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studying intelligible and interesting.

And a recitation of this character, instead of being, as it too often has been, a dull, sing-song, meaningless thing, becomes the pleasantest exercise of the day to both teacher and pupil. But to do this implies thought and preparation on the part of the teacher, as much as it does study on that of the pupil. And it is in return a thousand times more inspiriting to both than a round of lessons varied only by the different degrees of dullness with which they are recited, or the different intensity of stupidity with which the pupil undertakes to master the words which he is trying to repeat.

Such are some of the hints, and they are merely hints, which are suggested by an occasion when our attention is called to the aims and purposes with which a band of high-minded, hopeful young women are preparing to enter the ranks of the noble profession of teachers.

But I may be met with something like a hint in reply, that this picture of a teacher's life is anything but attractive, from its want of excitement and interest. It would certainly be unfair to deal otherwise than frankly with any one of this class, as to what she is to expect when entering upon the duties and rewards of a teacher. And I am free to confess that there is much to justify the complaint of many in the profession, that it is a life of irksome routine, and that they are in danger of losing the proper stimulus to effort, by having to do with children whose minds are so much inferior to their own. This, however, is but a one-sided view of the question. And even if it presented all its bearings, what department of labor or industry, bodily or mental, is there of which the same complaint of monotony and routine might not be equally just. It is true of the duties and cares of the family. It is true of labor upon the farm, in the workshop and the manufactory. And even in what are called the liberal professions of law and medicine, no small share of their duties are mere matters of routine.

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Regarded in this light, it really seems to resolve itself into the question, which is preferable, to go through a certain round of operations upon matter, or to do the same thing with mind? The question, in such a presence, can hardly fail to answer itself. And then again as to the danger of belittling one's mind by such a pursuit. That must evidently depend upon the temperament and habits of the teacher himself. If he is of an indolent, unambitious nature, working only when he is obliged, and content in doing the least possible labor for the most he can get, it makes little difference in the end with the growth of his mind whether he cuts out shoe leather by a pattern, or tends a spinning-frame, or hears boys daily recite a certain number of lines or paragraphs. But if, in the intervals of his work as a teacher, he will go outside of this into the world as it lies spread out before him, and take a part in what is being done and thought and said there, he has no occasion or chance to grow stagnant and rusty, or for suffering himself to subside into the type of Ichabod Crane or Dominie Sampson. Roger Sherman and Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary memory, were none the less capable to guide the councils or lead the armies of the Republic because they had spent their lives in the duties and details of the shop or the routine of daily industry. They had been trained and educated while doing this to other thoughts by the influences and circumstances by which they were surrounded. Think for a moment, when you begin to distrust the dignity of the employment which you have chosen as compared with that of any of your neighbors, of what that employment consists. Instead of forcing

the reluctant earth to yield the flowers that bloom for a day, or the fruits that ripen and decay in a single summer, or spending your cunning skill to fashion of wood or metal the parts of a curious machine, you are helping to perfect an engine of power whose subtle elements no human sagacity has ever yet completely analyzed, and whose capacity no calculus has been adequate to measure. The flower which you are to cultivate, though it be cut down even in its unfolding, will be sure to bear seed in other gardens under a more skillful training. What after all is the most calculated to damp the zeal and cool the ardor with which a teacher enters upon her work, is the slow returns which come of her best directed efforts. She either grows weary in waiting for the seed she has planted to spring up, or she finds it springing up on a stony soil, or being choked by the weeds and thorns that show a ranker growth. But this impatience is neither wise nor philosophical. Who that has planted the seedling oak can measure from day to day the growth that it is making? He waits, and in a few years the sapling has begun to assume the form and proportions of the tree, and in due time it rears itself in beauty and strength, till it stands unharmed by the storms that sweep over it. To measure what she has in fact done, the teacher should contrast the child just entering upon the mystic problem of syllables and words, with the beaming face and cheerful alacrity with which he gathers up as he reads from the printed page the incidents of some tale or narrative, or the eager delight with which he listens to the simple truths of science which she unfolds to his attentive ear. Or if she would comprehend the more signal triumphs of her skill, in striking out as it were the spark of genius which may have laid dormant till some such kindly hand has awakened it to life, let her look at the men and women who are stamping the impress of their own mind upon the passing age, and reflect that the world often owes its richest treasures of intellect to some fortunate hint, some word of encouragement given by an earnest teacher to an ingenuous pupil. Nor need she stop even there. If she would take a full measure of the grandeur of that miracle which she is helping to work out in the broader field of a nation's life, let her contrast for a single moment this noble old Commonwealth of ours, with her free schools, with any of the States where slavery has been keeping the human mind locked up in ignorance and barbarism.

Nor does the position of a teacher suffer in comparison with other avocations in which men engage, in the rewards which it offers to honorable personal ambition. I say nothing of it as an avenue to wealth, but of other encouragements which it offers liberal and generous minds. If we analyze the secret springs and motives for what we call ambition, it will be found that they resolve themselves into the love of power-power it may be to do good, or power to control others; and what field is there which opens so wide a scope for an honorable ambition like this as the life and business of a teacher of the young? He may not command the wills or direct the policy of the masses by the power of eloquence, the prerogative of office, or the leadership of a party; but he does far more than this, in guiding the thoughts and directing the judgments and developing the powers of those who are so soon to constitute the living energy of a united people. And in this we should ever bear in mind there is nothing involving superiority of blood or birth. On the contrary, the chance of success in such a mission is with one who, starting in obscurity, has caught something of that spirit which spurns and soars above the accident of name or birth. Nor

