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Mr. White. It is large in proportion to its years.

Dr. McCosh. It is an excellent school. I only object to its receiving a grant which other schools doing as much good do not receive.

President ELIOT said few went to college from the high schools. It is stated officially that the number is considerable. I do not know whether they go to Harvard or elsewhere. I have report from the Bureau in Washington that 3,171 pupils in high schools in Massachusetts were prepared for college. The number in academies prepared for college is a little above four thousand. You see the number from high schools is nearly as large as that from academies. I have no doubt that the law of Massachusetts in regard to high schools is the foundation of her greatness. We want to come up to them. They having advantages ahead of us, we do not want them to discourage us when we try to bring up our schools to the same standard. He stated that almost all out of the academies go to college, and the other gentleman made precisely the opposite statement. I am not able to decide between them. [Laughter.] He said tradesmen object to paying money to educate the minister's son and the lawyer's son. But what we say is: You pay money to open schools to which your own son may go. We want schools such that there shall be no poor boy in the country who shall not have within a few miles of him such a school as will enable him to go on to the highest place.

Religious difficulties meet us in the elementary schools also. Let us meet them in the same way as there. If there rise up a school in which there is great scoffing and scepticism, then the people in the neighborhood will set up a religious school and bring this school to its senses. Let the two go on together.

Let the academy elevate the high school, and the high school aid the academy, and let denominational schools go on simultaneously. What we maintain is that the endowment be not in one place to the neglect of another. He said the money will go but a little way. Ninety millions will go a great way. I do not propose to give it to the states without condition, but that for one condition they be required to raise a certain amount themselves. And second, the very fact of government having given a stimulus will be one of the best means you have of promoting the thing you have begun.

What we want is a special impulse. I believe we get it in no way so effectually as by offering money to every state to encourage it to start schools. The same principle that would hold us back from asking government help for high schools would also prevent our asking government help for elementary schools. When the State of Massachusetts orders its every district of a certain population to set up a high school, I can not see how that is interfering with the principles of the high school. He may see it. I do not see it. Let us pass the same law you have in Massachusetts, and not force it, but let it stimulate. How that interferes with liberty I can not see. The principle would go down to the common school. You must stop some where, and there may be nice questions as to the limit. You may come in twenty years to say, We will give no grant to schools of any sort. I think, the principle being a right one and sanctioned from the beginning of our government that the national funds

help to support the schools, we are entitled to devote this the last land in the hands of government to this general purpose.

The vice-president stated to me that the reason why he voted for agricultural schools receiving the grant was, not that he cared particularly for agricultural schools, but that he wanted the money to go to education. We don't want it to go to railroads. We have had enough of that. I believe it would be one of the best gifts ever bestowed by government.

Mr. HARRIS wishes me to speak about inspectors. He implied that in the United States we may have the whole thing already. I gave a full account of the best system of inspection I know of in the world-the Irish system. I do not think it necessary to go over it again, but only to point out two peculiarities of it which are not found in any other system in the world.

1st. The system of inspection sees to it that every school is visited. I have gone into a country district school in the State of New York-this enlightened state; I found a teacher with six vacations in the day. The scholars were kept in an hour and let out an hour. There was no body to take care of it except the local superintendent, who did not want to make himself obnoxious. That can not happen in Ireland. Report would be made to the board and the teacher's salary stopped. The inspector visits a school and finds MARY SULLIVAN is in such a place in arithmetic. He goes again in three months, and if MARY SULLIVAN is in the same place in arithmetic, the teacher hears of it; and if the thing is not righted, the teacher loses his salary. Teachers rejoice in the visits of these inspectors. Even when they find fault, it is in the best spirit, and corrections follow.

2d. These inspectors are educated men, separated from all other employment. They are trained men, of high culture. They are paid the same amount as ministers of the gospel immediately around them. They have nothing else to do but to become acquainted with the best modes of education, and they introduce in remote schools the same methods that are followed in cities.

