LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 331 



■which the minds of those multitudes, owing to their youth and ready recep- 

 tivity, are molded. These minds are clay in the hands of the potter — every 

 impression made soon becomes indelible. Under the hand of the master who 

 is in love with the strength and simplicity of nature they are wrought into 

 forms which shall delight and bless. Under the hand of the amateur, the 

 smatterer, they are ruined or become at best but ignoble vessels. It goes with- 

 out saying, then, that these schools should secure a degree of care and atten- 

 tion proportioned more nearly to their importance. 



This view of the subject introduces some glaring defects in the ordinary 

 management of our schools. 



And first, on account of the immensely greater importance of the common 

 school in its possible effect upon the character of the rising generation of 

 citizens we should expect to see a burning interest shown on all hands in its 

 conveniences, comfort, prosperity, and solid success. On the contrary, the 

 interest of the public is centered in the high school and in the higher branches. 

 The interest is greater in seeing a pupil finish his education, as it is phrased, 

 than in seeing him begin and pursue it aright. If money is to be poured out 

 it is for the high school. If well ventilated, comfortable, and spacious halls 

 are to be provided they are provided for the high school. If apparatus is to be 

 used it is used by the high school pupil. But the helpless innocents of the 

 primary school get their first ideas of education crowded together in the stupor- 

 producing atmosphere of a room contracted, ill-equipped, and worse ventilated. 



Again, in the all-important matter of teachers, we should expect to see 

 school officers and all others directly interested in the primary schools, by 

 common consent striving to secure the services of the most competent. We 

 should not expect to see them rest satisfied with the fact that the candidate for 

 the office of teacher bears a certificate from a board which may be both care- 

 less and incompetent, as well as partial. We should look for a careful examin- 

 ation into the candidate's ideas of the object to be attained by teaching, into 

 his aptitude, tact, common-sense, and energy. On the contrary, the question 

 of employing a teacher generally turns upon the amount of the wages demanded. 



The result is that into these schools of almost helpless children, where the 

 nicest and most careful work that human mind can compass awaits the doing, 

 are often sent as teachers those who know as little of the true nature of 

 teaching as do their young pupils. I need not take time to recount the effect 

 which this kind of management must have upon the results wliicli the com- 

 munity ought to expect and to receive from the common school. It is no doubt 

 true that one obstacle in the way of success is the lack of competent teachers. 

 But there will probably always be a lack so long as incompetent ones are 

 accepted. The one great obstacle is the lack of a* proper sense of the incom- 

 parable greater importance of the common schools, as compared with the 

 higher ones. 



Having offered these almost naked suggestions, for the time allowed me 

 would not permit more, let me close by making a suggestion or two upon the 

 duty or rather upon the failure of the higher schools to supply the want for 

 competent teachers. The best reason the high school can give for its existence 

 at tlie expense of the public is that it is needed to meet this want. But is it 

 not true that it proves itself inefficient to a remarkable degree in that work? 

 The interests of the state do not necessarily require teachers. who are encyclo- 

 paedias of learning, but teachers of practical common sense, trained to think 

 and apt in bringing into active exercise the reasoning powers of the young — 

 teachers who have a comprehension and an abiding idea of the requisite of 



