then, that a people uneducated and undisciplined can long preserve these monuments,* or can ever reap the appropriate fruits of our institutions and our privileges? Nothing is now needed to make our heritage as blessed in reality as it is in promise but refined habits, stern principles of virtue, and an enlightened appreciation, diffused among all our people, of our responsibilities and powers. It is superfluous to add, that such principles are not to be developed except by culture. To expect that men will become wise, virtuous, or happy by mere accident, or without specific exertions directed to these ends, is to expect that this world's history is to be reversed, and that its future will give the lie to all its past. "Vice," says Seneca, "we can learn ourselves, but virtue and wisdom require a tutor." This volume is a contribution to the great work of school regeneration which is now in progress. It is offered with a deep sense, not only of the importance, but also of the difficulty of the undertaking. It is offered in the humble but earnest hope of being able to afford some suggestions which will prove useful, not only to teachers, but also to parents, inspectors, school commissioners, and other officers, as well as to the friends of education generally. During the last thirty years there has been much discussion, as well as experiment, in regard to different systems of public instruction. The best methods of providing well-qualified teachers, the relative efficacy of different modes of teaching and discipline, and the surest means of maintaining schools in a healthy and efficient state, have all been subjects of examination. It will be the object of this volume, avoiding mere * William Penn, himself a scholar, legislator, and philanthropist, thus announces, in his "Frame of Government," the fundamental principle of a free people: "That which makes a good government," says he, "must keep it so, viz., men of wisdom and virtue propagated by a virtuous education of youth." conjecture or speculation, to collect such results and principles, as may seem to have been settled by the experience of the past. It will also aim at the cultivation, among all who are connected with schools, of a more adequate sense of their importance, and of a spirit of improvement and reform at once active and chastened. It consists of Two PARTS. The FIRST PART will treat of, I. THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE; its nature, object, importance, practicability, means, &c. II. THE COMMON SCHOOL; its relation to other means of education, and to civilization. III. THE PRESENT STATE OF COMMON SCHOOLS. IV. MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. V. SUMMARY, AND CONCLUSION. |