|
rminummummummemmommuIPMMIIIIIIIMPIIIIIMINIMPIRIMMINORPEIM
<br />G
<br />through irregularity in the attendance of scholars, this voluntary
<br />abandonment of privileges.
<br />What manufacturing, commercial, or agricultural enterprise
<br />would not speedily turn bankrupt, should its laborers absent
<br />themselves for a corresponding portion of the time ? Is the matter
<br />under consideration, a less dire calamity, a subject for less surprise
<br />and regret, because it is an educational businss ?
<br />But an item of loss is here involved, which no labor nor skill
<br />can ever repair. Time, once lost, is lost forever. The spring -time
<br />of life once past, cannot be restored. Would that parents were
<br />fully sensible of the momentous interests here involved !
<br />It is also very desirable that there should be as few changes of
<br />teachers as possible ; and though we do not think that this town
<br />is peculiarly faulty in this respect, yet it would doubtless be much
<br />to itsadvantage if changes of this sort were less frequent than
<br />they are. One obvious way to accomplish this would be to give
<br />the Superintending Committee authority, whenever a teacher is
<br />wanted, to give public notice of the same, and to appoint a day
<br />and place for all who wish to be candidates for the situation to
<br />meet and be examined ; thus giving the Committee an opportunity
<br />from probably quite a number of candidates, to make a more ju-
<br />dicious selection for a particular school, than otherwise could be
<br />made. The General Committee are held responsible, in a great
<br />measure, for the character and success of the schools, and, therefore
<br />the voices, now raised and borne every year through the School
<br />Committee's reports, from almost every town in the Commonwealth,
<br />to this effect, is but the cry of common justice.
<br />Your Committee proposed to call your attention to some re-
<br />marks on defects in reading ; pointing out what seems to thein, its
<br />special bearing on the first years of the scholar's life, and hence, on
<br />our Primary Schools, where, without controversy, the first seeds
<br />of excellence or defect are sown. We only say, be specially
<br />guardful of these springs of our after habits of thought and action,
<br />of good or evil. Watch over them with a mother's care. First,
<br />in the order of time, they are first also in importance. Other
<br />departments in education are important and indispensable, so is
<br />this also. Not to the highest and most enduring purpose shall we
<br />raise our educational pyramid, though its cap -stone appear solid as
<br />granite, and polished as a mirror, if there be defect and rottenness
<br />at its base.
<br />Cousin, the French philosopher and educationist has uttered
<br />7
<br />the celebrated proverb, as is the teacher, so is the school."
<br />Possibly, this may be the embodiment of an important truth under
<br />a monarchical government, where the schools depend but little
<br />upon the social influences of the neighborhood where they exist.
<br />Without modification, however, it will fail to apply to us, where
<br />everything emanates from the people. With us, it should rather
<br />be said, as are the parents, so are both -the teacher and the
<br />school." And here we are reminded of a point of supreme import-
<br />ance ; a point where the power of mere money ceases, and our
<br />schools pass from the jurisdiction of material, to that of moral in-
<br />fluences, and we hesitate not to affirm that, if they are not.
<br />moulded and vivified by the latter, it were better they had never
<br />been founded.
<br />And now, as we are penning these closing remarks, on this nine-
<br />teenth day of April, ever memorable in the eyes of our citizens and
<br />of the civilized world, the varied demonstrations of joy, that greet
<br />our ears, remind us of what our fathers did for us : of the blood
<br />they freely shed on the fields of Lexington, that we, their children,
<br />in long succession, might enjoy those free institutions of popular
<br />education, and of religion, without which, houses, and lands, and
<br />even life itself, were of but little worth. It is our happy lot, in the
<br />less turbulent, and more peaceful manner, in the stillness of our
<br />Sabbath worship, and in the order and efficiency of our common
<br />schools, to carry out to its final consummation, that, which they so
<br />sacredly guarded, and for which they died.
<br />Sacred to their memory be our churches and our schools !
<br />While our children are maturing their intellect in the one, may
<br />their affections be unfolded and ripened in the other. Thus, only,
<br />can they become " that happy people whose God is the Lord."
<br />Respectfully submitted, for the Committee,
<br />ELIPHALET P. CRAFTS.
<br />IRA LELAND. School Com-
<br />ELIPHALET P. CRAFTS. mittee of
<br />CHARLES TIDD. Lexington.
<br />
|