SCHOOL, a house or place of rendez vous for pupils or students to receive in struction in various arts and branches of useful and necessary knowledge. In modern usage, the word school compre hends every place of education, whether a college, an academy, a primary school, or a school for learning any single art or accomplishment. "The changes which have taken place in science, and in the whole condition of modern nations, who are no longer dependent, like those of the ' middle ages, for their means of intellec tual culture, on the remains of ancient civilization, necessarily make the charac ter of school instruction very different from what it was formerly, when the whole intellectual wealth of Europe was contained in two languages; and though these noble idioms will always retain a high place in a complete system of edu cation, yet their importance is compara tively less, while that of the natural sci ences, history, geography, politics, Se. has very increased. All this has had a great influence upon schools, and will have a still greater.' The import ance of education. moreover, is now set in strong relief by the general conviction, entertained in free countries, that the general diffusion of knowledge is the only true security for welt-regulated liberty, which must rest on a just sense of what is duo front man to man ; and few results Call be attained by the student of history and of mankind more delightful than this of the essential connection of light, and liberty ; not that great learning ncees sirrily leads to liberty ; history atiords many instances which disprove this ; but that a general diffusion of knowledge al ways tends to promote a general sense and a love of what is right and just, as well as to furnish the means of securing it.'' For the foregoing remarks, which are not less forcible than apparent, we are indebted to Illackio's edition of the Conversations Lexicon —Schools, Infarct, arc said to owe their origin to Mr. Rob
ert On-en of Scotland. They have now been in operation since the year 1820.— Schools, Normal, schools for the educa tion of persons intended to masters. teachers, or professors in any line. Normal schools form a regular part of the establishments for education in many continental states, especially in Germany. The normal sellout of Paris was suppressed in 1821, but revival a few years afterwards under the name of preparatory school, and has now (since the event of 1830) resumed its oririlial title.—Schools, Sunday, first set on foot by Mr. Robert Railtes of G loucester. The number of children at present frequent ing Sunday-schools in England, varies from 800,000 to 000.000. The education given is almost uniformly confined to reading alone ; but many Sunday-schools appear to have evening schools connected with them, open two or three times a week, in which writing and arithmetic are taught. The system of Sunday-school instruction prevails to it great extent in the United Stales, where it is almost ex clusively of a rel igious character.—, School, among, painters, the style and manner of painting among the great masters of the art at any particular period, as the Ital ian, Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, and English schools—School, in •ilosophy, a system of doctrine as delivered by particular teachers, as the Platonic school, the school of Aristotle, &c.—A Is°, the seminaries for teaching logic, metaphysics, and the ology, which were formed in the middle ages, and which were characterized lay academical disputations and subtilties of reason ing. II enee school divinity is the phrase used to denote that theology which discusses nice points, and proves every thing by argument