182 THE UNIVERSITY 



divorced. The former, with better chosen, simplified, and more in- 

 teresting courses of study, fills in the first two years. At the end of 

 this period the pupil receives a certificate of fitness as a primary 

 teacher. This takes the place of the two licenses to teach and is to 

 be required from now on of every teacher in either a public or private 

 school. The third year is devoted, first, to a complementary and 

 more independent work of general culture, a sort of philosophy of 

 the teaching done in the first two years; second, above all, to profes- 

 sional training. At the end of this third year the pupil receives a 

 certificate of pedagogic fitness. The course of study in preparation 

 for the acquirement of this certificate is henceforth clearly mapped 

 out. All those who, without having been admitted to the normal 

 school, may wish to become public school teachers, will have to 

 spend a year at the school in preparation for their work. Up to the 

 present time the certificate of pedagogic fitness has not been required 

 of instructors in private schools. Even now during the first two 

 years of their course the normal students have studied psychology 

 as applied to education, have made frequent visits to the school of 

 practice, have made their psychological investigations by a system- 

 atic study of the minds and characters of children. This work is 

 continued during the third year, but pedagogical training takes the 

 foremost place. The course of study * for this (third) year is, it will 

 be seen, extremely interesting. It embraces lessons in pedagogy 

 and school government; reading and analysis of classical authors; 

 studies in the application of methods to various subjects of the 

 course; practical application in the primary school of the lessons 

 learned in the normal; a period of earnest apprenticeship either in 

 the training-school or in the neighboring schools; visits to rural 

 schools; finally, critical estimates and discussions in regard to all of 

 these various tests. 



The results already obtained from this reform are, if we may 

 believe its partisans, decisive, at any rate very encouraging. But 

 even the most optimistic express the hope that in the future the 

 practical examination for the certificate of pedagogic fitness may be 

 placed at least toward the close of the first year of teaching and 

 passed by the young instructor in the presence of his class. 



Whatever may be the outcome of this new plan, instruction in 

 psychology, ethics, and pedagogy is destined to assume a character 

 really concrete. Ideas about text-books or courses of study are not 

 sufficient. The educator of the future must learn to know the child 

 by studying children, must learn methods by apprying in the school 

 for practice what he has been taught in the normal. Indeed, all 



1 1 am indebted to M. Mironneau, Director of the Lyons Normal School for 

 Teachers, for documents giving this course. They form, moreover, a part of our 

 exhibit in this Exposition. 



