for others, that he have a sound mind in a sound body! Can God be indifferent in regard to the physical education of children? He is their Maker. He is the former of their bodies as well as the Father of their spirits. And in respect to their bodies, they are fearfully and wonderfully made. He has clothed them with skin and flesh, and fenced them with bones and sinews. He made the heart, and lungs, and nerves, and gave them their location and functions. He formed channels for the blood to flow in. How skilfully he has adjusted the several parts of the human frame. They form one perfect whole. And every member, every organ is placed by the Creator under certain laws. The body of a child to be properly educated must be treated in accordance with those laws. Such treatment is necessary in order to secure and promote health. But how frequent the violation of these laws, and how sad the consequences. Many children come into the world physically disordered, their blood infected by disease. They either cannot be raised at all, or only by the most tender, judicious care. In a multitude of instances, through ignorance or a disregard of the laws of our physical being, a foundation is laid in very early life, of bodily debility and suffering until the separation of soul and body at death. In infancy and childhood, so weak and frail is the body, so tender all its limbs and organs, that great effects may result from little causes. Some slight infraction of the laws of health may be followed by permanently woful consequences. Some delicate organ may receive an injury which can never in after life be repaired. "Our life contains a thousand springs, And dies if one be gone; Strange that a harp of thousand strings With an originally good constitution much may be done by proper training, to secure permanent health. And with an originally feeble constitution, or a constitution early impaired by some special sickness, much may be done by such training, to promote the future welfare of the body; hence of the individual. A century, and even half a century ago, children generally had better physical constitutions and consequently better health than at this day. Then there was comparative simplicity in food and dress. And then also the family gathered around the open fire, and breathed a purer atmosphere than is breathed now in a room heated by an air-tight stove or furnace. No person, particularly no child, can long inhale an impure atmosphere, and not experience bad effects. At home and at school, much more regard is commonly had to the temperature of the air than to its purity. But without pure air, the blood cannot be pure; and if the blood is not pure, there can be no perfect health. In proportion as the blood is impure, the health is impaired. Care should be taken therefore, that, so far as possible, children may breathe, waking and sleeping, at home and at school, a pure atmosphere. We repeat, God cannot be indifferent in regard to the physical education of children. He can approve of such training only as tends to a full, symmetrical development of all their bodily organs; to health, strength and fair proportions. And if He is not indifferent in regard to this matter, we should not be. Parents, on whom the responsibility first and mainly rests, -teachers, all, who have anything to do with the education of children, should acquaint themselves as thoroughly as may be, with the laws of health which our Maker has established, and observe them to the utmost of their opportunity and ability. "The statutes of the Commonwealth prescribe training for the intellect and the heart. Why should not common sense prescribe it for the body?” Chairman.-E. W. HARRINGTON. BRADFORD. Since the last annual report of your school committee, one member of the committee, Benjamin Greenleaf, Esq., has deceased. Mr. Greenleaf was so long interested in the Public Schools of this town, and in the cause of education generally, that a brief notice of him especially as connected with popular education, seems fitting and desirable in this report. He was born in Haverhill, September 25, 1786, fitted for college at Atkinson Academy, then under the care of the famous John Vose, Esq.; entered the Sophomore class of Dartmouth College, 1810, and graduated with honor in 1813. During his college course,, Mr. Greenleaf developed that taste for and proficiency in mathematics which marked his subsequent life. In December, 1814, he was appointed principal of Bradford Academy, and removed to this town which was his home for nearly fifty years. Here his life's work was accomplished. Here his influence was especially felt for the long period of half a century. It is needless, among those who knew him so well, to say that his influence on all the great questions of morality and religion, was uniformly on the right side, and his views were expressed usually in that brief, quaint, blunt manner, which we all so well remember. It is, however, the work he accomplished for the education of the youth here and elsewhere, that particularly interests us to-day. As a teacher for more than thirty years in this town, he was brought into close contact with a whole generation of men and women; and with his scholarship, his interest in learning, his enthusiasm as a teacher, and his marked peculiarities as a man, he could not fail to do much in forming the character of that generation. He left an impression of his own peculiar habits of thought and study upon them, to say nothing of certain other marks of affection of which he was wont to speak. Not a little of the long-estab lished and well-earned reputation of Bradford Academy, for thoroughness in the fundamental branches of education and in the mathematics, is due to him. But it is not merely in Bradford that his influence as a teacher was felt. All over the country, multitudes of men and women cherish his memory as a kind, earnest, and faithful teacher. Nor was it only as a teacher that he aided the cause of popular education. His mathematical works, especially his series of arithmetics, have been widely disseminated over the country, and perhaps have waked up more thought on the subjects of which they treat, than those of any other American author. More than three millions of copies of his arithmetics have been sold, and in their use have excited the interest of multitudes, and the wrath of not a few dull souls. Mr. Greenleaf was also always much interested in Teachers' Institutes, and all those varied associations that have for their object the improvement of those who make the instruction of youth their business. He took an active part in the establishment of the American Institute of Instruction, and for many years was one of his vice-presidents. He was one of the founders of the Essex County Teachers' Association, the oldest organization of the kind in New England, and for four years he was its president. Mr. Greenleaf was one of the first in New England to see the advantages that might result from a system of Normal Schools, for the training of teachers for our Public Schools, and with characteristic earnestness and energy, he labored for the establishment and improvement of such