252 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



appointment to be Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and 

 Geology in the University of North Carolina. 



During his tutorship at Yale in 1816, Mr. Olmsted delivered 

 the Master's Oration on the occasion of taking his second de- 

 gree, taking as his subject The State of Education in Connecti- 

 cut. In this oration he brought out his plan for a normal 

 school, which, so far as appears, was then a complete novelty, 

 and was wholly original with him. He pointed to " the igno- 

 rance and incompetency of schoolmasters " as the primary cause 

 of the low condition of public schools, and appealed to public 

 and private liberality to establish and support institutions of 

 a higher grade, where a better class of teachers might be 

 trained for the lower schools. He has himself, in one of his 

 letters, given an account of the origin of his conception of 

 this scheme of " a school for schoolmasters." It was while 

 engaged in the Union School at New London, where he had 

 pupils of various ages pursuing a great variety of studies; so 

 that, while the number of pupils was small, the classes were 

 many. He discovered a marked difference in intelligence and 

 capacity between those who were studying the languages and 

 mathematics, preparatory to entering college, and who devoted 

 only a small part of the day to the common rudimentary 

 branches, such as English grammar, geography, reading, writ- 

 ing, and spelling, and those who spent all their 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, 

 proceeding far beyond the simple rudiments of an English 

 education, is not inconsistent with acquiring a good knowledge 

 of the rudiments, but is highly favourable to it, since, on ac- 

 count of the superior capacity developed by the higher branches 

 of study, the rudiments may be better learned in less time ; 

 and a second inference was that nothing was wanted in order 

 to raise all our common schools to a far higher level, so as to 

 embrace the elements 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 semi- 

 nary for schoolmasters." His plan was outlined in accordance 

 with this thought. Another encouraging feature in his scheme, 



