ity, will become the burden and pests of society. Early instruction and fixed habits of industry, decency, and order, are the surest safeguards of virtuous conduct; and when parents are either unable or unwilling to bestow the necessary attention on the education of their children, it becomes the duty of the public, and of individuals, who have the power, FIG. 79. THE FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE BUILT BY THE FREE SCHOOL Built in 1809, in Tryon Row. Cost, without site, $13,000 to assist them in the discharge of this important obligation. It is in vain that laws are made for the punishment of crimes, or that good men attempt to stem the torrent of irreligion and vice, if the evil is not checked at its source; and the means of prevention, by the salutary discipline of early education, seasonably applied. It is certainly in the power of the opulent and charitable, by a timely and judicious interposition of their influence and aid, if not wholly to prevent, at least to diminish, the pernicious effects resulting from the neglected education of the children of the poor. Influenced by these considerations, and from a sense of the necessity of providing some remedy for an increasing and alarming evil, several individuals, actuated by similar motives, agree to form an association for the purpose of extending the means of education to such poor children as do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society. After meetings, numerously attended, a plan of association was framed, and a Memorial prepared and addressed to the legislature, soliciting an Act of Incorporation, the better to enable them to carry into effect their benevolent design. Such a law the Legislature, at their last session, was pleased to pass; and at a meeting of the Society, under the Act of Incorporation, on the sixth instant, thirteen Trustees were elected for the ensuing year. The particular plan of the school, and the rules for its discipline and management, will be made known previous to its commencement. Care will be exercised in the selection of teachers, and, besides the elements of learning usually taught in schools, strict attention will be bestowed on the morals of the children, and all suitable means be used to counteract the disadvantages resulting from the situation of their parents. It is proposed, also, to establish, on the first day of the week, a school, called a Sunday School, more particularly for such children as, from peculiar circumstances, are unable to attend on the other days of the week. In this, as in the Common School, it will be a primary object, without observing the peculiar forms of any religious Society, to inculcate the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures. This Society, as will appear from its name, interferes with no existing institution, since children already provided with the means of education, or attached to any other Society, will not come under its care. Humble gleaners in the wide field of benevolence, the members of this Association seek such objects only as are left by those who have gone before, or are fellow-laborers with them in the great work of charity. They, therefore, look with confidence for the encouragement and support of the affluent and charitable of every denomination of Christians; and when they consider that in no community is to be found a greater spirit of liberal and active benevolence than among the citizens of New York, they feel assured that adequate means for the prosecution of their plan will be easily obtained. In addition to the respectable list of original subscriptions, considerable funds will be requisite for the purchase or hire of a piece of ground, and the erection of a suitable building for the school, to pay the teachers, and to defray other charges incident to the establishment. To accomplish this design, and to place the Institution on a solid and respectable foundation, the Society depend on the voluntary bounty of those who may be charitably disposed to contribute their aid in the promotion of an object of great and universal concern. DE WITT CLINTON, President. New York, May (5th Month) 18. 1805. 312. Advantages of the Monitorial System (Report on Monitorial Instruction to the Boston School Committee, 1828) In 1828 the Boston School Committee (Board of Education) investigated the much-talked-of Lancastrian monitorial system, then in use in New York and other central cities, and the com mittee reported as below. The selection contrasts well the monitorial and the individual plans. The advantages of the monitorial system, in comparison with the old system, may briefly be thus stated. To the student it makes learning less irksome, by simplifying and facilitating his progress, it gives to instruction more interest, by alternation and variety of exercise, in which physical and intellectual action are combined; it keeps attention awake and interested, by permitting no moment of idleness or listlessness; its effects on the habits, character and intelligence of youth are highly beneficial; disposing their minds to industry, to readiness of attention, and to subordination thereby creating in early life a love of order, preparation for business, and acquaintance with the relative obligations and duties both of pupils and instructor. To the master also, it renders teaching less irksome and more interesting, giving an air of sprightliness and vivacity to his duties, exciting the principles of emulation among his scholars, aiding him by the number of assistants he can thus employ, and, by relieving him from the constant necessity of direct supervision of every individual, capacitates him to concentrate his mind and efforts on doings and objects of the most importance, difficulty, and responsibility. To all which it may be added, though a consideration less important yet not to be overlooked, that it is an immense saving both of time and money, in consequence of the far greater numbers which can be taught as well by this mode, as a smaller number can by the former. It will be sufficient under this head to state that in New York, masters, in three distinct schools, teach fifteen hundred and forty-seven boys, being an average of upwards of five hundred each. In our schools the same number of boys require seven schools and fifteen instructors. In New York a female teaches a school, on this principle, of four hundred. In our