LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 213 



SOME DEFICIENCIES IN COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 



BY PHOF. E. L. BRIGGS. 

 IDelivered at Eaton Rapids Institute.] 



The old log school-house, with its row of benches and desks around the room 

 next the wall, its fire-place, and its numerous chinks between the logs for 

 thorough ventilation ; and the old red school-house, with its hand-carved desks 

 and seats, its blackboard standing in a semi-recumbent position against the 

 wall, its ceiling low and dingy, and everything thoroughly browned by the 

 escaping smoke from a defective pipe or chimney, and its bundle of birches 

 standing just in the rear of the master's desk — these were the school-houses 

 that adorned our rural districts but a few decades ago. Indeed they have not 

 all disappeared yet, for it is still possible to verify the truth of Irving's 

 description of the building in Sleepy Hollow by actual observation. 



But these relics of an earlier day are rapidly giving place to the new white 

 school-house, with its green blinds, its cupola and bell, its commodious room 

 and patent folding seats, its extensive blackboards, and respectable supply of 

 necessary apparatus. Amid these improved surroundings are the boys and 

 girls of the country to-day taking their first gaze into the unbounded perspec- 

 tive of intellectual development. It seems to me that improvements in school 

 buildings have quite outrun improvements in house buildings. There are no 

 school-houses being constructed to-day in the developed country which are not 

 desirable places for the children to spend the pleasant hours of the day in 

 study. But has the advance in the returns accruing to the children kept pace 

 with this progress? I claim, and make the statement with the sincerest regret, 

 that there is far from being in our country schools to-day, that greater intel- 

 lectual impetus, and more extended knowledge given to the pupil which the 

 improved facilities demand. 



It is to examine some of the reasons for this failure that I appear before you 

 to-night. Our country schools are institutions worthy of no slight consider- 

 ation. They are deserving of the deepest interest, not only of their immediate 

 patrons, but of the State at large, for in them about half the children of the 

 State are to-day being educated. 



And has not our State in many ways recognized the importance of this 

 primary education? Is it not being constantly proclaimed, and with unanswer- 

 able argument, as the bulwark of American liberties? And do not the annual 

 dividends yielded to our districts from the primary school fund indicate a care- 

 ful fostering of these interests by those who have preceded us ? 



It is more pleasing to speak of the grandeur of our free school system and 

 its beneficent influences upon the individual and the State than it is to find 

 fault with some particular parts of its great oi'ganism. Yet a careful knowl- 

 edge of the failings of our institutions must always precede their reform. 



One of the most disastrous things in the management of the country schools 

 is the carelessness and indifference shown in the employment of teachers. 

 These schools are the places of experiment for the vast multitude who are test- 

 ing their abilities to teach. A large majority from failure or dissatisfaction 

 soon leave the ranks, while others finding in themselves a love and aptitude for 

 the labor secure the deserved promotion; and so the course repeats itself. New 

 material is being constantly thrown into the teaching force of tlie country to 



