 | The Crayon miscellany |  |
From the Rev. James Carnahan, President of Princeton College.
Having examined the general plan of the 1st, 2d, and 3d parts of the “National
School Manual,” and having also taken a cursory view of some of the details,
I am satisfied that it is a work of no common merit.
The evils which this work proposes to remedy are great and generally felt
by parents and instructors. The expense of books, according to the course heretofore
pursued, is a very serious inconvenience; and the loss of time and labor
arising from the want of a connected series of instruction adapted to the capacities
of children and youth, is a consideration of vast moment.
Comparatively few instructors are competent to select, from the great number
of books now used in common schools, those adapted to the improving capacities
of their pupils. If a book, which he cannot understand, be put into the
hands of a pupil, he will lose his time, and what is worse, he will probably contract
a disgust for learning. The great art of teaching consists in beginning
with the simplest elements, and advancing gradually to things more difficult as
the capacity of acquiring knowledge expands, presenting something new to
arrest the attention and to exercise the ingenuity of the pupil. To answer
these ends, the work of Mr. Bartlett seems to me well suited. If these small
volumes be thoroughly studied, I am persuaded that the pupil will be better
prepared to transact the business of life, and by his own exertions to improve
himself after he leaves school, than if he had spent twice the time under an
ill-arranged system of instruction.
It will, doubtless, be difficult to introduce a uniform system of instruction into
our common schools; yet the object is so desirable, that it deserves a vigorous
and persevering effort; and I indulge the hope that the day is not far distant,
when the “National School Manual,” improved and enlarged by its able and
experienced author, will be very generally adopted.
| The Crayon miscellany | |