To the Public: In assuming the relation of Editor, of a public journal, which is designed for an extended circulation, the undersigned hopes he has duly weighed the responsibilities attached to the station.

Wholly unused to appear before the public, in a capacity to attract attention, and this effort being attributable to the urgent solicitations of friends; he cannot but hope that his inexperience will serve as an apology for errors . . .

. . . There is no medium through which history of the day can be brought to our fire-sides with equal facility.  Newspapers are to the present times, what History is to the past. Alike, the faithful chroniclers of past and passing events, there is this important difference; while History recounts events long past, and compresses within a narrow compass the subjects to which they relate, Newspapers give the minuteness of detail to all its incidents . . .

We are of the number, who believe that all the honesty, virtue, and patriotism, are exclusively the property of any one party, or set of men; on the contrary, we are ready to aid by our humble efforts, in giving currency to correct principles come from whom they may . . .

A portion of our paper will be devoted to the interests of Education. Remarks and selections will be made with a view to the elevation of the character of Common Schools, and to beget in the young mind a thirst for intellectual acquirements and virtuous distinction. The acquirement of an Education may be made an attractive business by combining amusement with instruction. In this important particular our present system of Education, as practiced in the Common Schools is lamentably deficient. Our remarks in future upon this subject will be less General . . .

H. K. Smith.

Akron, Aug. 19, 1937.

AKRON SELECT SCHOOL

We have, to be sure, colleges and academies in abundance, more than can be supported, or that can be made economical and useful. But these are in a measure consecrated to the learned professions - to the privileged few - for they are privileged, in as much as they are the exclusive recipients of public bounty in the higher branches of learning. Productive labor derives little or no advantage from their teachings. Few of the youth who enter their halls ever seek for a livelihood in the laboring arts. They learn to look upon labor, as servile and demeaning, and to seek their level in what they consider the higher clas­ses of society. They do not go to their schools to learn to work; or to learn to live by work, in the common meaning of these terms - but to learn to live without work - above work. They are virtually withdrawn from the producing classes. Those young aspirants flock to the learned professions, and the genteel employments, as the avenues to honors anti to office; and notwithstanding that labor is taxed heavily, in one way or another, to supply their real or imaginary wants, yet the genteel professions have become so overstocked, and the threshold of power so thronged with supplicants, that hundreds and thousands are thrown back, as parasites, upon society exhibiting the melancholy spectacle of men born to be useful, but unable, or unwilling, from the bins of wrong education, to become so. Had these men been taught to look upon labor, as it truly is, a necessary, healthful, independent, real honorable employment, and been instructed in its principles and its practice, while young, they would have cherished its interests, respected its virtues, and cheerfully spared in its toils and its pleasures. We seek not, by these remarks, to pull down that which is, but to build up that which is not. It is not that we love a part less, but the whole more. We would raise the standard of labor, without depressing that of literature.

“SUSPENDED”

It will be perceived by the following notice that the Van Buren paper, formerly published in this village, has “suspended.” The intelligence of this part of Ohio, will not require it to “resume.” - Ed. Balance.

AKRON JOURNAL

    SCHOOLS

     The season of winter schools is at hand, it may not be amiss to call attention of our readers, to this all-important subject. Already have the competent, the incompetent, the industrious, the lazy; the intelligent, communicative, clear sighted, aspiring teacher, and the dull-eyed, thick-skulled, drone C taken the field in search of winter quarters. With men of intelligence, it is not a difficult matter to decide which of these characters apply to them for patronage, and which it is best to employ.

     The author of our existence has placed in our hands the training of minds, which are destined to shine in this and a future world, or are to become the pests of society, and their futurity, the plague of their own hearts. The different results are in a great measure, dependent upon the kind of instruction which they receive in the juvenile years, and the manner in which that instruction is presented. It would be hazarding nothing, in saying that more than half of the time of children is wasted while in school, for want of proper instruction.

     The principle of investigation the why and the wherefore. Of everything should be attended to, but seldom is. No child should be suffered to step upon a new subject until the one under consideration is fully explained, and until he can explain it himself. But practice is far different.

     In the ordinary course, the child,  investigates for himself, never understands fully the most simple proposition of elementary studies of a common school. The observation has been made, and is here  the majority of the scholars do not know their letters. This is wholly owing to the neglect or incompetence of the teachers. Who then, with these facts before them, will entrust the education of their scholars, (we had almost said, their future destiny,) to the guardianship of incompetence!

     Many lazy fellows, who are adverse to labor and cold weather, seek a retreat in a school house and take upon themselves the responsible office of instructors of youth. They ask but small wages, can read without spelling more than half the words, write their name, and cipher as far as simple interests; but without the ability of disposition to explain intelligibly, one single proposition, which occurs in their boasted requirements.

     We hope that no district will be afflicted with one of these murderers of the time of scholars, the coming winter; but we very much fear, that already, they may have got a hold from which it will be difficult to dislodge them.

     Look to these things! Ye who have children under your care, let no specious pretensions on the part of the teacher, deter you from fully satisfying your mind, that he is not only competent, but that he actually does keep a good school.

     The difference between a good and a bad teacher , can not be estimated. A good teacher takes the minds of the scholars along with their progress, a poor one drives their bodies. Dollars and cents do not enter into the account. There is a value which is infinitely beyond the paltry consideration of dollars and cents.