there is more to be attained in the written method than in any other. Undoubtedly the three methods to be combined in the normal work are the topical method, the method of catechising, and the written method. To be sure, you may call the written method the topical method, but not strictly speaking. I have seen some very curious examples of this. The gentlemen next to the last said we find ourselves deceived in pupils, that those who for two years have made good recitations are not thorough in their work. These mistakes, I believe, are not so liable to occur in the written method, and are not so liable to occur in the mode of recitation called catechising.

Mr. Beard. In regard to written recitation, this has been my experience in our normal school: We recite by oral recitation four days each week, and have on the fifth day of each week, Friday, a written review of the four previous days' work, and upon this written review the scholars receive their standing in scholarship. Thus the four days' work is bound together and put in a written form. The same subject-matter, the same topics are given; and every member of the class giving equal time to the same subjects, the logical development of the subject-matter is passed over in that given time. After the topical review, there is an oral recitation in class-work, ordinarily, and there is always an opportunity for a categorical recitation on the part of the teacher and pupil, and criticism on the part of all the members of the class, so that all the methods the gentleman recommends would be cared for in this administration of the school.

Mr. C. F. R. Bellows, of the Normal School, Michigan. It was not my pleasure to be present yesterday and listen to the papers which were read, but I have been exceedingly interested in the remarks which have been made this afternoon, for the reason that we find so much occasion for clear and comprehensive views with respect to normal work. This normal problem is still unsolved, probably. The solution seems to take two quite clearly defined lines; some claiming that the work of the normal school is only to teach methods, others that the teaching of subject-matter and methods should be combined. I am inclined to the latter view. I think that we can not divorce matter and method in the normal-school work. My views have been materially modified by my experience as a normal teacher. Five years ago I was as radical as any one could be with respect to the characteristic work of the normal school. I thought it should be confined exclusively to method; but when I came to make the trial, I could do nothing without the matter. The matter seems to stand in the relation of apparatus, a means to an end: it constitutes the tool with which we work; and I have come to the conclusion that we can do nothing without a wise union of the two. I have been endeavoring, in the mathematical department of the Michigan Normal School, to realize this treatment of method. As we have our normal school arranged, we have a training course which commences early in our normal-school work: it is, in reality, the first year's work, although it is set down for the second; let us consider it there. Our first year's work is a preparatory work; it embraces the study of arithmetic, reading, spelling, geography, and grammar -a review of these subjects for the purpose of determining the preparation of our students to enter the normal course proper. Students come from all the schools of the state, and in many of them have been

indifferently taught, and the first year in the normal school is a sort of running examination of these students. They are taught empirically, if I may use the expression; they are taught how to teach without any reference to the fundamental principles of method. They are shown a good way of teaching these common branches. The second year they go before our training teacher, the teacher having the charge of the school of observation and practice, and he delivers a lecture to them daily upon the fundamental principles of the methods of teaching; develops psychology, shows the natural laws in accordance with which the mind is developed; shows the pedagogical principles of methods, and refers to the various departments of science for their illustration. The students go from these lectures to the teachers of different departments of science in the schools, and that course is sufficiently full to prepare the students for admission to the State University. A four years' course is given by the teachers of the different departments of science in the normal school; and the work in my own department has been the illustration of the application of these fundamental principles of methods to the teaching of subject-matter, for the purpose of showing how those principles are developed in the minds of these pupils, and are applied in teaching the various topics. The gentleman has referred to the mode of recitation. It has been my custom to cultivate the habit in those of my pupils who recite to me, when reciting, to take the place of the teacher, and the person who is called on takes his or her place as the real teacher and presents the subject, giving it in full or in parts, as may be required, and then the class criticise, ask questions, and draw out the application of principles. I sit on one side and become, as it were, a member of the committee on criticism, the class forming a committee of the whole. If the teacher has violated any principle of method, it is referred to, and in that way I have aimed to do all the work of my department, even to the teaching of the higher branches of mathematics; constantly subordinating the matter to the method; keeping the method first and foremost; letting that be the whole face and front in reality of our work, so that any one going into our recitation would not need to be told that our school was a normal school, for it would pervade the very atmosphere of the school-room. It seems to me that teaching subject-matter is using a means to an end, as an apparatus. I can not conceive, for the life of me, how I could teach the methods of teaching arithmetic without the arithmetic. I can not conceive how the method of teaching any branch of study can be taught without the study itself. I do not believe that methods of teaching are confined merely to the primary branch, object-lesson work: I believe that those principles of methods that were developed in the primary grades run clear up through all branches of science; and those higher branches of science need to be taught with reference to those modified primary principles, just as we need to begin to teach any one in accordance with true education. In this way I believe we are to realize the higher normal-school work. I do not think it is feasible, as the speaker who preceded me remarked, to have a higher grade of normal school or a lower grade of normal school than we have. I think that the normal school wants to be lengthened out both ways, drawn up higher, and drawn down lower; it seems to me that they should embrace the whole work of methods of teaching, and should carry forward the principles of

