DEPARTMENT OF NORMAL SCHOOLS

SECRETARY'S MINUTES

FIRST SESSION.-TUESDAY, JULY 7, 1903

The sessions of the Department of Normal Schools were opened at 9:30 A. M. in Arlington Street Church, Livingston C. Lord, president of the Eastern Illinois Normal School, Charleston, Ill., in the chair.

The first paper, "The City Normal School of the Future," was presented by Francis Burke Brandt, professor of pedagogy in the Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa. The paper was discussed by Superintendent C. F. Carroll, Worcester, Mass. The second paper, "Does the Teacher's Knowledge of a Subject Differ from the Scholar's Knowledge," by W. W. Parsons, president of the State Normal School, Terre Haute, Ind., was read by John W. Cook, president of the Northern Illinois Normal school, De Kalb, Ill. A second paper on the same subject was presented by David Eugene Smith, professsor of mathematics, Teachers College, New York city.

The subject was discussed by Superintendent F. Louis Soldan, St. Louis, Mo.; President John M. Cook, De Kalb, Ill.; Frank McMurry, of the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York city; Francis J. Cheney, president of the State Normal School, Cortland, N. Y.; Charles A. McMurry, De Kalb, Ill.; Professor Henry Johnson, Charleston, Ill.; and Professor Grant Karr, Oswego, N. Y.

The chair appointed President Z. R. Snyder, of Colorado, President C. H. Cooper, of Minnesota, and John Hall, of New York, as a committee on nomination of officers for the department.

The session then adjourned.

SECOND SESSION.-WEDNESDAY, JULY 8

The meeting was called to order at 9:30 A. M. in Arlington Street Church, President Lord in the chair.

The first paper,

"Conditions for Admisson to Normal Schools," was presented by

Walter P. Beckwith, principal of the State Normal School, Salem, Mass.

A second paper on the same subject was read by R. H. Halsey, president of the State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis.

The papers were discussed by C. T. McFarlane, principal of the State Normal School, Brockport, N. Y., Superintendent E. L. Hendricks, Delphi, Ind., and Albert Salisbury, president of the State Normal School, Whitewater, Wis.

The next subject, "The Academic Side of Normal-School Work," was presented in a paper by Henry Johnson, teacher of history in the Eastern Illinois Normal School, Charleston, Ill.

The next paper, "To What Extent and in What Manner Can the Normal School Increase its Scholarship: (a) Without Diminishing its Output; (b) Without Increasing its Cost Too Greatly; (c) Without Infringing upon the Legitimate Liberal Arts Course of the College?" was presented by James M. Green, principal of the State Normal School, Trenton, N. J.

The paper was discussed by Henry G. Williams, dean of the State Normal College, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio; Charles DeGarmo, professor of the science and art of

education, Cornell University; L. D. Bonebrake, state school commissioner of Ohio; John R. Kirk, president of the State Normal School, Kirksville, Mo.; W. S. Dearmont, president of the State Normal School, Cape Girardeau, Mo.; E. B. Craighead, president of the State Normal School, Warrensbury, Mo.; E. Oram Lyte, principal of the State Normal School, Millersville, Pa.; and Principal James M. Green.

The Committee on Nominations reported as follows:

For President-L. H. Jones, president of the State Normal College, Ypsilanti, Mich.

For Vice-President - Grant Karr, superintendent of Training School, State Normal School, Oswego, N. Y.

For Secretary - Mrs. Grace Sproull, professor of English, State Normal School, Greeley, Colo.

The persons nominated were unanimously elected officers of the department for the ensuing year.

The department then adjourned.

EDGAR L. HEWETT, Secretary.

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

THE CITY NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE FRANCIS BURKE BRANDT, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PEDAGOGY, CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA

The time has come, I believe, when the eyes of American educators should be directed to the city normal school and its future development. If any justification were needed for emphasizing the importance of city normal schools, it could be found, I think, in the extensive service which these schools render in the leading twenty cities of the United States alone. Beginning with New York, with its more than three million people, and ending with Providence, with its 175,000, we have a circle of twenty American cities-including Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, New Orleans, Detroit, Milwaukee, Washington, Newark, Jersey City, Louisville, and Minneapolis-embracing altogether a populution of 11,971,000 persons. Upon the normal schools of these twenty cities alone, therefore, is imposed the responsibility of providing for the educational needs, so far as elementary teachers are concerned, of nearly one-sixth of the whole population of the United States. What concerns

the future of these cities concerns the future of the nation.

