of liberty, that costs something, be made clear to the understanding. The primary school may be the birthplace of the consciousness that a very choice kind of freedom is that which we are to cherish and insure to others. As in a mirror, the child may behold the larger liberty of the country pictured in the common school, with its wholesome order, its reasonable requirements, its connection with sacrifice sometimes, and always with cost.

It may fairly be expected, then, that the Ameri can common school will impart to those who are within its jurisdiction an appreciation of the fact that legitimate freedom is the portion at once of the scholar and the mature citizen; the love of liberty and the love of letters being joint expressions of the effect of our educational processes, affections joined together, because it is for the good of the individual, and of the greater personality, the nation, that they be not put asunder.

A lesson easily learned by the pupil of the common school concerns the relation between members of the class, and the whole body of those studying in a particular school as well. Equality is a second principle which is inculcated by the conditions of being of our school system. The serene eye of the law rests with impartial kindness. upon the children whose parents dwell apart in social and cultured ways. No certificate of high birth and gentle breeding does the law ask. The

invitation is as cordial to those whose exterior almost belies decency as to those apparelled in fine linen. Like the equality of the nation, that of the school is legal, not social; but so easy is the thought of the right lost in the embarrassment attending the denial of the social privilege, that the common school is bound to present, with constant and hearty vigor, the truth that no accessories of wealth ought to make possible undue regard to the rich child as against the wants of the poor. The common school would be laying violent hands on itself were it to forget the necessity laid upon it to testify, in season and out of season, to the vital principle of lawful equality. From the school door the children take their several ways; no power inheres in the system to change the social facts of the case: but as heretofore, so without cessation are we to anticipate the witnessing of the common school to the beneficent fact that within school walls the dividing lines are erased, and that degrees of refinement can make no distinction in the amount of watch and care vouchsafed the waiting children.

The common school belongs to a system; it is not merely a member of a series of expedients for the well-being of our communities. The schoolhouses stretching from coast to coast are related; organizations separate, the abiding principle identical, substantially, making all akin. There is an

implied setting forth of the spirit of fraternity, as well as of liberty and equality, in the ordering of our scheme for diffusing intelligence. The scholar, though the process be not plainly recognized, learns to appreciate the circumstance that his own. contemporaries, the country through, are busily at work in the same sphere receiving much indirect instruction, not less than the appointed measure of information laid down in the books. If he be burdened with what he deems unneeded degrees of restraint, he can console himself with the thought that a great multitude are undergoing a similar discipline. There is need that due emphasis be placed upon the importance of rearing children in this atmosphere of sympathy and fraternity, that they may grow into the brotherly feeling which is uniting their elders in their governmental relations. The centrifugal forces are so marked in our country, that it were well to cultivate speedily in a child's mind the sentiment of kinship to childhood in all the land. A union of schools may typify the fuller joining together that makes the nation sympathetic and vigorous.

It is not to be denied that the three principles indicated are to be instilled gradually. Unquestionably, an average child would respond unsatisfactorily to the inquiry, "What have you learned at school about the philosophy of our educational system?" Nevertheless, the seed is sown. The

induction which the mature understanding makes is initiated years before. There is a simplicity of statement possible that may declare these fundamental truths with precision and clearness :

The common school not a haphazard blessing, but related to expenditure, and imposed taxes, and sacrifice of high or low degree, that proposition may be made distinct and appreciable; the child. may well be taught that.

The common school as a leveller, refusing to regard social distinctions, securing equal rights, that portraiture of the system may be outlined. plainly; the child may recognize it unmistakably..

The common school as a preacher of the doctrine of fraternity, that we are members one of another, children and adults alike, in that light. young eyes may behold the strength and beauty of the American scheme of education. Race, color,. belongings, let them be what they may ! childhood. may claim what it will receive, the first principles. of learning, whether that childhood blossom under sunny skies and be arrayed as the lily of the field,. or wear a sombre garb and be acquainted with the blight and chill of want, from whence beauty has. departed. There is the brain to be trained, the heart to be touched; no matter, then, what the outward and visible signs may be.

If what has been said has seemed vague or somewhat overwrought, sentiment being in the ascend

ant, we now come to what is, beyond dispute, in the plane of the practical. What may be fairly expected in the way of direct teaching?

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The grade of schools with which we have to do is presumed to instruct in the fundamentals of an ordinary education. Decent, decorous English ; a handwriting free from the illiteracy that besets. us before and behind; a reasonable acquirement of mathematical skill up to a certain point; a little acquaintance with geography and history; a mild partaking of literature, through the instrumentality of books used for reading exercise, or of occasional remarks of instructors, this is a summary of the main points considered by our children in the primary and grammar schools. Ours would be a meagre theme were it to extend not beyond the boundaries just now mentioned. We are authorized and impelled to consider the larger subject of teaching, which cuts loose from the text of the book, and deals with principles. Not in bondage to the letter, but loyal to the spirit, — that is the qualification for the teacher, the characteristic of the scholar, in the class-room which is ideal, it may be, but to be more and more a reality. Not, What do you know? but, What do you want to know? is the test inquiry. The common school fails if it frees a pupil from its control, and hears no sigh of regret that he knows so little.

Well is it for the child to bear this yoke of