position of the man who is made the moulder of the highest
forms of life at its most critical moment.

It would be the most cutting irony to ask whether the men,
who are the State's educators of her children, possess, for the
most part, these high qualifications. We are sure that every
county in the State could add its contribution to the story of in-
competent teachers. Many of them to an utter destitution of all
moral principle, add the sheerest ignorance of the very elements of
the simplest education. Such is the character of the men who are
often brought, by the intervention of the State, into the most in-
timate relations to our children. Men who cannot restrain them-
selves within the limits of decent propriety, are constituted its
first teachers and exemplars We are not at all surprised that
some of the most earnest friends of the education of the masses
should, under the present state of things, have become hopeless
of any good result from our present system of popular instruction,
and either sit with folded hands, in despair, or turn their backs
in utter disgust at the whole matter, or it may be, fall into pain-
ful skepticism as to any amelioration of such a state of things.

Surely, if any relief from such a perplexing and mortifying
condition, can be pointed out, it may well be called the great
necessity of our present social position. Such a relief we are
very sure can be attained by the founding and supporting of pro-
per Training Schools for teachers. Make the fountain pure and
fresh, and invigorating streams must issue forth to fertilize and
gladden the social landscape. Restore to the salt its saltness, and
returning life will soon give tokens of its presence. Leaven the
leavening element, and the masses into which it is cast, will soon
be moulded into forms of life and beauty.

To develope the nature of such a Training School, will form
our second topic. The Normal School, as its name imports, is
the School where the business of teaching is taught according to
system and rule, and practice so combined with theory, that the
vocation of teaching may be promoted to an honorable position
among the scientific professions. If teaching be a science as well
as an art, a something with its own principles and laws, it can-
not be acquired without a thoughtful attention to its nature and
study of its character, as well as practice of it as an art. A mere
pretender to science, may be none the better artist for his preten-
sion; but a man with true knowledge of principles, is always the
more skillful workman, whatever the sphere of his operations.
But when, to the attainment of any principle, there is added
scope for its exercise; when what is learned one hour may be
applied the next, the advantages are vastly increased.

Such is the case in a Normal School, conducted on proper
principles With care on the part of the instructor, all science
may be so taught, that the pupil shall be thoroughly prepared to
be its teacher. But this requires more than usual directness of

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