mobs, is doing much in compensating its teachers-is giving as great a salary to one of its teachers as to its mayor.

How is Massachusetts, he asked, to sustain its high character and rank? Look on the map, and you perceive how diminutive it is in size, compared with many of the other states. What is to prevent this little state from falling behind others which have greater natural advantages, and losing its influence? Nothing but cultivating the minds of its citizens-cultivating them in learning and virtue. On this foundation its eminence and greatness will stand firm."

In a discourse on self-culture, delivered in Boston, in 1838, in the course of Franklin Lectures, which were attended mainly by those who were occupied by manual labor, Dr. Channing holds the following laaguage:

66

*

* *

They, whose childhood has been neglected, though they may make progress in future life, can hardly repair the loss of their first years; and I say this, that we may all be excited to save our children from this loss-that we may prepare them, to the extent of our power, for an effectual use of all the means of self-culture, which adult age may bring with it. With these views, I ask you to look with favor on the recent exertions of our Legislature, and of private citizens, in behalf of our public schools, the chief hope of our country. The Legislature has, of late, appointed a board of education, with a secretary, who is to devote his whole time to the improvement of public schools. An individual more fitted to this office than the gentleman who now fills it, (Horace Mann, Esq.,) can not, I believe, be found in our community; and if his labors shall be crowned with success, he will earn a title to the gratitude of the good people of this state, unsurpassed by that of any other living citizen. Let me also recall to your minds a munificent individual, (Edmund Dwight, Esq.,) who, by a generous donation, has encouraged the Legislature to resolve on the establishment of one or more institutions called Normal Schools, the object of which is, to prepare accomplished teachers of youth-a work, on which the progress of education depends more than on any other measure. The efficient friends of education are the true benefactors of their country, and their names deserve to be handed down to that posterity for whose highest wants they are so generously providing. We need for our schools gifted men and women, worthy, by their intelligence and their moral power, to be intrusted with a nation's youth; and, to gain these, we must pay them liberally, as well as afford other proofs of the consideration in which we hold them. In the present state of the country, when so many paths of wealth and promotion are opened, superior men can not be won to an office so responsible and laborious as that of teaching, without stronger inducements than are now offered, except in some of our large cities. The office of instructor ought to rank, and be recompensed, as one of the most honorable in society; and I see not how this is to be done, at least in our day, without appropriating to it the public domain. This is the people's property, and the only part of their property which is likely to be soon devoted to the support of a high order of institutions for public education. This object, interesting to all classes of society, has peculiar claims on those whose means of improvement are restricted by narrow circumstances. The mass of the people should devote themselves to it as one man-should toil for it with one soul. Mechanics, farmers, laborers! let the country echo`with your united cry, The public lands for education.' Send to the public council men who will plead this cause with power. No party triumphs, no trades-unions, no associations, can so contribute to elevate you as the measure now proposed. Nothing but a higher education can raise you in influence and true dignity. The resources of the public domain, wisely applied for successive generations to the culture of society and of the individual, would create a new people would awaken through this community intellectual and moral energies, such as the record of no country display, and as would command the respect and emulation of the civilized world. In this grand object, the working-men of all parties, and in all divisions of the land, should join with an enthusiasm not to be withstood. They should separate it from all narrow and local strifes. They should not suffer it to be mixed up with the schemes of politicians. In it, they and

their children have an infinite stake. May they be true to themselves, to posterity, to their country, to freedom, to the cause of mankind."

In a letter written in 1841, in reply to a communication respecting the Normal School at Lexington, he refers to his own experience as a teacher, and to the attempt in the Legislature to break down the Normal Schools:

"I have felt, as you well know, a deep interest in their success, (Normal Schools,) though, perhaps, you do not know all the reasons of it. I began life as a teacher, and my own experience has made me feel the importance of training the teacher for his work. I was not more deficient than most young men who pass through college. Perhaps I may say, without presumption, that I was better fitted than most to take charge of a school; and yet I look back on no part of my life with so much pain as on that which I gave to school-keeping. The interval of forty years has not relieved me from the sorrow and self-reproach which the recollection of it calls forth. How little did I do for the youthful, tender minds intrusted to me! I was not only a poor teacher, but, what was worse, my inexperience in the art of wholesome discipline led to the infliction of useless and hurtful punishments. I was cruel through ignorance; and this is the main source of cruelty in schools. Force, brute force, is called in to supply the place of wisdom. I feel myself bound to make this confession as some expiation for my errors. I know the need of a Normal School. I speak not from speculation, but sad experience.

But, indeed, does it not stand to reason, that, where all other vocations need apprenticeship, the highest of all vocations-that of awakening, guiding, enlightening the human soul-must require serious preparation? That attempts should have been made in the Legislature to break down our Normal Schools, and almost with success, is one of the most discouraging symptoms of our times. It shows that the people will not give their thoughts to the dearest interests of society; for any serious thought would have led them to frown down such efforts in a moment. rejoice that the friends of education are beginning to visit the Normal School at Lexington. I earnestly implore for it the blessing of Heaven."

I

INSTRUCTION IN GERMAN.

BY RUDOLF VON RAUMER.

II. THE GERMAN LANGUAGE IN THE SCHOOLS AT THE PRESENT TIME.

CHAPTER I.-KARL FERDINAND BECKER.

We concluded our first book with a masterly passage from Jacob Grimm, upon the nature of language. On the principles there expressed, therefore, the question now comes up, what is the duty of the schools in reference to instruction in the native language? If we understand by "native language" only the New High German-for the Middle and Old High German are not strictly speaking any longer our native language-still we must inquire, Can there be and should there be a regular school study of the native language? Or must the school be left quite out of the question? For the “strictly scientific" study of German referred to by Jacob Grimm at the end of the above extract, should not be taken up, any more than any other strictly scientific pursuit, before entering the university.

