THE OSWEGO STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 59 



through which, the little ones enter school life with fearless, happy 

 steps. As the visitor watches the little ones at play, weaving 

 bright colors, building with blocks, or molding clay into forms 

 surpassing in interest even the mud pies of his childhood, he may 

 sigh for his own first day at school. The writer's is an indelible 

 memory. In a rough stone house, with a forest in the rear and 

 a swamp in front — land of more value could not be afforded — he 

 sat for hours, with dangling feet, on a backless slab bench, until 

 called up to receive at the master's knees, from a tattered primer, 

 his first lesson, — looking at and calling the names of queer marks 

 whose appearance was not interesting, and whose use was not 

 known. Fortunate children, for whose kindly and wise guidance 

 over the threshold of education men and women of great minds 

 and hearts have labored, will you, as actors on the stage of life, 

 be wiser and better than this generation ? 



The practice school has three large assembly rooms and twenty 

 recitation rooms. The assembly rooms have lofty ceilings and 

 great windows which preach the gospel of good air and sunshine, 

 choice products of the children's work adorn their walls, and 

 libraries for the children's use are attractive features. The school 

 comprises from four to five hundred children of the primary, 

 junior, and senior grades. Each grade is divided into classes of 

 fifteen to twenty pupils. Each class is assigned its own room and 

 a teacher from the normal class which has reached the point of 

 practice teaching — the last twenty weeks of the courses. Each of 

 the rooms is an independent school, for whose discipline and in- 

 struction the practicing teacher is primarily responsible. One of 

 these teachers has for ten weeks a primary class and for ten weeks 

 a junior or senior class; and the conditions are much like those 

 which a teacher will have in a school of his own. The work of 

 the same grades in the other schools of the city is done ; and, in 

 addition, extra work in drawing, color, form, work in modeling, 

 parquetry, folding, cutting, sewing, and shop work with carpen- 

 ter's tools. Drawing and modeling are extensively applied in the 

 study of geography, plants, and animals. Each class room is 

 adorned with the best work of its children; and ample black- 

 boards give space for work in number, language, drawing, etc. 

 In each is a cabinet to whose shelves field, forest, and factory 

 have furnished treasures which delight and instruct the children. 

 As these cabinets are constantly growing by the contributions of 

 pupils and teachers, they have a future of great possibilities. 

 They are all descendants of that little cabinet stored with the 

 spoils of the Toronto visit. 



The whole collection of little schools is under the charge of five 

 permanent critic teachers upon whom the tone and character of 

 the whole depend, and who have the ultimate responsibility for 



