LXXX. TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF FREE POPULAR EDUCATION.1874. An Experiment in Behalf of the Highest Civilization.-Condition of the Country Previous to such Efforts. -Early Scenes and Customs.-Public Law Invoked and Applied.-Impulse Given to the Work.-Progress and Results.-America in the Van.-Most Enlightened and Successful System in the World.Female Education.-Colleges, Universities, etc.-A Very Modern Idea.-No National System of Education.-Undertaken by the Individual States.-Effect of Wise Legislation.-State Vieing with State.School-houses in "ye olden time."-The East and the West.-Wonderful Changes in Public Opinion.Some Strange Contrasts.-Architectural Splendor of the Present Day.-Ingenious Helps and Appliances.-Congressional Grants in Aid of the Cause.-Government Bureau at Washington.-Grand Aim and Scope.-Standard of Female Instruction Raised.-Principles and Methods.-The Higher Institutions of Learning.-Ideas and Plans at the Start.-Founding of Harvard, Yale, etc.-Then and Now. -Nearly 400 Colleges in the U. S.--Some 8,000,000 Common School Pupils. "No nation can expect to prosper if the education of the people be neglected."-GEORGE WASHINGTON. HE present year may be said to complete the period and exhibit the results of some two hundred years of free popular education, as established and fostered by the law of the land,-the fact being, in this matter, that, though no comprehensive system of national education, under national law, exists in the United States at the present time, the whole interest being within State or local jurisdiction, the legislative assemblies of the colonies, particularly those of Massachusetts and Connecticut, gave early attention to the subject, at least in respect to its more immediate claims and necessities. It is a decidedly modern idea, that the State at large, and each man and woman in particular, is responsible for the proper education of every child. Those conspicuous figures in history, Alfred and Charlemagne, seem to have had a glimmering of that idea, but the times were too dark, too stern for them. During the whole of the middle Ages, little more is to be seen than priestly schools, chiefly intended for the education of the clergy, but opened in certain places for the laity also. Schools for the nation at large, and supported by the nation at large, were not dreamed of. As late, even, as the seventeenth century, the state of the lower and middle classes, so far as education was concerned, was quite discouraging. There were church schools, town schools, private schools, scat THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AS IT WAS. tered about here and there,-a few good, some indifferent, most of them poor; but as to any efficient machinery that should reach every locality, and benefit every class, this was reserved to advancing generations, and magnificent indeed has been the realization. As already intimated, the sources of education were opened up at an early period in the settlement of the country, and, in spite of all difficulties that presented themselves, the public feeling was that the best should be done that the times would permit. It may be said, however, that not until 1644-just two hundred the laws provided for the schoolmaster and the school, each township of fifty families being bound to maintain a teacher of reading and writing, while each of a hundred families was called upon to set up a grammar school. According to the phraseology of the legislative enactment by Massachusetts "It is therefore ordered yt every towneship in this jurisdiction after ye Lord hath increased ym to ye number of 50 housholders shall then forthwith appoint one within the towne to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and reade, whose wages shall be paid either by y' oppressed by paying much more y" they | of late years, by the organization of teachcan have y taught for in other townes." The example thus set was generally imitated in the various New England settlements, Connecticut being, in fact, in the very van, or at least contemporaneous with the most alert and earnest in the good cause. Connecticut, too, laid the ers' associations, teachers' institutes, etc. Pennsylvania made early provision for public schools, namely, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, but it was not until 1834 that a thorough and comprehensive plan of popular education was put in operation by legislative ordinance. foundations at an early period, of an ample school fund, by setting apart for that purpose, in 1795, the income of the sale of lands in Ohio which were the property of the state,-reaching a value, in some fifty years, of more than two million dollars. Rhode Island established a system of free schools by legislation in 1800. The common school system of Maine is identical with that of Massachusetts, the two states having been one until 1820. New Hampshire and Vermont were not behindhand in prescribing methods and providing means of general education. In the state of New York, a school fund, now amounting to millions of dollars, was commenced to be raised in 1805, from the sale of some half a million acres of state lands, and the present system of free education was founded in 1812. New Jersey's school system has greatly improved, Maryland was much later in the field, proposing schools long before she established them. The southern colonies were, for a considerable period, lacking in activity in behalf of education, but great improvements have taken place, and especially is this true of late years, a result in no small degree attributable to the generous fund contributed for this purpose by Mr. George Peabody, and so ably administered by Dr. Sears. South Carolina was amongst the earliest to organize public schools, namely, in the fore part of the eighteenth century, but these, like the schools of almost all the country, were of a very limited design. In Kentucky and Virginia, as also in Mississippi, advance steps have been taken, within a comparatively recent period, in this direction. In all the western states, in addition to Ohio already mentioned, liberal provision has been made for a first class system of com- | objectionable, as the standard of education mon schools, with all needed auxiliaries. It is about equally