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accessible. Combined, these very statistics and statements almost write the history of the educational movement at the present time.

It becomes the children who have reaped such signal advantages from the fathers' faithfulness, to recognize heartily the sacrifices and toils through which all modern systems of public education have come to their present position. If the genealogy of such school-laws cannot always be traced to the early action at Plymouth and Boston, nothing can be surer than that by development, not by creation, have the results of the past twenty-five years been attained. The "Revival of Education," as the new movement of pioneers, and the popular enthusiasm, and its results, have been quite aptly termed, was as legitimate in descent from the former periods as it was posterior in time.

It is rather under this influence, and by the appeals consequent upon the impulse aroused, than by any reference to the history of the cause, that it has found advocates in every State in the Union, and has come to be acknowledged in most of the States as inseparable from true public policy. The next essential thing is to carry forward the statute-improvement, which such discussions must have rendered possible. This is the work of legislators; and only through public sentiment can legislation be reached. It may be found, by diligent inquiry, that the new States have been fortunate in having no prestige to follow, and no history to uphold; and, hence, that the old States may reach some amendments through the fresher experience formed since the principles of public education have been better understood.

We venture to add, in conclusion, that three leading ideas have been quite thoroughly apprehended as essential to a system adapted to this age: 1. Thorough elementary teaching as the substantial basis of the highest learning; 2. A systematic qualification, by nature and by art, for the office of teaching; and 3. An increase of the esprit de corps among teachers, both the cause and the consequence of higher appre

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ciation in the community. To the Normal School, and every similar seminary, to the Teachers' Institute (a travelling Normal School, it has been called), and to the Teachers' Association, inventions, all of them, of these latter days, principally look to meet these ideas. It is the part of wisdom and philanthropy, wisely to foster these influences, and any others, which, like them, may so well answer such ends; and that duty is a public duty, to which each individual owes his share of performance.

VALUE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

“FAMILIARITY," it is said, "breeds contempt;" and the rule may as well apply to things as to persons. But, it is equally true, that customs readily become indurated as parts of human life, individual and social, so as to hold more than their real value. In the preceding article the fact is mentioned that some dissent has been expressed from the general strain of those remarks. It will not be well to devote much space to the statement of the opposing claims; but here are a few lines from the Richmond (Va.) Examiner, which may have their own weight. They probably do not represent a party, but an individual. The writer speaks so confidently and dogmatically, that one would suppose that his opportunities of observation have been very great; and he mentions one fact as conclusively proved, which, if true, is very important in the investigation. We have no doubt that the inference is perfectly logical from the premise. If, under the free school system, New England exhibits such degradation, and that the author does not suppose any one of his readers to doubt, the wretched plight of the six States included in the category may as well be ascribed, for aught that appears to the contrary, to the teachers, as to the preachers, or politicians, or any other earnestly employed class.

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The people of the suffering region may regret the writer's forgetfulness of his philosopher's name; but it would be quite as interesting to know what observer first noted the facts, as to know by whom the facts were traced so rapidly to their " and prolific source." But comment is needless. The portions omitted are quite as pungent; but they could not add to the strength so much as they would detract from the propriety of the rest.

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66 THE MODERN ABOMINATION OF FREE SCHOOLS. "We have got to hating everything with the prefix free, from free negroes, down and up, through the whole catalogue of abominations, demagogueries, lusts, philosophies, fanaticisms, and follies. Free farms, free labor, free niggers, free society, free will, free thinking, free love, free wives, free children and free schools, all belong to the same brood of damnable isms. But the worst of all these abominations because, when once installed, it becomes the hot-bed propagator of allis the modern system of free schools. We forget who it is that has charged (!) and proved (?) that the New England system of free schools has been the cause and prolific source of all the legions of horrible infidelities and treasons, that have turned her cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and her fair land into the common nestling-place of howling bedlamites. We abominate the system because the schools are free; and because they make that which ought to be the reward of toil, and earnest, ardent, and almost superhuman individual effort, cheap, commonplace, prizeless [priceless?], and uninviting. As there is no royal road to learning, so there ought to be no moḥ road to learning. A 'little learning' is a dangerous thing,—to the individual, to society, to learning itself, to all conservatism of thought, and all stability in general affairs. The sole function of the free school is to supply that 'little learning'; and thus it is charged to the brim with incendiarisms, heresies, and all the explosive elements which uproot, and rend, and desolate society.

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"To the fact that the North have not appreciated or upheld the family institution, but allowed the State to invade it with free schools, anti-liquor laws, incorporated factories, and a thousand and one 'associations' of males and of females, for a thousand and one specious and absurd purposes, are attributable all the social disorganization and demoralization, which have blighted, as a moral sirocco, every square mile of its surface.

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"The trades take off the boy to be reared by the taskmaster mechanic, or to become an apprentice of the factory, and a companion of the machine. The factory entices away the girl from a genial and virtuous home, to become a stranger, a hireling, a sinner, and an outcast. Who can tell what the end of these things shall be?"

The following extract, from another source, has a more classic ring to it, and will speak for itself:

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"Among the planets in the sky of New England, - the burning lights which throw intelligence and happiness on her people, -the first and most brilliant is her system of common schools. I congratulate myself that my first speech on entering public life was in their behalf. Education, to accomplish the ends of good government, should be universally diffused. Open the door of the school-house to all the children of the land! Let no man have the excuse of poverty for not educating his own offspring! Place the means of education within his reach, and, if he remain in ignorance, be it his own reproach! On the diffusion of education among the people rests the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions. * * It is a reproach that public schools should not be superior to private. If I had as many children as Old Priam, I would send them all to the public schools." Daniel Webster.

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EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS OF THE STATES.

THE following sketches of the condition of the educational movement and facilities, in the several States of the Union, are necessarily brief; but they will be found, it is thought, to be accurate, and entitled to authority. In some few instances, official documents have not been received; and reliance has then been upon earnest friends of the cause, who have readily contributed their aid. This department of the Year-Book will have an interest which should have secured to it great completeness and fidelity; but, if it should be found to be imperfect, the limited time for its preparation, and the difficulty of ready access to proper authorities, will suggest the entire practicability of furnishing hereafter a much more systematic compend.

MAINE.

MAINE is now zealously pursuing the work of popular education. Her sparse population, and other local disadvantages, have not yet been so far changed as to make the expedients, better suited to different circumstances, perfectly adapted to the wants of this State. The public schools are all free.

Until 1820, Maine was governed by the laws of Massachusetts, as a district attached to that State. The Constitution, adopted. Oct. 29, 1819, contains the following language: "A general diffusion of the advantages of education being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, to promote this important object, the legislature is authorized, and it shall be its duty, to require the several towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools."

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