gentle only but pure; not learned only but magnanimous. Such a teacher will not present himself before his pupils as the dispenser of pains and penalties, but as the friend, helper, parent. 6. The teacher must be a good man. Children are skilful physiognomists; ready and able judges of the morality of the affections. They are very likely to copy their instructers. A teacher may often see himself reflected in his scholars. Not the serpent in Eden is to be more feared than a vicious schoolmaster among innocent children. "Feed my lambs," said the soul-loving Saviour; but this surely does not mean that we should poison them. We must keep them in the kingdom. 7. The teacher must have enthusiasm; and the Greek meaning of this word is GOD IN Us. He must catch the divine idea of education and feel a divine solicitude to be a fellow-laborer with God in bringing out the godlike in the human soul. To him falls the sacred office of education, (educo,) of drawing humanity out of man, of waking up the dormant powers of mind, of tempting forth the various energies of thought, and of embodying in the heart of childhood his own ideas of the true, the beautiful and the good. Must he not be impassioned? - What is the parental feeling? It is all feeling, i. e., it is all love and truth and wakefulness, and prayer; and it is by these principles living and reigning in the soul that the parent wins, corrects, stimulates and rewards the child. Tell me, what can a parent substitute for these in the government of his children? There are no qualifications which will do instead. Now I ask, if the teacher has not these qualifications, so necessary with children at home, how can he expect success with those children at school? Is it not supposable that God has assigned to parents the very best principles and modes? And can any other principles for the culture of their minds and the regulation of their hearts be applied to children effectually by schoolmasters? Surely not. A teacher therefore should be a perfect parent. A teacher's seminary is specially intended to give to young people parental qualifications. Can there be a wiser aim? And now I say though a teacher may have all learning and all truth, though he may have intellectual wealth at will, and will to use his wealth, though he may know all the practices of science and trace its multiform relations, yet, if he adds not to these, as the forcing power of the whole, the bright enthusiasm of his own living spirit, he is nothing comparatively nothing. The light which he may shed around him will be light from an iceberg. Do not some think that books can make up for the teacher's deficiencies? Fatal mistake. If they can for his want of knowledge they cannot for his want of enthusiasm. Great and good citizens have bestowed years in preparing books. May God's best blessing rest upon them for it. But I do not put books before teachers. Books are dead instructers. The accomplished master is a living book, aye, all books at once. Such a teacher is equal to all the school books that ever were written and he himself into the bargain. I have thus answered the questions at first proposed, by stating what topics of study are necessary to meet the deep wants of the soul, which are the wants of civilization, liberty and religion. I have also named some of the leading qualifications requisite in a competent American teacher: and now, I ask any man of wide experience, of enlightened patriotism, and of christian piety, if more than one half of the means, appointed by the Creator for the education of children, are applied in the United States; and if that half are applied in all their natural energy and fruitfulness? The Hon. John Duer, of New York, answers these questions in the following words, "All who are competent to judge and will give due attention to the facts, must unite in the conclusion, that our present system of popular education is radically defective." An able writer, in a recent number of the American Quarterly Review, says, "Now we venture to affirm, with great confidence, that the common-school system, as it is called, as at present administered in this country, is emphatically a failure; and that not one in twenty of the boys and girls, who attend upon it, is educated as the public good, nay, as the public safety and his own individual usefulness and happiness require him to be educated." The records of this Institute bear the testimony of many intelligent and experienced men to the same point. Your Committee, appointed to petition the Legislature, last winter, gave in their evidence before the world, in these words "A very large number of both sexes, who teach the summer and winter schools, are, to a mournful degree, wanting in all these qualifications. In short, they knew not what to teach, nor how to teach, nor in what spirit to teach, nor what is the nature of those they un Philosophy and experience establish the truth of this Prussian maxim. Take the best town-school in New England, and put into that school a stupid, selfish, incompetent master, and he will assuredly run it down. Take the most backward school in the state and put into it an intelligent, conscientious, purposely prepared teacher, and he will soon lift it up to himself. All streams flow level with their founts. But to return to the testimony of Cousin. He has just sent me four pamphlets, which, in the letter accompanying them, he calls fragments of a journey which he took six months ago into Holland, and a full account of which he is just publishing. He says "This last work will be more useful to Americans than any thing I have yet written on elementary instruction." In Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utretch, Harlem, he examined the several educational establishments; and the same sentiments appear in every place concerning the indispensable importance of Teachers' Seminaries. He obtained the opinion of the most celebrated philosophers as well as the most successful directors of normal schools, some of them having been thirty years in the service; and these are the words:"Holland has, by degrees, come