There is a gap some where, and this gap should be filled up at that point. And I think it would fit in beautifully with our present system.

I wish Mr. HAYS had concluded his speech with a motion, that it might be given to some committee. I have to thank others, such as Prof. Roor, of Missouri, for his admirable remarks, and your whole assembly for the courtesy you show.

A communication was received from E. DANFORTH, President New-York State Teachers' Association, stating that H. B. BUCKHAM, G. L. FARNHAM, H. R. SANFORD, M. McVICAR, J. H. HOOSE, W. MEANS and C. M. HUTCHINS had been appointed by that body delegates to this convention. The gentlemen named were invited to take part as such delegates in the deliberations of this body.

Adjourned.

EVENING SESSION.

THE Association was called to order by the President.

I. N. CARLTON, of Connecticut, read the following paper, prepared by RICHard Edwards, of Illinois, who was absent on account of sickness:

HOW MUCH CULTURE SHALL BE IMPARTED IN OUR FREE SCHOOLS?

Most men agree as to the necessity of maintaining, at public expense, the lower grades of our free public schools. So apparent is the need of some degree of general culture to a free people, that comparatively few fail to see the advantage of a system of elementary education. All, perhaps, will concede that it is very desirable that every child should learn to read and write, and possibly something more. Most will consent to be taxed for the support of what we commonly call the grammar school. But beyond this point there is more divergency of opinion. The grade known as the public high school is opposed by some of our people. And the same is true of all grades above it;-of the free college, the state university, and the national university, if supported at public expense.

Various reasons are assigned for this opposition. Among these there is time to notice two or three that seem to rank as principal.

The first of these is, that it is unjust to tax the whole people for the instruction of so small a fraction of the children of the land as is benefited by these higher schools. Free elementary instruction so distributes the burden of taxes and the benefit of schooling, that there is in the adjustment something like justice. But when it is proposed to pay by a public tax the expense of schooling the one or two per cent. of the youth of the country who attend these higher schools-the semblance of equity, we are told, fades out and becomes imperceptible to the most microscopic of eyes.

And this plea would have force if the schools had been established solely for the good of the individuals educated thereat,-if the tax-payers in consenting to support a system of schools were playing the part of benefactors, only giving in charity to the poor children, without hope of benefit to themselves. And this seems to be, to some extent, the Old-World notion. The free schools are for the indigent only,- for those who, helpless and dependent, hang like leeches on the body politic,—or rather, crouch under the table of the great, and gather the crumbs that fall therefrom, of which this pittance of schooling is one.

But this doctrine is unsound and un-American. It is doubtless a part of the glory of the free schools that they give play to the feeling of benevolence, by enforcing the doctrine of the interdependence of men. But the good God has so linked the interests of mankind that in helping others we most help ourselves. In the development of the grandest and most beneficent projects, the aim is not to benefit self solely, nor others solely, but all. The free schools, in all their grades, are supported for the general good. The little ones that toddle to the primary school are taught the germs of knowledge, are made familiar with words

and letters, because it would be a loss to the community to let them grow up in ignorance of these things. And the young man or woman is taught at the high school or state university, because such teaching is expected to inure to the benefit of the state at large, including the many who are not recipients of the instruction, as well as the few who are. The state needs citizens, virtuous and intelligent. It needs men of profound thought and extended acquirements to fill its higher positions,- or rather, to take the lead in forming the public sentiment. In the spirit of a far-seeing benevolence which is identical with an intelligent and godly self-love, it turns to all its children and invites them to prepare for the best they can do. And the invitation is not formal and bare, but the state offers all needed help, not alone for the lower, but also for the higher demands. It offers a preparation for the humblest duties of citizens, and also for the highest and most difficult. The American people know that to a free state the education of the whole people is a necessity, and that it can never be accomplished unless the state makes the culture free. And it must be free in all its grades. Who knows what one among all these children has the capacity for taking the helm of state in some stormy time, and bringing the good ship into the desired port? Are we sure that it is the boy who can afford to be educated at some costly institution? Let us not risk the loss of the service that genius can render by a niggardly refusal to give, to all who will receive it, the required help.

