On the Firing Line in Education Part 3

The first change would be in the matter of organization: instead of having the elementary school, as now, covering eight years and closing with the child at the age of 14, it should cover but six years, sending the child to the high school at about the age of 12, at which time, approximately, begin those physical and psychological changes earlier spoken of, as belonging to adolescence. And that thought has taken root, as we all know, in the junior high school movement. Six years is long enough to do well all that the elementary school should be expected to do. It certainly is as long as children can be held interested in the kind of work thought necessary for the child, and as long as he can be happy in the atmosphere of the ordinary elementary school. It is long enough for the laying of foundations. It is time something else should be taken up.

Planning to meet the needs of adolescents, we must take the adolescents as they are--many of them not primarily students of books, but individuals of ceaseless activity, physical as well as mental, vastly more interested in the doing of things than in the learning of lessons.

And we must provide a means whereby they can learn to do all sorts of things that have to be done in the community. The subject matter, the methods of handling young life, the atmosphere, the activities, and the ends in view, should be so changed or modified, or supplemented as to be appropriate to the new and changing personalities to be affected by them. The details would differ with different communities but the principle is adaptable to all.

THE STATE UNIVERSITY

With the functions of these two departments thus clearly in mind, let us look at the next in order--the State university. Fortunately this discussion need not detain us long since there is a quite well recognized unanimity of opinion in regard to its work.

While the State university does many things, and some of them well, and while it can be said to have many ends in view, its one all-inclusive function is to prepare leaders for society. It must prepare leaders in law, that justice may be done; leaders in medicine that health may be preserved; leaders in engineering that the State's resources may be developed; leaders in education that the youth of the State may be educated; leaders in research that the boundaries of knowledge may be pushed out--leaders all along the line that character may be formed, statesmanship developed, and the welfare of the people secured and preserved. And the preparation of all these is not, primarily, that those prepared may achieve fame or ama.s.s fortunes, but that society may be better served.

We are all agreed, in the United States, that elementary education should be universal. Many are now taking the position that I have already advanced that secondary education should likewise reach and serve all. But all stop at that point. No one even suggests a college education for every boy and girl. And the reason is found in the above statement of the function of the inst.i.tution, since not all are suited to leadership. It takes only the relatively few who stand out clearly in their high school experiences as possessing the characteristics of leadership, and these few it develops, equips, locates.

Coming a little closer to our subject--tho I think we have not been very far from it at any time--let us inquire as to this relationship along some more specific lines.

It goes without saying that the relationship should be very cordial. The two inst.i.tutions are creatures of the State, partners in the important work of educating the children of the State. Each has its own work to do, and neither has been given any authority over the other. At the same time each depends upon the other, neither being able to do its own work without the other's a.s.sistance. They should work hand in hand, each a.s.sisting the other in every possible way to realize its largest usefulness to the community and the State. In general, the high school should send its students to the university well equipt to do the lines of work for which they respectively apply. And the university, knowing in each case just what that work is to be, and the difficulties it presents, should be the judge as to the details of that equipment.

On the other hand, the university should not make requirements for beginning its work that are beyond the capacity of the ordinary high school student. Nor should it definitely require or legislate against specific subjects upon which there is no general agreement among educational leaders. Something is wrong somewhere, in the matter of educational values, when some colleges absolutely prescribe for entrance certain subjects for which others will give no credit at all: for example, at the present time 91 colleges in the United States require at least one unit of natural science and 8 colleges will not accept a single unit; again, 13 require 2 units of natural science and 22 will not accept the two. Until we know a little better than we do at present what we are doing and why we are doing it, it might be well to move slowly in legislating for or against specific subjects. The university should keep in mind the fact that the high school has other duties to perform--and possibly more important ones--than preparing a few students for the university.

I am glad to say that in this matter of entrance requirements the two inst.i.tutions are gradually coming closer together. The university is coming to have greater respect for and more confidence in the high school and its work. Whereas in the earlier days all entrance work was rigidly prescribed, now, in nearly all of our higher inst.i.tutions, several units are open to free choice from a list of accepted subjects.

