THE TEACHER'S GUIDE, AND PARENT'S ASSISTANT. VOLUME I. J. L. PARKHURST, EDITOR. PORTLAND: WITHIN a year or two past, the public attention has been turned, more than ever before, to the subject of early education. Some special efforts have been made, and are making, to render the labors of parents and teachers more highly conducive to the improvement and welfare of the rising generation. The public sentiment begins to demand, that teachers shall possess skill, as well as learning, in order to be qualified for the important duties of their office; and a conviction is gaining ground, that they ought not to be satisfied with acquiring this skill by the slow and uncertain process of their own experience, but to avail themselves of the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before them. This is as necessary to a teacher, as to men in other professions. There is a "Theory" and a "Practice" in ed. ucation, as well as in medicine; and as the physician, in consequence of having studied the "theory," becomes expert and skilful in the "practice" of his profession, much sooner than he could otherwise have done; so may the instructer of youth. And as, in the erations of surgery, a previous knowledge of the structure of the human frame is necessary; so, the human mind needs to be carefully studied, in order to operate upon it to the best advantage. op In different parts of the United States, measures have been recently adopted, to make the Science of Education a distinct object of attention in training youth for the important Art of Teaching. These measures will doubtless produce the most happy results. The day is probably not far distant, when seminaries, for the training of instructers, will be established, and will become sufficiently numerous to prepare skilful teachers for all our common schools. To promote, |