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Aucusr 21, 1824 —JuLy 2, I9II

THe NEW METHOD. OF
EDUCATION

WITH ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES, EXTRACTS FROM
SCHOOL DOCUMENTS, AND A CATALOGUE
OF THE NORMAL HIGH SCHOOL

By WILLIAM L. WHIT’TEMORE

With MMemortal Address

THE TUFTS COLLEGE PRESS
Igil

Copyright, 1911

THE TUFTS COLLEGE PRESS

SChaAsv9v80

I OFFER THIS TRIBUTE OF GRATITUDE
TO THE MEMORY OF
LOUIS AGASSIZ
MY FIRST TEACHER IN THE ORDER

OF NATURE

PUBLISHERS, NOTE

The late Professor Alpheus Hyatt and others
urged Mr. Whittemore to describe his school-room
methods and put them into permanent form. With
this desire of his friends in mind, he preserved much
written work of many children, and several years
ago published in the columns of a local paper the
school exercises which, with some changes and
additions, now appear as ‘“‘ Illustrative Examples.’
He published the ‘‘ Historical Sketch’’ in the same
weekly newspaper, and in 1908 began to reprint these
articles, together with certain school documents,
under the title of ‘‘ The New Method of Education.’’

While this part of the book was in process he was
at work upon ‘‘General Principles’’ which he did

not live to complete.

OCTOBER IQII.

MODRESS IN MEMORY OF
WILLIAM LEWIS WHITTEMORE
fa THE PUNERAL SERVIGE
IN THE UNITARIAN CHURCH
Peer oRD. oN. Eh JULY 5.) 111
Pm ek L BERT -E. PILLSBURY

MEMORIAL ADDRESS

If this is a departure from the usual forms, it is
an unusual occasion. William Lewis Whittemore,
who disappears from this community with which he
has been identified for upward of half a century, was
a remarkable character. There is no other like him
in the history of the town. He survived the genera-
tion that first knew him here, and dwelt for the space
of another generation among those who knew him
little or not at all. Perhaps he was always best
known and beloved among his own pupils. At the
desire of some of them who would lay their wreath of
remembrance upon his grave, I attempt to speak of
him to-day as they knew him.

About three score and ten years ago he came out
of the Lyndeborough woods an untutored country lad,
endowed by nature with a clairvoyant eye for science
and a divine gift of instruction. Few teachers of
pronounced genius have appeared in this country, or
perhaps in any other. The genius of this man for
teaching was as native and certain as the genius of
Whittier for song or Powers for sculpture. It was
recognized at sight by the greatest teacher, borrowed
from Europe, this country ever knew, and the en-
couragement of Agassiz helped to fix him upon the
vocation to which he was unmistakably called.

VIII MEMORIAL ADDRESS

For his own education he seems to have selected
teachers rather than schools. Among them he always
spoke of William Russell with particular respect, but
the most notable part of his training was at the
Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University,
under the personal direction of Agassiz and Hors-
ford. ‘They were so quick to see his merits that they
opened to him not only the facilities of the school,
but their private laboratories, with their personal
assistance and intimacy. He studied the sciences
with them, and the science of teaching, before
it had occurred to people in general that there is
such a science. Drinking at this spring, his thirst
for a knowledge of scientific education was only stim-
ulated. It became the object of his life, and he went
abroad twenty years later for extended study of the
educational systems of Europe.

He first tried his hand as a teacher in the district
schools of his own and neighboring towns, and after
some years of this apprenticeship he came to Milford
in 1855 and took charge of the high school. It was
soon after the erection of the School street building,
now discredited as the ‘‘old brick,’’ but then the
wonder of the town. For the next dozen’ years
Milford had, under his tuition, probably the best high
school in New Hampshire, and if there has been a
better anywhere I have never seen or heard of it.

WILLIAM LEWIS WHITTEMORE IX

There are no more competent judges of the merit of
the school than the hundreds of his old pupils. They
have had half a century, more or less, to prove what
it did for them, and they are of one accord that he
was the ideal teacher. He was a deep student of
nature, especially of natural history and geology to
which his tastes inclined, but equally adept and
skilful in all branches of instruction. Of his views’
of scientific education I say nothing, as he has be-
queathed them to the public in his own words. It is
my purpose only to speak of him as we saw him.

His methods in the school were a revelation then,
and I suspect that in most schools they would be a
revelation now. They were masterly, but never
school-masterly. There was no cramming, no mem-
orizing, no teaching or learning of anything by rote
or rule of thumb. The school was a place for the |
development of the mind. Every pupil had to do his
own thinking and give his own reasons. It was of no
use to know a fact unless the whole meaning of the
fact was known. It was of no use to work out a
problem unless every step in the process, every why
and wherefore, could be explained. What is the
longest river ? The Mississippi. But we could not
leave the Mississippi until we knew all about it, its
discovery, its traditions, its commerce, its part in the
history of the country. What is a straight line?

x: MEMORIAL ADDRESS

The shortest distance between two points. In
another school this would be the end of it, but on
that straight line he would lay open the whole science
of geometry. For text-books he had little respect,
and they played but a minor part in his system. He
taught from nature, from the fields, the woods, rocks,
and streams, the home, the shop, the street, the daily
newspaper, from which he used to read and draw us
into discussion upon it. I remember that he took
occasion of a thunder-shower one afternoon to tell us
more about electricity than I have ever learned since
in an age of electrical science. He wasa master of
the neglected art of reading, for which he had every
qualification, a rich and resonant voice, perfect utter-
ance, and a soul in tune with the highest themes, and
he rarely selected any other. He made the scripture
reading with which he used to open the school the most
impressive religious service I ever saw. It was usu-
ally from the Old Testament, and to hear the tones
of majesty in which he would deliver the Ninetieth
Psalm or other favorites was like sitting at the feet of
David.

Perhaps his example was not less striking or fruit-
ful than his precept. And of this let me say first, in
view of the cigarette and cocktail type of school-mas-
ter which has succeeded him, that there was nothing
in his example that could not profitably be followed.

WILLIAM LEWIS WHITTEMORE XI

He had none of the fashionable vices that are now
thought proper to be sown broadcast by the heads of
schools and colleges. Raised a country boy in a
backwoods town, little if ever in contact with polished
society which did not attract him, he had the man-
ner and the manners, no less than the morals, of a
born gentleman, in the only proper sense of that
much-perverted term. Native dignity, without a
a sign or suggestion of the pompous or pretentious,
was apartof him. Even the clothes he wore seemed
to be a part of him, and it was an attire rarely seen
in a country village then, or anywhere now. None
who saw him in his prime will ever forget him.
Would that I could sketch the picture as well as I
remember it. Tall, lithe, straight as an arrow, quick
of step and movement, a stately head, with piercing
eyes and coal-black flowing hair and beard, he
dressed habitually in faultless silk hat, black frock-
coat, silk or velvet waistcoat, grey trousers and
patent-leather shoes. These things appear out of
place on some men. It did not seem as though Mr.
Whittemore could wear anything else. He was the
portrait of a gentleman, a figure at which people
would have turned to look in the streets of any city
in the world.

Like most original thinkers, he was in advance of
his time. The people could not follow so fast as he

XII MEMORIAL ADDRESS

would lead. Dissensions arose about the school. He
was stigmatized as a theorist. There were people
who would have called him a crank, if that term had
been invented. Some of his innovations were so rad-
ical as to attract sharp if ignorantcriticism. Finally,
various petty discontents were brought together in
a movement against him, hardly more creditable
in form than in purpose, that resulted in forcing
him from the school. Master of his own art, he
could not encounter the town-meeting champions, and
when the school was dragged into the pit of town
politics, he retired from an ungrateful contest in
which he would have esteemed victory no better than
defeat.

He met the new situation by opening in Milford a
private normal school. It was popular and success-
ful, but after a few years he abandoned it to his de-
sire for travel and study in Europe. Returning home
after a year’s absence, he was called to the charge of
various schools and science classes, principally in
Boston, and after many years in that field of service
he retired from active work some twenty years ago
or more, to spend the remainder of his days in this
village.

He was never taken at his true value, here or else-
where. The world never found him out. Doctor of

Science by higher authority than the universities, no

WILLIAM LEWIS WHITTEMORE XIII

college ever claimed his service, or gave him its degree.
He was left to comparative obscurity, and his buried
talents largely went to waste. It was not wholly the
fault of those about him. To those who knew him well
there was no more kindly or companionable man or
‘interesting character, but he was by nature and tem-
perament shy and retiring if not reserved. He was
too modest for self-assertion, and perhaps too sensitive
for successful contact with the world. His tastes
were the tastes of the scholar, for study, which leads
to seclusion, and in his advancing age the hermit
habit grew upon him until his life became almost sol-
itary. He was never a ‘‘ mixer,’’ much less a ‘‘ hus-
tler’’; indeed in his time these valued products of
our own day had not appeared. He always felt the
duty of service, but he never would put himself for-
ward. He eould easily have been drawn into the
public activities for which he had such superior gifts.
He had only to be asked, and he was not asked.
With an unsurpassed knowledge of schools and edu-
cational systems, he was but once, I believe, made a
member of the school committee. Familiar with
books, and thoroughly understanding the educational
and other uses of the public library, he was never
placed upon the library board. A few years ago he
made the town a generous offer of contribution to a

street improvement near his premises, for which there

XIV MEMORIAL ADDRESS

was a crying need. Inreturn for his public spirit,
the town gave him denial and detraction. He bore
it in silence and without complaint, but it worked
deeply upon his feelings and I do not think he ever
recovered from it. Thus did his neighbors and
townspeople deal with a man who would have
adorned a chair in any college or brought distinction
to any community that knew how to utilize him. It
is not agreeable to recall these things, but we speak
of the dead only for the benefit of the living. Neglect
and injustice can hurt him no more. The measure
of the public loss will never be taken, but the example
stands, for instruction if not for reproof.

Of Mr. Whittemore’s religious views I speak with
difidence, but it is customary, and he would have
nothing kept back. I suppose that we have all
observed a tendency in the clergy, if my friend
beside me here will pardon the remark, to
make the departed a devout Christian who perhaps
was never under suspicion of piety by his nearest
friends. It may be a harmless hypocrisy, but stand-
ing by the body of our old friend I would make no
professions for him dead that he did not make for
himself living. He was not what would commonly
be accounted a religious man. If he ever was con-
nected with any church, he had no active or visible

connection with any in his later years. I think that

WILLIAM LEWIS WHITTEMORE XV

all churches and creeds were much alike to him, and
I am sure that he had little respect for professions,
and none for pretences, of piety. He rarely talked
of religion, and I take the absence of lip-service as
one evidence, at least, that he had a religious nature.
He was a reader of the Bible. He must have felt in
his soul the solemn majesty and authority of some of
the Hebrew scriptures, and I believe that he accepted
the precepts of the New Testament as a perfect moral
code for a regenerated world, and tried to make them
the guide of his life. He did what the prophet says
the Lord required of him, to do justly, love mercy
and walk humbly and without guile before God and
man. Perhaps his view of outward religion is ex-
pressed by the familiar lines in which Pope gave the
world a creed to which increasing numbers adhere:

‘‘For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ;

His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”’

I cannot take leave of my old preceptor without
acknowledging my great debt to him. With later
experience of two academies, and a college, I can
truly say that all I ever learned in schools and was
able to keep, or found worth keeping, was learned
from him. I see here to-day as many, perhaps, of
his old flock as are likely to meet again in this world,
and it cannot be unwelcome to them if I express what
must be the common feeling, a sense of grateful and

XVI MEMORIAL ADDRESS

affectionate obligation for the lasting benefits received
at his hand. He did not try to educate us. He did
better. With deeper insight, he taught us to use
our own faculties in educating ourselves, the begin-
ning and the end of real education, and if we have
not profited by the lesson it is no fault of the master.

It is the good fortune of the teacher that the stuff
in which he works is not of clay, but imperishable.
His material is the human mind, the youthful mind,
plastic and sensitive, ‘‘ wax to receive and marble to
retain.’’? Every pupil becomes a new center of his
influence, taking up his work, perhaps unconsciously,
and carrying it out to a wider circle and on to a new
age. His harvest is reaped only to be resown and
gathered an hundred fold. Such was the happy lot of
our old mentor and friend to whom we now bid fare-
well. So shall he live again, long after his body
has mingled with its native dust, as the seed of his
sowing blossoms anew and bears fruit in regions
which his foot never trod, for those who never heard

the sound of his name.

CONTENTS

MemoriaL ApprEss

INTRODUCTION

PART I

GENERAL PrincipLes anD HisroricaL SKETCH .

PART II

ILLusTRaTIVE EXaMPLeEs

PARE I

ScHoot Reports

PAGE
V—XVI

XIX—XXII

1-36

I—1I0O0

INTRODUCTION

VOTE UU Cr Grae
. i A, Oe ree

INE RODUCTION

In 1852 the author was a student in Harvard
College, and while working under the direction of
Professor Louis Agassiz he became interested in the
‘*new’’ or scientific method of education. From that
time, during nearly forty years, he labored as student
and teacher to understand that method better, and to
put it into practice in the school room.

The purpose of this book is to state in brief what
the author believes to be the principles of the new
method of education and to give some idea by exam-
ples as to how those principles were applied in his
own school.

The last one hundred pages of the book consist of
school documents which have been reprinted in order
to show through what difficulties the new method
of education has been obliged to force its way to
the small measure of success it has achieved in our
public schools.

People are satisfied with the old ways long after
better ways have been discovered and demonstrated,
not only in the domain of education, but in every field
where progress is possible. As an illustration, the
story of the locomotive may be told in a few words.

About the middle of the seventeenth century several

men from European Universities and Scientific Soci-

XXII INTRODUCTION

eties combined their efforts to utilize the invention of
Hero, made eighteen hundred years before. As Hero
could turn a wheel rapidly by steam-power, these
men believed that by study and experiment. steam
could be made to move a system of wheels and
machinery and accomplish work. Their success
was sufficient to encourage others to take up
the work in the eighteenth century, among them
James Watt, whose great genius and persistent work
for many years gave to the world the modern steam-
engine which is to-day doing the work of millions of
men.

In the early part of the last century another great
genius, George Stephenson of England, added to the
work of Watt, and in thirty years of wonderful suc-
cess, the engine became a powerful locomotive, moving
trains of cars from city to city. People who wished
to travel could sit comfortably as in any house
and travel further in one hour than they had ever
been able to go in a long, tedious day. But there
was only one in ten thousand who wanted any help
from Stephenson. He was hindered in every way and
derided by the best people of England for years
after he had proved to himself that the power for

a locomotive was in his engine.

fg i
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
ENISTORICAL SKETCH

GeV RALAPRENC TPLERS

There are two, and only two, methods of education
in the world — the scientific method and the literary
method. All variations are easily classified in one or
the other of these two methods. The basis of the
scientific method, often called the new education, is
all nature and all art. The basis of the literary
method is books. Books constitute a very important
branch Of art ; hence books are included for all they
are worth, in the scientific method. But wherever
books are made the basis of education, civilization
remains nearly stationary. This has been the condi-
tion of China for centuries, and of South America
from the earliest European settlements. Books can
never yield that kind of knowledge which has trans-
formed European and American civilization during
the last two hundred years.

How did this broad wave of mental force which has
given us all modern civilization, originate? What
are the principles on which it depends, and what are
the laws of its progress?

The men who accomplished this work prepared
themselves for it by reading a volume ever open to
us all, a book in which the letters are suns and
worlds, the forces which build the elements into living

forms, and all the varied phenomena of nature. They

4 THE NEW METHOD

were such men as Newton, Morse and Watt, and they
worked mainly according to the method of the
Arabian schools of the seventh to the tenth centuries.

The principles of this method, the scientific method,
are few and simple, and so in harmony with the laws of
human development, that the youngest child in our
schools is delighted in their daily use, and ascends
the hill of science and sound learning without weari-
ness, finding every lesson as interesting and health-
ful as play itself. In accord with these principles
the human race has made all its progress.

In the following six or eight pages the attempt is
made to suggest in a few instances the application of
these principles to the mental development of the child
and to the development of the race from barbarism.

The objects which are the most essential to our
well-being are those which are the most interesting :
the rising and setting sun, the revolving stars and
planets, a million species of living things, plant and
animal, gems innumerable ‘‘of purest ray serene.’’
These objects all remind us that we inhabit a
world of cause and effect — a world in which eternal
and‘unchanging laws encircle us, and reign supreme.
Since we live in a realm of law, how shall we study
and comprehend it?

We must go down into principles — into nature,

and proceed at every step in accordance with the

a Sees

OF EDUCATION 5

nature of the child. Through the years between in-
fancy and the school age, the child shows us in a de-
cided way the direction in which nature impels him
and guides his activities, and hence, the direction in
which we ought to help him to go. To the child, the
sky, the great blue dome which bends over the land-
scape, is a real canopy directly over his playgrounds.
Here he is delighted all day long in every object of
sense —in every novelty of sound, color and form, in
every bird, beast and insect, in the beautiful forms
and colors of plants and flowers, inthe moving clouds ;
and even the solid earth and sand and pebbles he
treads upon —all are objects of interest, objects of
study, and of wonder. Here in the realities of the
world, so near at hand, are the perfect lessons for
intellectual and moral culture, infinite in number and
variety, created and perpetually renewed by Infinite
Wisdom, for infinite good.

Something of every science and art should be
learned by children as soon as they can put it to use.
This is the best, if not the only way of making facts
permanent and always available. It is the child’s
nature to observe, and as soon as he can talk he wants
to tell every detail of his observation and experience.
This oral report seems to be an essential part of his
life. He continually brings the words he has learned
into use, and this gives him complete success in ex-

6 THE NEW METHOD

pressing his ideas in words. In school the child must
soon begin to widen and improve his method by
recording the results of observation in writing and
drawing. ‘This very soon interests him even more
than his oral method, which will still be useful
to him.

All nature is a unit, and the science of nature is
only one science. The division of science into a
dozen branches is right in the advanced stages of
education, but in primary and grammar schools it is
absurd, and fatal to progress. In all grades below
the high school all studies are to be correlated, and
learned as one subject. Children are always in-
terested in this work, and they make easy and rapid
progress inthe arts of reading, spelling, writing, com-
position, punctution, drawing, and use of capitals,
as well as in every branch of science.

Whatever a child learns in school should be
organized for his immediate use. Each lesson must
involve principles which can be used, and will be used
in the child’s free activities, in school and out of
school. So far as it goes a child’s education must
always be complete. From the beginning it must be
a little system of philosophy for the child’s use: and
it must be so pleasing and attractive to him, that
he will always want to extend and widen it. The

government of such a school is very easy ; for children

OF EDUCATION 7

do not get out of order when their work is more
interesting than play.

The basis of a child’s education must be his own
observation, and not the observation of another who
has written a book or a reading lesson for him. He
wants original ideas, not second-hand ideas. He
is not satisfied with the shadows of ideas which come
through words. By oral instruction and reading he
may derive interesting and useful information, but
information is not education, it is not inteliectual
power, without which all education is radically de-
fective. True education comes mainly through the
inductive method. Every child, in the freedom of
nature, intuitively educates himself in this method.
He correlates and organizes impressions of all kinds
through all the years preceding the school age, and
he enters school with his education well begun. He
has learned something of every branch of science,
and at the same time has learned a language more
thoroughly and in less time than the schools have
yet been able to teach one. He has learned more of
his environment than he will ever learn in school in
the same length of time. The reason for his wonder-
ful advance in education in these years of early child-
hood, is because his method has been natural instead
of artificial.

Allthe great branches of learning should be intro-

8 THE NEW METHOD

duced during the first week of school, not by separate
lessons in each, but all combined in nature study.
As all parts of the world are interwoven with each
other, so are all branches of science intimately con-
nected, and must be presented to the child as a single
subject. Thetime for children to learn the spelling,
meaning, and use of words is when they have occa-
sion to use them to express their own original ideas.
The same may be said of grammar, arithmetic, and
all other branches to be studied before the age of
twelve. True education from the first isa many-sided
unit, and each side is kept bright by constant use.

Among the popular criticisms upon our schools,
there have been complaints of too many branches of
study ; but really there is but one subject in the true
method. It is natural for children to play; but in
play they do many different things in a single game.
They use the sense of sight, the sense of hearing;
they walk, run, jump, talk, laugh and sing. Chil-
dren’s play is made up of many parts, just as a lesson
in school has, or ought to have, many parts or kinds
of activity.

In the true methods of school work, the teacher
must observe the law of nature or his work will be a
failure. He must do nothing for the child that the
child can do for himself. General information may
be derived from books and oral instruction, but these

OF EDUCATION 9

can never give intellectual and moral power, which
are the essential elements of true education. Until
the child educates himself by his own efforts, wisely
guided by the teacher, he will be very poorly educated.

The study of nature in our schools awakens the
child into intellectual life, and establishes in him the
love of the beautiful, the true and the good. It en-
ables the teacher to organize all branches of study
into one symmetrical science, in which each branch
helps to give meaning and interest to all the others.
It converts the unnatural and wearing drudgery of
the school room into the most delightful and health-
ful work both for the teacher and the pupils. It
gives us health and strength by alluring us into the
pure air and varied scenery of the open landscape,
for the observation of natural objects and phenomena,
and the collection of material for study.

The study of nature enlivens the imagination and
awakens the latent energies of the child,— adds
strength to his body, variety, activity and vigor to
his mind. Besides saving the child from artificial
stupidity so commonly produced by the arbitrary
methods of the old education, it enables him to learn
more in reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling in
one week, than he can learn in a month in the
common method.

In our search for true methods in education we

IO THE NEW METHOD

find perfect models in nature’s method of educating
the human race in its first steps in civilization. Na-
ture does absolutely nothing for man that he can
possibly do for himself; but the infinite sources of
light and truth, with all their beauties and harmonies,
are ever all about him, to educate him, to elevate his
thoughts and help him to attain to wisdom.

There was a time when our ancestors saw nothing
around them but wild nature. There was no art.
There were no tools of any kind to assist the savage
in making a beginning in art. He had within him
the germ of all art —the erm, of all science; but
without the stimulus of environment that germ could
no more expand and raise him out of his savage
state, than the acorn can become the stately oak
without the light and heat of the sun.

The awakening of man’s dormant faculties into ac-
tivity is and always has been the one condition of his
improvement. Nature’s laboratories were in full
operation preparing for the coming of man long ages
before his advent. Although-the primitive man
was ignorant of everything over head, around him,
and under foot, the crust of the earth was a great
storehouse of perfect material for the architect, the
sculptor, the painter, the blacksmith, the copper-
smith and the goldsmith.

Just as long as man remained ignorant of the

OF EDUCATION II

properties of these things, and other products of
nature, he was to remain a naked savage, sharing |
the world equally with the wild and hungry
beasts that howled around him. MHe was at liberty
to wait a thousand years, or a thousand centuries.
Houses to protect him by night from the lion
and the tiger, and from the cold storm, would
not spring up out of the ground for him. Nor
would clothing or needles and thread, nor tools for
the architect grow on trees. Nature had done all
that ought to be done, and could wait for man to join
his work with hers. Then, and not till then, could
the arts have even the rudest beginning. This was
the one condition of progress, and is to-day the one
condition of progressive civilization.

In the last analysis, man’s observation in nature,
or what we call nature study, is the sure and only
foundation and source of all civilization, the source
of all science, all art. The savage who first observed
that rocks are brittle, and can be broken down toa
cutting edge, was the father of all sculptors. His
stone hatchet, so useful at that time, is of no value
now except as a curiosity and a help in the study of
archaeology. We can hardly realize how rude were
the beginnings of all man’s grandest achievements.

Architecture is one of the oldest and most impor-
tant of thearts. Through innumerable little improve-

12 THE NEW METHOD

ments at long intervals, it has reached a good degree
of excellence, and it is improving faster than ever.

The barbarian who built the first house finished it
in one day. With a modern axe he could have done
it in one hour; but his axe was only a sharp stone,
and he used his hand and arm for the handle.

The primitive house had a ridge-pole, and that is
the only part of it that has come down to our time.
Each end of the pole rested on the branch of a tree,
and for the walls of the house small evergreen trees
stood leaning toward each other and the pole. The
builder was well pleased with his house and thought
it was’ perfect. But on a cold morning a month later
the children were found covered with snow which
had sifted through in the high wind. This set the
architect to thinking how to improve his house and
keep his family dry and warm. At last the way to
do it dawned upon him, and soon he was bringing
hemlock boughs to weave thick into the walls. For
a while the house was again thought to be perfect.
But on avery cold day a fire was needed, and the dry
resinous boughs were soon in flames.

The next plan was a fire-proof house. Rocks were
piled one upon another for the walls; but open spaces .
between them let in the cold air and snow. A happy
thought the next rainy day resulted in plastering
the house with mud. Soon as the mud was dry it

crumbled away and left the walls as they were before.

OF EDUCATION 13

After some study and experimenting with mud from
several places a sample was found which contained
a little clay mixed with the sand, and this became
so hard and firm on drying that it lasted a long time.

These little occasional improvements of many kinds
continued for centuries, slowly improving the house,
increasing the cost, and making the architect’s work
more complex.

Thus it has been with every branch of art and
science from the rudest beginning, and thus it will

continue, for every branch is progressive.

x

e

PISTORICAL SKETCH

The most wonderful of all civilizations that have yet
appeared in the world is that of Greece. The Greeks
not only originated nearly all branches of science and
art on which modern civilization rests, but they dis-
covered the methods which have made real progress
in education possible. More than two thousand years
ago the science of education was the culmination of
their glory. At that time the school-masters were
considered the true luminaries of the world, and they
were honored above all other men. Only the bright-
est intellects, the most learned, the wisest and best
men could become teachers.

About six hundred years before Christ the phi-
losophy of the Greeks was becoming more philosophic.
Each generation was correcting the errors of the past,
and civilization was reaching a higher standard.
Three men of learning and genius, Solon, the Law-
giver, Thales and Pythagoras, philosophers and
teachers, appeared at the same time. They gave
their energies to the cause of education and philan-
thropy. The disciples of these wise men became the
teachers of Socrates; Socrates was the teacher of
Plato; Plato was the teacher of Aristotle; Aristotle
was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and the first
to illustrate all the principles of the new education.

16 THE NEW METHOD

With Solon, Thales, and Pythagoras, came the dawn
of Greek science, which culminated in Theophrastus,
Aristotle, Archimedes and the Athenian and Alex-
andrian schools. Thus, three hundred years of un-
paralleled progress had established in Athens, and in
Alexandria, the educational methods found in the best
schools of Europe and America at the present time.
In many things the noted Greek teachers all differed ;
but all agreed that real philosophy comes to us through
the diligent search after wisdom in the book of nature ;
and that all men ought to reflect in their lives the im-
age of that order and harmony by which the universe
is sustained and regulated.

Theophrastus was the first scientific writer upon
botany and mineralogy that the world ever produced.
He wrote five volumes upon minerals, and ten upon
plants.

Aristotle was the father of zoology. He wrote fifty
volumes upon the animal kingdom. Archimedes
and Euclid were the greatest of ancient mathema-
ticians, and have never been excelled. Pythagoras,
Apollonius, Hipparchus, and Aristarchus explained
the solar system as we understand it to-day. But their
wisdom was completely smothered in Europe by the
long dark ages.

Aristotle was born B. C. 384. He was a pupil of
Plato for twenty years in the great school at Athens,
and then had charge of the same school. He soon

OF EDUCATION Ey

received a letter from Philip, the King of Macedon,
as follows: ‘‘ Be informed, O Aristotle, that I have a
son, and that I am thankful, not so much for his birth,
as that he was born in the same age with you; for if
you will undertake the charge of his education, I
assure myself that he will become worthy of his father,
and of the kingdom which he will inherit.’’

Philip’s son was Alexander the Great. Alexander
was soon with Aristotle, and remained with him eight
years, when he ascended the throne at twenty years
of age. During these years Alexander fully appreci-
ated his advantages and made remarkable attain-
ments in all directions. He saw so much to admire in
Aristotle’s methods that he became, from that time,
an enthusiastic patron of learning; and his first act
on the throne was to furnish Aristotle with material
and all necessary appliances for the illustration of his
methods in the school at Athens. ‘To accomplish this
without delay, Alexander sent several thousand
learned men to all parts of the known world to collect
material for the illustration of every science. But to
make a model school at Athens was only the beginning
of Alexander’s influence ttpon education. Ambitious
as a conquerer of nations, he was still more ambitious
in making a better civilization for all men.

It was Alexander’s ambition to conquer all nations,
and combine all nations into one empire whose insti-
tutions should all be permeated by the learning and

Id THE NEW METHOD

wisdom of Greece. He was maturing a mighty scheme
for collecting all knowledge, for the increase of knowl-
edge, and its diffusion throughout the world. The
first move toward carrying out this plan was to invade
and overthrow the rich and populous Persian empire.
Persia had an area half as large as Europe, and next
to Greece, was the most learned and cultured part of
the world. It included all that remained of the older
civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea,
and Mesopotamia. The largest armies ever led to
battle had been the Persian armies under Xerxes and
Darius for the invasion of Greece.

In the spring of 334 B. C., Alexander, with an army
of only 40,000 men, crossed the Hellespont, and en-
tered the Persian empire. Slowly he moved toward
Egypt, conquered every city on the way, and defeated
the army of Darius numbering 700,000 men. While
in Egypt he founded the city of Alexandria, which
he designed for the educational metropolis of the
world. Soon after this Alexander renewed his march
toward other great cities of Persia. After crossing
the Euphrates he again defeated the army of Darius,
numbering a million men. The gates of many opulent
cities, with all their treasures, were now open to the
Greeks. ‘Thence, the victorious army marched easter-
ly to the Ganges river, conquered all that remained
of Persia, invaded India, defeated King Porus, and

took possession of thirty cities of India.

OF EDUCATION 19

Of all military campaigns, this was the most re-
markable, both in its purposes and its results. To
thousands of learned Greeks the march through Persia
was much more than a military campaign. It wasa
thorough scientific study of the country through which
they marched. At times it was like a grand excursion
for sightseeing, recreation, and scientific observation,
over a large, rich and populous country, abounding
in the wonderful in nature and art.

