522

AR.

[Oct.

ACCORDING to the enumeration made in August, 1845, there were in Connecticut 85,275 children, between the ages of four and sixteen years. These are very unequally distributed through 1644 school districts. The average number to each district is fifty one; but there are forty one districts with an average of less than five; while there are ninety six districts with an average of more than two hundred and forty. Several of the latter, however, are in our principal cities, in which a single district contains several schools. The capital of the School Fund is $2,070,055; producing an annual dividend of $119,384. This divided among 85,275 children, gives to each $1,40. This dividend is designed to be distributed impartially; yet the distribution is attended, in the different districts, with very different advantages. For in the smaller districts with an average of only five children, the amount received is only $7,00;-a sum too small to be of any practical benefit: while in a district of some seventy children, the share is about $100; a sum sufficient to sustain a school for three fourths of the year. It may well be submitted to the wisdom of our legislators, whether there ought not to be some protection extended to the scattered families who consent to cultivate the rugged hillsides, and the deep ravines of our mountains, or the less fertile plains. If some $40 or $50 were appropriated to each district, without regard to the number of children; and the balance of the dividend were distributed, according to the present system; we are confident that great er benefits would be secured. We

*Annual Report of the Superintendent

of Common Schools of Connecticut, to the General Assembly, May, 1846.

would also suggest, that the distribution of this balance should be made according to the amount of actual attendance at school; and that the first named appropriation should in no case be made, unless a school had been sustained in the district, for a specified portion of the preceding year.

The Report before us, in addition to its valuable statistical tables, contains many plans and suggestions, from the visitors of the various school societies in the State, for the improvement of our common schools. There is also appended an excellent essay "On the necessity and means of improving the common schools of Connecticut," from the able pen of Rev. N. Porter, Jr., to which a premium of $100 had been previously adjudged. We regard it as ominous of good, that the attention of the public is so extensively awakened to this subject. The suggestions, from so many important sources, concerning the evils in our common school system, which evils prevent, in a great degree, a realization of the benefits of that system, will not have been made to the intelligence of the State, without producing good results.

The valuable historical facts contained in the essay, should be well pondered. The plans for improvements, contained both in that and in the reports of the school visitors, should secure thorough consideration and efficient action; until our noble school fund shall be made to accomplish the full amount of its benevolent design, and our schools become all that the people can and will make them, when they shall be once fully awakened to the neces sities and importance of the subject.

We awaited the appearance of Essay, with interest. But we regret this Report, and especially of the to say, that what we are assured is

the most important evil in our common school operations, has not been pointed out, and exposed with that particularity which its importance demands. And it is chiefly for the purpose, of calling the attention of our readers to this, that we have taken up the subject. It is to little purpose indeed, that we bestow our corrective appliances to the lesser evils that lie on the surface, while there is a greater evil that is inherent in the system. Not that we design to overlook the lesser evils, for we regard them as important. They shall have our notice in their appropriate place. But we should feel that we were writing to little purpose, if we did not first effectually expose a principal defect. If this were removed, the others would be more easily abated. For though all else in the system be perfect, yet that system can never accomplish more than a half-way measure of good, while this important defect remains.

We allude to the want of proper classification;—the placing in the same school, and under the same teacher, pupils of every age and of every variety of attainments. You may go into almost any school in the State for an illustration of the evil. You will find collected, from thirty to fifty children, of all ages, from four years to sixteen. You may also find the teacher charged with the care of some others too young to receive any other benefit from their attendance than the needful attentions which their mothers found it inconvenient to give them at home. The collection will probably be found to be still further enlarged and diversified, by the attendance of a few, who have advanced beyond the proper age of attending; and who, feeling their incapacity for the business of life, have come to spend a few weeks in endeavoring to obtain that modicum of knowledge which they failed to acquire in the appropriate season.

