shall find striking proof of the low standing of those who were 
 then engaged in the instruction of the children of the people. 
 Out of twenty-four officers of State sections named on page 14, 
 Vol. I., nearly one-half were private school-masters, and most of 
 the others were lawyers, doctors or clergymen, not one, so far 
 as I can ascertain, was a teacher of the common schools. 
 
 The titles of addresses pertaining to the lower schools were 
 such as the following : " Report on the Best Method of Establish- 
 ing and Forming Common Schools in the West," by SAMUEL 
 LEWIS ; " On Elevating Public School Teachers,''' by Dr. JOSEPH
 
 1 8 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 RAY, etc., etc. A few lines from President MONTGOMERY'S Essay 
 "On the Importance of Education," Vol. III., page 153, will show 
 the spirit of many of the papers which were read before the 
 College : 
 
 " Failing in trade, bankrupt in business, even the spendthrift, all, every one, 
 from the highest to the lowest unsuccessful in his occupation, calculated to 
 repair his fortune in the school- master. Nay, the very sot reckoned on 
 replenishing the intoxicating cup with the gleanings of a country school." 
 
 Again, in an eloquent address at the close of the session of 
 1836, the Rev. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, referring to his experience 
 as a teacher about fifteen years before, said: 
 
 " Books without philosophy, and teachers without science or art, if they 
 were only at a low price, seemed to have the universal sway." Vol. III., 
 page 254. 
 
 But it is especially in a discussion on the examination of teach- 
 ers, held at the previous session, that we* find the most direct 
 and explicit testimony. During the discussion, EDWARD D. 
 MANSFIELD said : 
 
 "As an examiner of common schools, I have carefully examined their statis- 
 tics, and inquired into the manner in which they have been conducted. The 
 result of my investigation is melancholy. It has led me to the painful conclu- 
 sion that the college of the people, atjpresent, furnishes but little of what the 
 people ought to know. 
 
 "I have examined within the last twelve months, one hundred and fifty 
 applicants for the office of teacher. The requirements of the law are the 
 mere rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic; yet, sir, upon these simple 
 matters how many do we find deficient ! and are yet compelled to pass them 
 in some way, or deprive the country of its teachers. In many instances the 
 applicant requests us not to examine him very closely, for he has no scholars 
 beyond the Rule of Three! and consequently had no practice. There is 
 scarcely one teacher in ten in the country, who has thoroughly studied more 
 than the ground rules of this science. They are generally deficient in what a 
 teacher ought to know best the reasons of things. It will do for a judge to 
 decide without reasons; but a teacher cannot teach without showing the 
 reasons of rules. Repetition is not teaching. Nor is this all; the number of 
 those who cannot read wiih proper emphasis and pronunciation; or reading, 
 do not understand what they read- is lamentable." (Transactions of College 
 of Teachers, 1835, Vol. II., p. 170.)
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 19 
 
 The following are the remarks of Judge LOOKER on the same 
 occasion : 
 
 "These two things, sir, the want of a sufficient (support for the teachers, 
 and the inefficiency of the present modes of examining them, are altogether 
 inadequate to the wants of the rising generation; and, sir, in my opinion, they 
 are an injury to our country rather than a benefit; they are worse than 
 nothing. * * I have spent twenty years of my life in teaching, and have had 
 every opportunity of witnessing the low condition of our schools." (Ibid, 
 P- 167.) 
 
 Speaking of the incompetency of teachers, Judge LOOKER said : 
 
 " The compensation is so small as to prevent competent men from engaging 
 in this business.* . . . Why, sir, I have seen those who could neither read 
 to be understood by others nor themselves, employed to give instruction to 
 our children. This ought not to be. Every one will cry out against it; but 
 why do they not provide the remedy?" (Ibid, p. 166.) 
 
 Said one gentleYnan : 
 
 " I am called on to examine candidates for school teachers who are often 
 destitute of the very elements of education. A knowledge even of the multi- 
 plication table is not always to he procured; as for grammar and spelling, 
 these are even proud accomplishments, and we are glad to secure them." 
 (Ibid, p. 164.) 
 
 Were such things said to-day in our educational conventions, 
 as were then declared to be generally true over the greater part 
 of the State, there would be an indignant protest from lown and 
 city, because, of them, at least, they would be untrue. But on that 
 and similar occasions not a voice was heard in behalf of the 
 common schools. The testimony thus given against them was 
 recognized as being too true. 
 
 In the debates of the Legislature, shortly after, we hear the 
 same cry raised. At the session of 1838, Judge JOHNSON spoke 
 as follows : 
 
 " We are in the habit of calling ourselves the most enlightened, intelligent 
 people on earth; but after the developments of this evening respecting Prussia, 
 and even Russia, can we pretend that there is any good foundation for this 
 habitual self-applause ? * * * But what is, what has been, the state of common 
 school education among us ? I well remember when I used to wade three miles. 
 
 ' - just about what could be earned by working men on the farm, and lest than 
 could be earned by a respectable mechanic, and even this was thought to be good pay.
 
 20 OUR COMMON SCHOOL KDUCATION. 
 
 over my little knees in snow, to the district school. The population was sparse 
 and poor. Our school-house was built of logs, without glass windows, hut with 
 plenty of inlets between the logs for air and light. * * * Our teacher was a 
 good man and taught all he knew. But his attainments werr not ^reat. As 
 to astronomy, he never had an idea but that the earth was as flat as the plate 
 on which he ate his breakfast; and as to mathematics, the difference between 
 the numerator and denominator of a vulgar fraction, was a mystery of science 
 altogether beyond his depth." 
 
 If we turn to School Reports, which President HINSDALE 
 speaks of as self-laudatory, we meet with the same account of the 
 condition of the common schools. SAMUEL GALLOWAY, Secretary 
 of State, and ex-qffido Superintendent of Common Schools, said 
 in his annual report for 1845 
 
 "It is impossible even to conjecture what is the number or condition 
 of the school houses in Ohio: but it is more than probable that a faithful 
 description would embrace a grotesque scenery of broken benches, rock- 
 ing slabs, broken sashes, absent panes, gaping walls, yawning roofs, and 
 floors bowing without furniture, forcibly suggesting Falstaff's account of his 
 regiment: ' No eye hath seen such scare-crows. Tnere's but a shirt and a half 
 in all my company, and the half-shirt is but two napkins tacked together, and 
 thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves.' The contrast, 
 in reference to all other items, would b*> as unfavorable to us, as in that which 
 has been instituted." * * * 
 
 "Although education holds an acknowledged superiority, by the profession 
 of our people, and in intrinsic merit is unrivaled by any competitor, yet, it ha> 
 been exiled from an honorable companionship in the family of State interests, 
 and has been thrown out like a poor, despised foundling, half-clad and half- 
 fed, to beg for protection." (Doc. No. 33 Report of the Secretary of State 
 on Condition of Common Schools, pp. 502, 503.) 
 
 And again in the same document, speaking of the qualifications 
 of teachers, Mr. GALLOWAY says : 
 
 " Elevated and commanding as the talents and attainments of a teacher 
 ought to be, one obtains license to teach orthography, who replied to the 
 question 'Spell ocean,' that there were two ways of spelling it, 'otion and 
 oshion;' another who spelled 'philosophy,' 'filosefey,' and another who spelled 
 the common word 'earthly,' 'erthley.' Upon others were bestowed the 
 honor of teacher of arithmetic: one of whom could not tell how many cwt. 
 were in a ton; another who was ignorant of the multiplication table, and 
 another who could not tell the cost of nine cords of wood at $1.37^2 per cord. 
 Another was licensed to teach geography who, in reply' to the question, ' How 
 is Virginia bounded ?' answered, ' By Tennessee on the north and Maryland 
 on the east.' These are but a few of many specimens communicated by friends
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 21 
 
 of education as evidences of the kind and amount of qualifications tolerated in 
 some sections of our country." (Ibid, p. 511.) 
 
 But evidence in regard to the state of common schools in Ohio 
 only a few years ago may be drawn from other sources than 
 Examining boards, State Legislators and Superintendents of educa- 
 tion. We have the the testimony of the pulpit, which is as direct 
 and pointed as any that we have already submitted. In the 
 November number of the Ohio School Journal, published in 1846, 
 we find extracts from a sermon preached by the Rev. LEVERITT 
 HULL at Sandusky, during the session of the first Teachers' Insti- 
 tute held in this State, to which we have already referred. He 
 said: 
 
 "It is the sober conviction of men well qualified to judge, that the entire 
 system of select and high-schools* and academies, has been and is still greatly 
 defective, and never will accomplish what we so much desire. Their princi- 
 pal defects are these r in them, the first principles of a practical, sound and 
 thorough education are passed over or neglected. They rear a superstructure 
 without a foundation. But their great defect is, by their existence, the inter- 
 ests of district schools have been utterly laid waste, and the mass of the popu- 
 lation are left untutored and untamed. The general impression has been, any 
 body can teach a common school, because it is common, and no one expected 
 that the children who atttnd the district school could learn anything but evil. 
 Hence every district must have its select school, and no teacher qualified to 
 teach, would enter a district school. All who had money, and cared for their 
 children, or for the interests of education, ha'-e fostered the academy or select 
 school. " 
 
 We have also the testimony of teachers themselves. The fol- 
 lowing is taken from Vol. III. of the "Ohio School Journal," 
 published in 1849, under the editorship of Dr. A. D. LORD, who 
 for more than a quarter of a century was identified with every 
 great educational movement in this State. Dr. LORD thus intro- 
 duces the article from which we make a short extract : 
 
 " We copy from the 'Ohio Eagle' the following severe, but just and truth- 
 ful remarks on the condition of common schools in our towns and villages. 
 They are from the pen of an intelligent and faithful teacher of long expe- 
 rience and much observation: 
 
 h ' In the villages and towns there is a progressive deterioration, 
 according to the numbers of population, till, in places of from three to five 
 
 *He does not speak here of public high schools, for there were none at that date.
 
 22 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 thousand inhabitants, the schools are found to have reached a maximum of 
 degradation, so that human ingenuity could not possible render them more 
 superlatively contemptible. Hence our towns, and especially the larger ones, 
 instead of being centers of illumination, are points at which all the scattered 
 ray* of the intellectual darkness which pervades the surrounding commu- 
 nity are concentrated in foci of the intensest blackness.'" 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF VARIOUS STATES FROM 1853 TO 1858. 
 
 We have seen that the " cuttings from the New England tree," 
 which were " thickly planted by the Great Lakes and in the 
 Valley of the Mississippi as far south," etc., were only cuttings 
 from the stunted shrub which was to be found at the time in the 
 oldest of the North-eastern States. Let us next see what these 
 cuttings were, and how they grew in other States down to the 
 time of the civil war, when another kind of tree was planted in a 
 soil that had been enriched by the best blood of a noble people, 
 a tree under which poor and rich alike will gather for protection, 
 and whose leaves shall be for the healing of the nation. 
 
 In the report of the Superintendent of Education of ALABAMA 
 it is said : 
 
 "The melancholy reflection still obtrudes itself that three-fourths of the 
 youth of the state have hitherto gone without instruction entirely, or have 
 been crowded into miserable apologies of school houses, without furniture or 
 apparatus deserving the name, and still oftener, without competent teai-l> 
 * * * "Owls and bats are still employed to teach young eagles how to fly, 
 because they will work cheap." 
 
 ARKANSAS, so far as free school education is concerned, seems 
 to be a universal blank. In the " Education Year-book" of 1857, 
 we find a report of only forty schools in t,he state, with but thirty- 
 one teachers, with an aggregate of more than $100,000, current 
 expenses. In the following year, the Commissioner of Common 
 Schools is reported to have said : 
 
 "Considering the almost entire failure successfully to organize and establish 
 Common Schools in Arkansas, at present, I am inclined to l>clieve that the 
 interests of education would in the end, be promoted by a su.-ptnMon of the 
 sale of the public lands." 
 
 CALIFORNIA. The Superintendent says: 
 
 "We haw no free school tygteiH. It is true that cities are empowered, under 
 certain restrictions, to raise means, and to a certain extent, to maintain fiee
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 23 
 
 schools. The counties may or may not levy a limited tax to maintain schools, 
 but in some densely settled counties, no tax whatever has been levied for 
 school purposes." 
 
 CONNECTICUT. Under the able superintendency of JOHN D. 
 PHILBRICK, this state is treated of as hopeful, but when we learn 
 that the average wages of female teachers left them but $1.75 per 
 week, after their board of $2, 50 was paid, we may readily imagine 
 that the service they performed could not have been of a very high 
 grade. "Labor in the kitchen was, all things considered, more 
 remunerative, and indeed in the rural districts of that state, quite 
 as respectable." 
 
 LOUISIANA. So late as 1853, many directors, whose duty it 
 was under the law to examine teachers, signed orders upon the 
 treasury by making their "marks." In the "Education Year-book" 
 of 1858, it is said> 
 
 "For reasons thus indicated, the school system of Louisiana can scarcely be 
 said to be in successful operation. The Governor speaks of it as 'almost a 
 failure. ' The schools of one or two parishes in New Orleans were said to be 
 good." 
 
 DELAWARE. The record of the " Education Year-book " is, that 
 this State "has a school system organized wholly upon the plan 
 of free tuition for all the pupils, and a school within the reach of 
 every family," but the report of the Superintendent for the year 
 1855 represents the schools as in a "deplorable state." I have 
 neither space nor time even to summarize his specification of 
 faults, the greatest of which is gross ignorance among teachers 
 themselves. 
 
 GEORGIA. In 1854, this State distributed through her magis- 
 trates, $23,000, for the education of indigent children. This is 
 enough from which to estimate the educational advantages of the 
 poor whites of Georgia. 
 
 ILLINOIS. The average wages of male teachers, was $25 per 
 month, and of females, $12. There were over 4,000 schools in 
 the State and the amount paid for teachers' wages in 79 counties, 
 is reported to be $308,385, less than $4,000 per county, and less 
 than $80 per school.
 
 24 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 INDIANA. The "Education Year-book," of 1858, says: "The 
 cause of free schools is most emphatically in its infancy there," 
 and the Superintendent of Public Instruction speaks of the schools 
 as in a "transition state" but expresses high hopes of the future 
 though the number who could not read or write had, from 1840 
 to 1850, mounted up from 38,000 to 75,000, or nearly 100 per 
 cent., while the population had increased but 50 per cent, in the 
 same time. 
 
 KENTUCKY is well known to have had the most efficient system 
 of schools among the Southern States, but measured by any stand- 
 ard you please, they must have been inferior to those of the three 
 States lying on the other side of the Ohio River. Her school 
 officers have never confessed their inferiority, but having spent 
 three months in 1853 in traveling through the central and western 
 parts of the State, my own personal observation enables me to 
 say, that outside of the city of Louisville, there were no public 
 schools which were patronized by people" who could afford to 
 send to any other. 
 
 In 1856, the NEW ENGLAND schools had begun to feel some- 
 thing of the impulse which HORACE MANN had sought to give the 
 schools of Massachusetts, but which was resisted by the school- 
 master as long as he could resist how long and how successfully 
 can be ascertained by reference to the reports of the school vis- 
 itors of the city of Boston, in 1845, and the replies thereto which 
 the masters were goaded to make. But though the schools 
 had possibly begun to feel the shock, the States themselves 
 had done comparatively little for their better organization and 
 management so late even as 1856. It is true that valuable 
 agencies, such as Normal Schools, Teachers' Institutes, etc., had 
 been set to work, but their influence had not been felt to any con- 
 siderable degree, except in a few leading cities and in the more 
 intelligent districts which stood readiest to avail themselves of the 
 advantages of the times. 
 
 VIRGINIA. In this State, nine counties and two towns had 
 adopted free schools, that is, schools for rich and poor alike. In 
 117 counties and two towns, there were pauper schools for child- 
 ren of the indigent. If we need again that attention should be
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 25 
 
 be directed to the consequences of this separate education of the 
 poor and rich, we have it already stated in the speech of C. G. 
 MKMMINGER, Esq., on the occasion of inaugurating the common 
 school system at Charleston, South Carolina, July 4th, 1856. This 
 extract will serve also to inform us as to the condition of popular 
 education at the same time in 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA. He says : 
 
 "The fund," that is, for public education, "was small, and was entirely ab- 
 sorbed by the preferred class," (the poor.) "The rich were thus excluded, and 
 the benefit being confined to the poor, the schools degenerated into pauper 
 schools, and pupils and teachers descended to the grade at which they are now 
 found throughout the State. No one, unless urged by necessity, would accept 
 an education which could only be granted as a charity. The middling classes 
 of society were unwilling to stigmatize themselves by a declaration of pauper- 
 ism, and the result has been here, as everywhere else, that schools for the poor 
 have signally failed in the main objects for which they were instituted." 
 
 "Try the same experiment with any other educational institution, let it be 
 required that no young man shall find entrance into the South Carolina Col- 
 lege, but upon the declaration that his parents are unable to educate him. 
 Such a regulation would be fatal to its existence its whole tone and character 
 would be destroyed ; and if enough of those who could receive such a bounty 
 could be found to secure the continuance of the college, they would soon lose 
 consideration in the community, and professors and students would descend by 
 the same steps which the free schools of the State have taken." 
 
 PURPOSES OF THE FOREGOING HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
 The foregoing sketch of the history of the common school 
 system, as well as the statements of many witnesses as to the 
 actual condition of the schools up to a very recent date, are 
 submitted to show, 
 
 First, how inaccurate is the historical sketch with which Presi- 
 dent HINSDALE opens his paper. To establish this, however, 
 would be of very little importance; but by showing that he is 
 in error when he says " we yield to none in our devotion to popu- 
 lar elementary instruction ;" that his statement is exactly contrary 
 to fact when he says, in the language of Dr. GILMAN, "every new 
 State adopts it (the common school system) without hesitation;" 
 and that instead of being the " growth of two hundred years," 
 the present system, in all its essential features, is hardly fifty years 
 old, we go very far toward weakening confidence in every state
 
 26 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 ment which he makes. If he errs so greatly in regard to well- 
 known historical facts, what blunder is he not likely to make when 
 he confesses that he has only "meagre,'' "vague" and "uncer- 
 tain " data to rely upon 1 
 
 Second. I desire to show that the faults of the schools of our 
 times are owing in good part to the fact that the great majority of 
 teachers of the present day are the pupils of the teachers and 
 schools, such as have been described in the preceding pages. 
 