In a goodly number these units may be chosen from any subjects offered by an approved high school. And, too, there are five inst.i.tutions of good standing that allow the entire 15 units to be thus chosen. Our own, as you doubtless know, is much more generous in this matter than the great majority. It gives a margin of 5 units to be thus selected. I think there are but 9 inst.i.tutions in the whole country more liberal. As you know, too, in all our colleges save Engineering we specifically require but 4 units--3 in English and 1 in mathematics. From the others free election among groups is allowed. The movement here and elsewhere seems to be in the direction of requiring the completion of a full four-year high school course, with increasing flexibility as to specific subjects. And that seems wise.

It gives me pleasure, at this point, to say that the relationship between the University of North Dakota and the high schools of the State has ever been most cordial. I think there has never been a time when the two, tho differing at times in details, have not co-operated in the most frank and cordial manner to bring about the best good of both and to secure the best service to the State. Neither one has been selfish, trying to secure undue advantage over the other. Where domination of the university over the high school can be seen--as it most certainly can be seen--and even tho, as I have said, the work of the high school is what it ought not to be--mainly a preparation for the university--_this_ University and _these_ high schools are not at fault. It is not a local situation. It is nation-wide, and even nation-wide as it is, it does not include, consciously and directly, the State universities. The older colleges and universities did dominate, but the relation between the State university and the high school has ever been cordial. They have always recognized their partnership and have acted in accordance with it. But yet we have all been caught in the maelstrom, and it would be difficult for any one inst.i.tution or any one State to get out of it. So no immediate or rapid change can be expected. Large bodies move slowly.

The change will come, but it will come gradually thru claiming a little here and granting a little there.

But before leaving this topic of entrance requirements, I desire to refer to one of its broad factors and touch, incidentally, upon the large matter of university attendance in general. In discussing the high school, and again the university, I have tried to make clear the fact that not all high school students should be urged or expected to go on to the university. Remember that the high schools should be made to serve all the youth of the State but that the university's work is to take but the choice ones of these, or, better yet, the scholarly output of the high schools, and equip them for leadership in society, and the point is clear. It is a new problem but coming to be a very real one.

Going to college is getting to be the fashion--almost a fad in some places. We all know that a goodly number of students, boys and girls alike, enter the universities, East and West, every year who have no characteristics of leadership, who are not fitted for real university work, either in academic equipment, maturity of judgment, point of view, or earnestness of purpose. Many of these young people are wholly worthy, well meaning, and ambitious in a weak way, but they have been misguided.

They have listened to the attractive preaching of the popular but unintelligent gospel of college attendance for all and, caught by the glamor--the foot-ball, the track meet, the declamation contest, the fraternity pin, the Junior prom, etc.--have answered the hail of "All aboard for the University!" without knowing what university work really is or what it is for.

The college and the university are also coming to be thought a convenient place for rich fathers to dump their incorrigible sons and marriageable daughters for a few years. And in some sections these rich fathers are increasing in numbers at an alarming rate. The presence of all such people (they can not be called students) in various cla.s.ses is a drag, and the wheels of the inst.i.tution are clogged. These people themselves are soon disillusioned but ashamed to quit; the home people are dissatisfied with results; the university is unjustly blamed for not developing them into leaders--there is trouble all around. I am not speaking of our own inst.i.tution alone; others are experiencing the same difficulty and are seeking a way out. Michigan University, for example, is now urging its alumni to discriminate carefully in sending students to their Alma Mater; it wants only those fitted by nature as well as by the preparatory school.

As said above, this is coming to be a real problem and difficult of solution. What shall be the relationship of the university to the high school touching these various cla.s.ses of its graduates? Should it receive them all? If not, where shall the line be drawn? And who shall draw it? Shall one factor of the entrance requirements be the recommendation of the high school princ.i.p.al or superintendent? Would it be well for the high school to have two distinct grades: one for local graduation and a higher for university entrance? That is done in some places. The entire matter is worthy of careful thought of both high school and university.

With the discussion of one more point of contact, the preparation of teachers for the high schools, I am thru.

If, as stated above, the great function of the State university is to provide leaders for society, then, in a broad way it is easy to answer the question as to what it should do for the preparation of teachers for high schools--it should prepare them. For where else is clear-headed, unselfish leadership more needed than in the high schools from the students of which are being selected, thru direction and compet.i.tion, the boys and girls who are to pa.s.s out to the colleges and then into the world as leaders? We all know that that is what happens. The man or woman, untouched by college or university, who yet occupies a responsible position of leadership is an exception to the rule. And where else than in a university can preparation for high school teaching be secured? But of what sort should be this preparation? The answer to the question in general has long been clear--it should be professional as well as academic in character. Mere acquaintance with the subject to be taught is no longer held adequate by people at all intelligent along educational lines. And during the progress of the movement that has demonstrated to us the need of professional preparation, there has been worked out also, along somewhat general lines, the details of this preparation. We are now, the country over, in approximate agreement that it should cover the History of Education, Philosophy of Education, Psychology, including the study of adolescence, and Methods of Teaching.

