The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862

The primary question would be, whether it were more expedient to scatter free labor all over the South, or simply form large colonies at such points as might serve to effectually break up and surround the confederacy. Without venturing to decide on the final merit of either plan, we would suggest that the latter would be, for a beginning, probably most feasible. Should Virginia, certain points on the Atlantic coast, embracing the larger cities and vicinity of forts, and Texas, be largely or strongly occupied by free men, we should at once throw a chain around the vanquished foe, whose links would grow stronger every year. With slavery abolished—and it is at present abolishing itself with such rapidity that it is almost time lost to discuss the subject—immigration from Europe would stream in at an unprecedented rate, and in a few years, all the old Southern system become entirely a tradition of the past, like that of the feudal chivalry which the present chivalry so fondly ape.

The enormous internal resources of Eastern Virginia, her proximity to free soil, the arrogance and insubordination of her inhabitants, render her peculiarly fitted for colonization. Not less attractive is Texas—a State which, be it remembered, is capable of raising six times as much cotton as is now raised in the whole South, and which, if only settled and railroaded-ed, would, in a few years, become the wealthiest agricultural State in America. But let our army once settle in the South, there will be little danger of its not retaining its possessions. He who can win can wear.

The country has thus far treated very gingerly the question of confiscation, which is, however, destined to thrust itself very prominently forward among the great issues of the day, and which is closely allied to colonization. That the South, after forcing upon us such a war as this, with its enormous losses and expenses, should be subjected to no penalty, is preposterous. Confiscation there must be—not urged inhumanly on a wholesale scale, but in such a manner as to properly punish those who were forward in aiding rebellion. When this war broke out, the South was unanimous in crying for plunder, in speaking of wasting our commerce and our cities on a grand scale. But it is needless to point out that punishment of the most guilty alone would of itself half cover the expenses of the war.

It may be observed that already, since the decree of emancipation in the District of Columbia, a fresh spirit of enterprise has manifested itself there. Within a few days after the signature of the President to that act, Northern men began to prepare for renewed industry and action in the old slave field. The tide of free labor which will rush into Virginia, after the chances of war or other action shall have emancipated that State, will be incalculable. Its worn-out plantations will become thriving farms, its mines and inexhaustible water-powers will call into play the incessant demand and supply of vigorous industry and active capital. We may hasten the movement or we may not, by direct legislation. For the present, it seems advisable to await the rapidly developing chances of war and their results; but the great rush of free labor will come, and that rapidly, and Virginia, disenthralled, become, in all probability, once more the first among the States.

We have spoken of the desperation of the rebels, and of the idleness of expecting from them any peaceable compromise. Those who, in the South, will take the oath of allegiance, and who have probably acted only under compulsion, should be spared. But there is a vast number who are as yet under the dominion of a madness, for which nothing but the most vigorous measures can be of any avail. It is evident that at present, every where except in Halleck's department, government is too indulgent. Traitors flaunt and boast openly in the border States, and publicly scheme with their doughface allies, to defeat the Union cause in every possible way, too often with signal success. The more mercy they receive, the more insolent do they become, and yet every effort has been made, and is making, 'to conciliate.' Let Government be vigorous, and rely only on its strong hand, so far as the management of avowed traitors is concerned; such men hold to no faith, and keep no oaths. With such, a threat of confiscation will be found of more avail than all the lenity in the world.

We may quote, in this connection, from a letter to the Salem

Register

, from Captain Driver, who hoisted 'Old Glory' at Nashville, when our troops took possession of that city. After speaking of the immense amount of property being destroyed through the State, he asks:

'Is there one man North, who now expects to make peace, based on compromise with such men as lead here? Is there one who expects a lasting peace in this land, until the armed heel of freedom's soldiers marks every inch of slave soil? If there is, he knows little of the South or Southern men and women. One defeat of the Federal forces, and madness would be rampant here. In the hour of victory, they would destroy every Union family in the South. We live on a volcanic mass, which at any moment may upheave and blow us to glory without the benefit of the clergy, the most of whom are in the army of Dixie.

