or to run with them, for escape or for capture. Accordingly some of them emulated the strength of Jacob, who wrestled with the Angel, and some, the fleetness of Asahel, who "was as light of foot as a wild roe."

And when, perchance, some well-known person was passing, the word would come out from some of them, that parson-or squireor doctor or deacon-was coming. Immediately they would leave their play for a moment, take off their hats, or caps, and then resume their play. This ready act of civility, they would pay with a conscious sense of politeness,―with a "proud submission," which raised them in their own estimation. They had been taught in the church, in the family, and the school, to respect what is respectable, and to "do their duties to superiors, inferiors and equals."

It should be added that in the settlement of the country towns, before the districts were weakened by being divided, the schools were often large. "The boys came to school in the winter, the only season in which schools were usually open, from distances of several miles, wading through the snow, or running upon the crust, with their curly heads of hair often whitened with frost from their own breath."

VISITATION DAY, in the spring, when the inspectors visited the schools, was a great day in the district. The minister and some of the principal men were present. The school-master was in his glory, now that others had come to magnify his office. Many of the parents were present. The inspectors were interested to behold the “spem gregis," the hope of the church and the town. The psalter was read by the older children, and the primer by the younger ones. The writing books and the arithmetic books were handed round. In later times, lessons in spelling from the spelling book were put out. The catechism was recited. The inspectors made their remarks, particularly the minister, upon the proficiency of the school, the manners, the morals, the religion. A prayer was then made by the clergyman in which these several topics were alluded to.

It should be added that a prayer was made by the school-master in a portion of the schools, at nine o'clock, when the school came together in the morning, and at four. In other schools, a prayer was made only at four, when the school was dismissed.

On this subject, listen to the language of President Timothy Dwight: "Of learning and the general diffusion of useful knowledge, the clergy as individuals, .have, beyond any other class of men, been the promoters. To this, their own knowledge, the general

nature of their office, and their comparative leisure from the busy occupations of life, almost necessarily lead. In the foundation and the regulation of no small number of our schools, they are directly concerned as principals. To our college they gave birth, continuance, a considerable proportion of its property, and the whole system of its government and instruction. They have supported and educated more scholars of charity, than the whole community besides; nor is there at this time, unless I am deceived, a single school of consideration in the State, in which they have not a principal agency."

Thus the meeting-house was the center of illumination for the town, and the school-house was the center of illumination for the district. The lights in both were steady, irradiating the whole surface of the State, like the lights which on some evenings illumine all the northern sky. This was before the cunning artificers of the press sent up their fireworks to dazzle by their glare and mislead. It was the influence of these steady lights that made Connecticut THE LAND OF STEADY HABITS; a model commonwealth, where, from the cultivation of the arts and sciences, from the general diffusion of knowledge, the people have in the exercise of the right of private judg ment, pursued a wise policy in their public acts, and in the administration of their own private and local affairs.

It would exceed my limits to show forth the great results of the educational efforts of the clergy of Connecticut. These would have to be sought not only in the territorial limits of the State, but throughout our broad country, wherever the emigrating sons and daughters of Connecticut have fixed their habitation.

Thus, my dear sir, have I endeavored, briefly to show, that the ministers of the gospel ought to take a prominent part in popular education; from the nature of the Christian religion; from the nature of Protestantism; from the nature of Puritanism; from the nature of their own profession; from the position long occupied by clergymen. In doing this, they ought to be encouraged by the towns, as they were formerly.

How they should do this, I do not presume to say. Each of them has his own gift; each his own circumstances. They have that wisdom in the selection of means, which is profitable to direct.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM C. FOWLER.

P. S.-Your very valuable Report of 1853, when you were Superintendent of Common Schools in Connecticut, renders it unnecessary that I should enlarge my statements on certain topics of interest.

II. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.*

BY CHARLES HOOLE, A. M.,

Master of Grammar School in Rotherham in 1636, and of a Private School in London in 1660.

CHAPTER I.-How to help children that are imperfect in reading English when they are brought to the grammar school, and how to prepare them for more easy entrance upon Latin.

The want of good teachers of English in most places where grammar schools are erected, causeth that many children are brought thither to learn the Latin tongue before they can read well; and this chiefly, to prevent their loss of time with those that can teach them no further.

Now such scholars for the most part become the greatest disgrace to the master of all the rest, partly because indiscreet and illiterate parents, (I will not say servants,) that can scarcely read English themselves, become too severe judges of his work, and partly because he seems to some to undervalue himself by admitting petties into his school. But for the toil and trouble that he hath in teaching such, I rather seek how to remedy it, than go about in words to express it.

To help therefore that defect of reading English aright, you may take this as the most useful course:

1. Let them read a chapter every morning and every noon in the New Testa ment, and at ten and four o'clock, a piece of the Accidents, which will require (at least) a quarter of a year to be read over, in case the children be very imperfect; but in case they be any whit ready, it may be gone over in six weeks' time.

2. To exercise their slender memories at their first coming to school, and to find them some little task, (to which they should be inured at the first, that they may not take it more hardly afterward,) let them commit to memory some few staves of such psalms in meter as you in your discretion shall think best to suit with their shallow apprehensions. Psalms i., iv., xii., xv., xix., xxv., xxxiv., lxvii., c., ciii., civ., cxix., are excellent for this purpose.

The following is a copy of the original title page:

THE

USHER'S DUTY,

OR

A PLAT-FORME

of Teaching LILLIES Grammar.

By C. H.

