Amos A. Lawrence to Charles L. Robinson, November 1854

You have laid out grounds for a college, and will have a good one, without doubt, in time; but, in the first place, you must have a preparatory school, where the boys shall be fitted for college. It should be for boys, and not for girls. There may be a girls' school too; but the boys should be cared for first. My own impression is that we have fallen into a great error here in Massachusetts, of late years, by raising the standard of female education so high that physical development has been checked, and the constitutions weakened. Our women are good scholars, and good school-mistresses; but they are unhealthy and weak, and do not bear strong children; and while we are refining the intellect, we are injuring the stock. . . .

I wish my finances were so that I could give you an order to go on and build at once; but that is out of the question. My share in the transaction shall be to pay one hundred dollars every month, and I think I can continue to do that, if my health is spared, for some time to come. The only condition which shall be imposed is that you shall not mention to any one, nor intimate to any one, except Mr. Pomeroy (with whom you may advise, you having imposed the same injunction on him), from whence the money proceeds, except that you may say, when it is necessary to do so, that it is sent to you from Massachusetts. Perhaps some one will appear, who will give money to build it up at once, but I know of no one. The building when completed should be a handsome one, and of stone or brick.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 115-7

From The Louisiana Democrat, November, 1859

Over fifty applicants for cadetships have been received and warrants issued for them. This, with other appointments, will insure an opening number of about seventy-five, and we feel confident that ere this session shall have closed the buildings will be filled. There were some misgivings, early in the fall, that the State Seminary would not be ready to commence operation on the first of January, but it is now settled, and everything is prepared that the institution will open on the day mentioned.

[The faculty] have been selected from over eighty applicants marked for distinguished merit and ability, and, as far as we are competent to judge from a short personal acquaintance, we honestly assure all parents, guardians, or others who may have charge of the education of youth, that if their sons or wards are placed in the State Seminary, if they are capable, they will be returned to them thorough scholars.

We would also, in this connection, disabuse the public, or at least a portion of it, of the idea that a school organized upon a military basis must needs make only soldiers. It is a false notion that because a youth is compelled to be methodical, to learn to obey, and at the same time, keep his self-respect, that all this is to be done at the sacrifice of time which should be devoted to study. A military school differs from other colleges, in a single, but very material particular, only: the time which is generally given up to the student to be used in any manner his natural proclivities may suggest is, in the State Seminary, economized in the shape of military duty, and though it may at first work a little harsh, yet after a time, with a proper thinking youth, it becomes a pleasure, and as it does not in any measure interfere with his scholastic duties, we do not see why any objection could or should be made against it-certainly it does not detract from the merits of any gentleman to be considered to have a savoir faire in the matter of handling arms.

The late events¹ which have, in some degree, agitated the public mind certainly indicate the necessity of each slave-holding state encouraging and supporting at least one military school within its own limits. We know that others of the Southern States have made it a matter of such consideration that these institutions are looked upon as a chief feature in their defensive material. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and of late Missouri have all appropriated certain sums for the establishment of like institutions and in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee these schools have for a period of years been working with complete success.

If we admit the facts, and certainly we can consistently do so, where they are self-evident, that such establishments are necessary and that the terms of scholar and soldier are not incompatible, then the success of our State Seminary is no problem. . .

The plan upon which the State Seminary is to be worked is so methodical that it will be found to be the cheapest school in the country. We don't mean cheapest in an immediate dollar and cent signification, but cheapest because of the paramount advantages it offers. A youth's time is so regulated that dissolute and expensive habits cannot be contracted. Expensive dress, dogs, horses, billiards, etc., will certainly be myths with a cadet at the State Seminary, and parents will find that in the end they will have saved a considerable item in this particular. In most colleges, the modern languages, drawing, book-keeping, etc., are charged as extras . . . which when paid for as such at the termination of a four years' course, will be found to amount to quite one-third of the regular tuition. . . The particular location of the school, three miles from this place, is a matter of some moment. The cadets cannot be subjected to the malarious influences of the low lands of the river, as the buildings are situated on an elevated stretch of table land, surrounded by a healthy growth of pine forest, together with the best of water. There cannot be any possible chance of an epidemic reaching any of its inmates; though we may be visited, as any part of the state is more or less liable, by an epidemic disease, still we confidently believe that with anything like consistent precaution the State Seminary will always escape. . .

_______________

¹ The John Brown raid into Virginia. — Ed.

