Year: 1866

trained in the best habits of thinking


furnished in the best styles of taste


and moulded in the best forms Of


morals, has entered sparingly into


our school discipline. Thorough,


close. exact study has been little


known in our common schools. The


most incompetent persons have been
employed to fill position scarcely
less sacred and responsible than that
of the Christian ministry. The time
of intellectual and moral budding and


Towering has been too much in the
hands of those who have stocked the
soil with weeds rather than with the
seeds of a sound growth and rich
fruitage. To teach children the con
tents of school books as mere object
i've facts, without analysis, without
classification, and with no reference to
mental training is the veriest show.
Yet this is the way the work has been
done: nor has it been possible to have
it otherwise, when a majority of the
pretended teachers have been below
the degree of common intelligence
Men and women fit by birth, by en-
dowment, and by education, for the
great work of the school room, have
found themselves held at so cheap a
price that the question of meat and
bread has compelled them to employ
their talents and accomplishments in
more lucrative fields, and thus
the schools have been kept in
the hands of mOuntebanks--
The only inquiry generally made
is the minimum cent for which teach
er can be had. II the individual has a
fair address and makes loud pretences,
and promises to teach great deal in
an astonishingly short time, he can get
the place. Let MS work upon sound
principles and we will have efficient
schools Thorough intellectual train
ing must be the fundamental thing
the sine qua non. To secure this,
teachers must themselves be thorough
ly competent, not simply by having
gone through a school-course so as to
have learned the titles of a certain list
of books, the subjects of which they
know as much of as they do of Kip
ler's laws or of Aristotle 5 dictum. To
remedy the evils of the present system,
if it may be called system, we might
have a convention Of the teachers of
the State, in which matters pertaining
to academic schools should come un-
der review, with view to the eleva-
ton of scholarship, the fixing of quail
tications for teachers, discussion of the
modes of instruction, and recommend
ing the best books for schools. Let
this convention be deliberative, not
executive; let it discuss and suggest,
not arraign and punish. 1t would be
legitimate, however,lfor it to exclude
from its membership all unfit teachers.
The discussions of such a body of
men would have good effect in bring
ing prominently before themselves and
before the people the great principles
upon which the process of true educa-
ton ought to be conducted; and also
in generatinga healthy public senti-
ment in respect to the whole subject.


But the people must also help in re
form. Let them encourage and sup
port none but good teachers-thOse
known to be well educated, sound in
morals, and in full sympathy with the
habits, manners and social institutions
of our people. Let the men and wo
men born and trained at home have
this work. Let these custodians of
our youth be paid well for their la
Dor, and be kept in their places for a
term of years, 50 that they may be able
to take several classes through an unin-
terrupted course of training. We
will thus get rid of bad teachers, bad
mean books, and the heavy
of buying a new set every six
months What we need is thorough
ness and system; for these we
must have concert of action.


W. T. S. SULLIVAN.


Woodville. Miss, July I'd. 1866.