LETTER XII.

SCHOOLS.

FROM the ardour with which I have advocated domestic education, I hope it will not be inferred that I feel little interest in the welfare of schools. Oh no! I would not be so untrue to my coun try, as to omit any argument which would tend to their support and elevation. "For the wealth of a state," said the great Reformer, "consists not in having great treasures, solid walls, fair palaces, weapons and armour; but its best, and noblest wealth, and its truest safety, is in having learned, wise, honourable, and well-educated citizens."

If I have urged mothers to do much for their children, it is because I have felt it to be both their duty and their privilege to do more than they ever have done. If I have laboured to shew them what I deemed "the more excellent way," I have not been ignorant that but few would think of entering it. With the multitude, whose industry earns a subsistence, the education of their children would be impossible. The

few, who may be persuaded to assume it, will probably depend more or less on the assistance of private teachers. So, that the character, attainments and principles of the great body of instructors, are important to the prosperity and safety of the land. It was the pen of Burke that wrote, "Education is the cheapest defence of a nation." "It is a better safeguard for liberty," says Governor Everett, "than a standing army. If we retrench the wages of the schoolmaster, we must raise the wages of the recruiting sergeant."

In order to elevate the character of our schools, et them be more select. They are often SO much thronged, and exhibit such disparity of age, that the portion of individual improvement must be small and impeded. In Prussia, which we are still constrained to acknowledge as our model, in many features of scholastick education, fifteen are considered an ample number for a single mind to rule, and operate upon, to advantage. A teacher, to fulfill the higher purpose of his profession, should secure the intimacy and seek the confidence of his pupils. But how can this be done, when they are so numerous, and so frequently changed, as to continue comparatively strangers?

Those schools which desire eminence, should establish habits of order and punctuality. The

division of time, and its adaptation to different studies, should be as clearly defined to each class, as the position of countries on a map. Rules, embracing every gradation of duty, or variety of deportment, which bear on moral and intellectual proficiency, should be drawn up, explained, daily read, and, if necessary, the signature of each pupil taken, as a pledge of their assistance in maintaining them. The correct discipline of a school is its moral wealth; each of its members should feel, that whoever infringes it, impairs the common stock. It may usually be sustained with perfect kindness, and often forms a bond of lasting attachment between teacher and scholar.

More munificence in the salaries of our public schools, would advance their permanence and excellence. Were their income sufficient to induce well-educated men to choose the work of instruction as a profession for life, they would assume a higher rank, both in theory and practice. Teachers engaged for a transient period, using their school as a stepping-stone to some other station, perhaps, occupied at the same time in the study of the profession on which their future subsistence is to depend, bring but wandering thoughts and divided affections to a service which demands the concentration of both. The community will find parsimony ill-placed, where the mental and moral culture of its youth are concerned.

The establishment of Normal Schools, would be a great blessing to our country, and is a subject which demands public attention and munificent patronage. For in our primary and district schools, where reformation is the most necessary, the education of their teachers is often exceedingly defective. "In every age, even among the heathen," said Luther, "the necessity has been felt of having good tutors and schoolmasters, in order to make any thing respectable of a nation. But surely, we are not to sit still and wait until they grow up of themselves. We can neither chop them out of wood, nor hew them out of stone. God will work no miracles to furnish that which we have means to provide. We must therefore apply our care and money to train up and to make them."

Well-chosen libraries, connected with the schools in our remote villages, are a desirable appendage. A regular system of drawing out and returning the books should be established; perhaps the right of doing so, might be used as a reward of good scholarship and correct conduct. A condition should always be annexed, that each one who has been favoured with the perusal of a volume, should render some account of its contents to the teacher, in presence of the school, that all may share in the benefit. Some knowledge of the structure of the mind is requisite, to guide even

the youngest pupils to improvement. Yet in our obscure villages, if there is any decayed, old woman, who is too feeble to acquire a living by the spinning-wheel, or needle, how often is it said, that she will do to "keep a school for the little ones." For the little ones! at that most plastick period of life, when the impressions which are received are to last forever?

Simpson, of Edinburgh, in his work on Popular Education, says most justly, "Prussian law givers have wisely considered the best plan of teaching as a dead letter, without good and able teachers; and to expect these without training, is to look for a crop without ploughing or sowing. An instructor, well endowed with knowledge, and distinguished by a lively and exciting manner of communication, who can keep alive wonder, and put into his lessons a fine admixture of the higher feelings, will possess a power over his pupil's will and happiness, which forms a striking contrast to the heart-withering irksomeness of the old schools, in which an antiquated and most hurtful appeal to the inferior feelings of fear, self-exultation, vanity or covetousness, was found necessary to stimulate the languid faculties."

It is obvious, that the character of our schools should keep pace with the spirit of our very advancing age. This must be done, by demanding of teachers, high degrees of intellectual attain