est suited for
teaching. Marlborough, so celebrated for his military combinations,
could never give any intelligible account of his plans. He had arrived
at his conclusions with unerring certainty, but he was so little
accustomed to observing his own mental processes, that he utterly failed
in attempting to make them plain to others. He saw the points himself
with perfect clearness, but he had no power to make others see them. To
all objections to his plans, he could only say, "Silly, silly, that's
silly." It was much the same with Cromwell. It is so with most men who
are distinguished for action and achievement. Patrick Henry would
doubtless have made but a third-rate teacher of elocution, and old Homer
but an indifferent lecturer on the art of poetry.

To acquire knowledge ourselves, then, and to put others in possession of
what we have acquired, are not only distinct intellectual processes, but
they are quite unlike. In the former case, the faculties merely go out
towards the objects to be known, as in the case of the cloth merchant
passing his eye and finger over the bales of cloth. But in the case of
one attempting to teach, several additional processes are needed,
besides that of collecting knowledge. He must turn his thoughts inward,
so as to arrange and classify properly the contents of his intellectual
storehouse. He must then examine his own mind, his intellectual
machinery, so as to understand exactly how the knowledge came in upon
himself. He must lastly study the minds of his pupils, so as to know
through what channels the knowledge may best reach them. The teacher may
not always be aware that he does all these things, that is, he may not
always have a theory of his own art. But the art itself he must have. He
must first get the knowledge of the things to be taught; he must
secondly study his knowledge; he must thirdly study himself; he must
lastly study his pupil. He is a teacher at all only so far as he does at
least these four things.

In a Normal School, as before said, the knowledge of the subject is
presupposed. The object of the Normal School is, not so much to make
arithmeticians and grammarians, for instance, as to make teachers of
arithmetic and grammar. This teaching faculty is a thing by itself, and
quite apart from the subject matter to be taught. It underlies every
branch of knowledge, and every trade and profession. The theologian, the
mathematician, the linguist, the learned professor, no l