practiced by many an ardent and faithful laborer, and which is even now diffusing the inestimable blessings of intelligence and virtue over the land.

Admit, if you will, that we have no system in the sense intended; that the work of education, as conducted in our common schools, is capricious, arbitrary, without balance, discordant. What then? Is it, on this account, less useful in its several departments? Are the sublime precepts which fall upon the heart of childhood, or the beautiful suggestions of wisdom and knowledge daily inculcated in the school houses which enterprise has erected in our young State, less effective for good, because stripped of the rigid formalities and stern absolutism of an inexorable rule? What we need more than system, more than uniformity, is good teachers. Without this, legislative formularies are vain; official supervision is vain; and the accumulated resources of a munificent School Fund are but wasted.

I am not unsupported in this opinion. The Superintendent of one of the Eastern States, speaking of this subject, says: "Far above the minor evils and obstacles that interfere with the perfect working of our school system, there is one that over-rides and overshadows all others. I allude to the want of a sufficient number of well-qualified, professional teachers, who would take hold of the work, not from a selfish or temporary interest, but as a life-time business." "A life-time business"! this is the grand secret of success! it embraces everything to be desired in a teacher-preparation for the work, a conscientious devotion to its requirements, persistence, steadiness, earnestness, and a laudable ambition in its pursuit. This is the essential qualification. The adventurer, the experimentalist, in any business-he who embraces a profession until he can find something which will pay better-whose aspirations are not for the good to be accomplished, but for the gain to be stored away; who seeks to attain no excellence, and contents himself with a routine duty performed, never yet succeeded in promoting its high designs, or in advancing the cause of social happiness, or human progress. His heart is not in the work; he should give

it up.

This, then the employment of unsuitable, unprofessional teachers in our schools-is, in my judgment, the great defect of the system. It is due, not so much to a deficiency in the number of good

teachers, as to the condition of popular sentiment-the lamentable apathy of the employers.

There are in this State-nay, in our public schools-whose representatives are there to-day-a corps of faithful and capable teachers, diligently and earnestly engaged in extending the advantages of a good education to all who fall under their charge, and in promoting the honor and perpetuating the blessings of the sacred cause in which they are enlisted. There are many more devoted to the business of teaching, educated as teachers, fitted by character, by a life-long, systematic and practical familiarity with its duties, who would gladly join once more the fraternity of their choice, even for the bare pittance of a daily support. But while these things are true, it is equally certain that, of those who call themselves teachers, there are many whose sympathies are not engaged in the business; who have taken it up in lieu of something better; to whom the duties of the school-room are a drudgery, and whose highest happiness is when "the night cometh, when no man need work."

What we want is a revolution in public opinion—a proper appreciation by the people of the difference between the good and the bad.

The present is an age of economy: a man will visit an auction room and buy an old, half-worn or clumsily made coat, or a threadbare carpet because it is cheap, low-priced; and he finds only too late, that he has thrown his money away. The same defect regu

lates his conduct in the selection of a teacher. He saves a few dollars by choosing the cheap one, and loses both time and money in the end.

I will not speak of the defects of our schools in their practical working, or of the law which is designed to regulate them. The latter can be corrected only by legislative sanction, and will doubtless, in time, receive the attention it demands. The former are all embraced in the one great defect already so briefly alluded to, and have their remedy in its removal. A good teacher will avoid them. He feels the responsibilities of his position, and alone, unaided, untrammeled, uninfluenced, save by the dictates of a ripe judgment, and the silent promptings of his own conscience, will work out a method adapted to the circumstances by which he is sur

rounded. He knows the advantages of order, cleanliness, and good government in his school, and he will strive properly to enforce them. He recognizes the importance of a thorough classification of his pupils, and it is made his first duty. He has studied the character of the youthful mind and the varying capacities which it presents, and he adapts his instructions to suit the material with which he has to labor. With him the work of education must be progressive. Taking the young child by the hand, he bids him follow, step by step, by easy gradations, by simple and unabrupt transitions, through all the stages of a liberal education. He adapts his teachings to the strength and intellectual development of his pupils; to the organization he possesses; training the faculties, one by one, as he sees them expanding in vigor and ripening in the freshness of maturity. The order which he follows is that of nature, and the end to be attained, the perfection of all the powers with which God has endowed his intelligent creatures.

