easily be made out of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young men in the manner I have described, and which, after perhaps temporary success, have resulted in partial or total failure.  These failures are of every kind.  Some are school-books on a new plan, which succeeds in the inventor’s hand chiefly on account of the spirit which carried it into effect, but which in ordinary hands, and under ordinary circumstances, and especially after long-continued use, have failed of exhibiting any superiority.  Others are institutions, commenced with great zeal by the projectors, and which prosper just as long as that zeal continues.  Zeal will make any thing succeed for a time.  Others are new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and disproportionate importance.  Examples almost innumerable of these things might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found, upon examination, that the amount of 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 most of the states of this Union, 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, the plan of which you have in mind, consider whether your age, and experience, and standing as an instructor are such as to enable you to place confidence in your opinion.