those who are not qualified, in a literary point of view, for the post
of teachers. By sending better teachers into the public schools, you
will effectually aid in the removal of this difficulty. The Normal
School is, then, no substitute for the high school, academy, or college.
Nor do we ask for any sympathy or aid which properly belongs to those
institutions. He is no friend of education, in its proper signification,
who patronizes some one institution, and neglects all others. We have no
seminaries of learning which can be considered useless, and he only is a
true friend who aids and encourages any and all as he has opportunity.
What is popularly known as learning is to be acquired in the common
school, high school, academy and college, as heretofore. The Normal
School does not profess to give instruction in reading and arithmetic,
but to teach the art of teaching reading and arithmetic. So of all the
elementary branches. But, as the art of teaching a subject cannot be
acquired without at the same time acquiring a better knowledge of the
subject itself, the pupil will always leave the Normal School better
grounded than ever before in the elements and principles of learning. It
is not, however, to be expected that complete success will be realized
here more than elsewhere; yet it is well to elevate the standard of
admission, from time to time, so that a larger part of the exercises may
be devoted to the main purpose of the institution. The struggle should
be perpetual and in the right direction. First, elevate your common
schools so that the education there may be a sufficient basis for a
course of training here. If the Normal School and the public schools
shall each and all do their duty, candidates for admission will be so
well qualified in the branches required, that the art of teaching will
be the only art taught here. When this is the case, the time of
attendance will be diminished, and a much larger number of persons may
be annually qualified for the station of teachers.
Next, let the committees and others interested in education make
special efforts to fill the chairs of your hall with young women of
promise, who are likely to devote themselves to the profession. It is,
however, impossible for human wisdom to guard against one fate that
happens to all, or nearly all, the young women who are graduated at our
Normal Schools. But this remark is not made publicly, lest some anxious
ones avail themselves of your bounty as a means to an end not
contemplated by the state.
The house you have erected is not so much dedicated to the school as to
the public; the institution here set up is not so much for the benefit
of the young women who may become pupils, as for the benefit of the
public which they represent. The appeal is, therefore, to the public to
furnish such pupils, in number and character, that this institution may
soon and successfully enter upon the work for which it is properly
designed.
But the character and value of this school depend on the quality of its
teachers more than on all things else. They should be thoroughly
instructed, not only in the branches taught, but in the art of teaching
them.
The teacher ought to have attained much that the pupil is yet to learn;
if he has not, he cannot utter words of encouragement, nor estimate the
chances of success. It is not enough to know what is contained in the
text-book; the pupil should know that, at least; the teacher should know
a great deal more. A person is not qualified for the office of teacher
when he has mastered a book; and has, in fact, no right to instruct
others until he has mastered the subject.
Text-books help us a little on the road of learning; but, by and by,
whatever our pursuit or profession, we leave them behind, or else
content ourselves with a subordinate position. Practical men have made
book-farmers the subject of ridicule; and there is some propriety in
this; for he is not a master in his profession who has not got, as a
general thing, out of and beyond the books which treat of it.
Books are necessary in the school-room; but the good teacher has little
use for them in his own hands, or as aids in his own proper work. He
should be instructed in his subject, aside from and above the arbitrary
rules of authors; and he will be, if he is himself inspired with a love
of learning. _Inspired with a love of learning!_ Whoever is, is sure of
success; and whoever is not, has the best possible security for the
failure of his plans. There cannot be a good school where the love of
learning in teacher and pupil is wanting; and there cannot be a bad one
where this spirit has control. As the master, so is the disciple; as the
teacher, so is the pupil; for the spirit of the teacher will be
communicated to the scholars. There must also be habits of industry and
system in study. We have multitudes of scholars who study occasionally,
and study hard; but we need a race of students who will devote
themselves habitually, and with love, to literature and science.
