THE STORY OF A SCHOOL. 



507 



After some effort toward conformity to prevailing custom, we 

 found ourselves constrained by the guiding principles we had 

 adopted to devise some more genuine representation of our year's 

 work than is possible in "closing exercises" of the regulation 

 pattern. Essays upon the subjects usually chosen had no essential 

 relation to the student's past researches, and, being prepared for 

 the occasion, represented nothing in particular. Besides, they are 

 not uncommonly doctored by the teacher of rhetoric till they are 

 of doubtful originality. We finally dispensed with all special 

 preparation, and discarded all the spectacular features of the 

 ordinary commencement. 



One day was given to the public. Every four weeks during 

 the year our pupils had been accustomed to select some subject 

 having close relation to their studies, and to give time and care to 

 the preparation of an essay upon it. These papers were preserved, 

 and from among them each member was required to choose and 

 bring one. On the last day of the term the public came in, and 

 those interested stayed and listened to the reading of these essays. 

 The truthfulness of every step was plain to all concerned, and was 

 thus in accord with the spirit of the school. 



Our experiment came to an end. Of the various innovations 

 made upon custom each had justified itself. The effort to make 

 character the end of education had more than fulfilled expectation. 

 During the last year not a single case of misconduct was re- 

 ported to me, nor was the behavior of one of our students criti- 

 cised by the citizens. We had a reign of influence. The forces 

 that govern conduct came from a growth within of just and 

 kindly impulses. A watchful supervision had always been main- 

 tained, but into this had entered no element of espionage. The 

 peculiar character which the school attained, both on its mental 

 and moral side, was due to the several factors of influence — scien- 

 tific methods in study, philosophic succession of subjects, and a 

 never-ceasing but an apparently incidental attention to moral 

 training. 



Through the strong personal influence of the State Super- 

 intendent, Hon. John Monteith, my independent position had 

 been maintained. I had enjoyed entire freedom in the manage- 

 ment of the school and in the selection of teachers. During the 

 three years of my stay in Missouri, educational affairs were in a 

 transition state. At the close of the war, the public-school sys- 

 tem was organized and protected by constitutional provisions. 

 The best results of Puritan experience for two hundred and fifty 

 years were incorporated in its provisions, and made secure so far 

 as legislative enactments could compass it. More progress was 

 made in the State during the few years of the so-called carpet-bag 

 rule than in all its previous history. A State Board of Regents, 