Indeed, we claim that the policy of declining to establish upper schools at public expense would be the unjust thing. Men have their rights as well as property, and children as well as men. In a free country, like ours, it is the right of every child to have a fair chance for life and its prizes. Not a right to have things done for him, but a right to have the best opportunity to do the best things he can for himself. The boy or girl who makes the requisite preparation for the high school or state university, and who by industry or good management maintains himself the while, may as justly claim his tuition as a cadet at West Point may claim his, or as the governor of New York may claim his salary. And the claim in all these cases may be urged upon the public on the same ground, namely, that the public good demands that it should be recognized.

The second objection urged against these higher institutions is that the interests of religion require that all instruction of this grade should be given under the influence of some positive denominational creed. It is claimed that the general acknowledgment of God and of religious obligation which may be tolerated in a school sustained by all the people, and consequently representing so many forms of belief, is too vague, has too little of positiveness in it to do any good. It is further urged that in state institutions men of sceptical tendencies will almost inevitably be some times employed as instructors, and will make the influence of their beliefs felt in the training of the pupils. Again it is maintained that many of the subjects taught in these higher schools require pronounced opinions on questions that divide the religious sects; that even history can not be taught without exciting religious animosity, as witness the story of the Massacre of Saint BARTHOLOMEW.

To this objection we answer, in the first place, that it is not so much the

business of schools to furnish students with opinions, as to develop within them a power of forming just opinions for themselves. How long is this old notion to hold possession of men's minds? When will men learn that the convictions they themselves entertain derive their chief value from the honest and conscientious independence with which they have been formed? and that an inherited opinion is almost necessarily wanting in this grand element? God's truth is all about us. It is the prerogative of every soul to look at it with its own eyes, and not through the spectacles of others, even of the most learned professors. What egotistic weakness it is to withhold the boundless supplies of mental food from the youth about us until it can be subjected to our cookery and fed out with our spoon! Such an assumption of infallibility should not be made. These young men and women have capacity for thinking of the same kind with ours, and have we any reason for supposing that they will not be as honest in the process as we have been?

Concerning sceptical professors, two suggestions may be made. In the first place, we must remember that any man possessing talent and culture, and desirous of speaking to the people, never wants for disciples. If there are learned and eloquent sceptics in the land, they will have a hearing if they wish it, and a following too. To shut them out of the colleges would rather augment than diminish their influence, if it were thought to be done for opinion's sake. There is but one way to counteract the teachings of scepticism, and that is by counterteaching that shall take a mightier hold on the minds of those to whom it is addressed. It is therefore difficult to see how any thing is to be gained as against scepticism by denominationalizing our higher education. For every orthodox college we may look for a heterodox. If orthodoxy ensconces itself behind the buttresses of a university, what is to prevent scepticism from doing the same?

The second suggestion is that the remedy proposed is not effective. Some how the closest corporations are liable to lapse into heresy. And have there not been whisperings of such lapses even among the professors of institutions supposed to be sound?

Concerning the interpreting of history, let me say that I count it one of the most glorious achievements of the public school that it compels the study of history, and of other subjects, in something other than a partisan or sectarian spirit. It is time for the distortions by which events are detailed for the mere purpose of enforcing a dogma or supporting a sect-it is time for these to disappear from our halls of learning. It is time for us, in the examination of a historical question, to seek first of all what is true, and not what is for the interest of any party or creed.

The most surprising thing about this second objection is that it is put forth in behalf of the Christian religion. As if intelligence were in antagonism to the gospel of Him who came to be the "Light of the world"! As if mental culture would break the spell by which Christianity holds the minds of men! As if our holy faith were but a superstition fit only for barbarians! What an opportunity for argument is here offered to the infidel! "What!" he may exclaim, "is your gospel afraid of the light? Is it unable to hold its own with men of intelligence? Does it fade out before the glow of earnest thought, as a

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