purposes, such as music, drilling, gymnastic exercises, games, tableaux,
and exhibitions of the magic lantern, the oxyhydrogen microscope, the
stereopticon, and the like, they should assemble in a large hall. The
details of arrangements will readily suggest themselves. The main feature
is to have all things natural, free, pleasant, cheerful, bright, refined,
and unrestrained by external forms or rigid rules, at the same time that
order is secured by an easy discipline.
So deeply are we impressed with the importance and utility of the kinder
garten, and with the high qualities required by the teacher of the very
young, that we are more and more disposed to believe that the true order
in rank and promotion among teachers should be, to speak in paradox,
downwards; that is to say, the younger the children to be taught, the
higher the rank and remuneration of the teacher; for not only is an
extensive range of knowledge necessary to enable the teacher truthfully
to answer the innumerable questions of inquisitive infancy, and to avoid
giving false notions, to be afterwards with greater or less difficulty
removed--always with a shock to the moral sentiment when the child
discovers it has been deceived--but also a knowledge of the infant mind, a
perception of the thoughts and fancies which chase one another through the
infant brain, a knowledge and perceptive power which only a watchful and
loving experience can acquire. An industry and a patience far beyond any
needed by the teacher of more advanced pupils are also required by the
highly-cultivated men and women, to whom alone the training of infant
minds should be intrusted. Advanced pupils go more than half-way to meet
their teacher--the infant can render no assistance to his, all has to be
borne, suffered and done for him--his future habits depend mainly on those
given to him in his earliest years. Yet the care of him in these important
days is generally confided to ignorant nurses and to the less-skilled
class of teachers.
In building the school, a pleasing style of architecture should be
adopted, and the walls of the main hall should be hung with diagrams of
all kinds, illustrative of natural history in its largest sense, of the
sciences and of the mechanical arts, and with portraits or busts of
distinguished men. The walls of the class-rooms should be decorated with
diagrams and maps and figures referring to the special branches taught
therein.
A large and commodious laboratory should be fitted up in the building, to
enable every pupil to acquire experimentally that knowledge of chemical
forces and action which books alone can never impart. A convenient
observatory should afford facility for astronomical study and observation.
On the top floors or around the building should be arranged workshops,
where the use of tools and machinery could be taught. The classes should
assemble in the large hall, in the morning, where they might join in
singing or light gymnastic exercises, or listen to some short appropriate
address before betaking themselves to their class-rooms.
The teaching in these latter should be conducted, wherever practicable,
upon the Socratic method, and every branch of science and of art could be
thus explained. The mother unconsciously uses this method in educating or
drawing out the first perceptions of infancy and early youth; and the
impressions derived from this method of acquiring knowledge are the most
lasting, being such as become most absolutely assimilated with the pupil's
mind. The teacher would also, at frequent intervals, conduct his class
into the fields and woods for the study of botany, entomology, and
geology, where Nature would supply in abundance the materials, and the
teacher would be the only book. Instruction in the various trades which
could be conveniently practised should receive attention, the taste of the
pupils being made a guide to selection.
Some portion of the teaching which goes on in school should be performed
by the pupils, under the supervision of the teacher. No adult can so
thoroughly enter into a child's mind as can another child; nor is this the
only reason.
That is not fully known which can not be thoroughly used and applied, and
knowledge can not be applied which its possessor can not himself impart.
A perfect illustration of this truth is furnished us in the training of
the soldier.
Upon nothing, perhaps, have the knowledge and skill of the most powerful
intellects been more concentrated than upon the science and art of mutual
slaughter; and in establishing the soldiers' drill, an exhaustive analysis
of the means by which the desired object was to be attained has been
pursued. The men whose intellects have developed that drill, have not been
content to treat the soldier as a pupil only. Each recruit has in turn to
teach, as well as to learn to practise what he has learned, by drilling
others whom he is made temporarily to command, as well as to practise his
drill under the command of his officer; for only by such means could the
highest degree of efficiency be secured. The reasons which led to the
adoption of this principle in the barrack apply equally to the school.
This principle of giving and receiving we also see exemplified in Nature.
Animals inhale oxygen from the air and return carbonic acid, which serves
to build up the structure of the plant, and the latter in its turn gives
out oxygen to supply the consumption of animals.
Every day--in the middle of the day, in winter, in the summer, early in
the morning, or in the evening--gymnastic training on the system of the
Swedish anatomist Ling or of the German Turners would form a portion of
the curriculum, for which convenient apparatus would be provided.