schools the average number to an instructress is fifty-six. The success and progressive advancement in those schools, is asserted by men deemed competent judges, to be not less than ours. 313. The Establishment of Primary Schools in Boston (Wightman, Jos. M., Annals of the Boston Primary School Committee, pp. 33-34. Boston, 1860) In Boston, as in a number of other cities, children were supposed to learn to read in private dame schools before being admitted to the public schools. This produced friction and agitation, and, in 1817, a petition was presented to the Selectmen of Boston asking for the establishment of public primary schools. The matter was considered in town meeting, and referred to the School Committee, which in time reported adversely on the question. This produced more agitation, many articles on the matter appeared in the newspapers, a new and larger petition was drawn up and presented, and, in 1818, the School Committee reversed itself and established the first primary schools in the city. The report of the Committee, to whom the second petition was referred, and who recommended action, is interesting for the light it throws on primary education in Boston and in the State at that time. It reads: The Committee appointed at the Town meeting on the 25th of May, to consider the subject of the petition of a number of the inhabitants, for the establishment by the town of schools for children under seven years of age, having attentively considered the same, ask leave respectfully to report. That, in their opinion, the opening for such schools for children under the age of seven years, is highly expedient and necessary; that several hundred children of that age do not attend any school, because the Charity-Schools are, in most instances, provided only for female children, being under the inspection of ladies, their founders; and the private schools are so expensive that many parents find it difficult to defray that expense; that the examination of the circumstances of the several parts of the town in this respect, made last July, presented a return by which it was found that two hundred and eighty-three, between the ages of four and seven years, did not attend any school; but from inquiry of some of the gentlemen who made the returns, the Committee are satisfied that many children of that age were omitted, their parents or guardians being unwilling to acknowledge that they were sent to no school. That the Committee, with greater confidence, recommend the adoption of such a course, because most of the towns in this Commonwealth provide schools for children four years old equally with others, and particularly is this adhered to in the large towns of Salem, Newburyport, and Portland; that the best mode of providing such schools, seems to them to be by the guidance and direction of three gentlemen from each ward, of sufficient activity, firmness, discretion and energy, to be nominated by the School Committee. 314. The Boston School System in 1823 (Selected from The System of Education pursued at the Free Schools in Boston, 56 pp. Boston, 1823) The following description of the primary schools of Boston, in 1823, gives a good picture of the type of elementary education provided in one of the leading American cities of the time. (a) The Primary Schools. The basis of free education in Boston is laid in the Primary Schools, kept by women the year round, for in structing, at the public expense, all children, of either sex, between four and seven years of age, who may be duly sent to them. . . . The object of these schools is to teach children to spell and read well, and thereby to prepare them so thoroughly for admission to the free reading and writing schools, which they are permitted to enter at seven, that the character and rank of these schools may be gradually raised, and thus the whole system of public instruction in the city improved from its foundations. Their number is so considerable, both because it is found that more than fifty or sixty children of this age cannot be well managed by one person, and because it is expedient to have such schools as near as possible to the homes of their pupils, who, at so tender an age, could not conveniently go far, under the most favorable circumstances, and would necessarily be prevented from attendance in bad weather. It is, in short, their object to bring the first rudiments of knowledge so near to the doors of those who need it, and make instruction in them so thorough, that all who are not determined to keep their children in ignorance, shall have no excuse for neglecting to begin the work of their education so soon and so well, as to have it afterwards successfully accomplished in the higher free schools of the city. . . . (b) The old Writing Schools. It has already been stated that the object of the primary schools is to qualify children for entering the English Grammar Schools, to which they are admissible at seven years of age. By the laws of the Commonwealth it is required, that "no youth shall be sent to such Grammar Schools, unless they shall have learned in some other school, or in some other way, to read the English language, by spelling the same." The laws likewise provide for the establishment of preparatory schools where grammar is not taught, but for many years, previous to the establishment of the primary schools, there were no public schools of this description in Boston, and children, without much regard to age or qualifications, were received into what should have been grammar schools. Writing, reading, and arithmetic were taught in one room, by the same master, who, being selected for his skill in writing, was usually incompetent to teach any thing else. Grammar was not attempted, and the only reading book was the Bible. No provision was made for the education of females at the public expense; although in the other towns no such distinction was made. At the close of the last century, an unusual interest was excited on the subject of education, and several important changes were effected in the schools; which, as no material alterations in the system have since taken place, will be understood by a description of the present state of the schools. (c) The reformed school plan. These schools are separated into two rooms, the upper being occupied for the reading, and the lower for the writing department, the two branches being kept entirely distinct. |