Before considering in detail the condition of education in the different States of the Union, let us glance at the national systems of instruction in the countries of the Old World. Germany may justly claim the credit of first thoroughly organizing a system of public education, under the administration of the civil power. The characteristic features of the German Schools are, the power of the Government to compel attendance; provision to make the Schools, not free to all, but accessible to all; and excellent methods of instruction, resulting from Normal Schools; and the making of teaching a life profession. Music is a prominent part of education in Germany, and the strong national pride, love of country, and love of liberty, of the Germans, is born in Schools, where the patriotic songs of the nation become as familiar as the alphabet of their mother tongue. Here are the words of one of the favorite national songs: "What country does a German claim? His Fatherland,-knowest thou its name? Is it Bavaria,-Saxony? An inland State, or on the sea? There on the Baltic's plains of sand, Has but one country-GERMANY!" Prussia took lessons from Germany, and her systems of National Schools is excelled by no European nation. Her Normal Schools educate a well trained corps of Teachers, who devote their whole life to their profession, and who are pensioned in old age. Parents are compelled by law to send their children to school, and the result is that only one native-born Prussian in two hundred can be found ignorant of reading, writing, and arithmetic. In France, M. Guizot founded a comprehensive and liberal system of elementary instruction, based on the experience of Prussia, and reported the bill in eighteen hundred and thirty-two. In introducing it into the Chamber of Delegates, he made the following truthful remarks: The first degree of instruction should be common to the country and the towns; wherever a human being is to be found within our land of France. By the teaching of reading, writing, and accounts, it provides for the most essential wants of life; by that of a legal system of weights and measures, and of the French language, it spreads everywhere the spirit and unity of the French nationality. It is the strict debt of the country toward all its children. France now expends annually for Schools eight millions two hundred and seventyeight thousand dollars. She has not only the best Universities, Scientific and Military Schools in the world, but a national system of elementary instruction which commands the admiration of the world. Austria has a system of National Schools, and no person can engage in the service of the State, in any capacity, without a certificate of attendance at School. The law respecting Teachers is not a bad one: "The Teacher of a Common School must be a person of good sense, having a good, clear pronunciation, good health, and a sound constitution." England, with all her time-honored Universities and endowed Public Schools, is far behind Germany, France, and Prussia, in her elementary Schools for the common people. Lord Brougham, in eighteen hundred and thirty-six, advocated a national system of Public Schools, but the bill failed on account of the bitter controversies of the religious sects, and the children were allowed to grow up in ignorance rather than run the risk of an education without the catechisms. In advocating this bill, Lord Brougham said: Let the people be taught, say I. The School is closed, but the Penitentiary yawns day and night to engulph its victims; the utterly execrable, the altogether abominable hulk lies moored in the face of day, which it darkens, riding on the face of the waters, which it stains with every unnatural excess of infernal pollution, triumphant over mortals. Macauley said, in eighteen hundred and forty-seven, in the House of Commons: Educate the people, was the first admonition addressed by Penn to the Commonwealth he founded-educate the people, was the last legacy of Washington-educate the people, was the unceasing exhortation of Jefferson. Yes, of Jefferson himself, and I quote his authority with peculiar favor, for of all public men that the world ever saw, he was the one whose greatest delight it was to pare down the functions of Governments to the lowest possible point, and to leave the freest possible scope for the exercise of individual rights. His Royal Highness, the lamented Prince Albert, reported to the Educational Conference, in eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, that two million two hundred and ninety thousand children in England, who were not at work, did not attend any School whatever! and that fifty-seven per cent of English children were growing up without any education whatever! In Massachusetts ninety-five per cent of all her children, between the ages of three and fifteen, attend School. Of the two million English children who did attend school, forty-two per cent, or nearly half, were there less than one year, and only five hundred thousand were above the age of nine years! Would not English capitalists do well to devote their money to building School houses instead of ironclads for the Emperor of China? From the London Times of October fourth, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, I extract the following remarks made by Lord Auckland, before a late meeting of the Educational and Ecclesiastical Commission : We are now running a race with France, trying which can get the strongest vessels, the most destructive shot, and the most powerful ordnance. An educational rivalry is also going on, and France is far ahead of us in education. In France there are sixtyfive thousand one hundred Schools of Primary Instruction, and these cost one million seven hundred and ten thousand four hundred and seventy pounds ($8,278,675.) Of the sixty-five thousand one hundred Schools, all but one thousand five hundred are maintained wholly by the public. We only gave, in eighteen hundred and fifty-six, eight hundred thousand pounds ($3,872,000) for the various Schools, not for the maintenance of any one School, but simply for aiding the various Schools under inspection. In those Schools there were only nine hundred and thirty-four thousand scholars. In France, eight hundred thousand pounds would give instruction to two million five hundred thousand, for they educate cheaper. However we may beat the French in ship armor and offensive weapons, in Schools they certainly beat us, and are more likely to have a large educated population than we are. Will not that larger educated population, armed with intelligence, prove more than a match for Armstrong guns and unwieldy Warriors? Is not the increasing power of France, which is already throwing England into the shade, in some measure connected with her excellent system of instruction for the common people? Yet England, behind most enlightened nations as she is, has done something for Public Schools. Dr. Arnold changed the face of English Public Schools, and made Rugby a classic name. His life ought to be in the hands of every Teacher. The endowed schools, of which Rugby is one, are the most thoroughly English of English institutions. One was established in the time of Alfred, three in that of Henry VI, one of Richard III, twelve of Henry VII, forty-nine of Henry VIII, and one hundred and fifteen in the time of Queen Elizabeth. John Pounds, a poor, crippled shoemaker, in Portsmouth, instituted a Ragged School in eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, which has since grown into a great system. Charles Dickens deserves to be classed among English educational reformers, for his caricatures of English Schoolmasters, in the character of Squeers, and of Boarding Schools conducted on the starvation system of that motherly matron, Mrs. Squeers, effected a salutary reform. The merciless wit of Dickens has never spared pompous pretensions to learning, nor pedantic methods of instruction. How capitally he hits off what is termed "practical teaching:" "Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. Stick