River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1878-03-21
THE AIMS OF THE NORMAL
SCHOOL.
BY w. d. PARKER.

BY w. d. PARKER.
The successful business man OF any
line of industry has some cardinal be
lief that directs all his action in one
channel. Thus, the merchant attrib
utes his accumulated wealth to his
view of honor. The farmer refers his
broad acres to promptness In taking
advantage of the elements. The pro
fessional-- clergyman, lawyer, physl
clan or teacher, is quite sure that some
one attribute of his life practice con
stitutes the secret of his preferment
So every successful person cherishes q
formulated rule of action whereby he
traces cause to effect as related to his
place in society. This formula is
sometimes SO thoroughly the exponent
of the PERSONS actual practice that
the person is rated by society at pre-
cisely his own estimate; but whatever
be the rank accorded to him, his form
ulation is the exponent of his charac.
ter, and character is compound OF
all that the person thinks. Character
is that which the person IS. 1t is the
resultant of all influences that have
operated to bring him to the present
estimate at which he holds his own
power. Character is thus no capri
cious factor of a person, but it is his
entity-aU he is; and therefore char.
acter embodies the tremendous factor
Of time--composed as it is OF all pre-
vious influences, character thoroughly
includes all prerious time.
The Normal School seeks to learn
the character of its students as u pre-
liminary to any effort at modifying
that character by literary or other
work. Up to the present day this
search has resulted most satisfactory
ly--not that students whose average
ages are nineteen years, have sought
the school with characters of symme-
try and completeness nor, that char
acters have been uniformly developed;
but it is true of the mass of four hun
dred students in the Normal grades.
that they have come with purposes OF
self abnegation-with full determine
ton to wiring truth from unwilling
conditions, and with enlightened un-
derstanding of the reciprocal action
of influences which make up charac-
ter. Thus the Normal possesses one
important element of success; but II
is true that these purposes are FIRE.
quently derived from mlseoncelYed
notions of the management OF the
school, and frequently students have
no adequate conception of the posi-
bilities of performing these purposes.
Hence the Normal makes an effort first,
to understand the present intellectual
condition of its student, and second, to
learn the conditions under which his
use of the influences of the Normal
will be exercised; then to enter upon
the processes which it IS believed will
most thoroughly adapt the student to
the conditions of profitable labor IN
his chosen field.
1t is important to keep the thought
in view also, that there are certain
principles of education that must un-
derlie mental development wherever
the highest objects of the intellect are
to be reached, and it is believed that
these principles must be carried into
practice in part at the time of this ear
ly experimental stage, and finally, as
related to thorough scholarship, they
must wholly supplant the empiricism
of earlier relations. 1t viii be tue
aim of subsequent papers to call atten-
ton to the practice of the Normal at
different stages Of instruction.