92 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



be a nurse, a mother, a teacher and manager | girls, too, spend years of their precious school 

 of yonng children. Do all the girls receive in 

 the grammar schools all the helps which they 

 might receive towards performing well and in- 

 telligently the duties which belong to those 

 several relations ? Ought not every girl to ob- 

 tain, before she leaves school, some knowledge 

 of the laws of health, some of the great and 

 all-important truths taught by the science of 

 phrsiology ? 



""Might not all be taught these great truths? 

 I say not by means of text-books, but by the 

 incomparably more effectual means of good 

 oral instruction ? Ought a girl to be allowed 

 to leave one of the best schools in the world 



without any special preparation for the highest 

 and most important duties of her future life ? 



"Ought we to consider these schools as what 

 they ought to be, unless boys and girls are 

 taught, — what every decently educated person 

 ought to know, — what air is, what is its uses, 

 properties and laws ? What water is ? What 

 beat and light are, and how they act upon air 

 and water, and all forms of animal and vege- 

 table life ? Ought not every one to be taught 

 ■what his own body is, and what it is made of? 

 What food is, and how it nourishes the body ? 

 Ought not these all-important elements of 

 chemistry to be taught in every grammar school ? 



"Childhood is the time of life during which 

 the meaning of words is most easily learnt, 

 and when atl those words ought to be learnt, 

 which are essential to reading intelligently the 

 best books. * * * Most books upon ag- 

 riculture, upon the nourishment of plants and 

 animals, upon mines, volcanoes, coal, rocks, 

 &c., &c., * * * are unintelligible to a per- 

 son ignorant of the meaning of these words. 



"Veiy many of the boys, whose highest and 

 last education is to be given at the grammar 

 schools, are destined to the mechanic arts. 

 Should they not in their schools make some 

 preparation for their vocation in life ? Ought 

 they not to be taught the elements of mechan- 

 ics, the mechanical powers, how the inclined 

 plane works, how wedges, and levers, and 

 wheels, and puUies, and ropes act? Ought 

 they not to be shown what a steam engine is, 

 what pumps are, what the hydraulic press is, 

 and how they act ? Ought not these elements 

 of the useful sciences to be taught?" 



We shall undoubtedly be met with the reply 

 that there is not time to do this. We believe 

 there is. Procure such a teacher as we have 

 already described, and reject some of the use- 

 less practices in nearly all our schools, and op- 

 portunity will be found to introduce every 

 branch that Mr. Emerson has suggested, 

 "Most of the time now given to arithmetic in 

 the higher classes is time wasted. It does not 

 exercise the judgment nor improve the taste." 

 [t is carried to such a degree that the waste of 

 time is enormous. Thousands of boys, and 



hours upon mathematics, Avho will never have 

 occasion to use any of it beyond the "rule of 

 three." Indeed, the common schools of New 

 England have gone mathematically mad upon 

 the subject for the last twenty jears. It has 

 become just as much an arljitrary custom as 

 "water-falls" on the heads of women, or the 

 enormous "hoop-skirts" at their heels. 



Another practice is that of compelling chil- 

 dren to commit solid pages of history to mem- 

 ory, which are repeated pretty much as the 

 parrot repeats his lesson, and then are forgot- 

 ten. "Can a more absurd mode of teaching be 

 devised?- If it is desirable to cultivate verbal 

 memory, there are in our language tens of 

 thousands of lines of the most beautiful poetry 

 in the world to exercise the memory upon." 



Another reform should be in the use of school 

 books. With a proper teacher it seems to us 

 that a book on English grammar ought not to 

 comprise more than twenty-five duodecimo 

 pages, and one on Latin grammar not much 

 larger. But that point we will not dwell iipon 

 now. 



As good as we are willing to admit our 

 schools generally are, we do not think they ai'e 

 accomplishing all they ought for their cost in 

 money and care. Subjects of little importance 

 are entertained and enforced, while those which 

 are essential or indispensable are neglected or 

 entirely disjiensed with. 



This ought not to be so. No people on 

 earth, probably, take more pains to establish 

 schools, and when they are established, to dress 

 their children in warm and neat clothing, and 

 frequently incur great inconveniences and con- 

 siderable cost in enabling them to attend. 

 Some parents who live two or three miles from 

 the school house attend so falthfLdly to this 

 duty that their children are not absent a single 

 day from the stated school hours during an en- 

 tire term. It is, tljerefore, an inunt'nso loss 

 not to have all the adjuncts of flie school as 

 perfect as it is possible to make them. In 

 order to accomplish this }ou must converse 

 with your children in relation to the practices 

 and interests of the; school, and two or three 

 times in the (.-ourse of the year visit tliem and 

 judge of their merits or deficiencies for your- 

 selves. It will not do to plead incompetence. 

 You can judge of many things as well as a 

 highly educated person, perhaps better. Be- 