 Third. My purpose is to show that the enormous increase of 
 expenditures to which Mr. HINSDALE refers is the necessary 
 result of the rapid improvement which has been made in the 
 physical apparatus of education, and more than all else to a 
 growing feeling on the part of the people that they need educators 
 for their children, not mere da^ laborers. The wages of a 
 sculptor are higher than those of a quarryman. 
 
 But we are not yet through with this branch of our subject. 
 Our brief historical sketch is an account of the gradual sinking of 
 the common school education until it had, as Mr. MANN says, 
 "been nearly lost sight of." The testimony so far has related to 
 the general condition of education at successive periods one, two 
 and three generations ago, rather than to the working of the 
 schools themselves ; and our attention has been directed to the 
 moral and literary qualifications, or more appropriately disqualifi- 
 cations of the schoolmaster, and not to the quality of his teaching. 
 One would suppose this to be enough, for if the schoolmaster be 
 uneducated, how can he be an educator 1 "As is the teacher, so 
 is the school." But we have evidence still more direct. We 
 have the testimony of those who went to school a few years after 
 the Revolution, and in the early days of the present century ; 
 testimony in which we find a pretty full account of the better (?) 
 work which was done at those periods. But inasmuch as it is 
 intended to rebut the evidence of Dr. PEABODY, and to disprove 
 the avowals of President HINSDALE, it is no more than right that 
 we should place their testimony before the reader. 
 
 Let us then turn to the presentation of the case as made by our 
 critics.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 27 
 
 PRESIDENT HINSDALE QUESTIONS WHETHER WE ARE MAKING REAL 
 EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 
 
 I quote the first paragraph in which MR. HINSDALE turns to 
 question the educational progress of the day : 
 
 "In view of the foregoing facts, what wonder that we should contemplate 
 this great school system with a good deal of complacency ! What wonder 
 that we should conclude that, in the best sense of the word, we arc making 
 rapid educational progress ! With few exceptions, the teachers and other 
 school functionaries >ay we are, and the great public acquiesces with the 
 schoolmasters. With the exception of a few scarcely audible voices to the 
 contrary, there is a want of either the inclination or the courage to say' nay." 
 
 "The arguments urged to prove real progress in great degree are, increase 
 in the number, and improvement in kind of school houses, more and better 
 school apparatus and furniture, more teachers and higher wages. * These 
 
 premises do not legitimate the cenclusions. * * * The most important con- 
 ditions of education are not an excellent physical apparatus; they are compe- 
 tent and devoted teachers and eager pupils. 
 
 " But the eulogists of the popular system ** * claim a great improvement 
 in teachers, hooks and methods. Generally they pass lightly over the qualities 
 of the teacher, * * but they make up for their reticence en this point by the 
 stress they place on books and methods." "The part that the new methods 
 play in the current theories of education is something wonderful," etc., etc. 
 
 Here is the entire paragraph in which President HINSDALE 
 puts the main question : 
 
 " Let us then boldly ask: Is the quality of our common school education 
 improving? Be it noted, the question is not whether our school system has 
 been greatly extended, whether more children enjoy its benefits, whether it 
 more money, whether there are more and more learned teachers, or 
 whether the physical apparatus has been greatly improved no one thinks of 
 denying these propositions. Nor is it whether the common school pupil of 
 to-day is. taught more things than the common school pupil of fifty or t 
 hunded years ago, for that question is as undeniable as the others. But the 
 question is this: Whether we read and write, spell and cipher better than our 
 ancestors one, two or three generations ago." 
 
 The difficulties of the inquiry are recognized as follows : 
 "At the outset we encounter this difficulty: to find a common standard of 
 measure. There are but two methods of procedure. One is by means of 
 historical testimony, written or traditional, to determine the attainments of 
 former generations of pupils, and then to compare them with the attainments 
 of this generation. Such testimony, especially in a written form, is meagre, 
 not to speak of its vagueness and uncertainty. The other method is to take
 
 28 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 the opinions of those yet living who had cither by experience or tradition, 
 immediate knowledge of the instruction formerly given in tin school-,. " 
 Hut because the inquiry is difficult we should not shrink from it; rather, 
 using such methods as we have, let us essay the task." 
 
 DIRECT EVIDENCE IMPOSSIBLE. 
 
 Before hearing the testimony which Mr. HTN-PU.K submits as 
 a warrant for raising the doul>ts which he has here so boldly 
 expressed, it may be well to speak of the general nature of the 
 evidence which is within our reach. By way at once of argument 
 and illustration, we may refer to one of the branches in which 
 Mr. HINSDALE claims a deterioration of our common school edu- 
 tion. For instance: 
 
 Take the matter of spelling. What evidence has MR. HINSDALE 
 found to prove the inferiorty of our common school education in 
 this respect ? He says that he has given twenty years to the 
 study of this subject. Would he not have^bund some direct and 
 reliable testimony on this point if it were to be had? But he 
 offers none. Exemplifying the old adage, which we shall not 
 quote, he only asks the question, "Whether we do spell better," 
 etc. We have found some testimony for him on this point but, 
 as we shall see, it is not evidence. For instance : 
 
 We can find plenty of men, of scholarship and learning, who 
 will tell us that they think that spelling in the schools has dete- 
 riorated within the present generation ; but. twenty years ago, the 
 Rev. HEMAN HUMPHREY said the same thing and somewhere 
 about twenty years before that, HOKAO M \\\. \\IIII\M 11. 
 I-OUI.E and others expressed opinions to like effect, as to the 
 degeneracy of the schools in this impoiiant branch of learning. 
 Finally we come to NOAH WEP.STEK himself, who said : 
 
 "The introduction of my spelling-book, first published in 1 jS }, prodi 
 great change in the department <>l spelling, and from the infoiinatir.i 
 gain, spelling was taught with more care and accuracy for iv.tniy <>\ tm.ie 
 years after that period, than it has been since the introduction of multiplied 
 books and studies." 
 
 Thus we are carried back to within thirty years of the public a 
 tion of Johnson's Dictionary, the first standard of English orthog- 
 raphy.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 29 
 
 But in a serious inquiry as to the quality of our common school 
 education, what is such guess-work worth ? Is it possible that 
 spelling has been becoming worse and worse since within twenty- 
 five years of the very origin of spelling-books ? If it has, so much 
 the worse for the spelling-books and so much the worse for the 
 way spelling has been taught in the schools of the past. 
 
 It will be observed that each individual referred to only thinks 
 that there had been deterioration in spelling. Not one feels so 
 confident as to say flatly that it is so. Now is it not altogether 
 probable that the impression among adults that there are more 
 poor spellers among the young than there were when they were 
 young themselves, has grown upon them as they have become 
 more critical ? When they were faulty spellers themselves they 
 did not see the defect in others, but as they have improved by 
 practice, they begin to forget the mistakes of their youth. How- 
 unreliable such vague impressions are, especially regarding things 
 near and remote either in space or time, is well pointed out by 
 HERBERT SPENCER, in his "Study of Sociology." 
 
 Such is the only direct evidence we can get at, but "I think," 
 and "from the information I can gain," are not admissable as 
 evidence, unless the ground of the opinion or the information 
 itself is laid before the court. The only direct evidence which 
 could be of any worth would have to be obtained in some such 
 way as this : 
 
 If the spelling of adults were in question, we should have to 
 compare the spelling of large numbers of people of different 
 classes now living, with the spelling of a like number of people in 
 the same walks of life, one, two or three generations ago, Those 
 of to-day would have to be selected from districts widely separated 
 from each other, and so would those of the past. It would not 
 do to take a hundred or two, say from Providence, R. I., only, 
 and compare their orthography with that of their ancestors a 
 hundred years before, for Providence may be up to the general 
 standard of to-day, but might not have been then. 
 
 But it is not whether we spell better than our ancestors that 
 concerns us in this inquiry, for that would afford us no test of the 
 quality of the instruction now given in the best graded schools.
 
 3 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 The adults of 1877 were educated, the most of them at least, in 
 schools as they were taught by a former race of school masters.* 
 No, the comparison would have to be between the work of boys 
 and girls of to-day, and that of corresponding classes of boys and 
 girls fifty or a hundred years ago. Cities in different parts of the 
 country, and country towns where graded schools now exist, would 
 have to be drawn upon for the manuscripts of children of corres- 
 ponding ages in this and former days and the number of misspell 
 ings in each counted. It is only by such a spelling matt h of 
 generations that the improvement or deterioration of our schools 
 in this branch, could be established to the satisfaction of any 
 tribunal that had respect for its own reputation. 
 
 As we have said, direct evidence is impossible, and the very 
 ground for this statement is good proof that the pupils in the 
 graded schools of the Western Reserve, at least, are, at the 
 same ages better practical spellers than those of the schools 
 which Dr. Peabody says "did more for their pupils than is done 
 now." The impossibility of which we speak, arises not from the 
 fact that such manuscripts have not been preserved, but from the 
 fact that there never were any to preserve, certainly none in such 
 quantity as to justify any conclusion as to the comparative merits 
 of the schools of to-day and the schools of the past. 
 
 The truth is that the boy of a generation or two ago, even in 
 the best of schools, except, it might be, one in a thousand, did 
 no writing except a few lines in his copy book, and copy 
 one or two sums every day or two in his arithmetic manuscript 
 We have good reasons to believe that more manuscript work, 
 and hence more spelling was done last year in the city of Cleve- 
 land than was done in Boston during the entire first forty years of 
 the present century. 
 
 l'>v way of illustrating the very <|ueer mistakes which .ire often made by men of more 
 than ordinary culture when they come to speak of school education. I in.iy '|tiot- from a 
 lett.-r recently received from the Hon. K. K. WIMTH. President .if Piirdn 
 whose distinguished career .1, an nln. .itor in this State is well known to us all. Mr Win IK 
 
 "A few years since I heard a Cleveland editor. d, lament the decline in 
 
 spelling, and he sharply charged the result to modern methods of tr.u him; s|>rlling, and to 
 a general neglect of the subjt-i i in il schools II.- Mated, as an illustration, that he n 
 lawyer's briefs and political speeches, the spelling of which was v.-rv dis. ifdilabli-. H<- a^ 
 taken back and puzzled when I asked him, at the close of the In tun-, if most of these briefs 
 and speeches were not written by men forty years of age and upwards. He reluctantly 
 admitted they were, and of course thereby admitted thai the *|x.-lliiij; was the result of 
 former teaching or neglect. This was nearly twenty years ago.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 31 
 
 This may be circumstantial evidence, based on "grounds of 
 theory," if you like, Mr. President, but in the estimate of men of 
 practical common sense it will go far to prove that the pupils in 
 our schools are now taught the art of spelling to better advantage 
 than in the schools of the past. To teach spelling practically, 
 there is no way so effective as that of frequent practice in writing 
 with constant correction of errors in orthography. 
 
 From the fact that in addition to the oral spelling, which we do 
 not neglect, we require also the daily writing at dictation of long 
 spelling lessons, and the careful preparation of a great number of 
 papers in answer to written and printed questions, which are ex- 
 amined by teachers, and then re-written and corrected by the 
 pupils, no doubt can be entertained that our children have ten, 
 nay fifty times more practice in spelling than they did even in the 
 halcyon days of NOAH WEBSTER, to say nothing of the fact that 
 they, are taught by 'the only method that can make good spellers ; 
 and if an examination, such as I have indicated could be had, 
 there is no doubt that the boys and girls in our schools would 
 spell the common vocabulary better than those who have occu- 
 pied their places at the school desk at. any previous period in the 
 history of American education. 
 
 Before submitting testimony as to work which was really done 
 in the schools of the earlier days of the Republic, and down to 
 times which are only a little beyond the recollection of the 
 older pupils now in our schools, let us glance at the evidence 
 upon which Mr. HINSDALE depends to prove the inferiority of 
 our elementary instruction. 
 
 . In the first place, our attention is directed to the doubts of a 
 " considerable number of people who do not see that what the 
 schoolmasters tell them is true." Mr. HINSDALE continues : 
 
 " But the other day a lady, forming one of a company where this question 
 was raised a lady of much more than ordinary intelligence and character 
 said: "All I can say about it is, my children are not so far along with their 
 studies as I was with mine at their ages." A man has only to keep his ears 
 open, at most, to provoke frequent conversations on this subject, to learn that 
 the class who will give similar testimony is a large and respectable one. In 
 fact, while it is the understanding that we have been making great advances in 
 the quality of our common education, and while it takes some courage to say 
 nay, there is unexpressed a large amount of incredulity on this point, and a
 
 32 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 widespread dissatisfaction with the results of the popular system. Reference 
 is 1 it-re made chiefly to intelligent persons outside the teaching profession who 
 .In not make especial prelensions to culture. These persons may lie wniny, 
 but they are entitled to l>e heard." 
 
 ' In the second place, there is a class of highly mltuivd men, 
 some of them educators, who do not join in the paeans to the 
 prevalent system. On the contrary, they say Hie present result* are 
 inferior to the best results t>f a century ago. For example, the 
 Report of the School Committee of Cambridge, Massachusetts 
 for 1875, in a comparison of these results, sa\ 
 
 " ' There is n </so// In hrlirve that /HOIV ami lirltrr ('<//. was done by our schools 
 in the early days ;/' thf /,Vy</>/iY titan i's uc<-oi/i{>lixhed now.' 
 
 "'fhis report \\a> \\ntten ly Dr. A. I'. l'i . \i;nnv of Harvard College. 
 Again, in an address iK-livered before the Massachusett.s (on \cnt ion of 
 Teachers in January, 1876, hi. I'i.\i:m.\ returns to the subject, thus: 
 
 " 'The schools of former generations in New England, (in most other parts of 
 the country the common school is a very modern institution,) though by any 
 now recognized standard of comparison very far Bferior to the present, did 
 much more for their pupils than is done now. ' 
 
 "He says the former condition of things, its merits as well as demerits, has 
 become obsolete; still he 'believes it accomplished more for the fit education of 
 the citizens than is effected under the present regime.' This testimony, given 
 under the shadow of our oldest college, may be mistaken, but it cannot be 
 whistled out of the way." 
 
 Omitting some repetitions, I believe that this is the sum of the 
 testimony submitted by Mr. HINSDALE outside of the West Point 
 argument and authorities. The latter are reserved for special 
 consideration further on. 
 
 If this is all that requires attention just here, the query may be. 
 raised, why I reply at so great length as I shall do. In answer, 
 let me say again, as I said at the beginning, that I shall not 
 confine myself to the review of Mr. HINSDALE'S paper. He 
 expresses here some very common prejudices in regard to the 
 elementary instruction in our schools. The parties complaining 
 have, as he says, " a right to be heard,'' and more than that, I 
 would say that they have a right to ask ot us to show the grounds 
 on which we base our claims to improvement in the public 
 
 * The italics are our own.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 33 
 
 schools. Furthermore, I desire to collect and arrange, in con- 
 venient form, materials for others to use in the discussion of 
 a question which is of immediate interest to all. Let us then 
 hear the 
 
 COUNTER TESTIMONY. 
 
 It may be well enough to continue the evidence from Harvard 
 College while we have the testimony of Dr. PEABODY fresh in 
 mind. Let us then call the President of Harvard. 
 
 President ELIOT, in his inaugural address in 1869, said: 
 
 " The improvement of the schools has of late years permitted the College 
 
 to advance the grade of its teaching, and adapt the methods of its later years 
 
 to men instead of boys. This improvement of the College reacts upon the 
 
 schools to their advantage, and this action and reaction will be continuous."* 
 
 Mr. ELIOT pronounced these words on the occasion of his 
 inauguration, and ip the presence of an assembly such as is rarely 
 gathered together. The recollections of some there could verify 
 or disprove what he said. The policy of the institution was shaped 
 accordingly, the conditions of admission were greatly advanced, 
 and yet Prof. PEABODY tells us in various phraseology, but always 
 to the same effect : " There is reason to believe that more and 
 better work was done by our schools in the early days of the 
 Republic than is accomplished now." But let us next call one 
 who some years ago occupied the chair which President ELIOT 
 so worthily fills at the present time. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT a graduate in 1811, a Professor of Greek 
 Literature and finally President of Harvard College, a Minister to 
 England, a Governor of the State, and first Chairman of the Board 
 of Education of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was cer- 
 tainly a man of high culture, and surely had "exceptional oppor- 
 tunities for observation." Of the preparatory schools, Phillips' 
 
 *When this was read, President HINSDALE asked whether Mr. ELIOT speaks of the 
 public schools. My reply was that I supposed he did not have them in mind at the time, 
 but they could not be excluded for the reason that the public high schools are represented by 
 many of the best members of the College. As I write this, I learn that the second in the 
 sophomore class of some two hundred is a graduate of the West High School of this city, 
 which is now represented there by six of its former pupils. The Boston boys, from the 
 Public Latin School, on entering Harvard, usually take the head of the class. It is some- 
 times paradoxically said they are "too well prepared;" that is, they are so well fitted for the 
 c ourse that the first year's work does not sufficiently tax their powers.
 
 34 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 Academy at Exeter, and the Boston Latin School, which I sup- 
 pose had few if any equals in the country, he says : 
 
 "As to the learned languages and cla>sical literature .generally, they were 
 very poorly taught in those days. I do not like to speak disparagingly of 
 men and things gone by. The defects were at least villa aevi non hominum, 
 but defects they were of the grossest kind. The study of the Latin and Greek 
 was confined to the cursory reading of the easier authors: a little construing 
 and parsing, as we called it. The idiom and genius of the languages were 
 not unfolded to us, nor the manner of the different writers, nor the various 
 illustrative learning necessary to render the text-book which was read intelli- 
 gible. \Ve got the lesson to recite, and that was all." * 
 
 In one of his addresses, after an interesting description of the 
 discomforts and hardships of the boys in attendance upon the 
 Latin school of Boston during the earlier part of the present 
 century, Mr. Everett says : 
 
 "The standard of scholastic attainment was certainly not higher than that 
 of material comfort in those days. We read pretty much the same books, or 
 books of the same class in Latin and Greek as we read now, with the excep- 
 tion of the Greek Testament, but we read them in a very superficial manner, 
 'i here was no attention paid to the philosophy of the languages, to the deduc- 
 tion of words from (their radkal elements, to the niceties of construction, 
 still less to prosody." + 
 
 And again : 
 
 "In fact, Mr. Chairman, there are few things in which the rapid pro- 
 gress of our country is so apparent as in the institutions for education. The 
 learned Secretary of the Board of Education (Rev. Dr. SEARS) has just 
 alluded to the defects of the schools in the most remote parts of the Common- 
 wealth, unfavorably situated in this respect. I dare say his representations 
 are correct; but the younger part of this audience would not believe me, no 
 one scarcely whose own recollection did not confirm it, would believe me, if 1 
 were to describe the state of what were called good schools when I was myself 
 a school-boy. * * I allude to the condition of the best public schools of that 
 day."J 
 
 Hon. HENRY BARNARD, of Rhode Island, who has, perhaps, 
 made more valuable contributions to the history and literature of 
 American education than all others together, gives his testimony 
 as follows: 
 
 "It may be said with perfect truth that the schools and colleges were left 
 very much to haphazard. A person who could do nothing else" was considered a 
 proper person to keep school; and though the College at < ambridge, where the 
 standard was at the highest, required of its few instructors some qualifications 
 
 (id's American Journ.i I of I ilm noon. \ nl. \ II., page 349. 
 \ Barnard's American Journal of I- due niion. Vol. VII., page 348. 
 ; Barnard's American Journal of Kducation, Vol. VII., page 344.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 35 
 
 higher than this of inability to serve the public elsewhere, its standard was as 
 low as we have seen. There was no science of education in the country; there 
 seems to have been little thought, much less hope of improving it. The 
 schools and colleges were probably at not quite so high a standard as they 
 were at some period before the Revolutionary War. Certainly they were no 
 better." 
 