true of the different sections of the country in early times, that the system of instruction was extremely scant, and the school-house accommodations of the most impoverished character, as compared with the present day. The was correspondingly moderate. At the west, in its earliest days, things could scarcely have been much worse; indeed, many of those born and reared in that section, in its formation period, had no education at all, nor did they generally feel much concern on the subject,-and, NORMAL SCHOOL, NEW YORK; FOR THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS. school-house of "ye olden time" is described as, in fact, scarcely more than a hut or cabin-a small, low building, barnlike in shape and appearance, made in some cases of logs, and usually of stock equally crude or rough, frequently without clapboards or even shingles, and lighted by perhaps two or more four-pane windows, a narrow door of rough boards at one end; within, completely unfinished; some low benches without backs, and a chair or stool for the 'master,' constituting the furniture. It was also a general fact in respect to those times, that, though the teacher might be decidedly a gentleman of old school perfection in his manners, and very popular perhaps as a man, his scholastic attainments were quite inconsiderable,-a point then not likely to render him very among those who did pretend to afford their children a knowledge of letters, the difficulties to contend with were numerous, not the least of which was the lack of competent teachers. A frequent custom in vogue, in sparsely inhabited neighborhoods, was, for some one of the farmers best qualified for the task, to spend a few weeks or months of the most leisure season of the year, in teaching the children. of the vicinity, whose parents might choose to send them, at a small expense, say ten or twelve dimes a quarter, payable in work or provisions. In this way, some of them succeeded in obtaining such an education as was thought to answer all needed purposes for the masses. Girls learned to spell and read imperfectly, and the art of penmanship was a rare attainment among the native daughters of the west, of that day, except in the larger towns, and a few favored spots in the older settlements. The education of a boy was then considered sufficient, if he could spell, read, write, and had 'ciphered to the rule of three'; and if, by reason of any superior privilege, there was added to these a knowledge of grammar and geography, he was considered exceptionally advanced. The following were the principal items in the bill of expense for the entire course of studies: one Child's book, one Spelling book, one Reader, one New Testament, one quire of foolscap paper, one Arithmetic, one slate, and the tuition fees of a few quarters. The pupil gathered his pencils from the brook, and plucked his quills from the wing of a raven, or a wild goose, killed by the father's rifle. Compare all this with the architectural splendor of our modern school-houses, that are to be found dotting the hills and valleys of forty common wealths, the cost of these structures varying all the way from five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars, finished with almost palatial luxuriousness of beauty and convenience, and furnished with every possible appurtenance and appliance which ingenuity, so prolific in this direction, has been able to devise. Among the most important features in this improved system of construction and apparatus, may be mentioned the loftiness and amplitude of the apartments, and that full and free ventilation so necessary for the health and comfort of the pupils, together with an abundance of light, so that there is no straining of the vision. Of school-house furniture and apparatus, this country is distinguished for a variety and perfection unexcelled, even if equalled, by any other nation,-including, of course, desks, seats, and benches, promotive of comfort, convenience, and neatness; colored counters, strung on horizontal wires, in upright frames; black-boards, of wood or mineral, some having movable slides, on which letters and figures are arranged in different orders; blocks, demonstrating the various geometrical figures; maps in al most endless style and variety; atlases, globes, gymnastic contrivances; models, for representative teaching; geological, mineralogical, and botanical collections; instruments for instruction in music;these, with hundreds of different textbooks in every department or specialty, from the primary to the classical, with the letter-press made artistically attractive by the most beautiful pictorial ornamentation, fill up the foreground of this wonderful contrast of the present with the past, and the details of this comparison might here be almost indefinitely extended, did space permit. Foreigners, even the most judicious observers, from European nations of the highest advancement in matters of education, are stated, by Prof. Hoyt, to be of one opinion in regard to the intelligent zeal of the American people in educational affairs, and the readiness with which they voluntarily tax themselves, that the bless ings of intellectual culture may be free to all; the great liberality of the government of the United States in freely giving of the public domain for the support of schools for the young, of universities, and of technical schools for instruction and training in the applications of science to the practical arts; the unparalleled munificence of private gifts and bequests for the founding of great schools, general, technical, and professional; the superiority of our public school buildings in the cities and villages, and of American school furniture; the great superiority of our text-books, especially those for use in the primary and grammar schools; and, finally, the extraordinary extent to which our newspaper and periodical publications, lecture courses, and other like instrumentalities, supplement the work of the schools by a general diffusion of knowledge among all classes of the people It is not saying too much, perhaps, that the liberal grants of public lands made in behalf of free education, have proved, in many of the states, the chief means of prosperity to the cause. The establishment, also, of a government Bureau of |