Biography should form an important feature in the course of reading, its
subjects being arranged in groups; and the true glory of a Washington, a
Bentham, a Stevenson, a Morse, and a Cobden distinguished from the false
glare and tinsel of a Louis XIV. and a Marlborough.
Music, both vocal and instrumental, would be taught to all, but only those
more gifted by nature would be educated to perform solo. Nearly all
persons can be trained to sing part-music pleasantly and intelligently,
and to perform moderately on some instrument. The cultivation of the
musical faculties harmonizes the mind, and affords a never-failing source
of solace and recreation. The attempt to convert all persons into solo
performers, and the hypocritical applause with which their discordant
notes are indiscriminately greeted, deprives society of the pleasures
which part-music well performed would afford, by encouraging all to
attempt what they are pretty sure to do badly, to the exclusion of what
they would be equally likely to do well.
We have reserved for the last, to enumerate what is, perhaps, the most
important of all the subjects of instruction.
TO ALL children, so soon as they can be promoted from the _kinder
garten_--perhaps even to the higher grades therein--instruction in the
conditions of human well-being, and in the phenomena and arrangements of
social life should be given, and should be continued throughout their
school career.
What! teach political economy to children? Even so. It will be conceded,
that to teach the future laborers the laws by which the wages of their
labor will be regulated, how high wages may be secured and low wages
prevented--to teach the future capitalists the laws by which their profits
will be determined, how large profits may be secured, and loss, failure,
crises, and panics avoided--must be a desirable, if it be a practicable
thing. Is it practicable? The experience of twenty years has proved that
it is. The experiment has been tried by Mr. Wm. Ellis, the wise and noble
founder of the Birkbeck schools of London, England, who not only devoted
his surplus means to the endowment of true schools, but gave also his time
to instruct in the principles of the science of human well-being--alike
the poor children by whom his schools were attended and the children of
the Queen of England. He also instructed and trained a corps of teachers,
professional and volunteer, and by one of the latter a class was conducted
in the winter of 1867, '68 at the Normal School of this city of some 35 to
40 teachers engaged in the practical work of teaching in our common
schools, who, under his guidance, became, after a short course of some
twenty or more lessons, enthusiastic advocates for the introduction of
this study into the schools; for not only does it teach the conditions of
industrial success, but it is also a science of morals and of ethics far
more worthy of the attention it has never yet received in this or, indeed,
in any country, than that which is given to what goes under the name of
moral teaching and training. It is by gradual steps--by the employment of
the Socratic method of instruction--with a rare use of text-books, that
the most intricate problems of this science can be unfolded to pupils with
such effect that a child of fourteen or fifteen years of age, who shall
have passed through a course of four or five years' instruction, would put
to the blush, with few exceptions, alike the members of both houses of
the United States Congress and of the British Parliament.
A museum and a library would be necessary adjuncts to such a school as we
have described. It would need but a few seasons to get together in the
various excursions taken by pupils and teachers, quite a collection of
botanical, entomological, and geological specimens. These would serve as
objects for illustrating the teacher's lessons, and for examination by the
pupils. The drying, preservation, and arrangement of plants, animals, and
minerals, in which the pupils would assist, would serve to impart to them
a skill and dexterity, which they would know how to value, and would be
eager to acquire, and, together with their frequent visits to the museum,
would serve to cultivate a love of nature and devotion to the study of her
works.
The library, besides containing treatises on science and for reference,
would be filled with books of travels, and the nobler English and foreign
classics; the books would be loaned to the pupils as in ordinary
circulating libraries, and a pleasant reading-room would be furnished with
the better class of periodicals and newspapers.
To be deprived for a time of the right to visit the museum or
reading-room, or to borrow books from the library, would be one of the
severest punishments known in the school.
It is hardly necessary to say that the selection of the principal of such
a school as we have indicated is among the most difficult problems of its
establishment. His qualifications should be as near the perfection of
manhood as can possibly be found. Invited by a large and generous salary
(to be dependent, beyond a stated sum, on the number of the pupils), it is
to be hoped such a teacher could be found.
Such a principal, after a fixed period of probation, should not be
removable except on a very large vote of the proprietors of the school to
that effect, but his office should be vacated on his attaining the age of
60 or 65 years. The selection of teachers to assist him in his duties
should be left to himself. The remuneration of the assistant teachers
should also be large, and should be such as not only to enable them to
live in comfort, but to make ample provision for their future when the age
of labor shall have passed.
The chief position in society should be assured to the principal and his
assistants by the proprietors of the school.
The visits of the former to the houses of the latter should be regarded as
an honor, the greatest respect and deference should be paid to them, and
the pupils should be taught to look upon them with love and respect next
only to that they pay their parents.
The best investment a parent can make of his wealth is in the proper
education of his children. Life is not merely to be born, to grow, to eat,
to drink, and breathe. Noise is not music. Life is such as we take it and
make it, or rather as it is taken hold of and made for us by those to whom
the care of our youthful days is intrusted.
Let us endeavor to picture to ourselves the being likely to be produced by
a system of teaching and training, continued for successive generations,
such as we have indicated above. Let us imagine the full development of
the most complex of nature's organisms--a part of the one living organism
of the Universe, the latest product of her laboratory; considered, as a
part of the great Cosmos, the most perfect, yet but an integer in the
whole; the ultimate development of nature's chemistry, yet forming an atom
of her living unity; combining and possessing the widest relationships,
even embracing therein the entire volume of that nature whose true
relationships comprise all knowledge, truly "the noblest study of
mankind." Let us try and draw the picture of the developed man!
Robust and supple of limb, symmetrical of shape, his muscles swelling
beneath their healthy development; with head erect, conscious of his
strength and skill, which he puts forth for the protection of the weak,
and for the purpose of drawing from nature her bounteous stores; free from
sickness or disease, in harmony with nature, at peace with his fellow-men,
possessing a competent knowledge of nature's laws, and guiding his conduct
to be in accord therewith, "sitting beneath his own vine and fig-tree,"
"blessed in all the works of his hands," and diffusing blessings and
happiness around. Such is the picture of THE HEALTHY MIND IN A HEALTHY
FRAME, which it is in man's power to procreate and rear!
_APPENDIX._
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,}
CORNER OF GRAND AND ELM STREETS, }
NEW YORK, June 5th, 1869. }
TO MAGNUS GROSS, Esq.,
_Chairman of the "Executive Committee for the Care, Government and
Management of the College of the City of New York:"_
DEAR SIR,--I have observed with surprise, and with a sense of deep regret,
that the proposition is entertained by a large number of the Trustees of
filling the chair of Latin and Greek, now vacant, and even of establishing
separate chairs for each, at the College of the City of New York;
involving, with the necessary tutors, an outlay of not less than $20,000
per annum. The subject in all its bearings is one of too vast importance
to be treated in the ordinary method of discussion by the Committee, and I
therefore beg leave to place my views in writing, to insure their
receiving more matured consideration than oral observations could secure.
I pass over the question (on which considerable difference of opinion
exists) as to the propriety of sustaining at all, at the enforced expense
of the public, an educational institution to supply the needs which the
College of the City of New York is intended to meet. The College exists by
law; we are its guardians, and the only question we have to consider is,
how most efficiently and most economically to secure the attainment of the
ends desired by the Legislature.
These ends we shall no doubt all agree to be--first: that any of the youth
of this city possessed of special talents, but lacking means for their
cultivation, may have placed within their reach an education the best
possible for the development of their powers for the benefit of
themselves and of the community; and, second, to provide for the
comparatively well-to-do the means of pursuing useful studies in
compensation for compelling them to provide for the instruction of their
less fortunate citizens.
As it is self-evident that whatever course of studies will tend to secure
the first of these ends will tend also to secure the second and less
important, we are spared the necessity of a two-fold investigation.
A very few statistics suffice to show that neither of these ends has been
hitherto attained by the College of the City of New York.
It is immaterial what year we select for examination, the numbers which
follow will be found to bear about the same relative proportions in every
year. I quote from the Trustees' Report for 1866 merely because it is the
latest document at hand which furnishes the numbers in the different
classes and of the graduates; from this report I find, that while there
were three hundred and eighty-one students in the introductory class, only
twenty-five graduated in that year. The number of graduates in 1867 was
thirty, and twenty-nine in July, 1868. Of the three hundred and eighty-one
who composed the introductory class in 1866, one hundred and fifty-one
left the College during the year, and doubtless the two hundred and thirty
who remained will have dwindled to about twenty-five or thirty by the year
1871.