 The testimony of two such eminent witnesses, both "highly- 
 cultured" men, and both of "exceptional opportunities for ob- 
 servation," is probably enough to show how much more the 
 preparatory schools of former generations, in New England, did 
 for their pupils than is now done ! 
 
 Let us now turn to the common schools, and see how much 
 " more and better work " they did than is accomplished now. 
 
 THE BOSTON COMMON SCHOOLS. 
 
 That the reader may understand the evidence pertaining to the 
 schools of Bostoc, it will be best perhaps to explain their organi- 
 zation at the time of the Revolution and for fifty years thereafter. 
 We shall do this, as far as possible, in the language of Mr. W. B. 
 FOWLE, who probably entered the schools as a pupil about the 
 year 1800, and who became in time a noted teacher and an author 
 of many school books. Aside from the evidence, at which it is 
 our main purpose to get, this sketch will not be without interest to 
 any one who is engaged in the work of teaching, or who is interested 
 in school affairs. It may be of service, too, as showing that the 
 testimony adduced really covers the whole ground. Besides two 
 Latin schools, in which only Latin and Greek were taught,* there 
 were two other schools called 
 
 Writing Schools. These were the only public schools of Bos- 
 ton up to 1790. Writing and arithmetic were the principal 
 
 * Boys had been admitted into the Latin schools at the early age of seven years; in 1790 
 the age was increased to ten years by the new system, but as before no provision was made 
 in the Latin school for their instruction in English, in penmanship or in any of the common 
 branches. "To remedy this serious defect, the Latin scholars were allowed to attend the 
 writing schools two hours, forenoon and afternoon, and about thirty availed themselves of 
 the privileges, although they were obliged to neglect one school to attend the other, and 
 unpunctuality and disorder in all the schools were the natural consequences." But the 
 teachers of the Latin schools also sometimes opened private schools, in which case the neces- 
 sity of attending the writing schools was obviated. "The teachers of the Latin school in 
 connection with A writing master, kept a private English school in the Latin school room, 
 while the writer was a pupil there, in 1808, and the writer himself attended a private school 
 kept by a reading master in another part of the town. Of course, it was a passport to favor 
 in every public school to attend the master's private school also; and those who went only 
 to the public school were considered a somewhat inferior caste." (W. B. Fowle, page 330, 
 Vol. X, Barnard's American Journal of Education.)
 
 36 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 branches taught. "Although reading and spelling were also taught 
 in them, this instruction was only incidental, being carried on 
 we cannot say "attended to" while the teachers were making or 
 mending pens preparatory to the regular writing lessons." 
 
 "The only schools in the city to which girls were admitted were kept by 
 the teachers of the public schools, between the forenoon and afternoon ses- 
 sions; and how insufficient this chance for an education was. may be gathered 
 from the fact that all the public teachers who opened (these) private schools 
 (for girls) were uneducated men, selected (for the writing schools) for their skill 
 in penmanship and in the elements of arithmetic." * 
 
 Reading Schools. In 1 790, girls were admitted for the first time 
 to the public schools of Boston. In consequence of the increased 
 number of pupils, and on account of the incompetency of the 
 writing masters, one more Writing School was established, and three 
 new schools, called " Reading Schools." One Writing and one 
 Reading School, were placed in a school building, one occupying 
 the first floor, the other the second. Thf boys and girls were 
 kept separate, the former attending one school in the morning 
 and the other in the afternoon, and the latter alternating with 
 them. The masters on the two floors were entirely independent 
 of each- other. This " double-headed " system, as it was called, 
 was maintained down to about 1850, possibly in some schools 
 even later. 
 
 The studies pursued in these schools may be learned from two 
 extracts from the records : "One regulation requires the Writing 
 Masters to teach "writing and the branches (of arithmetic) usually 
 taught in town schools, including vulgar and decimal fractions." 
 "Another regulation required the Reading Masters to teach spell- 
 ing, accent and the reading of prose and verse, and to instruct 
 the children in English Grammar, epistolary writing and compo- 
 sition." f 
 
 With this explanation, we may readily understand the following 
 passages taken from the Memoir of Mr. BINGHAM. In the light 
 of evidence like this, we may estimate the declaration of Mr. 
 PEABODV at its true value when he says that " there is reason to 
 believe that more and better work was done by our schools in the 
 
 *W. B. Fowle, in his Memoir of Caleb Bingham, Barnard's Journal, Vol. V, page 330. 
 t "Memoir of Caleb Bingham," Barnard's Journal, Vol. V, page 333. '
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 37 
 
 early days of the Republic than is done now ;" and we shall duly 
 appreciate the courage of Mr. HINSDALE when he avows the 
 belief that the present results of the schools, and especially of 
 the graded schools, "are inferior to the best results of a century 
 ago/' 
 
 THE WRITING SCHOOLS. 
 
 ' ' Furthermore, it was ordered that in the writing schools the children 
 should begin to learn arithmetic at eleven years of age; that at twelve they 
 should be taught to make pens. Until eleven years old, all the pupils did in a 
 whole forenoon or afternoon was to write one page of a copy-book not exceed- 
 ing ten lines. When they began to cipher, it rarely happened that they 
 performed more than two sums in the simplest rules. These were set in the 
 pupil's manuscript, and the operation was there recorded by him. No printed 
 book was used. Such writing and ciphering, however, were too much for 
 one day, and the boys who ciphered only did so every other day. 
 
 " If it be asked, 'how were the three hours of school-time occupied?' the 
 answer is, in- one of three ways: in mischief, in play or in idleness. The 
 pupils were never taught to make their own pens, and it occupied the master 
 and usher two hours of every session to prepare them. The books were gen- 
 erally prepared by them out of school hours. The introduction of metallic 
 pens relieved the teachers from their worst drudgery, and left them free to 
 inspect the writing of their pupils, which was impossible before." 
 
 THE READING SCHOOLS. 
 
 " In the reading schools, the course was for every child to read one verse 
 of the Bible, or a short paragraph of the Third Part. The master heard the 
 first and second, that is, the two highest classes, and the usher heard the two 
 lowest. While one class was reading, the other studied the spelling lesson. 
 The lesson was spelled by the scholars in turn, so that the classes being large, 
 each boy seldom spelled more than one or two words. 
 
 " In grammar, the custom was to recite six or more lines once a fortnight, 
 and to go through the book three times before any application of it was made 
 to what was called parsing." 
 
 These statements will become to the reader living realities as 
 he reads the following sketch of Mr. TILESTON, who is often 
 kindly alluded to in Mr. EVERETT'S school-addresses as one of 
 the best teachers of his day. Mr. FOWLE says of him : 
 
 " He loved routine, and probably if he had taught school a century, he 
 would never have improved any arrangement of it. Printed arithmetics were 
 not used in the Boston schools until after the writer left them; and the custom 
 was for the master to write a problem or two in the manuscript of the pupil 
 
 409528
 
 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 OTHKB HAY. No boy was allowed to cipher till he \v.i.- ele\en years 
 old, and writing and ciphering \\IKI NKVKR performed on the same day. 
 Master TlLBSTON had thus been taught by Master I'RIK KIR, and the sums he 
 set for his pupils were copied exactly from his old manuscript. Any boy could 
 < opy the work from the manuscript of any further advanced than himself, and 
 the writer never heard of any explanation of any principle of arithmetic while 
 hf was at school. Indeed, the pupil believed that the master could not do the 
 sums he set for them; and a story is told of the good old gentleman, which 
 may not be true, but which is so characteristic as to afford a very just idea of 
 the course of instruction, as well as of the simplicity of the superannuated 
 pedagogue. It is said that a boy who had done the sum set for him by 
 Master TII.KSION, carried it up, as usual, for examination. The old gentle- 
 man, as usual, took out his manuscript, compared the slate with it, and 
 pronounced it wrong. The boy went to his seat and reviewed his work, but 
 finding no error in it, returned to the desk and asked Mr. TILESTON to be 
 good enough to examine the work, for he could find no error in it. This was 
 too much to require of him. He growled, as his habit was when displeased, 
 but he compared the sum again, and at last with a triumphant smile exclaimed : 
 ' See here, you nurly (gnarly) wretch, you have got it 'If four tons of hay cost 
 so much, what will seven tons cost?' when it should fee, 'If four tons of Eng- 
 lith hay cost so a so.' Now go and do it all over again.' " 
 
 The following " Memorandum of an eminent Clergyman, who 
 was educated in the best schools in Boston just before the Kcvu 
 lation," we copy from a volume of the Massachusetts Common 
 School Journal, Vol. XII, pages 311 and 312. The notes are by 
 the editor of the Journal: 
 
 "At the age of six and a half years, I was sent to Mastei |'>IIN I.<>\ M.I r s 
 I^itin school. The only requirement was reading well; but, though fully quali- 
 fied, I was scut away t<> Matter GRIFFITH, a private teacher, to learn to read, 
 write and spell." * "I learned the English Grammar in DiKvorth's Spell 
 ing Book by heart. Entered LUVKI.L'S school at seven year>. I.<>\ M i. was 
 a tyrant, and his system one of terror. Trouncing* was common in the school. 
 * SAM. BRADFORD, afterward Sheriff, pronounced the I' in Ptolemy, and 
 the younger LOVKI.I. rapped him over the head with a heavy ferule. + * * * 
 
 * Trouncing was (icrforined by stripping the boy, mounting him upon another's back, and 
 whipping him with birch rods before the whole school. 
 
 t We saw this done by another Boston teacher about thirty years ago, and when we 
 rated with him upon the danger of inflicting such a blow upon such a spot, ' (), the 
 caitiffs,' saiil he, ' it i- i;ood for them !' About the same time another teacher, who i 
 strike his pupils upon the hand so that the marks and bruises were visible, was waited upon 
 by a committee of mothers who lived near the school, and had been annoyed by the outcries 
 of the sufferers. The teacher promised not to strike the boys any more upon the htn 
 the women went away satisfied. Hut instead of inflicting blows upon the hand, he inflicted 
 them upon the soles of the feet, and made the punishment more severe.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 39 
 
 We studied Latin from 8 o'clock till 12, and from I till dark. * * * After one 
 or two years, I went to the town school to Master HOI.BROOK, at the corner 
 of West street, to learn to write; and to Master PROCTOR, on Pemberton's 
 Hill, in the southeast part of Schollay's Building. My second, third and 
 fourth years I wrote there, and did nothing else. 
 
 "I entered college at the age of fourteen years and three months, and was, 
 equal in Latin and Greek to the best in the Senior Class. Xenophon and 
 Sallust were the only books used in college that I had not studied." * * * 
 
 "The last two years of my school life nobody taught English grammar or 
 geography but Col. JOSEPH WARD, who was self-taught and set up a school in 
 Boston. * * 
 
 ' '/ never saw a map except in Ccesar's Commentaries, and did not know what 
 that meant. Our class studied -Lowth's English Grammar at college. At 
 Master PROCTOR'S school, reading and writing were taught in the same room 
 to girls and boys from seven to fourteen years of age, and the Bible was the 
 only reading book. Dilworth's Spelling Book was used and the New Eng- 
 land Primer. The master set sums in our MSS., but. did not go further than 
 the Rule of Three." 
 
 The above testimony shows the amount and kind of work 
 which was done in the Boston schools about the time of the Rev- 
 olution, and from that period down to the end of the first decade 
 of the present century. Many more pages might be filled with 
 evidence to like effect ; but so long as this remains unquestioned, 
 I refrain from adducing any more in regard to the education of 
 youth in the earlier days of the Republic. But before we pass to 
 a later period, I would respectfully ask whether it is possible for 
 any man, in the exercise of ordinary good sense, to conceive the 
 notion that schools such as have been brought before us in this 
 testimony, "did more for their pupils than is now done," especially 
 in the graded schools of our large towns and cities. 
 
 Let us now look at the work of the third and fourth decades. 
 This period differs from the former in that it was marked by the 
 beginning of a revival the results of which are just now making 
 themselves felt. If, however, any one supposes that some magic 
 power intervened to lift the schools to a higher plane, without 
 the application of those agencies which we now rely upon to im- 
 prove our systems of instruction, he will be soon convinced of his 
 error if he will but glance over the pages of the "American 
 Journal of Education," published in Boston from 1826 to 1830, 
 and the "Annals of Education," which succeeded it from 1831 to
 
 40 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 1839. WILLIAM RussELL^the editor of the former, and W. C. 
 WOODBRIDGE, the editor of the latter, cannot yet be forgotten by 
 American .scholars. It is needless to say that anything which 
 appeared under the names of these men, or which they endorsed 
 js worthy of confidence. I have not space to quote from these 
 volumes at any considerable length, and must therefore content 
 myself with a few sentences which seem to summarize the opin- 
 ions of only two or three of the most prominent contributors. 
 
 We first quote from an address on the "Common Errors of 
 Education," which was delivered at Brooklyn, Conn., and which 
 we find in Vol. IV of the "Journal." The author was Rev. SAM- 
 UEL J. MAY, who was one of the ablest men of his day, and was 
 thoroughly acquainted with the quality of the education which 
 prevailed at that time. Speaking of the little children who "are 
 ranged on uncomfortable benches, condemned to sit still if pos- 
 sible, perhaps their hands folded, the greater part of three long 
 hours in each half day, literally doing nothing," he says: "No 
 attempt is made to excite thought, communicate ideas, to awaken 
 curiosity, to impart knowledge." * * * " For months or a whole 
 year they are kept drilling upon the alphabet, and for another 
 year must pour over columns of syllables and words of which not 
 one in twenty can they understand." 
 
 How different is the picture of the little children in the modern 
 graded school, where, instead of that enforced idleness which 
 stupifies, we find cheerful industry in that which educates while it 
 interests the mind. How different the results. Instead of spend- 
 ing months or a year on the alphabet, and quite commonly a 
 second year over the columns of a spelling book, the average 
 child is now brought to the reading of one of the standard Second 
 Readers in a single year ; in the same time he learns the combi- 
 nations of integers in addition, subtraction, multiplication and 
 division within the limit of tens ; he learns generally to write upon 
 the slate whatever he can read, besides being taught music and 
 drawing according to his capacity to learn. Surely this is pro- 
 gress, provided of course that the mind of the child be not over- 
 taxed, of which there is little danger so long as his instruction 
 partakes of the nature of amusement.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 41 
 
 What Mr. MAY has to say about the teaching of grammar and 
 geography is not to the point of the present inquiry, but he is 
 equally severe in his comments on the prevailing errors of instruc- 
 tion in these branches ; errors which left the intelligence about 
 where they found it, and the higher faculties of the mind wholly 
 untouched. Of arithmetic, he says in substance that it is taught 
 in such a way that a child learns only the mechanical processes 
 without so much as suspecting that there is a principle involved 
 in the rules. In the common mode of teaching reading, he says 
 that teachers allow children to "read, day after day and month after 
 month, passages from which they receive no very definite ideas, 
 until at last their pupils come to suppose that the whole art of 
 reading consists in calling words correctly and rapidly in the suc- 
 cession in which they may happen to stand this is, in fact, all 
 that the greater part do acquire." Again, in speaking of reading 
 the Bible, he says,: " Thus the most momentous truths and sub- 
 lime doctrines * * * are gabbled over merely as an exercise in 
 what is called reading." * 
 
 Another writer,! whose name is not given, treats of the same 
 subjects at greater length and quite as severely as Mr. MAY. By 
 way of illustrating the almost universal defect in the methods of 
 teaching arithmetic, he says of himself that he was "nei'er made 
 to comprehend" the rules of addition and subtraction, and became 
 disheartened and embarrassed. He continues thus : 
 
 "True it is that I persevered, and after several years was able to 'cipher' 
 with ease ; but my whole art was merely mechanical; I understood not the 
 reason even of the simplest operation, and was able to resolve those problem s 
 only which were precisely similar to what I had formerly done. 1 never made 
 any attempt at an ingenious analysis of complicated questions, but took (he 
 numbers and placed them in certain positions, added or subtracted, multiplied 
 or divided agreeably to the direction of the rule, and when the answer ap- 
 peared, could no more tell why it was the correct one than if it had been 
 produced by the sleight of juggler, or had been the result ol a chemical 
 combination." 
 
 One would not risk much by saying that the experience of most 
 of those who received their education thirty or forty years ago was 
 
 * American Journal of Education, 1879, Vol. IV., pp. 217 223. 
 1 Vol. II, p. 157, American Journal of Education, Boston, 1827.
 
 4 2 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 similar to that of the writer of the foregoing paragraph. Those 
 who have since become teachers bear almost unanimous testi- 
 mony to this defect in their early instruction in this branch. Only 
 by subsequent study have they become aware how little they 
 understood of the subjects they had "ciphered" through in their 
 school days. 
 
 But let us turn to Vol. V. of the "Annals." Here we find, 
 among many other articles of interest and importance as bearing 
 on the subjects of our inquiry, notes of visits to the schools of 
 ' one of the large commercial towns of the most enlightened part 
 of our country." The article is wiitten at the request of the 
 editor, who remarks that the " names of persons and places are 
 omitted out of regard for the feelings of those concerned ;" but 
 from some general remarks, and from the number of schools re- 
 ferred to, we judge that the place was the city of Boston. Of the 
 spelling exercises, he says that when one " guessed the right or- 
 thography" of a word, "he 'went up.'" ,Of the exercises in 
 arithmetic, he gives a description which would be ludicrous if it 
 were not of so serious a thing as the misspent time and energy 
 of thousands of children ; we can well afford to omit it after what 
 has been said by Mr. MAY and others on the same subject. In 
 regard to reading he says : 
 
 " I heard some of the pupils read from Pierpont's National Reader, and 
 from their manner of reading, I was almost led to conclude that they did not 
 learn anything." ' * "There was such a low mumbling of words that I 
 obtained but few ideas from what was passing over the lips of the reader: and 
 in the whole exercise there was evidently very little of mental activity." 
 
