TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS, 1845-1847. 345 



Europe may be measured by the provision made for the education of 

 teachers. 



A detailed account of the normal schools of Europe is given in the 

 ninth chapter of Professor Bache's Report on Education in Europe, 

 made to the trustees of the Girard College, Mr. Bache visited Europe 

 under instructions from the committee of the institution, and his excel- 

 lent report, full of practical details and accurate statistics, is a redeem- 

 ing point in the management of that trust. 



Two States only of our Union have yet established State normal 

 schools — Massachusetts and New York. Massachusetts has three, 

 educating in all about two hundred pupils, and New York has one, 

 containing about the same number of students, the sole object of both 

 being to educate teachers of common schools. The experiment has 

 been signall}^ successful. The report for 1844 of the Massachusetts 

 board of education says of one of their schools (that at Lexington): 



Such is the reputation of this school that appUcations have been made to it from 

 seven of our sister States for teachers. 



And Mr. Horace Mann, secretary of the Massachusetts board of 

 education, writes to me: 



When first opened in Massachusetts, normal schools were an experiment in this 

 country. Like all new ideas, they have had to encounter serious obstacles; but they 

 have triumphed over every species of opposition, have commended themselves more 

 and more every year to the good sense of our people, and we now have the pleasure 

 not only of seeing them firmly established here, but of knowing that their success 

 has given birth to a similar institution in the State of New York, and promises ere 

 long to do the same in other States. 



The normal branch of the Smithsonian Institution is intended not by 

 any means to take the place of State normal schools, but only in aid 

 of them, as an institution in the same department, supplemental to 

 these, as they may gradually increase throughout the Union, but of a 

 higher grade, and prepared to carry forward young persons who may 

 have passed through the courses given in the former, or others who 

 desire to perfect themselves in the most useful of all modern sciences, 

 the humble, yet world-subduing science of primary education; an 

 institution, also, in which the improvement and perfecting of that 

 republican science shall be a peculiar object; an institution, finally, 

 where we may hope to find trained, competent, and enlightened 

 teachers for these State normal schools. 



As an essential portion of this normal department, professorships of 

 the more useful arts and sciences are to be provided for. The character 

 of common-school education, especially in the Northern Atlantic States, 

 is gradually changing. Twenty years ago De Witt Clinton, in his 

 annual message, expressed the opinion that in our common schools 

 "the outlines of geography, algebra, mineralogy, agricultural chem- 

 istry, mechanical philosophy, astronomy, etc., might be communicated 