Inst.i.tutions differ somewhat in minor matters within these broad fields, but the development of the movement in the United States has resulted in approximately the above program--professional preparation for all teachers in the high school and that along the four lines suggested. But the movement has gone much farther than suggested by my statement. The results are found in something more authoritative and more permanent than tentative agreement among educational leaders, or even among educational inst.i.tutions. The law-making bodies of the land have taken a part, and by legal enactment have required about what I have suggested.

The State of North Dakota, for example, requires professional equipment of every teacher within its borders--no, not quite, it does not require it of its teachers in the special schools--the reform school, the schools for the deaf, blind, and the feeble minded--nor in its inst.i.tutions of higher education, including the normal schools and the University. And in this North Dakota does not differ from other states of the Union. But it is strange, isn't it? that the state absolutely requires professional preparation of all its elementary and secondary teachers and yet does not require it of those whom it engages to equip them? Some of them have it, of course, and the majority of those who give the specifically professional courses, but the greater number of all teachers in the higher inst.i.tutions are lacking in this respect.

That doesn't mean that all university teachers are poor teachers. Many of them have learned how to teach in the crude and expensive school of experience. They have, at last, the professional equipment, but gained at high cost. Perhaps this lack of professional equipment accounts, in a mesure, for the admittedly poor character of much of the teaching in our colleges, normal schools, and universities.

But to come back to the high school and the preparation of high school teachers. What does North Dakota require, and how does the University meet the requirement?

All teachers in cla.s.sified high schools, save special teachers of music and drawing, are required to hold certificates that presuppose proficiency in psychology, history of education, principles of education, school administration, and methods. Special teachers in music and drawing are required to have covered in professional lines only psychology and pedagogy. But in cases where the certificate is granted on the basis of college work instead of on results of an examination, the law requires that the applicant shall have covered at least two year-courses, or sixteen semester hours, of professional work, and it recommends that this be distributed among the four great fields: history of education, principles of education, methods of teaching, and school management.

The School of Education has been organized within the University for the specific purpose of preparing teachers for the high schools of the State. To graduate from the School of Education and thus receive the B.A. degree and the Bachelor's Diploma in teaching, which is accredited by law as a first-grade professional certificate, and also to be recommended for teaching specific subjects in the high-school, an applicant is required, first, to have specialized, academically, in the subject to be taught. The amount of work required for this specializing varies with the different subjects, but in most cases it is from 20 to 24 semester hours. Recall what is meant by the work of a semester hour and you will easily see how broad our academic requirement is. It means that in addition to one's high school work he is required to carry the subject in practically daily recitation for from 2-1/2 to 3 years in the University. To some that may seem too much, but we feel that the first requirement for teaching in the high school should be a thoro grounding in the subjects to be taught.

The academic matter thus disposed of, let us note the professional. For this, in its various phases, we require 20 semester hours covering psychology, history of education, secondary education, philosophy of education, and methods of teaching academic subjects in which the student has been specializing and which he expects to teach. The course in methods includes observation and practise teaching of the same subjects in the Model High School under expert supervision. Many of our students voluntarily take more than 20 hours, but that is all that is required. We have cut down the professional requirement to the minimum so as to leave ample opportunity within the course for thoro mastery of the subjects to be taught, and also for general culture and the development of broad-mindedness, not being willing to send teachers into the high schools as narrow specialists.

