CHAPTER XVII.

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS.

Monitorial Classes Organized-Central School for Advanced Studies-High SchoolsNormal Schools-Classical Institute-Free Academy.

THE experience of all systems of education has shown the necessity of assuring a supply of competent instructors. Where the number of teachers properly qualified for their duties falls below the demand, the deficiency must be supplied by those of indifferent qualifications-which is, at the best, a doubtful expedient, and only a little better than the alternative of temporary suspension in the routine of education until the want can be met. The most perfect machinery of system and the most liberal endowment of means cannot sufficiently compensate for the absence of the skilful and efficient teacher.

The monitorial system in use in the schools of the Public School Society made the training of properly qualified assistants a matter of urgent necessity. The value of expert and welltrained monitors, thoroughly familiarized with the Lancasterian methods, led the Society at an early day to adopt a system of indentures, by which the monitors were apprenticed to learn the art of teaching. As an indispensable part of the means for fully attaining these ends, it was deemed expedient to establish classes for the instruction of the monitors in the schools. This course was adopted in the year 1817, and was the initiative of the normal school system now existing under the Board of Education.

During the year 1826, a committee of three was appointed for the purpose of reporting on a proposition to establish a "CENTRAL SCHOOL" for the instruction of tutors and monitors, and for such advanced pupils of the schools as might deserve the distinction.

The committee promptly reported upon the resolution referred to them, in which the various considerations were strongly

urged which should induce the Society to organize such a school. The project of the committee confined the range of studies to the English branches, with natural philosophy, bookkeeping, mercantile education, geology, and chemistry. This course of studies, it was thought, would be more practically valuable for that period, and under the circumstances in which the Society and its schools were then placed, than an institution in which a classical course should be introduced. A liberal and extended view was taken, in the report, of the positive and reflex advantages and influence of such a school in the city, and an appropriation of $25,000 was named as being required to erect suitable buildings, and furnish them with the requisite appointA committee was authorized, in accordance with the recommendation of the report, to memorialize the Legislature for a grant of the sum required; but, in consequence of the difference of views entertained in relation to so important a measure, it was finally suffered to rest without decision.

The question was renewed, in 1832, in the report of the Committee on Reorganization, in which it was observed that, as "part of a perfect system," the establishment of a high school, as soon as circumstances would warrant, was to be kept constantly in view.

The growing importance of the common school system of the city and the State at large, had been for some time attracting the attention of prominent citizens and friends of education, and the consultations and correspondence which had been held in reference to the subject, especially in connection with the proper training of a body of efficient teachers, led to the call for a public meeting of the friends of normal schools, to be held in the city of New York. The convention assembled, measures were recommended, and appropriate committees were appointed. A committee of which Gideon Lee was chairman, and Theodore Dwight, Jr., secretary, together with a committee of the Council of the University, laid before the Board of Trustees, in Febraary, 1834, a communication inviting a conference on the subject of their appointment. Messrs. Robert C. Cornell, Gulian C. Verplanck, and James I. Roosevelt, Jr., were appointed on behalf of the Society. The action growing out of these conferences did not come within the administration of the Society, and need not be discussed here.

The Executive Committee, however, sympathizing fully with the movement, and being forced to witness the disadvantages growing out of the non-existence of such a school, directed the Committee on Teachers and Monitors to present a report on a school of the kind contemplated. The report was laid before the board on the 1st of August, in which it was recommended that a school be opened on the last day of every week, except during the usual vacation, in Public School No. 5, in Mott street, for the instruction of assistants and monitors of the primary schools and primary departments. The teachers thus specified, being all females, gave the school the character which it has since maintained, as the "Female Normal School." It was conducted by ELIZA Cox and WILLIAM BELDEN, Sr., then and for more than twenty years the principal of Public School No. 2.

The success of the institution was striking and immediate, and its beneficial influence on the day schools was too potent not to be recognized. It was found that teachers practically drilled in the daily routine of school discipline and instruction, and simultaneously taught in those branches which they were expected to teach, were, beyond all comparison, superior in tact, skill, and efficiency to persons educated in high schools or colleges, and placed in the station of assistant teachers without preliminary preparation or apprenticeship.

A branch of this school for the education of the junior teachers of the male departments was established a few months afterward.

