EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 602, 17 September 1853, Page 2

EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

CTrom the Sydney Empirt, Augutt 00

Whoever will thoroughly reform the social and political condition of this country — whatever statesman or legislature will vigorously undertake the task of diminishing crime and increasing public spirit, shall certainly have to begin by remodelling our . systems of education. This conclusion is more than ever clear to us, after reading an able article in the Westminster Review, on education in, the, United States.

The for a grand system of education, in order to preserve the free institutions of the country, became manifest to the statesmen of America after the Revolution; but it is only within the last twenty years, in particular, that the most liberal and .extensive measures have been zealously adopted and vigorously carried^ into effect in every State, in the-Union. The result is, the admitted superiority of the education of the people of the United States over every other nation in the world, and an increase of enterprise and power proportionate to the intelligence of the people. The old nations of Europe that are most anxious to improve their social or political condition, are now beginning to study this system with attention. The article to which we refer is an eloquent appeal to England on the subject, by<a writer who had visited the schools of America and judged of the excellence for himself; and the very occasion, of the article is also an indicative fact, being a book written by a -tourist from Sweden, who was paid by the Government of his country to investigate the American system of education. We may, first of all, obtain a general idea of the economy and development of education amongst the people of America, from 'a few obvious facts. In the State of Massachusetts the average cost of education inconsiderably less than in New South Wales. For children between five and fifteen • years of age, *it amounts to less than £1 fur each, whilst in this colony the coat is close to 30s. on the average for the National and Denominational schools. Yet so universal is education amongst the . children of Massachusetts, that if the same system were to be carried out in England it is calculated it, would require a taxation amounting to. £7,000,000 a year.

Again, a remarkable characteristic is the spirit of education, which pervades society, from the members of the Legislative Assembly at the head of the State to the individuals, of a family in remote rustic life. No sooner is a new township laid out than Lot No. 16, in the centre, has its peculiar mark placed upon it as the v School Section." No sooner is population beginning to be located in the new township, than some volunteer teacher is a candidate for a trial of the world in this new place. The men expect they will do better by and by as society grows large, and the women find it a sure and pleasant road to getting married very soon. The writer of the article mentions an instance in which he was struck by the intelligence of two sisters and a brother in a remote farm \ house iv one of the eastern States. Upon enquiry it turned out that they had all three been «« far west " teaching school, and that they intended shortly to proceed there again. Thus, with the idea foremost, of eventually bettering their own fortunes, persons of superior intelligence go forth as volunteers of education, even into the far off backsettlements in the wilds of lowa, with an adventurous spirit which must be the result of education in themselves, and certainly, with indefatigable zeal and p«?sererance in their high and ennobling pursuit •* I began school," writes one of these female teachers, from an improvised school-house of logs in a distant location of Wisconsin, " I began school on the 23rd of November, with four scholars ; the number soon increased to forty, between the age of six and twenty-one. The scholars are very backward. They had scarcely any books. My school-house is eighteen feet long, fourteen feet bread, and is built of logs, and is cold, very cold.

But next winter we shall have a wellconstructed building for school and church." No wonder that education should spread and flourish, and a race should grow intelligent and enterprising, in the American backwoods, with such brave and hopeful teachers to instruct them as this. No wonder that a zealous, hopeful-hearted, young schoolmistress, in a rude log hut in that wild back ground, so earnestly devoted to her vocation as she appears to be, so little complaining that it is !f cold, very cold," should gather forty scholars round her from far and near ; nor even that " two girls, of the age of twelve and fourteen, have come a distance of a mile and a half through the snow, with no other covering than a little shawl not larger than a pocket-handkerchief, the rest of their clothing being ,proportionably scant." No wonder, we say, at the results of a system under which the heavenly seed of education is so heroically sown.

The system must be fundamentally and intrinsically excellent which is developed with examples of this kind. And so it is. You do not surely suppose that any of your centralised institutions, with their strait-laced routine, arid task-master-like administration, with stipends rendered not palatable but small, could, by any human possibility, produce the like 1 No, that which those " grand iron men, the Pilgrim Fathers " planted, such has it grown. It was not centralisation they transplanted with them from England, but the old Saxon principles and institutions of local self-government; and now education partakes of the same nature, and flourishes with the rest. It is not under the cold and stern orders of a government official that a cheerful and brave hearted woman, like that one in the log hut, would consent to take her place, albeit that she does it gracefully and gratefully when the fathers and mothers of the whole township have the regulation of the salary amongst themselves, and are all ready to receive her as a child of their own house.

