380 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



Two States only of our Union have yet established State 

 normal schools: Massachusetts and New York. Mas>a- 

 chusetts 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 <>/>/- 

 cafe teachers of common schools. The experiment has been 

 signally successful. The report for 1844 of the Massachu- 

 setts Board of Education, says of one of their schools, (that 

 at Lexington) : 



" Such is the reputation of this school, that applications have been n>:i<le 

 to it from seven of cur 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 e.\p"ri- 

 inont in this country. Like all new idea-, they hav<- had .to encounter 

 serious obstacles ; but they hav triumphed over every Bpecf 60 of opposition, 

 have commended themselves more and more every year, i<> the ro<>d -ense 

 <f our people, and we now have the pleasure, not only of seeiui; them 

 firmly established here, but of knowinsr that their >ueee>s has ^iven hirth 

 to a similar institution >n the State of New York, ami jiromi.-es ere l-m^ to 

 do the same in other States." 



The normal branch of the Smithsonian Institution is in- 

 tended 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 w ho 

 may have passed through the courses given in the former, 

 or others who desire to perfect themselves in the most use- 

 ful 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 h'nd trained, competent, and enlightened teach- 

 ers for these State normal schools. 



As an essential portion of this normal department, pro- 

 fessorships of the more useful arts and sciences are to be pro- 

 vided for. The character of common school education, 

 especially in the northern Atlantic States, is gradually chang- 

 ing. Twenty years ago, De Witt Clinton, in his annual 

 message, expressed the opinion that in our common schools 

 " the outlines of geography, algebra, mineralogy, agricul- 

 tural chemistry, mechanical philosophy, astronomy, &c., 

 might be communicated by able preceptors, without essen- 

 tial interference with the calls of domestic industry." This 

 opinion is daily gaining strength, and has been partially 



