The normal instructors should occasionally teach classes in the training. department. I question whether one can become a really superior normal teacher unless he has taught children. He should serve an apprenticeship in the public school. He must know from personal experience just what the problems of teaching and management are. In all his instruction there must dwell in the background of his consciousness this knowledge. of actual school conditions. He must know the practicable and the possible in the schools of this generation. Teachers of the normal school must be men of ideals, who with prophetic vision, behold what ought to be and is to be in education. At the same time they must know that heaven is not gained at a single bound. With a clear comprehension of present conditions and tendencies they can intelligently direct the line of advance.

It is equally important that normal instructors do not forget how children are taught. When it is proposed that they teach classes in the training department, a good deal of inertia is revealed. It is not because they are willing to assume the rôle of guideposts that point the way they never travel themselves. Some of this inertia is due to the fear of the instructor that he cannot carry out his own plans. He is conscious of the lack of personal skill, or realizes that in his class-room discussion he has ignored difficulties that he must face in the actual teaching. He is afraid of the personal humiliation that must issue from a poorly taught lesson. Still, I believe nothing in the life of a normal school is more salutary than such participation of the heads of departments in the actual teaching in the training school. A term of ten or twelve weeks once a year will enable the instructor to conduct some needed experiment, to test some promising innovation. He should give also from time to time modellessons for observation and criticism, illustrating some difficult point.

This will require him to teach the class a week in advance, to grow on easy terms with the children, to discover something of the range of their knowledge, and to lay the proper foundation for the lesson proposed.

In the foregoing discussion there is an attempt to state some reasons for providing in the organization of the normal school for bringing heads of departments into intimate relation with the training department.

Unless the co-operation is hearty and continuous, little good will. come; in fact, little can be expected unless the normal instructors are in the mood to demand the privilege of such participation as a necessary condition for developing their own work. The question thus becomes one of the attitude of the normal instructor. This attitude is largely determined by his training, his acquired habits, his point of view. late years we have been filling our normal-school faculties with young people of university training and little else. There is not much in the atmosphere of many university class-rooms to emphasize the importance or dignity of the elementary school. There is little in the spirit of prac

tice of the professor to suggest that the growing child, and not the subjectmatter, is the center of interest. Young teachers inevitably imitate their own instructors, especially when no special training has intervened to create more general ideas of the teacher's function. We must have the culture of the university and something more.

It is only thru a considerable experience in public-school teaching that the normal instructor is likely to gain an active and intelligent interest in its problems. When men and women of such experience and interests make up our normal-school faculties, we shall not be found discussing the question now before us.

DISCUSSION

A. P. HOLLIS, principal of the training department, State Normal School, Valley City, N. D.-While the foregoing reveals the logic of President Felmley's contentions, it does not show how well or how ill these heads of departments are fitted to participate in practice-school work. If any data could be summoned which would show this vital point, a most desirable side-light would be thrown on the practicability of President Felmley's theses. Some of the points which would be essential to such an inquiry would be:

1. The amount of professional education normal-school professors had had before teaching in the normal school.

2. The age and experience of these teachers of teachers.

3. The professional spirit; the character and views of life which heads of departments exhibit to practice teachers and pupils of the model school.

While catalogs furnish some of these items, they naturally do not furnish others. In fact, the questions just raised were of too personal and confidential a character to be put into public print. I was therefore compelled to resort again to the syllabus method, and sent out a second circular letter to a large number of normal-school presidents, asking for information on these points. The interests of individual members of faculties were safeguarded by the fact that no names were asked for, each teacher reported upon being referred to simply by a number.

As I expected, not every normal-school president replied to questions of this nature, but a sufficient number did so from representative schools to enable me to call your attention to a small but somewhat unusual group of figures. They are compiled from forty typical state normal schools, and relate solely to the qualifications of their teachers. Replies were received from more than fifty normal-school presidents, but some had to be excluded because they were not explicit enough for all the purposes of the tabulation, others because it was found they were not from typical state normal schools. One, for instance, was practically a private school receiving state aid. Some, like Albany, N. Y., and Cedar Falls, Ia., granted a kind of college degree, which would necessarily place their faculties in a different class from those of the typical state normal school preparing teachers for graded schools. Others were so intimately connected with colleges, like the one at the state university of Utah and the one in Rockhill, S. C., that the two faculties could not well be separated.

The forty schools finally selected ranged in size from a small faculty of five to the largest, of twenty-eight, and geographically they ranged from Alabama to Minnesota and from Massachusetts to California; so that I believe they form a thoroly representative group of American state normal schools.

