these millions increasing steadily and largely year by year, increasing more rapidly than our population increases (for, considering only our white population, who had some chance to learn to read, we had of adult white illiterates in 1840, 579,316, 8.97 per cent.; in 1850, 1,102,019, 10.74 per cent.; in 1860, 1,181918, 8.88 per cent.; in 1870, 1,894,688, 12.45 per cent.—an alarming increase both in numbers and in proportion), and so long as so many of our children have but two or three years' schooling and so go out to swell these growing numbers, just so long is there special reason why a method which saves so much time, and so facilitates progress, should receive our first attention.

The subject was further discussed by Dr. ADOLF DOUAI, of New Jersey; W. N. BARRINGER, of Newark, N.J.; Mrs. A. J. RICKOFF, of Ohio; CHARLES O. HURLBUT, of N.J.; E. A. SHELDON, N.Y.; Mr. Ross, N.Y.; C. GOODWIN CLARK, Mass.; and Messrs. FREEBORN and ABBOTT, N. Y.

SECOND DAY.

WEDNESDAY-AUGUST 6th, 1873.

A paper was presented by Superintendent HENRY F. HARRINGTON, Bedford, Massachusetts, on

New

WHAT SHOULD BE THE LEADING OBJECT OF AMERICAN FREE SCHOOLS ?

[Mr. HARRINGTON prefaced by saying, that he had often heard teachers in mixed schools, for the sake of avoiding a cumbrous multiplication of pronouns, use such bad grammar as this-"Each one now take their arithmetic." He had advised them that it is best to be grammatical, at any cost; and that the proper form of speech would be (using masculine pronouns and terms as generic), "Let each one take his arithmetic"; the pronoun—his—standing for both sexes. In like manner it would be cumbersome for him throughout his address to separate the sexes where he intended application to both. He should therefore use masculine pronouns and terms throughout, both sexes being included under them.]

I have chosen to change the title of this paper from that which appears in the published programme, to the following: What should be the leading object of American free schools? This is because I have made what would have been only one topic of my discourse, had I persevered in my original intention, the subject-matter of the whole. For I found that my theme was altogether too large for the time to which I should be restricted; and judged it better to curtail its proportions, rather than to attempt to present it in its completeness, stripped of the detail and illustration which alone could give it freshness, point and life.

This change is a disappointment to me.

For I rejoiced in the opportunity

of presenting to those gathered from every quarter of the country, who have its educational interests most at heart, my ideal of a system of free schools that should be distinctively, and at the same time admirably, American; a system in harmony with our free institutions, and instinct with power to nourish into perennial vitality the best forms of national life. For I hold that a true American system would be American, not simply because located here in America, but as being radically other than that which is English or French or Prussian or otherwise. The institutions and culture of every people-its worship, its seminaries of learning, its art, literature, manners, social life, are each and all of them toned and moulded by the invisible but all-pervasive and irresistible genius of that people: in other words, by the great dominating currents of thought and feeling which specially characterize and individualize it. In addition, the status of every people as a civil community, its relations to its government and laws, to the traditions of its past and the specific destiny which it feels engaged to accomplish, constitutes an additional force which is ceaselessly conspiring with the former to modify and limit the abstractions which treat of the great subject of education only with reference to the culture of man as man. This general truth has always been visibly asserting itself and producing its legitimate results. In Prussia, for instance, in connection with every rule, study and method of its boasted system, is to be traced the finger of an imperious government, resolute to control and bias all the formative instrumentalities of mind and character, so that they shall train up its youth not so much to become men as to become Prussians; to cherish, labor for, uphold the fatherland, and the house of Brandenburg as the divinely-appointed head of the fatherland; some to officer the armies and fill the places of civil trust and honor; others to constitute the ignoble rank and file of the armies, to labor in the workshops and till the fields.