As soon as Alexander had conquered Egypt and the
better half of Asia, he prepared to continue his march
to the shores of the Pacific and take possession of all
Asia in a single campaign. But his army had left
their homes eight years before, and refused to march
any farther except toward their native land.

Alexander yielded to the wishes of his faithful
warriors and soon returned to Babylon, which he in-
tended to make the capital of the prospective new
empire. In the midst of great plans for the recon-
struction of his vast dominions, the completion of his
educational plans, and the future conquest of the rest
of the world, came Alexander’s death, in the thirty-
third year of his age.

The result of Alexander’s conquests in Asia and
Africa we are to consider only in its educational in-
fluence. But the grandest movement in education
that the world has ever seen had already been formu-
lated. Alexander had made Ptolemy the governor of

20 THE NEW METHOD

Egypt, to have control of the educational interests of
the world. On the death of Alexander, Ptolemy be-
came king of Egypt. For carrying out the plan of
Alexander, Ptolemy had in his treasury $400,000,000
in gold and silver.

The magnificence of the buildings reared for the
Alexandrian school I will not attempt to describe.
They were built by the greatest architects of Greece,
and adorned by the greatest sculptors the world has
ever known. Surrounding these buildings were botan-
ical gardens, filled with the living representatives of
the flora of all nations ; zoological gardens represent-
ing the living forms of the land and the sea; great
temples filled with paintings, sculpture, and every art
of the known world. Still more important than these
was the library of 700,000 volumes, by far the largest
library of antiquity. In short everything was done
that could help to make a school for the collection of
all knowledge, for the increase of knowledge by
scientific investigation, and the diffusion of knowl-
edge throughout the world. Under the reign of the
Ptolemies the Alexandrian school,continued about
three hundred years, until Egypt became a Roman
province. During this time it had reached its greatest
excellence. The students were from all parts of the
world, and the average number for three centuries
had been twelve thousand.

Under Roman dominion the school was not kept

OF EDUCATION a

up to the high standard of its illustrious founders,
or the luxury and indolence of the East had taken
the place of the love of learning. But the methods
of that school had been carried by its patrons to
various parts of the world, and had taken root in
many a schoolin Arabia and Persia and in Europe.
3ut the long dark ages, that followed the downfall of
the Roman empire, blotted out of all Europe nearly
every trace of the intellectual light that had originated
in the Greek civilization. But in Asia, where Alex-
ander a thousand years before had collected the gold
to establish the great school, the science of the Greeks
had been kept alive, and under its influence the Arab-
ians and Syrians became a progressive people. Before
the ninth century they had excelled in learning all
the nations of the world at that time, and they held
that position for many centuries.

Although Alexandria was partly destroyed, and
what Caesar had left of the great library was burned,
the ultimate effect of the Arabian wars of conquest
in the seventh century was to stimulate intellectual
activity, and greatly accelerate the progress of sound
learning. For the conquering armies, after they had
well-nigh destroyed the results of Greek learning and
culture, as they saw the ruined palaces, adorned with
every art, as they thought of the half million rare
books which they had destroyed, they became more
thoughtful, and repented of their wanton destruction

22 THE NEW METHOD

of the very source of all the splendor of the ruins
that surrounded them. They soon began to cultivate
the civilization of the conquered people, and restore
to the world what they had destroyed. Books were
collected at great expense from all sources, and trans-
lated into Arabic. Schools and colleges sprang up,
and learning revived in every part of the great
empire.

In the early part of the eighth century a Spanish
noble requested Musa, the governor of Egypt, to send
a military force to Spain to correct the tyranny of
King Roderic, the usurper. Seven thousand men led
by the brave general Tarik soon landed at Gibraltar,
and in two years had taken nearly all Spain. Tarik
established in Spain the best known civilization,
giving all Kurope the means of rising above the thral-
dom of ignorance and barbarism, and eventually
bringing the dark ages toa close. From time to time
thousands of the cultured families of western Asia
and northern Africa were attracted to Spain by the
genial climate, beautiful scenery, and fertile soil.
Schools, colleges and universities were founded in the
Alexandrian methods. A high civilization sprang up
and flourished for nearly eight centuries. It became
the best civilization in the world at that time. It
held that position until Hurope had founded, on the
Arabian models, learned societies and academies in

every capital and large city.

OF EDUCATION 23

The most enlightened artisans of Asia were induced
to settle in Spain and introduce the arts of civilized
life. The improved productive arts soon brought the
comforts, conveniences and necessities of life within
the reach of all. The decorative arts furnished orna-
ments and elegance in dress and furniture. Spain
became the garden and market place of Europe.
_The neat, polite and well-dressed people made a strik-
ing contrast with merchants from France, Germany
and England, dressed in sheepskin or the untanned
hides of other animals.

The wealth, learning, elegance and refinement of
Spain, nearly equaled that of the best parts of Kurope
at the present time. Cordova, the capital of Anda-
lusia in the tenth century, had a population of a mil-
lion. hey had alibrary of 600,ooo volumes. Seville,
Toledo, Grenada and sixty other cities and towns each
had a large library, some of them rivaling that of
Cordova.

Here, after a precarious existence for centuries, was
the beginning in Kurope of that modernized Greek
civilization which was to spread over the entire con-
tinent. One man in ten thousand saw the promise of
better days for Europe from this source, and sent his
sons to the Cordovan schools. Every student on re-
turning home became the nucleus of a secret society
for the promotion of learning. Menof worthy motives

and independent judgment began to increase in all

24 THE NEW METHOD

the populous centres. But there was no safety for
such men till the seventeenth century. Still the work
went on with increasing numbers and greater bold-
ness. Learned societies were established on a larger
scale, and more openly. The intellectual element had
become uncontrollable.

The Academia Secretorum Nature was founded at
Naples in 1560; the Lyncean Academy in Rome,
1603; the Royal Society, London, 1645; the Accademia
del Cimento, Florence, 1657; Royal Academy of Sci-
ences, Paris, 1666. These and many other learned
societies were all organized on the Greek models.
Only the Greek methods have ever produced such
men as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Napier,
and Javoisier. These and other illustrious names
were the peers of. Archimedes, Ptolemy, Apollonius,
Euclid, Aristotle, and Hero.

Historians have never given due credit to the
Arabians for what they did in the darkest part of the
dark ages to save the results of Greek civilization
from oblivion. National vanity and a difference in
race and religion explain their treatment in Christian
Europe. But their religion led them to be temperate
in all things, tolerant, kind and true to all men. It
led them to cultivate neatness, elegance, courage,
chivalry, justice, and personal honor. But all Europe
combined to destroy them. Each century diminished
the Arabian territory, and what could not be done by

OF EDUCATION 25

war, was done at last by the fires of the inquisition
—the most cruel device to stifle liberty ever organized
by barbarians, or by half civilized fanatics. Thus
perished millions of Arabs, Moors and Jews, after
having been a model for European progress from the
earliest efforts of Europe to rise out of the darkness
of the middle ages.

Four hundred years ago there was not a newspaper
nor a common school in all Europe. In the best parts
of Europe only one person in a thousand could read
and write. In other parts, including England and all
northern Europe, not one in ten thousand could either
read or write. Very few people cared to know these
useful arts which all civilized nations now consider so
essential. The first permanent newspaper in Europe
was published in Italy soon after the middle of the
sixteenth century. Seventy years later the ‘‘ Gazette
de France’’ was published in Paris. The newspaper
followed close upon the common school. Our English
ancestors had neither of them till the middle of the
seventeenth century. The art of printing, the common
school, and the newspaper, in a general way mark the
end of the dark ages which ruled over Europe more
than a thousand years.

We can hardly realize the condition of our ancestors
three hundred years ago. Their houses were built
of sticks and reeds covered over with mud. There

was no chimney to carry out the smoke, and no glass

26 THE NEW METHOD

to admit the light. Their tables and chairs were logs
of wood set on end. Their beds were bags of straw
seldom renewed, anda log fora pillow. Their clothing
was made of leather or the untanned hides of animals,
with no underclothing. Their food was chiefly beans,
peas, fern roots and the bark of trees. Their houses
and door-yards were filthy beyond expression. Only
one child in four lived to be twenty. There were no
sanitary conditions anywhere. The population was
constantly thinned by pestilence, want, and the most
appalling barbarities. The church was an organ for
extorting money, and the clergy were the most crimi-
nal class of people.

The ignorance, superstition and anarchy that ruled
in Europe through the middle ages were not quite
but almost universal. A few thousand families, scat-
tered here and there over Europe, lived from genera-
tion to generation in a civilized way as far as it was
possible in the midst of conditions worse than bar-
barian. They remembered the achievements of their
ancestors in the ancient empires that had passed
away, and through their own efforts they had long
hoped to see the dawn of a new civilization for the
future of Europe. Five centuries of anarchy, war and
confusion had been endured, with no change ex-
cept increasing violence and barbarism.

In the tenth century a ray of intellectual light ap-

peared in the south-west of Europe but it served at

OF EDUCATION 27

first only to make the surrounding darkness more
apparent.

A foreign race had settled in Spain in the eighth
century, and had established great universities for the
promotion of science and civilization. They had made
Gibraltar the stronghold, not only of military power,
but of intellectual and moral force. Here they built
a line of colleges and universities, extending from
Gibraltar a hundred miles toward the Pyrenees, and
opened their doors to the young men of all nations.
Practically, the Alexandrian school of the Ptolemies
had been reconstructed by the learned men of Arabia,
Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and carried into Spain.
They had restored the great Alexandrian library so
far as possible, and transferred it to Cordova, the
Spanish capital.

The glimmering of light, radiating in the tenth
century from the Arabian schools in Spain where
the best families in Europe were educating their sons,
hardly seemed like the dawn of a new civilization for
all Europe, but such it is proving to be, not only for
Europe but for America, and eventually the whole
world; for some parts of Asia and South America are
already under way in the new education. From the
tenth century to the fifteenth, the schools of Spain
attracted young men from all parts of Europe. On
completing their studies they carried to their homes
the spirit of the Spanish Arabian schools, which was

28 THE NEW METHOD

at that time the spirit of the ‘‘new education’’. In
the course of time these men began to organize for
educational purposes, France, Italy, and Germany
taking the lead. Academies of art and science sprang
up, only to be closed by the ecclesiastical power. Men
who wished to pursue science must do it in solitude
and silence, if they would escape the cruelties of that
ignorant and intolerant age. But the time came when
the light of science could no longer be smothered,
for it had been kindled in too many places, and the
darkness of the middle ages must disappear. From
Spain an influence had gone forth over Europe that
the fires of the inquisition could not destroy. The
astronomy of Pythagoras had been revived in Arabia
and was silently taking deep root in Europe. In the
interest of commerce, sailors and merchants were se-
cretly consulting astronomers as to the size and shape
of the earth, and a better passage to India. Intel-
lectual activity was increasing in every part of Europe.
The spirit of individualism and adventure had been
awakened by the three great voyages.

People were eager to hear the news of the day, the
wonders of science, the stories of the new world,
of the mountains of gold in Peru, and of silver in
Mexico.

The two impulses, the intellectual and the moral
combined, which finally brought the dark ages to an
end, did not spring up at once. Both were germinat-

OF EDUCATION 29

ing inthe ninth century. Both were annually rein-
forced and enlivened by the exodus of a thousand
young men from the Arabian schools. Both impulses
were taking deeper and deeper root in the nations of
Europe six hundred years before they culminated in
establishing the principles of modern European life.
Thus the spirit of improvement which had its be-
ginning in the schools of Spain in the darkest part of
the dark ages was the cause of the common school
and not the consequence of it, as many have supposed.

The common school had its beginning in southern
Europe in the sixteenth century, and in the northerly
parts a hundred years later. What learning there was
at that time, except that derived from the Arabian
schools, was confined to bishops, monks and other
ecclesiastics. Men who knew the methods of true
education could have no voice or influence in organ-
izing the school, or formulating its methods. The
schools at first were reading schools and nothing
more. The priest of the parish was the teacher
because nobody else could read. But when a genera-
tion of readers had grown up, any one who could
do the necessary flogging could teach school.

The expectations of the reading schools have never
been realized. At the end of the sixteenth century
there was disappointment everywhere. In the next
century arithmetic and writing were introduced, but
at the close of the century the disappointment was no

30 THE NEW METHOD

less than it had been a hundred years earlier. Before
the middle of the eighteenth century many people be-
came out-spoken in their criticisms of the schools.
They claimed that the method must be radically
wrong, for in two centuries the public school had
done but little toward raising the people out of their
ignorance and degradation.

The first of the noted writers on this subject was
Rousseau in France. In 1749 he wrote that the
children learn nothing but words and no real knowl-
edge, that books rob a boy of his mother wit and he
becomes a machine and a dunce. He said that what
real knowledge a child receives comes through the
senses, which are the basis of the intellectual, and that
books are useless until the child is ten years old.

The next distinguished advocate of better methods
in education was Henry Pestalozzi of Switzerland.
He opened his first school at Neuhof in 1775. Pes-
talozzi rejected as worse than useless the book learn-
ing which prevailed in all public schools at that time.
He said that a man who has only book learning is
less susceptible to truth than a savage.

For nearly a hundred years Germany has been the
educational centre of the world. She is exerting a
great and increasing influence in all the progressive
and most highly civilized nations, by illustrating the
true or at least the best known methods of educating
a child. It becomes us, then, to inquire how Germany

OF EDUCATION 31

has gained the intellectual lead of the world, and how
we may put German wisdom into our own schools.

During the first few years of the last century
Europe was shaken to its centre by the repeated vic-
tories of the French and allied armies under the lead
of Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon the defeat of the
Germans in the battle of Jena, in 1806, and the en-
trance of Napoleon into Berlin a few days later, the
despair of Germany was complete. The last days of
that year found all Germany without one ray of hope
for the future of their country. But in the early part
of 1807 it began to be manifest that national vitality
was still there; and it soon began to show itself in
a spirited manner in the management of such social
affairs as Napoleon still allowed them to control. It
was during this period of subjugation and despair
that a few of the ablest and best patriots were already
devising the means of national reconstruction. ‘They
had lost all hope of immediately improving their con-
dition. Their hope of ultimate success was in armies
stronger physically, stronger intellectually and mor-
rally: men who could utilize all their strength
through an educated will. In allowing Germany to
control her own educational interests Napoleon
struck a chord that has never ceased to vibrate.

In a public lecture at Berlin in 1807, the noted
philosopher Fichte used these words: ‘‘ That we are
no longer able to offer an active resistance is obvious

32 THE NEW METHOD

to every one. Howthencan we regain and defend
our national existence? In no other way than by
raising up a worthy posterity. There remains for us
no sphere in which we can act as an independent state,
except that of education. And I have only this hope
to live for, that I shall convince some Germans that
it is education alone which can save us from all the
evils by which we are oppressed.’’ At this lecture
were high officers of state, kings, queens, princes, min-
isters of education, and noted teachers to represent the
new education, then in its infancy in the public schools
of modern Europe. The applause of the great audience
became enthusiastic as the philosopher promised not
only deliverance to Germany through national educa-
tion, but declared that it would result, in the end, inthe
emancipation and reformation of the entire human race.

To the question whether there is any known method
of human development sufficient for such a result,
the lecturer said there is; ‘‘a method which had
been invented by Henry Pestalozzi, which is now
successfully carried out under his direction, at Yver-
don, in Switzerland.’’ As this method of eventual
deliverance through education was clearly set forth
and fortified by argument, it took strong hold of the
public mind. It seems that several other distin-
guished men had already been thinking of the new
education as the surest foundation of national
strength, and the true palladium of liberty.

OF EDUCATION 23

Soon after this meeting in Berlin, Nicholovius, the
Prussian minister of education, wrote to Pestalozzi
as follows: ‘‘ At last my venerable, unforgotten
friend, I have the pleasure of seeing some rays of thy
light penetrate into the schools of my fatherland.
What I have dreamed at thy side, what we have dis-
cussed in letters, will soon become realized as a work
of absolute necessity. With us the march of events
has ruined everything, yet courageous men are already
bent upon reconstruction. Ob help us to foster the
work which thou hast founded. May thy life be spared
in order to complete thy work as far as possible.’’

Carl Ritter, soon after a visit to Pestalozzi’s school,
wrote to him thus: ‘‘I cannot tear myself away from
the mountain scenery of Helvetia without devoting
to thee, O Father Pestalozzi a silent tear. May it
tell how deeply I feel what thou art to humanity.
How could I ever forget the time I have spent amidst
thy new creations. Even had I gained nothing by it
but a renewed faith in humanity, I would consider
myself amply repaid.

‘“My ardent desire to see the champion and martyr
for truth and love, and to be refreshed at the living
source of his life and example, has been granted; and
I return with enlarged feeling into this cold vortex
of life. Ithank thee venerable father, for thy affec-
tion. It has taught me a warmer and purer love: It
has strengthened my arm for the struggle with the

34 THE NEW METHOD

world, which every one, to whom life is more than
death must undergo. But blind humanity passes by
the law of nature, until a Newton shows its applica-
tion in mathematical science, a Lavoisier through the
maze of experimental philosophy, and a Pestalozzi
in the wider field of human development.’’

In 1808 the Prussian government sent twelve well
educated and carefully selected young men to Yver-
don, to learn the details of Pestalozzi’s principles and
methods. Nicholovius said to them: ‘‘ The object of
sending you to Pestalozzi is not merely that you may
study the external or formal part of his system, but
that you may warm yourselves at the sacred fire
which is glowing in the bosom of that man, who is
full of power and love; that you may walk with a
similar spirit in the path of truth, and in the observa-
tion of nature ; that you may become simple as children
in order to obtain the key with which to open the ©
sacred temple of childhood; that you may learn to
simplify the elementary part of each science by leading
the child directly into the realities of the world through
the use of his own faculties, and thus strengthen his
mind, by vigorous nourishment, for the application
and popular use of knowledge.’’ These students
made rapid progress at Yverdon, and on their return
they established normal schools which in a few years
furnished a large number of earnest and competent
teachers. By these and other means the schools of

OF EDUCATION eis

Germany were organized on a new basis, and a hope-
ful and vigorous life was felt throughout the land.

In 1813 the allied armies defeated Napoleon in the
battle of Leipsic, and Germany was again free.
Almost as soon as a generation had grown up in the
new education, Germany had occasion for using all
the power her armies had gained through its means,
to show the world whether there was any reality
in her dreams of power to preserve her liberties
through an improved method of education.

In 1870 France declared war against Germany.
Germany did not hesitate for one hour. Full of life
and energy, Germany once more grappled with the
great power that had invaded her homes sixty years
before. The best-educated army the world has ever
seen immediately moved toward the proud capital of
France. Two hundred miles from Paris the two
great armies met. Forthe French it was utter defeat
in every battle. Ina short campaign of seven weeks,
the Germans had taken 260,000 prisoners of war, and
turned the red battlefields into great cemeteries for
the dead soldiers of France. Paris itself was soon
invested, and France, which had been the terror of
all Europe for a century, was completely broken.

It was to be expected that a method of education
originating among German-speaking people, would
spread much more rapidly where their language is
used than in countries speaking different languages.

36 THE NEW METHOD

Not until 1830 did the government of France make
any attempt to introduce the new education, and her
public schools had fallen far behind those of Ger-
many. Then a vigorous movement was made in
France to raise public instruction to a better standard
by the appointment of Victor Cousin as minister of
education. He began his work by first making himself
acquainted with the best school systems of Europe.

In his report he was emphatic in the statement that
the schools of Germany are far superior to all others
in Kurope. He recommended the immediate recon-
structiou of the schools of France on the German
models. He seemed almost to feel obliged to apologize
for studying and recommending the school system
of a rival nation. He told France that she ought
not to lose the experience of Germany — that
national rivalries and antipathies would here be
entirely out of place. .He fartherssaid: “‘I amas
great an enemy as any one to artificial imitations, but
let us not reject a thing because it has been thought
good by others. We constantly imitate England in
many ways, and to our great advantage. And why
should we blush to borrow something from kind,
honest, pious, learned Germany, in what regards
inward life, and the nurture of the soul.’’

But the system advocated by Cousin was only par-
tially carried out, and primary education in France
has never attained to the standard of Germany.

Pee at

PEEL USERATIVE EXAMPERS

GRADE I.

THE First DAy IN SCHOOL, AND WHAT WAS
DONE BY CHILDREN SIX YEARS OLD.

SONG.

Morning’s golden light is breaking;
Tints of beauty paint the skies;

Happy song-birds now are waking,
Let their songs to heaven arise.

This is a fine morning to begin your first day in
school. Afterthinking a moment you may tell a few
of the interesting things you saw on your way from
home.

Bessie —I saw a bird’s-nest up very high in a tree.

fTelen —I saw a little boy playing in the sand.

Ida —I saw a white rock on the wall.

Join —I saw some red clover and some white
clover.

Did any of you find out what makes it so light that
we can see all these things so nicely? May raise
your hand if you can tell what makes it so light every
day and so dark every night.

/da —'The sun rises every morning and makes it
light.

Does the sun stay in one place after it rises ?

May — As soon as the sun rises it goes up higher

4 : THE NEW METHOD

and moves along all day in the sky and gets to the
place where it sets, and then it gets dark ina little
while.

May tell all you know about the sun.

Nina — The sun is round.

Olive — The sun is very bright.

-:lla — The sun rises in the east.

John — The sun lights up the world.

Flenry — ‘The sun warms the ground and the air.

Edith — When the sun sets it makes the clouds red

and yellow.
Jane— The sun makes the sky and the clouds
look bright and beautiful.
The sentences above, given orally by the children,
were taken for their first lesson in reading.
In the afternoon their reading was selected, as
given below : —
“Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise,

My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.’’
— Pope.

‘“The sun rides through the azure sky,
And beams upon us from on high.”’
— Romaine.

“From blue to red, from red to gold, from gold to gray,
So turns the sky, so fades the light, so ends the day.”
—Ermy.

‘The rising sun had newly chased the night,
And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.”’
—Dryden.

OF EDUCATION 5

The present approved method of learning to read
has resulted from the proper combination of all that
is good in every method that has ever been used.
No method has been entirely wrong, but the worst of
all methods is that which was used almost universally
in Europe and America until quite recently, and is
still used in many places. It wastes the time and
energies of the child on the least important of all the
details of learning to read. Under that method,
simply the name of each letter was first learned, and
that gave no direct clew to the sound of the letters,
or the pronunciation of words.

The child must learn to pronounce words at sight by
the same general method by which he has learned
the looks and name of hundreds of other things which
he can name at sight without hesitation. The true
order is to observe the whole thing before we investi-
gate the different parts and the smaller details of the
parts.

In learning to read the sound of the letter is much
more important than its name, but both should have
careful attention from the beginning.

SPECIMENS OF WORK DONE LAST PART OF
First YEAR.

The first move toward explaining the principles of
the New Education will be the presentation of a few

6 THE NEW METHOD

samples of work in all the grades, exactly as written
by the children while the object described was before
them for their inspection. It is hoped that these
records will, to some extent, show what modern ap-
proved methods are.

School work should begin by learning things near
at hand, especially the things that concern people of
all ages. Nothing is nearer to us than the air we
breathe, the light, heat, and other influences of the
sun, the earth we tread upon, and the vegetable
world around us. These are the sources of life,
health, and true culture. They are the foundation

of our industries and our wealth.

THE LANDSCAPE.

‘* A Jandscape is all the land and everything the
land contains as far as we can see in all directions.
When we are in a valley we can see but a little way,
and if we wish to see a large landscape we must go
tothe top of a high hill or a mountain.

Yesterday we all went to the top of a high hill to
see the landscape that surrounds our school. On our
way we saw fields of grass and corn, pastures full of
sheep and lambs, lawns and gardens, woodland with
many kinds of trees, squirrels, birds and butterflies.
When we were at the top of the hill we saw the great
landscape reaching to the horizon in all directions.

OF EDUCATION if

The largest things in the landscape were thé moun-
tains in the west and north, and the great hills in the

east.’’ NINA.
TBH SEY.

‘“The sky is the largest sight that we can ever see,
and one of the most beautiful of all sights. It seems
to be just as broad as the landscape, and it reaches
down to the horizon all the way around. The sky
looks like a great hollow dome, or canopy perfectly
rounded in every part. It contains the blue air that
keeps every plant and animal alive, and the beautiful
clouds always changing their color and shape. The
sun and moon are in the sky a part of the time, and
the stars are always there, but we can see them
only in the night because they are so far away.’’

DoRA.
THE TRILLIUM PLANT.

We all had a beautiful Trillium plant to study this
morning, and we are going to describe it in writing.
The Trillium grows about six inches high, and it is a
very interesting little plant. The lower part of the
stem is pink, and it shades off into light green in the
upper part, and dark green at the top.

‘* The plant has only three leaves and they grow in
a whorl near the top. The leaves are large for a
little plant like this. They are more than three inches
long and half as wide. They have a great many

8 THE NEW METHOD

veinlets growing out of the veins, and they divide the
leaf into little parts of many funny shapes. The
leaves are ovate, and they have an entire margin and
a sharp point at the apex.

‘““The Trillium has but one flower, but it is large
and beautiful. The flower has three sepals, three
petals, and six stamens. The petals are mostly
white, but each one has several pink lines running
half way up from the calyx. The Trillium plant
grows in all the New England states and in Canada.”’

WILL.

‘We have just had a short lesson on a very com-
mon little butterfly, called the Colias philodice. It
is a very beautiful and interesting insect. Like all
other butterflies it has.four wings, six legs and two
antennae. The wings expand about two inches.
The general color of the wings is yellow, of the
brightest shade.” All the wings have a black or very
dark border all around them. On the forewings the
border is much wider than on the hind wings. Near
the middle of each front wing there is a small black
spot, and a little place in the center of it is trans-
lucent. On the hind wings there is an orange spot,
and all around it there is a ring of dark yellow.
Along the border of all the wings there are yellow
spots in a row near the edge. These butterflies live

OF EDUCATION 9

only about thirty days, but they seem to be very
happy while the sun shines, and they go from flower
to flower for the honey.’’ ROSIE.

‘“The weather has been very changeable ever
since sunrise. Early this morning the sun was shin-
ing, the air was clear and the sky was blue. There
were no clouds except a few cumulus clouds near the
zenith, and they were as bright and beautiful as pos-
sible as they changed into many curious shapes.
Just at school time it grew darker, but cleared up in
a little while, and then grew darker once more. At
recess time the whole eastern horizon was bright
blue, with a few lovely stratus clouds from ten to
twenty degrees high. ‘The wind blows gently from
the west now, at the rate of a mile an hour, I should
say. We used some thistle-down in the garden to
see which way and how fast the air was moving.
Just before recess we had several nice and very inter-
esting experiments to show us the properties of the

air.’’ BESSIE.
THE BUTTERCUP.

‘“The early buttercup is an interesting plant. It
grows only a few inches high. It blossoms very
early in the spring, and the flower is bright yellow.
The calyx has five parts, and the blossom has five
petals. The petals are about half an inch long.’’

JOHN.

ice) THE NEW METHOD

‘“The Clintonia is a very beautiful plant. It is
generally found in damp woods. It grows nearly a
foot high. At the top it bears four or five large
nodding flowers. The Clintonia grows in the six
New England States, and westerly to the Mississippi
River.” BESSIE.

‘“The Sanguinaria plant, or Blood Root, is very
beautiful. It grows in very rich, damp soil, and
blossoms quite early. The sap of the roots and of all
other parts of the plant is red and bitter. The leaf
has eight lobes, and there are rounded sinuses be-
tween them. The flower is white. It has two sepals,
eight petals, and about twenty-four stamens.”’

IDA.

‘“The Uvularia is a very interesting plant. It
grows in damp shady places and is about eight inches
high. Near the top it divides into two parts. One
part has only leaves — the other part has leaves and
one large flower. The flower has six light yellow
petals nearly an inch long.”’ SUSIE.

‘The Potentilla argentea is a verysmall plant. It
grows in dry, hard ground where most other plants
never grow. This little plant has very pretty yellow
flowers from June till September. The flower has
five sepals, five petals, and many stamens. Each
leaf has five leaflets. The under side of the leaf is

OF EDUCATION II

much lighter green than the upper side. .There are
a few small teeth on the margin of the leaflets near
the apex.”’ May.

‘“The Aspidium spinulosum is a very beautiful
fern. It grows in the woods. It will grow in past-
ures where there are a few trees to shade it a part of
the time. The frond has a graceful lanceolate form,
and it is twice pinnate. In good soil this fern grows
about fourteen inches high.’’ JANE.

THE WEATHER.

‘‘“This is a very pleasant day. The wind is very
nearly west. The sun is shining brightly. ‘There
are a few stratus clouds near the western horizon,
and some cumulus clouds near the zenith. Both
these kinds of clouds are fair weather clouds. We
can see the beautiful blue sky in many places
through the clouds. ELLA.

THE WEATHER.

‘At recess this morning the air was very still, and
there were no clouds at all. At noon there were
stratus clouds just above the horizon, cumulus clouds
half way to the zenith, nimbus clouds down low in
the east, and high above them over a large space
there were cirrus clouds of many shapes, and there
was a cold east wind.’’ OLIVE.

12 THE NEW METHOD

"Tt ig very warm today and the sun shines about
half the time. ‘The other half of the time the sun is
behind a large cumulus cloud.

‘‘ Yesterday it was very foggy all day and the sun-
beam could not get through the fog. The sun is so
far away I should not think the light could go so far
even when the air is clear.’’ EDITH.

‘‘We had three very interesting experiments this
morning to show that air swells or expands when it
is warmed. When we think there is nothing in a
dish or a bottle it is always full of air. The ap-
paratus used was a round flask of thin and very clear
glass, a bent glass tube in a cork, and a small glass
tunnel in acork. Water was poured into the tunnel,
but it would not run through into the flask until a
part of the air came out.’’ HENRY.

‘«’T’he sun rises very early now, and soon we shall
have the longest day of the year. Soon after sunrise
this morning the dew-drops were very thick on the
grass and on all other plants.

