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at the present day, is not such as would allow us to expect from them, a very positive and decided veto pleasure of the principal We have now no checks, above described, to pre

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in such matters, upon the inhabitants of their towns. but the very inefficient one vent the employment of incompetent instructers. And since the interest and influence of the candidate for such employment, as well as the interest and influence of his friends, will always be upon the wrong side; it is much to be feared, that the mass of instructers, in the primary schools, will receive no other opportunities for improvement, than are afforded in the very schools, where they commence teaching. If this view of the subject is correct, the strong tendency of the present arrangement must be, to sink the condition of the primary schools. And the only, or at least, the greatest counteracting influence, which has existed heretofore, is removed, by abolishing the late grammar schools. schools. Few towns have supported a grammar school the whole continued year, at one place. several instructers, qualified and by opening several schools of this kind at the same time, have made up the amount of a year, all perhaps, during the winter months. This evasion, which was a very general one in those towns, which took the trouble to evade at all, you will perceive, was virtually putting the gramınar schoolmasters into the primary schools. The consequence has been what we should expect. Although the grammar

They have employed as the law directed,

schools have in many places disappeared in form and name, yet the people have a tolerable equivalent, in the vastly improved condition of the primary schools. Even those, who have commenced teachers from some of these schools, have possessed all the advantage of the grammar schools, intended by the law. The existence of the law, therefore, even with so very inefficient an execution of it, has had the direct tendency to improve the condition of those schools, in which grammar masters have been employed; and an indirect influence on the other schools, by better qualifying those who have and will commence teachers, with no advantages above those afforded in the common schools.

The repeal of the law obviates the necessity of the evasion, which I have described as operating so favourably upon the primary schools. And as the qualifications of the instructers are diminished, the character of the schools must decline. To this, probably, all will readily assent. But it may, perhaps, be said, the qualifications of the instructers are as high, for all practical and useful purposes, as they were under the former law, as it was executed. In the first place, it is not fair or just to reason from the law as it was executed, rather than as it should have been executed. In the next place, allowing ourselves so to reason, we shall not, I believe, arrive at the same result. The qualifications of the grammar schoolmasters, were, that they should be "of good morals, well instructed in the Latin, Greek, and

English languages." abolished, and "Geography" is added to the former qualifications of the teachers of primary schools. Allowing the two classes of schools to have been perfectly amalgamated, which is a great concession in point of fact, as well as acknowledging a great perversion of the law; we have dispensed with Latin and Greek, and require Geography in their stead. I have no desire to lessen the estimation, in which geography is held as a study peculiarly adapted to our primary schools. And I am ready to concede, that probably ten will wish to study geography, where one would wish to study Latin and Greek. Now, if an instructer, who is qualified to teach Latin and Greek, could not by any possibility be qualified, at the same time, to teach Geography, and all the minor studies of our schools, I should consider myself as having conceded the whole argument. But this is not the fact. These qualifications are so far from being incompatible, that they generally exist in a superior degree in connexion with each other. The connexion, to be sure, is not so essential, that a man may not be a very good teacher of Latin and Greek, and still know very little of any thing else. Still as the studies are arranged in all our schools, academies, and colleges, where young men are prepared for teachers, all the elementary studies, including geography, are generally taught before the languages. So that by adding them to the qualifications, even if it were never required of the instruct

This class of schools is now

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ers to teach them, we ensure more mature and accomplished scholars in those branches, which are more frequently and generally taught. I would not be understood to discuss, much less to approve this arrangement of studies, for those destined to be scholars by profession. Such arrangement exists, and I avail myself of the fact for my present purpose. But besides ensuring better teachers for the common branches, there are always some, who would attend to the languages, as preparatory to a publick education, if they had opportunity. And if affording the opportunity to all of every town, should be the means of drawing out but few of superiour talents, even those few are worthy of the highest consideration and regard from the publick, who possess them. These and similar considerations, which I cannot here state, have convinced me, I know not whether they will convince any one else, that the repeal of the grammar school law, even if we could never hope it would be executed upon a more liberal construction, than it has been for the last ten years, will have a direct tendency to sink the condition and prospects of the primary schools.

There is one other point of view, in which the effect of the measure will be equally pernicious and equally certain. I mean its effect upon the manners of the scholars. This was a consideration deemed so important as to be provided for in the law of 1789. In proportion as the qualifications of instructers are lessened, it becomes easy for those to

commence teachers, who have had no advantages above the primary schools. And although good manners, or "decent behaviour" have no essential connexion with the other accomplishments, or Latin and Greek in particular, yet they are by no means incompatible. And those, who have had the advantages of the higher schools, academies, or colleges, will be more likely to have acquired some refinement of manners, than those, who begin to teach without any preparation, except in the very place, where they have themselves been taught.

In publick and large seminaries of learning, which bring together young men from different towns, states, and sections of the country, the change in habits, manners, and feelings towards each other, is astonishingly rapid. They come together with feelings and prejudices, and oftentimes with a dialect peculiar to the different places, from which they come, and each staring and wondering at the excessive strangeness of the other. But a very short time loosens their local prejudices, and teaches them, that all excellence is not peculiar to any one place. The whole exterior and deportment of the young man is often almost entirely transformed, in the short space of a few weeks. The change and improvement in this respect are more rapid at first, and quite as important and valuable to him, as his acquisitions in knowledge. What has a more direct tendency to improve the manners" and deportment of the children, who attend our schools, than to observe some

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