Vol. 41.

N its simplest form of statement the School Department was to me merely a new client, whose interests were unexpectedly entrusted to my charge, and to which, during five and a half years, I gave my exclusive attention; and then turned away to other pursuits, not taking a second thought as to what might or might not be the ultimate verdict of History with regard to what had been accomplished or attempted; and I have seldom had anything to say about that period, unless by request, as in the present instance, or some special occurrence, such as Governor Pollock's death, served to bring out such testimony as it might be in my power to give.

My first official contact with the Normal School question was some four or five weeks after Governor Pollock's inauguration, in the winter of 1855. Dr. Thomas H. Burrowes, of Lancaster, had made an early call at the Department to make the acquaintance of its new officers, and to look after his unfulfilled contract with the previous administration to write the Pennsylvania School Architecture, the wood-cuts for which were already on hand, but not a line of the text yet furnished. He was courteously received, and State Supt. A. G. Curtin, after looking into the matter, reaffirmed the contract, and it was arranged for Dr. Burrowes' convenience, that the manuscript should pass to the State printer through my hands, and the proof

No. 6.

sheets he returned to Dr. B. through the same channel.

A

Not long after, we had another call from him in reference to his work, and in the course of a general conversation he referred to the admitted necessity of Normal Schools for the training of teachers, and urged that a law should be passed to establish a State Normal School at Harrisburg, similar to the one at Albany, New York, under exclusive governmental control, and supported by annual appropriations from the State treasury. I listened to him in amazement. bill to bridge the Atlantic or tunnel the Rocky Mountains could hardly have been more hopelessly impossible than such a measure as he proposed at that time, and in the then state of public opinion with regard both to our educational policy and the use of public moneys for its advancement. Our revised school system was then in the throes of revolution, breasting a tidal wave of popular hostility which threatened the loss of all that had been gained by the school law of 1854. It taxed the whole power and influence of the State Administration to withstand and successfully counteract this opposition, and he would have been a bold man indeed who would have ventured to introduce such a bill into either House at that time. Of course, it was not attempted.

One morning about two weeks after this the Governor sent over to the Department

a letter about Normal Schools that he had received from Benjamin Bannan, Esq., of Pottsville, editor and proprietor of the Miners' Journal, and for many years an influential member of the Pottsville School Board, with instructions to acknowledge its receipt, which was done. It was an autograph letter of six or eight closely written letter-sheet pages, rather difficult to decipher, and recommended that State Normal Schools should be established by districts, not by the State, but by private parties under State sanction and approval. Congressional districts were suggested as about the size of district that would probably be most advantageous. This was a new departure from the generally received ideas on this subject, but the whole subject being then in the nebulous domain of theory, nothing practical could come of it at that period. The time had not yet come for legislation with regard to it.

Sometime afterwards-after this lapse of time I can give only the sequence of events, without being able to recall exact dates of which no note was made at the time-in mailing some proof sheets of the Architecture to Dr. Burrowes and some items for the official department of The School Journal, I enclosed Mr. Bannan's letter to him as being something entirely different from the plan he had so urgently pressed upon our consideration.

In his annual report for the school year 1856, submitted to the Legislature of 1857, State Supt. Curtin took up the subject and substantially recommended this newly-suggested plan. The report made a fluttering in educational circles and brought a score of college and seminary presidents and professors to the Legislative halls to see what it meant, and how their interests were likely to be affected by any legislation that might be had.

After a time it seemed, from conversational discussions of the subject, in and out of the Legislature, that there might be a fighting chance to get something done at last. At any rate it was worth while to make the attempt. To give added weight and prestige to the movement a special committee was appointed in the Senate, with Hon. Titian J. Coffee, of Indiana county, as chairman, to take the subject into consideration.

The session was now pretty well advanced and the files of the two Houses became loaded down with bills on other subjects, and these bills of course, in the regular order of business, were entitled to precedence.

The committee took their time to examine the subject, and did not seem to be able to agree upon a bill that was satisfactory to themselves.

