Training school

“ The ideal school is to consist, not of one academic department, and a department of Manual Training, but of mental and manual exercises so related as to produce homogeneity.
The tabulations of facts which will be found in the Appendix show that a vast number of schools have been dedicated to the new education. If they are to be developed into ideal schools thousands of ideal teachers must devote themselves to the arduous task. Each school transformed from the dull routine of mediocrity to the vigor and elasticity which wait on development will cost the life of a hero. ”

“ Training for citizenship and the preparation of the scholar are then the twofold function of the college. To furnish professional training for lawyers, doctors, ministers, engineers, librarians, is manifestly the work of the university or the technical school, and not the function of the college. Neither is it, in my opinion, the work of the college to prepare its students specifically to be teachers or even wives and husbands, mothers and fathers. ”

“ Training Classes [74] exist, and will exist, to meet the needs of those would-be teachers who, in small towns, where there is neither Normal nor Training School, cannot afford to leave their homes to prepare for their work. The urgent demand for trained teachers for all the Common Schools has resulted in the establishment of many institutions, which, while fulfilling a present need, are existing under conditions which must prohibit work of the best kind. Among such institutions we must enrol the City Training Classes. ”

“ The present school, which is inadequate for purposes of training, is to be made into a public High School for girls, and a new Normal School is to be built, in which three years are to be devoted to academic, and two years to professional work; but the two parts are to be kept entirely distinct. The training course is to consist of elementary and advanced sections, and much more time is to be given to actual teaching. ”

“ Until recently school education has met the needs of only one class of people, those who are interested in knowledge for its own sake, teachers, scholars, and research workers. The idea that training is necessary for the man who works with his hands is still so new that the schools are only just beginning to admit that control of the material things of life is knowledge at all. ”

“ What are the aims? At present the secondary school’s main function is to give sufficient training in the humanities, in mathematics and science, to enable pupils to pass the entrance examination of a university. (We may for the purpose of the present [23] argument disregard the social activities of the school.) In other words, its business is to produce scholars of the intellectual type fitted for university training. It is true that art, handicraft, domestic science, and physical exercises appear in the curriculum but they occupy more or less subordinate places. ”

“ Other schools, like the Indianapolis Manual Training School, permit the pupil, with the advice of the principal, to make his own combination of subjects. Whether prepared by the school or by the pupil, however, the courses lead to college, to normal schools, to advanced technical schools, or to some definite vocation. On one subject, progressive high schools are in absolute agreement,—the course of study must furnish both culture and technical training in a form which meets the needs of high school children. ”

“ Why doesn’t it send them into the world to be useful?”
“That’s what a good many people say, about us students,” I replied. “But books and professors and courses of study are only a part of what a student gets in our college, sir. It’s a very peculiar situation. I’m older than most of the students, and have had the advantage [312] of a professional training, and so can look on the college through somewhat serious eyes. You would be astounded, for instance, at the tremendous education that the men receive from purely student affairs.” ”

“ The well-equipped High Schools can do the academic work of the Normal Schools with less effort than can the Normal Schools themselves; and were the standards of admission such as to necessitate a thoroughly sound preliminary knowledge in common school subjects, might not the Normal School students be found more capable of themselves reviewing old facts from a new standpoint, and the schools have more time and opportunity to carry out other means of training? ”

“ Participation on the part of elementary school teachers in the work and studies of the Universities has always seemed to me to constitute a real need of culture and of primary education. For the elementary school, by the very nature of the professional training of its teachers, is exposed to a grave danger from which it must be rescued if we mean to keep it alive. ”

“ In connection with higher education there are such new tendencies as university extension, correspondence courses, summer sessions, university interest in the practical problems of the people, the correlation of the first two years of college with the secondary school, more flexible entrance requirements, an increasing number of fields of professional work, and, above all, the professional training of teachers through Departments of Education, Teachers Colleges, and Schools of Education. ”

“ Mizpah.—We should advise you, as you are so young, to go in for teaching as a profession, and to study at a training college, or at the College of the Home and Colonial School Society, Gray’s Inn-road, W.C., or else at the Teachers’ Training Society, Training College, Fitzroy-street, W. Governesses’ situations are yearly more and more difficult to obtain, and it is better to be trained so as to command school situations of a high class. ”

“ At present one of the most hotly debated questions in connection with Normal Schools relates to the subjects to be included in the curriculum. Shall the Normal School give professional training alone, or shall it also provide instruction in Academic subjects? ”

“ But, in the course of study in the common school, it is proper and necessary that the human interest should always be kept somewhat in advance of the physical. This is simply a statement of the fact, admitted by all, that professional training in the special school is the application, in a restricted field, of principles which should be applied in every field and in all studies, whether those characteristic of a profession or those which constitute divisions of a broad, liberal and cultural education. ”

