ARTICLE IV.-NEW PHASES OF THE SCHOOL QUESTION IN CONNECTICUT.

"By Daniel Coit Gilman.

Circular respecting the Abolition of the Normal School at New Britain, issued by the State Board of Education in Connecticut, September 12, 1867. 8vo. 4 pp.

The Daily Public School in the United States. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1866.

A Shorter Catechism on Consolidation. 1866. 8vo. 4 pp.

IN respect of education, as well as of politics and religion, Connecticut is a sort of battle-ground between the friends of progress and the advocates of reaction. In almost all questions of public policy two parties appear, nearly equally balanced, and both of them eager to maintain the ascendency. First one succeeds, then the other; and thus the "Land of Steady Habits" is in danger of being known as the Land of Unsteady Habits, so hard is it to foretell what course will be pursued in any matter which depends upon the action of the people.

We can cite some recent illustrations of this changeable policy. For example, the same legislature which bestowed, last summer, upon the Insane Asylum for the Poor a second appropriation fifty per cent. more than the directors asked for, declined giving aid to a Reformatory for girls, caused the Normal School to be abolished, and were only led to make a decent appropriation for the salary of the State Superintendent of Schools, by the personal representations of the Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor. A Republican citizen of New Haven, who desires to be known as an educator by profession, sat by the side of one of the leading Democrats of the Assembly, while he was attacking the established system of public instruction, giving countenance to his effrontery, and poison to his arrows. Just as the Board of Education of the State had

accomplished the reforms in the Normal School, which the action of previous Assemblies had demanded, they received a warning for their fidelity and implied censure, in place of gratitude, for their unpaid and unselfish devotion to the interests of the State. From the days when Henry Barnard began to labor for the improvement of Common Schools until now, the legislation of the State has exhibited this same "jerky" character. His reward was that of Aristides the Just, banishment from the state, because of "the exercise of powers" which Themistocles said were "dangerous in a Democracy." In like manner his successors in office have every one of them been assailed with virulence, commonly by those who should have been their friends; and the power to bring about good results has been seriously hampered by narrow minded opponents of taxation, by interested advocates of private schools, by disappointed candidates for official place, and by misinformed believers in an erroneous and injurious political philosophy.

In regard to these various classes of opponents we shall presently speak; but, first, we desire to call attention to the fact that while Connecticut goes stumbling along, the system of Public Instruction, of which she is a principal author, and of which her history is a principal record, does not halt. It is established in New York, Ohio, Michigan, California, and in all the other great republics of the west, where the Sons of Connecticut have chosen their homes. It is imitated in the Dominion of Canada. Its principal characteristics are exhibited to the scholars of Europe in the most influential Review of the continent, as worthy of general approbation and adoption. A Royal Commissioner from Great Britain, after a careful study of our methods and results, officially reports that by reason of the American system of public instruction, we “are certainly the most generally educated and intelligent people on the earth."

There is a second preliminary point on which we propose to dwell still more at length. People at a distance are much more puzzled than are we at home by the apparent inconsistencies of Connecticut legislation, and by the uncertain fluctuations in public opinion. To us, many facts are known respecting the movement of the population which are not revealed by

a scrutiny of the census, or by the hasty observations of travelers. We are well aware of the changes which are in progress in this once homogeneous and well educated commonwealth. We know what distinctions are introduced into society by the accumulation of enormous fortunes, by intimate and incessant intercourse with the great metropolis, and by the rapid immigration of foreigners who have been bred under despotic institutions, and are ignorant of the dangers which beset a republican government. We see how rapidly our population is turning from agricultural to mechanical pursuits, and how the thriving and noisy smart factory villages, filled up with new comers, both foreign and domestic, are supplanting in influence, at least at the polls, the shaded town streets, inhabited by substantial and conservative residents, and the still more quiet "rural districts" where the remnant of farmers yet cultivate the soil. We are well enough aware that large numbers of young men, who would have been among us the efficient promoters of all good interests, are laying the foundations of new cities and states on the slopes of the Pacific, and in the fertile valleys of the Mississippi basin. We understand, moreover, that in these days of change and fermentation, established principles and usages are liable to be attacked, the right will for a time be overwhelmed by the wrong, and progress will seem to be backward. But we do not despair of the Republic. We welcome controversy, discussion, inquiry, agitatation, not for their own sakes, but for the elimination of errors, and for the confirmation of the truth.