Karl Ferdinand Becker is one of the most prominent of those who have endeavored in more recent times to answer the question, what should be the management of the native language in the schools, supposing it to be considered not a result of arbitrary laws, but as an organic product of human nature. Becker was born at Liser in the electorate of Treves, in 1775, and died in 1849. He was at once a physician, a philologist and a teacher; a union of characteristics which was the cause of the profound influence which his writings produced upon the school system of Germany. In the general principles of his grammatical writings, Becker, according to his own statement, conforms to the views of Wilhelm von Humboldt. The most important of his works, the "Organism of Language," is dedicated to Wilhelm von Humboldt, and contains numerous references, by citation, &c., to the works of that profound author. We therefore ask

* Even if we abate something of the force of the terms "strictly scientific," and permit a beginning to be made in it at the gymnasium as in other scientific studies, it is still easy to see that "grammatical studies" which, Grimm says, "must be either philosophical, critical or historical," must not be taken up before the highest classes of the gymnasium. Such is the sense of the often quoted expression of Grimm in the preface to the second edition of vol. I, of the "German Grammar," p. xix. Grimm's views, however, on elementary grammar, are not thus interfered with at all. That study and its relations to the study of the native language, are there the principal subjects handled.

†"Organism der Sprache." Frankfurt on the Maine, 1827. Second revised edition, at the same place, 1841.

with astonishment how it could happen that a man who was laboring with the most honest efforts and no small talent, in what he believed to be the spirit of Wilhelm Humboldt, should become the progenitor of those extravagant perversities with which Raimund Wurst and others have tormented our schools? The reason of this surprising fact is partly a scientific defect in Becker's views, and partly, and to a greater extent, in a practical error almost inconceivably great. The scientific defect was this: that Becker had not rightly conceived the relations of language to logic. Although his clear mind and the number of his philosophical investigations of a 'positive character, made him frequently enough aware of the distinctions between language and logic, still his philological method never escapes from the tendency to "inquire into concealed relations between logic and language." I can not of course go in this place into a consideration of the repetitions of this error, and of the extent to which Becker pursued it. Such an undertaking would make it necessary to examine the relations of language, on one hand to the laws of logic, and on the other to the other fields of activity of the human mind. But this is one of the profoundest and most comprehensive problems of science, and whose solution could only be approached by means of a union of strictly abstract speculation and thorough positive investigation. At present it will be sufficient to indicate how Becker himself, and still more his followers, were necessarily carried by their over-valuation of the logical element in language, to a practically one-sided development of the understanding, directly opposed to the true principles of language.

There is the less necessity for going, in this place, into an illustra tion and refutation of Becker's theoretical system, since the practical error into which, though in other respects so acute, he fell, would have turned even the most correct views of language to the injury of the schools. The course of thought by which Becker passes from his theoretical system to its application to the schools, is as follows: "The function of language (see his 'Organism of Language') is an organic function; that is, a thing living by means of functions which proceed from the very life of the thing itself, and also from an inward necessity; and which functions also have as their object the existence of that thing, since the thing can only exist and continue in the mode proper to it, by means of the functions. The function of language originates from the organic life of man, by an inward necessity."* From this follows the further principle laid down by

"Organism of Language," 2d ed., p. 1.

66

Becker in the same work: "Since spoken language proceeds of itself and by necessity from the life of man as a spiritual and bodily existence, therefore it can properly be neither taught nor learned. Grammar teaches, strictly speaking, not how we ought to speak, but only how we do speak."* Becker begins with the same idea in the little work which he wrote expressly "on the method of instruction in German." And accordingly, we are naturally curious to learn how this German language, which "can not properly be taught," can nevertheless be taught, and that according to a "Guide," a "School Grammar,” and a Complete German Grammar, in the form of a commentary on the School Grammar." But Becker explains this thus: The mother tongue can not strictly be learned by the scholar, at all; "for he understands and speaks his mother tongue before receiving any instruction." But since instruction in language must be admitted to be a very important study, both in town and country, it is necessary to fix upon some purpose, as that for which it is given. This is stated by Becker to be, "That every one of the people shall learn to understand the High German language perfectly."§ But what is the meaning of the terms "to understand a language?" Becker answers, "We understand a language, when we know the true meaning of its words and of their connections." "More important than an understanding of the words and their combinations, is the understanding of the grammatical forms, such as the cases, conjugations, &c., which furnish the means of defining the relations of the ideas used in language. These are also far more difficult to understand; for it is not so easy to comprehend and distinguish accurately the relations of ideas, as the ideas themselves." All this, and much more of the same kind, is to be studied in the " common school." In the lowest classes, where "there can be no instruction in language, properly so called," drills in language are to be the chief means of instruction; which should at the same time be exercises in thinking. "They will be exercises in thinking, principally by making the pupils acquainted with and ready in the most important distinctions between ideas and their relations. The teacher must from the first teach his pupils how to distinguish, on one hand between the thought (conception) and the idea (representation ;) between the idea of a thing and of an action; between a person and a thing; and on

"**

*“Organism of Language," 2d ed, p. 9.

"Ueber die Methode des Unterrichts in der deutschen Sprache " Frankfurt on the Maine, 833. It claims to be "intended as an introduction to the manual for the first instruction in German grammar,"

"On the method of instruction in the German language," p. 1.

"Guide (Leitfaden,)" Frankfurt on the Maine, 1833; preface, p. viii.

** Ib., p. 5.