The Normal College of New York City.

piano keys was now emancipated, and revealed itself in much diversity of costume and manner, in pretty faces and softly modulated voices, and in faces that were, to say the least, not pretty, and piping voices that were not modulated at all.

A pensive student, with a tight-fitting suit of black, and big, liquid, lustrous eyes in a pale face, enunciated a sagacious pas- sage from Huxley: "The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?" Another had been reading Shakespeare, and gave the following from King Henry VIII:

"Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at he thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's."

Another had explored the profundities of Bacon, and recited this characteristic fragment: "The pleasure and delight of learning far surpasseth all others in nature; for in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used their verdure departeth. Of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable, and therefore knowledge appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident." Some broke down, and we could see troubled hearts and of mortification behind the failures; clear intonation, nice emphasis, and possession marked most of the recitations.

resident Hunter next addressed the students, urging them not to miss a single lesson; and while one of the divisions into which the college is divided remained in the chapel for musical instruction, the others retired, responding to the touches of the piano with the extraordinary precision shown at their entrance, and the fountain seemed to be playing again in the patter of their footsteps.

But we have forgotten to say what takes place previous to the services in the chapel. Should the day be wet, the students leave their wraps in the drying-rooms on entering the college. The drying-rooms are provided with racks for overshoes and rails for clothing. At a quarter before nine a gong is struck, the students repair to their recitation-rooms, and all conversation is prohibited. Five minutes later the gong is struck again, the rolls are culled, and marks are awarded for punctuality; and at a third stroke of the gong all the students pass into the chapel, as we have seen.

Time day's work was now begun, Tennyson's "Princess" becoming almost reality to us:

"And then we strolled
For half the day thro' stately theatres
Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate
The circle rounded under female hands
With flawless demonstration: follow'd then
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment,
With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies
And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time
Sparkle forever: then we dipt in all
That treats of whatsoever is, the state,
The total chronicles of man, the mind,
The morals, something of the frame, the rock,
The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower,
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest,
And whatsoever can he taught and known."

The first normal school was founded in 1681 by the Abbé De la Salle, canon of the cathedral at Reims, and sixteen years later a teachers' class was opened in connection with an orphan school at Halle, the pupil-teachers receiving two years' training under the head-master, August Hermann Francke, under whom the system developed surprisingly, and soon received the invaluable sup-