differences from grade to grade. Such studies as these cannot fail to enlarge and clarify the views of prospective teachers, and contribute to a scholarly consideration of the whole problem of method in the schools.

The second aspect of the study of education in a university to which I would ask your attention is the study of educational organization and administration of public systems of schools. It is too commonly sup posed that a university department of education has to do simply with methods of teaching. But this should not be the case. The teachers who go out from a university are not merely to be skilled instructors in an established order of schools. They will be looked to, as time goes on, for wise counsel as to improvements in the established order. Some will hold positions of influence as principals and superintendents. Those who remain in the ranks as teachers will be expected, not only to work under prescribed courses of study, but also to aid in the remodeling of courses, They will have to do in many ways, other than simply giving instruction, with the relation of the school to the higher interests of the community and of the state. Reforms of all sorts will be continually coming to the front, which will call for the co-operation of the teaching body. It is important that university-trained teachers should have some higher insight into the real nature of an educational system, which will enable them to further good movements and work against bad movements. So it is impor tant that in the university they should learn to take a university view of the institutions of public education. And a university view, as I understand it, is one that takes account of all the parts, from the lowest to the highest, and sees them in their proper independence of function, and also in their due relation, one to another and to the whole.

Here again the university itself must be one chief object of study. The system of schools cannot be justly interpreted without large reference to its highest member. I would venture to add that that highest member cannot be fully understood without reference to the lower members and to the totality of which all are parts. With all of its internal differences, education is, after all, in all of its grades, one fairly compact interest of society. If any school, even the highest, sets itself off in any sort of artificial isolation from the rest, it thereby narrows its range of vital relationships, and to that extent distorts and weakens its influence upon our civilization. That was a luminous conception of the university which appeared in France in the latter half of the eighteenth century; a conception which embraced all educational interests of the state in one comprehensive view, and applied to the whole the name university. This new use of an old and familiar term is open to objection, to be sure; but the idea to which it gave a name was fruitful and magnificent.

Many influences are at work making and remaking our civilization. Some of these are subtle and intangible; some are personal, embodied in single, pre-eminent individuals; but others have taken institutional forms,

and in this guise fill a large place in the movement of human society. One of the most closely knit groups of institutions is that which embodies the direct efforts of society to maintain and perfect its civilization thru instruction and nearly related processes. To study the diversities of function within this group, in immediate connection with the unity of principle and purpose running thru all the members, would seem to be the surest preparation for a right understanding of the part which education in any of its grades has to play in modern life.

The interplay of institutions one upon another is a most fascinating subject of inquiry. The schools have entered into, now one relationship, now another, with other institutions, and these relationships are still progressively changing. In order to understand them, it is necessary to know the schools, as well as their institutional environment; and to know the schools, for this purpose, is to know them in their organic connection one with another.

Using the term "university" now in its more common signification, as denoting the highest type of school, we can see how its relation to our civilization is conditioned at all points by its relation to lower schools. Its students are prepared in the lower schools for admission to university courses. What the university can and shall do for them depends on what the lower schools have already done. This is the most obvious, but not the most important connection. The university graduate goes out to his life-work in a society made up largely of men and women whose formal education has been received in the lower schools. The message which he carries from the university is a message addressed to that constituency; and whether he makes the message effective or not depends, not simply on its intrinsic worth and his understanding of it, but also on its being a real message for that constituency. The scientific results of university researches are put forth in a commonwealth, the government of which is largely influenced, if not determined, by those who have been educated in the lower schools. Whether these results shall be welcomed and utilized for the common good depends partly upon the laws of the state and partly upon public opinion; and the kind of education given in the lower schools influences in a thousand ways both the laws and the public opinion which lies back of the laws. It follows that the part of university instruction in our modern life is not to be determined by studying the character of the university as of an institution by itself, but rather by viewing the university as a part of a more comprehensive institution, embracing the whole formal provision for public instruction.

And so of the high school, the elementary school, the kindergarten, the normal school, the school of technology, the school of commerce and of trades: to be really understood, each must be studied in relation to other institutions; and it must be seen that any particular school enters into this relation, not as an institution complete in itself, but as a member

of a greater institution - the educational system of the state. The students of education in a university are for the most part preparing to become teachers in secondary schools. A well-rounded institutional study of the secondary school is accordingly a highly important part of their professional training.

Such are two of the elements which seem to me to demand a place the advanced professional training of teachers at a university. It may be added that these are proper studies for the university aside from any question of training for a profession. As the proper study of mankind is man, a proper study of universities is the university; and to study the university in university fashion is to study it not only in its particularity but also in its universality—not in its isolation only, but also in its integral relations. The university view of education, to be a true university view, must be a view of education in its wholeness.

