NOTE.

OBERLIN COLLEGE, and OBERLIN as a settlement or town, originated in the deep religious convictions of the founders of both, which had been awakened and confirmed in the "revivals" of 1830, and the few years following. The author of the plan of the “Collegiate Institute," on the manual labor system, and the "Covenant," under which a tract of land three miles square, and comprising about eight thousand acres, was purchased in Lorain County, at the low rate of one dollar and fifty cents per acre, was Rev. John J. Shipherd, while he was pastor of the Presbyterian church in Elyria in 1832. Associated with him, in public and private prayer and effort, was Mr. P. P. Stewart, a retired missionary among the Cherokees in Mississippi, then residing in Mr. Shipherd's family. The early colonists and students, deeply imbued with the religious spirit which the preachings of Rev. Charles Finney had awakened, entered on the enterprise with missionary zeal, "lamenting the degeneracy of the Church, and the deplorable condition of the perishing world, and ardently desirous of bringing both under the influence of the blessed gospel of peace" and "of glorifying God in doing good to meu to the extent of their ability." Assuming the name of the French pastor and educator of the retired parish of Walbach, in the Ban de la Roche, they have achieved, within the period measured by that pastor's labors, an educational success, and made their principles and practices felt in the political and ethical, as well as the educational questions of the day, to an extent which Oberlin never aspired to.

The land was bought in 1832-the first log cabin on the tract, by no means inviting for settlement, was built in April, 1833, and the first college building was extemporized, out of trees felled from the till then untouched forest; in the following summer, a church on the Congregational basis, but in temporary connection with a Presbytery, was gathered in September, and in December a school was opened in "Oberlin Hall," with thirty pupils, which number before the close of May, 1834, was increased to one hundred. And thus was launched an enterprise which, in little more than thirty years, has grown into a village and township of 3000 inhabitants, and according to the annual catalogue of 1867-68, (of fifty-six closely-printed pages,) and an institution (no longer the "Oberlin Collegiate Institute" on the manual labor system, with one undergraduate student of Western Reserve College as teacher,) known throughout the land as OBERLIN COLLEGE, with an endowment of $160,000, seven buildings, and twenty professors and instructors laboring in a Theological Department with 11 students; a College Department with 119 students, 9 of whom are ladies in a four years' course; a Scientific Course of three years, with 34 students; a Preparatory Department with 484 "gentlemen" students; a Young Ladies' Course of four years, with 190 students; and a Ladies' Preparatory Course with 294 pupils— a grand total of 1134 pupils. Besides these regular courses, there is a "Teachers' Institute" every Fall term, continuing about six weeks, in which special instruction is given to those who propose to teach; a "Winter Vacation School," under the superintendence of the Faculty, in optional studies, commencing at the close of the Autumn term; and a "Conservatory of Music," under a Professor fresh from the Conservatory of Music at Leipzig in Saxony. And in these thirty years, over 15,000 pupils have been instructed to some extent in its various courses. [We shall return to Oberlin.-Ed.]

VI. CIRCULAR RESPECTING ACADEMIES

AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION.

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

Washington, D. C.

To the President of the Board of Trustees, or the Principal of Incorporated Academies and other Seminaries of Secondary Education

The undersigned will be happy to receive a copy of any printed document, and such other information as you may find it convenient to communicate respecting your institution in any or all of the particulars specified in the following Schedule.

HENRY BARNARD,

I. NAME, LOCATION, AND SPECIAL OBJECT.

II. HISTORICAL DEVELOPEMENT.

Commissioner of Eaucation.

A. 1. When, by whom, and for what avowed objects the Institution was originally established; date of Incorporation, with names and residence of incorporators; first opening-date of, and condition at the time as to

13. Terms-Vacations-Daily Routine-Public Exhibitions-Prizes.

B. In giving the chronological developement of the institution, specify

1. Any change in the original object of the institution, or the constitution or policy of the Board of Trustees.

26

2. The date and object of every benefaction, with the conditions attached, by the donor, especially to those in aid of indigent students, and any circumstances to show the value and the wise management of the benefaction.

3. The manner in which funds were raised to provide for the extension, repairs, and equipment of the buildings, the enlargement and ornamentation of the grounds, and the supply of apparatus, &c

4. The peculiar qualifications of each Principal, and any peculiar excellence in instruction and discipline, as well as the subsequent career of the several Assistants.

5. The date of the introduction of each new branch, such as Algebra, Geometry, Physiology, Chemistry, and any of the natural sciences, with the text books used, and the facilities of practical illustration and manipulation in the latter. Ascertain the history of Art-studies or ornamental branches, and how paid for and taught.

6. The relations of the departments for males and females, as to instruction and boarding, and the opinions of teachers as to the results of their experience in the co-education of the sexes.

7. The arrangement made for boarding non-resident pupils in commons, clubs, and private families, and the advantages, evils, and expense of each mode; and the extent to which non-resident pupils have resorted to the institution from the County, State, or abroad.

