THE FUNCTION OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL IN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

BY EDWARD E. SHEIB, A.M., PH.D., PRESIDENT OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL OF LOUISIANA.

THE SUBLIMEST WORK OF HUMANITY IS THE MAN OF CULTURE. True culture is the highest possible development of man's talents and powers in accordance with nature's laws for the sake of personal wellbeing and the happiness of others. Family, school, state, church, public life, pursue similar ends. The labors of these institutions-the great sources of culture and refinement-should of necessity be evolved in perfect harmony.

The modern state is forced to admit, and it recognizes more clearly every day, the obligation which demands as imperatively, the education of its children, as it requires the protection of the lives and rights of its citizens. Upon the sacred performance of the pledge to which it is committed the education of those who will be called upon to assume the duties of citizenship-must depend the perpetuation and the growth of republican institutions. Hence our national development and the tender care of an educational system which is prepared to mold intelligent, selfreliant, and conscientious men and women, are made inseparable. The public school becomes the ground-work of the most perfect type of government ever attempted by a people. Government itself cannot be permanently attached to rigid characters. Old forms must disappear with the occasions which called them into life. In the evolution of new forms is manifested a nation's vitality, its energy, and its capability of improvement. Independence of thought, fidelity in matters of conviction, the cheerful sacrifice of some part of the individual's rights for the benefit of society, and the will to perform conscientiously what has been intelligently recognized as right, constitute the great virtues of the citizen of a free republic; they constitute at the same time the great virtues of the true

man.

Thus education, which has for its object the perfection of the individual, and recognizes no worthier end than the formation of intelligent men and women with wills capable of obeying the dictates of conscience, becomes the most valuable factor of a free government. The true citizen of the republic is at the same time the intelligent and moral man for whose perfection education labors.

These truths are generally admitted. They have led, little by little, to the erection of an institution which in many respects is peculiarly national, and which has become the pivotal point about which our system of public instruction revolves. They indicate the position which the "Normal Schools" occupy in the plan of public instruction.

The

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF KNOWLEDGE HAS BEEN, OR IT IS AT PRESENT, MADE THE SUBJECT OF A SEARCHING PROCESS OF ANALYSIS, preparatory to its logical reconstruction upon scientific principles, and in conformity with the nature of the subject of inquiry and the laws of reason. natural sciences have outstripped all others in this work of classifying and of explaining all natural phenomena in accordance with a few general laws.

The principles determining the development of society, economy, and government, and the rules by which moral and mental truths are developed, have, in a scarcely less degree, attracted the attention of philosophical inquisition.

The present age seems determined and prepared to wage war against chaos and ignorance wherever they appear. Not content to record mere

facts, it demands to know the causes which underlie appearances.

In the face of this spirit of advancement, which strives to subordinate everything to general principles and order, it would be useless to antagonize intelligent progress with antiquated forms, cherished prejudices, and unreasonable bias. In intellectual work as elsewhere, there can be no rest, no stand-still.

LIFE IS MOTION, EITHER IN THE DIRECTION OF IMPROVEMENT, BACKWARD TO DECAY.

OR

So mental stand-still signifies mental stagnation, and stagnation means degeneration. It would be idle, in the midst of this general forward movement, to anticipate a vigorous growth where few attempts have been made to dispel a prevailing confusion of ideas. Misconception in such instances helps to hide the real sources of evil. And it would indeed seem strange if, while we admit that even commercial and mercantile pursuits are subject to general philosophical truths, efforts should not have been made to discover whether there do not exist philosophical principles of education, and whether there are not immutable truths upon which a rational system of education can be founded. Theory, with our eminently practical people, has fallen into disrepute to such a degree, that even to advance the idea of a "Theory of Education" seems a sufficiently valid reason for casting suspicion upon the theorist, and for pronouncing him a speculative dreamer who deals in impracticable notions. Experience, so called, enjoys so high a place of honor in the estimation of men, that

nothing seems to deserve to be regarded as trustworthy unless received directly from her hands.

Unfortunately, those who claim to be guided by experience usually deceive themselves. They mistake for experience what in reality is only appearance. An ignorant man can place little reliance upon his impressions; at best he can conscientiously record whatever he may see and hear. These appearances are made to serve him in the place of reason and instead of effects resulting from remote and complicated causes.

THERE IS NO OTHER DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IN WHICH << EXPERIMENTING " HAS BEEN PERMITTED TO PROCEED WITH SUCH MANIFEST RECKLESSNESS, WITH SUCH A DISREGARD FOR NATURAL LAWS, AND SUCH AN IGNORANCE OF PURPOSE AS IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION.

And as a consequence, for a long time methods have prevailed which have come down to us in a direct line from the old church schools of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. While elsewhere the world was putting forth new forms, the school which ought to prepare for life, lay incrusted in the bias, the dust-covered garments, and the moth-eaten methods of ages which had long since passed away.

A sickly plant or animal quickly falls a prey to vermin, and the school which ignored a world which was advancing with giant strides, fell into the hands of ignorants and of dull pedagogues-the terror of the generations whom they undertook to mold with birch and strap. The profession was degraded, and it continued in this unenviable plight almost up to the time of the educational Renaissance in this country.

