this side of the water, is equally favorable. The Superintendent
of Public Instruction in the State of New York, reports that the
Normal School has been in operation ten years in that State, and
that during that period, there have been in attendance 2,263
pupils. The influence of these teachers has been highly benefi-
cial. They have attracted attention to the improved modes of
instruction and discipline, which have been introduced in many of
the Schools. They have prosecuted their mission under the con-
viction that activity, enthusiasm, and devotion to the interests of
the young, are more potential in controlling them, and develop-
ing their minds, than all the modes of physical torture to which
ignorance is accustomed to resort. The following account is
given of the working of the Normal School in Connecticut, by
the Superintendent .of Common Schools in that State:—"The
Normal School has tended, more than any other single cause, to
advance the standard of Common School education in Connecti-
cut. It is a School for the instruction of teachers, and its influ-
ence, in giving correct views on the whole subject, as well as in
furnishing the best instructors, is of incalculable benefit to the
State." The Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Educa-
tion, in reviewing the history of the Normal Schools in that State,
says—"That the graduates in the Normal Schools soon attracted
the attention of School Committees who sought their services,
and mentioned them with commendation." The Normal School
of Rhode Island, founded in 1854, has already commended itself
to the citizens of that State, and disarmed all opposition.

In Pennsylvania the system of Normal Schools is beginning
to do its work most successfully. In Maine and New Hampshire the
same good work is gaining ground, Maryland, has it in her pow-
er to inaugurate the noble work among the Southern States.
We suppose there can be no doubt that the South ought to have
training Schools on her own soil for the sons of her soil, it she
has not, she must be contented with the present imperfectly train-
ed and incompetent teachers, or look abroad for men who are en-
tirely unacquainted and unsympathetic with her modes of thought
and life. The sense of this necessity, has animated the Govern-
ors in some of the Southern States, to call the attention of the
several State Legislatures to the subject. It is the thorough
conviction of your committee that nothing would tend so much
to give system and symmetry to general education throughout the
State, as the foundation of a training School for teachers. It
would form the centre of educational life, its great moulding and
controling power.

The other topic in relation to the Normal School which your
committee feel they must treat in order to a full discussion of the
question, is, that of its connexion with some seat of learning,
with high capabilities of expansion. On which point a gentle-
man, whose opportunities for accurate knowledge are very ample,

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