can become a Teacher at all will be immeasurably helped by his influence; and those who cannot, can be kindly told of their inability, and saved the disgrace and loss which would have followed their attempted labors in the Public Schools.

Nor is the Principal's task completed when the graduates of a given term have received their parchments. He should be a welcome guest among his brethren of the profession, whose sympathy with his work can be manifested in numberless ways. In vacations, when other men rest from all labor, he should, whenever possible, spend much time in obtaining his rest by change of toil. At the County Institutes his influence should be felt whenever he can attend in vacation; and even in term-time, if he has assistance enough in the School, he should be willing to go out for a lecture or a lesson where Teachers are to be aided and the School made known. He should visit the Public Schools in these vacations, with one or more of his own pupil-Teachers, if that may be, and give a cheering word to faithful Teachers in retired country districts, where it is likely no word of cheer would otherwise be heard. If men in Private Schools, where their pecuniary interest are concerned in the number of pupils that may be obtained, can find energy to travel out and electioneer for pupils, the Normal Principal has surely a right to go out and work for the State, to counsel with the people and suggest to the waiting youth, who need only a word of invitation, the advantages of the State Normal School for those who wish to teach for two or three years, if not for life.

Mr. Page went out, in his first summer vacation, through the central part of New York attending Institutes: the Normal Board making an appropriation especially for his expenses; and after that his vacations were usually spent in different portions of the State in this missionary work. The State Superintendent used to say he "could tell where Mr. Page had spent his vacations by looking over the catalogue of the State Normal School for the following term," because his tours were always followed by new students seeking the Institution where Teachers were trained for their work. Without these indefatigable labors upon the part of some one-and the Principal is always the best one-it is doubtful whether in most States a Normal School can become sufficiently known to command the attendance of half the persons who need and who would be willing, if they knew of them, to secure its advantages.

I have mentioned New York as an instance where energetie work commanded success. In New Jersey success was secured by similar exertion. The Principal arranged the inside workings well, and then began the outside work with a will. People began to wake up; and pupil-Teachers came, poorly prepared, it is true, but still those who could become noble Teachers by patient perseverance in their training. None were rejected; and the work was continued by faithful assistants and by unwearying toil outside, until to-day New Jersey stands at the head of the States in this great matter of Normal School instruction.

The Assistant Teachers should be of like spirit with the Principal-willing to work, and to modify their peculiar methods, if a greater harmony of action would thereby result for the more complete success of the Institution. They should be to the Principal a repetition of the Aaron and Hur who stayed the hands of Moses through the weary battle day; and if they are, the victory will as surely come as in the olden time it came to them.

Intimately connected with a State Normal School, and as I think an essential part of it, is the Model (or Experimental) School, or School for Practice. This is, in effect, a Public School properly organized, and includes pupils in all stages of advancement, from the alphabet to the higher branches of an ordinary English education. Under the superintendence of skilful permanent instructors and the general supervision of the Normal Principal, the pupil-Teacher has here the opportunity to see the principles and spirit of his theory tested and illustrated, and not only to observe their application in the hands of others, but to apply them himself; thus learning by precept, by

experience, and by the friendly criticism of the Teachers, how to conduct when he comes to assume alone the responsibilities of the profession.

In Illinois, the Model Department contains over one hundred and fifty pupils, under two permanent Teachers, and is graded throughout so that the Normal students have constantly before them all classes, from the primary to the highest in the High School. In Connecticut, the First School District in the town where the Normal School is located, by vote placed the Public School in charge of the Institution. Here more than five hundred pupils are graded, and taught under the general superintendence of two or three permanent Teachers, beside the Normal Principal, and the teaching is chiefly by the Normal classes.

I well remember the two weeks I spent in the Experimental Department of the New York State Normal School during my Senior term. There were about eighty children, classed in about four divisions. The pupil-Teachers spent one week in the School, which was in convenient rooms of the Normal building, observing the methods pursued by their predecessors, and learning the plan and order of exercises. On the second week they became the responsible Teachers themselves, while a new set of four was occupied in observing. It fell to my lot to have charge of the large room, occupying the Principal's place, and responsible for the regularity of classes as well as the general conduct of affairs. Sometimes the Principal would be absent for an hour or two in the other class rooms, and, again, he would sit at his desk, apparently occupied in writing or showing visitors what was going on. Yet I knew that all the time of his apparent inattention, a careful, friendly eye was upon me. After the exercises of the day were over, sometimes a word was privately spoken of encouragement or counsel, and sometimes the eight pupil-Teachers would be together, for the purpose of listening to informal suggestions from him in regard to the minutia of the various teachings he had seen, or in regard to the best ways of getting at the minds of our pupils in recitation. At least once during our week of work we were to give a general exercise, embracing the principle of what has since made so much noise in the educational world as Object Teaching. It was usually about ten minutes long, and was more or less interesting, according to the Teacher himself; but I remember it was always looked forward to by the children as "a good time coming."

