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Orphan House at Charleston.

soul, and fit only for the reproach—' Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit; there is more hope of a fool than of him.' When the character is thus debased, neglect or misgovernment must prevail. In the progress to that debasement, however, the master has his place of watchfulness and energy for ruling his own spirit, meekly bearing distinction, humbly joyful in success, he is boldly pressing forward in his course.

8. Finally, all other hindrances are abetted by the influence of society. True, there are examples of self-improvement, not a few, scattered through the community. Yet they are too few to move the irresolute, and to force forward those who will not force themselves. I do not know the neighborhood whose example and spirit are likely to prove a steady and strong current, bearing along in the course of self-improvement, even him who has the least will, and almost him who has no will. We had the Lyceum, while it was a novelty, with its sudden blast; seeming as if sufficient to set in motion, and keep in motion, the whole stream of society. But how soon it proved to have made only a ruffle on the surface of the pool! How soon it left the pool as stagnant and as unruffled as before! Whoever will improve himself must have the stream within-must be able to sail on, without the tide, and if need be, against the tide :-must have a will, and a plan, and an authority, within himself;-must be self-resolved and self-governed: without example—against example-and if need be, amidst ridicule, and reproach, and scorn.

QUALIFICATIONS OF A GUARDIAN OF CHILDREN.

(Extract from the Report of the Orphan House, Charleston, S. C.)

THE city of Charleston, (S. C.) is honored by the establishment of a noble Orphan House, destined to receive the children whom the fatal diseases of the climate frequently leave orphans, in a land of strangers. The following views of the objects of education, and the qualifications which the superintendent of such an institution ought to possess, are so justly and boldly expressed, that we deem them well worthy of republication, for the benefit of our readers, as well as the credit of the institution.

'The children of the Orphan House, males and females, range in their ages, from three to thirteen years. We may say they begin to think here; the direction and force of their characters is given here; the first, and therefore strongest impressions are made here; the tree will grow up, as the twig is here bent. It will hardly be denied

What the Objects of Education are.

545 that the force and duration of impressions made upon the mind, upon the youthful mind, depend upon the pleasure or pain which attend those impressions, both producing the same result as to force and duration. The difference existing simply is this-we avoid the one, and seek the other. Those impressions made upon the mind, associated with pain, are never sought after; on the contrary, those impressions made and associated with pleasure, are sought after. To illustrate this by a practical example: a boy has acquired a thought by dint of birch and hard knocks; another has acquired it by kind and tender instruction. The impressions made upon the minds of both are equally strong-the thoughts may be in either as firmly fixed; but the one will no more seek after thoughts than he will after birch and hard knocks; while the other will go to his intellectual pursuits as to sources of pleasure. If the mode of instruction adopted be a judicious one-if it be kindly, and the instruction be made interesting, (and it certainly can be,) rather than harshly, and appealing to the base passion, fear,-the affections of the child are gained to the preceptor, he becomes identified with the instruction, and both are then sources of his happiness. Let it not be answered, in objection, that there must be labor, must be toil, "that there is no royal road to science." We admit it; but we say, boys and men, all classes of human kind, are ready to encounter, and will most cheerfully encounter toil and labor, if their affections for the pursuit be enlisted. The boy in the field with gun in hand, will walk and toil all day, and although he may not be successful in his pursuit of game, yet he is perfectly willing to renew the attempt on the succeeding day. It is true, that this, with all other similar gratifications, will, by reason of their want of variety, their earth-born nature, become vapid and pall upon the taste. Not so with those pursuits which are to form the character and make the man; pursuits which are opening new fields to vision every day-and where the acquisition of one truth gives a zest for the acquisition of other truths-here, their can be no satiety, no palling upon the taste. Your committee beg not to be misunderstood. They are not so chimerical as to expect that the children of the Orphan House should be turned out classical scholars-that they should be introduced into the higher walks of literature-they expect no such result, nor would, perhaps, such an one be desirable.

'We will attempt to show what we have a right to expect and desire and first, what we understand by education. We apprehend that there may be, and often is, a great mistake, as to what constitutes education. The great effort most frequently is, to crowd into a boy's memory as many words as possible; to teach him to repeat line after line, and sentence after sentence, and to echo the thoughts of others. The better he can read and write, and the more books he may have read, the better it is thought he has been educated. This may not be so; the boy may not, after all, have been taught the main object of education-to think. It is true, one cannot read and write well, and have read many books, without calling into exercise the faculty of thinking-but the faculty will be indirectly, instead of di

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Suggestions to Parents and Teachers.

rectly improved; his thinking will be of a stinted growth; he will be a dwarf with all his acquirements. Who of us has not seen such? Men whose whole time has been in the schools, who have regularly been matriculated and graduated at some learned university, and have the degree of Bachelor and Master of Arts conferred on them, and who yet, when thrown into the actual and active concerns of real life, are not masters of the art of earning a livelihood. And we are constantly beholding those who have not walked in academic groves, who have not had scholastic opportunity, but when thrown upon their own resources, have evinced a boldness of thought, and a correct knowledge of things coming under their observation, to which the educated man, so called, is totally incompetent. We are not finding fault with the use of books, and the acquiring the thoughts of others, with schools and colleges-far from it; we esteem the art of printing as one of God's choicest blessings, and an acquaintance with the experience and thoughts of others, as transcendently valuable; but they are so, as a means, not as an end. The great end and object of all education, should be to improve the mind-the thinking faculty; not the memory, which is only subservient, but that which it subserves, the mind itself, where thought is originated. Feed its capacity and power as much as you will, by storing in the memory the thoughts of others; learn as many languages as you like, because you thereby multiply the means of acquiring the experience of those who have gone before you; obtain the most accurate information you may upon all subjects; but, as the mechanic would acquire the use of his tools, the better to enable him to work, so the mind must avail itself of all the stores which the memory may have laid up, the better to enable it to perform its great work, viz., to originate thought. What would it avail one to be possessed of all the thoughts of many philosophers, if he had not the power of discriminating between truth and error, in those thoughts? It will be perceived, that by the term education, your Committee understand that mode or system by which the mind is brought out; by which the man, when called upon to act, will have, in his own resources, in his own intelligence, in his own ingenuity, the time and proper way of acting ready at hand. This is the system we have a right to expect; this is the system we desire.

