passage of this work is that which contains an extract from M. Cuvier's Report on the primary schools of Holland. This part of Count Lasteyrie's pamphlet Dr. Griscom has thrown into the Appendix of his valuable Address on monitorial instruction; and as this gentleman's translation is both neat and accurate, we shall employ it for the double purpose of recording facts highly important in the history of education, and of inducing those of our readers who have not yet seen Dr. Griscom's book, to embrace the earliest opportunity of perusing it.

To the friend of improvement in education we can furnish no matter more interesting than that contained in the following report. The spirit which pervades its details, is that precisely which we could wish to infuse into every individual, and every body of men, entrusted with the superintendence or with the actual business of instruction. We leave this article to speak for itself: it will prove we think much more eloquent in behalf of improvement, than could any remark of ours.]

It would be difficult for us to describe the effect produced upon us by the first primary school which we entered in Holland. It was one of those supported by public charity, for the children of the most indigent families, those who in many other countries would be obliged to drag out a miserable life, on the highways, either as mendicants or robbers. Two large, airy, and well-lighted halls, contained three hundred of these children, all in cleanly condition, placing themselves, without disorder, noise, or impoliteness, and performing, at a concerted signal, all that was required of them, without the master's uttering, necessarily, a single word. Not only do they learn by certain and ready methods, to read currently, to write a fine hand, and with entire correctness to perform mentally and by figures, all the calculations necessary in common life, and also to state their thoughts neatly in little essays; but the books which are given them, the pieces which they copy, are so well arranged, and succeed each other in an order so judicious, the precepts and examples are mingled with so much art, that these children become penetrated, at the same time, with the truths of religion, the precepts of morality, and all the knowledge which can be useful in active life, or consoling to them in misfortune. Care is taken to ascertain, by frequent questions, and by exciting them to state their difficulties, that nothing of what they read is lost upon their understandings.

Finally, prayers, and hymns sung in concert, composed expressly for the purpose, and breathing the sentiments of duty or gratitude, give a charm to this instruction, and, at the same time, impress a religious and tender feeling, well calculated to confirm its

effects. A master and two assistants, taken from the scholars themselves, govern this large number of children without noise, without invective, without any corporal punishment, but by keeping them always interested and always occupied.

The first sight of this school gave us an agreeable surprise: when we had entered into all the details we could not avoid a real emotion, in thinking of what these children would have become, if abandoned to themselves, and what they actually were; but, we said to ourselves, this is perhaps a solitary example, produced by the efforts of a wealthy city, or by the zeal of a few citizens of extraordinary generosity.

We were informed, however, that, as we advanced through the country, we should divest ourselves of this error; and, in fact, we found everywhere the primary schools upon the same footing, with the exception of those in which the masters, from age or habit, could not disengage themselves from their old routine. It is not even in the cities that they are the best. Even on the frontiers of Groningen, and many leagues from the great road, we found, in the villages, primary schools as numerous, and better composed, and better kept than those of the largest towns; because, in the cities, the children of the rich are taught in their own houses, whereas in the villages they go to school with others: but everywhere we observed the same cheerfulness, the same decency, the same neatness in the pupils and the masters; and everywhere the same instruction.

What is the most remarkable on this subject is, that these great results have been obtained in a few years, and by simple means,. without constraint, without requiring of the masters any sacrifice, and without uniting them by any other means than by their natural obligations as public functionaries. A brief recital of this important operation belongs essentially to our subject.

Thirty years ago, the little schools of Holland resembled those of other countries. Masters, almost as ignorant as those they were bound to instruct, were scarcely successful, in the course of several years, in teaching their pupils to read and write indifferently. These schools had no general superintendents; the greater number originated in private speculation; various religious communions supported schools for their own poor, under the supervision of deacons, but these schools were exclusively reserved for the children of the parish; those whose parents were not inscribed in some church had no resources; even the catholics had no schools, though their churches were so numerous in the country; the deacons of the reformed churches changing, agreeably to a certain order, had no fixed principles. The result of all this was, that a great part of the youth were stagnating in ignorance and immorality.

The first ameliorations were produced by the efforts of a benevolent society called the Society of Public Good,' which itself owed its formation to the zeal of a pious and humane individual.

John Neuven-Huysen, a Mennonite minister, at Monikendam, in North Holland, perceived that the numerous associations formed in the United Provinces for the advancement of commerce, and science, and charity, although they contributed to spread among the people moral and religious ideas, did not produce all the effects which were desired, because the works which they published were too extended, too learned, and too dear to be purchased by those for whom they were destined, and because there existed no point of connection sufficiently intimate between them and that portion of the people to whom their assistance was the most necessary,

Having conceived a plan more simple, and a procedure more direct, he began about 1784, to associate with him a few friends; these attracted others; the utility of the thing once known, multiplied the number of members, so that, from 1785, they were obliged to divide the association according to the cantons in which were the greatest number of subscribers. These divisions were called departments; each of which had its own administration, and the number of them extended as the society increased. In truth, the advantages of the institution were so apparent to charitable men; and the various governments which succeeded each other in Holland shared so fully in the public persuasion, that it enjoyed a continually increasing prosperity, and in 1809 it included more than seven thousand members.