Without doubt some proportion of the three hundred and eighty-one leave
the College because of the necessity they are under of obtaining, by their
labor, the means of subsistence; but when it is remembered that these
three hundred and eighty-one are the _picked youth from the many thousands
attending the public schools_, and when the sacrifices and privations
which men and youth imbued with a love of learning will make and undergo
for the acquirement of knowledge are borne in mind, we must look to
something in the constitution of the College itself to account for this
result. In short, we can but come to the conclusion that the main cause
of this falling off is to be found in the feeling which grows upon the
pupils and their guardians, of the comparative uselessness of the studies
to which they are consigned.
Let us examine the course of studies, as given from pages 8 to 14 of the
Report of the Board of Trustees for the year 1866, or from pages 24 to 28
of the Manual of the College.
The first observation which must strike the mind of every thinker is the
fact that the primary analysis--the main classification which has been
adopted of studies which ought to be framed to fit the students for
"complete living"--is one of "words," _i. e._, the tools of knowledge,
instead of knowledge itself. Or in the words of the Report: "There are two
courses of studies--ancient and modern--differing only in the languages
studied."
On examining the course for the introductory and freshman classes, a
feeling of astonishment must fill the mind at the marked want of wisdom by
which it was dictated, but which at the same time affords a sufficient
explanation for the abandonment of the College by its students.
Even if "_words_" ought to be the real object of education, it would be
supposed that English words would be more useful to a people whose
mother-tongue is English, than the words of any other language; yet the
students of the introductory and freshman classes of the ancient course
receive instruction _five hours a week through both terms in Latin and
Greek_, and _one lesson per week during one term in the English language_.
The students of the modern course substitute for Latin and Greek the
French and Spanish languages.
I purposely abstain from saying any thing as to the method of instruction,
which is the converse of that adopted by nature, and as a consequence
signally fails. This has been so forcibly put by President Barnard, of
Columbia College, that I need only refer the members of our Committee to
his essay on "Early Mental Training, and the Studies best fitted for it."
What steps are taken to familiarize the students of, say the freshman
class, with that great nature of which they form a part? What, for
instance, do they learn of the structure of their own bodies, and of the
means of preserving health? _One lesson a week_ is given on Physiology and
Hygiene, and that is all! The fear of making this letter too long compels
me merely to refer the Committee to pages 40 to 42 of Mr. Herbert
Spencer's chapter on "What Knowledge is of Most Worth," in his work on
Education, in farther illustration of this subject, instead of making
extracts from it as I would otherwise like to do.
Attention, it is true, is paid throughout the college course to
mathematical studies, yet very little to their practical application;
while to Chemistry, the parent of modern physics, the manual (which is our
guide) prescribes two lessons per week to the introductory class, and to
the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes absolutely _none at all_!
Mining, Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, Theoretical Agriculture,
Biology, and Botany are utterly ignored; and no branch of Zoology is even
mentioned in the curriculum. We next come to a science more important,
because universal in its application and in its need than any other, viz.:
The Science of Human Well-being, commonly called Political or Social
Economy. Here, too, like exclusion! except that in the sophomore class,
for one term, one hour per week is given to it. That is to say, a people
who are to live by labor are left by the guardians of their education in
ignorance of the laws by which the reward for that labor must be
regulated; they who are to administer capital are to be left to blind
chance whether to act in accordance with those laws of nature which
determine its increase, or ignorantly to violate them!
Restrained again from quotation by the fear of wearying the Committee,
permit me to refer them to the lecture of Dr. Hodgson, delivered at the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, on "The Importance of the Study of
Economic Science," which will be found in the work of Professor Youmans,
on "The Culture demanded by Modern Life."
I confess to a feeling of deep discouragement at the perusal of such a
record as that presented by the course of studies at the College of the
City of New York, especially when I find that this is the state of things
a large number of the Trustees seem desirous of perpetuating. My views on
this subject are confirmed by the following remarks found in President
Barnard's Essay on "Early Mental Training, and the Studies best fitted for
it."
"Whatever may be the value of the study of the classics in a
subjective point of view, _nothing could possibly more thoroughly
unfit a man for any immediate usefulness_ in this matter-of-fact
world, or make him _more completely a stranger in his own home_, than
the purely classical education which used recently to be given, and
which, with some slight improvement, is believed to be still given by
the universities of England. This proposition is very happily
enforced by a British writer, whose strictures on the system appeared
in the London _Times_ some twelve or thirteen years ago.