30 



connected with analysis, as the delicate balances employed otherwise soon be- 

 come worthless, from the sharp knife-edge supports rusting, if exposed to acid 

 fumes and corrosive gases. 



I may here mention that the microscope would be in no particular department, 

 but in many. The mathematical department should have one to explain its 

 principles and construction; the botanical, to examine plants, sections of wood, 

 and the like ; the zoological, to investigate bone, muscle, circulation of blood, 

 make embryological researches, &c.; the chemist, a microscope of the form best 

 adapted to determine some points in qualitative analysis, as distinguishing crys- 

 tals of potash from those of soda in a minute portion, while solidifying, &c. 



b. Second story. This, which will be ascended by a broad flight of steps 

 from the outside, is designed as the chapel ; also for commencement or similar 

 exercises. It occupies 70 feet of the entire 90 in length, and the full 65 in 

 width, leaving a room 20 by 65 feet for a library, and also for lectures or recita- 

 tions in religion and moral philosophy. Or, if thought best and means permit, 

 the whole building might be made larger, so as to give more room for the library. 

 The pulpit should be in the middle of one of the longer sides. The heating 

 may be by flues in both walls, and the furnaces be in the cellar, or stoves may 

 be used if preferred. In either case, there should be ventilators, with movable 

 register plates, similar to those in air-tight stoves. 



JD. A Normal School building might, if thought advisable, be erected in the 

 orchard, and be constructed of such size and shape as is deemed best; but the 

 expense of buildings might be lightened by having the superintendent of the 

 normal school occupy the lecture-room next to the drawing-room of the main 

 building, and when necessary, also the room adjoining the musical department. 

 In one of these he could lecture and hear lectures from those qualifying them- 

 selves as teachers, while they would then be close to all the lecturers, on other 

 branches, whose course the superintendent might designate them to attend. 

 Almost all the instruction would be conveyed by the lectures of these other pro- 

 fessors, except the must difficult, and, for them, the most important, the art of 

 communicating knowledge ; this it would be the special province of the superin- 

 tendent to inculcate. This department should be fitted up so as to exhibit the 

 best forms yet contrived for school desks, benches, inkstands, blackboards, 

 arithmometers, and similar articles of school furniture and apparatus. 



IV. THE ADJUNCTS. 



Besides the main collections, minor aids, to assist the professors in each 

 department, are very important. Part of these may be, sometimes, most con- 

 veniently arranged in lecture and other small rooms, adjoining the main building. 

 A few may be here enumerated : 



1. For the Agricultural Department the best implements and machinery, as 

 already mentioned models of the steam-engine, water-wheels, dams, bridges, 

 barns, sugar-mills, cotton and woollen machinery, &c. It should have, besides 

 the models just enumerated, samples of all that would be found in a good agri- 

 cultural warehouse. 



2. The Botanical Department. Besides the growing plants, there should be 

 many volumes, in elephant folio, of dried plants, systematically arranged ; also, 

 tin boxes and screw-presses, &c., to enable the students to add to the hortua 

 siccus. There should be charts, exhibiting types of the natural orders, and 

 enumerating some of the most striking characteristics in each. To make this 

 complete, we might have on the farm one sample of every important forest tree, 

 either in fence rows or on a spot of ground designed for practical instruction in 

 the nursery culture of fruit-trees, ornamental shrubs, and useful forest trees. In 

 the museum there should be specimens of every kind of wood, at least all the 

 species useful in the arts. These specimens may be nine inches long, and four 