“ Let any over the age of nineteen who have passed through a college connected with some University, or otherwise approved as giving an education of a general and liberal character, be eligible to apply for a teachership, and if, after a period of trial in a school—say for three or six months—they, on the report of the inspector and master, have shown an aptitude for teaching, then let them, at the expense of the State, be given a year’s real training in the theory and practice of teaching. Teachers are, it must be remembered, born and not made. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In any considerable city a school for practice will not suffice; many schools for practice must be secured. This can be done by selecting one excellent teacher in each of a sufficient number of school buildings, and making her a critic-teacher, giving her charge of two schoolrooms, in each of which is placed a pupil-teacher for training.
This insures that the training shall be done as nearly as may be under ordinary conditions, brings the pupil-teachers at once into the general body of 111 teachers, makes the corps of critics a leaven of zeal, and good teaching scattered among the schools. ”

“ Education that takes as its standard the improvement of the intellectual attitude and method of students demands more serious preparatory training, for it exacts sympathetic and intelligent insight into the workings of individual minds, and a very wide and flexible command of subject-matter—so as to be able to select and apply just what is needed when it is needed. Finally, the securing of external results is an aim that lends itself naturally to the mechanics of school administration—to examinations, marks, gradings, promotions, and so on. ”

“ The increase of our children from fifteen to almost one hundred, along with a practical doubling of fees, has shown that parents are ready for a form of education that makes individual growth its sole controlling aim. The presence of an organized corps of instructors demonstrates that thoroughly educated teachers are ready to bring to elementary education the same resources of training, knowledge, and skill that have long been at the command of higher education. ”

“ The existence of such a situation testifies to a sort of deep-seated faith in the dependence of the pupil's educational salvation on the successful repetition of some particular school subject. It shows no recognition that the duty of the school is to give each pupil the type of training best suited to his individual endowments and limitations, and at the same time in keeping with the needs of society. ”

“ It was discovered, also, that, in spite of the efforts being put forth by the normal schools, the higher teaching positions—superintendencies, high school principalships, etc.—were going to men of collegiate attainment, even at the sacrifice of professional training which was then being recognized as very desirable. ”

“ We should never get any real success until we re-created the pride of skilled manual work. In another speech he said that the danger of the secondary school system was that, when we should be using these schools for training leaders for all the professions and industries and businesses, we are in fact using them to train the subordinates in a few “respectable” industries. ”

“ Much more may we inquire, what kind of instruction and educational training may we reasonably expect in a large school whose wants are no better provided for! A school-teacher should be selected with as great care as the minister of the parish; and when selected, the services of the one should be continued as uninterruptedly and permanently as those of the other. Then will be beautifully illustrated this interesting truth: It is easier, cheaper, and pleasanter incomparably, and infinitely more effectual, rightly to train the rising generation, than it is to reform men grown old in sin. ”

“ In many instances, students are urged to take Normal School courses as well.
It may indeed be stated generally, that the work of Training Classes is to supplement a longer and more thorough course in training, rather than to train. Training Classes, for the most part, provide practice under supervision for those who have already gained some insight into the science of education and methods of teaching, but the small amount of time given to other sides of training prevents their work being at all adequate as the sole preparation for teachers. ”

“ It will now be clear that the principle which I am advocating is a very simple one, namely, that the business of direct mental training should be finished at school, and that at the university the trained mind should be given material upon which to do responsible work in the spirit of inquiry. Preparatory exercises belong to school life and should be abandoned at the university. ”

“ Where many are rather apt to suppose that sufficient is done by a school education for the practical and rougher life, which is the lot of many here, I am sure that all present value the higher training to be alone obtained in a university. ”

“ No matter what future a parent may have marked out for his boy—whether he be intended for an industrial, a mercantile, or [357] a professional occupation, it is believed that such an education will be of immense advantage to him. Upon the industries of the world, to a much larger extent than ever before in its history, depend the progress, the prosperity, the happiness of society. To prepare boys for this condition of things will be the aim of this school. The entire course of instruction and training will be practical in the largest and best sense of that term. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Manual training as a part of the general curriculum of a high-school pupil must be practical training in some form of manual skill of actual value in the working world. Even a pupil who intends to go to college may well take one or two courses of handwork in the secondary school, for the broadening of his experience and outlook and the specific training he may thus secure: a course in the elements of many occupations would be better still. But this is not vocational education. ”

“ The public school has the power, and should exercise it, to bring within its walls all the children physically and mentally competent to attend it. If children are under intelligent observation, departures from the normal can in many instances be recognized in time for training and education according to the particular need. ”

“ When a man completes his training he is 74 assigned to a plant in accordance with his qualifications as indicated by his previous experience and his record at the school. Further plans for training the inspector after he has been assigned to the field have been proposed but have not yet been put into effect. Many of the candidates for this training are instructors in vocational training.3
The opportunity for promotion of skilled workers was never so great as at present, and the opportunity for schools to train them will never be greater than at present. ”