prevailed much more as the pupils were younger. Before the older classes the teacher's manner became calm and didactic. The habit of attention being once formed, nothing was left for subsequent years or teachers, but the easy task of maintaining it. Was there ever such a comment as this on the practice of having cheap teachers because the school is young, or incompetent ones because it is backward!

"In Prussia and in Saxony, as well as in Scotland, the power of commanding and retaining the attention of a class is held to be a sine qua non in a teacher's qualifications. If he has not talent, skill, vivacity, or resources of anecdote, and wit sufficient to arouse and retain the attention of his pupils during the accustomed period of recitation, he is deemed to have mistaken his calling, and receives a significant hint to change his vocation.

"The third circumstance I mentioned above was, the beautiful relation of harmony and affection which subsisted between teacher and pupils. I cannot say, that the extraordinary circumstance I have mentioned was not the result of chance or accident. Of the probability of that, others must judge. I can only say that, during all the time mentioned, I never saw a blow struck, I never heard a sharp rebuke given, I never saw a child in tears, nor arraigned at the teacher's bar for any alleged misconduct. On the contrary, the relation seemed to be one of duty first, and then affection, on the part of the teacher- of affection first, and then duty, on the part of the scholar. The teacher's manner was better than parental, for it had a parent's tenderness and vigilance, without the foolish doatings or indulgences, to which parental affection is prone. I heard no child ridiculed, sneered at, or scolded, for making a mistake. On the contrary, whenever a mistake was made, or there was a want of promptness in giving a reply, the expression of the teacher was that of grief and disappointment, as though there had been a failure not merely to answer the question of a master, but to comply with the expectations of a friend. No child was disconcerted, disabled, or bereft of his senses, through fear. Nay, generally at the end of the answers, the teacher's practice is to encourage him, with the exclamation, good, right, wholly right,' &c., or to check him with his slowly and painfully articulated 'no;" and this is done with a tone of voice, that marks every degree of plus and minus in the scale of approbation and 'regret. When a difficult question has been put to a young child, which tasks all his energies, the teacher approaches him with a mingled look of concern and encouragement; he stands before him, the light and shade of hope and fear alternately crossing his countenance; and if the little wrestler with difficulty triumphs, the teacher felicitates him upon his success; perhaps seizes, and shakes him

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by the hand in token of congratulation; and, when the difficulty has been really formidable, and the effort triumphant, I have seen the teacher catch up the child in his arms, and embrace him, as though he were not able to contain his joy. At another time I have seen a teacher actually clap his hands with delight at a bright reply; and all this has been done so naturally and so unaffectedly as to excite no other feeling in the residue of the children than a desire, by the same means, to win the same caresses. What person worthy of being called by the name, or of sustaining the sacred relation of a parent, would not give any thing, bear anything, sacrifice anything, to have his children, during eight or ten years of the period of their childhood, surrounded by circumstances, and breathed upon by sweet and humanizing influences like these!

"Still, in almost every German school into which I entered, I enquired whether corporeal punishments were allowed or used, and I was uniformly answered in the affirmative. But it was further said, that, though all teachers had liberty to use it, yet cases of its occurrence were very rare, and these cases were confined almost wholly to young scholars. Until the teacher had time to establish the relation of affection between himself and the new comer into his school, until he had time to create that attachment which children always feel towards any one who, day after day, supplies them with novel and pleasing ideas, it was occasionally necessary to restrain and punish them. But after a short time, a love of the teacher, and a love of knowledge, become a substitute,-how amiable a one! for punishment. When I asked my common question of Dr. Vogel, of Leipsic, he answered, that it was still used in the schools of which he had the superintendence. But,' added he, "thank God, it is used less and less, and when we teachers become fully competent to our work, it will cease altogether.'

"To the above I may add, that I found all the teachers whom I visited, alive to the subject of improvement. They had libraries of the standard works on Education,-works of which there are such great numbers in the German language. Every new book of any promise, was eagerly sought after; and I uniformly found the educational periodicals of the day, upon the tables of the teachers.

"The extensive range and high grade of instruction which so many of the German youth are enjoying, and these noble qualifications on the part of the instructors, are the natural and legitimate result of their Seminaries for Teachers. Without the latter, the former never could have been, any more than an effect without its cause."

The distinguished M. GUIZOT, repeatedly Minister of Public Instruction in France, when introducing the Law of Primary Instruction to the Chamber of French Deputies, in 1833, said: "All the provisions hitherto described, would be of none effect, if we took no pains to procure for the public school thus constituted, an able master, and worthy of the high vocation of instructing the people. It cannot be too often repeated, that it is the master who makes the school. What a well assorted union of qualities is required to constitute a good master! A good master ought to be a man who knows much more than he is called upon to teach, that he may teach with intelligence and with taste; who is to live in an humble sphere, and yet have a noble and elevated spirit; that he may preserve that dignity of mind and of deportment, without which he will never obtain the respect and confidence of families; who possesses a rare mixture of gentleness and firmness; for, inferior though he be, in station, to many individuals in the Communes, he ought to be the obsequious servant to none; a man not ignorant of his rights, but thinking much more of his duties; showing to all a good example, and serving to all as a counsellor; not given to change his condition, but satisfied with his situation, because it gives him the power of doing good; and who has made up his mind to live and to die in the service of Primary Instruction, which to him is the service of God and his fellow creatures. To rear up masters approaching to such a model, is a difficult task, and yet we must succeed in it, or we have done nothing for elementary instruction.