LONDON,

Printed by F. T. for Andrew Crook.

at the Green Dragon in Pauls

Church Yard, 1659.

That they may be more perfect in their lessons before they come to say them, 1. It were good if you did now and then read a piece for their imitation, observing the just and full pronunciation of each syllable, and making pauses as they come.

2. But especially as they sit in their form, see that every one after another read the lesson twice or thrice over, (the highest, because the most able, beginning to read first,) and cause that every one attend to what is read, looking constantly upon his book, and let them have liberty (who can soonest) to correct him that readeth any word amiss, and to note it as his mistake. But in this a care must be had that they make no noise nor disturbance to the rest of the school.

3. When they come to say it, let every one in that order you shall appoint (beginning either with the highest or lowest, or otherwise) read the whole lesson, or a piece of it, as the time will best permit you to hear them, and when the lesson is gone over often enough, you may propound a familiar and short question or two out of it, thereby to make somewhat of its meaning stick in their memories, and dismiss them to their places to ask one another the like.

But because the Accidents, as it is now printed, (especially that part of it which concerneth the conjugating of verbs,) is too full of difficult abbreviations for most children to read, or some masters (that undertake it) to teach, I have found a great advantage and ease by making use of the examination of the Accidents before I put them to read the Accidents itself, especially with some more dullwitted boys that I could not otherwise fasten upon, and the way I used it was this: I caused

1. That children should read over only the first part of it, which concerneth the introduction of the eight parts of speech, by taking so much at a time as they could well be able to read and belonged to one or more particular heads of grammar. Thus in the first going it over, I made them acquainted with the usual terms of grammar art, so as to be able (at least) to turn to a noun, pronoun, verb, &c., and to what belongs to them, as the numbers, cases, persons, moods, &c., and to tell how many there are of each.

And in the second reading it over, I taught them to take notice what every part of speech is, and how it differs from others, and what things belong to every one of them. And this I did by English examples, which best help to instruct their understandings in the meaning of what they read, and confirm their memories to keep it. Ex. gr., having showed them in their book, that a noun is the name of a thing, and that it is substantive or adjective, and hath numbers, cases, genders, declensions, and degrees of comparison, I instance several words, as a horse, of men, sweet honey, with sweeter words, and let the children who can readilest tell me what belongs to them. This is (as Mr. Woodward very well expresseth it in his Light to Grammar, chapter 2) "To teach a child to carry a torch or lantern in his hand, that thereby the understanding may do its office and put to memory to do hers; to slip into a child's understanding before he be aware, so as he shall have done his task before he shall suspect that any was imposed; he shall do his work playing, and play working; he shall seem idle and think he is in sport, when he is indeed seriously and well employed. This is done (saith he) by precognition, for it conveys a light into the understanding which the child hath lighted at his own candle."

Now forasmuch as the way of working hereby is, when the inward senses of the child are instructed by the outward, and the more help one hath of the outward, the surer and firmer the instruction is within, I can not but here give notice of Mr. Comenius' Orbis Pictus as a most rare device for teaching a child at once to know things and words by pictures, which may also serve for the more perfect and pleasant reading of the English and Latin tongues, and entering a child upon his Accidents, if the dearness of the book (by reason of the brass cuts in it) did not make it too hard to come by.

But where the book may be readily had, (as who would not bestow four or five shillings more than ordinary to profit and please a son?) I would advise that a child should bring it with him at his first coming to a grammar school, and be employed in it, together with his Accidents, till he can write a good legible hand, and then a master may adventure to ground him well in orthography and etymology, by using that book according to the directions already given in the preface before it, and causing him every day to write a chapter of it in English and Latin.

He that would be further instructed how, by teaching English more grammatically, to prepare his scholars for Latin, let him consult Mr. Poole's English Accidents and Mr. Wharton's English Grammar, as the best books that I know of at present for that purpose.

II.-How to teach children in the first form the grounds or rudiments of grammar contained in the Accidents, and to prepare them for the Latin tongue with ease and delight.

Being here to deliver my mind concerning entering little ones, by way of grammar, to the Latin tongue, (a matter which I may truly say hath, ever since I began to teach, cost me more study and observation than any one point of my profession, and the more, because I see few able schoolmasters vouchsafe so far to unman themselves as to mind it,) I desire three things may be considered by all that go about to enter children to grammar learning, viz., that

1. There is a great difference betwixt a man that teacheth, and a child that is to be taught; for though I do not altogether hold with him that sayeth a man in his childhood is no better than a brute beast, and useth no power but anger and concupiscence, nor take upon me here to dispute whether a child learneth more by rote than by reason, yet this I dare aver, that the more condescension is made to a child's capacity, by proceeding orderly and plainly from what he knoweth already to what doth naturally and necessarily follow thereupon, the more easily he will learn. A man therefore that hath the strength and full use of reason, must conduct his young learner to follow him in a rational way, though he must not expect him to go, æquis passibus, as fast as himself. And forasmuch as a child is tender, a man must abate of his roughness; seeing a child is slow of apprehension, he must not be too quick in his delivery; and seeing a child is naturally awkward to his work, he must not be too passionate if he do amiss. Tully's observation is, that Quo quis doctior est, eo iracundius docet; and Mr. Mulcaster gives notice that there is a number of discoursers that can say pretty well to a general position, but show themselves altogether lame in the particular applying of it, which is a thing that attendeth only upon experience and years. He would therefore (and that rightly) have a trainer of youth reclaimed unto discretion, whose recommendation Aris