last year. The last Report of their School Committee expresses "their profound regret at this action of the town." To the influence of this agency they attribute the present prosperous and progressive condition" of their schools, and express the conviction that to their town the office is almost indispensable."

"We are unable to perceive, then, any means existing and available, the employment of which is better calculated to meet our wants, than the engagement of some suitable person, who, as Superintendent of our schools, shall devote his daily life, his best energies of thought and action, to their efficient supervision. The verdict of eleven years' experience, and the general and statistical history of our schools, attest the wisdom of the measure.

"The late action of the town, in declining to continue the office of Superintendent, was urged upon the ground of economy, in view of the depressed condition of the times. But, if any weight is to be attached to the foregoing considerations, such action would, as a measure of practical economy, prove eminently unsound; while, at the same time, it secures only an apparent reduction in our expenditures. For, if the members of the School Committee faithfully fulfil only the bare requirements of the law, in relation to the supervision of the schools, their expenses and legal remuneration would amount to a sum sufficient to secure the services of a Superintendent, at the usual compensation; and it is believed,

that no merely economical considerations would ever satisfy the people for the disastrous results which "would follow a failure to comply with such requirements."

The same measure is advocated in many other School Reports. I have considered this subject mainly in its application to cities and large towns. In the small towns, where the schools are comparatively few, it is obviously practicable for the Committee to keep up a faithful supervision and visitation of all the schools. But even in these towns it is becoming a somewhat common practice for the School Committee, with the sanction of the town, to appoint one of their number a Superintendent, who shall perform the duties and receive the compensation usually divided among them. Such for example is the plan adopted in Longmeadow. The School Committee in this town express the conviction after two years' trial, that the system promotes the increased prosperity of the schools, and recommend its continuance.

LECTURE IV.

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL METHODS IN EDUCATION.

BY JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS.

I propose to occupy the hour you have so kindly offered me with some suggestions, necessarily brief and inadequate, on Natural and Artificial Methods in Education; or, some of the defects in our methods as now practised, and the prospects of improvement hereafter in the science and art of education.

I must commence what I have to say by replying to the secret objection in many minds that such views as I am to offer are merely theoretical, because not coming from one actually engaged in teaching, and are therefore useless for practical purposes. I, for one, esteem practice. I trace all real knowledge to experience. I care for no theories, no systems, no generalizations, which do not spring from life and return to it again. I feel perhaps undue contempt for the vague abstractions we often listen to, idle figments of an idle brain, speculations with no basis of sharp observation beneath them. Yet we are in

danger of going too far in this direction, and of undervaluing theory in its proper limits. People often eulogize Practice when they only mean Routine; boasting themselves as practical teachers, intending thereby that they only do what always has been done, and do not mean to do any better to-morrow than they did yesterday. Practice and theory must go together. Theory, without practice to test it, to verify it, to correct it, is idle speculation; but practice, without theory to animate it, is mere mechanism. In every art and business theory is the soul and practice the body. The soul without a body in which to dwell is indeed only a ghost, but the body without a soul is only a corpse. I pass a sign often on which the artisan has painted "John Smith," (or whatever the name may be,) Practital Plumber." I should not wish to employ him. When the water-works in my house get out of order, I want a theoretical plumber as well as one who is practical. I want a man who understands the theory of hydrostatic pressure; who knows the laws giving resisting qualities to lead, iron, zinc, and copper, who can so arrange and plan beforehand the order of pipes that he shall accomplish the result aimed at with the smallest amount of piping, the least exposure to frost, the least danger of leakage or breakage; and this, a merely practical man, a man of routine, cannot do. The merest artisan needs to theorize, i. e. to think, to think beforehand, to foresee; and that must be done by the aid of general principles, by the

knowledge of laws. An intelligent man, a man of general culture, whose mind has been quickened with ideas, will often be able to show a mechanic how to do his own work. When we are young, we have a superstitious faith in the knowledge each man is supposed to have of his own business. We outgrow this after a while. If you wish anything done about your house, send for a mechanic; but overlook him, do not leave him to himself. You will presently find that you can suggest something to him in his own work, which he has never thought of. All success depends on practice, but all improvement on theory. Let neither despise the other.

You often hear it said that such a thing" is true in theory but false in practice," which is impossible. The theory indeed may be plausible but false, and then. it will not work; and its not working is the proof of its being false. It is neither true in theory nor in practice. On the other hand, a theory which is true, may not work at first, because the true way of working it has not been found out. It is not fulse in practice, All great inventions and

but practice has not come. discoveries have failed at first, but you cannot say they were true in theory but false in practice." They had not been really put in practice. If anything is seen to be certainly true in theory it will come right by and by in practice. Fulton's steamboat would not work at first, nor did Stephenson's locomotive, nor Daguerre's sun-painting, nor Morse's electric telegraph; and no doubt a great many people