of education and the art of teaching, as presented by the ablest writers on the subject, aided by lectures from the faculty, full discussion in the class, and practice-teaching in the school.

PREPARATIONS NECESSARY FOR TEACHING.

Thorough work in any calling requires thorough preparation. No one thinks of doing anything remarkably well without giving that thing unusual attention. Whenever any one distinguishes himself by a brilliant performance it is proof positive of extra labor in preparation.

It is a fixed law of nature that cause and effect bear to each other a constant ratio. Success is the effect of preparation. It is measured by the degree of preparation. In other callings this well-known truth is never questioned. No one dreams of success at the law or medicine without long and careful preparation. Why should teachers succeed without it? A teacher works upon children. A child is a complex being-part animal, part intellectual, part spiritual. The laws of its being, growth and development are difficult to understand and more difficult to apply. He deals with children not singly, but in masses. At school, children influence each other. They are more impulsive, more wayward, less subject to reason and right. To train a child is a task so difficult that poets, priests, prophets, sages, kings and philosophers have failed, even with their

own children.

To train a room full-to furnish the right mental and moral food and medicine-and to have it taken at the right time and in the proper manner and quantities, is the most difficult problem in the world. No natural gifts are sufficient for the work. Every teacher should study the nature of the child, the nature of the mind, the laws of its action, impulses, emotions; should learn to know its weakness and its strength.

In the work of teaching no one has ever succeeded and no one ever will succeed without preparation.

HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS.

The first normal school of which we have any accurate account was founded in 1681 by the Abbe de la Salle, canon of the Cathedral at Rheims.

In 1687, Francke, one of Germany's most illustrious educators, established a teachers' class composed of poor students who paid for

their tuition by assisting him in his work of instruction. In 1704 he selected from his class twelve teachers who were trained by him for two years, and who exhibited such an aptness to teach that the school through them became famous, hundreds coming to it to study his improved methods.

Hecker, a pupil of Francke, established a training school at Stettin in 1735, and another in Berlin in 1748. Frederick the Great, under whose patronage he worked, established a special training of teachers, thus laying the foundation of a thorough professional training, as indispensable to the teacher as the hospital to the inexperienced physician.

Gradually the system spread over the greater part of Europe, and since 1843 has been introduced into the remaining countries of Europe, into North and South America, into British India and Japan. The number reported in 1875 is as follows: Italy, 115: Prussia, 101; other German States, 73; England, 41; Belgium, 33; Switzerland, 32; British India, 104; and the rest in proportion.

NORMAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES.

Massachusetts established the first normal school in the United States, the Prussian system having been made familiar to the people of New England by Rev. Charles Brooks, who had become so deeply interested in the system, that he resolved to investigate it for himself, and went to Europe for that purpose.

After his return, he spent several years endeavoring to disseminate his ideas concerning the importance of normal schools, and succeeded in enlisting in the cause many able men, among whom were Horace Mann, John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster. Finally the legislature of Massachusetts established a State board of education, with Horace Mann as secretary and made an appropriation to establish two normal schools.

In 1834, the public school society of the city of New York founded a Saturday normal school, but this was only a high school in which the elementary branches were taught.

In 1823, a normal school of a private character was opened by S. R. Hall, but it was not until 1839 that the first normal school was established at Lexington, Mass., under the principalship of Cyrus

Pierce.

Since 1840, these schools have been growing in number and influence, until at the present time there are one hundred and fifty-six. They employ one thousand two hundred and twenty

seven instructors, and enroll thirty-nine thousand six hundred and sixty-nine students.

Normal schools are no longer an experiment. They have long ago passed the experimental stage, and taken a high position as a factor in our educational system. They are highly appreciated by the people because of all schools supported by the State the normal schools most directly affect the welfare of all.

The large and increasing appropriations of money made for the support of normal schools in those States where they have had a thorough trial show the estimation in which they are held on their merits.

NORMAL SCHOOL AT ASHLAND.

FACULTY.

J. S. SWEET, PRESIDENT,
Mathematics, Psychology, aud School Economy.

JULIA M. GOODYEAR,
English Grammar, Rhetoric, and Latin.
C. F. NESSE,

Penmanship and Executive Work.

MRS. LOTTIE D. WILLARD,
Voice Culture.

KATE P. CALVIN,
Piano, Organ, and Guitar.

EMMA TOLMAN,

Drawing and Painting.

AMANDA M. GOODYEAR,
Critic Teacher, in charge of Training School.

ADDITIONAL TEACHERS,

Members of Senior Class.

LOCATION.

The beautiful city of Ashland lies in the famous Rogue river valley of Southern Oregon. It is situated on the O. & C. R. R., only about twenty miles from the California State line. The railroad now completed from Portland to San Francisco makes Ashland very easy of access from either the north or south.

The healthful and invigorating climate is widely known, being especially advantageous to school work, enabling the student to endure severe study with comparative ease. The climate during school months is seldom too hot or too cold, being of a mean temperature which conduces to active mental energy.

OBJECTS OF THE SCHOOL.

The design of this school is twofold. First, the careful and thorough education of the student for a practical, wise and successful life. Its first aim is to lay a solid foundation for any profession or calling, and in this it does the work of any first-class preparatory school. Second, it proposes to train the student for the profession of teaching in a manner that is taught only in regular normal schools. The student who understands a subject so that he can and does teach it successfully to others, retains it much better than the one who passes over it only as a student, no matter how good a teacher he may have to instruct him.

The work of all schools is culture and development, preparation for life. The normal school develops in the direction of teaching. The chief problem in education is to secure good teachers. The power to teach can be improved in two ways, viz: Study and practice without a teacher-that is, by experience in the school room, or study and practice with a teacher-that is, at a normal school. The latter is the better and cheaper method, as Roger Ascham says: "Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty. The basis of instruction in this normal school is embodied in the following principles:

1. That a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of the science is necessary in a teacher.

That the harmonious development of the physical, intellectual and moral powers shall be studied.

3. That clear conceptions of methods can best be obtained by the study of them in practical operation.

4. That our public schools are not practice rooms for pedagogical novitiates, and that defects should be remidied and skill acquired in training schools supervised by competent critics.

5. That development should be paramount to acquisition.

6. That economy and adaptability should be the test of a method. 7. That self-government should be the aim of all descipline. 8. That high moral character is one of the essential qualifications of a good teacher.