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not appear unimportant to remove the decision of controverted points as far as possible from the contending parties.

"Such is the difficulty of providing for the suitable education of the young in the common district school, and such the necessity of establishing schools of a different order. The fact that the district schools, without any of the advantages of gradation, once answered their purpose very well, does not prove that we need nothing better now. The application of science to the arts, now so universal, the connection of business of all kinds with the progress of knowledge, and the opening of a much wider sphere of thought than existed formerly, to all the people, by means of the easy and rapid communication now existing between different parts of the world, thus taking away the provincial life of the people, and rendering it cosmopolitan, demand an increased amount of knowledge, in order to a corresponding respectability and usefulness. Furthermore, such is the eagerness with which young men rush into business, that their school education is closed at a much earlier period than was that of their fathers. It, therefore, becomes doubly necessary to organize the public schools in such a way as to prevent the loss of any time or labor, and to adopt methods of instruction which produce the greatest amount of solid education in a given time."

"To enable children," says Hon. HENRY BARNARD, "to derive the highest degree of benefit from their attendance at school, they should go through a regular course of training in a succession of classes, and schools arranged according to similarity of age, standing, and attainments, under teachers possessing the qualifications best adapted to each grade of school. The practice has been almost universal in New England, and in other States where the organization of the schools is based upon the division of the territory into school districts, to provide but one school for as many children of both sexes, and of all ages from four to sixteen years, as can be gathered in from certain territorial limits, into one apartment, under one teacher; a female teacher in summer, and a male teacher in winter. disadvantages of this practice, both to pupils and teachers, are great and manifold.

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"There is a large amount of physical suffering and discomfort, as well as great hindrances in the proper arrangement of scholars and classes, caused by crowding the older and younger pupils into the same school-room, without seats and furniture appropriate to either; and the greatest amount of suffering and discomfort falls upon the young, who are least able to bear it, and who, in consequence, acquire a distaste to study and the school-room.

"The work of education going on in such schools, cannot be

appropriate and progressive. There cannot be a regular course of discipline and instruction, adapted to the age and proficiency of pupils a series of processes, each adapted to certain periods in the development of mind and character, the first intended to be followed by a second, and the second by a third, the latter always depending on the earlier, and all intended to be conducted on the same general principles, and by methods varying with the work to be done, and the progress already made. "With the older and younger pupils in the same room, there cannot be a system of discipline which shall be equally well adapted to both classes. If it secures the cheerful obedience and subordination of the older, it will press with unwise severity upon the younger pupils. If it be adapted to the physical wants, and peculiar temperaments of the young, it will endanger the good order and habits of study of the more advanced pupils, by the frequent change of posture and position, and other indulgences which it permits and requires of the former.

"With studies ranging from the alphabet and the simplest rudiments of knowledge, to the higher branches of an English education, a variety of methods of instruction and illustration are called for, which are seldom found together, or in an equal degree, in the same teacher, and which can never be pursued with equal success in the same school-room. The elementary principles of knowledge, to be made intelligible and interesting to the young, must be presented by a large use of the oral and simultaneous methods. The higher branches, especially all mathematical subjects, require patient application and habits of abstraction, on the part of the older pupils, which can with difficulty, if at all, be attained by many pupils, amid a multiplicity of distracting exercises, movements and sounds. The recitations of this class of pupils, to be profitable and satisfactory, must be conducted in a manner which requires time, discussion and explanation, and the undivided attention both of pupils and teachers.

"From the number of class and individual recitations, to be attended to during each half day, these exercises are brief, hurried, and of little practical value. They consist, for the most part, of senseless repetitions of the words of a book. Instead of being the time and place where the real business of teaching is done, where the plough-share of interrogation is driven down into the acquirements of each pupil, and his ability to comprehend clearly, remember accurately, discriminate wisely, and reason closely, is cultivated and tested,-where the difficult principles of each lesson are developed and illustrated, and additional information imparted, and the mind of the teacher brought in direct contract with the mind of each pupil,

to arouse, interest, and direct its opening powers-instead of all this and more, the brief period passed in recitation, consists, on the part of the teacher, of hearing each individual and class, in regular order and quick succession, repeat words from a book; and on the part of the pupils, of saying their lessons, as the operation is significantly described by most teachers, when they summon the class to the stand. In the mean time the order of the school must be maintained, and the general business must be going forward. Little children without any authorized employment for their eyes and hands, and ever active curiosity, must be made to sit still, while every muscle is aching from suppressed activity; pens must be mended, copies set, arithmetical difficulties solved, excuses for tardiness or absence received, questions answered, whisperings allowed or suppressed, and more or less of extempore discipline administered. Were it not a most ruinous waste of precious time,-did it not involve the deadening, crushing, distorting, dwarfing of immortal faculties and noble sensibilities, were it not an utter perversion of the noble objects for which schools are instituted, it would be difficult to conceive of a more diverting farce than an ordinary session of a large public school, whose chaotic and discordant elements have not been reduced to system by a proper classification. The teacher, at least the conscientious teacher, thinks it any thing but a farce to him. Compelled to hurry from one study to another, the most diverse,-from one class to another, requiring a knowledge of methods altogether distinct,-from one recitation to another, equally brief and unsatisfactory, one requiring a liveliness of manner, which he does not feel and cannot assume, and the other closeness of attention and abstraction of thought, which he cannot give amid the multiplicity and variety of cares, from one case of discipline to another, pressing on him at the same time, he goes through the same circuit day after day, with a dizzy brain and aching heart, and brings his school to a close with a feeling, that with all his diligence and fidelity, he has accomplished but little good.

