CHAPTER XVII. EDUCATION, Literature, Literary InstituTIONS, AND LITERARY MEN.-Day schools. Sunday schools. State of education in general. Normal seminaries for training female teachers. High estimate of women as teachers of youth. Their especial influence in the improvement of society. Schools of design and practical science. Institutions for the promotion of geological and physical science at Washington, Philadelphia, &c. Great improvements in nautical science by Lieut. Maury. Advancement in everything in relation to the mind and social life. Numerous seminaries of learning. Where situated. Quality of knowledge imparted. General character of the principal institutions. Most eminent literary men, divines, historians, novelists, and critics. Philosophers and astronomers. Naturalista, mathematicians, sculptors, painters, poets, literary women. Theological schools. Colleges and universities. Libraries. Museums. Female medical colleges. Newspapers and periodical publications in general. Character of the American press. Although England is justly renowned for her cultivation of the arts and sciences, and notwithstanding the poor rates of that country exceed £5,000,000 sterling per annum, yet there are few Protestant countries probably where the education of the poor is so much neglected. It is different in America. Here just and rational views on the subject are more generally entertained. Education has ever been a subject of deep interest and importance in America; and there is no country in the world where it has to so great a degree reached the masses. The great founders of the national institutions seem to have been aware that republics especially have no stability or safety unless founded on virtue and intelligence. Hence almost every village has its school-house as well as its place of worship. There are in the United States about 80,000 common schools, which are supported at an annual expense of nearly 6,000,000 dollars; more than half of which is expended by the States of New York and Massachusetts. The details are as follows:Of public schools, there are 80,091; of teachers, 92,000; of pupils, 3,354,173. Their total income is-from endowment, 182,594 dollars; taxation, 4,686,414 dollars; public funds, 2,574,669 dollars; other sources, 2,147,853 dollars: aggregate, 2 0 9,591,530 dollars. Of academies and other schools there are 6,032, with 12,207 teachers, and 261,362 pupils. Their annual income is-from endowments, 288,855 dollars; taxation, 14,202 dollars; public funds, 114,788 dollars; other sources, 4,235,987: total, 4,653,842 dollars. Infant schools in particular, which are calculated more than all others, or than any other means, to form and improve the morals and manners of the masses, being established throughout the entire of the Northern, Eastern, and Middle States, are constantly exerting their influence on the million. Reformatory industrial schools are also established for young criminals.* Sunday schools are universal, and are ably and vigorously superintended. Sunday School Unions are formed to promote the extension and efficiency of these institutions, as well as to render them permanent; while day schools are more or less general throughout the Union. The public sentiment with respect to schools cannot perhaps be better expressed than it has been by Mr. Horace Mann, the great public advocate and promoter of these institutions. "We inherit," says this great philanthropist, "capacity of mind, and good and bad qualities from our parents. One generation inherits from another. The sins and virtues of the parent, according to the Scriptures, are visited, punished, or rewarded in the person of his children's children. By diffusing the influence of a good education through the whole people, will the whole people be elevated; and if the next generation be similarly treated, having inherited a higher intelligence, human nature will be elevated still more, and so on infinitely.' "Public education," says another influential individual, "has everywhere shown itself in the United States the great principle of the popular elevation and development. The American mind has caught the idea, and will never lose sight of it, that the whole of the State's property, public and private, is holden subject to the sacred trust of providing the means of education for every child in the States.' This determined habit of education principally originated with the Pilgrim Fathers, who had so high a sense of the advantages of elementary instruction and of scholastic learning * That at Westborough, Massachusetts, is supposed to be the original of these institutions. + STATE OF EDUCATION. Since 201 in general, that one of their first public acts was to resolve that every child of their settlement should have a good educational training. This was as early as the year 1642. that period the system of elementary schools has been improved in various ways, and formally established throughout the North-eastern States, whence it has extended to other parts of the Union. In New England particularly, the greatest attention has invariably been paid to this important subject. In Connecticut, the towns are divided into school districts. The result of this beneficial arrangement is obvious and striking. The Americans of the Eastern and Middle States are a wellinformed and moral people. Even in the humblest walks of life a citizen in Massachusetts will hardly be found incapable of reading and writing, or ignorant of grammar or arithmetic; while there are thousands who, through the instrumentality of higher schools, have acquired a respectable classical education.