They merely enter the school, spend a short time in hearing brief recitations in the various branches, and just glancing at the writing-books, slates, &c.; then, after making a few common-place remarks, they retire. This duty is also sometimes performed by a single visitor, although the law expressly requires at least two. However deficient the instructor may be found, we have known but one instance of displacement at these visits; and that was not justified by public opinion. Besides, these visits seldom occupy more than one-forth of a day, while it is impossible to form a just estimate of most schools in so short a time. In some instances, the visitors make it a point to visit three schools in half a day! Not only are those, whose special duty it is to oversee and direct the schools, justly chargeable with neglect; but parents manifest a great want of interest in the subject. Months sometimes pass without a single parent's entering the school. Or if he enters, he retreats as soon as possible, as if it were a burden to remain. Parents seldom have any intercourse with the instructor, except while he is boarding in their families. They may sometimes be induced to visit the school, if the instructor gives a special and general invitation. Even these invitations are, however, almost wholly disregarded in a majority of the districts in the State, unless notice is given that dialogues will be spoken, or other extra performances take place. In such cases a considerable number attend. A gentleman who has often obtained permission of teachers to inquire of their scholars whether their parents ever converse with them at home on the subject of their studies, says it is not uncommon for a whole school to answer in the negative.

Summer schools are usually opened in May, those for the winter in November. But in many parts of the State, the winter school does not commence before about the first of December; and the summer schools are often either suspended, because the public money is exhausted on the previous winter school, or established by a feeble and stinted contribution, for a short time only.

Nothing more strikingly evinces the paralyzing effect of a large fund, as it has been hitherto applied, then the indifference which prevails almost universally in regard to setting up schools. When the district committee warn a meeting, only a small proportion of those concerned can, in ordinary cases, be induced to attend; and within a few years it has often happened that a sufficient number could not be collected to transact business in a proper and legal manner. When, however, the people of a district are collected, their inquiries, so far as regards a teacher, are not generally, 'Is he qualified ?'-but 'what are his terms?' and 'can he get a certificate?' It is usually understood that the committee, in selecting the candidate, will keep principally in view the amount of money likely to be received from the State treasury and the society fund, (when one exists) and employ an instructor for such a length of time, and on such terms, as will just absorb that sum and no more. Indeed they are often directed to this effect by a vote of the meeting. If a small sum is to be raised by taxation to complete the payment of the expenses at the close of the term, it is usually paid with far greater reluctance than the whole expenses were paid before the year 1795, when no fund existed. It is also a well-known fact, that before that period, it was customary to continue the schools nearly as great a proportion of the year as at present; and the interest which parents and the public at large manifested in their welfare, was incomparably greater.

The long vacation of spring and autumn, besides occupying for the most part those portions of the year in which it is most pleasant and agreeable for children to attend school, have a very unfortunate effect. Children lose much of the knowledge which they had acquired during the previous term; and several weeks are taken up at the least, in regaining what they had lost.

Male instructors are usually employed in the winter, and females in the summer. They generally board in the families of the district, by rotation. This gives them an opportunity of becoming partially acquainted with the parents of the children committed to their charge, while on the other hand it exposes them. to many inconveniences; and even in some cases, endangers their health. Besides, it often happens, that they are left destitute of a regular boarding-house for a day or two, as no one is prepared to receive them-in consequence of which they are forced to repair to the house of the district committee, or, if extremely sensitive on this point, to their own home or the house of some friend.

The average compensation, in addition to board, is about $11 a month for male

teachers, and a dollar a week for females. Many females, however, of considerable experience, teach at 75 cents a week; and some whose experience is less, at 621, or even 50 cents.

One of the greatest evils which exists in connection with the common schools of Connecticut, a perpetual change of teachers. It is, indeed, the general belief in the country towns, so far as we can learn, that it is better for the school to exchange often. We are inclined to think this opinion, has, till recently, been extending in that State; for 30 years ago, it was more common for an instructor to be employed two successive seasons in the same school than now.

There is a great want of punctuality and regularity of attendance on the part of the pupils. This arises from various sources. One principal cause is the neglect or parsimony of parents. Another is their ignorance of the loss which the pupil actually sustains by late attendance or by absence, and the inconvenience to which it subjects the teacher and the class to which the pupil belongs.

