the particulars-enough to show that his plan of operations was substantially the same as that pursued in Connecticut, and for anything that we can see, his labors here would have been sooner followed by the same lasting and beneficent results, if he had not been thwarted by narrow prejudices which resisted all efforts at enlightenment, and by the baleful spirit of party. It should be mentioned to the credit of Rhode Island, that during his labors in that state, not a single article appeared in the public press calculated to impede the progress of school improvement, to injure the feelings of those who were laboring in this field, or to mingle up the question of public schools and general education with the topics of angry political, sectarian and personal controversy, by which every community is liable " to be excited and embittered. We shall draw our statements from an article in the North American Review for July, 1848, on the Common Schools of Rhode Island, and from an Address of Mr. Barnard before the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction on resign. ing his office of School Commissioner.

ter.

1. His first and most important duties were, to ascertain, by personal examination and authentic report, the actual condition of the schools of the state, and to arouse the interest of the people themselves in a thorough and entire reformation. But these duties involved the most laborious effort, and of a peculiarly trying characTo convince men of all classes of prejudices and opinions, that their institutions of learning are greatly deficient, implies, of course, that they themselves have hitherto been ignorant, and contented that their children should remain so; and to argue with the ignorant concerning the advantages of education is always most discouraging. Especially is it most discouraging, when the practical conclusion of all that you say is to lead them to raise money for an object of which they do not confess the value. On this point Mr. Barnard observes :

"Much has been attempted to prepare the way for a broad, thorough and liberal system of public instruction, by interesting all who could be reached by the living voice or the printed page, in the nature and means of education, the condition and wants of the schools, and the best modes of introducing desirable improvements. More than eleven hundred meetings have been held expressly to discuss topics connected with the public schools, at which more than fifteen hundred addresses have been delivered. One hundred and fifty of these meetings have continued through the day and evening; upward of one hundred, through two evenings and a day; fifty, through two days and three evenings; and twelve, including the Teachers' Institutes, through an entire week. In addition to this class of meetings and addresses, upward of two hundred meetings of teachers and parents have been held for lectures and discussions on improved methods of teaching the studies ordinarily pursued in public schools, and for exhibitions or public examinations of

schools, or of a class of pupils in certain studies, such as arithmetic, reading, &c. These meetings have proved highly useful. Besides these various meetings, experienced teachers have been employed to visit particular towns and sections of the State, and converse freely with parents by the way-side and the fire-side, on the condition and improvement of the district school. By these various agencies it is believed that a public meeting has been held within three miles of every home in Rhode Island.

To the interest awakened by these addresses and by the sympathy of numbers swayed by the same voice, and by the same ideas, must be added the more permanent and thoughtful interest cultivated by the reading of books, pamphlets and tracts on the same topics at home. More than sixteen thousand pamphlets and tracts, each containing at least sixteen pages of educational matter, have been distributed gratuitously through the State; and in one year, not an Almanac was sold in Rhode Island without at least sixteen pages of educational reading attached. This statement does not include the official documents published by the State, nor the Journal of the Institute, nor upward of twelve hundred bound volumes on schools and school systems, and the theory and practice of teaching, which have been purchased by teachers, or which have been added to public or private libraries within the last four years. In addition to the printed information thus disseminated, the columns of the different newspapers published in the State, have always been open to original and selected articles on education, and to notices of the proceedings of school meetings.

The result of this preparation for practical legislation and popular action in the several towns and districts, may be summed up as fol'lows:

1. An inefficient school system has been abolished, and a system has been established, having within itself capacities of adaptation to large and small districts, and to towns of widely different circumstances, as to the number, occupation, and wealth of their inhabitants, and which provides within itself for the establishment, support and supervision of schools of different grades, and for the cheap and speedy adjustment of all difficulties that may arise in its administration.

In

After the condition of the public schools, and the working of the old school law was ascertained by personal observation, and by communications from school officers in every town in the State, a bill was framed by request of the General Assembly in the winter of 1844, in which all that worked well in the existing law was retained, and only such modifications and additions as experience pointed out were introduced. The bill was reported in May, and referred to a committee of the House, before whom it was explained section by section and paragraph by paragraph. After some modifications, the bill was reported to the House, and printed; and its discussion postponed till June. June, its consideration was taken up, its several provisions explained by the author of the bill before the two Houses in convention, all questions answered, and after debate, it received the almost unanimous sanction of the House. In the Senate, its consideration was postponed until the people could have an opportunity to examine and pronounce upon it,-measures having been taken to print the bill as passed by the House, with the remarks made by the School Commissioner in explanation of its provisions, and circulated amongst school officers of the several towns. With a new legislature, this bill was taken up in the Senate in June, 1845, a familiar exposition of its provisions made by him (Mr. Barnard,) before that body, the difficulties suggested by school committees were explained, a few modifications introduced, and then passed by a large majority. The House adopted the action of the Senate, postponing the operation of the law until the October session following, that there might still be opportunity for the people to examine the Act, and for the legislature to modify its provisions. The law went into operation on the first of November, 1345. No effort was spared by this department, through circulars, public addresses, and conversations with school officers, to make the transition from