to the apprehension of the value of Teachers' Seminaries." Cousin again says, "I place all my hopes for the education of the people in these seminaries." In Holland they judge four years as not too much time for a young man to prepare himself aright for the great duties of schoolmaster. Prussia has forty-two of these institutions. Holland is supplied with them. Austria is introducing them and has between twenty and thirty. France is doing the same, through the influence of Cousin, and will soon have eighty-four. England too is waking up to their value. Having just received from the Secretary of the Borough Rood School in London their Report, I quote from the "Appeal for the annual subscribers in aid of the normal schools, under the care of the British and Foreign School Society." Their words are these "The importance of teachers being properly trained for the work of instruction is now generally admitted." - Is it not time that this republic, whose safety and renown, we are constantly assured, must depend on knowledge and virtue; is it not time for such a community to provide for the fit education of all its children as well as monarchies and military despotisms do? Mr. President, I want that something should be done. I want the whole mass of American children to be American; which means freedom- enamored, intelligent and good. Let us not rest until all are led to dwell upon the high table-land of light, liberty and truth; and not, as now, be traversing to and fro in the twilight and gloom of the intervale. Look abroad over this country! Is there no need that something should be done? See how the love of money is elevated into a doctrine and preached by fathers to their sons even as a cardinal virtue. Mammon's golden wand is striking the land with spiritual impotency. Then there is infidelity which subverts nature and pulls down providence, and blots out hope; and then there is licentiousness which is fevering the blood, and intemperance which is maddening the brain, these, with their whole attendant family of ills, are threatening our blood-bought liberties, our national prosperity and our domestic altars; and where, where is the effectual remedy but the school-house? -- What have competent, purposely-prepared teachers done for other places? I mention one as an example. It may be found in Madam de Stael's "Germany" and was corroborated by the learned agent from Hamburg recently sent to this country by the king of Prussia, for the purpose of learning the condition and improvements of our schools and prisons, &c. "In the city of Hamburg taxes are never assessed on individuals; but the officers announce the amount per cent. on property, which the expenses of the city require; and then each citizen goes on a certain day and deposites in the public chest what properly falls to his share. No one knows how much another pays; there is no responsibility but that which is furnished by each man's conscience and sense of honor; and yet the whole amount deposited never fails to bear the right proportion to the valuation of the city." Bremen is another instance of the same kind. I know many facts proving the same point. Is there moral principle in any of our cities or towns like this? Have we a public conscience in this country which can lift its head in the presence of these facts? Ask them the cause, and they immediately point you to the religious culture imparted in their elementary schools. I say again, that our republic needs such schools in order that we may realise such results. In one word it is nothing but competent instruction in early life which will give every child the opportunity of mak ing the most of himself. What does this mean? A word of explanation and I am done. The laws of God are co-extensive with himself. They are about man and in man as is the atmosphere he breathes. He acts amid these laws. If he obeys them they make him happy; if he breaks them he must pay the penalty. To obey these laws they must be comprehended; to comprehend them they must be studied; and how can our children study them aright except by the guidance of a teacher; and how can he teach aright except he understand? Let a child be taught understandingly what his physical constitution is; let him be shown the skilful involution of fibres, the wise entanglement of muscles; let him comprehend the action of the heart, stomach and lungs, and feel the blood rolling through the rivers of his frame; and, after this, explain to him the indigestible nature of alcohol, the poisonous action of medicine, the fire-fury of licentiousness; thus enable him clearly to see how folly and vice dislocate and derange the beauteous and healthful harmonies of his physical nature, and he will then understand that it is just as wise to run into intemperance and lasciviousness in order to promote his pleasure as to break his arm for the sake of amusement. Let him be taught, also, that the laws of mind are equally benignant and demanding in their sphere, that they too are the voice of God within. Let his imagination be taught so to embody his ideal in life and duty as to fill the humblest condition with infinite interests. Let his judgment be called to weigh questions involving the most searching analyses and the most delicate comparisons; and let conscience be enthroned to decide upon cases of moral obligation and actual conduct; in short, let the same mind be in him which was in Christ Jesus; let him come to a clear apprehension of what God wishes a human creature to be, and that in being such a one he will answer on earth the purposes of his existence, he will preserve his health and multiply his powers, he will promote his peace and extend his usefulness; and when he has finished the work that God sent him here to do, he will thus have secured the best prospect of a happy immortality: I say, let the inquisitive mind of a child be thus instructed and established in physical, intellectual and spiritual truth; let him thus understand himself, what he is, why he is here, where he is going, and it is not in human nature to deny that that youth will be better |