In the year 1831, the St. Lawrence Academy, at Potsdam, St. Lawrence county, sent out eighty teachers of common schools, having previously established a separate department of instruction for their education.* In the year 1832, the Lowville Academy, in Lewis county, furnished twenty teachers, and in the years 1831 and 1832, the Canandaigua Academy, in Ontario county, furnished fifty. The Oxford Academy, in Chenango county, has also established a department of instruction for common school teachers, and others will follow the example as the necessity for it becomes manifest. By an understanding among themselves, or by means of directions from the Regents of the University, to whose visitation the academies are subject, a perfect uniformity in the methods of instruction may be attained. The same uniformity will gradually extend to the common schools, and remedy the inconvenience arising from the frequent changes of system, which must result from a change of teachers, so long as they are not prepared according to any uniform plan. If the academies are relied on for common school teachers, the demand will always precede the sup

The Regents of the University, in their annual report to the Legislature, for the year 1832, after referring to the education of teachers in the St. Lawrence and Canandaigua Academies, make the following observations:

"There is no doubt that a thousand instructors might readily be prepared annually for the common schools, a number exceeding by nearly two hundred the average number supplied by the seminaries of Prussia. It only remains for the school districts to furnish the inducement by offering wages, which shall be equal to the average profits of other occupations. The advantages of a regular system of instruction, in the principles of teaching, need no illustration. Experience is constantly suggesting improved methods for the communication of knowledge, and for the discipline of youthful minds; and works have recently been published, embodying the results of observation and practice. With the aid of these, and with such a course of instruction as has been adopted at the St. Lawrence Academy, teachers attain, in a very short time, to qualifications which would otherwise be the fruit of long and painful experience, equally embarrassing to themselves and fatal to the progress of their pupils. The Regents are decidedly of opinion that the academies are the proper instruments for accomplishing the great object of supplying the common schools with teachers. These institutions have already the advantages of convenient edifices, in some cases of large permanent funds, valuable libraries, and philosophical apparatus, amounting in all to an investment of about half a million of dollars, as will be seen by the abstract. By engrafting upon the course of studies a department of instruction in the principles of teaching, the respectability and capacity of the institutions will be increased, and those who are qualifying themselves for the business of instruction may enjoy the benefit of all the other branches which enter into the ordinary academic course. In every ⚫ point of view it is conceived that this is the most advisable method of preparing instructors. Under this impression, the Regents take the liberty of remarking, that in case the condition of the public finances shall at a future day admit of an additional appropriation to the object of promoting the education of teachers, the end may be much more advantageously attained by connecting it with the academies, than by creating a separate establishment for the purpose."

ply, and those which shall have established departments of instruction, will maintain them or not, as occasion may require.There is clearly no alternative but to rely on such a system or to adopt one which shall make the employment of teachers obligatory on the districts. All that is necessary to give full effect to the first is, that the academies should have an adequate inducement to introduce proper branches of instruction, and this must be found in the willingness of the inhabitants of school districts to pay teachers such wages as will present to persons of competent abilities a motive to prepare themselves for the business of teaching, and to pursue it as a permanent vocation. The difficulty to be surmounted, therefore, is not so much to provide for the education of teachers as to make the school districts appreciate the advantage and the necessity of employing them. The demand is not, as a general rule, for competent teachers at any price, but for cheap teachers of any qualifications. So long as this evil exists, the responsible and delicate task of training the mind to habits of correct reflection, thus giving to the future character a moral impulse, which no subsequent counteraction may be able to resist, will in many cases devolve on those, who resort to the business of teaching as a temporary expedient in the absence of less profitable occupation, and who are frequently as deficient in capacity as they are in experience. In some parts of the State more liberal views are entertained; but they are by no means general, and the danger is, that the evil adverted to, if continued, may bring a degree of disrepute upon the whole system.

It becomes of the highest importance, therefore, to provide, if possible, a remedy for it by convincing the inhabitants of school districts that their true interests consist in paying such a compensation as will secure teachers of proper qualifications. This change can only be wrought by the gradual influence of opinion. But opinion itself may be influenced, and the progress of more just and liberal sentiments aided by the teachers instructed at the academies, who will go forth among the people, and bring under their observation the more uniform and successful methods of communicating knowledge, which they will have acquired. Something may also be done in furtherance of the same object by correcting some existing defects in the course of instruction in the common schools. Indeed, until this great change can be effected, it is of the utmost importance that the course of instruction should be so judicious in its subjects, and so simple and orderly in its arrangement,

as to require comparatively less of those who superintend its execution. Although no system can be made so perfect as to be carried into execution without some experience in those to whose charge it is committed, it is nevertheless true that the inconveniences to be apprehended from a want of experience and capacity, may be in a great degree mitigated by a plan of instruction containing within itself a series of subjects judiciously chosen with a view to their practical utility and moral influence, and arranged in the order best calculated to make a lasting impression on the mind.

