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4. To build a wall of partition in the normal school or in the college and say that the studies on this side are purely academic and those on that side purely professional is the concentration of stupidity. The most successful normal school is that which most closely combines in its daily work educational thought and educational practice. The attempt to separate them combines the worst elements of a blunder and a crime.

It is a fact that the colleges and normal schools do not realize that it is their province to prepare teachers for high-school work. When they reach this point certain results will follow. They will no longer attempt to prepare teachers for their work by reading and studying a few books during the last half of the course. The science and art of education will be taught during every exercise. There will be no less academic work, but it will be of a very different kind. Each lesson will be taught as based upon educational principles; the student will be required to study it with two ends in view-as he would teach his pupils to study it, and as he himself should study it if he were to teach it. Arithmetic or geography should be just as much a professional study in the normal school as psychology or the history of education. Every exercise should have a schoolroom side.

Of the value of scholarship.-Superintendent Henry Sabin (Iowa): The normal school which makes excellency of scholarship a subordinate aim makes a very grave mistake. On the other hand, the instructor whose only aim is to induce excellence of scholarship has no place whatever in a normal-school faculty. Superintendent A. P. Marble (Worcester, Mass.): The young can not be well trained by an untaught teacher. It is not merely the prescribed curriculum that the pupil must be made acquainted with. This is the framework, so to speak, the skeleton, upon which must grow the parts that make up asymmetrical whole; and this symmetry is produced out of the well-stored mind of an educated teacher. The daily lessons must be enlivened and vivified by related facts and suggested ideas. This can be best done from the storehouse of a mind running over with knowledge, broad and deep, encompassing the subject-matter of the daily tasks. To such broad culture the teacher should, if possible, by all means add an acquaintance with the science and the art of teaching. But valuable as this professional training is, it can never take the place of the indispensable qualification just named.

Theory and experience declare for scholarship.-B. A. Hinsdale: Which is better, much scholarship and little method, or little scholarship and much method? The answer to this question can not for a moment be held in doubt. Both theory and experience declare for scholarship. In fact, the enthusiasm of knowledge is a prime requisite of the best teaching. Few school spectacles are more painful than that of a poor teacher eking out slender learning with an excess of method. The good scholar without professional training will commonly stagger a good deal at first, but if he have the root of the matter in him he will soon find his feet; while the teacher of an ill-organized mind and small equipment gives little promise of ever overcoming his limitations. The what will catch the how long before the how will overtake the what! And this is why all sound educators plead for the improvement of the intellectual equipment of the teachers of the country.

The function of the normal school.-Edward T. Pierce, principal Chico State normal school (Cal.): The first requisite of good teaching is a thorough knowledge of the subjects taught; the second is an insight into the principles of education and the methods of applying them. If the subject matter is slighted, method is purposeless; and knowledge of methods presuppose an understanding of the subject in the teaching of which the methods are to be applied. Therefore the normal schools of this State must, at present, pursue two lines of work— academic and professional-and should slight neither.

J. W. Dickinson, secretary State Board of Education (Mass.): A normal school may be known from any other institution of learning by the character of the exercises to which it may be properly limited. If it devotes its whole attention to teaching the objects and subjects of knowledge in an academical way it has no claim to a distinct existence. Other schools are doing the same thing. If it teaches the philosophy of teaching and the method founded upon it, and the history of teaching from the earliest times to the present day, it is doing its legitimate work. If, at the same time, it attempts to teach the facts and truths of the various sciences, then it imposes a burden upon itself which circumstances may render necessary to a limited extent, but which should not be allowed to interfere with professional teaching beyond the necessity.

TEACHERS.

What may be required of all candidates.-State Superintendent A. S. Draper (New York): In our cities, the number of candidates for teachers' positions is so great, and the facilities for acquiring proficiency so many, that it is perfectly practicable to require that all candidates shall have completed the high school course and spent a year in a no: mal school or training class before being given We passed such a law in our State last winter. It was authority to teach. vetoed. But we will have it yet. Some of our cities are doing precisely this now without law. All can do it and have plenty of teachers. It is no hardship to young candidates. It will work incalculable advantage to the schools.

How a high school may prepare teachers.-Superintendent Heury Sabin (Iowa): Occasionally we find a high school which is renowned in all the surrounding country for sending out successful teachers. In such a school, if we investigate, we always find certain conditions:

1. Pupils are taught how to study with a view of getting the most out of a subject, not simply out of the book. They practice vivisection on every subject they take up.