"But great as are the evils of a want of proper classification of schools, arising from the causes already specified, these evils are aggravated by the almost universal practice of employing one teacher in summer, and another in winter, and different teachers each successive summer and winter. Whatever progress one teacher may make in bringing order out of the chaotic elements of a large public school, is arrested by the termination of his school term. His experience is not available to his successor, who does not come into the school until after an interval of weeks or months, and, in the meantime, the former teacher has left the town or State. The new teacher is a stranger to

the children and their parents, is unacquainted with the system pursued by his predecessor, and has himself but little or no experience in the business; in consequence, chaos comes back again, and the confusion is still worse confounded by the introduction of new books, for every teacher prefers to teach from the books in which he studied, or which he has been accustomed to teach, and many teachers cannot teach profitably from any other. Weeks are thus passed, in which the school is going through the process of organization, and the pupils are becoming accustomed to the methods and requirements of a new teacher-some of them are put back, or made to retrace their studies in new books, while others are pushed forward into studies for which they are not prepared; and at the end of three or four months, the school relapses into chaos. There is constant change, but no progress.

"This want of system, and this succession of new teachers, goes on from term to term, and year to year-a process which would involve any other interest in speedy and utter ruin, where there was not provision made for fresh material to be experimented upon, and counteracting influences at work to restore, or at least obviate the injury done. What other business of society could escape utter wreck, if conducted with such a want of system,-with such constant disregard of the fundamental principle of the division of labor, and with a succession of new agents every three months, none of them trained to the details of the business, each new agent acting without any knowledge of the plan of his predecessor, or any well settled plan of his own! The public school is not an anomaly, an exception, among the great interests of society. Its success or failure depends on the existence or absence of certain conditions; and if complete failure does not follow the utter neglect of these conditions, it is because every term brings into the schools a fresh supply of children to be experimented upon, and sweeps away others beyond the reach of bad school instruction and discipline; and because the minds of some of these children are, for a portion of each day, left to the action of their own inherent forces, and the more kindly influences of nature, the family and society.

"Among these conditions of suceess in the operation of a system of public schools, is such a classification of the scholars as shall bring a larger number of similar age and attainments, at all times, and in every stage of advancement, under teachers of the right qualifications, and shall enable these teachers to act upon numbers at once, for years in succession, and carry them all forward effectually together, in a regular course of instruc

tion.

"The great principle to be regarded in the classification, either of the schools of a town or district, or of scholars in the same school, is equality of attainments, which will generally include those of the same age. Those who have gone over substantially the same ground, or reached, or nearly reached, the same point of attainment in several studies, should be put together, and constitute, whenever their numbers will authorize it, one school. These again should be arranged in different classes, for it is seldom practicable, even if it were ever desirable, to have but one class in every study in the same grade of school. Even in very large districts, where the scholars are promoted from a school of a lower grade to one of a higher, after being found qualified in certain studies, it is seldom that any considerable number will have reached a common standard of scholarship in all their studies. The same pupil will have made very different progress in different branches. He will stand higher in one, and lower in another. By arranging scholars of the same general division in different classes, no pupil need be detained by companions who have made, or can make less progress, or be hurried over lessons and subjects in a superficial manner, to accommodate the more rapid advancement of others. Although equality of attainment should be regarded as the general principle, some regard should be paid to age, and other circumstances. A large boy of sixteen, from the deficiency of his early education, which may be his misfortune and not his fault, ought not to be put into a school or class of little children, although their attainments may be in advance of his. This step would mortify and discourage him. In such extreme cases, that arrangement will be best, which will give the individual the greatest chance of improvement, with the least discomfort to himself, and hindrance to others. Great disparity

of

age in the same class, or the same school, is unfavorable to uniform and efficient discipline, and the adaptation of methods of teaching, and of motives to application and obedience. Some regard, too, should be had to the preferences of individuals, especially among the older pupils, and their probable destination in life. The mind comes into the requisitions of study more readily, and works with higher results, when led onward by the heart; and the utility of any branch of study, its relations to future success in life, once clearly apprehended, becomes a powerful motive to effort.

"Each class in a school should be as large as is consistent with thoroughness and minuteness of individual examination, and practicable, without bringing together individuals of diverse capacity, knowledge and habits of study. A good teacher can teach a class of forty with as much ease as a class of ten, and

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