414 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 428. 



in this country. For, although we have 

 normal schools and other training schools 

 for those who expect to teach in the grades, 

 little attention has as yet been given to the 

 training of those who will become secondary 

 school teachers. The better secondary 

 schools to-day are securing the services of 

 college graduates who have devoted special 

 attention to the subjects which they intend 

 to teach, and as time goes on the positions 

 in these schools will as a rule be filled (as 

 in France and Germany) by those who 

 have supplemented their college course by 

 several years of university work. Here 

 these college and university graduates pro- 

 ceed at once to their work in the secondary 

 schools. Now in the laboratory courses of 

 the junior college, let those students of the 

 senior college and graduate school who are 

 to go into the teaching career be given 

 training in the pedagogy of mathematics 

 according to the laboratory system; for 

 such a student the laboratory would be a 

 laboratory in the pedagogy of mathematics ; 

 that is, he would be a colleague-assistant 

 of the instructor. By this arrangement, 

 the laboratory instruction of the colleges 

 would be strengthened at the same time 

 that well equipped teachers would be pre- 

 pared for work in the secondary schools. 



The Freedom of the Secondary Schools. 

 — The secondary schools are everywhere 

 preparing students for colleges and tech- 

 nological schools, and whether the require- 

 ments of those institutions are expressed 

 by way of examination of students or by 

 way of the conditions for the accrediting 

 of schools or teachers, the requirements 

 must be met by the secondary schools. The 

 stronger secondary school teachers too 

 often find themselves shackled by the 

 specific requirements imposed by local or 

 by collegiate authorities. Teaching must 

 become more of a profession. And this im- 

 plies not only that the teacher must be 

 better trained for his career, but that also 



in his career he be given with greater 

 freedom greater responsibility. To this 

 end closer relations should be established 

 between the teachers of the colleges and 

 those of the secondary schools; standing 

 provisions should be made for conferences 

 as to improvement of the secondary school 

 curricula and in the collegiate admission 

 requirements; and the leading secondary 

 school teachers should be steadily en- 

 couraged to devise and try out plans look- 

 ing in^ any way toward improvement. 



Thus the proposed four years' labora- 

 tory course in mathematics and physics will 

 come into existence by way of evolution. 

 In a large secondary school, the strongest 

 teachers, finding the project desirable and 

 feasible, will establish such a course along- 

 side the present series of disconnected 

 courses — and as time goes on their success 

 will in the first place stimulate their col- 

 leagues to radical improvements of method 

 under the present organization and finally 

 to a complete reorganization of the courses 

 in mathematics and physics. 



The American Mathematical Society. — 

 Do you not feel with me that the American 

 Mathematical Society, as the organic repre- 

 sentative of the highest interests of mathe- 

 matics in this country, should be directly 

 related with the movement of reform? 

 And, to this end, that the society, enlarg- 

 ing its membership by the introduction of 

 a large body of the strongest teachers of 

 mathematics in the secondary schools, 

 should give continuous attention to the 

 question of improvement of education in 

 mathematics, in institutions of all grades? 

 That there is need for the careful consider- 

 ation of such questions by the united body 

 of experts, there is no doubt whatever, 

 whether or not the general suggestions 

 which we have been considering this after- 

 noon turn out to be desirable and practi- 

 cable. In case the question of pedagogy 



