242

Oberlin Collegiate Institute.

[May, voted in the negative shall not be entitled to any aid from the school fund for that year; but the money to which they would otherwise have been entitled, shall be divided among those districts whose delegates voted in the affirmative. If no tax is voted, the old law shall be considered in force, without any regard to the school fund. If a tax is agreed upon, a public meeting of the citizens of each district shall be called, who may increase the tax, if they think it necessary. This last is one of the most valuable portions of the bill.

A majority of four in six of the directors may connect manual labor with study, in their several districts, and purchase the necessary materials, and employ persons to instruct the pupils in the mechanic arts and in agricultural pursuits, whenever they think it expedient.

The Bill as it came from the hands of the Committee made provision for the education of teachers, but the amendments of the Senate excluded it. A less important section which required the teachers in the several divisions to adopt, yearly, a uniform course of study to be pursued by every school in the division, shared the same fate.

Oberlin Collegiate Institute.

We have given some notice of the origin and objects of this institution in a former number. From a recent circular we learn the following particulars.

The system embraces instruction in every department, from the Infant school to a Collegiate and Theological course. Physical and moral education are to receive particular attention. The institution was opened in December last, and has sixty students; about forty in the academic, and twenty in the primary department. All of them, whether male or female, rich or poor, are required to labor four hours daily. Male students are to be employed in agriculture, gardening, and some of the mechanic arts; females in housekeeping, useful needle-work, the manufacture of wool, the culture of silk, certain appropriate parts of gardening, &c. The Institution has five hundred acres of good land, of which, though a complete forest a year ago, about thirty acres are cleared, and sown with wheat. They have also a steam mill, and a saw mill, in operation. During the present year it is contemplated to add fifty acres to the cleared land, to erect a flouring mill, shingle machine, turning lathe, a work shop with an extensive boarding house, (which together with the present buildings will accommodate about one hundred and sixty students) furniture, farming, mechanic, and scientific apparatus; and begin a library.

During the winter months, the young men are at liberty to engage as agents, school teachers, or in any other occupation they may select. The expenses of students in the seminary for board at the table spread only with vegetable food, are eighty cents a week; and ninetytwo cents a

* One petition was presented against the provision for the education of teachers. The following letter of a schoolmaster from the same county, which we copy literatim from the Philadelphia Gazette, may suggest the reason.

I take the pen in Hand to Notice you That I wand that money Where your Son went to School to me last Winter to me Henry Krebs in and I

shall write you the bill of his Schooling Where he went is 42 Cents and a half and the amount of the Rens 11 Cents and so the whole amount is 53 cents and So I have no more to write at present Henry Krebs his hand and pen august the 15th 1833 &c

HENRY KREBS'

1834.]

Circuit Schools.

243

week for the same with animal food twice a day. Tuition is from fifteen to thirtyfive cents a week. The avails of the students' labors have thus far varied from one to eight cents an hour. The average has been five cents. A majority of the male students have, by their four hours' daily labor, paid their board, fuel, lights, washing and mending, and some even more; and this without any interference with their progress in their studies.

The time to be spent at this Institution, in preparation for the various professions and employments of life is not yet defined, nor a single course of study marked out as the only one through which an individual can attain a desired station. Diplomas are not to be given according to the time spent in study, but to the student's real acquirements.

CIRCUIT SCHOOLS IN ILLINOIS.

There is room for much encouragement to the friends of common education in Illinois. The Illinois Patriot, the Gazette, and the Pioneer and Western Baptist, are ably advocating the cause; and a late number of the latter paper gives notice that a number of well qualified circuit teachers can find employ in that state by making application as there directed. We are glad to find that among the qualifications recommended, are aptness to teach, conciliatory manners, and good moral character. With these pre-requisites, the course proposed is as follows: The teachers being provided with suitable books and lessons on cards, are to take two, three, or more schools in different neighborhoods, visit each once, twice, three or more times in a week, hear the scholars recite their lessons, lecture, and explain the subjects, and thus enable those of any age who are disposed to learn, to learn to teach themselves, by the aid given them by their teachers. It is stated, moreover, that there are already a number of settlements, where the people are desirous of having the circuit system put in immediate operation.