DEPARTMENT OF NORMAL SCHOOLS

SECRETARY'S MINUTES

FIRST SESSION.-WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1899

The Department of Normal Schools met in the chapel of the State Normal School, Los Angeles, at 3 P. M., with President Theodore B. Noss, of California, Pa., in the chair. President E. T. Pierce of the Los Angeles State Normal School welcomed the department in a brief address.

The president of the department stated that the discussion at both sessions would be based upon the report of the Committee on Normal Schools, particularly that part of the report which relates to the training school.

The first topic discussed was "The Comparative Value of Student Teaching in Normal-School Work." This topic was suggested by the following statement in Thesis II of the report:

In comparison with other lines of work in a normal school, practice teaching is capable of ranking as the most valuable course for the student.

The discussion was opened by Herman T. Lukens, head training teacher of the California (Pa.) State Normal School, and was continued by John W. Hall, head training teacher, State Normal School, Greeley, Colo.

Mrs. L. L. W. Wilson, head of the department of biology in the Philadelphia Normal School, led in the discussion of the second topic, viz., "The Relation of the Training School to Other Departments of the Normal School." This topic was suggested by the following statements in Thesis XXVIII of the report :

The training school should be the correlating center of the normal school. . . . Heads of departments in the normal school should be supervisors in fact of their subjects in the training school. . . . Faculty meetings in a normal school should be directed, not merely to executive work, nor primarily to that, but to instruction.

"May a Training School be at the Same Time a Model School?" was the third topic under consideration. The proposition of the committee in Thesis XXV is as follows:

The idea that a normal school should be provided with a training school and a model school besides is hardly a feasible one.

The principal address was made by W. E. Wilson, president of the State Normal School, Ellensburg, Wash.

A brief general discussion, participated in by Z. X. Snyder and others, followed, after which the following Committee on Nominations was announced by the chair : C. M. Light, of New Mexico.

Ossian H. Lang, of New York.

John W. Hall, of Colorado.

SECOND SESSION.-FRIDAY, JULY 14

The department met at 3 P. M.

"Lesson Plans." The committee's report,

The first subject under discussion was

Thesis XXIV, affirms:

Until a high grade of independence and skill in planning and conducting recitations has been proved, a written plan of each recitation should be required by the critic teacher.

Miss Marion Brown, principal of the New Orleans Normal School, opened the discussion, and was followed by Ossian H. Lang, editor of the New York School Journal. The next topic considered was "Observation as a Factor in Training-School Work," suggested by the following propositions in Theses XVI and XVII of the report as follows:

...

Some observation should precede actual instruction. . . . This observation, however, is comparatively useless, unless it is supervised and discussed with the same care as the actual teaching of a student teacher.

The subject was discussed by Miss Gertrude Edmond, principal of the Normal Training School, Lowell, Mass., and C. C. Van Liew, head training teacher, State Normal School, Los Angeles, Cal.

Thesis X of the report suggested the last topic of the discussion, viz., “Qualifications of the Critic Teacher." The report makes the following affirmation:

Next to a wholesome personality, the special feature of a critic teacher should be the ability to show particularly the merits, as well as the defects, of instruction, basing criticism plainly upon accepted principles of teaching.

The topic was discussed by Miss Harriet M. Scott, of Detroit, Mich., and Hon. N. C. Schaeffer, state superintendent of public instruction, Pennsylvania.

The Committee on Nominations recommended the election of the following officers for next year:

For President-James E. Russell, New York, N. Y.

For Vice-President-Miss N. Cropsey, Indianapolis, Ind.

For Secretary- Charles C. Van Liew, Chico, Cal.

It was moved and carried that the secretary of the department be instructed to cast the ballot of the department for the persons named. The ballot was cast, and the officers were declared elected.

The department then adjourned.

O. H. LANG,

Secretary pro tempore.

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NORMAL SCHOOLS

INTRODUCTION

To the Normal School Department of the National Educational Association: The undersigned members of the Normal-School Committee submit the following report:

I. ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF COMMITTEE

At the session of the National Educational Association held in Denver, 1895, the Normal Department passed the following resolution, offered by President Snyder, of Greeley, Colo.:

Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the president of the department to meet during the year and formulate a report, to be presented at the next meeting, upon such educational topics as directly concern the department.

At the Buffalo meeting, 1896, the committee made a brief report upon such matters as appertained directly to the work of normal schools. The report was adopted and the