THE MIDDLE STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS

BY N. C. SCHAEFFER, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, HARRISBURG, PA.

"Life is not worth living during the month of June," was the exclamation of a superintendent engaged in the state examinations which mark the close of the school year. Either for this reason or because the syllabus of questions was unsatisfactory, not half the letters of inquiry were answered. Whenever there is educational progress, the leading minds cherish ideals which lure them forward and upward, but which at the time cannot be realized. Some of the replies indicate that an ideal state of things was floating before the minds of those who wrote them. Others indicate that the replies were based upon existing conditions. The former came mainly from those who are engaged in supervision; the latter from those engaged in actual normal-school work. The replies indicate that most of the answers were prepared with the haste which results from the necessity of getting thru a large mass of official details ; hence there is danger of attaching too much value to the conclusions which may be drawn from these replies. Evidently it would be a mistake to publish any results at this stage of the investigation. A historical investigation of the courses of study, as they now exist, would be helpful in showing why the standard of academic and professional qualifications has not been more rapidly advanced by the most efficient of our state normal schools. The normal-school problem in the middle states has been solved according to the peculiar needs of each state and of the several localities in which the normal schools are situated. In Philadelphia it has become possible to insist on a course of four years in the high school before the candidates for the vocation of teaching are admitted into the normal school's two-years' course of professional work. Many sections of the Keystone State are not supplied with high schools; the private schools do not furnish the required preparatory instruction in the common branches; hence every one of the thirteen state normal schools in Pennsylvania maintains a course preparatory to the regular professional courses, which are two, three, and four years in length. The replies to the questions sent out agree in demanding such a knowledge of the common branches as will fit the student for professional studies. In the state of New York the admissions are limited to persons recommended by the school commissioners. In New Jersey a satisfactory examination is required for entrance to the normal schools. In Pennsylvania the doors are open to everybody, yet many teachers never see the inside of a normal school. It is assumed that the normal schools exist

for the greatest good of the greatest number. I find that the number of schools which a state maintains has some effect upon the curriculum of study. Maryland and New Jersey sustain but one normal school each. It is natural for the authorities to place the standard high enough to secure, as far as possible, the preparation of the teachers who will occupy the best-paid positions. The larger the emoluments in sight, the more thoro is the preparation which can be demanded of those who are candidates for a profession. As a necessary result the rural schools in sparsely settled districts seldom get a teacher who has graduated from the normal school. In New York, where the training classes supplement the work of the regular normal schools, and in Pennsylvania, where the entrance examinations are held for purposes of classification, there is more prospect of reaching the rural schools in sparsely settled communities.

From one point of view, training in pedagogy should be made possible for everybody. Herbert Spencer claims that the science of education should form a part of the training of every youth, because the duty of rearing and training children sooner or later devolves upon nearly all of them. The facilities possible for this kind of study is the limit to the good which can be done by the policy of admitting everybody into the normal school. The accommodations in Philadelphia have compelled the authorities to limit the admissions to about four hundred, because the city feels unwilling to bear the expense of training teachers for schools outside of the city. Only those who graduate from the high school with the best standing are now admitted; the others are excluded. A bright girl trained for school work, and understanding the science of pedagogy, is an attractive personality; and when a worthy young man says to her, "Come, let us establish a home," she replies in the affirmative. The vocation of teaching loses a member, but the nation gets an addition to its cultured homes; the loss is more than made up by the gain. A former opponent of normal schools explained his conversion by exclaiming: "I have noticed that, if a rich man's daughter spends a session or two at a normal school, she returns home believing that teaching school is the most honorable vocation on earth; there must be something in the atmosphere of a normal school to work this change of sentiment in the girl who formerly imagined that school-teaching was a convenient way of pensioning needy spinsters." This enthusiasm for education, which Cavour on his deathbed wished for Italy, is one of the factors that has helped to make us victorious by land and by sea, in the workshop and in the marts of trade. Hence our contemplated report should fully discuss the policy of one state normal school with a high grade, and many normal schools with an approach to facilities for all who seek admission. I have not received sufficient information to speak with confidence about the views of educators outside of my own state, but there is greater unanimity among Pennsylvania educators than I had expected.

In the mathematical requirements for graduation there is practical unanimity upon arithmetic, algebra, and plane geometry. A few add solid geometry and trigonometry. In the sciences there is almost unanimity in favor of requiring botany, zoology, chemistry, and physics. Several add descriptive astronomy. The knowledge of English literature is made to embrace the study of several, if not all, the classics demanded by the Association of Colleges in the Middle States. Dr. Brooks says: "In English there should be ability to write an article with correctness, showing a good command of language, with correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization. In literature a fair knowledge of different great writers, including principal works." Most of the replies are in favor of requiring more or less instruction in music, drawing, science, history, and literature. There is a divided opinion on physical training.