CIRCUIT SCHOOLS, AND LYCEUM ANNIVERSARY IN GEORGIA.

Circuit schools are also attracting much attention in Georgia. In the 'Pioneer' of Illinois, for March 26th, is a letter from a Georgian to his friend in Illinois, in which he speaks with the highest confidence of this mode of teaching, as applied to the Southern States. A pamphlet is also mentioned as having been recently written on this subject, and circulated among the citizens of Georgia.

We are glad to find both the southern and western states turning their attention to a plan of instruction that promises so much, especially to new or thinly settled states. The Pioneer justly remarks that we have only to apply to other branches the same principle which has long been applied to schools for teaching singing. It is well known that these have been taught on what is substantially the circuit system' (at least in many parts of our country) for a century or more.

We are also glad to learn that the friends of education in Georgia, and particularly in Athens, the literary metropolis of the state, propose to hold a Lyceum or Common School anniversary at the next commencement at that place, to be attended by delegates, visitors, teachers, &c. They purpose to invite collections in Natural History for deposit, exhibition, or exchange, to be explained and illustrated by experiments and descriptions, by the professors of the college, by teachers, or by those who present them. A course of Lectures on School teaching, is also under consider

244

Schools in New York, &c.

[May, 1834.] ation, and will probably be given at a future season, if not during the present.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NEW YORK.

We learn from the official report of the Public School Society, published in the New York Weekly Messenger, that the society has now, in operation, fiftyone schools, embracing 6631 boys, and 4831 girls, of whom about seventy per cent were in daily attendance on the first of February. This is an average number of 163 to each school, in actual attendance. The society employ fortyseven teachers, twentyseven assistant adult teachers, and seventyfour monitors; whose salaries for a year amount to $34,975. The monitors generally have a salary. Thirtyone of the schools are kept in only thirteen buildings; the others are generally kept in rooms hired for the purpose. The course of instruction in these schools embraces, besides the elements taught in the primaries, arithmetic, geography, grammar, composition, declamation, book-keeping, history, astronomy, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. The schools are mainly supported by taxation; and are represented as being, with little exception,' in fine order.

NEW-YORK INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND Dumb.

We have just received an interesting report from the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. The whole number of pupils in December last, was 134. It has been necessary to provide additional teachers, accommodations and mechanical shops, for the increased number. A course of lectures has been given three evenings in a week, in the language of the deaf mutes, to explain the principal phenomena of nature, illustrated by means of apparatus, and to give the pupils general ideas in other topics. A library of 100 volumes has been collected for the use of the pupils. Instruction has also been given to a class in linear drawing, an art which ought to be taught to all the deaf mutes.

The resources of the Institution, although considerable, are not adequate to the execution of various plans of improvement proposed, or to the completion of those already commenced, and the building is still encumbered with debt. We cannot think, however, that a state so liberal, and individuals so benevolent and able, as many in New York, will allow so important an institution to suffer.

DONALDSON ACADEMY, AND MANUAL LABOR SCHOOL.

The establishment of this school, at Fayetteville, North Carolina, was mentioned in a late number. We have just received a pamphlet embracing a 'Report on the state of that Institution,' in March last, and a Catalogue.' We are happy to learn that the prospects of the school are very encouraging. It was opened on the first Monday in January last, and on the twentieth of March it had, in both departments, eightyeight students.

One thing in the pamphlet, in particular, strikes us very favorably. The Trustees and others concerned do not set out with the idea of making the avails of labor too prominent an object. Their great purpose is to secure the health of the students; and while, as a secondary object, they wish to make the best possible use of all labor in defraying expenses, they do not intend, in ordinary cases, to require or permit a greater amount of it than is compatible with the highest degree of physical, intellectual, and moral progress.