Here, then, you find a company of forty or fifty, perhaps, from two to twenty years of age. Scarcely any two of them are of the same age, or have the same attainments. Probably no half dozen of them can be advantageously put in the same class and under one regimen. Now consider, for a moment, how the time of the teacher must be employed. First in the list of exercises, there are some six or eight that must be called up separately, to learn the alphabet, or to spell words of two or three letters. Then two or three classes, of two, three or four each, for spelling and reading; and probably two other classes, of the more advanced pupils, in each of these exercises. Next there will be two or three classes in geography; and as many in grammar;-one or two, also, in philosophy, and others in history. In arithmetic, any classification is seldom attempted, and the teacher must give individual and separate assistance to as many as may chance to be pursuing the study. The same is true of the exercise of writing. In addition to all this, there will be one or two of the pupils, of more ambition than knowledge, asking to be initiated into the mysteries of the "art" of navigation or of surveying; and one or two others waiting to be instructed in the art of book-keeping

perhaps in the fine arts, also, and plain and fancy needle-work. We need not extend the enumeration. Now it is plain, that the time must be so divided among this multiplicity of exercises, that no one of them can receive any proper attention. If any scholar can receive the aid of the teacher from two to five minutes, he has his full proportion. It should be remembered, too, that this trifling amount of aid is imparted, while the mind is distracted with the care of the school;-while here is one, and there another, and in other directions are two or three more, watching their opportunities, while the teacher is employed, to carry for

ward their stealthy recreations: and as many others, in different parts of the room, addressing the teacher, or making significant signs to engage his attention, that they may propose some inquiries for assistance, or beg for some indispensable indulgence. Now, what, in these circumstances, can be accomplished in the way of imparting, or of receiving instruction? Bedlam itself is scarcely less fitted for any clear and well directed mental effort. The teacher puts in requisition all his energies; but nothing is done to any good purpose. Distracted and exhausted, he feels, at the close of the day, that very little good has been accomplished. The pupil, too, who is desirous of making any important acquisitions, feels assured that his chief attainments must be made in his evening hours, by the family fire-side, rather than in the school-room. He finds that the latter is no place for profitable study. So great a multiplicity of exercises going on around him, and in every variety of tone that is ludicrous and diverting, and interspersed with the more disquieting exercises of a needful discipline, most effectually prevent any five successive minutes of undiverted application. We are not drawing a caricature. Every one who has seen a Connecticut school, has seen the living original. If some schools exhibit a better appearance, in some respects, than is here described, there are others where the evils greatly transcend this description. Such, essentially, is the condition of the public schools of the

state.

And the public attention should be directed to the cause of this. It should not be permitted to be diverted from this single cause, until it is understood and appreciated; nor until the disposition and determination are awakened for its removal. The public should see and believe that no greater attainments are ordinarily made in our schools, than might, under proper arrangements, be made at the age of ten years;

and that the time that is spent in them is sufficient, if properly employed, to give our youth as good an education for the ordinary duties of life, as is attained at a college. At so great an expense of time they should be thoroughly educated men and women. And what is of scarcely less importance, they should have intellectual habits that would qualify them for successful intellectual inquiry ever after. Whereas, they leave school with very little knowledge; and with less of the habit or disposition to know any thing more. And our schools must remain essentially in their present condition, while this system of mal-organization continues. They are not susceptible of any very important improvement under the present organization. We feel assured that we have specified the most important, and comparatively, the only impor tant evil.

The remedy is obvious. It is simple; economical; efficacious. It does not, however, admit of being extensively applied, among a scattered population. But in the cities and villages every thing facilitates the application. And the popula tion of our State, by the increase of our manufacturing interests, is yearly becoming more concentrated in villages, and furnishing increased facilities for applying the remedy we have to propose. That remedy has been already suggested. It is the introduction of a perfect system of classification;-so that all the pupils of any school shall constitute but one class, and all pursue the same studies. By this arrangement the whole time of the teacher would be devoted to one class, and essen. tially to each scholar. For, whether the class consist of twenty or thirty or fifty, his labor is not essentially changed. Whatever he does for the whole school, is done for each pupil. Each is personally interested in every thing that is said or done in the school; and each is as essen

tially benefitted by whatever is said or done, as though it had exclusive reference to himself. The labors of the teacher, instead of being distributed among forty pupils, are concentrated upon forty; and the entire effect reaches each individual. Let a competent committee, appointed by legislative authority, elaborate and mature a perfect plan of a complete course of common school instruction, with as much definiteness as is given to a course of collegiate education; having the studies of each successive year prescribed, and the books to be used in each stage of the progress particularly specified. Suppose the time fixed for completing the course to be eight years; and the course adopted to be somewhat after the following order.

