On the Firing Line in Education Part 9

"Division of Education," "Pedagogical Department," "School of Pedagogy"

and "Teachers College." Probably the name most common in the past has been "Department of Education," or "Pedagogical Department," tho in the developed form it is changing to "School of Education" or "Teachers College." Of these, there are at work, according to the 1909 report of the Commissioner of Education, 171. That is, there are 171 colleges and universities maintaining at least a department, or chair, of education, and giving professional instruction of college grade.

The third type, latest in appearance and as yet fewest in number, but with fair promise of rapid increase and great usefulness, is the county school, called "County Normal Training Cla.s.s" in Michigan and "County Training School" in Wisconsin, in which two states the movement is at its best. Indeed, I do not know of any other state in which the work has been thus definitely organized. Of these, Michigan had, a year ago, forty-one, and Wisconsin, twenty. Possibly in this connection one ought to mention the good work being done in high schools in several states, but seen at its best in Nebraska and New York. Yet this work is but an adjunct to the high school, and does not so clearly approach a separate inst.i.tution.

Of these three types it is the second which is the subject of the present discussion--whose function I seek. It is really immaterial whether we use, in the discussion, the appellation of Minnesota and say "College of Education," or that of Harvard and call it "Division of Education," or that of Columbia, Missouri, and North Dakota, and say "Teachers College." For they are all one and the same inst.i.tution with but slightly different systems of organization. I use the latter term because more familiar and more likely, I think, as time pa.s.ses, to prevail.

But these three types are so closely connected that the function of one cannot be clearly seen alone. Therefore I propose very briefly to examine the establishment of each so as to learn why it was called into existence--what function it was originally expected to perform. I shall then briefly examine present conditions, trying to discover if any changes have taken place in the general educational situation of sufficient moment to make necessary a rearrangement or readjustment.

Finally, I shall draw my conclusions as to present functions, and with a more careful a.n.a.lysis of certain factors state the reasons for those conclusions as briefly as possible.

First, as to state normal schools: it is, of course, entirely unnecessary to go into details as to organization or early work of this inst.i.tution in our country. I am stating what is known to all when I say that Horace Mann in Ma.s.sachusetts, Henry Barnard in Connecticut, David Page in New York, and William Phelps in New Jersey had one and only one thought in view in working for the establishment of normal schools and for the development of their work. They, one and all, were seeking some means for providing better teachers for the common schools. No one, so far as I am able to discover, at this time even suggested that any other teachers needed a special preparation for their work. To be sure, the American high school was hardly under way when the normal school movement was inaugurated, in 1839, there being then but half a dozen in the entire country. Ten years later there were but eighteen. There was, however, in those days a large number of academies giving secondary instruction. But there was no thought of looking to the normal schools for academy teachers, they came from the colleges. Indeed, generally speaking, the academies and high schools as then being developed, were offering a higher grade of academic work than the normal schools, and they were rather a.s.sisting the latter in the production of teachers.

This was especially true in New York, a movement having there been inaugurated by which, thru financial aid from the State, many of the academies were offering normal school instruction and sending out into the rural schools and city grades a very creditable product. And the character of the movement in the East has continued to be the character of the movement as it has swept Westward. I think there has not been established in the United States a single state normal school whose function has not been understood to be the preparation of teachers for the common schools. And by "common schools" I mean the first eight grades of the public school, including both rural and urban communities, for it has been only in recent years that we have carefully discriminated between the two.

Next, let us look at the teachers college. Bear in mind that I use the term as referring to the inst.i.tution, or department, under whatever name it may be known, that is doing professional work in the preparation of teachers in connection with colleges and universities. In taking up the topic, attention needs first to be called to two facts: the rapid development of our high school system and the high degree of success already attained by our normal schools.

After the close of the Civil War our high schools began to multiply--rapidly from 1870 to 1880, by leaps and bounds from that time to the present. In 1870 there were 170; 1880, 800; 1890, 2,526; 1900, 6,005; and in 1908, 8,960. (Annual reports of the Commissioner of Education.) But no sooner had the high school movement obtained good headway than the serious problem arose as to the supply of teachers. And so well, on the whole, had the normal school done its work that it had more than justified its existence. Thru its work the character of the teaching in the elementary schools had been greatly improved. Teachers, with normal school equipment, were everywhere recognized as superior to those otherwise trained or not trained at all. Very naturally, then, when the problem of high school teachers arose, professional preparation was demanded. But where could it be obtained and how?

