JOHN GRISCOM, long a most successful and useful teacher and school-officer, and extensively interested and influential in the improvements in education, and in juvenile reform, of the last halfcentury, was descended from Quaker forefathers, of whom the first emigrants to America were among the earliest settlers of Philadelphia. He was born at Hancock's Bridge, near Salem, N. J., where his parents were living, Sept. 27th, 1774. Young Griscom learned his alphabet without books, from his father, who, while working at his trade of saddlery, taught him partly by the help of the makers' names stamped on his tools. This primitive instruction was succeeded by the common country schooling of the period, in the log school-house of the district, under a bewildering succession of teachers; with one of whom, a Hungarian, who had come over as a Hessian soldier, he commenced studying Latin, and learned a few words of French. His first "reading-book" was an Æsop, with cuts, whose fables and pictures, and some of the "morals" too, made lasting impression upon his mind. In an autobiography, which furnishes some of the most interesting materials of the memoir by his son, Prof. Griscom thus describes his first experiment as a teacher : "In the year 1791, or the fall of 1790, at the age of seventeen, I was applied to by some of our neighbors to open a school for the instruction of their children. This mark of confidence was the result of some little reputation for steadiness of deportment, and a love of learning rather superior to the other youths of the vicinage. "Twas certain I could write and cipher too;' but in reality, as to my penmanship, although it might have been superior to that of Napoleon Bonaparte, it was very awkward and clumsy, for I had never had a teacher who had inspired me with any ambition to acquire a good hand. I had ciphered nearly through Dilworth's Assistant, and was considered rather more ready in 'doing sums' than most of my school-mates; but as to any knowledge of the principles on which the different rules are constructed, neither myself nor any of my teachers, as I apprehend, ever had the curiosity or ambition to attain to it." 7 * The present article is chiefly compiled or extracted from the interesting " Memoir of John Griscom." N. Y., 1859: Carter & Brothers. 8vo., pp. 427. By his son, John H. Griscom, M. D. A volume admirably adapted to School Libraries, "As my father had a claim upon my services at this age, I readily agreed to share with him the profits of the school. The price fixed upon per quarter for each pupil was a French crown, or eight shillings and four pence, Jersey currency. The place of this my debut in the art of pedagogy was a log school-house on Mannington Hill, about three miles from the town of Salem, on the Philadelphia road, and one and a half miles from our residence. I found upon trial that my new employment was more easy, and more to my taste, than the hard work upon the farm; and I could scarcely refrain from considering myself a little more elevated in the scale of operative employment than the common day-laborer, or the farmer's son, who thinks only of working at the soil. My father's views, however, of the virtue of industry rendered it necessary for me to employ the long mornings of summer, before breakfast, in active labor on the farm, as usual, and again in the evening, after the school had closed. But to rise with, or before, the dawn, to work hard till eight o'clock, and then walk one and a half miles, seemed to me rather lessening to the dignity of my new sphere; and it was not until after some little altercation with my father on this point that he relinquished his claim, and allowed. me to pursue my own inclinations. The success of this undertaking, and the congeniality of the employment, induced young Griscom to adopt instruction as his future. profession; and with a view to render himself fitter for it, he entered, in 1793, the "Friends' Academy" at Philadelphia, a school founded by William Penn, and then taught by William Waring, a good mathematician. Here the young man studied diligently mathematics, and his favorite modern language, French. But the yellow fever soon drove him away, breaking up the school, and carrying off the teacher. In the healthy air of his country home he however soon recovered, taught school during the next winter with marked success, and in the spring was strongly urged to accept the charge of two different schools in New Jersey. After personal examination, he decided to accept the application from Burlington, with a guaranteed salary of £100, Pennsylvania currency, ($226,) his board being offered him at 10s. 6d. ($1.40) a week. The school was not in a prosperous state, and he opened it with but three scholars. For this scanty attendance he thus accounts: "Brought up altogether in the country, (except during the four months spent in Philadelphia as a recluse student,) I had had very few social advantages, and my appearance and manners were obviously those of a rustic youth, uninitiated in the polished forms of society. Burlington had been distinguished, from its early settlement, as the abode of several of the higher class of British emigrants, and for the respectability and polish of its more wealthy inhabitants. For such a youth as myself to assume the office of teacher, with very slender advantages of preparatory education, in such a place, was, in some measure, to plunge into a current whose swiftness and eddies exposed me to no little hazard. I was more closely scrutinized than I ever had been before; and, no doubt, the rusticity of my dress and manners caused a suspension of opinion, with respect to the expediency of patronizing the school, on the part of many of the inhabitants. At the close of the first year, the tuition-fees" (the rate of teaching being 17s. 6d. per quarter) "fell somewhat short of the proffered amount, and the deficiency was paid me by the treasurer. After that it was independent of the treasury as long as I remained in Burlington." Under the judicious management of the rustic young teacher, however, the institution soon began to improve. The autobiography then refers to the views and principles of the young principal, and to the prevailing opinions on educational subjects. "The school continued to prosper. In about three months after the commencement, the number of scholars was thirty-five. The occupation, I may say, was not uncongenial to my taste; but I felt, almost continually, that education, as an art and still more as a science, was in its infancy; or, perhaps, to speak more properly, that, as far as my own skill extended, and my knowledge of other schools enabled me to judge, there was a great want of better rules, and a more enlightened practice. This induced me to change the organization of my school as often as I thought it could be done with advantage, and without incurring the imputation of fickleness; and it induced me to neglect no suitable opportunity of looking into other schools, and obtaining useful hints for the exercise of my own discipline and modes of instruction. Happy indeed should I have thought myself, had there been, during my residence in Burlington, that general or public concern for the improvement of schools which characterizes the present age. The numerous valuable publications which now facilitate the duties of the teacher, not only by smoothing the way to learning, but by teaching him how to teach and to govern, would have been hailed as invaluable auxiliaries. I was ever on the look-out for books and publications which might throw light upon my path, and availed myself of some access, through a friend, to the Philadelphia Library for that purpose. Those means of government, which may be justly styled moral, in contradistinction to physical, or the discipline of fear, are now so much better understood and practiced than they were twenty-five years ago, that there is far less excuse for the severe exercise of the rod than at a time when the |