One day in looking at the almanac to date some official correspondence, I was startled to see how rapidly the session was passing, and began to have some misgivings that our Normal School plans might fall through from want of time. Acting under this feeling I turned from the drudgery of my desk long enough to drop a hasty note to Dr. Burrowes, who had a natural aptitude for drawing up bills, advising him of the situation and my fear that we might fail in getting Normal School legislation for want of time, and requested him to prepare a bill embodying the recommendations in Superintendent Curtin's report, and to let me have it at his earliest convenience.

My letter went to him by the one o'clock mail on Friday. The mail on Monday noon brought me his reply, in the shape of a bill covering eight pages of foolscap in his peculiar fine hand, and nine foolscap pages of explanatory notes and comments, accompanied by a letter in which he said, “If you will get this bill through it will be the best Sunday's work that I have ever done, and the best winter's work that you have ever done."

I had both documents carefully copied and placed the copies in the hands of Superentendent Curtin, telling him what I had done, and why I had done it. Upon examination the bill met his approval in the main, and he delivered it to the Senate Committee with his endorsement.

Next day one of the committee came to me, and remarked that, if that bill became a law, it would overshadow all the colleges, academies, and seminaries in the State. That was evident; but it was explained, in reply, that it was intended to meet the wants of the State a hundred or five hundred years hence, when the schools provided for it would prove to be too small, instead of too large for the public wants; that for the present moment it was merely intended -1st. To define the policy of the State; and 2nd. To set up a high standard for the friends of education to work up to, in order that Normal Schools established under it should not be weak, inferior institutions.

Next day the committee reported the bill to the Senate with some slight verbal alterations, and the addition of what is now the fourth section, which was suggested by Senator Darwin A. Finney, of Crawford county. It was accompanied by a brief, but compact

and strong report prepared by the Chairman, Mr. Coffee, which carried weight and influence, and greatly strengthened the measure. After the bill and report were printed an early opportunity was sought to call it up in the Senate for consideration, and so thoroughly was that exceptionally strong Senate convinced that the time had come for decisive action on this question, that, after some favorable discussion, the bill passed the Senate without a single dissenting vote. One Senator remarked that he did not see how it could go into effect without an appropriation. It is enough to remark here that any hint in the bill of an appropriation would have been fatal to its passage in the other House.

When the bill got over to the House of Representatives a good deal of preparatory work had to be done by Superintendent Curtin before it could safely be put upon its passage. It was finally fixed for considsideration on the last day on which it could be considered at that session, with a number of other important bills on the calendar before it in which leading members of the House were interested. It could not be reached unless taken up out of its order, and in consultation with the Speaker, Hon. J. Lawrence Getz, of Berks county, it was decided to do so. All points of danger had been guarded against as much as possible, except one.

Mr. Foster, the leader of the House, a liberally educated gentleman of great ability and influence, had a bill of his own that he was anxious to get through. Although a good common-school man in a general way, he felt no particular interest in the Normal School question.

was a long one there was danger of interruptions; but the veteran chief clerk, Capt. Jacob Ziegler, who was in the secret, rattled it off at railroad speed so as to pass the danger point in the quickest possible time. I was standing in the lobby within a dozen feet of the two distinguished leaders, and twice during the reading I noticed Mr. Foster turn toward the Speaker to make a motion, but Mr. Curtin with courteous persistency managed to hold him in check until the reading was completed. At this moment a member on the other side of the House rose in his seat and moved to change his Normal School district, as that provided for in the bill was not in his opinion the best that could be made.

This sent my heart to my throat, for it would disturb other districts and lead to a general debate. Discussion would cause delay, and delay would be defeat inevitably. It was votes we wanted, not speeches; and the plan of campaign was to get the one and dispense with the other, if possible. Starting around to that side of the House on tip toe, on the double quick, and slipping down the aisle, and seating myself on the arm of that member's chair, I touched his elbow while he was addressing the Speaker, and, attracting his attention, he very kindly gave me his ear long enough for me to hurriedly explain that the bill as it stood was merely a theory, but it was very important to get it on the statute book to indicate the policy of the State, that it could not go into operation for two or three years at least, and if he would be good enough to let it stand as it was, we would help him at the next session to get a district that would be satisfactory to him. With this understanding he withdrew his motion, received my earnest thanks, and in a few minutes the bill was through, a reconsideration voted down, and we were "out of the woods."

