of the time of the teacher, and having better facilities for study, will reach the present standard of school attainment at twelve instead of sixteen years of age.

5. The course of instruction will be rapidly extended and improved, so as to be more complete, thorough and practical. Physical education and comfort will be better attended to, by a practical recognition of the great principles of health and the human constitution, in school-rooms, and methods of instruction and discipline adapted to each grade of schools. Intellectual education will be commenced earlier,-prosecuted on a system, and continued to a later period of life, and in every stage, with the advantages of books, methods, and teachers adapted to the age and proficiency of the several schools and classes. Moral education, including all those proprieties of conduct, language, and thought, which indicate a healthy heart and tend powerfully to nourish and protect the growth of the virtues which they indicate, and which are the ornament and attraction of life, in the highest and the lowest station of society, will receive more attention and under circumstances more favorable to success. Children will come early, and continue through the most impressible period of their lives, under the more genial influence of female teachers, who care more for this department of education, and possess peculiar power in awakening the sympathies of the young, and inspiring them with a desire to excel, in these things. Besides, if the plan of gradation is thoroughly carried out, there will be more time to be devoted to special instruction in each department of education, under permanent teachers of the highest qualifications.

6. Promotion from a lower class to a higher, in the same school, and from a school of a lower grade to one of a higher, in the same district, will operate as a powerful and unexceptionable motive to effort, on the part of individual scholars, of the whole school. Where the promotion is from several schools, under different teachers, and different local committees, and is based on the results of an impartial examination, it will form

an unobjectionable standard by which the relative standing of the schools can be ascertained, and indicate the studies and departments of education, to which the teachers should devote special attention. With schools classified according to the studies pursued in them, and rising in the scale of compensation paid to teachers, as the character of the instruction rises, the principle of competition will operate favorably by holding out to the faithful teacher below, the certainty of promotion to a more lucrative place.

7. The expenditures for education will be more economically and wisely made. The same amount of money will employ the same number of teachers, a larger number of females, and a smaller number of male teachers, each for a longer time, and the scale of compensation will be graduated more nearly to the value of their services. Even if the sum expended on the public schools is increased, the increase will be less than the corresponding increase of scholars, and the aggregate expenditures for public and private schools together, will be greatly diminished.

8. The privileges of a good school will be brought within the reach of all classes of the community, and will be actually enjoyed by children of the same age, from families of the most diverse circumstances as to wealth, education and occupation. Side by side in the same recitations, heart and hand in the same sports, pressing up together to the same high attainments in knowledge and character, will be found the children of the rich and the poor,-the more and the less favored in outward circumstances, without knowing or caring for the arbitrary distinctions which distract and classify society. With nearly the same opportunities of education in early youth, the prizes of life, its fields of usefulness and sources of happiness, will be open to all, whether they come from the mansions of elegance and wealth, or the hovel or the garret of poverty.

9. The system of public instruction, improved in the several particulars specified, will begin to occupy the place in the eyes

and affections of the community which it deserves, as the security, ornament and blessing of the present, and the hope of all future generations. The schools will be spoken of, visited, and provided for on a liberal scale. School houses will be pointed to as creditable monuments of public taste and spirit. Teachers will receive a compensation equal to what is paid the same talents, skill and fidelity employed in other departments of the public service, and will occupy that social position which their character, acquirements and manners may entitle them to. The office of school committee, instead of being shunned, or at best, barely tolerated by those best qualified to discharge its duties, will be accepted as a sacred and honorable trust, by the intelligent, enterprising, and influential members of society. Parents of all classes will take an honorable pride in institutions to which, under all circumstances, they can look as the safe and profitable resorts of their children, for as good an education as money can purchase, at home or abroad. The stranger, interested in the moral and social improvement of his race, will not only be incited to visit the busy marts of trade, and the workshops where the wind and the wave have been harnessed to the car of industry, and made to perfect the triumphs of the loom, the spindle, and the hammer,-and to those institutions which a diffusive and noble charity may have provided for the orphan, the poor, the insane, and even the criminal, but to those schools where the mind is educated to discern new modes of applying the labor of the hands, and the gigantic powers of nature to useful purposes, and above all, where happy and radiant children are trained to those physical, intellectual and moral habits, which bless every station, and prevent poverty, vice and crime.

The following extracts from communications received from cities, and villages in different States, are introduced to sustain the views presented in the foregoing extract from Mr. BARNARD'S Report.

BRATTLEBORO', VERMONT.

"The organization of the present school system in this village, dates back over a space of nearly five years, at which time, for a population of fifteen hundred people, there were four district schools, taught as usual, by males in winter, and females in summer; and in addition to these, the same number of select schools, including an incorporated academy. Our citizens were in no respect satisfied with the means of education offered to their children;-the poorer class, since the academy producing its usual and legitimate effect, had rendered the district school wholly unworthy of its design; and the more affluent, in that the select schools were indifferently supported, and taught by persons only temporarily employed in the business of instructing. A few gentlemen interested in the young, observing this unfortunate condition of the schools, proposed a trial of the present system; but were met by the doubts, fears, and indifference of the many, and the determined and violent opposition of a few. Some (there were honorable exceptions) of the wealthiest tax-payers, resisted the efforts of the friends of the system, because they had educated their children in the select schools; while the poorer class were influenced to believe that the system was designed to educate the children of their more favored neighbors. But by the prudence of the friends of the system, these objections were overruled, and now seem scarcely to be felt,-by the latter class, as they are sensible that their children receive the equivalent of an academic English education at a trifling expense; and by the former, since the improvement of the school system has induced some to select Brattleboro' as a place of residence, and a greater number of its present citizens to remain; thus exerting a favorable influence on the value of real property.

Such was the origin of the present school system and the obstacles it had to contend against. The high school is now based upon a foundation not to be shaken; for it has taken deep root in the affections of the community, and is sustained

and cherished, by their most ardent exertions and wishes for its prosperity and perpetuity. By strangers and the friends of common schools in neighboring towns, the inquiry is often made, what are the advantages of the present, over the old system; and, as we apprehend, they may be stated as follows:

In exerting a most favorable influence upon the primary schools. Preparatory to admission to the central school, are certain qualifications, so that parents are induced to exercise greater vigilance over the welfare of the lowest grade of schools; and teachers, being brought more or less into comparison by the success of the candidates from their respective schools, are stimulated to greater exertion. The consequence has been, that, that part of education, which formerly was most neglected, is now watched with the most lively interest; and the most happy effects follow. The greatest care is used in selecting teachers for these schools, which we regard as in no respect behind the high school in point of excellence. Again, one half, and even a greater fraction, of the children of the village, it is apprehended, would be unable to bear the expense of any thing like a full course of instruction in select schools, while under the present system they are carried through studies, covering six or eight years, at a trifling expense. In the same school room, scated side by side, (we have but one department for both sexes) according to age and size, are eighty children, representing all classes and conditions in society. The lad or miss, whose father pays a school tax of thirty-five dollars, by the side of another whose expense of instruction is five cents per annum. They play cordially and happily on the same grounds, and pursue the same studies,—the former frequently incited by the native superiority and practical good sense of the latter. While the contact corrects the factitious gentility and false ideas of superiority in the one, it encourages cleanliness and good breeding in the other. There are exceptions, of course; but such is the general effect, according to my observation and common remark. Envy, jealousy and contempt, have given