normal school to prepare for this work. for them.

It is a poor financial investment

An examination of the catalogs of the state normal schools in the north central section of states will satisfy any one that the data given with regard to Wisconsin represent the condition of affairs in most of the normal schools of that section-that about one half of the students enrolled are in the two-years' course of the normal school, the academic work of which would correspond more nearly to the last two years of a four-years' course in a high school. That about the same ratio exists in the New York state normal schools may be inferred from the fact that during the year 1900-1901, when there were 4,523 students in attendance upon the twelve schools, there were only 1,089 graduates-approximately one graduate to four students enrolled. During the same year there were 43,372 students enrolled in the public normal schools of the United States and 8,753 graduates-or one graduate to every five students. enrolling. In so far as my knowledge goes, it is not a correct statement of facts to say that students are admitted to high schools and to state normal schools upon the same standard of scholastic attainment. Not only is a much higher standard of maturity demanded of the entering student in the normal school, but a higher standard of scholarship is also required. I am led to make this denial because of the repetition of this statement in discussions that have occurred in various departments of this Association, as reported in the published proceedings.

That what is true of the insufficiency of the normal-school product in the north central states to supply the teachers needed for the schools in that section is true in other parts of the United States may be seen from the following statistics, taken from the report of the state superintendent of public instruction of New York for 1902: The total number of graduates from the normal schools for the year 1901 was 1,089. The total number of licensed teachers employed in the state for the same year was 32,453. If we allow six years as the length of the professional service of the average teacher, there would be needed 5,400 new teachers each year. It will be seen that the normal-school output would supply just about one-fifth of that number. Commissioner Harris says in his article on "Elementary Education" in the volume Education in the United States: "It may be assumed, therefore, that less than one-eighth of the supply of new teachers comes from the training schools especially designed to educate teachers." President Schurman's statement is that only 15 per cent. of the teachers in the United States have passed thru normal schools.

In view of these facts, should we be taking a step forward or backward if we were to reduce the number of students attending normal schools by admitting none but high-school graduates? It would seem as if this were a new application of the old homeopathic principle of high

potencies the higher the potency of your drug, the more efficacious its remedial agency.

The consideration that enters more largely into this matter than any other one is probably the compensation that awaits the intending teacher. When one learns that the average salary paid to teachers in the cities of the United States is $687, he will at once admit the reasonableness of demanding high-school graduation as a condition for admission to the normal school in the preparation of teachers of this class. And yet this question cannot be settled purely by a determination of average salary. We have here an illustation of the old Hindoo proverb that "the ox was drowned in the stream whose average depth was only sufficient to cover the hoof." While we might be entirely willing to recommend even college graduation as a prerequisite for professional training for teachers. in the cities of New York state, whose average salary is $928, yet we should be inclined to think that, considered as a matter of financial investment, the expense of a high-school course, supplemented by two years in a normal school, would not be warranted by the average annual salary of teachers in the cities of West Virginia, $413. When we take into account the salaries paid to country-school teachers, we shall see how hopeless is the case of those demanding high-school graduation plus normal-school training as a qualification for all teachers. The average monthly salary for women teachers outside of cities in Wisconsin for the school year 1901-2 was $33.19. We cannot expect that young women will enter upon a prolonged course of training in high school and normal school with no prospect of greater financial return than this. Are we not beginning at the wrong end of this problem? Should we not rather set ourselves to the task of securing a respectable compensation for teachers of rural schools, being assured that the demands for higher. qualifications will always be a little in advance of the increase in salary; I do not wish to be understood as pleading for the continuance of a low standard of entrance to normal schools. I believe that these schools should always keep in advance of popular demand for progress in educational matters; but they must not be so far in advance as to get out of sight of the taxpayer. They must remember the responsibility that rests upon them to educate the public as they advance. No advanced position can be maintained unless they hasten to bring the people to this position, so that educational orthodoxy shall always be crowding upon the heels of radicalism. I have no doubt that there will be a continued gradual progress in the standard of admission to normal schools, so that states that now admit upon the presentation of a third-grade teacher's certifi cate, or its equivalent, shall soon require the candidate to present the second-grade certificate; those requiring the second-grade certificate will demand a first-grade certificate; those demanding the first-grade certifi cate will ask that the intending student will present a certificate of the

