encouragement, to seek secondary as well as elementary school work. In many States, too, a certain kind of elementary school work, principally found in the common ungraded schools, but also in many cases in the primary and grammar grades, is so very poorly remunerated that a normal graduate cannot afford to undertake it, and teachers are drawn from high schools, or even from the elementary schools themselves. Hitherto, also, the high schools have not been offering such inducements as to attract college-bred men and women to fill all their positions, and this has left many places for normal school graduates, who have naturally sought after them rather than after the less desirable places in the elementary schools.

It must be acknowledged that the mission of the normal school in our country is still a matter of uncertainty in regard to some of the particulars of its work, although it is perhaps definitely settled that it has a great, useful, and legitimate field in preparing those who are to have the direction of our public school work to undertake this vast responsibility in an intelligent and competent manner. But who are to partake of its privileges, and for what grade and class of work it is to prepare instructors, are still questions upon which schoolmen and the people at large disagree; nor are these difficulties confined to our own land, although they are not so formidable in those countries where the different parts of the school system are closely articulated, and the work of each part is definitely known. W. T. Harris, in his report of 1888-89, says of the normal schools of Austria: "It is the intention of the law that these schools should prepare teachers by means of purely professional training, but the minister states that many of them are still burdened with academic studies, from want of preparation on the part of candidates for admission; " and a similar statement might be made concerning the work of

the normal schools in most other European countries. This is, perhaps, the most serious problem that is before the normal school in our country to-day; for, on the one hand, the people in many localities where it has been newly established cry out against it as a needless extravagance, attempting work which can as well be accomplished by the high schools already in existence; and, on the other hand, it is found to be impossible to get students who have sufficient academic preparation to qualify them to undertake intelligently strictly professional work. This apparent overlapping of the provinces of the high and normal school has engendered a great deal of strife between them in the past, and in some localities this antagonism is still very annoying. Theoretically, the normal school is a strictly professional institution; it is established to lead its students to become acquainted with the nature of the child to be educated, and to understand how the subjects of instruction in the schools must be adapted to develop that nature in the best, broadest, and most speedy manner possible. It presupposes on the part of those who seek its instruction a knowledge of the different subjects upon which the child's mind is to be exercised in the school; but this knowledge has reference only to the facts of any subject arranged in a logical order, which constitutes it a science, and not to these facts in their relation to the growing, developing mind. In other words, the normal school expects its prospective students to have an academic or scientific knowledge of the branches of instruction, and its business will be to give them a teaching knowledge of the same subjects, to lead them to reflect upon, and become masters of, the best methods of stimulating the child's mind in order to achieve any desired result. It further expects to lead its students to become intelligently critical of all the conditions in their future schoolrooms which will affect the activity of their pupils' minds

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either favorably or unfavorably, and it will enable them to become skillful in so ordering the environment as to make all work toward the more ready and complete attainment of the wished-for end. This work is spoken of, generally, under the heads, psychology, pedagogy, methods of teaching the various branches, school economy, history of education, ethics, and apprenticeship, or practice teaching under criticism. Strictly speaking, this is all the normal school should attempt to do, and it is all it would do in a well defined, closely articulated school sys

tem.

With high school or college grad uates it would take perhaps two years to complete this work in proper fashion, although very much good could be gotten from it in one year. But, as is well known, there are few normal schools in our country that do only this professional work, most of them offering two or three years of distinctly academic or high school work, which the majority of students are obliged to take because of insufficient previous preparation. It is not usually the choice of the normal school that it does this high school work; on the contrary, it has generally striven to get along without it, but it has rarely been successful.

That there is often a just complaint against a waste of educational energy, while the normal school is doing what can and ought properly to be done by the high school, must certainly be acknowledged; but the blame must not be heaped upon the normal school alone, for it is but striving to adapt itself to the various needs of the school system of which it is a part. There is, in some instances at least, a justification for its offering academic courses; for it is often located in communities where the high schools cannot give the preparation needed, or are not numerous enough to accommodate all who would be obliged to attend them if graduation were necessary before entering the normal. This is especially true in many of the Western States, but

