TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 187 



culed the study of the mental processes of children, declaring that 

 the young graduates of twenty-two know infinitely more of child 

 nature than the specialists who devote their time to its investigation. 



It should be added, however, that a period of apprenticeship in 

 teaching, either before or after graduation, has been repeatedly 

 prescribed. The period which followed graduation embraced no- 

 thing in the way of pedagogy and was a mere matter of form. The 

 other was required of normal students, then extended ten years ago 

 to all students receiving scholarships. This is the whole extent of 

 their professional preparation, which has been cut down to the 

 necessity of teaching one or two weeks in a high school. 



Even until recently the professor who received the apprentice, 

 while he did not refuse him his advice, was charged with the duty 

 of merely judging his work, not of directing it; in many cases he 

 was present only at the last recitation. Moreover, this period of 

 apprenticeship was not, and is not yet, generally accepted with 

 good grace, either by the apprentice himself, by his university 

 teachers, or by the high-school professor. Each of them sees in it 

 merely a hindrance to his ordinary work and an interruption of 

 his daily habits. It is easy to see that any idea of a betterment 

 of the system was thwarted by the very burdensomeness of the 

 system itself. The progress in pedagogical ideas, an acquaintance 

 with the methods in vogue abroad, our own primary and normal 

 school system, the crisis in secondary education itself - - all these 

 factors have served to make more necessary some change for the 

 better in our secondary school system. The Paris International 

 Congress of 1900 demanded it. The parliamentary investigation 

 which preceded the reforms of 1902 reached the same conclusion in 

 the matter. It was decided, announced, proclaimed, that we were 

 to have an organized system of professional preparation for our 

 teachers of secondary education; that the higher normal school, 

 restored to its original purpose, was to become an institution de- 

 voted to pedagogy. So much for what has thus far been accom- 

 plished. The question has not yet been raised in reference to 

 teachers in academies and to the master of arts degree nor in regard 

 to teachers in the high schools for girls. As for requirements, as an 

 agrege, after an inquiry and various plans for reform, we have con- 

 tinued to think that pedagogy had nothing to do with the matter, 

 and that a professor had no need of knowing the philosophy of 

 education or the psychology of the child, or the theory and history 

 of methods, or the methods employed abroad. There has been 

 merely an extension to all agrege requirements of the rules adopted 

 in reference to history. These provide for " two kinds of examina- 

 tions: first, examinations covering the general principles of the subject, 

 undergone before the several university faculties and the normal 