The total number of teachers in these forty state normal schools was 639. Of these, 301 had received a college education. This was about 50 per cent. of the total number of

normal-school teachers. But these figures included critic teachers, who are mostly not college graduates, so that, if the heads of departments alone were taken, the proportion of college men on normal-school faculties would certainly reach 60 per cent., and it would be safe to say that three-fifths of the men in normal-school faculties are college

men.

It is safe to assume, also, that the 40 per cent. who are not college men are nevertheless exceptionally well prepared for their work, since they were elected over the heads of scores of college men who apply for every vacancy in a normal school. Several normalschool presidents, indeed, went out of their way, as I shall show later, to emphasize the fact that they considered their teachers not holding college degrees of equal value, and some said of greater value, to the school than those holding degrees.

The fact, then, that 60 per cent. of normal-school teachers are college bred, and that the other 40 per cent. fully measure up to them in the estimation of normal-school principals, seems to justify a first conclusion, namely: that in point of academic scholarship normal-school faculties in this country are fully qualified to undertake the comprehensive work outlined for them by President Felmley.

It might be added that forty-five of these three hundred college-bred normal-school teachers were doctors of philosophy.

I am sure I need not remind this body of the surprising change this indicates from the normal-school faculty of but thirty years ago, where the principal of the best of them was not a college graduate, and where college-trained men were avoided—where, in fact, the normal idea was the one emphatic protest against the scholastic and time-honored methods of class-room instruction then prevailing in American colleges.

The next question which the circular suggested was as follows: "Is the pedagogical or professional education of these college men teaching in normal schools as adequate as their scholarship?" In answer to this question, it was found that 185 of the 300 college men, or three-fifths of them, were themselves without any normal-school training. This was a surprise. I thought of what kind of medical schools those would be which allowed 185 college men who had never attended a medical school to get into their faculties to instruct young doctors. No amount of graduate study on Browning or Calculus would atone for such a procedure. Why, then, is it allowable in the professional institutions we call normal schools?

It is occasionally urged that "deep scholarship compensates for the lack of normalschool education." But in that case the speaker denies the necessity of the normal school itself. If the normal school is willing that three-fifths of its college-bred teachers shall themselves have had no normal-school training, why should it insist that a normalschool training is so necessary for other teachers?

Another answer, however, might be given to my question. It might be replied that the colleges now provide the professional courses which formerly could be obtained only in normal schools. Anticipating such an argument, the circular asked what professional study the college degree indicated in lieu of a regular normal-school training. I hoped to get considerable light from the answers to this question, but I was disappointed. The question was misunderstood, and only a few replies indicated clearly any strictly professional work at the respective colleges mentioned.

In a number of instances, however, it was safe to assume that these college-bred teachers in normal schools had taken certain courses of lectures in pedagogy. Some had even performed child-study experiments in laboratories, and had sent out several hundred syllabi into grade schools. If there were time, it would be interesting to inquire how far such college courses in pedagogy can be regarded as the equivalent of a normalschool training. Such an inquiry would involve a comparison, not only of the broad philosophical and historical themes of educational literature, but also of the practice work done in the two kinds of institutions, of the attention given to practical commonschool questions, such as courses of study, class-room behavior, absence, tardiness, mark

ings, and reports, with which every teacher of our common schools must be concerned. But such a comparison between college and normal-school professional work is beyond the scope of this discussion.

There remained one other line of preparation which might be made to justify the presence in 40 normal-school faculties of 185 college men without normal-school training. This was the very practical training which comes from a long experience in teaching. But the returns showed that long experience could not always be shown in the absence of a normal-school course. Eleven of these untrained college men did their first piece of teaching when they entered the normal-school faculty. Surely these are not fitted to guide the method and practice work of a normal school in the way laid down by President Felmley.

Twenty college men without normal training had had an experience not to exceed one year before teaching in the normal school.

This lack of professional qualifications was greatly emphasized by the next question asked on the circular. It was with regard to the age of these college men teaching in normal schools. The average age of all the college men was thirty-seven years. The average age of the forty-five Ph.D.'s in this number was forty-one and one-half years. Omitting the presidents of the schools from the list, the average age of the Ph.D.'s falls below forty. Fifty-six of these college men were still in their twenties. One was a youth of twenty-three, without either normal training or a month's experience in teaching. One had secured a Ph.D. at twenty-five, and had had neither normal training nor experience as a teacher before he was summoned to a normal school to teach teachers how to teach. Such cases were exceptional, but it would seem that under the regime urged by President Felmley such exceptions even would be impossible; i. e., it would be simply impossible to permit a youth of twenty-three, who had never studied in a normal school or taught a year in his life, to arrange courses of study for graded schools and supervise methods of teaching in a model school; and according to the logical position of Dr. Felmley, no man who could not do that should have charge of any department in a normal school.

