history of education, both general and secondary, educational psychology with the emphasis on adolescence, principles of education, special methods, organization of schools and

school systems, and schools hygiene.

Practically all these

subjects are offered in some combination by some college.

In fact the requirement of the committee very nearly approx

imates the course outlined by Storm.

"Psychology, with a special reference to adolescence, five on six hours;

History of education, including especially the history of secondary and industrial education, four hours;

Principles of education, five or six hours;

Principles of general method and the method of the recitation, two hours;

Special methods of high-school subjects, especially methods applied to the sciences and the industrial subjects, two hours;

School management, especially as applied to high school and colleges, two hours."(1)

This is more than most colleges require; some even hold that a single course in special methods is sufficient. Bricker(2) includes only educational psychology and general methods among the fundamental courses. He omits both general psychology and history of education which are perhaps more frequently required than any other subject.

It seems that the opposition against the traditional subjects is centered on psychology and history of education. A number of schools are dropping both out of their course. The opposition to psychology is, of course not restricted to those who control agricultural education. The committee of seventeen (3) claimed that " probable three-fourths of the 1) Storm. The unprepared teacher of agriculture. 2, Bricker. Agricultural education for teachers. p.52-4. 3, Loc. cit. p.525

p.37

psychology taught in many universities would be about as directly serviceable as a fifth wheel to a coach". Works (1) has no faith in psychology, as ordinarily administered, when teachers and anounces that

it comes to the preparation of he will no longer require it.

Strong (2) likewise believes

that psychology has not helped the teacher much in his daily work, but he would not eliminate it from teachers' courses, for he believes that the fault lies with the way it is administered. Works would also drop history of education from the course for agricultural teachers. There seems to be a general tedency to eliminate it entirely or to modify it so as to make it bear directly on the problem of vocational training. Doubtless the history of education which starts with Chinese education and rarely gets beyond Herbart does not mean much to the average student. It has been proposed to reverse the order in teaching history and to proceed from the present to the past, i.e., from the known to the unknown. There is no reason why a similar method applied to educational history should not help to vitalize it.

What is true of psychology and history of education is equally true of the other subjects. Much of the instruction in pedagogy is worthless because it is unpedagogical. Pedagogy is not different from other subjects, nor does the mind of the prospective teacher function in a manner different from that of other students. We are eliminating aseless subject matter from other studies; we should make no exception of education. The objection to education would disappear if. we apply to it the tests we advocate for other studies. of Conference of secondary

1, Works. discussion in Proc agricultural education. On 2, Strong. Teachers training. School & Society, 1:507-93. '15.

Eliminate every thing whose specific value for the object in in view cannot be clearly demonstrated.

Side by side with the movement to eliminate certain traditional studies there is a tendency to decrease to amount of professional training. The committee on methods of instruction in agriculture recommends that the amount of professional training be not less than 20 semester hours, i.e., about ono (1)

sixth of a college course. Some would increase the amount

to one-fourth, which is the same as recommended by the commitee of seventeen. (2) The colleges usually require less, a few as little as a special method course. Storm (3) would not have the pedagogical work he more than one-cight of the course. Works (4) does not think that he will require more than 12 hours for the work at Cornell. It would seem that the recommendation of the committee is very conservative, for if we admit that a teacher needs professional training, we must also admit that a few courses will not go far in providing such a training.

0.3.S. Cir. 118, 1913. p.20

Proc. N.I.A. 1907, p.525.

3, Storm. Courses for preparing agricultural teachers. p.74 Proc. Conference on secondary agricultural education. 5.02

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