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DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, HARRISBURG, July, 1878, HE Superintendent of Public Instruction will be absent in Europe during the months of July and August. The trip is made partly for rest and recreation, and partly for the purpose of studying schools and school systems in the Old World. The Deputy Superintendents and clerks will be in charge of the Department, and all business directed as heretofore will be promptly attended to.

THE NORMAL SCHOOL COURSE.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON REVISION OF THE COURSE OF STUDY.

THE special committee, Professors Brooks, Maris, and Schaeffer, appointed by the Conference of Normal School Principals to revise the course of study for Normal Schools, met at Millersville, on Monday, March 18, 1878, and prepared the following report on the courses of study, to be submitted to the Conference for final action:

The committee recommend that there be three courses of study-an Elementary Course, an Advanced Course, and a Scientific Course. The Advanced Course is to require about one year's study in addition to the Elementary Course; and the Scientific Course is to admit substitutions of languages for higher mathematics, as subsequently specified.

The following changes are recommended for the Elementary Course:

1. Etymology and Physical Geography, as separate studies, shall be dropped.

2. Geography shall include the leading principles of Physical and Mathematical Geography.

3. The Outlines of Rhetoric and English Classics shall be substituted for Rhetoric. The two together are intended to cover the amount of time heretofore devoted to Rhetoric.

4. The Elements of Latin, including the First Book of Cæsar, shall be added to the course.

I. THE ELEMENTARY COURSE.-The Elementary Course, as thus revised, will be as follows:

1. Language.-Orthography; Reading and Elocution; English Grammar; Composition; Outlines of Rhetoric and English Classics; Elements of Latin, including the First Book of Cæsar.

2. Mathematics.-Arithmetic; Elementary Algebra; Plane Geometry.

3. Natural Science.-Geography, including the leading principles of Physical and Mathematical Geography; Physiology; Natural Philosophy; Botany. 4. History. History of the United States; Constitution of the United States.

5. The Arts.-Penmanship; Drawing; Vocal Music; Book-keeping.

week for the discussion of the Practice of Teaching. II. THE ADVANCED COURSE.-In addition to the studies of the Elementary Course, this course shall include:

1. Language.-English Literature (one-third of a school year); Latin, second and third books of Cæsar de Bello Gallico, and three books of Virgil's Æneid. 2. Mathematics.-Solid Geometry, including the Sphere; Plane Trigonometry; Surveying.

3. Natural Science.-Chemistry; Geology; Astronomy, as in ordinary text-books.

4. History.-General History, as in Anderson. 5. Professional Studiez.-Mental Philosophy,including the Sensibilities and the Will; Moral Philosophy; Logic; Lectures on the History of Education.

6. Substitutions.-An equivalent in Language or Natural Science may be substituted for Surveying. An equivalent in Mathematics or Natural Science may be substituted for Virgil.

III. SCIENTIFIC COURSE.-The Scientific Course

shall remain unchanged, except that hereafter all students in this course shall have the privilege of taking an equivalent of Latin, Greek, French, or German, for the portions of Higher Mathematics, specified under substitutions.

The Classical Course shall be dropped from the catalogues of the State Normal Schools.

Where no changes are indicated, the amount embraced under each branch shall be the same as here

tofore.

During the years '78 and '79, students will be allowed to graduate on the basis of the present courses.

This report was then printed by the School Department, and copies were forwarded to the principals of all the normal schools, with the request that they should signify in writing their approval or disapproval of the endorsed the action of the committee and adopted changes suggested by the committee. The replies the three courses of study by an almost unanimous The report was then submitted to Dr. J. P. Wickersham, Superintendent of Public Instruction, for his approval, as required by law. His opinion is expressed in the following letter:

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DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, HARRISBURG, May 4, 1878. PROF. EDWARD BROOKS, Chairman Committee on Revision of Studies.

Dear Sir:-I have given careful attention to the report of your committee on the course of study for the State Normal Schools, and I am able to approve every change suggested, with the exception of the establishment of what the committee call an "Advanced Course," intermediate between the Elementary Course and the Scientific Course. The objections to such an "Advanced Course," as they occur to me, are the following:

1. It will break up the system of degrees conferred from the beginning upon the graduates of Normal Schools.

2. It will practically destroy the Scientific Course. 3. It would seem undignified and like trifling with

7. Practice of Teaching.-This includes at least forty-five minutes daily practice in the Model School, for one-half of a school year, and two meetings each

Elementary Course, the next in an Advanced Course, and the third in a Scientific Course. Such repeated graduations at such short intervals would make the whole plan seem ridiculous.

