The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 6, December 1837

by Various

Inspectors of schools should frequently visit them, see them in their every-day dress, and learn whether instruction is thoroughly and judiciously given. The competent and faithful teacher will be highly pleased with such visitation. It will show him that his work is not undervalued, and will stimulate him to greater exertion, while the incompetent teacher will be likely to expose his deficiencies in a way which will lead to their correction. Scholars, also, will be greatly stimulated to effort by the frequent and judicious visitation of schools. It will show them that they are engaged in no unimportant employment, and convince them that an education is worthy of their strenuous and persevering exertions.

Public inspectors have generally been selected from intelligent men of business; and experience has proved that, amidst their other numerous avocations, this is very likely to be neglected. Perhaps a different arrangement of this business would be more effectual. Let a thoroughly competent person, a man of large views, and general knowledge, be selected and appointed an inspector, and receive a sufficient compensation to devote a considerable portion of his time to this subject; let him have under his charge the schools of a sufficiently extensive district; let him spend a considerable time in these schools in rotation, inspect the manner in which they are instructed, suggest to the teachers any improvements in the method of instruction and government, and be, in fact, a kind of regimental school-master. In some of the states, it has been found difficult to procure men of sufficient legal attainments for judges of the county courts. To remedy the evil, a chief judge has been appointed, of extensive legal science, to travel from county to county, and to preside, with associate judges, in these courts; and the arrangement has been found eminently beneficial. The course just proposed would equally contribute to raise the character and promote the interests of common schools.

Among the improvements which have been recently introduced into schools, that of illustrating the sciences by means of simple and appropriate apparatus, deserves to be particularly noticed. Apparatus for the illustration of the sciences has long existed in colleges, and no institution of the kind would be thought worthy of patronage, which did not possess it. But apparatus is not more necessary in colleges, than is appropriate apparatus in schools. Indeed, from the nature of the case, it would seem to be more necessary in schools than in colleges. Children and youth, in the earlier stages of their education, are naturally volatile, and need something to fix their attention. They are less accustomed to abstract reflection than persons of a more advanced age, and therefore have greater need of a visible illustration of the sciences.

Apparatus for schools needs to be materially different from that usually found in colleges, which is generally so expensive, as to be altogether beyond the reach of ordinary schools. Apparatus for schools must be cheap, or it will not be generally introduced; it must be neat, or scholars will turn away from it with disgust, and science will be disgraced by its slovenly appearance; it must be scientific, or it will be good for nothing. It may be scientific without being expensive. The value of a machine for scientific illustration depends much more upon its peculiar construction, than upon its mechanical execution.

By the use of apparatus, two avenues are opened to the mind where but one existed before, and the eye becomes auxiliary to the understanding, in the acquisition of knowledge. Appropriate apparatus is alike calculated to illustrate the sciences, and deeply to impress their principles upon the memory. Some kinds of apparatus have long been found in schools. Geography has long had the aid of maps, and no teacher would use a geography which was not furnished with a respectable atlas. But maps alone are not a sufficient apparatus in teaching geography. A globular revolving map of the world, a globe, and a cylindrical revolving Mercator's chart, will furnish important aid in explaining the globular, polar, and Mercator's projections of a map of the world. Astronomy and natural philosophy can no more be successfully taught without the use of machines, than can geography without the use of maps. No text-book on these subjects would be thought fit for use, which was not furnished with plates and diagrams. But plates and diagrams are but an inferior kind of apparatus; the objects which they represent are extensively presented in perspective, and the coarse manner in which these plates are executed, as well as the intrinsic difficulties of the subject, render them but imperfect substitutes for machines and models for illustration. The great leading principles of descriptive astronomy may, by means of a cheap machinery, be made matters of ocular demonstration, and thus be rendered intelligible to children. Natural philosophy acquires a greatly increased interest, in an illustration by experiment. All that variety of labor-saving machinery by which human toil is so extensively superseded, and the arts and conveniences of life so signally advanced, are but different combinations of the mechanical powers. Mechanics, not illustrated by machinery, is a dry study, but by its use a great interest is created in the subject, and some slumbering genius may be awakened in a common school, that may originate discoveries in the arts, which will tell on the destinies of men, like the cotton-gin of Whitney, the cotton-spinning machines of Arkwright, or the steam-boat of Fulton. The time is rapidly coming, when no school will be considered well furnished, which has not a respectable apparatus for the illustration of the sciences, nor any teacher well qualified for his work, who does not understand how successfully to use it. Skill in the use of apparatus must be the result of much attention to the subject; and the teacher should labor to acquire it with the same assiduity with which he strives to make himself acquainted with the sciences which he professes to teach.