‘‘Just as the sun went down last night some of the
clouds in the west were brighter than gold. One
cloud had four or five shades of red. The lightest
shade was pink and the darkest was crimson.’”’

NINA.

GRADE. II.

THe LITTORINA SNAIL.

‘Tt lives in shallow water around every sea north
of the equator. The shell is quite pretty. Itis nearly
an inch long and half as wide. The body whorl is
yellow, and is covered with rows of little ridges. The
apex is very sharp, andisof adark yellowcolor. The
aperture is round and one side of it is light green.
The inside of the shell is white, and I can see some
parallel, raised lines there. The snail is a very slow
one, for it can go only four inches a minute. It is an
herbivorous snail, for it eats nothing but sea-weeds.’’

IMA.

THE CYPRAEA ONYX.

‘“The general color of thisshell is brown. ‘The body
whorl is light brown, with a spot of white on the back
near the middle. On the body whorl near the aper-
ture there is a stripe of dark red. One part of the
stripe is light brown. The aperture is quite wide.
The outer lip is dark brown, and there are seventeen
teeth on it. The teeth are red and the spaces be-
tween them are dark brown.

‘* This shell is found in the shallow water of the

14 THE NEW METHOD

Japan Sea, Yellow Sea, Blue Sea and China Sea;
also on the shores of all the Japan Islands.’’
EDIE.

‘‘The Strombus gigas is a very big shell. My
shell weighs three pounds and a quarter, and it is
nine inches long and seven inches broad. It has ten
whorls and the body whorl is very large.’ Each
whorl has seven or eight spikes, or spines. Each
spine on the body whorl is an inch high, and on the
next whorl half as much as that, and the next the
half of that, and it goes on that way till they get very
small. There are seventy-nine or eighty spines on
my shell. The aperture is pink, and near the edge
of the outer lip it is salmon color, and it is scalloped
all the way. Where the spines show inside it is hol-
lowed out, and the hollows are very dark pink. This
is the prettiest shell that I have ever studied — it is
so large and handsome. ‘These shells were found on
the shores of Hayti. They are also found on the
shores of Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, all the Bahama
and Caribbee islands and all other islands in the
Caribbean Sea.’’ IDA.

“When I got up this morning it was very cold
indeed, and the window was covered with frost.
Although the sun shines very brightly, it does not
make the air warm. There is a very strong west

OF EDUCATION 15

wind, but it does not very often blow any clouds
across the sun. Last night the nimbus clouds began
to gather in the south and east and it soon began to
snow very fast. The flakes were large and very per-
fect in shape. They were all the same beautiful
shape, and had six sides more symmetrical than any
one could possibly draw them. The snow in the
public garden is a foot deep, and the wind drives it
about every way; and the drifts are the highest I
ever saw.

‘‘In our science lesson after recess we had an
experiment ona mineral called Iceland Spar. It was
put in water and the water had no effect upon it, but
when muriatic acid, which looks just like water, was
poured in, it instantly drew away the atoms of the
rock, one from another. I enjoy these lessons and
experiments very much indeed.’’ MINA.

‘‘ The Tapes literata belongs tothe family of Ven-
eridae. It is two inches long and one inch broad.
Its color is light brown with dark brown spots. The
lines of growth are slightly raised, and parallel to the
edge of the shell. The hinge is very small and is not
in the middle. ‘This shell is found on the shores of
India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Ceylon, Mal-
dive and Laccadive Islands. ‘The market place is at
Colombo, the capital of Ceylon.’’ ANN.

16 THE NEW METHOD

‘‘Our lesson in shells today was upon the Natica
mamilla, a shell from the family of Naticadae, a fam-
ily which none of us ever has studied before. This
shell is a remarkably pretty one, for it is pure white.
The body whorl is very large in comparison with the
spire. ‘The shell is less than an inch long, and it is,
shaped like a semi-circle. It is quite thin at the
edge, but it becomes quite thick at the middle of the
body whorl. ‘This shell may be found on the shores
of all the Islands north of South America, in the
Caribbean Sea.’’

THE CyPREAE RETICULATA.

“This is a very pretty shell. It 1s found om
the coast of the Celebes Island, and all other East
India islands. The shell is about an inch and a
quarter in diameter and nearly four inches in circum-
ference. On the back of the shell there is a very
light green stripe running the whole length. In the
aperture there are short, brown ridges. The shell is
mostly covered with. white spots and dark brown
stripes.” JAMES.

‘The Trochus niloticus belongs to the family of
Turbinidae. The spire is a perfect cone about three
inches long and two and a half inches broad at the
base. It has five whorls. It is a very beautiful

OF EDUCATION 17

shell, for the outside is covered with a pearly enamel,
and when it is held in the light it is iridescent in
many places.

‘‘’This shell is found on the shores of the China
Sea, the Yellow Sea, and around the Philippine
Islands and the Formosa Islands.’’ Lucy.

SHELLS OF TORRID ZONE.

‘The Cassis testiculus resembles in many respects
the Cassis vibex. It is somewhat smaller, being only
about two inches long, and about an inch and a quar-
ter in thickness. It is of a pink-white color, deeper
in some places than others. There are grooved lines
running around the shell parallel to the suture, and
rows of ribs crossing them at right angles. The
outer lip turns back like that of the Cassis vibex, and
has brown stripes crossing it at right angles to the
edge. The aperture is longer and narrower than
that of the Cassis vibex, and there are larger teeth
on the inside of the outer lip. The inside of the
shell is white. The inner lip is white, and has teeth,
which are smaller than those on the outer lip. At
the base of the aperture there is a deep canal. ‘The
spire is of a lighter color than the body whorl. ‘The
apex is sharp, and is white. The suture is not deep.
This shell is found on the shores of Ceylon, the Lac-
adive and Maldive Islands, Sumatra, Borneo, and
New Guinea.’’ BESSIE.

18 THE NEW METHOD

THE WEATHER.

‘This isa warm sunny day. This morning there
were large nimbus clouds all along the southwestern
horizon, and I felt sure it would rain; but after a few
hours the whole sky was quite clear, and the color of
the sky was a very pretty shade of blue.

‘““Vesterday morning I could see no clouds but
some long stratus clouds in the west, and a few
cumulus clouds up very high. As both of these are
fair weather clouds, I was sure it would be fair all
day; but a little before the middle of the afternoon
it rained hard, and there was a strong wind.

‘‘One of our problems today was to find the
weight of calcium, carbon, and oxygen in a pound of
calcite.”’ JOHN.

THE WEATHER.

‘‘Tt is not a very fine day, and the sky looks as if
we should have rain. This morning it was snowing
when I came to school. The flakes were small and
were driven about and broken by the wind. ‘The
nimbus clouds were heavy and dark, but I could not
see them very well because the sky was dark, too.

‘“T saw a few snow crystals that were not broken.
They had six sides and six points. Every part was
made very beautiful by other little crystals all over
the larger parts. Waterisamineral. Like all other

OF EDUCATION 19

minerals it has its own forms. ‘The dew and rain
drops are globes, because all the atoms are drawn
toward the centre... .

‘‘This is a pleasant day, though the wind is from
the north and it is quite cold. There are a few stratus
clouds in the west, and several large cumulus clouds
high up inthe sky. The blue sky is almost hidden
except along the horizon between the long stratus
clouds. The ground is covered with snow and ice.
The temperature this morning was eight above zero.

‘“ We had very interesting experiments this morn-
ing to show how much the air expands when it is
warmed. A flask that holds one cubic inch was
warmed, and we saw the bubbles of air as it was
forced through a long glass tube into another flask.’’

JOHN.

‘“This morning it was very cloudy and misty and
dull, and I thought it would rain, but when I came
to school it was so cold that I thought it would snow,
and a little before recess it began to snow lightly but
now it is snowing hard and fast.

‘* After recess we had a very nice experiment which
surprised us all. A very little of a bright red powder
was put into a small test tube, and the tube was
heated two or three minutes. The powder had been
separated into oxygen, which filled the tube, and

20 THE NEW METHOD

mercury which we could see inside of the tube in
little globes at the top of the tube.”’ SUSIE.

‘“The wind is blowing quite hard today, and it is
very cold. The sky is all covered with thick, dark
and gray nimbus clouds, and although it was very
pleasant this morning and the sun was shining very
brightly, now it is dark and looks as if it would rain
very soon.

‘“We had experiments after recess to show that
shells are composed of oxygen, calcium and carbon,
the same as all marble and limestone. Forty-eight
per cent. of a shell is oxygen, 40 percent. is calcium,
and 12 per cent. is carbon.

“Tn our arithmetic lesson we found the weight of
each element in several shells which were weighed

before us for our problems in arithmetic.’’
CorRA.

‘““'This is a warmand sunny day. ‘Thesky is blue,
and half covered with large white cumulus clouds.
We have had a lesson upon a very beautiful mineral
called calcite. It looks like ice, but not so clear, but
it is translucent. ‘The sides of a crystal are either
square or oblong. ‘The sides have two obtuse angles,
and two acute angles. A crystal of calcite is a rhom-
bohedron, for a cube has all right angles.

‘Calcium is a rare metal. It is yellow, and it

OF EDUCATION 21

costs ten times as much as gold. Carbon isa black
element generally, but a diamond is crystalized car-
bon, and it is the hardest of all minerals.’’ DAvip.

‘“At recess the wind was easterly and the sky
was mostly covered with dark nimbus clouds. ‘The
wind blows at the rate of about seven miles an hour.
I think it will snow before night.

‘This morning we had several experiments on the
most abundant of all the elements. Its name is oxy-
gen. A coarse white powder like salt was put into
a flask and heated in the flame of alcohol. The
"oxygen was separated from the powder and forced
through a tube into some glass jars. Then a piece
of iron wire was put into the jar and it burned, mak-
ing a very bright flame, and sparks went out every
way.”’ JOIE.

‘“It is very pleasant today, and is much warmer
than it has been for some time except yesterday,
when the ice was melting and dropping from the
houses. Today, though the sun is shining, the ice
is hard and smooth. Yesterday the sky was covered
with very interesting cumulus and stratus clouds.
They all had a reddish tinge, but were ornamented
with many other colors and shades, and a great
variety of shapes which were changing all the time.

22 THE NEW METHOD

Weare never tired of studying the sky, because it is
always beautiful and always changing. The sky
now is of a very pretty blue with soft white clouds in
some parts of it. They do not seem very far up in
the sky.”’ SARAH.

THE BLACK CHERRY TREE.

‘“There are forty kinds of cherry trees in the
world, and ten of them grow in the United States.
The wild black cherry is one of our best timber trees.
The wood is light and pretty. It has a great deal of
silver grain, and the rays are long, fine, and close to-
gether. The color of the sap-wood is white. The
heart-wood is light red, with darker stripes running
through it. The wood is used for bureaus, tables,
school desks, window sashes, posts for stair rails, and
many other things. The bark is gray outside, but
the inner bark is light yellow next to the wood, and
darker near the outer bark. ‘The leaf is ovate and
comes to a point at the apex. It is finely net-veined,
and the margin is very finely serrate.

‘This tree grows in all parts of North America be-
tween the Gulf of Mexico and Slave Lake, Hudson
Bay and Hudson Strait. But it grows best half way
between Hudson Bay and Gulf of Mexico. There,
all through the basins of the Missouri, Mississippi,
and Ohio rivers, it grows a hundred feet high and
five feet in diameter.’’ GEORGE.

OF EDUCATION 23

‘* For study in science today we have Pyrite, which
means fire-stone. One of our specimens is massive,
and the other is in small crystals. Each crystal isa
perfect cube. A cube has six equal sides, eight cor-
ners and twelve edges. Pyrite is harder and heavier
than any other mineral that we have studied. When
broken it has a rough surface and a bright yellow
color. When I turn it in the light it glitters like
gold, but there is no gold in it at all, for it is 47 per
cent. iron, and 53 per cent. sulphur. One of our
problems to-day was to find the amount of iron and
sulphur in a pound of pyrite. We all found it to be
3290 grains of iron and 3710 grains of sulphur. For
the proof we add these, and it makes a pound or 7000
grains.

‘Our pyrite came from Ceylon. It is also found
on the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, Corsica,
Candia, Ceram, Gilolo, Borneo, Java, Sumatra and
New Guinea.”’ j ANNA.

PLANTS.

‘‘The Iris versicolor, or-common blue flag, is a
very beautiful plant.

““Tt grows from two feet to three feet high, but it is
never found growing on dry land. It grows best in
very damp ground where the soil is rich and dark
colored.

24 THE NEW METHOD

‘‘Tt is an endogen plant; that means that it keeps
growing up out of the middle like corn and wheat
and all kinds of grass.

‘“The stalk is always crooked, and it is not quite
round, but it is oval shape. Some of the leaves are
nearly a foot long, and they are parallel veined.

‘* The flower is very large, and is purple in color.
The flower has three sepals, three petals, three
stamens, and three pistils.”’ EDITH.

BUTTERCUPS.

‘The Ranunculus bulbosus is a very beautiful little
plant. It grows about ten inches high, and is gen-
erally found on-dry, rocky hills.

‘“'The root looks like a turnip, and there are fine
fibres growing out of it.

‘‘There are many fine white hairs growing on the
stalk. The flower is bright yellow. It has five
sepals, five petals and nearly forty stamens. There
are a great many pistils and they are green. The
stamens are yellow. The petals are half an inch long,
and there are parallel lines running lengthwise on
both sides. This plant is one kind of buttercup, or
crowfoot. NINA.

THE HILLS AND VALLEYS

‘‘ Today the air is soft and warm, and there are no
clouds inthe sky. Yesterday we went into the woods

OF EDUCATION 25

ona high hill. The hill is covered with large trees
of many kinds. We found sugar maple, beech, oak,
poplar, white ash, and many other trees and shrubs.
I think the white ash trees are the prettiest of all,
they are so tall and straight. The leaves have come
out on the sugar maple trees, and the buds are open-
ing on some other trees.

‘The wild red cherry tree grows only about twenty
feet high and its trunk is from three to six inches in
diameter. It is very common in all the river basins
in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. It blos-
soms in May and is then a very showy tree. Inthe
last part of summer it is made beautiful again by its
bright red fruit. ‘The leaves of the red cherry are
about three inches long and about half as wide.
They have a serrate margin anda sharp apex, and
both sides are bright green.”’ EuRA.

THE ASPIDIUM NOVABORACENSE.

‘“The Aspidium Novaboracense, or New York
shield fern, as it is sometimes called, is found chiefly
in New York state, but it is found as far south as the
James River, west to Ohio and Lake Huron, and
north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is found grow-
ing in both sun and shade, though it prefers a damp,
shady spot. It grows generally about one foot and a

26 THE NEW METHOD

half high and nearly three inches wide in the broad-
est part —the middle.

‘* The stipe is about four inches long and is grooved
on its upper side.

‘« The pinnae are sometimes nearly two inches long
and half an inch wide. There are twenty-two pairs
of pinnae on the rachis — some are opposite, but most
are alternate. ‘The pinnae are divided into pinnulae
or lobes; there are about forty-four pinnulae on the
second rachis and they are all opposite.”’ ISA.

GRADE III.

THE HEMLOCK TREE.

‘“The Hemlock is one of the best of our forest
trees. It is a graceful and very useful tree. It
makes the best timber for the frame of a barn ora
house. The bark is used for tanning leather. The
wood is good to burn in a tight stove, and to heat an
oven.

‘“This tree grows best at about forty-five degrees
north latitude, where it is found ninety feet high and
three feet in diameter. It grows as far north as sixty
degrees, but it does not grow nearly so large there.

‘‘ The wood is white, and between the yearly rings
it is yellow. It comes apart easily between the rings
because there are no strong rays to hold it together.
In the best places it grows a quarter of an inch thick
all round the tree in one year. Where the tree does
not have a good chance it grows so slow that we can
scarcely count the rings, because they are so thin.

‘‘’The bark on old trees is an inch thick, and there
is a new layer every year next to the wood. The
outer bark is gray, or dark brown. The inner layer
is white with a yellow tint. Between these two lay-
ers there is a crimson layer and a light brown layer.

28 THE NEW METHOD

All through the bark each color shades off into the
next color.

‘‘’The hemlock tree has the smallest leaf I ever saw
on any tree. It is only a third of an inch long, and
the sixteenth of an inch wide. So it takes 48 leaves
to cover a square inch. They grow alternately all
around the stem. ‘The shape is linear and it hasa
round base and apex. ‘The leaf is flat and straight.
The upper side is dark green and glossy. ‘The under
side has several white lines with parallel green stripes
between them. Although the tree is an evergreen,
the leaves stay on only about three years, and new
leaves come on every year as the twigs grow out
longer.

‘‘ The seeds are brown on one side and gray on the
other. The length is the sixteenth of an inch, and
half as wide. Each seed has a yellow wing about
the shape of that of a house fly, and the same size.
The cone is an inch long and half as wide. There
are about thirty scales on one cone, and two seeds to
a scale.’’ JOHN.

THE SUN.

‘‘ About two and a half years ago, the first day we
ever went to school, we learned some very interesting
things about the sun. The sun has lighted up the
sky and landscape beautifully every day since, and it

OF EDUCATION 29

is almost a thousand days, for in two years there are
730 days, and in half a year, over a hundred and
eighty.

‘The girls and boys in our class are now learning
more about the sun by setting stakes in the ground
and sighting over them, to see how much it changes
its place to rise and set each day. We have found
that soon after we have the shortest days the sun
rises earlier and farther north every day, and sets
later and farther north every day. None of us under-
stands just how this is brought about. It cannot be
the daily motion of the earth on its axis, so it must
be its yearly motion round the sun that causes it in
some way.”’ IDA.

THE SPONGE.

‘We are now studying the lowest branches of the
animal kingdom—the Radiates and Protozoans.
Every one is familiar with the looks of a sponge, and
most people who go to the beach have seen the Sea-
Urchin and Sea-Anemone.

‘‘ The sponge, as we see it every day, is the skele-
ton of an animal. ‘The flesh of the animal looks like
jelly: When the sponge is alive, the jelly covers
every part of the skeleton just as the bones are cov-
ered in other animals. The sponge is the largest of
all the Protozoa, and there are many species of them,

most of which are so small we cannot see them.

30 THE NEW METHOD

While the sponge is alive it is always attached to a
rock. On the top of the sponge are two large holes
which have smaller ones branching into them. ‘The
sponge is the most ignorant of all animals. It cannot
see, hear, taste, smell nor feel, and it seems to know
nothing at all. It has no blood, and only water cir-
culates through the tubes. It lives on little animals
that flow into it through the small tubes with the
water.

‘“The Sea-Anemone belongs to a class a little
higher than the sponge. It has feelers all around its
mouth, and they look like fine sea-weed. The feel-
ers can contract and expand when they like, but their
movements are very slow. There are many species
of these animals, and some of them come from eggs,
and others from buds that grow out as they do ona
trees” HENRY.

FERNS.

‘“The Aspidium thelypteris is a very pretty fern
and it grows in damp places, generally on the banks
of brooks or rivers in the eastern United States.
They do not grow in groups but one alone in a large
patch of them. It is usually from one to two feet
high and about five inches wide.

‘« The stipe is about five inches long and is slender.
It is covered with fine hairs and on the under side is

OF EDUCATION 31

grooved. The frond is generally about twelve inches
long.

‘The pinnae are remarkable for being nearly the
same length, until near the apex. ‘They are about
two. inches long and there are usually about nineteen
pinnae on each side of the rachis. The pinnae are
divided into lobes which are cut down nearly to the
mid-vein. ‘The veins are very fine and are all forked.
The sori are very small—of a dark brown color, and
there are from five to ten on each lobe.

‘Most ferns do not have a common name but this
is called the lady-fern.’’ NINA.

A GENTLE SHOWER.

‘“We were glad yesterday afternoon to have a
gentle shower without lightning and thunder. The
rainfall was nearly half aninch. It made the ground
moist and nice for the roots of trees and grass and all
other plants.

‘“Rvery plant has a great many roots so small that
we can hardly see them. ‘The fine roots draw the
water from the soil and it goes to every part of the
plant and makes it grow.”’ JANE.

Nimbus CLoups.
“The sun is not shining at all this morning.
Nimbus clouds cover more than three-quarters of the
sky. ‘The air is not clear and I think it will rain be-

32 THE NEW METHOD

fore many hours. Nimbus clouds are rain clouds
and they are down lower than the other kinds.
Sometimes there are fair weather clouds over the
nimbus clouds and much higher up. Through an
open place in the sky I saw a small cumulous cloud
up very high above the storm cloud.’’ Mary.

‘This is a bright beautiful morning. There are
cumulous clouds up about forty degrees high, and
stratus clouds twenty or thirty degrees above the
horizon. Both are fair weather clouds and it will
not storm until we have some nimbus clouds.

‘““We had some interesting experiments at ten
o’clock to show that there is carbon in sugar. Car-
bon is the same as charcoal, and we saw it taken out

of the sugar.’’ IDA.

THE CASSIS RUFA.

‘“The Cassis rufa is a very handsome shell. It is
very large indeed. It has the aperture on the face,
like all the Cypraea shells that we have studied.
The aperture is very large. It is a little more than
three inches long, and the teeth are in the inside of
the aperture farther than in Cypraea shells. ‘The
back of the shell is covered with nodules of a grayish
brown color, while the shell is red and white or
orange and white. ‘The very top is more of an orange

OF EDUCATION 33

color. ‘There are seven whorls to my shell, and they
reach to the apex which is very small indeed. The
outer lip is turned up and it has dark brown lines on
it. The lines are very broad and they grow darker
towards the apex. The canal turns back and there
is a deep cavity just behind it.’’ Lov.

‘‘ The Cypraea arenosa is an interesting shell though
not so pretty assome. It is nearly two inches long
and over an inch thick. In color, on the back, it is
of a light reddish yellow, with five lines of deeper red
running across it. These lines are about a tenth of
an inch wide; but they do not show very much at a
distance, for the color is not a sufficient contrast with
the rest of the shell. Around the edge of the shell
there is a raised line about a quarter of an inch wide,
and it seems to be pure enamel. Its color differs
enough from the rest of the shell to make a good con-
trast; for it is a very pretty fawn color, and it has
some small white dots over it.’’ IMA.

‘“The Harpa minor isa beautifulshell. It is about
an inch long and three-quarters of an inch wide.
This shell has five whorls and the body whorl is
larger than all the others.

‘* The outside of the shell is rough, and it has many
colors. There are different shades of red, blue,

34 THE NEW METHOD

yellow, and light and dark brown. ‘There are twelve
large ribs, and each one has a great number of lines
crossing it. Some of the lines go across straight, and
in some places the lines slant and look like little
waves.

‘“'The inside of the shell is very smooth and white
with afew dark brown spots. There are twelve kinds
of Harpa shells, and this is, or was when it was found,
the smallest known Harpa. Harpa minor means
smallest harp, for the ribs make the shell look like a
harp. These shells come from the water around the
Philippine Islands.’’ JorE.

‘‘We have been learning some very interesting
things to-day about the mineral kingdom. The
natural shape of water and mercury at common
temperatures is a perfect globe. But in very cold
weather water freezes, or crystallizes, as we have seen
it on the window panes, and in snowflakes.

‘All the minerals that form the crust of the earth
have a natural shape of some kind called a crystal.
We saw several very pretty ones to-day, and we made
a drawing of a quartz crystal, which is a six-sided

prism with a six-sided pyramid at the end.’’
BESS.

THE WHITE ASH.
‘“’The Fraxinus Americana or common White Ash

OF EDUCATION 35

is a very finetree. It grows well in all parts of North
America between forty and fifty degrees north lati-
tude. It grows well in Canada and all around Lake
Superior and all the other great lakes. In the west-
ern part of Massachusetts it sometimes grows more
than a hundred feet tall, with a trunk more than four
feet in diameter, and sixty or seventy feet high with-
out a branch.

‘The wood is white, very tough, and very elastic
and strong. It is used for wheels and all other parts
of wagons. It is good to burn, and it is put to more
other uses in this country than any other tree. It is
used for the handles of rakes, pitchforks, hoes, shov-
els, and many other tools.”’

FELDSPAR.

‘“This morning the air was clear, the sky was deep
blue, and there was not a cloud to be seen, but before
noon the sky was completely covered with two or
three kinds of clouds, and it soon began to rain.
Yesterday afternoon at recess time there was a long
cirrus cloud which stretched entirely across the heav-
ens from horizon to horizon.

‘‘Our science study to-day was on a mineral called
feldspar. Next after quartz, it is the most abundant
of all minerals, and it is found in every country in

the world. Feldspar is made up of four elements,

36 THE NEW METHOD

which are oxygen, the most abundant of all the sev-
enty elements, silicon, the next most abundant after
oxygen. ‘These two elements make up three-quarters
of the weight of feldspar, and two remarkable metals
make up the other quarter.

‘‘ Another way of stating this, as we do when we
work problems in arithmetic about this mineral, after
we see our specimens weighed, is this: In one hun-
dred grains of pure feldspar there are 46 grains of
oxygen, 30 grains of silicon, 14 grains of potassium,
and 10 grains of aluminum. ‘Then in one pound, or
seventy hundred grains, there are seventy times these
numbers, and the oxygen is 3220 grains, silicon 2100
grains, potassium 980 grains, and aluminum 700
grains. All these parts added make the whole, or
7000 grains.

‘“When feldspar is broken the break follows the
cleavage planes which run through it in two direc-
tions which are at right angles to each other. These
planes have a bright pearly luster. Feldspar is not
quite as hard as quartz. Its degree of hardness is six,
and quartz is seven, and the diamond is ten, which is
the hardest thing in the world. ‘Talc is the softest of
all minerals. Its degree is one in a scale from one to
ten. Feldspar is slowly ground by natural processes,
and converted into clay, which is made into pottery,

and the finest of it into porcelain, another name for

OF EDUCATION a7

which is china. Feldspar helps very much to make
the soil fertile, and by holding the moisture it keeps
the soil from drying up in a dry summer.

‘* We have had at least a dozen very brilliant ex-
periments with the four elements which make up all
feldspar. Potassium was thrown into water and it
instantly set the hydrogen in the water on fire, while
the oxygen set the potassium on fire, and both
burned together.’’

WHEAT.

‘‘For nature study this morning we have the ma-
ture wheat plant. My specimen is forty inches high.
Its color is a beautiful shade of light yellow —the
real straw color. The nodes, or joints, begin just
above the roots, and are all just about twice the dis-
tance from the next; for instance, the first is one
inch from the root, the second two inches from that,
the next about four inches from the second, and so on
allthe way up. The nodes are perfectly solid, while
the rest of the stock is hollow, and at every nodea
long, narrow, parallel-veined leaf grows out. The
nodes are of a little darker color than the spaces in
between, which are called internodes. The inter-
nodes are largest in the middle, and taper all the way
from the middle to the nodes.

‘“The spike or head of the wheat is about three

38 THE NEW METHOD

inches long, and is of the same color as the stalk, and
there are spikelets growing out alternately on the
rachis all the way up. The rachis is the stem that
runs through the spike, and it is all zigzagged, first
curving to one side and then to the other, with a little
notch at each bend.

‘‘’The spikelets are made of many parts. First on
the right and left, is a little boat-shaped husk, called
the glumes. The glumes are about one-third of an
inch long. Then come some more little husks of
nearly the same shape, called paleae. The seed, or
kernel of wheat grows in the cavity between the two
paleae, and is completely covered by them. The
kernel is of a brown color and it has a groove run-
ning the whole length. ‘There are many varieties of
wheat, and the kernels of different varieties vary in
size and hardness, and the color of the flour.

‘‘ Wheat is one of the most valuable of all plants.
The seeds are made up of twelve elements so com-
bined into several compounds as to make the best of
food. Wheat will grow in nearly all parts of the world
except the frigid zones. But it does not grow well in
the torrid zone, except high on the mountains where
the climate is cool. A belt of land a thousand miles
wide, extending across America, Europe and Asia,
with its southern boundary half way between the

OF EDUCATION 39

equator and north pole, contains nearly all the best
land for wheat in the world.

‘The best wheat area in America begins at the
Rocky mountains, extends due east a thousand miles
to the great lakes, Michigan and Superior. Another
wheat area equally good begins at the Ural moun-
tains and Ural River, which form the boundary be-
tween Europe and Asia, extends west one thousand
miles to the Carpathian mountains and the Baltic
Sea. It extends from St. Petersburg, the capital of
Russia, one thousand miles to the Caspian and Black
Seas. This area is drained by three large rivers —
the Volga, Don and Dneiper. This great field is all
in Russia, and the great Russian wheat and flour
markets are Warsaw, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.

‘The English markets for Russian wheat are
Dover, London, and Liverpool. The French mar-
kets are Havre and Paris. In Germany, Hamburg
on the Elbe, and Berlin, the capital, are great mar-
kets for wheat.’’ ELLA.

GRADE IV.

THe ACER PENNSYLVANICUM.

‘This beautiful little tree has two common names,
viz. striped maple, and moose-wood. It grows in the
basin of the Mississippi River all the way between the
fortieth and fiftieth degree of north latitude.

‘*On the Appalachian Mountains it grows south as
far as Georgia, and north to Canada.

‘“The striped maple generally grows only ten or
twelve feet high, but where the soil and climate are
just right it grows thirty-six feet high and seven
inches in diameter at the base. The use of the
moose-wood is for inlaying work and other ornaments,
and also for the food for moose. ‘They eat the bark
and twigs for the sweet sap in them. When they
take too much of the bark off it kills the tree.

‘The wood is very heavy and white. The heart
wood shows the silver grain better than the sap wood.
On the end where it is cut off, the rays are very fine,
close together, and very straight. The fibers of the
wood are not easily separated.

‘The bark of the striped maple is thick and
fibrous. When dried, it is light reddish brown next
to the wood, and black, striped with dark brown and

OF EDUCATION AI

green outside, with little raised places all over it.
On the branches the bark is light and dark green,
red, white and yellow, with a great number of small
rings, and some large rings where branches had been.

