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art of ready reckoning is the plow which will remain by him for years,
and help him to draw out from the soil a new treasure every year of his
life.

The great object, then, of the common schools in our country is to teach
the whole population to read, to write, and to calculate. In fact, so
essential is it that the accomplishment of these objects should be
secured, that it is even a question whether common schools should not be
confined to them. I say it is a _question_, for it is sometimes made so,
though public opinion has decided that some portion of attention, at
least, should be paid to the acquisition of additional knowledge. But,
after all, the amount of _knowledge_ which is actually acquired at
schools is very small. It must be very small. The true policy is to aim
at making all the pupils good readers, writers, and calculators, and to
consider the other studies of the school important chiefly as practice
in turning these arts to useful account. In other words, the scholars
should be taught these arts thoroughly first of all, and in the other
studies the main design should be to show them how to use, and interest
them in using, the arts they have thus acquired.

A great many teachers feel a much stronger interest in the one or two
scholars they may have in Surveying or in Latin than they do in the


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