In speaking of the prevailing incompetency of teachers, it is not to be understood that the evil is of recent origin, or that it has grown out of an increasing indifference, on the part of the people, to the subject of common school education. The teachers now are probably as competent, in all respects, as they have been at any previous period of time. But the progress of society in general knowledge has, during the last few years, been rapid beyond all former example, while, with few exceptions, the same branches of instruction, and the same methods have maintained their ground in the common schools. The standard of education has not kept pace with the progress of intelligence, and the result has been to lay bare existing defects, which in less enlightened periods might have escaped observation.

The leading defect in the course of instruction is, that it is not sufficiently practical in its tendencies. It consists usually, when a sufficient knowledge of reading and writing has been acquired, in the study of grammar, geography, arithmetic and exercises in reading such books as the English Reader and the Columbian Orator. The study of arithmetic and geography may not, perhaps, be carried farther than is necessary. But it is believed that much of the time which is expended upon the abstract rules of grammar and upon the highly-finished compositions, which make up the principal readers in common use, might be turned to better account. The aim of common school instruction should be to impart practical knowledge; for it is by means of practical knowledge alone that those who are instructed can become qualified for the responsible duties which in the course of events they will be called on to discharge. To exercise the right of suffrage intelligently they must have some knowledge of the nature of the government, and of the obligations of those who administer it. They should have such an

acquaintance with the duties of county, town and school district officers as to enable them to execute any of those trusts, if called to them by the partiality of their fellow-citizens. And in their social capacity as citizens, living under a government of laws, they should be familiar with those enactments which trace out the line of duty, and declare the penalties attendant upon its transgression. The requisite knowledge on all these subjects may be readily acquired in our common schools, by retrenching something from branches of instruction which are, in the extent to which they are carried, superfluous: and it is of the greatest importance that nothing superfluous should be allowed in the schools in which forty-nine fiftieths of the whole population receive all their education, in a limited period of time. The defects of the existing course, and the improvements of which it is susceptible, will be best explained by stating briefly some of the principal branches of study and their extent, from which, in the opinion of the Superintendent, the greatest benefits might be expected.

1. Grammar. So much as is necessary to a correct comprehension of the different parts of speech, and such a course of exercises in parsing as shall render the student familiar with the practical application of the rules, which govern their relation to each other. This branch is usually commenced too early and much time expended to little or no purpose.

2. Geography. A thorough knowledge of the geography of the State of New-York, and of the United States, and so much of the geography of the earth as treats of its general divisions, of their climates, soils and productions, and such elementary statistics as are usually engrafted upon geographical works. It is the fault of the present system that the pupils are generally more familiar with the geography of other countries than their own.

3. History. A familiar acquaintance with the history of the United States. The history of foreign countries, however desirable it may be, cannot ordinarily enter into a system of common school education, without opening too wide a field. It is safer in general to treat it as a superfluity, and leave it to such as have leisure in after life. In 1826, the history of the United States was studied in six towns only. So important was it deemed by the Superintendent that it was recommended by him in a report of a subsequent year, and it now constitutes a part of the course of instruction in one hundred and four towns.

4. Arithmetic. Under the present system the course usually terminates with the rule of three, and it cannot well be retrenched. In some of the schools, instruction in the elements of geometry is added to the study of arithmetic, and it is desirable that it should be introduced as extensively as possible.

5. Some practical rules of civil jurisprudence, and so much of criminal jurisprudence as treats of offences, to which penalties are annexed by law.

6. The form of government and the fundamental principles of constitutional law.

7. The duties of public officers. This subject was suggested, as an important one in the report of 1830, by the Superintendent, and a judicious work in pursuance of the suggestion has already made its appearance.

The four first subjects enter into the present system, and two of them more extensively than they are above laid down. The three last may be compressed by judicious arrangement into a very narrow compass, and will not necessarily occupy more time than that which can be gained by retrenching advantageously from the others. Thus by a partial change in the subjects of instruction, a fund of `practical -knowledge may be acquired, which will prove to be of incalculable utility when those to whom it is imparted, enter upon the theatre of life.

But it is believed that the course of instruction in our common schools may be gradually carried still farther without occupying much more time, and without encroaching upon the essential branches above referred to. It may be made to embrace the elementary principles of physical science, and a knowledge of the laws which govern the operations of nature. These studies to a very limited extent will excite a spirit of inquiry, and thus lead the individual after leaving school, to further investigations during intervals of leisure, which might otherwise be less profitably filled. Independently of the general advantages which are derived from intellectual acquirements, in elevating the standard of character and promoting the acquisition of correct habits both of thought and action, there is a particular benefit to be derived from this branch of instruction by those (and the number is not inconsiderable) who devote themselves to mechanical occupations. The mechanic,