stitution, and that the normal school in assuming to instruct in language, mathematics, or natural science, is for that reason venturing beyond its proper sphere. True, our academies, seminaries, and colleges address themsees largely to this kind of work, but it does not necessarily follow that they do it by exclusive right. This fact alone, does not make it their special prerogative. If any principle in education is well established in this country, it is that the professional school, whatever its kind, may legitimately teach those branches which underlie, and immediately affect, the successful practice of that profession. This is true of the military school, the naval academy, the law school, and the medical college; and why not of the normal school, also? The military school in addition to a thorough drill in all that pertains to the management of troops, both in the garrison and in the field, imparts actual instruction in those branches of science which are essential to the successful practice of the profession of arms. The naval academy is conducted on the same principle. The law school prescribes a course in letters as essential to the intelligent practice of law. The medical college, although possibly less exacting, makes similar claims; and there is no good reason why the normal school should constitute an exception to this rule. Its claims are surely as pointed as in any of the cases above cited.

It is urged, further, that " academic instruction in a normal school is needless repetition."

This is a question of expediency in which each case should be decided on its merits; and until our literary institutions thoroughly occupy the field, furnishing the kind and degree of training needed, it cannot be used as an argument against the right of the normal school to give "instruction in subject-matter." Indeed, it seems to me, that under any circumstances, the normal school would clearly have the right to give such instruction as would harmonize the academic with the didactic training, thus giving unity to the professional culture.

Again, it is claimed that this work would be better done in the literary institution.

This point is not established. It is natural for those preparing for any given work, both to desire and seek the best training attainable for the purpose. If this claim were well founded, the demand for academic training in the normal school would gradually diminish, and, finally, cease, the supposed evil correcting itself by force of circumstances. But, on the contrary, the demand seems quite as urgent now as in the beginning. My experience has been that those who have received the greater part of their academic training in other schools, usually rank among the most unsatisfactory of our graduates. The exceptions are rare. The training is apt to be unsymmetrical. In one case we find that the student has been rushed forward in Latin and the higher mathematics, while English and the natural sciences have been slighted. In another, the attention has been directed to advanced study, and the elements neglected. And, worse than all, the knowledge is apt to be of the mechanical, text-book order, which discourages original thought, accepts everything on authority, and almost disqualifies the student for effective work as a

teacher. Until these evils are corrected, the normal school will be compelled to give academic training in self-defence.

The idea of trained teachers had its inception in Europe. Prussia was the first to enforce special training, and such was the admiration awakened by the brilliant success of her normal schools, or teachers' seminaries, that the Prussian system with but slight changes has spread throughout the civilized world. The origin of normal schools in the United States may be traced directly to this source. The Prussian schools are regarded as strictly "professional,” and yet their course of instruction is not now, and never has been, exclusively, or mainly, professional in the sense that some of our modern critics would have us use that term. But, on the contrary, only about one-sixteenth of the time in the lower, and less than one-eighth in the higher classes, is occupied in the study of didactics proper. The remaining time, except a small portion devoted to religious instruction, is spent in giving the student a thorough training in the studies of the public-school course, and in such of the higher branches as are deemed especially valuable to the teacher. What has been said of the Prussian school, may with equal propriety be said of normal schools in general. In Prussia we find the parent stem, in other countries including our own, the branches. Their object is the same everywhere, to promote civilization by furnishing a class of trained teachers skilled in every phase of school work. The details of management and execution only, are, in different countries, adjusted to the political circumstances and educational needs. In all, we find three distinctly marked lines of training:-Academic, Didactic, and Practice Teaching. These are equally professional, for all are taught with especial reference to the teacher's work. In fact this is the focal point upon which every exercise is directed. The professional education of the teacher, then, comprehends a symmetrical training in all of these departments. Anything short of it impairs the unity of culture, and in that degree injures his usefulness as a . teacher.

Another view of this question was hinted at in the opening of this paper.