SOURCES: The article is abstracted in Walter L. Fleming’s, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 66-8

From The Madison Democrat, November, 1859

[The State Seminary] is to be conducted upon a plan similar to that of the Virginia Institute at Lexington. . . This is a move in the right direction. Our legislators have, for once, at least, acted with a view of promoting the moral as well as the intellectual advancement of the people of the state.

Every father in the Parish of Madison, who has a son over fifteen years of age, that can read and write well, and can perform with facility and accuracy the various operations of the four general rules of arithmetic . . . should at once send him to the Louisiana Seminary of Learning, even if he should be compelled to mortgage his plantation to pay the annual expense of four hundred dollars. . .

We heartily rejoice that a military school of a high grade has been established in our state, because we know that military discipline only can make a school effective for good in this, our perverted age, when almost every youth scarcely out of his teens considers himself independent of all moral restraint, and at liberty to do as he pleases.

Military schools make the pupil not only a soldier, ready to defend our rights and our institutions, but they impart, by the principle of subordination upon which they are conducted, a moral training, which will impress him with the conviction that in order to be able, at some future day, to command, it is indispensably necessary to learn first how to obey.

SOURCES: The article is abstracted in Walter L. Fleming’s, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 65-6

Diary of William Howard Russell: June 1, 1861

The respectable people of the city are menaced with two internal evils in consequence of the destitution caused by the stoppage of trade with the North and with Europe. The municipal authorities, for want of funds, threaten to close the city schools, and to disband the police; at the same time employers refuse to pay their workmen on the ground of inability. The British Consulate was thronged to-day by Irish, English, and Scotch, entreating to be sent North or to Europe. The stories told by some of these poor fellows were most pitiable, and were vouched for by facts and papers; but Mr. Mure has no funds at his disposal to enable him to comply with their prayers. Nothing remains for them but to enlist. For the third or fourth time I heard cases of British subjects being forcibly carried off to fill the ranks of so-called volunteer companies and regiments. In some instances they have been knocked down, bound, and confined in barracks, till in despair they consented to serve. Those who have friends aware of their condition were relieved by the interference of the Consul; but there are many, no doubt, thus coerced and placed in involuntary servitude without his knowledge. Mr. Mure has acted with energy, judgment, and success on these occasions; but I much wish he could have, from national sources, assisted the many distressed English subjects who thronged his office.

The great commercial community of New Orleans, which now feels the pressure of the blockade, depends on the interference of the European Powers next October. They have among them men who refuse to pay their debts to Northern houses, but they deny that they intend to repudiate, and promise to pay all who are not Black Republicans when the war is over. Repudiation is a word out of favor, as they feel the character of the Southern States and of Mr. Jefferson Davis himself has been much injured in Europe by the breach of honesty and honor of which they have been guilty; but I am assured on all sides that every State will eventually redeem all its obligations. Meantime, money here is fast vanishing. Bills on New York are worth nothing, and bills on England are at 18 per cent, discount from the par value of gold; but the people of this city will endure all this and much more to escape from the hated rule of the Yankees.

Through the present gloom come the rays of a glorious future, which shall see a grand slave confederacy enclosing the Gulf in its arms, and swelling to the shores of the Potomac and Chesapeake, with the entire control of the Mississippi and a monopoly of the great staples on which so much of the manufactures and commerce of England and France depend. They believe themselves, in fact, to be masters of the destiny of the world. Cotton is king — not alone king but czar; and coupled with the gratification and profit to be derived from this mighty agency, they look forward with intense satisfaction to the complete humiliation of their hated enemies in the New England States, to the destruction of their usurious rival New York, and to the impoverishment and ruin of the States which have excited their enmity by personal liberty bills, and have outraged and insulted them by harboring abolitionists and an anti-slavery press.

The abolitionists have said, “We will never rest till every slave is free in the United States.” Men of larger views than those have declared, “They will never rest from agitation until a man may as freely express his opinions, be they what they may, on slavery, or anything else, in the streets of Charleston or of New Orleans as in those of Boston or New York.” “Our rights are guaranteed by the Constitution,” exclaim the South. “The Constitution,” retorts Wendell Phillips, “is a league with the devil, — a covenant with hell.”

The doctrine of State Rights has been consistently advocated not only by Southern statesmen, but by the great party who have ever maintained there was danger to liberty in the establishment of a strong central Government; but the contending interests and opinions on both sides had hitherto been kept from open collision by artful compromises and by ingenious contrivances, which ceased with the election of Mr. Lincoln.