The whole number of pupils who attend the winter schools, is, upon the average, about 40 to each school; the number in attendance in summer is much less. However great the number of pupils-and there are sometimes 80 or 100,-only one teacher is allowed. There are a few exceptions in some of the larger towns, where a female assistant has been employed, especially during the winter. The great benefits which have resulted from this arrangement, and even its economy, seem, however, to have attracted but little attention.

The size of school-houses is generally much too small. We often find 50 or 60 pupils crowded into a room, twenty feet square, or twenty by eighteen feet; of which number, 30 write, 20 study arithmetic, and a few, grammar and geography; and within these narrow dimensions, all the evolutions of the school, and the arrangement and disbanding of classes, are to be performed, and room found for that display of rules, and inkstands, and slates, and pencils, and maps, which those studies commonly involve. Added to all this, the instructor's table or desk, and a stove, when a fireplace is not used, are all comprehended in the same space; and to crown the whole, the outer clothes, hats, &c., of half a hundred pupils, with their baskets of food and drink, are sometimes deposited in various parts of the school-room. How is it possible to proceed with the appropriate exercises of the school, engaged in this manner?

For want of due attention to temperature, the pupils are often annoyed by the extremes of heat and cold. The wood is not commonly kept under a covering, but is left in the open air, and is frequently encrusted with ice, wet with rain, or buried in snow. Sometimes it is quite green. At other times, it is cut too long. The latter is a very common evil. But it is an evil which resolute teachers and scholars know how to overcome more readily than that of having no wood at all, which sometimes occurs. In some cases, schools have been discontinued several days for want of fuel.

Greater attention ought also to be paid to the location and external arrangement of school-houses. They are usually placed as near as possible to the centre of the district. Stagnant marshes and ponds, or what is scarcely less injurious, sandbanks, in their immediate vicinity are by no means uncommon. Some are even placed in close contact with pounds and prisons, whose moral influence on little children can not but be unfavorable. There is another evil, whose immediate results are of still greater magnitude. Standing as a majority of schoolhouses do, contiguous to dwelling-houses, and barns, and inclosures, and fruit trees, and gardens, serious difficulties are apt to arise between the scholars and the owners. Fences are apt to be thrown down, herds or flocks frightened, fruits purloined, &c. In seeking to avoid or prevent these and other kindred sources of evil, it is not necessary to go to the other extreme, and locate our school-houses in a wilderness or desert. But we can not avoid insisting on the indispensable necessity of selecting airy, shady, healthy situations; and avoiding villages and public roads, which expose to noise and dust, as well as to scenes of immoral and sometimes indecent example, whether in the centre of the district or not.

A few districts in the State are, even now destitute, of any school-houses at all. In one of the oldest, if not one of the wealthiest towns, there were in 1830 several instances of the kind. One of the schools occupied a chamber in a dwellinghouse; another a very small shoemaker's shop, badly constructed, and poorly lighted.

The want of any proper play-ground is, it is believed, a universal evil. The pupils are compelled to exercise in the school-room, or in the open public road or highway. In the former case, frequent injury arises to the books, the benches, the desks, and the windows. In the latter, the utmost possible vigilance on the part of the teacher is scarcely sufficient to keep them from being covered with mud or sand, or from getting into fields, and exciting the prejudices and even hostility of the neighbors. No fact can be better proved than that half of the difficulties, in many schools, between parents and teachers, and their pupils, have their origin in these circumstances; and that consequently half the threats, and punishments, and painful feelings, and hatred of books and study, which exist, might easily be prevented by a proper attention to this subject, and without involving much additional expense. We are even of opinion that in country towns, where land is cheap, a play-ground of suitable size, would cost less than the additional repairs of windows and furniture, for the school-room, and the additional books and washing of clothes, which are otherwise demanded. In these, and in all points relating to the education of the young, no maxim is more important than that prevention is better than remedy, and that the greatest economy consists in providing every thing which is necessary to accomplish, in the best manner, the great objects we have in view.

The usual hours of instruction in the schools, are from nine to twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and from one to four in the afternoon, with a recess of from five to fifteen minutes during each half day. In some of the cities and large towns, this arrangement is varied, but the whole amount of time devoted to study is the same. There is a vacation for one Saturday afternoon of each week, or for a whole Saturday once in two weeks, and in a few instances the school closes an hour earlier than usual on each Wednesday.

Spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught in nearly every school. Geography and grammar have within a few years been introduced very extensively, but in many places not without great opposition. Even arithmetic, until within a few years, was excluded from many schools during the day, and only permitted to be taught in the evening schools. Grammar and geography were opposed, but with less violence; and it is worthy of remark that an additional higher branch can now be introduced into a school with far less difficulty than formerly.

When the report was made to the Society for the improvement of common schools, there were in use in Connecticut, eight kinds of spelling-books, twentynine reading books, eight arithmetics, six grammars, ten geographies, and five histories. The number of different books in use, has probably been doubled since the above report.

The selection of school-books, is sometimes made by the teachers, sometimes by the board of visitors; but more commonly by chance, rather than the choice of any one. The parents send such books to school as they happen to possess, and the pupils use such as are the most numerous. Most of them are quite beyond their capacities.

The alphabet is usually taught in course, beginning, at each lesson, with the capital A, and proceeding to &, and some teachers go through with the row of small ones, and also the double letters at the same time. Others make it a part of their plan to invert this order, beginning with the bottom of each row, and ending at the top; and others still, teach them promiscuously. The teacher points to each letter, and requires the child to repeat its name after him, and this is done from day to day, till the child can recollect them in their order and place. There are two lessons in each half day; and during the rest of the time the child is compelled to sit still without employment.

When the alphabet is acquired, the next step is to reading words, and spelling them. Some instructors require their pupils in the first place, to read through nearly all the tables of words in the spelling-book. But in a majority of instances, after reading a few words, the teacher takes the book, pronounces the words, and the pupil, with more or less aid, spells them. In either case, by hearing the higher classes in the school spell them from day to day, and by having his attention less directed to reading than spelling, he learns to spell words much faster than he learns to read them. But he learns mechanically; for he rarely connects or associates a single idea with a word, any more than if he were committing to

memory tables of Latin or Greek. It is in this way that we are to account for the fact, that on visiting a school, the pupils are frequently found able to spell by column nearly all the words of the book, while the best of them will mispell a great number of words, when they attempt to compose a letter, or write from dictation. Defining is very much neglected throughout the State. Few schools pay any attention at all to the subject. A certain number of columns is usually assigned as a spelling lesson, which the pupils are required to study over and over; and, at a certain hour, the teacher pronounces them with as much rapidity as possible. The pupil is generally allowed to spell at a word but once; if he errs, the one who is next in the class spells it if he can, and 'goes above him.'

Reading, as most commonly conducted, consists in pronouncing correctly the words of a given sentence, verse, or paragraph. With larger classes, half an hour is sometimes spent in this manner. In some instances, the pupils are taught to observe, with a measured accuracy, the pauses which occur, and still more rarely, to imitate the inflections, tones, and emphasis of the teacher. The number of teachers who make any considerable effort to have their pupils' read as they talk' is but small, though probably increasing.

Writing is much neglected. The pupils are often furnished with paper and ink of a very inferior quality, and generally they receive very little effective instruction. The teacher 'sets a copy,' or furnishes the pupil with a copy-slip, makes him a pen, and then, in the midst of a multiplicity of other employments, after giving him a few general directions, is obliged to leave him to hold his pen and choose the position he pleases. A few schools in the State are furnished by the committee with paper, quills, and ink, of the best quality, (the paper carefully ruled,) and with the most obvious advantage.

Arithmetic is generally taught by putting Daboll's Assistant into the hands of the pupils, and requiring them to commit the rules to memory, and perform the sums. In doing this, the great object of the pupil seems to be to get through the book, rather than to understand it; and what he does not seek, he will not be apt to obtain. Colbourn's Mental Arithmetic is beginning to come into use, but it has usually been taught in a manner by far too mechanical.

Grammar and geography are committed to memory rather than taught, for after years of study in those schools where they are permitted, the pupils often have little or no practical knowledge of either, especially the former. This is partly owing to the fact that the books themselves are not usually adapted to the pupil's capacity, partly to the ignorance or inexperience of the teacher; but it partly arises from the want of system. It is by no means uncommon, on entering a school, to find the instructor attempting to hear a class read, to set copies, mend pens, examine some of their slates, and preserve order, all at a time. In a few schools, such a division of the time has been made, that only one branch is taught at once. This change, whenever adopted, has been productive of the most satisfactory results.

In the study of geography, maps and atlasses are now generally used; but until within a few years, there were numerous exceptions. The books used, as above stated, are generally such as the pupils happen to possess; and of so many different kinds, and editions, as to give rise to much trouble, both to pupil and teacher.

