his countenance is expressive of kindness and good fellowship. As a speaker he is fluent, and commands the attention of his audience. The secret of his

success is to be ascribed to his self-reliance, and the deep sympathy which he feels for his fellow-men. The State of Illinois will again require his services.

THE

HE very title of this article is to many eyes offensive. What new or valuable can be said of so trite a subject? And how can education be American, or be limited by any local boundaries? Might we not as well talk of American sunlight, or American water, as of American science, or religion, or education.

But in spite of this prejudice, which will cause many a well-informed reader (in his own opinion), and many a shallow sensation-hunting reader (if such ever look at the WESTERN MONTHLY), to read this article as bills are often read before legislative bodies-by the title only; still, for the sake of every tenth man (including of course, as in Acts of Parliament, also women), intelligent enough to know that education in America, like almost everything else, is crude and in its formative stages, and crying out loudly for improvement, this article is written. Not to please but to arouse, not to flatter but to show what ought to be done, is its purpose.

First, a comprehensive, thorough and clear statement of facts on the subject is needed. But where shall we find it? Let a man surround himself with reports of State Superintendents, of Boards of Education, and other similar documents, by the score, and endeavor to reduce their statistical tables into system, and supply their deficiencies,

and evoke from them the exact information that he desires; and his sensations will soon be like those of a traveler in a forest on a dark day, with the points of compass provokingly perverse, and nature seemingly altogether out of joint. Who will answer us all of the following questions: How many children are there in any given State, and how many in the United States, respectively between the ages of five and ten, ten and fifteen, and fifteen and twenty, and how many persons between the ages of twenty and twenty-five? If the census tables answer these questions, how many of each class attend the public schools? How many attend other schools? How many males and how many females of each class are in these schools respectively? How many of these above the age of fifteen are in high schools, and how many in the lower schools, and how many in colleges or universities? Till these and some other questions are answered, we have not the exact ground facts to reason upon. We have, indeed, a national "Department of Education," and a bulky "Report of the Commissioner of Education, with Circulars and Documents accompanying the same, submitted to the Senate and House of Representatives June 2, 1868," and "Printed at Washington by the Government Printing Office"- an octavo vol

ume of nearly a thousand pages, which contains a great many reports of committees, and essays and addresses, and what pupils call "compositions," and quotations from authors eminent and not eminent, and the description of a few schools seemingly selected by chance; but such an exact and full statement of facts as it should be the prime purpose of such a commission to furnish, we look for in vain. If the people could have the facts, they might form their own conclusions, and write their own eulogies of education; but till the facts are gathered, much of the reasoning upon the subject resembles largely the disquisitions of the ancient philosophers, and the discussions of the medieval schoolmen, in indefiniteness and inconclusiveness, if not in acuteness and strength. Facts, however, gathered from other sources, justify the statement that not more than half of the children of the United States receive sufficient training in schools to exert any appreciable effect upon their character; that in many of our cities less than half of the children ever attend any school whatever; that in many of our country schools the education is almost incredibly rude and limited; that the larger proportion of our pupils are in those earlier years of life when too great confinement in the schoolroom is especially injurious to their physical, and consequently to their mental, development; that, as the children grow in years, a regularly increasing portion of them fall out of school, so that by the time they reach the age of fifteen, when the brain begins to be able to bear the pressure of continuous and earnest thought, and one year's schooling is worth ten before, only a small and rapidly diminishing proportion remain at school. Of these, many are in the sparsely settled districts where the schools are not graded, and the pupils attend but a few months in the year, together with the younger

children, under the instruction of the same teacher—often but little superior to themselves in acquirements, and never having had any broad and thorough normal training; and, therefore, these pupils really receive but a little general and imperfect information, such as, under the best circumstances, could be imparted in a few weeks. Of these older scholars, others, in our larger villages and cities, are below the high schools, either from a want of capacity to reach the high school or from irregular and limited attendence upon school before; and consequently now they are associated in classes with younger children, and have little or none of that special encouragement and instruction which they require. In our villages and cities a few from one-fourth to one-half-of the children above fifteen years of age, who have passed through the lower schools, enter the high schools. Of the rest, some still linger below, but the larger part have graduated into the street or workshop or home. The high schools educate but a minority of the children that attend the schools.

