I know not whether the Commissioners of Education found the monitorial
system of instruction in such of the old hedge schools as maintained an
obstinate resistance to the innovations of modern plans. That Bell and
Lancaster deserve much credit for applying and extending the principle
(speaking without any reference to its merits) I do not hesitate to
grant; but it is unquestionably true, that the principle was reduced
to practice in Irish hedge schools long before either of these worthy
gentlemen were in existence. I do not, indeed, at present remember
whether or not they claim it as a discovery, or simply as an adaptation
of a practice which experience, in accidental cases, had found useful,
and which they considered capable of more extensive benefit. I remember
many instances, however, in which it was applied--and applied, in my
opinion, though not as a permanent system, yet more judiciously than
it is at present. I think it a mistake to suppose that silence, among a
number of children in school, is conducive to the improvement either
of health or intellect, that the chest and the lungs are benefited by
giving full play to the voice, I think will not be disputed; and that a
child is capable of more intense study and abstraction in the din of a
school-room, than in partial silence (if I may be permitted the word),
is a fact, which I think any rational observation would establish. There
is something cheering and cheerful in the noise of friendly voices about
us--it is a restraint taken off the mind, and it will run the lighter
for it--it produces more excitement, and puts the intellect in a better
frame for study. The obligation to silence, though it may give the
master more ease, imposes a new moral duty upon the chil--the sense of
which must necessarily weaken his application. Let the boy speak aloud,
if he pleases--that is, to a certain pitch; let his blood circulate; let
the natural secretions take place, and the physical effluvia be thrown
off by a free exercise of voice and limbs: but do not keep him dumb and