to Facts." The emphasis of the speaker was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, and his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,-nay, his very neckcloth trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was,-all helped the emphasis. "In this life we want nothing but Facts, Sir, nothing but Facts." Gradgrind was a Teacher with "a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, Sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to." Said the vistor, eloquently discoursing "to the little vessels ranged in rows ready to have gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim :" "We hope to have before long a Board of Fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and nothing but fact. You are not to have in any object of use or ornament what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented on walls. You must use, for all these purposes, combinations and modifications of mathematical figures, which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is fact. This is taste." In the School of facts, Mr. McChoakumchild does the practical work: He, and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned in the same factory, at the same time, on the same principles, like so many piano forte legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land surveying and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical sciences, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the water sheds of all the world, and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more ! There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models, every one. No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are!" It had never known wonder on the subject, having at five years dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven Charles' Wain like a locomotive engine driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb. It had never heard of these celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminiverous, ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. "Bring to me," says Mr. McChoakumchild, "yonder baby, just able to walk, and I will engage that he shall never wonder." And Gradgrind, as he surveyed the children, seemed a kind of cannon, loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. Scotland has long been distinguished for the excellence of her Schools and the general intelligence of her people. No obstacle opposes the entire success of the National Schools of Ireland but the spirit of religious bigotry and jealousy. In the different countries alluded to, the ratio of School children to the whole population is estimated, from the best statistics, to be as follows: United States, one to five; Prussia, one to seven; France, one to eight; England, one to nine; Austria, one to ten. A comparison of European Public Schools with American may be briefly summed up as follows: In the National Schools of Europe professional male Teachers, graduates of Normal Schools, are generally employed for life, thus giving the Schools a decided advantage in thoroughness of teaching and strictness of discipline. On the other hand, I believe that our Schools, especially the primary, derive a great advantage from the employment of refined and intelligent women, their superior natural tact and love for children making them more successful Teachers than men. In most European countries stringent laws compel attendance on Schools; in ours, no such harsh measures are called for. One distinctive feature of our Schools is the general education of the sexes together, while in Europe they are taught in separate Schools. I believe that the true deference paid to woman, and the chivalric politeness with which she is treated, and the high standard of morality generally prevailing in the United States, are the results, in no small degree, of educating boys and girls together in the same Schools. Another distinctive feature of our Schools is their freedom from sectarian instruction. In almost all the European Schools direct religious lessons are given by the clergy of both the Catholic and the Protestant churches; in other words, the Schools are made the medium of denominational and sectarian teaching of creeds and catechisms. Nothing has been so great an obstacle to Public Schools in England and Ireland as the contentions of the religious sects for the control of the Schools. As illustrating the spirit which now prevails, I quote a few extracts from the report of an Educational Commission, published in a late number of the London Times: In one lengthy report read, objection was made to the fact that in some cases, by a liberal construction of the "conscience clause," aid had been granted to Schools where the parents objected to denominational instruction, and the "conscience clause was anathematized as "subversive of English institutions," and regarded as a daring innovation." 66 The report claimed that "Church of England Schools" only should receive Government aid, and that a Secular School, professing not to give religious instruction, should be excluded from the Government Fund. Happily for their prosperity, and for the best interests of vital religion, our Schools are removed from all denominational influences, and the reading of the Bible, without note or comment, affords little occasion for sectarian feeling. All are left free to form their own belief, drawn from the primal source of Christianity. The European Schools are partly supported by Government and partly by tuition, while ours are generally entirely gratuitous. In European countries the Schools are too often used by the Government and Church to strengthen the power of the few, and to teach the people "how not to think" on certain subjects relating to their own rights; but, while our Schools are equally National in their spirit and results, they are always subject to the direct control of the people, thus representing the foundation principles of our Republic. The educational statistics of the last census have not yet been published, but the following estimates, made by the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Ohio, gathered from the different State reports for the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one, are probably a very near approximation: Amount of money expended for Public Schools in the loyal States, $20,385,000; in the rebel States, $3,076,000-total, $23,461,000. Number of children attending School in the loyal States, 4,560,000; in the rebel States, 651,000-total, 5,211,000. The average amount expended for the education of each child is about five dollars, and amount expended for each white inhabitant is eighty-seven cents. The amount of taxable real and personal property in the United States, in eighteen hundred and sixty, was $16,159,000,000; and allowing the expenditures for Schools, as estimated by the Ohio Superintendent, $23,461,000, would be equivalent to a tax of one and a half mills on the dollar for Public School purposes. The School Tax on property in the loyal States is about one and eight tenths of a mill on the dollar; in the rebel States, about six tenths of a mill. From such State reports as I have been able to obtain, I gather the following statistics of the amount of money expended by different States, and of the number of children attending Schools in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one : The amount expended by Massachusetts is exclusive of money expended in buildings, sites, and repairs, while in the others it is inclusive. In the amount for California, the relative value of money here and in the East must be considered, and also, that the cost of educating here is, at least, double that in the Atlantic States-primary Teachers being paid here three, four, and five times as much as there. The amount for each inhabitant is as follows: Massachusetts, one dollar and thirtyone cents; Ohio, one dollar and twenty-one cents; Illinois, one dollar and seventeen cents; Rhode Island, one dollar; New York, one dollar; Pennsylvania, ninety cents; |