There was in the very corner-stone of the republican edifice a small fissure, which has been widening as the grand structure increased in height and weight. The early statesmen and authors of the Republic knew of its existence, but left to posterity the duty of dealing with it and guarding against its consequences. Washington himself was perfectly aware of the danger; and he looked forward to a duration of some sixty or seventy years only for the great fabric he contributed to erect. He was satisfied a crisis must come, when the States whom in his farewell address he warned against rivalry and faction would be unable to overcome the animosities excited by different interests, and the passions arising out of adverse institutions; and now that the separation has come, there is not, in the Constitution, or out of it, power to cement the broken fragments together.

It is remarkable that in New Orleans, as in New York, the opinion of the most wealthy and intelligent men in the community, so far as I can judge, regards universal suffrage as organized confiscation, legalized violence and corruption, a mortal disease in the body politic. The other night, as I sat in the club-house, I heard a discussion in reference to the operations, of the Thugs in this city, a band of native-born Americans, who at election times were wont deliberately to shoot down Irish and German voters occupying positions as leaders of their mobs. These Thugs were only suppressed by an armed vigilance committee, of which a physician who sat at table was one of the members.

Having made some purchases, and paid all my visits, I returned to prepare for my voyage up the Mississippi and visits to several planters on its banks — my first being to Governor Roman.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 249-52

Charles Eliot Norton to Meta Gaskell, October 2, 1865

Ashfield, October 2, 1865.

My Dear Meta, — . . . After a long silence occasioned by the war I have lately had one or two notes from Ruskin, — the last came in the same mail with your letter, and was in very striking contrast to it. He writes very sadly, and his letters bring sadness to me especially as indications of his failure to understand and sympathize with the ideal side of America. “The war,” he says, “has put a gulph between all Americans and me so that I do not care to hear what they think or tell them what I think on any matter.” It is in vain to try to bring him to comprehend that in spite of all that is wrong and base in our present conditions, in spite of all the evil passions which war has worked, in spite of all the selfishness and conceited over-confidence generated by our marvellous material prosperity, — there is in our national life a counterbalance of devotion to principle, of readiness to sacrifice whatever is required for the maintenance of liberty and human rights, and a real advance toward the fulfilment of the best hopes of man for men. He fancies that our happiness is a delusion, our efforts vanity, and our confidence folly. I believe that we have really made an advance in civilization, that the principles on which our political and social order rest are in harmony with the moral laws of the universe, that we have set up an ideal which may never be perfectly attained, but which is of such a nature that the mere effort to attain it makes progress in virtue and in genuine happiness certain. The character and principles of Mr. Lincoln were essentially typical of the character and principles of the people. The proposition that all men are created equal, — equal that is in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, — equal as moral and responsible beings, — has sunk deep into the very hearts of this people, and is moulding them in accordance with the conclusions that proceed from it. It is the inspiration and the explanation of our progress and our content. To embody it continually more and more completely in our institutions of government and of society is the conscious or unconscious desire and effort of all good men among us. It is as Mr. Lincoln admirably said, — “A standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly laboured for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colours everywhere.” The war has given us a right, such as we had not before, to trust in the fidelity of the people to the principles of justice, liberty and fair play. And it is because of this just confidence that one need not be disheartened when, as now, there are signs of moral slackness and decline. After the exertions and excitements of the last four years one need not be surprised at a reaction of feeling; and if the high standard of effort is somewhat lowered. The millennium will not come in our time; and peace will not bring rest to those who fight for “the cause” and not for victory.

It seems probable from Mr. Johnson's course that we shall lose some of the best results which might have sprung from the war. Under his scheme of reorganization of the Union it now looks as if the Southern States would come back into the Union with no provision for the securing of any political rights or privileges to the Negro, and no provision for his good-treatment by the former slave-holding and slave-despising class. I fear lest the very freedom which the freedmen have gained, be so limited by state laws and local enactments, that they may be kept in a condition very little superior to slavery. It would take too long to explain and set forth all the grounds for this fear. But on the other hand I have hope that the great social and moral changes that have taken place in the Southern States, the establishment of free speech and a free press in them, the extraordinary demand for labour, the education which the blacks have received in the army and in schools, and above all the future action of political parties in the Northern States, — may all tend gradually but irresistibly to gain for the Negro the full rights of independent and equal citizenship. The discussions and the actions of the few next years on this subject will be of the highest interest and importance.

