Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1859-02-11
Educational.
OUGHT OUR ACADEMIES TO BE sUs-
TANNED.

class Of our young men. The common schools
taught the primary branches the Academies
taught the higher English, and the rudiments
of Latin and Greek and the Colleges receiv-
ed those who wished TO obtain liberal edu-
cation. For the last fifty years this has been
the programme. But is this arrangement es-
sentai.
Prof. Boardman, Of Middlebury College,
in his lecture before the Teachers Associa-
ton, at Bellows Falls. said, in substance,
THAT the Academies have clearly right to
those young men who are intending to fit for
College, This claim was based upon the
hypothesis that our Academies cannot be
well sustained without them 1t was assum-
ed that those Institutions were to be sustain
ed, or that our Colleges will presently be
wanting Of students. We dissent from this
whole scheme. In oldcn time clergymen used
TO receive young men into their families and
fit them for College. There was then no bet
ter way. The Academies were designed TO
relieve them Of that burden. The Academies
have done a noble work Besides fitting
many for College, they have educated a largo
and noble class of teachers, Of both sexes.
for the common school. The result is, that
ali our children equally need the advantages
of thorough Academical education.
In the days Of yore our fathers and moth
ers who proposed to enter the ordinary walks
of business life, found themselves on an equal
footing with their fellows. if they could avail
themselves Of the advantages Of the common
school. Those days are now past, and the
scene is now changed. Wise men clearly
foresee that whosoever are to be the business
men in the next quarter Of century will
need 20 possess a much more extended educa-
tion than the same class of men have been
able to obtain the past quarter Of a century.
They are, therefore, wisely extending the ad-
vantages Of their children, that they may be
ready to meet the exigcncies Of the coming
age.
But with the present grade of common
schools, the advantages needed cannot be OBJ
tanned there, and the cost of educating
whole family at a distant Boarding School or
Academy is utterly impracticabe What,
then, can be done Either a man must send
one of his sons to college, and content him
self with very limited common school edu-
cation for all the rest, or he must endeavor to
persuade his townsmen to grade their schools
and employ a teacher at home that can fit all
the scholars to enter college, or even conduct
them, when desirable, in some branches be-
| yond that point The major part of our
scholars in the Academy cannot be spared
from home long enough to acquire practi-
cal use of Algebra, and they never will ac-
quire it so long as it is only taught there
And yet it is high time that our mechanics
and tradesmen, and farmers even. were pre-
pared to transact their business mostly, if not
wholly, by Algebra. 1t is more brief, and
when as we'll understood as Arithmetic, is
vastly the most convenient; because, being
brief, it is less likely to admit of errors in
calculation. a glance of the eye instantly
detects any mistake in short process, where
as, in long one it might escape notice.
1t is time the mechanical powers, the
strength of materials, surveying, and civil en-
gineering, were better understood. These
are branches which should suppose every
taxpayer would be concerned to understand.
But they need to be taught in our Common
Schools before the masses can acquire them,
We also very much need something in the
line of History, Botany, Geology. Ornitholo-
/ gy, Entomology, If no more of the natural
sciences, together with some method of Log
ic, and Rhetoric, as the introduction to a fur
ther cultivation Of literature among the mass
es. Something in these branches might be
done for the present, by way of familiar lee
lures. But they must be introduced into the
Common School.
am aware that many who read these sug-
gestons will sneeringly call them Utopian
Schemes. But the day is not yet forgotten
when even the Common School, to educate
every child to read. was called Utopian. Let
me now ask in candor, does not every busi-
ness man, and every intelligent woman, need
1 tL II L
more will they be needed in an age to come,
when all the arts and sciences shall have been
carried, in the popular mind, to much great
er degree of perfection:
Now to answer the inquiry with which we
began, let me say that our Academies, which
have wrought so nobly for the passing age,
must be abandoned. They are too expensive
for the use of the masses, and yet they are
at best but poorly sustained. Then we need
the teachers now employed in them, and
scores of others, to take charge of our higher
graded schools. In every town we need
College graduate to conduct these graded
schools.
! was sorry to hear the remark of Prof.
Broadman, already referred to- l believe it
was blow in the wrong direction, although
it seemed to take like a charm among the
teachers of Academies and it has since been
endorsed in some Of their catalogues. If onr
graded school system were pushed on yigor-
ousl, by our College Professors and Teachers
of Academies and others Interested if we
can understand each other. and unite our eff
forts, we shall give employ to many more
teachers of the highest order and they will
receive better pay, because the demand will
far exceed the supply The demand does
now exceed the supply, and we cannot at pre-
sent adopt the scheme proposed, because adj
equato teachers are not to be found. The
profession of Teaching is destined soon to ex-
ceed all other professions, in honor, and in
huonce, and omouments. The legal profess
sion to some extent is sought as stepping
stone to office. The medical profession is
lucrative, because, cost what it mey, we must
be cured. But teachers do not strive in the
right direction to make their services NEcEs-
sARY. In the first place. our Colleges should
throw their influence abroad as far as possible
in their favor. Let our Presidents and Pro-
iessors deign to go out among the people and
lecture, and create a thirst among the people
for knowledge. In the age to come they will
receive their reward.
Secondly, the teachers should be abun-
dainty qualified for their work, and then seek
a place in the graded school that shall not