RELATION OF NORMAL SCHOOLS TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

BY E. ORAM LYTE, PRINCIPAL OF STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, MILLERSVILLE, PA.

At the request-I might almost say command-of the distinguished president of the National Educational Association, I am here to-day to say a word concerning normal schools in their relation to public schools. The subject selected for me is an old one, and I should be almost sorry to be accused of attempting to say anything new upon it. What is true is generally not new; and what is new is sometimes not true. But the presentation of old truths is necessary so long as they lack application in practice, or so long as they seem liable to be neglected or overlooked.

The reasons for the special preparation of persons for the vocation of teaching may be found in the following propositions: 1. Every mind can be educated.

2. Every mind is endowed by the Creator with the power of selfeducation.

3. Every mind can be assisted in its efforts to obtain an education.

The truth of these propositions will be accepted without question by all who are familiar with man's development, though their application in the work of education has not always been so satisfactory as could be wished. It is true that, as a matter of theory, the need of teachers has been recognized; but, as a matter of practice, the growing mind has too often been placed in charge of one who was expected to be its master rather than its teacher. Some of the older members of this audience will recall with me the familiar term "master" applied to the wielder of the birch and the sharpener of the quill in the old red schoolhouse, and it was no empty title. Words are fossil history, it has been well said; and this word will reveal to the future philologist a pedagogical truth full of painful meaning to the generations that were familiar with it. But to-day the teacher is in demand. The man who knows the soul of the little child and feels an intense longing to aid that soul in its efforts to see the truth, that man-more often a woman-is needed everywhere. School boards are beginning to look for him, parents want him, and the children, without knowing it, are calling for him and to him in their helplessness. To-day it is a fairly well recognized fact that teaching is a business that can be learned and should be learned.

There have been two erroneous views held by schools and colleges with respect to the vocation of teaching. One view, held by many advanced institutions of learning, is this: All the preparation

needed to teach a subject is a knowledge of the subject itself. That this view obtains to-day is too true, though it is somewhat curious that some institutions whose instructors prepared for their work as instructors by simply studying the subjects of which they were expected to be instructors have a sort of pedagogical attachment, an annex for the preparation of teachers, thus either condemning their own method of work or making a concession to a demand which they do not believe to be a proper one. No time needs to be wasted here to refute the statement that a knowledge of a subject to be taught is all that is needed for one to teach it.

The second view is even more erroneous. It seems to be the opinion of some that the teacher's preparation does not consist in making a thorough study of the branches of knowledge to be taught. While the faculty of no school will acknowledge that they believe one may be a good teacher with only a speaking acquaintance with the various branches which they are called upon to teach, the practice of some schools seems to indicate that scholarship is of little, if any, account. One may possibly teach in a haphazard way without previous preparation if he knows the subject he attempts to teach, but one cannot teach a subject if he does not know it, be he never so good a methodite.

It is no less trite than true, and no less true than trite, that the qualifications of a teacher, as determined by a correct idea of education, are twofold:

1. A comprehension of the being to be educated and of the branches of knowledge to be taught.

2. A comprehension of the principles and methods by which the mental and physical powers are developed and knowledge and skill are acquired.

To obtain these qualifications best and most quickly teachers must attend schools whose chief end is to teach the activities of the mind and body and the various branches of knowledge. Normal schools are thus necessary to a system of education, and their work is indicated by the qualifications needed by teachers. As a rule, academies and colleges are not equipped to prepare teachers, even when they have so-called pedagogical departments in the shape of occasional lectures by persons more or less acquainted with educational science. Their objects are general culture and the acquisition of knowledge, while the object of the normal school is to impart culture, skill and learning to its students for a specific and technical purpose, viz., that of fitting them to teach others. This work belongs to normal schools and to universities; and when this fact is more fully recognized, the teachers of our country will be better prepared for the duties which they must perform. It is to

be regretted that numbers of schools of different classes boldly attempt the preparation of teachers for the public schools of the state, with meager equipment in many cases, and in many cases with but little comprehension of the nature of the problem they advertise themselves as able to solve.