The object of the purely-literary institution is to give a general culture, and it cannot be expected to step aside to look atter specialties. Its true mission is to lay a broad foundation, upon which all professions may securely build. At this point the several professional schools must take up the work and give special training in those branches which underlie their respective professions. It will thus be seen that academic instruction, or "instruction in subject-matter," properly belongs to all, but not in the same sense. The literary institution teaches the history of England and Rome as a means of culture; the school of law, as a means of tracing out the origin and historical development of jurisprudence. The literary institution teaches civil engineering and chemistry for the discipline which the study affords; the school of mines teaches these subjects with a view to their application in the arts of mining and metallurgy. The literary institution teaches anatomy and physiology as sciences; the medical college teaches them in the light of their application in the arts of surgery and medicine. In the school of letters the common branches

are considered only in the sense of their relative importance as elements of education; in the normal school they receive special treatment in view of their practical application in the art of teaching. Literary institutions occupy the broad field of general culture, and foster science for its own sake and its inherent value to the human race; professional schools confine themselves to separate channels of effort, and each tempers its work to some special phase of practical life.

This paper was discussed by JEROME ALLEN, of New York, B. G. NorTHROP, of Connecticut, J: W. DICKINSON, of Massachusetts, T. C. H. VANCE, of Kentucky, J. R. MALONE, of Texas, S. R. THOMPSON, of Nebraska, G. J. ORR, of Georgia, JAMES MCCOSH, of New Jersey, and J: M. GREGORY, of Illinois.

This discussion manifested a variety of opinions, as to what was legitimate work in the school-room.

Mr. Soldan said :

Mr. President :—It appears to me, as if the argument proceeded on a wrong supposition; namely, this: that the teacher needs just as much knowledge of the common branches as the physician or the lawyer, and that, since the schools for the education of the latter do not pay any attention to those studies, professional institutions for the education of teachers, Normal Schools, should not allow to them a place on the program; they should be simply and purely "professional." This supposition is entirely erroneous. For the teacher, unlike other professional men, needs a thorough knowledge of all the common branches in his professional life, his work lies in them and with them. He needs a knowledge of the common school studies which is deeper and more extensive than that possessed by the pupils of the highest grade of any common school, for it will be conceded that the teacher should have a greater amount of positive knowledge in the studies which he is to teach than his pupils, even if they be of the highest grade. Where this special knowledge of common-school studies, (exceeding the ordinary grammar-school limitations both in depth and extent), is to be acquired, if not in a Normal School, is more than I can say.

There is another consideration that speaks for the retention of commonschool studies of a higher grade, in Normal Schools. The Science of Education and methods of instruction may, it is true, be taught in the abstract. There are certain principles in teaching geography, for instance, which its character as an inductive science makes valid, no matter what special principle it is applied to, and we may therefore speak of Methods of Teaching Geography in general. But this is only one side of professional instruction; the principles found must be applied in particular cases, in order to be of some advantage to the student. He must show, for example, how he would teach the change of seasons, or the degrees of latitude and longitude, etc. How this instruction in applied methods of teaching is to be imparted unless in connection with the common-school studies as part of Normal-School work, is again more than I can say.

I suggest that the real question is not "Shall common-school studies have a place in a Normal-School Course" but rather "What place, etc., shall they have?" If they are studied from the teachers' stand-point, as applied methods of instruction they form an essential, important part of Normal-School Work, and any attempt to throw them out will cripple the Normal-School Cause.

GEO. P. BROWN, of the State Normal School at Terre Haute, Indiana, then read the following paper entitled

SOME OF THE OBSTRUCTIONS, NATURAL AND INTERPOSED, THAT RESIST THE FORMATION AND GROWTH OF

THE PEDAGOGIC PROFESSION.

The statement of the theme assignd to me for discussion, implies that a pedagogic profession, if not alredy an establisht fact, is possibl, and that there ar obstructions in the way of its formation and growth.

