cilia Williams (afterwards the wife of Rev. Charles Brooks,) to take charge of the school. She was a young lady of superior education and of ample fortune. But she was a Christian; she realized that she was not made for herself alone; she appreciated the importance of the work she was invited to undertake, and after a little hesitation, generously gave herself to it. The school was shortly reduced to exemplary order, without the use of any corporal punishment; a desire to learn was enkindled in the bosoms of the pupils, and in due time the school attained to a respectable rank among the schools of the town, which it was afterwards careful not to forfeit.

In 1834 I delivered the annual Derby Lecture in Hingham, Mass. A large portion of it was shortly afterwards published in the American Annals of Education.

In the fall of 1836, Mr. May removed to Plymouth County, Mass., and became pastor of the Congregational Church in South Scituate. Here he was made member of the Town School Committee, and continued his educational work, finding congenial spirits in the Rev. Charles Brooks in Hingham, and in Rev. Edward Q. Sewell in the adjoining parish of Scituate. The school-houses were improved, more female teachers were employed both in winter and summer, and several adjoining districts were consolidated so as to admit of a gradation of schools. In the spring of 1839 he made the opening of a new school-house the occasion for arresting public attention to the importance of these edifices to a successful system of common schools. Appropriate exercises were had, and he delivered an address which was published by Mr. Mann in the Mass. Common School Journal-one of the earliest of that class of Educational Addresses. In 1839 he coöperated in the work which Rev. C. Brooks commenced in 1835 (before the Board of Education was instituted,) to induce the people of Plymouth County to secure one of the Normal Schools for which the State had made provision in connection with the donation of Hon. Edmund Dwight. This was done by the establishment of the School at Bridgewater under Prof. Tillinghast, to whose many excellent qualities Mr. May paid a tribute in his Address in 1855.

In 1842, Mr. May succeeded Mr. Peirce in the principalship of the State Nor-mal School at Lexington, and while there made special efforts to improve the methods of primary instruction both in the Model School and with his Normal pupils-giving prominence to realistic teaching, and to cultivating habits of observation, and the use of language in describing real objects. He prepared a Manual on the subject, which was unfortunately lost in the hands of the publishers, and was one of the earliest to introduce simple apparatus and articles of common use to illustrate certain principles of daily application-such as the standard weights and measures, steelyards, scales, balances, liquid and dry measures, yard stick, measuring tape, specimens of different colored paper, garden seeds, shells, &c. Here was a beginning of that system of teaching Common Things, for the encouragement of which among teachers in Great Britain Lord Ashburton established his famous Prize Scheme.

In 1845 Mr. May removed to Syracuse; to become pastor of the first Unitarian Church in that city, and there continued his educational work as opportu nities presented.

10

REV. BENJAMIN ORR PEERS.

REV. BENJAMIN ORR PEERS, one of the pioneer laborers in the field of popular education, was born in Virginia in 1800, but removed with his father to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1808, where he received his education, graduating at Transylvania University in 1821. He commenced the study of theology at Princeton, but finished his course at Alexandria and was admitted to the order of Deacon in 1826. In the following year, having read and reflected much on the subject, he consecrated himself to the work of educational improvement, and opened a private school at Lexington, which in Oct., 1830, became known as the ECLECTIC INSTITUTE, in which he aimed" to embrace every thing comprehended in the most liberal collegiate education," "without regard to the source from which we may obtain them." The Scientific Department was called the Rensellaerian, and was adopted from Troy, N. Y. The Primary and English Department, called the Pestalozzian, was organized by Joseph Neff, a pupil and co-laborer of Pestalozzi; and the Third Department, to be called the Humanitarian and incorporating some of the studies and methods of Fellenberg, was never organized. This Institute was for a time quite successful and gave demonstrations of improved methods of teaching, but its expenses were large, and its aims were in advance of the public appreciation of the community in which it was located. In 1836, the enterprise was abandoned, and Mr. Peers accepted the presidency of the Transylvania University, which he resigned on accepting in 1838 the secretaryship of the Protestant Episcopal Sunday-School Union, and editorship of the Journal of Christian Education, which he conducted for four years, until his death on the 20th of August, 1842. Through the whole period of his active life Mr. Peers, by pen and voice and personal service, was a most efficient promoter of educational improvement. In 1828 he assisted in establishing the Lexington Mechanics' Institute, before which in 1820 he delivered the Introductory Lecture, which was published with copious extracts from Lord Brougham's Observations on Popular Education, and the publications of Gallaudet, Carter, and Clinton, on the importance of educating teachers, and appointing a well qualified State Superintendent of Education. He also took an active part in various educational conventions in Kentucky called under his auspices, and in the meetings of the Western College of Teachers.

In 1830 Mr. Peers, in pursuance of a request of the General Assembly "to communicate information respecting common schools which might aid the Legislature in adopting the best system for Kentucky," addressed a Letter which was published by order of the Legislature in a "Report of the Committee on Education" in that year, and widely circulated in that and other States. The Letter embodies the results of his personal visits to the schools and of his conferences with prominent teachers and public men in different parts of the country, and particularly in the States of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and cites largely the opinions of Carter, Gallaudet, Flagg, Clinton, and others, as to the right use of School Funds, viz., to prepare and pay well qualified teachers, to stimulate local and parental effort, and to secure thorough and intelligent supervision. This document exerted great influence at the time through the West.