2. They are taught to exhaust the means at their command. If it is only a dictionary, an encyclopædia, a few reference books at home or at school, they make the best use possible of them. Supe abundance of means is sometimes a source of waste to the student.

3. The pupils are expected to ask questions as well as answer them, and the teachers are expected to answer questions as well as ask them. The independence, which the pupil thus gains, goes with him into his school, and serves him well in the absence of strictly professional training. It enables him to solve, without the aid of a key, the innumerable problems which present themselves almost daily in the schoolroom.

Enthusiasm is the life of good school work. Thus the pupils during four years acquire so great devotion to their work, they become so aglow with the delight of acquiring and imparting knowledge that it becomes an appetite, as it were, and they are not happy except when under its influence.

Of extremely doubtful value.-The best psychology.-H. C. Missimer (Erie, Pa.): The young girls that go into cur training classes fresh from the high school are too immature to understand mental philosophy or psychology. It will only befuddle them. The power to analyze, to dissect, to connect mental processes in their proper relations, is the last and highest achievement of the intellect. It is the result of much observation and wide experience. For a young girl to psychologize, to philosophize about the mental process of the child-mind, without knowing anything about children, or coming into actual mental contact with them is, if not the purest nonsense, of extremely doubtful value.

Again, the abstract study of psychology, as a preparation for teaching, is very apt to send the young teacher into the school with a tendency to impose and practice upon the children a theory instead of a disposition to study actual conditions out of which she ought to develop her own theories and her own methods. Even the discussion of methods, before we are engaged in teaching, is of little value beyond conveying an idea of the nature of the work. The method of somebody else is of no value to me unless it quickens and expands ideas already existing in my own mind.

The best psychology for the teacher-the beginning teacher-is the psychology of vulgar practice. It is the right kind of psychology to rid our minds of foolish, impracticable, and short-sighted notions. It is the psychology that shows us where we shall probably fail, and where to concentrate our energies in order to succeed. Professional psychology should come after the teaching is begun, after common-sense study of the children after the study of actual conditions. Then it will develop, enlarge, and widen the teaching mind.

Special preparation may be exacted even in the country.- Superintendent A. S Draper (New York): We can not expect that all teachers will be as thoroughly prepared for their work as they may and ought to be in the cities. Yet experience shows that some special preparation may be exacted even in the country. Candidates will comply with what is required. Send all you can to the regularly established normal schools, but remember that there can never be enough normal schools maintained to supply all the teachers needed in the common schools, and also that all candidates can not afford to take a complete normal course for the sake of the mere chance of being employed at five or six dollars per week, with the likelihood of being turned out at the next turn of the political wheel. We need short-term training classes throughout the rural districts.

The use of teachers' examinations.--Superintendent A. S. Draper (New York): It is quite the fashion to discredit examinations. It is a foolish habit. The examination has its legitimate use. We do not use it to determine who shall be certified, but who shall not be. We do not say that all who pass an examination shall be certified by any means. We say that the local officer may withhold certificates from any candidate, no matter whether he passes the examination or not, and without giving any reason. We only say that he shall not issue a certificate unless the candidate attends upon a prescribed course of professional instruction or passes the prescribed examination. In the next world we may be able to accomplish ends without means but we can not in this world.

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We will continue to talk about innumerable things, but nothing can be of such supreme importance as the institution of efficient agencies for promoting the professional training of teachers and for preventing the certification of such as are not so trained.

The essential conditions of effective teachers' examinations.—George William Curtis: Teacherships in the schools are not popularly regarded as subjects of patronage. But are they not so practically, and is it wise that they should remain so? What is the present system? I believe that the requirement of certification or license before appointment is universal in all the States of the Union. The examination upon which the certificate or license issues is, then, the cardinal point. What are the vital, essential conditions of effective examination ? To be properly effective the examinations must be uniform, entirely competent, and wholly independent of the appointing power. The examiners must be sincerely interested in education, familiar with the duties of a teacher and with the requirements of the art of teaching, and capable of conducting an examination to ascertain both the scholastic attainments and the specific professional fitness of the candidates. Wherever these conditions do not exist, the public school system, and therefore the whole community, suffers.

