gentle only but pure; not learned only but magnanimous. Such a teacher will not present himself before his pupils as the dispenser of pains and penalties, but as the friend, helper, parent.

6. The teacher must be a good man. Children are skilful physiognomists; ready and able judges of the morality of the affections. They are very likely to copy their instructers. A teacher may often see himself reflected in his scholars. Not the serpent in Eden is to be more feared than a vicious schoolmaster among innocent children. "Feed my lambs," said the soul-loving Saviour; but this surely does not mean that we should poison them. We must keep them in the kingdom.

7. The teacher must have enthusiasm; and the Greek meaning of this word is GOD IN US. He must catch the divine idea of education and feel a divine solicitude to be a fellow-laborer with God in bringing out the godlike in the human soul. To him falls the sacred office of education, (educo,) of drawing humanity out of man, of waking up the dormant powers of mind, of tempting forth the various energies of thought, and of embodying in the heart of childhood his own ideas of the true, the beautiful and the good. Must he not be impassioned? - What is the parental feeling? It is all feeling, i. e., it is all love and truth and wakefulness, and prayer; and it is by these principles living and reigning in the soul that the parent wins, corrects, stimulates and rewards the child. Tell me, what can a parent substitute for these in the government of his children? There are no qualifications which will do instead. Now I ask, if the teacher has not these qualifications, so necessary with children at home, how can he expect success with those children at school? Is it not supposable that God has assigned to parents the very best principles and modes? And can any other principles for the culture of their minds and the regulation of their hearts be applied to children effectually by schoolmasters? Surely not. A teacher therefore should be a perfect parent. A teacher's seminary is specially intended to give to young people parental qualifications. Can there be a wiser aim? And now I say though a teacher may have all learning and all truth, though he may have intellectual wealth at will, and will to use his wealth, though he may know all the practices of science and trace its multiform relations, yet, if he adds not to these, as the forcing power of the whole,

the bright enthusiasm of his own living spirit, he is nothingcomparatively nothing. The light which he may shed around him will be light from an iceberg.

Do not some think that books can make up for the teacher's deficiencies? Fatal mistake. If they can for his want of knowledge they cannot for his want of enthusiasm. Great and good citizens have bestowed years in preparing books. May God's best blessing rest upon them for it. But I do not put books before teachers. Books are dead instructers. The accomplished master is a living book, aye, all books at once. Such a teacher is equal to all the school books that ever were written and he himself into the bargain.

I have thus answered the questions at first proposed, by stating what topics of study are necessary to meet the deep wants of the soul, which are the wants of civilization, liberty and religion. I have also named some of the leading qualifications requisite in a competent American teacher: and now, I ask any man of wide experience, of enlightened patriotism, and of christian piety, if more than one half of the means, appointed by the Creator for the education of children, are applied in the United States; and if that half are applied in all their natural energy and fruitfulness?

The Hon. John Duer, of New York, answers these questions in the following words, "All who are competent to judge and will give due attention to the facts, must unite in the conclusion, that our present system of popular education is radically defective." An able writer, in a recent number of the American Quarterly Review, says, "Now we venture to affirm, with great confidence, that the common-school system, as it is called, as at present administered in this country, is emphatically a failure; and that not one in twenty of the boys and girls, who attend upon it, is educated as the public good, nay, as the public safety and his own individual usefulness and happiness require him to be educated." The records of this Institute bear the testimony of many intelligent and experienced men to the same point. Your Committee, appointed to petition the Legislature, last winter, gave in their evidence before the world, in these words "A very large number of both sexes, who teach the summer and winter schools, are, to a mournful degree, wanting in all these qualifications. In short, they knew not what to teach, nor how to teach, nor in what spirit to teach, nor what is the nature of those they un

dertake to lead, nor what they are themselves who stand forward to lead them."

If I should name the prevalent error in our school system of instruction, I should say that instruction does not go down into principles, into spirit, into nature; and, of course, cannot show how great natural laws apply to life and usefulness. It has been contented with partial rules and superficial examples. Limited experience and artificial maxims have taken the place of the profound philosophy of human nature. Instruction is signally deficient in touching the master-springs of thought. Throughout the United States we are eminently wedded to mediocrity. Compare a few of our best schools with the rest, and the truth will be apparent to every eye.