The state normal schools, true to their function of preparing teachers, tried to satisfy the additional demands placed upon them. They added to their equipment, modified and extended their courses, and in every way did all they could. Indeed, they did all that was done in a professional way for nearly a generation. But the high schools were increasing, both in numbers and in academic requirements of students and teachers. City school systems were being developed and extended in a most unprecedented manner, calling for skilled superintendents, supervisors, grade princ.i.p.als, special teachers, etc., until, finally, thoughtful men began to see that the impossible was being asked of the state normal schools.

For two reasons, it was seen, they could not do the double work; in the first place, they had more than they could do in their original sphere of providing teachers for the elementary schools, and secondly, their academic possibilities, even increased as they had been in attempting the work, were clearly seen to be wholly inadequate. It was discovered, also, that, in spite of the efforts being put forth by the normal schools, the higher teaching positions--superintendencies, high school princ.i.p.alships, etc.--were going to men of collegiate attainment, even at the sacrifice of professional training which was then being recognized as very desirable.

What was to be done? To make a long story short, the universities and colleges, with their more extended courses, better equipment, and stronger faculties, took the matter up and added educational departments in which could be given, with but slight additional outlay, both the academic and professional equipment thought to be needed by the high school teacher.

This work was first clearly suggested and outlined at the annual meeting of the Michigan State Teachers' a.s.sociation in 1870. Dr. W. H. Payne, then city superintendent of schools at Adrian, Michigan, read a notable address upon the subject, "The Relation Between the University and Our High Schools." Eight years later, the Regents of Michigan University established a chair of "Theory and Art of Teaching," and to it called the man who had, by the address just mentioned, offered a practical as well as a logical solution of the difficult problem.

The example thus set by Michigan University was soon followed by others--Cornell, Ohio, Illinois, Harvard, Chicago and others, until now this new department is found in nearly every prominent college and university in the land. These are our teachers colleges or, rather, the sources from which they are springing. For, to be sure, not every pedagogical department found in a higher inst.i.tution of learning, tho doing in a general way the same grade of work, should be called a teachers college. Tho having its roots in these, the teachers college proper differs from the most of them in several ways. The pedagogical department of a college, and too, a thoroly reputable college, may be, and usually is, merely one of the many departments of the inst.i.tution, represented on its faculty by a single professor and offering but a limited range of professional work--a few courses in the history of education, principles of education, and "pedagogy," usually. A teachers college, on the other hand, has an organization and, sometimes, a financial status of its own. Its relationship to the inst.i.tution as a whole is getting to be the same as that of the other professional schools. The movement is toward a separate faculty, headed by a dean, and representing all the different phases of both academic and professional work. While many of the members of the faculty do, and may continue to, give courses in the other colleges, they have a distinct, organic connection with the teachers college. The teachers college is also getting to have, as a vital part of its equipment, a model high school bearing to it the same relationship that the model, or practise, school bears to our normal schools. While this fulness of organization and equipment has not yet been reached by a large number, it has by several, among which are Columbia, Missouri, Chicago, and, approximately, North Dakota, with many others moving rapidly in the same direction.

Just a few words, now, as to the third type mentioned, the county normal school: As already suggested, the line of demarcation was not early drawn between the urban and the rural school. But cities grew; city school systems were developed; the normal schools, in spite of rapid increase, were not able to keep up with the rapidly increasing demands.

And, since the field for normal school graduates has ever been an open one, they have located where the remuneration has been the most generous. Now, cities and villages are, generally speaking, the centers of intelligence as well as of population and wealth. The people of these communities have appreciated the superiority of professionally prepared teachers, and they have been able to pay the added price. The result has been that they have appropriated practically the entire output of the normal schools. None have been left for the rural schools.

And again, with these economic changes there came to be more and more clearly seen, as the years went by, a difference, internal and somewhat vital, between the schools of the rural and the urban communities, making in some ways a different sort of preparation desirable. Now, the state normal school, growing with the movement, and ever keenly alive to its opportunities for usefulness, noting clearly the location of its product, very wisely began to modify its work so as to make it better suited to the needs of its main customers--the well-graded schools of the city and village. And so it has resulted that, even if the normal schools could supply the demands for both country and city teachers, so far as numbers are concerned, the preparation given is not the most ideal for the former. And just as when professionally trained secondary teachers were needed a new inst.i.tution was created for their preparation, in very recent years an inst.i.tution has appeared to satisfy this new need, one whose function is as clearly announced, and one which seems to fit into the situation as well, and we have the county normal school of Michigan and Wisconsin, as mentioned above.

