22

Duty of Sustaining Common Schools.

who views moral and religious instruction, both by example and precept, as of paramount importance? Or have you remained at home, or occupied with business, when you might have exerted, in this respect, a favorable influence?

You are pained to see children in such defective school houses so badly located, poorly furnished, and miserably ventilated. You wish these buildings were larger, and in every respect more comfortable. Have you made a single energetic effort to render them what you wish? Is not the school-house in your own district as bad, for so large a number of pupils as usually attend, as any you are acquainted with? Have you ever lifted a finger or moved your tongue or, at least, have you ever spent a dollar's worth of time in trying to get a better one erected?

When you hear it said that the district school is neglected; that it is becoming a school of vice; that it is running down, &c. do you assent to this doctrine? And, in consequence, do you withdraw your children, and send them to a private or select school? Do you thus, by your example, induce your neighbors, A. B. C. and D., who have the pecuniary means, as well as yourself, to do the same? Is this the way to show your sorrow for the low condition of your school? Or would it afford better evidence of true sorrow, as well as genuine repentance, to continue to send your own children, and encourage others to do the same; and if the school is not what it should be, endeavor to combine your influence with theirs, in rendering it what you wish? If it is not what it should be, with your present aid, and encouragement, and influence, is it likely to be any better when you have ceased to feel that your own children are forming their characters there, and when you have been the means too of removing the children of its other influential supporters, and leaving it in the hands of those who feel no responsibility?

Do you say you cannot surely be called to make the sacrifice of sending your children to a place where their morals will not only remain unimproved, but where they will almost inevitably be injured? That God has given you the pecuniary means of placing them at a better school, either in your own or some other town, and that you would be ungrateful to him not to avail yourselves of the opportunity? That while you have strength to earn a dollar for the purpose, your own dear 'Samuel' shall never enter a district school? *

But have you forgotten, too, that if you send your children

We have actually heard such strange assertions made by parents; parents, too, who could reason well on almost all other subjects.

Efforts to make them better.

23

away from home, in their early years, you may thus evince ingratitude? Are you not their only legitimate guardians and educators? Have you a right to delegate your office as guardian and educator-I speak now of early years - to others, except for a few hours, daily? Can you do more, and be guiltless?

Besides, how is this state of things, in regard to district schools, ever to be improved? You say they are the hope of our country, after all. But if you and your wealthy and influential neighbors leave them, who is to elevate them to that standing without which they cannot save the country? Have you ever reflected seriously on this? You leave them, and your friends leave them, because their moral influence is bad; but will they not go on to deteriorate, and with a fearful rapidity? What can prevent it? But if they do, will you continue to live in that society which they form? You acknowledge that the mass of the people - the public sentiment, even must be formed in these schools. But is it wise in you to suffer this public sentiment to deteriorate, for your children, and in order to educate them a little better, subject them to the necessity of educating theirs still worse? Is this, then, your patriotism? Is it your economy? Will you subject your son to the loss of a shilling to save yourself sixpence?

Would it not better prove that you appreciate the worth. of Common Schools, and that you are sorry they are at present so low, should you and your neighbors all retain their children in them I mean till they arrive at an age which fits them for acquiring a profession - and expend your spare pecuniary means, or the spare time which your pecuniary means affords you, in making them better; in making them what they should be, but what, if you remove your children, you do all you can to prevent their ever becoming?

You are sorry there is so little spirit abroad in favor of these most valuable institutions. Still perhaps you are not quite prepared to withdraw your pupils. You have neglected the school many years; but not till you have become quite rich enough to enable you to send them elsewhere for their education. They must go to the district school, bad as it is, a little longer. But do you take care to conceal your want of confidence in these schools from your children? Or do they know as they unquestionably do, in ninetynine cases in a hundred-your feelings, to the utmost; and do they shape their course accordingly?

But you send them. Have they books-good booksand the right books? Or are they reduced to the painful

24

Are your Schools Visited?

necessity of living by borrowing? Or if the school books are not what they should be in point of character, and you are sorry, very sorry it is so, what have you said or done, at any time, within ten years, to introduce those which are better. If nothing at all, how much are you sorry?

Do your children attend school regularly? Are they in their places in the class every day, and at the usual and expected hour? Or is the teacher's patience put to the test by learning that they are to be absent to-day, to witness the exhibition; to-morrow, to see their cousins; and the next day -if the weather is fine- they will attend. And do you suffer them to be late and to linger, when they do come, as if they were coming to a prison? Is this the way you show your high sense of the worth and importance of common schools, and your regret for their neglect?

Have you ever ascertained whether the school is properly visited by the officers duly set apart for that purpose? Are they paid for their services? Or do you expect them to take such a deep interest in the wants of other people's children as to watch over their improvement at the district school without pay, when their own parents will not do it, either for love or for money?

