OF THE SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE WESTERN LITERARY INSTITUTE, AND COLLEGE OF PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS, HELD IN CINCINNATI, OCTOBER, 1836. EDITED BY D. L. TALBOTT. CINCINNATI: PUBLISHED BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 413 .W52 644 1836 TE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION NOV 7 1923 HARVARD MONK GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION MONROE C. GUTMAN LIBRARY Entered according to an act of Congress, in the year 1837, by ALBERT PICKET, Printed by N. S. Johnson, Cincinnati. INTRODUCTION. CITIZENS OF THE WESTERN STATES-We dedicate this work to you; and we do so in the full assurance that we are addressing honest and thinking men, who will be more disposed to value a work for its substance than its show. We are not sure, however, that there may not be some things in this volume, that have more show, than substance; we certainly will not praise ourselves, but at all events, we are confident that our cause at least is not one of that character:-it is altogether a solid, a good cause, and in favor with both God and man; for without education we are assured that the faculties of the human mind, those which when opened, do honor at once to God, and service to men, never can be unfolded, matured and invigorated. There may be the soil and all the indications of a native fertility, but unless the woodsman's axe is heard in this moral wilderness, and all the busy preparations of clearing, and grubbing, and fencing are hastening forward, there can be no rational prospect of useful and available productions. And it is with education as with agriculture, although individual application must at last bring about the results, yet social consultation, and interchange of views are often most serviceable, and indeed, indispensable to the knowledge and dissemination of the best plans. This College does not yet pretend to have discovered the best plans; there may be individuals unconnected with us, in this wide West, practicing far more judiciously, in this extended field of moral improvement, than any of our |