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REVIEW.

POPULAR EDUCATION.

1-Letters to the Hon. William Prescott, L L. D. on the Free Schools of New England, with remarks upon the principles of instruction. BY JAMES G. CARTER. Boston, 1824. 8vo. pp. 124. 2.-Essays upon Popular Education; containing a particular examination of the Schools of Massachusetts, and an outline of an Institution for the Education of Teachers. [First published in the Boston Patriot; in the winter of 1824-5.] BY JAMES G. CARTER. Boston, 1826. 8vo. pp. 40.

3.-Plan of a Seminary for the Education of Instructers of Youth. BY THOMAS H. GALLAUDET. Boston, 1825. 8vo. pp. 39. 4.-Observations on the Improvement of Seminaries of Learning in the United States; with suggestions for its accomplishment. BY WALTER R. JOHNSON. Philadelphia, 1825. 8vo. pp. 28.

5.—The United States Literary Gazette, Vol. III, Nos. 5 and 6. Boston, 1825. 8vo. pp. 80.

6.-Message of Gov. LINCOLN to the Legislature of Massachusetts at their winter session. 1826.

7.-Message of Gov. CLINTON to the Legislature of New York, at their winter session, 1826.

8.-Report of the Commissioners, appointed by a resolve of the Legislature of Massachusetts, passed on the 22d Feb. 1825. Boston, 1826. 8vo. pp. 55.

9.-An Act, further to provide for the instruction of youth in Massachusetts, passed March, 1826.

10.-Remarks on the School Law of the last session of the Legislature,

and information concerning the Common Schools of Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, &c. &c. Philadelphia, 1826. 8vo. pp. 38.

11.-Message of Gov. LINCOLN, to the Legislature of Massachusetts at their spring session in 1826.

12.-An Address delivered before the Alumni of Columbia College, on the third day of May, 1826, in the Hall of the College. BY WILLIAM BARD, A. B. New York, 1826. 8vo. pp. 36.

13.-The United States Literary Gazette, Vol. IV, No. 4. Boston, 1826. 8vo. pp. 40.

14.-Abstract of Returns from the School Committees of several towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. [Printed by order of the General Court.] Boston, 1826. Folio.

15.-Practical Observations on Popular Education. BY H. BROUGHAM Esq. M. P. F. R. S. [From the twentieth London Edition.] Boston, 1826. 8vo. pp. 36.

We have collected with some diligence these pamphlets and documents upon popular education, and arranged them, we believe, according to the order of time in which they were first published in the different parts of our country. We thought that we should do well to copy their titles, at length, in order to show the great and growing importance, which the subject of them assumes at the present time; and also to indicate to our readers the sources from which we have derived many of our facts and reflections. If others have a desire to survey the ground which we have now surveyed, they will find in the above list of books and papers, a directory that it might have cost them some labor to form for themselves.

With the pamphlet which we have placed at the head of our list, the public are already pretty well acquainted, as it has been some time published, and many of the conductors of our journals, ourselves among the number, have drawn quite copiously from its pages. It contains much that is suited to the purposes of our work, and as we shall probably have occasion to recur to it, again, in another department, we shall at present forbear further remarks upon its character and its tendency. The second and third in order, were, as we learn, originally published in numbers almost simultaneously; the former in a newspaper of this city, with the signature of FRANKLIN,' and the latter in one printed at Hartford, Connecticut, with the signature of 'A FATHER.' We are glad to perceive that their several authors have, at length, been induced to collect their numbers and embody them in pamphlets for safer preservation and wider circulation. Though evidently written, as newspaper essays are usually written, without much care or attention, to precision or niceness of phraseology, they nevertheless contain many facts and reasonings, which cannot fail to be of practical utility to those engaged in digesting any system of public instruction in this country. The former of these productions contains a pretty full account of the different classes of schools in Massachusetts and of their reciprocal influence upon each other. The latter suggests many valuable ideas upon the subject of education generally. And both of them, as well as those marked 4, 5, and 8, in our catalogue, all proceed

ing from different quarters of our country, strongly state the necessity of some direct and efficient preparation of the candidates for the profession of teaching. The same subject has been repeatedly and strenuously urged upon the attention of the Legislatures of Massachusetts and New York, in parts of the messages of Gov. Lincoln and Gov. Clinton above cited. As we shall recur to this topic again, before we close these remarks, we pass on now to give a brief account of the remaining part of our list.

The documents marked 9 and 14, comprehend the doings of the State of Massachusetts in regard to popular education for the last two years. The former we have already printed at length. [See No. 4.] One of the objects of this act was to collect information touching the number, character, and condition of the schools throughout the Commonwealth. The latter document orms a part, and we are sorry to perceive, a very imperfect part, of the system of returns from the school committees contemplated in the law above alluded to. When the law has been carried fully into effect, and the returns, of which this abstract is only a specimen, are made complete, they will enable legislators hereafter to possess themselves of a better knowledge of the subject of popular education in this state, and consequently to act with greater energy and precision. The pamphlets numbered 10 and 13, relate to the means of education in Pennsylvania. The former presses the subject upon the attention of the Legislature, and urges the necessity of a more equal and extended system of common schools than now prevails there, and quotes as examples of better systems those of Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina; the latter contains a brief history of the legislative provisions for popular education in that ancient, rich and respectable Commonwealth, from its first foundation down to the present time.