Whether or not the business of teaching shal be permitted by the public voice to take rank among the so-cald professions, is a matter of small consequence. If it wer the main purpose of this paper to discus the ways and means for securing this result, the end, if attaind, would be of too little valu to justify me in preparing, or you in listening to this essay. What is a profession?

It is not esy to formulate a definition that shal be generally accepted. WEBSTER'S Dictionary contains the following:—“A profession is a vocation other than that of the mechanic, the farmer, the merchant and the like, which one follows for subsistence and which he professes to understand."

This does not giv much aid in helping us to find the boundary line between a profession and a vocation that is not a profession. It is not clear to the common mind why the vocation of him who practices agriculture, may not be cald a profession, with as much propriety, as is the vocation of him who teaches the practice of agriculture. The definition is not clear becaus it suggests no satisfactory basis of classification of vocation into professional and non-professional.

A study of this vague expression of a stil vaguer conception, leads to the discovery of some of the elements that all wil acknowledge, must be in a profession. A profession is a vocation and not an avocation. It is the chief or principal business of a man's life and not something that is taken up at leisure times for amusement or for profit. A profession is followed for subsistence. It has these elements in common with nonprofessional callings. The definiton quoted above suggests another element, which I think wil help us to find the distinguishing mark of a profession. It is containd in the claus, “which one professes to understand." To understand is to hav “just and adequate ideas of;" it is to know the thing in itself and in its relation to other things. It is to know the principls and truths that ar the germ of the thing, and the laws by which the thing has grown from this germ. To understand a thing is to hav a scientific knowledge of it.

'Scientific knowledge, except when of axiomatic principls, requires conviction of the truth of the givn proposition and a knowledge of its reason or caus."-Aristotle.

"A science is a complement of cognitions, having in form the character of logical perfection; and in matter, the character of real truth.”—Sir Wm. Hamilton.

He who possesses such a knowledge of his vocation, sustains a very different relation to it than does he who works by the direction of another, in obedience to givn rules. This difference of relation is sufficiently marked to form the basis for the separation of the vocations of men into two classes; viz.,-The Liberal Arts and the Industrial Arts.

He who practices a liberal art is an artist. He is fre from the limitations which attend ignorance and subjection to authority. The artisan can practice only an industrial art. He must be ever subject to these limi

tations.

Whether an art is industrial or liberal depends not upon the accident of its being the practice of agriculture or of medicine, but upon the kind of knowledge of his art which he who practices it possesses. HENRY BESSEMER in his manufacture of bronze, or of steel, practiced a liberal art. The physician who simply follows the rules of practice laid down by his author for the treatment of diseases, practices an industrial art. The difference between a trade and a profession is not found in the nature of the work done, nor in the manner in which it is done; but rather in the reason which exists in the mind of the workman for so doing; it is the difference between blind obedience to law, and being a law unto one's self.

The pedagogic profession is, then, the practice of the liberal art of guiding the young to a harmonious development of all their faculties through their own efforts.

No one doubts that there ar teachers at the work in every state of the Union who ar artists, and may be truly said to practice teaching as a liberal art. Since this is tru, it follows that there is a pedagogic profession alredy formd. It only remains, therefore, for me to make mention of some of the obstructions which resist the growth of this profession.

It has been thus far assumed that by pedagogic profession is ment the vocation of school teaching. But "Pedagogics" is a word of much larger content. A system of pedagogics is understood to provide for the complete education of the individual. Such a system includes the influence of the family, the church, the state, and civil and polite society, as wel as the influence of the school..

Education is defined by some German writer to be "the harmonious and equabl evolution of the human powers by a method based on the nature of the mind; every power of the soul to be unfolded, every crude principl of life stird up and nourisht, all one-sided culture avoided, and the impulses on which the strength and worth of man rest, carefully attended to."

JAMES MILL says that the purpose of education is "to render the individual, as much as possibl, an instrument of happiness, first to himself and next to other beings."