 In regard to writing, he says : 
 
 "A description of this exercise would be simila to that which should por- 
 tray the same exercise as exhibited in those country schools of \ew England 
 into which the spirit of improvement had not yet entered; where the teacher 
 sits in his chair and attends to his pupils as they are continually coming for- 
 ward with 'bad pens.' " 
 
 On a preceding page I have represented the modes of govern- 
 ment in the Boston schools; and inasmuch as this matter, 
 important as it will be conceded to be, is not in question, I will 
 not quote what the writer says about the loud, harsh tones 
 of the teachers, which saluted his ears in all the schools, nor of
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 43 
 
 the blows which he saw inflicted on the heads of the "little 
 ones." Well may the writer raise the question : " If such is the 
 state of the schools in one of the most highly-favored towns of 
 the State, what can be expected from the smaller and less-favored 
 villages and widely-extended townships ?" * 
 
 Passing to the ninth and last volume of the series, I find an 
 extract from the Second Annual Report of HORACE MANN, the 
 Secretary of the State Board of Education. He writes as follows 
 in regard to the subject of " Reading and Reading Books :" 
 
 "My information is derived principally from the written statements of the 
 School Committees of the respective towns gentlemen who are certainly 
 exempt from all temptation to disparage the schools they superintend. The 
 result is, that more than eleven-twelfths of all the children in the reading 
 classes in our schools do not understand the meaning of the words they read; 
 that they do not master the sense of the reading lessons, and that the ideas 
 and feelings intended by the author to be conveyed to, and excited in the 
 reader's mind still rest in tke author's intention." ' * "It would hardly 
 seem that the combined efforts of all persons engaged could have accomplished 
 more in defeating the true objects of reading." 
 
 Having submitted the testimony of men of high position and 
 character, men as well or better known to the whole country for 
 scholarship and general ability than Dr. PEABODY or Prof. CHURCH, 
 men whose special business it was to examine into the work done 
 in the schools from forty to a hundred years ago, and who may be 
 supposed to have had an extensive knowledge of that of which 
 they have affirmed ; and finally of men who are known to have 
 made a critical study of the methods of instruction appropriate to 
 primary and grammar schools, having submitted the abundant 
 and explicit testimony of such men, what can we think of the 
 declaration of Prof CHURCH to the effect that we have made no 
 improvement on the "good old system?" If we have not, it is in 
 vain that PESTALOZZI, FROEBEL, MANN, BARNARD, HALL, CAR- 
 TER, MAY, PEIRCE, PAGE, WOODBRIDGE, RUSSELL and EMERSON 
 have lived and labored in this cause ; in vain have we in the present 
 day studied the writings of these men, and tried to carry out the 
 principles of education which they advocated; and to sum up 
 the whole matter, in vain is an attempt made to exercise reason 
 in the management of educational affairs. 
 
 *Pp. 494 498, Vol. V.', Annals of Educatiou, 1835.
 
 44 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 I raise no question as to the honesty or candor of the men who 
 have volunteered to give impulse to the reactionary feeling against 
 common schools, which is generally making itself felt through- 
 out the country. That they think they are right is as unquestion- 
 able as the proof that they are wrong. They have manifestly 
 judged from insufficient data. Because they happened to fall 
 tinder the instruction of good teachers, they suppose that the 
 education of the State and nation was in good hands when they 
 were boys. One other hypothesis, that is that they do not .see 
 things as they did when they were young, may be less obnoxious 
 to their pride. They may choose as they piease either alternative : 
 one or the other they will have to accept. 
 
 How great the danger of error, in making up our judgments in 
 reference to such matters, is thus pointed out by HERBERT 
 SPENCER, in the " Study of Sociology," p. 79 : 
 
 "How testimonies respecting objective facts aie thus perverted by the sub- 
 jective states of the witnesses, and how we have to be ever on our guard 
 against this cause of vitiation in sociological evidence may indeed be in- 
 ferred from the illusions that daily mislead men in their comparisons of past 
 with present. Returning after many years to the place of his boyhood, and 
 finding how insignificant are the buildings he remembered as so imposing, 
 every one discovers that in this case it was not the past was so grand, but that 
 his impressibility was so great and his power of criticism so small. II- 
 not perceive, however, that the like holds generally ; and that the apparent 
 decline in various things, is really due to the widening of his experiences and 
 the growth of a judgment no longer so easily satisfied. Hence the in 
 witnesses may be under the impression that there is going on a change just the 
 reverse of that which is really going on ; as we see, for example, in the notion 
 current in every age, that the size and strength of the race have been de- 
 creasing, when, as proved by bones, by mummies, by armour, and by the 
 experience! of travellers in contact with aboriginal races, they have been on 
 the average .increasing." 
 
 Turning from this more general evidence into which 1 have 
 
 led, I submit the following extract from the Report of the 
 
 Superintendent of the Schools of Boston, for the year 1857. It 
 
 will serve to show how slow the march of progress has been where 
 
 circumstances have been most favorable. Mr. I'IIII.KKICK says : 
 
 "In my visits, it was very uncommon to hear in any of these schools a 
 single question or remark by the teacher which had any reference to the under- 
 standing of the children. In many cases, the reading was but little more than
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 45 
 
 the mechanical pronunciation of an unknown tongue. There is a text-book 
 in daily use in all these schools entitled 'Spelling and Thinking Combined;' 
 but in all the exercises in this book, I never saw the slightest evidence of any 
 attempt at the combination indicated in the title. 
 
 'Another general defect is the want of profitable employment for the childrent 
 especially in the lowest classes. Go into any of these schools any time of 
 day, and in nine cases out of ten, if not forty-nine out of fifty, three-fourths of 
 the pupils will be found without profitable employment. Thus the time of 
 these children is wasted for precious months and years in succession. But 
 this great waste of time is not the only evil arising from this defect. Many 
 bad habits are formed. The strength of the teacher, which should be ex- 
 pended in teaching, is necessarily taxed to a great extent by the incessant 
 vigilance and care requisite to keep these idlers out of mischief, and to secure 
 some reasonable degree of stillness." 
 
 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AND OTHER MEANS OF EDUCATION. 
 
 If the Boston schools, which enjoyed every advantage of the 
 times, were in the condition indicated in the foregoing testimony, 
 what shall we infer in regard to the schools of the smaller towns 
 and in the rural districts, which were in session only a few weeks 
 each year. There is no lack of evidence to show that the natural 
 inference is the correct one, namely, that they were sadly deficient 
 in every important particular. Speaking of the Condition of 
 the schools as they were at the close of the Revolution, SALEM 
 TOWN, \vhoseopportunitiesforobservation were unequaled, and 
 whose reliability is beyond question, says : 
 
 " The time during which the schools were taught in the rural districts and 
 such were most of them at the close of the Revolution was from eight to 
 twelve weeks, and that in the winter season. In the summer there were few if 
 any schools, as all who could hoe a hill of corn or do housework were required 
 to labor. At this early period the attainments of those who had no further 
 instruction than was received in the district school were limited to very few 
 branches, the reason* for which are quite obvious, namely: the inability of the 
 teachers on the one part, and the limited time of attendance allowed by the 
 parents on the other. Spelling. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic as far as 
 the Rule of Three with Simple Interest, were the main branches. It was 
 however thought by many parents unnecessary to have their daughters taught 
 t in arithmetic, as in their view it would be of little or no use to them. Frac- 
 tions were out of the question." * 
 
 To cipher through the Rule of Three, exclusive of Fractions, 
 at fourteen years of age, was considered quite an achievement. 
 
 * Barnard's Journal of Education, Vol. XIII., p. 739.
 
 46 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 As limited as was the course in arithmetic, we are told by Mr. 
 BURTON that it was taught without so much as an attempt at the 
 explanation of rules and principles. The " carrying of tens " in 
 addition, and "borrowing" in subtraction, were "unaccountable 
 operations." * 
 
 The Rev. HEMAN HUMPHREY, for twenty years President of 
 Amherst College, and for many years a teacher in the schools of 
 Connecticut, his native State, writing of the schools as they were 
 about the year 1 800, says : 
 
 " The branches taught were reading, spelling and writing, besides the A B 
 C's to children scarcely four years old. * * * Our school books were the Bible, 
 Spelling Book, and Webster's Third Part mainly. One or two others were 
 found in some schools for the reading classes. Grammar was hardly taught 
 at all in any of them, and that little was confined to committing and reciting 
 the rules. Parsing was one of the occult sciences in my day. We had some 
 few lessons in geography by questions and answers, bnt no maps, no globes; 
 and as for black-boards, such a thing was never thought of till long years after. 
 Children's reading and picture books we had rone. * * Arithmetic was 
 hardly taught at all in the day-schools. As a substitute, there were some 
 evening schools in most of the districts. * * * The winter schools were com- 
 monly kept about three months, in some favored districts four, but rarely so 
 long. As none of what are now called the higher branches were taught 
 beyond the ^erest elements, parents generally thought that three or four 
 months were enough. * * * With regard to the summer schools of that period 
 I have very little to say. They were taught by females upon very low wages, 
 about as much a week as they could earn in families by spinning or weaving. 
 * As we had no grammar schools in which the languages were taught, we 
 most of us fitted for college with our ministers, who, thi.ugh not very fresh 
 from their classics, did what they could to help us. " t 
 
 In many schools it was the custom to read four times a day, 
 and each child expected to read each time. In reference to this 
 matter, a prominent authority on this subject says : 
 
 " Had they read but once or twice, and but little at a time, and that with 
 nice and very profitable attention to tone and sense, parents would have 
 thought the master most miserably deficient in his duty, and their children 
 cheated out of their rights, notwithstanding the time thus saved should be 
 most assiduously devoted to other important branches of education. 
 
 " It ought not to be omitted that the Bible, particularly the New Testament, 
 was the reading twice a day generally for all the classes adequate to words of 
 
 The District School as it Was, by "One who went to it," (Rev. WARREN BURTON,) 
 Boston, 1833, p. 114. 
 
 f Barnard's American Journal of Education, Vol. XIII., pp. 127, 128.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 47 
 
 more than one syllable. It was the only reading of several of the younger 
 classes under some teachers. On this practice I shall make but a single 
 remark: as far as my own experience and observation extend, reverence for the 
 sacred volume was not deepened by this constant and exceedingly careless 
 use." * 
 
 The same writer says the principal requirement in reading was 
 to "speak up loud and mind the stops." "As for suiting the tone 
 to the meaning, no such thing was dreamed of, in our school at 
 least. As much emphasis was laid on an insignificant of or and, 
 as on the most important word in the piece." In regard to 
 spelling, we are informed that though the pupils were found to be 
 able to spell all the " monstrous great words" of the long spelling 
 columns, they could not " spell the names of the most familiar 
 things."! This is the kind of spelling that was taught in the 
 schools of that day, the spelling f which we hear so many 
 boasts. 
 
 SAMUEL G. GOODRICH, in his "Recollections of a Lifetime," 
 gives even more positive evidence to the same effect in regard to 
 every point here touched upon. 
 
 Notwithstanding many faults incident to the times, there were 
 some good schools in the past. The Phillips Academy was such, 
 and perhaps a few others ; but that the common schools were far 
 below the schools of the present, is clearly implied in many ways. 
 The pupil who made the utmost out of the opportunities afforded 
 in the meager course of study provided, received an education 
 which was little short of a burlesque compared with what may be 
 received at present in almost any city or town of the North. The 
 superiority of the schools of the present is clearly implied in the 
 expression so often met with in biographical sketches, that " the 
 early education which he received was such as the times afforded." 
 
 Go into any public library, as I have done into the library of 
 this city. Take down one biography after another and, unless the 
 subject happens to be of exceptionally cultured parentage or large 
 wealth, if his education be spoken of at all, you will, four times 
 out of five, find a record such as would put to blush those who 
 assure us that the schools of the past were superior to those of 
 
 iict School as it Was, Boston, 1833, pp. 521055. 
 t District School as it Was, p. 146.
 
 48 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 to-day ; that is, if they know anything of the schools of the present, 
 as in most cases we suspect they do not. Some of these will 
 show that the college did the work in some departments now 
 required in our lower grammar and even primary grades. Jn 
 Tyler's Life of ROGER B. TANKY (born 1777), we find a sketch from 
 which we may infer the condition of the schools in all that section 
 of the country from which Dickinson College gathered its patron- 
 age. It is stated that all students in the college were required to 
 purchase a small " Rhyming Geography," which had been written 
 by the vice Principal and Lecturer on History, Natural Philoso- 
 phy and Geography, and that the contents of the little book had 
 to be committed to memory. The book contained about fnty 
 pages, printed in octavo, and was an enumeration of the countries 
 and nations of the world, and the principal rivers, mountains and 
 cities in each of them. 
 
 * * * "It filled our minds with names of places and descriptions, without 
 giving us any definite idea of their position <>n the glolx- <n llx-ir relation to 
 one another; and as may be supposed, some of the lines and rhymes were 
 harsh and uncouth enough to be the subject of ridicule." 
 
 I cannot refrain from asking how the above work in geography- 
 required by a Vice President of Dickinson College, compares with 
 the " one-bean-and-two-beans-make-three beans " exercise in our 
 schools for the very youngest children just beginning to read, to 
 which Dr. PKABODY refers in the passage quoted by Mr. II IN-.. 
 DALE. But the above work in Geography was a part of Mr. 
 TANEY'S college course. It is now excepting the rhyme the 
 work of our primary schools. 
 
 In the memoirs of Dr. ELIPHALET NOTT, for sixty years the 
 President of Union College, we find the following, in reference to 
 the schools as they were in his youth and early manhood. He 
 was born in 1773. ^ ne schools of Connecticut, his native State, 
 are here spoken of : 
 
 " The country school of that day, in many districts at least, was a 
 unpinmising institution. The teacher was not (infrequently a person of barely 
 education enough to satisfy the critical requirements of some illiterate com- 
 mittee-man to whom was delegated the office of Examiner, llr- had perhaps 
 left the shoe-bench, the anvil or the plow to try his hand for a few weeks at 
 this easier work to return at the close of his brief engagement to his more 
 fitting business. 'I he emolument could haroly have tempted him to turn
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 49 
 
 teacher, for the pay was only from three to five dollars a month, and two months 
 during the winter season was the usual term that the schools remained open. 
 : he teacher's office, therefore was not at that time a very inviting one, nor did 
 the school he presided over hold out any strong'inducements to parents who 
 desired most of all to have their children well taught. " 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER, in his Autobiograpy, says of his early edu- 
 cation : 
 
 " I went in arithmetic through the Rule of Three, but nobody ever ex- 
 plained anything we only did sums." 
 
 After his sixteenth year, Mr. BEECHER came under the instruc- 
 tion of Parson BRAY, who fitted boys for college. Of the instruc- 
 tion which he received in arithmetic, he says : " He gave us sums 
 to do in arithmetic, but never explained. I suffered in that 
 department from his neglect." And again : " In my sophomore 
 year I did comparatively little. My early instructors had never 
 explained the principles of arithmetic so that for this part of the 
 course I had smalt qualification. Mathematics I lost totally." 
 
 The lives of Judge TANEY and Drs. NOTT and BEECHER were 
 all that I could consult in the hour or two which I had snatched 
 from more important duties. I found no testimony to conflict 
 with that of the eminent men whom I have named. 
 
 We have quoted incontrovertible evidence to the effect that the 
 common schools of New England, with few exceptions, were open 
 from two to four months only in the year, and yet Dr. PEABODY is 
 quoted as saying that their vacations were hardly a week in the 
 year, (HINSDALE, p. 19.) The "all-system" schools, or graded 
 schools, to call them by their proper name, now continue from 
 nine to ten months in the year, and yet Dr. PEABODY says " the 
 amount of time and energy devoted to it by those under instruction 
 is very much less than it used to be." Does Dr. PEABODY know 
 what the schools of the day are ? Dees he know that the classifi- 
 cation, which he views with so much horror, is simply a " plan '' 
 by which children are grouped in classes each " according to his or 
 her proficiency," which he so greatly admires in the schools of the 
 past? He says " more and better work was done then than now." 
 How more in one-third the time, and with attention given only 
 to reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic to the Rule of Three, 
 fractions being beyond the question ? How better, when, as we 
 have seen by competent testimony, the principles of arithmetic,
 
 50 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 were, so far as we can learn, never taught ; when two or three 
 years were devoted to the definitions and rules of grammar with- 
 out application to either analysis or composition ; when geography 
 received comparatively little or no attention ? Win-re in all New 
 Kngland were the common schools in any large numbers in session 
 during the entire year, with only a few wteks' vacation? Private 
 schools or small classes may have been thus taught by some retired 
 clergyman who fitted boys for college. There may have been 
 some larger schools in the Dummer or Phillips Academies which 
 had a continuous session through the year, but they were remarka- 
 ble as exceptions to the rule. 
 
 We have thus far glanced at the history of common schools in 
 the two leading States of New England down to 1836. We have 
 seen how the "cuttings from the New England tree were planted, 
 and how they grew in the Middle Atlantic and in the older and 
 more prosperous of the Western States. 
 
 We have also submitted the testimony of school examiners and 
 other school officers, of legislators and men of exceptional culture 
 and opportunity for observation, to show what the condition of 
 popular education was from 1836 to about the time of the breaking 
 out of the civil war, a time which lies within the memory of the 
 youngest members of this association. 
 
 And finally, we have had an interior view of the school-rooms, 
 and we have seen the schoolmaster of one, two or three genera 
 tions ago at work, and we have seen how he and his pupils did so 
 " much more and better work than is now done ;" and this testi- 
 mony we have had from the very men who suffered the disadvan- 
 tages of those days. 
 
 The information we have gathered shows conclusively : 
 
 i That Mr. HINSDALE'S studies of the history and progress 
 of the common school system are entirely at fault, and that his 
 "rapid sketch" is the creation of fancy rather than fact.* 
 
 2. That the present free public school system of the country is 
 almost the creation of men, some of whom are still living and 
 active in the work which they began in the full maturity of their 
 powers. 
 
