scholars according to their comparative success in studies, is not here allowed. Faithful attention to duty is encouraged for its own sake, not for the purpose of obtaining certain marks of credit.

Promotions and Graduations.

Promotions from one class to another are made by means of an elaborate written examination at the close of each term. These examinations cover every study pursued during the term, and the result in each study must be satisfactory, to entitle the pupil to advance to the study next in order. A general failure on the part of a pupil compels her to retake the entire work of the term. In case of a partial failure, reëxaminations are allowed.

In the Senior term, a special examination is had in all the branches taught in the common schools, and only those who pass it successfully are permitted to graduate.

Number of Pupils. Graduates.

The whole number of pupils in the School from its establishment in September, 1854, to July 1, 1867, is 1041. The whole number of graduates to the same date, is 453. The number present during the term ending at the latter date, was 149, the largest number present during any term.

PRINCIPALS

On the opening of the Normal School in 1854, Richard Edwards was appointed Principal. He resigned in 1854, to accept an appointment to the charge of the City Normal School of St. Louis. He left the latter place in 1862, to accept the Presidency of the Illinois Normal University. Alpheus Crosby, formerly Professor in Dartmouth College, was appointed Principal in 1857, and entered upon the duties in the school in October of that year. Prof. Crosby resigned in 1865, and Daniel P. Hagar, Principal of the High School in Jamaica Plains, was appointed his suc

cessor.

EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS

BY EX-GOVERNOR GEORGE S. BOUTWELL,

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT SALEM,

August 19th, 1854.

THE house you have erected is not so much dedicated to the School as to the public; the institution here set up is not so much for the benefit of the young men and women who may become pupils, as for the benefit of the public which they represent. The appeal is, therefore, to the public to furnish such pupils, in number and character, that the institution may soon successfully enter upon the work for which it is properly designed. But the character and value of this school depend on the quality of its teachers more than on all things else. They should be thoroughly instructed, not only in the branches taught, but in the art of teaching them. The teacher ought to have attained much that the pupil is yet to learn; if he has not, he can not utter words of encouragement, nor estimate the chances of success. It is not enough to know what is contained in the text-book; the pupil should know that at least; the teacher should know a great deal more. A person is not qualified for the office of teacher when he has mastered the contents of a book; and has, in fact, no right to instruct others until he has mastered the subject." Here then seems to be the gist of the whole matter. We in Maine have at length an opportunity to do something which may be made of great benefit to the public schools of the State, and, through them, to the cause of general good learning. This is to be done through the instrumentality of an institution-the Normal School. Very largely is this trust committed to the hands of the educational men of the present day among us. Future generations will hold us responsible for a right discharge of our duties. Let us not prove recreant to our sacred trust.

When that great educator, who has left a bright and ineffaceable record upon the annals of the present age, heard of his election as master of the School at Rugby, he wrote to Dr. Hawkins, whose recommendation, in which he expressed his belief that Arnold would revolutionize the system of public instruction in Europe-had done most towards securing his appointment, in the following touching words:

"I need not tell you how unexpected this result [my election] has been to me, and I hope I need not say also what a solemn and overwhelming responsibility is imposed upon me. I would hope to have the prayers of my friends, together with my own, for a supply of that true wisdom which is required for such a business." The position of a Normal School teacher is one of "solemn and overwhelming responsibility," and the person occupying it needs a wisdom that comes through communion with the Divine One. This institution, like the noble, the lamented Arnold, is nothing less than revolutionary in its relationship to the Common Schools. It will fail to accomplish its mission, or it will regenerate. It will give life, or it itself will die.

It remains to be said-if indeed that be necessary-that I believe with De Gasparin and De Tocqueville, that in the universality of common instruction is the true superiority of Americans: that I believe, with the leading patriots of my country, that republican institutions can not exist for any length of time except they be enshrined in the hearts of an intelligent, liberty-loving people; that to retain the true superiority of which we, as a nation, are acknowledged to be possessed, we must retain and improve its cause-the public school system; that I believe, with the lamented Mann and Page, the living Barnard, the patriotic and eloquent Everett, and a host of other eminent educators, that the Normal School is a necessity—a sine qua non-for the perfection of a system of instruction for the people; and lastly, and consequently, that I would give to

the Normal School its right to rank among the institutions which, as an harmonious whole, work for the preservation of American Freedom.

Let it not be thought, my friends, that I am an enthusiast in respect to the position which the Normal and the public school hold among the institutions of our nation, and the consequent glory of the profession of the popular educator. Here is a cause in which, surrounded by the safeguards of the Christian religion, one need not fear to be enthusiastic.

THE OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER

Before the public school teachers of this nation, there is opening a future, which, like every other prospective view in the time in which we live, is at once solemn and cheering. It is cheering to believe that we may live to see the day when education for the people shall be as much prized in the South as in the North; that from the "one true seed of freedom" which the Pilgrims of 1620 were commissioned of the Almighty to plant upon these then benighted shores, has grown the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nation. But it is solemn-0, is it not intensely solemn!-to reflect that upon our shoulders is to be thrown so great responsibility; that not alone upon the field of battle. but more certainly upon the field of moral thought, are to be laid the firm foundations of a regenerated republican liberty! American citizenship is, and is to be a grander, loftier thing in the future than it has been in the past. Our baptism of blood is to do its work of purification; and, thus, looking with the vision of a poet of the motherland, we discerned through the gloomy days of battle, through the fierce conflict of our nation's heroic period, the dawn-breaking of a more comprehensive, more brilliant social illumination. We said with Tennyson:

"Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
For those that are crushed in the clash of jarring claims,
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreaked on a giant liar;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,
And noble thought be freer under the sun,

And the heart of a people beat with one desire.”

"Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause; we are noble still,
And all have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;

It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill."

The end of our conflict was not, when, with ringing of bells, with roar of deep-mouthed cannon, with bonfires and illuminations, with notes of praise, and with voice of silver-toned oratory, we celebrated the restoration of peace and union. For then came the necessity for the highest qualities of statesmanship, in State legislatures and a national Congress. And again, the end is not when the counsels of the statesman, under the blessings of Divine Providence, shall have settled the most complicated problems growing out of the present disjointed condition of our affairs. After all that, in the dim distant future, when you and I shall have acted well or ill our part upon the stage of life and shall sleep with the fathers of the Republic, the generations that will come will find a work high and glorious, made doubly sacred by the blood and prayers and tears of their predecessors.

The American citizen is to act a part in all this, and the American citizen is to be taught in youth in the public school. Will any one say that the position of a common school teacher is one of small account-will any gainsay his claim to a preparation for his professional duties at the expense of that people to whom his service is so important? True it is, as some one has said, “Let a people treat with scorn the defenders of its liberties, and invest them with the symbols of degradation, and it will soon have none to defend them." There is no more sure defense to republican liberty than the public school; there is no truer personal defender of American institutions than the schoolmaster. Treat him with scorn, invest him with the symbols of degradation if you dare. God may give him grace still to labor on, but it will be with a saddened heart-a life without an earthly ambition.

THE Normal School for the state of New York, was established by an act of the Legislature in 1844, "for the instruction and practice of Teachers of Common Schools, in the science of Education and the art of Teaching." It was first established for five years, as an experiment, and went into operation on the 18th of December, 1844, in a building provided gratuitously by the city of Albany, and temporarily fitted up for that purpose. In 1848, an act was passed by the Legislature "for the permanent establishment of the State Normal School," appropriating $15,000 toward the erection of a suitable building. The following year an additional appropriation of $10,000 was made for its completion. A large and commodious edifice, (See Fig. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,) containing a dwelling-house for the Principal, has accordingly been erected on the corner of Lodge and Howard streets, adjoining the State Geological and Agricultural Rooms. To this building the school was removed on the 31st of July, 1849. At the expiration of the term of five years for which this institution was originally established, and in connection with the closing exercises of the Summer

Session ending September 27, 1849, Samuel S. Randall, Esq., Deputy Superintendent of Common Schools, pronounced an address in which the origin and progress of the Normal School is thus graphically set forth:

For several years prior to 1844, the attention of the friends of Common School education in this state had been strongly directed to the inadequacy of the existing agencies for the preparation of duly qualified teachers for our elementary institutions of learning. Liberal endowments had, from time to time, during a long series of years,been bestowed upon the academies in different sections of the state, with a view to the attainment of this object; but the practical inability of these institutions to supply the demand thus made upon them with all the resources at their command, soon became obvious and undeniable. The establishment of Normal Schools for this special and exclusive purpose in various portions of Europe, where popular education was most flourishing, and in the adjoining state of Massachusetts, long and honorably distinguished for her superior public and private schools, and the manifest tendency of these institutions to elevate and improve the qualifications and character of teachers, had begun to attract the regard of many of our most distinguished statesmen.

On a winter's afternoon, early in the year 1844, in a retired apartment of one of the public buildings in this city, might have been seen, in earnest and prolonged consultation, several eminent individuals whose names and services in the cause of education are now universally acknowledged. The elder of them was a man of striking and venerable appearance-of commanding intellect and benignant mien. By his side sat one in the prime and vigor of manhood, whose mental faculties had long been disciplined in the school of virtuous activity, and in every lineament of whose countenance appeared that resolute determination and moral power, which seldom fails to exert a wide influence upon the opinions and actions of men. The third in the group was a young man of slight frame and pale, thoughtful visage; upon whose delicate and slender form premature debility had palpably set its seal; yet whose opinions seemed to be listened to by his associates with the utmost deference and regard. The remaining figure was that of a well-known scholar and divine, whose potent and beneficial influence had long been felt in every department of the cause of popular education, and whose energy, activity and zeal had already accomplished many salutary and much needed reforms in our system of public instruction.

The subject of their consultation was the expediency and practicability of incorporating upon the Common School system of this state an efficient instrumentality for the education of teachers. The utility of such a measure, and its importance to the present and prospective interests of education, admitted, in the minds of these distinguished men, of no doubt. The sole question was whether the public mind was sufficiently prepared for its reception and adoption: whether an innovation so great and striking, and involving as it necessarily must a heavy and continued expenditure of the public money, might not be strenuously and successfully resisted: and whether a premature and unsuccessful attempt then to carry into execution a measure of such vital importance, might not be attended with a disastrous influence upon the future prospects of the cause of education. These considerations after being duly weighed, were unanimously set aside by the intrepid spirits then in council; and it was determined that, backed by the strong and decided recommendation of the head of the Common School Department, immediate measures should be forthwith adopted for the establishment of a STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. The men who thus gave the first decided impetus to the great enterprise, whose gratifying results are now before us, were SAMUEL YOUNG, CALVIN T. HULBURD, FRANCIS DWIGHT, and ALONZO POTTER.