Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia the supply is sufficient to meet the existing demands. The States of Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia are undersupplied with teachers of commercial subjects. A similar situation exists with regard to teachers of physical education both for girls and boys in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. The supply of elementary school teachers meets the demand in most of the States. Delaware, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia are the exception where a shortage is found. Oklahoma and Texas have an oversupply of elementary public-school teachers. As a result of the situation just presented the development of teacher-training programs in all the fields by the negro land-grant colleges is of primary importance. At present 10 of the institutions offer 4-year teacher-training curricula leading to a bachelor's degree, while the remaining 7 offer 2-year normal and vocational education courses. These curricula are largely governed by the standards set up by the State boards of education for the granting of State teachers' certificates. Three general types of certificates are given to graduates, elementary and primary school certificates, high-school certificates, and vocational-teaching certificates. The teacher-training work is on a fairly high level in most of the colleges, due to the enforcement of the requirements of the State board of education through surveys and inspections, but in a number of cases where 2year normal courses are conducted and where no examinations are made by the State board the programs are poorly organized and the instruction is not of the best type. Other curricula of a college grade offered by the negro landgrant colleges include fine arts, music, and physical education. Three institutions offer music courses leading to bachelor's degrees and one includes fine arts in its academic program. There is one college that offers a curriculum in physical education leading to a bachelor's degree. Special services designed to meet the particular needs of the negro community or the negro population of the State are conducted by several colleges. In two cases courses in nurse training and health are offered while in another an institute for the blind is operated. General extension and correspondence courses are conducted by nine colleges, four of which carry on agricultural and home economics extension on a limited scale. Subcollegiate Education The principal education activities of the negro land-grant colleges have been concentrated in the fields of secondary and elementary education. While a tendency has developed within recent years to eliminate the high schools and elementary schools or to limit them to demonstration teaching, all the institutions except one maintain secondary schools and 14 out of the 17 operate elementary schools. The latter are largely conducted for practice teaching. One institu tion, the Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College of Texas, conducts only a single subcollegiate course which includes the last grade of high school. Secondary education provided by the negro land-grant colleges is on an extensive scale, a wide variety of practical, vocational, and industrial courses being offered in addition to the regular highschool curricula. Thirteen institutions have organized their secondary work on the basis of the 4-year high school. In three others junior and senior high schools are conducted, the junior high school combining the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, and the senior high school being composed of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. Colleges operating junior and senior high schools are the State Agricultural and Mechanical Institute of Alabama, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, and Georgia State Industrial College. An important phase of the secondary instruction given in the colleges is vocational training as provided by the Smith-Hughes Act. Four-year vocational courses in agriculture are given in 11 institutions under the terms of this Federal law. Four colleges also offer 4-year vocational courses in trades and industries and five others give similar courses in home economics. It is through unit courses in manual training, however, that the colleges are rendering the greatest service in preparing the members of the Negro race for trades and industries in the Southern States. This work is particularly important since the public high schools for negroes have not yet been sufficiently expanded to assume this type of education on a large scale. In Table 10 are presented the colleges with the trades industries of a subcollegiate grade given in them. A total of 127 different manual training courses are offered in the 17 negro land-grant colleges. They vary from one to three years in length and include nearly every type of secondary vocational education. Thirteen of the institutions have courses in the various phases of agriculture; 9 in home economics; 13 in auto mechanics; 12 in brick masonry and plastering; 15 in carpentry, woodworking, and cabinet-making; 5 in blacksmithing, forging, welding, and iron work; 7 in applied electricity, electrical repairing, electrical repair work, and radio; 8 in printing or linotype operating; 2 in furniture repairing and upholstering; 6 in plumbing, steam-fitting, heating, and ventilating; 8 in shoe-making and shoe-repairing; 9 in tailoring; 5 in painting; 5 in architectural and mechanical drawing; 1 in typewriting and shorthand; 6 in stationary engineering and machine shop work; 1 in broom and mattress making; 1 in laundry and dry-cleaning; and 1 in wagon and carriage making. A considerable number of special vocational courses are offered under each of these headings. As already explained, the negro land-grant colleges are performing a distinct service in furnishing vocational and trade education of the secondary grade since the negro high schools of the different States are failing to provide it. As soon as the public schools assume this responsibility the colleges should abandon such work and concentrate their aims on higher technical courses of a college level. By adopting this policy the institutions will become in reality agricultural and mechanical colleges of the land-grant type in accordance with the terms of the Federal law under which they were created. Teaching Staff Large and comprehensive programs of college curricula in agriculture, home economics, mechanic arts, education, and arts and sciences can only be effectively prosecuted with an adequate and welltrained teaching staff. For many years the negro land-grant colleges have suffered both from a shortage of teachers and a lack of properly qualified teachers. According to the information submitted in the survey, there were 381 members of the staff teaching college classes in 1928. Because of confusion in the reports it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of the teachers who in addition to their college work are compelled to give instruction in the secondary schools conducted by the institution. An estimate fixes the number at 141, or approximately 37 per cent. The most important measure of the efficiency of the modern college is the number of full-time teachers. The generally accepted standard for the 4-year college is a minimum of eight full-time college instructors. In the case of the negro land-grant colleges, but eight of the institutions conducting senior colleges meet this requirement. Similarly the minimum number of college teachers for a junior college is five full-time college teachers. None of the junior colleges meet this standard. If the work of the negro land grant institutions is to be placed on a college basis and if they are to receive recognition from the accrediting agencies, it is essential that steps be taken at once to increase the number of their teaching staff. The plan of expanding their curricula to include a wide variety of subject-matter fields without teachers to furnish adequate instruction, such as many of the colleges have adopted, can only result in lowering standards. In order to meet the norms set up for the modern college, not only must an adequate staff be provided, but also a properly qualified staff. While the qualifications of the faculties of the negro landgrant colleges have undergone an improvement during the past few years, there is still a considerable proportion of the teachers who are not sufficiently trained for the work they are attempting to perform. Of the total of 381 college teachers in the institutions, 99, or 26 per cent, hold graduate degrees, 232, or 61 per cent, hold only first degrees, and 50, or 13 per cent, hold no degrees. In the case of a large number of the staff members with first degrees, it was found that these teachers are pursuing graduate work leading to higher degrees for the purpose of improving their qualifications. Because of the importance of proper training for the faculties of the institutions, the survey conducted a detailed inquiry into the subject. In Table 11 is presented the number of teachers by institutions with their training in the various subject-matter fields in which they teach. |