The teaching of morality may not seem to be included under the title of this paper, yet such teaching is specified in the statute books of many States. The evils which have begun to overtake us as a people because of our lack of morality and integrity will not be remedied by attempting to teach morality in our schools, as history or grammar is taught. If our public schools are to contribute as they should to the moral elevation of the nation, the whole work of the school must be perceived, by both pupil and teacher, to rest on moral grounds. When a normal graduate takes charge of a school, he should be able and ready to show his pupils the rightfulness of doing the work required of them. He should administer the government of the school in accordance with recognized laws of right, and as a means to a true moral culture.

The normal school, then, must furnish daily instruction in the principles and in the application of the principles of morality by leading its pupils to direct their action, not in accordance with selfish motives, but in accordance with the eternal laws of duty and of right.

In consequence of the fact that interesting papers were to be read in other Departments, especially those of Mrs. KRAUS-BOELTE in the Elementary, and Pres. J. D. RUNKLE, in the Industrial Department, the Department adjourned until Thursday.

Third Day's Proceedings.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1877.

The Department met at 3 P. M. C. C. ROUNDS, Principal of the Normal' School at Farmington, Maine, being absent, his paper, the following, was: read by GRACE C. BIBB:

ATTACKS ON NORMAL SCHOOLS.

It can not be counted as one among the glories of our Centennial year,, that in several States of this Union, East and West, it has been marked by attacks upon our Normal-School system, Facing the triumphs of Machinery Hall and other departments of the great Exposition at Philadelphia, we could not repress a certain exultant delight at these evidences of the intelligence of the American people. We pointed to them as results of popular education, and felt that as teachers we had a right to a share in the triumph. That Pedagogy is a Science; that Teaching is a profession; that Normal Schools have the same inherent right as other professional Schools to honorable regard, we have come to consider so evidently true, that these attacks. excite in us emotions of a nature opposite to those aroused by the triumphs.

of American intelligence instanced above. It makes no difference, so far as this is concerned, whether the attack be due to a failure on the part of the Normal Schools themselves to act up to the full possibilities of their high mission, or to a want of appreciation and intelligence in the attacking party. The increase of Normal Schools from 53, with 178 teachers and 10,028 pupils in 1870, to 137, with 1,031 teachers and 29,105 pupils in 1875, and the great advance in various parts of our country in the organization of public-school systems, are encouraging omens. In the United States the belief that the education of the people is a State interest, that the State must sustain and control it, and that it is the right and duty of the State to provide for the preparation of teachers for its Schools, has such power that most of these recent attacks have for the present failed. I do not propose to retrace the lines of argument, in defence of the Normal Schools, which have been followed in legislative assemblies and in the public press. It would surely be bringing my coals to Newcastle-or Pittsburg-to defend and enforce the Normal School idea to this audience. I propose, rather, very briefly to review the main points of attack, to give all due recognition to the truths which they may contain, and to take counsel of friends as well as of foes in determining the lesson to be derived. It is not the part of wisdom to content ourselves with merely defensive warfare. All reforms are aggressive. If the attacks come from a misunderstanding of the purpose and the work of the Normal School, we must take care that throughout our land, to the remotest hamlet therein, these be understood; if they come from a lack of other agencies needed to supplement their work and render it efficient, we must take care that these agencies be supplied until we have a complete organization of the means for professional training, and for the efficient working of trained teachers; if they come from defects in the present organization of Normal Schools, we must take care that these defects be removed; that Normal Schools be made the embodiment of the freshest, broadest, and deepest thought on education, and the illustration of the most successful educational processes; that they keep step with all true workers in the cause and lead the column on every advancing line.

The main points urged in these attacks may be briefly stated thus:1. The abandonment of Normal Schools would be a great pecuniary gain to the State.

2. The State affords ample means in academic and public schools for supplying teachers.

3. The implied contract of pupils to teach in public schools is disregarded. 4. Normal Schools do not supply a considerable portion of teachers employed in public schools.

