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ed from a Superintendent of Schools; while the same legislature which had declined giving its aid to the institution of Teachers' Seminaries, has at length offered liberal pecuniary assistance to those who shall, on their own account, commence the establishment of such institutions. It gives us pleasure to learn that several of the counties of this Commonwealth are awakened to a deep interest in this subject, and that well-endowed NORMAL SCHOOLS, may be expected soon to be in successful operation.

From the experience of two years, the Directors are well satisfied of the advantage of changing, from year to year, the place of our annual meeting. This improved arrangement obviously accommodates many persons, who would otherwise be excluded by distance, forever from our councils, and tends to diffuse the benefits of the institution more widely than before. Cheered by the friendly encouragement so liberally extended to these meetings by the citizens of Worcester and Lowell, the Directors have voted to recommend that the next annnal session be held at Springfield; with which place, it is confidently expected that an easy communication will have been effected by the completion of the rail-road.

The Directors would here express, in behalf of the Institute, their deep sense of obligation to the Board of Education, whose members, by avowing themselves at all times the friends and patrons of the Institute, have done much to augment its influence upon the country at large.

In view of so many encouraging circumstances, it is hoped that every member of the Institute will continue his most efficient exertions in behalf of its benevolent, its glorious, objects. Let us persevere. Let none abandon so productive a field. And may the Divine blessing ever rest upon our labors.

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By order of the Directors,

WM. J. ADAMS,

CHARLES K. DILLAWAY,
DANIEL KIMBALL,

Lowell, August 28th, 1838.

Committee.

LECTURE I.

ON THE

LITERARY RESPONSIBILITY

OF

TEACHERS.

BY CHARLES WHITE.

4

LITERARY RESPONSIBILITY OF TEACHERS.

THE education of the young, growing race, hastening forward to take the places of their fathers, has been deemed and acknowledged important in all civilized communities. No one subject, therefore, has been more thought upon, spoken upon, and written upon. No one, on that account, is more incapable of novelty and invention. The business of instruction, however, has lost none of its value by its commonness. still opens to matters of the highest practical consequence, and I do not shrink from the task assigned me, though it be a discussion of the subject for the ten thousandth time.

It

Be it so that I can lay down no new principles, and open no new paths of duty; if I could give new confidence to admitted truth, new freshness to existing materials, new allurement to familiar labors, I should regard my effort, though humble, by no means unimportant and useless.

I wish here, at the threshold of the subject before me, in the form of a preliminary observation, to state, that I do not regard the literary responsibility of teachers, on which I am to speak, as comprehending all their accountableness in reference to the education of the community. There is a moral culture included within the sphere of their duty.

The intellectual powers are only a part of a human being, and intellectual qualities perform but an humble part in the duties of life. If men were only artisans and farmers, moral sen

timents and dispositions would be necessary to their fidelity, perseverance and effectiveness. But they are fathers, sons, brothers, citizens, subjects, judges, legislators, governors. A culture and training of the intellectual powers merely, is a furniture totally incompetent for persons holding these responsible relations.

In truth there are no places in society and no duties for creatures of mere intellect. Deliver us from these half-formed, half-breathing things, constituted of an improved understanding, joined to a heart without form and void, or worse than chaos.

Nothing is clearer than that our school-teachers should rear the moral as well as the intellectual powers; the whole being, not an isolated part of him; the whole being, as they find him, as he comes to them fresh from the forming hand of God. In considering and urging, therefore, the responsibility of teachers in reference to a literary education, it is no part of my desire to make the impression that they are not under other responsibilities, and have not other and nobler services to render to the cause of popular instruction.

1. The literary responsibility of teachers clearly appears from the fact that it is mind chiefly which educates mind.

There are collateral assistances and encouragements in the business of instruction, but the teacher's own intellectual powers, in contact with those of his pupil, are the only educators.

It is admitted that the learner should neither be left alone, uncheered and unguided, to struggle with dates, unintelligible statements, and arbitrary rules, nor be put into an apparatus of springs and joints like an automaton, and made to think and speak as dictated and drilled. Let him be permitted to see the light of his teacher's mind shining before him, and he will be conducted in a method between these erroneous extremes. While he is thrown upon his own efforts and powers, left to walk himself, he is compelled to take no step in the dark, whatever the inquiries which he may pursue.

Teachers, it will be no less readily admitted, are not to proceed in their business, as in making a mound or building a ship, throwing earth to earth, and fastening timber to timber, for then their duty could be performed by proxy; are not to create, for then their efforts would be hopeless; but are to waken, to develope, to mould, what is already created; to nourish and rear a gem, the gem of a living spirit nobly capa

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