Do the Inspectors-being paid-spend time enough in each school to know its real condition? Do they ascertain the real standing of the pupils? Or does the teacher exhibit them in an intellectual garb prepared for the occasion, and which exhibits them as monkeys and parrots, rather than as human beings? Do they spend a day, at a visit, in each school? Or do they as has sometimes actually happened -visit three or four schools in a single forenoon, or afternoon?

Perhaps you will say you leave all this to others. It is not your business. Ah! this has been the Ah! this has been the way of parents too long; and is one prominent reason why common schools are no better. Subject them to thorough and useful examinations and this can never be done unless the visitors are paid for their services and you have taken one important step towards their improvement.

Do you visit the school yourself? Do you go in as if you loved to do so? Do you go in often, and sometimes remain long? Do you feel an interest in the welfare of the school while there? for if you do, the pupils - especially your children - will find it out. You will not suppose that the Inspectors' visits, even if faithfully performed, are to be a substitute for yours. You well know, I trust, that no district

Conversing with Children about Schools.

25

school can flourish long without the occasional presence, in it, of the parents and guardians of the pupils.

Or are you of the number of those who never visit a school room, unless to call out their pupils to take them abroad on some party of pleasure, in their whole lives? And, encouraged by your example do others stay away from it, in the same manner? In short, do whole seasons whole terms pass without ever seeing half a dozen parents enter the room, and those only once each? You are sorry the school is so shamefully neglected; how much are you sorry? You believe, you say, in its great usefulness; what says your conduct? You have confidence-faith-in common schools, and the common school system. Is your "faith" shown by your "works?"

Do you ever converse with your children about their studies- the pleasures and sorrows that attend them? Do you ever help them over their difficulties, or soothe their pains? Do you ever sympathise with them when they come home from school, full of the pleasures of success? Or is your sympathy no deeper than the tip of your tongue, and seen to be so by the discerning child?

Perhaps you sometimes converse with your children, when they bring home their piteous complaints about partiality, or injustice, or unmerited or excessive punishment. Then, for once, it may be, you take an interest in the proceedings. But is it such an interest as you should take? Is it consistent with the sorrow you profess to feel on this subject, that you should allow yourself to take a course which is effectually subversive of all right discipline, and which goes-as far as it can go either to destroy the school, or to render it of no sort of worth?

You ask, perhaps, whether it becomes you to sit still, and express no disapprobation, when your child, in whom you know you can confide, comes to you and relates that such or such a pupil has been punished without mixture of mercy for just nothing at all worth naming. But I might ask, in my turn, how do you know the punishment inflicted was for "nothing at all worth naming?" Doubtless your child gives a just account of the affair as he understands it. But he may not see the whole; or, there may be other reasons why he gives a coloring to the thing, which a careful investigation of the whole matter would not warrant. It does not become you, at all events, to suffer your wrath to kindle a fever in your body, till you know something more of the matter than you can get from a child; one, too, who may have been a very partial observer.

26

Associating with School Teachers

You are sorry the character of the common seboci teacher is estimated so low. How can we you sorry! Does your sorrow lead you to do anything to rase ts escue! Or. what is still more to be feared a PM sa hang the very course which it would be wisdomnyur ne dit were an avowed and lawful object to lover de estimate as much as possible?

Do you associate with him! I do not ask whether you visit him at the school room: for that question has already been asked. But do you vist him any where! Do you ever invite him to see you! If he comes, are you try glad to see him? Do your children know by your locks, your words, your actions, that you are so! De you treat him as an equal in every respect? Or do you regard him as a sort of upper servant? Does he leave you feeling that you have assumed no superiority, and that he has conceded none! Do you invite him to call often! Do you speak of ham with tenderness, affection and respect, in his absence! Do you tell him his faults, if you see any, privately, as a friend: and admonish him secretly, as you would a brother! In short, do you endeavor, as I said before, to do all in your power to elevate him, and through him his profession!

I have seen persons who took a very diferent course. They bowed to the teacher when they met him — as if they must-but never entered into any familiar conversation with him. Perhaps they never said a word against his character, especially when their children were present. The great fault was that they never spoke of him at all. The interpretation of such silence, by children, is usually what it should be. They know you are uninterested in the teacher. They may not know that you think yourself above him: and you may not really know it yourself. But your associate, hey well know that you are very far from regarding him.

Besides making him your associate - besides interchanging visits-do you take any pains to favor an interchange of visits between him and his fellow teachers? Such visits, you must be aware, are of very great value In Lowell, in Massachusetts, the afternoon of each Wednesday is relinquished by the district, with a view to give the teachers opportunity to visit other schools. On this afternoon, one school only, continues in operation, and the rest all visit it. I do not ask if you have labored to bring about a measure of this kind. It were too much, perhaps, to expect at once. But have you exerted yourself at all, in any shape, to induce your teacher to visit other schools?

Have you made any efforts or afforded any facilities for