5. Normal Schools are graded or Academic Schools with teachers' classes. In some States other points were presented, but, so far as I know, these were special, and hence are not treated in the general discussion.

It ought to be easy to show that the abandonment of the Normal School would result in infinite loss rather than gain, from the diminished efficiency of the public schools, and that the Normal School does a work in the preparation of teachers which other Schools can not do. In these first and second points is involved the entire theory of the expediency and the necessity for professional training, and the discussion of these is fundamental to the very existence of the Normal School. So far as successful attack can be made on

this line, the Normal School is largely to blame for not having more successfully asserted itself, in theory as well as in practice.

The third point of attack, that the contract of pupils to teach in the public schools is disregarded, must be answered by an appeal to facts. In Maine, though there are few individual instances of failures to keep this contract, careful inquiry shows that on an average it is much more than kept by graduates of the School. I believe the same holds true in other States. At any rate, this does not invalidate the right of the Normal School to be.

It is charged in the fourth place that the Normal Schools do not supply a considerable portion of the teachers employed in Common Schools. True, and necessarily true. In 1875 there were employed in the Public Schools of the United States* 249,444 teachers. The total number of graduates of all the Normal Schools of the country for the same year was *2206. Calling the average school life of American teachers three years, more than 83,000 teachers will be required to supply the annual waste. To meet this demand, the present number of Normal Schools must be immediately multiplied nearly forty times.

Again, the rural School can not have a professional teacher, for it can not furnish regular employment and a home. Much teaching in Normal Schools is done by undergraduates of Normal Schools, and some by graduates; but as a rule the graduates of the Normal School will seek a permanent place. The average length of the School year in the United States is only 125 days. A professional teacher must have employment for at least 9 or 10 months in the year. In only six States is the average length of the School year, including both city and country schools, even eight months. In most of the rural Schools the vacations continue more than half the year, and the teacher must supplement his labor in the school-room with some other industry. Young men and young women will not go through two or three years' training for so precarious a life. To meet the demands of the rural Schools other agencies must be employed.

It is charged in the fifth place that Normal Schools are graded Schools or Academies with teachers' classes, in other words that they are not professional Schools. This point deserves careful consideration. Normal School teachers themselves, and other earnest and intelligent friends of education, have for years discussed the question as to whether the Normal School should be made wholly professional, and have not been able thus far to come to an agreement. While the question was one for ourselves alone, we might indulge in this discussion at our own will, but all the signs point to the necessity for coming to some practical conclusion. In States in which attacks upon Normal Schools have been most effectually repelled for the time, the warning has been distinctly given that their work must be so ordered that charges of their non-professional character can not be renewed. A thoughtful editorial in Harper's Weekly, reviewing the attack upon the New-York Normal Schools in the Legislature of that State, distinctly makes. two points: 1st, That Normal Schools will be sustained as essential to an efficient Public-School system, and 2nd, that they will be compelled here

*Report Com. Ed., 1875, pp 549, 591.

after to confine themselves more closely to the work of preparing teachers. The New-York State Association of Commissioners and Superintendents, at a recent meeting, adopted among their resolutions one

"That the Normal Schools should be supported and maintained by the State as professional Schools."

In the editorial columns of the Pennsylvania School Journal I find the following: "As a friend of the Normal Schools we are free to acknowledge that ours are far from being all that we would have them. They have done and are doing a noble work; but the time has come for them to assume a more distinctly professional character, and to engage much more largely in distinctive professional work. Their course in teaching must be enlarged, and the Model Schools in connection with them must be re-organized and made to better answer the end for which they are established. If the Normal Schools do not enter upon this course of improvement for themselves, they will be compelled to do it." And we have but to refer to the published proceedings of this Association, in successive years, for proof that the Normal-School problem is in other States, as well as in these, one of the most unsettled problems with which we have to deal.

