frescoes of buried cities, is known to us only through descriptions. From the evidences before us it is safe to say that painting did not find with the ancients its appropriate themes. The subjects of Christian painting are divine love and tenderness as seen in the Madonnas; the soul, supported by its faith in the Divine, manifesting its constancy even when enduring the bodily tortures of martyrdom; the Divine, gracious and forgiving even the crucifixion scene; the Transfiguration reflecting the light of the soul when seeing pure truth; the Last Supper exhibiting the emotions of the good when betrayed by the bad; the Last Judgment showing the return of the deed upon the doer; not so much action as reaction, not so much the deed as the emotion aroused in the depths of the soul by the presence of injustice and hate.

Music.-Music has the form of time, while architecture, sculpture, and painting have the form of space; hence it can express all the steps in the genesis of the situation which it portrays, and is not confined to a single moment, like the special arts. The group of statuary, the Laokoon, for instance, must seize the highest moment of the action and present it. In this highest moment we can see what has happened before and what is likely to happen in the time that follows. (Goethe has discussed this admirably in his essay on the Laokoon.) It will not do for the sculptor to attempt to present us in his work of art the entire completion or working out of the theme; he must seize it in the middle, where the spectators can easily read the past series of actions and motives and forebode what is to succeed. Painting is not so closely confined to a point of time as sculpture. Painting can idealize space through perspective, light and shade, color, clearness and obscurity. While actual size, actual length of line, is necessary in architecture, in painting it can be represented by perspective. Not only the largest temple of the world, but even Mont Blanc could be painted on a piece of ivory which could be covered with one's thumb. Painting, moreover, by reason of the fact that it can present to us sentiment through the aid of color, finds the limitation of its there to a single moment of time less important. But music can take up the whole series of actions and reactions which are presupposed by a serious situation of the soul and can carry these all through to the final denouement. The material side of music is found in the structure and peculiarities of the several musical instrumentsvibration by means of strings, columns of air in wind instruments, and, above all, by the vocal chords of the human being. A tone is a repetition of the same wavelength. One tone can produce with another one which has an agreement with it partial or complete chords and concords; with another tone not agreeing with it it produces a discord. There is a natural order of tones, partly discordant and partly concordant, which forms the scale. It includes what is called an octave. An aria starts from the fundamental tone of a scale, or from its third or fifth, and by departing from the fundamental tone or from those kindred with it expresses its alienations and collisions. Finally, it returns to the fundamental tone or one of its close kindred, and the problem is solved. There is also counterpoint, which, like the persons in a drama, expresses a concordant or opposing aria to the chief one. With these resources music excels all the plastic arts in its ability to express problems and collisions of human life and their solution. Emotional disturbances and the restoration of harmony naturally take on this form of expression. But there is the music of sensuous pleasure, and opposed to it the music of moral action. The Italian boat song or the Scotch reel may express the former, and a sonata or symphony of Beethoven will express moral action. Architecture has been called frozen music. Neither architecture nor music deals directly with the shapes of rational creatures or with the image of the human form divine, they are confined to proportions and symmetries.

Poetry.-Poetry is the form of art that unites in itself all the others.

It is closely allied to music-the time art-and through the imagination it can ED 99-45

reproduce each and all of the space arts. It can do more than this; it can, through its appeal directly to imagination, transcend the time limitations of music, and the space limitations of architecture, sculpture, and painting. There is the poetry of the nation, or epic poetry, the poetry of society, or the drama, and the poetry of the individual, or lyric poetry. Comedy shows us a collision which has arisen between the individual and some social ideal in which the discomfiture of the individual is not so deep as to destroy him. The social organism in which man lives is such as to convert his negative deeds into self-refuting or self-annihilating deeds. This occasions laughter when the individual is not seriously injured by his irrational deed. Tragedy, on the other hand, shows us a serious attack upon the social whole and the recoil of the deed upon the doer, so that he perishes through the reaction of his deed. Tragedy, however, requires as a necessary condition that the individual who perishes shall have a rational side to his deed. A mere villain is not sufficient for a tragic character; there must be some justification for him.

The greatest poets are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe, and these artists are in the truest sense educators of mankind. The types of character exhibited in their literary works of art, Achilles, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Macbeth, Hamlet, Wilhelm Meister, and Faust, have helped and will always help all mankind to self-knowledge by showing them how feelings become convictions and how convictions become deeds, and how deeds react upon the doer through the great organisms of human society. The world-wisdom of a people is largely derived from its national poets, not as a moral philosophy, but as vicarious experience. Aristotle said that the drama purifies the spectator by showing him how his feelings and convictions will result when carried out. Without making the experience himself, he profits by participating in the world of experience depicted for him by the poet. It is more or less in human nature to recoil against direct advice, especially moral advice. We do not like to have its application made personal; but in the work of art we see the moral energies of society acting upon ideal personages, and the lesson to the spectator is more impressive and more wholesome, because it is accepted by him in his freedom and not imposed upon him by external authority.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WESTERN LITERARY INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE OF PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS.1

A CHAPTER OF WESTERN EDUCATIONAL HISTORY.

