perity, and seemed in danger of being wholly lost in the general indifference and apathy to their fate. To awaken the public feeling, and arouse general attention to their condition, became a paramount object. In the second annual report of the secretary, (published in vol. ii. of the Journal alluded to, pages 199, etc.,) after enumerating the defects in their schools, the necessity and means of their improvement, he calls upon the friends of education to exert their influence in their behalf. "The press, the living voice, all the agencies and institutions by which the general mind is addressed and informed, must be invoked to the aid of common school education. The public press has been almost silent on this subject. Amid the jarring conflicts of party and the louder claims of other interests, the true policy of the state, the improved education of every child, has been forgotten. The sanctuary out of which, like the river of the prophet, that imparted life wherever it flowed, common school education in Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, and New England, sprang into existence in its zeal to promote the Sunday school, the Bible, the tract, the missionary, the temperance cause, has almost forgotten, if not disowned, this its earliest offspring. Educated men, while they have gone into the lecture-room, that new field of popular influence and instruction, have scarcely touched on that of common school education, which holds every other good cause in its embrace. All of these and other agencies, for reaching and informing the public mind, must be called in to aid the improvement of this long-forgotten heritage of the many." We have neither time nor space to give a detailed account of the proceedings of the board. Their powers are limited to inquiry and the suggestion of means for the improvement of the common schools. With the usual precaution of her people, Connecticut has retained all power over the subject in the hands of her legislature. Whether more efficiency and more good might not have been attained by giving the direction of her schools into the hands of a competent and less numerous body of men, we will not pretend to say. By what she has done she has accomplished much, and much more remains for her to do. The interest that has been awakened, and the steps already taken by the school districts in many parts of the state, as appears by the annual reports of the secretary, promise well for the future, and justify the hope that she will ere long make her common schools fully adequate to the education of her children, on a scale and to 1842.] Common School System of Connecticut. 345 an extent corresponding with the advanced and advancing progress of society. She has all the means that are requisite for the purpose, and we cannot believe that her enlightened people, possessing such advantages, will pause till their common schools shall embrace and furnish the means of an enlarged, sound, and practical education to every child within her borders; till her sons shall go forth from the common school house into the arena of life, competent to grapple successfully with its difficulties and dangers, and worthy of its highest emoluments and honors; till her daughters shall regard it as the temple of innocence and virtue, and the abode of taste, delicacy, and refinement. We must not omit a passing tribute to the labors of the secretary of the board, Mr. Barnard. His duties, under their direction, were arduous, and often difficult. His task was to awake a slumbering people, to encounter prejudice, apathy, and sluggishness, to tempt avarice to loosen its grasp, to cheer the faint-hearted, and awaken hopes in the bosoms of the desponding. In his report to a committee of the legislature in 1841, appointed to inquire into the expenses of the board, he says: "In the discharge of these duties, during the past three years, I have addressed one hundred and twenty-five public meetings in relation to common schools, have visited more than four hundred schools while in session, situated in large and small, city and country, agricultural and manufacturing districts; have had personal interviews with one or more school officers, teachers, or parents from every school society; have received written communications in reply to circulars, or the requirements of the board, or letters addressed to me, from all but five school societies, and amounting, in all, to over three hundred distinct documents, many of which occupy two, three, and sometimes eight or ten, closely written sheets; have replied to all written or personal applications for advice or information respecting the school law, plans for school houses, or other school purposes, and conducted, with such assistance as I could enlist by payment out of my own compensation, the Connecticut Common School Journal. In addition to the expenses before stated and allowed, I have paid out, for the benefit of common schools in this state, upwards of $5175. Of this sum $1293 have been received back from subscribers to the Connecticut Common School Journal, and $785 from the following gentlemen.The remaining sum of $3049 I have paid out of my own resources. I assumed the responsibilities of a new, difficult, and delicate office, with a settled purpose to expend every farthing I should receive, in promoting what I believed to be the true and enduring good of the common schools. I have continued in this office, only at the repeated and urgent solicitation of the board. I shall retire from it with the satisfaction, that I have asked no one to do what I have not shown a willingness to do myself, and with no other regret than that I have not had more time, more ability, and more means to devote to this cause, which holds every other good cause in its embrace." We are glad to see such men engaged in such a cause. We honor that spirit which is willing "to spend and be spent" in the public service, not in the enjoyment of sinecures loaded with honors and emoluments, but taking upon itself the burden, and if unsupported, carrying it alone, through good report and through evil report, alike indifferent to the flattery or the censure of evil-minded men, and intent only on the accomplishment of its work of benevolence and humanity. To that spirit is the world indebted for all