PENNSYLVANIA STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS.

THE Normal School Law of Pennsylvania divides the State into twelve districts, in each of which a State Normal School may be established whenever private contributions make it practicable.

NORMAL SCHOOL IN THE SECOND DISTRICT.

AT MILLERSVILLE.

The school in the second district, at Millersville, was recognized as a State institution in 1859, and it has since received 3,754 students, of whom 2,490 were males, and 1,264 females. Seventy-two have graduated in the elementary course, twenty-two in the scientific course, and two in the classical course. In 1867, there were six hundred and fifty-two students in the Normal department, and one hundred and sixty in the Model school. The buildings and other property of the school cost over $70,000. One-half of the members of the graduating class teach in the Model school during the fall and winter terms, and the others in the spring and summer terms. Those who are thus engaged in the Model school meet the principal upon two evenings each week for special instruction in the theory of teaching. At these meetings the principal reads from notes that he has taken while in the school during the day, comments upon them, and commends or disapproves as he thinks the circumstances require. The students state any difficulties that may have arisen during the day. These, and the remedies, are freely discussed by teachers and students. The superintendent of the Model school also meets this class for a similar exercise one evening in each week.

The principal gives instruction to two classes each day in the "Theory of Teaching." These classes use a text-book. Besides this, many of the members of the graduating class recite daily in mental science, in which recitation the proper methods of cultivating the faculties are familiarly discussed.

Of those who expect to receive aid from the State, but about one-half are especially interested in the theory and practice of teaching.

The school during the past year (1867) was prosperous. The graduating class consisted of twenty members, and passed a satisfactory examination. All the members are engaged in teaching, excepting two, and some of them are occupying positions of responsibility and honor.

The results of the system of training adopted are more than satisfactory-they are subjects for congratulation and pride. The pupils of this institution are among the most successful teachers in the State. They are sought after wherever good teaching can be appreciated or remunerated. They are found in common schools and high schools, as principals

of academies and seminaries, professors in normal schools and colleges, and as energetic and successful county superintendents. In whatever position they labor, they distinguish themselves as faithful and skillful workers. They seem to be imbued with the true spirit of the educator; earnest, devoted, self-sacrificing, laboring for the success of the cause. They are punctual in their attendance upon educational meetings, ready to aid at institutes and associations, and are becoming an educational power in the commonwealth. These facts indicate the success of the system, and demonstrate the value of Normal schools to the State.

NORMAL SCHOOL IN THE TWELFTII DISTRICT.

AT EDINBORO.

The school in the twelfth district at Edinboro, was first chartered as an academy in 1856, then changed to a Normal school and recognized as a State institution in 1861. It has land, buildings, furniture, library, apparatus, and other property, valued at $36,750. The whole number of students received is 1,444, of whom 775 were males, and 669 females. Thirty have graduated. There were 425 in the Normal department in 1867, and 138 in the Model department.

In this school the instruction on the subject of professional knowledge, skill and experience in teaching, is communicated to the graduating class as well as to those who are receiving State aid, by lectures by the principal. The members of the graduating class hear lessons in the public school, which is taught in the Model school rooms, but which has no connection whatever with the institution.

NORMAL SCHOOL IN THE FIFTH DISTRICT. ·

AT MANSFIELD.

The Normal school in the fifth district, at Mansfield, was first organized in 1854 as a Classical seminary, under the charge and patronage of the Methodist Episcopal church, but its founders, with a large liberality, of fered it as a State Normal school, and it was accepted in December, 1862. The buildings, furniture, library, apparatus and other property, are valued at $49,000.

This institution is divided into two departments. One is called the Normal, or Teachers', and the other the Academic, or Business department. It not unfrequently happens that a large proportion of those entering the academic, or business course, change their minds, and commence making preparation for teaching.

The direct means employed in training teachers is, first, the regular daily drills upon the subject matter of teaching. In these exercises, no instruction in the branches is attempted to be given. Each pupil has a text-book upon the subject of teaching, and topics are assigned for the consideration of the class. The theoretical and practical, the possibles and impossibles, are here presented. The experiences and opinions of those who have taught are placed side by side with those who have not.

The failures of youthful indiscretion are compared with more matz reflections of age.

The senior, or graduating class, in addition to the studies of the cons take up the theory of teaching as a study, and practice teaching in the Normal school forty-five minutes a day for one-half of the school y This class meets twice a week with the principal, or some of the faculty and the principal of the Model school, where the work of the exper mental class is discussed, failures and success pointed out, and words af approval and encouragement given when and where needed.

The whole number of students received is 1,290, of whom 555 were males, and 735 females. Thirty-seven have graduated. There were 22 in the Normal department in 1867, and 123 in the Model school.

NORMAL SCHOOL IN THE THIRD DISTRICT.

AT KUTZTOWN.

The Keystone Normal school in the third district, at Kutztown, originated in the demand for better teachers and in the conviction that a Normal school was necessary to supply that want. Its buildings, furniture, library, apparatus, and other property, are valued at $55,000, of which $20,000 was contributed by the citizens of Kutztown and Maxatawny townships. The school was recognized by the State superintendent as a State institution, on the 13th September, 1866, and the building was formally dedicated on the 15th of the same month.

The faculty of instruction includes eleven professors and tutors, a larger number of gentlemen than either of the other Normal schools; but the number of female instructors is less, it being but two in this school, and it is five or seven in the other schools. The Model school is under the superintendency of an experienced teacher who is employed by the Board of Trustees, and the teaching is principally done by students from the Normal school. These students first pass a year in studying the theory of teaching by means of text-books and lectures in the Normal school, and then practice at least three-fourths of an hour daily in teaching pupils in the classes of the Model school.