it can scarcely apply to many of the older Eastern States, where the normal schools offer about the same amount of academic work. In a community where there are abundant opportunities for academic preparation, as in Massachusetts or New York, it seems to many people to be wasteful of educational energy for the normal school to spend the better part of its strength in duplicating these opportunities; and yet, upon closer examination, it will not appear so wasteful, for it is known to all schoolmen that the academic work in the normal schools in these States is of a much higher character, from a pedagogical standpoint, than that done in the high schools, and illustrates to prospective teachers in a much sounder and better manner how the various subjects must be taught in their own schools; and the environment of the normal school is much more healthful and stimulative to the candidate for pedagogical insight and ability than is that of the academy or high school. In the one case the novice is surrounded constantly by conditions that indicate to him what will be essential for the most complete success in his future work; good illustrations and suggestions of the art of teaching are ever before him, and these cannot but have an influence, unrecognized though it may be, in preparing him the better for his work; and this, too, when he is busily engaged in his academic studies. In the other case he has no such surrounding influences; his associations in no wise suggest to him the character of the work he will be called upon to do in his own schools, and are no help whatever to him in preparing for it: there is no practice school, no experimental work in teaching all about him, about him, in short, no teaching at mosphere that the high school student continually inhales, as does his more favored normal competitor. This teaching environment has certainly a most beneficial influence upon the thousands of youth, all over our country, who remain

in the normal schools for a year or two, doing only academic work, and then go into the ordinary district schools to labor. They have seen somewhat of things pedagogical, and will have some star, of lesser magnitude though it may be, that will keep them looking forward and upward.

There are other reasons why the normal school has found it expedient to do academic work, and chief among them is this: that a great many who are now helped by the normal would never receive its benefits if they had to wait until they could first pursue a course in the high school. It is well known that it is in the main those who have become dependent upon their own efforts for a livelihood who look forward to securing such positions as the normal school can prepare them for; and, consequently, it is this needy class of students that the normal school receives. And again, the positions which these normal - trained teachers will fill do not offer such financial returns as will encourage them to make elaborate and scholarly preparation for their work. If they take places in the elementary schools, and it is with tacit understanding that they will do this that the State has given them their education, they will receive little more, and in some States no more, than the ordinary unskilled laborer working on the farm or in the woods. The average wages paid to elementary teachers in sixty-nine of the principal cities given in Commissioner Harris's last report does not exceed sixty dollars per month, and in many cities it falls considerably below this, for positions such as the ordinary normal school graduate can fill; while the average wages paid to district school teachers in most of the Eastern States does not exceed twenty-five dollars per month, and in some of the Western and Southern States it is appreciably less. Most of the cities that pay good wages have private normal schools now to prepare their own teachers, so that

this leaves only the poorly paid positions in elementary and some secondary schools for the graduates of the state normal school.

If, then, the normal school is to prepare teachers for the common schools, it cannot exact a very high standard of preparatory training from them, and at the same time give them such professional instruction as it now attempts to. It feels that it cannot ask them to spend four years in the high school before they can enjoy its privileges; but instead it must give high and normal school training combined, in two, three, or four years, as the case may require. If the normal school should refuse to accommodate itself in this way to the common schools, the result would be, as has been shown in two or three notable instances, that, on the one hand, it would get few students, those only who are looking toward the higher positions in secondary schools; and on the other hand, the common schools would employ only those who have had very little, if any professional training, and the purpose of the normal school would thus be frustrated. It is not true as yet, at least in most parts of our country, that the normal school can set the standard for the common school by raising its own requirements for admission and graduation. The normal is at present being conditioned by the common school, instead of setting it a standard. And this seems eminently proper, in a certain sense; for while in matters pedagogical the normal school should be authority, yet in matters financial and in the general subject of common school education the voice of the people should be heard.

Is the normal school, then, doing just what is best under the circumstances? And, in the general evolution of our school system, will it always take and hold its rightful place? From its history it would seem that it has had to get its present place by more or less of violence, and it is not to be believed that

its future is to be free from struggles in attaining the ideals that have long been before it. In order that the normal school shall attempt only professional work, or more advanced work of any kind than it is attempting now, it must first have some assurance that its teachers will find such places in the schools as will warrant them in spending the required amount of time and money in preparation. Legislation must ordain that no teacher shall be employed in any school, toward the maintenance of which public funds are appropriated, unless he shall have a certain amount of professional training; this amount to be determined by the character of the school he is to teach, and the ability of the people in the community to compensate him for his work. This would have a most salutary effect upon the common schools themselves, making them far more efficient than they now are, and enabling them to accomplish more fully the purposes for which they are established and supported at public expense. In his report of 1891-92, as secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, John W. Dickinson says: "It is a great mis

fortune to the schools that about fifteen hundred new recruits annually enter the corps of public school teachers. The time has long passed when it should be possible for a person to enter the ranks without special training, successful practice under searching criticism, and certification for the work by proper authorities. When such requirements are made imperative, the supply will no longer exceed the demand; then wages for teaching will rise to the level of those paid for clerical work and other professional service." When this is done, the work of the normal school will be more clearly defined. It can demand of its students such an amount of preparatory training as will enable them intelligently to undertake its professional work, and it can organize its instruction so as to prepare teachers for the com

mon schools, feeling sure that they will be needed.