For the past three or four months the point which has been most discussed in connection with “reconstruction” is that of suffrage for the Negro. The reasons for giving the right of suffrage to the freedmen are as strong as they are numerous, are reasons based upon policy as well as upon principle. I think Negro suffrage could have been easily secured at the end of the war by wise and foreseeing statesmanship. I think it would have been secured had Mr. Lincoln lived; and that it would have been found the most powerful instrument for elevating and educating the blacks, for making them helpful and advancing citizens of the republic, and for introducing a better civilization, and a truer social order than has hitherto existed at the South. But the hour favourable for this has passed, and Negro sufrage will have to be won by a long and hard struggle.

President Johnson has been a slave-holder; he is a theoretical democrat so far as white men are concerned, but his democracy does not extend to the black. He hates, or perhaps I should say hated, slavery because it developed an aristocratic class, not because it was intrinsically wrong. I doubt if he has any strong moral aversion to it, — but he has an immoral distrust of (I will not call it aversion to) the Negro. He holds that he is inferior to the white man, that the white man is to govern, the black to be governed. His influence, is at present, practically thrown against Negro suffrage.  . . . I must bring my political letter to a close before the subject is half exhausted. I will send you the “Nation,” a weekly paper in the establishment of which I have been greatly interested and which will keep you informed of our affairs. You may, I think, rely on the fairness of its statements and the soundness of its opinions. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 284-8

A. D. Milne: July 9, 1863

St. Helena Island, July 9th, 1863.

My Dear Sir,—I send you a letter from the School Committee. I give it word for word, as it fell from the lips of Robert, leaving out a few remarks about myself. They have been very faithful, and will be found a great help to future teachers.

Yours most sincerely,

A. D. Milne.

SOURCE: New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen, Extracts from Letters of Teachers and Superintendents of the New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen, Fourth Series, January 1, 1864, p. 5

Committee of Adams School: July 8th, 1863

Dear Sir,—The Committee of the Adams School, on this Island, would say, that in regard to our ignorance, we were all ignorant and blind, and have been kept back in darkness by our former masters, who used to hold us under bondage and hide the light from us. But thank God that through the prayers of good people, the good friends of the North, through the assistance of God, are helping us to drop the scales from our eyes. We have think within ourself, while we were under slavery bondage, that we could never seen this sight, that we have, and all our friends and parents, who have children, think that they cannot pray and thank God enough, and the good friends of the North, who are striving to let us see this light. Even I myself, Robert L. Chaplin, myself 73 years old, had feel within myself that it was impossible that the slavery bound could ever again see light in this world, until the good friends send us a good friend that teach us that all things are possible with God, and that old and young can see light in their old age. The children and people all, now, desire to learn to read, and we hope you will be pleased not to let us suffer for a teacher, for the children of this district was very much neglect, above any other part of the Island, until our present teacher came, and now his health is gone and he is not able to hold out through the season, and we feel very much distressed in our mind for want of his teaching. All the good we can do for ourself, is but little, we were kept down so, by our secesh masters, but we will do what we can and return our thanks by our prayers to the friends that help us.

We were so delight to set the children improve, that our teacher voted to have a committee of four and myself makes five, to visit the school and see that everything go on regular among all the children, and we stand the assistance of the teacher as far as we are able and our understanding goes.

All the books and property that belong to the School, is in our charge, and if a teacher is sent we shall be sponsible for the same. We will write to you again and let you know how we get along. Our district will need a man teacher, a good strong man, because there is deal of work in a large school. We generally have lecture every Sunday evening, from three to four o'clock among the children and people, and we have seen that it makes the children and people improve more greatly.

If we should have another teacher, we feel that we shall continue on in every way to receive knowledge. Through the assistance of the Lord we pray that as we improve in one thing we may improve in everything, more and more every year. — We give great thanks to the Lord for the good things he has sent already.

This letter is signed by all the five committee men, who are all present, and very thankfully agree to what is said, and we shall all be pleased to receive any message from you.

Robert L. Chaplin, X Chairman

John Edward, his X mark.

William Jefferson, his X mark.

Daniel Bolles, his X mark.

William Scott, his X mark.

July 8th, 1863, Adams School, Morville District,

St. Helena Island, St C.

SOURCE: New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen, Extracts from Letters of Teachers and Superintendents of the New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen, Fourth Series, January 1, 1864, p. 5-6

Local Matters

CLOCKS. – Another installment of clocks just received and for sale low for cash, at Billon’s, No. 10 Le Clair Row.