 3. That, as a consequence, the system cannot be saddled with 
 the responsibility which might justly be laid upon an institution 
 t /muled more than two centuries ago, and fostered by the liberality 
 of generations.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 51 
 
 4. That it is only here and there that the more enterprising 
 centeis of wealth and intelligence have received the advantages of 
 the regenerated public-school system, just as the highest mountain 
 peaks are first gilded by the light of the morning sun. 
 
 5. That the surprising increase of expenditures which Presi- 
 dent HINSDAI.E parades on page nine is a practical result of 
 the almost fatal lesson which was taught us by the civil war, that 
 the common school is the only guarantee of political or personal 
 freedom. 
 
 This review of the history of our common school education 
 till within so late a period, will serve also to show how utterly 
 baseless are the deductions which are made by Mr. HINSDALE 
 from the West Point examinations, for when the products of the 
 schools, at their lowest point of degradation, were offering them- 
 selves for admission to West Point, the results of examinations 
 seem to have beeh best. But we propose a different treatment of 
 the 
 
 WEST POINT ARGUMENT. 
 
 After casting about for a standard of measurement whereby the 
 results of the education to-day may be compared with that of 
 former generations, especially of forty or fifty years ago, President 
 HINSDALE remarks : 
 
 "Perhaps the best standard that occurs is the West Point examinations, 
 particularly the examinations of candidates for admission to the Academy. 
 Here is a large number of candidates each year; they come from all parts 
 of the Union; they are of about the same age, they are examined by 
 experienced teachers, generally holding their places during good behavior. 
 Fortunately a record of these examinations has been kept for nearly forty 
 The re>u!ts have been tabulated and published. All educators and 
 especially common school teachers should be interested in the verdict that 
 West Point has given of our common schools." 
 
 Reference is then made to the Report of the Board of Visitors 
 of 1875, in which the very suggestive fact is pointed out "that in 
 the last five years the average number of rejected candidates has 
 been six per cent, for physical disability, and forty per cent, for 
 deficiency in the scholastic requirements." Then a point is made 
 that "in the six New England States, where educational facilities 
 are open to all, the rejections have been thirty-five per cent, of the 
 number examined from that section." Then comes the deduc- 
 tion : "From tliese statistics, it is clearly evident that in the schools of 
 the country there is need of more thorough methods of instruction in 
 the elementary branches." This is from the Board of Visitors, and
 
 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 by way of endorsement, they insert a memorandum from Prof. 
 CHURCH, which concludes with this sentence : " I think our can- 
 didates are not as thoroughly prepared as they were twenty years 
 ago." President HINSDALE, with some triumph, asks : 
 
 \ci\v what have our public school teachers to say to this? What do they 
 propose to do with an old West Point examiner who charges some 'serious 
 defect in their methods of teaching the elementary branches, particularly 
 arithmetic, reading and spelling?'" * * * "Hut the West Point authorities 
 furnish the evidence on which they base their indictment of the public schools. 
 Part of it is found in the following:" 
 
 STATEMENT. 
 
 Showing the Number of Candida let for Cadelship* appointed to the L'nitt-d States Military 
 
 Academy, the Number Rejected, and the Number Admitted, 
 
 FKOM 1838 TO 1876, INCLUSIVE. 
 
 
 
 
 For Want of Qualification in 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 _G 
 
 
 
 
 
 9sS 
 
 
 Of whom there GRADUATED 
 
 
 
 
 
 k* ' ejrj 
 
 I 
 
 'I 
 
 jj 
 
 X 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 U ^ 
 
 2 
 
 four years thereafter 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 .S B 
 
 / 
 
 | 
 
 c 
 
 a 
 
 fc. 
 
 *" 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 - 
 
 i 
 
 V 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 X 
 
 g 
 
 s 
 
 a 
 
 
 i8 3 8.. 
 
 32 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 in 
 
 54, o 48.6 per cent. 
 
 1839.. 
 
 9' 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 76 
 
 34, o 44-7 Per cent. 
 
 1840 . 
 
 106 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 84 
 
 22, o 26. i per cent. 
 
 i8 4 i.. 
 
 13' 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 6 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 114 
 
 34, o 29.8 per cent. 
 
 842.. 
 
 .P--I 
 
 "44 
 
 >7 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 9 
 
 g 
 
 109 
 60 
 
 47, o 4.f. i per cent. 
 29 o 48.3 per cent. 
 
 IC 4J 
 
 1844.. 
 
 77 
 96 
 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 i 
 
 , 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 ' 
 
 i 
 
 75 
 
 34, o 45.3 per cent. 
 
 "845.. 
 
 98 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 1. 
 
 i 
 
 81 
 
 40, o 49.3 per cent. 
 
 1846.. 
 
 121 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 103 
 
 41, o 39.8 per cent. 
 
 '847-. 
 
 84 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 3 
 
 74 
 
 35, o 47.2 per cent. 
 
 1848.. 
 
 84 
 
 2 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 38, o 46.9 per cent. 
 
 849.. 
 
 95 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 88 
 
 42, o 47.7 per cent. 
 
 1850.. 
 
 98 
 
 3 
 
 i 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 90 
 
 40, o 44.4 per cent. 
 
 1851.. 
 
 Si 
 
 3 
 
 i 
 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 .. 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 7' 
 
 31, o 43.5 per cent. 
 
 1852.. 
 
 102 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 90 
 
 44, o 48.8 per cent. 
 
 '853.. 
 
 97 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 83 
 
 36, o 39.7 per cent. 
 
 "854. 
 
 120 
 
 4 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 4^ 
 
 Sf * 
 
 {20, 4 yrs., or 42. 5 p. ct. 
 22, 5 yrs., or 39. 2 p. ct. 
 
 '855-- 
 
 99 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 80 
 
 37, 5 yrs., or 46.2 p. ct. 
 
 1856.. 
 
 101 
 
 '7 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 72 
 
 44, 5 yrs., or (n.i p. ct. 
 
 '857 
 
 132 
 
 26 
 
 8 
 
 
 18 
 
 '3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 82 
 
 32, or 34 per cent. 
 
 1858.. 
 
 108 
 
 
 6 
 
 12 
 
 1 1 
 
 '3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 75 
 
 24, or 32 per cent. 
 
 1859.. 
 
 9 
 
 26 8 
 
 24 
 
 24 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 20, or 33.3 per cent. 
 
 1860.. 
 
 - 
 
 12 4 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 27, or 37.5 per cent. 
 
 1861.. 
 
 148 
 
 
 ; 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 107 
 
 63, or 58.8 per cent. 
 
 1862.. 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 38, or 46.9 per < 
 
 186^.. 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 ' 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 99 
 
 58, or 58.5 per cent. 
 
 1864.. tot 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 7.? 46, or 63 per cent. 
 
 1865.. 101 
 
 
 8 .3 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 4 74 
 
 36, or 48.6 per cent. 
 
 1866.. 
 
 
 <7 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 70 
 
 45, LI '-nt . 
 
 1867. . 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 8 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 i 
 
 55 
 
 33, or 60 per cent. 
 
 1868.. 127 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 16 25 
 
 
 '9 
 
 3 
 
 76 
 
 53, or 72.5 per cent. 
 
 1869.. 
 
 
 
 
 
 '7 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 40, or 59 . i per 
 
 1870. . 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 28 54 
 
 42 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 37, or 56.9 per cent 
 
 1871.. 
 
 
 
 
 10 10 
 
 '5 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 43, or 56.57 per cent 
 
 1872.. 
 
 '65 
 
 35 
 
 '9 9 
 
 ii 
 
 '7 
 
 18 
 
 15 20 95 
 
 1873.. 230 74 5 28 28 30 50 49 
 
 29 13 118 
 
 1874.. 17^ <V> 4 
 
 
 46 36 
 
 89 
 
 '875. - 
 
 68 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 24 
 
 
 27 
 
 3 
 
 
 121 
 
 
 1876.. 167 
 
 53 
 
 4 
 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 1 
 
 98 

 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 53 
 
 It is asked, what answer we have to make to this indictment? 
 I Confess that I am at a loss what to say, or rather what to say 
 first. Nevertheless, let us begin by inquiring who these examinees 
 are. 
 
 First. We find that each Congressional and Territorial District 
 and the District of Columbia is, at any one time, entitled to one 
 cadet at the Military Academy, and no more. Appointments at 
 large, not to exceed ten, are also made annually. 
 
 Second. The district appointments are made on nomination of 
 the member of Congress representing the district at the date of 
 the appointment. The appointments at large are made by the 
 President of the United States. 
 
 Third. The law requires that the appointee shall be a resident 
 of the district from which he is appointed ; and 
 
 Fourth. That h,e shall be from seventeen to twenty-two years 
 of age. 
 
 Having been appointed, and being qualified as to age and 
 residence, he can go to West Point for examination. If he pass 
 the Academic and Medical Boards, he is admitted ; if he fail, his 
 failure is entered against the public schools,* and he is sent home 
 again. 
 
 The fact that he made the attempt may be known only to him- 
 self and the member who appointed him ; his absence from home 
 can be attributed to a visit to New York; the whole matter escapes 
 public notice, and no one will be held responsible for the failure 
 but the public schools. His name may never have been en- 
 tered upon the rolls of a public school ; t or if it has, he may 
 
 * That is, by those who take only a superficial view of the matter. 
 
 t If from a southern State, the chances are ten to one against it. See preceding state- 
 ments as to the condition of the public schools in the South. If from a northern State, the 
 chances are about one out of five that he never attended the public schools for any great 
 length of time. It is a very common thing to send boys who do not succeed in the public schools 
 from one private school to another where the little chance they might have for an education 
 is lost by frequent change. Every year we hear of some of the most worthless pupils of the 
 public schools going to some so-called colleges where they are admitted to higher studies to' 
 gratify the ambition ot foolish parents and to secure patronage without which the " college ' 
 would go down. It is moie than probable that those who are referred to by President 
 CHURCH as giving long lists of collegiate studies, the "names of which are often misspelled," 
 come from this very class. Whose fault is it that they escaped the common school and were 
 ailini/trit in "college " before they had learned to spell at least tolerably or learned the "ele- 
 ments of arithmetic and grammar?"
 
 54 OUR COMMON M HOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 have been withdrawn before he even commenced some, at least, 
 of the studies required for admission, or he may have been* so 
 inv-ular in attendance, or so idle and indifferent, or so wanting 
 in brains, as never to have made any real progress it matters 
 not to our Professor at West Point- his failure is set down to 
 serious defects in our common-school instruction,* especially in 
 the elementary branches. 
 
 Now, is it possible that this vicious system of appointment has 
 escaped the notice of Prof. CHURCH, Gen. SHKKMAN and Presi- 
 dent HINSDALE? Have they not learned that the results of such 
 a system of patronage have been uniformly the same in evuv 
 country in which anything like it has been attempted, and that its 
 defects have caused it to be abandoned in almost every other 
 country than our own 1 ? 
 
 If these gentlemen have not heard the voice of successive Boards 
 of Visitors, or of the First Superintendent of the Academy on this 
 subject, it is because they have willfully oiosed their ears against 
 it. Col. THAYER, Superintendent of the Academy from 1816 to 
 1^,1 1, to whom the Academy is greatly indebted for the efficiency 
 of its present organization, protested against it repeatedly during 
 his time of service and afterward. In the Report of the Hoard of 
 Visitors for 1X63, allusion is boldly made to the favoritism which 
 procured appointments for those who were found to be physically 
 disqualified, as well as mentally incompetent 
 
 Mm having seen how irresponsible those are who make thi ap 
 pointments, that the appointments may be made indifferently 
 from all classes of schools, and in fact without regard to previous 
 school attendance, etc., let us turn to the question, 
 
 HAVE THE ACAHKMIC EXAMINATIONS HI-1'N UNIFORM* 
 
 Pi of. Curia H writes to Mr. HINSDALE as follows: 
 
 i think we have rai.-i'tl our stanclaul of i|inrcnient in any one 
 
 li. As far as possible we have endeavored i l.n ]> tin* tin- -.un< him 
 
 year to year, though \ve have lately l>crn inoie strict in our |iielimmaiy 
 
 *We do not say that hoys who were totally inriniijirtrni up with the 
 
 HI> nt of j.iiMii >.< hoi t<-. laim no more I 
 
 V the judiciary, not :i few of whom havr st.niu.-d the ermine by 
 li iiiom-v in hand for Riven decisions; HIT more than 
 
 men, many of whom hav. , ir holy calling. But we do claim that exci -, 
 
 ilil not >>e >ct down as the general rule.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 55 
 
 examinations, and thus perhaps discover more deficiences than we would 
 under a less vigorous system. " 
 
 What this may mean is not very clear. " The standard of 
 requirement in no one branch has been raised, though we have 
 lately been more strict in our examinations." " Preliminary," oi' 
 course, for that's what we are talking of. What is greater strictness 
 exercistd for, but to " discover more deficiencies," to exact more 
 thorough knowledge of principles, and greater accuracy in apply- 
 ing them? Why the uncertainty of the "perhaps," as if greater 
 strictness w r as not certain to exclude candidates who would be 
 admitted "under a less vigorous system 1 ?" How delicate of the 
 marksman who would say : " I take my station nearer the target 
 my nerve is steadier, my aim is more accurate, and perhaps that is 
 the reason I hit the bull's eye oftener than I used to do." 
 
 Prof. MICHIE states t he case more plainly when he says : 
 
 
 
 "Since 1870 the examinations have been written and the character of the 
 examinations much more severe, although the scope is the same." 
 
 This we can comprehend, and those of us who know what 
 written examinations mean, understand why it is that so many 
 more fail than formerly. That the examinations are more severe, 
 though the principal, is not the only reason. Another one quite 
 as effective is, that the examinations are in writing. One-half of 
 the candidates perhaps have never attempted to make up a manu- 
 script on any subject till they come to West Point for examina- 
 tion. Few of us are aware how very little of such work is done 
 in the "no-system" school of the country, even at the present 
 time. The most of us witnessed the effect when written examin- 
 ations were first introduced into graded schools. 
 
 As we have seen, Prof. CHURCH gives his testimony with a kind 
 of delicate apprehensiveness, lest we should think the examina- 
 tions had become too severe. Prof. MICHIE gives his as a state- 
 ment of fact, without any concern as to its effect, but both make 
 their statements with proper official caution. They speak of the 
 institution with which their own reputation is closely associated. 
 But members of the Board of Visitors speak with less reserve 
 when they say, as I heard a very prominent educator* say not 
 
 * Hon. B. G. NOKTHKOI-, Secretary of the State Board of Education, Connecticut, author 
 of ''Education Abroad," "Education in Japan," etc.
 
 56 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 long ago, in a Convention of School Superintendents : " There is 
 no comparison as to severity between their examinations to-day 
 and those of twenty years ago." The graduates of the Academy, 
 however, put it still more effectively when they characterized the 
 examination of a few years ago at West Point as a farce, the 
 broadness of which at any given time depended on how many 
 students were wanted to fill up the institution. But if further 
 evidence were wanting, there is abundant evidence of a variable 
 standard in the table itself. 
 
 INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF A VARIABLE STANDARD. 
 
 In 1859 the number of rejections for poor writing and bad 
 spelling was more than one in four of all examined ; two years 
 thereafter, about one in thirty-five. In 1869, eight percent, failed 
 in arithmetic ; the very next year, sixteen per cent. In 1870, for 
 deficiencies in grammar, over thirty-three per cent, were rejected ; 
 two years after, ten per cent. In 1870, fifteen out of one hundred 
 and sixty-three were rejected for poor reading; in 1872, out of 
 one hundred and sixty-five, none ! I have selected a few only of 
 the more striking cases. The reader will find the table full of 
 them. If the candidates of one year came from one section, and 
 those of another year came from another section, we could inter- 
 pret the result by some other theory than that the examinations 
 are variable ; but as it is, there can be no other conclusion than 
 that Mr. HINSDALE'S best standard has been very elastic. 
 
 But it may be objected that these are merely accidental varia 
 tions. Take then periods of five years each : 
 
 From 1850 to 1855 the rejections were 5 per cent, of the examined. 
 " 1855 to 1860 " 25 " 
 
 " 1860 to 1865 " 12 " 
 
 11 1865 to 1870 " 24 
 
 " 1870101875 " 38 " 
 
 " 1875 & 1876 " 36 
 
 Who is there so credulous that he could be convinced by this 
 or indeed any amount of testimony that the average scholarship 
 of young men of the nation was so much better from 1850 to 
 1855 than it was the five years following; or, if it had fallen
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 57 
 
 away so greatly, who would believe that it improved one hundi <1 
 jiL-r cent, in the next five years, only to decline again in a like 
 period to its former condition ? 
 
 If the examiners had constituted successive classes in any one 
 institution under teachers changing every five years, this great 
 difference would be something rather remarkable, but that the 
 average scholastic attainments of a whole people could so change 
 eclipses our conception of possibility. 
 
 See what remarkable pranks this wonderfully magic measure 
 plays with the New England States. The Board of Visitors of 
 1875 direct attention to the fact that, 
 
 " In the six New England States, where educational facilities are open to 
 all, the rejection has been 35 per cent, of the number examined from that 
 section." 
 
 
 
 This statement comprises one paragraph ; the next, which is 
 equally brief, contains this deduction : 
 
 " From these statistics it is clearly evident that in the schools of the country 
 there is need of more thorough methods of instruction in the elementary 
 branches." 
 
 Before we refer to the table from which the Visitors derive 
 these statements, we may remark that the latter paragraph would 
 sound quite as well and seem far more reasonable if it read thus : 
 
 From these statistics, it is clearly evident that many young men 
 are appointed who have not completed the course of an ordinary 
 district school. Or, they might have put it thus : From these sta- 
 tistics, it is evident that many young men are sent up for examin- 
 ation from the so-called colleges and academies, who have not 
 native ability or industry enough to master the studies of the 
 common schools. 
 
 But let us take a few items from the table referred to (by the 
 Visitors), and arrange them so that we can take in at a glance 
 some startling comparisons between the last five and the pre- 
 ceding thirty-two years.
 
 58 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 The number from the A'fii 1 England States examined and rejected 
 from 1838 to 1874 : 
 
 
 THIRTY-TWO YEARS. 
 
 1838 to 1870. 
 
 I IVK YEARS. 
 
 1870 to 1874, incl. 
 
 EXAMINED. 
 
 REJECTED. 
 
 IX \\IINED. 
 
 REJECTED. 
 
