THE PROFESSIONAL TRAININO^ OF TEACHERS. 799 



ing to mere mechanism and parrotlike imitation. "They make 

 fine-working machines of our teachers," some still say, " but we 

 would rather have spontaneous activity, even though ignorant 

 and crude, than the finest action on the part of a machine." This 

 criticism of the normal school has served a wholesome purpose in 

 breaking up any tendency toward mechanism and spiritless, 

 formal methods of teaching which might have been displayed in 

 its earlier inception. It seems to be always true that in the be- 

 ginning of any great institution like the normal school the letter 

 and not the spirit will be at first emphasized ; but in the process 

 of healthy evolution the mechanical part becomes simply the 

 means of expression of the principles and truths underlying. 

 This has, no doubt, been true of the normal school ; and, in its 

 steady growth toward a more scientific basis for all it does, it has 

 come to pass that at the present time its work in the training of 

 teachers is made to cover the broadest and fullest possible view 

 of the human being and the purpose of his education. It is recog- 

 nized that the process of education from first to last is dependent 

 upon laws of the human mind, and it is partly the province of the 

 normal school to determine what those laws are. And further, 

 when the aims and ends of education have been decided upon, the 

 normal school must show what are the simplest, most speedy, and 

 most certain ways of attaining those ends. If we look briefly at 

 the work of the normal school as we have it now, we shall see 

 that the charge of its being unduly mechanical and too feebly 

 scientific can not be applied to it in its present stage of evolu- 

 tion. 



The one ruling aim which gives character to the professional 

 work in the normal school is the purpose to awaken in the teacher 

 a consciousness that there is a science of education, and an art of 

 teaching founded upon that science ; to arouse in her an earnest, 

 indefatigable ambition to become acquainted with the best in 

 both, and, most important of all, to lead her to realize this in her 

 own work. The distinguishing characteristic of professional in- 

 struction, which marks it oft" from purely academic study, is the 

 attempt to acquaint students with the teaching aspect of subjects 

 of instruction, and to lead them to become students of all the 

 conditions in their schoolrooms that affect the action of the minds 

 of pupils in responding to all the means of stimulation which the 

 teacher consciously makes use of to attain the ends of develop- 

 ment. In other words, it is aimed to make the teacher conscious 

 of her art conscious in the sense that she will intelligently con- 

 sider the growing, developing mind, acting according to definite, 

 exact laws ; and that she will attempt to wisely use the agencies 

 at her disposal in harmony with these laws to accomplish in the 

 most ready manner the highest possible ends of school train- 



