SCHOOL JOURNAL,

Devoted to the Educational Interests of the State,

AND

Published under the Sanction of the Vermont State Teachers' Association.

• Mr. Leavenworth was Associate Editor one half of the year.

Vol. IV.

JANUARY, 1862.

No. I.

From Report of Board of Education.

THE COLLEGE AND COMMON SCHOOLS. The college lies at the bottom. It is the source of the other and lower grades, and demands the most careful cherishing, even when we extend our views no farther than the common schools. They never have flourished, they never will flourish, they cannot flourish, without the college; because without that their root is cut off, and they must die, as soon as the vitality they have already derived from it is exhausted.

To see the reason of this, it is only necessary to consider that the hearty fostering and support of the common schools, like all other similar interests, depend upon the moral and intellectual tone of the community; i. e., upon the cultivation of the community. And we need not take time to illustrate the fact that cultivating and elevating influences descend from the higher upon the lower; they do not ascend from the lower into the higher. It is the cultivating power of the higher and profounder learning of the college that communicates the tone and sentiment, that appreciate rightly the common school. In the order of influence and power the college stands first, and is the condition without which the other would not exist. Our boys, it is true, begin their education in the common school, and go through the grades above until they reach the college. But it is the college that draws them up and allures them forward, and helps them onward. It is the college that develops and matures the science, the elements of which are learned in the