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is there anything of sex in this power of the teacher to achieve success. If there is, it is in favor of the more refined sensitiveness and delicacy of organization of woman, which give her a readier access to the sympathies and sensibilities of the child. But whoever is engaged in a work like this, be it man or be it woman, is doing something towards shaping the character and destiny of the nation. The great conservative principle of a free government is education and the free school. I congratulate you, Miss Johnson, and your associates, and you, young ladies, on the distinguished presence of the honored chief magistrate of our Commonwealth, and these tried and true friends of education, and the evidence it gives of their appreciation of your services in the cause. I congratulate you that by the experiment this day inaugurated your sex is at last to have one fair field in which to vindicate the confidence which the Board of Education in behalf of the State have, that in the learning and skill and patriotic sentiment of her daughters, the Commonwealth is to share an element of moral power which has never before been fully developed, and that she is in this way to gain new strength and energy to meet the growing demand for influences like hers in the life-struggle through which our country is passing. The free states of Greece did not lose their independence so much from the lack of intelligence and love of liberty in their men, as for the want of the influence, the counsel and the equal companionship of virtuous and high-minded women. The sound of war is indeed hushed, but never has there been such a necessity for wise men and trained and educated teachers as the country feels to-day. Never has the influence of Massachusetts and her schools been more needed in the conflict with ignorance and a vicious political education, in which our country is involved, than they are to-day; and never has woman been called to higher and more responsible duties than those which devolve upon her in the part which she is acting as teacher and educator of the young to whom the ark of our liberties is so soon to be confided.

Take heart then, every one of you, teachers and pupils, while following out the mission in these halls to which they have been dedicated, in the assurance that it is to be your privilege to form a part of that noble army who are battling for free thought and the honor and integrity of a nation of free men.

The Special Committee of the Board of Education, in their report on the Normal School at Framingham for 1867, remark:

It is now as well settled that such a Principal and such a corps of teachers are competent to carry on and sustain such a school, as it is that such a school, under any heads, can be an efficient aid and instrumentality in the business of popular education in the State.

But if this be not an exaggeration, if the value of labor is to be judged of by the measure of its results, upon what principle of fairness and equality can we justify the scale of compensation which prevails in the State in respect to our schools? Why should one of two persons who does an important and indispensable work of precisely the same character for the public, equally well and equally acceptably, be paid in the ratio to each other of three to five, or one to two, because, in the economy of nature, one was born a woman and the other a man? It is not for the visitors of this school to engage in a discussion involving the questions now agitating the public mind in regard to the sexes. But they would be unworthy to claim a share in what are called the manly virtues, if they could see labor expended and talent employed, from term to term, and from year to year, for the best interests of the Commonwealth, without protesting that these ought to be paid by some other scale of compensation than the sex of those who perform this labor and bestow this talent.

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THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WESTFIELD, MASS.

THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL at Westfield, (Mass.,) was first opened at Barre, by an address from Hon. Edward Everett, on the 4th of September, 1839, and suspended in 1841, on its removal to Westfield. It was there re-opened on the 4th of September, 1844, by an address from Rev. Dr. Humphrey, President of Amherst College. In 1860 the building was enlarged by the addition of wings, and thoroughly repaired. From September, 1844, to the close of 1861, the aggregate attendance at the Westfield School was 1,633. It was under the Principalship of S. P. Newman, from September 4th, 1839, to February 10th, 1842; of E. Davis, from September 3d, 1844, to September 3d, 1846; of D. S. Rowe, from September 3d, 1846, to March, 1854; of W. H. Wells, from August 1854, to April, 1856; and of J. W. Dickinson, from April, 1856, to the present time. The following paragraphs are from the Annual Circular for 1862.

Male applicants for admission to the School must be at least seventeen years of age; female applicants, sixteen. There must be an explicit declaration that the applicant intends to become a teacher in the schools of Massachusetts. The applicant must give a pledge to remain in the School at least three terms, the first two of which shall be consecutive.

Candidates for admission must present themselves at the school-room on the first day of the term, at 9 o'clock A. M., and pass a satisfactory examination in Reading, Writing, Spelling, Defining, English Grammar, Geography, and Arithmetic. There will be an examination at no other time during the term, except for special reasons.

Each applicant must present a certificate of good intellectual and moral character, from some responsible person.

The following is the course of study, without regard to the order in which the branches will be pursued, or the length of time devoted to them:

Geography, Physical and Political, with use of Globes and Outline Maps; Arithmetic; Grammar, and Analysis; Physiology; History of United States; General History, with Ancient Geography; Natural History; Algebra, Geometry; Natural Philosophy, with Experiments; Chemistry, with Experiments; Astronomy; History and Structure of the English Language, with Analysis of Milton and other Poets; School Laws of Massachusetts, and General Principles of Government; Theory and Art of Teaching, with Mental Philosophy; Rhetoric.

Reading, Writing, Elementary Sounds, Etymology, Spelling, Vocal Music, Composition, Recitations of Select Pieces, Extempore Speaking, Discussions, and Moral Philosophy, extend through the whole course.

Botany, Drawing, Latin, and French are optional.

The pupils have daily teaching exercises in connection with the recitations, and the members of the Senior Class devote a large portion of their time to the Theory and Art of Teaching.

Every Wednesday afternoon is devoted to the exercises of the Lyceum conducted by the students.

Every pupil who honorably completes the Course of Study is entitled to the regular Diploma of the Institution, which does not hold itself responsible for any others, although they may have been members of the School.

There will be an advanced Class, which will enable the Graduates of the School to continue their studies beyond the prescribed course.

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