A reserve corps of teachers—The Milwaukee plan.—Superintendent William E. Anderson, of Milwaukee, Wis.: Some three or four years ago an inquiry into the frequency of teachers' absences, and the average number of substitutes employed to fill such absences, suggested a change whereby a larger number of well-qualified teachers than those assigned to places should be kept at the command of the board. In Milwaukee it was found that of a corps of 400 teachers employed at that time there was an average absence of 12 to 15 teachers a day, the absences some days exceeding 20. This includes all vacant places, permanent and temporary. It frequently happens that two or three vacancies exist for which there is no appointee at hand. It was customary, as in other places, to occupy these by so-called substitute teachers having no certificates, or by those having the certificate, but no experience. A rule was adopted empowering a committee and the superintendent to appoint a number of supernumerary teachers, to be called the reserve corps. These teachers were the best that could be obtained during the summer vacation. Their appointment was regular and their salary the same as that of assistant teachers, no deduction being made when their services were not required, providing they reported for service at the office. Members of the reserve corps have their predilections and aptitudes. These, known to the superintendent, are regarded when temporary assignments are made. A vacancy in a seventh or an eighth grade is supplied by a teacher who is supposed to have the capacity for teaching higher grades. Å vacancy in the primary grade is supplied by a teacher who is supposed to be adapted to primary work. In the mean time the members of the reserve corps, being selected upon grounds of general efficiency, experience, and training, are eligible for appointment. Their service in temporary classes commends them for appointment, and their detail to occupy recently created vacancies is a kind of preparation for appointment. If the principal is satisfied, a resolution of transfer from the reserve corps to the corps of the school is all that is required. In this way we have been able to satisfy the prerogative of local commissioners who select their own teachers and with the improvement of the plan hope to introduce a larger number of capable teachers to fill vacancies. As the reserve corps is depleted it is recruited by the committee and the superintendent, whose business it is to keep a record of applicants and to hold frequent meetings for interviewing applicants for admission to the reserve corps. The corps was first organized under rules which prohibited the employment of any teachers who had taught in the schools previously. The restriction was, however, removed, and perhaps not for the best interests of the schools. Experience has shown that some teachers were kept drifting about upon the reserve corps for a

whole year without finding, in the good opinion of principals and commissioners, a transfer to a permanent place. It is best to discontinue such teachers from the service. Otherwise the reserve corps may become occupied by a class of professional substitutes and become an invalid corps instead of a reserve to supply capable and vigorous recruits. There are many good features and some unexpected draw packs connected with the plan; but as a plan to enable the school board to establish a standard of professional training, to provide itself with a sufficient number of teachers duly qualified to receive appointment when such teachers are obtainable, it is abundantly successful.

Regardless of the interests of the school.-Superintendent William E. Anderson, Milwaukee, Wis.: The more widely the power of appointment is distributed the greater the weight and influence exercised in behalf of the would-be teacher and regardless of the interests of the school. We are all acquainted with the commissioner who would be good enough to give all persons certificates whose fathers are taxpayers, who look upon the maintenance of schools first of all with reference to the support of teachers, and who sees no farther into the problem of licensing and selecting instructors than what appears to be a charitable mission of giving to as many deserving young women as possible a chance to earn a decent living. The good man who feels that the place should be given to the applicant who comes first, to the girl who has a mother to support, to the graduate of his own school, the daughter of a local politician, or a member of the same church with himself, will always flourish in city school boards. He is frequently a good man for other purposes but hiring teachers, and there is no reason for disqualifying him for exercising that function, when his generous predilections may be rendered harmless by a little wise legislation.

The best way for teachers to acquire control.-J. W. Beeson (in the Educational Exchange, Alabama): There should be a love for children on the part of a teacher. It is a fact, recognized by all good educators of the present day, that the most successful way to govern a child is with love; that when a teacher wins the respect and love of a pupil he has no trouble in controlling or in teaching him. The best way to win this love of children is to love them first. "Love begets love" is a law of human nature. Besides, it seems impossible for one to do the greatest amount of good for those for whom they have no special love.

Guard the teaching force against incompetency.-Superintendent A. S. Draper (New York): I lay down the proposition as true that in nine-tenths of the cities of this country the board of education will be influenced in the appointment of teachers, and will appoint whomever the law and the existing regulations of that city will permit them to appoint as teachers, regardless of the peculiar fitness or adaptability of the applicant for the position. The conditions should be regulated by statute law. You must guard the teaching service against incompetency. I undertake to say that in nine-tenths of the cities of the country you will get a stronger corps of teachers from regulations which provide that only graduates of the city high school or the city normal schools or the training schools are eligible to appointment than you will if you throw the matter open and let the board select and bring in "the new blood," because the board, as a rule, will abuse the opportunity thrown open to them.

How shall he learn these things?-Principal George M. Grant, Queen's College (Ontario): That every future citizen shall be taught to read is much. That he shall be taught to observe and to think is more. But that he should learn to love, admire, and revere that which is worthy, and hate that which is unworthy, is most of all. But how shall the average boy learn these highest things save through the voice, tones, and whole life of his teacher?

