=Progress in Normal Schools.=--While the state universities have been enjoying this marvelous development, nearly every state has been establishing normal schools for the professional preparation of teachers. The normal school as an institution is also modern. As an institution established and supported by state taxation it is, as a rule, more recent than the universities. Forty years ago many good people regarded the normal school idea as visionary and its realization as a doubtful 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.