of course, upon the cost of the grounds and buildings. The experience of several other States leads me to hope that these will be given by some community as a bonus to secure the location of the institution. The citizens of McLean county, Illinois, subscribed one hundred and forty-three thousand dollars for the sake of getting the Normal University of that State located in the county. Hon. Josiah Quincy, Boston, purchased a building and presented it to the Normal School at West Newton, Mass., now removed to Framingham. The city of Oswego has purchased and fitted up a fine building for the State Training School of New York. Other similar instances might be named.

The annual expense of maintaining a Normal School of a high character, when once established, will be about $12,000. The current expenses of the Illinois Normal University, Michigan State Normal School, New Jersey State Normal School, and the New York State Normal School at Albany, are respectively about $12,000 a year. This sum will be needed in this State.

It will thus be seen that the actual cost to the State of maintaining the entire system of Normal and Institute instruction which I have recommended, is only about $20,000-a sum altogether insignificant when compared with the grand object it is to promote. The law making the appropriation may with propriety be entitled "An act appropriating $20,000 to keep the half of $3,000,000 from being squandered on incompetent teachers!"

Any attempt to present a complete course of study and training for the proposed Normal School, or to give the details of its organization, would carry me beyond the proper limits of this report. I would recommend that the organization and management of the entire Normal System, including the Normal School, the Normal Institutes, and the County Institutes, be intrusted to a Board of Trustees, or Regents, to consist of the Governor and Commissioner of Common Schools, as ex officio members, and three other persons to be appointed by the Governor, and confirmed by the Senate, the same to be known as the "State Board of Normal Regents," with full authority to appoint a general Institute superintendent, to act in conjunction with the Commissioner of Common Schools, and to employ Institute instructors-the amount expended each year being limited to the State appropriation for the purpose. In those counties which may have efficient local Institute associations, the management of the County Institutes should be left, as now, to such associations, the State instructors rendering needed assistance. But I forbear entering further into details. Should the plan recommended receive the approbation of the General Assembly, I shall be happy to render any assistance in my power in determining the practical details of the system.

It is now nearly thirty years since Hon. Samuel Lewis, then State Superintendent of Common Schools, submitted to the General Assembly of Ohio, in answer to a resolution, a "Report on State Institutions for the Training of Teachers and Others," in which he recommended the establishment of a State institution for the professional training of teachers, sustaining his recommendation by a cogency of argument worthy of the great cause he sought to promote. Since the date of Mr. Lewis' report, which presented to Ohio the enviable opportunity of becoming the American pioneer in the professional training of teachers, Normal Schools have been established by sixteen States-Ohio being outstripped by States that have not a tithe of her wealth or population. Even new-born Maryland has made the Normal School an essential element of her new free-school system. Indeed, States that have been peopled since the General Assembly of Ohio passed the resolution referred to, have now their Normal Schools. Massachusetts is paying more than $22,000 annually for the support of her Normal Schools and Institutes. New York pays annually from $20,000 to $25,000* for her Normal Schools, about $17,000 for Teachers' classes in Academies, and from $10,000 to $15,000 for Institutes. Illinois, even while the late civil war was raging, appropriated, in two installments, $97,000 to pay, in part. for the magnificent building now occupied by her Normal University.

Why, in a matter so fundamental and vital as the supplying of her schools with qualified teachers, should Ohio longer fail to be the peer of her sister States? An efficient system of professional training for the teachers of the State is imperatively needed to infuse new life and vigor into the schools and elevate the standard of public instruction. I would most earnestly commend this subject to the favorable consideration of the General Assembly.

* Increased to $60,000 in 1867.

WEST VIRGINIA NORMAL SCHOOLS.

THE Legislature of West Virginia, by an act passed February 27, 1867, established a Board of Regents of the State Normal School of West Virginia, to consist of the Superintendent of Free Schools, ex-officio, the Secretary of State, Auditor, and Treasurer, and one member appointed by the Governor from each of the three congressional districts in the State. The first meeting of the Board was held at Guyandotte, September 6th, 1867, at which time the property formerly known as Marshall College, and valued at $10,000, was transferred to their custody for the use and benefit of a Normal school.

Provision was made for additions and repairs to the buildings and premises, and ten acres of land purchased, making the whole amount for the use of the school eleven and a quarter acres.

The building is four stories high, fifty feet by thirty-six, with a twostory brick wing, fifty feet by thirty, and is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Ohio river, about two miles from the town of Guyandotte. An appropriation of $2,500 was made to procure furniture and apparatus for the school.

An additional appropriation of $35,000 has been made this year, (1868,) and the school is to open June 1st.

The Academy at West Liberty, with about four acres of land, has been purchased by the superintendent for a second Normal school, and the title vested in the Board of Regents.

A preliminary session of this school was opened at Fairmont on the 6th of May, and continued until the 4th of October, or five months. There were about ninety students in all, thirty-three of whom were in the Normal Department; nearly all of these engaged in teaching after the close of the school. Prof. John N. Boyd was Principal, and Prof. A. S. Cameron had charge of the Model Training School.