By B. A. Hinsdale, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of the science and the art of teaching in the University of Michigan, and Mary L. Hinsdale, A.M., graduate student in that institution.

One of the most interesting chapters in Western educational history, and, indeed, in the educational history of the country, has never been written and is known only in scraps and fragments. This missing chapter the writers here attempt to supply. Its subject is the Western Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers, commonly called by the second of these names. The origin of this college is involved in some obscurity that it would be difficult or, perhaps, impossible to clear up at this late day; but the main facts are clear and plain.

An educational society called the Academic Institute was founded in Cincinnati in 1829. It was in all respects a pioneer society, and not much is now known about it. If the constitution and roll of members, with reports of the proceedings, are now in existence, the writers do not know where they may be found. The institute was undoubtedly a local association, and it is a significant fact, illustrating the character of educational progress, that it was organized the same year that Cincinnati, having first procured from the general assembly of the State the requisite authority, including power to levy special taxes, organized her system of common schools. The main interest attaching to the institute springs out of the fact that under its auspices was formed the association whose history we are to trace.

The publishing committee that sent out the first volume of Transactions of the College of Professional Teachers furnished in its preface some interesting items of knowledge. It gave this very brief account of the origin of the college:

The idea of the College of Teachers, in its present form, was first cast in the Academic Institute, an institution of similar character, but more limited operations, established in 1829. The project was the work of teachers, as may be easily imagined, but the sympathies of noble-minded and patriotic citizens, more

1 The principal sources of information for the instituto and college are: The Academic Pioneer, Cincinnati, 1831, Vol. I, No. 1; the six volumes of Transactions of the Western Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers, 1535-1841; The Western Academician and Journal of Education and Science, edited by John W. Picket, Cincinnati, 1837-38; E. D. Mansfield, Memoirs of the Life and Services of Daniel Drake, M.D., etc., Cincinnati, 1855, and Personal Memories, Social, Political, and Literary, with sketches of many noted people, 1803-1813, Cincinnati, 1879; William G. W. Lewis, Biography of Samuel Lewis, first superintendent of common schools for the State of Ohio, Cincinnati, 1857; W. H. Venable, Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley, historical and biographical sketches, Cincinnati, 1891; and W. T. Coggeshall, Ohio System of Common Schools, in Barnard's American Journal of Education, Vol. VI. Mansfield says the College of Teachers was formed about 1833. Venable assigns it to 1831 in one place (p. 317), and to 1834 in another (p. 421). This confusion of dates as well as the contradictory forms of the name is probably due to the fact that the college was an evolution, presenting different forms and names at different times.

ambitious of usefulness than fame, have been the animating cause of its permanence and success. The first general convention of the teachers of the Western country was called in June, 1831, under the auspices of the Academic Institute. The proceedings and addresses were published in No, 1, of The Academic Pioneer. Resorting to the number of the journal just named for further information, we are met, first, by the statement that, "agreeably to public intimation, the members of the Western Academic Institute and Board of Education met in the First Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, June 25, 1831, at 11 a. m." The document contains a variety of information. First comes an address preliminary to the constitution, and then follows the constitution itself. Article I, reads as follows:

This association shall be denominated the Western Academic Institute and Board of Education, whose object shall be to promote harmony, cooperation, and the diffusion of knowledge among its members, and to discuss such subjects as may be considered conducive to the advantage of education generally.

There were to be two kinds of members, ordinary and honorary members; the first approved professional teachers, the second such literary and scientific gentlemen as might be chosen for the purpose. The officers were to be a president and a vice president, recording and corresponding secretaries, a treasurer, a librarian, and seven counselors, who were to have charge of the periodicals, books, and library of the association, and were to make the programmes of the annual meetings. The society was to meet the first Saturday of every month, and the auniversary is appointed to be held in Cincinnati on the last Saturday of June, on which occasion an anniversary address was to be delivered. The significance of the second half of the name of the society is explained in the following article:

The society shall choose annually a board of education, consisting of honorary members, whose prerogative it shall be, individually or in committees, to visit and inspect the schools and academies of the members of the society quarterly, or oftener if they think possible, provided such visits do not contravene the duties of the city visitors of the district schools.

