DON DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO...... CLASSICAL STUDY .Page 353 357 365 372 SOURCE OF TROUBLE IN SCHOOL... BOOK NOTICES. · - COURSE IN DESCRIPTIVE ASTRONOMY, 387; LESSONS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, 387; SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF EDUCATION, 388; GREAT OUTLINE OF GEOGRAPHY, 388; OUR STANDARD BEARER, 388; LIFE OF GEN. GRANT, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HON. MR. COLFAX, 388; DIKES AND DITCHES, 388; THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA, 388; WEBSTER'S DICTIONARIES, 389; FIRST PRINCIPLES OF POPULAR EDUCATION, ETC., 389; BULWER'S PROSE WORKS, 390; INVASION OF THE CRIMEA, 390; THE DOWER HOUSE, 390; CONCENTRIC CELESTIAL, AND TERRESTRIAL GLOBES, 390. TERMS, Payable in Advance. - Single numbers, 15 cents. Yearly subscriptions, $1.50. Five copies, $6.25; Ten copies, $12.00, and each additional copy $1.20. Back volumes, commencing with 1856, bound in cloth, $1.50. Back volumes, previous to 1856, bound in cloth, $5 00. Subscribers must give notice when they wish the Teacher discontinued. Subscriptions to the "Teacher" for 1888 are now due. Please remit by mail, and the receipt will be sent in next number. THE REPORTS OF THE MASS. BOARD OF EDUCATION, complete, uniformly bound in cloth, and in excellent condition. This set has been collected at great expense and trouble. Price $50. THE NATION. E. L. GODKIN, Publisher, New York. A Weekly Journal. Five dollars per annum. Our Subscribers, $4.00. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, devoted to Literature, Science, Art, and Politics. dollars per year. Our subscribers, $3.00. Four OUR YOUNG FOLKS: a Monthly, containing something in every juvenile department. Two dollars a year. Our Subscribers, $1.50. OUR BOYS AND GIRLS: a Weekly Magazine, edited by Oliver Optic, and the Teacher for $3.25. STUDENT AND SCHOOLMATE: a Monthly, devoted to pleasing Boys and Girls. One dollar and fify cents per year. Our Subscribers, $1.00. THE NURSERY: a genuine child's Magazine, richly illustrated. Monthly. By Fanny P. Seaverns. $1.50 a year. We will send it to our subscribers for $1.00. THE AMERICAN NATURALIST: the admirable Monthly of the Essex Institute, Salem. Adapted both to scientific and ordinary readers; it is neither below the one nor above the other. Three dollars a year. Our Subscribers, $2.50. PUTNAM'S MAGAZINE (price $4.00) and Teacher, for $4.50. BARNARD'S JOURNAL OF EDUCATION (price $4.00) and Teacher, for $4.50. Subscribers wishing to take any of the above Journals can order them of us at the reduced prices. Address letters relating to Subscriptions or Publishing to D. W. JONES, Roxbury, Mass. Address Editorial communications - Editors of Massachusetts Teacher, Boston. RATES OF ADVERTISING. 2,000 ems are reckoned one page. One page, one insertion, $7.00; One Page, six months, $36.00; One Page, one year, $72.00; Cover Pages, 50 per cent extra; First and Last Pages of Advertising Sheet, 50 per cent extra; extra ems, 75 per 1,000 ems. All communications relating to advertising must be sent before the 15th of the month preceding that of its insertion, and should be directed to JOHN P. PAYSON, Chelsea, Mass. THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER. OCTOBER, 1868. Vol. XXI. D. B. HAGAR, J. KNEELAND, G. B. PUTNAM, Editors. No. 10. DON DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO. DON Domingo F. Sarmiento was born in 1811, at San Juan, the capital of the province of that name, lying on the eastern skirts of the Andes. He was descended from two distinguished families, the Sarmientos and the Albarracines. The latter sprang from a Saracen chief, Al Ben Razin, who founded a family in the twelfth century, in the interior of Algiers. Although from an ancient and wealthy Spanish ancestry, both his parents were extremely poor. His father, Don José Clementé Sarmiento, was a workman upon a farm or, at times, a mule driver in the carrier-trains. His hatred for manual labor and the want of a persistent plan of action placed the maintenance of the family upon the shoulders of his mother, whose busy shuttle in the little dwelling, or under the fig-tree which shadowed it, scantily provided for the necessities of those dependent upon her. At the age of five years, young Domingo, who could already read fluently, was placed in school, where he remained nine years without having been absent a single day. His mother, a devotedly religious woman, desired to see her son a clergyman and the curate of San Juan, while his father, who had been for a little while an officer of militia, presented to his youthful imagination decorations of gold lace and military preferment. Moved by these contradictory influences, he spent a portion of his leisure hours in beatific contemplation of mud saints, and a portion in directing the hostilities between two files of bedaubed and shapeless puppet soldiers. Three years of his boyhood were spent with a clergyman, Don José de Oro, a cousin of his mother, in the mountainous region of San Luis, where he studied Latin, History, and the Polity of Governments, and was influenced by the keen and vigorous intellect and generous views of his teacher. In 1825 he entered a commercial house as a clerk or apprentice. He had no liking for this new employment, and when not engaged in measuring chintz, or selling herbs or sugar, he was busy with his books, studying the histories of Greece and Rome, and reading the Lives of Cicero and Franklin, Paley's "Natural Theology" and "Evidences of Christianity," "The True Idea of the Holy See," and the Bible. In 