'Our enemy is as bitter as death, as implacable as the savage of the forest; he will do any thing to gain his end. Twice has the 'Black Flag' been flaunted in our faces, and cheered by a portion of our citizens. Our women are more bitter than the men, and our children are taught to hate the North, in church, in school, and at the fireside. Our city still presents a sullen, silent front; it will take as long time to root treason out of Nashville us it did the household sins of Egypt out of Israel.

'Had I my way, I would confiscate the property of all traitors, work the slaves three or four years under overseers, on the land of their masters, sell the crops thus raised, and pay the war debt; this would save the people from taxation. The fifth year's crop give to the slaves, and send them to Texas or elsewhere; give them a governance, buy up the slaves of the loyal men, and let them be sent to their brethren. The land confiscated, I would divide among the soldiers of the North and the widows and orphans of those deluded poor men of the South who fell victims to false notions of 'Southern Rights;' compel the Northern man to settle on his grant, or to send a settler of true, industrious habits, and give him nopower to alienate his title for ten or more years. This will insure an industrious, worthy, patriotic people for the South. One man will make one bale of cotton, others ten; your spindles and looms will be kept running by free men, and slavery will cease forever, as it should do. Slavery is a curse, a crime, a mildew, and must end, or war will blast our fair heritage for all time to come.'

Such are the views of one who seems to know what a real Southern-sympathizing secessionist is made of. Let it not be forgotten that there are thousands of native Tennesseeans, as of other borderers of intelligence, character, and influence, who have offered to raise regiments to fight for the Union; and this fact is urged by the doughface democrats as a reason for increased leniency to traitors. We confess we do not see what connection exists between the two. If these loyal borderers are sincere in their professions, they have certainly no sympathy for the wretches around them, who visit with death or pillage every friend of the Union. But it is idle to argue with traitors. Either we are at war, or we are not; and if the history of the past eighteen months has not taught the country the folly of procrastinating, nothing will do it. 'When you feel the knife in your heart,

then

 wish that you had fought!'

THE EDUCATION TO BE

II

A right intellectual education presupposes three essential features: the selection of the most suitable subjects for study; the proper presentation of these, in the order of their dependence, and in view of the gradual growth of the pupil's powers of comprehension; and, not less important than either of these, the finding out and following of the best method and order of presenting the truths belonging to each subject to be studied. These are the problems with which, as something apart from Metaphysics or Logic, the possible but yet unachieved pedagogical science has to deal. To the first of these questions, What shall we teach? or, as he phrases it, 'What knowledge is of most worth?' Mr. Spencer (presuming the child already supplied with his bare implements, reading, spelling, and penmanship) is led, after a long discussion, to conclude that 'the uniform reply is, Science.' The 'counts' on which he bases this verdict, are, the purposes of self-preservation; the gaining of a livelihood; the due discharge of parental functions; qualification for political responsibilities; the production and enjoyment of art; and discipline, whether intellectual, moral, or religious. Taken at his own showing, Mr. Spencer seems to contemplate, as his model of an educated man, a prodigiously capable and efficient mute. But can he deny that the ability

to express

 what one may know, and in speech, as well as in production, is at once the final proof, and in a very real sense the indispensable consummation of such knowing?

Language

 is the counterpart and complement of

Science

. The two are but two sides, and either separately an incomplete one, of one thing; that one thing we may name

definite and practical knowledge

; and it is the only sort of knowledge that has real value. Language is yet larger than all the sciences proper which it embodies, namely, those clustering about Philology, Grammar, and Rhetoric. Of these, all deal with words, or those larger words—sentences; but under these forms they deal, in reality, with the objective world as perceived or apprehended by us, and as named and uttered in accordance with subjective aptitudes and laws. In language, then, there stands revealed, in the degree in which we can ascend to it, all that is yet known of the external world, and all that has yet evolved itself of the human mind. Can we decry the study of that which, whether as articulate breath, or through a symbolism of visible forms, mirrors to us at once all of nature and all of humanity? But if we yield this claim in behalf of language, noting meanwhile that the mathematics are already well represented in our courses of instruction, then much of Mr. Spencer's eloquent appeal is simply wasted by misdirection. All that he had really to claim is, that a disproportionate time is now surrendered to the studies of the symbols, as such, and too often to characteristics of them not yet brought in any way into scientific coördination, nor of a kind having practical or peculiarly disciplinary value. If Mr. Spencer had insisted on a more just division of the school studies between the mathematical, physical, biological, and linguistic sciences, he would have struck a chord yielding no uncertain sound, and one finding response in a multitude of advanced and liberal minds. If he had gone yet deeper, and disclosed to his readers the fact that the fundamental need is, not that we study what in the more restricted sense is known as

Science

, but that we begin to study all proper and profitable subjects, as we now do hardly any of them,

in the true scientific spirit and method

, he would not merely seem to have said, but would have succeeded in saying, something of the deepest and most pressing import to all educators.