‘‘ The leaf of this tree is about six inches long and
four inches wide. In summer the leaf has a light,
delicate green color, and in autumn it turns to a deli-
cate yellow with red spots. The tree has a great
many leaves, and they are large for a small tree.
They grow opposite, never more than two in a place,
and where there was a pair of leaves last year there
is a branch this year, and leaves are growing on it.
All the leaves have either three, five or seven veins
close to the stem, and many veinlets grow in all di-
rections from these, making a net-veined leaf. The
margin of the leaf is doubly serrate, and the apex is
very sharp. The lobes are sharp and the sinuses are
rounded at the base.

‘“The seeds grow in large clusters of forty or more.
The clusters hang downward twined in among the
leaves. Inthe spring the tree has a flower to every
seed. When the blossom falls off the seed begins to
form, and it is the same color as the leaf, and in
autumn it turns yellow and falls off. ‘The seed is in the
shape of a half ball, and is an eighth of an inch in
diameter. It has a wing an inch long and quarter
of an inch wide, and it is net-veined. After the out-

42 THE NEW METHOD

side shell is taken off, a brown seed can be seen, and
if the outside of this is taken off, the whole tree can be
seen. ‘There are two leaves, and between them the
trunk with the root on the end. All parts of the little
young tree are a light yellowish green color.’’
DAVID.

DEWDROPS.

‘‘’This morning there was a very heavy dew, and I
could see thousands of rounded dewdrops on the
grass. It was a beautiful sight, for the dew sparkled
in the light and I could see nearly all the colors of
the rainbow. The dew comes from the air. There
is always water in the air, and the whole atmosphere
always contains water enough to cover the earth sev-
eral inches deep. When the air is made cold enough
the water in it is formed into perfect little globes or
drops which are perfectly round like the little globes of
mercury we saw some time ago in the experiments in
chemistry. When the drops of water are formed in
a cloud and fall to the ground we say it rains ; when
the drops are so small we cannot see them they form
the dew on the grass and trees. In warm weather
when we have a pitcher of water with ice in it the
dew collects on the pitcher, but we do not see the
little globes fall.”’ HELEN.

OF EDUCATION 43

THE Rock MAPLE.

‘* The Acer saccharinum, or Rock maple, is a very
beautiful tree, especially inautumn. There are forty
species of maple in the world, and five of them grow
in Massachusetts. The largest rock maples grow a
hundred feet tall and six feet in diameter at the base.
It is one of our best shade trees and it reaches its great-
est size and perfection in Vermont and New Hamp-
shire. The wood is white and very solidand hard. It
makes the very best wood to burn, and it is highly
prized for all kinds of nice furniture on account of its
beautiful silver-grain.

‘“The leaf of this tree is four or five inches long,
and it has many sharp points. In color it is bright
green and very glossy. The leaf is net-veined and
the veins are yellow. ‘The stem is about an inch and
a half long, and there are several small grooves run-
ning the whole length. The pith rays are very fine
and lighter in color than the rest of the wood. The
annual rings are quite thick, and the inner part of
them is light brown. The ducts, if any, are so fine
that they can hardly be seen.

‘The seeds are round and grow together, separated
only by the stem. They have wings of a light buff
color, and the wings have many fine veins. The sap
of the rock maple tree contains sugar, and if twenty
pounds of the sap is boiled away, there will be about

A4 _ THE NEW METHOD

a pound of sugar. ‘The trees are tapped for the sap
about the first of March.’’

RADIATES.

‘Our science work for to-day is the study of the
Starfish and Coral Polyp. Both of these belong toa
very low class of animals, called Radiates.

‘“There are hundreds of species of Polyps, and
they all live in the ocean, and most of them in or
near the Torrid Zone. ‘They differ very much in size,
shape and color. Some are microscopic, and some
are six inches, or even a foot in diameter. ‘The Polyp
is a tube with a round disc and mouth at the top,
with a row of feelers around it. The feelers draw in
particles of dirt, or animal and vegetable substances
which are the food of the Polyp. These animals
never move from their place, and when they die
the skeleton remains and helps to make the coral.
Coral is of many colors and forms, and many kinds
are very beautiful. Polyps have done some good, for
they built up the Maldive and Lacadive Islands of
coral, which is becoming limestone and marble.’’

THE OSMUNDA CINNAMOMEA.
‘“This is one of the most beautiful ferns we have
studied, and it is as interesting as it is pretty. It is
found in all the states east of the Mississippi River,

OF EDUCATION 45

also in Mexico and Central America, and’in Colom-
bia, Venezuela and Brazil. Alsoin Asia, the Bahama
Islands, Hayti and Cuba. It grows from two feet to
five, and is generally found in shady, low places.
Its common name is Cinnamon Fern, from the color of
the wool.

‘“ The stipe is from six inches to two feet long, and
is a light green color. Near the base it is covered
with dark brown spots, and it has two or three deep
grooves running the whole length. The frond is from
one to three feet in length, and from half a foot toa
foot in width. It is a light green color.

‘The pinnae are from two to six inches long and
nearly an inch wide. ‘There are about thirty-six on
the rachis and they are all opposite except near the
apex. They are divided into lobes which are cut
down nearly to the mid-vein. ‘They are covered with
very fine hairs, and where they join the rachis there
is some wool. The wool is found along the stipe,
and is a bright cinnamon color, from which the fern
takes its name.’’ EDNA.

THE MITRA EPISCOPALIS.

‘“We have just finished a very interesting lesson
on the mitre shell. It belongs to the family of Volu-
tidae. This shell is about three and a half inches
long and three-quarters of an inch thick. It looks

46 THE NEW METHOD

like a bishop’s cap, and that is what its name means.
The general color of the shell is white, but there are
large bright red and yellow spots all over it.

‘“There are two rows of spots nearly a fourth of
an inch square. Just above these there is a row of
smaller spots, and again above that there is a row
of much larger spots which are all different shapes.
Then, on the next whorl, there is a row of the small
spots, and above that there is a row of five-sided
spots. Below the row that I first described there is
one rather large line of spots, and below that the
lines are so near together that they run into each
other. The last two whorls look as if they were made
of glass.

‘“'This shell has very fine lines running parallel to
the suture, which run just as the spots do from whorl
to whorl. This shell is very thick and heavy. It
weighs 1468 grains. Like all other shells, it is com-
posed of oxygen 48 per cent., calcium 4o per cent.,
and carbon 12 percent. It is found on the shores
of Ceylon, in shallow water not more than a hundred
feet deep.”’ ELLEN.

BOTANY.
‘“We are studying a very interesting little plant
this morning which belongs to the Rose Family.
This is a very large and important family of useful

OF EDUCATION 47

plants. It contains nearly a hundred genera and
more thana thousand species. It includes all kinds
of roses both wild and cultivated, — all pear, cherry,
and apple trees, — all raspberries, blackberries, and
strawberries, — all peaches, plums, and apricots.
‘“’The Spiraea tomentosa, or hardhack, is the species
we have for study. This little shrub grows about
two or three feet high. The stem is quarter of an
inch thick near the ground and only half as large in
the upper part. The branches and leaves are alter-
nate. The leaf is ovate and has a serrate margin
and a sharp apex. It is dark green on the upper side
and very woolly on the under side. The flowers
grow in a large cluster at the top. ‘The cluster of
flowers is an inch thick, but it tapers very symmet-
rically all the way up and comes to a sharp point.
This plant is sometimes called steeple bush, because
the cluster of flowers resembles a church steeple, and
I think its formis a perfect model for a church tower.”’
EDITH.

THE Conus MARMOREUS.

‘The Conus marmoreous is a very beautiful shell.
It is found most abundantly near the Equator, on the
‘shores of Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes, Gilola, Singa-
pore, and Amboyna. It is found as far north as the
Mediterranean and Marmora seas, and as far south as

48 THE NEW METHOD

the Cape of Good Hope. It is never found in fresh
water, but the best place for it is in salt water about
from two hundred feet deep to the shore. There are
three hundred and seventy-one different kinds of Cone
shells living, and eighty-four kinds fossil.

‘The shell is about three inches in length, and
one and a half in diameter. It is covered with angu-
lar white spots on avery dark brown background.
The spots are edged with a light orange color. The
spire is very short and the apex is very blunt. The
aperture is long and-narrow, extending the whole
length of the body whorl. The inside of it is white
and a delicate pink. The suture has little teeth about
one-eighth of an inch apart, and the same in height.
These teeth are white. The surface of the shell is
very smooth, and it is quite thick and heavy. The
body whorl is about four times as large as all the other
whorls taken together, and the base is grooved. There
is alittle notch at the end of the aperture, near the
suture.

‘‘’The mollusk lives on the flesh of other mollusks
and occasionally on seaweed. It likes a warm climate
and hollow rocks with a very little water. It travels
very slowly.”’ EL EAR

THE WIND.

‘‘’The air is very still this morning. I could not

OF EDUCATION 49

find out which way the wind was till I began to watch
the smoke coming out of the chimneys. ‘There were
clouds just above the horizon in every direction, but
I could not see them move at all. About a quarter
of a mile south of.me there was a very tall chimney,
and the dark gray smoke went up exactly straight
about sixty or seventy feet, I should say, and then it
went almost horizontally towards theeast. Of course
I concluded that the wind was west. Soon I began
to look for other chimneys, and I found that the smoke
was going in a slanting way to the west from all
short ones, while it went in the opposite way from
the highest ones. My experience this morning re-
minded me that one day last week I saw clouds high
up near the zenith moving in three different direc-
tions. One cloud went south, another northeast, and
another west. This last went very fast and I found
that it was not up nearly as high as the others.’’
EMMA.

THE APPLE TREE.

‘“This tree belongs to a large class of very im-
portant and useful plants called the Rose Family.
The family contains nearly a hundred genera and a
thousand species of plants. These plants furnish by
far the greater part of our most delicious fruits, some
of which are the peach, quince, apricot, pear, plum,

50 THE NEW METHOD

cherry, strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry. ‘The
family also ornaments our orchards and gardens with
the most beautiful and fragrant blossoms from early
spring till the end of summer. It includes all the
wild roses, such as the sweet brier and the Rosa Car-
olina, all cultivated roses, the flowering raspberry,
the spiraeas, and many other plants.

‘« The largest trees in this family are the pear, apple,
‘ cherry, the wild sugar pear, and the mountain ash.
The apple tree does not grow tall, but spreads out
very broad. ‘The trunk is thick and short. The
branches are long, and they grow out horizontally
from the trunk. The tree is very easy to climb, and
it makes a beautiful sight when it is in full bloom,
and again when the apples are ripening.

‘«'The blossom is a beautiful color of light pink and
white. Just under the five petals there are five green
sepals, and five small bracts underthem. ‘The flower
has twenty stamens and all its parts but the calyx
drop off in a few days, but the sepals always remain,
and may be seen on the end of the apple opposite the
stem. In the apple there are five carpels, or seed-
boxes, and two seeds in each.’’ EDITH.

SAMPLES OF WORK DONE IN THE
GRAMMAR SCHOOL GRADES

GRADE V.
* Tue Hemiock TREE.

“The Abies Canadensis, or common hemlock
spruce, is a very beautiful evergreen tree. It grows
best at about forty-five degrees north latitude, grow-
ing there about eighty feet in height and two and
one-half feet in diameter. It is found as far north
as fifty-one degrees and as far south as forty-one.
It is the most graceful tree of the cone bearing fam-
ily, and lives to be three hundred years old. It grows
as far west as the Pacific Ocean, but not very plenti-
fully. It is not found in the Old World at all.

‘The bark is very rough and in some places it is of
a bright crimson color. ‘The inner bark is of a dark
brown color and is very fibrous. On an old tree the
bark is very rough, but on the branches and twigs it
is always smooth. Onan old tree the bark is some-
times an inch thick.

‘The wood is not very heavy, and is fibrous. The
heart-wood is a very little darker than the sap-wood.
The wood splits very easily, because the rays are so

52 THE NEW METHOD

fine that they cannot hold the fibers together very
strongly. There are no ducts. The wood is used
mostly for timbers for barns, and sometimes for fuel.
It is not very often used for fuel, for it snaps a great
deal.

‘«’T’he leaf of the hemlock spruce is something like
that of the pine. It is linear, and is about one-third
of an inch in length. There area ereat many differ-
ences between the leaves of the hemlock and pine.
The pine leaves grow in clusters, while the hemlock
leaves grow singly. The pine leaves are four-cor-
nered, while the hemlock leaves are flat. ‘They are
both alike in remaining green all winter. The hem-
lock leaves grow on a small stock, or stem, and very
thickly together. They sprout out of a tiny bulb,
and there are three sets of them. One row grows
pointing upward, and on each side there is a row
pointing outward. The leaves are a very bright
green color, and glossy on the upper side, but on the
under side they are a light green with tiny white
lines. ‘The under side is also glossy. The margin
is entire and has tiny white hairs.

‘“The cone of the hemlock spruce is about three-
quarters of an inch long, and half an inch thick. It
consists of many very small scales, which are of a
dark brown color. ‘The seeds are about one-fifth of
an inch long, including the wing, which is of a light

OF EDUCATION 53

brown color and very thin and delicate. The seed-
vessel is oval-shaped, and of about the same color as
the wing.’’

THE BIRCHES.

‘“The birches are very beautiful trees, growing in
cold climates. They grow very tall toward the
north, but toward the south they are smaller. The
best place for them is about sixty-five degrees north
latitude. ‘There are twenty kinds of birch in the
world, and six in Massachusetts. ‘They do not grow
much farther south than the New England states, or
farther west than Wisconsin. ‘There is one kind
that grows on the island of Terra del Fuego. The
tallest birches grow about one hundred feet high.”’

THE BETULA PAPYRACEA.

‘“The Betula papyracea, or paper birch, is a very
graceful tree. The wood is nearly white and is made
up of small fibers. The pith-rays are very fine, but
some of them are quite long. The annual rings are
rather broad and far apart, so that we can easily tell
the age of the tree. ‘I‘he wood is used for a variety
of things, such as bureaus, table-legs, hat-blocks,
and will burn very nicely. When it is split, the
ducts can be seen quite plainly on the end. ‘The
bark is pure white, or nearly so, and is very thin. It

54 THE NEW METHOD

will split into pieces as fine as the thinnest tissue
paper. It has also little lines about half an inch
long and one-eighth of an inch thick and perfectly
straight. ‘They are not in a straight line, but are
irregular. The leaf is ovate, or egg-shaped, and
varies from two to about four or five inches in
length. The margin is doubly-serrate and the
apex is very pointed. The base is rounded and for
about half an inch each side of the stem there are no
notches. ‘The mid-vein is very large and also the
veinlets, but the veinlets can hardly be seen. The
leaf is net-veined, and on the upper side it is much
darker than on the under side. The veins can be
seen much more plainly on the under side than on
the upper. The leaves turn yellow in the autumn,
and grow lighter and lighter until they drop off.
The stem, or petiole, is about half an-inch long, and
is quite thick. ‘The seeds are contained in a tassel-
like cone, and there are hundreds of them in a single
cone. The cone is called a strobile. The strobiles
vary in shape on the different kinds of birch, some
being larger on one kind than those of another. ‘The
seeds are of two different shapes, one kind being very
similar to the leaf of a cactus, being covered with
very, very fine hairs, that we cannot see without a
microscope. The other kind is in somewhat the

shape of a butterfly, having a body, two wings, and

OF EDUCATION 55

something like antennae. ‘The strobile is the name
of the whole cluster of seeds, which combined make
a cone-like appearance. It is about one inch or more
in length, and is of a light reddish-brown color in
the autumn.”’

THkr ASPIDIUM MARGINALE.

‘“We have had a lesson today upon a very interest-
ing and beautiful fern, the name of which is the
Aspidium marginale. It grows about fifteen inches
in height, and bends very gracefully. It resembles
the tree fern, that grew thousands of years ago, more
nearly than any other fern growing in the United
States.

‘The stipe is about five inches in height, and is of a

,

pale yellow color shading into brown near the base.
There is a deep, broad line on the upper side, be-
sides smaller ones. There are a great many dark
brown dots on the under side. The stipe is flat and
rough, and is much wider at the base than at the
part nearest the frond. There is a good deal of
chaff on each side of the stipe near the frond, and it
is of a light brown color.

‘The root is about a foot in length, and resembles
the roots of a great many other ferns. It is covered
with small rootlets which are really the stipes which
grew a great many years ago.

56 THE NEW METHOD

‘“'The frond is a little more than twice the length of
the stipe. The upper side is of a bright, dark green
color, but on the under side it is much lighter col-
ored and very smooth and shiny. ‘The rachis is not
winged, but has chaff growing out on each side,
which when pulled out leaves a little dot, like those
on the under side of the stipe. There is also a broad
line near the center of the rachis, as on the stipe.
The pinnae are alternate, and grow nearer together
near the apex than near the base. ‘There are twenty-
four on one side of the rachis and twenty-three on
the other. Those pinnae near the middle of the
frond are about three inches in length and one-half
an inch in breadth, while the two lower pinnae are
only about two inches long, and the upper ones are
so small it is difficult to count them. ‘The pinnules
are alternate, and have an entire margin. They are
about a third of an inch long and one-fourth of an
inch broad. They are as broad at the base as they
are at the apex, the latter being round and broad.
The veins are of a dark brownish-green color, and
the apex of the pinnae curves upward.

‘The Aspidium marginale takes its first name from
the sori, which is covered with a little napkin that
is in the shape of a shield, Aspidium in Greek mean-
ing a little shield, and its last name, marginale, from

OF EDUCATION 57

the sori growing very near the margin of the pinnae.
The veinlets are forking.

‘“The Aspidium marginale grows on rich hillsides,
and between rocks in rich soil. It is found in all the
states east of the Mississippi river, excepting Florida.
It also grows in Canada as far north as fifty-two
degrees north latitude, and as far west as Lake
Winnipeg.”

TITANIUM ORE.

‘““This is a very sunny, beautiful day, warm, and
very clear air. The wind blows very gently toward
the east at the rate of about three or four miles an
hour. ‘The sky is of a bright shade of blue, and is
partly covered with stratus and cumulus clouds. We
had a very pleasant recess out today, and when we
returned we had our second lesson on minerals this
year. The subject was Titanium ore.

‘“'This is a very pretty mineral when broken, but on
the outside it is rather common and plain looking, as
the colors are dull. When it breaks it has sharp
angular corners and sparkles a great deal when held
in the light. In one hundred grains of Titanium ore
there are sixty-one grains of Titanium, and thirty-
nine grains of oxygen. ‘Titanium is a metal nearly
as valuable as gold, and it crystallizes in cubes. It
is very rare, and very few people know how to obtain

58. THE NEW METHOD

it from the ore. Oxygen is an invisible gas, that
constitutes the greater part of the air, and makes all
animals live. It is in water and a great many
things. ‘Titanium ore is very hard and heavy, and
is used for painting on porcelain, and for giving the
proper tint to artificial teeth. It was discovered one
hundred years ago that there was a metal in it, and
chemists worked on it for fifty years before they -
named it. When first broken, it shows crystals that
are sometimes of eight, twelve, or sixteen sides, and
sometimes of no definite shape. In places where it
is broken, it is of a reddish-silver color, and some-
times of a dark silver color. But the lighter color is
the purest, the other having a very small quantity of
iron that colors it. There are some bright red
spots on the broken places. Titanium is worth two
hundred and forty dollars a pound, and burns with a
more beautiful flame than any other metal. Titanium
ore is found on the Ozark Mountains, in Arkansas,
the Alleghany Mountains in the eastern part of the
United States, the Himalaya Mountains in Asia, the
Rocky Mountains in North America, the Andes in
South America. It is also found in England and
Spain.

‘‘ This ore is never found in large quantity — seldom

if ever, more than a few ounces at any place.’’

GRADE VI.

THE BEECHES.

‘“’The Beeches are a very beautiful family of trees
growing in moist, rich soil. There are sixteen differ-
ent kinds of beech trees in the world, but only one in
Massachusetts. There are six. different kinds that
grow on the Andes mountains in Chili. They grow
on the islands of Tierra del Fuego, New Zealand,
Van Diemen’s Land, and in the western part of
Asia, the northern part of Europe and America. But
the tallest are found in western Massachusetts and in
Ohio, growing there about one hundred feet high and
from two and a half to three feet thick. They also
grow along the banks of the Ohio river.’’

THE AMERICAN BEECH.

‘The Fagus ferruginea or American beech is a
very beautiful tree. The wood is of a reddish-brown
color near the pith, but near the bark it is much
lighter. It is quite heavy and is composed of very
fine fibers. The pith-rays are rather thick, and can
be seen only on two opposite sides. On the other
two sides the ends of them can be seen. ‘The tree we
studied to-day is a little more than fifty years old,
and for that reason it is more red than a younger tree

60 THE NEW METHOD

would be. ‘The wood is used for plane stocks, chair-
posts, saw-handles, and sometimes for shoe-lasts.
The bark is light and dark gray on the outside, but
golden-brown on the inside. It is very brittle, rather
smooth and quite thin. ‘There are very small black
dots on it, and there are no fibers.

‘“’The leaf varies in length from about three to five
inches and is net-veined and feather-veined. It is of
an ovate shape, with an accuminate apex. The mid-
vein is covered with very fine hairs, which can be
seen more plainly on the under side than on the
upper. On the under side the veins are raised from
the leaf. The margin is coarsely serrate, and there
is a notch at the end of every veinlet. The margin
is fringed with very fine hairs that can be seen very
plainly. The stem, or petiole, is very short and
crooked. ‘The upper side of the leaf is much darker
than the under side, and much smoother. In the
spring, and especially when the leaf is unfolding, the
under side is covered all over with hairs, and looks
very pretty. The bud that contains the leaf forms
in the autumn and remains on the tree all winter
until they unfold in the spring. The leaves turn
yellow and brown late in the autumn, but, unlike
those of some other kinds of trees, they remain on
until killed by frost, late in the winter. The seed of
the beech tree is the beechnut, which is held and fas-

OF EDUCATION 61

tened by a bur. The bur has four lobes and they
are on two opposite sides. ‘They are covered with
little prickles on the outside, but on the inside
they are very smooth. The beechnuts themselves
are very smooth and there are generally two nuts tc
each bur. They are triangular, having three sharp
sides and coming to a very sharp point. The nuts
are very good to eat, and in France they press great
quantities of them for the oil, which is good for
flavoring different articles of food. The stem of the
bur is soft and covered with very fine hairs like the
edge of the leaf. The nuts are very small, being
only about half an inch long, and each one of the
three sides are about the same length. They are
a little larger on some other kinds of beech. ‘The
stem of the bur is only about one-third of an inch
long and about one-eighth of an inch thick. When
the nuts are in the bur the two flat sides come
together.’’

THE OAKS.

‘“The Oaks are not a very graceful class of trees,
but are very majestic and strong. ‘They are distin-
guished for their great rough bark, the beauty of the
leaves, for growing very tall and large, and also for
growing very old. Some of them have been found
one thousand years old. ‘They are found in the

62 THE NEW METHOD

northern part of Africa, in Europe, in Asia, and
North America. ‘They are also found on the islands
of Borneo, Celebes, Sumatra and Java. ‘There are
about one hundred and forty-four different kinds of
oak trees in the world, twelve of which grow in Mas-
sachusetts. They do not grow at all in the North
frigid zone, as it is too cold for them, but mostly in
the north temperate zone, with a few kinds in the
torrid. ‘They very rarely grow below the Equator,
and only a short distance. ‘They grow as far north
as Hudson Bay, and all over North America below
there. But they grow best on rocky mountains and
rocky hills.’’

THE QUERCUS RUBRA.

‘The Quercus rubra, or common red oak, is excelled
by none of the oaks in point of strength, majesty, and
beauty. It grows best in Massachusetts, but grows
very well in the adjoining states. It does not grow
farther north than the southern end of Hudson’s Bay,
or farther south than South Carolina. They grow
west as far as West Virginia. They grow about
ninety feet high at the tallest and four feet thick.
The wood is of a light reddish color, and is composed
of fibers. It is of a darker color near the pith, and
the wood near the pith is called heart-wood, and that
near the bark is called sap-wood. ‘The ducts are

OF EDUCATION 63

quite large near the bark, but grow smaller as they
reach the pith, until they can hardly be seen. ‘They
are on the annual rings. The pith-rays are quite
large and wide. The annual rings can hardly be
seen, as they are so perforated with ducts. The
wood is used for a variety of things, such as shingles
for barns, sometimes for ships, and timber. It is
very good for floors, but it is very .hard to dry.
Wood that has been kept eighty years in a house
will not be dry, and if burned, the sap will ooze out.
The bark is of a light gray color and thin.

‘“The leaf is about four or five inches in length,
and three inches broad at the widest part. It has nine
lobes, and the sinuses are very deep and rounded. |
Hach lobe has a very sharp bristle, and from two to
four bristles on the sides. "The apex is rather accu-
minate, and has a bristle at the end. ‘The leaf is
oval-shaped, growing larger near the apex. ‘The
petiole is red on the upper side, but is yellow on the
under, and is not quite round. ‘The mid-vein shows
much more plainly on the under side than on the
upper, and also the veinlets. The under side of the
leaf is much the lighter. In the autumn the leaves
turn to a brownish-red color, and that is one reason
why the tree is called the red oak. ‘They never
turn yellow. The leaf is net-veined.

‘“The acorn is about one inch long and three-

64 THE NEW METHOD

quarters through, and looks as if it had been highly
polished. The apex is large and rounded, and
‘around it for about one-quarter of an inch there isa
little white silky skin. ‘The shell of the red acorn is
thicker than that of the white oak, and will not
shrivel up. If we cut off the shell, we find, by pinch-
ing a little, a crack by which we can pull apart the
meat, and we find that the two parts are connected at
the bottom by a hinge. When the acorn sprouts in
the ground, this hinge forms either the trunk or the
roots of the tree. The cup is composed of little
scales which are pressed in so hard as to present a
very smooth appearance. It is of a reddish-brown
color and quite shallow. ‘The inside of the cup is of
a brown color. On the bottom there is a little
cushion, which is what the acorn rests on: It
is white and brown. The inside of the cup is
very smooth, and around the edges it is of a bright
orange color and is full of little cells like honey-
comb. This orange-colored line is the inside of
the scales. The stem is very short and rough, but
quite thick.’’

THE STROMBUS LAMBIS
‘“The Strombus lambis is a very curious and beau-
tiful shell, but entirely unlike any other species of
Strombus we have ever studied. It is of a reddish-

OF EDUCATION 65

brown color on the outside, but the inside of the
outer lip and aperture is of a bright salmon color. It
is very thick and heavy. There are seven whorls,
but the upper whorls are very indistinct and difficult
to count. On the body whorl there are three rows of
knobs, but the one nearest the suture is twice as
large as the other two rows. ‘These rows of knobs
run parallel with the suture and are about one-third
of an inch apart. They form, when they reach the
outer lip, long spines or claws. ‘There are six claws,
and the two upper ones are about one inch long,
while the others are about three-quarters of an inch
long. The upper one grows out very near the apex,
but curves toward the apex in such a way as to
nearly cover it up. This gives it the appearance of
being the continuation of the apex. The two upper
claws are somewhat straight, but the others are
straight only about half way, and then curve upward.
Between the lines that form a portion of the claws,
there are other raised lines running in the same
direction. ‘The claws are hollow. ‘There is a canal
about an inch long, at the lower end of the aperture.
The base of the shell curves in, near the upper end
of the canal. This part of the shell is very thin and
brittle, and also translucent. ‘There are rounded
knobs on the edge of the outer lip, which are of a
yellowish white color. The pillar is of the same

66 THE NEW METHOD

color as these knobs, and is very smooth. There is
a light pink spot on the side of the shell near the
pillar. The suture can not be seen.

‘‘’The mollusk lives in shallow water around the
Japan Islands, the Philippine Islands, Borneo,
Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Gilolo, Ceram, Amboyna,
Timor, Sumbawa, Sumba, Socotra, Ceylon, the
Maldive and Laccadive Isiands, the Comoro Islands,
Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion, and on the
coasts of China, Hindostan, Beluchistan, Persia,
Arabia, Turkey, Somali, Zanguebar, Mozambique,
Zulu Land, Natal, Caffraria. and Cape Colony:
There are one thousand of the Japan Islands, and
they are very mountainous, some of the mountains
being two miles high. The best market-places for
the Strombus lambis are at Tokio, the capital of
Japan, Borneo, the capital of Borneo, Manila, the
capital of the Philippine Islands, Colombo, the capi-
tal of Ceylon, and Tananarivo, the capital of Mada-
gascar. There are sixty-five different species of
Strombus, and we have studied five, the Strombus
Canarium, the Strombus lentiginosus, the Strom-
bus pugilis, the Strombus melanostoma, and the
Strombus lambis.”’

ASBESTUS

“This is a very beautiful day, but considerably

OF EDUCATION 67

cooler than any day we have had this week. The
wind blows quite roughly toward the northwest, and
at about the rate of eight or nine miles an hour. It
takes a good deal of dust along with it, as we have
not had any rain for several days. ‘The sky is of a
light shade of blue, and there are a great many beau-
tiful cumulus clouds, some of them being rather dark
colored. We did several problems in Interest before
recess this morning, and then we went out and had a
very nice time. When we came in we had a lesson
on a mineral called Asbestus.

