132 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



be assumed. The past generation has done practically all that need be 

 done to place within easy reach of every intelligent teacher whatever 

 it is necessary to know concerning special methods. Within the same 

 period the subjects of psychology and child-study have been thoroughly 

 worked over, and the results have been fully and clearly presented. 

 This part of the teacher's training, hereafter, will not become of lesser 

 importance, but it will be more and more assumed as a preliminary to 

 the newer training which the public is now demanding. The greatest 

 need of the schools is teachers who have the power to reach the public 

 mind. The power to teach the children will be taken for granted. 



The new type of training will not be found in a further elabora- 

 tion and intensification of book study and theoretical discussion; nor 

 will it appear in a further development of specialization as that is 

 now commonly understood. It will be based upon actual 'field work' 

 carried on in the community at large. That is, the teachers in training 

 must study the needs of a community as they manifest themselves in 

 its daily life; they must, in fact, in some way become actual partici- 

 pants in that life. No other kind of training will ever equip prospective 

 teachers to answer questions which the public is now asking. The 

 school must go into the service of the community more directly, and 

 the community must open itself up more freely to whatever service the 

 school can render. 



Up to the present time the training schools for teachers are all 

 modeled upon the plan and after the ideals of the older educational 

 institutions of an academic type, and these, in their turn, grew out 

 of the cloister. The training schools for teachers, on the contrary, 

 should be modeled rather upon the plan of the so-called social settle- 

 ment, and the ideals of the teacher must become more nearly allied to 

 those of the settlement worker. Every school should be so organized 

 as to draw all the people together for the purposes of work, of study, 

 and of recreation, as the public library now attracts people who wish 

 to read. To this end, the studios, the workrooms, the laboratories, and 

 the libraries of the schools should be open under the supervision of the 

 teachers, as public libraries are under the librarians, to suit the con- 

 venience of the people. They should be open at least as many hours as 

 the saloons. A training school for teachers that could place its pros- 

 pective graduates for at least a year in such intimate relations with 

 community life as the settlements afford would give them the best 

 possible preparation for undertaking with the people the joint task 

 of educating the children. This does not mean, of course, that such 

 training can be acquired only in the reeking and congested districts 

 of the cities. Every locality in city, village, and country, should offer 

 some opportunity for the practical training of teachers in the science 

 and art of working with people. The teacher should take a leader's 



