POPULAR EDUCATION.

CHAPTER III.

PRIMARY EDUCATION.

GENERAL AGENCIES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION-SCHOOL BUILDINGS AT THE EXPOSITION-GENERAL DISREGARD OF PROPER VENTILATION-THE SCHOOL-HOUSE FROM THE UNITED STATES-SCHOOL BUILDINGS OF SWITZERLAND NECESSITY FOR IMPROVEMENT IN OUR SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE-PRUSSIA, OUTLINE OF BRANCHES TAUGHT IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL-COMPARISON WITH THE PRIMARY SCHOOL INSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES-SUPPLEMENTARY AGENCIES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION-LECTURES, LYCEUMS, LIBRARIES-SCHOOLS FOR THE DESTITUTE AND VICIOUS— SCHOOLS FOR THE IDIOTIC.

There is a sense in which the term "popular" embraces the entire range of the education of a people; but the intention is to restrict it here to the more usually accepted idea of "common-school education."

I.-GENERAL AGENCIES.

In no one respect is there, for the nations attempting a systematic diffusion of its blessings, so radical a defect as in the character of the buildings provided for primary schools. Details on this subject are not within the range of this writing; but the vast educational interests involved forbid the omission of such references as may direct the attention of both patrons and government to the existing defects and their remedies.

SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

After an examination of the school buildings on exhibition at the Exposition, the observations in many lands, and the collation of numerous reports on school interests, it is respectfully submitted that the buildings of this class do most lamentably fail of their proposed end.

Just here both pleasure and duty call for a reference to the exhibits of school buildings at the Exposition, (a special report on which, and on kindred subjects, was assigned to another Commissioner,) for the purpose of noticing the enterprise and success with which the State of Illinois furnished a school-house which, in all respects of adaptation to school purposes, was not only superior to other exhibits of its kind, particularly in respect of neatness and means of lighting and ventilating, but to the average of those I have found in any European country. It is also to be noted that the commissioners, through whose agency it was provided, did not aim to present a school-house peculiar to their State, nor yet the

ideal one of an American educator, but a real one, such as might serve to show the average (this one a little superior) of those in actual use as the "cross-roads" and "country school-house" of the northern and western States.

But even this school-house was seriously faulty, in that it did not properly provide for ventilation, though in this respect superior to those from Prussia, Saxony, and Sweden, providing not at all-its three large windows opening both from the top and the bottom; while in the others the windows, besides being inadequate to lighting, had upper sashes that were immovable. Still, every one who understands the physiology, so to speak, of ventilation, as well as its chemistry and mechanics, knows that in winter this mode of purifying the vitiated air of an apartment, while it effects the intended object, can do so only at the peril of some of the occupants.

It would add but a trifle to the cost of a school building to ventilate by flues, so constructed as to be managed at pleasure, and to give to each pupil, without the calamity of cold-taking inseparable from window ventilation, a constant supply of fresh, pure air, which would be of incalculable economic value to the soul and body of a school population. While it would have been unfair to place on exhibition a building quite superior to its kind, when assuming to give an opportunity of comparing the actual status of the American school-house with those of other nations, it is none the less deplorable, and none the less disgraceful to our own than to other countries, that the importance of thorough ventilation should have so little practical recognition. We know that each child needs at least eighty cubic feet of air for the processes of a healthy respiration. Where, among the volumes of school enactments and regulations, are to be found the requirements of law to this end? While many are ample in providing the requisite number of schools, and not a few are taking measures to see that the teacher is not overtasked in the number of pupils in his individual care, the child for whom these provisions are primarily made is confined to such space as his elbows may secure, and his lungs limited to a scanty and vitiated share of the air provided for a defrauded set of school-fellows. As far as school statutes show the action of government in this regard, England alone, while so far behind in most of its common-school provisions, enacts that the aid granted to a school is to be withheld, "if the school is not taught in a building certified by the inspector to be healthy, properly lighted, drained, and ventilated, and containing, in the principal schoolroom, at least eighty cubic feet of internal space for each child in average attendance."

These vital physical conditions having been met, there remain the desiderata of agreeability and pleasurable emotions to be considered; and no school-house is thoroughly adapted to its purposes whose appearance does not inspire emotions of real pleasure in its attendants.

LOCATION OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

The only commendatory words, from a host of school reports, in regard to both the structure and location of primary schools, and which are confirmed by personal observation, are in the honor of Switzerland, by the French school commissioner, M. Baudouin, who says: "The smallest village has its school-house, the greater number of which are pretty, spacious, well lighted, and pleasantly situated.”