1827, at the age of sixteen, for refusing to obey an order to close his shop and mount guard, he was cast into prison by order of the Governor of San Juan; but, with spirit unsubdued, he was soon set at liberty, and entered heartily into the party questions which divided the republic, siding with the Unitario and against the Federal party. When a civil war had fairly commenced he left his little shop in charge of an aunt, and enlisted with the troops which had risen in insurrection. After a short campaign his party was defeated, and he fled to Mendoza. After escaping many perils he was taken prisoner and carried to San Juan, where he was ransomed, thereby escaping death at the hands of the executioner. Finding the ty ranny there too great to be endured, he emigrated to Chili, where he first kept school in Los Andes, then was a shopkeeper in Pocuro, afterwards a commercial clerk in Valparaiso, then majordomo of the mines in Copiapo. While at Valparaiso he paid half of his small salary to a Professor of English for instruction, and rose at two o'clock in the morning to engage in the study of that language. While major-domo he sometimes translated a volume a day of Sir Walter Scott's works. His knowledge of philosophical, political, moral and religious subjects was a source of astonishment to the major-domos, foremen and laborers of the mines, as well as to strangers, who were amazed at the intelligence of the little learned miner. In 1836 he returned from his exile to San Juan, sick, destitute and almost friendless, but soon forming the acquaintance of the leading men he engaged with them in efforts to cultivate and improve the minds and manners of the young men and women of the province. About this time he founded a periodical called La Fonda, which promised to become of incalculable benefit, but the Governor, fearing the influence of anything tending to the enlightenment of public opinion, suppressed the paper and threw its editor into prison Although soon released, his situation became more and more thorny every day, and he was finally arrested, and again thrown into prison, where attempts to assassinate him proved well nigh successful, for he was covered with wounds and would have been killed outright had not the cowardice of the tyrant Benavides led him to call off his blood-thirsty subordinates. The next day he was driven into exile, and again entered Chili, where he soon began to wield his vigorous pen. By request he took the editorship of the Mercurio, and also founded and edited the Nacional in Santiago. In 1841 after an electoral campaign which secured the triumph of his candidate, he relinquished the editorship of his two papers to return to fight the battles of his distracted country. With three compatriots he started on foot to cross the Andes, and after the fearful passage of the mountain summits was effected, and he was descending the eastern slopes, he saw the soldiers whom he had hoped to aid in fight, now routed and seeking the shelter of the mountains. He instantly retraced his steps, recrossed the lofty heights, estab lished himself at Los Andes, the first town upon the other side, and so applied himself that in three days food, medicines, physicians, etc., for a thousand men were on their way to save the refugees. Col. Sarmiento was thus thrown back upon Chili, and soon resumed the editorship of the Mercurio. Every interest o society received his attention. He endeavored to organize pri mary instruction, proposed a popular tax for education, banished improper text-books from the schools and founded a large periodical entitled Monitor for Schools. At this period, 1842, he founded the first Normal School opened on this side the Atlantic, and for three years directed it in person with marked success. In 1843 he founded and edited the El Progreso at Santiago. He also edited the Argentine Herald in behalf of his unfortunate countrymen, and wrote several works of a biographical nature. His boldness excited jealousy, hatred and prejudice among many of the Chilians who persisted in calling him a foreigner. In 1847 he started upon a visit to Europe, Algiers and America. Wherever he went he saw and conversed with the most eminent men of the nation. He studied legislation and systems of education, and embodied his observations abroad in a noble work on Popular Education. In America he became acquainted with the Common School System of Massachusetts, and afterwards introduced it into Chili. Returning there, he resumed his labors as author and editor, bringing thus into immediate use, for the benefit of its people, the best fruits of his observation and experience in foreign lands. He visited Rio Janeiro and spent several weeks in close intimamacy with the Emperor, who had read and admired his works. His native Republic now sought his valuable services and tendered him several important offices of trust, all of which he declined, but he finally took up his residence in Buenos Ayres as a private citizen. He soon accepted the Directorship of the Department of Schools, and after most persevering efforts succeeded in procuring the erection of a splendid building with the most approved apparatus and appliances, at a cost of about $127,000. Having been elected Senator and afterwards Governor, he secured public lands worth a million of dollars for the erection of school buildings, and induced many of the best men in the city to take the supervision of the schools which were thereby established. The Annals of Education, which he now edited, was the means of disseminating information and arousing the interest of the people in their behalf. |