Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/121

 96 NORMAL SEMINARY.

fulness of the practised orator, and his countenance is heavy, until irradiated by his subject. Then mind triumphs over matter, and makes the broad Scotch a pliant vehicle to eloquent thought. He recommended the principle of calling forth the energies of the poor for their own amelioration, without the application of any disturbing force ; that they should be assisted to elevate themselves, rather than be at once paralyzed and degraded, by casting their households on that stinted bounty whose root is taxation. To enforce his theory, he went into many details of great minuteness and simplicity, advising, among other things, the keeping of simple sewing-schools by ladies, two hours of two days in the week, for the indigent female chil dren in their neighborhood ; and frequent visits, on the part of philanthropists and Christians, to the abodes of ignorance and vice, that the kindly sympathies thus mutually awakened, might be enlisted in the great work of reformation. He was opposed by the classic Alison, who admitted the beauty of his theory, but, by arguments drawn from the fallen nature of man, and the artificial structure of society, denied its feasibility.

Among the objects of interest in Glasgow, to those who realize the importance of a right education to a manufacturing community, is the Normal Seminary. Its design is to train teachers, by bringing them in continual contact with the young mind, according to the requisitions of what would seem a correct and effi cient system. Multitudes of children are gathered in a large building, judiciously divided into class-rooms,

�� �