The second reading of the bill could not be dispensed with under the rules, and as it

The fate of the bill depended upon Curtin's ability to hold Foster in check until the required forms of legislation had been gone through with, and there was not another man in the State at that time who could have successfully executed that manœuvre, or would have dared to attempt it. The House was very still while the second

turned curiously to those two prominent men so earnestly engaged in conversation, but very few understood what their colloquy meant. They had before them the remarkable spectacle of the Premier of an Administration and Head of a Department

House holding the Opposition leader under moral duress against his will whilst passing a bill over his head; a piece of diplomatic audacity, skill and success without a parallel in parliamentary history that I ever heard of.

After the passage of the bill a member from my own part of the State who at my earnest entreaty had kept quiet as a personal favor to myself, left his seat, and as he passed out into the lobby near where I was standing, I earnestly thanked him for his fidelity to his pledges. "Yes," said he, as he swept rather angrily past me, for it turned out that he had not expected the bill to get through, "and next winter you will want us to vote you half a million dollars to build up these schools that the people do not want and have not asked for. You will bankrupt the State yet with your wild, visionary schemes. If anybody wants to teach school let him educate himself at his own expense, as other people do."

As the bill was safely through, I could afford to take his rebuke in courteous silence. I mention this incident to show one phase of public sentiment with which we had to deal in those days. Ah! if we could have had half a million dollars to start with at that time, what weary years of financial difficulty and general discouragement would have been saved to the pioneer founders of the first series of these schools.

As to the peculiarities of the plan, there was nothing new in the idea of establishing Normal Schools by districts. That had been often recommended; but to establish them as private institutions under State sanction and recognition was entirely original. It was new to Dr. Burrowes, and his utterances at the Williamsport meeting of the State Teachers' Association in 1856, and in Barnard's Journal of Education, show that his mind acted very leisurely in coming around to the new policy that was not in harmony with his prepossessions. But when once convinced of both the policy and expedi ency of the plan, he took a firm, strong grasp of its broad scope and capabilities.

The swift rapidity of his work when called upon to prepare a bill was not, however, the inspiration of the moment, but the result of much previous thought and investigation extending through many years. The requirements in the bill for each school were but an enlargement of what he had officially recommended nineteen years before, and then multiplied by designated districts having at that time a population of

had been in his hands some eighteen months, and the growth of the Lancaster County Normal School at Millersville, under the able management of Prof. J. P. Wickersham, with whom during this period of development he had all the while very close advisory relations, seemed to indicate the probable success of this new plan. And so when called upon in an emergency to give the plan organic shape for legislative action he was ready.

The bill was made colossal in its requirements, because that was in harmony with Dr. Burrowes' mental calibre, as well as to meet the wants of the future, and also to prevent numerous unclassified schools and seminaries with high-sounding titles and limited facilities, from seeking recognition under the act, when not at all suited to its intent and purposes.

Mr. Bannan's letter was a discussion of the general subject, without presenting a draft of a bill, and how far it harmonized in details with the law as it stands I am not able, after the lapse of thirty-seven years, minutely indicate. I did not keep a copy of the letter, neither did Mr. Bannan, and the original manuscript was probably lost among the papers of Dr. Burrowes, as it was not returned to the Department. Mais n'importe. We have a Normal School system that is original with us here in Pennsylvania, and when it has reached its highest development in all the districts, it will be second to none and superior to most of those with which it could be compared.

It has been slow in reaching the standpoint where we now find it. For many disheartening years it was, in most cases, a disappointment to the friends of education and well-wishers of the schools, and justly much more amenable to criticism than commendation. But that gloomy transition period is over; they seem at last to have fairly swung out into the mid-current of educational progress, and, with fidelity to their trust and favoring public sentiment, all that was ever hoped for them promises to be fully and permanently realized in the coming years.