The object of the author of the address marked 12, in our list was to impress upon his hearers the vital importance to our government of a well educated yeomanry. And although we do not coincide with him in opinion on all points as to the best means of securing and perpetuating an enlightened body of cultivators of the soil, we think many of his remarks are exceedingly judicious and practical. Mr. Bard thinks that some education for those who have actually become paupers should be provided for by the state or the public; but that all others should be left to take care of themselves in their own way. He argues that it is obviously for the interest and happiness of all to provide a good education for their families; and that men,hard laboring men, as well as others,-should be left to buy their own instruction and that of their families, as they buy the other comforts or luxuries of life. But it appears to us that Mr. Bard

supposes men to be much more sharp-sighted in discerning their true interest in this respect than they really are. The history of all nations, and our own among the rest, goes to show that there must always be a large body of laborers in every community, whose best efforts will hardly provide for the animal wants of themselves and their families. These wants are the most clamorous, and must always be first supplied. With a few exceptions, not enough to effect the rule, those who depend wholly upon manual labor for their subsistence, become soon in a degree insensible to intellectual enjoyment. And if, after supplying the things necessary to the bodily comfort of themselves and those dependent upon them, a penny be left, they will generally, with the lassitude which their constant employment induces, forget to look forward a generation or two for an object to expend it upon. But they will lay it out forthwith for that which will produce a quicker return of excitement or of happiness. We believe that in proportion as the human mind is developed, it enjoys intellectual exercise and comes to look for its principal happiness in that enjoyment. So also in proportion as the mind is rude and uncultivated, it relucts at intellectual exercise, and requires stronger allurements to induce an effort. And how can one be expected to make the exertions and sacrifices necessary to educate a family, who is himself utterly incapable of appreciating an education? Moreover, we believe that this subject-the legal provision for the education of all children and youth-has a most important bearing upon the interests and prospects of this country; and we would fain press it upon the attention of those who rule over us. The statistics of all nations show that the more ignorant and degraded any particular class are, whether they happen to be mechanics, manufacturers, or agriculturists; the faster they multiply, if the means of subsistence are possibly within their reach; and consequently the more dangerous they become to the peace of the state. It behoves rulers, therefore, and especially rulers in a free government like our own, to look to it betimes that no class be allowed to remain uninstructed. For if but a small part only of one generation be suffered to become men in physical strength, without something like a corresponding developement of their minds and hearts; there is a noxious weed rooted in the vineyard of the republic, which will grow and spread in every direction till it cannot be eradicated.

But it is perhaps more than time to return from this digression and give an account of the remaining pamphlet numbered 15, and the last on the long list at the head of this article. These 'practical observations' of Mr. Brougham were first published in the Edinburgh Review. They were afterwards revised and enlarged by their author, and printed in a separate pamphlet. Twenty editions have

been circulated in England, and it is now reprinted here. We shall be disappointed if our public do not quickly take up one edition. It is as we should expect from its distinguished and philanthropic author-full of the most judicious and practical remarks upon popular education in England. Many of the suggestions, however, are equally applicable to the condition of this country; and we hope that those interested in the subject will make all possible despatch to possess themselves of the Observations,' and profit by the wisdom, which they are calculated to impart.

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Having thus taken a brief, and we are sensible a very imperfect view of the general subject brought before us in this great collection of pamphlets and documents, and having noticed the topics to which many of them are devoted, it remains for us to dwell for a moment upon that branch of the subject to which they all seem to tend, and to which several of them particularly and exclusively relate, the establishment of an institution for the education of teachers. This seems to us to be the great desideratum in our system of popular education; and to this object public attention should be first turned as a preliminary step to other improvements. Upon the necessity of more skilful and scientific instructers for the great mass of the people throughout the country, and the important consequences that would result from such a class of men organised into a distinct profession, we offer the following remarks from a late number of the United States Literary Gazette, one of the pamphlets now before us.

'A more energetic system of public instruction, and as a branch of such a systein, more skilful teachers have long been needed; and, moreover, the whole community are beginning to be sensible of it. It has become a public want; and unless the ordinary laws of nature are suspended or reversed in this case, the supply will in due time be forthcoming by some means and from some quarter. In order to give the public more skilful teachers, the science of education must be made the ground of a more distinct profession. And why should it not be so? While the number of inhabitants in the United States is doubling once in twenty-five years, and especially while so small a part of this vast increase is by immigration, a large proportion of the whole population must be of that age, when the chief concern in regard to them should be to prepare them for the successful discharge of their duties as members of a civilised society and as citizens of a free government. We cannot speak with confidence in regard to the southern and western sections of our country; but in New England and in some of the Middle States, it is a moderate estimate, and probably much below the truth, to state that four persons are on an average employed in the instruction of youth to one in preaching the gospel, and that exclusive of all domestic and private instruction. The number of public teachers, therefore, male and female, employed, on an average will probably be found nearly equal to that of all the other professions.

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