instruction, with a certain end in view, and with the mind of the
pupil particularly inclined to a specialty. To take but one ex-
ample. How few of our youth, who receive Academic honors
at our Universities, have anything like a due appreciation of the
real nature of their own tongue, its richness, its force, its power
of adaptation! But suppose it is known, when a young man
comes to a University, that he means to make the teaching of his
own tongue the great business of his life ! How well toned would
he be! And the teacher would be mainly anxious to unfold to him
the force and beauty of his own language. He would take pains
to show him how the English lays hands upon all tongues, and
plucks sweetness from one, richness from another, and strength
from a third—that the English language is no single rivulet spark-
ling with shallow beauty, but a boundless deep, into which the
richest streams, from all lands, have hastened to empty them-
selves. He will then learn, that to know well his own tongue,
is the one great purpose of his learning all tongues that have
contributed to its beautiful formation—and in his enthusiastic ad-
miration for this extract of tongues, he will long to make others
sharers of his joy. When we add to this scientific training of
the pupil, the opportunity which is afforded him, in a practiced or
experimental School, under the supervision of older and more ex-
perienced teachers, to combine art with science, practice with
theory, we have a full idea of the nature and functions of a Nor-
mal School.

The History of the Normal Schools, is our third topic for con-
sideration. It is the prominent agency for the promotion of
education, in fitting for the work those who are mainly to carry
it on successfully. The Normal School has been incorporated
into the School systems of all the leading powers of Europe, and
a number of the States of our own country. It aims to give the
true science of teaching, and its history is a triumphant vindica-
tion of its usefulness. It produces a strong "esprit du corps"
among the teachers, which tends fully to interest them in their
profession, to attach them to it, to elevate it in their eyes, and to
stimulate them to improve constantly upon the attainments with
which they have commenced its exercise. The success which
has attended the foundation of the Normal Schools, wherever the
experiment has been made, is an essential part of its history.
The comparative perfection of the educational system of Prussia,
is mainly owing to her Normal Schools—and in Germany, France,
and Switzerland, according to the testimony of Messrs. Bache,
Barnard and Mann, the effect of their establishment on the gen-
eral education of the country, has been most marked. In Eng-
land, the Training Schools have been fostered with special care,
by some of the most thoughtful English scholars, and have in-
fused new life into her educational systems. The testimony of
the practical excellency and efficiency of the Normal Schools on

5