This truthful picture suggests some of the great practical problems which demand solution; and precisely here in the West, where bread is plentiful and time abundant, and the liberal provision made for public education is producing such marvelous results, these problems demand a practical solution. Some of them are: How can our older children and youth be retained longer in school? How can we combine the advantages of a systematic gradation of schools with the requisite attention to individual variances in ability and opportunity? How can we bring our rural schools to the highest standard? How can we reach the rapidly increasing masses of childhood and youth in our large cities, who are profited as little directly by our schools as though they lived in China or Turkey?

But we pass these inquiries by for another aspect of the subject. If the high schools have only a small proportion of the youth, what shall we say of those colleges and universities which, under various names, have been estab lished by our National and State gov ernments, and form a part of our public educational system? Evidently, they exert their direct influence only upon an inconsiderable numerical fraction of the public. Indeed, so small is the number of students in them, compared with the great body of youth, that a few inconsiderate destructives, who settle all questions on the principle of majorities, favor their abolishment. Some even carry this hostility so far as to recommend the abolishment of high schools. Why should they not, also, for consistency's sake, favor the abolishment of primary schools in all the many cities and other places where only a minority of the people avail themselves of their advantages?

The fathers of the Republic, and especially the fathers of these Western States, either were endowed with true prophetic vision, or "builded better than they knew," when they provided for a system of public education that should be absolutely unlimited from above. No proposition will probably command a heartier or more unanimous approval of well-informed men than that a limited system of schools is artificial and unnatural, and could not be permanently vigorous and successful.

As the most intelligent foes of human slavery were content, in the beginning, with drawing an impassable line around the "institution," knowing that limitation meant death, so we may be sure that, if public education is to be limited to any grade whatever, its existence will be precarious, and its development below the fixed grade will be imperfect. The theory that the higher institutions of learning are to be conducted on the private basis, and only

the lower ones on the public foundation, necessarily makes the higher education aristocratic, and therefore not American; and, from the want of homogeneity, introduces an occasion of discord that will be certain, sooner or later, to produce ruinous results.

Thence arises the deep interest now felt in the problems of higher education. It is a vital American question. What is it to be? The university question will yet command as much attention in America as in Great Britain; but the problems here are peculiar and original. Already we see a foreshadowing of this in able articles in our leading organs of thought, on such subjects as "The New Education." Science is claiming something more than a recognition. The broad expanse of thought in modern times must affect the schools. It is not enough to prove of any practice, that it is old. Society has never yet been in such a condition as to justify the conviction that anything whatever of the past was perfect or should be blindly imitated.

The new education should not be bigoted. It should recognize a total humanity, both in the individual and in the State. The well educated man is one, all of whose bodily organs and mental faculties are harmoniously developed. Every human being who has a healthy brain, well supported by other bodily energies, and well exercised, may claim to be well educated. This is humanity, judged from a physical standpoint, the body being regarded both as the instrument and mirror of the mind. It is sheer scholastic bigotry to deny that a strong, industrious man, capable of using a full brain-power profitably, is uneducated, simply because he can not use the dialect of the schools. A good sea-captain, an accomplished hunter, may be well educated.

The schools, recognizing this fact, and acknowledging a developed humanity, wherever found and however obtained,

should estimate the value of all educational machinery by the worth of its products.

Education, viewed from a mental standpoint, does not require that all scholars, beyond a certain fixed amount of elementary instruction, should acquire the same information or think the same thoughts or pass through the same curriculum. All men will probably acknowledge this general principle, but will differ in fixing the amount and character of the instruction indispensable to all. No man expects that accomplished financiers, lawyers, physicians, astronomers, military leaders, and philologists, and other varieties of well developed men, should have pursued the same studies, or even be capable of fully comprehending each other. All, however, should have a good knowledge of their mother tongue, and of mathematics and of logic, so far as they all have occasion to use these common instruments of thought.

