and privileges, and subject to all the duties, liabilitie strictions, set forth in the Forty-fourth chapter of th Statutes; and said Corporation may hold real and estate to the amount of twenty thousand dollars, to exclusively to the promotion of the interests of educ the improvement of the qualifications of Teachers. "Sect. 2. This act shall take effect from and passage."

CORRECTION. On page 21 of the January number that Messrs. Reed, Bates, &c., were appointed a co report on the pecuniary sacrifices of those who, in conducted the "Teacher." It should read, so that shall be constituted the Chairman of the Committee. the 22d page, instead of "the Board of Editors" were a Committee, &c., it should read "the Board of Di

PRIZE CIRCULAR OF THE AMERICAN INS

THE American Institute of Instruction offer to m the Institute and to female teachers, prizes for Origi on the following subjects:

1. "The means of producing a Symmetrical Devel the Mental Faculties.'

2. By what means can the Teacher best advance hi ture?

To the best Essay on either of these subjects, Twenty-Five Dollars will be awarded; to the best on subject, a prize of Fifteen Dollars. An additional pr Dollars is offered for the best Essay on any other subj a practical relation to teaching. Each Essay should guished by some motto or device, and accompanied b envelope bearing the same motto or device, and enc real address of the author.

The Essays must be forwarded by the 1st of Ju subscriber, Central Place, BOSTON, who will place th hands of the Committee. The award will be made k the successful Essays read, at the next annual meet Institute in August. They will also be regarded as erty of the Society. The unsuccessful Essays, if ap will be returned to their authors with the envelopes If no composition of sufficient merit should be offered will be awarded.

In behalf of the Directors,
Boston, Jan. 15, 1853.

TE

of

f

At the Dedication of the High School in Dorchester, Dec. 7, 1852.

BY REV. N. HALL.

Friends and Fellow-citizens:

It seemed good to the School Committee-into whose charge this building has now passed-that before it should be appropriated to its destined use, its existence and purpose should be finally recognized by some public services; that, in obedience to ancient custom, and in view of that custom's intrinsic fitness, with the voice of prayer and sacred song, we should commend it and its objects to the favor of Him, the Source of all intelligence, the Author of all blessing-Him, whose gift it is, with all the instrumentalities and privileges connected with it.

We are here, then, to set apart, to devote, to dedicate a new structure for the purposes of public education. Apart from any circumstances of a local character, an interest attaches to the simple fact we thus express. Might we suppose ourselves in some other county, some other State, some other country than in our own, the simple fact that there, wherever it might be, we were standing within a new structure to be devoted to the public education of children and youth, this fact alone, rightly considered, would have a commanding interest for us. sider what the human mind is; consider what education proposes to do for it; consider the important relations which the young sustain to all existing institutions and interests; consider the influence they are necessarily to exert, for good or evil, upon their own and succeeding times, and you will not need to ask

Con

where and in what that interest lies. In each additi
ture, rising no matter where upon the earth's broad s
the intellectual and moral training of the young, the
pist sees new cause for rejoicing, new grounds for h
another battery opened against the hosts of Erro
fountain of restoration for diseased humanity. How
that interest, if such structure rise within one's own
considerations of patriotism as well as of philanthrop
themselves with it. How yet more, if within one's
munity, neighborhood, town-if our own children are
direct partakers of its benefits, if from our own hom
are to be peopled.

But over and above what these considerations g
interest which attaches to this occasion. It is not
erection of an additional school-building that we celebr
but the establishment among us of a new grade of sc
behold, to-day, the worthy completion of our systen
school instruction; our educational pyramid capped an
What many of us have so long looked for, has ind
The vision has grown into a reality. Dorchester has
to herself, her pilgrim founders, her honored na
noble offering she this day makes to her aspiring yo
facilities, to be here enjoyed, for an advanced educat
had she done before for this great interest of educa
need was there she should do more: for her child
her honor's sake, her material interest's sake, that
do just this which she has done. We will not cast
upon her for what might have been, after all, a wise
will honor her, that when she saw the time had com
was given, and the work was done. No reproach
breathe to-day, but congratulations only.

The school to be gathered within these walls we
School, and perhaps I could not better occupy the re
the brief space allotted me in these exercises, than
of some of the advantages and ends of that highe
which such an institution is intended to afford.

