THE COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM OF OHIO.

WE deem it important that every citizen, and especially every school-officer and teacher, should be well acquainted with the school system of the State. It is probably known to most, that the present system had its origin in an act passed in March, 1838, which took effect on the first day of April in the same year. This is one of the most comprehensive systems, (and in theory doubtless one of the best,) which has been adopted in any State. We proceed to enumerate the officers employed in its administration. At the head of these stands the Secretary of State, who is now ex-officio, State Superintendent of Common Schools. Next may be named the State Auditor, who has the general supervision of the School Fund. Next in order are the 82 County Auditors, who are ex-officio County Superintendents of Schools; and next are the Boards of School Examiners, (3 in each board, making 246 in the State,) who, together with the Auditor, constitute a County Board of Education.

Next are the Clerks of the 1227 civil townships of the State, who are ex-officio Town Superintendents of Schools; and next the 27,000 School Directors, (3 in each of the 9,000 school districts,) who constitute the District Board of Education.

These make an aggregate of 29,784 officers directly employed in the administration of the Common School System. As the duties of these officers are generally understood, at least, by those engaged in them, we shall not detail them here. This system has in its employ at least 12,000 different persons as Teachers during some portion of each year; and it has under its fostering care 712,142 children and youth batween the age of four and twenty-one years, and provides that for some portion of every one of the included sixteen years they may receive instruction from Teachers regularly licensed to instruct in the Common Schools. To defray the expenses of their instruction, the system lays a tax on every dollar of taxable property in the State, (the whole sum raised from various sources amounting to $285,585;) this sum it expends for the mental and moral improvement of these children and youth, and thus aims to convert the dollars and cents of the tax-payer into intelligence and virtue in those who are soon to become the men and women of the State,-to enact as well as administer the laws,—to appear at the ballot-box and in the halls of legislation, to occupy the bar, the bench, and the sacred desk,-in short to hold all the offices of profit and trust, of honor and emolument, in the gift of the people, and to exert an untold influence upon the character and destiny of the Union and the world.

EXCELLENCES OF THIS SYSTEM.

It has already been intimated, that the theory of this system is correct; the following are some of its features:-1. It assumes that the children and youth within our borders, are the children of the State.

2. That the State is bound to provide for their education.

3. That the property of the State is holden for the accomplishment of this object.

4. It aims to secure a thorough supervision of all the interests of the system, in every department, and provides for the payment of some, at least, of those who are employed to superintend it.

5. But the most striking feature is, that taking these children under its supervision as soon as they are of sufficient age to be removed from the paternal roof, from maternal supervision and instruction, it continues to them its fostering care until they attain the age which entitles one-half of them to all the rights of men and citizens. This we regard as one of the wisest provisions ever made by any State. While many of the States withhold these provisions from those who have attained the age of 15 or 16, ours extends them to all its youth over 4 and under 21, married or unmarried, (excepting those actually attending Academies or Colleges,) thus affording to those who for any cause may have failed to obtain a respectable education in earlier years, the opportunity of making amends for this neglect, if in view of the responsibilities of approaching maturity they are induced to turn their attention to the cultivation of their higher nature, their intellectual and moral powers. Thus does the system remove from all born in the State, or who spend any of the years of their minority in it, all excuse, not only for the inability to read and write, but for ignorance of any of the branches taught in these schools.

DEFECTS OF THE SYSTEM.

We proceed to mention briefly a few of the more prominent defects of the system, reserving a more full consideration of the subject and the remedies for them, for a future number.

1. While it adinits the absolute necessity of a thorough supervision of its interests, it employs a wrong class of persons to superintend them; that is, officers, who in the first place, are chosen without any reference to their fitness for the duties of this office, and who, in the second place, are generally fully occupied if not over-burdened with duties of another and entirely dissimilar kind.

2. It does not provide for the proper remuneration of those employed in its administration, and who, (it must be admitted by every intelligent person,) have charge of the most important interest of the State. While the selection of the men who are to superintend the interests of education should be regarded as a matter of the highest moment, and one entirely above all sectional, political or sectarian considerations, the compensation should be such as to secure the services, and command the undivided energies of men of the best minds, the largest attainments, and the purest and most exalted character.

3. It does not provide for the proper education of Teachers: no system destitute of this provision can be considered complete, since without it a supply of qualified Teachers cannot be expected, and

without them no school system however excellent can accomplish its object.

4. It does not secure the attendance of those entitled to its benefits. From the Reports of the State Superintendent for several years past, it appears that not more than one-third or at most one-half of the school children of the State, during any single year, ever enter the school-room for the purpose of receiving instruction, and from the last Report of the Secretary of State it is seen that only 175,000, or less than one-fourth of the 712,000, were in average daily attendance during 1845; nor can it be said that any considerable portion of the remainder are receiving instruction in other and higher schools, for from the census of 1840, it appears that at least thirty-four thirty-fifths of all who attend school at all in Ohio, depend upon the common school. If then to 175,000 one thirty-fourth of itself be added, it will raise the number but little above one-fourth of the number above named, and this number can be obtained only by admitting that all who attend academies and colleges are under 21 years of age, a supposition by no means true; thus clearly do we arrive at the conclusion that but a small portion comparatively, of those who should reap the benefit of the munificence of the State, are to be found in the school-room enjoying the fruits of its bounty.