The child first learns individual facts without any distinct consciousness of their relations; subsequently he learns facts as related to one another; and still later in life he learns-or should learn― the relations of facts, and finally realizes that among the most real things are relations of things. Dr. Harris says in "Hegel's Logic:" "The category of phenomenon implies the arrival of the mind at the insight into universal relativity. For when one sees that not only are some things dependent on others, but that all things are in their very nature dependent on their environments and that their environments are likewise made up of relative and dependent things so that the termini of relation are in themselves relative and not final realities-when one sees this he sees that all seeming realities are phenomena, or appearances, or manifestations of hidden processes of force or energy." The essence of "concentration," the latest arrival among the newer educational notions, is the element of relation. To co-ordinate and correlate the various branches of knowledge usually called higher branches is the function of higher institutions, such as colleges and universities. To co-ordinate and correlate the common school branches and the branches so related to them as to be necessary to a full comprehension of the common school branches is one of the functions of the normal school. To particularize with respect to a single branch: The relation of algebra and geometry to arithmetic must be comprehended by the teacher; and more minutely still, the relational idea in number, so admirably set forth in a late work by McLellan and Dewey, the relation of addition and subtraction, of multiplication and division, of addition and multiplication, of fractions and integers, of common and decimal fractions, of multiplication and involution, of involution and evolution, and so on,-all these relations must be comprehended by the teacher. The value and the beauty of English grammar lie in the relational idea. Vocal music is a matter of tone relations; and so on throughout the branches of the common schools. Ziehen does not go far enough when he says, "The entire process of education endeavors to awaken related ideas in the mind simultaneously, i. e., to combine them by means of external associations." When this work of relativity is done intelligently by the normal school and with reference to fitting its students to teach these branches, it becomes professional work of a high order, and as such is a part of the legitimate work of the normal school, and

a part that cannot be neglected by a fully equipped normal school without loss. The hackneyed question concerning academic work in a normal school course is answered by this conception of the proper function of these institutions. So long as the teachers who are prepared at normal schools are required to teach geography, history, grammar, and arithmetic, so long must these branches and the branches closely related to them be a part of the courses of study of normal schools. Let the public schools do what they can for their pupils, let their education be carried forward as far as practicable, and then if they look toward teaching in the public schools as a calling, the doors of the normal school should be open to receive them and the courses of study should be so arranged as to prepare them for the duties they desire to assume. High school graduates should thus find in the normal school classes in which they can continue their scholastic or academic work; and pupils who have passed through ungraded country schools-the schools from which many of our best teachers, and indeed many of our leading men, have come-should be able in the normal school to fit themselves for the business of teaching.

All will agree that normal schools are not established for the purpose of imparting a general education to their students, but for a special end, as are medical colleges, military academies, polytechnic schools, etc. The object of the medical college is to prepare persons for physicians; of the military academy, army officers; of the law school, lawyers; of the normal school, teachers. But the course in a medical college is not limited to the mere discussion of how to practice medicine, followed by practice in a hospital. It embraces those studies which lead up to the practice of medicine, or which bear upon the practice, including the whole science of materia medica. Nor is the training at a military school wholly upon the application of the principles of war, with an occasional dress parade or sham battle. A rigid course of mathematical and scientific instruction is insisted upon, in order that the young lieutenant may be able, not only to point his gun according to the laws governing the velocity and drift of projectiles but also to understand these laws and if necessary to derive them. Is the normal school to differ from all other technical schools? Is it not to be allowed to deal with the subjects that bear upon the teacher's work, and not alone with the way in which these subjects are to be used? The physician uses drugs, and the medical college is expected to teach the embryo physician the nature of drugs as well as their use. He tries to cure fevers, and the medical school is expected not only to teach him how to treat these diseases but also their nature, cause, etc. The teacher teaches children arithmetic, geography, history, sci

ence; and the function of the normal school is to lead the embryo teacher to understand the child and the branches to be used in educating the child, as well as the manner in which they are to be used.

This view, both rational and necessary, marks out the work of the normal school in harmony with that of other technical schools. In other words, a normal school is a school established for the scholastic and professional preparation of teachers. Any other view tends to lower the worth and dignity of the profession of teaching by lowering the standard of scholarship, as an examination of the results of the work done by schools whose sole object is instruction in the principles and practice of teaching seems to prove. Some higher schools might qualify persons scholastically for the work of teaching in the public schools, though experience proves that many of their students seem to be educated away from the child and the branches with which the teacher of the child must deal. In most cases, however, the scholastic preparation would be superficially made, if for no other reason than because there is a marked difference between learning a branch for the use to be made of it in business or in every-day affairs and learning it for the purpose of using it in instructing others. If it is not true that the school established to teach persons to teach others is the only school in which the branches of study can be properly prepared for teaching purposes, it is true that such a school is the best school in which to do this, and that work of this kind is legitimate normal school work. Given, therefore, to young men and young women who desire to become teachers such an education as may be obtained in a good public school, it is the duty of the normal school to fit them scholastically and professionally for their chosen work.

But the normal school has more to do than to give its students a broad and thorough knowledge of the branches they are expected to teach; and it is not inappropriate for me to refer briefly to this work, which is purely professional in its character. The mind and the "clay cottage," as Locke calls the body, must be studied. Montaigne says, "We have not to train up a soul, nor yet a body, but a man, and we cannot divide him." The knowledge of how to train a man must be a chief part of the work of these institutions. How the child perceives and apperceives; how it assimilates knowledge; in what it is interested day after day, and why; in what order subjects of knowledge must be arranged for the child; what knowledge is of most worth to the child at the different stages of its development; how it can be trained to the habit of deliberate induction and of accurate deduction (and this training cannot begin too early); what should be remembered and how it should be remembered;