'It will be impossible for your Committee to report in detail the quo modo in which the mind or thinking faculty is to be improved; but they think it will be very evident that the first stage or step towards it, is not through books. Every one who has the happiness of being a father, will readily understand us when we say the little prattler begins as soon as he can lisp, to make inquiries; to desire to know the value and use of everything around him; and in fact to push his zeal for knowledge to importunity. It often seems to be forgotten, that at this age, the corner stone is laid; that on the manner in which these inquiries are answered, and the interest which a judicious parent or preceptor may excite in the subjects of inquiry, will depend the question, whether the boy will apply to him with his

How to destroy Common Schools.

547

inquiries or not, and necessarily whether he advances or not; for if not to him, of whom is he to seek instruction? Hence, how impor tant is the office under consideration; how indispensable that it should be filled by one who has the heart to feel that he is standing in the stead, and the intelligence to discharge, the duties of a parent!

the

'Suppose such an individual as we could desire, occupied the station of Steward of the Orphan House, presiding over every department, male and female, the school department as of every other, as in fact your Committee think he ought to do, and most earnestly recommend ;-suppose such an one, having the ability and zeal to carry views we have submitted fully into effect, one who would read a lesson from everything around him; who would invent games and pasttimes, having for their object recreation and improvement; who would make the garden and the play-ground subservient to the same end; who would use the school-room in its turn, and conduct the whole system throughout without harshness, without creating a disrelish and disgust for intellectual pursuits; on the contrary, producing the most ardent zeal by the interest which he would excite, and by the kindness of the manner in which he would impart knowledge the result of such a system would be incalculable-the children coming out of the institution would indeed be prepared to take their places in society.'

HOW TO DESTROY COMMON SCHOOLS.

(Communicated for the Annals of Education.)

MR. EDITOR-I perceive, in your last number, an article on abolishing Common Schools, in which the writer, while he treats of certain practices which he thinks tend to their destruction, labors hard to prove that such an event would be a great public calamity. As his reasoning, however, may not be equally convincing to all, or rather, as some individuals may still think common schools worse than useless, I propose to lay down a few plain rules for the guidance of those who wish to abolish these institutions.

1. In the selection of visitors, committees, &c., let no pains be taken to select men who have ever been teachers of common schools themselves, or who have ever been known to take any special interest in common, universal education. Let them, on the contrary, be appointed with reference to party, sect, or something equally arbitrary. And, lastly, care should be taken to see that they receive no compensation for their services.

2. When a meeting is warned in a district, with a view to setting up a school, all parents who are solicitous to have a good

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Avoid Visiting the School.

teacher and a good school, should take care to be absent. Any little hindrance will do for an apology; as the pressure of business, the call of a friend, a bad cold, an evening party, &c.

3. Procure a teacher at the lowest price possible. To this end it will be desirable to secure a young person who has never before taught; one who is out of business for a few months, or who was never in any. There may be some cousin, or nephew, or particular friend of the committee who is of this description. And if there are doubts in the minds of the visitors whether your candidate is duly qualified to teach, tell them your children are all small; that they need no instruction in anything but spelling, reading, and a little writing, and that you think the candidate will answer your purpose. If they still demur, begin to be impatient, or to threaten, or what is still better, excite a mob against them, and you will probably gain your point.

There is one thing more to be attended to, in order to get a cheap teacher, especially if it be a female teacher. It is to employ one who can labor at some other employment every moment she is out of school, and support herself, or nearly so, by that. If any one should say that a teacher ought to be wholly devoted to the school, do not heed it; his opinion is not worth minding. 4. Let all the arrangements for the accommodation of the children at school be bad, so as to make them perfectly hate even the sight of a school-house, or a teacher, or a book. Let the pupils be sometimes frozen, sometimes scorched, sometimes smoked, and sometimes tortured for hours together on high benches, without backs. Let them have but few books. One to a family-as no two brothers or sisters are ordinarily in the same class-will be sufficient. Or if they have a new book, be sure to give it to the eldest, and turn off the younger pupil with the old, dirtied, torn one. The books which they use, especially for reading and spelling, should be so contrived that they understand their contents about as well as they would lessons which were in Latin or French.

5. After the school commences, instead of having the visitors make their visits to the school, as the spirit of the statute requires, let them just run in once or twice during a term, and stay half an hour or an hour at a time. Let them visit the schools of at least two different districts in each half day, and sometimes of three. No matter if they come late in the day to the third; the teacher and pupils, though fatigued and listless, can wait and go through with the usual forms, even if the spirit should be wanting.

6. Let parents, above all, keep away from the school-house. Let them no more think of visiting or associating freely with its inmates, than they would with those of the county jail. Let them regard the teacher much in the light of a jailor or hangman;-as