December 23, 1887.] 



SCIENCE 



303 



■ever, in the discussion of my paper on model schools, at Saratoga, 

 in 1883, that one of your members indulged in a prophecy concern- 

 ing a gentleman who was advocating the need of training-schools 

 in New England normal schools, to the effect, that, if the gentle- 

 man lived five years longer, he would not know so much about the 

 subject as he did then. Only four of the years set by the prophecy 

 are past;. but, if that gentleman has even begun to know less on 

 this topic than he did then, he can tell us to-day, for, by a coinci- 

 dence, he is to discuss this paper also. I may remark in passing, 

 that the training work takes place during the second and third 

 years of the course, and consists of, observation, 60 hours ; model 

 lessons by the faculty, 120 hours; trial lessons by the pupils, 80 

 hours ; special preparation for teaching in the training-school, 40 

 hours; teaching in the training-school, about 200 hours; critical 

 discussion of class exercises conducted by the pupils, 40 hours. 



We come now to what has long been a serious problem in 

 American normal schools ; viz., the arrangement of the curriculum, 

 and the relation of academic to professional work. There has 

 been a growing feeling in some parts of this country that the nor- 

 mal school has no business with academic training, but should con- 

 fine itself strictly to professional work. I judge from last year's 

 report to this body, that some, wishing to conform to modern senti- 

 • ment but not seeing how to do so in reality, have apparently re- 

 christened some of their departments ; so that that which used to 

 be known as academic work, has now become professional work 

 of the strictest kind. This may look well on paper, but it only re- 

 tards a true solution of the difficulty. 



It may in general be remarked that the curriculum of the 

 Prussian normal school consists of the same subjects pursued 

 in the preparatory course, together with the theoretical and prac- 

 tical professional work proper. From this we may infer, what is 

 the fact, that it is the concurrent testimony of schoolmen in Ger- 

 many that no amount of theory about teaching the various branches 

 can equal a thorough review and study of them in their relation to 

 the teacher and the children to be taught. Academic instruction 

 is, then, in their view, a necessary branch of normal-school instruc- 

 tion, and not something which, under changed conditions of prep- 

 aration, might be dismissed with profit. This does not mean, 

 however, that academic instruction in a normal school should not 

 •differ essentially from academic instruction in a high school. As I 

 apprehend the matter, it is in this particular that we have the most 

 room for improvement. I will explain, later, the way in which I 

 think this improvement can be made. 



No subject is pursued for less than one year, while many subjects, 

 such as history, geography, drawing, gymnastics, and certain 

 branches of music, are studied throughout the entire three years. 

 Many other subjects are studied continuously for two years. This 

 arrangement is made possible by the fact that attendance by the 

 students is continuous throughout the entire course, whereas our 

 broken attendance compels us to make the school term the unit of 

 time for a study. It is curious that the number of hours per week 

 .assigned to any given subject does not exceed two, except for 

 arithmetic and algebra, biblical history, and teaching in the train- 

 ing-school. 



Such, in brief, is the German normal school system. But what 

 •of it ? What does it mean for us ? Can we attain to any such re- 

 sults? What are the conditions by which its development must 

 be determined ? 



The average American normal school may, perhaps, be fitly de- 

 fined as a high school with a training attachment, having the 

 limitations of a low-grade high school, and the ambition of a high- 

 grade college. 



In order that the changes which I have to suggest may be seen 

 to have some basis in reason, I wish to make certain propositions, 

 which, since I shall not have time to demonstrate them, may be 

 considered as self-evident truths until they are shown to be erro- 

 neous : — 



I. That, since the great majority of students who enter a normal 

 school leave at or before the end of the first year, the curriculum 

 for this year ought to be a fair, though elementary, representation 

 of a complete professional education. In the Illinois Normal School 

 at Normal, seventy-two per cent of the students do not enter upon 

 the second year's work. If the principle stated is a sound one, no 



great educational department ought to be entirely neglected in the 

 first year's course ; yet in our curriculum, psychology follows 

 theory and art of education, and is found first in the second year. 