On the teachers, then, is the chief responsibility, whether the young
women who go out from this institution are well qualified for their
profession or not. The study of technicalities is drudgery of the worst
sort to the mere pupil; but the scholar looks upon it as a preparation
for a wide and noble exercise of his intellectual powers--as a key to
unlock the mysteries of learning. It is the business of the teacher to
lighten the labors of to-day by bright visions of to-morrow.
There is a school in medicine, whose chief claim is, that it invites and
prepares Nature to act in the removal of disease.
We pass no judgment upon this claim; but he is, no doubt, the best
teacher who does little for his pupils, while he incites and encourages
them to do much for themselves. Extensive knowledge will enable the
teacher to do this.
He is a poor instructor of mathematics who sees only the dry details of
rules, tables and problems, and never ascends to the contemplation of
those supreme wonders of the universe which mathematical astronomy has
laid open. The grammar of a language is defined to be the art of reading
and writing that language with propriety. The study of its elements is
dry and uninteresting; and, while the teacher dwells with care upon the
merits of the text, he should also lift the veil from that which is
hidden, and lead his pupils to appreciate those riches of learning which
the knowledge of a language may confer upon the student.
It is useful to know the division of the globe into continents and
oceans, islands and lakes, mountains and rivers--and this knowledge the
text-books contain; but it is a higher learning to understand the effect
of this division upon climate, soil and natural productions--upon the
character and pursuits of the human race. Books are so improved that
they may very well take the place of poor, or even ordinary teachers.
Explanations and illustrations are numerous and appropriate, and very
little remains for the mere text-book teacher to do. But, when the
duties of teacher and the exercises of the school-room are properly
performed, the entire range of science, business, literature and art, is
presented to the student. May it be your fortune to see education thus
elevated here, and then will the same spirit be infused into the public
schools of the vicinity.
The Massachusetts system of education is a noble tribute to freedom of
thought. The power of educating a people, which is, in fine, the chief
power in a state, has been often, if not usually, perverted to the
support of favored opinions in religion and government. The boasted
system of Prussia is only a prop and ally of the existing order of
things. In France, Napoleon makes the press, which has become in
civilized countries an educator of the people, the mere instrument of
his will. Tyrants do not hesitate to pervert schools and the press,
learning and literature, to the support of tyranny. But with us the
press and the school are free; and this freedom, denied through fear in
other countries, is the best evidence of the stability of our
institutions. It is now a hundred years since an attempt was made in
Massachusetts to exercise legal censorship over the press; but we
occasionally hear of movements to make the public schools of America
subservient to sect or party. The success of these movements would be as
great a calamity as can ever befall a free people. Ignorance would take
the place of learning, and slavery would usurp the domain of liberty.
No defence, excuse, or palliation, can be offered for such movements;
and their triumph will safely produce all the evils which it is possible
for an enlightened people to endure. Our system of instruction is what
it professes to be,--a public system. As sects or parties, we have no
claim whatever upon it. A man is not taxed because he is of a particular
faith in religion, or party in politics; he is not taxed because he is
the father of a family, or excused because he is not; but he contributes
to the cause of education because he is a citizen, and has an interest
in that general intelligence which decides questions of faith and
practice as they arise. It is for the interest of all that all shall be
educated for the various pursuits and duties of the time. The education
of children is, no doubt, first in individual duty. It is the duty of
the parent, the duty of the friend; but, above all, it is the duty of
the public. This duty arises from the relations of men in every
civilized state; but in a popular government it becomes a necessity. The
people are the source of power--the sovereign. And is it more important
in a monarchy than in a republic that the ruler be intelligent,
virtuous, and in all respects qualified for his duties?
The institution here set up is an essential part of our system of public
instruction, and, as such, it claims the public favor, sympathy and
support.
This is a period of excitement in all the affairs and relations of men,
and America is fast becoming the central point of these activities. They
are, no doubt, associated with many blessings, but they may also be
attended by great evils. We claim for our country preëminence in
education. This may be just, but it is also true that Americans, more
than any other people, need to be better educated than they are. Where
else is the field of statesmanship so large, or the necessity for able
statesmen so great?
