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attachments suddenly blossom out with exaggerated efflorescence. In brief, the multitudinous phenomena of adolescence, with all of their iridescent changes, appear and childhood is a thing of the past.

How can a school whose main prepossessions are in the directions of childhood meet in the most satisfactory way the demands of a school whose most absorbing interests should be in the unstable, emotional, transforming epoch of the adolescent? How can it furnish the atmosphere and the requisite guidance for two such dissimilar stages of growth when each seems to demand, in the interests of the best results, the exclusion of the other? Let us remember that we are seeking not fairly good conditions, but the best conditions. This is one of the aspects of the secondary teacher's preparation that the normal school seems not well fitted to give.

But the intellectual attitude changes quite as radically as the emotional. The teaching, or instruction, must be greatly modified in its method. It is true that in the higher grades it approaches that of the high school, but in the lower grades it is quite radically different. Imagine the primary teacher employing the Socratic irony! Yet in the high school it has a legitimate place altho not a prominent one. The young child has slight critical capacity upon which the teacher can bank. His drawings of the human form lack necks and attach the arms to the side of the head, yet they do not offend his notions of accuracy. The high-school pupil needs the challenge, the cornering, the defeat, perhaps, as well as the sympathetic attitude of praise and agreement. He has found footings which give him confidence to hold his own against the contention of a teacher, perhaps. Scholarship is a possible passion and the subjects of instruction more and more absorb his mind. The studies are new and demand a new emphasis. The younger child is chiefly occupied with the individualism of the world, but the high-school pupil seeks more and more to find the unity as well of the phenomena of the world. To state it a little differently, the high-school age is the stage in which the pupil is entering upon the epoch of conscious reflection; he is beginning the more explicit identification of himself with the genius of the modern world, which is essentially scientific. These epochs of growth are so generally recognized that I need not follow this line of thought further than to say that the method of observation and illustration must now give way in a growing degree to the method of demonstration in which the necessity of the relations is made apparent.

It may be answered that the normal school is capable of adjusting itself to these varying conditions by organizing separate departments which shall not overlap each other. But this is only another way of saying that the two classes of schools may exist side by side under the same general management. That is true enough, but that will make a sort of university of the normal school and there will be necessitated an elaborate and distinct equipment for each. As there must be a training-school for the elementary teachers so there must be, for the highest success, a parallel opportunity for the secondary

teachers. I do not advocate an exact parallel, but an application of the same general principle.

I must content myself with one additional suggestion. It is quite possible for the normal school to present the general features of a pedagogical philosophy. It must be very general, however, to be comprehended by all. It may be carried to higher and higher planes as the ability of the pupil renders it possible, and such a development of the subject is extremely valuable in toning up the general character of the institution. But each subject of the curriculum needs a method treatment which unfolds its inherent logic and its adaptation to the needs of the developing pupil. For illustration, arithmetic must be studied from a new point of view. The normal student had his last contact with it in the grades of the grammar school while on his way to the high school. He was then too young to be conscious of his own generalizations or to rise to any just conception of the unifying ideas that make it a science. The subject must be re-examined from the standpoint of its logical organization so that the student can look down upon it as it emerges in all of its seeming complexity from a few very simple principles. This is what is meant by the normalschool people when they declare that their work upon the subjects of the course of study is not academic but professional.

What has been said with respect to arithmetic is to be considered as said with regard to the other subjects of the elementary school. But the subjects of the secondary school need a similar treatment and such a suggestion implies an academic preparation that a college course will barely cover. If we are to have really superior teachers for the secondary schools we must not be satisfied with anything short of what Germany is doing for her schools of that grade. It is absurd to expect our existing normal schools to accomplish any such results. Meanwhile, these institutions are the only existing agencies, except the teachers' colleges and pedagogical departments of the universities, that can afford any great relief at present. The latter are so few in number that they can accommodate very few relatively. The former are fewer still but they are having a profound influence. Until the present ferment shall have aroused the public mind to the necessity of making the secondary schools as attractive pecuniarily as the colleges-and why should they not be ?-men and women of superior ability and preparation will not select them for life-work except in occasional instances where principalships pay a living wage. A few miles from where I am now writing is a township high school. Its principal is a graduate of the Illinois State Normal University and of an excellent Ohio college. He is a professional teacher in all that the name implies, and the community regards him as a good bargain at something like thirty-five hundred dollars a year. He took his professional course before his college course, but he served a long apprenticeship as an assistant before he rose to the dignity of principal. He is a good illustration of what I have had before my mind as I have written of the secondary teacher and of his preparation, altho there should be an educational institution which could do for him in two or

three

years what he did for himself in several times two or three years while he held a subordinate position.

I have made an incidental reference to the practice school as a feature of the institution that will prepare secondary teachers. Doubtless the work of the normal student in actual teaching under normal conditions, altho done in the elementary grades, will be of material help in high schools. There should be an opportunity to study a model high school and also to do actual teaching work as a part of the preparation of the secondary teachers, however. The problem is far more difficult than in the elementary school because of the greater maturity of the pupils and of their more fully developed consciousness of the work of their teachers. It can be done and well done if deferred until the scholarship and maturity of the teacher are of such a quality as to win the confidence of the pupils. What is at first lacking in skill can be compensated for by a fine culture and attractive personal qualities. Persons of such attainments understand the meaning of criticism and accomplish in a few weeks under such conditions what would otherwise cost months or even years of experience, if they were ever able to achieve it at all.

