PUBLISH

The American Union Speaker (new).- Containing Standard and Recent Selections in Prose, Poetry and Dialogue, for Recitation and Declamation. By Hon. John D. Philbrick, Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools. $2.50.

"As a collection of truly elegant and eloquent extracts it is unsurpassed, while its peculiarly American character makes it doubly valuable."-GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

"In every feature the work seems to be of the highest excellence."-A, P. STONE, Principal of the Portland, Me., High School.

"A work of unqualified excellence. Just the book needed by every student of declamation."-PROF. LEWIS B. MONROE, Director of Vocal and Physical Culture in the Boston Public Schools.

"The whole seems to have been prepared with the taste and skill which always mark the literary performances of the distinguished compiler."-RICHARD EDWARDS, Principal of State Normal School, Bloomington, Ill.

Worcester's Elements of History, Ancient and Modern. By. J. E. Worcester, LL.D., author of Worcester's Quarto Dictionary. A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED, BEING BROUGHT DOWN TO APRIL, 1866. Price $1.75. The new chapter on the Great Rebellion and the Administration of Abraham Lincoln is a most accurate and discriminating view of the remarkable series of events covering this period. The addition to English History, comprising the chief events of the last twenty years, is of great value.

This well-known Work, so long the Standard Text-Book on General History in Grammar and High Schools and Academies, is thus newly commended to the favor of Educators.

Worcester's Historical Atlas, containing Charts of History, Mythology, Chronology, Biography &c. With descriptive Illustrations and Questions. $2.00.

Smellie's Philosophy of Natural History. A new and Revised Edition, with an Introduction and Additions, by Dr. John Ware. Printed from new stereotype plates, and illustrated with over 50 beautiful Engravings. $2.00. This new and illustrated edition, embodying in its revisions the recent discoveries in this science, forms an attractive and accurate text-book in this branch for High Schools, Academies, and Seminaries.

The School Service Book (new). Containing Hymns, Chants, Scripture Readings and Responses, and other Music for opening and closing Schools. By Asa Fitz, author of several School Song-Books. 48 pp.; paper covers. Price 20 cents.

This little work supplies a want long felt, and its price puts it within reach of all. The Gymnastic Song Book (new). Containing Songs with Exercises, Marches, and Elocutionary Gestures; also, Rounds, and Select Pieces for Amusements. By Asa Fitz, &c. 32 pp.; paper covers. Price 15 cents.

Every one who has attempted Physical Exercises in his School knows that Music is the indispensable accompaniment to them, if they are to be made successful. This book also contains directions for performing the Exercises themselves. It should be in the hands of every Teacher and Scholar.

The Boston Primary School Tablets. Twenty Tablets mounted on Ten Large Cards, 21 X 27 inches in size. By Hon. John D. Philbrick, Superintendent of Boston Public Schools. Price, $7.50. Specimen sheets sent for 30 cents.

These Cards present a course of Primary Instruction by the Oral or Object Method, comprising the subjects of the Alphabet, Penmanship, Drawing, Punctuation, Numbers, Sounds of Letters, and Syllables and Words for Reading.

These Tablets enable a Teacher to instruct a whole class or school at the same time. By this method the Teacher can sometimes accomplish in an hour what, would require days of individual teaching.

Bradbury's Trigonometry and Surveying. By Wm. F. Bradbury, Cambridge, Mass. Especially designed for High Schools and Academies. $1.50. This new Work has received the highest praise from leading Teachers and Reviews. has already been extensively adopted in many of the best Schools.

It

"It bears the test of the School-room admirably. Both in the selection and treatment of topics, it seems to be just what was needed for High Schools and Academies.”—W. J. ROLFE, Cambridge High School.

Eaton's Standard Series of Arithmetics. Used in all the Public Schools of Boston.

Liberal arrangements made for the introduction of the above School TextBooks. For Descriptive Circulars or Terms, address

TAGGARD & THOMPSON,

29 CORNHILL, BOSTON.

In treating, in a former article, of the progress which has been made in improving the condition of our schools, we referred to certain measures of legislation in the State, at different periods, and also to the introduction of the system of graded schools in some of its towns. We did this in order to show that whoever pretends that the reform which has been witnessed, during the last forty years, is to be ascribed to any one man, or any half-dozen men, greatly mistakes in his facts as well as in his judgment. It is often difficult to tell, in measures involving the action of the popular mind, and in which individuals were forward to give guidance and direction to it, whether there is a pervading sentiment and feeling in the community which gives the impulse to individual action, or it is the power of will and force of conviction in individual minds, which make themselves felt in moving the till then inert mass of popular judgment. As a general thing, it will be found in all such movements, that individuals are but the index and representatives of an already existing popular conviction, and their action is in the direction in which the public mind is in fact tending, where these more active reforms first enter upon the field.

If Peter the Hermit had been obliged to educate the people of Europe to a knowledge of the condition of the East, and the per

secutions to which western pilgrims were subjected, before they were in a fit state of mind to be aroused by his passionate appeals to their sympathies and superstitions, hopes and fears, he would have died and been forgotten long before that condition of things could have been accomplished. Instead of that, these persecutions and insults had been so long and so often repeated in the public ear, that it only needed a spark from 'such a braiu as his, to set the whole of Europe ablaze.