 
 55 
 3 
 34 
 94 
 
 20 
 
 45 
 
 I 
 2 
 2 
 
 o 
 o 
 3 
 
 13 
 
 5 
 
 23 
 
 r 
 
 ii 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 O 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 
 Total 
 
 279 
 
 s 
 
 60 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 Less than 3 per cent. 
 
 33 1 /3 Per cent. 
 
 Now, what is the probability in this case 1 ? Is it that the New 
 England States had floated on an educafed people educating 
 their children for thirty-three years losing less than three out of 
 the hundred examined,* during even the last five years of that 
 period feeling no apprehension of approaching disaster,! only 
 to plunge at once into such an abyss of ignorance 1 ? Or, is not 
 rather more probable that the examinations of the last five years 
 represented in the table, were much more severe than they had 
 been before 1 What would you say, Mr. President, even though 
 Prof. MICHIE and others had not said they were taking for 
 granted then what cannot be denied, viz : that the examinations 
 are much more severe than they used to be, and knowing, as you 
 must, that appointments are often made with reckless disre- 
 gard of public interest were you not able to account for the 
 increased ratio of failures, without suspecting any great deteriora- 
 tion in the teaching of reading and writing, spelling and ciphering 
 in the schools of New England? 
 
 But strange to say, we find a parallel to this wonderful shuttle- 
 cock, a nation's scholarship, in the almost as wonderful variation 
 
 * A thing in itself to be wondered at unless the candidates had been chcsn with otrtme 
 caution. 
 
 t Only two had been rejected frcro all New England from 1865 to 1870.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 59 
 
 of the physical condition of its male youth. While statistics of 
 health show that chronic ailments maintain a nearly constant 
 average throughout the United States from year to year, the 
 statistics of West Point seem to indicate the most astounding 
 fluctuations. 
 
 From 1860 to 1870, out of i,o/4 appointments, only 16 were 
 rejected by the Medical Board ; within the last five years covered 
 by the table, 52 were rejected out of 864.* Have physical in- 
 hrmities among our young men really trebled within ten years ? 
 If they have, how long will it take for us to become a nation of 
 chronic invalids ? What will become of the boast of Americans, 
 that they are physically superior to any other people of the globe? 
 What becomes of medical statistics, showing that the physical 
 condition of the civilized races is improving and the length of 
 life increasing 1 But our alarm is changed to confidence when 
 we turn to a later table, which is to be found in the " Register of 
 the Military Academy for the year 1876." We there find that only 
 one in fifty was rejected by the Medical Board from 1874 to 1876, 
 to one in twelve the three preceding years. 
 
 Now, it is not necessary that we declare such opposite results, 
 either of scholarship or soundness of "wind and limb," to be 
 impossible. Thaugh, as we have said, we believe them to be results 
 of varying standards of measurement, carelessness of appoint- 
 ment may go far to explain them ; but it does not matter whether 
 they are explained or not ; all that is necessary for us to know is, 
 that they do not indicate the intellectual or physical status of the 
 nation at one time as compared with another. 
 
 But there is one other way in which the table seems to dis- 
 credit Prof. CHURCH'S declaration that the standard of admission 
 has not been raised as well as the other statement which he makes, 
 that " while the proportion rejected has increased," he " finds as 
 well in those admitted less accuracy in definitions and rules, less 
 ability to give clear reasons, and less facility in the application of 
 the principles whenever required in other branches of their mathe- 
 matical course." 
 
 * Some confusion may arise from the fact that the tabular statement on page 52 includes 
 the statistic* of two years more than Mr. HINSDALE'S table.
 
 6o 
 
 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 With such rapidly growing inferiority of the material how is it 
 that tlie ratio of graduations has increased more than tit is per 
 cent, within thirty or forty years? The following table certainly 
 needs explanation in the light of Professor CHURCH'S declaration 
 which is quoted above. 
 
 Table shoeing the number admitted, and the number and per cent. <>J 
 graduates for the time covered by the table given by President 
 Jlinsdale, which is to be found on page 52. 
 
 
 
 .K AIM'AI 1 I) 
 
 
 LRS. 
 
 AH.M 1 1 1 KI). 
 
 IDCR YKAKS 
 
 
 
 
 \l- 1 1 KU'AKI.S. 
 
 
 38-43 
 
 494 
 
 191 
 
 37 
 
 434* 
 
 393 
 
 179 
 
 46 
 
 48-53 
 
 420 
 
 195 , 46 
 
 
 420 
 
 i'H 45 
 
 58-63 
 
 395 
 
 172 43* 
 
 
 371 218 
 
 
 -MS S7 
 
 There is yet another light in which it will be interest ing to con- 
 sider this table. It is assumed to be a "standard ot measure 
 ment " whereby the value of the common education of one 
 ation may be compared with that of another generation. It it be 
 accepted for this purpose, it surely may be taken as a tit standard 
 for the comparison of one State with another at the same time. 
 In applying it to the latter use that which we have discovered to 
 be the chief source of error is eliminated, viz : the variation of 
 the standard, for surely we may rely upon the Academic Hoard to 
 -en handed justice to the several Stales at one and the same 
 sitting. Let us then compare the common education of some 
 of the States as ascertained by the West Point standard, with 
 the condition of education in the same States as ascertained by 
 the census of 1870. 
 
 It I 'it this falling niT 111 - 
 
 Mig out of the Civil \V;ir.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 6 1 
 
 The following table shows the comparative results of the two 
 modes of ascertaining the quality of our common education : 
 
 STATES. 
 
 Number out of 
 1,000 White Males 
 between 15 and 21, 
 who cannot Write. 
 
 Per Cent. Rejected 
 at West Point Ex- 
 aminations, since 
 1870. 
 
 Florida 
 
 }2<i 
 
 
 
 chusetts 
 
 37 
 
 32 
 
 Ohio 
 
 C J 
 
 34 
 
 New York 
 
 J J 
 
 T.2 
 
 37 
 
 Virginia . . 
 
 246 
 
 37 
 
 Maine - . . . . 
 
 71 
 
 4 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 4O 
 
 42 
 
 Maryland 
 
 82 
 
 43 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 42 
 
 45 
 
 The above tabular statement needs no comment. The great 
 educational metre discovered by Professor CHURCH, so far from 
 being moved by varying degrees of public education is really not 
 affected by extremes of either culture or ignorance. Its hands 
 are moved over the dial face sometimes with wonderful rapidity, 
 but they are not moved one way by the influence of good schools 
 and contrariwise by.the presence of illiterate youth. The power 
 that moves them is amenable to no law. Each successive con- 
 gressional representative turns the pointer this way or that as 
 whim, caprice or motive, high or low chances to rule him as he 
 passes along ; then the examiner calls "six," nine or three or any- 
 thing else that he pleases, and the record which he makes is gravely 
 urged to prove " the inferiority of our elementary instruction." 
 
 One last appeal to our judges, an ar%umentum ad hominem, and 
 I shall leave them to decide the case as they please. 
 
 Take one of the five thousand youths of a congressional district 
 who may be eligible to an appointment, take him pretty much at 
 hap-hazard without regard to previous school attendance, industry 
 or native capacity, would you judge the efficiency of the teachers 
 of that district by the specimen I If you would, O ye professors 
 and echoing visitors ! let us apply the measure to your school 
 the great standard of American military science. Let good men 
 with a large number who are nut so good, boon companions, 
 creditors, debtors, political jobbers, bribe-takers or bribe-givers,
 
 62 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 every four years pick out those whom they may be pleased or 
 whom it is their interest to call representatives of the Academy ; 
 let these specimens of your work (?) be selected from among those 
 whom you have discharged for incapacity from the first month to 
 the beginning of the fourthjyear of the academic course ; let now 
 and then one be taken at hap-hazard or by selection from among 
 your graduates, and take some, perhaps a third, who have never 
 entered the Military Academy, and let them all be placed in the 
 hands of competent examiners to pass a technical examination on 
 your entire course the graduates, good, fair and indifferent, 
 those whom you have " plucked " from stage to stage and even the 
 strangers to your gate with what justice could some congressional 
 committee in reporting the result, make such complaint as the 
 following : 
 
 From these results it is clearly evident that notwithstanding the 
 large sums expended for its support, there is somewhere a serious 
 defect in the system of instruction at West Aint, especially in the 
 simplest elements of a military course, Algebra, Geometry, etc. 
 
 What would you say to such a judgment ? Would you not say 
 that it was a somewhat violent exhibition of insanity 1 What then 
 shall Massachusetts educators say to you 1 Might they not say, 
 "The country expects of men in the high position which you hold 
 that they should ''think before they speak.' " 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE REASONS WHY THE WEST POINT ARGUMENT 
 SHOULD BE REJECTED. 
 
 The whole matter pertaining to these examinations at West 
 Point, as well as those at Annapolis, may be summed up in a few 
 sentences : 
 
 i st. The conditions of appointment have no relation to the 
 duration or regularity of previous school attendance, application 
 to study, or native capacity. 
 
 2d. The table shows that the examinations have been ex- 
 tremely variable, or else that the standard of education throughout 
 the whole country has risen and fallen in curves more fantastic 
 than the fluctuations of the stock market. That which requires
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 63 
 
 a half century to effect appreciably in the general average, has 
 become the variable quantity, and that which can be raised or 
 depressed at will, or accidentally, has become the constant and 
 invariable. 
 
 3d. I have shown that these examinations do not indicate even 
 remotely the condition of the common education of the people in 
 different States at the same period, and in consequence that they 
 afford no standard by which we may judge the efficiency of the 
 schools at different periods in the same State. 
 
 In our discussion on this point, we have not specially alluded 
 to the graded schools, the so called "all-system schools" of 
 to-day as*they are found in the larger towns and cities. To one 
 reading Mr. HINSDALE'S paper from beginning to end, particu- 
 larly what he has to say on the causes of the "inferiority of our 
 common education," it would seem that the blame for- so many 
 failures at West Point falls on them almost exclusively. But 
 the fact is, that, of those who have completed the course of 
 the grammar school with fair success, very few fail at these exam- 
 inations. 
 
 My own testimony may be worth something on this point, and 
 it is to the effect, that although I have had pretty intimate 
 acquaintance with the schools of the two largest cities of this 
 State for twenty years past, I cannot now call to mind even one 
 such failure. 
 
 Feeling confident, from my own experience, that if there were 
 any deterioration of our common-school education, it could not 
 be in the graded or " all-system schools," I addressed notes of 
 inquiry to several of the prominent educational men of our own 
 State, that I might ascertain what proportion of failures comes 
 from the thoroughly classified schools of the larger towns and 
 cities. 1 obtained replies from twenty different parties, repre- 
 senting as many different localities. These parties enumerate 
 sixty-six different individuals whom they know to have made 
 application for admission to the military and naval academies. 
 Out of the sixty-six, only six failed to obtain admission. Of 
 these six, two in one city stood among the lowest thirty out 
 of the hundred eligible candidates in, or from the same
 
 64 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 school. They were the sons of politicians, low, drinking men, 
 and were appointed for political considerations. In another 
 city, two failed, one a truant who would not go to school if 
 he could help it; the other had been faithful, but lacked 
 mental capacity. In a third city, one failed because he had not 
 completed the grammar-school course. Besides the five above- 
 accounted for, there were three others who failed, but they are 
 not included in the sixty-six candidates, for the reason that it is 
 not certainly known whether they came from graded or ungraded 
 schools. Thus it appears that the failures of which Prof. CHURCH 
 and the Board of Visitors complain do not come, as a general 
 thing, from the graded schools, and that the few failures which 
 may be charged against them are the consequences of corrupt or 
 ill considered appointments. It certainly cannot be said that the 
 parties testifying are not competent or reliable witnesses.* 
 
 I quote a few of the more pointed remarks made by these 
 gentlemen, with some extended passages especially from the 
 letters of Prof. DtWoLK and President K. K. WHITK, of Asbury 
 University, to whom I have referred on a previous pu^r. 
 
 Dr. HANCOCK, formerly Superintendent of the Schools of Cin- 
 cinnati, now of Dayton, President elect of the National Education 
 Association, speaks thus plainly: "I have no personal knowledge 
 of a single case in which a candidate from the public schools, lor 
 either West Point or Annapolis, failed on a regular examination 
 for admission. The standard for admission to West Point has 
 been so much raised within later years, that all Prof. Cm 
 says in regard to the preparation of candidates now, as compared 
 with that of candidates fifty years ago, is the merest twaddle." 
 
 Superintendent K. \V Si IAKNSON, of Columbus, say- 
 one person receiving his preparation in the public schools of this 
 city has ever failed or been conditioned in any branch of study. 
 This covers a period of thirty years." 
 
 The names of the gentlemen referred to are: SAMI M KINDI.KY, I'trs't A Si iirvi.FK, 
 
 M HKKNNKM \v (1. A. CAKNAH HAS. S. S.MAKT, GKO. \V 
 
 I>r. J. - II M.PARKBR, W.W.Ross, G.W. WALKER, President I. V 
 
 President JAS. H. r \IK< HII.D, I'rof. I. I iHWoi.K, HON. J. J. BURNS, M. R. 
 '.i > IKMSHV and T. J. WILKS. The names are given in 
 
 the order in which the cities they represent would stand alphabetically arranged.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 65 
 
 President I. W. ANDREWS, of Marietta, has held his present 
 position at the head of one of the oldest and most substantial 
 colleges of the State for more than twenty years. He has been 
 a close observer of educational affairs nearly forty years. His 
 sagacity is beyond question. After enumerating the young men 
 who had received their elementary instruction in the public schools 
 of Marietta, and who have been admitted to West Point and 
 the Naval Academy at Annapolis, President ANDREWS says : ' I 
 am glad you are looking into this subject, and would be pleased 
 to know your conclusions. The statement of Prof. CHURCH has 
 been incomprehensible to me." 
 
 Prof. D. F. DEWOLF, formerly Superintendent of Instruction 
 in Toledo, and now Professor of Modern Languages and Rhetoric 
 in Western Reserve College, concludes his letter as follows : " In 
 short, knowing as I do that for many years, until quite recently 
 the appointments have been made, in our region, wholly on 
 political grounds, the persons concerned carefully avoiding an 
 open market and the selection of the fittest, or the giving of the 
 fittest an opportunity to make known their fitness, I do not 
 regard the examinations or standing of candidates thus taken from 
 the public schools as giving any indication of the kind of work 
 done in these schools. When, as at the time of the last appoint- 
 ment, competitive examinations have been held, the public schools 
 have not suffered in comparison with other schools. Among some 
 eighteen examined then, I know of but one who was not of the 
 public schools. This one must have been a sophomore in one 
 of our colleges of this State that call other colleges significant 
 names, and yet in this competitive examination an under-graduate 
 of a public school received the appointment, and quite a number 
 of them stood higher than he. Several public schools of the 
 district (Congressional) had representatives among the last num- 
 ber. Yet I do not take that alone as an indication of inferior 
 work in that college. I said above this man must have been a 
 sophomore, because he has since graduated from his college, and 
 I am quite sure the examination occurred three years ago next 
 spring."
 
 66 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 Hon. K. K. WHITE, now President of Purdue University, speak- 
 ing of the same subject, says : * * * "I have known several 
 young men appointed to West Point, and most of these were 
 pupils in public schools. It is my impression that all who stood 
 well in the public schools were admitted. Several who attended 
 school irregularly or for other causes failed to maintain a good rank 
 were either not admitted or failed as students after admission, 1 
 believe this has been the general experience. 
 
 " Permit me to add, that while I do not question Prof. CIIURC H'S 
 ability as a teacher, or his candor as a man, 1 doubt the correct 
 ness of his statement. He is undoubtedly confident that his 
 judgment is correct, but I do not believe that he has sufficient 
 data to make such a judgment. The standard of admission to 
 West Point is not the same that it was forty years ago, and be- 
 sides, the method of examining applicants has greatly changed. 
 It was formerly oral ; it is now largely written, if I am correctly 
 informed. 
 
 " I have been an examiner of pupils and teachers most of the 
 time for twenty-five years, and I would not undertake to compare 
 the results of an oral examination with those of a written exam 
 ination. The tests are very different. * * * Again and again have 
 classes, that passed creditably oral tests, failed to pass a written 
 test, intended to be no more severe or difficult. 
 
 " In my recent trip to Europe, I crossed the ocean, going and 
 returning, in company with four West Point instructors. I took 
 special pains to learn from them the present method of examining 
 applicants at West Point, and the changes in the tests within their 
 knowledge and experience. The result of these conversations 
 was a conviction that no one can compare the scholarship of 
 present applicants with that of applicants examined twenty years 
 ago, much less forty years ago. What sale comparison, for 
 instance, can be made between the results of a spelling test, con- 
 sisting of one hundred or more words pronounced successively 
 to a number of applicants, and another test requiring each appli- 
 cant to write a part of one of Webster's speeches, or an extract 
 from Milton, dictated orally? * * * 
 
 " 1 have used the written method for nearly twenty-five years, 
 and 1 have preserved many sets of the questions used, and, in a
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 67 
 
 considerable number of cases, the results. It is my impression 
 that young people now going out from our schools, cipher, spell 
 and write better than they did twenty-five years ago. There has 
 certainly been a decided improvement in reading. I am however 
 obliged to add, that the elementary' training of the schools is still 
 poor enough to demand better teaching." 
 
 Such is the testimony of educators who have had occasion to 
 notice the qualifications of young men who have been sent up to 
 the great national Military and Naval Schools. But on this point 
 we have other testimony from West Point than Prof. CHURCH'S. 
 
 Prof. MICHIE, in a private letter already referred to, writes that 
 " within a few years past some Congressmen have thrown the 
 position open for competition, and in most cases that have im- 
 pressed me, I believe the successful competitor is from the com- 
 mon or high school of his district.* 
 
 Speaking further on this subject, Prof. MICHIE says : 
 
 I may say that we have had several graduates of the Cincinnati High 
 Schools as cadets, who have all taken very high rank in their classes. The 
 same may be said of the New York Free Academy (now the College of the 
 City of New York) and I doubt not the fact would have been established in 
 the cases of most of our high graduates, that they have had all the advantages 
 of public school education in their youth." 
 
 Of the unclassified or common district schools I cannot say 
 much. That there has been some improvement in them within 
 the last fifteen or twenty years cannot be questioned. But the 
 progress of reformation is not uniform in different sections even 
 of the same State, and at best it is everywhere very slow. The 
 standard of education for millions of youth cannot be raised 
 easily, nor in a short time. Majorities for needed school legisla- 
 tion must first be obtained. Every step of advancement has to 
 be lost many a time before it can be finally held. For illustration, 
 though sane men would not attempt any other work of like mag- 
 nitude without employing the best experts to direct and supervise 
 
 'The representatives c f this congressional district should be especially mentioned as hav- 
 ing always opened these appointments to public competition, and the uniform result has been 
 that the prize has been gained l.y a public school loy, and no one sent hat been rejected. 
 I believe only one has failed to complete the course.
 
 68 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 every agency by which it was carried on, yet the friends of educa- 
 tion have been battling for thirty years or more for county 
 supervision. Mechanics of the lowest grade are required to serve 
 an apprenticeship before they are permitted to go into a shop, 
 though they are there subject to constant oversight ; yet, without 
 so much as a day's special preparation for the important work 
 which awaits them, teachers are employed annually in thou- 
 sands of schools that are never visited by a competent inspector. 
 It is only by the most tedious process that one generation of 
 teachers after another can be raised up, each only a little better 
 than the preceding one. Since the beginning of the educational 
 reformation, which was inaugurated only forty years ago, such a 
 work could be no more than initiated at comparatively few points. 
 But while this movement has been so tardy, the standard of 
 requirement for admission to the Military Academy, even "within 
 the same scope," may be raised fifty or five hundred per cent, in 
 a single hour's consultation of the Academic Board. It is unde- 
 niable that it has been considerably raised, and the result only 
 shows that it has been raised more rapidly than the standard of 
 education throughout the country. This being the case, as we 
 have shown by incontestable evidence, it is not strange that there 
 should be a great increase in the number of rejections. 
 
 But may it not be that these schools, with all their faults, have 
 been unfairly judged? May it not be that the examinations now 
 are as much too severe as they used to be too lax? Examiners 
 are not always judicious. See what HERBERT SPENCER says of 
 various examinations that have found a place in his note-book. I 
 do not speak here in behalf of the great classified schools ; we 
 have seen that they take very good care of themselves. We are 
 now considering the case of Mr. HINSDALK'S model schools: the 
 "no-system " schools of the country districts. JHit hear what Mr. 
 SPKNCER says of examinations: 
 
 * * * "Our attention is arrested by the general fact that examiners, and 
 es|>ecially those appointed under recent systems of administration, habitually 
 put questions of which a large proportion are utterly inappropriate. A^ I learn 
 from his son, one of our judges not long since found himself unable in answer 
 an examination-paper that had been laid before law-students. A well known 
 Greek scholar, editor of a Creek play, who was appointed examiner, found 
 that the examination-paper set by his predecessor was too difficult for him.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 69 
 
 Mr. FROUDE, in his inaugural address to St. Andrews, describing a paper set 
 by an examiner in English History, said, ' I could myself have answered two 
 questions out of a dozen,' and I learn from Mr. G. H. LEWIS that he could 
 not give replies to the questions on English literature which the Civil Service 
 examiners had put to his son, joining which testimonies with kindred ones 
 coming from students and professors on all sides, we find the really note- 
 worthy thing to be that examiners, instead of setting questions fit for students, 
 set questions which make manifest their own e&ensive learning. Especially 
 if they are young, and have reputations to make or to justify, they seize the 
 occasion for displaying their erudition, regardless of the interests of those they 
 
 How far these remarks may apply to the examinations at West 
 Point we do not know. Possibly they may be wholly inapplica- 
 ble, but surely one ought to know before he makes any deduction 
 either from the results of one examination or from a series of 
 examinations. 
 
 President H!NSDALE, turning from the further discussion of the 
 West Point examinations, says: "Perhaps (the evidence sub- 
 mitted) does not prove a deterioration of the common-school 
 education of the country. Perhaps evidence to justify that asser- 
 tion has not been accumulated, or does not exist." In this we 
 are disposed to agree with him ; but let us pass to the latter part 
 of the same paragraph, in which he proposes to comment upon 
 some of the tendencies of the system which he avows to be wrong : 
 "What some of these tendencies are," he says, "will appear as I 
 point out some of the causes of the inferiority of our elementary 
 instruction." Without calling attention to the facility with which 
 he assumes the very thing to be true which he allows may not be 
 proved, and without any comment on his use of "elementary 
 instruction" here, and "common education" on the next page, as 
 synonymous expressions, we have to say that the causes which he 
 points out for the one or the other as he pleases, do not particu- 
 larly concern us just here. We shall not plead that our boys of 
 to-day do not learn so much as those of two or three generations 
 ago because many of them are children of foreign immigrants ; 
 nor because the time now devoted to school attendance is so 
 much less than it used to be ; nor because " study at home was 
 once the constant rule, and now the infrequent exception ;" nor 
 
 *Study of Sociology, American Edition, p. 97.
 
 70 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 because our children are " absorbed in the distractions of busi- 
 ness, of politics and social life;" nor because they "eagerly read 
 the papers for exciting news." We straightly deny the "inferi- 
 ority," and have no need of the excuses. On the contrary, we 
 claim, so far as these grounds of alleged inferiority may be true, 
 that they be set over to our credit, not as reasons for a miserable- 
 inferiority, but as obstacles to a more glorious success. 
 
 But we are more interested to follow President HINSDALE and 
 Prof. PEABODY as they leave the material and approach the 
 schools. They complain that the graded school system is exceed- 
 ingly rigid and inelastic. By this they undoubtedly mean that 
 pupils can be advanced from class to class only at regular inter 
 vals of time and that the bright pupil, the mediocre and the dul 
 lard are advanced alike. President HINSDALE says : 
 
 " Its tendency is to stretch all the pupils on the same bedstead." 
 " Then the tendency of the graded schools is to sacrifice the brightest children 
 to the dullards or to the mediocres. The dul lest Cannot be made to keep pace 
 with the brightest, where the latter are going at their normal pace ; but the 
 best can be made to go as slowly as the dullest, or, if the ability of the dullard 
 be not the standard of achievement, then it is the ability of the mediocre. In 
 no case do or can the brightest minds have a fair chance." 
 
 This point is certainly worthy of most careful consideration not 
 only in this discussion, but always, especially in the practical 
 management of schools, whether graded or ungraded. Kvery 
 child has a right to the normal development of his mind accord- 
 ing to his native capacity. To stunt the mind is no less criminal 
 than to stunt the body. If the graded school be obnoxious 
 to this charge, it matters not what it may offer in compensation, 
 let us go back^to the "no-system" schools of former periods or the 
 rural district schools of to-day and if they do not give opportunity 
 for the growth of "a man " let them too "be smashed," let us 
 throw away all our grand schemes of education, and begin again. 
 
 I !ut does the objection hold ? Let us look into the schools and 
 take an extreme case. A class of fifty boys is before us ; they are 
 all studying arithmetic, grammar, geography; they all read and 
 spell. Let us examine into their case, and ascertain how many of 
 them appear to be retarded by their association with stupid com- 
 panions. Here we have some records at hand which show exactly
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 71 
 
 what we shall find. Some of them stand from fifty to sixty in 
 arithmetic and seventy to eighty in grammar. Others stand eighty- 
 five to ninety in the former and sixty to seventy in the latter. 
 Now who suffers by the association of the class ? Not the most 
 brilliant. The one who stands highest has perhaps ninety. Now 
 ninety means that he has failed entirely on one question out of ten, 
 or parts of two or more questions, That is, he has exerted his 
 utmost power, "blood' and training" have done their best and yet 
 there is more to do. But how about the dullard? He stands 
 perhaps forty or fifty on a scale of one hundred. Have his inter- 
 ests been sacrificed for his brighter companions 1 The probability 
 is that even he has spent so much time in the study, review and 
 re-review of the matter gone over that he has absorbed all the in- 
 formation and acquired all the discipline of which his sluggish na- 
 ture is capable. 
 
 Sixty, seventy-five and ninety stand for all the acquisitions of 
 three different boys, which can be represented by percentages. 
 Is that all ( Far from it. One has learned only that which lies 
 upon the surface of things. A few facts of science have a lodg- 
 ment in his memory more or less permanent, according to the 
 power of his retentive taculty. His knowledge is superficial and 
 cannot be otherwise, because his reasoning power is feeble. The 
 mediocre understands your rules and applies them and by dint of 
 study he masters some of their principles. In the meantime the 
 brighter boys possess themselves of process and principle and gain 
 an insight into the deeper relation of things. You have done for 
 the three boys what was most profitable for each. By the very 
 classification which has been objected to, you have stimulated the 
 sluggish boy up to his highest capacity, and you have compelled 
 and habituated the bright boy to dwell upon a subject of study 
 till it is understood according to the strength and maturity of his 
 intellect. But there is yet something more than the mastering 
 even of broadest principles, in which all are exercised alike, but 
 with very different results. There is a clearness of statement, 
 readiness, precision and power in the use of language which goes 
 for much in the intercourse of the world, and certainly quite as 
 much in the development of mind.
 
 72 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 1 have spoken of the boys who are regularly advanced from 
 year to year with their class, but with vastly different degrees of 
 excellence and as widely different results as to general culture. 
 But there are two extremes of which I have not spoken. There 
 is the dullard who fails to be advanced with his class. He falls 
 back into the class which was below him. The advocate of the 
 "no-system" school cries out that "it is unjust to keep him back 
 six months for a deficiency which he might make up in one." If 
 the page of a text book or the line of a syllabus were the standard 
 by which his mastery of a subject is to be determined we should 
 grant its injustice. It would be stretching* some, though not all, "on 
 the same bedstead." But there is a maximum and a minimum to 
 be gained within the same scope of study and no one will deny 
 that the maximum of attainment which may be reached in any one 
 class is at least of equal value to the merely passable minimum of 
 the next higher. Then there are some of superior mental endow- 
 ments but backward in their studies who come into your graded 
 schools at an advanced age. From what President HINSDALE 
 says, it might be supposed that they would be allowed to move 
 forward only at the slow pace of their younger associates. The 
 supposition, however, would be possible only to those who know 
 nothing of the practical workings of the graded schools under 
 ordinarily judicious management. The truth is that pupils are 
 promoted in graded schools, as well as others, whenever it be- 
 comes apparent that they can be advanced without prejudice to 
 health or sound scholarship. In the city of Cleveland I speuk 
 of it only by way of illustration hundreds are thus put forward 
 every year. Of about three hundred and fifty admtted to the High 
 Schools last summer, nearly^fifty went in, in advance of the classes 
 with which they had been associated only a year or two before. 
 Of the graduates of the High Schools at last annual commence- 
 ment, one, a boy, entered the D grammar, class only two and a 
 half years previous ; another, a girl, only about live or six years 
 ago entered the B Primary.* These however are extreme cases 
 of rapid advancement, as there are on the other hand extreme 
 
 i.iy seem a little remark. ililc in view of what Prof. PKAHOUY says of the supcrim 
 v nfdiililrcn "having ^ciicralioiiN <>l culture behind them," that the parents of neither 
 of the.sc pupils I.iy any social claims to culture.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 73 
 
 cases of tardy progress. Between these extremes there is play 
 enough to show that the complaints that the graded school system 
 is "rigid," "inelastic," "tyrannous," "a procrustean bed," etc., 
 etc., are not founded on prevailing facts. 
 
 Closely connected with its alleged inelasticity, just noticed, is 
 the objection that the graded-school system requires a uniformity 
 of training and discipline, " which tends for the time being, as 
 much as possible, to wipe out all individual differences, to destroy 
 individual ambition, and to produce in the end, as Mr. ELIOT 
 says, an average product, a sort of mental, moral and physical 
 mean standard, which has been obtained quite as much by 
 stunting what is good in the children educated, as by forcing 
 work out of the dull." * 
 
 Inasmuch as this is a merely speculative view of the probable 
 result of our graded-school systems, I shall give it but little atten- 
 tion. 
 
 It is only another form of an old argument which was once 
 urged against the Military and Naval Academies : an argument 
 which has been utterly discredited by the history of those two 
 great arms of national defence. Precisely the same argument was 
 originally used against Normal schools. It was said of the 
 latter that they would tend to repress individuality, and train up 
 teachers of only respectable mediocrity. This too has been dis- 
 proved by experience. An argument something like this used to 
 be urged against allowing pupils to write after engraved copies, 
 because it would destroy that individuality of hand-writing, which 
 it was said " was the only safeguard against forgery," etc. Had 
 these argument proved to be of any worth, it might seem advisa- 
 ble to meet the objections now urged against graded schools. As 
 it is, we may safely pass to another point. In the meantime, let 
 us take heart from the lesson which nature teaches. The oak tree 
 and the blackberry bush are called to life by the same sun ; they 
 have been nourished by the same earth for thousands of years ; 
 yet both blackberry bush and oak tree have maintained their in- 
 dividualities to this day. 
 
 'The Nation No. 517, as quoted by President HINSUALK.
 
 74 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 The classification of a school, be it large or small, is arranging 
 in a class or grade all the pupils who can receive instruction 
 together with advantage. If this classification be made carefully, 
 and with a full knowledge of the ability of the pupils as well as 
 their advancement in their studies, it is likely to be permanent 
 for the majority of them. For none however is it a cast-iron 
 arrangement which cannot be altered. As we have seen, some 
 pupils soon demonstrate their ability to go forward to the next 
 higher class, and others show that they are too weak to keep pace 
 with their associates. In the class above or below, these find 
 their level and the work for which they are fitted by natural 
 capacity and habits of study. 
 
 The original purpose of the arrangement was to enable teach- 
 ers to gain time for attention to the work of each class and of 
 each individual member of a class. How much more readily 
 and thoroughly this may be done than in the ungraded school, 
 can easily be understood even by one Who is not habituated to 
 look into such matters. By way of illustration : let there be fifty 
 pupils all in one class; call it a "platoon," or any other obnoxious 
 name you please. All are studying the same problems in per- 
 centage; all read, spell and recite geography and grammar together. 
 The teacher, having only four or five subjects of instruction, studies 
 her lessons more exhaustively than her pupils. She knows just 
 where every difficulty lies, and how it is to be met. Let us sup- 
 pose that an arithmetic lesson is to be heard or given. A certain 
 part of the work, some principle or other, perhaps, needs to be 
 explained. By a few rapid questions the teacher finds out what 
 all know, what some do and others do not, and what none know. 
 The work that needs to be done for all is done, it may be, in five 
 or ten minutes, while in an ungraded school, where each pupil is 
 in a class by himself, it would take a whole forenoon to do the 
 same amount of work for each, and it would have to be done 
 under the disadvantage of many being idle while waiting for 
 needed help, or under the pretence of needing it. The explana- 
 tion for all being thus given in a few minutes, and for sections of 
 the class according to their needs in a ftw more, the inspection 
 of the work of all, and individual instruction where it is required, 
 begins; and in an hour all is done, and well done, that othciwise
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. . 75 
 
 would have been very poorly done in a day. For every subject 
 taught, the advantage is the same not only to the whole "platoon,"' 
 but to each individual. The truth is, that for forty or fifty pupils, 
 the only place where anything like individual instruction can be 
 had is in the thoroughly graded school. 
 
 What is said, on this point, in that most excellent pedagogical 
 library, the "Encyclopedia of Education," applies to the whole 
 question at issue. 
 
 " Heterogeneous masses of children cannot be instructed simul- 
 taneously. They may be made to perform mechanically certain 
 school exercises; may perhaps be taught to read, to spell, to 
 write and to cipher to some extent ; but it can only be by rote, 
 without the due exercise of their intelligence, and hence without 
 proper mental development, A poorly classified school can never 
 be really efncieat, whatever talent in teaching may be brought to 
 bear upon it." 
 
 Classification has another advantage, which is conceded it by 
 Mr. HINSDALE. I refer to division of labor. The highest skill 
 in any one branch of instruction, and I am almost disposed to 
 add at any stage thereof, can be reached only in a thoroughly 
 classified school. 
 
 The graded school is not the thought of to day, nor of those 
 who are now engaged in the work of teaching. In all its features, 
 it was advocated years ago by men who in their youth had expe- 
 rienced all the disadvantages of the ungraded schools of two or 
 three generations past. They knew by sad experience that the 
 kind of individual instruction individual neglect rather which 
 they themselves had received, could not lift the schools out of the 
 depths into which they had fallen. They saw clearly that even 
 Normal schools would be of little avail, unless the common 
 schools could be so organized that time might be gained for 
 something more than hurried memoriter repetitions of rules and 
 definitions, and the almost unguided, solitary work of the scholar. 
 
 If proof is wanting of the superior efficiency of classified schools, 
 it may be found in the fact that wherever they have sprung up, 
 however defective they may have been at the start, private schools 
 have failed at once; or, if they have survived for a time, unless
 
 76 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 in hands of teachers of exceptional ability, they have soon be- 
 come subjects for ridicule. The private school, and even the 
 endowed academy throughout the whole country, is going down 
 before the graded-school system. Every town of one thousand 
 inhabitants and upwards used to support many of them. Now 
 they can have a healthy existence only in the largest cities. 
 
 But Mr. HINSDALE says "there is a wide-spread dissatisfaction 
 with the results of the prevalent system." We have shown else- 
 where how various and contradictory the causes of dissatisfaction 
 are. That they should be so is not wonderful, for the common 
 schools touch more nearly the deepest interests of the human 
 heart than any other secular institution. The principles of edii'-a 
 tion are not generally understood. The father and the mother see 
 that their children are not taught as they were ; and if incapacity 
 or other causes prevent progress, the blame is very naturally laid 
 to the changes in the methods of instruction. Hence dissatis- 
 faction does not exist to any great degree among the parents 
 of the bright children. But whether it exist among one class or 
 another, it is well that it does exist somewhere, for there is no- 
 thing more certain than this, that dissatisfaction is an incen- 
 tive to improvement. If, however, men avail themselves of this 
 dissatisfaction to incite discontent and produce reaction, though 
 they may succeed for a time as reactionists have done, they will 
 find that what was dissatisfaction will in the end become devo- 
 tion. 
 
 But Mr. HINSDALE suggestively raises the question whether the 
 public school is "the best place for a man to put his bright boy 
 or girl, if he happens to have a bright one." In answer to this 
 question, I can only say that it is no uncommon thing for 
 men of intelligence to seek out the private school for the weak- 
 ling of the flock, while the brighter and more ambitious children 
 are sent to the public school. An eminent physician of thi 
 but recently told me that he has noticed this as a very common 
 practice in the families which he visits. The common opinion on 
 this point is well illustrated by an incident recently related to 
 me, of an earnest, studious daughter of wealthy parents in our 
 city, who, when it was proposed to send her to a private school
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 77 
 
 with a sister who was notably deficient in intellect, said : " Oh, 
 that school will do well enough for (we will say) Mattie, but I 
 hope you don't think it's the place for me." 
 
