THIRD PERIOD. 7b 



ministrators ; they deliberated on the best means 

 of meeting the exigency, and made themselves 

 respected by an exemple of zeal, moderation and 

 disinterestedness. Some of them being called to 

 employments connected with the government, 

 used their influence in favour of the establish- 

 ment to which they were more particularly at- 

 tached. 



At the end of the year 1794? the amphitheatre 

 was finished in its present state , and in it was 

 opened, on the 25th of January 1795, the Normal 

 school; an extraordinary institution, but founded 

 on an unfeasable and visionary plan. 



It was fancied that men already ripe in years, 

 by a few lectures from eminent masters, might be 

 rendered capable of extending instruction, and 

 diffusing through the provinces the elements of 

 sciences , which very few of them had been pre- 

 pared by previous education to understand. Every 

 reasonable man, felt the impossibility of realizing 

 such a scheme, and the institution fell of itself 

 soon after. It had the effect of exciting the public 

 attention, and fixing it upon an establishment, 

 become as it were the paramount of all insti- 

 tutions that might be formed for the study of 

 nature. 



From its re-organisation to the close of the 

 century, the Museum received a considerable in- 