It is interesting to reflect on the cheering prospect which the advancing cause of education holds out in regard to the perpetuity of the American government, and the extension of the blessings of freedom to the civilized world. In passing over the long tract of time which authentic history discloses to the view, it is painful to observe how extensively tyranny has swayed an iron sceptre over the destinies of men; how governments, instead of being calculated to promote the interests of the people, have been artfully contrived to cause the multitude to toil and sweat for the gratification of the pampered few. How few are the green spots in the history of man, on which the friend of human rights delights to fix his contemplations! There have indeed existed some commonwealths, under the name of republics, but they have generally failed to affect, to any great extent, the purposes of a well-organized government. Greece and Rome, in their best estates, though denominated republics, were turbulent democracies, or over-bearing aristocracies, and both by turns. Deriving their notion of republics from these splendid failures, European politicians, on the commencement of the American experiment, predicted for it a disorderly course, and a speedy termination. They seemed to have overlooked the fact, that the constitution of the American government, and of American society, is wholly unlike that of the ancient republics. But while they have been watching, and waiting, and in many instances, hoping, for its downfall, their hopes have been signally disappointed. The American government has indeed been exposed to agitations. The storm of party violence and of sectional interest has beaten around it. But, like the majestic oak, instead of being prostrated by the blast, it has only caused it to strike its roots more deeply, and to obtain a firmer footing in the soil.

A general and well-conducted education nursed American liberty in its infancy, and is destined to sustain it in its maturity. The first settlers of New-England, whose example has told so widely on the destinies of the American people, after constructing a few log-houses, for the accommodation of their families, generally proceeded to the erection of a church, and planted a school-house by its side. The cause of education has never been regarded with indifference by the people of the United States, and it is yearly taking a deeper hold of the public mind. The governors of the states recommend it in their annual speeches to the fostering care of the legislatures, as one of the most important public interests, and laws are frequently enacted for its protection and advancement. Means are in increasing operation to raise up a nation of intelligent freemen. There is no fear that the cause of education will become retrograde in the United States. The old states are laboring to supply their former deficiencies, and some of the first acts of sovereignty in the new states consist in legislating for the advancement of the interests of schools.

Every intelligent citizen of this republic cannot fail to be convinced of the excellency of the government under which he lives, and of feeling a deep interest in its stability and perpetuity. He will perceive how abundantly it secures to him the unmolested enjoyment of all his rights, and at how cheap a rate all this protection is afforded. However the great Johnson may scowl upon the sentiment of the equally great Milton, that 'the trappings of a monarchy are sufficient to set up an ordinary commonwealth,' many a man, under an oppressive monarchy, who has been taxed from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and from his cradle to his grave, has felt the full force of its truth and importance. Education, by enabling the American citizen to compare the excellencies of his own government with the defects of different governments, in other nations, and through all time, has a tendency to strengthen his love of country, and thus tyranny itself becomes auxiliary to the support of the American constitution.

One of the greatest dangers to which the government of the United States is exposed, is party spirit, which arms one portion of the community against another, and causes measures to be approved or disapproved, not from their intrinsic excellencies or defects, but from a blind devotion, or a virulent opposition, to those by whom they are supported. This is one of the evils incident to freedom. But party spirit can never put on its most appalling form among an intelligent people. However a few men, who are seeking for stations of honor and of profit, may pursue a course which has their own advancement only for its object, the mass of the people can have no interest which is separate from that of their country. And with intelligence to understand the true interests of the republic, and to judge correctly of public men and public measures, they will be proof against the arts of ambitious demagogues, and extensively free from party violence. They will cling to the constitution of their country, as the ark of their safety, and the charter of their hopes.

Education is not only moving onward in the United States, but it is also assuming a more promising aspect in other parts of the world. In Prussia, in Great Britain, in France, in Germany, and in some other European countries, it is advancing, and in some instances with surprising rapidity. That this advancement will be favorable to civil liberty, there can be no doubt. The most intelligent nations have always been the most free, and the most difficult to be enslaved. There is not a throne in Europe, but is based, to a greater or less extent, upon the ignorance of the people, and which will not totter and fall, or be greatly modified in its structure, by the general prevalence of education. Oppression and abuses will not abide the light. The multitude are too strong for their oppressors. They need only to understand their rights, in order to assert them, and they need only to assert, in order to maintain them. They now obey despotic rulers for the same reason that the inferior animals are subject to man, because they know not how to resist, or that resistance would be availing. Education will instruct them on both these points.