‘“This is a very interesting as well as beautiful
mineral, more beautiful than any we have had this
year. It is called fibrous asbestus, because it is
made up of fibers. It is always found between two
banks of other kinds of rock. ‘The fibers are of a
greenish-white color, and will not burn. For this
reason the Greeks and Romans used it to make nap-
kins of, as when they became soiled, the way to
clean them was to put them in a hot fire, which
would burn the dirt off. They also used it for wicks
for lamps, which they kept constantly burning in
their temples to the heathen gods and goddesses, and
it was known to burn for hundreds of years without
consuming. For that reason the Greeks named it
asbestos, meaning in the Greek language, not to be
consumed. The people now use it for firemen’s

68 THE NEW METHOD

gloves, and other things. It is of various shades of ’
green, beautifully mixed, and when held in the light
it sparkles like very bright silver. When the fibers
are separated, which is very easily done, they can
be twisted into a very strong cord. They are very
fine, and it irritates the skin if rubbed against it. It
is composed of oxygen, silicon, magnesium and cal-
cium, but the percentage is not known for certainty,
as it is very difficult to analyze. Each little fiber is
a crystal. It is very heavy, but it is not known what
the degree of hardness is. It is a variety of Horn-
blende, and the only variety that is used for anything.
It is found on the Alleghany Mountains in the eastern
part of the United States, Sierra Nevada Mountains
in the western part of the United States, the Sierra
Madre Mountains in Mexico, the Apennines in Italy,
the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, in the northwestern
part or Africa, the Himalaya Mountains in Asia, and
the Hecla Volcano in Iceland. The market-places
for asbestus are at Little Rock, the ‘capital ‘ot
Arkansas, Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania,
Reykjavic, the capital of Iceland, Mexico, the capi-
tal of Mexico, Sacramento, the capital of California,
Rome, the capital of Italy, Calcutta, the capital of
Hindostan, and Morocco, the capital of Morocco.
Also Quebec, the capital of Canada.’’

GRADE VII.

THE OSTRYA VIRGINICA.

‘“The Ostrya Virginica, or common Hop-horn-
beam is a very beautiful tree. It is also quite grace-
ful, as the twigs are very small. In most parts of
America it is called iron-wood, but in Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts it is gener-
ally called lever-wood. It grows best at about forty-
three degrees north latitude, growing there about
forty feet high and one foot in diameter. It is found
in all the states east of the Mississippi and as far
north as the Strait of Belle Isle, the East Main and
Albany rivers and Lake Winnipeg. It is the only
kind of Ostrya growing in North America and there
are only about six in the world.

‘‘The bark is thinner than that of any other tree
we have studied, and the outer bark is quite rough.
The outer bark is of different shades of brown mixed
with black, while the inner bark is of a golden brown
color and very fibrous.

‘“The wood of the hop-hornbeam is of a light color,
but the heart-wood is very nearly the color of the
black walnut. It is very hard and heavy and is com-
posed of very fine fibers. It is also very hard to split.
The rays are very fine, and the ducts can hardly be

70 THE NEW METHOD

seen. The annual rings can be seen very plainly.
It resembles the moose-wood, birch, and rock maple
very much. It is used for the cogs of mill-wheels,
mallets, and binding-poles.

‘“The hop-hornbeam tree has a very beautiful leaf,
greatly resembling that of the birch. It is about
three inches in length, and about one inch in diam-
eter. It is of a pointed ovate shape and has a doubly
serrate margin. The apex is very sharp, and the
veinlets are parallel.

‘The seed of the hop-hornbeam is about one-half
of an inch long, including the sack which encloses it.
This little sack is very thin and brittle, and is of a
delicate brown color. ‘The seeds themselves are only
about one-quarter of an inch long and quite hard.
The seeds grow in clusters, and the clusters are about
one inch and a half in length. ‘The seed has a very
sharp apex, and is covered with fine prickly hairs.
The sack is net-veined, and is translucent. The
clusters of seeds greatly resemble hops, which

accounts for its being named hop-hornbeam.”’

SIDERITE.

‘‘This is a cold but pleasant day, and the sun
shines brightly. There are no clouds in the sky.
This morning there was a slight haze in the air,

OF EDUCATION 71

making distant objects look indistinct. There is a
gentle west wind blowing now.

‘“We have had a pleasant lesson on a mineral
called siderite. This beautiful and interesting min-
eral is of a dark golden brown color, with cleavage
faces running in three directions. It is a kind of
steel ore. Massive siderite has rough surfaces, with
the cleavage faces in small pieces. Siderite crystal-
lizes in rhombohedrons, but is rarely found crystal-
lized. It is composed of three elements, iron, oxygen,
and carbon. Forty-eight per cent. of siderite is iron,
forty-two per cent. is oxygen, and ten per cent. is
carbon. Iron is the most useful of all metals, and
the most abundant of all elements after oxygen,
silicon, and aluminum. It is used for a great many
things. Oxygen is the most abundant of all elements.
It is an invisible gas, and supports fire, and all ani-
mal life. It makes up eighty-nine per cent. of water,
and forty-five per cent. of the whole crust of the
earth. Carbon is the same as charcoal, and the dia-
mond is pure crystallized carbon. It is a very use-
ful element. The luster of siderite greatly resembles
that of feldspar, but it has a little of a metallic luster,
besides the pearly. Some very smooth cleavage
planes are slightly iridescent. ‘The degree of hard-
ness is four, a little more than that of galena, which
is about three. The specific gravity is four, about

72 THE NEW METHOD

half that of galena. Siderite is often found in cryo-
lite, and my largest specimen contains some of that
mineral. I have a specimen of siderite which is of a
much lighter color than the other, and contains some
copper and iron pyrite which is in some places irides-
cent. ‘The copper pyrite is of a very bright golden
color, shading to red in some places. Siderite, when
held in the light, sparkles very beautifully, owing to
the cleavage faces.

‘‘Tt is found in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but not in large quantities,
it being found most plentifully in Connecticut and in
Greenland. It is also found in England, Germany,

Austria and Russia.’’

THE STROMBUS MELANOSTOMA.

‘<The Strombus melanostoma is a very beautiful
shell. It resembles the Strombus pugilis somewhat
in shape, but it is narrower in proportion to the
length than that shell, or any other kind of Strombus
we have studied. It is found on the shores of the
Andaman and Nicobar islands and in all the places
where the Conus striatus is found. The best market-
places for this shell are at Calcutta, Colombo, and
Bombay. ‘There are only sixty-five different species
of Strombus in the world.

‘‘ The Strombus melanostoma is about three inches

OF EDUCATION 73

in length and one and one-half in breadth. It is
very heavy. There are seven whorls, and the apex
is rather blunt. The body whorl has three rows of
knobs running parallel with the suture. The one
nearest the suture has longer knobs than the other
two rows. The other whorls have only one row of
knobs and after the two whorls nearest the body
whorl they can hardly be seen. All the whorls are of
a light grayish white color, but if held in the sun-
light, they have a pearly luster, particularly near the
apex. There are great numbers of lines running in
the same direction as the knobs, which are raised.
The lines of growth are scarcely perceptible. The
suture is quite broad and considerably raised. The
upper part of the pillar is of a rich black color shad-
ing into a bright orange, near the base. The lower
half projects in toward the aperture. The inside of
the aperture is also of a bright orange color in as far
as we can see and is very smooth. The edge of the
outer lip curves in, and is very thick. The outside
is striped with white and brown. Inside of these
stripes there is a brown and silver stripe, running
lengthwise, while the other lines run crosswise. At
the upper end of the aperture, there is a long point
projecting upward. ‘This point is about one-third of
an inch in length, and is of a black color. Between
this point and the shell there is a broad, deep notch

74 THE NEW METHOD

or canal of the same color as the point. There is also
a very long, narrow canal formed by the base curv-
ing outward. ‘There is, near this canal, what seems
to be another canal. This is made by the lower edge
of the outer lip curving backward and inward.’’

THE FRAXINUS AMERICANA.

“The Fraxinus Americana, or common white ash,
is a very beautiful tree. When young it is of a very
graceful shape, but when old it is rather stiff. It
grows best at about the same place as the hemlock
spruce, but the very best place for them is on the
banks of the Penobscot, Kennebec, Androscoggin,
Merrimac, Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, and Sus-
quehanna rivers. ‘The tallest are found as high as
eighty feet, and three feet in diameter, sometimes
growing as high as fifty or sixty feet without a limb.
They are found as far south as the hemlock spruce,
about as far south as the Middle States reach.

‘“The bark is rather thick and on the outside it is
quite rough. The outer bark is of different shades of
brown and gray, and there are a great many lichens
on it. The inner bark is of an orange brown color
and the layers are easily seen. It has rather a
spicy odor.

‘The heart-wood of the white ash is a very little
darker than the sap-wood. ‘The color of the wood is

OF EDUCATION 75

a light reddish-brown, quite like that of the black
cherry. It is rather heavy and fibrous. The ducts
are quite large, and the silver-grain is easily seen
and sparkles when held to the light. The rays are
very fine. The pith is quite soft. The wood is very
hard and tough, and is used fora variety of purposes,
such as frames for chairs and sofas, handles for ham-
mers, rakes, hoes, and shovels, bows, oars for boats,
and other things.

‘“The white ash has a compound leaf, with gener-
ally five leaflets. They grow opposite on the stem,
with one odd one at the top. The leaf varies in
length, from six to about ten inches including the
petiole. The top leaflet is much the largest, being
about four inches and a half in length and three
inches wide. The other leaflets are about all differ-
ent in size and shape. ‘The upper side of the leaflets
is of a dark green color, but the under side is of a
light silver green color. The veinlets and the mid-
veins are raised up on the under side and are also of
a very light silver color. The shape of the leaflets is
ovate and pointed, and the apex is rather blunt.
The margin is serrate and the teeth are rather far
apart. The petiole is nearly round, and is of a light
yellowish-brown color. ‘The petiolules are very short
and are of about the same color as the petiole. They

76 THE NEW METHOD

are very fine. The leaves turnin the autumn toa
yellowish-brown color, and they are very thin.

‘The seed resembles that of the black ash in many
respects, and also differs from it in many respects.
It is not so broad as that of the black ash, but is of
about the same color. It is of a light greenish-yel-
low, and is about two inches long, and one-third of
an inch broad. ‘The seed-vessel is oval-shaped and
is very thick. The seed has one wing which is
parallel-veined and quite thick.’’

THE ADIANTUM PEDATUM.

‘‘Our lesson to-day is upon a very graceful as well
as beautiful fern, and one of the most remarkable
growing in North America. It is called the Adian-
tum pedatum, but a more common name is maiden’s
hair. It grows from eight to fifteen inches in height,
in rich soil, rather damp, and in shady places. It
often grows in the same places with the Aspidium
marginale.

‘“The root of this fern resembles that of the Ono-
clea sensibilis, and is about twice as large as the
stipe. It grows horizontally on the top of the ground.
The stipe is about seven inches long, and quite thick.
There are several grooves on the upper side, some
being deeper than others. ‘The upper side is nearly
black, but the under side is of a rich dark brown

OF EDUCATION 77

color, and both sides are polished. ‘The rachis is
divided into two parts, each of which are again
divided into five parts, called the secondary rachises.
They are of a lighter color than the stipe, and are
grooved. ‘There are eleven pinnae, the longest be-
ing about seven inches in length, and the shortest
only about an inch anda half in length. The frond
is about ten inches in breadth, and six in height.
The general shape is very much like a fan. The
pinnules average about one-third of an inch in
breadth, and one-half an inchin length. ‘They are
of a pale green color, and the veinlets are forking.
The under side of the pinnules is not as smooth as
the upper. The lower margin is entire, but the up-
per margin is notched, and the edge of the pinnules
next the stipe is parallel to it. The stem is very
short and fine. There are about thirty pinnules on
the largest pinnae, and on the smaller ones about
fifteen. The sori grow in a very curious manner.
A small portion of the edge of the pinnule is turned
over, with the sori underneath. ‘They are crescent
shaped, and are very small. It would take five hun-
dred of them placed side by side to reach one inch.
“The Adiantum pedatum grows in all the States
east of the Mississippi River, except Florida, and in
Washington Territory, Oregon, California, and Utah
Territory. It also grows in British America as far

78 THE NEW METHOD

north as the East Main River, in Newfoundland and
as far west as Lake Winnipeg; in British Colombia,
and on the islands south of Alaska. It grows in
Asia in Nepaul, a province in the north of India in
Mantchooria, one of the northern divisions of the
Chinese Empire, and in the Japan Empire, and
Kamtchatka. This makes about one-nineteenth of

the land surface of the earth.’’

ZIRCON.

‘‘'This is not a very pleasant day, but cloudy, with

the sun shining at intervals. A disagreeable snow-
storm commenced Saturday afternoon, and continued
a good part of yesterday, and there is a good deal of
it left now. ‘The wind is north-east, and the sky is

completely covered with cumulus and nimbus clouds. |
: :
Saturday afternoon I attended a public rehearsal off

the Handel and Haydn Society, and I enjoyed it very

much. We had avery nice time out at recess to-day,
and on our return we had a very interesting lesso}
on a gem called Zircon.

‘“‘This is a very beautiful gem and the most expe
sive mineral we have ever studied. ' When not cryst®
lized, it is called zirconite. It crystallizes in crystals
that resemble those of quartz very much, only the
crystals of quartz have six sides and eighteen faces
in all, while those of zircon have only four wit

{

\a

OF EDUCATION 79

twelve faces. The ends of the pyramids are very
sharp. Zircon is the hardest mineral we have ever
. studied, its degree of hardness being between seven
and eight. My specimens are about seven and three-
quarters. All sides of crystals are very shiny and
smooth. ‘They are prisms with a pyramid at each
end, if the crystals are perfect.

‘‘The color of zircon is a light chocolate brown,
but sometimes it is white and reddish colored. It is
spotted light and dark brown in some places. It is
composed of zirconium, oxygen, and silicon. In one
hundred grains of zircon, there are forty-nine grains
of zirconium, thirty-five of oxygen, and sixteen of
silicon. Zirconium is a very beautiful metal resem-
bling silver in color, and is five times as valuable as
gold, being worth fifteen hundred dollars a pound.
There has as yet been no use put to it, but sometime
it may be very useful. Oxygen is a very useful gas,
as it keeps all animals alive, and isin a great many
minerals, in all shells and limestone, and a great
riany other things. Silicon is not a metal, but it is
‘11a great many different minerals. It is very rare,
aud difficult to extract from the rocks. Zircon is
used in jewelry, being sometimes passed off for dia-
monds when of a white color. When it is of a reddish
color, it is called hyacinth. °

** Zircon is found in the Adirondack Mountains in

80 THE NEW METHOD

New York State, the Blue Ridge, running through
the western part of North Carolina, the Ural Moun-
tains, that form a part of the boundary line between
Europe and Asia, the Altai Mountains, near the
central part of Asia, and Adam’s Peak, one of the
Ceylon Mountains in Ceylon. ‘The market-places for
zircon are at Albany, the capital of New York State,
Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, St. Peters-
burg, the capital of Russia, and Colombo, the capital
of Ceylon.’’

BIRDS.

‘“It is very warm and pleasant today, and every-
thing seems fresher for the recent rain. The sky is
of a very delicate shade of blue, and there are a num-
ber of stratus and cumulus clouds which look very
beautiful mixed with the blue. The air near us
seems clear, but if we look off for some distance it
seems hazy. There is a gentle south-west wind
blowing at the rate of about five or six miles an hour.
The trees are beginning to have large buds, and I
think they will soon show blossom.

‘*We have had our first lesson on birds for this
year, and the subject today was the Night Heron.
It is a very interesting as well as beautiful bird, and
is called by that name because it travels only in the
night. It is about sixteen inches high, and eighteen
inches long. The back is of a rich black color with

OF EDUCATION 8I

a green gloss. The wings are of a delicate gray
color, and the throat and neck are white, also the
breast. ‘The crest is of the same color as the back,
and there is a streak of black running from the crest
across the neck tothe back. There is a plume con-
sisting of three small ones twisted together, reaching
from the crest to the back. The bill is black, and
the upper mandible projects out a little farther than
the lower. The upper mandible curves downward,
and the point is very sharp. The tail is rather short,
and is made up of twelve white feathers. The legs
are covered with feathers down to the first joint, and
they are quite large. The feet are made up of four
claws, three at the front and one at the back.

‘“The Night Heron feeds upon the frogs, lizards,
insects, fishes, and mice, which he swallows whole.
There are four eggs, and they are of a delicate sea-
green color, and are about two inches long and one
and one-half in thickness. They are found at or
near the mouths of the Colorado, Brazos, Trinity,
and Sabine rivers in Texas, the Mississippi and
Pearl rivers in Louisiana, the Appalachicola and St.
Johns rivers in Florida, the Mobile River in Ala-
bama, and all the southern rivers up as far as the
Roanoke River, in North Carolina. ‘These are their
winter homes, but in summer they go as far north as
the Penobscot River in Maine, and no farther. ‘They
live in the marshes and all wet places.”’

GRADE VIII.

THE JUGLANS NIGRA.

‘The Juglans nigra, or common black walnut, is
a very beautiful tree, the largest growing as high
as ninety feet and five feet thick. There are two
kinds of walnut growing in Massachusetts and only
about six in the world. The black walnut grows
in Massachusetts about one hundred miles from Bos-
ton, but grows best in Ohio, along the banks on both
sides of the Ohio river. It also grows on the banks
of the Alleghaney and Monongahela rivers. — It
grows as far north as Massachusetts, and west of the
Alleghaney mountains it grows a little farther north,
about forty-four degrees north latitude. On the
numerous islands of the Ohio river they are found
very plentifully, fully as well as anywhere in the
country. It does not grow farther west than the Mis-
sissippi, and is not found anywhere in the old world.

‘“The bark is of a light gray color and the layers
can be seen very plainly. The inner bark is of a
dark brown color and quite fibrous.

‘“The wood, when green, is of a light color, near
the bark, but near the pith it is very dark brown.
When the tree grows older the wood turns darker,

and when the wood is dried it turns to a dark brown

THE NEW METHOD OF EDUCATION 83

color. The rays are very fine indeed, and also the
ducts. The wood is rather heavy and tough. It is
used for various purposes, such as bureaus, ward-
robes, brackets, book-cases, chairs, tables, gun-stocks,
and picture frames. In that part of the country
where the walnut trees flourish, the wood is some-
times used for fences, as it will last a great while.
‘The black walnut tree has a compound leaf, with
a variable number of leaflets. The leaflets are of a
pointed ovate shape, and are net-veined and feather-
veined. ‘The margin is serrate and the veins show
very plainly. The mid-vein is very nearly round,
and is of a dark brown color with tiny white hairs.
The leaflets are opposite on the mid-vein. The leaf
is generally about one foot long, sometimes more.
The petiole is about four inches long, but the petioles
of the leaflets are very short indeed. The leaflets
are about two or three inches long and are lighter on
the under side than on the upper. One reason why
the black walnut tree is so graceful is because the
leaves are so long and have so many leaflets. When
the leaves are full of sap they are quite fragrant. In
the autumn the leaves turn to a yellowish color.
‘“’The walnut is very large and very nearly round.
The epicarp, or outer shell, is quite thick and hard,
and is rough and pebbly. When the nut is on the
tree the epicarp is green, but when dry it is of a light

84 THE NEW METHOD

and dark brown color. The endocarp, or inner shell,
is very hard and bony, and the nut resembles the
hickory nut. The name that is commonly given to
the hickory nut is walnut, but that is not correct.
The hickory nut is much smaller than the walnut.
The walnut is about two inches in diameter, and four

or five inches round it every way. Itis quite heavy.’’

THE OXIDE OF ALUMINUM.

‘“This is a beautiful day, warm and sunny. There
are a very few stratus and cumulus clouds in different
parts of the sky, and they look like banks of snow.
The sky is of a delicate shade of blue, and there is
quite a rough wind blowing, making it very dusty.
There has been no rain for more than a week. The
grass is quite green, and the crocuses look very pretty
mixed with it. There have been a few mayflowers
brought in from the country for sale, but they are not
plenty as yet. The robins have been here for about
a week. I attended a very beautiful concert last
Friday afternoon, which I enjoyedvery much. We
studied a mineral to-day called ruby sapphire.

‘““This is a very beautiful and interesting gem,
commonly called ruby. A ruby from five carats (or
twenty grains) upward is worth more than a diamond
of the same size, but small diamonds are worth more
than small rubies. The degree of hardness of ruby

OF EDUCATION 85

is nine, the hardest mineral we have ever studied.
It is of a beautiful pink color of different shades, the
larger ones being of a deeper color than the smaller
ones.

‘“ Ruby sapphire is composed of oxygen, aluminum
and chromium. In one hundred grains of ruby there
are fifty-three grains of aluminum, forty-six and one-
half of oxygen, and one-half a grain of chromium,
which gives it the color. All the varieties of sapphire
have the same composition, and are all colored with
chromium, giving sometimes a green color, then
called emerald sapphire, sometimes a yellow color,
then called topaz sapphire, sometimes of a blue color,
the sapphire itself, and sometimes of a purple or
violet color, called amethyst sapphire. The emerald
sapphire is so rare that it is rarely seen, but still it is
not so expensive as the ruby sapphire, the most ex-
pensive of all the varieties. ° It crystallizes in rhom-
bohedrons, variously modified. The difference in
color in the different varieties of sapphire is accord-
ing to the quantity of chromium. Aluminum is a
very beautiful silvery metal, very light, and easily
bent. If we should burn it in oxygen, which is very
difficult to do, the ashes, or remaining portion, would
be the same substance as ruby sapphire. Oxygen is
a very useful invisible gas, which sustains fire, keeps
all animals alive, and is in a great many different

86 THE NEW METHOD

kinds of minerals and in all shells. It is colorless,
tasteless, and odorless. Chromium is the coloring
element in a great many minerals. Ruby sapphire is
used for various articles of jewelry, and, when set, is
very beautiful.

‘Ruby sapphire is found on the Alleghany Moun-
tains in the western part of North Carolina; on the
Himalaya Mountains, the highest in the world, in the
northern part of Hindostan and Indo-China, which is
where my specimens came from, and where all the
finest specimens are found. It is also found on the
Auvergne and Cevennes Mountains in France, the
Carpathian Mountains in the central part of Austria,
and the Ural Mountains on the boundary line between
Europe and Asia, though rubies are mostly found on
the Asiatic side. They are often called oriental
rubies, from their being found mostly in India. The
ruby mines are owned by the government, and a large
reward is often paid to those who find the valuable
ones. When an exceptionally large one is found, the
King has a great celebration and procession, and the
men of high rank ride on elephants. The market-
places for ruby are at Bankok, the capital of Indo-
China, a very large city ; Paris, the capital of France,
on the River Seine, a very beautiful city ; Lyons, in
the central or southern part of France; Dresden, on
the River Elbe, also a beautiful city ; Moscow, in the

OF EDUCATION 87

central part of Russia, distinguished for the largest
bell in the world which is rung, weighing fifty-nine
tons. There is one weighing two hundred and fifty
tons, which is never rung. Also Raleigh, the capital
of North Carolina, and Trenton, the capital of New
Jersey.’’

Te ae Or OPE ene eae a ST

PAR DY Itt

SCHOOL REPORTS

SCHOOL REPORTS, SECTION I

SINCE in my attempt at the District School Meet-
ing to make a report of the condition of the High
School, together with a brief reply to several unrea-
sonable attacks and malicious charges against me, I
was frequently interrupted and compelled to withdraw
in the midst of my remarks, I therefore respectfully
submit to the legal voters of District No. 1, the follow-
ing report, omitting the greater part of that portion
which I succeeded, under many difficulties, in giving
verbally.

I will first reply to some of the numerous errors in
the statements of the chairman of the committee in
his report. On the second page of that document I
find the following :

All teachers in this town have been furnished with regis-
ters, and all, with one exception, have returned them. Your
committee have just been informed that the teacher of the
high school has never returned a register nor suggested any
excuse for not returning them. Your committee supposed
until now that they had been duly returned to the superin-
tending committee of the town. We venture to hope that
’ this useful law will not be nullified hereafter.

2 THE NEW METHOD

I beg leave to say that in this charge there is not
one word of truth. I have been furnished with only
one register annually, and that has been duly re- -
turned with all the facts required by law. I can
easily prove this by inserting a statement by Mr.
Averill, who has for many years been the superin-
tending committee of the town.

I have annually sent to Mr. Whittemore one school regis-
ter with the request that he would furnish me with answers
to the questions therein contained, and he has returned it,
promptly, with such answers.

C. S. AVERILL,
Superintending School Committee of Milford.

Instead of neglecting my duty in this respect, I
have done more than the law requires. I have, each
term, at my own expense, published one hundred and
fifty copies of the statistics required by law, together
with many other facts of interest, and have furnished
both the committee and each scholar with a copy, so
that every family that had a child in school might
have a complete record of every term.

If any one has neglected his duty or failed to
understand it, the chairman of the committee is the
man. It was his duty to furnish the teachers of
District No. 1 with registers sufficient to record the
name of every scholar. This would require two in
the high school each term, but he has never fur-

OF EDUCATION 3

nished one. There is no law that requires a teacher
to fill registers which the committee have never fur-
nished. May we not venture to express a hope that
our committee may hereafter have a chairman that
will both know and do his duty?

On the third page of Mr. Wadleigh’s report the
following statement may be found :

As to the ‘‘model classes’ of small children in the high
school—it may be proper to state that your committee ob-
jected in the beginning to the formation of such classes, on
the ground that, however desirable they might be in some
respects, they would injure the cause of education by creat-
ing jealously and discord in the district. They finally
yielded, however, to the wishes of the principal and con-
sented to the establishment of one class with eight members.
Now there are in the high school three classes containing
twenty-four members. The main argument used by the
principal in their favor was, that they were necessary to
carry out a grand experiment which he was making here,
which would result in establishing a new method of teaching,
called by him the ‘“‘normal’’ method, and in supplanting
and overthrowing all other existing systems of education.

As to the weight of this argument, your committee will
give no opinion.

It may be well for our committee to suspend the
expression of their opinion, at least until they have
seen our classes work for an hour or so, and it may
not be necessary for them to say a word about it at
all, since an opinion has been expressed so frequently
on this point by such men as Pestalozzi, Mayo and

4 THE NEW METHOD

Herbert Spencer in Europe, and Agassiz, Russell,
Colburn, Calkins, Sheldon and other educators in
America.

These distinguished men, as well as many others,
have spent their lives in introducing throughout
Europe and America the principles of educational
science and reform which I have, with such ability
as was given me, humbly sought for the last twelve
years to inculcate in the minds of the young people
of Milford. It may not be improper to state here
that my education was directed by several of the
above named men, at normal schools and colleges,
for some years before I came to Milford, and that I
was appointed by them to do the work somewhere,
that I have been doing in Milford.

Society has nowhere recognized progress as a pri-
mary principle of natural law. Kings still strive to
reconcile their subjects to effete systems of govern-
ment. Obedience to old forms is held forth as a
virtue. Like natural organisms, every human device
must have a growth; it cannot be born perfect. The
more complicated it is, the slower its growth must be.

But there are those in every community who
imagine the ‘‘ Ark of Truth’’ to be endangered
whenever any change is made in the management of
any branch of human interests. Opposition is awak-
ened, as if truth could be overthrown by error. They

OF EDUCATION 5

think that everything is about to be lost when all is
to be gained.

Is not the knowledge of truth progressive? Is
there not a principle within us which, when once
awakened, craves for progress and cannot be satisfied
without it? However great our progress, this urges
us on to still greater achievements, and there is no
reason to believe that our methods of carrying on
human industries will ever cease to be superseded or
improved. ‘There can be no end to discoveries in
nature, for the great Architect conceals nothing.
Upon every natural object is written, by the Creator,
its history and its use. We may not always read
aright, for we live in the infancy of systematic in-
quiry. We are not satisfied with things as they were
thirty year ago. At that time only the favored few
could, for instance, possess the likeness of his nearest
friend, and that was made by the devious hand of
man. Beholdthechange! One of nature’s forces now
does the work. That agent which darts forth from
world to world throughout immensity and, com-
manded by Omnipotence, lights up the universe,
marshals the elements into forms of utility and beauty,
and covers the hills and plains with waving grasses
and flowers of every hue. Under the directing hand
of the modern artist the agent that paints the rainbow
paints alike the pictures of friends and of scenery,

6 THE NEW METHOD

and adorns and enlivens our homes, almost gratui-
tously, with the lineaments of a hundred familiar
faces. Another force is caught by the hand of science,
and bid to carry intelligence, swifter than light, from
continent to continent. Another is made subservient
by propelling our vehicles rapidly over every land
and every sea. So it is in all the arts and all the
sciences which give rise to art. We must extend the
knowledge of our predecessors and correct their
errors. Our errors will be corrected by our succes-
sors, and theirs by those who succeed them.

In regard to the ‘‘ grand experiment, ’’ I will here
state that I have never used the word experiment in
speaking of the model classes. The experimenting
was all done years ago. Moreover, there has never
been much experimenting connected with the normal
system, for its principles are founded in the laws of
nature, and we have only to discover them as they
exist and always have existed there. Are not the
spontaneous processes of mental evolution, as we pass
on from early childhood to age, regulated by the im-
mutable laws of nature,.as well as the growth of a
plant, or the revolutions of the planets? Give the
child lard instead of bread and alcohol instead of milk
and his body becomes diseased and soon dies, because
its treatment is abnormal. Soitis withthe mind. If
its treatment should be altogether abnormal those

OF EDUCATION 7

embryo germs which are susceptible of infinite ex-
pansion could never be developed. Give the child a
mixture, half milk and half alcohol, and let its mental
food also, be in part normal and in part abnormal
and the result is just that condition of the human race
that now exists about us and all over the world. It
can scarcely be said that one person in a score makes
a success of life. In directing the child’s education
no one can determine in every particular just what
is the right course. But if we make use of the
knowledge of our predecessors and our contempo-
raries over the world, may we not make some approxi-
mations toward a perfect scheme? The knowledge
possessed by those who have systematically studied
this subject for many years is sometimes called the
science of education, and those who apply the prin-
ciples of that science in teaching are said to teach
normally. It has no reference necessarily to making
teachers ; that is only one of the results. All teaching
is either normal or abnormal, that is, it is in harmony

with the natural laws of mental evolution, or else it
violates those laws.

The study of the objects, facts and phenomena of nature is
the normal, and therefore the most congenial employment
of the opening mind, and one of its purest sources of pleas-
ure. Without such study, the mind becomes vague and
abstracted in its tendencies and habits, life lacks reality,
character solidity, and faith a foundation. The misdirected

8 THE NEW METHOD

culture which commences with the study of language, thence
proceeds to gather thoughts, and at last reaches objects only
to hurry over and slight them leaves the mind wanting in
the vital elements of truth.—wssel/.