The volume of republished papers from Mr. Barnard's able

Journal of Education

—the first of a series of five under the general title of 'Papers for the Teacher'—will afford to those desirous of investigating the second of the problems above proposed, some useful material and hints. Especially will this be true, we think, of the first series of articles, by Mr. William Russell, on the 'Cultivation of the Perceptive, Expressive, and Reflective Faculties;' and of the second, by Rev. Dr. Hill, now President of Antioch College, upon the 'True Order of Studies.' In the outset of his first essay, (which appeared in March, 1859,) Dr. Hill takes it '

for granted

  that there is a rational order of development in the course of the sciences, and that it ought to be followed in common education.' The order he finds is that of five great studies, Mathesis, Physics, or Natural History; History; Psychology; and Theology. 'We also take it for granted,' he continues, 'that there is a natural order of development in the human powers, and that studies should be so arranged as to develop the powers in this order.' Here two very difficult problems are undertaken—the hierarchy of the sciences, and the analysis of the intellect—and though we seem to find in the elucidation of the subject traces of that 'harmony of results of the two lines of inquiry,' on which the author relies as one source of confirmation of the results themselves, yet we can not admit that the solutions given us remove all, nor even all the main difficulties of the case. While we regard the mathematics, physics, psychology, and theology as quite well individualized and distinct lines of scientific research, we can not help feeling that the day has hardly come for embracing

physiology

 under either physics or psychology; the forming of the bile and the growing and waste of brain are yet, to our apprehension, too far removed from the gravitation of planets or the oxidation of phosphorus, on the one hand, as they are from the scintillations of wit or the severe march of reason on the other, for ready affiliation with either. We question decidedly whether Theology proper can, at the most, be more than a very restricted subject; and quite as decidedly whether the heterogeneous matters grouped under History, namely, Agriculture, Trade, Manufactures, the Fine Arts, Language, Education, Politics, and Political Economy, are or can be shown to be linked by any principle of essential unity. Most of these have their historical side; but their unhistorical and scientific side most interests the great body of learners. And this latter aspect of some of them, Education and Politics especially, belongs after, not before Psychology. Then, the great fact of expression—Language—has not adequate justice done it by the position it is here placed in. Want of space is the least among our reasons for forbearing to attempt here a classification of the sciences—a work which Ramus, D'Alembert, Stewart, Bentham, and Ampère successively essayed and left unfinished. But the principle that the faculties in their order are called out by the branches named in their order, is quite given up as the writer proceeds, and distinctly so in his Tabular View of the studies adapted to successive ages. In actual life, usually the first set teaching the infant receives is in language; and even though it previously is and should be getting its ideas of forms, colors, and other qualities, in the concrete, yet it remains far from true that we should 'pay our earliest attention to the development of the child's power to grasp the truths of space and time.' Dr. Hill has, however, taken in these papers a step in a needful direction; and perhaps the best we could at first expect, are hints and an approximation toward a much desired result.

We may fairly assume that Mr. Willson's answer to the question, What to teach? is in some good degree embodied in his elaborate series of 'School and Family Readers,' of which the first six of the eight contemplated volumes have already appeared. These Readers aim to replace in a good degree the more purely literary materials of most of their predecessors, with a somewhat systematic and complete view of the more generally useful branches of human knowledge. They begin, where the child is sure to be interested, with studies of animals, illustrated with good and often spirited drawings, and proceed through Physiology, Botany, Architecture, Physical Geography, Chemistry, etc., up at last, as is promised, to Mental and Moral Philosophy, Natural Theology, Rhetoric, Criticism, Logic, the Fine Arts, including that one of those arts, as we presume we may class it, with which pupils of the rural schools will have best cause to become acquainted, namely, Gardening! Readers on this plan have long been known in the schools of Prussia and Holland, and are even lately well received in England, in the form of Mr. Constable's popular series; though apparently, when finished, the American series will be more full and complete in topics and treatment of them than any preceding one. Of course, restricted space, and the range of maturity of talents addressed, compel the presentation in simplified form of scarcely more than 'a little learning' under the several heads; and the compiler sensibly tells us his aim is not to give a full exposition of any theme, but rather, 'to present a

