1871. 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



45 



OUB WINTEB 8CHOOI1S. 



^ — - KOM the early 



I i^^ settltment of 

 ■* New England 

 parents have ev- 

 er manifested a 

 deep interest in 

 the proper edu- 

 ca'.ion of their 

 children. The 

 winter term of 

 many district 

 schools is now 

 about to be 

 commenced. — 

 Parents should 

 not only use 

 their influence 

 to secure for 

 their children the best 

 teachers, but should see 

 that they have all the books 

 and apparatus that will aid them in their studies. 

 This will cost considerable. But the cost of 

 education, as well as of living, has much in- 

 creased of late. The modern system of teach- 

 ing requires more books and other appliances 

 than the system formerly pursued ; but the 

 education of our children is the last depart- 

 ment in which we should economize. A good 

 education is the best investment we can make 

 for them — the best inheritance we can leave 

 them. We must keep up with the times and 

 conform to the fashions of the day. It will 

 not do to complain that schooling costs more 

 than it did when we were children, that differ- 

 ent studies and different methods are pursued, 

 and to say that we did very well on the old 

 plan. The world is moving, whether it is im- 

 proving or not, and we must move with it, or 

 we shall be left behind in the race. 



There are some very important differences 

 between the schools of to-day. and the schools 

 of forty and fifty years ago. Female teachers 

 have taken the place of the male teachers in 

 our winter schools as well as in the summer 

 schools. Our normal schools and our high 

 schools have trained female teachers for the 

 work of teaching, wbich has now become a 

 profession. Females now have higher wages 

 than males formerly had. They have spent 

 three or four years in fitting themselves for the 

 work. They have to pav at least twice as 



much for board, and other expenses are in 

 proportion, and they are in general more thor- 

 ough teachprs than males formerly were, and 

 why should they not be paid in proportion ? 

 Instead of attending school five or six months 

 in a year, children now attend nine or ten 

 months ; and with better books, with the black- 

 board and other apparatus, they go over the 

 couree of elementary instruction by the time 

 :hey reach the age of fifteen or sixteen years, 

 when those who are not going to study pro- 

 fissions or prepare themselves for teaching, 

 consider their education completed. Formerly 

 lads of fourteen or fifteen left the schools in 

 the summer, and woiked on the farm or in the 

 shop with their fathers, and attended school in 

 the winter until they were eighteen or twenty. 

 The same course was pursued by many young 

 women. There were some advantages in this. 

 Their minds were more mature. They were 

 capable of thinking and reasoning. They 

 understood better what they studied. Prob- 

 ably the last winter of their attendance, when 

 they generally reviewed what they had previ- 

 ously studied, was more useful to them than 

 any two years which had gone before, owing 

 chiefly to greater mental maturity. 



Now all this is changed. The young men 

 who rem in at home on the farm, do not attend 

 schools taught in the winter by females. A 

 large proportion of the boys leave home for 

 the city, or the mill, or workshop, at sixteen. 

 If they do not, they spend the winter in some 

 city mercantile school, attending to penman- 

 ship and book-keeping, to fit them for the 

 counting room ; or in the schools of technology 

 or science, to fi^t them for some scientific pur- 

 suit or for engineering, or some other business 

 than farming. 



There is a much greater demand ior instruc- 

 tion in the Natural Sciences than formerly. 

 Unfortunately this demand has sprung up just 

 at the time when female teachers have occu- 

 pied the desks in all our schools. They have 

 not been trained to teach the sciences. The 

 teaching in the normal schools even, does not 

 fit them for this work. Here is a defect in our 

 s-ehool system, which must be met by a more 

 scientific training of female teachers, or by 

 restoring male teachers to a portion of our 

 public schools. Males seem to have a greater 

 facility to acijuire and impart a knowledge 

 of the natural sciences than females, owiog 