The natural inquisitiveness of the child’s mind,
every one must have observed. How early he begins
to investigate the objects about him, asking number-
less questions. But how few of those whose work it
is to rear and foster the young mind, heed the
promptings of nature How often is the great book
of nature sealed to the little inquirer, and his atten-
tion turned to objects of less interest. And how few
there are who retain to mature years the innate
desires for knowledge which were so apparent in
early childhood. How many there are whose minds
become perverted, benumbed, and degraded by mis-
management, all desire for knowledge obliterated, all
taste for the pleasures of a rational life utterly de-
stroyed. Yet their young minds were fitted by their
Creator to study his visible works and rise higher
and higher in the scale of being, until they could
read in the stars that nightly shine above their heads,
in the rocks beneath their feet, and in the plants and
flowers that deck their way, the thoughts impressed
upon them by the Great Author of all.

There has been much discussion upon the system adopted
in the high school, of entrusting the hearing of the recita-

OF EDUCATION 9

tions of their own classes to female pupils, while the teacher
sits by as an observer or engaged in reading.

To such a puerile slur as this I consider it un-
necessary to make any formal reply. The design of
the writer is everywhere obvious. But he sets the
matter right in the next sentence and nullifies his own
objection.

Upon careful consideration your committee regard this
method of teaching as an advantage to the young ladies who
act as teachers, but as injurious to all who do not. It is
beneficial to those who least need assistance and injurious to
those who most need it.

Then it is clearly an advantage to every one in the
senior class, and every one in the junior class, for all
alike have stood before the class to conduct the exer-
cises, one just as often as another. The recitation is
never wholly entrusted to the pupils, but only so
much of it as I have deemed advantageous to them.
During that part of the recitation conducted by the
pupils, I have endeavored to have the class feel that
the whole responsibility rested on them. This form
of recitation is for the purpose of inculcating self-
possession, self-reliance, dignity, easy manners and
thorough scholarship. The pupil questions the class
upon the lesson without the book, that is, asks orig-
inal questions. This makes the best possible test of
a good lesson on the part of the questioner. It also

IO THE NEW METHOD

impresses upon the mind of the questioner every fact
upon which he interrogates the class, and thus tends
directly to make thorough scholars. Whenever the
class fails to penetrate and develop a principle in the
lesson, Iam always present to do such work as they
failto do. A principle of educational science is in-
volved in this method. It is well expressed by
Thomas Eubank, in the following lines:

No fact is more prominent, in the economy of the world
than that man was to have nothing—absolutely nothing—
done for him which he could possibly do for himself. This
was essential to the development of his character. Wad it
been otherwise, metals had been dug up in the forms of use-
ful instruments, and articles of furniture had been the nat-
ural fruit of trees. Vegetable fibre had grown in hanks of
thread and in woven garments, glass and stone ware had
been quarried, and articles of furniture had been the natural
fruit of trees. All substances would have been found in the
most useful form.

To speak of a want of interest in the class when
this method is pursued, is extreme folly, and is in
direct opposition to the testimony of every candid ob-
server of our recitations. I have been unable, as
yet, to practice this method completely in the lowest
class as that class has been the receptacle of scholars
coming every term from schools in which they have
had no normal training. The model classes are fully
under way in this method, and the only part of the
school which does not please the committee is that

OF EDUCATION II

very part which I have been unable to bring under
the normal plan.

The principal of the high school has, for years, assumed
the right to admit into and exclude from the high school
such scholars as he chose, and rather than bring on a con-
flict with him, such as is now agitating the district, commit-
tees have abdicated their legal duties.

I have always understood perfectly the duty of the
committee in regard to transferring scholars from one
school to another, and have never assumed the right
to admit into or exclude from the high school any
scholar and never have transferred a scholar without
the direction or consent of the committee. The com-
mittee have sometimes desired me to do it, but I
have refused to take the responsibility.

Your committee then sent to him, a request in writing, to
admit those five scholars. He admitted four of the five and
one other whom he was not directed to admit, but excluded
one of the five—James Hanrihan—whom your committee
deemed particularly worthy of admission. Upon applica-
tion to him to state the reason why Hanrihan was not ad-
mitted, he said he had no seat for him.

In this paragraph, and all that follows to the end
of the committee’s report, nearly every sentence is full

of error. It is strange that a man can warp the truth
so constantly. I will insert verbatim the first order

from the committee.

2 THE NEW METHOD

Milford, N. H., Sept. 4th, 1866.

WILLIAM IL. WHITTEMORE, ESa.—Dear Sir: Please admit
to the high school the following scholars from the grammar
or intermediate school the present term: James Hanrihan,
Arthur Towns, William French, Bell Mills, Kate Mills,
William Tarbell.

Signed, B. Wadleigh, S. Smith Stickney,
We H.W. Hinds, i. Kaley.

I had at that time about one hundred scholars,
which is considered in most other places as many as
can be properly taught by three or four teachers.
The high school was larger than it had ever been be-
fore, while the grammar school was not nearly as
large as it had sometimes been, and it was well class-
ified. If scholars were promoted a new class must
be formed, which would make it exceedingly incon-
venient to carry on the work in the high school.
Moreover, there were at that time only four unoccu-
pied seats in the high school, one on the girls’ side
and three on the boys’ side of the room; so I con-
cluded to do the best I could under the circum-
stances, and accordingly admitted the three oldest
boys and the older of the two girls, but the girl de-
clined coming in as her sister could not come with
her. ‘There was plainly no seat for the youngest boy
unless I put him with the girls. The talk of his be-
ing refused admission because he was an Irish boy is
a malicious falsehood. I never thought of such a

OF EDUCATION 13

thing. I had previously inquired of the chairman
what I should do when the seats were all taken. He
said ‘‘ close the doors of course ’’; and I simply carried
out the order. I could not see why a class in the
grammar school should be divided and the poorest
scholars sent to the high school and put to work in
higher books, while the best ones were retained in
the grammar school and put into lower books. But
that is just what was done, and I have the means of
proof. When, as a citizen, interested in the rights
of the scholars in both schools, I raised a question or

two about it, I was told that I had ‘‘ nothing to do
about it ;’? that I was ‘‘ paid for my services, ’’ and I

‘‘need not be so conscientious about it.’’ They
took it for granted that I wasahireling. I have never
acknowledged myself a hireling in educational mat-
ters, although the attempt has often been made to
compel me to act like one, and to give up all sense of
right, in order to please A, B, and C. Here is where
the difficulty all comes in. The three or four men
who have been so busy during the past few weeks,
never tell their real objection, but go about with
falsehood on their lips, telling what ‘‘they say.’’
These men have acted the part of ‘‘ coward calumny ”’
that always ‘‘stabsinthe dark.’’ ‘The only man who
has had the fairness to state his grievance publicly,
for the last ten years, is Mr. Xenophon Mills. He

14 THE NEW METHOD

acted the part of a gentleman and I honor him for the
manly act.

For the reason that the public money can be used
to publish only falsehood ‘‘ for the use of the dis-
trict,’’ and also because I do not wish to put in‘print
any more records of the proceedings of the last few
months than is really necessary, I suspend publish-
ing, for the present at least, several pages of manu-
script relating to the disgraceful proceedings of last
September. I will simply say that I did protest
earnestly, as a teacher and a citizen, against a course
which so completely ignored the sacred rights of
others. I did not refuse to comply with any legal
order of the committee, until I was ready to resign
the charge of the school. The chairman, through
that whole disgraceful affair, seemed to have only
one idea in his mind, and was willing to sacrifice the
rights of a hundred families in order to please a woman
who comes with unreasonable demands, accompanied
with a threat. I was reminded through the whole
affair of a man who lived some centuries ago, named
Elerod:.*

He was asked to admit but five and admitted five with-
out claiming any increase of wages. He refused toadmit one
who had been transferred and did admit one who had not
been transferred.

* See Matt. 14: I—12.

OF EDUCATION 15

I will correct the error in these two sentences. I
was ordered, as I have shown above, to admit six.
I did not admit one without claiming an increase of
wages. I refused to admit two of the six because
there were no seats for them, and thereby followed
the direction of the chairman. I did not admit one
who had not been transferred, as may be seen by the
committee’s first order.

I agreed with the prudential committee at the be-
ginning of the year to teach one year on conditions,
and the promotion of scholars from the grammar
schools nullified the contract. I was twice re-engaged
and at an increase of salary each time. »

This is a sample of the whole report, and I now
assert, openly and definitely, that the whole document
is pregnant with falsehood. And malicious as that
falsehood appears, it is very mild when compared with
that which a few other men have carried about the
district during the past winter, whispering it in the
ear of every man who was not acquainted with the
facts. Many of these men, not knowing the facts of
course, were made to believe what they heard re-
peated so often. I do not censure them; they were
as ready to believe the truth as falsehood, if it were
only told them. Such infamy should have stamped
upon it ‘‘the indelible stigma of the public abhor-
rence.’’ ‘This falsehood called out nearly a hundred

16 THE NEW METHOD

men to break up a school which has cost the earnest
effort of one man, at least, for twelve years.

In regard to the members of the board whose
names are found on Mr. Wadleigh’s report, I would
say that I feel somewhat inclined to make apology
for them. I think they reaily meant no harm.
I suspect they didn’t know much about school mat-
ters; that they did not take the trouble to investigate
the merits of the document to which they subscribed,
any more than they have the merits of the school
since the citizens of the district honored them by
making them supervisors of the highest interests of
their children. Let us see how the case stands.
Three of these men have seen nothing, as it were, of
the school for the past two years. Another some-
times come examination day. ‘The chairman has been
in school often enough, but he always comes when a
certain class of young ladies is about to recite. He
has never seen one half of our classes, and probably
has not seen a dozen different schools for a quarter of
acentury. The fact is these gentlemen, in educa-
tional matters, are forty years behind the times.
They have not yet discovered that there is anything
to be known in school polity, beyond what any one
may know intuitively. They recommend a method
of teaching which was exploded among all intelligent
educators thirty years ago.

OF EDUCATION 17

Dr. Hinds has seen more of the high school than
any other member of the board, and has evidently
comprehended the “‘ situation.’’

Before closing I wish to express my thanks to a
very few of my indulgent neighbors for the great
kindness they showed me in allowing me to say a few
words at the annual meeting. I thank them partic-
ularly, because they did not interrupt me any oftener.
That act of courtesy and consideration saved me, at
least, ten dollars that I otherwise must have paid for
printing those facts, which some men were evidently
afraid to hear. *

W.L. WHITTEMORE.
Milford, March 30, 1867.

SECTION II

To comprehend the laws of nature is the grand
object of intellectual culture. The fatal error in the
educational schemes of all ages has been the futile
attempt to ornament the mind without informing it.
Hence the world has but just discovered even the
existence of those laws, whose daily violation for
ages past has rendered a world of surpassing beauty
and perfection a great sepulchre for the premature
dead, and an abode of suffering for millions who
linger through maturer years. Of all systems of
education that is the best which furnishes the most
perfect guidance to complete living. A right mode
of teaching contravenes none of nature’s tendencies ;
but it excites the activity of the mind in accordance
with the laws which control its spontaneous develop-
ment, and thus co-operates with nature in her plan of
unfolding the faculties. There can be no success when
we contravene nature’s laws, whether we deal with
tangible objects or with human minds. Overlook her
laws in inanimate material, and the awful wreck of
life and property in the downfall of the Pemberton
Mills is an example of the penalty. Ignore her

20 THE NEW METHOD

laws in the human body or mind, and who can
calculate the inevitable result, as it widens down the
ages? Ignorance of the laws of life confers no
exemption from the failure and suffering conse-
quent upon their violation. Nature’s inexorable and
unpitying penalties are meant to coerce us to the
study of her works, when their exceeding beauty
fails to allure our attention.

That system which requires the thorough study of
the science of education, and seeks to determine what
each step in the educational process ought to be, by
a knowledge of the laws of human nature, is called
the normal system. Founded upon biological and
psychological science, educational philosophy is, and
must be, progressive in its development. Normal
schools which have thus far been established, differ
so widely in their general plan that they may be
best considered under three grades. First, normal
schools with no model classes. Second, normal
schools with transient model classes for the purpose
of illustrating the true mode of teaching. Third,
normal schools with permanent model classes, trained,
or to be trained normally, through their whole scho-
lastic course.

The first and second grades include the state nor-
mal schools. The true function of these schools is
to make the establishment of still better normal

. OF EDUCATION 21

schools a possibility. They may be considered pion-
eers in the great educational reform which is slowly
taking place. Our own state should lose no time in
establishing one good normal school. The fact that
this has not yet been done shows that our people
need to be aroused if not enlightened on the demands
of education. But state normal schools can never
furnish the thousands of rural districts all over our
land with their graduates. These schools will be
taught generally by young persons who will enter
the profession for only a few years. Moreover, the
course of training at the state normal schools is in-
sufficient to confer anything like a clear understand-
ing of educational science upon scholars who have
been trained in the ordinary way till the age of eigh-
teen or twenty years, before entering upon the
normal course.

The third great step in the development of normal
schools is the founding of an order of institutions
which shall train the child, in accordance with na-
ture’s laws, from the day he enters school till he
graduates. In villages of less than ten thousand in-
habitants our schools, everywhere, are in a deplorable
condition, and will remain so until their whole plan is
changed. ‘The design of the village normal school is
to furnish such places with the means of a thorough
and rational culture instead of the jargon of the pres-

22 THE NEW METHOD

ent time. To reconstruct our village schools will
require a very long time, for teachers to do it are yet
to be educated.

Having had a little experience in the first and sec-
ond grades of normal schools, and subsequently hav-
ing pursued, for years, the inductive study of educa-
tional philosophy, under a well organized plan, it has
devolved upon me to present, if I can, a model of the
village normal high school.

Even while the system is but partially introduced,
our graduates are successful competitors with the
graduates of the best normal schools of New Eng-
land. Of the ten who have already completed the
course, two are teaching in Boston, two in the annual
schools of Milford, and three have taught in Amherst
during the past year.

From the dawn of civilization to the present day,
the most beneficent schemes for human advance-
ment have been scowled upon with malignant hat-
red ; but the obsolete absurdities of former ages must
soon be abandoned. ‘The progressive evolution of
our race goes on by nature’s command, and her
commands are never nullified.

In the prevailing schemes of education, the time
of teachers and scholars is given mostly to the lingual
and mathematical studies, while that transcendent
order of truth which alone can illuminate our way in

OF EDUCATION 23

the world, is practically ignored; and the recipients
of our boasted education must grope their way in
darkness, stumbling at every step in a world of light
and order, because they are unable to read the lan-
guage of the Infinite, which he has written in living
characters upon every object and every phenomenon
around us.

Language and mathematics are very useful
branches, but are to be studied as a means and not
anend. ‘They are indispensable at every step in the
educational process, as a means of discovering and
expressing real knowledge and when put to their
legitimate uses, they will be learned most effectually,
by using them. The normal method confers by far
the best mental discipline, as well as the most avail-
able culture in language and mathematics. ‘To these
it adds a thorough and practical knowledge of the
sciences of nature; and all for half the cost of ordin-
ary education. The reason is obvious, — science
directs in one case, and the dictates of tradition and
empiricism in the other. Jackson’s battle at New
Orleans had not been heard of in all the States, thirty
days after it was fought. To-day thirty minutes
would almost suffice to send the intelligence over the
civilized world. A single application of science has
wrought the marvellous change! And can science
do nothing for education? Are not the human mind

24 THE NEW METHOD

and body a part of nature’s dominion, and subject to
her laws ?

Nature’s ways are everywhere models of economy.
By one simple means she accomplishes a thousand
grand results. She lights and warms, irrigates and
animates, and holds in never-ending cycles a hundred
worlds by one central fire.

The normal course of scholastic education, begins
in the systematic training of the child, into habits of
careful and minute observation. While curiosity is
awake, the child is led to appeal directly to nature
for information, and by observing personally, her
objects, facts and phenomena, there is awakened
within him, such a love of knowledge, as the prevail-
ing methods of teaching can never inspire. Begin-
ning in the concrete and simple, with familiar objects,
drawn from a single science or department of nature,
we proceed by gradual steps toward the complex and
abstract, and to objects more remote and varied.
Losing no time for mere mental discipline, the
scholar gains the highest possible discipline, in the
acquisition of the most useful knowledge.

But it is not my design to try to show what the
normal system is in these few sentences. Hundreds
of pages would be required to convey anything like
a clear idea of all its processes. Let it suffice, for
the present, to say that its principles have been ad-

OF EDUCATION 25

vocated by the leading educators of all countries.
Among the foremost we find Comenius, Pestalozzi,
Neiderer, Krusi, Fellenberg, Zeller, Diesterweg,
Cousin, Jullien, Tyndall, Henfry, Agassiz, Russell,
Sheldon, Calkins, and all other educators as far as I
am acquainted, who have devoted even a few years,

to the inductive study of educational science.

‘“ The predominant culture of modern times had its
origin, more than eight hundred years ago, ina
superstition of the middle ages. ... This scheme
has been handed down from age to age, and with but
slight changes, still predominates in the higher insti-
tutions of learning, and still powerfully reacts upon
the inferior schools. .

‘The ancient philosophers held that it was as de-
grading to seek useful knowledge as to practice use-
ful arts; hence, subjects of study were chosen as
intellectual gymnastics. Under these circumstances
no vulgar question of economy could arise; mental
power was ostentatiously wasted, and with the neces-
sary consequences—truth unsought was not found;
the ends of culture being ignored, there was neither
conquest of nature nor progress of society. ...

‘‘In childhood there is a vast capability of accum-
ulating simple facts. Skilful guidance at this period
is of the very highest importance. When curiosity
is freshest, and the perceptions keenest, and memory
most impressible, before the maturity of the reflective
powers, the opening mind should be led to the art of
noticing the aspects, properties, and simple relations

26 THE NEW METHOD

of the surrounding objects of nature. This should
be guided into a growing habit, and the young pupil
gradually trained to know how to observe, and what
to observe among all the objects of its unfolding ex-
perience. It should be encouraged to collect many
of the little curiosities which awaken its attention, and
required carefully to preserve them; but to do all this
judiciously is delicate work. ‘The custodian of the
child must know something of the objects of nature,
and much of the nature of the young pupil. Above
all things, teachers qualified to do this work are the
desperate need of the age. To perfect the object-
method, and train instructors to its discriminating
use, is one of the great functions of normal schools,
and must become the practical basis of a rational sys-
tem of education. Let it be remembered that there
is nothing forced or artificial here; the scenes of
childish pleasure and exuberant activity furnish the
objects of thought. In creating an interest in these
things a bent is given in the true direction; the valu-
able habit of observing and seeking is formed while
the numberless disconnected shreds of knowledge are
incipient acquisitions, which will grow with time into
the ripened forms of sciences.) 5

‘“When nature becomes the subject of study, the
love of nature its stimulus, and the order of nature
its guide, then will results in education rival the
achievements of science in the fields of its noblest
triumphs. Man’s first and his life-long concern is
with his environment, the objective universe of God.
It is a realm of law, and therefore he can understand

OF EDUCATION F5

and control it: a scene of irresistible forces which
crush him if he is ignorant, and serve him if he is
WHSEE is.

‘The overshadowing error of the present educa-
tion, is the propensity to accept words in place of the
ideas and things for which they stand, and from
which they borrow all their value. Words are the
vehicles of thought ; so much of the study of language,
and in such forms as are necessary to its intelligent
use is demanded in education. But the lingual stu-
dent, captivated by the interest of word studies, loses
the end in the means. A plough was sent to a bar-
barian tribe: they hung it over with ornaments, and
fell down and worshipped it. In much the same
manner is language treated in education. .. .

‘« So long as little was known of the order of the
universe, little could be understood of him in whom
that order culminates. And here I call attention to
the deep defects of that predominant scheme of cul-
ture which not only ignores the human brain, and the
sciences which illustrate it, as objects of earnest sys-
tematic study, but explodes upon it all the traditional
contempt which it cherishes for material nature.
Men admire the steam-engine of Watt and the calcu-
lating engine of Babbage, but how little do they care
for the thinking engine of the Infinite Artificer !
They venerate days, and dogmas, and ceremonials ;
but where is the reverence that is due to the most
sacred of the things of time, the organism of the
soul !

‘“A knowledge of the being to be trained, as it is

28 THE NEW METHOD

the basis of all intelligent culture, must be the first
necessity of the teacher. Education is an art, which
may be pursued empirically or rationally, as a blind
habit, or under intelligent guidance; and the rela-
tions of science to it are precisely the same as to all
the other arts—to ascertain their conditions, and give
law to their processes. What it has done for naviga-
tion, telegraphy, and war, it will also do for culture.
The true method of proceeding may be regarded as
established, and many important results are already
reached, though its systematic application is hardly
entered upon.

‘“Our teachers mostly belong to the old dispensa-
tion. Their preparation is chiefly literary ; if they
obtain a little scientific knowledge, it is for the pur-
pose of communicating it, and not as a means of
tutorial guidance. Their art is a mechanical routine,
and hence, very naturally, while admitting the im-
portance of advancing views, they really cannot see
what is to be done about it. When we say that edu-
tion is an affair of the laws of our being, involving a
wide range of considerations, that it involves that
complete acquaintance with corporeal conditions
which science alone can give, we seem to be talking
in an unknown tongue, or if intelligible, then very
irrelevant and unpractical. The imminent question
is, how may the child and youth be developed health-
fully and vigorously, bodily, mentally, morally ; and
science can alone answer it by a statement of the laws
upon which that development depends. Ignorance of
these laws must inevitably involve mismanagement.’’
—Prof. EF. L. Youmans.

OF EDUCATION 29

‘‘No human pursuits make any material progress
until science is brought to bear upon them. We
have seen, accordingly, many of them slumber for
centuries upon centuries; but, from the moment that
science has touched them with her magic wand, they
have sprung forward, and taken strides which amaze
and almost awe the beholder.’’

—His Royal Highness, Prince Albert.

‘“Modern civilization rests upon physical science ;
take away her gifts to our country, and our position
among the leading nations of the world is gone to-
morrow; for it is physical science only, that makes
intelligence and moral energy stronger than brute
force. . . . I believe that the greatest intellectual
revolution mankind has yet seen is now slowly taking
place by her agency. She is teaching the world that
the ultimate court of appeal is observation and ex-
periment, and not authority; she is teaching it to esti-
mate the value of evidence; she is creating a firm
and living faith in the existence of immutable moral
and physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the
highest possible aim of an intelligent being.

“But of all this your old stereotyped system of
education takes no note. Physical science, its meth-
ods, its problems, and its difficulties, will meet the
poorest boy at every turn, and yet we educate him in
such a manner that he shall enter the world as ignor-
ant of the existence of the methods and facts of
science as the day he was born. The modern world
is full of artillery; and we turn out our children to do
battle in it, equipped with the shield and sword of an

30 THE NEW METHOD

ancient gladiator. Posterity will cry shame on us if
we do not remedy this deplorable state of things.
Nay, if we live twenty years longer, our own con-
sciences will cry shame on us.

“Tt is my firm conviction that the only way to
remedy it is to make the elements of physical science
an integral part of primary education. But let me
entreat you to remember my last words. Addressing
myself to you, as teachers, I would say, mere book
learning in physical science is a sham and a delusion
—what you teach, unless you wish to be imposters,
that you must first know; and real knowledge in
science means personal acquaintance with the facts,
be they few or many.’’

— Thomas H. Huxley, F.R.S., LL.D.

‘‘ Herein at present lies the main difficulty concern-
ing the introduction of the science of observation into
courses of ordinary education—a grade of teachers
who should be able and willing to carry science into
schools for youth has hardly yet appeared. Hitherto
there have been few opportunities for their normal
instruction.’’—/Pvofessor Edward Forbes.

‘“Normal schools for the preparation of teachers
must necessarily be an essential part of any well-
ordered public school system. The rule under which
they should not only be taught, but likewise subse-
quently teach— the rule that should be made to apply
in every establishment, from the primary school to
the university, is this—education should represent
the existing state of knowledge.

‘‘But in America this golden rule is disregarded,

OF EDUCATION 31

especially in the case of the higher establishments.
What is termed classical learning arrogates to itself a
space that excludes much more important things. It
finds means to appropriate, practically, all collegiate
honors. ‘This evil has arisen from the circumstance
that our system was imported from England. It isa
remnant of the tone of thought of that country in the
sixteenth century ; meritorious enough and justifi-
able enough in that day, but obsolete in this. The
vague impression that such pursuits impart a train-
ing to the mind has long sustained this inappropriate
course. It also finds an excuse in its alleged power
of communicating the wisdom of past ages. The
grand depositories of human knowledge are not the
ancient, but the modern tongues. Few, if any, are
the facts worth knowing that are to be exclusively
obtained by a knowledge of Latin and Greek ; and
as to mental discipline, it might reasonably be in-
quired how much a youth will secure by translating
daily a few good sentences of Latin and Greek into
bad and broken English. So far as a preparation is
required for the subsequent struggles and conflicts of
life, an ingenious man would have no difficulty in
maintaining the amusing affirmation that more might
be gained from a mastery of the game of chess than by
translating all the Greek and Latin authors in the
world.’’—Professor J. W. Draper, of the University of
New York.

‘‘Our whole system of instruction requires an hon-
est, thorough, and candid revision. It has been for
centuries the child of authority and precedent. If

32 THE NEW METHOD

those before us made it what it is, by applying to it
the resources of earnest and fearless thought, I can
see no reason why we, by pursuing the same course,
might not improve it. God intended us for progress,
and we counteract his design when we deify anti-
quity, and bow down and worship an opinion, not
because it is either wise or true, but merely because
it is ancient.”’—/vancis Wayland, D.D., late Prest-
dent of Brown University.

‘“ We hear a great deal said of the intellectual treas-
ures locked up in the languages of Greece and Rome,
which it is asserted that our system of education
throws open to the student freely to enjoy. And yet
we know that practically this claim is without found-
ation. . . . For a period varying from seven to ten
years, we keep young men under a course of instruc-
tion in Latin and Greek, and at the end of that time,
they are unable, in any proper sense, to read either
the one or the other. . .

‘‘ We display a singular disregard of the plain in-
dications of nature, who herself points out the order
in which the faculties should be drawn out into action.

. . And I suppose that the reason why we should
follow nature is because nature will thus most will-
ingly follow us. The tasks we impose will be pleas-
ing because they will be adapted to the strength.
The learner will easily submit himself to our guid-
ance, because we take him in the direction in which
he is already inclined to go. . . . We have inverted
the natural order just as completely as possible. And
this inversion of the order of nature, carries with it

OF EDUCATION 33

the unfortunate consequences that no satisfactory
knowledge is acquired at last.’’-—/. A. P. Barnard,
LL.D., President of Columbia College.

‘“Tf there needs any further evidence of the rude,
undeveloped character of our education, we have it
in the fact that the comparative worths of different
kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even
discussed—much less discussed in a methodic way
with definite results. ...

‘““We conclude, then, that for discipline, as well as
for guidance, science is of chiefest value. In all its
effects, learning the meanings of things, is better
than learning the meanings of words. Whether for
intellectual, moral, or religious training, the study of
surrounding phenomena is immensely superior to the
study of grammars and lexicons. Necessary and
eternal as are its truths, all science concerns all man-
kind for all time. Equally at present, and in the
remotest future, must it be of incalculable importance
for the regulation of their conduct, that men should
understand the science of life, physical, mental, and
social; and that they should understand all other
science as a key to the science of life. And yet the
knowledge which is of such transcendent value is that
which, in our age of boasted education, receives the
least attention.

‘‘ Passing on to object-lessons, which manifestly
form a natural continuation of this primary culture
of the senses, it is to be remarked, that the system
commonly pursued is wholly at variance with the
method of nature. ‘To tell a child this and to show

34 THE NEW METHOD

it the other, is not to teach it how to observe, but to
make it a mere recipient of another’s observations ; a
proceeding which weakens rather than strengthens
its powers of self-instruction. .

‘*Object-lessons should not only be carried on after
quite a different fashion from that commonly pur-
sued, but should be extended to a range of things
far wider, and continue to a period far later, than
now. ‘They should not be limited to the contents of
the house; but should include those of the fields and
the hedges, the quarry and the sea-shore. ‘They
should not cease with early childhood ; but should
be so kept up during youth as insensibly to merge
into the investigations of the naturalist and the man
of science. Here again we have but to follow nature’s
leadings. Where can be seen anintenser delight than
that of children picking up new flowers and watch-
ing new insects, or hoarding pebbles and shells?
And who is there but perceives that by sympathizing
with them they may be led on to any extent of in-
quiry into the qualities and structure of these things?
Every botanist who has had children with him in the
woods and the lanes must have noticed how eagerly
they joined in his pursuits, how keenly they searched
out plants for him, how intently they watched whilst
he examined them, how they overwhelmed him with
guestionus..; <=

‘“Tt will by and by be found that a knowledge of
the laws of life is more important than any other
knowledge whatever—that the laws of life include
not only all bodily and mental processes, but by im-

OF EDUCATION 35

plication all the transactions of the house and street,
all commerce, all politics, all morals—and that there-
fore without a due acquaintance with them neither
personal nor social conduct can be rightly regulated.
It will eventually be seen too, that the laws of life are
essentially the same throughout the whole organic
creation; and further, that they cannot be properly
understood in their complex manifestations until they
have been studied in their simpler ones. And when
this is seen, it will be also seen that in aiding the
child to acquire the out-of-door information for which
it shows so great an avidity, and in encouraging the
acquisition of such information throughout youth, we
are simply inducing it to store up the raw material
for future organization—the facts that will one day
bring home to it with due force these great generali-
zations of science by which actions may be rightly
guided.’’—Herbert Spencer.

‘‘Infant and primary education I reckon the high-
est and most difficult of educational problems... .
True education is an imitation, not a thwarting of
nature. ‘To be successful we must watch and learn
how the Divine Goodness teaches the little Adam just
entered upon his glorious heritage, we must conform
to that method if we would be successful. And we
find that God, in the infant’s education, is no tyrant
exacting of each his portion of loathed labor, but that
he educates the expanding mind by freedom, joy and
beauty, through nature training eye, and ear, and
every sense, by every novelty of form, and sound,
and color; and that we must help and not hinder

36 THE NEW METHOD

this natural education, by guiding, and controlling,
and using the same materials.

