ful experiment. Indeed in one western state, as late as the
eighties, its legislature debated the abolition of its normal schools on
the ground that they were not fulfilling or accomplishing any useful
mission. To-day, however, no such charge of inefficiency can be made.
The normal schools, like the universities, have proved their right to
exist. They have been weighed in the balance and have not been found
wanting. It is now generally recognized that those who would teach
should make some preparation for that high calling; and so the normal
schools in every state have demonstrated their "right of domicile" in
the educational system. It is now generally recognized that teaching,
both as a science and as an art, is highly complicated, and that, if it
is to be a profession, there must be special preparation for it.
Consequently the normal schools of the country have had a wonderful and
rapid development from the experimental stage to that in which they have
well-nigh realized their ideals. School boards everywhere look to the
normal schools for their supply of elementary teachers.

=Progress in Agricultural Colleges.=--Similar statements may be made
concerning the agricultural colleges of the country. They are modern
creations in the United States; and with the aid of both the state and
the national government they have come to be vast institutions, devoting
themselves to the teaching and the spreading of scientific farming among
the people. Here there is a vast work to be done. On account of the
trend of population toward the cities, and on account of the vast tracts
of country land lying idle, scientific agriculture should be brought in
to aid in production and thus to keep down the cost of living. The
agricultural colleges of the country have a large part to play in the
solution of the problems of rural life.

=Progress in the High Schools.=--A similar development characterizes the
high schools of the country. Education has extended downward from above.
Universities everywhere have come into existence before the
establishment of secondary schools. Not only are the universities, the
normal schools, and the agricultural colleges of recent origin, but the
high schools also are modern institutions, at least in their present
systematized form. The high schools of the cities constitute to-day one
of the most efficient forms of school organization. At the present time
the better high schools of the cities are veritable colleg