From an American report I extract the following criticism, which, while it is too severe for most, is yet so literal a representation of the facts of a large portion of the rural districts, where such a state of things is least excusable, that it ought not to be omitted: "Thousands of children are sent daily out of heated and otherwise wretchedly uncomfortable schoolrooms into play-grounds where there is nothing but a parched earth and a blistering sky. From that one whose treeless, shrubless yard contains only the building upon which have poured the red heats of the ascending day or clouds of roadside dust there will hurry an impatient crowd, every individual movement of which says, plainly enough, Anywhere but here!' These are the half-baked, irritated little irresponsibles who go forth to vent the bad blood of our bad philosophy of education upon whatever comes in their way. On the other hand, those who go out from the embowering shade of trees into grounds beautiful with vine and shrub and flower, pass as naturally into the enjoyment of rational pastimes as the birds to their carols amid the summer boughs.”

The United States are annually expending immense sums of moneyamounts that can only be enumerated by millions-in the enlargement of old and the construction of new school buildings, not one in one thousand of which, in either structure or surroundings, has regard to the principles involved in the material conditions necessary to the physical, moral, and intellectual health of the children. There is no reason that we should not, but every reason that we should, begin the inauguration of a school architecture worthy of our prosperity as a people, and worthy of the estimation in which our institutions hold the children who are to become the sovereigns of this great commonwealth.

PRUSSIA.

In the general survey of education in Chapter II a general exhibit of the courses of study in various countries, shown by their schemes of primary education, has been made; but, for special reasons, some differences in these courses and in the methods of imparting instruction will now be noticed. Since the field is so large, these notices will be chiefly confined to Prussia, where, for the expenditure of time and means, is secured the most, and to the United States, where is secured the least, of that which is the aim of all-educational result.

The following outline of branches taught in the eight years' course of a primary school is divided into four parts of two years each:

Part first, including children from six to eight years of age, embraces four principal branches

1. Logical exercises, or oral exercises of the powers of observation and expression, with religious instruction and the singing of hymns. 2. Elements of reading. 3. Elements of writing. 4. Elements of numbers.

Part second, with children from eight to ten years of age, seven principal branches

1. Exercises in reading. 2. Exercises in writing. 3. Religious and moral instruction, in select Bible narratives. 4. Language, or grammar. 5. Numbers, or arithmetic. 6. Ideas of space and form, or geomeetry. 7. Singing by note, or elements of music.

Part third, with children from ten to twelve years of age, eight principal branches

1. Exercises in reading and elocution. 2. Exercises in ornamental writing, preparatory to drawing. 3. Religious instruction in connected Bible history. 4. Language, or grammar, with parsing. 5. Real instruc tion, or knowledge of nature, including elements of the sciences and arts of life, of geography, and history. 6. Arithmetic, through fractions and rules of proportion. 7. Geometry-doctrine of magnitudes and measures. 8. Singing, and science of vocal and instrumental music.

Part fourth, with children from twelve to fourteen years of age, six principal branches

1. Instruction in the religious observation of nature; life of Christ; history of the Christian religion, in connection with contemporary civil history; doctrines of Christianity. 2. Knowledge of the world and of mankind, including civil society, elements of law, agriculture, mechanic arts, manufactures, &c. 3. Language, and exercises in composition. 4. Application of arithmetic and mathematics to the business of life, including surveying and civil engineering. 5. Elements of drawing. 6. Exercises in singing, and the science of music.

The independence of the several States of the Union, as of each municipality in the separate States, renders it impossible to furnish, since it does not exist, a uniform grade of studies pursued in any class of schools; but the following outline of the range and extent of instruction furnished in one of our eastern cities will give a fair showing of the primary course found in many of our cities and larger towns. School age also being optional, an average is taken as approximating to the facts of the case.

First year, with children from six to seven years of age: Reading and spelling; reading numbers to 100; adding and subtracting with small numbers, by use of objects and the numeral frame; drawing small letters, capitals, and the Arabic numerals on slate; daily exercises in enunciation; oral lessons on form, size, color, illustrated by objects in the room, and the same on familiar plants and animals; repeating verses and maxims; singing and physical exercises.

Second year, with children from seven to eight years of age: Reading and spelling; punctuation marks from cards; notation to 1,000; multi