‘‘There is an intense and most easily awakened
curiosity in children, respecting the phenomena of
the outward world.—Every bird, beast and insect is
a marvel; the clouds, the moon, the stars, the beau-
tiful forms and colors of flowers, the very stones under
their feet, all, to the mind of childhood are objects of
study, objects of wonder. But after a few years of
ordinary school-teaching, all this is found to have dis-
appeared, and too often no other curiosity, no other
interest, or worse still, some bad one, has arisen to
take its place, I think I am not too strong in my state-
ment; but what a satire is this on what we call edu-
cation! Or is the process of teaching first to kill as
a preliminary to artificially restoring them? Alas!
in too many cases they are never restored, and our
education consists only in a mental maiming. .

‘‘So entangled are our notions of education with
books and the art of reading—in reality only one of
the tools of education—that we too often virtually
use the tool, not to build, but to destroy our educa-
tion. . . . The substitution of true object-teaching
for an excess of book-learning in elementary educa-
tion seems to me the first step in a return to truth
and nature.

_‘*Do you want to destroy a child’s interest in a
subject ? Compel him to learn lessons out of a dry
treatise upon it. Do you want to kindle his interest
into enthusiasm? Give him oral lessons upon it—
always provided you know how—which is, I grant, a

OF EDUCATION 37

great assumption, because nothing is more difficult.
For, first, you must know the subject. Now, if one
would know how ignorant he is of a subject he thought
he understood, let him.try to give a child an expla-
nation of it. One may lecture to grown persons, and
succeed in concealing his ignorance from himself as
well as his hearers; he cannot do so from a child.
He will have nothing but real knowledge, and you
cannot give it to him in any shape in which he can
comprehend it without possessing it yourself... .

‘* Here is where, I confess, I think our teachers
are too apt to come short of what ought to be required
of them. I speak from personal experience as a
teacher. Having learned from books themselves,
they know only how to teach from books, unless, by
putting themselves to school over again, they learn a
better method.

‘“ Shall I be thought very extravagant, if I say, so
impressed am I with the necessity of a better selec-
tion of studies and better methods of teaching, that I
am almost ready to affirm that the common school of
America, as I believe it will exist in the future, is an
institution yet to be created? . . . The common school
is an institution not intended first and foremost to pre--
pare a minority of pupils for higher seminaries of
learning, and then devote what time can be spared to
those whose education is to end with it. The district
school should be, and can be, the people’s college,
though great changes must be made in it before it
can become so.

‘Life is education. Shall we send them from

38 THE NEW METHOD

school wanting the very rudiments of life-education ?
Above all, shall we leave them ignorant of the func-
tions of the very bodies their spirits dwell in, and
thus a prey, themselves, and their children, to all dis-
asters which ignorance of the laws of life brings with
it? Isay that schools that neglect all this, are not
good schools, and we cannot complain of the tax-
payer grudging his money, when he finds his child-
ren learn so little that is useful.’’—Pvofessor W. P.
Atkinson.
W.L. WHITTEMORE.
March, 1869.

SECTION ITE

NORMAL HIGH SCHOOL, 1870

CATALOGUE
CIRCULAR
INORMAL. MIcH | SCHOOL

MILFORD, N. H.

1867-70

MILFORD, N. H.
PRINTED BY J. M. BLANCHARD

1870

42

TEACHERS

Mr. WM: Lb. WHITTEMORE, Prneipa

TEACHERS OF MODEL CLASSES

Miss AMY LIZZIE SAWYER
Miss ANNA F. HUTCHINSON
Miss CARRIE A. DAVIS

Miss MABEL WEST

Miss ADDIE M. LAKIN

Miss LIZZIE E. BLOOD

Miss ELLA M. HUTCHINSON
Miss HELEN I. LANE

Miss ALICE J. HOOD

Miss LEVADE J. JOHNSON
Miss ANNAH FE. ADAMS
Miss CLARA B. GUTTERSON

SCHOLAR ASSISTANTS

Mr. FRANK W. RICHARDSON
Mr. EMRI C. HUTCHINSON
Mr. CHARLES R. HOWARD
Mr. FRANK G. DICKEY

43

PUPILS

SENIOR CLASS

ADDIE M. LAKIN
MABEL WEST

CARRIE A. DAVIS
ANNA F, HUTCHINSON
Amy L. SAWYER
LIzziE~ E. Boop
ANNAH E. ADAMS
CLEMMIE E. AVERILL
HELEN ‘I. LANE
FANNIE E. LANE
LUELLA C. HUTCHINSON
CLARA B. GUTTERSON
FLORENCE M. LANE
EMMA A. PERKINS
EMMA BENNETY

ABBY P. PARMELEE
ELLA M. HuTCcHINSON
LEVADE J. JOHNSON
CLARA E. CROSBY

ELLA M. TURNER

ELLA M. Marcy
FANNIE A. BULLARD
FRANK W. RICHARDSON
CHARLES R. HOWARD
EMRI C. HUTCHINSON
LUKE A. FARLEY
FRANK W. LOVEJOY
EDWARD G. CLARK
EDWARD G. CAME
Harry C. LyncH
FRANK G. DICKEY
GUSTAVE G. FLETCHER
GEORGE E. FARLEY
HERBERT I, PEABODY
ALLEN A. BENNETY
EDWARD T. ADAMS
GEORGE P. LYNCH
WALTER D. HUTCHINSON
CHARLES NEEDHAM

JOHN PEACOCK

44

JUNIOR CLASS

HaTTIE FE. FARLEY
JOSEPHINE E. SNOW
EMMA F. WALLINGFORD
Lucy J. PUTNAM
LypDIA M. DARRACOTT
ANNA F. BENNETT
GEORGIANNA NUYTING
JENNIE N. CLARK
DoRA FE. CHICKERING
AUGUSTA J. DRAPER
DELIA C. HUTCHINSON
ABBIE ROBB

ELLA S. BURNHAM
SUSIE E. WILLOUGHBY
CHARLOTTE GIBSON
NELLIE E. DANFORTH
Cora J. LYNcH
AuGuSsTA C. MIXER
HANNAH DEMPSEY

FLORENCE H. LUND

OLpis A. BARRETT
WILLIAM PEACOCK
WILLIAM A. TARBELL
ELMON J. GUTTERSON
EDWARD S. KIMBALL
NEWELL J. SAWYER
LEROY S. KIMBALL
FRED W. FARNSWORTH
ALOFT JOHNSON
WENDELL P. TARBELL

FRED S. HUTCHINSON

CHARLES G. HUTCHINSON

GEORGE F. BURNS
LEVI W. PERKINS
SAMUEL SPALDING
EDWARD S. HOWARD

GEORGE E. SHELDON

LAUREN M. FoLLANSBEE

CHARLES W. MILLER

CHARLES E. WILKINS

ELEMENTARY CLASS

HATTIE P. MIXER
NELLIE C. TURNER
MARY J. RICHARDS
EUNICE BACON

ELLA A. DEWITT

ELLA WILLOUGHBY
EUNICE HUNTRESS
ELLA M. BROwN
FANNIE PERCIVAL
CARRIE DEAN
ANNA SHANESSY
MINNIE BARRETT

EUNICE ROBINSON

CHARLES E. CROSBY

WILLIAM WADLEIGH

*RICHARD BURNS

WALTER M. LYNCH

CHARLES I. WILKINS

PHILIP H. OSGoop
TimotHy CROWHAN
GEORGE SHANESSY
HENRY W. BROWN
HORACE DEAN
CHARLES FRENCH
JOHN BARREY

JoHN GOURLEY

45

46

FIRST

Clara J. Towne
Kate A. Dickey

MODEL CLASS

Florence S. Coburn

Emma S. Powers

SECOND MODEL CLASS

Nellie E. Hutchinson

Belle B. Hutchinson

Belle Knowlton

James Melzer
George Bass

Aura Bowen

THIRD MODEL CLASS

Frank Wilkins
Fred Wilkins
Willie Trow
Willie Guild
Eddie Duncklee

Hattie Woods
Fred Holmes
George Trow
Walter Mills

Clinton Masseck

FOURTH MODEL CLASS

Charles Johnson
Freddie Howard
Estella Woodbridge
Philena Woodbridge
Hattie Hall

Etta French

Anna Steele

Samuel French
Charles Mackay
Etta May

Grace Coburn

Fred Wetherbee
Arthur Wallingford
Charles Trow
Frank Dean

Walter Dean
George Johnson
Maggie Barrey
David Barrey
Julian Tarbell

SUMMARY

Number of Pupils - - -

ce

ae

Girls -

Boys - - -
Senior Class -
Junior Class” - -
Elementary Class
Model Classes .
Common Branches
Algebra - - -
Geometry - -
Trigonometry -
Book-Keeping— -
Natural Philosophy
Botany - .
Geology - - -
Chemistry - -
Physical Geography
Physiology - -
Astronomy - -
Zoology - -
History - - -
Rhetoric - .
Greek - - -
Latin . -
French - -
Mental Philosophy
Political Economy
Logic - . .

47

GRADUATES

CLASS OF 1865

FRANCES 5S. PERRY

HELEN I. LANE
CHARLOTTE S. ROBBINS
*ANTOINETTE A. PILLSBURY

CLASS OF 1867

FANNIE E. LANE

ALICE J. HOOD
JOSEPHINE E. BRUCE
ISADORE J. RICHARDSON

CLASS OF 1869

LUELLA C. HUTCHINSON
FLORA J. CUTTER
ANNAH E. ADAMS

CLASS OF 1870

CARRIE A. DAVIS

AMY LIZZIE SAWYER
ANNA F. HUTCHINSON
MABEL WEST

ADDIE M. LAKIN
LIZZIE EK. BLOOD
FRANK W. RICHARDSON
EMRI C. HUTCHINSON
CHARLES R. HOWARD

*Deceased

CIRCULAR

What shall we teach? And how shall we teach?
These are the great educational questions of the
present century; but during the last few years much
progress has been made towards a philosophic and
satisfactory answer. The main question to-day
seems to be a question of method; for if the innate
energies and activities of the child can be rightly di-
rected, not only all the sciences which constitute the
real knowledge of the nineteenth century may be well
learned, but much may be accomplished in our com-
mon schools in such arts as may have the most direct
bearing upon human welfare.

It has been said and often repeated that ‘‘there is
no royal road to learning.’’ But is it possible that a
scheme of culture, empirically adopted in the dark
ages, is never to be superseded by a better one?
Human devices are not born perfect ; but they tend
towards perfection by natural growth. The earth
through cycles of ages, passed from a fiery chaos,
first to an abode for hideous monsters, and then to a
paradise for man. Simple organisms soon reach ma-
turity, but complicated ones require centuries. The
law is the same with the devices of men. ‘The
puerile nonsense of astrology grew through successive

50 THE NEW METHOD

ages into the sublime science of astronomy. The
alchemists, covered with the thick mist of ignorance,
labored under a strange delusion for centuries; but
their diligent search for power to change base metals
to gold and mortality to immortality, led them to the
very portals of the inner temple of Deity, and dis-
closed the hidden springs of nature’s million labora-
tories.

There is no reason to think that the management
of the most complex affairs of society will ever cease
to be improved; for the knowledge of truth is pro-
gressive, and every new fact that is discovered may
influence our course of action. Weare not to blame
the past because all its wisdom is not adapted to the
wants of the present time; much of the wisdom
which blesses the world to-day may become obsolete
as the centuries roll by.

The method of education that prevails in this coun-
try, and which must prevail until a better one shall
have been more generally learned, spends its ener-
gies on the mere trappings and appliances of true
education, and dealing with these in a manner op-
posed to the law of mental acquisition, accomplishes
comparatively little even in what it undertakes. We
are beginning to understand that to depart from
Nature’s fixed laws is, and must be sure defeat,
whether those laws relate to matter or to mind; and

OF EDUCATION 51

that to ensure obedience to laws it is extremely nec-
essary to know of their existence.

True education is the greatest of all arts, and is
founded on the deepest of all sciences: on these sci-
ences it depends for direction in all its processes.
The objective universe is marvellous indeed; but
how much more so is the mind that is to comprehend
it. To educate that mind properly, is the most com-
plex, as well as the most essential work that mortals
have to do. A system of culture that involves no
special knowledge of the being to be educated and no
professional training for the work, must not only be
futile in its efforts to educate, but a flagrant outrage
upon the mind of its recipients.

Educational philosophy dictates an entire revision
of the present mode of culture. Directing us to the
primary source of all knowledge, and to its acquisi-
tion in Nature’s own method, with all the aid that
science and art can furnish, it prepares the way for
rapid progress in every science. Captivated by a
succession of new ideas as he is led on by systematic
observation, the child soon begins to analyze and in-
terpret the phenomena of Nature, and to perceive the
beauty and the harmony that pervade the world.
In the volume of Nature there are no faults. It is
God’s perfect text-book for the young and the old of
all nations and for all time. Its ample pages are all

52 THE NEW METHOD

illuminated with infinite skill, to allure us to the
study of the perfect wisdom of the great Author
of all.

The deep defects of the predominant culture are
everywhere apparent. Reversing the order of Nature,
it violates the laws of development in almost all its
processes. Vicious alike in its methods and its ten-
dencies, it crushes out the natural love of knowledge,
produces intellectual stagnation, petrifies the heart,
and signally fails to accomplish the high purposes
which a true culture must accomplish.

Possessed of faculties susceptible of endless expan-
sion, and fitted by Nature to study her works and learn
her mysteries with wonder and delight, the child of
five years enters school with faculties all alive to the
marvels that surround him. He has already learned
intuitively the most obvious properties and simple re-
lations of every familiar object ; and through his con-
stant voluntary efforts to express the ideas which
have entered his mind through these objects and
their attendant phenomena, he has, since the age of
about two years, learned the mystery of language.
Moreover, the ability to talk is the least of the child’s
acquisitions before entering school. The knowledge
of things around him —the things with which he is
to deal as long as he lives, is the great acquisition.

The first five years of school life are the all-impor-

OF EDUCATION 53

tant years of the scholastic course: yet the teacher
accomplishes very little except to stultify the quick
perceptions of childhood. The reason is obvious.
He begins by the contravention of Nature’s law,
superimposes arbitrary and unnatural work, and fails
to perceive that he is to aid that spontaneous educa-
tion which has already accomplished so much. Those
wonderful intuitive attainments, without which the
child would require protection every moment, are all
overlooked or counted as nothing. The observing
faculties, those natural avenues of knowledge, with-
out which all education would be an impossibility,
are suppressed or practically ignored; and the child
is treated as if the only road to learning were through
the arbitrary signs of ideas —as if the knowledge of
things were nothing, but the knowledge of words the
great desideratum.

We might as well expect an ample harvest from
sowing in the eternal snows of the Himalaya, as to
expect much real culture in our primary schools as
now organized. And the time has now come when
this inappropriate and profitless course, long sus-
tained by the power of old tradition, must gradually
give way for a more philosophic and natural one.
Efforts to improve our schools of higher grade will
be of little avail until the method in our primary

54 THE NEW METHOD

schools is radically changed. Weare not to modify
an old method, but to inaugurate a new system.

But has the missing truth been found so that a
faultless scheme can at once be adopted? No science
is yet perfect. The finite cannot comprehend infinite.
The general laws of astronomy are known, and an
eclipse is foretold centuries before it takes place. So
in the science of education the general principles are
established, and by their guidance we can make
rapid progress towards a perfect system of culture.

A right mode of teaching coincides with nature’s
tendencies, and instead of repressing, guides the
natural activity of the mind in accordance with the
laws of its spontaneous evolution, utilizing the child’s
playful activity for available culture.

Science is the great revolutionary power,—the
pioneer of every true reform. What hidden stores of
wisdom she has brought to light, and what mighty
conquests over nature’s forces she has won! Dur-
ing the last half century she has revolutionized
almost every art, and given us all the varied bless-
ings of the present hour. Science now begins to
direct the hand of human culture, and will save our
race from the evils of violated law by saving us from
ignorance. Empiricism can no longer be trusted to
direct the energies and aspirations of the mind; and
instead of frowning upon a rising science, let us hail

OF EDUCATION 55

with transport every new light that can aid us to
comprehend the realm of universal law in which we
dwell.

At this stage of the world’s progress, when nations
are awakening to the right of the majority to rule, it
is essential both to social and civil prosperity, that
every one be so educated as to see that he is not at
liberty to hold to such opinions as his preoccupied
imagination may fancy, but that he has no right to
an opinion until he possesses facts, and draws conclu-
sions from evidence. Great truths have been smoth-
ered for ages after they were first announced, and
their discoverers persecuted instead of cherished for
their manly defence of them, because an unreasoning
populace were unable to separate truth from preju-
dice. If we would but learn the laws of the world’s
progress in science and in civilization, we might be
saved from such self-defeat, and at the same time
both gain and give the pleasure of a grateful recog-
nition of the self-sacrificing spirit of the benefactors
of our race.

In one of the Nashua papers of January, may be
found the following, from the pen of a Milford corre-
spondent :

‘‘ Last Tuesday evening Professor Sanborn of Dart-

mouth College favored us with the most sensible
lecture ever delivered in this town on the subject of

56 : THE NEW METHOD

education. . . . He alluded also to the folly of in-
troducing into our schools object-teaching.

The lecture of the Professor will be the means of
doing good, and he deserves the thanks of the whole
community for daring to take such a manly stand
against a great and growing evil.’’

The few assertions made by Professor Sanborn are
not quite sufficient to convince all who listened of
the correctness of his views. He stated that object
teaching is one of the innovations of the day; that it
comes from the West, and captivates such teachers
as cannot discriminate between innovation and prog-
ress. He compared the interest in object teaching
to the velocipede mania of last year, stating that it
would last about as long and do about as much good.

He ridiculed the idea of strolling about for flowers,
butterflies and everything else for object lessons, and
enquired when the children would learn to read and
spell, if time is taken for such work.

This is the substance of his remarks on that topic.
It was not necessary tosay any more. He succeeded
well in showing that he knows very little of the sub-
ject, that he neither understands the methods, nor
comprehends the philosophy of such instruction; and
instead of ‘‘ deserving the thanks of the whole com-
munity,’’ it seems to me that he deserves the public
censure for undertaking to enlighten the community

OF EDUCATION a7

on the subject, while he is so ignorant of the first
principles of primary instruction. Neither the lect-
urer nor his reporter ever saw one of the object lessons
which they labor to suppress, and hence their opin-
ion of them is worth no more than that of a Hindoo
upon the origin of the Shasters.

Here we see a single instance among thousands
that daily occur, of the sad result of that fatal error
in the education of our time, which, by ignoring the
sciences that train the mind to logical reasoning,
gives the educated man but little advantage in reason-
ing over the uninstructed. The education that does
not inculcate humility and reservation of judgment
must be faulty indeed. Mere linguists or mathema-
ticians as well as the untaught, oftentimes find no
difficulty in forming an opinion before they have
learned the first fact on the subject; and the un-
scientific pronounce upon scientific questions with all
the assertion and audacity of the old astrologers.

‘Tf we consult reason, and the common testimony
of ancient and modern times, none of our intellectual
studies tend to cultivate a smaller number of the
faculties, in a more partial or feeble manner, than
mathematics. ‘This is acknowledged by every writer

on education of the least pretention to judgment and
experience.”’ Sir William Hamilton,

‘There is no study that could prove more success

58 THE NEW METHOD

ful in producing often thorough idleness and vacancy
of mind, parrot-like repetition and sing-song knowl-
edge, to the abeyance and destruction of the intel-
lectual powers, as well as to the loss and paralysis of
the outward senses, than our traditional study and
idolatry of language.’’

Professor Halford Vaughan.

‘‘ Persons who have been fully educated, according
to the present system, come to me with the same
propositions as the untaught and stronger ones, be-
cause they have a strong conviction that they are
right. They are ignorant of their ignorance at the
end of all that education. ... Until they know
what are the laws of nature, they cannot clear their
minds of these, as I say, most absurd inconsistencies ;
and I say again, that the system of education that
could leave the mental condition of the public body
in the state in which this subject has found it, must
have been greatly deficient in some very important
principle.”’ Professor Faraday.

‘‘ The models of the art of estimating evidence are
furnished by science; the rules are suggested by
science; and the study of science is the most funda-
mental portion of the practice; . . . All men do not
affect to be reasoners, but all profess, and really
attempt, to draw inferences from experience; yet
hardly any one, who has not been a student of the
physical sciences, sets out with any just idea of what
the process of interpreting experience really is.’’

Mr. John Stuart Mill.

OF EDUCATION 59

Object teaching does not come from the ‘‘ West,”’
—it comes from the opposite direction,—from learned
Germany, and dates from the time of Pestalozzi, the
discoverer of most of its principles. From the be-
ginning of the present century it has been extending
in all directions from Germany. ‘The application of
its principles has been greatly extended in Europe
during the last thirty years by Froebel, Baroness
Marenholtz-Bulow, and others.

Its progress in America has been greatly hindered,
both by the lack of scientific culture on the part of
most teachers who have attempted it, and the neglect
of serving an apprenticeship in the application of the
principles. Americans are much inclined to think
that nothing is too difficult for them to do, whether
they have learned to do it or not; and those who
attempt this most difficult work without due qualifi-
cation, not only accomplish very little good, but
bring the system into disrepute by their want of skill
in its practice. This is probably what has turned
Professor Sanborn’s face from it; but it seems that
he was not so deeply impressed with ‘‘the folly of

”)

object teaching’’ as to think it best to present his
views in other places where he lectured. Iam unable
to hear of any other place where he mentions the

subject at all. Yet I may be misinformed. Can it

60 THE NEW METHOD.

be possible that he thought Milford alone was unable
to take care of her own interests ? |

The general system to which I have given my
mind for nearly eighteen years, and which we have
gradually adopted in Milford, as far as circumstances
would allow, is the only professional or studied sys-
tem in the world. To be carried on successfully it
involves much knowledge of all the things with which
the teacher deals, including all the sciences to be
learned, and the being that is to learn them. Hence
it will be seen that its methods cannot be caught up
and put into practice by any one, at pleasure, but
that they must first be learned. This cannot be done
in a day nor a year; the whole scholastic course is.
the appropriate time, and is none too long ; for it
involves all that knowledge which constitutes the
best general education for all places and circum-
stances in life. |

By object lessons we mean the learning of science
by actual inspection of the object of study, instead of
learning a written description or listening to oral
description. It requires very little penetration to
see which is the best method. Can we make botanists
without plants, astronomers without stars, mineralo-
gists without minerals and philosophers without see-
ing the objects and phenomena of the world? ‘The

OF EDUCATION 61

best description that can be made conveys to the mind
but a dim shadow of the reality.

Can we describe the face of our most intimate as-
sociate so that a stranger would recognize him in
Broadway to-morrow? Do we know how Vesuvius
appeared to an observer after learning his descrip-
tion? ‘The object method is nature’s method. Can
the rainbow be described so that a blind man who
has never received one of nature’s object lessons on
colors can gain any correct idea of its splendor? He
can gain no idea of the meaning of words expressive
of color, because object lessons on color are an im-
possibility with him.

It is strange ‘‘folly’’ that would close the natural
inlets of knowledge—the senses, and refuse to teach
the child anything of the world we inhabit, until an
artificial method can be created. The artificial
method is never to be used as a substitute for the
natural one, but is to be employed to gain what
knowledge we can of inaccessible things, and of,
abstractions.

Any intelligent person who knows what object
teaching is, can as readily see the superiority of that
method over all others as he can see the superiority
of the sun, for illuminating purposes, over the pine
knots and candles of the last generation. The boy
that thought the map was the reality, and stated that

62 THE NEW METHOD

‘‘North America is about seven inches long,’’ and
that the ‘‘ meridians are lines crossing the equator at
right angels,’’ was greatly in need of a few object
lessons in geography as well as upon angles.

Of course it is not necessary to always have the
object present. After we have once seen the rain-
bow, observed with care all the facts relating to it,
impressed upon the memory its blended colors, and
the order of their arrangement, noted all its aspects,
measured the height of its arch, and its angles with
the sun, we may then discourse upon it, and study
the philosophy of its formation at pleasure.

We have classes from seven to twelve years of age
in botany, mineralogy, chemistry and most other
sciences, and their interest and progress equal that
of the older classes who use books. In botany the
scholar learns the number, form, size and color of
petals, stamens, leaves and all other parts by personal
observation. He is told only such things as he can-
.not discover, such as names of parts and properties,
and some of the uses of the plant. In entomology he
inspects the insect; in mineralogy the specimen of
ore, metal or other mineral is present ; in chemistry
he sees the invisible element separated from its com-
pound, and with taper in hand he has gained a new
sense.

Oral expression immediately follows observation :

OF EDUCATION 63

and how eager the child is totell what he has learned.
Next is the mathematical investigation of the object,
including concrete geometry, drawing and arithmeti-
cal problems. Very young children are interested in
making mathematical discoveries and computations,
and at the same time they are indelibly fixing the
scientific facts inthe memory. Last of all follows the
reproduction in written language of all that has been
learned upon the object. Of this the child never
tires, but he acquires descriptive power seldom
equaled by scholars twice as old, who are trained in
the common method.

‘*But when will the children learn to read and
spell ?”’

By the object-method the child will not only read
and spell better at the age of eight or ten years, but
he will accomplish twice as much in writing, compo-
sition, and mathematics as in any other, and all these
branches are learned incidentally, while the main
work is the pursuit of science. There is no delay in
the acquisition of knowledge if we first give the child
a motive for learning, and then present the work in
the natural order.

The above statement may be considered extrava-
gant, but we solicit careful investigation. Moreover,
there are parallels in nature, which if we would study,
we need not be surprised.

64 THE NEW METHOD

Mark the course of the young child under nature’s
tuition. His first words are names of things of essen-
tial interest to him. ‘Those words never could have
been learned if his senses had not taken cognizance
of the things, and conveyed an idea to his mind.
The observation of the thing gives rise to the idea,
and the word is the expression of the idea. The
word, then, is virtually created by the thing, and
from it derives its meaning and all its interest.

In testing a child of two years we found that ina
single day she used over a hundred different words.
About three fourths of the words were names of things
she often saw; and every thought she expressed was
suggested by those things. Another test was with a
boy of five years. He could talk with equal fluency
in two languages; but had never been taught in
either. He learned one in the family, the other in
the street. Is there any such progress as this in our
own or any other language in our schools? If we
would have the child continue to learn language in
school as he does before he enters, we must adopt
nature’s method, and furnish him with new ideas
by daily presenting new objects and phenomena.
Things before words is clearly the natural order with
early childhood; is the law reversed the moment he
enters school ?

But a clear idea of the object-method cannot be

OF EDUCATION 65

given by words. One who wishes to know how the
work is conducted must necessarily have an object-
lesson on object-teaching. Our rooms will be open
to visitors for a few weeks, beginning about the tenth
of May, and all are invited to spenda day or two
with us.

It is scarcely necessary to say a word in this com-
munity upon the merits of the normal system of in-
struction. Notwithstanding every circumstance has
been unfavorable, except the system itself, the suc-
cess of this institution from the day it was opened
has exceeded the expectations of its most sanguine
friends. Our rooms have always been filled beyond
their capacity to accommodate; and our number has
included the greater part of the advanced scholars of
this village and vicinity.

The influence of the normal system in Milford, for
the past fifteen years, seems to have been beneficial.
It has qualified a large number of young ladies for
the profession of teaching; and, judging from the
demand for their services, and the wages paid them,
it would seem that their teaching is valued. The
average wages of female teachers, in this State, last
year, was less than twenty-one dollars. ‘The average
wages of our graduates was forty-two dollars, —nearly
as much as that of the graduates of the Normal Uni-
versity of Illinois, which was forty-six dollars, It

66 THE NEW METHOD

also seems to have raised the public estimation of the
value of good learning. Our district, for the last
year, has paid twice as much per scholar, for instruc-
tion, as was paid five years ago, and more than twice
as much as the average in the State. Besides, very
liberal donations of piano, carpets, paintings, statu-
ary and other ornaments for the school-rooms, have
been made by citizens, to supply the place of those
previously furnished gratuitously, by teachers.

It is thought that chemical and philosophical appa-
ratus, cabinets of minerals, and other specimens for
illustration of natural history will soon be purchased
so that the sciences of nature, which, if rightly
taught, constitute the central star in education, may
be taught in our publicschools. I have such articles,
sufficient to illustrate most facts of science, including
many valuable reference books and charts, which I
have used during my teaching in Milford, and I
hereby offer the district the free use of them, such
as they are, during my absence in foreign countries.

The natural sciences all culminate in the science of
human nature; and are to be learned as a key to
that highest order of truth—the laws of the human
mind. Knowledge of moral law is the highest knowl-
edge within the reach of man. Its real possession
constitutes the highest order of greatness. Galileo
and Newton possessed almost intuitive mathematical

OF EDUCATION 67

greatness. Socrates and Confucius possessed moral
greatness. Both these orders of greatness depend
alike on culture. The one penetrates the regions of
immensity and measures the stars in their course.
The other seeks to know the right, and having found
it, never quails in its defence, but stands by it, with
a sublimity of purpose that defies all danger,—stands
by it as the mountain stands when the storm rages
around its unshaken summit.

The works of the great Architect, whether material
or immaterial, are all radiant with His thoughts ;
and when, through the ennobling tendency of their
study, we have reached that transcendent order of
truth to which all other truth is accessory, society
will be on the highway to social and political pros-
perity.

WM. L. WHITTEMORE.

MILFORD, April, 1870

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SECTION IV:

MILFORD PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 13.75

REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF EDUCATION

OF MILFORD, N. H.

For THE YEAR 1874-5

A very wise man of ancient time has said that there
is but one good in the world, and but one evil,—that
knowledge is the one good, and ignorance the one
evil. This exalted estimate of the value of knowl-
edge is becoming more and more general in all civil-
ized countries. |

Our common schools are the repositories of knowl-
edge for the people, and should be guarded with
special care and unceasing vigilance. A well regu-
ated school system is an essential element of a people’s
prosperity ; for knowledge is the foundation and sup-
port of our liberties.

THE NEW METHOD

“I
No

PRIMARY SCHOOLS

The importance of these schools and the difficulty
in properly teaching and managing them is not, we
fear, sufficiently appreciated. They are the founda-
tion of our educational system, and unless this is
firmly and securely laid the whole structure will
prove a failure. We have been remarkably fortunate
the past year in having teachers of great merit in

these responsible places.

First Primary.—This school has been under the
charge of Miss Clara EK. Crosby during the entire
year. Good order has been maintained, and very
commendable progress made in all the studies.
Through the energy and tact of the teacher, each

term has been an improvement over the preceding.

Second Primary.—This school presents a model of
excellent order, and energetic and spirited teaching,
joined with activity, lively interest and perfect obedi-
ence on the part of the scholars. Miss Alice C.

Gray, teacher.

OF EDUCATION 7)

Third Primary.—It was found, at the beginning of
the year, that there were more young children about
to enter school in the village, than could be accom-
modated in the second primary; consequently, suit-
able rooms were secured, and a third primary school
was opened, under the instruction of several young
ladies of the high school, each teaching one hour a
day, and having no other compensation than a
course of instruction upon the most approved methods
of primary education. The first class was taught by
Mary E. Coburn and Helen Ll. Buttrick, the second
by Hattie J. Burdick and Kate A. Dickey, and the
third by Sarah W. Bruce and Clara J. Towne. No
scholars in town of similar age have made better
progress than these. The teachers have manifested
a lively interest in their work, and are entitled to
much credit for their successful efforts.

West Primary. —Spring term. Miss Annah E.
Adams, teacher. By earnest and faithful effort,
Miss Adams brought this school to a high degree of
excellence; but unfortunately, her health failed
toward the close of the summer term, and being un-
able to resume her work in autumn, she was suc-
ceeded by Miss Mary A. Hartshorn, who has taught
the last two terms with marked ability and great
success.

74 THE NEW METHOD

GRAMMAR SCHOOLS

For many years past there have been two agencies,
constantly tending to make the grammar schools diffi-
cult to manage and unsatisfactory in their results.
One reason why these schools have been so generally
found in a demoralized condition may be looked for
in the frequent change of teachers. Very few teach-
ers have remained in these schools long enough to
eradicate the existing bad habits they found on enter-
ing them.

A second hindrance to success in these schools
may be found in our defective system of teaching,
which here begins to manifest its mischievous tend-
encies too forcibly to be easily mistaken. Young
children are naturally eager for knowledge; and
when we give them real knowledge, such as they can
assimilate and organize for use, instead of unmeaning
words and processes, their love of study deepens with
age. But under existing methods, the love of knowl-
edge is often crushed out before the child reaches the
age of ten years, and he takes no interest in anything
connected with school, except the society of his mates,
and the various amusements they manage to intro-

duce to break up the monotony of school work.

OF EDUCATION 75

East Grammar.—The spring term was taught by
Miss H. Juliette Gilson, a teacher of great energy
and superior ability. Much was done to break up
the ordinary routine, and to cultivate a love of gen-
eral intelligence, by spirited conversations upon
science, art, and passing events.

The fall and winter terms were taught by Miss Isa-
dore Richardson, who has labored with great perse-
verance and with success. Since the middle of the
fall term the school has steadily improved. There
has been a marked change in the habits of the schol-
ars, both in respect to deportment and attention to
study.

West Grammar. — Teacher, spring and winter
terms, Miss Charlotte S. Robbins; fall term, Miss
Luella C. Hutchinson. Through the well-directed
efforts of both teachers this school closes the year in
fine condition, although it was badly demoralized at
the beginning. The scholars are cheerful and happy,
and appear to enjoy school better than ever before.

76 THE NEW METHOD

HIGH SCHOOL

Principal, Mr. G. B. French, spring term. At the
end of the spring term, Mr. French closed his con-
nection with the high school, having served faithfully
for two years, and given very general satisfaction.
He was assisted by Miss Ellen W. Beane, of Norton,
a very intelligent and accomplished lady, whose ser-
vices were highly appreciated.

Mr. French was succeeded by Mr. S. J. Blanpied,
who has had charge of the school since the beginning
of the fall term. Mr. Blanpied is a teacher of thor-
ough culture and considerable experience. Under
his judicious management the school has gradually
improved, and has accomplished all that could be

reasonably expected.

GENERAL REMARKS

There has been a growing conviction on the part
of many of our citizens, that the high school for
several years past has been managed upon a plan
hardly in harmony with the principles of economy,
and equal rights.

It is alleged, first, that the study of the dead lan-
guages has been held up as the one essential thing
in education, and that the best efforts of teachers,

OF EDUCATION |

and of a small number of scholars have been given
to that work, while all branches of English education
have been slighted, and looked down upon with a
feeling bordering upon contempt, thus spoiling the
education of ninety-nine scholars who must complete
their studies here because, possibly, the one hun-
dredth may wish to go to college.

Second, it is alleged that this policy is not only
ruinous to the interests of the high school, but is be-
ginning to react upon the lower grades, as it fails to
furnish teachers suitably qualified to teach the com-
mon branches of English education; and third, that
this policy is not only fatal to the interests of true
education, but annually wastes a large amount of the
public money.

In reply to such charges as these, the board feel
called upon to state such facts as have come under
their observation, and then leave the subject for
others to dispose of as they will.

It should be borne in mind that in all small places
like Milford, the standard for admission to the high
school must necessarily be much lower than in towns
many times larger. In a town like this about one
tenth of the scholars must be in the high school,
without much regard to age orscholarship. In large
cities not more than one in fifty, or even one in a
hundred is in the high school. Hence such scholars

78 THE NEW METHOD

as the two younger classes, always numbering more
than one-half of our school, would be found in the
grammar schools of all large places. In the classifi-
cation of the high school this fact has hardly been
recognized; consequently much elementary work,
which is of first importance in education, has been
left undone, and scholars have worked at great dis-
advantage in the higher branches. In the written
examination of the school last June, the higher classes
were found more thorough in arithmetic than in any
other branch of English education. Seven of the
nine graduates failed in the following example:
‘What is the value of five acres of land at three
cents per foot?’ In the next example four failed=
‘“ What is the amount of $400. for three years six
months at seven and three tenths per cent. simple
(ibetese. |

The sixty per cent. of failures did not arise from
slight mistakes, but from failing to find the proper
method of solution.

This is a specimen of the best work presented while
the poorest work was in the understanding and use
of our own excellent language—a language which,
in the opinion of foreign scholars, is hereafter to gain
the sovereignty of the world.

During the spring term the time of two teachers
was divided between the different branches of study

OF EDUCATION 79

as follows: Sixty per cent. to instruction in lan-
guages, including our own language; twenty-five
per cent. to mathematics ; fifteen per cent. to science.
There were five classes in foreign languages. The
classification and division of time is about the same
as it has been for several years past. It clearly indi-
cates a one-sided culture, which was fully substan-
tiated by the examination. A symmetrical culture
would be more favored by a division more nearly
like the following: Thirty per cent. of the time for
mathematics; Thirty per cent. for science; thirty
per cent. for language; ten per cent. for art.

At the present time we have nine scholars in lan-
guages, and three classes for their accommodation.
There was some pressure last term for the formation
of two more classes for the accommodation of three
other scholars.

A false classification has been one of the chief
agencies in bringing the school into its present con-
dition. It has been divided and subdivided into
nearly three times as many classes as there ought to
be. With two teachers the scholars have been under
instruction only about one-fourth of the day, while
with one teacher and a proper classification each
scholar would be under instruction considerably more
than one-third of theday. By this means much more
thorough work would be accomplished, not only in

rex@) THE NEW METHOD

mathematics, science and the languages, but there
would be time to spare for drawing, writing and other

general work.

North School.—This school was taught by Miss E.
Jennie Fifield until the close of the fall term, when
she retired, highly esteemed both by scholars and
parents. Under Miss Fifield’s steady and careful
instruction for four consecutive terms the school
reached a high degree of excellence.

Miss Fifield was succeeded in the winter term by
Miss Annah E. Adams, who fully maintained her
reputation as a good disciplinarian and excellent

teacher.

Pine Valley School.—This school has been fortunate
in retaining through the year the services of Mrs.
‘ Harriet L. Cleaves, an experienced and reliable
teacher, remarkably well adapted to the important
place she occupies. We hope she may be retained
for terms to come.

Howard School.—Miss Fannie Bullard, teacher.
This school always appears well and is one of the
best in town. ‘The teacher is active and energetic ;
the scholars, studious and cheerful. Under these

conditions progress is always certain.

OF EDUCATION 81

Shedd School._—Spring term. This school was ably
taught by Miss Mary A. Hartshorn who resigned at
the close of the spring term. Miss Anna Ll, Colburn,
a recent graduate of the high school, succeeded her.
Being unskilled both in the theory and practice of
teaching, Miss Colburn was hardly able at first to
meet the demands of her new employment; but the
experience of the first few weeks, joined with energy
and good judgment, enabled her to bring the school
into very fair condition before the close of her first

term.

Osgood School.—This school has been favored by
the instruction of Miss Catherine A. Tuttle through
the entire year. Miss Tuttle is a fine scholar and a
careful and thorough teacher. Under her superior
instruction the school has done remarkably well.

Abbott School_—The spring term was taught by
Miss Emma Bennett; but, unfortunately for the
school, her valuable services could be retained no
longer. The instruction was spirited and thorough,
and the progress of the scholars highly satisfactory.
Miss Bennett was followed by Miss E. A. Thomas of
Hudson, who kept the fall term with fair success,
and by Miss Laura A. Tilton, whose first efforts at

82 THE NEW METHOD

teaching during the last term have been very satisfac-

tory.

Duncklee Hill School_—Miss Ermina E. Holt still
gives her best endeavors to this school. The scholars
have been kept close to their studies and to the rules.
Miss Holt has great skill in ensuring diligence, good
behavior and love of study.

It may be seen by the foregoing brief remarks upon
the different schools, that they have been, generally,
prosperous through the year. In two or three in-
stances the obstacles in the way of success were
greater than the teacher was able, at once, to remove;
but during the winter term every school has been in
very fair condition.

The perfect teacher has not yet made his appear-
ance in the world, but it is not wise to emblazon
every fault,—a few deserve mention.

Manner. Teachers should be spirited, lively,
energetic, and refined in their manner, brief, direct,
clear and impressive in all they say, both in teaching
and governing, but never noisy and blustering.

Pronunciation. Closely allied to a faulty utter-
ance in several of our schools, is a false pronuncia-
tion of words. We raise no issue with the disciples
of Worcester or Webster, but do protest against the
prevalent violations of both taste and all dictionaries.

OF EDUCATION 83

We insist that together is never togather; that often
has no ¢ in its pronunciation; that @ in half and
laugh is never correctly pronounced as @ in man.
Ventilation. Many of the school rooms are often
too warm or else cold—not ventilated at all or else
carelessly ventilated, endangering the health of
scholars from colds or from poisonous gases. By
careful study and constant attention, the teacher
could often make the scholars more comfortable, and

thereby secure better order and attention to study.

MODERN CULTURE

In all we have said of our schools thus far, our
standpoint has been the traditional system of educa-
tion, which had its origin centuries ago, when
modern civilization was in its infancy —a system
which has been long sustained in this country by the
power of old tradition and by blind habit, notwith-
standing its want of adaptation to the present time.
From this point of view we may speak of our schools
in terms of commendation; but when we view them
in the light of modern educational science, and com-
pare them with what we ought to have and might
have, the comparison at once becomes a contrast.

It is neither longer schools nor more money to
expend on them that we stand in greatest need of,

84 THE NEW METHOD

but the overshadowing and pressing necessity is the
introduction and use of the educational ideas of the
nineteenth century.

We are clinging with extreme tenacity, to a sys-
tem of education which was better suited to the wants
of earlier times, but is out of harmony with the in-
tellectual necessities of modern life; a system which
idolizes the past and worships precedent and author-
ity. Progress consists not in rejecting the past, but
in assimilating and reorganizing its truth into har-
mony with new circumstances and new requirements.

The deep defects of the predominant culture are
everywhere apparent. It violates the laws of devel-
opment in almost all its processes. Vicious alike in
its methods and its tendencies, it crushes out the
natural love of knowledge, and signally fails to
accomplish the high purposes which a true culture
must accomplish. We must extend the knowledge
of our predecessors and correct their errors. Our
errors will be corrected by our successors. Obedi-
ence to obsolete forms must no longer be held forth
as a virtue, for the knowledge of truth is progressive.

Civilization has its inflexible laws. Institutions
are not born perfect and adapted, without change, to
all time and all circumstances. The history of all
civilizations plainly shows that perpetual stagnation
is the fatal consequence of extreme conservatism.

OF EDUCATION 85

Within the memory of some of our citizens we have
given up many of the methods of our ancestors. Old
ways are tedious and too expensive. We no longer
occupy the stage-coach for the better part of a week,
when we have a few hours’ business to transact fifty
or a hundred miles away. A modern idea, expressed
in the locomotive, saves us one-half the fare and two
or three days’ time, to say nothing of personal com-
fort.

We can hardly realize the magnitude and import-
ance of modern discoveries and inventions. Almost
every art has been transformed within the last forty
years, and our manufacturers and business men would
become bankrupt if they should ignore modern ideas
and methods in their business as they are ignored in
education.

We have made: wonderful progress in material
prosperity, but very little improvement in the means
we employ for our emancipation from the thraldom
of ignorance and immorality. You saw quite as
good instruction in the old brick house by the bridge
twenty-five years ago, as we have seen in most of our
schools the past few years. We have better school-
houses, more studies and longer schools, but the
same primitive method of teaching.

Educators from foreign countries have justly criti-
cised our school polity, as lavishing money upon

86 THE NEW METHOD

school buildings, furniture and fixtures, while we
regard the qualifications of teachers as of secondary
importance.

The discoveries of modern science have given us
the telegraph, railroads and steam-boats, and brought
to our doors all the products of nature and of art.
Yet there has been no greater progress in the sciences
which underlie industrial prosperity, than in those
which unfold the laws of mental culture. In one
case science has been utilized, in the other ignored.

When a steamship is to be built, all the knowledge
in the world, upon the application of steam power
and ship building, is brought to bear upon the enter-
prise. The same is true in many of the arts and
manufactures ; but how different it is in education !

On completing his general education the candidate
for either of the learned professions must spend years
in learning the special knowledge of the profession
he would enter. ‘The merchant goes to the mercan-
tile college and the mechanic to his apprenticeship ;
but the teacher, whose work is the most complex
and difficult that mortals have to do, goes at once in-
to practice, although as ignorant of the laws of men-
tal development as the children he undertakes to
teach.

That such is the status of education is not the
fault of teachers, but of public sentiment. Very few

OF EDUCATION 87

have investigated the subject far enough to know
that there is any science of education, except what
anyone may know intuitively. Yet in some parts of
the old world teaching has recently become a learned
profession, and the most learned of all professions,
requiring six years of special study and training.
Most men hate new ideas. What has been the
history of the introduction of every modern improve-
ment which blesses the world today? How did the
public behave towards Fulton when he declared that
steam power would some day propel ships across the
Atlantic? towards Stephenson, when he announced
his plan for moving a train of cars by steam twenty
miles an hour? towards Field, when he thought a
message could be sent across the ocean with lightning
speed? Each of these great benefactors was ridi-
culed and accused of foolishness or insanity ; yet we
have already realized even more than they promised.
Ifthe building of the first steamer had depended
upon the vote of the majority, when would it have
been built? Private fortunes were expended before
the public had any faith in its practicability or in its
possibility. But when the’ boat was seen to move,
and the ‘‘rattling car’’ was heard, when telegrams
from central Europe told us of battles before the
‘‘cannon’s roar’’ had ceased, men were compelled to

believe.

88 THE NEW METHOD

If we would but learn the laws of the world’s prog-
ress in civilization, and qualify ourselves to distin-
guish between truth and error, we might save our-
selves from that self-defeat which marks, not only
the present, but all past ages. Great truths have
been smothered for centuries after they were first
announced, and their discoverers persecuted instead
of cherished for their manly defence of them. Bruno,
the Italian astronomer, was chased through France,
England, Germany and Switzerland, for teaching
that the sun and some of the planets are as large as
the earth. At last he was arrested, taken to Rome,
and burnt at the stake in the year 1600. Galileo
would have met the same fate for teaching that the
earth revolves around the sun, had he not, on his
knees, retracted all he had taught, and promised to
desist from farther teaching. Sixteen years later he
published a book on the motions, size and distances
of the heavenly bodies, and was again seized and com-
pelled to abjure the doctrine it taught as false and
pernicious. He was then cast into prison, where he
died after ten years of most cruel treatment, and he
was denied a decent burial. Thus perished the most
illustrious and devoted scholar of the age, because
his teaching was not in harmony with existing tradi-
tional authority. These illustrations show the atti-

OF EDUCATION 89

tude of European civilization toward science at the
beginning of the seventeenth century.

In still earlier times scientific men did not dare to
teach publicly at all; but at the close of life left the
result of their study in writing, asa legacy to the
world, when they had passed beyond the reach of its
cruelty. .

In every-age of the world’s history, millions upon
millions of human beings have perished from lack of
knowledge ; yet, in every age, knowledge has been
met as an intruder in the world. Had the spirit of
toleration which is now, slowly, but surely gaining a
place in modern society, ruled in ages past, instead
of the intolerance which has so hindered the increase
. and diffusion of knowledge, might not the light which
once shone in Alexandria, the birth-place of real
science and scientific methods—might not the wis-
dom of Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Hero, Euclid and
a hundred other immortal names which there found
a place under the fostering care of the illustrious
Ptolemies, have come down the centuries with in-
creasing power, to illuminate the long night of ig-
norance through which the world has passed ?

The mission of science is just begun. It has had
but here and there a solitary disciple; yet it has
helped us much in our remote interests. Our im-
mediate and greatest interests can be regulated only

90 THE NEW METHOD

through the personal possession of scientific knowl-
edge. Among those who have been thoroughly and
symmetrically cultured in science, there is but one
opinion as to its value. What is a contrary opinion
worth, which is not based upon such culture? Many
of our colleges practically ignore science, and gradu-
ate young men who know less of it than boys of ten
years ought to know and do know in some parts of
Europe. Your children labor through twelve years
of school life, and after all graduate in worse than
Egyptian darkness respecting the most useful of all
knowledge, such as all people would use, if they pos-
sessed it, every day of their lives.

‘It does seem to me strange, to use the mildest
word, that people whose destiny it is to live, even for:
a few short years, on this planet which we call the
earth, and who intend to live as comfortably and
wholesomely as they can, should in general be so
careless about the constitution of this same planet,
and of the laws and facts on which depend, not
merely their comfort and their wealth, but their
health and their very lives, and the health and the
lives of their children and descendants. .. .

‘But as for mankind thriving by common-sense :
they have not thriven by common-sense, because
they have not used their common-sense according to
that regulated method which is called science. In
no age, in no country, as yet, have the majority of
mankind been guided, I will not say by the love of

OF EDUCATION gI

God, and by the fear of God, but not even by sense
and reason. Not sense and reason, but nonsense and
unreason—prejudice and fancy—greed and haste—
have led them to such results as were to be expected
—to superstitions, persecutions, wars, famines, pesti-
lence, hereditary disease, poverty, waste—waste in-
calculable, and now too often irremediable—waste of
life, of labor, of capital, of raw material, of soil, of
manure, of every bounty which God has bestowed on
man, till whole countries, some of the finest in the
world, seem ruined forever; and all because men
will not learn nor obey those physical laws of the
universe which (whether we be conscious of them
or not) are all around us, like walls of iron and of
adamant—say rather, like some vast machine, ruth-
less though beneficent, among the wheels of which,
if we entangle ourselves in our rash ignorance, they
will not stop to set us free, but crush us, as they
have crushed whole nations and whole races ere now
to powder. .

‘* To those who believe in God, and try to see all
things in God, the most minute natural phenomenon
cannot be secular. It must be divine ; I say deliber-
ately, divine ; and I can use no less lofty word. ‘The
grain of dust is a thought of God; God’s power made
it; God’s wisdom gave it whatsoever qualities or
properties it may possess. Only look at all created
things in this light—look at them as what they are,
the expressions of God’s mind and will concerning
this universe in which we live—‘‘the voice of God
revealed in facts’’—and then you will not fear physi-

92 THE NEW METHOD

cal science, for you will be sure that, the more you
know of physical science, the more you will know of
the works and of the will of God.’’—Rev. Charles
Kingsley, of England.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

‘‘ Our whole system of instruction requires an hon-
est, thorough, and candid revision. It has been for
centuries the child of authority and precedent. God
intended us for progress, and we counteract his de-
sign when we deify antiquity, and bow down and
worship an opinion, not because it is either wise or
true, but merely because it is ancient.’’—F/vazcis
Wayland, D.D., late President of Brown University.

‘* We display a singular disregard of the plain in-
dications of nature, who herself points out the order
in which the faculties should be drawn out into action.
We have inverted the natural order just as complete-
ly as possible. And this inversion of the order of
nature, carries with it the unfortunate consequences
that no satisfactory knowledge is acquired at last.
—F. A. P. Barnard, LL.D., President of Columbia
College.

The pioneer of material progress has fought his
battle and is victorious. His victory has also made
the vanquished truly victorious, for it raises both
the ‘just and the unjust’ into a higher civilization.
But the advocate of educational reform has under-
taken a more difficult task—more difficult because he

OF EDUCATION 93

can do nothing without the consent of the public, and
the public can overturn his work at pleasure, even
just as he is ready to demonstrate its value. With
every new victory the progress of science is acceler-
ated; but the power that crushes truth to earth
shackles itself.

It will be the object of the next few paragraphs to
give a brief outline of the course clearly indicated by
the educational science of the present time.

True education is as many sided as the mind that
is to receive it; and the mind is as many sided as the
sum total of human knowledge. In education there
can be but one true method, and that method coin-
cides with nature’s tendencies and guides the mind
in accordance with the law of its spontaneous
evolution.

In the study of the laws of mental development our
success must be limited, unless we get at the general
law of life by studying the simpler forms of living
things. There is one law of development: it begins
in the lowest forms of plant life and ends in the phy-
sical and mental development of man, becoming
more and more complex as it ascends into higher
orders of plant and animal life. Nothing in nature
stands solitary and alone. Every part of the world
is interlaced with every other part, and is more or
less dependent upon every other part. Man himself

94 THE NEW METHOD

is linked by visible or invisible chains, with every
atom of matter on the globe. He is as intimately
connected with the three kingdoms of nature as the
tree with the earth and the air which its roots and
leaves penetrate; nor can this intimate connection
cease fora moment. ‘The unity of nature establishes
the unity of science. ‘The unity of science makes the
study of education a necessity, and gives a clew to
the natural order of mental unfolding.

Man is a product of nature and the culmination of
her works; his whole being is permeated through
and through by nature’s forces and nature’s laws.
The highest and most valuable knowledge that man
can possess is knowledge of himself. Knowledge of
himself is the culmination of all science—the great
problem in whose solution all science is concerned.
The growth of the tree no more depends on the ele-
ments of earth, air and water, and the forces of nature
that marshal them into life and organization, than
man depends upon a knowledge of the whole realm
of nature if he would attain to either physical or
mental perfection.

We violate the laws of life at every step, and shall
continue to do so, until we qualify ourselves to under-
stand them in all their complexity, by the proper
study of all classes of objects and phenomena—all

the laws and all the forces of nature—laws of matter

OF EDUCATION 95

and laws of mind. In the volume of nature there are
no faults. It is God’s perfect text-book for the
young and the old of all nations and forall time. Its
ample pages are all illuminated with infinite skill, to
allure us to the study of the perfect wisdom of the
great Author of all. Ignorance of the laws of life
confers no exemption from the failure and suffering
consequent upon their violation. Nature’s inexor-
able and unpitying penalties are meant to coerce us
to the study of her works, when their exceeding
beauty fails to allure our attention.

The fatal error in the educational schemes of all
ages has been’ the futile attempt to ornament the
mind without informing it; hence the world has but
just discovered even the existence of those laws whose
violation renders human life so narrow, so full of
pain and disappointment. Let us not boast of a high
civilization while the lives of half the human race
are crushed out before they reach the age of seven
years, and not one in ten of the other half makes a
successful life of three score years.

The first law of mental development is symmetry.
Moreover this law manifests itself in all normal de-
velopment from the crystallization of the snow-flake,
through all gradations of plant and animal life. By
what perversity or blindness has the prevailing cult-
ure so completely excluded this law till the present

96 THE NEW METHOD

time? In the vegetable kingdom development will
not take place at all unless the conditions favor sym-
metrical development. A grain of wheat is composed
of about a dozen elements chemically combined into
three classes of compounds. Four of these elementary
substances are derived, directly or indirectly, from
the atmosphere, and the rest from the soil. If a
single element is deficient, the grain will not thrive ;
and if one element is entirely wanting, not one kernel
of wheat will grow, even if all other conditions are
most favorable. The food of man, in all its variety,
is made up of the same three classes of compounds
somewhat extended, though containfng very few ad-
ditional elements. If either the mineral, the car-
bon, or the nitrogen class were left out of our food
for a single month death would be the result. This
law extends to the natural growth and unfolding of
the human mind. Violated law tells more fatally on
childhood than upon age. The result of violating
the law of physical development is disease or death,
while the violation of the law of mental development
stultifies or paralyzes the faculties of the mind.

From the beginning to the end of general educa-.
tion, symmetry is the one essential law; without it,
all systems of education will prove a failure. The
child just entering school, possesses every faculty, or
at least the germ of every faculty, found in the ma-

OF EDUCATION 97

ture mind. He can observe, remember, compare and
reasor, but he must do these asa child. He wants
ideas, not the signs and symbols of ideas; he wants
knowledge itself, for he can use it ; but he has no im- -
mediate use for the arbitrary signs of knowledge. He
delights in the use of his senses; by their exercise
he has already learned the most obvious properties,
simple relations and uses, as well as the names of all
familiar things. He has many thoughts about these
things, and has learned how to express them.

Education must be begun and continued as a unit.
The first week in school should represent all the great
branches of human knowledge — science, language,
mathematics and art; not inso many separate lessons
or exercises, but all organized, as it were, and as in-
timately connected as the trunk, roots and branches
ofatree. Curiosity and imitation, the natural love
of knowing and doing, must both be gratified. One
of the chief duties of the teacher is to direct the child
how to observe, and where to observe, and how to as-
similate and express the result of observation in oral
and written language, in mathematical language, and
in the language of art.

‘In place of this rude and crude, and now happily
obsolescent theory, a deeper philosophy is leading us
to inquire into the nature of the undeveloped mind,
and the true order of the development of its faculties.

98 THE NEW METHOD

. . I need hardly point out what a change in all
our methods this change in our philosophy implies ;
for it involves the doctrine that the true place to
begin the teaching of all art, all science, all knowl-
edge, is the primary school; and I am not in the least
afraid of the seeming paradox. Rather I would earn-
estly maintain that, unless we treat the child in the
primary school as the germ and embryo of all he is
destined afterward to become, our education will be
doomed toignominious failure. Whatever is to enter
into the higher stages of education is to have its seed
planted there, or it never will be planted.’’— William
P. Atkinson, Professor of Literature, Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology. (Froma lecture at the National
Teachers’ Association at Elmira, N. Y., 1873.)

The second fundamental law is, that education be-
gins with the concrete and not with the abstract.
The child, under nature’s tuition, before entering
school observes this law, and hence the rapid prog-
ress he makes in the knowledge of his surroundings,
in language, and in intellectual quickness and clear-
ness; but as soon as he enters school this law is
completely reversed; the observing faculties, those
natural avenues of knowledge, without which all
education would be an impossibility, are suppressed
or practically ignored, and the child is treated as if
the only road to learning were through the arbitrary
signs of ideas. His wonderful intuitive attainments
are all overlooked or counted as nothing, and the

OF EDUCATION 99

teacher begins by superimposing unnatural work in
order to enable the child, as quickly as possible, to
learn lessons about things instead of learning things
as before entering school —he is set to acquiring
second-hand knowledge, instead of being directed in
the acquisition of real knowledge ina natural way,
and as a consequence, his mind becomes vague and
abstracted in its tendencies and habits. Books are
but one element in true education; libraries alone,
cannot make learned men. ‘The best books are read
the least, because our education neither gives a taste
for useful knowledge, nor the ability to understand
the best books.

The third law is, that education begins in the
simple and not in the complex. The violation of this
and the preceding law has made the study of arith-
metic very tedious, and unsatisfactory. The com-
plex and the abstract are so strangely mixed with the
concrete and simple, that a large part of the usual
course serves rather to confuse and weaken the facul-
ties than to strengthen them.

In the ordinary study of science we begin not only
in the abstract, but also in the complex, and violate
two laws, at least.

There are mountains so steep they cannot be
climbed; others are abrupt on one side, but can
easily be ascended from another side, by travelling

I0O THE NEW METHOD

up a long, smooth, inclined plane. Thus it is with
the sciences. ‘The method in our schools is to try to
climb the steepest side of the hill of science, and we
slide back nearly as fast as we ascend, mistaking our
efforts to climb, for real progress. If we would un-
derstand such a complex study as human physiology
and the laws of health, we must pass over the in-
clined plane of all plant and animal life; and in trav-
elling this inclined plane, the learner will find a cult-
ure, broad and symmetrical, and full of meaning and
interest at every step. Science, language, mathemat-
ics, and art are all harmoniously combined in the
proper study of the simplest plant. And the reason
this method delights the child is because it is the
method of nature. He reads at every step the lan-
guage of the Infinite, and his thoughts are naturally
led from ‘‘ Nature up to Nature’s God.’’

Respectfully submitted,

WM. L. WHITTEMORE, ) Board
CHAS BE. tULILE 0
SUMNER B. EMERSON, J Education

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