ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION IN NORMAL SCHOOLS.*

FREDERICK E. BOLTON, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE, WIS.

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ORMAL schools have been in existence in the United States for about sixty-five years, and during most of that time they have followed substantially the same traditional course outlined by Cyrus Pierce, principal of the first normal school at Lexington, Mass. The course prepared by that noble pioneer consisted mainly in a review of the elementary branches of common school instruction,-reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history and grammar.

Since the normal schools were founded in the interests of the common school, and have been maintained in its interest, such a course has always been and always will be of paramount importance; i. e., if studied in the light of advanced instruction. Dr. Harris says that the teacher who is to teach these elementary branches after graduation finds no work of preparation in the normal school half so valuable as this review of those branches in the light of more advanced studies. While I thoroughly concur in that view I would emphasize the necessity of study in the light of other branches. I believe it is a prime desideratum for the beneficial reconsideration of the elements.

The normal schools have always been of exceeding helpfulness; and so long as the function of the normal school was conceived to be that of collection and codification of the most satisfactory methods and practices in the schools, so long as the elementary schools confined themselves to the consideration of the three R's, which seemed fixed by tradition as to matter and method, the normal schools seemed adequate to fulfill the avowed purpose.

But with the advent of innumerable new studies, made necessary by the awakening sense of the fast changing social conditions, they have found themselves confronted with new and difficult problems.

How to arrange and divide subject-matter so as to encompass the whole realm of learning necessary to harmonize the child

*Read before the Wisconsin State Teachers' Association, Dec. 28, 1899.

with his environment, whether or not to fit for special vocations or higher courses of instruction, and if so how to accomplish it and not to produce one-sided development; which of the studies demanded by the patrons of schools shall be taught, which omitted, which emphasized, and which slighted,-all of these are problems which confront the public schools, and the normal schools have had to modify their training to prepare the teachers to meet these demands.

Moreover, the foremost leaders in the normal schools have begun to believe that the normal school ought to do more than to codify the best methods in vogue in the public schools; that they ought to do more than merely to acquaint their students with the conditions they will meet, and to try to fortify them. with dogmatic prescriptions to meet those conditions. They have begun to believe that it is the function of the normal faculty to become leaders, not followers in pedagogic thought; that they ought to originate, and not merely to echo what others have formulated. Further than this, they not only believe that the faculty of the normal schools should take this advanced position, but they believe that the students ought to become so indoctrinated with the spirit of investigation that they will intelligently select from among the various doctrines they may read or hear and not accept any unquestioningly. In the days of the one thin categorical book on pedagogics the learner was not in danger of being confused by conflicting opinions, and hence the professor was at least safe from contradiction in his dogmatism. But with the multiplication of books and the freedom of expression of opinion, the student needs to go forth armed not so much with weapons in the form of dogmatic opinions as with keenness of discrimination and soundness of judgment, so that he may select theories for himself and even combat prejudices that he is sure to encounter.

Such being the new conditions thrust upon the normal schools, it is fair to ask what they are doing toward the solution of the problems. Are they illustrating and testing and elaborating accepted theories; are they devising and experimenting; are they originating new theories by which to better existing conditions, and also to solve anticipated problems of the future; or are they proceeding merely as conservators of what has been tested and been tried elsewhere?

Judging from the criticisms made upon the normal schools, we should infer that they have leaned altogether too far toward the side of conservatism. That is why they are charged with being backward, falling into ruts, and being filled with fossils. A desire to send students out with clearly defined aims, and a fear that anything problematical or untested will lead to vacillation, has led normal faculties into dogmatism. Theories have been promulgated as absolute which later investigations have proven untenable or which have needed qualification. Probably the most serious charge is that students have not been led to study education judicially, and see that although certain underlying principles are true for all time, yet education is to fit given pupils for a given civilization, and that since conditions are ever changing, educational problems, though old as mankind, are yet ever new and unsolved.

