policy would be poorly transmitted to future ages by tradition. They knew the utter impossibility of maintaining a commonwealth after their model, if the people were ignorant, or swayed by brute passion. Their rulers must be men of enlightened wisdom, whilst both the rulers and the people must be alike submissive to the restraints of Christian morality. And, therefore, as the author of the first written history* of Harvard College has told us, "For some little while, there were very hopeful effects of the pains taken by certain men of great worth and skill, to bring up some in their own private families for public services. But much of uncertainty and of inconveniency in this way, was in that little time discovered; and they soon determined that set schools are so necessary, that there is no doing without them. Wherefore a college must now be thought upon a college, the best thing New England ever thought upon."

Thus did they found their University, and every where, in all the settlements, as soon as comfortable habitations had been provided for themselves, the house of public worship and the house for public instruction arose simultaneously, thus showing the inseparable connection in the minds of the earliest colonists, between their religious and educational institutions, and the life of their infant commonwealths.

The system of popular education in New England Iwas one which aimed at more than to meet the wants of the first generations by whom it was established. It

* Mather's Magnalia, Book 3.

was a system wisely adapted to all the changes of growth and progress, from the feeblest beginnings to the full vigor and maturity of the national life. In the year 1647, eleven years after the foundation of Harvard College, it was ordered "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of the fathers, that every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty households, shall appoint one to teach all children to read and write, and when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a Grammar School, the masters thereof being able to instruct youth so far as that they may be fitted for the University."

This order of the legislature of Massachusetts will be immortal in the annals of popular education. It deserves to share the honors of the Declaration of Indepence, and of the Charter of Runnymede, in the history of popular liberty. The renown of this order is not owing solely to its aim to secure universal education in the rudiments of learning. It is no less celebrated for its full conception of the gradation system. The grade system, the great desideratum of the present time, is not a modern improvement. Its origin belongs to the earliest age of our history. Like the fabled Minerva, it sprang to life at once in It was the glory of the Puritans to have originated a system of universal education, with a perfect method. It was the disgrace of later times, that this method was so generally abandoned. With all that is said, at this day, in favor of a gradation of schools, we can hardly hope that the ancient system will be so fully appre

perfect form and panoply.

hended in its first intention, and so energetically adopted, that every town with "a hundred families," shall maintain a "Grammar" or High School, "the masters thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University." When that day shall come, which shall witness the full realization of the perfect method of the Puritans, it will be understood better than it now is, that grades of schools, from the highest to the lowest, arise naturally from the urgent wants of the community; that each claims the popular smypathy and support; that each contributes essentially to the efficiency of the entire system of public instruction; and that all are alike connected with the vital interests of the Commonwealth.

The Fathers of New England paid but little regard to the forms of European society, when they formed their civil constitutions. They looked with still less favor upon most of the systems of Church polity belonging to the Old World. They thought the tri-fold distinction of orders and officers in the Christian church, though ancient, was yet unscriptural. They merged the titles and duties of a bishop, presbyter, and deacon, into those of a pastor of a laity church. But, in their system of public education for the entire people, we find three grades of officers and three orders of teachers clearly developed. These distinctions will remain, so long as the genuine Puritanism of New England is in a thriving condition. It is an unpardonable misnomer, to regard the Universities and the intermediate Academies and Seminaries as aristocratic, rather than popular, in their aims and tendencies. The mind that cherishes

this prejudice has yet to learn the true relations of the system of public instruction to the social life and character of a New England community.

We may, therefore, with confidence claim the admiration of the world for the New England system of popular education. It is the earliest ever devised which claims to be universal, and yet it is one of the most successful. It is still in the full vigor of youth, though it be among the oldest of our ancient institutions. Its results are witnessed in what we are, as a free and mighty people. And on the same foundation do we rest our hopes of what we may become.

In very recent times, systems of popular instruction have been formed in other lands, and much has been said in praise of their success. Some of them have had their origin in countries where the manners of the ́ people, and, indeed, their whole social organization differs entirely from our own. They have aimed to elevate the lower classes of society in Europe, and on that ground, certainly deserve the sympathy and respect of America. Let honor be paid to those who originated them, and to the enlightened statesmen who applied them.

In these days, when the eyes of the world are watching, with intense interest, the popular revolutions of Continental Europe, the results of popular education should be noticed in those countries where so much has been done to disseminate elemental instruction during the last twenty-five years. Let, also, all the methods of instruction be carefully examined by such as would improve the schools of our own land. Whatever illustrates the

philosophy of popular education; whatever pertains to the best methods of teaching and school management; whatever contributes to the elevation of teaching as an honorable profession, should be greeted with entire liberality, though coming from a foreign land. As the Romans, when masters of the world, hesitated not to imitate the arms of their vanquished foes wherein they surpassed their own, so should we never deem it dishonorable to adopt improvements, let them come from what source they may. At the same time, let not a blind admiration of foreign systems of education cause us to forget that we have a system of our own, with features strongly marked as American; a system long and successfully tried. Especially should the aims and tendencies of the various systems be compared. The most complete educational processes applied under the most favorable circumstances, will not transform, in a single generation, the manners and sentiments of an entire people, into those of a people different in tempera- ` ment, and having a different destiny. The forms of government throughout Europe may be revolutionized; the thrones of every monarch may share the fate of that of Louis Philippe, but the French or German republican will not therefore resemble a citizen of the United States, save only in the feeling of hostility to monarchy. Political revolutions may affect greatly the foreign relations of a people; but when an entire change is made in all the educational influences which form the character of the rising generation, then the very life of the nation is affected. The old nation dies, and a new empire is born.