easily be made auxiliary to the study of technical grammar. For example, the exercise of one week may be to find synonyms for the nouns in a lesson. (There is no need of using the word noun; the teacher can name the words which he wishes to have changed.) Next week the work may be on adjectives; next week, on verbs; and so on. In this way pupils will learn to form groups of words for themselves according to their common qualities, and will be prepared for, and delighted with, the formal classification when it is given to them.

5. In the fifth year a beginning may be made in composition proper. The following steps will be found easy and natural after the training which the scholars are supposed to have had already: (a) writing passages which have been committed to memory; (b) writing brief conversations that have actually taken place between teacher and pupils or between two pupils; (c) writing the substance of a short anecdote read or related by the teacher; (d) writing an account of any incident which the pupils have actually witnessed. In this year, also, if the teacher think proper, he may give oral lessons in grammar, embracing the classsification of words; the ideas of person, number, gender, case, voice, mood, tense; the inflections of nouns, pronouns and verbs; a few of the most common rules of syntax; and the analysis of simple sentences.

6. In the sixth year the pupils may be taught to write letters and business forms, and brief essays on very simple subjects. If it is thought desirable to teach grammar, parsing and analysis in the usual way (and for pupils whose course is to extend through several years to come it is extremely desirable), now is the time to begin. The experience which they have acquired in the practical use of language will make the theoretical study both easy and pleasant. The subject is far from being exhausted. I have not aimed at completeness even in that portion of it which has been brought before you. If the trees which I have marked here and there on my way through the forest shall help to guide other pioneers on the same route, and shall lead finally to making of a permanent highway, my object will have been accomplished.

DISCUSSION.

W. E. Crosby, Superintendent of Schools, Davenport, Iowa, said there were so many points in the paper read, that he would have preferred to postpone the discussion, and to have more time to consider some of the questions presented. He thought the speaker, who had so earnestly presented his subject, would have a great many disciples, and very few followers.

In the discussion, I have been reminded of one that took place long ago, in the old contest between those who taught the art of expression and those who taught something deeper and more profound. PROTAGORAS, the chief of sophists, taught that it was necessary, in order to perfect the art of discourse, to combine theory with practice. I shall not enter into the question so far as to inquire, and to answer why we have failed to teach the art of discourse. I admit the statement; and what is true of the English language, I apprehend, has been true of all languages, so that it may be laid down as a principle that there have been failures to a great degree, throughout all time, in this matter of teaching the art of discourse. Why is this? Is it because the subject of lan

guage is less important than any other? Is it because it is not a science and is not capable of being presented as a science to the mind, in its due order; or is it rather because of the method? Have we failed to accomplish results for any reason than simply that we have have not reached, as yet, the right method? This seems to be the true reason. And allow me to make this statement, that it is a necessary law of the mind, in all its growth and in all its accomplishments, that practice and theory shall go together. It is just as necessary to the little child as it is to the philosopher. The mind contains within itself all science; it contains the laws which give order, and whatever the mind may hold. If we have failed to impart the science of language, and the use with it, we have failed because we have not understood the laws of the mind.

Mr. CROSBY here gave some incidents in his own experience as a teacher, to show how, in his opinion, the study of language is fitted to discipline the mind. Language is the medium of thought, par excellence; it is suggestive of thought; it is suggestive of the mind itself. Close inquiry into language, into its relations, turns the mind in upon itself, and to understand itself; and it was in this that SOCRATES and PLATO confounded the Sophists.

We have but recently learned to distinguish between language lessons and grammar as a science; and to-day we have reached the point represented by the author of the paper just read. He would discard books, below the high school, in teaching grammar. I believe we should combine practice with theory; science develops itself when knowledge is advanced in the proper order. I have noticed this fact, that scientific men, men who devote themselves to science especially, are better public speakers, speak more correctly, than linguists themselves. It is because they have in their minds the subjects that are constantly suggestive of thought; for scientific men of all classes constantly arrange their topics.

We have tried the method of teaching language without a text-book; but the syllabus of language lessons prepared for our schools has grown up into a book, and that has been used in our schools for three years. The plan of this book is almost precisely that suggested by the author of the paper read, and we are well satisfied with the results.