In their desire for certainty they have followed courses that have been apparently successful, forgetting that courses of study especially must ever be in a state of evolution. "We must bear in mind," says Pres. G. Stanley Hall (Forum, April, 1894), "that all courses are liable to defects and diseases, and without eternal vigilance inevitably tend always and everywhere to decay. Lapse to mechanism and routine is the iron law of all educational systems, and is as universal as gravity. The morbus pedagogicus forever puts the letter above the spirit, and moves in a realm of definite methods, cram, marks. . . . Courses often grow so rigidly orthodox and exclusive as to approach the esoteric rites and mysteries of savage tribes into which youth are gradually initiated. Finishing courses have left the world's great questions closed instead of open by inoculating against deeper love of knowledge with an attenuated culture, so that when the curriculum is completed there is an almost Faust-like sense of finality and omniscience. Very few, indeed, realize how not only worthless, but sterilizing to mind and harmful to both body and morals, educational systems always tend to become before any one knows it."

Thus the ideal seems to have been conservation rather than origination. And although no one venerates the past more than I, it is my belief that the efficiency of the normal schools would have been much increased by a greater spirit of progressiveness.

It is at any rate true at the present time, if it has never been in the past, that the normal school should become recognized as among the institutions of research. Research is the spirit of the age. Schools for all the other professions are being vitalized by imbibing the spirit of investigation and free inquiry. Even the Church is no longer entirely dogmatic in its teachings, but free inquiry and independent thought have taken a firm hold. In Germany and most European countries the learned professions of law, medicine, theology, have always been an integral part of the universities, and have been advanced by the same liberalizing influences that have dominated the faculty of philosophy and the liberal arts. To this fact is due the high rank of these professions in Germany. Even the best technological schools in Germany have always existed in connection with or under the fostering care of the universities. And what is of more direct bearing in my subject, the teaching profession in Germany, peerless in all the world, owes its superiority to the liberalizing influence of the universities, which directly or indirectly modify the teaching in every school in the Empire, the schoolmistress. of the world.

In this country the medical colleges, theological schools and the law schools have until recently been entirely separate from the universities, and we all know of the lowness of standards. and the paucity of work offered. But the tide has turned in the opposite direction. All of the most important of the medical and technical schools have affiliated themselves with the universities, and others have been forced to adopt more liberal and more extended courses of training. The medical schools are adding experimental laboratories to their equipment. Every doctor who attains even moderately high rank must be a student, and ever remain a student in the true sense of the word. Though proceeding cautiously, yet he is ever observing, experimenting and readjusting. His knowledge of the history of diseases and their treatment teaches him caution and conservatism, yet his experimentation and research teach him to seek and find new and improved treatment. That is the attitude which, in my judgment, ought to guide the teacher; and the teacher who lacks either cautiousness or progressiveness is unfit to attempt the guidance and direction of that mysterious complex, the human mind.

Even the engineering schools, which are avowedly trade schools, have been very much benefited by broadening their courses and coming into close contact with the broadening courses of the universities. Even there, as Professor Thurston of the Sibley Engineering School at Cornell says, "The student should be familiarized with the sources of those data and practical formulas which have been put in shape for quick use.' Furthermore, "The better he is educated the higher, other things being equal, will be his professional success. Every student in the engineering schools is required to become familiar with the independent investigation of problems. Otherwise, when graduated he would be a mere tradesman.”

I believe that the normal schools also must be filled with the spirit of investigation, in order to prevent their falling into dead mechanical routine. It seems to me that the normal school occupies a unique position with reference to original investigation in pedagogics. The normal school never is and never should be out of touch with the child. The charge that is often laid to the university students of pedagogics, that they write a sort of arm-chair philosophy of children, could never be laid at the door of the normal school teacher; for though he lacks in scientific method (which is not necessary), he would ever be dealing with real children and not with the mythical "average" child.

The original investigation of the various sciences as carried on in the universities would find little or no place in the normal school. Here we have neither library nor laboratory equipment for such work, nor does it lie within the province of the normal school to attempt such investigation. The investigational activity will not be so much in the line of scientific discovery as in the line of pedagogics. The function of the normal school is to teach teachers how to teach; and if investi gational work will quicken the student and lead him to a larger realization of the importance of his calling, he should certainly live in the atmosphere of investigation and research even though he may undertake little or none on his own account.

Investigative work in the normal school then, plainly, should be in the line of pedagogic research. This research may be in one of two general directions, either of which will contribute to the science or the art of teaching. The study may have refer