Principal (education)

“ Yet, in general, the educational policy, matters touching the curriculum, and all the discipline of the student body, as almost a matter of divine right, whether or not by custom or by statute, belong to the men whose craft and experience is in lines of education. ”

“ In a public school, therefore, when all classes of the community are to be taught, the truths and exercises should be selected in such a manner, that they shall, if possible, be equally useful to all; leaving the navigator and the agriculturist, the surgeon and the lawyer, to supplement their general education, by the study of those special branches of learning which their several professions require. ”

“ Public education shall be organically developed. The foundation school, which shall be common to all, shall lead on to the secondary and higher school system. This organisation shall keep in view the variation of vocations ”

“ Primary education is as the plinth with the foundation broad and deep; secondary education is as the superstructure with its walls and pillars; high education is as the roof with the domes and towers. ”

“ In short, it means that the school-system should be adapted to the boy and not the boy to the system, and, further, that education authorities should regard it as part of their function to guide into proper channels the special abilities which the teachers have reared. ”

“ If we sum up in one word the most pervading, constant, and obvious characteristic of our schools, and of the teaching and the learning in them to this day, that word must be, immethodical. Although admitting that the education of the young should distinctly embrace the four departments of a training, physical, intellectual, moral, and social, yet, for the sake of clearness in our discussion and its results, not less than through the necessities of a restricted space, we shall here confine our remarks wholly to education in its intellectual aspect. ”

“ The organized body of materials of instruction constitutes one of the most important factors which enter into the life of the school system. Along with the board of education, with the grading system, and with the staff of teachers and supervisory officers stands the curriculum as a kind of dominating personality always exercising a leading influence in the determination of every educational policy. ”

“ Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. ”

“ As he said, we have struggled against many difficulties as far as education is concerned, and our university and our colleges, so far, have simply been schools for the education of teachers in the primary branches. ”

“ More remarkable than the achievements of the common schools has been the development of the colleges, both in the departments of the humanities and of science. If I were writing of education generally, I might have something to say of the measurable disappointment of the results of the common schools as at present conducted, both as to the diffusion of information and as to the discipline of the mind and the inculcation of ethical principles; which simply means that they need improvement. ”

“ The problem of how to produce as effective and as thorough education for leadership with a one-class school system as with a two- class; the opening-up of opportunity for youth of brains in any social class to rise and be trained for service; the selection and proper training of those of superior intelligence; the elimination of barriers to the advancement of children of large intellectual endowment ”

“ It seemed to me that we teachers had unconsciously elaborated a system which should secure the discipline of the schools and the eagerness of the scholars,—by means of marks, prizes, and the like,—and yet eliminate that knowledge-hunger, itself the quite sufficient incentive to education. ”

“ For, depend upon it, after all we say about schools and institutions of learning, it is nevertheless true of education, as a statesman has said of the government, that the people look to the school for too much. ”

“ Questions relating to the training of leaders for democracy's service attain new significance in terms of the recent ability to measure and grade intelligence, as also do questions relating to grading, classification in school, choice of studies, rate of advancement, and the vocational guidance of children in school. ”

“ Let them insist that each teacher shall forthwith obtain the knowledge requisite to properly instruct and bring forward every pupil in his or her class. A knowledge should be had of the exact kind and amount of work requisite for a class of a certain age. Let some suitable person or persons be appointed in the cities to supervise this branch of education, and see that the teachers are thoroughly qualified. ”

“ For those who were to form the official and directing class of Society—a closely limited, almost entirely male, intellectual aristocracy—education in separate classical schools, with university or professional training superimposed, was provided, and this type of training offered a very thorough preparation for a small and a carefully selected class. ”

“ The struggle should be perpetual and in the right direction. First, elevate your common schools so that the education there may be a sufficient basis for a course of training here. If the Normal School and the public schools shall each and all do their duty, candidates for admission will be so well qualified in the branches required, that the art of teaching will be the only art taught here. ”

“ The school is a servant, not a master. In that fact lies its greatness—the greatness of its opportunity and of its responsibility. As an institution its object is service—assistance in growth. Development is the goal of education. Virility, efficiency, citizenship, manhood, womanhood—these are its legitimate products. Its tools and formulas are such as will most effectively serve these ends. ”

“ As the teacher cannot impart and teach what he does not possess and know, it is also plain that the teacher must have this superior spirit.
To accomplish the public education of the children of the people, we need the three classes of institutions just mentioned: free Common Schools, free High Schools and free Colleges. ”

“ It is for you, wherever you are placed, to seek to establish schools, and to make these schools as efficient as possible, and to help by your example and by your work to make the people believe that what is being done for the education of their children is for their good, that school training sharpens the intellect, strengthens the reason, and produces better manners. ”

“ The only adequate protection against both, equally, is the sort of education which my friend John Wilson the labourer exemplified—a kind of education not often acquired in schools, and not much more frequently possessed by schoolmasters than by any other class of professional men. ”

