TRAINING COLLEGES FOR TEACHERS. “The science of education, so little thought of, so contemptuously ignored, is the crowning science of all, for it is the application of all the sciences to the production of the highest result—the perfect man.”—From a paper read by Mrs. Grey at the meeting of the British Association, 1874. In 1873, the theory and practice of education were still so far apart that, in the March number of _The Journal of the Women’s Education Union_ of that year, we find the following very definite statement:— “Training colleges do not exist; the expense of founding them would place them almost hopelessly out of reach, though something might have been done by following up the example of the Home and Colonial in their private department. Mrs. Wm. Grey proposed a plan for a class of student teachers to form part of every large school, which was adopted by the Public Day-school Company, who are, however, not yet in a position to try it. It has also been approved by Miss Buss and Miss Beale, and is already in operation in Camden Town.” In October, 1872, Miss Buss and Miss Doreck, the two ladies on the council of the College of Preceptors, had brought forward a scheme for establishing a “Training class of lectures and lessons for teachers;” and as a consequence of this effort the office of “Professor of the Science and Art of Education” was offered to Mr. Joseph Payne, whose inaugural address was given on January 30, 1873. Miss Buss and Miss Doreck took an active part in bringing together the seventy students (chiefly women) who attended these lectures. At Norwich, Dr. Hodgson spoke with strong approval of the step taken by the College of Preceptors in founding a professorship of the theory and art of education, and of their choice of Mr. Payne to fill this post. He spoke of the success of Mr. Payne’s lectures in London and in Edinburgh, and expressed a hope that such professorships would ere long be established “in one or more of the chief Scottish Universities also,” and added that “they were strongly to be desired for the English Universities also.” Of Mr. Payne’s lectures there is a notice in the March _Education Journal_ of the same year— “The object of the whole course is to show that there are principles of education on which, in order to be efficient, practice must be founded; or, in other words, that there is a science of education, in reference to which the art must be conducted, and the value of its processes tested.” Miss Buss’ feeling about these lectures is shown in a letter written in 1876, soon after the death of her much-valued friend—