Whether we shall see a rapid extension of this new movement, making the county normal school as fixt an inst.i.tution as the state normal school has become, and as the teachers college bids fair to become, or whether, thru consolidation, the distinctive type of our rural school shall disappear and our state normal schools be increased in number to meet the larger demands, only the future can tell. This latter, however, will not be in our generation, and I confidently look for the former. I believe the general adoption and adaptation of the county normal school idea would be one of the most economical and speedy means of solving some of our most serious rural school problems. And I also believe that it should be our next step, if we can take but one step at a time, toward professional education of teachers.

If I have a.n.a.lyzed aright the present situation, and have been fair in my all too brief account of the rise and development of these inst.i.tutions, we see that we have in our midst to-day, as a result of the development of our educational system, and to keep pace with it, the development of the idea so long ago adopted--the value of the professional preparation of the teacher--three quite distinct types of an inst.i.tution for such purpose. Enumerating now in order of grade of work rather than of historical development, we have (1) the county normal school, whose function is solely the preparation of teachers for the rural schools--sixty-one of them found only in Michigan and Wisconsin, sending into the rural schools of those states about 800 fairly well equipt teachers each year; (2) the old state normal school of historic fame, whose function is the preparation of teachers for the elementary grades of our city and village schools--195 there were two years ago--and they sent out into the schools approximately 10,000 teachers, mostly graduates; (3) the teachers college, found always in connection with a college of high rank or of a full-fledged university, offering work, both academic and professional, of full university grade and covering the full university period of four years. The number cannot be stated definitely, because the process that is transforming the old pedagogical departments into teachers colleges is at such varying stages of development. Its function is best stated in the words of the inst.i.tution in which it was founded (Calendar of the University of Michigan for 1904-1905, p. 126):--

"1. To fit university students for the higher positions in the public school service.

"2. To promote the study of educational science.

"3. To teach the history of education and of educational systems and doctrines.

"4. To secure to teaching the rights, prerogatives and advantages of a profession.

"5. To give a more perfect unity to our state educational system, by bringing the secondary schools into closer relations with the university."

"Higher position in the public school service" meant, in the main, in the early days, city superintendencies and high school princ.i.p.alships.

To these, others have been added, one by one, owing very largely to the great success of the movement and the growing appreciation of the value of professional preparation for occupants of such positions, until now they include city superintendencies, high school and grade princ.i.p.alships, subject supervisorships, high school, normal school, and college instructorships. Already the leading teachers colleges, the ones at Columbia, Missouri, and Chicago universities, are being definitely looked to for these later added and more responsible workmen.

Thus far I have but stated historical facts known to all who are reasonably well informed touching the history of education and current educational practise in our country. I have done this all too briefly, I am well aware. But the reason that I could do it briefly is the fact that the readers of this journal are well informed upon the historical phases of the subject. All that I needed to do was to cull out and bring to the fore the pertinent facts. But the question now arises, is this differentiation logical? Are there any reasons, psychological, economic, or otherwise, for such differentiation? If there are, it is going to continue, and these types of the inst.i.tution which now seem to have been given each such a definite and separate work to do are going to be relatively permanent. If not, we shall continue to cut and try, undoing to-morrow what was done to-day, and chaos will result.

This inst.i.tution, with its various types, is not one that has evolved from a careful theoretical study of our present or prospective educational needs, but one that has grown up, little by little, step by step, to meet and satisfy from time to time the present and pressing needs of the larger system of which it forms a part, and for the service of which it was called into existence. But is it not true that oftentimes the logic of events--the movements of history--reveal to us our fundamental principles, outline for us our policy of action, and even write out for us our program of procedure as correctly and even more irrevocably than philosophical formulation could do? Is not that especially likely to occur under such a form of government as ours? I think it has occurred in the present case.

It is interesting to note in this connection the fact that the logic of events has led us, in our efforts to solve the difficult problem of the education of our teachers, to practically the same solution as that already reached by France and Germany, which countries proceeded more nearly along the pathway of theoretical philosophical formulation.

I believe that at least two of these inst.i.tutions, the state normal school and the teachers college, have come to stay, and with practically the functions outlined above. Of the county normal school, as said before, I do not feel quite so sure. I am led to the belief in the relative permanency of these types of professional school, not only by a knowledge of the history of their development, but also by the conviction, formed by a somewhat careful study of the entire problem, that there are fundamental reasons, psychological as well as economical, for the differentiation. In other words, my own somewhat careful study of the entire situation brings me to the same position that the logic of events has brought us all.