These institutions, if true to their mission, should become schools of pedagogical science of the very highest rank, with everything crude, superficial, or defective eliminated. No one can thoughtfully read the provisions of the law, and not realize the exalted ideals which it embodies. It is not in their grounds nor their architecture nor their physical appliances and accessories,

however important and essential these may be as prerequisites, that their value is to be found, but in the functions and life of the schools for the purpose for which they are intended.

Everywhere in the educational world it is fundamentally and eternally true that "the teacher makes the school," and nowhere is it more emphatically true than in schools established under State sanction and recognition for the "due training of Teachers." Hence the corps of instructors should without exception always be persons of broad scholarship and the highest professional ability. Such men and women cannot be had except for a liberal compensation, and, as annual appropriations are somewhat precarious, the time will come when special endowments must be looked to, to sustain the professional work of these schools, and Senator Finney's forecast and sagacity in preparing the fourth section of the act to legalize and protect them will be recognized and appreciated.

It will be seen from the narrative that, so far as my knowledge goes, the suggestive paternity of our Normal School system belongs to Benjamin Bannan. The paternity of the bill, as framed by him for the Legislature, belongs to Thomas H. Burrowes. The official paternity of the system, as promulgated to the Legislature, and of the parliamentary plan of campaign which eventuated in the enactment of the law, together with the personal generalship that made that movement a success, belongs to Andrew G. Curtin. Let them be ranked in the educational world amongst our Immortals.

Co

THE HIGHER EDUCATION.

OMPARISON is the test of values. Certain results have followed certain methods; but the absolute worth of the method can only be known when you know also what better or worse results would have followed some other method. But this you can never know? True: that is what makes the tragedy of life.

Education, and collegiate education with every other, has had to suffer from the unfortunate tendency of human nature to generalize from known results. Here are brave intellects and noble characters without any training of the schools. Then what need of schools? exclaims the Philistine, though ignorant to what still finer issues the fine intellect or character might have been attuned

with greater advantages. Here is a college graduate who is narrow, bigoted, and unpleasant. Behold the effect of collegiate education again exclaims the Philistine, without any cognizance of the fact that the man who is narrow, bigoted, and unpleasant, would probably have been far more narrow, bigoted, and unpleasant without his college education. No one dare claim that education will make a man broad: it is only to be claimed that it will make him broader than he would be without it. Even Casaubon and Dryasdust, uninspiring as they are with their single interest in life, are undoubtedly of more value in the scheme of the universe than if they had no interest at all. "If I had only known!" the wisest of us is apt to exclaim on occasion. Well, what would have happened if we had known? All we can predicate is that certain unfortunate results of what we did do would not have happened; but of what other far worse results might have happened from what we might have done we know nothing, while assuming that the results would certainly have been good. Your boy was ruined at college, you tell me. That is very sad; but, before I blame for it his collegiate experience, you must prove to me that he would not have been ruined by any other experience. In the worst catastrophe, it may have been that something in his collegiate training saved him from what would have been still worse catastrophe somewhere else.

But this you cannot prove? No: that is the tragedy of life.

We shall best teach the definition of education, either for man or woman, by eliminating from our intelligence that instinctive belief in the educator as a person scattering little seeds of good in the fertile soil of the young soul, which are certain to spring up and flourish and bear abundant and beautiful fruit. In point of fact, most of the seeds of our nature are born with us, planted by heredity and whatever determines the little individuality we have, and fostered by circumstance. You cannot put into any nature what it has not the capacity for assimilating. Draw from fountain or from river, With a poorer hand or richer, You can only fill your pitcher.

Education may be briefly defined as the lessening of probabilities. Do not hope by the "guarded life," either at home or the college, to shield either your son or daughter from the touchstone of fate. You build a castle for yourself against the cyclone. You make no attempt to fence in your cornfield from disaster; you know it would be