* Parents, excepting those who are so steeped in ignorance and profligacy as to be altogether regardless of their children's welfare, see the growing importance of education in regard to secular considerations and prospects, and thus themselves unite in promoting it. However neglected some districts may be, and however incompetent many of those engaged in the work of instruction may be considered, still the number of schools of different descriptions, scattered over the country, is already large, and is rapidly increasing; while under the influence of a variety of motives, the advantages, such as they are, which these schools present, are turned to general as well as to individual account. Recent movements have directed attention so universally to education, that even the lowest classes which have hitherto been indifferent to the subject are being aroused to efforts for its attainment; and it seems probable that an amount and variety of exertion will be called forth which will form a sufficient guarantee that the great mass of the rising generation will at least be taught to read and write. The following summary shows the results of recent calcula * The greater part of the public schools are supported by the State and City Governments. tions on the subject by Dr. Bacon, of New Haven, in Connecticut: In 1850, it was estimated that more than four millions of American youth were receiving instruction in the various educational institutions, which would be at the rate of one in every five free persons. The teachers numbered 115,000, and the colleges and superior schools nearly 100,000. For that class of the population whose disposition leads them to seek other fields of knowledge, and whose circumstances permit them to indulge that disposition, ample means are already provided. In Massachusetts, and generally in the States, the plan is pursued of imparting a free education according to existing ability, and it is carried through the several grades of primary, intermediate, and grammar schools. Great attention is now being paid to the education of females in the United States. But their education is more public than in England. Few private governesses are employed. Boarding and day schools are abundant. Girls and boys are commonly educated together+ by school-mistresses in the common schools to a certain age, and then transferred to schools of a higher order, which are generally the creation of individual effort. But of all the educational institutions in America, the Normal seminaries for the education of women for teachers are the * This analysis most strikingly shows the blighting influence of slavery upon all the best interests of the country, and all the elements of social and moral progress. + This practice is not so common as formerly. EDUCATION OF FEMALES. 203 most important and interesting. These are multiplying, and, in general, are much superior to those of Europe. Woman's increasing value as a teacher, and the employment of her as such in public schools, even in those for boys to a certain age, is a notable fact which speaks much for America's future, as well as for her humanity. This practice mostly prevails in New England, and it seems as if the daughters of those States have a peculiar faculty and love for this employment.* Young girls of fortune devote themselves to it. The daughters of small farmers go to work in the manufactories a sufficient time to earn the necessary sum to put themselves to school, in order to become teachers in due course; while crowds of school teachers go to the western and southern States, where schools are being established and placed under their direction. "The young daughters of New England are universally commended for their character and ability. Even Waldo Emerson, who does not often easily praise," says Miss Bremer, "spoke in commendation of them. They learn in the schools, the classics, mathematics, physics, algebra, with great ease, and pass their examinations like young men. Not long since, a young lady in Nantucket, not far from Boston, distinguished herself in astronomy, by discovering a new planet, and received, in consequence, a medal from the king of Prussia.”† rr And the estimate of women as teachers of the young is increasing day by day. If I must choose between giving an education to the men or women of a country, I would leave the men and begin with the women," said one of the American statesmen to Miss Bremer. "And I believe I do not say too much," adds this able and benevolent authoress, "when I maintain that this mode of thinking is participated by the greater number of men in the United States, so strong is the conviction of woman's influence on the rising generation." Women govern us,” says Sheridan; "let us try to render them perfect. The more they are enlightened, so much the more shall we be. On the cultivation of the minds of women depends the wisdom of the men. * The daughter of the late President Filmore is teacher of an academy for ladies at Buffalo. This young lady is said to have felt herself in a more honourable position when usefully employed in the successful attainment of her own independence, than surrounded by the statesmen of the Republic in the saloons of the palace of the President at Washington. t Homes of the New World. |