£10 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
as a model school, by an expert. As a practical result of the working of 
she plan, I have seen in this practice school forty students of the normal 
school conducting the classes of their own organizing with entire success 
—as great as I should expect from any forty teachers in any town. 
The illustration enforces the value of careful study of the subjects taught, 
of the principles of teaching, and of continued observation, all supple- 
mented by independent practice, as a preparation for teaching. It only 
remains to say that we hope ere long to see all our normal school courses 
supplemented by practice in teaching in the city and town training-schools, 
and that the time is not distant when no teacher will receive a normal 
school diploma till he has shown by actual success in the schoolroom that 
he has the ability and fitness to teach. To a great extent city training- 
schools could be made to effectively supplement all normal schools with 
schools for practice. 
GRADATION OF NORMAL AND TRAINING SCHOOLS. 
BY THOMAS KIRKLAND, PRINCIPAL OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL, 
TORONTO, ONTARIO. 
Should we have a gradation of normal and training schools ? Tf so, what ? 
IT is now recognized by all enlightened nations that it is the duty of the 
state to establish and control public schools in which the youths of the 
country shall receive the instruction and training necessary to make them 
good citizens. To make good citizens we must have good schools. In 
order to have good schools we must have good teachers. To have good 
teachers, they must be trained for their important work ; and experience 
has abundantly shown that unless the state undertakes this training, it 
will be inadequately done by others, if done at all. I do not mean to say 
shat there have not been good teachers who have never gone through a 
-raining-school, but training they must have had before they became good 
seachers ; and if they did not get it at a training-school, they must have 
obtained it at the sacrifice of their pupils. Hence it follows that the state 
must provide training institutions, both as to kind and quantity, suitable 
for the training of all its teachers, in order that no untrained teacher shall 
be permitted to take charge of any public school. The object of this 
oaper is to briefly indicate how this may be done. 
When training-schools were first established they combined academic 
work with professional training. This is the system still adopted in nearly 
all the normal schools in the United States and in the training institu- 
tions in Europe. It was the system practiced in the normal school in 
which I serve, for more than thirty years. It has produced some of our 
very best teachers. It has use and want in its favor, and is not, there-