We are hardly a people to be deceived for any length of time by a display of magnificent buildings or by the rhetoric of flattering school reports. The questions propounded to us to-day read: Those who come from the schools, are they more intelligent, better prepared to resist the temptations which will rush upon them when they enter the life of the world, more capable of performing well the duties of life and of citizenship-in short, are they morally and intellectually better men and women? If there is not a marked improvement in this direction, no one who has at heart the advancement and the happiness of our people, will be willing to find in the elegance and practical arrangement of our school-houses a proof of progress in the department of education.

PSYCHOLOGY.

IF THERE IS TO BE A PERMANENT IMPROVEMENT IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, IT MUST BE EFFECTED IN A MANNER SIMILAR TO THAT WHICH HAS INAUGURATED PROGRESS IN EVERY OTHER FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE AND ART.

Here, too, the principles and the laws upon which this particular

department of knowledge is founded must be made the subject of special investigation. Experimenting without a philosophy cannot achieve satisfactory results. Only, if there is no philosophy of education, and if it is impossible to found a rational pedagogy on philosophical truths, then the results collected by an awkward system of experimenting, however unsatisfactory, are nevertheless the most favorable returns we can look forward to. But we are far from admitting that education has no more trustworthy foundation than "chance," or that the labors of students and investigators in the departments of psychology, biology, and ethics have remained barren of results.

ETHICS.

Every step that is taken to advance culture and refinement, at the same time assists in impressing on the mind more clearly the object of education, which was almost lost sight of during the period of demoralization that so long prevailed in the schools. But in order to recognize a higher object of education, consisting of delegating true worth to the individual, in perfecting the mind and in molding the character, a philosophical study of the principles of ethics and sociology had of necessity to precede.

Not that without such preparatory study it may be possible to see very clearly what constitutes a really noble character. Still, in all philosophical study, every vestige of doubt must be removed. The history of philosophy and of religion shows plainly enough how much confusion, error, and immorality have in all ages rendered the prevailing notions of ethics vague and untrustworthy.

However complicated the mental phenomena, and however difficult it may at times become to unravel the innumerable threads that form the network of some mental conditions, still mental growth is observed to advance in strict accordance with laws as immutable as those which regulate the changes in the outer world.

Hence the absurdity of all attempts to mold the character according to the highest ideas of morality, without a careful investigation of the principles of ethics; and therefore, too, the hopelessness of all labors to influence the development of the mind while disregarding the laws of psychology. Whenever we ignore nature's laws or willfully oppose them, confusion overwhelms us, and our destruction is planned.

THEORY OF EDUCATION.

It is to this conclusion, then, that we are forced the science and the art of teaching are founded on principles of ethics and of psychology. An improvement of the system and of the methods of teaching is only to be

sought for in the careful study of the laws of mental and moral growth, and the sincerity with which all educational attempts and rules are rejected, for which a justification may not be found in the laws of development.

Bearing in mind these general truths, and demanding for the educated man the valuable qualities which go to make up a self-reliant and independent character, the place which the normal school is destined to fill in our school system is defined without difficulty.

EDUCATED AND EFFICIENT TEACHERS ARE THE INDISPENSABLE FACTORS OF THE SCHOOLS.

Institutions for the preparation and training of such teachers become the real fountains whence the schools must draw their energy, their intelligence, and their vitality.

The normal school is called upon to solve one of the most difficult problems which life, the existence of society, and the preservation of the state, suggest.

And therefore it at once, and of necessity, assumes a most important place in our school system. The moment it is remembered that the schools, including the primary, the grammar, and the high school, are the institutions whose mission it is to care for the training and the education of the children of the nation, and whose influence extends into the future and far beyond the limits of every other power, it will be admitted that the normal school occupies a position more prominent, and that the responsibilities which it assumes are greater than the place and the duty imposed on any other institution, whether educational or professional.

The normal school undertakes to prepare, with the necessary skill and accomplishments, those who will direct the education of the children of the nation, and to care for a harmonious development of youth, physically, intellectually, æsthetically, and morally.

This harmonious development, the cultivation of the various talents and forces, the one in its proper relationship to all others, becomes the condition of refined intelligence. Bias, no matter whence it originates, is the natural source of an endless stream of evils, the origin of ignorance, of sensuality, of unmanly egotism.

THE EFFECTS OF AN INHARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT ARE REFLECTED IN THOSE MEN WHO, WHILE THEIR ATTENTION IS ENGAGED BY THE SUBLIME IDEAS OF SCIENCE AND ARTS, HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THEIR FELLOWMEN, NO PATRIOTISM FOR THEIR COUNTRY, NO HEART FOR THEIR FAMILIES.

Others, who bury themselves so deeply in the labors of their common occupation, or forget themselves so entirely in the pursuit of pleasure that they lose all conception of the nobler delights of intellectual activity, manifest in their warped existence the evils of an inharmonious development. Again, others betray this bias in their conceit and pretense, in