The first circular of the new school was published in March, 1834 and included the following statement:

The grand objects of the Oberlin Institute are, to give the most useful education at the least expense of health, time, and money; and to extend the benefits of such education to both sexes and to all classes of the community, as far as its means will allow. Its system embraces thorough instruction in every department, from the infant school up through a collegiate and theological course. While care will be taken not to lower the standard of intellectual culture, no pains will be spared to combine with it the best physical and moral education. Prominent objects of this seminary are, the thorough qualification of Christian teachers, both for the pulpit and for schools; and the elevation of female character, by bringing within the reach of the misjudged and neglected sex all the instructive privileges which have hitherto unreasonably distinguished the leading sex from theirs.

In the spring of 1834 the permanent teachers began to arrive. They were Rev. Seth II. Waldo, a graduate of Amherst and Andover, professor of languages; James Dascomb, M. D., of Dartmouth Medical College, professor of chemistry, botany, and physiology; Daniel Branch, of Amherst, principal of the preparatory department. Mrs. Dascomb became principal of the ladies' department.

The new colony, being isolated from all settled communities, was well situated for carrying out the principles of the Oberlin covenant. At the dining hall, under the management of Mr. Stewart and his wife, tea and coffee were excluded and board was furnished at 75 cents a week for purely vegetable diet and $1 for the addition of meat twice a day. The entire expenses of students for the school year of 40 weeks were estimated at from $48 to $89.

MANUAL LABOR.

An essential feature of the Oberlin plan was the manual-labor department. The objects to be attained by this department were eloquently set forth in the first circular of the institute as follows:

This department is considered indispensable to a complete education.

It is designed, first, to preserve the student's health. For this purpose all of both sexes, rich and poor, are required to labor four hours daily.

There being an intimate sympathy between soul and body, their labor promotes as a second object, clear and strong thought with a happy moral temperament. A third object of this system is its pecuniary advantage; for while taking that exercise necessary to health a considerable portion of the student's expenses may be defrayed. This system as a fourth object, aids essentially in forming habits of industry and economy, and secures as a fifth desideratur, an acquaintance with common things. In a word it meets the wants of man as a compound being, and prevents the common and amazing waste of money, time, health, and life.

Not even the most enthusiastic modern advocate of manual training schools as a solution of the educational problem could have set forth more glowingly the advantages of this system.

But with 5 years of experimenting, these fond expectations vanished. Student labor was unable to compete with ordinary labor, and the in