 But notwithstanding we appreciate so highly the superiority of 
 the graded schools as compared with the unclassified, we do not 
 think that they are without defect nor do we think that they are 
 " ideal " places for the education either of bright boy or dullard,* 
 for who is there on earth that has practically realized an institu- 
 tion so fair that the mind of man may not conceive a fairer ? 
 
 No, the public school is not claimed to be perfect. High above 
 all existing, all possible systems, there is " a model which we may 
 approach in a greater or less degree but which is yet infinitely 
 distant," and as our progress is upward this ideal will forever 
 recede until it merges into the absolute and perfect. Men may 
 forever struggle to reach it, but it will forever be infinitely distant. 
 
 But we are not content to disclaim any notion that our graded 
 schools are perfect. We go further and say that they are not as 
 good as they can be made ; that, as Prof. HINSDALE says, " they 
 need much criticism and revision." Let us enumerate only a few 
 of their principal faults. 
 
 1. They are not adapted as they might be to the preparation 
 of the young for the different avocations of life. For example : 
 the young man who has an ambition to take respectable rank 
 among the mechanics of the future should, before he leaves the 
 High School, be well advanced in the mathematics and other 
 sciences on which his success must mainly depend. Even in the 
 Grammar school grades, some differences should be made be- 
 tween the course of study of those who are going into mercantile 
 or mechanical pursuits and those who are destined for a literary 
 or professional career. The former especially need the sciences, 
 the latter the classics. 
 
 2. The classes in our graded schools are generally too large; 
 and, singular as it may seem, those that have the highest reputa- 
 tion are the most liable to objection on this score. Their mana- 
 gers pay high salaries that they may obtain the most efficient 
 
 K \ x r said, " What I have termed an ideal was in Plato's philosophy an idea of the Di- 
 vine inuid." Meiklejohn's Translation, Critique of Pure Reason.
 
 78 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 teachers, and then, to compensate, give them too many pupils to 
 teach. If you must have large classes to justify the employment 
 of the best teachers, there can be no doubt of this being the bet- 
 ter policy. But the wisdom of the future will require that while 
 we sacrifice nothing in the quality of the teacher we must gain by 
 reducing the number of children under her care by at least one- 
 half. But this will be possible only when education is estimated 
 at something like its true worth. 
 
 3. The course of study in these schools is not adapted to the 
 best education of the pupils. This is especially true of the gram 
 mar grades in which an aitempt is made to teach too much of 
 arithmetic and grammar. Time is wasted in fruitless efforts to 
 teach what can not be comprehended by the youth often to four- 
 teen years of age while that which he could understand and which 
 would be of greater use in L his daily business and social life is 
 neglected. 
 
 4. In country towns and village districts having a few hundred 
 children, and sometimes in places of larger pretensions, uneducated 
 and superficial men are sometimes put upen boards of education; 
 incompetent or inexperienced teachers are employed to be 
 changed year by year; a full course of study ranging from primary 
 to high school is developed, generally in imitation of some large 
 city, and the effigy of a graded system is then hung up for the 
 ridicule of our critics while the more judicious mourn. This is a 
 free country, the forms of law have been complied with and who 
 shall say nay? It is the graded school thus organized and ad- 
 ministered that brings discredit upon the whole public-school 
 system, just as our co-called colleges and universities bring dis- 
 credit upon the cause of higher education. It is such institutions 
 as these that send up boys to the Military and Naval Academies 
 who profess to have studied sciences, the names of which they 
 cannot spell. Truly the public schools do need much criticism 
 and revision, if these be the specimens by which you judge of 
 their defects ; but you might as properly judge the artists of 
 Kngland by the execution of the sign-boards which swing in front 
 of her public houses. 
 
 5. But the faults in the well graded public schools, which 
 cannot Le collected for van t. of a public sentiment to sustain the
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 79 
 
 somewhat radical changes which would be necessary to effect 
 reform, and the graver faults of those half-classified schools, which 
 make pretences of impossible courses of study at the expense of 
 thoroughness at every point these faults are not the only ones 
 which we feel bound to acknowledge. There are very common 
 faults, which might be corrected in a good degree if intelligent 
 and determined men were always put upon Boards of Education, 
 and if such men were duly sustained by the people in the perform- 
 ance of their duties. Such are the faults which result from the 
 employment of incompetent teachers, faults of organization and 
 administration, faults of plans of study. Finally, making one 
 broad admission, we confess that the graded schools are scored 
 all over with the faults which are incident to all human affairs. 
 
 THE FORMALISM OF THE SCHOOLS. 
 
 President HINSDALE, in speaking of the schools of New Eng- 
 land a century or half a century ago, quotes from Dr. PEA BODY 
 as follows : 
 
 ' ' There was no arbitrary or fixed arrangement of classes or plan of classifi- 
 cation, but each scholar was virtually a class by himself, in some studies 
 perhaps reciting alone, often out of school hours, in others associated with 
 different cempanions, according to his or her proficiency." 
 
 Mr. HINSDALE then continues : 
 
 " Now all this is changed. In place of an inartificial method or no method, 
 we have an educational liturgy each gospel, collect, psalm and prayer attended 
 by its appropriate rubric." Against the current formalism of teachers he di- 
 rects some of his hardest blows. He says he has "heard every member of a 
 class of twenty obliged to repeat separately ' one bean anil two beans are three 
 beans.' Also, that he had listened to an object lesson in which the teacher 
 ' spent several minutes in demonstrating, with a wonderful affluence of illus- 
 tration, to children six or seven years old, that the horse had four legs and a 
 child but two.'" 
 
 To this, I would only make such reply as would occur to the 
 ordinary reader, that because Dr. PEABODY had happened to see 
 these things it don't go very far to prove that they are common or 
 essential to a graded-school system. For one, 1 have never seen 
 anything approach the silliness of the " demonstration " spoken 
 of. As to the repetition of " one bean and two beans are three
 
 80 ODK COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 beans, " it may have seemed necessary to a very sensible and 
 excellent teacher to require such a thing in some particular case, 
 yet I think / have never heard any one do it. 
 
 But let us do justice. Is it not altogether likely that Prof. 
 I'KAHODY introduced these incidents for the purpose of enlivening 
 an afternoon's discourse before a teachers' association rather than 
 to demonstrate any inherent defect of the prevalent public school 
 system ? Has not President HINSDAI.E mistaken his design ? 
 One would suppose it possible, from the very singular misappre- 
 hension which he exhibits in the very next sentence : 
 
 "A friend of mine" he says, "was once looking through the schools <>l \\ 
 city very proud of her schools. In pointing out .some notcwoithy lea; 
 one of them, the supervising principal called attention to the fact that it re- 
 quired hut three minutes alter the bell struck to empty the building of its hun- 
 dreds of occupants. As though the time consumed by a child in walking down 
 stairs were an important feature of a school I"* 
 
 We should hardly know whether Mr. H^NSDALE is serious just 
 here, if it were not for the gravity of the next sentence, vi/ : 
 
 "Here we are dealing with everyday criticisms on the common schools, 
 and it is proper to inquire how far they are just, and how far the features com- 
 plained of can be removed." 
 
 Shall 1 be wanting in respect to our very worthy and highly- 
 esteemed associate, if 1 should say that he had written a passage 
 here which eclipses the silliness of the exercises to which Dr. 
 PEABODY refers in the paragraph previously quoted? Js it neces- 
 sary to explain that time saved in the movement ol large bodies 
 of pupils is time saved to each one lor study and instruction ; that 
 the rapid and orderly assembling and dismissing of a thousand or 
 litteen hundred pupils every day of a school year, six times per 
 day, without accident to the feeble and the timid, is a matter of 
 no little importance "if Finally, is it necessary that we should 
 demonstrate the necessity of such training in case of panic pro 
 duced by alarm of fire, t etc.? Were 1 to attempt it, the intelligent 
 
 *Tht: iirs. 
 
 t It was only a few days after tlie delivery of 1'residrnt HI :iat we 
 
 heard through the newspai>ers t an incMent whirh shows the \alui- of just sin l> disc ijilim-. 
 
 A large; M In ...I house at Minneapolis is said to havt: i alight lire in sin.li .1 uayasali. 
 
 ut of mind of the teachers and the daily habit ol the pupils 
 
 all were saved without injury.
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 8 1 
 
 reader might look upon me as trying to rival the teacher before 
 spoken of, who " spent several minutes in demonstrating * * * to 
 children six or seven years old, that a horse had four legs and a 
 child but two." But seriously, may it not be that this rigid 
 economy of time, now exercised in our best public schools, en, 
 ables them to do much more work than was done in the schools 
 of the past, when teachers, as Mr. HINSDALE implies, took less 
 pride in saving the minutes. 
 
 Again, on the second page from that on which we find the 
 passages above quoted, Mr. HINSDALE returns to the same sub- 
 ject. Here he speaks as follows: "Then there is the teacher's 
 tendency to formalism and routine. Several years ago, I discov- 
 ered that an elaborate school ritual had been evolved, and I am 
 gratified that Dr, PEABODY speaks of a school 'ritual and rubric.' 
 He says he has seen a ' fourth part of the time given to a reading 
 or spelling less'on occupied in meaningless evolutions and gestures 
 performed by the scholars in the interval between leaving their 
 seats and their resting in their final positions in front of the desk,' 
 as who has not?" 
 
 We suppose that Mr. HINSDALE will allow that a somewhat 
 specific course of study, written or unwritten, is indispensable if 
 we are to have graded schools at all. We believe he says as 
 much, but he appears to think it a sort of necessary evil. He 
 seems to hold that the unclassified school of a century or half 
 a century ago had the advantage in that its teachers were not 
 trammeled by any fixed course or syllabus of instruction. 
 
 In the consideration of this as well as other questions, we must 
 keep pertinent facts clearly in mind. In the first place, there is 
 not now, and there never has been, more than one teacher in a 
 thousand who is qualified to plan and manage the work from the 
 beginning to the end of an elementary education. To do this 
 well, one must have reached the period of maturity; he must 
 have been a careful observer of the processes of mental growth ; 
 he must have a keen insight into child life ; he must be thoroughly 
 conversant with the subjects of study. In order that he may go in 
 the right direction, the planner should see the end from the 
 beginning, and thereafter each step must be taken with due regard
 
 82 Obi* o'OMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 to what has gone before, and what is to follow. There are very 
 few teachers who can fulfill these conditions ; but though all were 
 competent there must be unity of design from first to last. 
 
 A harmonious development of all the faculties of a child, and 
 a right selection and sequence of studies to be pursued from 
 infancy almost to manhood, forbid that there should be frequent 
 or radical changes in the general plan. But with frequent changes 
 of teachers this is inevitable, unless there be a general plan for all 
 to follow. The views of different individuals conflict as to the 
 true order of studies, and it is even a question among men as to 
 what education is. To illustrate: one holds that to teach reading, 
 writing and ciphering is the sole end for which elementary schools 
 were established ; another party maintains that the three " R's," as 
 indispensable as they may be, do not, as generally taught, tend to 
 lift the mind or heart to a higher plane of action. One holds that 
 the chief purpose of studying grammar is to learn its technicalities, 
 and gain discipline of intellect by means df parsing and analysis ; 
 another holds all this in light esteem compared with carefully- 
 directed practice in the use of language. It is commonly thought 
 that arithmetic should precede geometry ; but there are some 
 who would reverse the process. Now, it won't do to hand over a 
 child, much less a whole school, at intervals of not more than 
 three or five years, to successive teachers holding such opposite 
 views, "to plan and manage their own work." We find frequent 
 changes of teachers inevitable, whether they be men or women, 
 for in these degenerate days the call of better pa>' is as effectual 
 as the call of the marriage bell. How then shall unity of design 
 in the fabric of education be guaranteed 1 \\ e reply, in only one 
 way, and that is by laying out our plans and specifications before 
 the structure is commenced. The old analogy herein implied is 
 defective in many particulars, but it \\ill stftice for our punm 
 purpose. A well-defined course of study, then, would seem to be 
 a vital necessity to the unclassified as well as the graded school. 
 
 P,ut is a school having a course of study, or a syllabus of in- 
 struction, or a tirr.e table which indicates the relative impoitarce 
 of the several branches pursued, more justly chargeable with 
 formalism than the old-time school, such as we have had before us
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 83 
 
 in the testimony which has been submitted ? The difference be- 
 tween the two may be briefly stated as follows : The teacher who 
 is guided only by a course, a syllabus, a time table, is left to his 
 own judgment as to how he shall teach the successive topics 
 required. But, when the programme of work is lacking, the book 
 regulates the course of study. It prescribes not alone the order of 
 topics but the exact form in which definition, demonstration and 
 rule are to be learned ; and if it be not in the hands of a true 
 master of the art of teaching, he who should be the master be- 
 comes the most abject of slaves. The Board of Education, then, 
 that lays down a course of study leaves its teachers pretty much 
 at liberty in their method of teaching. The Board that simply 
 prescribes a book, orders the method by which it shall be taught ; 
 that is, the method of the book. To which may formalism be 
 charged, with the greater justice? 
 
 We have often heard teachers, by way of apology for failure, 
 say that they could not teach unless they were allowed to teach 
 in their own way, but we never heard such a declaration from the 
 mouth of one who could teach anything without the book in hand : 
 that is, do anything more than hear recitations. 
 
 MULTIPLICITY OF STUDIES AND SUPERFICIALITY. 
 
 There is a very common impression that more studies are now 
 pursued in the public schools than at any previous time, but the 
 truth is that the maximum was reached twenty or twenty-five 
 years ago. For instance : besides all the branches now taught, 
 algebra and physiology were studied in the higher classes of the 
 schools of Cleveland and Cincinnati from 1850 to 1855, and per- 
 haps later. The tendency since that time has been to reduce 
 rather than to extend the course. Then there is a very common 
 misapprehension also as to the extent to which the so-called 
 higher branches are taught in some of the lower grades. For 
 example : when people who are not familiar with the schools come 
 to hear that physics is taught to children of twelve and thirteen 
 years of age, they picture to themselves these young children 
 studying and making regular recitations on these subjects from 
 the ordinary treatises, such as were studied by themselves when
 
 84 OUR COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 they were at the academy or college. But this is not the true 
 picture. It should rather be, of the teacher giving a half-hour's 
 lesson or holding a familiar conversation, once or twice per week, 
 on a line of subjects which properly fall under the head of 
 physics. The instruction given is not scientific, it dwells only 
 upon those phenomena which may very appropriately engage the 
 attention of mere children. For instance : by a few simple experi- 
 ments which require no more apparatus than can be found in 
 every school room, such as the drinking cup, the water pail, etc., 
 these boys and girls can be made to understand that air occupies 
 space, has weight, and rises, when warmed to a temperature higher 
 than the surrounding atmosphere. The ventilation of a room 
 can be explained and even the cause of winds can be made plain. 
 The reason why we speak of higher and lower temperatures 
 can be shown by exposing the thermometer alternately to cold 
 and heat. The expansion of metals under high temperature can 
 be easily demonstrated, and why the thermometer rises and falls 
 as the temperature changes. 
 
 So I might go on enumerating phenomena under the head of 
 those great names, mechanics, hydraulics, etc., etc., in all of 
 which the child may be interested, and every one of which will 
 stimulate his observing faculties, excite thought and add to his 
 intelligence. No cramming of lessons to be recited again, needs 
 or ought to be attempted. The only aim is to make the child 
 an intelligent boy or girl. What he learns will aid him in all his 
 other studies, and if he leave school at an early age, will be of 
 service to him when he goes into the workshop and in his inter 
 course with men. He may or may not be given to understand 
 that he is learning " physics," but he really is, and that to good 
 purpose, if he is rightly taught. 
 
 In drawing this paper to a close, I have not the space to 
 discuss the question whether this is superficial in an obnoxious 
 sense. I would here merely .raise the inquiry whether such teachi- 
 ng is more superficial than learning that the atmosphere is very 
 cold about the tops of high mountains ; that there are trade winds, 
 political boundary lines, tropic circles, and a thousand other 
 things, without learning their causes. The age has come for 
 these children to see and know what there is about them affecting
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 85 
 
 their daily life, though they cannot comprehend the philosophy ot 
 things. 
 
 The age of abstract reason has not come to these children yet, 
 and any attempt to call the faculty into any more than feeble 
 exercise must prove futile worse indeed than useless. It is 
 therefore amusing to hear Prof. CHURCH speak of training "the 
 minds of beginners in the logical reasoning required in arithmetic 
 and grammar." But though a very superficial remark, it suggests 
 that some grave mistakes are made in our common schools. 
 They are not however the mistakes which he imagines. 
 
 What some of these mistakes may be, will appear as we compare 
 the present course of study with that which prevailed three- 
 quarters of a century ago. Spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 and English grammar, including epistolary correspondence, were 
 then required.* The same subjects are taught to-day, with the 
 addition of geography, music, drawing, and, for the higher classes, 
 History of the United States. Besides these, instruction in natural 
 science, such as we have just spoken of, is commenced. That 
 these additions do not preclude increased attention to the original 
 list, becomes apparent on taking note of the amount of work done 
 in the olden time as compared with what is now accomplished in 
 what are called the common school studies. We have already 
 seen that though the object of our present study of spelling is 
 widely different from what it used to be, the time given it by each 
 pupil is about the same. Passing this, we next come to reading. 
 The Bible (mostly the Psalms and the New Testament) and 
 "Webster's Third Part" were the books then used. Comparing 
 these with the readers now in use, we cannot doubt that our 
 pupils are now expected to read in course twice or three times as 
 much matter as was then required, to say nothing of the reading 
 which has to be done in the added studies, geography and history. 
 
 In arithmetic, it is quite certain, that more than twice as many 
 rules and from three to five times more problems are required 
 now than formerly. SALEM TOWN tells us that fractions were 
 out of the questipn about the beginning of the present century, 
 and his testimony on this point is confirmed by many other 
 witnesses. In the tenth edition of Adams' arithmetic, which was
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 On page 64, second paragraph, President E. E. WHITE m " Asbury" University, should 
 read President E. E. WHITE of "Purdue" University. 
 
 i Mi -ame page, in the foot-note, the name of the Superintendent of Instruction, Columbus, 
 Ohio, should be " R. W. STEVENSON," not " GKO. W. STEVENSON," and the name of the 
 Superintendent of the Schools of Zanesville, should be "A. T. WILKS," not "T, J . U 
 
 On page 79, fourth line from bottom, the proof reader has ''donV'for "does not."
 
 
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