BY
CHRISTOPHER C. ANDREWS,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW.
"TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE WAY HE SHOULD GO; AND, WHEN HE IS OLD,HE WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT."
BOSTON:
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY,
111, Washington Street.
1853.
BOSTON:
PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,
22, School Street.
The increasing importance of the subject treated of has led the authorto revise an article, published nearly two years ago in a monthlyjournal, and to present it in the following pages. His object is to callattention to what he regards a defect in the operation of our presentsystem of education, and to propose some suggestions for its remedy.That defect consists in the want of moral instruction in our schools.Its existence, he believes, may be attributed to the state of publicopinion, rather than to any imperfection in the system itself. For thisreason, he is of opinion that remarks on the subject are more necessary,and therefore worthier of the consideration and indulgence of thepublic.
35, Court Street, Boston,
May, 1853.
The duty of bringing up the young in the way of usefulness has ever beenacknowledged as of utmost importance to the well-being and safety of aState. So imperative was this obligation considered by Solon, theAthenian lawgiver, that he excused children from maintaining theirparents, when old and feeble, if they had neglected to qualify them forsome useful art or profession. Although this principle has universallyprevailed in every civilized age, yet the success of its practicaloperation depends entirely upon what is understood by necessaryknowledge and useful employment. If, as among the Lacedemonians and manyother nations of antiquity, a useful art consisted chiefly in theexploits of war,—in being able to undergo privations and hardships, andin wielding [6]successfully the heavy instruments of bloodshed,—such aneducation as would conduce to the acquirement of that art must beestimated on different grounds from that system whose object is todevelop the moral and intellectual faculties.
From the distant past, traditions have come down, evincing in manyinstances exemplary care in the culture of youth; but the conspicuousrecord made of them by the historian and poet refutes the idea that theywere common. With the lapse of centuries, revolutions in the arts andsciences have been effected, important in themselves, but more so forthe changes they have produced both in social and political affairs.Like hunters who discover in their forest-wanderings a valuable minewhich shapes anew their course of life, the people of the old world, inthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were allured f