Only one point remains—What, after all, do these schools teach? It has been lately objected to them that they aim at information, and not at the development of the faculties; and that they do not cultivate the taste. We are speaking of the common schools, and so of course are thinking of what school education in America does for the artisan and labouring class, and the lower stratum of the middle class; that is, children corresponding to those who are taught in our national schools, and those of a somewhat higher grade in society. Are the faculties (for that is the word insisted on by the most recent writer on the subject) of these two classes at all more developed here at home by our schools, than they are in America by their common schools? Or what fruit does our system bear among these classes in the refinement and the cultivation of the taste? Or, to put the question in the ordinary way, Are these classes better taught, rendered better able to use their wits, and rescued to a greater extent from the brutalising effects of ignorance among ourselves, or among them? Could the American system do more for these classes? If it could, I should be disposed to say it might do more for them on the very point where it is alleged that it does comparatively too much, that of giving information. But I do not say this because I thoroughly approved of so much time being devoted not in the least to imparting information, but to what is the main point in the schooling of those who must leave school very young—the teaching them to read, to write, and to cipher, with accuracy and facility. Among ourselves there is an enormous amount of failure in these primary matters; among the Americans there is very little failure in them. They teach their scholars to write with so much ease, that we may be sure they will never forget or lay aside the use of the pen; and they teach them to read with so much ease, and so much with the understanding, that we may be sure they will continue to read when they have left school. Do our schools accomplish this? [Sidenote: _The Dawn of a Better Day._]