Better even than mere learning.-Superintendent A. P. Marble (Worcester, Mass.): Better even than mere learning and professional skill is a sincere love for children and an earnest desire to lift them up. The teacher, filled with love for the little ones, will find a way to help them and improve them, far more than one filled with all knowledge and stuffed to repletion with methods, psychology, and the science of pedagogy, if in attaining all this the juice of human kindness has been squeezed out of her. Children must not be looked upon as specimens upon which to practice the arts of the profession. They are human souls to be developed and made manly and womanly.

Wasting their efforts.-Superintendent Henry Sabin (Iowa): I honestly believe that very many of our teachers are wasting their efforts and failing to do their best work, because they are neglecting to regard the things which pertain to

the present wants of their schools, in their desire to attain an undefined, intangible, impalpable something, of the nature and use of which they have no definite idea. I wish we had more institute instructors whose instruction is luminous with the light of common things.

The relations between teacher and pupil.--President E. B. Andrews, of Brown University, in School and College: We need, more than we have as yet done, to get upon a level of friendship with our pupils, not standing off from them, not looking down upon them. Present yourself to your pupils as their guide, friend, adviser, elder brother-one who, having the advantage of age and larger study, is able to assist them. The in loco parentis idea of the teacher's office is sometimes urged as an argument in favor of pedagogical sternness and severity. Not So. Parental authority itself is no longer exercised in the old way. How many civilized fathers horsewhip their boys nowadays? In the lower grades, and to an extent in all, authority must exist, but it should be kept as much as possible in the background. Never coerce a pupil save as a last resort.

Kindness to pupils is never exercised in vain. Strive by unselfishness and perfect uprightness to make your pupils regard you the finest man on earth. To this end do not assume infallibility, but, if mistaken ever, admit it. Be an original thinker, an authority in your department, no mere expositor of a book; yet if you pretend never to err, your dullest scholar knows better and puts it to your discredit.

Never use sarcasm toward a pupil or make fun of him. You are a coward if you do, taking advantage of position to enable you to hurt a fellow-being as good as yourself, and you will be despised as a coward deserves. But worse, when you treat a pupil so, you can teach him little more. The inclination on that learner's part to question you is gone forever, and has given way to timidity, or perhaps to a sullenness or obstinacy, which you can never overcome.

Until he withers into a machine.-Rev. Smith Baker: A teacher who simply hears children recite will grow less of a man or woman until he withers into a machine, like a circus clown or a magic-lantern lecturer, repeating the same performance; but the living teacher, though he remain in the same humble school for a generation, will, like a tree, grow broader and higher and deeper each year. His teaching will expand his manhood.

What the teacher is imparts itself.-Rev. Smith Baker: Every teacher is a picture. Eyes are following her while she is silently imparting ideas of life. Every teacher should be such a man as we want our boys to be such a woman as we want our girls to be. No teacher can help being a character builder. What he is imparts itself to others. The teacher of my boy is doing more for my boy by what he is than by what he says.

The most powerful lesson.-Superintendent T. F. Wilson (Stillwater, Minn.): Set lessons are of but little value. The most powerful lesson by far is unconsciously given by the teacher whose life is a true type of noble manhood or womanhood. A teacher must live a life abɔve reproach. This alone secures respect. Without respect nothing can be done. Once secure this respect and the frown of dissatisfaction or the smile of approval will cause deeper lessons to sink into a young heart than hours of admonition.

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Women as school teachers.-Hon. John L. Buchanan, of Virginia: Among persons liberally educated more women than men find employment as teachers in the public schools. In fact, in a good many States public-school education is already largely in the hands of women teachers, as is shown by late school reports. In some States there is still an excess of male teachers, but it is constantly diminishing. This preponderance in the number of female teachers is easily explained. The avenues of remunerative employment for women are more numerous at the present day than formerly. They are proving themselves faithful and efficient workers in many positions which in former days were thought to be unsuited to them or to which they were thought not adapted. Public sentiment has materially changed touching this matter and more liberal views prevail. But still the sphere of woman is much more restricted than that of the other sex, her range of occupation much more limited. Again, it is almost, if not quite, a universal custom to discriminate against her in the matter of compensation. Why the same service equally well performed should in one case have a different money value from what it has in another is hard to explain on any principle of justice. Yet such is the fact. But woman is the natural guardian of childhood. Her delicate sensibilities, quick perceptions, active sympathies, and unselfish affections peculiarly fit her for training and managing

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