Facts so obvious to us, as those just recorded, show themselves but imperfectly, in the bare outlines of statistical tables, yet even here they may be discovered. From the official data of 1860, it appears that during the ten years previous, Connecticut ceased to be a "migrative" state, and became a "receiving" state; that is to say, the number of inhabitants who came into her borders from other states exceeded the number of those who removed away. Among these new comers were large numbers of foreigners, most of whom were Irish. It is a fact not generally known, but undisputed we believe, that the three southern states of New England, and the city of New York are a sort of Irishman's Paradise. It is

here, at least, that "the Exodus" of that people terminates. Hence, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York have each of them among their inhabitants over twelve per cent., or about one eighth Irish. No other states are favored to a like extent with the Milesian suffrage. While this is so, these same New England states are giving in exchange for this foreign element their own brightest young men, the flower of the land, so that thirty per cent. of the natives of Massachusetts, thirty-three per cent. of the natives of Connecticut, and thirty-nine per cent. of the natives of Rhode Island are found to be permanently resident beyond the states of their nativity. Now, when this double process is at work, when the American element is thus drawn off, and the Irish element is thus infused, it is not to be wondered at that the traditional institutions, habits, usages, and opinions of New England are modified and perhaps corrupted. Connecticut in one respect suffers more than Rhode Island or Massachusetts. The cities of Providence and Boston exert upon the states of which they are the capitals an educational influence which Connecticut does not gain from its double-headed organization. Hartford and New Haven, important and rival centres of wealth, traffic, enterprise and culture, are not accustomed to act in unison for the advancement of public measures, and thus there is a want of concentration in the efforts of good citizens to promote the general prosperity. It is consequently harder to ward off evil influences, and encourage good undertakings than in those states where most of the leading newspapers, the houses of legislature, the state offices, the higher courts, and the chief seats of learning are clustered in the vicinity of a single capital.

Neither the citizens of Connecticut nor their friends in other states have, therefore, any reason to be surprised that the principles of Public Education are sometimes called in question in the very community which has been conspicuous as an originator and defender of the New England ideas. Since the earliest colonial days we have had no foundations to lay. We have been called upon to accept, advance, modify, and adapt the inheritance of the past. Other parts of the country have have been forced to determine what plan they would adopt, and have gone through a series of radical and fundamental

On the other

discussions, after which they felt "settled." hand, our controversies have been so far in advance of these radical investigations, and have been so much taken up with secondary questions, that many of our most intelligent citizens show themselves ignorant of the underlying principles.

What now is the aspect of the School Question in Connecticut? Disturbed, controversial, pugnacious, is our reply. The questions which are agitated, the men who are discussing them, the vigor which is manifested, the measures which are proposed, are unmistakable signs of an educational movement throughout the state, originating with no individual, instigated by neither political party, and occasioned by no single transaction, and likely, for these very reasons, to be prolonged, thorough, and fruitful either of good or evil to every town and village, to every boy and girl within the limits of the

state.

But the aspect of the School Question in Connecticut is also hopeful, in our opinion eminently hopeful. In spite of what the Evening Post of New York has said, and the "dismal" picture which the Massachusetts Teacher has discovered in the recent report of the Board of Education, and the Jeremiads which are played on a harp of a thousand strings, we believe that the signs of the times indicate an early, comprehensive, and satisfactory advancement of the established system of public instruction. That our readers may understand the reasons for our cheerfulness, in the present hour of momentary discomfitures, let them view with care the situation.

On the one hand, the State Normal School, while under the care of an accomplished and highly successful instructor, has been abruptly suspended, the teachers dismissed, and the scholars scattered, in accordance with the directions of the Legislature. This is the most disheartening circumstance, though it is capable of explanations, which at another time we may perhaps reveal. In addition to this hostile procedure in the General Assembly of the State, there have been some vigorous local manifestations of dislike to a good school system. For example, last year, in New Haven, seven of the nine members of the City Board of Education recommended the abolition of the High School, an institution which, in