Lesley.] c ng [Xovember fi. 



His conclusion is that the details of history must be taught in 

 the most abject subordination to its principles. The memorizing 

 of dates must give way before the inculcation of ethical doctrines. 

 The heart beats with a time of its own, not measured by the stars. 

 The commencement of the Christian era itself is undetermined. 

 His scheme of school instruction, then, at least for the mass of 

 learners in American schools, limited itself to the inculcation of 

 ^^ select practical precepts^ illustrated by historical examples, 

 and enforced by the aids used for the development of personal 

 character.^' 



In illustration of this scheme, I am tempted to quote page 

 after page of this elegant and forcible address, but neither time 

 permits, nor is more needful to show how naturally he generalized 

 always in a practically philanthropic direction. He woiild con- 

 duct school discipline as he would guide prison discipline, out 

 of the Egypt of empiricism into the promised land of life-inspir- 

 ing philosoph3^ The schoolmaster as well as the jailor must be 

 a philanthropist : the one must treat his prisoner and the other 

 his scholar with an eye to make him a worthy citizen of the Re- 

 public. Therefore, in teaching history, facts are to be grouped 

 about principles and doctrines, and to be remembered only when 

 these principles and doctrines are to be applied. And his argu- 

 ments were, that thus histor}' can be taught with equal success 

 to all classes of learners ; the instruction can be made permanent 

 in the mind and life ; the great events of the past can be made 

 to produce their greatest effect upon sentiments while plastic in 

 the spring-time of life; a sentiment for civil obedience will 

 grow along Avith the sentiment of domestic duty; and the love 

 of progress can be harmoniously linked with a rational adherence 

 to a settled order of things. The struggle of ages between the 

 partisans of change and the adherents of established order, — the 

 excesses of demand and of resistance, — the action of a majority 

 prompted more b}^ particular evils alleged or felt than by any 

 consistent general estimate of the effects of existing institutions, 

 — and the acrimonious character of political partisanship, will 

 become evils of the past. 



I have used his own expressions, scattered over the pages of 

 this address. But I woxdd not give the impression that he held 

 Utopian views. Far from it. The onl}' hope of the future which 

 he cherished was of the largest and longest term. His political 