The qualification for entering the first class should be simply, the requisite age of four years. The exercises of this class during the year, would be essentially those of an infant school. No great mental progress should be either expected or attempted. Important progress, however, would be made in learning the elementary characters and sounds of the language. Many little exercises would be performed for improving the mind and the heart; and much would be done in forming habits of school subordination. The second class should consist exclusively of those, who, coming from the infant school, or from home, are prepared to be united into a class of reading and spelling; interspersed with various exercises for cultivating the memory, by committing useful tables; together with some simple mental calculations for improving the reasoning powers. The school of the third class, taking the pupils from the second, and continuing the exercises of reading and spelling, should carry them into the studies of geography and history and mental arithmetic. The fourth, should be occupied with history, ancient

Let

geography, writing, and practical arithmetic; and, perhaps, with botany or some other department of natural history. The exercises of the fifth class should carry the pupils through arithmetic and English grammar, and make further advances in civil and natural history. The sixth should be employed in natural philosophy, chemistry, physiology and rhetoric. The seventh, in algebra, geometry and natural history and science. The eighth, in trigonometry and its application to navigation and surveying, and in mental and moral science and astronomy. such a course of eight years be passed through, and our children. would be educated,--infinitely better educated than at present: for children do not, under the present arrangement, learn even the names of one half the subjects of this course. It is not supposed, that at a very early age they would gain a complete mastery of these sciences. with text-books suited to their capa cities, and with teachers devoted exclusively to the subjects of their respective departments, and with abundant time and facilities for varied and minute illustration, the pupils could not fail to acquire a good understanding of the elementary principles of these subjects. And what is perhaps of quite equal importance, the child will not have gone through with this course, without acquiring habits of application, which will ensure his future intellectual progress. He will have laid a foundation, deep and broad, that will sustain a superstructure, which it will be his pas time, amid the severer avocations of future life, to rear. Though devoted to the business of the farm, or the shop, or the ware-house, he will be really an educated man.

But

For such of our youth as are de. signed for college, let a classical department be constructed; taking the pupils from the sixth class of the English department, and carrying them through a course of three suc

cessive classes, extending through as many years.

Now there are 16,000 children in the State, in districts containing from 200 to 450 and more;-a number large enough to form eight schools, with an average of forty pupils to each. And if there are enough for eight schools, within the ordinary limits of a school district, what good reason can be assigned why the pupils should not be divided into as many different grades or classes, and each class assigned to a teacher? Why should there be this entire want of system and regularity and efficiency, when these elements are so completely at command, and their good effects may be so eminently realized? We ask confidently with regard to these 16,000, or about one fifth of our children, why the old helter-skelter system should not be forthwith exploded, and the benefits of the proposed one begin to be felt? The buildings occupied according to the new arrangement, need not be essentially different from the present. Wherever it is convenient, some expense would be saved by having the eight several departments in as many rooms in one building. Or they might be in two buildings; or four; or all entirely separate. The expense of buildings could in no case be any more than under the present arrangement, and in many cases it would be greatly diminished. This is also true of the expense of teachers. For one teacher can successfully manage as many as can be conveniently assembled. The increase of the number of the class, does not increase his labors. The only restriction that need be put upon the number in any class, is to keep it down to a limit that shall not allow any slothful scholar to find a refuge for his slothfulness, in not being daily and repeatedly called upon for recitations. Besides, the lower departments might be filled with teachers of moderate acquirements, who would be satisfied with

corresponding salaries.

And the

duties of all the departments would be rendered so comfortable and desirable, that the places would be sought for; and as moderate salaries as ought to be offered, would be sufficient to command a supply. In the article of books, as we shall hereafter show, the expenses would be greatly abridged.

Let us now see the application of this system to other conditions of society. We find by the Report, that there are 19,000 children, in districts containing from seventy to two hundred each. If these should be divided into four schools, their number would vary from eighteen. to fifty, or there would be an average of thirty-four. What, in these circumstances, shall be done? The best thing to be done, especially with regard to the most populous of these, would be to adhere to the system as already explained. Divide them into eight smaller schools, and give them to as many teachers, and let them go through with the course regularly and thoroughly. If, how ever, an unwillingness to incur any additional present expense, prevent the adoption of the best plan, why, adopt it, with the least possible mod. ification. If we can not remove all the evils of the old system, we must be content in being rid of a part. Let then, the plan be adopted, with this modification. Let there be four separate rooms, either in the same building, or in separate buildings as is most convenient; with a teacher for each: and let the pupils that we have before put into the schools of the first and second grades, be here put into one; those of the third and fourth, into the second; those of the fifth and sixth, into the third; and those of the seventh and eighth, into the fourth. According to this arrangement, each school would have two departments; and two sets of exercises would be daily carried forward. At the end of each year, the upper division of each school