The reason for this is probably to be found in the nature of the Normal School itself. It, perhaps more than any other educational institution in America, has adhered to its old traditions. It was designed to train teachers for the lower grades of Elementary Schools, and in the early days was prepared to accept the only material at hand--would-be teachers, many of whom possessed few intellectual qualifications, and almost all were inadequately prepared for training. But with rising standards of work, and increased facilities for good preliminary preparation, the Normal School has not yet closed its doors to students whose general attainments do not qualify them to profit by courses in the Science and Art of Teaching. In one or two cases only is the standard of college graduation insisted upon, and in many cases the admission standard is lower than that required to complete the course in a city High School. Hence it results that most of the teaching in High Schools and academies is given into the hands of professionally untrained teachers--college graduates, whose scholarship can be relied upon, but who have no previous technical training, rather than to trained teachers, whose knowledge of the actual subject matter of studies may or may not be thorough. The choice, open to heads of Secondary Schools when appointing assistants, is, moreover, not between good scholarship and good training. Without adequate preparation the training must be inadequate, and in many cases cramping and injurious. On the other hand, it is only after the preliminary preparation has been sound and complete that the work of training can be carried out in the best possible way. _CITY NORMAL AND TRAINING SCHOOLS._