Our idea of the worth of education is likely to b
The tendencies of our common lif
superficial one.
to it. We are prone to measure its advantage, as t
things, by a utilitarian standard. We calculate its wo
it will bring of outward, palpable profit. A boy go
-for what? "Why, what should he go for," (is
thought) "but to learn to read and spell, and write
-by all means to cipher ?" And why to learn these
simply because they will be needed, you know, i
his calling, his occupation. He would be less like
in the world without them." Good reasons these,

so far as they go. Or, if other branches are admitted to be im-
portant, or, at least," well enough;" if grammar and geography,
and history, and composition, and the higher branches of mathe-
matics, are allowed as useful-useful for what?
"Why,
they will enable him to occupy a more lucrative, or a more
elevated and respectable position in life; they will gain for
him a larger share of property, or at least of social considera-
tion, than he would be likely otherwise to possess. Who knows
what emoluments or honors my son may arrive at, if he but
have the qualifying education? Who knows what a famous
matrimonial alliance my daughter may make, with no hindrance
existing of illiterateness? At any rate, my children are smart
by nature, and I should like to have them get the credit of it,
and get their parents credit, by standing among the foremost in
the school." And so of the High School, we hear it asked,—
"Of what use is it? Of what use, at any rate, to my children,
to study these higher branches? They are not to go to college,
nor to a counting-room, nor to be teachers. They can get
more learning than they need-more than will ever be of any
use to them in the schools they attend now."

Now, we might meet this lowest view of education on its own ground. We might show that on the score of profit, in the most worldly sense, it may be well for a child to receive the higher instruction to be here dispensed; that even soundest learning may possibly have issues in dollars and cents. And we might show that by aiming at the useful, too, directly and exclusively the immediately and tangibly useful-we go wider from it than if our aim were higher.

There are two kinds of advantage derivable from all school education. The one kind, a certain amount of knowledgeknowledge of words, of facts, of subjects, of processes; the other, a quickening and sharpening and strengthening of the powers and faculties of the mind-in other words, mental discipline--as a result of the process by which that knowledge is acquired. The former is a possession of uncertain tenure; the latter is a permanent, because an inwrought one. The former may result in no calculable profit; the latter can hardly fail of such result. Those mental habits induced by the demands and processes of the higher courses of study, the general activity and dexterity of the faculties thus acquired, and the power to concentrate and to use them-do we not see how all this may be made available for other ends than those of study; for other acquisitions than those of learning; other spheres than that of literature? You have not proved the inutility of studying the higher branches of knowledge, by pointing to this and that individual, or any number of them, who were proficients in those branches in their school-days, or their college-days, and are

now greatly ignorant of them. Suppose it to be so. that a boy's or a girl's knowledge of the languages, for should have died away from the mind of the man or th It is a pity it ever should be so. But suppose it to be less it often is; see if they be no stronger-minded women; if they have no better command of their me ties; no more power of pursuing a train of thought ducting or following a course of reasoning; no more attention, abstraction, concentration-and with these chances of success, in the paths of life that are open for having been subjected to the training and disciplin and necessitated by those early studies.

But, to look at the subject from a somewhat differe view, though still, in a sense, the utilitarian: succes not everything-mere worldly success-the getting office, honor, repute. Who believe it? not they wh ly affirm it. They believe it not in the experience, in the anticipation. Success in life is not everythi piness is more than success-and by no means are cal. Usefulness is more; the true enjoyment of lif use of life. And these studies and that learning w to widen the mind's vision and expand its powers; w it into acquaintance with new fields of knowledge, it to traverse and explore them with ever new acqu ever fresh delight; which open to its intelligents great world of nature, with its manifold kingdoms dences-making the old earth full of life and inter struction, instead of being a comparatively dull and place-giving to its every star and plant and gem language and a meaning; which open to it the grea History-the shadowy aisles of the past, and the vas of events that have swept through them, from the until now; which open to it the glittering stores of erature, with the power to appreciate and relish an the studies and acquisitions of early life which do all part of it, and thus serve to make the whole of life more useful, in addition to its inferior pleasures tions, allowing of those choicer and never-failing o the absence of the former, going far to supply the w sending a strain of refining melody through the ro of our common life, and casting a ray of golden su its clouds; making its intervals of active exertion mo its seasons of physical weakness and disability mor by the rich resources always on hand wherewit them;-those studies and acquisitions, I say, which secure results like these, must needs be ranked am plauded utilities; must have accorded them, as suc value and importance.