In this country, notwithstanding all our boasts about the excellence of our schools and their vast influence over the character and destinies of the people, we have as yet no national system of education whatever. The pioneer systems, in various colonies or states, after which all subsequent organizations have been patterned, were not built up on any basis of clearly-defined principles, deduced from the demands of American citizenship and American life. Of course there was an impassioned recognition of the comprehensive fact that the culture of a free people is essential to the preservation of its liberties, but no where was this great truth practically applied as a formative power, dictating studies and methods of study, and infusing into the spirit of school discipline the inspirations of its own peculiar life. In fact, most of our studies and methods were directly imitated from those of the schools of aristocratic Europe, with all their arbitrary limitations and exclusive purposes; so that they have been in ceaseless conflict with American ideas and needs; and it is now more of a question with thoughtful educators how to root out abuses and rectify what is wrong, than how to cherish and encourage what is right. We have fairly drifted into our present condition; and it is full time for the process of rectification to begin. It is full time that a grand ideal of education for the masses, a faithful exponent of the demands of our American civilization, should be framed for our schools, to suggest and inspire their principles of

action, remould their methods and make them and keep them true to their providential responsibility as the right arm of liberty under law.

The first point in the prosecution of such a comprehensive design is plainly to obtain a reply to the inquiry, "What shall be the leading object of American Free Schools?" Segregate a little child from the masses of the people, a fair representative of that multitudinous young America which is dependent on the elementary schools of the country for whatever culture it is to obtain, and what are we to expect those schools to do for him? to turn him out?

What sort of a being ought they

To this inquiry this paper will be devoted. There is nothing novel in the subject. It has been discussed before you, in various connections, again and again. It is a staple theme, and let it continue to be pressed home upon our notice, until the truth we shall inevitably arrive at shall crystallize into convictions so earnest, so full of restless, impassioned energy, that they will not cease their busy agitation until they have complete possession of the national heart, are planted as the recognized foundation-stone of an American system of education, and inspire the vitalities of our schools.

What, then, are we to do with the child whom we have set before us? Four replies may be given to this question, corresponding with the differing influences which may be paramount in shaping the methods of his education.

First, you may make such a training of his capacities the prime consideration, as will best fit him to provide for his temporal needs; and this, with such incidental provisions as are expected to insure a spirit of submissive fealty to the ruling powers, is the intent of the systems of popular instruction prevalent in Europe to-day.

Second, you may so dispose of him that his intellect shall be starved, while his religious sensibilities are rendered keenly sensitive; and the efforts of ironhanded tyranny, conspiring with priestcraft to render the superstition and fanaticism that are the fruit of this unhallowed union of ignorance with religious feeling instruments to enslave the masses, is one of the staples of history.

Third, the ultimate of his education may be the fullest possible culture and development of his powers. And this ultimate has an immense following in our own land, made up of three distinct and in part antagonistic elements; first, those whose idea of education, as a conservative force in the republic, is limited to intellectual development; second, those who believe far more this, but, in view of sectarian jealousies, are willing to compromise by drawing a sharp distinction between religious and secular instruction and limiting the public schools to the latter; third, those who hate every thing which can be classed under the head of religion, and would therefore exile any training of the spiritual nature from the public schools.

Once more, the conception may be paramount that the great purpose to be served in behalf of the boy before us is to bring to the highest possible state of efficiency that sum total of all the powers of his being, purely and nobly interacting and interdependent, which we term-manhood. And this I maintain,

—and trust that in so saying I touch a chord of sympathetic interest in all your hearts, this is what we are after in that boy's behalf; this is the ideal of

popular education which should delight and possess us. We want to get out of him the best there is in him of the virile stuff that goes to make up a complete and rounded man. We want to energize all the forces of his affections to temper his intellect, all the forces of his intellect to enlighten his conscience, and the clear discerning insight and outsight of his spiritual nature to give pure and noble devotion to the whole. For only the complete and perfect man can be relied on to make the upright, orderly and trustworthy citizen; and to fashion youth for such citizenship is the great object, as it is the sole justification, of a system of free schools sustained by enforced and general taxation, in a republic like our own.

There is the vital point. There is the simple but momentous syllogism. Free schools are for good citizenship, and good citizenship demands the fullness of manhood. Therefore, to culture youth in the fullness of manhood is the express object of free schools.

I have no time for elaboration. I must be content to discuss even my most important topics with little more than the bare assertion of them. But I can not forbear devoting a few moments to a discussion of the false position, the starveling logic, of those persons, themselves characterized by a positive religious faith, who strike hands with the atheist and the demagogue to exclude all spiritual culture from the schools, under the rally-cry, "The public schools for intellectual education, the church for moral and spiritual education." This is the shape in which the position was formulated before this Association at Trenton, by a prominent educator, and received with much applause.