With the single exception of Great Britain, there is no nation whose
relations are such as to require a union in rulers of the rarest
practical abilities with accurate, sound and varied learning; and there
is no nation whose people are so critical in the tests they apply to
their public agents. We need men thoroughly educated in all the
departments of learning; to which ought to be added, travel in foreign
countries, and an intimate acquaintance with every part of our own. Such
men we have had--such men we have now; but they will be more and more
important as we advance in numbers, territory and power. A corresponding
culture is necessary in theology, in law, and in all the pursuits of
industry.
No other nation has so great a destiny. That destiny is manifest, and
may be read in the heart and purpose of the people. They seek new
territories, an increase of population, the prosperity of commerce, of
all the arts of industry, and preëminence in virtue, learning and
intellectual power. And all this they can attain; for the destiny of a
people, within the limits prescribed by reason, is determined by
themselves. If, however, by conquest, annexation and absorption, we
acquire new territories, and strange races and nations of men, and yet
neglect education, every step will but increase our burdens and perils,
and hasten our decay.
FEMALE EDUCATION.
[An Address before the Newburyport Female High School.]
I accepted, without a moment's delay, the invitation of the principal of
this school to deliver the customary address on this, the fifteenth
anniversary of its establishment. My presence here in connection with
public instruction is not a proper subject for comment by myself; but I
have now come, allow me to say, with unusual alacrity, that we may
together recognize the claims of an institution which furnishes the
earliest evidence existing among us of a special design on the part of
the public to provide adequate intellectual and moral training for the
young women of the state.
Those movements which have accomplished most for religion, liberty, and
learning, have not been sudden in their origin nor rapid in their
progress. Christianity has been preached eighteen hundred years, yet it
is not now received, even intellectually, by the larger part of the
human race. Magna Charta is six centuries old, but its principles are
not accepted by all the nations of Europe and America; and it is not,
therefore, strange that a system of public instruction, originated by
the Puritans of New England, should yet be struggling against prejudice
and error. In Asia woman is degraded, and in Europe her common condition
is that of apparent and absolute inferiority. When America was settled
she became a participator in the struggles and sufferings which awaited
the pioneers of civilization and liberty on this continent, and she thus
earned a place in family, religious, and even in public life, which
foreshowed her certain and speedy disenthrallment from the tyranny of
tradition and time. Her rights with us are secure, and the anxiety and
boisterous alarm exhibited by some strong-minded women, and the
horror-fringed apprehensions and prophecies of some weak-minded men, are
equally unreasonable and absurd. Woman is sharing the lot of humanity,
and therewith she ought to be content. Man does not remove the burden of
ignorance and oppression from his sex, merely, but generally from his
kind. At least, this is the experience and promise of America. If woman
does not vote because she is woman, so and for the same reason she is
not subject to personal taxation. It is an error to suppose that voting
is a privilege, and taxation, ever and always, a burden. Both are
duties; and the privilege of the one and the burden of the other are
only incidental and subordinate. The human family is an aggregation of
families; and the family, not the man nor the woman, is the unit of the
state. The civil law assumes the existence of the family relation, and
its unity where it exists; hence taxation of the woman brings no revenue
to the state that might not have been secured by the taxation of the
man; and hence the exercise of the elective franchise by the woman
brings no additional political power; for, in the theory of the relation
to which there are, in fact, but few exceptions, there is in the
household but one political idea, and but one agent is needed for its
expression. The ballot is the judgment of the family; not of the man,
merely, nor of the woman, nor yet, indeed, always of both, even. The
first smile that the father receives from the child affects every
subsequent vote in municipal concerns, and likely enough also in
national affairs. From that moment forward, he judges constables,
selectmen, magistrates, aldermen, mayors, school-committees, and
councillors, with an altered judgment. The result of the election is not
the victory or defeat of the man alone; it is the triumph or prostration
of a principle or purpose with which the family is identified.