pleasing introduction

 to science.' We may grant, in the outset, that most pupils will really comprehend, in and through the reading of it, but a modicum of all the high and large fields of knowledge here intimated to them; but who that can now look on his school-days as in the past, does not remember how many grandiose sentences he was then called on to utter in cadence duly swelling or pathetic, but of the meaning of which he had not the most distant approach to a true comprehension? It was

ours

 once to be of a class whose enunciative powers were disciplined by repeated goings 'through' of the 'Old English Reader,' and well do we remember how the accidental omission of the full pause after 'shows' in the quotation ending the piece entitled 'Excellency of the Holy Scriptures,' caused a certain teacher to understand(!) and direct us to read the whole sentence thus: 'Compared, indeed, with this, all other moral and theological wisdom

'Loses, discountenanced, and like folly shows' BEATTIE.'

Now, it is true, the whole sentence, in its best state, would have shown to our green understandings like enough to 'folly,' if we had once made the effort to find meaning of any sort in it; nor can it be considered the most profitable use of school time, thus to 'like folly show' to unknit juvenile brains the abstract and high thought of mature and great minds, who uttered them with no foolishness or frivolity in their intentions! We see reasons to expect substantial advantages from Mr. Willson's books; and we believe teachers will appreciate and use them. We could wish they had not gone so far to mechanicalize the pupil's enunciation; by too freely introducing throughout the points of inflection; but it is safe to predict that most pupils will take up with interest the simplified readings in science; that they will comprehend and remember a useful portion of what they read; that the lessons will afford both them and the teachers points of suggestion from which the mind can profitably be led out to other knowledge and its connections; and that they who go through the series can at least leave school with some more distinct ideas as to what the fields of human knowledge are, and what they embrace, than was ever possible under the

régime

 of merely fine writing, of pathetic, poetic, and generally miscellaneous selections.

The educational interest that grew up in our country between the years 1810 and 1828, about the year 1835 gave place to a stagnation that has marked nearly the whole of the period intervening between the last-named and the present date. In the year 1858, the

New-York Teacher

 was made the first medium of some thoughts in substance agreeing with those set forth in the earlier part of this paper, claiming the indispensableness to true education of a more true and liberal

work

 on the part of the learner's intellectual faculties, and of a more true and logical

consecution

 than has yet been attained, and one corresponding to the natural order of the intellectual operations, in the books and lessons through which the usual school studies are to be mastered. 'Make'—said the first of the articles setting forth this thought—'the facts and principles of any branch of study as simple as you choose, and unless the order of their presentation be natural—be that order, from observation to laws and causes, in which the mind naturally moves, whenever it moves surely and successfully—the child, except in the rare case of prodigies that find a pleasure in unraveling complexity, will still turn from the book with loathing. He will do so because he must. It is not in his nature to violate his nature for the sake of acquiring knowledge, however great the incentives or threatenings attending the process.' 'The child's mind … with reference to all unacquired knowledge … stands in precisely the attitude of the experimenters and discoverers of riper years. It is to come to results not only previously unknown, but not even conceived of. Because their nature and faculties are identical, the law of their intellectual action must be the same.' 'Study is research.' In subsequent articles, it was claimed that the law here indicated is for intellectual education, the one true and comprehensive law; and it was expressed more fully in the words: 'All true study is investigation; all true learning is discovery.'