The number of students received the first year was 343, of whom 266 were males, and 77 females, being a larger proportion of male students than is reported from any other Normal school in this country.

WISCONSIN STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS.

HISTORICAL.

IN 1857, an act was passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin appropri ating twenty-five per cent. of the income arising from swamp and overflowed lands, for Normal School purposes, and creating a Board of Regents to regulate its distribution. This Board did not consider itself authorized under that act to establish a Normal School, and the income from the first year was applied to the aid of Colleges and Academies which organized and instructed normal classes.

In August, 1858, Henry Barnard became Agent of the Normal Regents, and organized a system of oral and written examinations of the Normal Classes in the Colleges, Academies and High Schools of the State, as a basis of the distribution of the income of the Normal Fund, and commenced in 1859 a series of Teachers' Institutes in the different counties and of Educational addresses in the principal towns of the State. By these examinations, Institutes and professional gatherings of teachers in Town and County associations, he was able to reach in a single year, (1860) three fourths of all the teachers in the State-both those who entered on their work for the first time, as well as those more experienced. His plan of operations in 1861, embraced besides an Institute of four weeks at Madison as the nucleus of a Normal Department in the University, a series of special classes, at different parts of the State, viz. for Teachers and such as proposed to teach; 1, The ungraded District Schools; 2, Primary Schools, and home classes of little children; 3, Intermediate and Grammar Schools and the largest or central district schools; 4, High Schools and Academies; 5, Normal Schools and Classes; 6, Colleges and all higher institutions which have a common curriculum. He had received from the most accomplished teachers in the State such pledges of co-operation in their respective fields of labor, that he anticipated larger professional gatherings and more systematic professional instruction than had ever been given elsewhere. This plan of Institutes was to be crowned by the establishment of at least three State Normal Schools, (of which one was to be a Special School of the University at Madison,) and a training or practicing school in connection with the High School in each large city.

Connected with an account of these County Institutes, and the names, residence, previous opportunities of professional instruction, and experience in teaching of each member, Mr. Barnard projected in 1859 the publication of a series of papers, selected from the American Journal of Education, on the organization, instruction and discipline of schools. In pursuance of this plan, four volumes were issued with the title of Papers

for the Teacher, and more than one thousand copies of each were distributed among the teachers of the State. The entire series embraced twenty treatises, and would have constituted the most comprehensive Library of Education yet issued in this country.*

The Superintendent of Public Instruction, (J. L. Pickard,) in his Report for 1863, remarks: "These Normal departments of Colleges, Academies, and High Schools, have not satisfactorily met the necessity. They are almost always subordinate departments; nor will the aid furnished warrant giving them a prominent place. Much good has been accomplished by these agencies, but they are at present inadequate to the demand.

Permanent Normal Schools are needed, whose sole business

shall be the training of teachers.”

The Normal department in the State University was opened in 1863, and the attendance was for a time quite large.

In 1865, the Legislature passed an act to dispose of the swamp and overflowed lands, and the proceeds were appropriated to the Normal School fund. This act provides that the income of the Normal School fund shall be applied to establishing, supporting and maintaining Normal Schools under the direction and management of the Board of Regents of such schools, provided, that twenty-five per cent. of said income shall be annually transferred to the school fund income, until that shall reach the sum of two hundred thousand dollars.

*These plans, as agent of the Normal Regents, as well as his larger plans as Chancellor, for the development of the State University, and of schools and education generally in Wisconsin, were crippled from the start by inadequate resources, (at least one half less than was promised before he accepted the responsible position, both from the University Fund, and the Normal School Fund) and were finely relinquished in consequence of severe illness, which was followed by a prolonged physical prostration from which he did not recover for two years. His plans for the University embraced,

1. General co-operation with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in developing a system of elementary instruction, and in establishing in every city and large village a Publie High School, open to both sexes, and with a scheme of studies equal to the most advanced school of this grade in any part of the country.

Into this class of schools were to be merged the incorporated Academies, with their endowments as far as practicable pledged to support such studies as the majority of citizens might not appreciate sufficiently to maintain by public tax-and with them was to be established a system of university scholarships. These Public High Schools were to be developed as the natural reliance of the State University for students and into them were to be absorbed the studies then constituting the first year of a college course.

(2.) The discontinuance of the Preparatory Department, or Grammar Schools in the University, and its re-establishment as part of the City High School of Madison, as a model school of its grade, in which the classical department was to be under the care of the Chancellor.

(3) The reorganization of the University on the basis of a General Course of two years which was to be an extension of the studies of the Public High School, and in which proficiency in the English language and its literature, as well as in the German, was to count as high in the distribution of College honors, as either the Latin or Greek, and on the completion of this course (six years on the elementary course,) the first Academic degree was to be awarded.

(4.) To the General Course was to be added Special Schools, devoted to Education, Law, Medicine, Agriculture, Mining, Engineering, Commerce, and the other industries of the State. (5.) As the crowning feature of a State system of professional training of teachers, there was to be a Normal Department open to both sexes, in which the course of instruction should be liberal, as well as special-and embrace Ethics, Metaphysics, and logic,-physiology and hygiene, the constitution of the United States, and of Wisconsin, the law of the citizen and the man of business, the principles of public economy, and the history and principles of Art.