or state that sacrifices the living public judgment to the opinion of a
dead man, or a dead generation, makes a great mistake. We should never
substitute, beyond the power of revisal, the opinion of a past
generation for the opinion of a living generation. I trust to the living
men of to-day as to what is necessary to meet our existing wants, rather
than to the wisest men who lived in Greece or Rome. And, if I would not
trust the wise men of Greece and Rome, I do not know why the people, a
hundred years hence, should trust the wise men of our own time.
And then look further, and see how, under a system of public
instruction, you can build up, from year to year, in the growth of the
child, a system according to his wants. Private instruction cannot do
this. What do we do where we have a correct system? A child goes into a
primary school. He is not to go out when he attains a certain age. He
might as well go out when he is of a certain height; there would be as
much merit in one case as in the other. But he is advanced when he has
made adequate attainments. Who does not see that the child is incited
and encouraged and stimulated by every sentiment to which you should
appeal? And, then, when he has gone up to the grammar school, we say to
him, "You are to go into the high school when you have made certain
attainments." And who is to judge of these attainments? A committee
appointed by the people, over whom the people have some ultimate
control. And in that control they have security for two things: first,
that the committee shall not be suspected of partiality; and secondly,
that they shall not be actually guilty of partiality. In the same
manner, there is security for the proper connection between the high
school and the schools below. But in the school at Norwich--of which I
speak because it is now prominent--you have a board of twenty-five men,
irresponsible to the people. They select a committee of nine; that
committee determines what candidates shall be transferred from the
grammar schools to the high school. May there not be suspicion of
partiality? If a boy or girl is rejected, you look for some social,
political, or religious influence which has caused the rejection, and
the parent and child complain. Here is a great evil; for the real and
apparent justice of the examination and decision by which pupils are
transferred from one school to another is vital to the success of the
system.
There is another advantage in the system of public high schools, which I
imagine the people do not always at first appreciate. It is, that the
private school, with the same teachers, the same apparatus, and the same
means, cannot give the education which may be, and usually is, furnished
in the public schools. This statement may seem to require some
considerable support. We must look at facts as they are. Some people are
poor; I am sorry for them. Some people are rich, and I congratulate them
upon their good fortune. But it is not so much of a benefit, after all,
as many think. It is worth something in this world, no doubt, to be
rich; but what is the result of that condition upon the family first,
the school afterwards, and society finally? It is, that some learn the
lesson of life a little earlier than others; and that lesson is the
lesson of self-reliance, which is worth more than--I will not say a
knowledge of the English language--but worth more than Latin or Greek.
If the great lesson of self-reliance is to be learned, who is more
likely to acquire it early,--the child of the poor, or the child of the
rich; the child who has most done for him, or the child who is under the
necessity of doing most for himself? Plainly, the latter. Now, while a
system of public instruction in itself cannot be magnified in its
beneficial influences to the poor and to the children of the poor, it is
equally beneficial to the rich in the facility it affords for the
instruction of their children. Is it not worth something to the rich
man, who cannot, from the circumstances of the case, teach self-reliance
around the family hearth, to send his child to school to learn this
lesson with other children, that he may be stimulated, that he may be
provoked to exertions which he would not otherwise have made? For, be it
remembered that in our schools public sentiment is as well marked as in
a college, or a town, or a nation; that it moves forward in the same
way. And the great object of a teacher should be to create a public
sentiment in favor of virtue. There should be some pioneers in favor of
forming a correct public sentiment; and when it is formed it moves on
irresistibly. It is like the river made up of drops from the mountain
side, moving on with more and more power, until everything in its waters
is carried to the destined end.
So in a public school. And it is worth much to the man of wealth that
there may be, near his own door, an institution to which he may send his
children, and under the influence of which they may be carried forward.
For, depend upon it, after all we say about schools and institutions of
learning, it is nevertheless true of education, as a statesman has said
of the government, that the people look to the school for too much. It
is not, after all, a great deal that the child gets there; but, if he
only gets the ability to acquire more than he has, the schools
accomplish something. If you give a child a little knowledge of
geography or arithmetic, and have not developed the power to accomplish
something for himself, he comes to but little in the world. But put him
into the school,--the primary, grammar, and high school, where he must
learn for himself,--and he will be fitted for the world of life into
which he is to enter.
You will see in this statement that, with the same parties, the same
means of education, the same teachers, the public schools will
accomplish more than private schools.
