SKETCH OF DEXISON OLMSTED. 403 



reading, writing, and spelling, and those wlio spent all tlieir time 

 in these elementary studies. " I was surprised to find that the 

 former excelled the latter even in a knowledge of those very- 

 studies; they read better, spelt better, wrote better, and were 

 better versed in grammar and geography. One inference I drew 

 from the observation was that an extended course of studies, pro- 

 ceeding far beyond the simple rudiments of an English educa- 

 tion, is not inconsistent with acquiring a good knowledge of the 

 rudiments, but is highly favorable to it, since, on account of the 

 superior capacity developed by the higher branches of study, the 

 rudiments may be better learned in less time ; and a second in- 

 ference was that nothing was wanted in order to raise all our 

 common schools to a far higher level, so as to embrace the ele- 

 ments of English literature, of the natural sciences, and of the 

 mathematics, but competent teachers and the necessary books. I 

 was hence led to the idea of a seminary for schoolmasters." His 

 plan was outlined in accordance with this thought. Another en- 

 couraging feature in his scheme, as it appeared to him, was that 

 " no sooner would the superior order of schoolmasters commence 

 their labors, than the schools themselves would begin to furnish 

 teachers of a higher order. The schoolmasters previously em- 

 ployed were for the most part such as had received all their edu- 

 cation at the common schools, and could only perpetuate the 

 meager system of beggarly elements which they had learned; 

 but it was obvious that schools trained in a more extended course 

 of studies would produce teachers of a corresponding character 

 that is, if we could once start the machine, it would go on by its 

 own momentum." He was contemplating a series of newspaper 

 articles in advocacy of his plan, and communications concerning 

 it with eminent men interested in education, when he was called 

 to another enterprise. The idea of normal schools was afterward 

 taken up by other men and brought by them before the public 

 under much more favorable circumstances than he could have 

 commanded had he remained in Connecticut and continued his 

 advocacy at that time. 



At a later time, as a member of the Board of Commissioners 

 of Common Schools for Connecticut, in 1840, in drafting the an- 

 nual report, he observed that " wherever normal schools have 

 been established and are adequately sustained, the experiment has 

 uniformly resulted in supplying teachers of a superior order. As 

 in every other art whose principles are reduced to rule and ma- 

 tured into a system, the learner is not limited to the slow and 

 scanty results of his single unaided experience, but is at once in- 

 vested with the accumulated treasures of all who have labored in 

 the same before him." 



Preparatory to going to the professorship of Chemistry in the 