Were there time I should like to go more into detail in regard to these various requirements and try to show the contribution of each; but I must pa.s.s on to speak of another way by means of which the University enables students to meet the legal requirements for teaching in the high schools--thru the College of Arts. A student who graduates from the College of Arts and who has had, during the progress of this course, 16 hours of Education is, upon application to the State Board of Education and the payment of a fee of $5, granted a first grade professional certificate. But this method of preparation is seen to be quite unsatisfactory when contrasted with the one just outlined. The Arts student is a relatively free lance, practically wholly so in the choice and arrangements of his professional work. In the School of Education the program is for all the professional subjects, save general psychology, to be taken after the beginning of the junior year and so immediately prior to the actual work of teaching, and too, when the student is relatively mature. But with the Arts student, it may all be taken much earlier, during relative immaturity and making a long period elapse between it and the work of teaching--quite long enough for the influence of the professional atmosphere, always valuable in such matters, to be wholly lost. The question of the professional work of the School of Education student is carefully planned to meet the ends in view. Each course has its definite contribution. The Arts student may, and often does, select courses that are not the most appropriate for high school teaching: for example, instead of a course in adolescence he may select one in child study which deals only with the child in the grades. Instead of a special methods course in the subjects he plans to teach in high school, he may select a course in methods in elementary subjects; and he may not take any course in secondary education nor have any practise teaching in the Model High School. The work may be--quite often is--ill-arranged and of little value as a professional preparation for high school teacher.

I have dwelt upon this contrast because the University and its School of Education has suffered by the laxness of this second mode of preparation. Some of the people who thus go out are not good representative products of the inst.i.tution's professional activity.

Just a closing word as to this phase of the subject. You see what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it. From the work of the young people whom we have sent you from time to time, how successful have we been? Our work as to time and content of courses and our general equipment are about the same as found in similar inst.i.tutions in other states. We differ somewhat, of course, in personalities and in individual point of view but, taking everything together, we are doing the best we know how with the material that you send us as students. How does our product suit you? What criticism have you to make and what changes to suggest?

III

THE UNIVERSITY AND THE TEACHER

_An Address delivered at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, March 30, 1916, in the Exchange Lectureship existing between the University of Manitoba and the University of North Dakota. It was printed in the "American Schoolmaster," December, 1916_

Having accepted the kind invitation of the University of Manitoba to be one of the exchange lecturers from the University of North Dakota, for the current year, I made inquiry as to the nature of the different groups of people whom I should be expected to address. I did this so as to be able to select appropriate themes for discussion.

For this gathering, therefore, semi-popular in character and made up, as I was told it would be, of the more thoughtful and intelligent people of the community, University, and city, I selected as my topic for discussion, "The University and the Teacher."

To a group of educated men and women who have visions--people who are characteristically looking beyond the present and trying to plan for the development of a great democratic state and for the welfare of a free people, I know of no line of thought more appropriate or suggestive.

This is true because in such a state and with such a people, the state or provincial university is the recognized leader of thought and action.

And this is true since the one great function of such an inst.i.tution is to take the choice youth and maidens from the various sections of the state and, thru the work of the cla.s.s room day in and day out, week by week, year after year, give them knowledge, shape their opinions, mold their characters, and develop their minds, and then send them back into society as recognized leaders of the next generation.

The topic is doubly suggestive when we stop to inquire as to what makes a university or any other inst.i.tution of learning--what it is that really gives it its reputation, its character, its influence. What is it, anyway? Its towering brick walls? Its libraries and its laboratories? Its athletic prowess? Its beautiful campus? Why, no, of course not. Not any one of these nor all of them combined, complete and extended and excellent as they may be, or as useful as they all are, ever yet made or ever can make a great university. A real university, or any other inst.i.tution of learning, is made up of the men and the women who form its student and its teaching bodies. The character of the inst.i.tution, its very life blood, is drawn from them. Their points of view, their motives, their scholarships, their visions, their aspirations, make it what it is in every instance.

You recall that ex-President Garfield's description of a university included only two factors as essential--the teacher and the student. The external equipment--buildings, libraries, laboratories--what not--is merely a tool in their hands. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not inveighing against these things; they are necessary. What I am insisting upon is that not _things_ but _teachers_ make a university. And so my topic, "The University and the Teacher," launches us at once into the midst of a great big thought. So big, indeed, it is, that it goes without saying that it cannot be adequately handled in the brief s.p.a.ce of a single address. Only certain phases of the large topic can be touched upon at all, and they treated but briefly.