Mr. E. M. Avery, of Ohio, agreed that theory should be combined with practice from the first. But the use of good language is rather a matter of habit than of theory. A child may learn to express himself with propriety without knowing a rule of grammar. If surrounded by those who speak the English language in its purity, he will of necessity speak pure English. But, on the other hand, if surrounded by those who speak incorrectly, he will speak incorrectly. If it is necessary with the smaller children to give them the theory of the English language, I wish to know how it is to be done.

Mr. Crosby. The early instruction as to the science, as to the terms, does not begin until the age of twelve. The early lessons are upon the strictly philosophical objective method.

W. B. Dwight, Assistant Principal of the Normal School at New Britain, Connecticut, expressed the fullest sympathy with a large part of the able paper read. He thought, however, that practical instruction should be given to the younger children, and that alone. No rule should be given to them. The

rules can not be given to a young child so that they will be understood. Many children come to school instructed in language; but generally they need to have bad habits corrected. Young children should be taught by example, not by rule. A child is better able to learn a correct use of words when young than when older.

Mr. DWIGHT thought the paper read ignored the study of the science of grammar too much. He could hardly agree to the statement that a knowledge of the science of grammar can be a clog to the use of good language. The use of diagrams, too, he thought beneficial.

The Department adjourned.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7th, 1872.

The Department met at 2 o'clock, and the first exercise was the reading of the following paper, by W. N. HAILMANN, of Louisville, Ky., on the

✓

ADAPTATION OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM OF EDUCATION TO AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS.

It is useless to insist here upon the influence which local circumstances exert upon the relative devolopment and value of educational measures. The earnest, thinking educators whom I am addressing have felt the influence and have been puzzled by it many a time in their experience. The method of discipline that made a very good boy of John has not only utterly failed, but produced the very opposite, with Henry. The educational measure that created quite an enthusiasm for schools in one section emptied them in another. What is a blessing in Russia is a curse in America. What, in Germany, leads one people to freedom, may, in the United States, lead another people to slavery.

Systems of education are means to an end, and must, consequently, adapt themselves to the objects in view, and to the difficulties to be overcome. Evervarying circumstances require frequent modifications of the theoretical direction; for no theory can take into consideration the manifold difficulties that beset practice.

We all know that even PESTALOZZI's method had to undergo many a modification, often appearing as sins against his principles, in order to adapt itself to the wants of our schools, to the peculiarities of our teachers and pupils; and the failure to introduce the method in some localities is, perhaps, due as much to its relative insufficiencies of adaptation as to the insufficiencies of the teachers. Yet it is our duty to look around us diligently, and to as great distances in time and space as our powers may permit, for appliances used elsewhere in the attainment of educational ends; to study closely whatever we see; to separate the essential from the accessory; and to inquire carefully into the value of these essentials, and into their adaptability to our locality and to our aims. Thus we shall be enabled to gather the good, nay, the best, from our colleagues

in all times and in all civilized portions of the earth, and to render their best thoughts and best endeavors tributary to our work.

There is, surely, no doubt that, since PESTALOZzı, Switzerland and Germany have done more to establish a science of pedagogy than all the other countries conjointly; that they have done more careful, philosophical and systematic thinking on the subject of education than all the world besides. It behooves us, then, to follow with diligent care the developments of the science and art of education in those countries, and to study them in their bearing and relations to our peculiar institutions.

That, among the German framers of pedagogic science and art, FROEBEL occupies one of the foremost places is well known to you, and it can not be my object to discuss either his claims to our gratitude or his system in full. Indeed, this has been done quite satisfactorily, both in practical illustration and in essays upon the subject, by Mrs. PLOEDTERLL, Mrs. KRIEGER, Miss PEABODY, Mr. JOHN KRAUS, Dr. DOUAI, and other earnest laborers in the same field among you. I can only direct your attention once more, and with all the warmth of which I am capable, to a revolution in educational science that is fast transforming the entire educational machinery of Europe, in spite of the opposition of individuals, professions, and classes that lease their power upon the ignorance and dependence of the masses- the great invention of FROebel, an invention as important to education as that of the steam-engine and of the telegraph to manufactures, commerce, and the arts of peace in general. I can only act the part of an ignited shred of timber to the inflammable material that you are to supply and to fan into a mighty conflagration, before which incompetence and deception in the most important concern of social economy are to be swept into oblivion. I can only furnish a sort of preface to the great work with which you are to bless coming generations.