DREAM-LIFE.-That girl who sings to herself her favorite songs of Schubert, Mendelssohn, or Schumann, sings more than a song: it is her own plaint of suffering floating away on the wings of melody. That poor lonely little sorrower, hardly more than a child, who sits dreaming at her piano, while her fingers, caressing the deliciously cool ivory keys, glide through a weird nocturne of Chopin, is playing no mere study or set piece. Ah, what heavy burden seems lifted up and borne away in the dusk? Her eyes

are half-closed; her heart is far away; sne dreams a dream as the long yellow light fades in the west, and the wet vine leaves tremble outside to the nestling birds; the angel of music has come down; she has poured into his ear the tale which she will confide to no one else, and the "restless, unsatisfied longing" has passed; for one sweet moment the cup of life seems full-she raises it to her trembling lips. What if it is only a dream-a dream of comfort sent by music? She has been taken away from the common

No 2.

as that of Head-master of a public school; and it is accordingly only intended to describe the general system which Dr. Arnold pursued during the fourteen years he was at Rugby. Yet some apology may seem to be due for the length of a chapter, which to the general reader must be comparatively deficient in interest. Something must, indeed, be forgiven to the natural inclination to dwell on those recollections of his life, which to his pupils are the most lively and the most recent-something to the almost unconscious tendency to magnify those scenes which are most nearly connected with what is endeared to one's self. But independently of any local or personal considerations, it has been felt that if any part of Dr. Arnold's work deserves special mention, it was his work at Rugby; and that if it was to be of any use to those of his own profession who would take any interest in it, it could only be made so by a full and minute account.

It was

In August, 1827, the head-mastership of Rugby became vacant by the resignation of Dr. Wooll, who had held it for twenty-one years. not till late in the contest for the situation that he finally resolved to offer himself as a candidate. When, therefore, his testimonials were sent in to the twelve trustees, noblemen and gentlemen of Warwickshire, in whom the appointment rests, the canvass for the office had advanced so far as to leave him, in the opinion of himself and many of his friends, but little From "Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D." late Head Master of Rugby School, and Regius Professor of History in the University of Oxford. By Arthur P. Stanley. Published by Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, Mass.

read over in the order in which they had been sent in; his own were therefore among the last; and whilst none of the trustees were personally acquainted with him, few, if any of them, owing to the lateness of his appearance, had heard his name before. His testimonials were few in number, and most of them couched in general language, but all speaking strongly of his qualifications. Amongst them was a letter from Dr. Hawkins, now Provost of Oriel, in which it was predicted that, if Mr. Arnold were elected to the head-mastership of Rugby, he would change the face of Education all through the public schools of England. The trustees had determined to be guided entirely by the merits of the candidates, and the impression produced upon them by this letter, and by the general confidence in him expressed in all the testimonials, was such, that he was elected at once, in December, 1827.

It is needless to anticipate the far more extended influence which he was to exercise over his Rugby scholars, by describing in detail the impression produced upon his pupils at Laleham, where he had a private school previous to his call to Rugby. Yet the mere difference of the relation in which he stood towards them in itself gave a peculiar character to his earlier sphere of education, and as such may best be described in the words of one amongst those whom he most esteemed, Mr. Price, who afterward became one of his assistant masters at Rugby.

"Nearly eighteen years have passed away since I resided at Laleham, and I had the misfortune of being but two months as a pupil there. I am unable, therefore, to give you a complete picture of the Laleham

life of my late revered tutor; I can only impart to you such impressions as my brief sojourn there has indelibly fixed in my recollection.

