Mr. Butlers Discourse. 



therefore we can increase the demand.for well instructed and 

 competent teachers, it would seem idle to suppose that the 

 special preparation of even the hest talent of the country, for 

 this duty, would lead to its employment in the common 

 schools. For if persons were to be educated as teachers at the 

 public expense, what guaranty (to use the language of the 



anty would there be, that such persons would follow the busi- 



In countries where strongvi governments prevail, and where 

 the lucrative professions are overstocked, and the means of 

 procuring a livelihood, scantv and precarious ; institutions 

 may be established for the training of youth to any particular 

 employment, with a reasonable certainty that they will ad- 

 here to it through life. It will be long, however, before the 

 like remark can be applicable to us. I see therefore no ground 

 to hope for the general improvement of the teachers in com- 

 mon schools, until those who employ them, shall themselves 

 be first instructed in the duty, importance and advantages of 

 procuring competent instructors. 



Defective systems of instruction, and the want of proper 

 school books, continue to be felt in the common schools. In- 

 deed, until within a few years, we have had but few books 

 well adapted to the purposes of elementary instruction. Gram- 

 youth considerably advanced, a cabalistic jargon ; its rules 

 Were acquired by rote, and applied with but little apprehen- 

 sion of the principles on which they were founded. It is not 

 perhaps more than ten or a dozen years, since the first gram- 

 mar w r as produced (Ingersoll's) which was level in any de- 

 gree to the comprehension of the younger classes of learners ; 

 and the merits of this work seem to have been buried in the 

 mass of publications, on the elements of English grammar, 

 which are constantly issuing from the press. So far as the 

 common schools are concerned, it is used in only two towns 

 in the state. In arithmetic, also, until within a short time, 

 the elementary exercises were ill adapted to the capacities of 

 children. Within a few years, the system of Pestalozzi has 

 been introduced in the eastern states, and in some of our 