The early funds of the society were employed in encouraging, by premiums, the composition of little works which treated in a popular manner of the most important truths of religion and morality. To these were added by degrees, publications on the principles most important to be understood, of domestic and rural economy, natural philosophy, and hygiene, or the preservation of health. Some of them treated of particular professions, not neglecting even the propagation of vaccination and instruction in midwifery. The effect of these works, simple, short, and cheap, was soon apparent. There was in Holland, as in other places, a popular work styled 'the Shepherd's Almanac,' filled with puerile prescriptions derived from astrology; and, as in other places, the country people wished no other. The society prepared a Calendar, in which these follies were displaced by useful observations on agriculture, or conversations on health; and its success was such that in two or three years, the editor of the Shepherd's Almanac was obliged to renounce his publication.

In the meanwhile, education was the principal object of the stu dies and operation of the Society of Public Good;' and the his

tory of its labors in this respect may be divided into three distinct branches: 1st. The researches which it excited, on the physical education of children, as well as on the best method of instruction and moral education. 2d. The preparation of elementary books, to aid in putting these methods in practice. 3d. The schools which it founded, not with the intention of holding them permanently, and still less of assuming the general charge of primary instruction, but to offer temporarily to common schools, models by which they might attain to greater perfection.

Besides these schools, which are destined only for those children, which the members of the society might place in them, some of its departments actually established gratuitous schools for the poor; and the greater number of them formed little libraries, with the view of affording the workmen and workwomen, after quitting the schools, the means of rational and profitable entertainment.

Various towns, excited by the example and encouragement of the society, undertook the renovation and extension of their schools, It was thus that the magistrates of Amsterdam, following, in 1797, the advice of the two departments of that city, undertook the erection of their noble schools for the benefit of the poor that were not enregistered in any church,—schools which now include (1812) more than 4000 children of both sexes.*

But in 1801, 1803, and 1806, the general government gave to the society testimonials of its esteem, and conformed to the advice of many of its members, in the measures it adopted, at those three periods, for the reform and general organisation of primary instruction.

The law of the third of April 1806, is still the regulation by which all the primary schools are governed.

The number of schools and pupils is already very remarkable. There were in Holland, at the time of the union, 4451 primary schools of all classes, and more than 190,000 pupils, for a population of one million nine hundred thousand souls; which constitutes one tenth of the inhabitants, and proves that the greater part of the children of an age to go to school are actually in attendance. Indeed, several of the prefects, especially that of Groningen, as sured us, that, at present, not a single young man can be found in their department, that cannot read and write.

The formal and regular instruction of the public schools consists in reading, caligraphy, orthography, mental and common arithmetic, some elements of drawing, geometry, and geography, and the singing of hymns. But the books in which the children are made to read, the subjects which are dictated to them, the examples

* Amsterdam had had, from 1746, but two charity schools. In 1319, there were eleven.

which they copy, the hymns and cantiques which are given them to chaunt, all tend to penetrate their minds, and give them, almost insensibly, an infinity of other useful knowledge.

The composition, choice, and gradation of books, constitute the basis of the system. There is an astonishing number of them, each one having had the liberty of proposing his own: but M. Vanden-Ende has reduced, by order of the minister of the interior, a catalogue of the best, which he has distributed agreeably to their contents, in the order in which they are to succeed each other in the classes.

Those to be first used, are accompanied with suitable pictures for impressing on the minds of children the knowledge of exterior objects, and of connecting in their memories the words to the ideas which they represent. Next follow short moral histories or stories, calculated to interest them. From these they proceed to others, which treat of those objects of nature which are most curious and useful to man; processes of art most necessary to be understood; and throughout the whole are interspersed, without affectation, useful reflections on Providence, and on the duties of men to each other. Sacred history, profane history, and the history of the country, treated in such a way as to take with children, are the subjects of other little works. In some of them are explained the principles of civil and criminal law. In teaching them to draw, or rather to trace regular lines, they are made to judge of length and of angles by the eye, and equal care is taken to render all their other exercises practical, and subservient to the purposes of morality and utility.

The consequence is, that children thus taught have engraven on their minds, while simply learning to read, write, and calculate, things which the scholars of ordinary schools never learn, or learn only with difficulty, when their profession permits them to read, after leaving school; and which inspire them with just and noble sentiments, which the world will doubtless weaken, but of which it will never entirely efface the impression.

Almost as much has been written for teachers as for scholars; the method which they are to follow, and the questions they are to put to their scholars, are pointed out in each of their respective works.

The means contrived for instructing in religion children of every different persuasion, without exposing them to dangerous controversies, is exceedingly ingenious, and at the same time truly respectable. The particular dogmas of each christian communion are treated on Sundays by each minister in his church. The history of the New Testament, the life and doctrine of Jesus Christ, and the dogmás in which christians agree, are explained in the schools