completion of a three-year course in a high school, or its equivalent. Eventually, as salaries slowly advance in response to this gradually increasing demand for professionally trained teachers, with no corresponding increase in the supply of such teachers, we shall reach a position. where we may ask that the teacher shall have had her normal-school training subsequent to a high-school course; and this, I hope, even for the teacher of the rural school. I am glad that Massachusetts has already reached that advanced position, and I shall be more than pleased when Wisconsin shall have gained the same point of progress. But I hope that we may never be compelled to purchase that advancement at the cost of a separation in normal schools of those who are preparing for teaching in rural districts, on the one hand, and those who will render service as teachers in city schools, on the other. Each class needs the influence of the other.

DISCUSSION

E. L. HENDRICKS, superintendent of schools, Delphi, Ind.— In a consideration of the standard of admission to normal schools, I believe that some things may be insisted upon with uniformity.

Good health and a sound body should certainly be required of all who would be teachers. The dyspeptic and the deformed should not stand before the young. Common-sense and native ability should be prime requisites to admission. No amount of professional training can take their place. The teacher must be able to see the general fitness of things.

If moral character-building is the highest aim in education, high types of manhood and womanhood should be expected of those who engage in the finest of the fine arts.

These characteristics are fundamental and should be demanded everywhere. They may not always be discernible when the student seeks admission; but, if found wanting, the would-be teacher should be advised to withdraw from a prospect of so grave responsibility.

Scholastic requirements for admission may not be insisted upon with the same degree of uniformity. The conditions of admission to any school should be determined, in large measure, by the needs of the educational field which supports the school. With state normal schools this field is the state. We may regret the provincialism, but it remains the duty of the school to supply the needs of the state. As long as there is a difference in the educational needs of our states, the scholastic requirements for admission to our normal schools cannot be uniform.

We rejoice with Massachusetts, who has led the way before, that she can require graduates of first-class high schools. Indiana would do as well, or better, but at present it would be impossible to maintain so high a standard. During the school year just closed only 15 per cent. of Indiana's teachers were normal-school graduates; only 8 per cent. were graduates of state normal schools. At our last meeting of city superintendents repeated calls were made for trained teachers and there was no answer. Nor is this dearth of trained teachers peculiar to Indiana-which, by the way, is not as old as some Massachusetts teachers now living. The Report of the Committee on Normal Schools informs us that 75 per cent. of teachers in this country are without any special training for their work. We must not increase this percentage of untrained teachers for the sake of a higher standard of scholarship.

City superintendents know the value of trained teachers, and we want more of them. For this reason no phase of educational work is more favored than the training school. But we know, too, that few high-school graduates, with additional training, are content to teach in the elementary schools. They secure positions in high schools, thus making our normal schools a place of training for one class of teachers alone; or, in the present prosperous commercial condition of the country, they enter the more lucrative business world. From 25 to 30 per cent. of our teachers drop out annually. Larger inducements must be offered the high school graduate before he can afford a normal-school training in order that he may teach in the elementary school.

I believe that the standard of scholarship for admission to normal schools should vary with the character of work to be done. We are perhaps agreed that teachers in secondary schools should be college or university graduates with normal-school training. We hope more of them will take the professional work. It would not injure some college professors to take a course in the training school. We are perhaps agreed, also, that teachers in elementary schools should be high-school graduates with normal-school training. I believe the student body of the normal school of the future will be made up largely of these classes of students. And it is well to keep such qualifications for admission in mind. They serve well as an ideal toward which we may work. But it will be some time before such standards can be maintained thruout the states. We now have many teachers of mature years and successful experience, but without academic scholarship. We must keep them. Our normal schools must, for the present, continue to train those who have finished the elementary-school course and satisfied the state in regard to scholarship.