education to their application in the higher departments of study in the normal school.

The discussion closed at this point, and W. T. COPELAND, of Mass., was chosen a member of the "Committee on Publication" from the Normal Department.

The following persons were named by the President as "Committee on Nomination of Officers for the Normal Department," for the year ensuing, viz., S. H. WHITE, of Ill.; C. F. R. BELLOWS, of Michigan; G. T. FLETCHER, of Maine; E. C. HEWETT, of Ill.; and Miss J. H. STICKNEY, of Mass.

The following paper was read by Hon. T. W. HARVEY, State School Commissioner of Ohio.

SIONAL

PROFESSIONAL INSTRUCTION IN NORMAL SCHOOLS.

The efficiency of any school system is acknowledged to be largely dependent upon the provision made in it for a supply of competent, trained teachers. The subject has long been discussed, but we have not yet arrived at conclusions, satisfactory to every one, as to the character of all the agencies we should employ to secure that supply. We have theorized, we have accumulated facts and data; but the normal-instruction problem has not been solved.

To the theorist, in the seclusion of his study, this problem seems easy of solution. He reasons thus: A system of public schools, fostered and sustained by state patronage, should be a complete, consistent whole. Normal schools are essential to completeness and efficiency in such a system. Therefore, they should be established and sustained by the state, and teachers trained in them to whom the education of its youth should be intrusted.

We admit the force of this reasoning. The conclusion seems to be logically derivable from the premises. Certain facts, however, whose existence and importance should neither be denied nor ignored, may, on examination, force us to modify it somewhat, or at least, by a few provisos and exceptions, to guard ourselves against its train of inferences.

Nearly one-third of our teachers leave the profession each year to engage in other employments. Of the many thousands required to supply our schools, a few hundreds only intend to become professional teachers. The expediency of establishing special training schools of high grade, with complete, exhaustive courses of study, for the large non-professional class may be questioned. It will be difficult to convince tax-payers and finance committees that any scheme for the thorough professional training of even one-fourth of this class is practicable or advisable. It will be equally difficult to demonstrate to them that the value of the product is greater than the cost of the production. They demand less expensive agencies than these, and it is our duty to look around us to see whether they can not be employed with excellent result.

The class of professional teachers, in our country, will long be comparatively small. A self-sacrificing, inadequately-paid teacher can not look forward to the calm and ease of a pensioned old age as the reward for a lifetime devoted to the exacting and often thankless duties of his profession. The substantial prizes

to be won are few. Teaching, therefore, in the near future as in the past, will, in most cases, be a temporary calling, engaged in by young men while "getting under way," by young ladies unable to find some other more attractive or more remunerative employment, and will be abandoned without regret at the first favorable opportunity. We may wish this were otherwise-we may deplore this constant thinning of our ranks; but the stern fact exists, nevertheless, and due importance should be attached to it in our theorizing upon normal instruction.

Many of these non-professional teachers are graduates of high schools, academies, seminaries, and colleges—most of them, however, undergraduates of these institutions, or such as have enjoyed no other educational advantages than those furnished by the country district school. Their scholastic attainments may be sufficient to enable them to pass any reasonable examination test; but very few of them, without some special training, will comprehend, during their brief pedagogical career, the laws of physical and intellectual growth, and the philosophy which underlies all true methods of study and instruction. What agencies are best calculated to fit and prepare the largest number of these, in the best manner possible, all circumstances considered, for their work?

