Litchfield enquirer., 1832-02-02

at least. Suppose you pay but $l 50 pei week for board and the extra expense foI
 dress, travelling, &c. should amount to but
 90 cents per week the whole clear loss
 would be but $52. In this case tho tui-
 ton IS supposed to be the same at home
 and abroad. If two of you unite and ad-
 vance $1O4, you can with this sum pro- cure apparatus, books, &c. !; by means ot
 which, competent teacher will readily be induced to come among you. The whole district may have their children much bet ter educated at home, after this preparato- ry expense, than they would be if sent a. broad. Should there be any difficulty in obtaining competent teacher, few indi- viduals may unite, and send any common school-master, to be taught at the nearest school of the kind required. On his re- turn he would soon be able 10 repay the sums advanced for his instruction.
 Much caution is required in the employ ment of teacher, when the object is to improve the method of instruction. We have moro than hundred quack school masters to one quack doctor-especially of those modern standard raising"* schoolmasters. In selecting apparatus, good advice should be taken.
 hope the farmers of the Genessee River, will permit me to give them little unasked advice, in regard to the subject of learning most profitable for their sons and daughters. As this will depend much on the quantity of learning which the parent feels able to give. will set down those subjects, according to their degrees of im- portance.
 After the alphabet and four or five pa ges of spelling, just to learn the natural powers of letters, let them begin to read. Never purchase spelling book. You will consider your own time lost, while | confined to the unproli olitabls exercise of spelling, if you recollect you learned to spell by reading, not by spelling. Every child ought 10 read aloud full two hours in each day, as soon as he can begin to read at all.
 Next have your children taught to write as soon as possible-not in painted school boy hand, but in his natural way without ornament. If ho is to be copy writer, or a clerk, let him learn that kind of hand as he would learn the painters trade. Tho whole business of your sons and daughters at school. and when not at work at home, should be reading good au- thors, and copying some of their best sem tcnces, and composing essays, &c. until they can converse and write in good style, and with facility-then, and not before, they are prepared, for further advances.- But their reading should be judiciously di- rected-always intermixing the elegant with tue instructive, and the fanciful with the profound. Elegant composition and conversation give man or woman, more cs- pecially woman, an ascendency which can be attained to by no other qualifications Among their reading, let Geography and
 History constitute an important part.
 In early youth, before your children's
 bodily strength enables them to be very proftablesin tho field or kitchen, let then,
 learn the names and characters of natural
 bodies, from the mere dicta.ion of com.
 pe,ent teacher. To collect. preserve, ant label plants, at the ago of six and sever years, is an excellent and very hcal,hful a , muscment. It disciplines the mind l. , habits of attention, and stores it with use ful materials. Minerals should be collect cd, also; but the study of Geology is th best calculated to excite sublime emotions
 and elevate the heart above all unwortll,
 views.
 | will not tire your patience with de
 tailed account of my views of education
 But must be permitted to give my opin ions oil the subject of q winter course fo your sons and daughters, after they arrive at that knowledge of language (by the pro
 posed exercise in reading and writing,
 which shall enable them to understand sci entifc authors. Let warm room witt very high upper ceilings, and its floor nea level with the surface of the earth, b. provided. Let room be cut off from on end oft by ceiling, and two wide door meet on narrow middle post. This room should be accommodated with shelves, fo apparatus, specimens, &c. A stove s' . constructed that it might be used as fur mace occasionally, should be set up on very broad hearth in the room. This always to be locked, excepting when tn teacher is present. The outer part ma be used for day school, for town-house or for any other purpose. In this room , an evening course oflectures should be giv en every year, from the middle of Noyem
 ber to the middle of March. The subject . embraced in the course, should be Experi mental Chemistry, Natural Philosophy Technology, and Geology. Parents ougl : to attend with their children as much a
 possible. Four lectures in each week. i the proposed season of leisure anon | q A