Without speaking further of the points of the attack upon Normal Schools and of the causes of these attacks, we pass to consider the means of strengthening them, of enabling them more efficiently to do their appropriate work. They must be strengthened not only in themselves but in all their approaches so as to be practically invulnerable. We must bear in mind that the Normal School is not the sole agency, but one of many agencies, for advancing the work of education; that however good its work may be in itself, this may largely be made of no effect by a faulty organization of the educational forces of the State. For instance in many of our States its work is seriously obstructed by the existence of the socalled district system, and by the lack of efficient and professional inspection.

All attempts of the Normal School to train teachers merely for rural Schools must fail, unless it is to become merely an 'institute. Its true work is to train teachers for permanent positions. It must concentrate its efforts upon points where it can aid in building up systems of Schools which shall be a permanent gain to the localities in which they are placed. Every such School becomes in some sense a repetition of the Normal School, for from it will be drawn teachers for the neighboring Schools. Carefully holding the points which it gets, and through these reaching others, its course will be marked by steady advance, and gradually the influence of improved methods of education will extend through the land. Since Normal Schools were first established, great changes have taken place in American education. Primary education has received almost its entire development; modes of School organization and Supervision have changed; School laws have developed from few and scattered enactments into School codes; School architecture and all the material appliances for education have been vastly improved; in short this period has been marked by the revelation to our people of a Science and an art of Education. In these grand changes perhaps the Normal Schools have been the most efficient instruments, but they have often set in motion currents of

influence which have moved beyond them. In the rapid changes of our American systems it is necessary for the Normal Schools often to orient themselves, if they would always stand in the centre of the movement and command all the radiating lines.

The necessity of a re-adjustment to present conditions is already shown in the papers and discussions of this Association, especially in the years 1870 1871, and 1872. Some of the most eminent men in the profession, have recommended the establishment of elementary Normal Schools of a lower grade, and of strictly professional Schools of a higher grade. So far as I have been able to learn, nothing has come of these recommendations. The clear inference is that it is useless, for the present, to look to the organization of new agencies. While we wait occasion presses. We must work with what we have, transforming it so far as necessary to make it the instrument we need. We have and must use the Teachers' Institute or Convention of one week, for arousing interest; we have and must use and aid to the utmost the Normal Institute of four to six weeks for such training as the teacher of a rural School can be induced to take; the Normal School must make it its distinct and special aim to train professional teachers and Superintendents. To accomplish this end it must in its instruction trace the historical development of education and carefully study its present condition; it must study the Scientific principles underlying all educational processes, and ground all its teachings and its work upon the deepest principles of philosophy; it must carefully and critically observe and study modes of School organization and supervision, and all the objective means and material for instruction, as school-houses, apparatus, &c.; and finally it must supply the means for illustration and confirmation of all the principles which it teaches, by practice in teaching under skilful direction and sympathetic and searching criticism.

Many of our Normal Schools are, as at present organized, mainly academic. However the professional spirit may animate the academic work, the strictly professional study constitutes but a small part of the study of the course, and is postponed till the last. That which should be an inspiring breath throughout the course, is but the expiration which marks its close. This is one of the chief reasons why Normal Schools are so often disgraced by the teaching of undergraduates, and why pupils not completing the course so often carry no inspiration from the School and exert no influence for it nor for education. The mental processes involved in acquiring and in communicating knowledge are so different one from the other, that they can not well be studied at the same time. Hence it is necessary that the pupil in all stages of his course make a distinct study of his modes of thought, of the principles of Pedagogy and of method, or there is danger that he become a merely mechanical copyist of the methods of his teacher.

The Normal School must be organized not from the academic point of view, adding so much of the professional as we can, but from the professional point of view, adding so much of the academic as we must. This is not the old question as to whether the Normal School shall be entirely professional. I am not sure that I know what that means. But it must be admitted that, considered with reference to the work which the Normal