“ Such training prepares for a special vocation; but our system tends to hand that over to the secondary school, reserving for the elementary school only that preparatory and liberal training that enables one to get some appreciation of the various lines of human culture before entering upon a course calculated to prepare for a trade, business or a profession. See Education, History of; Education, Modern; Normal Schools; Schools, Rural and Schools, Secondary. ”

“ A National System of Industrial and Vocational Education Should Be Established
The school is a social institution whose functions are becoming daily more widely understood and more clearly defined. In the history of civilization, the school, as we know it, is a very recent institution. ”

“ What, then, are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary school,—the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained—those which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. ”

“ Of course we must remember that the education of the school is powerfully reinforced by the education of the family, the community, the State, and the Church, and that the school is not the only educational influence, nor the most potent one. ”

“ It is a widely prevalent doctrine, to which the customs of our best schools conform, that teachers of elementary schools should have a secondary or high school education, and that teachers of high schools should have a collegiate education. ”

“ The masters who now taught the pupils of the primary schools followed them through all the stages of their education. It was held that a man needed as much intelligence and training to be able to awaken a boy's mind, impart first principles, and set him on the right road, as to maintain him in it and develop his faculties subsequently. ”

“ If we grant the economic ability to support good schools, then the curriculum offered by any type of school, the scope of subject-matter given the pupils to master, is a measure of the educational ideals of those maintaining and using the schools. If the curriculum is broad, and representative of the various great fields of human culture; if it relates itself to the life and needs of its patrons; if it is adapted to the interests and activities of its pupils, it may be said that the people believe in education as a right of the individual and as a preparation for successful living. ”

“ Have these institutions succeeded in raising the general level of character and improving the general conditions of life? Can we indulge any sure and certain hope that the work of education will be increasingly fruitful? ”

“ The elective principle was broadened so as to bridge the gaps between preparatory school and college, and underclass and upperclass years, giving the student in his underclass years a broad general training in subjects deemed fundamental to real education, and in his upperclass years requiring him to follow continuous work in one of three divisions of studies, the literary-philosophical, the historical-economic, or the mathematical-scientific. ”

“ The teacher in charge of the class must ultimately have at hand various devices, some intended to give play to individual differences, some intended to promote social coöperation. Then, while administrative necessity dictates a uniform period for the class exercise, the educational needs of the students can be met by variations in the content and method of instruction. ”

“ Make every effort to acquire the advanced knowledge of the day, and strain every nerve to carry forward the divine civilization. Establish schools that are well organized, and promote the fundamentals of instruction in the various branches of knowledge through teachers who are pure and sanctified, distinguished for their high standards of conduct and general excellence, and strong in faith; scholars and educators with a thorough knowledge of sciences and arts. ”

“ Roughly, nine-tenths of elementary education and the education of teachers, over two-thirds of secondary education, and over a third of college and higher technical education are provided and controlled by the public. Professional education, other than the training of teachers and engineers, is still largely a function of private provision and control. ”

“ By the formation, not of Denominational and Corporation schools at a charge which places them out of the reach of all save the richer among us, but by the formation of Public State schools that provide a secondary education as good, and, we will hope, better, than that of these others, and at a charge that is within the reach of the average upper-class people. ”

“ Their duties extend to the higher institutions of learning, and to institutions for the unfortunate; they have charge of the school finances of their provinces, adopt the school books that are used in the higher schools, and appoint teachers in the normal schools. ”

“ We must so reform the curriculum, methods of teaching, and examinations, that we do not mistake the B.A. degree as signifying either a completed liberal education or adequate preparation for earning a living or living a happy life. It should signify only decent preparation for the continuing task of adult education. ”

“ From the public school we pass naturally to the universities, and the first question that meets us is the influence they exercise on school education, through their requirements on admission or matriculation and the bestowal of their endowments and other prizes. ”

“ The munificence of the English gentleman to whom we owe the founding of this Professorship at once in our three great Universities, has accomplished the first great group of a series of changes now taking gradual effect in our system of public education, which, as you well know, are the sign of a vital change in the national mind, respecting both the principles on which that education should be conducted, and the ranks of society to which it should extend. ”

“ Through common devotion to the best development of the child, through common loyalty to the main aims and methods of the school, our teachers have demonstrated that in education, as in business, the best organization is secured through proper regard for natural divisions of labor, interest, and training. The child secures the advantage in discipline and knowledge of contact with experts in each line, while 128the individual teachers serve the common thought in diverse ways, thus multiplying and reinforcing it. ”

“ Therefore, the amount of space and the perspective afforded the various peoples, epochs, and leaders must here be determined in large measure by the part they have played in the evolution of educational institutions and practices, and by the light their history sheds upon the aim, organization, content, and method of education to-day. ”