conducted moving picture show and the vaudeville is to develop something
better to take their places. Let it be something that contains the
life-giving principles, something that will appeal with equal force to
the impressionable youth, and yet be clean and wholesome and natural.
Shall we not look upon the public playground for the children, and the
park system, for all, as a promising hope? And, properly developed,
would they not soon come to act on the young, both physically and
psychically, as a prevention, thus making a later cure unnecessary? And
upon adults, might we not reasonably expect their use to tend toward
making less attractive, and so to the eventual abandonment of, many of
these practises and forms of entertainment and recreation that are now
so sapping of both physical and psychical life?
IX
THE FUNCTION OF TEACHERS COLLEGE
_An Address delivered before the North Dakota State Teachers Association
on December 27, 1906. It later appeared in the January and February,
1910, issues of "Education"_
Among the various educational institutions of the United States to-day,
the one which, as it seems to me, is attracting the most intelligent
attention on the part of our educational thinkers, and the one upon the
right solution of whose problems depends, in a high degree, the success
of our entire educational system, is the institution for the education
of teachers. For we all have come, finally, to accept as true the
statement of the old German writer, "School reform means schoolmaster
reform," also that other, used so effectively in the days of our own
early educational revival, "As is the teacher so is the school." And we
are ready to-day to admit that those statements are true whether applied
to the ungraded rural school with its noticeable lack of needed
equipment, to the perfectly graded school of the city with every
facility that human ingenuity can devise and money procure, or to the
college and university where scholarship and culture are supposed to
make their abode and contribute of their fullness. For I care not, and
you care not, what be the physical and material equipment of the school;
I care not, nor do you, what be the scholastic attainments of the one
called teacher; if he isn't able to teach, that is, to cause to learn,
we all know that the school, in just the mesure of his inability, is a
failure. One thing further we all know, and that is this: one plank in
our great educational platform is belief in the necessity of an
institution set apart for the preparation of teachers. We are
irrevocably committed to the idea. It is a part of our educational
creed. Fortunately, in our educational evolution we have left far behind
us the stage when the wisdom of that institution was seriously
questioned. Our pedagogical forefathers, valiant explorers, discoverers,
heroes, educational statesmen--Carter, Mann, Page, Sheldon and
others--have left us this priceless heritage. It remains for us to-day
merely to analyze the institution, agree upon the respective functions
of its various types, and then apply ourselves with intelligent vigor
each to the solution of his own problems.
As we look around us, we clearly distinguish three distinct types of the
institution under discussion. The oldest, best known, and most numerous
is called the state normal school. It dates from the time of Horace Mann
and Edmund Dwight, the former of whom recognized the need and knew how
to inaugurate the movement, the latter, having unbounded faith in Mr.
Mann, provided the funds. Nearly every state in the union has now one or
more intelligently at work. All that have not, have practically the same
thing under another name--normal departments in connection with the
state universities.
The next type, in order of time and numbers, as well, is found in
connection with the higher educational institutions of the country. It
has various names, as "Department of Education," "School of Education,"
"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 Class" 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
institution.
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 institution with
but slightly different systems of organization. I use the latter term
because more familiar and more likely, I think, as time passes, 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 analysis 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
institution in our country. I am stating what is known to all when I say
that Horace Mann in Massachusetts, 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 assisting 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 institution, 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
principals, 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
principalships, 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' Association 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 institution 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 institution,
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 institution 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 institution was created for their
preparation, in very recent years an institution 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 institution 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 analyzed aright the present situation, and have been fair in
my all too brief account of the rise and development of these
institutions, 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 institution 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
institution 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 principalships.
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
principalships, 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 institution 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 institution, 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 institutions, 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 institutions 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.