BOARD OF EDUCATION. – We are requested to state that there will be a meeting at the Court House, on Saturday evening next, for the purpose of nominating candidates for the offices of President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and one Director of the board of Education.  A general attendance of all interested in having good men to fill these important offices is requested.

THE SNOW doesn’t seem to have got half through falling, judging from the general state of weather now-a-days.  Weather without snow is an exception just now, while sunshine is a rarity, which, some of us remember to have seen some time ago.  Under these circumstances, local news is desperately scarce.  Hardly anything short of a knockdown on the highway will make a man disgarge [sic] an item, and if it wasn’t for Fort Donelson’s flagstaff’s and similar trophies, on exhibition at the hotels, we could hardly have a local sensation.

The trains continue to be impeded by the snow.  The train which started West on Tuesday morning, had made about eight miles at daylight yesterday morning, and there are high hopes it will reach Marengo by the 4^th of July.  Another train started about 2 o’cl’k yesterday afternoon, with the intention to go through and return immediately.  At the time of this writing we haven’t had a mail from the village of Muscatine or west of Iowa City since Saturday.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 6, 1862, p. 1

A correspondent of the Utica Herald . . .

. . . writing from Norwich, Chenago Co., N. Y., says: “A visitation of one of the district schools in this town, the other day, revealed the singular circumstance of a child and his mother, and his grandfather being all in attendance as scholars!  The grandsire is David Dickson, a steady, laboring man of 63 years of age, who in his youth enjoyed no school privileges, and grew up unable to read or write.  His son, Peter Dickson, went to the wars last fall in the 89^th regiment, and is now at Hatteras Inlet under Burnside.  Peter left behind him his wife, Martha, age 26, and his son, Perry William, age four years.  Martha could read, but not write; and the desire of corresponding with her soldier husband without borrowing a stranger’s pen, stimulated her to go to school.  Of course she took Perry.  The old patriarch, David, found work scarce and home lonesome in their absence, and followed suit.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, March 5, 1862, p. 2

Our City Schools

In company with several members of the Board of Education, we yesterday visited the city schools of the first and second districts.  On account of sickness and the inclemency of the day the attendance of the scholars was less than the usual average.  In the first district Mr. Gorton has 98 pupils enrolled, only 60 of whom were in attendance.  Miss Humphrey had on her roll the names of 58, only about 20 of which were present.  We understand this building has been recently repaired and is in much better condition than formerly; still it is a poor apology for a school house, and should be replaced by a better before any public improvement in that portion of our city is attempted.  The room in which Miss Humphrey teaches is very contracted, close and without means of ventilation.  A class in reading and spelling recited in Mr. Gorton’s department while we were present, and for their ages acquitted themselves very commendably.

The balance of the forenoon was spent at the stone school house in the second district.  This building is roomy and airy, quite too airy on the exposed sides during the prevalence of the cold north-west or west wind, such as we had yesterday.  The heating apparatus is inadequate for the cold, blustering days of the winter or early spring.  Miss Gregg is the principle of this school.  We visited the rooms presided over by Miss Tripp, Miss Alvord, Miss Bennett, and Miss Christie.  In all of these the scholars were reciting, and with a fluency and proficiency that displayed not only the attention they gave their studies, but that they understood what they learned.  The questions were not altogether confined to the books, but were such as grew out of the lesson recited, thus showing something more than a mechanical proficiency.

The system on which our public schools are conducted is calculated to arouse ambition in the scholars, and cause them to aspire to excellence.  As they progress in their studies they are advanced from class to class until they are able to acquit themselves in the highest class, when they are transferred to the High School.  This course inspires an emulation among the scholars that causes them not only to be exceedingly attentive to their lessons, but never, only from the most urgent necessity, to absent themselves from school.  We regret that we could not spare the time to accompany the committee on their visit to the other four districts in which our city is divided.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, March 5, 1862, p. 1

Aldehoff's Institute

The third scholastic year of this admirably conceived and well conducted school commences on the second Monday in next moth.  The principal, Mr. H. W. Von Aldehoff, is widely known as one of the first teachers in the South, his success heretofore being the best test of his merit.  The fact that the school has successfully maintained itself in the general wreck of similar institutions caused by the war, is additional evidence of it[s] excellence.

– Published in The Daily Rebel, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Saturday, August 9, 1862, p. 2

Proceedings of the Board of Education

TUESDAY, April 22, 1862 – 2 P. M.

President in the chair. Present – Messrs. Collins, Grant, French, Olshausen, Blood and Smith.