I am aware of the generous spirit of compromise which has led to the adoption of this position by such a class of minds. And if its application were limited to the exclusion of all sectarian specialties from the teaching of the schools, I should heartily accept it myself. But it means, by confession, just what it says. It means to make the training of the intellect the predominating purpose of the instruction, all positive efforts to mould and determine character being confined to other agencies.

And in a compromise carried so far as this, I insist that these persons would compromise away and fatally dry up the distinctive life-currents of a national system of public schools. They are throwing aside the kernels of grain of the harvest, while, in an infatuated content, they clutch fast hold of the dry, innutritive straw. We all know very well that a cultured intellect is to a certain extent a conservative force. We know that the more a man's abilities are trained and accomplished, the more he is likely to value and respect himself, to despise the thoughts and deeds which would degrade and belittle him, and to discover and appreciate the fact that a progressive civilization depends on education and social order. Culture also enhances a man's self-respect by multiplying his aptitudes and increasing his opportunities of physical support and social elevation. But this is only one side, and that a very narrow side, of the subject. The class of persons whose position I am now criticising know also, very well, what the culture of the intellect often leads to when divorced from the culture of the conscience. They know well enough that it is through such culture that the demagogue is accomplished to become sufficiently a child of hell to prove a traitor to his country. They know of what stuff a THEMISTOCLES

and an ALCIBIADES, a CATILINE and a CESAR, a DANTON and a ROBESPIERRE, were made; that the days of a nation's decadence and ruin, in both ancient and modern times, have been among the palmiest days of its literary culture and æsthetic glory. They might learn much, if they would, from the moral condition of America to-day-fearfully retrograding even where education is most full and free. But in furtherance of their imposing compromise, they would have these two cultures-that of the intellect and that of the conscience -effected by different agencies; the former by the school, the latter by the church.

Now, admitting the possibility of such a distribution, are its supporters blind to the fact that its conditions are vitally defective, its alternatives flagrantly unequal? If the state come to me and say, "I must have a portion of your property every year for the support of free schools, because the security of good government, of society, of the person, of property, abides in the culture of the masses" and it assert in the same breath that all culture is fraught with danger which is not tempered with spiritual influences, is it not a prodigious solecism that it should restrict the schools to the culture of the intellect, and delegate that other culture, which alone can render intelligence upright and trustworthy, to those over whom it can have no control,— who may effect it or not, according to their pleasure,- with whom the force of circumstances will render it very uncertain, at the best, where and to what extent they will effect it, and render it very certain that some times they will not effect it all?

But we have made an impossible supposition. You can not divorce these two cultures. You can not retain the remainder of the natures of the children in passive abeyance five or six hours of every day, while you are furbishing and furnishing their intellects. Their moral nature is ceaselessly and inevitably receiving impressions that purify or contaminate it. The permanent conditions of school life, its hopes and fears, its ambitions and struggles, its frets and disappointments, its exhibitions of personal character, the sentiments of its text-books, and, above all, the tone and character of its discipline, are tempering a child's nature, every moment, for good or for evil. And furthermore, are this class of thinkers willing to ignore the fact that in the domain of religious principle, obligation is only to be limited by opportunity? And what a glorious-a momentous opportunity, is here for a child's moral culture, where our public schools have full possession of him five or six hours of every day! Disregard his spiritual capacities all that time? The very thought is appalling. Even so radical a man in the field of religious inquiry as HUXLEY appreciates the revolting impropriety of such a course. He claims that no human being and no society ever did, or ever can, fulfill the ends of its being, without the love of some ethical ideal; and characterizes the abolition of all religious teaching in schools in order to avoid dogmatic perplexities as a process like burning the ship to get rid of the cockroaches. He says, in so many words, "If I were compelled to choose for one of my own children, between a school in which religious instruction is given and one without it, I should prefer the former, even though the child might have to take a good deal of theology with it." For myself, I hate the idea of compromises. The very word is suggestive of unmanly if not of criminal surrenders. And God forgive the infatuated per