We say, now, that when the first of these articles appeared, the leading thought it contained, namely, that our pupils can and should learn by a process of

re-discovery

, in the subjects they pursue, had not in distinct nor in substantial statement in any way appeared in the educational treatises or journals; and further, that it was not, so far as their uttered or published expressions show, previously occupying the attention of teachers or of educational writers, nor was it the subject or substance of remarks, speeches, or debates, in the meetings of Teachers' Associations. We say further, and because history and justice require it, that in our country, especially in the educational movements in the State of New-York, and in the several national associations of educators, a marked change and revolution in the course of much of the thought and discussion touching matters of education has, since the year 1858, become apparent, and that to the most casual participant or observer, and in the precise direction in which the thought above referred to points. The essential issue itself—the practicability and desirableness of casting our studies into the form of courses of re-discovery is somewhat distantly and delicately approached, incorporated into speeches by an allusion or in the way of

apercû

, or thrown out as a suggestion of a partial or auxiliary method with the younger learners, all which is of a fashion highly patronizing to the thought, spite of the scruples about confessing who was the suggester of it. But other questions, which spring up in the train of this, which by themselves had received attention long since, but had been mainly dropped and unheard of among us during the past twenty-five years, have come again into full and unconcealed prominence. Such are the questions about the natural order of appearance of the faculties in childhood, as to what are the elementary faculties of the mind, as to the adaptation of the kinds and order of studies to these, etc. And thus, all at once, is disclosed that Education itself, which many had thought quite a 'finished' thing, well and happily disposed of, or at least so far perfected as to leave no work further save upon the veriest outskirts of details, is in truth a giant superstructure with foundations in sand, or so almost visibly lacking underneath it, that it threatens to fall. For, in the name of the simplest of all common sense, how are we to educate to the best,

not yet knowing

—and that is now acknowledged—

what are the

 FACULTIES

of the very minds we are dealing with, nor what are the

 PROCESSES

by which those minds begin and keep up their advance in knowledge?

 So, also, those who in the most charitable mood could see in education only something too hum-drum and narrow for their better fancies, find it now rising and expanding into a new and large field for intellectual effort, full of interesting problems, and fraught with realizations as yet undreamed of.

It may be said, that the young mind had always learned what it did learn, by discoveries; we answer, our methods and our books have not in any sufficient degree recognized the fact, provided for it, nor taken advantage of it. It may be said, that writers had previously acknowledged that the mind learns well—some of them even, that it learns best—when it discovers: we answer, that nevertheless, no one had recorded it as a well-grounded, universal conclusion and positive law, that the mind only can learn, in all strictly scientific matters, as it discovers, and that hence, the canons of the method of discovery become rules for directing, in studies of this character, the education of the young. Aristotle and Bacon have recognized and enforced upon the adult mind its two master methods of advance by reasoning. But our children have their knowing also to attain to, their discoveries to make, their logic of proof, on occasions, to employ. Shall we lavish all the treasures of method on those who have passed the formative stage of mind, and acquired the bent of its activities? Rather, we think, the true intellectual method—combining both Baconian

induction

 and Aristotelian

deduction

—yet waits to realize some of the best of the application and work for which its joint originators and their co-workers have been preparing it; and that perhaps one of the highest consummations of this one method of thought may yet appear in the carrying forward, with more of certainty, pleasure, and success in their attaining of knowledge, the lisping philosophers of our school-rooms and our firesides.

From one source, disconnected latterly from those to which I have thus far called attention, there has arisen a decidedly progressive movement in the direction of right teaching, and one that, at least in geographical studies, promises soon to result in a consummation of great importance. Though Pestalozzianism, as further developed by the Prussian educators and schools, has never yet realized the completely inductive and consecutive character here contended for, it has been tending in a degree toward such a result; and this is perhaps seen in the most marked way in the method of teaching geography developed by Humboldt and Ritter, and represented in this country by their distinguished pupil, Professor Guyot. This method subordinates political to physical geography, proceeding from facts to laws, and by setting out with the grand natural features of the globe, leads the learner to comprehend not only the existence, boundaries, capitals, and strength of nations, but the reasons why these have come to be what they are. As tending in the same true direction, we should not fail to mention also the faithfully-executed series of raised or embossed maps of the late Mr. Schroeter, presenting not only the profile but the comparative elevations of the land-surfaces or continents and islands, and, in detail, of the several political divisions of the globe, thus at once making the ocular study of geography

real

, and not as formerly, leaving the right conception of the land-surfaces to the pupil's unaided imagination.

Among the decisive and important steps marking the revival of educational interest among us, is that looking to