39. From the low salaries received for these important services, and the short periods for which engagements are made, it is evident, that teaching a district school cannot be pursued as a regular employment. These schools are, therefore, supplied by persons who, during the rest of the year, follow some other business; or by students, who rely, in part or entirely, on their own exertions to defray the expenses of their academical, collegiate, or professional education.
40. These schools are, no doubt, institutions of great value; but, in the states where they have been established, they are evidently much overrated. They fail in accomplishing the ends for which they have been instituted, through the extreme tenacity with which the people adhere to ancient and defective methods of instruction, the frequent change of teachers, and the small compensation allowed for the services of competent instructors.
41. In the cities and populous towns or villages, the public schools are kept up during the whole of the year, and the system of instruction is generally better than that pursued in the country. In New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and in some other cities, the Lancasterian plan of mutual instruction, with many modifications, is preferred, principally on account of its cheapness.
42. Select-schools and private academies are, also, very numerous. These are located chiefly in the cities and populous towns, and are supported entirely by fees for tuition received from the parents or guardians of the pupils. These institutions do not differ essentially from those of a private nature in similar situations in other parts of the United States, where common schools are not established by law.
43. In the Southern states, wealthy families often employ private tutors. Sometimes two, three, or more families, and even a whole neighborhood, unite for the purpose of forming a school; and, to induce a teacher to commence or continue his labors among them, an adequate amount is made up beforehand by subscription. South of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the Ohio River, such engagements are commonly made for a year, as, in that section of the Union, the opinion prevails, that a teacher can do but little towards improving his pupils in a much shorter time.
44. The literary institutions which are next above the common schools, and which are established by legislative authority, are the academies, of which there are between five and six hundred in the United States. Some of these have been founded by the funds of the state in which they are located, some, by the union of a few spirited individuals, or by private bequests.
45. The course of instruction pursued in these seminaries of learning varies considerably from each other. In some of them, it is confined chiefly to the common branches of education; in others, the course is pretty extensive, embracing natural and moral philosophy, chemistry, belles lettres, and a sound course of mathematics, together with Latin, Greek, and some of the modern languages. One great object in these institutions is to prepare students for college. The teacher who has charge of an academy is called the principal, while the teacher who may aid him in his labors is denominated the assistant or usher.
46. The highest institutions of learning among us are the colleges and universities. Between these, however, there seems to be but little difference, since the course of studies is nearly or quite the same in both, and since the charters obtained from the legislatures grant to both similar powers of conferring honorary degrees. The whole number of these establishments in the United States is about eighty.
47. The principal teachers in the colleges are denominated professors, who confine their labors to communicating instructions in particular branches of literature or science. These are aided by assistants called tutors. The latter are generally young men, who devote two or three years to this employment, before entering upon the practice of a profession. The number of professors and tutors in the several colleges varies according to their amount of funds, and number of students.
END OF VOL. I.