the old to the new system, as easy as possible, and to introduce a uniform and efficient administration throughout the State. To this end, a convention of County Inspectors, Town Committees, and District Trustees, including the most experienced school officers and teachers of Rhode Island, after nine months' practical acquaintance with the new system, was held in Providence, at which every difficulty of construction was presented and discussed, forms of proceedings from the first organization of a school district to the laying and collecting of a tax, specimens of school registers, district and town school returns, regulations to be adopted by school committees as to attendance, classification of scholars, gradation of schools, books, examination of teachers and supervision of schools, were brought forward and considered. The results of this convention, and of further reflection on the subject, were embodied in a pamphlet edition of the school laws, and distributed to every school officer.

2. Something has been done under the new law to furnish the public schools with spacious, attractive and convenient school-houses. The attention of parents and school officers was early, earnestly, and perseveringly called to the almost necessary connection between a good school-house and a good school, and to the immense injury done to the comfort and health of children by the too common neglect of ventilation, temperature, and furniture of school rooms. The subject was introduced into every public address, as a preliminary step in the work of educational improvement. Six thousand pamphlets containing a variety of plans of school-houses, for large and small districts, and for schools of different grades, were scattered over the State. Plans and details of construction were gratuitously furnished to builders and committees. Efforts were made to get up at least one model house in each county, in which the true principles of school architecture should be carried out, and could be seen. Men of wealth and intelligence in the large districts were seen and interested in the erection of new and commodious structures-which should be ornamental to the village, and attractive and comfortable to the children. School committees were instructed to withhold the public money from districts whose houses should be considered by them as not school-worthy

The results have more than justified the practicality of these and other efforts a complete renovation, nay, a revolution, having passed over the schoolhouses of Rhode Island. Old, dilapidated, repulsive, inconvenient houses have given place to new, neat, attractive and commodious structures in a majority of the districts. Liberal appropriations have been freely voted, and men of business and taste, have accepted the supervision of the expenditure. Rhode Island can now boast of more good school-houses and fewer poor ones, in proportion to the whole number, than any other State.

3. Something has been accomplished in augmenting the amount of school attendance, and especially among young children of both sexes, and girls of over twelve years of age. More children attend school-commencing earlier in life, and continuing later, and for a longer period in each year. The statistics on this point for the State cannot be given accurately-but it can be stated generally, that whenever a good school-house has been built, a good teacher employed. and public and parental interest has been awakened by addresses and other ways, the attendance has been increased, at least, fifty per cent., and the term prolonged, at least, two months in the year.

4. Something has been done to make the school attendance of children more profitable, by establishing a gradation of schools in the large districts. Upward of one hundred primary schools under female teachers have been opened, for the first time, in village districts, for the young children, and in several instances, a high school, in addition to primary and intermediate, has been established.

5. The course of instruction generally in the State, is more thorough, practical, and complete. The elementary studies are more attended to,-music, linear drawing, composition, and mathematics as applied to practical life, have been introduced into many schools; and all of the studies in a majority of the schools, are taught after better methods, in better books, and in many schools, with the advantage of the black-board, globes; outline maps, and other means of illustration. There is not a new school-house, and hardly a school-house of any kind in the State, which is not supplied with a black-board. One

third of the districts, or the teachers, have a terrestrial globe, and a set of outline maps.

6. Something has been done to secure a uniformity of text books in all the schools of the same towns. In twenty-two towns, the committee have adopted a uniform set of text-books, and in eighteen of these, measures have been adopted in co-operation with this department, by which these books have been introduced at reduced prices.