It cannot be denied that the increasing means of American parents and the multiplication of universities in which graduate work is offered have greatly increased the number of comparatively young men who possess higher degrees, and whose scholarship alone would entitle them to do normal-school work. But in the absence of a further professional training and experience, this very superabundance of scholarship is nearly certain to stand in the way of simple normal-school presentations designed to help teachers of grade-school pupils. These admirable theses of Dr. Felmley's make the time peculiarly opportune to consider the prime conditions of their success, namely, the professional qualifications which should logically be required of every normal-school teacher.

The best preparation for men who are to teach in normal schools is foursided. The first side should consist of a normal-school education, the second of a general college education, the third of a graduate course in pedagogy in a university, the fourth of an experience of several years in grade-school work, either as an active teacher or supervisor of such work.

The university course in pedagogy cannot alone be regarded as a substitute for a normal-school training. The real normal school, its problems and instincts, are practically unknown to a university man who has not come up thru one himself. Possibly a long and honorable experience in graded-school work may, in some instances, compensate for the distinctively professional studies, but the man who learns an art simply thru experience has certain well-defined limitations in the presence of the man who has mastered the scientific principles underlying and guiding the experience.

The normal-school teacher who possesses the fourfold preparation outlined above is necessarily a man who has arrived at that maturity of years and of views which will make him, not merely an enthusiastic scholar, but also a wise counsellor and an inspiring example.

PRESIDENT ALBERT SALISBURY, Whitewater, Wis., Normal School, said: There are three factors here involved, viz.: the general doctrine of instruction and management, the special method of each subject, and the practice of the training school. It is necessary to bring these into harmony, lest our graduates be left in a state of confusion and uncertainty. But the proposition that the desired unity should be secured by having heads of departments make the course of study for the training school is the weak point in President Felmley's scheme. We should thus have a race between specialists, with the president of the school acting as umpire over a general "scrap."

President Draper has been credited with the saying that a chief part of the work of the head of an institution consists in keeping specialists sane. Normal schools are not an exception to this rule. Heads of departments magnify their own work; and this is legitimate. But they naturally emphasize the logical or scientific relations of their subjectmatter and lose the child out of sight. The more of a biologist, or Latinist, or geographer one becomes the less of a psychologist he becomes.

The critic-teachers are not without scholarship. They, too, must know the subjects as well as know the children. The critic-teachers should not be made "subs" to heads of departments. In my judgment, the proper person to make the course of study for the training school is the supervisor of practice teaching, or principal of the training school, with the advice and assistance of the heads of departments, and subject to the revision of the president. Little real unity will be secured in any other way.

P. M. MAGNUSON, instructor in history and social science, State Normal School, St. Cloud, Minn.-The center of the normal school is the practice department. The summary of all method is a knowledge of the child and his needs. If the critic-teachers and the superintendent of the practice school know their business, they ought to be the ones best competent to superintend practice. They must surely know the fundamental principles of pedagogy. If they are willing to take anybody else's "say so" as a guide in methods, they are incompetent and should be dismissed. But by all means let the heads of departments keep in touch with the practice school, but as learners and co-workers, not as lords and masters.

J. H. PAUL, president of the Latter Day Saints University, Salt Lake City, Utah.— I desire to ask Mr. Hollis a question. Do we understand him to maintain that no teachers be employed in normal schools except those trained in normal schools? Or, will he not rather admit with me that the presence of college men on the faculty — men and women educated in the universities — will be a real source of strength and inspiration to any good normal school? Is it not important that a real biologist shall teach the biology, a mathematician the mathematics, etc., even if these have not received their education in normal schools?

W. W. WALTERS, principal of the Eliot School, St. Louis, Mo., spoke from the viewpoint of the elementary teacher. Mr. Walters expressed regret that the normal schools should still devote so much time and attention to methodology. He hoped that in the future work of the state normals the nature and growth of the powers of the child would be a far more prominent feature of the work than it has been in the past. He expressed a regret that every mention of child study had been met with smiles of contempt by a representative body of normal-school teachers, and hoped that thoro scientific child study would be recognized as an important part of normal-school work. He expressed the hope that in the near future the best state normal schools would give academic work in English and literature, in history and social science, and in elementary sciences, that would be the full equivalent of the undergraduate work in those studies now done by the state universities; and that the normal-school work in pedagogy and psychology and child study would be the full equivalent in culture value of the higher mathematics and foreign languages generally pursued in the university, so that the graduates of the state normal school might not only be well equipped for the position of teacher in the elementary school and high