I wish to observe at the outset that the city normal school of the future will be more thoroly alive to the educational situation in American life which it is called upon to meet. The state of public education in our large American cities might well be made a matter of national concern. National indifference to public education, state evasion of responsibility, and municipal mismanagement have combined to bring to pass an educational situation which is not altogether creditable to the American nation. The public schools are not reaching the people as

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they should. I have compiled a table for the twenty most populous cities already mentioned, showing the school-census age, the number of children of school-census age, and the number of pupils enrolled in schools public and private. Excluding six cities whose returns are either incomplete or exceptional, of the 2,679,697 children of school-census age in the remaining fourteen cities but 1,925,329 are enrolled in schools public and private. Making all allowance for divergences, the figures make it seem highly probable that in the foremost twenty cities of the United States fully one million boys and girls are being robbed of the right of childhood and are growing up outside the influence of the school at an age when only the school can give them the training and experiences which will safely fit them for a life of effective social service and make possible for them the highest degree of personal development.

But this is the least part of it. The aborted character of the American public school is more particularly revealed by the statistics which show the comparative enrollment in the different parts of the system. Of the 15,710,394 pupils registered in the whole public-school system of the United States in 1901, there were enrolled in elementary schools 15,061,721, as against 558,740 in institutions of high-school grade, and 89,933 only in all phases of higher education. Startling as are these figures for the country at large, they are no less startling for the chief cities of the country. New York, with its population of 3,437,000 souls, has 16,548 students in public high schools; Philadelphia, a city of 1,293,000 persons, has altogether 5,195 pupils in its higher schools; and yet New York has 543,370 pupils in elementary schools, and Philadelphia has 182,638. And the same figures hold relatively for the foremost. twenty cities of the country. A great city like Pittsburg, with a population of over 300,000, can boast of 711 pupils in its high school; and New Orleans, with nearly an equal population, has few more - 991.

There is something fundamentally wrong, either in our American life or in our American school system, when it is possible to find in the twenty leading cities of the country 1,734,664 pupils enrolled in elementary schools, and in the high schools of the same cities a grand total of 71,902 persons, boys and girls. The great mass of the American people are not sharing even in that degree of higher education which is represented by the American high school. The vast majority of American boys and girls are either being clogged somewhere in the school system or are going out into life at fourteen years of age to become petrified personalities. Undoubtedly this situation is the outcome of complex. social conditions-imperfect family life, inherent inability in the individual, defective industrial conditions, withheld religious sanctions, and ignorant and venial political administration; but so far as it arises from the imperfect character of our teachers and their training, the normal school of the future must recognize this and remedy it.

Let me say first, then, that the city normal school of the future will take advantage of its opportunities to organize itself into a teachers' college. What are these opportunities? In the twenty most populous cities of the United States there is a high-school course four years in length. In all of these cities graduation from the high school is a condition of admission to the training course for teachers. In most, if not all, of these same cities the training course for teachers lasts two years. The chosen or imposed work of these training schools or departments is primarily the preparation of teachers for the local elementary schools. The problem for these schools, therefore, is not complicated as it frequently is for the state normal schools. There is no attempt, as there should not be, to train teachers for secondary schools; there is no need, as there should not be, to do academic work of high-school grade. The city normal school thus in the first reception of its students has an advantage equal with that of the best colleges. The same courses that prepare for admission to college prepare for admission to the city normal school. In New York city, for example, the examinations conducted by the College Entrance Examination Board have been adopted as the test of proficiency for graduating from the New York high schools. Most important in this connection, however, for the future development of the city normal school is the general recognition that the best high schools of the country with four-year courses overlap the college course by fully a year. In New York city, the City College, which takes its pupils directly from the grammar schools, has a three-year high-school course preparatory to its collegiate years. In Philadelphia, students from the manualtraining high schools, with three-year courses only, are admitted directly into the collegiate department of certain universities. In a number of western and other cities either students are leaving the high school at the end of the third year to enter the freshman class of a college, or after taking a four-year course are admitted to advanced standing in the college. The wide election of advanced subjects offered in the fourth year of our leading city high schools is added indication that instruction of collegiate grade has fully begun in the last year of the American high school with a four-year course. When the adjustment which is now going on between the high school and the college, and the high school and the elementary school, is made complete, students who go to college from high schools will go at the end of the third year; consequently, those students who enter upon the work of the normal school will and should begin this work one year earlier. The possible consequences of such adjustment must be obvious. Without adding a single year to the present normal-school course, the city normal school of the future will have at its disposal three years and students fitted to carry on a collegiate grade of work.

In the next place, the city normal school of the future in becoming a