7. Something has been done to secure the more extensive and permanent employment of well-qualified teachers, and to put in operation, agencies by which the methods of instruction and discipline in all of the schools have been and will cor.tinue to be improved. The provision of the law requiring teachers to be examined, has led to the rejection, in one year, of one hundred and twenty-five applicants-applicants who would quietly have been employed by the districts, and who would have taught in the same old mechanical way as before, but for this provision. The itinerating agency of Mr. W. S. Baker,―his familiar, practical lectures; his conversations with teachers, parents, and pupils; his exhibition of improved methods by classes of pupils at public meetings; and the methods adopted in his own school-room, have done an untold amount of good in leading teachers to their own improvement, and inducing parents and trustees to employ only well-qualified teachers. The Teachers' Institutes which have been held in the autumn of each year, for three years past, have helped to train the public to the appreciation of good teachers, and at the same to elevate the standard, and quicken the spirit of improvement among teachers themselves. The same thing has been done by the meeting of all the teachers of the same and the adjoining towns, for the consideration of topics connected with the classification, instruction and discipline of schools. The reading of good books on the theory and practice of teaching, more than thirty volumes of which have been brought within the reach of every instructor, and the habit of visiting each other's schools, and especially such schools as have an established reputation, have helped to improve a large number of teachers. Whenever applied to, he (Mr. Barnard) had assisted districts that were disposed to. pay adequate wages, in procuring good teachers; and good teachers, in obtaining desirable situations. No better service can be rendered the cause of school improvement in any town, than by introducing into it a good teacher of high moral and literary qualifications. The employment of a large number of female teachers, not only in the primary, but in the district school in the winter, as well as in the summer, has improved the discipline, the moral influence, and the manners of our public schools.

8. The public schools of a majority of the towns have been brought for the first time, under a general system of regulations, and have been subjected to an intelligent, energetic, and vigilant supervision. Men of prompt business habits, large views of education, and a generous public spirit, have consented to act on the school committee. Committees have studied the improvements of the day, and labored to introduce them into the schools.

9. The annual appropriation for the support of public schools, exclusive of large sums voted for the repairs and building of school-houses, has been increased in two-thirds of the towns, since 1844; and in 1847, the aggregate amount raised by tax in the State for the compensation of teachers alone, was nearly double the amount paid out of the General Treasury for the same purpose. In 1846, for the first time in two hundred years, every town in Rhode Island voted and collected a school tax-and it cannot yet be ascertained that any town has been made poorer by its appropriation, while it is certain that in every town where the appropriation has been wisely expended, (as it might have been in every town,) better teachers have been employed, and the length of the school term has been prolonged-thus converting a portion of the material wealth of the town into intelligence and virtue, which will hereafter diffuse happiness, create wealth, and preserve it from waste.

10. A beginning has been made in the establishment of town, village and district libraries, and in arranging courses of popular lectures on subjects of science, art, literature and practical life.

Before Mr. Barnard left the State a library of at least five hundred volumes had been secured for at least twenty-nine out of the thirty-two towns-and there were good reasons to believe that the work so auspiciously begun would not be suspended until every town and every large village should be supplied with a library of good books to carry the blessings and advantages of knowledge to every workshop and every fire-side.

Seventeen courses of popular lectures have been established in as many villages, which have already awakened a spirit for reading, disseminated much useful information on subjects of practical importance, suggested topics and improved the whole tone of conversation, and brought people of widely differing sentiments and habits, to a common source of enjoyment.

11. As at once the source of most of the improvements which have thus far been made, and as the pledge of a still greater advance in future, there has been awakened a good degree of parental and public interest on the subject of schools and education. The profound apathy which hung like a dead man's shroud on the public heart, has disappeared, and parents are beginning to cooperate with school officers and teachers in carrying out the purposes of the law; and the school interest is fast becoming a prominent interest in the State. Let it once become such-let men read, think, talk and act about it, as they do about making money, or carrying a political election, or propagating a creed, and Rhode Island will become the model State of the Union. And why should she not? No other State possesses such facilities. Her territory is small, and every advance in one town or district, can easily be known, seen and felt in every other. Her wealth is abundant-more abundant, and more equally distributed, than in any other State. Her population is concentrated in villages, which will admit of the establishment of public schools of the highest grades. The occupations of the people are diverse, and this is at once an element of power and safety. Commerce will give expansion; manufactures and the mechanical arts, will give activity, power, invention and skill; and agriculture, the prudence and conservatism which should belong to the intellectual character and habits of a people. Rhode Island has a large city, to which the entire population of the State is brought by business or pleasure every year, and which should impart a higher tone of manners, intelligence and business, than can exist in a state without a capital: and fortunately, Providence has set a noble example to the rest of the State in her educational institutions, in the provision of her citizens for schools, libraries, and institutions of religion and benevolence. Rhode Island, too, has a history,-her own peculiar history; and her great names,—the names of Williams, and Clark, of Green, and Perry, of Brown, and Slater, are a rich inheritance, and make her sons and daughters who remove into other States, proud of their paternal home.

Although satisfied that a good beginning had been made in the organization of a system of public instruction, and in the improved school habits of the people, Mr. Barnard did not deceive himself or the Legislature, with the impression that nothing more was to be done. On the other hand, no voice was more earnest than his in demanding renewed and continued efforts.

But let no Rhode Islander forget the immense fund of talent which has slumbered in unconsciousness, or been only half developed, in the country towns of this State, by reason of the defective provision for general education. Let the past four years be the first years of a new era-an era in which educa