8. The denominational character and policy of the religious teaching.

9. The athletic games and exercises, as well as any systematic forms of manual labor for its healthful or economical results, which have at different times prevailed.

10. Any important change in the principles, methods, and penalties in discipline, and particularly in reference to corporal punishment.

11. Influence of Students' Societies for debate, &c., on the power of using the English Language, and habits of reading. Number of volumes in the Library, and resources for annual increase.

12. Rates of tuition, time of payments, abatements.

III. PRESENT CONDITION under each of the above particulars · and general results, such as

1. Whole number of Pupils.

2. Number of College graduates.

3. Number of graduates eminent in political, professional, and industrial life.

4. Influence on other Schools, and education generally.

IV. FUTURE PROSPECTS-if not as favorable as in the past, assign reasons for.

V. APPENDIX.

1. Memoirs of Founders, Benefactors, Instructors, and Alumni.

2. List and, if you can svare, a copy of all printed documents relating to the Institution.

I. NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIES AND CLASSICAL SCHOOLS.

BY RZV. CHARLES HAMMOND, A. M.,

Principal of Academy, Monson, Mass.

RECENT events have directed attention to that class of schools known as Academies and suggested the importance of studying their history as related to classical and what is called higher English education. The erection and dedication of a splendid edifice for the use of Phillips Academy at Andover reminds us of the long continued usefulness of that institution as a classical school. Within a few years the biography of the founder of that institution, Judge Phillips, has been written by the Rev. John L. Taylor, a work of the greatest value in the help it gives to those who wish to understand the motives which led to the establishment of the Acad emies at Andover and Exeter.

The history of Leicester Academy by Ex-Governor Washburn, now Professor of Law in Harvard College, is a most valuable contribution to the history of the classical schools of New England. The address of Prof. Cleveland at the Centennial Celebration of Dummer Academy, recently published, suggests the antiquity of some of the oldest and best of New England Academies, while it is a most worthy tribute to the patrons and teachers of sound learning in former days.

The Academies of this country belong to that grade of schools often called in Europe by the general term, middle schools. On the Continent they are often called gymnasia, or classical drill schools, where boys are prepared for the Universities. In England they are called "the Great Public Schools," as Harrow, Rugby, Eton, and Westminster. Those of less note are called simply grammar schools, which is their most ancient appellation. In Scotland they are called grammar schools and sometimes high schools, of which the High School at Edinburgh is one of the best, having been founded as early at least as 1519; since we have from that year continuous references to the High School in the records of the town council.* Stevens, in his History of the Edinburgh

* 1519, April 11. The quhilk day, provest baillies and counsall statutis and ordanis, for reason

High School, says that "Scotland had schools in her principal towns so early as the twelfth century."

The "grammar schools" first established in the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven colonies, were evidently modeled, as near as possible, after the grammar or public schools of England, with which the founders of the colonies were perfectly familiar, inasmuch as they had been educated in them as well as in the English Universities, of which many of them were distinguished graduates.

It is not necessary to dwell very particularly on the "Public or Foundation Schools of England," which served as the model of the first classical schools of this country, since they have already been the subject of articles* in this Journal.

In their attempts to transplant the English system of grammar schools as a part of their earliest institutions, our fathers did not succeed in their efforts to give them the endowments, which had been the ground of their inherent vitality in the fatherland, and caused them to be, for ages before America was discovered, what they have been truly called, "the most English institutions of England."

The Puritans were too poor to endow their institutions, even their first college, with other than a most meager foundation. They have left on record their ideals of what they attempted in their great enterprise of founding a new commonwealth, and among them all none is of greater interest than what they themselves called their first essays to establish colleges and classical schools.

Unable at first to plant a college, they did the next best thing possible. "A general court held at Boston † advanced a small sum, (and it was a day of small things,) namely, four hundred pounds, by way of essay towards the building of something to begin a college." In this "something," before it became a college, the notorious Nathaniel Eaton was master, whom Mather berates as "a blade who marvelously deceived the expectations of good men concerning him." Yet "he was a rare scholar himself and made many more such; but their education truly was in the school of Tyrannus." There is no doubt that the "grammar schools" at Boston, Dorchester, Cambridge, New Haven, Salem, Hartford, and a few other places, were in the first generation good schools. Mather has given us their course of study for boys in training for "ye universitie." "When scholars had so far profited at the grammar schools

abel causis, that na maner of nychtbouris nor indwellers within this burt, put their bairinis till ony particulare scule within this toun, but to the principale gramer scule. 1531, March 19. Maister Adam Melvil of the hie scule oblist him to mak the bairnys perfyte gramariaris within thrie zeires. (See Stevens' History of High School of Edinburgh.)

See Vol. VIII., p. 257; XV., p. 81-117,

† Mather's Magnalia, Book, IV., Section 4.