Such is the simple groundwork of the vast superstructure of American education. The fundamental principle of local self-government is at {the bottom of it. In most of the States, and especially in those in which education is the most developed, every township levies its own taxation, and delegates its authority to a few competent individuals, for the maintenance and management of its schools. The legislature interferes no farther than to prescribe general laws, and to see that they are obeyed. Every township, however small, is bound to maintain at least one school, for at least six months of the year. Every township, comprising one hundred families, is bound to maintain one school throughout the year, or two schools, for at least a period . of six months each. Every township, comprising a hundred and fifty families, must maintain three schools for at least six months, or two for at least nine months each. Every township, comprising five hundred families, must maintain at least two schools through the year; and, in addition to these elementary schools, must maintain one of a higher order, for at least nine months, in which geometry, land-surveying, book-keeping, and the other higher branches of a sound English education are taught. Every township comprising a population of 4,010 souls, must maintain a classical school, in which Greek, Latin, History, &c., &c , are comprised in the course of education. The elementary schools are divided according to districts of the township, and the two last mentioned class are for the township at large. They are open to the community without distinction of classes or persons, and they are gradually becoming free schools throughout many of the States. This is the system of Massachusetts, and the rest, differing from it more or less in modification, are substantially the same. In some there are Boards of Supervisors, and a Superintendent paid by the State, through whom periodical reports on the state of education are received by the Legislature. In Massachusetts, where the system appears to be the best regulated and the most complete, there is a Central Board of Education whose functions

are rather paternal than official — who are not empowered to control local operations, but principally to aid the Legislature in the department appertaining to education, and to dispense the interest of a State fund for the maintenance of schools which require assistance., and comply with a few simple and essential rules.

In the cities and large towns, of course, education is developed with the most regularity and to the best advantage. In them there are regular and connected gradations from the primary or infant school to the free academy, which crowns the whole system. Than those free academies we believe no wiser or nobler superstructure of education has ever been or hardly ever will be devised. It is not merely that they open a highway for the people to the summit of education ; they react with stimu- j lating influence upon the whole body of the schools — upon the cluster of them in the city, and the loghouse seminary in the remotest hamlet of the State. If there be a Daniel Webster there among those uncouth urchins, the wild young colts of the wilderness, believe it, that influence will infallibly search him out. There is an abiding stimulus amongst them all to push onward through the several stages of promotion, until this last one, which is the gate to a distinguished and successful entrance to the busy world of trade, commerce, and professions is attained and passed — and then the energy which it stimulated in childhood lives and grows with them, and shapes their enterprise in after life. Yea, the very mother that nursed them hardly keeps better account, when they are gone away into the world of active lives to work for themselves. It is all there in the record of the High School of Philadelphia, the career of the pupils of the last eight years. How many of them were blacksmiths and cadets, carpenters and lawyers, ploughmakers and watchmakers, &c, &c. — only 29 being unascertained out of 1467 that graduated in the college of the State. Only think j of it, graduates of college no longer courting the indolence and aping the aristocracy of the old world schools, but gone forth to labour with their hands and with their intellects to elevate their own class. The country that has them enrolled amongst her workmen may well and easily be leaving the rest of the world a long way behind. It is the opinion of the Swedish tourist that an American literature of astonishing power will shortly burst forth from all this educated and rapid mind. We can well believe it. The masculine energy with which an American woman has written * Uncle Tom,' like a leader in the Times,\s the herald of a rising power. We do not imagine for a moment that there is the slightest use in presenting the example of American education to the nest of deaf adders that assume to be governing and legislating for this colony. Being all busy with the highest business they are able to comprehend — their great plot of an ignoble nobility — a grand system of education is no subject for them. Nevertheless, it is right for those who desire the real elevation of the colony, to understand it and bear it in mind until better times.