The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-02-10
Our System of Education.


4uo AOuuuotAOu VI al our eAGc6UOn0l IN
terests is the common school system. The
college and the normal school have each
their approprite work; but no system, in
dependent of the common school, can fur
nlsh to that system the great army of teach
ers necessary to its very existence. Not
Overcome in ten of the teachers in the COM
mon schools of any State in the Union, has
come from the college or normal school.
Then it may be assumed as correct, for
the purposes of this article, that nine-tenths
Of all the common-school teachers, in the
seventeen hundred districts of the State,
have been educated in the common school.
| This will continue, in time to come, to be
true of the schools of this State. Hence,
all the colleges and normal schools, that
have been or may be established, can never
meet this great demand OF the common
schools of the State.
To perfect this system of common
school instruction, bill has been intro
duced in the Legislature, "For organizing
and regulating Independent School Dis
tricts." The effect of this bill, if passed
into law, and adopted by populous dis
tricts, having the requisite number of in
habitants, will be to elevate the common
schools of the State, so as to meet this
great demand for teachers. The result of
this law, in short, will be to enable dis
tricts containing 500 inhabitants, to grade
their schools to any desired point of eleva-
ton, regulate certificates and salaries,
provide the required buildings, and to car
~ on the schools for such time in each
year, as the inhabitants may deem advisa-
BILE; and thus put the whole system upon
the high-road of self-elevation and perma-
nent growth.
These independent districts, fully inau-
gurated, would stimulate neighboring dis
tricts, now under the general law, not af-
footed by this bill, to more vigorous exer-
tons to equal, if not surpass, in efficiency
and utility the neighboring institution.
This noble and praiseworthy emulation
would soon result in the high School, in
all the principal villages and densely pop
ulated rural districts in the State, at which
both sexes, could, at home, secure an ed
vocational training fitting them to be teach
ers, or for any Of the necessary depart
ments of business, which this progressive
age might demand.
God has written upon human nature
certain organic laws which legislation can.
not safely ignore. The family relation, ON
the representative principle, is one of these
laws. The child then has, resulting from
this great law, certain inalienable rights,
that among these are the rights OF home,
the society of brothers and sisters, the
advice and control of parents, during the
years of minority. The child then, under
this law, has right to home education,
suited to bis capacity and the demands of
the State upon him, as one Of its constitu-
tional members 1t will be quite time
enough, when the child has passed through
the graded system Of home instruction,
and the requisite mental discipline, if still
prompted to higher attainments in intel
lectual culture, to seek higher institutions
of learning, to crafty his thirst for q more
liberal education. But experience has
demonstrated that not one in thousand
Of the graduates of high schools, ever seek
the halls of colleges. The common school,
therefore, eliminating in the high school,
is the great desire and the absolute demand
of the people Of every State. The college
and the normal school may furnish the
principal teacher for the high school, but
all else, in ninety mine cases out of hun
dred, the teachers of our youth are from
the common schools.
But some minds can more easily per-
ceive the benefits of the graded system of
free schools, by comparison drawn from
the principles of political economy. By
the division of labor, in this system, time
is saved. And time saved is capitpl accu-
mulated, and when accumulated may be
again added to productive industry. On
this principle of political science, we may
commend the graded system Of free schools
as greatly adding to mental capital and
material wealth by the saving of time.
On the old system, and now in use gen.
orally in this State, the child loses on an
average about eight years of time in pass
ing through the angraded schools to
which he is confined during his school age.
The aggregate time lost in this way IN the
State of Minnesota, in the life Of single
generation, would equal eight times S5, 900,
the number of pupils between the school
ages, as established by law. The number