Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions

by George S. Boutwell

The city of Salem, with wise forecast, anticipated these advantages, and generously contributed a sum larger even than that appropriated by the state itself. This bounty determined the location of the school, but determined it fortunately for all concerned.

Salem is one of the central points of the state; and in this respect no other town in the vicinity, however well situated, is a competitor. Pupils may reside at their homes in Newburyport, Lynn, Lawrence, Haverhill, Gloucester and Lowell, or at any intermediate place, and enjoy the benefit of daily instruction within these walls. This is a great privilege for parents and pupils; and it could not have been so well secured at any other point. Here, also, pupils and teachers may avail themselves of the libraries, literary institutions and cabinets of this ancient and prosperous town. These are no common advantages.

We are wiser and better for the presence of great numbers of books, though we may never know what they contain. We see how much perseverance and labor have accomplished, and are sensible that what has been may be equalled if not excelled. In great libraries, we realize how the works of the ambitious are neglected, and their names forgotten, while we cannot fail to be impressed with the value of the truth, that the only labor which brings a certain reward is that performed under a sense of duty.

Salem is itself the intelligent and refined centre of an intelligent and prosperous population; and we may venture so far, in just eulogy, as to attribute to it the united advantages of city and country, without a large share of the privations of the one, or the vices of the other. Of the four Normal Schools, this is, unquestionably, the most fortunate in its position and surroundings. We, therefore, ask for the concurrence of the public in the judgment which has established it in this city. If it shall be the fortune of the government to assemble a body of instructors qualified for their stations, there will then remain no reason why these accommodations and advantages should not be fully enjoyed.

The Normal School differs from all other seminaries of learning, and only because it is an auxiliary to the common schools can it be deemed their inferior in importance. The academy and college take young men from the district and high schools, and furnish them with additional aids for the business of life; but the Normal School is truly the helper of the common schools. It receives its pupils from them, fits these pupils for teachers, and sends them back to superintend where a few months before they were scholars. The Normal Schools are sustained by the common schools; and these latter, in return, draw their best nutriment from the former. This institution stands with the common school; it is as truly popular, as really democratic in a just sense, and its claim for support rests upon the same foundation.

In Massachusetts we have abandoned the idea, never, I think, general, that instruction in the art of teaching is unnecessary.

The Normal School is, with us, a necessity; for it furnishes that tuition which neither the common school, academy, nor college can. These institutions were once better adapted to this service than now. There has been a continual increase of academic studies, until it has become necessary to establish institutions for special purposes; and of these the Normal School is one. Its object is definite. The true Normal School instructs only in the art of teaching; and, in this respect, it must be confessed we have failed, sadly failed, to realize the ideal of the system. It is not a substitute for the common school, academy, or college, though many pupils, and in some degree the public, have been inclined thus to treat it. There should be no instruction in the departments of learning, high or low, except what is incidental to the main business of the institution; yet some have gone so far in the wrong course as to suggest that not only the common branches should be studied, but that tuition should be given in the languages and the higher mathematics. A little reflection will satisfy us how great a departure this would be from the just idea of the Normal School. Yet circumstances, rather than public sentiment, have compelled the government to depart in practice, though never in theory, from the true system.

It so happens that much time is occupied in instruction in those branches which ought to be thoroughly mastered by the pupil before he enters the Normal School,—that is, before he begins to acquire the art of teaching what he has not himself learned.

Such is the state of our schools that we are obliged to accept as pupils those who are not qualified, in a literary point of view, for the post of teachers. By sending better teachers into the public schools, you will effectually aid in the removal of this difficulty. The Normal School is, then, no substitute for the high school, academy, or college. Nor do we ask for any sympathy or aid which properly belongs to those institutions. He is no friend of education, in its proper signification, who patronizes some one institution, and neglects all others. We have no seminaries of learning which can be considered useless, and he only is a true friend who aids and encourages any and all as he has opportunity. What is popularly known as learning is to be acquired in the common school, high school, academy and college, as heretofore. The Normal School does not profess to give instruction in reading and arithmetic, but to teach the art of teaching reading and arithmetic. So of all the elementary branches. But, as the art of teaching a subject cannot be acquired without at the same time acquiring a better knowledge of the subject itself, the pupil will always leave the Normal School better grounded than ever before in the elements and principles of learning. It is not, however, to be expected that complete success will be realized here more than elsewhere; yet it is well to elevate the standard of admission, from time to time, so that a larger part of the exercises may be devoted to the main purpose of the institution. The struggle should be perpetual and in the right direction. First, elevate your common schools so that the education there may be a sufficient basis for a course of training here. If the Normal School and the public schools shall each and all do their duty, candidates for admission will be so well qualified in the branches required, that the art of teaching will be the only art taught here. When this is the case, the time of attendance will be diminished, and a much larger number of persons may be annually qualified for the station of teachers.

Next, let the committees and others interested in education make special efforts to fill the chairs of your hall with young women of promise, who are likely to devote themselves to the profession. It is, however, impossible for human wisdom to guard against one fate that happens to all, or nearly all, the young women who are graduated at our Normal Schools. But this remark is not made publicly, lest some anxious ones avail themselves of your bounty as a means to an end not contemplated by the state.