schools. While a member of the legislature, he essentially aided the learned and indefatigable secretary of the board of education, Hon. Horace Mann, in carrying through the general court several bills for founding and regulating them. But Mr. Greenleaf's zeal for Public Schools was not all spent abroad. To the very last of his life he had a most lively interest in our own town schools. He loved to visit and examine them. He was never happier than when he had a class before him in English grammar or arithmetic, especially if he found them quick to think, and ready to answer any of his queer, crotchety questions. He did not believe in stereotype teaching, and he was pretty sure to find out whether the classes really understood the subject in hand, or had merely learned a certain routine and were just fixed up for examination. He enjoyed not a little the confusion into which some of his queer test questions often threw both teacher and scholars. Mr. Greenleaf served on the school committee of this town sixteen years, and died in office, his earnestness and zeal in this work continuing unabated to the last, and of him we may say with truth, "He was a man, take him for all in all We shall not look upon his like again." It is now time to come to the main business of this report, a statement of the condition of the Public Schools in this town for the year past. Another subject to which we would call attention, is the proper province of the superintending school committee. It is generally understood that their chief duty is to examine teachers, to visit the schools occasionally, to recommend such text-books as are cheapest and easiest to be procured, without much reference to their real value as books of instruction. If the committee go further, and as the law makes it their duty, undertake to direct at all in the management of the school, especially if they insist on a proper classification of the scholars, and require certain studies in their judgment useful and necessary to be pursued by those who most need the benefit of them, they are thought to be intermeddling with what does not concern them, they are officious, dogmatic, and over-fond of magnifying their office. Now all we have to say in this matter is-that the laws of Massachusetts require the committee to decide what text-books shall be used, to direct under certain limitations what studies shall be pursued, what classes shall be formed, what changes in classes shall be made, and what modes of discipline shall be authorized. Now we think that the true ground of complaint against most committees, and against ourselves in particular is, that they do not meddle enough with the schools, that they allow too many evils to go on increasing from year to year, because it is too much trouble to correct them, and neither parents nor scholars are willing to be corrected. School Committee.—JAMES T. MCCOLLOM, HARRISON E. CHADWICK, Wm. Cogswell, EDMUND KIMBALL. ESSEX. Two years ago the school committee took occasion to remark upon the impropriety of introducing High School studies into the Common School. In the language of a former report," whenever it has been found agreeable to both teacher and pupil to study algebra and geometry, we encourage it as we do music; but require neither, because the law does not. But perhaps a careful examination of the subject would show, even now, that too much attention is given to High School studies, and too little to the common and more indispensable ones of the Common School. This works mischief in two ways: 1st, it takes the teacher's time from common and indispensable studies, and does an injury to those scholars who can never have it repaired because they finish their education at home; and 2d, it puts farther and farther off the long called for day, when a High School shall be established, where the very scholars can go and finish their studies, who now are obliged to attend to them stealthily or by way of indulgence. But it is a gross misconception of the true character of the Common School, when the elementary studies are neglected, to make room for the higher branches. Arithmetic is the favorite study and has far more than its share of attention, and grammar and reading not so much as they should have. This remark may sound extravagant and even absurd. But when it is considered that few persons except teachers have much occasion for arithmetic, except what their business requires, and that they do need to have a book knowledge of the language every time they speak, or write even a business letter, the field for reflection begins to enlarge and we perceive it may be true. A man's interest will correct his figures. If he should receive ten cents instead of ten dollars for once in his life, merely because his decimal points were wrong, will he ever do it again? If a teamster has but a poor way of testing the value of his load of hay, will not his business compel him to find out a better? This is what we mean by saying that a man's business will correct his arithmetic for all practical purposes. The committee are not to be understood as undervaluing a study that has done so much for the human mind as arithmetic has. It disciplines the mind and that is a great thing; but we would respectfully suggest that it is not the only, or even the most important way of doing it. Grammar requires more exercise of the judgment than arithmetic does. And yet in every school in Essex, every scholar is studying arithmetic, except the infant classes; whereas our glorious language, destined to fill one-half of the world, as some think, and others say all of it, has but a poor little minority of the scholars attending to it at all, and probably nowhere as much as its importance demands. Truancy. It has been remarked in former reports that the kind of truancy that the law provides against, is not very common in our town. There are few we are happy to say, who are found loitering about the streets and idling away their time while the schools are in progress. Our great trouble is with absenteeism ; another form of the same thing in its effects on the schools, but we fear out of the reach of the law. "This," said Dr. Sears when Secretary of the State Board of Education, "will in all probability remain a blot upon the schools, until the teacher by the attractiveness of his character, and manner of teaching; by personal interest in the pupils and untiring efforts for reclaiming the delinquents, shall strike at the root of the difficulty." This is the opinion of Dr. Sears—but we cannot avoid the suggestion that it will be too long to wait before the five thousand four hundred and seventy-six teachers in the winter schools of the Commonwealth shall all become so "attractive" as to draw in and keep in all who ought to attend. Our experience the year now closing has been and is a bitter one. * If the evils of absenteeism were confined to the scholars who leave school, it would be far less deplorable than it is. But it operates on the school like desertions in the army. The shooting down of a thousand men * See 28th Report of the Board of Education, received since the present report was read to the town. f |