most
generous. Now, cities and villages are, generally speaking, the centers
of intelligence as well as of population and wealth. The people of these
communities have appreciated the superiority of professionally prepared
teachers, and they have been able to pay the added price. The result has
been that they have appropriated practically the entire output of the
normal schools. None have been left for the rural schools.

And again, with these economic changes there came to be more and more
clearly seen, as the years went by, a difference, internal and somewhat
vital, between the schools of the rural and the urban communities,
making in some ways a different sort of preparation desirable. Now, the
state normal school, growing with the movement, and ever keenly alive to
its opportunities for usefulness, noting clearly the location of its
product, very wisely began to modify its work so as to make it better
suited to the needs of its main customers--the well-graded schools of
the city and village. And so it has resulted that, even if the normal
schools could supply the demands for both country and city teachers, so
far as numbers are concerned, the preparation given is not the most
ideal for the former. And just as when professionally trained secondary
teachers were needed a new institution was created for their
preparation, in very recent years an institution has appeared to satisfy
this new need, one whose function is as clearly announced, and one which
seems to fit into the situation as well, and we have the county normal
school of Michigan and Wisconsin, as mentioned above.

Whether we shall see a rapid extension of this new movement, making the
county normal school as fixt an institution as the state normal school
has become, and as the teachers college bids fair to become, or whether,
thru consolidation, the distinctive type of our rural school shall
disappear and our state normal schools be increased in number to meet
the larger demands, only the future can tell. This latter, however, will
not be in our generation, and I confidently look for the former. I
believe the general adoption and adaptation of the county normal school
idea would be one of the most economical and speedy means of solving
some of our most serious rural school problems. And I also believe that
it should be our next step, if we can take but one step at a time,
toward professional education of teachers.

If I have analyzed aright the present si