As to the county normal school: it is so apparent as scarcely to need mention that the teacher of the rural school needs a preparation differing in many ways from that needed by the teacher of the city grades. The environment, physical, psychical, and social, is so different that a teacher equipt to do thoroly good work in either one place might signally fail in the other. And the present economic situation speaks with nearly the same insistence. Even if our state normal schools were sending out teachers ideally equipt for service in the rural communities, the remuneration there offered is, and for an indefinite time will remain, so low as practically to keep them out of the schools. Either we must have special inst.i.tutions for the preparation of the teachers of the rural schools, or else those schools must, in the main, continue to do without professionally prepared teachers.

Turning now to the other type, it is equally clear to me that the very character of the work in the elementary and secondary schools should be different one from the other, different as to discipline, ends in view, subjects of study, and methods of handling the same. In the elementary school the pupil is a child, with the mind, the tastes, the ambitions of a child, and he should be allowed to remain a child. The ends in view are right habits, right ideals, and knowledge facts. In the secondary school the student is an adolescent, with the mind of an adolescent, having peculiar and erratic tastes, changing ambitions, and conflicting emotions. He is neither child nor adult, but pa.s.sing thru the most dangerous and critical period of his entire life. The ends in view are no longer merely habits, ideals, and knowledge facts, but, added to these, and now more important for emphasis because presumably right principles have already been established, breadth and fixity of character, self-acquaintance, scholarship, and culture. Tell me that the atmosphere, psychical and spiritual, and the training, academic and professional, that will produce the ideal teacher of the child will also produce the ideal teacher of the adolescent? Nay, verily! You might as well tell the florist that the American Beauty rose and the Snow Flower of the Northern forest will both reach perfection if grown side by side.

Then surely we need different kinds of inst.i.tutions. I cannot better conclude this thought than by using the words of Dr. Wm. T. Harris found in the introductory paragraph of an article on "The Future of the Normal School." (Ed. Rev., January, 1899, p. 1.) Dr. Harris says: "I have tried to set down in this paper the grounds for commending the normal school as it exists for its chosen work of preparing teachers for the elementary schools, and at the same time urging the need of training schools with different methods of preparation for the kindergarten, below, and for the secondary school, the college and the post-graduate school, above the elementary school."

The reason just given, the psychological one, is alone sufficient for believing that the differentiation is logical. But let me add another, almost equally effective--an academic reason, directly academic and at the same time indirectly economic. This is found in the following words, taken from Dr. Payne's "Contributions to the Science of Education." (Am.

Book Co., 1886, p. 538.) "If there is any well-established principle of school economy it is this: The scholarship of the teacher should be considerably broader than the scholarship of his most advanced pupil."

n.o.body now questions the statement.

Upon the basis of that principle there is little criticism to be offered of the academic equipment of our normal school graduates as teachers in the grades. No normal school now completes its work with less than one full year beyond the completion of a four-year high school course, and two years beyond is rapidly getting to be the standard. So that normal school graduation gives the prospective teacher of the grades at least four years of academic, and from one to two years of professional and academic work beyond the point to be reached by "his most advanced pupil." To be sure, more would be better--a longer experience and a closer acquaintance with the great character forming subjects, such as literature, history, philosophy, etc. This would give breadth of view, clearness of perception, and a right perspective--elements of incomparable value in the equipment of the teacher. But yet, in view of our economic conditions and of a general lack of understanding and therefore of appreciation in the lay mind of the most vital and fundamental work of the teacher, we cannot yet hope for teachers ideally equipt. And our present standards, if insisted upon and the work thus far be thoro and clear and faithful, will give us increasingly better results and eventually lead to conditions more nearly ideal.

But this judgment as to criticism must be very different when we look upon these graduates as possible teachers in the high school. The scholarship of such a teacher there would be but little, if any, "broader than the scholarship of his most advanced pupil." While there is to-day no uniform legislation touching the requirements as to qualifications of high school teachers in the United States, each state, and even each school, being largely a law unto itself, there is getting to be a very decided uniformity the country over as to practise, and in many ways this is much more significant than formal legislation would be. For without compulsion, the whole people, each section and each state, independent of all others, seemingly by the very necessity of the case, have fixt upon the same minimum standard of qualification for high school teachers. And that minimum is the completion of a full four-year collegiate course of instruction, including--indeed, in many cases, plus--a certain emphasis to be placed upon the subjects to be handled, and a certain amount of time devoted to strictly professional subjects.

To be sure, in some states legislation has spoken, as in Minnesota, requiring completion of collegiate work, and practically so in North Dakota, requiring completion of such work for superintendencies and high school princ.i.p.alships, and strongly recommending the same for all teaching positions in the high school. In California a step farther has been taken in requiring, in addition to that, a full year of graduate study. The tendency, in several states, seems to be in the direction of the position taken by California. And with that tendency I am in sympathy.

