matter a canal is expensive, and so is a public road, and many other things which the public good requires, and the people are willing to pay for. The only questions worthy of answer are: Whether the expense be dispro portionate to the object to be secured by it? and whether it be beyond the resources of the country? To both these questions I unhesitatingly answer, No. The object to be secured is one which would fully justify any amount of expense that might be laid out upon it; and all that need be done might be done, and not a man in the State feel the poorer for it. We could not expect a perfect institution at once. We must begin where we are, and go forward by degrees. A school sufficient for all present purposes might well be maintained for five thousand dollars a year; and what is that for States with resources like most of the States of this Union, and for the sake of securing an object so great as the perfection of the school system? If the kingdom of Prussia, with fourteen millions of people, two thirds of whom are very poor, and the other third not very rich, can support forty-two Teachers' Seminaries, surely such States as Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and others, with populations of more than a million, none of whom are very poor, and many fast growing rich, can afford to support one.

3. "We cannot be certain that they who study in such institutions would devote themselves to the business of teaching."

This objection applies with equal force to all professional institutions; and if it is of any weight against a Teachers' Seminary, it is equally available against a medical school. The objection, however, has very little weight; for after a man has prepared himself for a profession, he generally wishes to engage in it, if he is competent to discharge its duties; and if he is not competent, the public are no losers by his withdrawal.

But let it even be supposed that a Teachers' Seminary should be established on the plan above sketched out, and occasionally a man should go successfully through the prescribed course of study, and not engage in teaching; are the Is the man a worse member of public the losers by it?

society after such a course of study, or a better? Is he less interested in schools, or less able to perform the duties of a school officer, or less qualified to give a useful direction to the system among the people, than he would have been without such a course of study? Is he not manifestly able to stand on higher ground in all these respects, than he otherwise could have done? The benefit which the public would derive from such men out of the profession, (and such would be useful in every school district,) would amply remunerate all the expenses of the establishment. But such cases would be too few to avail much on either side of the argument; certainly, in any view of them, they can argue nothing against the establishment of Teachers' Seminaries.

4. Teachers educated in such an institution would exclude all others from the profession.

Not unless the institution could furnish a supply for all the schools, and they were so decidedly superior that the people would prefer them to all others; in which case certainly the best interests of education demand that the statement in the objection should be verified in fact. But the success of the institution will not be so great and all-absorbing as this. It will not be able at once to supply half the number of teachers needed, and all who are educated in it will not be superior to every one who has not enjoyed its advantages. There is great diversity of natural gifts; and some, with very slender advantages, will be superior to others who have been in possession of every facility for acquisition. That such an institution will elevate the standard of qualification among teachers, and crowd out those who notoriously fall below this standard, is indeed true; but this, so far from being an objection, is one of its highest recommendations.

5. "One such institution cannot afford a sufficient supply for all the schools."

This is readily conceded; but people generally admit that half a loaf is better than no bread, especially if they are hungry. If we have a thousand teachers, it is much better that three hundred of the number should be well qualified, than that all should be incompetent; and five

hundred would be still better than three hundred, and seven hundred better than either, and the whole thousand best of all. We must begin as well as we can, and go forward as fast as we are able; and not be like the poor fool who will not move at all, because the first step he takes from his own door will not land him at once in the place of his destination. The first step is a necessary preliminary to the second, and the second to the third, and so on till all the steps are taken, and the journey completed. The educated teacher will exert a reforming influence on those who have not been so well prepared; he will elevate and enlarge their views of the duties of the profession, and greatly assist them in their endeavors after a more perfect qualification.* He will also excite capable young men among his pupils to engage in the profession; for one of the greatest excitements of the young to engage in any business, is to see a superior whom they respect in the successful prosecution of it.

Every well-educated teacher does much towards qualifying those who are already in the profession without sufficient preparation, and towards exciting others to engage in it; and thus, though the institution cannot supply nearly teachers enough for all the schools, yet all the schools will be better taught in consequence of its influence. Moreover, a State institution would be the parent of many others, which would gradually arise, as their necessity would be appreciated from the perceived success of the first.

6. "The wages of teachers are not sufficient to induce teachers so well educated to engage in the profession.' At present this is true; for wages are generally graduated according to the aggregate merit of the profession, and this, hitherto, has not been very great. People will not pay high for a poor article; and a disproportionate quantity of poor articles in market, which are offered cheap, will affect the price of the good, with the generality of purchasers. But let the good be supplied in such quantities as to make the people acquainted with it, and

*See Note D, at the close of this Article.

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it will soon drive out the bad, and command its own price. The establishment of a Teachers' Seminary will raise the wages of teachers, by increasing their qualifications, and augmenting the real value of their services; and people eventually will pay a suitable compensation for good teaching, with much less grudging than they have hitherto paid the cheap wages of poor teachers, which, after all, as has been well observed, is but "buying ignorance at a dear rate."*

* The New England practice of having district schools taught by_college-students, during their winter vacation, has been of great and acknowledged utility both to the teachers and the schools. I have no desire to discourage this good old practice; for I apprehend that our common district schools, for many years to come, will need the services of temporary teachers of this kind. It is to be wished, however, that our colleges would make some provision for the special instruction of such students as engage in teaching. It would not only make their teaching much more valuable, but would fit them also to become schoolexaminers and inspectors after they have left the vocation of schoolmaster for some more lucrative employment.

NOTES.

(A.)

CHINESE EDUCATION.

THERE is a regular system of schools in China of two kinds, the people's schools, and schools for the nobles. The course commences when the child is five years old, and is continued very rigorously, with but few and short vacations, to the age of manhood. In the people's schools the course consists of four parts, each of which has its appropriate book. The first is called Pe-kia-sing, and contains the names of persons in one hundred families, which the children must commit to memory. The second is called Tsa-tse, and contains a variety of matters necessary to be known in the common business of life. The third is called Tsien-tse-ouen, a collection of one thousand alphabetical letters. The fourth is San-tse-king, a collection of verses of three syllables each, designed to teach the elements of Chinese morals and history. Such is the provision for the common people.

For the nobles there is a great university at Pekin, the Koue-tzekien, to which every mandarin is allowed to send one of his sons. The candidate for admission must go first to the governor of a city of the third rank for examination, and if approved, he receives the degree of Hien-ming. He then goes to the governor of a city of the first rank, and, if he maintains a good examination there, is admitted to the university.

A mandarin is annually sent out from Pekin, to visit the higher institutions in the larger cities, and to confer degrees on the pupils, according to their progress. A class of four hundred is selected, and passes through ten examinations. The fifteen who have acquitted themselves best in all these examinations, receive the degree of Sinoa-tsay, the most important privilege of which is, that they are no longer liable to be whipped with the bamboo. Rich men's sons, who cannot always obtain this degree by a successful passage through the ten examinations, can procure the equivalent degree of Kien-song by paying a stipulated sum into the public treasury. Having attained either of these lower degrees, the pupil, after three years, can offer himself at Pekin for the higher degree of Kin-jin, which must be obtained after rigorous examination. The successful applicants for this honor, after one year longer, can demand at Pekin an examination for the highest