But is it asked, have there been no improvements in education? Has nothing been done to compensate for the large increase in the annual expenditure for educational purposes? Before giving a direct answer to these questions, it may be replied generally, that it is a very fallacious as well as unjust criterion, to judge of the degree of improvement by the amount of expense. This is as true of many other subjects as it is in relation to schools. A great part of the difference is due to the increased refinement and progress of the age. Thousands of dollars are now expended in the erection and fitting up of school-houses, where only hundreds were spent a few years ago. But is not the same thing true of dwelling-houses, churches, and all classes of buildings, public or private? The wages and qualifications of teachers have also been greatly increased; but the same may be said of every calling in life, and well is it for us, if we have kept pace in both respects with the progress of the age.

But there has been an improvement and that in the right direction. Twenty or twenty-five years ago, there might have been found in almost every district, some few pupils, who would rival, perhaps surpass, any that can now be found in our largest and best schools. But they were the exceptions, and not the rule. They received almost the whole attention of the teacher, studied a variety of branches, and made rapid advances in all; while the great majority received little attention, studied little, and learned almost literally nothing. Now, the case is quite different. By the help of black-boards,

outline maps, philosophical apparatus, more competent instructors, graded schools, and a better classification, the larger part of our pupils may now be made to comprehend, what only the brilliant and favored few understood before; and all may, and I think a fair proportion do obtain, what we technically call a good English education. This, then, is the improvement which was needed, and which has been, to a reasonable degree, accomplished; that the great body of children are so instructed as to fit them for the proper discharge of the duties of life.

I do not flatter myself, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the views presented in this lecture will meet with entire or general approval. They were not calculated for this meridian alone, or for any other in particular. They are the result of some thought, some observation, and some personal experience; they are honestly entertained, and they have been frankly expressed. I have, however, no pride of paternity in them, no desire, if they are false, to "make the worse appear the better reason." My only object is the truth, and if my positions are wrong, no one will be better pleased or more thankful than myself, to have their falsity exposed. Perhaps the picture which has been drawn of the teachers' duties and position is too darkly shaded. I hope it may be so; I would gladly believe that my own experience is at variance with that of my fellow teachers; that their paths have been strewed with flowers, and they permitted to pluck the roses without the thorns.

In this, however, we all agree, that the work in which we are engaged is a noble one, and worthy of our highest efforts. Mediocrity here, is absolute failure; nothing should satisfy us short of entire

LECTURE III.

THE STUDY OF ENGLISH IN AN ELEMENTARY COURSE OF EDUCATION.

BY R. P. DUNN,

OF PROVIDENCE, R. I.

"Now in the yere of our Lorde 1385," wrote John de Trevisa, the translator of Higden's Latin Chronicle, "in all the grammere scholes of Engelonde, children leaveth Frenche, and construeth and lerneth in Englische." This formal academic recognition of the English tongue, implied in its association with the antiquated Latin and the alien French, was hailed by this patriotic scholar, as an evidence of the regard which it had won from the rulers and the scholars of the realm, and a pledge of its permanence and future cultivation. It gave promise that the vernacular speech already heard in the courts of law, and soon to be heard also in the halls of parliament, though as yet rude and harsh, would, in the hands of loving students, in due time, gain precision, richness, and harmony; and associated with the national life, acting upon it, and in turn acted upon by it, would lend itself

to all the uses of a varied literature, and to all the needs of daily intercourse. Trevisa's philological labor and earnest hope, like that of many another benefactor of man, only tended to render him useless. A hundred years only had passed away before that language he sought to popularize had, through study and cultivation, become so changed, that the honest chronicler himself had to be modernized by Caxton in order to render him intelligible. But in the meantime the innovation he approved and welcomed had ceased to be an innovation, and had become an established custom. The English tongue had gained an undisputed footing in the schools. It cannot, however, be said that the progress in the study of English, which began with that short but decided step in the 14th century, and has kept pace in some measure with other improvements in education, and especially with literary culture, has left nothing to be desired in this particular. It is true that the chronicler of this age may say, "Now in the year of our Lord 1857, in all our grammar schools children learn English," yet the kind and the degree of attention paid to it do not render unnecessary an earnest plea for its more thorough and extended study in a course of elementary education.

A large proportion of those who present themselves for admission to college, and a far larger number of those who engage in mechanical or in mercantile pursuits, show a lamentable ignorance of English. We boast of a more general education than our mother country, but it may be doubted