In 1841, on the completion of the new edifice called "Trustees' Hall," situated on the corner of Grand and Elm streets, and designed to furnish the trustees of the Public School Society with rooms for their meetings, as well as to provide accommodations for the female normal schools, the institution was removed from its former location in No. 5, and held its sessions in the new building. A large apartment, capable of accommodating four hundred persons, for the general assembling of the school in the morning, and five commodious recitation-rooms were provided, and the school continued to flourish with increased prosperity.

Upon the death of LINDLEY MURRAY, Esq., a member of the committee charged with the care of the several schools, his place was supplied by A. P. HALSEY, Esq.; and on the decease of Mr.

SAMUEL DEMILT, the chairman, Mr. GEORGE T. TRIMBLE, by seniority, succeeded him in that station, and the vacant place on the committee was filled by the appointment of Dr. Charles E. Pierson. On the resignation of Mr. Halsey, William H. Neilson, Esq., having become a member of the committee, these three gentlemen-Messrs. Trimble, Pierson, and Neilson-continued the superintendence up to the time of the dissolution of the Society.

The success and efficiency of the normal schools will be ap parent from the fact stated in 1853, in the forty-seventh annual report, that, out of the 422 teachers of all grades then engaged in the various departments of the public schools, 386 had been, or still were, pupils of the normal schools. Nearly 350 were engaged in ward or other schools, and 460 graduates were engaged in other professions, or in the duties of domestic life. The whole number, from the time of its establishment in 1834 to 1853, being 1,150 trained in the male and female normal schools.

In reviewing the history of this institution, it is impossible to forbear paying a passing tribute to the memory of those noble and philanthropic men by whose fostering care it was founded and sustained.

During the last eleven years of his life, SAMUEL DEMILT Was unremitting in his oversight of these schools, attending at each session; and, during the whole period of five hours, he gave, by his interest and example, an encouragement and stimulus to the establishment which, to a great extent, was the means of placing it on a permanent basis.

During a brief career of usefulness, ISAAC H. CLAPP was also unwearied in his exertions to promote the interests and welfare of the institution, devoting all the energies of early manhood to the cause, with a disinterested zeal and activity rarely seen, and worthy of the highest admiration.

In addition to those who have ceased from their labors, it would be unjust not to mention those who were either their coadjutors or successors in this important trust, and who, though still engaged in similar offices of benevolence and usefulness to the living, have ceased to be connected with the charge of this favorite object of their care.

In this connection, George T. Trimble deserves to be remem

bered and esteemed. During nearly the whole twenty years of the existence of the normal school, he was among the most zealous in his watchful oversight of the female normal school. To him and his associates the city is indebted for the institution which has prepared so large a number of active teachers for their responsible duties.

The trustees of the Public School Society were not behind any of their fellow-citizens in a just appreciation of the advantages and economy of the highest kind of education which could be afforded to the masses. This charge has been made and repeated by men who judged by circumstances, and not by an accurate knowledge of the publications and unsuccessful efforts of the Society to reach the object of their cherished desire. It would argue little for the character of an institution at whose head stood, for forty years, such men as De Witt Clinton, Gulian C. Verplanck, Henry Eckford, Colonel Rutgers, and others of the same class, to suppose that it ever sought to limit the extent of its studies, or to crush out aspirations for the higher walks of literature and science. Its resources were never equal to the calls upon them, and the practical aim was to give to all the children of the school age at least some of the advantages of education, rather than to give a higher culture to a limited number who could afford to obtain it through other institutions. It was deemed better to give a good rudimentary education to scores of thousands, than to adopt a course of studies which could be enjoyed only by the minority. It had not the elastic liberty of a board of officers who could call for an almost unlimited amount, but was restricted in its expenditures, so that it was obliged, in order to meet the demand upon it, to mortgage a large portion of its property, that it might erect new buildings for its pupils. The project of a high school, or classical institution, was no novelty with a large portion of the members of the Public School Society.

As early as 1828, at the time of making an appeal to the Legislature for additional means, an address to the public was circulated, in which high schools for advanced English studies, fully up to the standard of the best of the ward schools now in existence, were strongly advocated, and a classical seminary was held before the people as an object of pride, usefulness, and honor. In this address the trustees speak as follows: