I. Psychology in its physiological, apperceptive, and experimental
features. The period of adolescence here assumes the prominence that
childhood has in the psychological study preparatory to teaching in
lower schools. This is the period of beginnings, the beginning of a
more ambitious and generous life, a life having the future wrapped up
in it; a transition period, of mental storm and stress, in which egoism
gives way to altruism, romance has charm, and the social, moral, and
religious feelings bud and bloom. To guide youth at this formative
stage, in which an active fermentation occurs that may give wine or
vinegar according to conditions, requires a deep and sympathetic
nature, and that knowledge of the changing life which supplies guidance
wise and adequate.
II. Methodology: A discussion of the principles of education and of the
methods of teaching the studies of the secondary schools.
III. School economy should be studied in a much wider and more thorough
way than is required for elementary teachers. The school systems of
Germany, France, England, and the leading systems of the United States
should also be studied.
IV. History of education, the tracing of modern doctrine back to its
sources; those streams of influence now flowing and those that have
disappeared in the sands of the centuries.
V. The philosophy of education as a division of an all-involving
philosophy of life and thought in which unity is found.
_The art of teaching._
This includes observation and practice. The observation should include
the work of different grades and of different localities, with minute
and searching comparison and reports upon special topics. How does
excellent primary work differ from excellent grammar grade work? How
do the standards of excellence differ between grammar grades and
high school grades? Between high school and college work? What are
the arguments for and against co-education in secondary schools, as
determined by experience? What are the upper and lower limits of
secondary education as determined by the nature of the pupil’s efforts?
In the college class in pedagogy much more than in the elementary
normal school can the class itself be made to afford a means of
practice to its members. Quizzes may be conducted by students upon the
chapters of the books read or the lectures of the professors. These
exercises may have for their object review, or improved statement,
or enlarged inference and application, and they afford an ample
opportunity to cultivate the art of questioning, skill in which is the
teacher’s most essential accomplishment.
The head of the department of pedagogy will, of course, present the
essential methods of teaching, and the heads of other departments may
lecture on methods pertaining to their subject of study; or secondary
teachers of known success may still better present the methods now
approved in the several departments of secondary work.
_Post-graduate year._
To those graduates who have elected pedagogy in their senior year may
be offered the opportunity of further study in this department, with
such other post-graduate work as taste and opportunity permit. From
those selecting advanced work in pedagogy the board in charge of the
affiliated secondary school should elect as many teachers for its
school as are needed, employing them for two-thirds time at one-half
the usual pay for teachers without experience. Under the professor of
pedagogy of the college, the principal, and the heads of departments
of the school these student-teachers should do their work, receiving
advice, criticism, and illustration as occasion requires. The time
for which they are employed would provide for two hours of class work
and about one hour of clerical work or study while in charge of a
schoolroom. These student-teachers should be given abundant opportunity
for the charge of pupils while reciting or studying, at recess and
dismissals, and should have all the responsibilities of members of the
faculty of this school. Their work should be inspected as frequently
as may be by the heads of the departments in which they teach, by
the principal of the school, and by the professor of pedagogy. These
appointments would be virtually fellowships with an opportunity for
most profitable experience.
In the afternoon of each day these students should attend to college
work and especially to instruction from the professor in pedagogy, who
could meet them occasionally with the heads of the departments under
whose direction they are working.
On Saturdays a seminary of two hours’ duration might be held, conducted
by the professor of pedagogy and attended by the student-teachers
and the more ambitious teachers of experience in the vicinity. These
seminaries would, doubtless, be of great profit to both classes of
participants, and the greater to each because of the other. (Such
a training school for secondary teachers in connection with Brown
University and the Providence high school is contemplated for the
coming year.)
It will not be needful to specify further the advantages to the
student-teachers. The arrangement likewise affords advantage to the
affiliated school, especially in the breadth of view this work would
afford to the heads of departments, the intense desire it would beget
in them for professional skill, the number of perplexing problems which
it would force them to attempt the solution of.
The visits of the professor of pedagogy, and the constant comparison
he would make between actual and ideal conditions, would lead him to
seek the improvement, not only of the students in practice, but of the
school as a whole.
When several earnest and capable people unite in a mutual effort to
improve themselves and their work, all the essential conditions of
progress are present.
HORACE S. TARBELL, Chairman,
Superintendent of Schools, Providence, R. I.
EDWARD BROOKS,
Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, Pa.
THOMAS M. BALLIET,
Superintendent of Schools, Springfield, Mass.
NEWTON C. DOUGHERTY,
Superintendent of Schools, Peoria, Ill.
OSCAR H. COOPER,
Superintendent of Schools, Galveston, Tex.
Dissent from Dr. Harris’ Report.