The act of teaching is the act in which the teacher realizes his supreme function. Are we in danger of overlaying this idea with matters of minor importance? If we are we may well look to our schools and profit by the suggestion of superintendents.

Of the remaining criticisms most are offered by very few: nine of them by one in each case; seven of them by two, two of them by three, and four of them by four.

Mr. Adee expresses a judgment which I had expected when he says that he much prefers normal-school graduates to other teachers. The very fact that they are endeavor ing to fit themselves for their work has aroused in superintendents high expectations of efficiency. Too much must not be expected, however. Let us remember that compensation is still limited in most cases; that the teaching art is tremendously difficult to acquire in any superior way; that encouragement and appreciation and patience are qualities which superintendents must exercise; and that the success which is conceded to our graduates is a matter of no small satisfaction to us.

DIFFERENTIATION OF COURSES IN NORMAL SCHOOLS

GUY E. MAXWELL, PRESIDENT, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, WINONA, MINN.

The study of the history of the normal-school curriculum during the past thirty-five years reveals a remarkable advance in standards of work and prepares one to believe that the near future will see definite advances beyond the present stage of development. There is probably no field where the service of scholarship is more needed today than in the field of public elementary education, rural and graded; none where the problems will continue to grow more as years go by; none whose solution will more fully minister to the welfare of the state. Normal schools should regard these problems of elementary education as distinctly and quite exclusively their own, and attack them with the enthusiasm and energy inspired by a great mission.

The extent and therefore the content of the normal-school course of study, however, are limited to a field unjustifiably small, in spite of what was said about the need for expansion. Economic pressure for funds and the low estimate still placed upon the value of the public school as an indispensable social factor are largely responsible.

Since there is no immediate prospect of securing the four-year or even a three-year course of study necessary for adequate preparation for grade teaching, differentiated work to give more immediate results is clearly the best temporary expedient to employ while awaiting the fulfilment of the demand for adequate and complete preparation.

The normal-school course of study, then, should contain a common group or core of subjects to serve as the foundation of the teacher's professional preparation. This core should be supplemented by differentials, certainly one for lower grades and one for upper grades; possibly one also for middle grades, and in states where normal-school graduates go into high schools, a high-school differential should also be added. The content of the core, the relative amount of work therein compared with the differential,

the freedom of choice or number and kinds of electives within the differential, these all are important problems for consideration and solution.

As was noted, there are not many normal schools which announce in their catalogs any formal differentials in courses for the benefit of teachers of different grades of the elementary school. Three courses, however, from as many schools, have been chosen for presentation here as illustrative of what is now being done in this direction. Attention is first invited to a course chosen from a Pacific coast school, Bellingham, Wash. Since this school employs the semester term, the weights of subjects are here changed into equivalents for terms of three months, a unit representing twelve weeks of study, five hours per week.

Here we have a large core and a small differential, 15 for the former with 8 for the latter, the total term units being 24, which is the most common total among normal schools thruout the country. There are 14 subjects named in the core, one of them, teaching, covering 4 terms, or more than of the whole. The average for each subject in the core is a little over one term. The assigned differential for grammar-grade teachers is 3 subjects out of 8, the remaining 5 being free electives. For primary teachers, the assigned differential is 4 and the free elective, 4. The 4 terms of practice, however, may be permitted or required in one department of the model school and thus really increase the differential to 12 units plus, or over half the entire course. One gets the impression here that the core subjects are of too great variety to require or permit scholarly grasp or sequence of effort. No less than 9 of them represent less than 60 hours each. However, the printed course of study is a poor criterion of school standards and does not justify adverse criticism here.

Turning next to Cedar Falls, Iowa, we find a smaller core with larger differentials for grammar-grade teachers and for primary-grade teachers.

The core includes 10 units out of 24. This core will be reduced by two units if practice teaching is counted as a differential subject which it properly is. The grammar-grade differential is almost wholly unassigned work and permits 11 free choices among electives. The primary differential is very definite as to requirements and makes definite and extensive provision for the primary teacher's duties, permitting only one elective out of 14 term units of special subjects. Here again, the printed outline raises questions which acquaintance with actual conditions would doubtless answer, e.g., why not make more definite assignment in the grammar-grade differential instead of making it practically all elective?

Referring now to the Ypsilanti course, we find a still smaller core, totaling, with practice teaching omitted, of the two years of work. Here we again find opportunity for very extensive, even excessive free choice for grammar-grade teachers, but with detailed and definitely assigned subject material for primary teachers.

It is interesting to note that these three courses, in actual use in the schools named, have little in common. They vary in amount from 8 units in the core to 16 units. The cores have not one commonly weighted subject. The nearest approaches to unanimity in the minds of the makers are found in the requirements in the history of education and in psychology. Each of these subjects varies from a common amount by only 0.2 of a term. Nevertheless, each course possesses values and has the merit, in the judgment of each faculty, of satisfactorily meeting the needs of the students enrolled in the institution.

There follows next a suggested course, designed to avoid all errors which may appear in the courses in actual use. It offers a core and two

differentials for upper- and lower-grade teachers. The two differentials are included in a group of alternatives, and in a group of electives. The core includes 14 units or 7/12 of the course. The alternatives provide 6 terms of special preparation for upper grades and 6 for lower grades, while the electives permit 4 terms of further specialization, or offer this considerable amount of opportunity for related advanced study in subjects which appear in the core or in the alternative portion of the differential.

In the list of constants, psychology is given two terms as a basic study for teachers, since teachers deal primarily with mind and should, therefore, know its nature. The principles and history of education in its larger aspects are given two terms. The common branches, except grammar, as the basic subject-matter in elementary schools, are assigned four terms of time and study, while drawing and music, universally recognized as indispensable art-expression subjects, receive a term each. Literature and social science for their culture values, with civics as a basis for the knowledge of our forms of self-government, are assigned one term each, making a total of 14 units or somewhat more than half the two years' work for each prospective teacher of whatever grade.

There then follow the differentials included in two large classes of subjects, in one of which, called here the alternatives, the student is limited in his choice to two lines of effort, in accordance with his preference for work in upper grades or for work in lower grades. Two terms in primarygrade curriculum are required of primary teachers. Each term deals with the specific subject material of the lower grades and is intended to include, for the first term, a careful and intensive consideration of such topics as beginning reading, nature-study, and number, with constant reference to methods of presentation; also, program-making, seat-work, room management, state course of study, etc.; language, geography, spelling, and phonics, with methods, discipline, special days, festivals, games, etc., are included in the second term. Higher-grade teachers choose teachers' grammar and the subject entitled "grammar-grade curriculum" which deals with the elementary-school course in a similar way, but with special emphasis upon grammar-grade problems, including also examinations, debating, discipline, methods, etc. There are also specialized choices in an industrial group and in practice teaching.

The second large class, the electives, offers a fair degree of choice with four terms for primary teachers and three for grammar-grade teachers, the latter being required to pursue a second and more advanced term of geography for the sake of its science values as well as its practical values for higher grades. Choices in these four electives may fall among a large list of professional, academic, and special subjects.

The suggested course is presented in the belief that the 14 constants include well-established, scholarly, and indispensable subjects in about the right ratio to the 6 terms of special work and the 4 terms of electives, and