II. EDUCATIONAL BIOGRAPHY. WARREN BURTON. REV. WARREN BURTON, author of "District School as it was," and "Helps to Home Education," was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, November 23, 1800. His mother, before her marriage, was a teacher, and the traditional reputation of her gentleness and goodness is embodied by the son in the character of "Mary Smith." His own happy training in the family of his grandparents, after the death of his father and mother, suggested those views and sentiments of the incalculable importance of the home as a school of Christian wisdom and love, which afterwards found expression in his teaching from the pulpit and by his pen. With no previous advantages than a district-school, he achieved by himself a preparation for college, with the occasional instructions of a good parish minister who lived two miles off; and entered old Harvard in 1817, where he graduated with distinction in 1821. After the usual probation of school-keeping, he entered the Theological Institution at Cambridge, and after a three years' course, was approved and in 1828 ordained and settled at East Cambridge. But this connection was soon amicably dissolved, and henceforth he devoted himself to special objects of philanthropy, the most prominent of which was the school and home training of children. By addresses formal and informal, in school-houses, lecture rooms, State-houses, and churches, by articles in the newspapers, contributions to educational journals, and by more formal publications, and by the widest correspondence and personal intercourse, Mr. Burton has arrested parental attention to this all important subject, and deserves, by the permanent good done, to be regarded as a public benefactor. His “District School as it was," from its lively and spirited pictures of the wretched condition of the common school in the rural portions of New England, was widely read in quarters where more formal expositions would not have been listened to or heeded, and helped to revolutionize public sentiment and public action in rural school edifices and management. His lecture on cultivating a taste for Natural Scenery as the earliest, broadest, and liveliest exercise of the observing faculties, and the most direct method of reaching the imagination and the æsthethic portion of our nature-afterwards enlarged and published as "Scenery Showing, or Word Painting, of the Beautiful, Picturesque, and Grand in Nature," opened up a new field of educational discussion and practice. His "Helps to Education in the Homes of our Country," a volume of 368 pages, published in 1863, contains a Lecture on Parental Responsibility-a Lecture on Government, Management, and No Government in the Family-a Lecture on the Management of Self-hood-Suggestions on the Discipline of the Observing FacultiesTopics of Religious Education-The First Knowledge of the Creator-The First and Great Commandment-The Child's First Ideas of Jesus-The Bible-a series of subjects of the highest practical value discussed in a most interesting and masterly manner. |