The principle of unity of power with a great variety of manifestations, must be more recognized in the American higher education. The highest public schools or universities must be broad and liberal, not on the principle of condensing universal science into the artificial and contracted space of four years, but allowing a wide diversity of choice, according to the tastes and purposes and abilities of different men. Efforts, under all circumstances, are required to guard against superficiality, and to overcome the depraved preference of incompetent judges for the meretricious and showy rather than the substantial.

To supply the demand, we have in several places the beginnings of two different systems, each of which may claim some advantages, but one of which will probably, by experiment, be proved far the more efficient. One plan is to have separate institutions, each on a narrow basis, and confined to

specific departments-such as scientific schools, agricultural schools, and schools of engineering and the like. The other plan is to congregate as many of these as possible together, and, in fact, fuse them into one; to avoid the waste of talent by unnecessary repetition of work; to create the maximum amount of healthful rivalry, and to prevent the illiberality and self-conceit engendered by the separation of any particular class from the rest of the world, and especially from their equals, devoted to other pursuits. Which of these systems will gain the approval of unprejudiced and competent judges we can not doubt.

America is yet young, and the highest educational institutions are the last fruit to ripen in a nation. They are the heart of the State, where vital forces are to be gathered, and whence they are to go out again, purified to the extremities. They are the sensorium, whither are to be brought, by different nerves, all elements of intelligence, to flow out again systematized and instinct with

reason.

When America shall have on the same soil ten times the population and wealth of the present, and its institutions shall have had opportunity to attain their proper strength, we may hope to see results that have not yet even been dreamed of. There will be no one overpowering center of educa tion, but many centers; and in the West, where the power of tradition is weakest, and we may claim also the opportunities and means of healthful experimentation are the greatest, we have a right to expect the largest results. Let no worn-out machinery be adopted. Let nothing be done on the simple principle of imitation. Let what seems to be the most desirable end be sought in what seems the most promising method, and the largest success will be reached.

Mr. Froude, in a late address at Oxford, declaims earnestly against the

narrowness of English education, subjecting it to that severest of all teststhe character of its results. The clerical profession, educated in the schools, he thinks, are especially agitated about the color and fashion of "ecclesiastical petticoats," while the people are allowed to fall into habits of fraud without hearing a single sermon from "Thou shalt not steal!" As a remedy, Mr. Froude recommends that the clergy should still discipline themselves to sign the creed, even if they can not believe it according to the natural meaning of the words! With such advice, if they follow it, they will not be likely to preach very pointedly against lying, whatever may be their views of theft.

These English criticisms are most inapplicable to America. The advice of English educationists, as of their politicians, should be mostly interpreted, in this country, as dreams are said to be, by contraries.

There is no extraordinary attention paid here to Latin and Greek. There is little time wasted here on the impractical. We should, indeed, broaden our foundation and lengthen the time devoted to study, and elevate the character of our professions, and make our culture more thorough and liberal, and especially should we improve our higher public schools. But we ought not to be affected by English advice. We should study our own wants and supply them.

N St. Louis, lately, I met a gentle

INS

man I always love to meet, who told me he had been reading a book he thought I would like. I said I had heard of it, and intended to read it as soon as I could lay my hands on it. This soon came to pass; for that day he brought me his own copy, and told me to take it home; and so, in that pleasantest way a book can ever come, from the hands of a friend who loves it, and for that reason wants you to have it, the little work of which I want to speak in this article came into my possession.

And I want to speak of it, because it is one of the most remarkable things I have read for a long time. The result, apparently, of a very positive and painful experience-not the fruit of what a great writer calls the clairvoyant fac

ulty in novelists, but something a woman has to say, because this was what she first had to be. There is a marvelous reality in her story, as in the thoughts that are grouped about it; there is also a delicate intuition, rising into divination sometimes, that is full of beauty and surprise.

The author is the grand-daughter of an eminent teacher and preacher; the daughter, also, of one in the same profession; and so, by simply natural succession, she comes to her fine faculty, and was born for the pulpit, or for the office, in some form, of a teacher of religious truth. Hawthorne has said that the time will come when the woman will take this office of preacher and the man give it up; the nature of her mind fits her far better than the man