Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions

by George S. Boutwell

The savage and the man of culture do not seek the same end; hence they will not employ the same means.

The institutions of the savage are those of the family, clan, or tribe, to which he belongs. There the child is instructed in the art of dress, in manners and language, in the rude customs of agriculture, the chase, and war. This with him is life, and the history of one generation is often the history of many generations. Their ideal corresponds with their actual life; and, as a necessary result, there is little or no progress.

But the other class establishes institutions which indicate the existence of new relations, and exact the performance of new duties. As man is a social being, he necessarily creates institutions of government and education corresponding to the sphere in which he is to act. If a nation desires to educate only a part of its people, its institutions are naturally exclusive; but wherever the idea of universal education has been received, the institutions of the country look to that end.

When Massachusetts was settled there were no truly popular institutions in the world, for there was really no belief in popular rights. And why should those be encouraged to think who have no right to act? The principle that every man is to take a part in the affairs of the community or state to which he belongs seems to be the foundation of the doctrine that every man should be educated to think for himself. Free schools and general education are the natural results of the principles of human equality, which distinguish the people and political systems of America.

The purposes of a people are changeable and changing, but institutions are inflexible; therefore these latter often outlast the ideas in which they originated, or the ideas may be acting in other bodies or forms. Institutions are the visible forms of ideas, but they are useful only while those ideas are living in the minds of men. If an institution is suffered to remain after the idea has passed away, it embarrasses rather than aids an advancing people. Such are monastic establishments in Protestant countries; such is the Church of England, as an institution of religion and government, to all classes of dissenters; such are many seminaries of learning in Europe, and some in America.

Massachusetts has had one living idea, from the first,—that general intelligence is necessary to popular virtue and liberty. This idea she has expressed in various ways; the end it promises she has sought by various means. In obedience to this idea, she has established colleges, common schools, grammar schools, academies, and at last the Normal School.

The institution only of the Normal School is new; the idea is old. The Normal system is but a better expression of an idea partially concealed, but nevertheless to be found in the college, grammar school and academy of our fathers. Nor have we accepted the institution so readily from a knowledge of its results in other countries, as from its manifest fitness to meet a want here. It is not, then, our fortune to inaugurate a new idea, but only to clothe an old one again, so that it may more efficiently advance popular liberty, intelligence and virtue. And this is our duty to-day.

The proprieties of this occasion would have been better observed, had his excellency, Governor Washburn, found it convenient to deliver the address, which, at a late moment, has been assigned to me. But we are all in some degree aware of the nature and extent of his public duties, and can, therefore, appreciate the necessity which demands relief from some of them.

Massachusetts has founded four Normal Schools, and at the close of the present century she may not have established as many more, for she now satisfies the just demands of every section of her territory, and presents the benefits of this system of instruction to all her inhabitants. The building we here set apart, and the school we now inaugurate to the service of learning, are to be regarded as the completion of the original plan of the state, and any future extension will depend upon the success of the Normal system as it shall appear in other years to other generations of men. But we have great faith that the Normal system, in itself and in its connections, will realize the cherished idea of our whole history; and if so, it will be extended until every school is supplied with a Normal teacher.

This, then, is an occasion of general interest; but to the city of Salem, and the county of Essex, it is specially important. Similar institutions have been long established in other parts of the state; but some compensation is now to be made to you, in the experience and improvements of the last fifteen years. Intelligent labor sheds light upon the path of the laborer, and, though the direct benefits of this system have not been here enjoyed, many resulting advantages from the experience of similar institutions in other places will now inure to you.