Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-11-03
Normal Schools Again.

There are no human instrumentalities TO
govern the empire which has been reared in
the New World but knowledge and the
sword. Short of these it must be broken in
pieces and destroyed. We have discarded
the sword as the main instrument, and
trusted ourselves to knowledge. We must,
then, have educated states and an educated
nation, or our system Of republican govern
ment will perish. All the states Of the
Union must secure education, and the best
education that the case admits of, to the
youth of every class and condition within
their borders. The good and wise must
unite in the district, in the town-meeting
and in the legislature, to defeat efforts, to
overthrow systems of education that have
received the appreciation and advocacy
of the enlightened teachers and friends of
education everywhere. The Rev. DR.. Nc
Gosh, President of Princeton College, one
of the leading educators Of this age, and the
one who has done as much, if not more,
than any other, to bring out the excellencies
and defects of our system of education,
comparing them largely with European,
with which he is familiar for this purpose,
says While the State is bound to teach
the three RS sit is also required by the
highest considerations, to provide judicious
means of enabling those who thirst for
higher attachments to rise to them, and
thus give them the power of promoting the
best interests of their country economically,
intellectually, socially and morally. The
great nations of the earth all acknowledge
this, such as Germany, Austria, France,
Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, Can
ada, even India, Australia and other British
colonies. If America refuses to act as
these countries do, she will undoubtedly
fall behind them in the competition Of ma
tons for knowledge, for wealth and indu-
ence." This is as true as the multiplication
table. To give our youth, the future citi-
zen, the requisite instructions, their teachers
must themselves be taught in the art of i'm
parting knowledge, and how to best lead
out the mind and heart For this purpose
our Normal Schools have been established.
They were necessary to give completion to
our system. The teachers must be taught,
and these schools must be sustained and
perfected for this purpose. 1t is, therefore,
with real anxiety that we see bill intro
duced into our legislature to abolish the
normal school. Such an abolition would
be step backwards, and as foolish as was the
destruction of our state school board, and
more disastrous. State pride, if nothing
more, ought to defeat this bill. Are our
Legislators and citizens forgetting that Yer
mont has the honor conceded to her by all
her sister states of originating and intro
ducing into New England this browning ex-
cellence of our school system? Let them
bethink themselves one more of Rev. Samuel
h. Hall, LID, Vermont's honored son,
who, at Concord, in Essex county, in 1922,
projected, put into practice the system
Of normal schools, perfected it, and did after
wards as much, if not more, than any other
man to introduce it into Massachusetts, and
other New England states. viii he not
rise up from his grave to rebuke his degen-
crate brethren, if they now go back upon
his foresight and wisdom, endorsed as it is
by the leading educators and states Of the
world ?
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