qui se réjouit de vivre ; je prends une part fraternelle à son bonheur. Compagnons d'armes dans la bataille terrestre, qu'importe à qui va le prix de la victoire? Si la fortune passe à nos côtés sans nous voir, et prodigue ses caresses à d'autres, consolons-nous comme l'ami de Parménion, en disant: Ceux-là sont aussi Alexandre.

The descriptions I have hitherto given of course apply only to the schools of large towns, where the number of children demand, and the funds allow of, the best possible arrangements, and the most desirable system of subdivisions.

In the thinly-populated and poor country districts, the whole educational provision consists, probably, in a single "mixed school" held during the summer session of, perhaps, three months, by some female teacher, more or less qualified, at a salary seldom exceeding $20 per month (or sometimes a much smaller sum, eked out by free board provided in turn by the different families of the place); and in the winter for a similar term by some young College student, whose slender means make him glad thus to contribute to his own expenses for the rest of the year. It is in this

manner, for instance, that the undergraduates of Oberlin frequently spend their long winter vacation; timed, indeed, for this purpose. These temporary masters receive very small salaries, paying perhaps from $20 to $40 per month,-£3 to £6 at the present rate of exchange.

The very large number of these poorly-paid schools reduce the salaries in Massachusetts (in no instances high), to a monthly average of $21.82 for a female, and $54.77 for a male teacher,* or (as exchange stands at present,) about £3 3s. for a woman, and £7 15s. for

a man.

The whole number of public schools of all grades and classes in this State is 4,749.

*

Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

CHAPTER VII.

(The Public Schools, continued.)

SALEM NORMAL SCHOOL.

THE Normal Schools in Massachusetts are four in number, two of them being devoted to the education of female teachers only, and two to that of both sexes. This fact illustrates the preponderance in number of female teachers throughout the States, though it is rare for a woman to be at the head of any of the High or Normal Schools.

Believing it better to master thoroughly the working of one Normal school than to see something of them all, I attended the one at Salem for more than a week continuously, meeting with the most courteous welcome from all the teachers, and seeing more and more to interest me each day, till at length my one regret was that I could not transplant the whole affair bodily to England, that other

teachers might share my pleasure in seeing any school so thoroughly well worked as this was by its excellent Head Master and a firstrate staff of most earnest lady teachers, whose actual erudition was almost overwhelming.

Indeed, the amount of sheer learning acquired by really good teachers in America has often surprised me, and it is, as I have before remarked, the more striking when, as is so often the case, it co-exists with a very imperfect knowledge of English.

Each of the teachers at Salem has her own especial class of subjects, and to each is moreover assigned more or less charge of some one of the classes.

The number of pupils at Salem is about 120, and of teachers (besides the Head Master) 8. The pupils are divided into four classes, respectively lettered A, B, C, D, of which "A" is the most advanced, and "D" the least so. At the completion of the two years of study represented by these classes, such students as desire still further instruction may enter an "Advanced Class," which, generally speaking, receives only the créme de la créme.

Students are not admitted to the Normal

School under the age of sixteen, and spend their first term in Class D.

The studies of this class comprise grammar, including analysis and syntax, the geography of the Western Continent, history of the United States, arithmetic and algebra, with some study of chemistry and physiology. In grammar and analysis the teaching is chiefly on a system devised by a late head-master, not altogether unlike that of Morell, but not, I think, equal to his. In geography and physiology a plan is pursued which I understand to be borrowed from the Westfield Normal School. While any state or country, or any portion of the structure of the body, is described by one pupil, the whole class draws the same with chalk on black boards which surround the room. This system was entirely new to me, and seemed very efficacious in securing thorough understanding of the subject by all. Its adoption at Salem was an instance of wise and liberal variation from old custom, the teacher whose duty it was to teach the subjects above-named being a graduate of Westfield, and being allowed to teach according to her own idea.