Probably, in addition to such independent and responsible teaching for a week or two, it would be well to adopt the system pursued in some other Model Schools where the pupil-Teacher is given one class to consider his own for the term or the half term, and which he can attend to without interference with his regular duties in the Normal School itself. This class exercise might sometimes be conducted before the assembled pupil-Teachers; after which such comments as they choose should be made, with the reasons in all cases fully mentioned.

The pupils in the Model School become quick judges of character; and while their course is pursued under the disadvantage of frequent change of Teachers, their progress is usually such that a seat in the Model School is eagerly sought whenever a vacancy occurs. In the New York School, at one time nearly half the seats were free for fatherless children in the city, while others were charged twenty dollars per year to sustain expenses. Afterwards, tuition was charged for all, and even then I remember. one session when ten vacancies occurred, there were one hundred applications to fill them. Some years, from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars accrue, beyond expenses for permanent Teachers, etc., which sum was added to the fund for the support of the Normal School. I am of the opinion that it is better, on the whole, to have a charge for tuition made, than to place the Model School on the basis of a regular Public Free School as forming a part of the city system of Free Schools.

I regard the Model School as important in other respects. Many applications for Teachers always come to the Principal of the Normal School; and he is here furnished with the means of judging wisely which of the pupil-Teachers is best adapted to fill a

particular place. Sometimes one Teacher will fail where another, no better, will suoceed, because of some individual trait possessed by the one which is not by the other. We should not expect-we should not desire to have all Normal graduates alike. The Normal School is not a mill for grinding out Teachers; it is not a machine turning out pieces just so many feet long by so many broad, each of which will fit equally well in a given place. It applies the same general principles in the science of education to all, and adds to these attention to the peculiarities of each pupil-Teacher. It does not aim to make all Teachers alike, but it aims to make all good Teachers. Without the tests of the Model School, the Principal may often send a good Teacher to the wrong place; but here he judges of each practically, and is able to appoint wisely where he appoints at all.

Another excellent purpose subserved by the Model School may be in the application there of old principles in new ways. In the Public Schools, strictly so called, the Teachers have little opportunity to try new methods for the sake of trying them; it is rather their duty to use methods already tested and approved in the best possible way. But in the Model School new systems of instruction may be rationally tested. When some Herbert Spencer, working in his quiet closet, announces a discovery in educational processes which ought to revolutionize the Schools of the world, it may be tried here, and with definite results, before placing it in the hands of the multitude as all it is claimed by its author to be. In organization and discipline this should be, indeed, a Model School, furnishing the pupil-Teacher a thing to remember and copy whenever it it is possible to transfer its excellence to fitting soil.

But it is not alone in the Model School that the pupil-Teacher is compelled to test his powers. Where there are Teachers enough in the institution, and the number of pupils is sufficiently large, experiments may be tried upon the most forbidding ground. I remember an instance of this sort which was narrated at the last meeting of the American Normal School Association, by Professor Phelps, of the New Jersey State Normal School, and am glad to be able to give it in his own words:

There was established, about a year ago, in this city, (Trenton, N. J.,) a School for friendless children. They were brought together by some ladies, clothed and fed, and an effort was made to instruct them and train them to habits of usefulness. The question was: How can they be instructed? We made a proposition to give all the instruction that the children might require, if they would see that they were in School each day at a given hour. We fitted up a room, and the children were brought into it. They were the most ungovernable children I ever saw. One little boy, only four years old, used oaths such as I had never heard, and his breath was so offensive with liquor that a person of delicate nerves could not stand near him. They were all over the room, whistling and dancing. Two persons were selected from our most advanced class, a little advice was given them, and they were required to go into that room and bring those children under subjection, to mark out a course of instruction for them, and to do by them as all children should be done by in a good School. The first three or four days were dark ones to those Teachers. But they went at it with hope and a good spirit; the gentle yet powerful influence of love was employed; the children were affectionately dealt with for the first time in their lives. In consequence of that treatment, in two weeks they were brought to a good degree of order; in four weeks it would be impossible to distinguish between them and any other like number of children; and at the end of four months it would be difficult to determine that they did not belong to the better classes in society. An exhibition of the results of four month's instruction was given in one of the churches of the city, and the result satisfied the large audience not only as to the practicability of Experimental Schools, but also as to the almost superhuman power of education when it is conducted according to the true theory, and in the right spirit.

