ingenuity and labor wasted upon
such attempts, would have been sufficient, if properly expended, to have
elevated very considerably the standard of education, and to have placed
existing institutions in a far more prosperous and thriving state than
they now exhibit.

The reader will perhaps ask, shall we make no efforts at improvement?
Must every thing in education go on in a uniform and monotonous manner;
and while all else is advancing, shall our cause alone stand still? By
no means. It must advance; but let it advance mainly by the industry and
fidelity of those who are employed in it; by changes slowly and
cautiously made; not by great efforts to reach forward to brilliant
discoveries, which will draw off the attention from essential duties,
and after leading the projector through perplexities and difficulties
without number, end in mortification and failure.

Were I to give a few concise and summary directions in regard to this
subject to a young teacher, they would be the following:

1. Examine thoroughly the system of public and private schools as now
constituted in New England, until you fully understand it, and
appreciate its excellences and its completeness; see how fully it
provides for the wants of the various classes of our population.

By this I mean to refer only to the completeness of the _system_, as a
system of organization. I do not refer at all to the internal management
of these institutions: this last is, of course, a field for immediate
and universal effort at progress and improvement.

2. If after fully understanding this system as it now exists, you are
of opinion that something more is necessary; if you think some classes
of the community are not fully provided for, or that some of our
institutions may be advantageously exchanged for others, whose plan you
have in mind; consider whether your age, and experience, and standing,
as an instructer are such as to enable you to place confidence in your
opinion.

I do not mean by this, that a young man may not make a useful discovery;
but only that he may be led away by the ardor of early life, to fancy
that essential and important, which is really not so. It is important
that each one should determine whether this is not the case with
himself, if his mind is revolving some new plan.

3. Perhaps you are contemplating only a single new institution, which is
to depend for its success, on yourself and some coadjutors whom you have
in mind, and wh