d, in 1839, there being then but half a dozen in
the entire country. Ten years later there were but eighteen. There was,
however, in those days a large number of academies giving secondary
instruction. But there was no thought of looking to the normal schools
for academy teachers, they came from the colleges. Indeed, generally
speaking, the academies and high schools as then being developed, were
offering a higher grade of academic work than the normal schools, and
they were rather assisting the latter in the production of teachers.
This was especially true in New York, a movement having there been
inaugurated by which, thru financial aid from the State, many of the
academies were offering normal school instruction and sending out into
the rural schools and city grades a very creditable product. And the
character of the movement in the East has continued to be the character
of the movement as it has swept Westward. I think there has not been
established in the United States a single state normal school whose
function has not been understood to be the preparation of teachers for
the common schools. And by "common schools" I mean the first eight
grades of the public school, including both rural and urban communities,
for it has been only in recent years that we have carefully
discriminated between the two.

Next, let us look at the teachers college. Bear in mind that I use the
term as referring to the institution, or department, under whatever name
it may be known, that is doing professional work in the preparation of
teachers in connection with colleges and universities. In taking up the
topic, attention needs first to be called to two facts: the rapid
development of our high school system and the high degree of success
already attained by our normal schools.

After the close of the Civil War our high schools began to
multiply--rapidly from 1870 to 1880, by leaps and bounds from that time
to the present. In 1870 there were 170; 1880, 800; 1890, 2,526; 1900,
6,005; and in 1908, 8,960. (Annual reports of the Commissioner of
Education.) But no sooner had the high school movement obtained good
headway than the serious problem arose as to the supply of teachers. And
so well, on the whole, had the normal school done its work that it had
more than justified its existence. Thru its work the character of the
teaching in the elementary schools had been greatly improved. Teachers,
with normal school equipment, were everywhere reco