Is it said that there is occasionally, if not frequently, a divided
judgment in the household upon those questions that are decided by the
ballot? This must, of course, be granted as an exceptional condition of
domestic life; but, for the wisest reasons of public policy, whose
avoidance by the state would be treachery to humanity, the law universal
can recognize only the general condition of things. So, and for kindred
but not equally strong reasons, the elective franchise is exercised by
men without families, and denied to those women who by the dispensations
of Divine Providence are called to preside in homes where the father's
face is seen no more. But why, in the eye of the state, shall the man
stand as the head of the family, rather than the woman? Because God has
so ordained it; and no civil community has ever yet escaped from the
force of His decree in this respect. Those whose physical power defends
the nation, or tribe, or family, are naturally called upon to decide
what the means of defence shall be. Is not woman, then, the equal of
man? We cannot say of woman, with reference to man, that she is his
superior, or his inferior, or his equal; nor can we say of man, with
reference to woman, that he is her superior, or her inferior, or her
equal. He is her protector, she is his helpmeet. His strength is
sufficient for her weakness, and her power is the support of his
irresolution and want of faith. Woman's rights are not man's rights; nor
are man's rights the measure of woman's rights. If she should assert
her independence, as some idiosyncratic persons desire, she could only
declare her intention to do all those acts and things which woman may of
right do. Given that this is accomplished, and I know not that she would
possess one additional domestic, political, or public right, or enjoy
one privilege in the family, neighborhood, or state, to which she is
not, in some degree, at least, already accustomed.
These views and reflections may serve to illustrate and enforce the
leading position of this address--that we are to educate young women for
the enjoyments and duties of the sphere in which they are to move. We
speak to-day of public instruction; but it should ever be borne in mind
that the education of the schools is but a part, and often only the
least important part, of the training that the young receive. There is
the training of infancy and early childhood, the daily culture of home,
with its refining or deadening influences, and then the education of the
street, the parlor, the festive gathering, and the clubs, which exert a
power over the youth of both sexes that cannot often be controlled
entirely by the school.
Womanhood is sometimes sacrificed in childhood, when the mother and the
family fail to develop the womanly qualities of modesty, grace,
generosity of character, and geniality of temper, which dignify, adorn,
and protect,
"The sex whose presence civilizes ours."
The child, whether girl or boy, reflects the character of its home; and
therefore we are compelled to deal with all the homes of the district or
town, and are required often to counteract the influences they exert.
Early vicious training is quite as disastrous to the girl as to the boy;
for, strange as it may seem, the world more readily tolerates ignorance,
coarseness, rudeness, immodesty, and all their answering vices, in man
than in woman. In the period of life from eight to twenty years of age
the progress of woman is, to us of sterner mould, inconceivably rapid;
but from twenty to forty the advantages of education are upon the other
side. It then follows that a defective system of education is more
pernicious to woman than to man.
We may contemplate woman in four relations with their answering
responsibilities--as pupil, teacher, companion, and mother. As a pupil,
she is sensitive, conscientious, quick, ambitious, and possesses in a
marvellous degree, as compared with the other sex, the power of
intuition. The boy is logical, or he is nothing; but logic is not
necessary for the girl. Not that she is illogical; but she usually sees
through, without observing the steps in the process which a boy must
discern before he can comprehend the subject presented to his mind. In
the use of the eye, the ear, the voice, and in the appropriation of
whatever may be commanded without the highest exercise of the reasoning
and reflective faculties, she is incomparably superior. She accepts
moral truth without waiting for a demonstration, and she obeys the law
founded upon it without being its slave. She instinctively prefers good
manners to faulty habits; and, in the requirements of family, social,
and fashionable life, she is better educated at sixteen than her brother
is at twenty. She is an adept in one only of the vices of the
school--whispering--and in that she excels. But she does not so readily
resort to the great vice--the crime of falsehood--as do her companions
of the other sex. I call falsehood the great vice, because, if this were
unknown, tardiness, truancy, obscenity, and profanity, could not thrive.
Holmes has well said that "sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle
that will fit them all."
In many primary and district schools the habits and manners of children
are too much neglected. We associate good habits and good manners with
good morals; and, though we are deceived again and again, and
soliloquize upon the maxim that "all is not gold that glitters," we
instinctively believe, however often we are betrayed. Habits and manners
are the first evidence of character; and so much of weight do we attach
to such evidence, that we give credit and confidence to those whom in
our calmer moments we know to be unworthy. The first aim in the school
should be to build up a character that shall be truthfully indicated by
purity and refinement of manner and conversation. It does, indeed,
sometimes happen that purity of character is not associated with
refinement of manners. This misfortune is traceable to a defective early
education, both in the school and the home; for, had either been
faithful and intelligent, the evil would have been averted. And, as
there are many homes in city and country where refinement of manners is
not found, and, of course, cannot be taught, the schools must furnish
the training. In this connection, the value of the high school for
females--whether exclusively so or not, does not seem to me
important--is clearly seen. Young women are naturally and properly the
teachers of primary, district, and subordinate schools of every grade;
and society as naturally and properly looks to them to educate, by
example as well as by precept, all the children of the state in good
habits, good manners, and good morals. We are also permitted to look
forward to the higher relations of life, when, as wives and mothers,
they are to exert a potent influence over existing and future
generations. The law and the lexicons say "_home_ is the house or the
place where one resides." This definition may answer for the law and the
lexicons, but it does not meet the wants of common life.
The wife will usually find in her husband less refinement of manners
than she herself possesses; and it is her great privilege, if not her
solemn duty, to illustrate the line of Cowper, and show that she is of
"The sex whose presence civilizes ours."
It is the duty of the teacher to make the school attractive; and what
the teacher should do for the school the wife should do for the home.
The home should be preferred by the husband and children to all other
places. Much depends upon themselves; they have no right to claim all of
the wife and mother. But, without her aid, they can do but little. With
her aid, every desirable result may be accomplished. That this result
may be secured, female education must be generous, critical, and pure,
in everything that relates to manners, habits, and morals. Much may be
added to these, but nothing can serve in their stead. We should add, no
doubt, thorough elementary training in reading, writing, and spelling,
both for her own good and for the service of her children. Intellectual
training is defective where these elements are neglected, and their
importance to the sexes may be equal. We should not omit music and the
culture of the voice. The tones of the voice indicate the tone of the
mind; but the temper itself may finally yield to a graceful and gentle
form of expression. It is not probable that we shall ever give due
attention to the cultivation of the human voice for speaking, reading,
and singing. This is an invaluable accomplishment in man. Many of us
have listened to New England's most distinguished living orator, and
felt that well-known lines from the English poets derived new power, if
not actual inspiration, from the classic tones in which the words were
uttered.
A cultivated voice in woman is at once the evidence and the means of
moral power. As the moral sensibilities of the girl are more acute than
those of the boy, so the moral power of the woman is greater than that
of the man. Many young women are educating themselves for the business
of teaching; and I can commend nothing more important, after the proper
ordering of one's own life, than the discreet and careful training of
the voice. It is itself a power. It demands sympathy before the
suffering or its cause is revealed by articulate speech; its tones awe
assemblies, and command silence before the speaker announces his views;
and the rebellious and disorderly, whether in the school, around the
rostrum, or on the field, bow in submission beneath the authority of its
majestic cadences. It is hardly possible to imagine a good school, and
very rare to see one, where this power is wanting in the teacher. Women
are often called to take charge of schools where there are lads and
youth destitute of that culture which would lead them to yield respect
and consequent obedience. Physical force in these cases is not usually
to be thought of; but nature has vouchsafed to woman such a degree of
moral power, of which in the school the voice is the best expression, as
often to fully compensate for her weakness in other respects.