I have not dared to discuss those other very desirable qualities of the secondary teacher which are matters of individual personality rather than the result of professional training.

My conclusion as the result of my experience and study is that the normal school as generally organized at present is not the best possible agency for the preparation of secondary teachers.

XV (special)

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY

CHARLES DEGARMO, PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION, CORNELL UNIVERSITY

CONDITIONS OF ADMISSION TO EXAMINATIONS

The so-called secondary schools of Germany cover a period of nine years in the educational life of the student; roughly from nine or ten to eighteen or nineteen years of age. The first three years of this course may be said to belong to elementary, the next four years to secondary, and the last two years to higher education. To be trained for such a school, the candidate needs the professional preparation of the elementary, the high-school, and the college teacher. To meet such conditions the Germans divide their certificates in the various subjects into first and second and third grades, the scope of which will be explained later.

It takes some sixty closely-printed pages to describe all the requirements for the granting of these certificates in Prussia alone. Many of them relate to social, economic, and educational conditions which find no counterpart among us. For this reason, the statement of what is required in the German

professional preparation of teachers for this class of schools may be greatly abridged.

One of the fixed ideas in Germany is that the candidate for teaching in the higher schools must first be brought to the stage of productive scholarship. Two antecedent conditions are therefore prescribed for eligibility for the later professional examinations. They are as follows:

1. Graduation from the full course of a Gymnasium, a Realgymnasium or an Oberrealschule, each of which is nine years long, and admits to the university.

2. Evidence that the subjects in which the candidate wishes to qualify have been studied in an orderly manner for at least three years in a university. When these and a few other minor conditions are satisfactorily met the candidate is admitted to the examinations for certification.

THE EXAMINATION COMMISSIONS

These commissions are composed mostly of university professors, together with a few secondary school men, all of whom are named by the minister of education and serve for one year. In general, there is a commission in each university town, there being ten of these bodies in Prussia. The candidate is required to present himself before either the commission located where he spent his last semester of university residence, he having already completed one other term there, or the commission in the district where he proposes to teach. Provision is made to prevent too many candidates from being admitted in any one district by transferring their applications to other commissions, and. also for the reception of candidates coming from other German states or foreign countries.

SCOPE AND CHARACTER OF THE EXAMINATIONS

The examination consists of two parts, one general and one special. The general subjects are philosophy, pedagogy, and German literature; also for those who expect to teach religion, the doctrines of the Evangelical or of the Catholic church.

The special examination is upon the subjects the candidate expects to teach, which are to be divided into majors and minors, examination in at least four being required.

The subjects chosen must be taken in the following combinations:

Latin and Greek; French and English; history and geography; religion and Hebrew; pure mathematics and physics; chemistry with mineralogy and physics; or, instead of physics, botany and zoology, with the understanding that German may take the place of either of the subjects in the first three groups or of Hebrew in the fourth. Applied mathematics is also a subject for examination, to be preceded, however, by pure mathematics.

The minimum requisite for any kind of a certificate is that the candidate shall be satisfactory in the general examination, and shall obtain first rank in at least one subject and second rank in at least two of the others.

First rank in any subject entitles the holder to teach it thruout the nine grades of the school. The holder of a certificate of second rank in any subject is entitled to teach that subject only thru the first six grades, that is, up to and including unter secunda.

It is in general expected that the candidate will select at least two majors and two minors. He may, however, select more of either or both, supplementary examinations being subsequently allowed in order to enable him to extend the range of subjects he is certificated to teach. Dean Russell states that few teachers ever secure first rank for more than three subjects.

Both the general and the special examinations are partly written and partly oral. The written work, however, is quite unlike the sort we are accustomed to in this country, for it is prepared at home in the form of essays with full liberty to use books to any extent desired. Only personal assistance is forbidden.

One essay is upon some theme in philosophy or education; other essays are upon themes selected from the candidate's major subjects. Six weeks are allowed for each essay, with a possible extension of the time to six weeks more. In this written work the design is to test the sufficiency of the applicant's knowledge, the adequacy of his judgment, and to show whether or not he is capable of a logically arranged, clearly and adequately expressed exposition of the subject in hand.

In the oral examination upon the general subjects, the following points are to be established:

1. In religion, whether or not the candidate shows himself well acquainted with the content and connection of Holy Writ, has a general knowledge of the history of the Christian church, and knows the chief doctrines of its confession.

2. Whether or not in philosophy he is acquainted with the important facts of its history, with the important doctrines of logic and psychology; and also whether he has read one of the more important philosophical masterpieces with comprehension, such as Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, or Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.

3. In pedagogy, whether or not he has grasped its philosophical basis, knows the important stages of its historical development since the sixteenth century, and possesses some understanding of the problems of his future. calling.

4. In German literature, the examination is to show whether or not he is acquainted with its general development, especially since the beginning of its springtime in the eighteenth century, and that since leaving school he has read with understanding its more important works.

Needless to say, the oral examinations in the subject-matter to be taught are the most searching and thorogoing of all. The candidate need not expect that the examiners will not sound all the depths and shallows of his knowledge.

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