Looking at the work of the normal school in some of the European countries, we find a somewhat different, and in many respects more favorable condition of affairs. In Prussia, at the close of the year 1889, there were one hundred and sixteen normal schools under the direction of the government, all of which were preparing teachers solely for the people's, or elementary schools. No teacher can find a permanent position in these people's schools unless he possesses a diploma from one of the normals; and the effect of this is to draw into the schools only those who have had professional instruction. It must be granted that the work of the normal school, wherever found, and its relative position in a school system, must be determined by the character of the rest of the system, since it is not properly an institution of learning in itself, but a training school, designed to give healthy and wholesome direction to the schools that are concerned with learning in literature and in the arts and sciences. Now, in Prussia, teaching is a life business, and the teacher is a state officer, who receives a pension when he becomes incapacitated by age for profitable labor. The Prussian government is able to determine approximately how many teachers will be needed for the schools each year, and it can so order the normal school work as just to supply these needs. In our own country, of course, there is no such certainty; for no one has any idea how many new teachers will be needed at any given period, since very many of those employed at any time are only working under a sort of compulsion, looking forward to some fortuitous circumstance, such as marriage or a favorable business opportunity, to release them from their captivity. Our elementary schools, too, it seems, are not regarded so highly by the people at large as are the people's schools

in Prussia, and consequently the social position of our elementary teachers is not so favorable in comparison; and this does not encourage teachers of talent to go into our common schools, but leaves the places instead to persons with scanty preparation and culture as well as a lack of native strength and ability. In France, there are now about one hundred and seventy normal schools, or "training colleges," that prepare teachers for the elementary schools only; while several higher training colleges, such as the well-known École Normale Supérieure at Paris, in the Sorbonne, and chairs of pedagogy at Lyons, Bordeaux, and Toulouse, afford the teachers in the higher schools whatever professional training they get. In Prussia, the departments of pedagogy in the universities afford opportunities to prepare for the higher positions. In Scotland, the seven training colleges and the chairs of pedagogy at St. Andrews and Edinburgh prepare teachers for all grades of the schools; and here, as in Prussia, the state gives such protection and encouragement to its teachers as to lead all who enter the profession to remain there. In England, the efforts of the forty-four training colleges are spent mainly in supplying the elementary schools with teachers, although work of a higher grade has been encouraged; and now Oxford and Cambridge are making provisions to prepare teachers for the higher positions. The normal school work in Austria and Hungary is much like that in Prussia, being made very definite because of the definiteness of the different phases of the school system as a whole.

In comparison with these countries, it can be seen that the normal school with us has as yet a rather uncertain field of work, so far as the preparation of teachers for any particular grade of school instruction is concerned. The place which its originators in this country expected it would fill is being filled now, in some States, by teachers' classes for a term or VOL. LXXIII. — NO. 440.

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so in the academies and high schools; in other States, by summer schools and teachers' institutes; while in a few the field is still vacant. The normal school in our country has ever been ambitious to do work of a higher character than would fit its students to labor contentedly in the humble institutions that correspond approximately to the people's schools in other lands; and that this is a worthy ambition need not be denied here. But as our educational facilities have increased, and our school work as a whole has aimed toward higher standards, there has been a growing sentiment that the higher positions in teaching should demand a broad general as well as professional education, and it has never been seriously maintained that the normal school could or ought to give the first of these. So the colleges and universities have risen to the occasion, and have added chairs and departments to their regular curricula, designed to afford opportunities for some professional instruction for such college students as intend to become teachers. A few universities, such as De Pauw, Hillsdale, the University at Nashville, Tenn., and others, have established veritable nor mal schools, which do work much like that of the ordinary public normal school, except perhaps that they are enabled, because of their environment, to maintain more scholarly standards. In addition there have been founded independent normal colleges, such as the New York College for the Training of Teachers and the college at Albany, N. Y., which do strictly professional work of a high character; aiming to fit their students for positions in training schools, for principalships, superintendencies, etc. They are, properly speaking, post-graduate professional schools. There has been a strong desire felt of late, also, by many of the better class of the state normal schools, to found post-graduate departments, where work like that of the independent normal colleges can be done, admitting to