"Already children can learn by the aid of microscopes how plants, for example, are formed of cells, how the different parts are developed from one common origin; they can observe how they breathe, see their division into cells, the growth of the upper parts, the fructification; can have their imagination seized, nay, even regulated, by Nature's work and harmony. The child should early obtain a holy admiration for all that is healthy, fresh, natural, as well as compassion for all that is injured or sickly, a horror of anything unnatural, though this must be blended with compassion as well.
"Microscopes, analysis, and such a variety of diagrams and apparatus must be used, that there can be no possibility of a false impression being conveyed on any of the principal subjects, nor must the instruction become merely a wearisome lesson or a lecture over which they would go to sleep; it must be real personal work, developing the powers under the teachers' guidance.
"Schools would naturally become much more expensive than at present; the providing of appliances, if that were properly done, would constitute an especially serious outlay." He told them what the price of a single microscope would be, and each school ought to have a large number; beside which, the teachers must have larger salaries. "But the war estimates are paid," he said cheerfully, "a race, strong both morally and physically, would be ample compensation."
"To obtain more time, not only must the complete apparatus be used, which itself immensely facilitates the course of instruction, but other subjects must be taught on quite a different method from that at present in use, and all lessons must be done at school under the guidance of the teacher. School must therefore, of course, be held both morning and afternoon, and a dinner of sufficient and nourishing food be provided on the spot. When the child left the school it should be completely free, should have nothing on its mind for the next day.
"About all this and about arrangements as to instruction on the new plan, he would speak at the same time and place next Saturday; he invited all the parents to attend.
"He would not conceal his belief that in no short time teaching all over the world would be arranged in the way he had indicated; all at the cost of the State, of the Community. This was society's most important cause.
"But, uninfluenced by what might come, or what now existed, his school for the development of the powers and characters of women would follow the lines which he thought to be right. There is no precept so strong as example.
"He asked earnestly for the parents' help; He hoped to make it an honour for this town to have taken the lead in this cause, but it would be an expensive enterprise. What expense would not be incurred merely for the lady doctor, who was coming over from America, to undertake the teaching which he considered as the most important for the school?"
[Movement, murmurings, excitement among the audience for the first time during the lecture.]
"Yes, in Boston I met a Norwegian lady who went over there when still very young, and who had passed her examination at the medical college several years ago. She is called Miss Cornelia Hall; this lady is already an experienced teacher in girls' schools, and has also a practice; in coming here she makes a sacrifice for her native land, but we cannot entirely accept this, we cannot allow her to relinquish a salary of three thousand dollars a year to receive the ordinary pay of a Norwegian teacher. She would not be able to practise here except under the conditions of the law with respect to Quacks, a law as unworthy of a doctor, as of the people who had made it.