The physician, if required to rear up a child to vigorous manhood, would commence at the cradle; he would adapt his system of hygiene to the successive stages of life, seeking to preserve the health, if originally good, to modify it if faulty. So the teacher, who attempts a system of hygiene for the mind, seeking to direct its faculties, to instill those living principles of intelligence and the pure germs of virtue which adorn and ennoble human character, should study the laws which regulate the mental growth and development, and proportion his instructions to the natural vigor or the acquired development of the object of his care: Errors in the one case are as fatal as in the other.

In his system of education, the good teacher looks beyond the mental, and seeks to cultivate equally the physical and the moral. He recognizes in man a three-fold nature: a physical to sustain him in the struggles incident to human life; a mental to guide him in its active duties, and fit him for usefulness and success in the conflicts in which he must take part, and a moral to control, regulate and preserve both.

The law which governs him, he has framed for himself. The system which he follows is founded upon principle, which over-rides rules and bases its decisions upon experience and nature.

The space at my disposal is too limited to admit of the consider

I

ation of other topics incidental to the system of our schools. would like to speak of one which, in my judgment, reflects directly upon the merits of the system as a measure of general utility: its inability, under present circumstances, to fulfill its own high and exalted mission. This mission, I believe to be too often misconceived, and sadly limited. I hold it to embrace within its comprehensive sphere, the whole course of a finished education. I regard it as extending, in its legitimate application, far beyond the ordinary measure to which it is commonly devoted. I look up to it as presenting to the world a great, beneficent, symmetrical scheme for the benefit of every citizen, of every class. I treasure it up as an ample and proper substitute for the private school of every grade. I would have it open its arms to rich and poor alike; the free, willing, and substantial tribute of a wise and patriotic Legislature, for the popular enlightenment and the instruction of our youth in every branch of learning and every avenue of intellectual enterprise.

Let it have its academies, its colleges of art, of science, and of agriculture. Let it be the exhaustless fountain of that practical intelligence which is the foundation of individual happiness, and the assurance of success in the varied pursuits of life. Above all,

let it implant deep in the heart of every youth, the germs of those sterling principles upon which the security of society is based, and whose brightest, noblest triumph shall be the perpetuation of the blessings of liberty, and the preservation of that matchless system of constitutional government for which the aspiration of every heart should be that it may endure forever.

I WAS ONCE YOUNG.-It is an excellent thing for all who are engaged in giving instruction to young people, frequently to call to mind what they were themselves when young. This practice is one which is most likely to impart patience and forbearance, and to correct unreasonable expectations. At one period of my life, when instructing two or three young people to write, I found them, as I thought, unusually stupid. I happened about this time to look over the contents of an old copy-book, written by me, when I was a boy.

The thick up-strokes, the crooked down-strokes, the awkward printing of letters, and the blot in the book, made me completely ashamed of myself; and I could at the moment have hurled the book into the fire. The worse, however, I thought of myself, the better I thought of my backward scholars. I was cured of my unreasonable expectations, and became, in future, doubly patient and forbearing. In teaching youth, remember that you were once young; and in reproving their youthful errors, endeavor to call to mind your own.-Selected.

SUBJECTS FOR DISCUSSION AT COUNTY INSTITUTES.-The best course to pursue in organizing a school; the means for securing good discipline; the means to be used for self-improvement; some of the means for true moral culture; irregularity, and how to remedy it; the evils of tardiness, and how to remedy it; requisites for success in teaching; how to teach good manners; how to secure the co-operation of parents; how far should oral teaching be adopted? some of the causes of failure; the true aim of the teacher; some of the methods of teaching Reading, Spelling, Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic, etc.; proper method of conducting recitations; best method of teaching object lessons; how to interest and advance dull pupils; what is desirable in a text-book? the object of school government; the object of punishment; proper methods of punishment; proper incentives to study; improper incentives to study; duties of teachers to patrons; duties of patrons to teachers.