In answering this question, we should not forget that our public and private schools are furnishing, or can furnish, all the instruction requisite or needful in the common as well as in the higher branches of study. If some of them are justly chargeable with a lack of thoroughness, if they are managed by those who are some times guilty of the heinous crime of using wrong methods, their pupils can be tested by searching, rigid examinations in the what of instruction before being received as pupils in professional training schools-in the how of instruction before being received as members of the teachers' fraternity. It is the duty of these schools to furnish all the academic instruction needful: it is our right to demand that it be thorough; but is it wise to recommend the establishment of special schools to duplicate their work, or to supply any real or fancied deficiency in it?

Private enterprise and state munificence have done much towards providing facilities for obtaining a certain amount of this desirable special training. Socalled "normal schools" have been established by individuals and corporations for educational purposes in almost every state. With a single exception, these private institutions are in reality first or second class academies. As a general rule, pupils attend them to study the branches they expect to teach. Preparation for an examination in these branches absorbs most of their time and attention. Their anxiety is to get into a school-room, not to learn how to conduct themselves when there.

Hence, in these schools, instruction in methods is made subordinate to the acquisition of scholastic attainments. Those having charge of them are some times men of liberal culture, and know how to teach. The efforts of such to supply an acknowledged educational want should be encouraged, even though their instruction may be limited, and, in a degree, superficial. Others are men of a different character. They are the Ishmaelites of the profession. The best that can be said of them is, that we may be thankful their schools are no worse than they are. We may congratulate ourselves that the common sense of the

pupil is some times able to neutralize the baleful influence of a teacher's charlatanry.

The single exception referred to is an experiment as yet. Firmly and persistently, its managers refuse to admit any within its walls as pupils who can not pass the ordeal of an examination in the common branches of an English education. Their time is not spent in conducting review recitations, or in teaching what can be as well taught elsewhere, but in making their pupils intelligent in matters immediately or remotely connected with all kinds of school work, and in teaching them how to base their methods of instruction upon philosophical certainties. If the graduates of this school fail to succeed, it will be because a wrong-headed public opinion will force them into the ruts made by others, or because they will find that stemming the current of whim and prejudice is more difficult than floating lazily along with it.

Two kinds of professsional training-schools are sustained by states and mu nicipal corporations:-city normal schools, designed to supply city public schools with teachers; and state normal schools, whose nominal purpose, at least, is to train those who are to teach country district schools, and the schools in the smaller towns and villages. It would be unwarrantable assurance on our part to assume to dictate a curriculum of studies for institutions conducted as private enterprises. Public sentiment alone must determine whether they are or are not worthy of patronage. They must stand or fall on their own merits. With state institutions the case is far different. Their management is a proper subject for kindly, generous criticism. What shall be the character of the instruction given in them? Shall it be purely professional, or partly professional and partly academic?

Except as incidental in the presentation and elucidation of methods, there can be no necessity in city normal schools for direct academic instruction. Those who avail themselves of their advantages are graduates of schools of high grade. They should be familiar with the branches of study they have pursued. If they are not, the training school is no place for them. A review, even, of branches that should have been thoroughly mastered in grammar or high school would seem to be a mere waste of time and effort. Knowing the educational wants and needs of the cities whose future teachers they are training, the managers of these normal schools should devote themselves exclusively to professional instruction. It would seem that no valid reason can be urged why they should do otherwise.

It is not my purpose to define the exact character of this instruction, or to prescribe limits to its extent. I claim only that it shall be purely professional. If there are branches, however, which a teacher should pursue and others need not, or if certain branches should receive more attention from teachers than from the general student, such instruction in these branches as the necessities of the case may demand will be of a professional character, because given in a professional spirit, and with a professional end in view.

These city normal schools need not be cast in the same mould. The special wants of no two communities are precisely alike. The presiding genius of each city school system should have ideas of his own, should possess some originality. It is right, as it is inevitable, that the methods he approves should be recommended for adoption, and that the results he aims to secure should not be