In 1832 Mr. Peers published a semi-monthly Journal of Education, edited by the Faculty of the Eclectic Institute, in the interests of his seminary, and to diffuse correct views of education and to stimulate teachers to self-improvement.

In 1838 Mr. Peers published a volume of 364 pages entitled "American Education, or Strictures on the Nature, Necessity, and Practicability of a System of National Education suited to the United States," in which, after discussing and maintaining “the right of children to an education and the obligation of parents and of society to bestow it," he sets forth the essential features of a system, by which the several States can solve the grand problem of universal education. These features are (1) the religious training of every child in the cardinal truths of the Bible; (2,) the education of the intellectual faculties according to the laws of the mind and the future wants of individuals; (3, 4,) the regular and punctual attendance of every child at some good school, public or private, for a period of at least seven years; (5, 6,) the establishment of Seminaries and other agencies for the professional training of a sufficient number of teachers, and means for their comfortable accommodation and support; and (7) the supervision and general execution of the system by wise and energetic superintendence. The volume concludes with an eloquent "Appeal to the Clergy" to give their support to wise legislation in behalf of public schools, on the ground that the means at present relied on, viz., the Family, the Pulpit, the Sunday-Schools, and the BoardingSchool, are altogether inadequate."

In becoming the Agent of the Sunday-School Union, and the Editor of the Journal of Christian Education, Mr. Peers did not abandon the ground which he had so strongly advocated in his American Education-of the necessity of more efficient legislation in every State to secure to every human being the opportunities of good physical, intellectual, and moral instruction. On this point, in the first number of his Journal, he devotes an article to Bishop Doane's "logical and spirited Appeal to the People of New Jersey on the most important subject that can occupy the attention of a Legislature." "Its doctrines are of the grandest practical moment. It assumes that knowledge is the universal right of man, and that the security of this inherent right to every individual; and its extension, in the fullest measure, to the greatest number, is the universal interest of man; and that it is the duty of every free State to provide for the education of her children. Tax yourselves for the support of Common Schools and you will never be in dander of taxation from a foreign power-you will need less taxation for the support of pauperism and the punishment of crime. The Common Schools are in the place to us of arms, and troops, and fleets. They are our nurseries of men. They are indeed the cheap defense of nations."" "So long as Sunday-Schools shall act in harmony with the scheme of religious education prescribed by God and recognized by the Church, so long as they shall perform the office of auxiliary, not a substitute-a part, not an independent system-so long will they deserve the practical encouragement."

In an elaborate Report to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, at its session in New York in October, 1841, Mr. Peers submitted a scheme of Christian Education, which contemplates the bringing up of all the children properly belonging to each parish in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To this end the Parish Minister, Fathers and Mothers, Masters and Mistresses, by catechetical instruction on Sundays, by family worship, and timely admonition, and constant example, and by the Parochial School, must train up children of the Church in the way they should go.

other conventions that were held. Neither was there any effectual step taken, in that period, toward the establishment of Normal Schools, though there was an almost unbroken succession of indorsement of the project by the heads of the system.

The general school law was revised and somewhat amended in 1848 and 1849; the chief advance being that of rendering the acceptance of the common school obligatory upon every part of the State,-it having previously been discretionary with a majority of the votes of each district, and liable to rejection at the end of every third year. The consequence of this decided measure was the awakening of general attention to the subject of schools, the first important manifestation of which was the holding of an educational State convention, at Harrisburg, on the 16th and 17th of January, 1850, of the business committee of which Mr. Burrowes was chairman. By this body it was resolved that two State Normal Schools were necessary and ought to be established by the Legislature. In its address, drawn by Mr. Burrowes, it was also recommended that a separate State superintendency, the County superintendency, and a State Educational Periodical, should be established.

Within the next seven years, all these measures were adopted, but in a differeut order from that just stated, though probably in the one best calculated to be effective. In 1852 the Pennsylvania School Journal was commenced. This agency, with the discussions of the State Teachers' Association, established shortly afterwards, and the agitation of the question by teachers and others, produced the county superintendency in 1854; and the separation of the school from the State Department and the passage of the present Normal School law both followed in 1857. It is with the last named measure, however, that this narrative has to do.

Up to this point and for several years after, Mr. Burrowes had not only strenuously advocated, in common with others, the establishment and support, by the State, of Normal Schools, but had mistakenly relied upon the Legislature for the perfection of the common school system, in all its details of operation as well as in this great leading feature. At every meeting of the State Associa tion he presented either a report, or a resolution, or the form of a petition, or a bill for a law on the subject. But in 1854 he at length began to realize the true doctrine, that the teacher must work for and improve his own profession,-so plainly indicated by the result of the measures about that time going into operation and all emanating from the associated effort and the discussions of the profession itself. This era in the progress of the system is thus described in an address delivered by him, "On the Past, the Present, and the Future of the Teacher of Pennsylvania," at the Pottsville meeting of the State Association, in August, 1854:

From 1834-when the first common school law of the State was passed-up to 1852, eighteen long years, little was effected for the improvement of the schools. Money was lavished, plans were devised, the system was put into operation, and the people of the State anxiously awaited the expected success. But little success came. The friends of the system labored and hoped, till hope was weary; and then they began to fear that the patience of the people would become exhausted before the proper remedy should be discovered and applied; for, that there must be a remedy their unfaltering faith in the propriety and practicability of general education assured them. While thus waiting betweenhope and fear, in 1852, the teacher-he who had never moved before, he who had been regarded as a mere secondary circumstance in the general discussion