Mr. French reported that the County Treasure has almost funds enough to pay J. J. Lindley’s judgment vs. Board of Education, and that he, said Lindley, agrees to wait for payment until the County Treasurer will have collected the full amount of said judgment.

On motion of Dr. Olshausen that report was adopted, and the orders made by the Board on the 12th inst. “that the Treasure pay said judgment,” was rescinded.

The Superintendent’s report in regard to supplying new school in Fulton’s addition with teachers, was adopted on motion of Mr. French, and that the teachers recommended by the Superintendent be employed in said school.

Mr. French offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to consider the expedience of introducing the study of the German language in the high school, and to report at the next meeting.

Which resolution was carried on motion of Dr. Olshausen, and the chair appointed the following committee: Messrs. French, Grant, Olshausen.

On recommendation of the Superintendent Mr. James A. Ryan was elected assistant teacher in School District No. 1.

On Motion of Mr. Smith the Superintendent was allowed leave of absence for two weeks to visit schools in the East.

Messrs. French and Olshausen were appointed a committee on planting treats at No. 4 and No. 6 school lots, with power to act.

On motion adjourned sine die.

OTTO SMITH, Sec’y

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, April 24, 1862, p. 1

Summer Schools and School Teachers

TO DIRECTORS AND PARENTS.

At this time before the opening of the summer schools, we would ask those to whom this important charge is instructed, to look well to the interest of the “little ones.” There is no argument so pernicious as that “it makes little difference who teaches our school in the summer, as it will be composed of little children.” There is not half the “tact” required in teaching advanced scholars that there is for laying the foundation of a child’s education. – Thousands of promising boys and girls are ruined every year by these fossil mistresses and wooden masters that “keep,” not teach, our schools. The certificate of our county Examiners may be regarded as a security against ignorance of the studies, but the ability to TEACH your children in the knowledge of books, in morality and manners, is your province and your duty to determine by the [illegible] means in your power. A school should be neither a prison nor a play-house; but duty and pleasure should be combined as to render study agreeable, and obedience a willing enjoyment.

It is but just to a teacher to inquire into his success in the schools he has taught, as you would wish to see some of the work of a carpenter who was contracting to build you a house. You would be anxious to know the “general reputation” of your pastor, but the character of your childrens’ teacher is of much more importance. Let this be no half way matter, and let no favoritism retain or employ an incompetent teacher. This will give employment to the deserving and compel the others to attend normal classes and seminaries in which they may honestly earn a livelihood. We are glad to notice the advertisements in the Messenger of “normal classes” and other education facilities in our county, tending to supply this great want of trained teachers, and we earnestly hope they may meet with all the success they deserve, and deserve all the success with which they meet.

There is a great danger of teachers becoming stereotyped in their modes of giving instruction, and especially in the commoner branches is there great danger of carelessness in the teacher, while to the pupil this is a time that gives character to his whole education. The teacher bears his class as a part of the daily task and goes through the exercise with his mind on something else, and his scholars are apt to be listless, and to contract those habits of drawling, bad articulation, and unnatural tones that take a lifetime of earnest training to correct. This error makes god readers such exceedingly “rare birds” in the world. It is so in a greater or less degree with all branches of a common education, where the rudiments are so simple to the pedagogue and so strange and new to the child. Teachers are apt to always present a subject from one stand point, and like a guide to Niagara, that always takes his visitors to Table Rock, he soon grows listless and imagines he has done his whole duty. But it is not so. Every exercise is capable of as many variations as a kaleidoscope, and a real earnest “live teacher” will always make the primary exercise interesting to his class, because he is always interested in them himself.

We have one request of parents, - VISIT YOUR SCHOOLS. Go as often as you would to see after a flock of sheep in a far field: or when you are passing, or have a leisure hour to spare, drop in and see after the interest of your heirs for whom you are toiling. What! No leisure time? – then you are working too hard, and if you will just quit work for a while and go in once ever two weeks, you will save a doctor’s bill, and give your child an idea of the importance of his business there that he never had before. Try it, and mark the effect on the school. Note how glad the teacher is; how the wrinkles are smoothed out of his forehead; how the children straighten up and begin conning their lessons with new energy. Notice your own bright-eyed urchin; how busy he is with his book, only occasionally looking off to see if the other boys are looking at his “pa” or “ma.” How consequential! He is the “honor man.” His parents have visited the school. Try it, parents; try it. It is not time you lack as much inclination.

– Published in The Athens Messenger, Athens, Ohio, Thursday, April 24, 1862