PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 113 







schools. On the other hand, the state owes it to society, and society 

 owes it to itself, to see to it that all its future citizens, either in public 

 or in private schools, are taught the English language and at least an 

 elementary knowledge of American history and institutions, and that 

 they are taught by persons who are qualified to teach. 



(2) The registration of all children in large cities. If such a 

 measure is necessary in the comparatively stable population of 

 Paris, in order to secure a strict enforcement of a compulsory-educa- 

 tion law, how much more necessary is it in a city like New York or 

 Chicago, in which population is constantly shifting over a widely 

 extended urban territory, and to which is added annually an enor- 

 mous influx of non-English-speaking foreigners? 



(3) The education of society to a realizing sense of the necessity 

 on social grounds of a strict enforcement of a reasonable compulsory- 

 education law. The great truth must be brought home to all that 

 the man who fails to educate his children commits a twofold sin - 

 a sin against his children, whom he deprives, as far as his power goes, 

 of the ability to live happy and prosperous lives; and a sin against 

 society, which suffers and deteriorates in proportion as its members 

 fail to participate in the spiritual inheritances of the race and fail to 

 receive that training for citizenship which springs from association 

 in the exercises of the school. On the other hand, I may justly claim 

 for my country that there is no other in which education is more 

 generally appreciated, or in which it is pursued with greater zeal. 

 The enthusiasm of the many will not, however, atone for the indiffer- 

 ence of the few. 



The problem of the supply of teachers presents three principal 

 phases: 



(1) How shall teachers be trained? 



(2) How shall teachers be appointed? 



(3) Shall women teachers continue in the vast majority in Ameri- 

 can schools? 



There are two prevailing types of method in training teachers, 

 whether in the university, the normal school, or the city training- 

 school: that which regards the study of the science and art of 

 teaching as incidental to the acquisition of scholarship, and that 

 which looks upon it as a pursuit requiring the undivided attention of 

 the student. Just as the professions of medicine, law, theology, and 

 engineering now require that the intending licentiate shall devote 

 some years to the exclusive study of the technique of his future work, 

 so it may be confidently predicted that in the not distant future every 

 person who is to teach our children shall be required not only to 

 reach a high standard in scholarship, but to devote from two to four 

 years to special preparation for the most delicate and difficult of all 

 arts - - the art of training children. 



