714 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



thorough arrangements than were formerly necessai-y for the training 

 of their students in methods of instruction and class-room manage- 

 ment. A failure to recognise this necessity explains the adverse 

 criticism which is sometimes directed against the rawness of the 

 students on entering college. They cannot, it is said, stand up to a 

 class as the pupil-teacher could. This has to be admitted, and it is 

 the main business of the college to lay the foundations of that teach- 

 ing skill which previously was acquired too early and at too great 

 a cost. For it cannot be doubted that the teaching character of many 

 pupil-teachers set too early, and became incapable of modification 

 with wider knowledge and more extended experience. This has always 

 been a serious bar to colleoe traininp; whenever it has been sought to 

 make that training effective. 



The first changes in the pupil-teacher system were intended to 

 secure better opportunity for general education, and eventually the 

 half-time system with central classes was invented. But these changes 

 inevitably brought about a decay of that ability to manage large 

 classes which was claimed as the main advantage of early apprentice- 

 ship. Hence it is coming to.be realised that there is neither practical 

 nor theoretical justification for the system, and the opinion is gaining 

 ground in England that even the half-time system had better be given 

 up and all technical training deferred till the secondary course is com- 

 pleted. 



I may quote here two recent expressions of opinion : — - 



Vide " General Repoi't on the Instruction and Training of Pupil- 

 Teachers, 1903-1907." published by Board of Education, 

 London, 1907: — "The Regulations of 1907 now render 

 possible an alternative system, which was, indeed, fore- 

 shadowed in the Prefatory Memorandum of 1903 itself, 

 whereby the general education of future teachers may be 

 continued uninterruptedly in secondary schools until the 

 age of 17 or 18, and all attempt to obtain a practical 

 experience of elementary school work may be deferred 

 until the training college is entered, or at least until an 

 examination making a natural break in that general 

 education and qualifying for admission to a training 

 college has been passed " (p. 26). 



Vide also " The Training of the Primary School Teacher," by 

 C. Bircheiiough, in " School" for September, 1908 (p. 75): 

 " The root idea of pupil-teachership was to provide a 

 supply of expert assistant teachers with considerable 

 practical knowledge of school organisation and method; 

 it required that the teacher should be an expert in class 

 management and class teaching the moment he fully 

 embarked on his profession. Immediately this ideal failed 

 to be realised the system must become discredited, and in 

 the nature of things it was bound to fail once teaching 

 came to mean something more than drilling, and as the 

 standard of general education required of the average 

 teacher was raised. Judged from such a standpoint the 