I have found it difficult to sum up the views in regard to minimum requirements in psychology, pedagogy, history of education, and methods of teaching the common branches. Some replies use the year, others the hour, as a unit of measure. The amount of work in these branches which the pupil is required to do, outside of the recitation, varies in different schools belonging to the same state system. One professor teaches by lectures chiefly; another employs the printed page. I doubt the policy of trying to fix a minimum. The student will always seek short-cuts to the castle in which he is forever fortified against the attacks of the examiner. It is specially vicious to measure by weeks the requirements in observation of good teaching and in the practice which should follow. The weaker schools are apt to allow this requirement to supplant the standard of excellence which should form the basis of graduation from the normal school. We here encounter the trouble which confronts all

professional schools. Wherever the reputation or the income or the success of a school in any way depends upon the number of students who attend and graduate, there is a temptation to lower the bars at the two ends of the course of study. In schools which have a fixed income from state revenues or annual appropriations this temptation is reduced to a minimum. It afflicts the colleges quite as much as the normal schools. The necessity of getting endowment compels the authorities to let down the bars for the admission of rich men's sons, and finally to let down the bars at the end of the course so as to get rid honorably of these scions of wealth. The information which I have been able to gather is very far from being satisfactory. The supply of printed questions reached me at a time when the duties of a state superintendent in Pennsylvania oblige him to live all over the commonwealth. I have reported in this fragmentary way, in the hope that suggestions and corrections would enable me to complete my task. It is the truth I am seeking; hence I shall welcome criticisms, corrections, and suggestions from every quarter.

THE "TRAINING SCHOOL" IN THE UNITED STATES

BY PRESIDENT Z. X. SNYDER, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, GREELEY, COLO.

Opinions are very divergent and diversified on this Department of the Normal School. Some contend that it should be a model school exclusively a school in which the pupil teacher should see nothing but expert work. These same persons think it is vicious to have this pupil teacher teach under the severe strain occasioned by the critic teacherwhich strain, it is claimed, disqualifies her from putting forth her best effort. Others think it should be a school in which the pupil teacher would have entire charge of a room full of children for a large portion of a year, only to be interfered with when serious blunders are being made.

Between these two extremes diversified views are held, no two having just the same; yet a majority of the schools have about the same line of work.

There is a difference between a model and a practice school. In this discussion, training school is used to comprehend both model and practice school, or model and practice work.

a

A training school may have model work and not a model school. Using the word model in the etymological sense, it means a measure unit of measure of a good school, or unit of measure of good work. Wherever there is expert work done there is model work.

The ideal training school is one in which there are both a model and a practice department. The model is where they have reached the highest efficiency-where the management of the school, the training of the children, the results, and the teacher are everything that is to be desired. The practice department is where the pupil teachers are to do their work under proper criticism and supervision, and where they will all aim to realize the ideals formed in the model; and, while they will not reach them in the practice school, they will leave with ideals that will have a high potential for realization. The practice school, then, is a place where the pupil teacher energizes her ideals of a school, in her efforts of

realization.

Now, to have these two distinct departments in the same building is a very difficult matter; but it can be carried out where a normal school has an opportunity to use the schools of the town in which it is located. The next best thing to this is to have the model and practice departments This means to have some model classes taught only by experts, and have the expert teachers do work with the classes necessary to demonstrate good work.

as one.

To carry out either of these plans a good organization is necessary.

Organization is an arrangement of parts for a common purpose. The purpose in the training school is: (1) the preservation of the thing organized; (2) to give an opportunity to the pupil teachers to prepare for teaching; (3) to take care of the children in the school.

The parts involved are the superintendent, the critic teachers, the pupil teachers, and the children.

The superintendent should be a man of very ripe practical and theoretical experience. He should be practical in that he can teach ideally children of all grades; he should be practical in that he has a keen insight into child nature in its various stages of development, and that in his practice he recognizes these stages; he should be practical in that he has an abiding and loving sympathy for children in their various activities, and that he personally knows how to direct these activities; he should be practical in that he is full of child life. He should be so constituted as to look upon a child as a blessing in this world; he should see it in the sense that it is the stuff out of which are to be made men and women, and that the mission of the teacher is to live with children. He should be professional in that he is conversant with the various systems of education that have developed at various times in the movement of civilization; he should be professional in that he should be familiar with and have a broad grasp of the history of philosophy and its bearing upon the philosophy of education; he should be professional in that he can wind out of these educational and philosophical systems the stream of educational development as it flowed down thru the ages; in short, he should be a witness of all time; he should see all knowledge and effort as a unit and a unifying process. Out of this preparation will come his power to organize, to manage, and to develop a useful training school. Out of this preparation will come his power to make and inspire teachers with energized ideals, the realization of which will be the development of the truest character of the children whom they teach. This will be their success - their reward. I believe in this kind of man being at the head of a training school. A strong man inspires and begets confidence and respect. A strong mind, a large heart, a gentle spirit, and the unified expression of all these are a tremendous influence in shaping the course of young persons, in inspiring them with high ideals, in begetting within them respect for what they are going to do, and impressing them that they should put their life and soul in what they do. The people, the profession, the children, all demand this man at the head of the training school. In this day of intense and profound training for the work in hand, nothing else will do. Nothing else will make the people and the profession respect the school. Nothing else will eliminate just criticism.

The critic teacher should be a scholar. Scholarship commands respect. Nothing can take its place. It is the reserve power of every great teacher.