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trict school. He taught in such a district in the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, several winters while in college. Here he was noted for his devotion to his school, and for his interest in a small society of teachers of the town, mostly college students like himself, who used to meet in various parts of the town for mutual help in regard to their professional work. The lessons of professional help from association and conference that he here learned from experience, he never forgot. Perhaps there is not a man in this country who has contributed so largely of time, travel, and talent to the various associations of teachers in the country as our lamented friend. With what patience, and interest, too, he listened to the essays and discussions of others. For he welcomed free interchange of views as the best means of clarifying one's own mind. He was the most sincere lover of criticism, even adverse criticism, that I have ever known. How often I have heard him say, "We should be thankful for the criticisms of our enemies; for our enemies will tell us our faults, a thing which our friends are reluctant to do."

Then what deference he always paid to the opinions of those whose wisdom and experience entitled them to consideration. He had no patience with educational charlatanism; but for a sincere student, for honest experience, his respect was genuine. How many of us have been encouraged to excel ourselves by his appreciative consideration of our opinions based on careful observation. This spirit made him both a teacher and a learner at our conventions.

Of Dr. Philbrick's work in Connecticut I will let Charles Northend speak:

"He came here [New Britain] in 1852, at the request of Dr. Barnard, to take charge of the State Normal School, a position he filled with rare ability and success. Some two years later, Dr. Barnard resigned the State superintendency of schools, and, on his recommendation, Mr. Philbrick was made State Superintendent of Schools and principal of the Normal School. Of him at this time. Dr. Barnard wrote to the president of the State Teachers' Association as follows: 'Mr. Philbrick is a wise, practical teacher, of large personal experience in every department of the educational field, and has shown himself willing to labor in season and out of season,' and to 'spend and be spent' in the cause of popular education. He enjoys the highest respect and love of the teachers, and by his ability, common sense, and devotion to his duties will deserve and secure the confidence and cooperation of the people of the State.'

"Mr. Philbrick remained in this State about five years, greatly to the benefit of the Normal School and to the cause of education throughout the State, and when, in 1857, he resigned his position here to accept the superintendency of the schools of Boston, it was greatly to the regret of the friends of progress in school work; but brief as his stay was here, he was instrumental of great and lasting good.

"I will close this article by naming two or three particulars in which Dr. Philbrick excelled, and to which his great usefulness and eminent success were largely owing:

"1. He was a perfect gentleman, - always courteous, and kind, and winning in his manner, by which he both made and retained friends.

"2. He was a man of great earnestness, sound common

sense, and good judgment; a man of great firmness and persistent effort in the execution of his views and plans.

"3. Dr. Philbrick had the rare faculty of gaining the good-will and hearty co-operation of all in any way associated with him. He always most cheerfully accorded to all their full share of merit for what they did, and inspired them with the feeling that he was their true friend."

Dr. Philbrick's first important work in Boston was in making the Quincy school a success. To understand the significance of this work, we must remember that the organization of this school, under Mr. Philbrick, was the beginning of a new departure in school management in the city. Up to that time, 1847, the old "double headed" organization had prevailed. "By this singular arrangement each school had two departments, called the reading and writing departments. Each of these departments. was accommodated in a separate apartment; each had its separate set of studies; the programme of studies being divided for this purpose, not horizontally by grades, but vertically by.subjects; each had its master and corps of assistants, usually two or three in number; and the pupils attended each in turn, changing from one to the other at each half-daily session." The pupils all assembled and prepared their lessons in the room with the master. This room usually had a seating capacity of about one hundred and eighty. Originally, all the recitations were conducted in the same room, the master hearing one section of pupils and the assistants hearing the others.

By the arrangement adopted in the Quincy school,

each division was to occupy a separate room; and when one reflects upon the old state of harshness in discipline, repression, confusion, and corporal punishment, that were necessary, and then upon the quiet, the order, and the kindness of spirit, that would be infused into a school under the new system, he will at once understand why it was so important that the new plan should succeed. Then there were the economic reasons, the reasons that were more potent in the minds of many of the school committee at that time than the pedagogic ones.

Mr. Philbrick proved to be the right man for the new scheme. He made it such a success that, in a few years, the old double-headed system had entirely disappeared; and no more schoolhouses in Boston have been built on the old plan. Whether the old system would have continued much longer in the event of his failure, it is impossible to say; but it is quite evident that the better era was much hastened by his wise and efficient administration. The influence of this change is now felt, perhaps, every State in the Union; if not in the structure of schoolhouses, certainly in the mildness of the discipline that has been made possible.

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Another great service rendered to the Boston schools, and, indeed, to the schools of the whole country, was the reform in the school programmes. The accomplishing of this required the highest wisdom and the application of the best common sense. Dr. Philbrick had the good judgment, in this as in many other things, to proceed slowly. Even after he knew the right, he took time to do the work necessary for its introduction.

The making of a good programme is undoubtedly the highest kind of pedagogical work. It is easy to tinker a programme, easy to say, "Put this into the schools, and take that out"; but to know the end of human development, its successive stages, its breadth, the relative proportion of each element to be introduced, to know the means to be used, the matter to be presented, the order of presentation, the proper proportion of time to give to this or that subject; and then to be able to state intelligibly all the processes in proper co-ordination and subordination, in short, to determine just what shall be done, when and how, by the children of a city, so that all shall be educated in the best way,

this requires peda

It requires educa

gogical skill of the highest order. tional wisdom of no mean quality to know enough not to attempt the task.

I doubt whether a greater advance in the constructing of a good programme has been made in this country than was made by Mr. Philbrick in the arranging of the course of study for the primary and grammar schools of Boston. In speaking of the effect of the programme of the pri mary schools twenty years after it went into operation, he says: "The adoption of this programme was of so much importance as to constitute an era in the history of the primary schools. Its beneficial effects were soon apparent, and they have gone on increasing ever since. It gives definiteness of aim to the teachers which they did not before have, promotes unity and harmony of effort on the part of teachers of different classes, and tends to secure uniformity of progress in corresponding classes

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