All we mean by this is to justify the remark that when the reform of our school system began, as well as in its progress ever since, the impulse was given, and the requsite force supplied, from the pervading conviction of those who give direction to the public mind, that change and reform was needed. The leaders, moreover, in this reform, were not only numerous, but scattered in every part of the State, so that whenever any one assumed to act as the organ of such reform, he did not create, but helped to guide the moral power upon which its success depended.

We hear, at times, much said of the advance made by means of normal schools, and the advantages which have resulted from their establishment. And there has been a popular idea that we owe those, as we do their name, to one of the monarchies of Europe. That Massachusetts, where the idea of free schools originated, where it had been practically carried out for near two centuries, is indebted to Prussia for the idea of preparing those who were to be teachers in those free schools, would be indeed a matter of wonder and surprise, if it had any foundation in fact. But the idea was far from being a new one when our system of normal schools was established in 1837. We are not disposed to arrogate to any one man or score of men the merit of having produced this entire reform in our system. But we may with propriety refer to the efforts and opinions of one individual in this direction to justify the truth of the remark, that our normal schools are a home institution in their character and application. We allude to the Rev. S. R. Hall, who, in a ripe old age, is able to look back upon a life spent in the work of educating the young, and advancing the cause of education generally. It is not our purpose to attempt the personal history of this venerable laborer in the cause of common schools,

nor is there any occasion for this, since a pretty full notice of him may be found in the fifth vol. of Barnard's American Journal of Education, p. 373, published in 1858. The blackboard, now in such universal use, was introduced by him into his school for the purpose of illustration and demonstration of problems, as early as 1818. But what we wish to notice more particularly is his connection with the incipient measures in regard to normal schools. He conceived and proposed the plan of a school to teach teachers as early as 1822. Nor was he deterred in its prosecution by consideration of the entire absence of the patronage or countenance of men of influence, or the remoteness of the sphere in which the experiment was to be made. He established a school for this purpose in the inconsiderable town of Concord, Vermont, in which he had been settled as a minister, and the success of the enterprise was all he could have desired. It was crowded with pupils, and it was for the benefit of those that he prepared and delivered that admirable course of lectures on school-keeping, which were published in 1829. These lectures were wholly original on his part, as he had then never seen or heard of a single tract in the English language upon the subject. The manner in which they were received, was an illustration of what we have already said of the state of preparation of the public mind at that time upon that subject. They were found to supply a present and existing want. A second edition. was issued in 1830. New York alone purchased ten thousand copies for its schools, and copies circulated in Kentucky and Ohio, as well as through the New England States. Nor is it too much to say that, probably, no one cause was so active and effectual in arousing an interest in our schools, or giving them an onward impulse, as that little volume of a trifle over one hundred pages. In accordance with the views and purposes of Mr. Hall upon this great idea of a seminary for teaching teachers, a department was established by the trustees of Phillips Andover Academy, of which Mr. Hall was called to take charge, which embraced a normal or teachers' department. While thus engaged, he read a lecture before the American Institute, in the formation of which, in 1829, he had taken a part, on "the necessity of educating teachers." This was in 1833. In consequence of failing health, he was

obliged to relinquish his place in Andover in 1836, and engaged in a similar institution of a normal character the following year in Plymouth, N. H. Here he remained till 1840, when he removed to Craftsbury, Vermont, where, in connection with his charge of a church and society, he continued to labor in the department in the academy in that town, in which normal instruction, under his charge, was given. He is now pastor of a church in Brownington, Vermont. But the limited space allotted to us for this article, neither admits of a fuller personal notice of Mr. Hall, nor a notice of the lectures which accomplished so much in awakening public attention to the purposes and means of school education. So rapid, however, are the changes through which we are passing, so many new books and new schemes are occupying the minds of those who are interested in the subject, and so many, now that common schools have become a more than ordinarily popular institution, are disposed to give all due prominence to the action of distinguished friends of education, that it seemed to us to be no more than an act of justice to the father of the normal system in New England to recall even in this imperfect manner, his early efforts in the cause of schools, and the success of that scheme which he attempted, single and alone, to introduce into the system of which we are justly so proud. The first meeting of the Board of Education was held in June, 1837, and the scheme of normal schools was so far completed that a locality for one of them was fixed upon in December, 1838,- some fifteen years after Mr. Hall had practically shown its feasibility and success in Vermont, and seven years after a like demonstration had been exhibited by him in Massachusetts. He found, it is true, able and active coadjutors in his work, and it would give us great pleasure if we had space to speak of Woodbridge and Holbrook and their associates, whose aid and encouragement Mr. Hall was always ready to acknowledge. But there was, after all, a true heroism in the manner in which he took hold of the work of education, which no generous mind can fail to appreciate and admire. Born in humble life, reared in childhood with the cramped and limited advantages of education in a pioneer community, without, in the end, the benefit of a collegiate or even an extended school training, he undertook the work for which he