NORMAL SCHOOLS.

Our Association has already taken strong ground in favor of the establishment, by the State, of one or more Normal Schools. We shall continue to need the influence of well conducted Institutes, in order to reach the masses of our Teachers, and infuse into them what little of professional spirit and life it may be possible to impart during the short session of an Institute; but in order to the permanent and desirable elevation of the Profession of Teaching in our State, Normal Schools seem to have become essentially necessary. The time has now arrived, when it seems proper that our Association should unitedly and earnestly wield all its influence in favor of the establishment of one or more such schools upon a liberal plan, endowed and provided with the means of instruction upon a scale commensurate with the importance of the work to be accomplished. In a great State like Ohio, Normal Schools, endowed and arranged with no more comprehensive liberality than may be necessary in the founding of a good Academy, can never recommend themselves to the confidence and good will of our people, by the extent and thoroughness of the educational work they can accomplish. The building for each Normal School, in its structure, its conveniences, and its furniture, should be a model of its kind. In each, a full corps of the best instructors that money and an honorable position can secure, should be employed; and to each should be attached a model school house for a model school. For such, and only such Normal Schools, should we labor and exert the influence of our Association. We must expect that it will take time and require much effort to produce the desired result. We must prepare to encounter many obstacles, foreseen and unforeseen, to endure discouragement and disappointment, and patiently to live down the noisy opposition of mere partizans, and the narrow views of many of the professed friends of education.

UNION SCHOOLS.

Below will be found a table of valuable statistics of about one-half of the Union Schools in Ohio. During the past year, several towns of our State adopted the law of 1849. There are now probably about one hundred graded schools in Ohio. Heretofore, a large share of the influence and efforts of our Association have been directed to the establishment of graded schools in cities and towns.

The time, it is be

lieved, has now come, when more especial efforts should be made for the improvement of the country district schools of the State.

As a general thing, the schools of our cities and towns are in a good and progressive condition; but the district schools are generally in more feeble operation, and need more of life and progress infused into them. In these schools, seven-eighths of the children of Ohio will receive all their school training; and hence the importance of speedily improving them.

OUR PRESENT SCHOOL SYSTEM.

It is the almost universal opinion of the friends of education, that the New School Law will do much for the schools in the rural districts of the State, if the Legislature will permit the law to have a fair trial and have time fully to exhibit its excellencies. It is certainly the duty of every Teacher and active friend of education, to do all in his power to preserve our noble school law from being mutilated, and rendered inefficient and unpopular by frequent changes, for the purpose of accommodating every district or individual who may suggest a modifica tion. Light should be diffused among the people in every district. The unfounded assertion, that the school law has caused all the increase of the burdens of taxation, should be met and answered. The twenty thousand Teachers in Ohio should be efficient defenders of the law in their various fields of labor. Every favorable influence should be brought powerfully to bear upon the members of the Legislature. We can have no hope for the education of the eight hundred thousand children of our State, except through the instrumentality of our Public School system. We have labored for long years to improve that system; and our expectations have been more than realized by the enactment of the many liberal provisions of the New Law. Already, however, the clamor for change and the cry of high taxes are heard, in anticipation of the meeting of the Legislature. Teachers of Ohio, it is in our power and it is our duty to harmonize and unite the educational interests and influences of the State, and thus excite so strong and intelligent a public sentiment in favor of the New School Law, that demagogues shall be deterred from attempting its change or repeal.

The Chairman of the Executive Committee, now about to retire from the position he has occupied for the past three years, returns to the noble and generous Teachers of Ohio, his heartfelt thanks for their many acts of kindness, their numerous tokens of confidence, and their self-sacrificing labors in behalf of the cause of Common Schools. May the kind Father of us all pour out his richest blessings upon all the true-hearted Teachers of our beloved State, and may His wisdom guide us in the performance of our many responsible duties.

LORIN ANDREWS,

Chairman of the Executive Committee.

Female Cducation.

Report of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Friends of Female Education, for the year 1853.

Ir will not be uninteresting or unprofitable, in this Report, to glance at the history of the origin and progress of this Association, and to exhibit briefly the objects it is designed to accomplish.

At a meeting of the Friends of Female Education, held in this city on the first of January, 1852, the propriety, importance and practicability of forming an association distinct from, but kindred to the Ohio State Teachers' Association, which should take into consideration those interests which were peculiar to the education of females, were discussed; and after due deliberation, a convention was called to meet in Sandusky City on the 7th day of the ensuing July. At that convention, this Association was organized, which held its first annual meeting in this city on the 28th day of December, 1852, and its first semi-annual meeting in the city of Dayton on the 5th of July last. At both these meetings reports were read, and addresses delivered, on subjects vitally affecting the cause of female education.

At the last meeting held in Dayton, the Executive Committee authorized its chairman to address a letter to the Principals of the seminaries of the State, urging upon them the claims of this Association, and soliciting their attendance and coöperation. This has been done, in accordance with instructions, the Principals of a few seminaries only excepted, whose coöperation and influence had already been secured. From nearly all the seminaries thus addressed have replies been received, which speak favorably of the design of the Association, and assure us of their coöperation.

Thus far the Association has been laboring amidst difficulties and doubts; some of the active friends of the cause, who were among the first to enlist their energies in our behalf, sometimes almost despairing of ultimate success. It was only at our last meeting that one of our members remarked, "that if this Association lived, it must be galvanized into life." And is this not true of every such association? It requires oftentimes much more than a shock of galvanism to awake man from the somnolency induced by the soporific lullaby of indolence and ease, to the self-denying duties of philanthropy. Does not the history of the State Teachers' Association demonstrate the truth of this statement? It was galvanized into being; and now it lives, and a lasting monument of the energy, zeal and perseverance of its original galvanizers-itself