principals of academies to consider the practical workings and results of the system of regent’s examinations just being instituted. During these years of his connection with the Collegiate Institute, he took a lively interest in the subject of the so-called normal training in academies, and became convinced that the utmost that could be done for teachers’ classes under the circumstances was too little to meet the needs of the common schools of the state. He, therefore, with the advice and cooperation of friends of education in Brockport and Rochester, and the Hon. Victor M. Rice, then state superintendent, proposed to the State Legislature, in 1865-66, a bill authorizing the establishment of a Normal and Training School at Brockport, and offering to transfer the Institute property to the state for that purpose on very liberal terms. Subsequently this measure was so modified as to provide for four schools instead of one, and to leave the location of them to a board consisting of the governor, state superintendent and state officers and others. In this form the bill became law. It now became necessary to adopt some definite plan of organization for the new schools, and Superintendent Rice at once turned to Professor MacVicar for assistance. The professor submitted a plan, which, with some slight modifications, was adopted and became the basis for the organization of all the schools under the law. In consideration of the services rendered by Professor MacVicar and other friends of the cause, the first school was located in Brockport, with Professor MacVicar as its principal, and he immediately set to work to organize this school, and opened it in the spring of 1867, having among the members of his faculty, Professor Charles McLean, William J. Milne and J. H. Hoose, now the Principals of the Normal schools of Brockport, Genesee and Courtland. The first year of Normal school work, carried on as it was in connection with planning and supervising the erection of the new buildings, proved a very trying one to Principal MacVicar, and his health giving way under the pressure, he resolved to offer his resignation at the end of the school year of 1867-8. This he accordingly did, but the state superintendent, preferring not to lose him from the state, granted him a year’s leave of absence, instead of accepting his resignation. He then took a trip west, during the summer of 1868, and was invited to become superintendent of the schools of the city of Leavenworth; after some consideration, he accepted this position, and remained there until the following April, in the meantime reorganizing the schools from bottom to top, a work that had been neglected hitherto. His western trip having restored him to perfect health, he returned to New York state, but thought it best not to again take up his work at Brockport. A Normal School having been located in Potsdam, St. Lawrence county, and about ready to open, he was invited to