Thus prepared by thorough study in the subjects to be taught, and having a general knowledge of subjects beyond the routine work of the School room, but connected intimately with it, conversant with the principles which underlie all systems and processes

of instruction, familiar with the experience of the best minds in the profession in respect of the organization and discipline of Public Schools, and actuated by high motives of duty and a just sense of responsibility to his pupils and to his State, the Normal graduate goes out to his humble, holy life, well fitted for its cares, and worthy of its rewards. He will be painfully conscious of the deficiencies which may exist in himself; but he will know how to correct them, and he will be able to modify his theories and adapt them to the peculiar circumstances which may surround him in his new field. He becomes, moreover, in some sense a Normal centre, from which new life will be imparted to the Teachers already striving nobly in the warfare before him. And while during his days of preparation there may be times when the drill-work and the repetitions of educational principles seem tedious and useless, he will find, as the years roll on, more and more cause of gratitude for the advantages secured by his training in the State Normal School. Such, at least, has been my own experience, and that of most with whom I associated in my student days.

In our adopted State the experiment of sustaining a Normal School is about to close its first year. The difficulties have been very great; but one difficulty, which was perhaps the most dreaded, has been entirely removed. It was feared that where other employments afford so great inducements for active minds, there would be no students for a Normal School. But even now the number is estimated by the score, and not by the unit. The year has demonstrated that even here, in the land of gold, there are young men and women who are willing to give themselves for the benefit of the race, and who, after full knowledge of the conditions, have accepted them all, and entered this Institution with full purpose to prepare well for the Teacher's work. As soon as the organization is completed, and there is a chance to do for these students what they need to have done, who can doubt that earnest-hearted men and women will be added greatly to this noble few, and the influences already at work will continue increasing in power for good until the number of students shall go by fifties, if not by hundreds, instead of scores, as now. The Teachers have done well. Too few ip number to accomplish the half of what their hearts longed to accomplish, they have labored on in hope; and have brought to this Institute som hints of the success which the Normal methods are yet to make general throughout the State. Three Teachers, with so many Normal methods are yet to make general throughout the State. Three Teachers, with so many Normal and Model pupils, in such rooms as they have used, with such apparatus as was theirs-in fact, no apparatus at all—have had full work in simple instruction, and could not possibly have done towards the strictly professional training what ought to be done. But they have cleared the way, have been the pioneers in this especial work-which we hope yet to see carried on in a building and with conveniences as worthy as those of our Society of California Pioneers.

The Legislature and the people are willing to do their part. The three thousand dollars given for the first year, became six thousand dollars for the coming year; and if the experiment succeeds, as the Teachers of the State have the power to make it, this last sum may be doubled after a time, when a Faculty may be secured numerous enough to do all parts of the Normal labor well, both for the classes who will throng the rooms, and for the outside work among the Teachers in their various fields.

My object in this address has not been to consider what can actually be accomplished in this State with its Normal School, for I have not yet been sufficiently long a citizen to form a just opinion as to how much is attainable in our present circumstances. My object has been to place before you the idea of the Normal School, and its details, so far as they can be generally set forth. All the arguments which support the establishment of these institutions in other States have equal force in this new land and in this early time. Other States have, indeed, waited for their maturity in years before they thought of a Normal School. This State, in fact, is as mature as if the fathers had lived here before the sons who are working now, and has its needs as

sharply defined. Most pressing of these needs is not a University, important and desirable as that is acknowledged to be-but a place where Teachers for the Public Schools can be trained as such, for laying the foundation of the work which the University will eventually complete and perfect. To me there seems no possibility of doubt in respect of the natural order of time in their full establishment by the State. Let us have them both, if we can; if we cannot, let us have the State Normal School, and in due time you shall find the University, with students well grounded in the elements of knowledge, and prepared to carry forward all true learning in a spirit worthy of our age and our clime.