154 SEVENTH REPORT. 



ment of about 500; and there is good reason to believe that the next ten years will see a 

 County Normal Training class in every Michigan county which has a large corps of country 

 teachers and which is not conveniently near to a State Normal School. 



This plan is new and will be strengthened and perfected by trial under the constant 

 watchful care of men and women of experience-proven good judgment. The essential 

 features of its organization include its establishment by the State Superintendent after a 

 favorable vote by the district and the board of supervisors in the county applying for it; 

 its financial support — one-half by State appropriation and one-half in equal proportions 

 by the county and district it serves, and its management by a county normal board con- 

 sisting of the State Superintendent, the County Commissioner^ and the Superintendent of 

 Schools where the class is located. 



These classes now offer one year of work to which applicants are admitted who are at 

 least 17 years of age, possess good moral character, declare their intention of completing 

 the course and becoming teachers in rural schools, and who have successfully completed 

 10 grades of public school work or hold a second grade certificate or have had two years of 

 successful experience in teaching. 



The course of study includes reviews in all the common school branches with sugges- 

 tions as to the best methods of teaching these subjects and, in addition, psychology, 

 pedagogy and school management, algebra, general history, drawing, manual training, 

 music, primary methods, elementary agriculture and practice teaching. 



The time given to this course is short; but the admission requirements insure for it 

 pretty well matured and instructed young people who, working with a fixed purpose under 

 sympathetic and wise guidance for a year are sure to be very much more likely to succeed 

 in their first schools than they could possibly be without this special training. 



The benefits of the County Normal Training Class course do not consist in the amount of 

 added knowledge so much aft in an attempt to classify and organize the whole fund of in- 

 formation and put it at the instant command of the one possessing it. The results of a 

 course of this kind are not all carried away in note books and a memory overloaded with 

 special methods and devices which may be lost or forgotten; but to formal and particular 

 work of these kinds there is added a partial understanding, at least, of fundamental prin- 

 ciples upon which it will be safe to form judgment and base action. 



Having discussed the good old method and the better new method, attention may now 

 properly turn to the State Normal Schools where the best method of training teachers for 

 country schools should be found. By force of the statutes establishing State Normal 

 School courses and by force of the good faith and purpose of the State Board of Educa- 

 tion, now entirely responsible for these courses, the State Normals have in process of 

 evolution what is intended to be the best possible method of training teachers for service 

 in rural schools, under present and immediately prospective conditions. 



At Mount Pleasant, where the training of rural teachers has been in progress for nine 

 years, nearly 500 teachers have been graduated and many others have had the benefits of 

 one year of the two j^ears' course offered. A very large percentage of these teachers have 

 gone out and proven the worth of their training in country schools. 



All of the State Normal Schools are now making more or less effort to serve the rural 

 schools. But the fundamental prol)lem of the Normal Schools in dealing with this question 

 is not yet solved. It is a difficult and perplexing problem. 



The Normal Schools must first differeiitiate the training of teachers for ungraded schools 

 in rural communities from the training of teachers for graded schools in urban communi- 

 ties in so far as a differentiation is necessary. Having done this, the public conscience, 

 through the worthy men to whom it delegates its functions will not stop short of providing 

 with equal enthusiasm and liberality both kinds of training in all State supported Normal 

 Schools. 



The very few people who are working seriously at this great prol:)lem of State wide im- 

 portance have made little real progress. Their thought and study is centered about three 

 fundamental elements of the problem. First, what difference, if any, should there be in 

 the academic requirements? Secondly, what differing provisions for observation and 

 practice teaching are required for these two classes of teachers? Thirdly, what are the 

 possibilities for social service by the rural teacher and how may the Normal Schools in- 

 culcate a spirit of enthusiasm for such service? 



None of these questions have been satisfactorily answered. No one has advanced any 

 proof that less scholarship is required for successful teaching in rural schools than in urban 

 schools. It must l:>e concluded that the fact that lower standards are now set for rural 

 teachers is due to circumstances beyond human control. It is clear that for the present, 

 equal academic standards cannot be required for urban and rural teachers; but it must 

 be resolutely determined that these standards will not be allowed to differ in the quality 

 as well as the quantity of work required. 



Many agencies are now at work hastening the day when the teachers of all the elementary 