I believe the business of the normal school is to meet a condition as well as to exploit a theory. The standard of admission should be high, but never beyond the common needs of the great mass of the people.

PRESIDENT ALBERT SALISBURY, State Normal School, Whitewater, Wis.-I wish to lay a little more emphasis on two points that have been raised:

First, with regard to the physical requirements for admission to normal schools. At present they are only nominal; they ought to be made more real and stringent. Consumptives, dyspeptics, and the deformed are being trained at state expense to enter the severe labor of the schoolroom. Those who are physically unfit for any other calling think that they may legitimately turn to teaching; and our sympathies prevent us from excluding them. It is the children of the land who are entitled to our sympathies and our protection. But we shall never accomplish our duty in this matter without official medical inspection. The family physician will certify to anything that is asked of him by his patrons. Many students who enter the normal schools plead physical inability to take the gymnastic exercises of the school, and bring a physician's certificate of disability. Why should such defectives be helped by the state to inflict themselves upon the school children of the state thru neglect of proper tests for securing what we all assume to be just and needful?

My other point concerns the scholastic requirements. All seem to be practically agreed that we should work toward the standard of high-school graduation as a condition for admission to normal-school courses. But this ought not to be asked on the old grounds, viz., that we may thus be left free to give a "purely professional" course of two years in the normal school. I trust the day may never come when we shall do that, or when we shall exclude the common branches from the normal school. A higher standard for admission should be sought in order that we may have more time to devote to the common branches from the pedagogical point of view, the consideration of the mental processes which they severally involve, and their relations to life. And we should not be unduly alarmed about any waste of time thru overlapping of courses. The only sure way of learning things is by "overlapping," by frequent return to the same ideas or facts in relations that are practical and vital.

THE ACADEMIC SIDe of noRMAL SCHOOL WORK

HENRY JOHNSON, TEACHER OF HISTORY, EASTERN ILLINOIS STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, CHARLESTON, ILL.

In one form or another normal schools are from time to time admonished that their business is to teach teachers how to teach and not how to acquire knowledge. No one understands this to mean, of course, that general scholarship should not be a factor in the equipment of teachers. What is implied is that the necessary foundations of scholarship should be laid before entrance to the normal school. The fact that normal schools themselves undertake to lay such foundations is, according to common tradition, only a confession of the existence of a necessary evil, which is to be eliminated whenever and wherever circumstances may permit. Two considerations seem to lie at the root of this attitude. In the first place, it is assumed that academic work in normal schools must, sooner or later, resolve itself into mere duplication of work offered in other institutions. It is then to be regarded as unnecessary. second place, it is urged that a general education forms no proper part of the program of a professional school. It has been excluded from schools of law and medicine. By the same token it ought to be excluded from

normal schools.

The possibility of duplicating instruction may be readily granted. It is, however, a possibility not peculiar to normal schools. There is a duplication of grade work in the high school, of high-school work in the college, and of high-school and college work in the graduate departments of the university. The evil, if such it be, is seen most clearly in the case of normal schools, not because it is there exhibited in the highest degree, but because normal schools, owing to the circumstances of their evolution, have developed the greatest amount of sensitiveness to it. Observant taxpayers and other critics of educational waste, who would bar from normal schools instruction available in other institutions, have seized upon a principle of wider application than seems to be generally recognized. Whether the normal school, in view of possible duplication, is justified in maintaining, as a part of its curriculum, courses along conventional academic lines is a question that cannot be examined fairly in isolation. There are other pertinent queries. Is the high school justified in teaching arithmetic and grammar? Is the college justified in offering French. and German to beginners? Is the university justified in maintaining elementary courses in history? Is the law school justified in presenting constitutional law? Is the medical school justified in supporting a chair of anatomy? The student of history not infrequently goes to the university to sit at the feet of a great man who has written a small book for highschool use, only to find the great man slavishly following the very manual which the student conned in the high school. But such a possibility