HALL'S LECTURES ON SCHOOL-KEEPING

By Professor Arthur D. Wright and George E. Gardner '25. Published by the Department of Education, Hanover, N. H.

The life and labors of an alumnus of Dartmouth College have been chronicled in a recent volume entitled, "Hall's Lectures on School-Keeping." The present volume is a re-edition of the first book on education printed in the United States in English to which is added a biographical sketch of the author, Samuel Head Hall, Dartmouth M. A., 1839.

Hall was born at Croydon, New Hampshire, October 27, 1795, the eleventh child in a pioneer family. The family soon moved to Guildhall, Vermont, and here he received the meagre schooling offered by the frontier schools of that period. At nineteen years of age Hall began to teach in the district schools of Rumford, Maine, and until his death sixty-three years later, he exerted a tremendous influence on the educational practices of New England and New York by his teaching, but particularly through his writing. His two most outstanding achievements were the founding of the first normal school in America at Concord, Vermont, in 1823, and the publication of his Lectures on School-keeping in 1829 of which the present volume is a reedition.

The "Lectures" antedated all the publications of this nature in America or Great Britain. The contribution of this book to the advancement of education in America was inestimable. Within two weeks after its publication every copy of the first edition was sold; a second edition was almost as rapidly seized upon as was the first; and three years later ten thousand copies of the "Lectures" were ordered by the State of New York and a copy was placed in the hands of the trustees of every school district in the state. In all there were five editions of this book.

The lectures are entirely practical. They are, in short, a statement of the deficiences that Hall himself found together with method of solving or avoiding these troubles. He states what he believes to be the requisite qualification of teachers, emphasizes the importance of teacher training, and then proceeds to outline practical questions for the government and instruction in a school:

A bibliography of Hall's writings lists sixteen separate titles and includes books on such diverse subjects as the "History of the United States," "The Arithmetic Manual," "Alphabet of Geology," and "Religious Education of Children."

Hall received an honorary degree of Master of Arts from Dartmouth College in 1839 and an LL.D. from the University of Vermont in 1865. He died in 1877 and is buried at Croydon, New Hampshire.

A careful study of Hall's life should give him a just claim to the distinction of being a great American educator. During his long career he made the improvement of the public schools his one great concern. As founder of the first normal school in America, and the author of the first book on education in the country his fame as an important educator is substantially fixed.