At a meeting of the Board held October 18th, 1867, the following branches were ordered to be taught in the Normal schools, viz: Orthography, Reading, Penmanship, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, Bookkeeping, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, with practical Surveying, Botany, Natural Philosophy, Anatomy, Physiology, Music, and the Art of Teaching, and such other branches as the Board may from time to time direct.

DELAWARE STATE NORMAL UNIVERSITY.

THE Delaware State Normal University was organized, November 19th, 1866, and incorporated, January 23d, 1867.

The necessity of a Seminary, or some institution "wherein students might receive a professional education which should peculiarly qualify them for instructing and disciplining youth, had attracted the attention of prominent friends of education in the State of Delaware before 1866. It was believed that the establishment of a Normal School would be the most efficient means for elevating the standard and increasing the usefulness of Common Schools.

As the school was to be commenced without any aid from the State, and to be dependent upon the voluntary patronage of the people, a subscription of more than twenty scholarships was secured before the school was opened. Besides the Normal School course, the institution provides for a business education in its Business Department, and has also a department in which teachers are prepared to take the charge of academies and high-schools, where the classics, modern languages and higher mathematics are taught.

In the report and catalogue of the school, there are given the names of the Board of Trustees, consisting of twenty-eight gentlemen representing different positions and avocations in life, a visiting committee of nine, and a faculty of five gentlemen employed as professors or instructors, and one lady, a teacher of music.

For admission to the Normal course, the candidate must be at least fourteen years of age, of good health and moral character, and be able to pass an examination in reading, spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, grammar and geography.

The course of study requires three years, and includes, besides the usual High School or academic branches, the following subjects:

School Government, Principles of Education, Theory and Practice of Teaching, School Economy, Mercantile Calculations, Commercial Rules, Double Entry and other forms of Book-keeping, Business Correspondence, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Conversational Lectures upon the methods in teaching each of the branches pursued.

The average annual expenses are for tuition, $54; text-books, $7,25; board, thirty-seven weeks, $138,75. Total, $200. For male students, from $200 to $240 for the year.

LOUISIANA STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL of Louisiana was established by an act of the Legislature passed in 1858, and modified by subsequent enactments of 1859 and 1860. It was located in New Orleans, and organized in connection with the public schools of that city. Its first session opened in 1858, and the school was continued in successful operation till April, 1862. The Legislature in 1860 appropriated ten thousand dollars to aid in the erection of a suitable building; a similar appropriation was made the same year and for the same purpose by the common council of the city. Of these sums ten thousand dollars was received, five thousand dollars from the State and the same amount from the city for the building, when the work was stopped.

A memorial was addressed to the Legislature in 1867, asking for a new appropriation for its re-organization and support.

The school was under the charge and supervision of a Board of Directors that visited it, examined the classes, and reported annually to the State Superintendent of Public Education. It numbered more than one hundred on its register in daily attendance, and the interest in the school was annually increasing up to the time of its suspension.

It has recently been revived through the voluntary efforts of the State Superintendent and a few zealous teachers who have given their time and services to the instruction and training of the students assembled. One hundred and forty were in attendance in February, (1868). Normal classes have also been organized in some of the best schools and colleges in the State.

CITY NORMAL SCHOOL

AT ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION.

THE St. Louis Normal School was opened in October, 1857, and placed under the charge of Richard Edwards, LL. D., now President of the Illinois Normal University. It continued under his superintendence as a distinct and separate school till the close of the year 1861, when the Board of Education, finding themselves in circumstances of great financial embarrassment, were obliged to effect a reduction in the expenses of the schools. For this reason, the Normal School was temporarily made a department of the High School, and Mr. Edwards became Principal of both, entering upon his duties as such in January, 1862. In March of the same year, Mr. Edwards resigned to take charge of the Illinois State Normal University. Mr. Thomas Metcalf then took charge of both schools till September, 1862, when they were again separated, and the Normal School was placed under the charge of one of its graduates, till January, 1863, when its present accomplished Principal, Miss Anna E. Brackett, was installed over the school.

This school is intended for the training of persons of both sexes who desire to become teachers in the public schools of the city.

The school is under the immediate supervision of a sub-committee appointed by the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools. This committee visit the Normal School, note the methods of discipline and instruction, and report at the close of each quarter, the condition and prospects of the school. The present faculty of the school consists of one Principal and two assistants, all ladies, and two part-time teachers for music and drawing.

ADMISSION OF STUDENTS.

All persons who have graduated at the High School, and other persons, residents of St. Louis, of the age of sixteen years and upwards, who pass an examination satisfactorily, in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, geography, arithmetic, algebra, history of the United States, and music, may be admitted to the school on subscribing a declaration, declaring their intention to devote themselves to the business of teaching in the public schools of St. Louis for at least two years; and pledging themselves to continue in the Normal School for at least one year.

COURSE OF STUDY.

The course of study requires two years. For the first or junior year, the studies are arithmetic, including mental and written; geography,