But, after all, the function of a speaker, certainly upon such an occasion as this, is not merely to give information. It is not to speak with finality upon any subject. Is it not, rather, to direct the thoughts of the listeners along worthy lines? For any good that shall result from the meeting together of speaker and audience will be the direct outcome of their thoughts and not of his words. So, after having thus spoken briefly of the university as a whole--of its place in the state, its great influence and that of its teaching body--I invite you to think with me as I touch the subject here and there briefly discussing these three sub-topics: 1. The Kind of Teachers the University should Employ; 2. The University Teacher in His Cla.s.sroom; 3.

The University's Att.i.tude Toward the Preparation of Teachers. Our first discussion, then, will be of

THE KIND OF TEACHERS THE UNIVERSITY SHOULD EMPLOY

A few moments ago I said that the one great function of a State University was to provide the State with a competent leadership. That involves, however, a subsidiary function of such great importance, especially as we regard the teaching force, that an added word is needed both to prevent misunderstanding and to make clear the line of discussion of this sub-topic. The development of a competent leadership _is_ the all-embracing function of such an inst.i.tution, but that can not be done save as the inst.i.tution is, at the same time, thru some or all of its teachers, keeping fully abreast, or well in the lead, of the discovery of new knowledge and of new applications of knowledge in the various fields of human endeavor. And this is true because men can not be leaders in any field of action unless they possess the fullest and latest items of knowledge obtainable in that particular field, and again because real leadership can not be developed save thru the use, as educative material, of the fullest and latest.

What kind of teachers should the university employ? Clearly, teachers who can do these two things: men of open and enquiring minds, men of imagination, men who are hungry and thirsty for knowledge, men of research--men of the laboratory and the library. But that is but one side; we must also have men of vision, men of great breadth of view, men of broad human sympathies, men who can take this knowledge, old and new, and with it, as educative material, help to shape opinions, and mold characters, and fashion destinies, thus transforming crude, unstable, and immature youth into men and women of virtue, and knowledge, and courage, and sanity, and poise, into whose trust, therefore, can be placed the guiding of a great, free, developing people--men of the cla.s.sroom, teachers and inspirers of youth.

The question may well be asked if I mean two _groups_ of teachers, a _research_ group and a _teaching_ group, neither one acting within the field of the other. Not necessarily and certainly not absolutely. To quite an extent the two functions should overlap since each supplements the other. The man of research should also be a teacher in order both to keep his human sympathies alive and as a spur to still further search.

And every teacher should be, to some extent, a man of research so that thru his own joy in discovery he will be able to kindle a like fire in the minds of others, thus keeping the spirit of discovery alive and active in the land, and also that he may invite his students to drink at a living stream instead of a stagnant pool. The teacher who is not also a student, and continually working at it, is usually but a poor teacher.

But while all this is true, it is probably true also that no person is equally successful in both fields. Some men are primarily teachers--are in their element in the cla.s.sroom engaged with the problems of the student but only indifferently successful in the laboratory, while others, at home in the laboratory, are somewhat out of place and ill-at-ease in the cla.s.sroom. I shall not attempt to say which of the two functions is the more important or the more useful. Both are needed and, as said before, both are needed, to some extent, in each. But, in the main, where characteristics are marked, the shoemaker should be allowed to stick to his last. It is a very wise procedure that is more and more being followed at the present time, in American universities, of recognizing such differences and making provision for research professorships that include no teaching duties whatever. The percentage of these should be small, of course.

What kind of a teacher should the university employ, then? The teacher who is eager to push the boundaries of human knowledge a little beyond the point yet reached and who also greatly desires to take knowledge as an instrument and with it develop boys and girls and equip them for leadership in the great world of action. So far as possible the two kinds of service should be performed by the same person, but yet that is immaterial--the material thing being that both kinds be performed.

What kind of teachers should the university employ? Why, teachers who not only desire to do these two things, but who also know how to do them. If one is to do research work, he should know how to do it, economically and efficiently. His preparation should have included a certain amount of reflection upon the reasons for research and of training in the manner of conducting the same. Likewise, if he is to be a teacher, he should be well grounded in the theory and art of teaching.

If he is going to shape opinions, mold character, give points of view, develop human minds, then it goes without saying that his preparation should have included a very thoro study of the human mind in its various relationships, activities, and stages of development. If a teacher is expected to equip young men and women for the duties of life as leaders in the great social, economic, and political activities, he must also possess great stores of knowledge, and likewise know how to impart that knowledge so that it will become equally the possession of others.

THE UNIVERSITY TEACHER IN HIS CLa.s.sROOM