I find everywhere, and especially in the able address of Mr. Gulliver,
to which I have referred, that the public schools are treated as of
questionable morality, and it is implied that something would be gained
by removing certain children from the influence of these schools. If I
were speaking from another point of view, very likely I should feel
bound to hold up the evils and defects which actually exist in public
schools; but when I consider them in contrast with endowed and private
schools, I do not hesitate to say that the public schools compare
favorably; and, as the work of education goes on, the comparison will be
more and more to their advantage. Why? I know something of the private
institutions in Massachusetts; and there are boys in them who have left
the public schools because they have fallen in their classes, and the
public interest would not justify their continuance in the schools. It
was always true that private schools did not represent the world exactly
as it was. It is worth everything to a boy or girl, man or woman, to
look the world in the face as it is.
Therefore, the public school, when it represents the world as it is,
represents the facts of life. The private school never has done and
never will do this; and as time goes on, it will be less and less a true
representative of the world. From this point of view, it seems to be a
mistake on the part of parents to exclude their children from the world.
Is it not better that the child should learn something of society, even
of its evils, when under your influence, and when you can control him by
your counsel and example, than to permit him finally to go out, as you
must when his majority comes, perhaps to be seduced in a moment, as it
were, from his allegiance to virtue? Virtue is not exclusion from the
presence of vice; but it is resistance to vice in its presence. And it
is the duty of parents to provide safeguards for the support of their
children against these temptations. When Cicero was called on to defend
Muræna against the slander that, as he had lived in Asia, he had been
guilty of certain crimes, and when the testimony failed to substantiate
the charge, the orator said, "And if Asia does carry with it a suspicion
of luxury, surely it is a praiseworthy thing, not never to have seen
Asia, but to have lived temperately in Asia." And we have yet higher
authority. It is not the glory of Christ, or of Christianity, that its
Divine Author was without temptation, but that, being tempted, he was
without sin. This is the great lesson of the day.
The duty of the public is to provide means for the education of all. To
do that, we need the political, social, and moral power of all, to
sustain teachers and institutions of learning; and, endowed or free
schools, depending upon the contributions of individuals, can never, in
a free country, be raised to the character of a system. If you rob the
public schools of the influence of our public-spirited men, if they take
away a portion of their pupils from them, our system is impaired. It
must stand as a whole, educating the entire people, and looking to all
for support, or it cannot be permanently maintained.
THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM.
[An Address delivered at the Dedication of the Powers Institute,
Bernardston.]
There cannot be a more gratifying spectacle than the universal homage
offered to education and to the young. Childhood is attractive in
itself; and it is peculiarly an object of solicitude for its promises
concerning the future. Hence the labors of philanthropists, reformers,
and Christians, as well as of teachers, are devoted to the culture and
improvement of the rising generation, as the chief security possible for
the prevalence of better ideas in the state and in the world.
Massachusetts has been peculiarly favored in the means of education; and
we ought ever to recognize the divine influence in the wisdom which led
our fathers to lay the foundations of a system that contemplated the
education of the whole people. The power of this great idea, universal
education, has not been limited to Massachusetts; the states of the
West, the states of the South, receive it as the basis of a wise public
policy; and had our ancestors contributed nothing else to the glory of
the republic, they would yet be entitled to the distinguished
consideration of every age and people. The vigor of our culture and the
hardihood of our institutions are more manifest out of Massachusetts
than in it. The immigrant in his new home in the great valley of
prairies, on the northern shores of the American lakes, in Oregon,
California, or the islands of the Pacific, invokes the spirit of New
England in the establishment of a free church and a free school. And in
the spirit and discipline of New England, the thoughts of her sons are
turned homeward in adversity, seeking consolation at the sources of
early, vigorous, and happy life; or, in prosperity, that they may offer,
in gratitude to man and to God, some tribute, always noble, however
humble, to the principles and institutions that first formed their
characters, and then controlled their destiny; or, in old age, the
wanderer, like Jacob in Egypt, with his blessing upon the tribes and
families of men, says, "I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with
my fathers." This occasion and its honors are due to the memory of him
whose name this institution bears; and his last will and testament is an
illustration, or rather the cause, of these prefatory remarks. As the
reasonably extended and eminently prosperous life of your wise
benefactor approached its close, he, in the principles of Old England
and of New England, ordered and directed the payment of all his just
debts; and then, secondly, expressed the wish, "if practicable, to be
buried by the side of his parents in the cemetery at Bernardston." First
justice, and then affection for parents, kindred, and home, animated the
vital, never-dying soul, as the life of the body ebbed and flowed, and
flowed and ebbed, to flow no more. For every good the ancients imagined
and named a divinity; and there is in every good something divine.
We do not deify the living nor the dead; yet such foundations and
institutions as the Lawrence Scientific School, the Peabody Institute,
the Powers Institute, will bear to a grateful posterity a knowledge of
the virtues of their respective founders, and of the exactness,
rectitude, and wisdom, of the public sentiment which religiously
consecrates the means provided to the ends proposed.