The question, then, comes-Is there any thing done in this community for supplying these deficiencies and for elevating the science and art of teaching to its true rank, that of a profession? If we except a few recent efforts, we must say that nothing has been done which promises better days for the people's colleges. The difference between the accidental, merely money-seeking master, and one whose heart and life are devoted to the business, has never been apprehended by our community. The difference is that between the meteor's random flash and the planet's steady light. I might here hold up before you the half-famished condition of a majority of the elementary schools of New England, and the lamentable incompetency of their masters. But I forbear. Suffice it to say, that our boasting republic is a quarter of a century at least behind the most enlightened monarchies of Europe in its patronage of primary education.

Here we immediately ask- How is this deplorable state of the schools accounted for? I answer, from their not having purposely prepared teachers. Such teachers, and such alone, will bring up the schools to answer their proper mission. I am far from believing that the opinion of so humble an individual as myself will have much weight in this vast community; but, as you have invited me here to give it, I now frankly say, that it is my firm conviction, gathered from some observation abroad, and from impartial examinations at home, that nothing short of Teachers' Seminaries will furnish competent instructers for all our town schools, such instructers, I mean, as will bring out all the powers of childhood and arrange them exactly in the educated soul, as God at first imbedded them in the infant constitution.

This opinion is rapidly gaining strength in our community. The Governor of New York, in his last message, recommended the establishment of Teachers' Seminaries; and a Committee of the Legislature reported the appropriation of $24,000 annually for their support. In Ohio, the same views are still further advanced. The question has been discussed by the legislators of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Maryland, and in many places at the South. Massachusetts has not been asleep to it, as the petition of this Institute for such a seminary eloquently evinces. Several large meetings in different counties have recently expressed themselves strongly on this point; and the Board of Education, this day beginning its labors here, is another proof that the wants of our schools are felt in deep reality. In the report of a Committee to the House of Representatives, 1835, they say "It is believed by the committee, that an appropriation of the income of the fund to the education to teachers, upon some well devised plan, would do more for the cause of public instruction in this Commonwealth, than almost any innovation on the existing institutions that could well be imagined."

But you ask for testimony from those places where Teachers' Seminaries have been long used and proved. I will select a few only as examples.

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He

Cousin, who has given the whole force of his powerful mind and benevolent heart to the subject, says, in his "Report on Prussian Instruction," thus "The best plans of instruction cannot be executed except by the instrumentality of good teachers; and the state has done nothing for popular education, if it does not watch that those who devote themselves to teaching be well prepared." Again he says, "In order to provide schools with masters, competent and conscientious, the care of their training must not be left to chance. The foundation of Teachers' Seminaries must be continued." adds "In each Teacher's Seminary the length of the course should be three years. The first should be devoted to supplimental primary instruction; the second to specific and more elevated studies, and the third to the practice and occasional experiments in the primary school which should be annexed to every seminary." In his report he frequently says, that the Germans and Prussians believe these seminaries to be the lifeblood of the whole school establishment, and then adds with new emphasis, these words, "I shall never cease to repeat, · as is the master, so is the school."

Philosophy and experience establish the truth of this Prussian maxim. Take the best town-school in New England, and put into that school a stupid, selfish, incompetent master, and he will assuredly run it down. Take the most backward school in the state and put into it an intelligent, conscientious, purposely prepared teacher, and he will soon lift it up to himself. All streams flow level with their founts.

But to return to the testimony of Cousin. He has just sent me four pamphlets, which, in the letter accompanying them, he calls fragments of a journey which he took six months ago into Holland, and a full account of which he is just publishing. He says "This last work will be more useful to Americans than any thing I have yet written on elementary instruction." In Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utretch, Harlem, he examined the several educational establishments; and the same sentiments appear in every place concerning the indispensable importance of Teachers' Seminaries. He obtained the opinion of the most celebrated philosophers as well as the most successful directors of normal schools, some of them having been thirty years in the service; and these are the words:"Holland has, by degrees, come to the apprehension of the value of Teachers' Seminaries." Cousin again says, "I place all my hopes for the education of the people in these seminaries." In Holland they judge four years as not too much time for a young man to prepare himself aright for the great duties of schoolmaster. Prussia has forty-two of these institutions. Holland is supplied with them. Austria is introducing them and has between twenty and thirty. France is doing the same, through the influence of Cousin, and will soon have eighty-four. England too is waking up to their value. Having just received from the Secretary of the Borough Rood School in London their Report, I quote from the "Appeal for the annual subscribers in aid of the normal schools, under the care of the British and Foreign School Society." Their words are these-"The importance of teachers being properly trained for the work of instruction is now generally admitted."

Is it not time that this republic, whose safety and renown, we are constantly assured, must depend on knowledge and virtue; is it not time for such a community to provide for the fit education of all its children as well as monarchies and military despotisms do?

Mr. President, I want that something should be done.