With these remarks we pass from the subject, leaving the consideration of other important and acknowledged defects to be presented at some future time.

[FOR THE OHIO SCHOOL JOURNAL.]

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION.

NUMBER I.

MY COUNTRYMEN,-Subjects of the highest interest, hitherto much neglected, are demanding the attention of the American people.That momentous element of modern society, the common school system, is deserving consideration which, in our own country, it has never yet generally received. The influence this has exerted upon the history of man and the condition of society for the last half century, has fully established its high claims to universal regard. Its manifest capability of expansion and improvement, and its acknowledged adaptation to the wants and circumstances of a people in process of working out the problem, whether man is politically capable of self government, are reasons why it should be more thoroughly understood, and its benefits more broadly developed.

An education for the whole people, adapted to the nature and destination of man, should command universal attention: first, from the grandeur of the objects it proposes to accomplish.

To provide every child in the land with suitable elementary instruction; to prepare every future citizen of the republic to understand all his rights, and discharge all his duties; to rescue the helpless, the

friendless, the wayward, and the neglected, from ignominy, and so develope all the sensibilities and faculties as to promote the universal existence of pure affections and noble and elevated thoughts, would be the highest triumph of civilization, as well as the grandest of human achievements.

But, second, universal education commends itself to profound consideration from its undoubted connection with public prosperity.

The mild arts of peace, which have multiplied so rapidly, affording subsistence and happiness to millions, connecting the remote extremities of the land, and binding us by indissoluble ties to the other nations of the earth, have depended very much for their existence upon the facilities afforded for primary instruction. And, on the other hand, most of the evils which have afflicted our country, the poverty, the wretchedness, the crimes-both those graver offences, which stain the records of our courts, and disgrace the statistical annals of our country, as well as the minor offences against social order and good neighborhood-can be traced directly to the ignorance of the people. As a matter, then, of prudent foresight, of sound, enlarged, and noble policy, the state should provide the necessary means for instructing all the children in the land, and every enlightened freeman should be watchful that this great interest, which protects all other interests, should itself be fully protected.

But, third, universal intelligence and virtue are absolutely essential to the preservation of republican liberty.

We have arrived at a point in our history, my countrymen, or rather, we have always been at a point, when the future was fraught with the most intense interest. By the organization of our government we are compelled, periodically and frequently, to indicate to ourselves and to the world, how high an estimate we place upon the most sacred rights, and how great a degree of security there is in our midst for the most valuable earthly treasures, in short, we are required to prefigure our destiny through the suffrages of the people. This occasion always awakens the deepest solicitude, and every lover of his country turns instinctively to those remote causes which are giving to the institutions under which we live their present inclining bias, and their tendency to permanence or subversion. But the extraordinary increase of population in our country, and the momentous questions which the people at no distant day may be called upon to decide, should still more deeply impress us with the importance of diffusing universally such instruction and such sentiments as will fit all for the high trusts committed to their keeping.

Events have sometimes forced the conviction of the necessity of such a general diffusion of knowledge upon the minds of men, in governments less under popular control than our own. A nation in its agony or death struggle, may perceive the cause of its calamity, and the antidote for its sufferings. Such has been the condition of several foreign governments during the present century.

In 1809, when Europe was convulsed to its centre, and Russia was groaning beneath the heavy yoke of the French, some of her noble

ministers of state, the distinguished Von Stein at the head, saw clearly that the only sure means of future deliverance from oppression from without, and weakness and anarchy from within, was in the moral regeneration of the people. And amidst the trying events of those trying times, with the sagacious foresight of true statesmen, they turned from fortifications and the battle field, to providing those surer means of national defence for which that kingdom is at present distinguished.

Fortunate will it be for us, my countrymen, and for those who shall come after us, if we shall learn to contemplate at a distance the proba ble results of our conduct, if we profit by the lessons of history and experience before us, and promptly and amply provide against the terrific destiny which awaits a nation without universal elementary EXCELSIOR.

instruction.

KIRTLAND, O.

TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.

NUMBER I.

UNDER this head we propose to publish a series of articles on the origin, history, and success of Teachers' Institutes, their adaptedness to the purpose for which they are intended, the mode of conducting them, &c.

The class of schools known by this name originated in the state of New York; that state has also the high honor of being the first to recognize the doctrine that the education of common school teachers for the duties of their station, should be regarded as an essential part of the system. The importance of educating teachers for their employment, was first urged upon the attention of the Legislature by DEWITT CLINTON, in his message of 1826: says he, "The vocation of a teacher, in its influence on the character and destinies of the rising and all future generations, has not been fully understood or duly estimated. It is, OR OUGHT TO BE RANKED AMONG THE LEARNED PROFESSIONS."

* * * I therefore recommend a SEMINARY FOR THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS." The committee of the Legislature, to whom this part of the message was referred, reported through their chairman, the Hon. JOHN C. SPENCER, that they fully concurred in his views, with respect to the importance of a specific education of teachers for their duties, but insisted that this might be obtained in the Academies and Colleges of the State. In 1827 Gov. Clinton renewed his recommendation, and in accordance with that and the report of the committee of the Legislature, the portion of the Literature fund, previously apportioned among the Academies, was increased by the appropriation of $150,000, for the express purpose of promoting the education of common school teachers.

In 1834, this appropriation was increased by the addition. of $12,000, to be annually distributed by the Board of Regents to such Academies as they might select, and to be exclusively expended in the education