This movement upward, however, I do not want to see go any farther. I deprecate the tendency, seen in some quarters, of setting up as the symbol of the standard of qualification for the high school teacher, the doctor's degree. I do not want the boys and girls of our high schools taught, or rather directed in their upward development, by mere specialists--doctors of philosophy, who know everything about nothing, and nothing about everything. Nor do I want them directed by men and women who are obliged to "cipher on page twenty while the cla.s.s is working on page nineteen." But I do want them directed by men and women who are thoroly acquainted with the subjects which they teach, and who know how to handle the same; but especially by men and women of broad, liberal culture, men and women whose lives have been enriched by the best there is in literature, history, art, science, and philosophy, and who know life, and are in warm sympathy with young life. Teachers thus equipt are able, from their high vantage point, to reach out here and there and take as educative material that which will contribute to the beautiful and strong development of each case at hand. And such an equipment, on its academic side, comes not short of the master's degree, or its equivalent.

My authority for the statement made above as to the growing uniformity of practise in requiring as minimum qualification for high school teachers a full collegiate course, and as to the tendency in several states toward requiring, in addition, a full year of graduate study, is found in an extended correspondence with normal school princ.i.p.als and city and state superintendents representing the entire country.

These facts as to present-day requirements seem to me to fix somewhat definitely the matters under discussion. Our normal schools, with possibly two or three exceptions, are not equipt to give the extended qualification now demanded for the high school teacher. Barring the two or three, the best of them do not pretend to carry the student more than two years beyond high school graduation. And whether it be one or two years, the work is, as it ought to be, mainly professional--not academic. Indeed, the presidents of many of our strongest normal schools insist that they do not do any strictly academic work. And if the lack is so great touching high school teachers, how much greater touching positions still higher.

To be sure, the work of the normal schools might be sufficiently extended to enable them to do this additional and advanced work. New buildings might be erected, laboratory facilities increased, libraries enlarged, additional and stronger teachers provided, etc. But is it necessary? Is it wise? Is it likely to happen with our legislators holding the purse strings so tightly tied? To all such questions the answer must inevitably be negative. It is not necessary because not really needed for the preparation of elementary teachers, while for the preparation of secondary teachers other agencies are at hand. And if not needed the unwisdom of such an extension can scarcely be questioned.

Certainly not, if, as urged above, different kinds of inst.i.tutions are needed for the preparation of the two grades of teachers. Then, if both not needed and unwise, it is not likely to happen in any case where legislators are intelligently informed as to the situation.

To indicate the feeling among many of our leading educators touching this point, it might be interesting, in closing, to give a brief summary of the correspondence mentioned above. This inquiry, was directed to all our state superintendents, to forty of the leading normal school princ.i.p.als representing all sections of the country, and to fifty-two leading and representative city superintendents. The following questions were asked:--

(1) Are your normal schools at the present time equipt to give adequate preparation to prospective high school teachers?

(2) If you think they are not, would it be wise to add to their present equipment such facilities as would enable them to give such preparation, or can that work be better done in some other way?

REPLIES FROM STATE SUPERINTENDENTS

To question (1). Thirty-eight replies were received, of which twenty-nine were negative and nine affirmative. Of the nine, however, only one came from a state in which normal school facilities are at all superior to what may be termed a fair average, and in that state these facilities are found in only one of the five normal schools, whereas, in five of the nine, these facilities are inferior to what may be termed a fair average. In two of the nine, tho the state superintendents gave affirmative answers, the consensus of opinion of the normal school princ.i.p.als was negative. In a word, the nine affirmative replies indicate individual opinions, and result from a limited perspective.

To question (2). Twenty-nine replies were received, of which fifteen were specifically negative, five specifically affirmative, and nine implied a misunderstanding of the question. But nearly all of the nine, as well as the fifteen, stated definitely or clearly implied that such work should be done in the colleges and universities.

REPLIES FROM NORMAL SCHOOL PRINc.i.p.aLS

To question (1). Twenty-eight replies were received, of which twenty were negative, and eight affirmative. Of the eight, three were from states having but one normal school each, and perhaps, therefore, admittedly strong; two from states having each one school much superior to the others of the same state, and referring specifically to that school. Of the remaining three, one was from a new state in the Northwest, one from a Southern state, and one stated that only in some branches was the equipment sufficient.

To question (2). Twenty replies were received, of which sixteen were negative, and four affirmative. Of the four, not one said that all should be so equipt. Each suggested that perhaps it would be well thus to extend the equipment of one school in a state.