 Again, natural science is a great and growing department of edu- 

 cation, yet we meet its first manifestation in our course of study in 

 the second term of the second year. I propose to put physiology, 

 at least, into the first year's course. A little further on, I shall 

 propose changes in the theoretical professional work. 



2. That the education given in the great mass of normal schools 

 must, in the nature of things, remain elementary in character. 

 College and university trained teachers do not compete for posi- 

 tions in the district and village schools, even in old countries, where 

 the struggle for existence is sharpest ; much less are they likely to 

 do so in this country. Schools paying from three hundred dollars 

 to five hundred dollars only, must be filled by persons having only 

 secondary education. Since, then, the normal school cannot com- 

 pete with the college in higher education, it is idle to load up the 

 curriculum with so many college studies, but is wiser to spend more 

 time on fewer subjects. For example : we at Normal teach six 

 sciences, one of which gets fifteen weeks, while each of the others 

 is studied for a bare twelve weeks. Further, we devote six weeks 

 to the history of education, and another six weeks to Rosenkranz's 

 ' Philosophy of Education,' — the best yet the most difficult of 

 works on education in the English language. It needs no argu- 

 ment to show the folly of making so many beginnings which lead 

 to so little, or of making so large a contribution to the mushroom 

 education of the times. I make the very modest proposal in regard 

 to natural science, that astronomy be dropped, and that the two 

 great representative sciences, physics and zoology, receive at least 

 two terms each. 



3. That any serious attempt greatly to raise the standard of ad- 

 mission will end in driving most of the male students out of the 

 normal school. Witness the advanced State normal school at 

 Milwaukee, which enrolls but one man. Any other normal school 

 which demands the completion of a high-school course of study as 

 a condition of entrance, will, I imagine, contain few male students. 

 From this it follows, that, if the normal school is made purely pro- 

 fessional, it is likely to become purely female. 



4. That every normal school in America should teach gymnastics 

 two hours a week throughout its entire course. It is exceedingly 

 rare to see a stoop-shouldered or consumptive-looking man in Ger- 

 many. Sitting one day in the Garden of the Luxembourg, in Paris, 

 I began to count the number of round-shouldered people who 

 passed. All classes were represented. Of those I counted, thirty-six 

 were straight, and sixty-three were more or less round-shouldered, 

 many of them seriously so. Gymnastics is thoroughly universal in 

 all German schools, but is, or at least has not been, in France. 



5. That our normal schools should make a much more serious 

 business of music. There is not time to discuss this point. 



6. That since the normal school is elementary in its scope, and 

 since the American teacher, unlike the German, has no limits set to 

 what he may become, the thing of most lasting benefit which the 

 normal school can do for him and the State is to quicken him to 

 the widest professional growth. I have little doubt that some of 

 the early normal schools,- with their one-year courses, did far more 

 towards implantmg a growing inspiration in their pupils than we 

 do with our three years of grind. To this end I would have a more 

 rational and far-reaching professional course of study. I propose, 

 therefore, the following : First year, first term, observation ; second 

 term, elementary psychology ; third term, elementary theory and 

 practice of teaching. Second year, first term, logic and advanced 

 psychology ; second term, history of education ; third term, philos- 

 ophy of education (Rosenkranz). Third year, entire year, two to 

 three hours per week, illustrative teaching, united with the princi- 

 ples of methodology, — a subject which, so far as I am aware, has 

 received little or no attention in American normal schools. 



7. That it is time for the normal school in America to pass that 

 stage of its development in which it is a high school with a traini^ig 

 attachment, and that therefore, aside from the strictly professional 

 work, a more pedagogical treatment of the academic branches is 

 needful. To this end I propose the following : {a) that the teacher 

 in charge of any given branch should give instruction in that sub- 

 ject throughout its entire scope as an organic whole, and not merely 



