The enrollment for the past five years has been :

The attendance in the fall term for five years has been:

The previous training of pupils is indicated by the following:

The above statements show an increase of twenty-three in the number enrolled, and an increase over last year of seventeen in the number of graduates.

It was predicted, in the report of last year, that the attendance would diminish, because a larger number complete the course in less than two years. It will be observed that the number of graduates has increased about twenty-five per cent., while the number in attendance has remained nearly stationary.

The number of graduates has increased rapidly and steadily, and by more than one hundred per cent. in four years.

It is a serious undertaking to train a single pupil to teach successfully, her first school. The difficulty is increased when the obstructive policy of those among whom it is our lot to be cast compels us to carry on one half of our technical training outside the town in which the Normal School is situated.

The general plan of conducting classes in the academical department, or during the first year, differs little, so far as class organization is concerned, from that followed in high schools, and large numbers can be taught. All this is changed in the training school. Not more than one pupil can work to advantage in one room, at the same time. If there are more than thirtyfive pupils in a class a high standard cannot be maintained.

If every pupil can have an extended term of apprenticeship, few failures by our graduates will ever be reported. A single failure in management has sometimes widely injured the good name of the school. No effort should be spared to increase confidence in the training.

The practice department has gained in favor. Graduates from the training school readily find situations. The ability to teach and to govern is the commodity in demand. It is hoped that the questions concerning the advantages of training for teaching, settled long ago, everywhere save in New England, may not again be called in question in Connecticut.

No effort should be spared to preserve the efficiency of this central feature. Its continued vigor is vital to all, the success of

the school, both in training to teach, and in affording suggestion to the hundreds of teachers that visit the school.

But assuming that this department is doing its work with undiminished thoroughness, we have but a slender basis for a large success. It is not enough that the graduates are hired without delay, or that people are curious or even interested to discover some new thing. In the first place, the institution should attract to itself those who can successfully illustrate the practice and the theory of good teaching, working intelligently and guided by principles, rather than imitating flimsy surface methods. Many of the best teachers of the State were trained only in the rural schools; yet the great increase in the number of well-trained students who are taking the course is a source of the highest satisfaction to all interested in education.

Again the school should aim to give instruction in such specialities as bear directly upon the success of a well-organized district school. Here, as before, more is undertaken by the Board of Education than is called for by the public. Yet the public is quickly responsive to every additional facility afforded to increase the usefulness of future teachers. Many theories of training, hitherto successfully illustrated in a modest way, and favorably commented upon by teachers generally, have been placed before the public at the Normal School during the last few years. This end has been kept steadily in view from the first. No one asked for a practice department, for a kindergarten, for a department of physical training, or an industrial or art department. Yet all these features have been added with much additional care, anxiety, and labor on the part of the Board and the officers in their employ. Some of the supplementary departments are in good working condition, and some of them cannot be said to be fully organized. But they should be carried forward as rapidly as possible. The technical, the special, is the loud call everywhere. An art if not a trade; an ability to construct, to represent, to reproduce, all this is demanded by intelligent American parents. This newly-discovered, long repressed element, must have a place in education, and the Normal School should promptly lead the way, by offering certain special lines of training.

The Kindergarten is a fully equipped, well-organized industrial department. It affords a thorough training to the limited number who can be received in the training class. The powers of

attention and discrimination are well developed, and every child who enjoys its privileges has begun to be an artist. Moreover, his powers of concentration and his insight have been so cultivated, and his information has been so increased, that his future intellectual development will be immeasurably hastened. The proof of these statements is found in the great contrast shown in the early grades of our own schools, between those who have and those who have not received kindergarten instruction.

Physical Culture has been prominently and almost abruptly brought into notice within the last five years. Its claim to a place in every higher institution is already recognized. The law of this State compels attention to physiology, and public sentiment follows quickly with the demand that the body shall be cared for and exercised, that the long term of confinement in school shall not prove disastrous alike to health and morals. Physical exercises are as much a part of the programme of the model school-rooms as arithmetic or reading. A systematic course of physical training is obligatory upon every student of the Normal School. A regular instructor is employed and classes give one period every day to gymnasium work.

Students will here learn the value of strengthening and caring for the body, which is so often disfigured and despised by American women, and they will, thereby, know better how to teach others to care for health. This department should afford a complete training and award a certificate, that the influence of the school may not stop with benefiting the few that are in attend

ance.

Every grade of schools, and almost every subject taught has its appropriate occupation. Modeling, coloring, molding, drawing, writing, measuring, weighing, representation, and reproduction of every kind, assist in the apprehension of almost every subject in the school curriculum.

Successful teachers unconsciously employ the idea of reproduction or representation in tangible form, of all ideas presented to pupils.

Teachers introduce a long list of occupations and busy work. Many merely imitate what others do in this respect; a few employ this natural method through intuition, or from an intelligent apprehension of the principle involved; but all, for one reason or another, are trying to use industrial elements in the schoolThese features are not introduced because of their intrin

room.

sic worth, but because the intellect must have the assistance of things at every point.

Students of the Normal School are introduced to a great variety of elementary forms of technical work. Kindergarten occupations, molding, modeling, the use of tools, writing, drawing, coloring, gymnastics, and experimental work in physiology, chemistry, and physics, are the technical features in which instruction is at present given. It is intended that this instruction shall be thorough as far as it goes. The elements are dealt with and fairly mastered. The favorable influence of the presence of these occupations can be demonstrated in every model school-room. Restraint is reduced to a minimum. Children are self-reliant, and cheerful, and learn to work. More is accomplished, and the progress in all other subjects is more rapid, since these occupations either contribute directly to a better comprehension of every topic presented, or improve the general conditions under which pupils work.

If industrial training stopped here, it might be claimed that these features had revolutionized all methods of teaching, and gone far in redeeming the school from the sepulchral and immoral influence that have enveloped it as a place of mere restraint.

But the school deserves criticism, if it is satisfied to deal with the rudiments of industrial training. It should send out experts to teach every mechanical art worth introducing here. A vigorous and liberal policy in building up these technical schools would accomplish almost any desired improvement in the sentiment of the entire State.

Complete post-graduate or independent courses should be offered in singing; industrial art; physical training; coloring and modeling; drawing, carpentry, and natural science. accomplish this, a new building would be indispensable.

To

But Connecticut supports no art school, and an art department of the Normal School liberally equipped would imply a modest outlay for a State that leads the nation in many of its numberless fine art productions. Our present arrangements may afford suggestions to all who know the school but can never shape rapidly or surely the taste and practice of a State.

The workshop occupies the southern side of the third floor of the main building-is 83 feet by 22 feet by 12 feet, and was completed in May of the present year. It is furnished with benches,