But just eulogy of the dead is the appropriate duty of those who were
the associates and friends of the founder of this school.--It will be my
purpose, in the humble part I take in the services of this honored
occasion, to point out, as I may be able, the connection between
learning and wisdom, and then, by the aid of some general remarks upon
education, to examine the fitness of this foundation, and the rules
here established, to promote human progress and virtue.
The actual available power of a state is in its adult population; but
its hope is in the classes of children and youth whose plastic minds
yield to good influences, and are moulded to higher forms of beauty than
have been conceived by Italian or Grecian art. Excellence is always
adorable and to be adored. If it appear in beauty of person, it commands
our admiration; and how much more ought wisdom, which is the beauty of
the mind and the excellency of the soul, to be cultivated and cherished
by every human being! "For what is there, O, ye gods!" says Cicero,
"more desirable than wisdom? What more excellent and lovely in itself?
What more useful and becoming for a man? Or what more worthy of his
reasonable nature?"
But wisdom cannot be acquired in a day, nor without devotion and toil.
It is the achievement of a life. It is to be pursued carefully through
schools, colleges, and the world,--to be mastered by study, intense
thought, rigid mental discipline, and an extensive acquaintance with the
best authors of ancient and modern times. It is not the child of ease,
indolence, or luxury; and it is well that it is not, The best of human
possessions are cheapened their attainment is no longer difficult. The
wealth of California and Australia has made silver, as an article of
luxury, the rival of gold; and the pearl loses its beauty when the
mountain streams are as fertile as the depths of the sea. Wisdom
comprehends learning, but learning is often found where wisdom is
wanting. Wisdom is not accomplishment in study, or perfection in art, or
supremacy in poetry or eloquence. Learning is essential to wisdom, for
we cannot imagine a wise man who is not also a learned man; and the
extent and soundness of his learning may be a measure of his wisdom.
Wisdom must always have a basis of learning, but learning is not always
a basis of wisdom. Learning is a knowledge of particulars, of details;
wisdom is such a combination of these particulars as enables us to
harmonize our lives with the laws of nature and of God.
Learning is manifested in what we know; wisdom in what we are, based
upon what we know. Philosophy, even, is love for wisdom rather than
wisdom itself. The old philosophers defined wisdom to be "the knowledge
of things, both divine and human, together with the causes on which they
depend;" and in the proverb of Solomon, "The fear of the Lord is the
instruction of wisdom." Purity, truth, and justice, are also of its
foundation. Wise men of the Jewish and Pagan world built on this
foundation, and the Christian can build on none other. Having combined
learning with these essential virtues, a liberal, symmetrical,
comprehensive character may be built up. In the formation of such a
character, industry, powers of observation, strength of will and
intellectual humility, are requisite. The virtue and the glory of
industry cannot be presented too often to the young. I know of no
worldly good or human excellence that can be attained without it; nor is
there any inherited possession of name, or wealth, or position, that can
be preserved in its extent and quality without active, systematic,
judicious labor.
It is not necessary to consider industry as habitual diligence in a
pursuit, manual or intellectual; but rather as a judicious arrangement
of business and recreation, so as always to have time for the necessary
duties of life. Mere diligence is not industry in a good sense; it is
labor in a bad sense. Our time should be systematically appropriated to
our employments, and each measure of time should be equal to the work or
duty appointed for it. Moreover, each work or duty should be
accomplished in its appointed time; and this can be secured only by a
strong will. The power of will admits of education, culture,
improvement, as much as any faculty of the mind or quality of
character. A fickle, planless life cannot accomplish much. System in
our plans, and firmness of will in their execution, will place us beyond
the reach of ordinary disasters; yet how often do young men go through a
course of school studies without a plan, even for the moment, and enter
upon life the slaves of chance, the victims of what they call fortune,
while they might by industry, system and firmness of will, rise superior
to circumstances, and extort a measure of success not unworthy of a
noble ambition!
Idleness is a wasting disease, a consuming fire, a destroying demon; in
youth it is a calamity, in the vigor of manhood it is a disgrace and a
sin, and in old age it can be honorably accepted only as the symbol of
reflective leisure earned by a life of industry and virtue. Industry is
a badge of honor, an introduction everywhere to the true nobility of the
world, the security that each may take of the future for his own
happiness and prosperity in it.