VICTOR COUSIN, who like GUIZOT, has served with distinction as Minister of Public Instruction in France, in his Report on the Public Instruction of Prussia, justly observes, that "the best plans of instruction cannot be executed except by the instrumentality of good teachers; and the State has done nothing for popular education, if it does not watch that those who devote themselves to teaching be well prepared." Three years subsequent to his visit to Prussia, M. Cousin made a tour in Holland with a view of investigating the educational system of that country; and says, as the result of his further inquiries on the subject: "I attach the greatest importance to Normal Primary Schools, and I consider that all future success in the education of the people depends upon them. In perfecting her (Holland) system of Primary Schools, Normal Schools were introduced for the better training of masters. All the School Inspectors with whom I met in the course of my journey, assured me that they had brought about an entire change in the condition of the school-master, and that they had given the young teachers a

feeling of dignity in their profession, and had thereby introduced an improved tone and style of manners."

Prof. A. D. BACHE, a great-grandson of the illustrious Franklin, now at the head of the United States Coast Survey, who went several years since to Europe, at the instance of Girard College, to examine educational systems abroad, makes the following impressive remarks in his able Report on Education in Europe:

"When education is to be rapidly advanced, seminaries for teachers offer the means of securing this result. An eminent teacher is selected as Director of the Seminary; and by the aid of competent assistants, and while benefiting the community by the instruction given in the schools attached to the Seminary, trains, yearly, from thirty to forty youths in the enlightened practice of his methods; these, in their turn, become teachers of schools, which they are fit at once to conduct, without the failures and mistakes usual with novices; for though beginners in name, they have acquired in the course of the two or three years spent at the Seminary, an experience equivalent to many years of unguided efforts. This result has been fully realized in the success of the attempts to spread the methods of Pestalozzi and others through Prussia. The plan has been adopted, and is yielding its appropriate fruits in Holland, Switzerland, France and Saxony; while in Austria, where the method of preparing teachers by their attendance on the primary schools is still adhered to, the schools are stationary, and behind those of Northern and Middle Germany.

"These Seminaries produce a strong esprit de corps among teachers, which tends powerfully to interest them in their profession, and attach them to it, to elevate it in their eyes, and to stimulate them to improve constantly upon the attainments, with which they may have commenced its exercise. By their aid, a standard of examination in the theory and practice of instruction is furnished, which may be fairly exacted of candidates who have chosen a different way to obtain access to the profession.

"Wherever Normal Schools have been established," says Hon. EGERTON RYERSON, Chief Superintendent of Public Instruction of Upper Canada, "it has been found thus far that the demand for regularly trained teachers has exceeded the supply which the Normal Schools have been able to provide. It is so in the United States; it is so, up to the present time, in France; it is most pressingly and painfully so in England, Ireland and Scotland. I was told by the Head Masters of the great Normal Schools in London, in Dublin, in Glasgow, and in Edinburgh, that such was the demand for the pupils of the Normal Schools as teachers, that, in many instances, they found it

impossible to retain them in the Normal School during the prescribed course-even when it was limited to a year."

Prof. CALVIN E. STOWE visited Europe in 1839, and on his return, submitted a Report on Elementary Public Instruction in Europe, to the Legislature of Ohio. To the objection, "We have had good teachers without Normal Seminaries, and may have good teachers still," he makes the following characteristic and graphic reply: "This is the old and stereotyped objection against every attempt at improvement in every age. When the bold experiment was first made of nailing iron upon a horse's hoof, the objection was probably urged that horse-shoes were entirely unnecessary-We have had excellent horses without them, and shall probably continue to have them. The Greeks and Romans never used iron horse-shoes; and did they not have the best of horses, which could travel thousands of miles, and bear on their backs the conquerors of the world?' So when chimneys and windows were first introduced, the same objection would still hold good. 'We have had very comfortable houses without these expensive additions. Our fathers never had them, and why should we?' And at this day, if we were to attempt, in certain parts of the Scottish Highlands, to introduce the practice of wearing pantaloons, we should probably be met with the same objection. We have had very good men without pantaloons, and no doubt we shall continue to have them. In fact, we seldom know the inconveniences of an old thing until we have taken a new and a better one in its stead. It is scarcely a year since the New York and European sailing packets were supposed to be the ne plus ultra of a comfortable and speedy passage across the Atlantic; but now in comparison with the newly established steam packets, they are justly regarded as a slow, uncertain and tedious mode of conveyance. The human race is progressive, and it often happens that the greatest conveniences of one generation, are reckoned among the clumsiest waste lumber of the next. Compare the best printing press at which Dr. Franklin ever worked, with those splendid machines which now throw off their thousand sheets an hour; and who will put these down by repeating, that Dr. Franklin was a very good printer, and made very good books, and became quite rich without them?

"I know that we have good teachers already; and I honor the men who have made themselves good teachers, with so little encouragement, and so little opportunity of study. But I also know that such teachers are very few, almost none, in comparison with the public wants; and that a supply never can be expected without the increased facilities which a good Teachers' Seminary would furnish.”