The principal address at the meeting of 1831 was delivered by Rev. Dr. Bishop, president of Miami University. However it may have been seventy years ago, this address is now interesting reading. Dr. Bishop begins with setting forth various arguments for education, as those drawn from its political, religious, and industrial uses. He insists particularly upon the value of education to the people of the United States, dwelling mainly upon common schools, and alleging that improvements in these schools have not kept pace with improvements in other departments of life. He speaks of the disorganization growing out of the fact that each teacher is compelled, in defiance of all common sense and sound principle, to teach almost everything at one and the same time, and declares that a common school, to be efficient and to correspond with the other improvements of the age, ought to be divided into distinct departments, as follows:

In one department ought to be taught, and taught only, the alphabet, including the pronunciation of the vowels and diphthongs, in words of from one to four syllables.

In a second department ought to be taught arithmetic, from notation to the single rule of three.

In a third I would put reading and spelling and English and penmanship. In a fourth I would put geography, with sacred history and the history of the United States: and

In a fifth department I would put all the higher branches of arithmetic, with the elements of general history, and of mental philosophy.

The advantages of having some such distinct departments would be these:

1. The elements of every distinct article would thus be presented to the young

1 An interesting but brief sketch of Dr. Bishop, who had been a professor in Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky., for some twenty years before entering upon his work at Miami, may be found in the Decennial Anniversary volume of Miami University. The Republican Publishing Co., Hamilton, [1899].

mind distinctly and clearly, and hence, in the most of cases, everything would be fully understood from the very beginning.

2. A habit of forming clear and distinct conceptions would thus be early acquired. The common mode of teaching children is extremely unfavorable to this important branch of mental discipline.

3. A competent teacher would, under an arrangement of this kind, give a great deal more instruction on any one subject within a given time than in the ordinary mode and with a great deal less animal exhaustion.

Dr. Bishop pauses to glance at the influence that an improved mode of instruction in the primary schools would exert on the higher schools and colleges. More pupils would be fitted for the higher schools, more persons would receive an improved education, students who went to college would go better prepared, and the course of study in the higher schools could be extended and improved. He dwells at length upon the need of competent teachers. The subject of education he declares to be one great whole; no matter what else is done it will be of little value unless republican simplicity is preserved; much time must be devoted to instruction, both by teacher and pupil, in order to secure a good education, and proper social intercourse between pupil and teacher must be fostered. Of the charlatanry that prevailed, he speaks in this decided fashion:

The strolling men of wisdom and of experience who propose teaching grammar and geography and astronomy and chemistry and natural philosophy and Latin and Greek and almost everything, in some ten or twenty or thirty lessons-and thirty lessons generally exhaust all their knowledge and acquirements on any one subject-these strolling teachers follow an occupation about as honorable to themselves and about as profitable to the community as the occupation of strolling beggars and strolling showmen is. There is, in fact, only one class of men who follow an occupation less honorable-that is, the class of strolling blacklegs. The third address, delivered by Mr. Alexander Kinmont, was explanatory of the objects and designs of the Western Academic Institute. It contained what we should now consider an excessive number of Latin quotations, but Mr. Kinmont was ford of the classics, and such was the fashion of the times.

The committee of publication respectfully solicit information from all parts of the great Valley of the Mississippi concerning the condition of schools, the various improvements or changes that may have been lately introduced, and the state of public feeling on this very interesting and important subject.

The pamphlet closes with the prospectus of The Academic Pioneer, to be conducted by the editorial committee of the institute. The purposes of this publication are declared to be to furnish information in the various departments of education, to give efficiency to the means of instruction, to call to its aid the improvement making by the ceaseless action of the human intellect, and to bring home to the minds and bosoms of parents and instructors the importance and magnitude of the duty of proper attention to the moral, physical, and mental character of the young. The purposes are still further explained, and school committees and parents are appealed to to take a deep interest in the enterprise. As soon as a sufficient subscription should be received to justify the continuation of The Academic Pioneer, it would be published on or about the first of every month. It was to be 16 pages in size, and the price was fixed at $1.50 a year.1

1 The library of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, in Cincinnati, contains a tingle copy of a document that bears the following title page: "Academic Pioneer, Vol. I, Cincinnati, 1831, No. 1. Proceedings of the first anniversary meeting of the Western Academical Institute and Board of Education. Held in Cincinnati, June 25, 1831. Quid majus reipublicæ, majus meliusve afferre possumus, quam si juventem docemus, et bene erudimus.-Cicero. Cincinnati: Williamson & Wood, printers, 177 Main street. 1831.”

Venable, in his "Partial list of literary periodicals published in the Ohio Valley from the year 1803 to 1800," gives this title: "The Academic Pioneer and Guardian of Education, Cincinnati. Monthly. 183. 40 8-vo. pages. Price, $2. Organ of the Western Academic Institute and predecessor of The Academician, Albert Picket, editor."-Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley, p. 125.