"The most remarkable thing which struck me at once on joining the Laleham circle was, the wonderful healthiness of tone and feeling which prevailed in it. Everything about me I immediately found to be most real; it was a place where a new comer at once felt that a great and earnest work was going forward. Dr. Arnold's great power as a private tutor resided in this, that he gave such an intense earnestness to life, Every pupil was made to feel that there was work for him to do,-that his happiness as well as his duty lay in doing that work well. Hence an indescribable zest was communicated to a young man's feeling about life; a strange joy came over him on discovering that he had the means of being useful, and thus of being happy; and a deep respect and ardent attachment sprang up towards him who had taught him thus to value life and his own self, and his work and mission in this world. All this was founded on the breadth and comprehensiveness of Arnold's character, as well as its striking truth and reality; on the unfeigned regard he had for work of all kinds, and the sense he had of its value, both for the complex aggregate of society and the growth and perfection of the individual. Thus, pupils of the most different natures were keenly stimulated; none felt that he was left out, or that, because he was not endowed with large powers of mind, there was no sphere open to him in the honorable pursuit of usefulness. This wonderful power of making all his pupils respect themselves, and of awakening in them a consciousness of the duties that God assigned to them personally, and of the consequent reward each should have of his labors, was one of Arnold's most characteristic features as a trainer of youth. He possessed it eminently at Rugby; but, if I may trust my own vivid recollections, he had it quite as remarkably at Laleham. His hold over all his pupils I know perfectly astonished me. It was not so much an enthusiastic admiration for his genius, or learning, or eloquence, which stirred within them; it was a sympathetic thrill, caught from a spirit that was earnestly at work in the world,-whose work was healthy, sustained, and constantly carried forward in the fear of God,—a work that was founded on a deep sense of its duty and its value; and was coupled with such a true humility, such an unaffected simplicity, that others could not help being invigorated by the same feeling, and with the belief that they too in their measure could go and do likewise.

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In all this there was no excitement, no predilection for one class of work above another; no enthusiasm for any one-sided object; but an humble, profound, and most religious consciousness that work is the appointed calling of man on earth, the end for which his various faculties were given, the element in which his nature is ordained to develop itself, and in which his progressive advance towards heaven is to lie. Hence, each pupil felt assured of Arnold's sympathy in his own particular growth and character of talent; in striving to cultivate his own gifts, in whatever direction they might lead him, he infallibly found Arnold not only approving, but positively and sincerely valuing for themselves the results he had arrived at; and that the approbation and esteem gave a dignity and a worth both to himself and his labor.

"His humility was very deeply seated; his respect for all knowledge sincere. A strange feeling passed over the pupil's mind when he found great, and often undue, credit given him for knowledge of which his

tutor was ignorant. But this generated no conceit: the example before his eyes daily reminded him that it was only as a means of usefulness, as an improvement of talents for his own good and that of others, that knowledge was valued. He could not find comfort, in the presence of such reality, in any shallow knowledge.

"There was then, as afterwards, great simplicity in his religious character. It was no isolated part of his nature, it was a bright and genial light shining on every branch of his life. He took very great pains with the Divinity lessons of his pupils: and his lectures were admirable, and, I distinctly remember, very highly prized for their depth and originality. Neither generally in ordinary conversation, nor in his walks with his pupils, was his style of speaking directly or mainly religious; but he was ever ready to discuss any religious question; whilst the depth and truth of his nature, and the earnestness of his religious convictions and feelings, were ever bursting forth, so as to make it strongly felt that his life, both outward and inward, was rooted in God.

"In the details of daily business, the quantity of time that he devoted to his pupils was very remarkable. Lessons began at seven, and with the interval of breakfast lasted till nearly three; then he would walk with his pupils, and dine at half-past five. At seven he usually had some lesson on hand; and it was only when we all were gathered up in the drawing room after tea, amidst young men on all sides of him, that he would commence work for himself, in writing his sermons or Roman History.

'Who that ever had the happiness of being at Laleham, does not remember the lightness and joyousness of heart with which he would romp and play in the garden, or plunge with a boy's delight into the Thames; or the merry fun with which he would battle with spears with his pupils? Which of them does not recollect how the tutor entered into his amusements with scarcely less glee than himself?

"But I must conclude: I do not pretend to touch on every point. I have told you what struck me most, and I have tried to keep away all remembrance of what he was when I knew him better. I have confined myself to the impression Laleham left upon me.”

Those who look back upon the state of English education in the year 1827, must remember how the feeling of dissatisfication with existing institutions which had begun in many quarters to display itself, had already directed considerable attention to the condition of public schools. The range of classical reading, in itself confined, and with no admixture of other information, had been subject to vehement attacks from the liberal party generally, on the ground of its alleged narrowness and inutility. And the more undoubted evil of the absence of systematic attempts to give a more directly Christian character to what constituted the education of the

whole English gentry, was becoming more and more a scandal in the eyes of religious men, who at the close of the last century and the beginning of this-Wilberforce, for example, and Bowdler -had lifted up their voices against it. A complete reformation, or a complete destruction of the whole system, seemed to many persons sooner or later to be inevitable. The difficulty, however, of making the first step, where the alleged objection to alteration was its impracti