all children enter, no matter for what path in life they are destined.
From these Primary Schools they afterwards graduate in High
Schools, Academies or Colleges.

The Primary Schools in America, inasmuch as they are the first
steps to the college, are in fact equivalent to the Latin Schools in
Germany, or rather to the Latin and German Schools of Germany
merged into one—and in order that they may really be a first step
to a college, a superior kind of teacher is required for them than
can be obtained in Normal Schools which are instituted after the
European fashion—in fact, nothing short of a complete college
education can produce a competent Primary School or Academy
teacher, even in Germany they would not think of appointing
any one as a teacher in a Latin School or Primary College School
unless he has gone through a full University course, which is even
longer than a common college course m America.

When we duly consider all these circumstances, it seems mani-
fest that for the very reason for which they separate Normal Schools
from Colleges in Europe, we ought to attach them to Colleges in
the United States. For in Europe common schools move in an
entirely different sphere from colleges, and have nothing to do
with them, many Colleges and Gymnasia even look superciliously
down upon them, and ere entirely independent of them. But in
the United States, as we stated above, this is not the case, the
Common or Primary Schools are here the first step to the college;
they lay the foundation on which the colleges continue to build
afterwards, and much indeed of the successful operation of the
colleges depend on the manner in which the foundations have been
laid in the Primary Schools. The Colleges and Primary Schools
in the United States have a common interest, and work in the
same cause, and the colleges as a higher potency of the Primary
Schools, by which the seeds sown in the Primary Schools are de-
veloped and more highly perfected, ought to exercise a supervi-
sory and regulating influence over it. And what better means
has the college of effecting this end, than by sending out its own
graduates to take charge of the Primary Schools?

In Germany and in Europe in general, the primary or common
school teacher is not much respected, whilst the teacher of the
Latin School ranks with the highest in the place. The reason of
this is partly, no doubt, because the Common School teacher
teaches future peasants and mechanics, whilst the Latin School
teacher instructs incipient merchants, lawyers, ministers &c.,
partly, also, because the teacher in the Latin School has gone
through a regular University or college course, but the Common
School teacher has only been prepared in a Normal School, and
finally, also, because the Common School teacher can never rise
any higher in rank, but has always to remain a Common School
teacher, whilst a Latin School teacher, in the process of time, can
be promoted to a Professorship in a college, and finally in a Uni-
2

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