118 



of points regularly placed in such a luay as to leave to the pupil the 

 drawing of the lines. 



IT. To advance gradually from the straight line to elementary 

 geometrical figures^ then to more complex combinations^ and so to 

 industrial and ornamental drawing. 



III. Especially to 'practice the eye hy elementary studies in per- 

 spective^ hy the recognition of distances hy sight^ and hy the observa- 

 tion and comparison of forms. 



lY. To proscribe drawing by mere fancy or chance^ which falsi- 

 fies the taste. 



y. To organize for pupil-teachers methodical courses of drawing 

 suited to their future wants. 



High Schools. — Everywhere High Schools are the special 

 object of attention on the part of School Boards and towns 

 having over 500 families — say from 2,000 to 2,500 inhabitants, 

 do not shrink from taxing themselves for their suitable accom- 

 modation. In most cases, these schools are for both sexes. 

 No part of the American school system is more essentially 

 national than are the High Schools, no part of the system pre- 

 sents features that are more original, or, in some respects, 

 further removed from European ideas, no part of the system is 

 worthy of more profound study. Peruse the course of study 

 in these High Schools ; think of those children of workmen and 

 work-women passing four or five years in adorning, strength- 

 ening and cultivating their minds by studies that everywhere 

 else are reserved for the well-to-do classes, and tell us if these 

 institutions do not bear the very seal and impress of American 

 civilization. Need one be astonished, then, at the frank pride 

 with which the American citizen speaks of these schools ? Has 

 he not a right to be proud when, by sure documentary evi- 

 dence, he shows us the son and the daughter of the humblest 

 artisan so mentally elevated that between them and the privi- 

 leged of fortune no difference of culture, no trace of intellect- 

 ual inferiority, is to be discovered ? If it is glorious to see 

 society freely giving to the poor the benefit of a public school 

 education, is it not a still more extraordinary spectacle to 

 behold a nation that deems it would wrong its humblest citi- 

 zens were their children denied any opportunity for the full 

 and free expansion of their minds? Here is a country where 