Allow me, then, in the first place, sketching all along in rapid outline, to cull from the chaotic mass of ideas left by FROEBEL that which seems to underlie all his efforts, retaining, of course, only those things which have reference to the education of man purely as a human being, and eschewing all that veils his labors in the shape of concessions to political, sectarian and social abnormities of the nation for which he wrote and worked.

FROEBEL looks upon the young human being as an organism whose development is subject to the ordinary organic laws. Material for growth is received, digested, assimilated; the periodical powers grow, and the organism expands. This tendency and the power of growth the young human being has at birth, inheriting them from the organisms that have preceded it and given it existence. The material for expansion it obtains from the surroundings through the medium of the senses; it seeks material, brings itself into the most favorable circumstance for obtaining it through the medium of the motor system, which also enables it to furnish material for growth to kindred organisms.

The laws of growth are the same as in other organisms. First and foremost there is the law of continuity. Starting from one point, the development must progress steadily, continuously; and all intermission, all strict limits, severing contrasts are injurious-nay, fatal. Hence, education must in the beginning be passive, and only at a later period, when self-consciousness has appeared, it can become active. Again, only the material can come from without, the growth

itself must come from within. Educators can offer material properly arranged and prepared, but growth can take place only in the child, and education can not hasten or retard it directly. Hence, too, the intensive powers precede the extensive in the order of development. The organism must have reached a certain strength before the latter can make themselves felt. The physical, sensual, emotional elements begin visible growth before the motor, intellectual, discriminating elements. The latter grow upon the former. Still, they, too, exist from the beginning and show themselves first as instinct of motion, then as instinct of play, and ultimately as instinct of productive activity. We must, therefore, never lose sight of them, never neglect them, for fear of sinning against the laws of harmony in organic development. It would be a great error to direct our attention at first exclusively to physical and sensual development and to disregard the motor and intellectual elements of the organism. For, although the former are the first to manifest themselves, the latent development of the latter must keep pace, if, indeed, a good organism is the aim. It would lead to the most disastrous results to lose sight of the discriminating elements in attending to the emotional that precede the others in perceptible development. In short, education must from the very beginning, from the first breath of the child, keep the extensive powers in view, and exercise them as fully as their comparatively low condition and apparently slow growth will permit. If this is not done, the educator will injure in stead of benefiting, and will send into the world (or let loose upon the world) barren and even parasitical organisms, men and women who produce nothing and who subsist upon the substance of others, and, since man finds the highest enjoyment in the exercise of his extensive powers, men and women as incapable of happiness as they are inefficient for usefulness. The truth of these remarks finds a sad abundance of illustrations and corroborations in a great number of schools in our country, and they explain, too, the startling fact that self-made men are so often superior to those upon whom the most elaborate educational appliances have been expended.

Again, FROEBEL looks upon the child from the very beginning in its two-fold character as a whole and as a part, as an individual and as a member of the family, of the state, of the race. In the first relation, life is receptive and aims at enjoyment, independence, happiness; in the second relation, it is productive and aims at the dispensation of happiness and usefulness. But these phases are so intimately interlaced that one can not be attained without the other. Only in dispensing happiness the human being renders himself truly happy; and his own happiness will always reäct as usefulness upon the surroundings. Hence, education, which is to teach the science and art of life, must fit man for usefulness and happiness; and that is the best system of education which gives the greatest capacity for both. FROEBEL aims to evolve all the powers of the young human being in such a way that, as an individual, he may attain the fullest happiness, and that, as a member of society, he may dispense the greatest possible amount of happiness-be as useful as possible. These two phases of existence are to be so adjusted that they never interfere with each other. This he attains, in the first place, by developing individuality, independence of character, to the greatest possible extent; for he is most happy, as well as most * In manuscript, 'involve'.