Cardinal, personal virtues shrink and wither, or are blasted and die, in
the company of idleness; and, without firmness of will, the noblest
principles and purest sentiments sometimes wear the livery of vice, and
often they give encouragement to it. Good principles, good purposes,
good ideas, are made fruitful by a strong resolution; while without it
they are like bubbles of water, brilliant in the sun-light, but destined
to collapse by the changing, silent force of the medium in which they
float. And can any life, not positively vicious and criminal, be less
desirable than that of the young man who quietly accepts whatever
condition circumstances assign to him? I speak now of his moral and
intellectual condition rather than of his social position among men. The
latter is not in itself important, and only becomes so through the
exhibition of high qualities of mind and character. Social and political
consideration we cannot demand as a right; but we may acquire knowledge,
develop qualities of character, give evidences of wisdom that entitle us
to the respect of our fellows.
It may be agreeable, but it is not absolutely essential, for us to enjoy
the public confidence, or even the public consideration; though we can
be happy ourselves only when we are conscious of not being totally
unworthy. But no social or political concession or consideration is
acceptable to a noble mind, that is grudgingly yielded or doubtingly
bestowed; and the lustre of great intellects is dimmed when they become
subservient to claims that they despise.
But can we acquire a knowledge of things, either divine or human, unless
we cultivate our powers of observation? Partial or inaccurate
observation, especially of natural things, is a great defect of
character; and in New England, where the aim of educators and of the
public in matters of education is elevated, a remedy for this defect
ought at once to be sought and applied. Our ideas are vague concerning
many subjects of common sight and common observation. Is adult life,
even among the educated classes, equal to a description of the common
animals, trees, fruits and flowers? Who will paint with words the elm or
the oak so that its species will be known while the name is withheld?
The introduction of drawing into the schools will improve the power of
observation among the people, especially if the pupils are required to
make nature their model. And this should always be done. O, how is
education belittled and the mind dwarfed by those teachers who keep
their pupils' thoughts upon signs and definitions, when they ought to
deal continually with the facts, things and life of the world! It is no
fable that a student of the higher mathematics, when his master, a
practical engineer upon the Boston water-works, required his services,
exclaimed, "I had no idea that you had sines and tangents out of doors."
With such,
"Nothing goes for sense or light
That will not with old rules jump right;
As if rules were not in the schools
Derived from truth, but truth from rules."
And Butler, in his satirical description of Sir Hudibras, ascribes to
his hero more practical philosophy than he appears to have intended, and
more, certainly, than is found in some modern systems of education:
"In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater;
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve by sines and tangents straight,
If bread or butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by algebra."
Another prerequisite of wisdom is intellectual humility, Solomon, says,
"Before honor is humility;" and humility is before wisdom, and even
before learning. We ought not to be ashamed of involuntary ignorance.
Franklin, when asked how he came to know so much, replied, "By never
being ashamed to ask a question."
It is idle for any one to imagine that there is nothing more for him to
learn. Indeed, such a theory is good evidence of defective education and
limited attainments, if not of a defective mental and moral structure.
Naturalists delight and instruct their pupils and auditors with the
wonderful truths folded in the flower, garnered in the plant, or
imprisoned in the rock. Yet how much more there must be of God's wisdom
in the humblest of the beings created in his image! There are
distinctions among men; and out of these distinctions come the truth and
the necessity that each may be both a teacher and a pupil of every
other. No man, however learned he may be, does know or can know all that
is known by his neighbor, though that neighbor be the humblest of
shepherds or of fishermen. We are not independent of each other in
anything. The earnest and faithful disciple of wisdom goes through life
everywhere diffusing knowledge, and everywhere gathering it up. Over the
great gateway of life is the inscription, "None but learners enter
here;" and along its paths and in its groves are tablets, on which is
written, "None but learners sojourn here." He is a poor teacher who is
not a learner, and he is but little of a learner who is not something of
a teacher also. The best teachers are they who are pupils, and the best
pupils are already teachers. Such was the real and avowed character of
the great teachers of antiquity; such is the best practice of modern
continental Europe, and such is the requirement of nature in all ages.
He who does not learn cannot teach. Socrates professed to know only
this, that he knew nothing. Plato was a disciple of Socrates and
Euclid; a pupil in the school of Pythagoras; and, as a traveller, under
the disguise of a merchant and a seller of oil, he visited Egypt, and
thus gained a knowledge of astronomy, and added something to his
learning in other departments. He numbered among his pupils Isocrates,
Lycurgus, Aristotle, and Demosthenes; and for eight years Alexander the
Great was the pupil of Aristotle, while Demosthenes
"Wielded at will that fierce Democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne."
Thus we trace Demosthenes and Alexander, the master spirits in the
struggle of Grecian independence against Macedonian supremacy, through
teachers and culture up to Socrates, the wanderer in the streets, and
the disturber of the peace of Athens.