In addition to _normal schools_ (for training teachers,) an able writer in the Edinburgh Review (to which[8] I owe the particulars of the Prussian, German, and French school systems) suggests, in my opinion very judiciously, the attaching of a Professorship to Colleges, for lecturing upon the _art of instruction_; to be called the professorship of _Didactics_. Such a chair, ably filled, would be invaluable for multiplying enlightened teachers, and for enhancing the dignity of that under-estimated pursuit. Conjointly with the normal schools, it would soon ensure an abundant supply of instructors for all the common schools. [Footnote 8: Nos. 116, 117--July and October, 1833--reviewing several works of _M. Cousin_, who went as commissioner from France, to explore and report upon the Prussian and German systems of public instruction.] _The kinds of knowledge_ which should be studied in the schools, and diffused by books, tracts, and oral lectures, among the people, form an important topic of consideration. It is not for me, at least now and here, to obtrude an inventory of my favorite subjects, or favorite books: but the claims of a few subjects upon our regard are so overshadowing, as to make dissent scarcely possible, and their omission wholly unpardonable, in any extensive view of the connexion between _popular education_, and _popular government_. Foremost of these, is the subject of Constitutional Law, and Political Right: something of which might be taught, even in childhood. If the children of Rome were obliged, at school, to lay up in memory the laws of the Twelve Tables, with all their ferocious absurdities; how much more should the children of our country learn those fundamental laws, which guarantee to them the noble inheritance of a rational and virtuous freedom! Even to very young minds, the structure and powers of our two governments may be rendered intelligible by familiar and impartial treatises, with clear oral explanations. The merit of impartiality in these political lessons, is illustrated by the odiousness of a departure from it, which startled me the other day, in reading the THIRTY-FIFTH EDITION of a popular and in other respects an excellent History of the United States,[9] {21} designed for schools; where that section[10] of the Federal Constitution which declares the powers of Congress, is presented thus: "The Congress of the United States shall have power to make and enforce _all laws which are necessary to_ THE GENERAL WELFARE--AS to lay and collect taxes," &c.--going on to enumerate the specified powers, as _mere examples_ of Congressional omnipotence! And the myriads of tender minds, which probably already owe all their knowledge of the Constitution to the abstract where this precious morsel of political doctrine occurs, can hardly fail to carry through life the impression, that the powers of Congress are virtually as unbounded as those of the British Parliament.