Globes, blackboards, and apparatus, are almost unknown in the district schools of Connecticut. In a few instances where they have been introduced, their utility and economy has been satisfactorily proved; but of the few who have seen or heard of them, the greater part dread expense, and fear innovation.

But the order of the exercise is objectionable, even in most of the best schools. The morning is devoted to reading and writing, which are branches by no means demanding (at least, as they are now taught) any considerable mental effort; while arithmetic, grammar, geography, &c., which require much hard thinking, are deferred to a later hour. Another evil exists. The smaller pupils are frequently instructed last; that is, not until they have been in the school an hour or two, and have become fatigued and impatient of restraint.

Nothing is more important than to provide pupils with constant and pleasing employment. If they are not usefully employed, they will be doing mischief almost of course; and no means can be effective in governing a school, without keeping the pupils occupied. While, however, a few instructors adopt this prinNo. 13. [Vol. V., No. 1.]—10.

ciple, and act accordingly, the mass of the smaller pupils in the schools are almost constantly without any employment. It follows that much of the teacher's time must be wasted in keeping them out of mischief, or punishing them for doing it; besides involving an immense loss to the pupil, whose time might be spent in acquiring knowledge.

In short, the great object seems to be to go through with a certain amount of processes, and commit to memory a certain amount of words and sentences, in the various branches, with a kind of confused idea that the knowledge will be the necessary result. The number of children who are trained to think,-to teach themselves, and to study things, rather than receive into their minds a mass of words, which they can not understand, or ideas which they know not how to use or apply, is by no means large.

one.

Although mild means of government are more common than formerly, yet the severer measures still to a very great extent prevail. Of ten schools in a certain society, in the summer of 1830, rods were kept in view in seven, and a ferule in The fear of punishment is certainly the principal motive used to enforce good behavior; as the rewards which are offered are generally out of the reach of any but a few of the best minds. As motives to induce attention to study, emulation in its most objectionable forms, and the fear of punishment, are most commonly employed. A few instructors appeal to their desire of pleasing their pa rents and teachers, and a still smaller number endeavor to implant the love of knowledge for its own sake, and present no other motive. I have known one or two instances of the latter kind, which were attended with the most complete success; but they are extremely rare.

Health is greatly overlooked. The small pupils are required to sit on benches without backs, and those who write, sit at desks quite too high. Both these evils result in great injury to the spine, and some of the internal organs of the body, which will sooner or later be felt, even if the cause should be unknown or forgotten. It is gratifying to find, however, that in some parts of the State, these evils are beginning to be remedied. Seats with backs are ceasing to be wondered at; desks which are much lower than formerly, and entirely separate from each other, are occasionally found; and the public sentiment is in many places entirely in their favor, as it is obviously a matter of economy. Still, it is customary to keep the pupils sitting too long at once. They ought to stand occasionally, or march around the room; and they should be required to exercise a few minutes in the open air, once an hour, at least. But their health is often exposed by being permitted to come into the house when excessively heated by exercise, raise a window, and sit exposed to the current of air passing through it; or, what is almost equally injurious, drink large quantities of very cold water. The pupils are often in a profuse perspiration when they leave the school at its close towards evening, and are thus exposed to colds, and the long list of diseases which follow in their train.

There are few school libraries in Connecticut. I have seen two or three but they were furnished solely at the expense of the teacher. The school library recently burned in one of the school-houses in New York was valued at $600. There are not far from 200 school societies in Connecticut, embracing from 1500 to 1800 districts, while I am not informed of the existence of more than one library furnished by the proprietors of the school, in the whole number. Instead of $600, in a single school, I believe the whole value of all the common school libraries in the State would not, in 1831, exceed $60.

Of the numerous works on education which have appeared within a few years, some of them truly valuable, few are read by parents or instructors, even by those who admit the importance and the necessity of elevating the condition of primary schools. Still more rarely do they gain access to any periodicals devoted to this subject.

In regard to moral and religious instruction, little can be said. Although there are some sad exceptions, the character of the teachers is generally good, so that the pupils may derive benefit from their example. Little direct moral or religious instruction is given except by means of catechisms; and this exercise, as I have already observed, is now uncommon. The Bible is generally read once a day in school, but in most cases it is merely as a reading book; and it is neither reverenced, nor generally understood.