of goodness and of greatness in it worth possessing. The exploits of the conqueror may fill a more ambitious page in her history, the splendors of royalty may appear more brilliant and dazzling in the eyes of the multitude, and to the destroyer of thrones and kingdoms they may bow in terror of his power; but the energy and devotion of a single man, acting on the hearts and the minds of the people, is greater than them all. They may flourish for a day and the morrow will know them not, but his influence shall live, and through all the changes and vicissitudes of thrones and kingdoms and powers on earth, shall hold its onward, upward course of encouragement and hope in the great cause of human progress and advancement. We have asked the attention of our readers to what our sister state has done in the cause of common schools, for two reasons. First, because we believe due praise has not been awarded to her for her recent efforts in their behalf, and next, in hopes that others may be induced to imitate her example, and may learn to avoid the errors through which she was disappointed in her expectations. Embracing within her limits a population second to no people in general intelligence, shrewdness, and a quick perception of their own interests, and with abundant means devoted to its support, her public school system failed in its objects. She trusted to the good sense and selfinterest of her people for the best and fullest use of those means. In her earlier days, when her limited benefactions were but a tithe of the expense of supporting her schools; the education of her children, appealing as well to the pockets as 1842.] Common School System of Connecticut. 347 to the hearts of her people, was carefully watched and cherished, as being, next to religion, their strongest safeguard and support. The liberal endowment of her school fund relieved them, at the same time, from the burden of supporting their schools and of their interest in them. They soon learned to solve the problem of squaring their expenditures with the public receipts, and though the cause suffered, their pockets were proportionably elongated and rounded, and they were satisfied. We insist it is the duty of the government to see that its gifts be not wasted. The welfare of the state requires that every individual be educated to perform the duties of the citizen, but this never will and never can be done, except under her supervision and enforcement. We are glad to see Connecticut acting on the conviction of this truth, and exercising, through her board of commissioners, an earnest vigilance and control over this most important department of public duty. Compared with her sister states, she stands on high vantage-ground. With her abundant resources and her comparatively educated people, she may make her common school system not only the most general in its scope and influence, but the most perfect and complete in its details and management, and may give it that degree of efficiency and excellence which shall place it beyond the reach of rivalry and competition. But she must not falter in her course. Other states are putting forth vigorous and manly efforts, and it becomes her to press steadily and firmly onward, undaunted by the attacks of party spirit, that bane of the republic, which would trample our liberties in the dust to elevate itself upon her ruins, and unmoved by the craven cry of visionary theorists who live in fear and trembling, lest the just exercise of the duty of the government should infringe on the largest imaginable liberty of the citizen. We would always confine the state within her proper sphere, but let her act fully and roundly to her circumference, and in no case can her full action be more useful or less dangerous than in extending to every child under her protection the blessings of a free and thorough practical education. ART. IV.-1. Life of Sir Isaac Newton. By Sir DAVID BREWSTER. New York: 1836. Harper and Brothers. 2. Works of Lord Bacon, with a Memoir, and a Translation of his Latin Writings. By BASIL MONTAGU, Esq. Philadelphia: 1842. Carey and Hart. 3 vols., 8vo. 3. Lives of Galileo, Tycho-Brahe, and Kepler. By Sir DAVID BREWSTER. New York: 1841. Harper and Brothers. THE great error, or that which we have ever felt to be so of all biography is, that it does not make sufficiently known to us the man. It always seemed as if a supposititious, conjectural character was offered to us one whose real claims to our respect and admiration were magnified and exaggerated, until a doubt was raised of their just pretensions; it seemed, too, as if the biographer was himself uncertain of his subject's claims, and as if, by magnifying them, he hoped to delude all readers into the mistake he had himself made. But one life in English literature is redeemed altogether, or capable, we believe, of being redeemed from these charges-that of Dr. Johnson. And how different the fate of this work from that of any other biography! Although the reputation of the individual as an author has a good deal diminished, although the dislike to his style is even increasing, and his general fame as a man of letters seems subsiding, although his sway was never felt in this hemisphere, and no tradition or association concerns or interests us in him, though the scenes where he was the chief actor, the society where his reign and dictation were undisputed, are gone by; yet not to the student of literature alone, but to every one, that memoir is deeply interesting, and not because it is the portraiture of an extraordinary person, not because we find in it a high morality, or valuable hints for the practical management of life, or because the social gossip with which it is filled makes it easy and agreeable reading, but mainly, we conceive, because it presents a great mind in its unstudied attitudes, places before us the man, as he was at all times, in all humors, in all moods, gives us the moralist in his gravity, the philosopher in his speculations, the reasoner in his logical triumphs, the talker in his dinner-table dictation, the Christian in his struggles, the strong mind in its doubts, despondency, and despair. From these greater things, we are carried to his personal appearance, dress and demeanor, to the form of his wig, the cut and color of his |