PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

IN THE

UNITED STATES.

Ir is the design of the discourse on the Prussian system, and of the extracts from Cousin's Report, which describe the schools for education of teachers, rather to commend the design and spirit of the system, than to urge such a system, servilely copied, upon the American people. It has intrinsic attributes of universal excellence. Its extent of application is one of its best features; its moral power is its very best; its acceptableness to the people who enjoy its benefits is

its highest praise. In this country we are satisfied with a much lower standard of public education, though we esteem that which we have. Indeed it is esteemed too much; too much to be improved as it might be, if conviction of its deficiencies should influence the measures of its benefactors and its proper functionaries. It would be an eminent service to society in any of these states, and in all, if a commission of enlightened men authorised by legislative appointment, and adequately paid for their labour, would make themselves positively and accurately acquainted with the results of instruction throughout any single state. They would examine the whole school, not "picked children"-they would enquire into the effects of instruction upon young persons educated wholly in the public schools after they have left those schools, and are employed in the business of life; they would also examine the books used in the schools: the scope and aim of instruction given there; they would carefully inform themselves of the general qualifications of the teachers employed in the

schools; and, if they made honest reports of what they had observed and ascertained, they would interest and enlighten the public mind upon the subject; and, in order to enlighten their own minds, if they should make themselves acquainted with what has been accomplished in other parts of the world, by an efficient public education, besides exhibiting plans in actual operation in other countries for the general information, they might introduce reformatory measures of the best tendencies and uses in general. society.

Education will never be reformed, me thodised, and exalted, to any large extent and power, till men who are learned, philo sophical, and truly benevolent shall be appointed to this work, and shall perform it faithfully.

The office of inspection and trust would itself be highly enlightened by the expositions of such a commission; they would show alike the necessities and the capabilities of the rising race. Similar commissions of larger and smaller power have been

authorised, in England and Ireland, to inform the public of the true state of schools, and their representations ill agree with those of the proper functionaries of the schools. The London Quarterly Journal of Education, the Edinburgh Review, and the English newspapers, have exposed the general perversion, and inoperativeness of many public schools, richly endowed; and particularly of charity and National schools, where instruction is a dead letter almost, and where even the small assumed uses of the schools come entirely short of their pretended efficacy.

It cannot be believed by those who examine the subject at all, that in this country, the popular education does perform its true function. It does much, but not so much as is presumed; not the thousandth part of what it might do. Still the value of this education to those who are in possession of its benefits cannot be doubted for a moment. The benefits of the common education now enjoyed in New England, from the first settlement of that country, have ever been

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suitably appreciated. In a convention held in Massachusetts, in 1821, the uses of this most excellent institution were most worthily and eloquently set forth by Mr. Webster. As the organ of the public sentiment, he thus described them. "For the purpose public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property; and we look not to the question, whether he himself have, or have not children to be benefitted by the education for which he pays; we regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property and life, and the peace of society, are secured. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability and a sense of character by enlarging the capacities, and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, so far as possible, to purify the moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law and above the