THE UNIVERSITY AND THE TEACHER
An Address delivered at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, March 30, 1916, in the Exchange Lectureship existing between the University of Manitoba and the University of North Dakota. It was printed in the "American Schoolmaster," December, 1916
Having accepted the kind invitation of the University of Manitoba to be one of the exchange lecturers from the University of North Dakota, for the current year, I made inquiry as to the nature of the different groups of people whom I should be expected to address. I did this so as to be able to select appropriate themes for discussion.
For this gathering, therefore, semi-popular in character and made up, as I was told it would be, of the more thoughtful and intelligent people of the community, University, and city, I selected as my topic for discussion, "The University and the Teacher."
To a group of educated men and women who have visions—people who are characteristically looking beyond the present and trying to plan for the development of a great democratic state and for the welfare of a free people, I know of no line of thought more appropriate or suggestive. This is true because in such a state and with such a people, the state or provincial university is the recognized leader of thought and action. And this is true since the one great function of such an institution is to take the choice youth and maidens from the various sections of the state and, thru the work of the class room day in and day out, week by week, year after year, give them knowledge, shape their opinions, mold their characters, and develop their minds, and then send them back into society as recognized leaders of the next generation.
The topic is doubly suggestive when we stop to inquire as to what makes a university or any other institution of learning—what it is that really gives it its reputation, its character, its influence. What is it, anyway? Its towering brick walls? Its libraries and its laboratories? Its athletic prowess? Its beautiful campus? Why, no, of course not. Not any one of these nor all of them combined, complete and extended and excellent as they may be, or as useful as they all are, ever yet made or ever can make a great university. A real university, or any other institution of learning, is made up of the men and the women who form its student and its teaching bodies. The character of the institution, its very life blood, is drawn from them. Their points of view, their motives, their scholarships, their visions, their aspirations, make it what it is in every instance.
You recall that ex-President Garfield's description of a university included only two factors as essential—the teacher and the student. The external equipment—buildings, libraries, laboratories—what not—is merely a tool in their hands. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not inveighing against these things; they are necessary. What I am insisting upon is that not things but teachers make a university. And so my topic, "The University and the Teacher," launches us at once into the midst of a great big thought. So big, indeed, it is, that it goes without saying that it cannot be adequately handled in the brief space of a single address. Only certain phases of the large topic can be touched upon at all, and they treated but briefly.
But, after all, the function of a speaker, certainly upon such an occasion as this, is not merely to give information. It is not to speak with finality upon any subject. Is it not, rather, to direct the thoughts of the listeners along worthy lines? For any good that shall result from the meeting together of speaker and audience will be the direct outcome of their thoughts and not of his words. So, after having thus spoken briefly of the university as a whole—of its place in the state, its great influence and that of its teaching body—I invite you to think with me as I touch the subject here and there briefly discussing these three sub-topics: 1. The Kind of Teachers the University should Employ; 2. The University Teacher in His Classroom; 3. The University's Attitude Toward the Preparation of Teachers. Our first discussion, then, will be of
The Kind of Teachers the University Should Employ
A few moments ago I said that the one great function of a State University was to provide the State with a competent leadership. That involves, however, a subsidiary function of such great importance, especially as we regard the teaching force, that an added word is needed both to prevent misunderstanding and to make clear the line of discussion of this sub-topic. The development of a competent leadership is the all-embracing function of such an institution, but that can not be done save as the institution is, at the same time, thru some or all of its teachers, keeping fully abreast, or well in the lead, of the discovery of new knowledge and of new applications of knowledge in the various fields of human endeavor. And this is true because men can not be leaders in any field of action unless they possess the fullest and latest items of knowledge obtainable in that particular field, and again because real leadership can not be developed save thru the use, as educative material, of the fullest and latest.
What kind of teachers should the university employ? Clearly, teachers who can do these two things: men of open and enquiring minds, men of imagination, men who are hungry and thirsty for knowledge, men of research—men of the laboratory and the library. But that is but one side; we must also have men of vision, men of great breadth of view, men of broad human sympathies, men who can take this knowledge, old and new, and with it, as educative material, help to shape opinions, and mold characters, and fashion destinies, thus transforming crude, unstable, and immature youth into men and women of virtue, and knowledge, and courage, and sanity, and poise, into whose trust, therefore, can be placed the guiding of a great, free, developing people—men of the classroom, teachers and inspirers of youth.
The question may well be asked if I mean two groups of teachers, a research group and a teaching group, neither one acting within the field of the other. Not necessarily and certainly not absolutely. To quite an extent the two functions should overlap since each supplements the other. The man of research should also be a teacher in order both to keep his human sympathies alive and as a spur to still further search. And every teacher should be, to some extent, a man of research so that thru his own joy in discovery he will be able to kindle a like fire in the minds of others, thus keeping the spirit of discovery alive and active in the land, and also that he may invite his students to drink at a living stream instead of a stagnant pool. The teacher who is not also a student, and continually working at it, is usually but a poor teacher. But while all this is true, it is probably true also that no person is equally successful in both fields. Some men are primarily teachers—are in their element in the classroom engaged with the problems of the student but only indifferently successful in the laboratory, while others, at home in the laboratory, are somewhat out of place and ill-at-ease in the classroom. I shall not attempt to say which of the two functions is the more important or the more useful. Both are needed and, as said before, both are needed, to some extent, in each. But, in the main, where characteristics are marked, the shoemaker should be allowed to stick to his last. It is a very wise procedure that is more and more being followed at the present time, in American universities, of recognizing such differences and making provision for research professorships that include no teaching duties whatever. The percentage of these should be small, of course.
What kind of a teacher should the university employ, then? The teacher who is eager to push the boundaries of human knowledge a little beyond the point yet reached and who also greatly desires to take knowledge as an instrument and with it develop boys and girls and equip them for leadership in the great world of action. So far as possible the two kinds of service should be performed by the same person, but yet that is immaterial—the material thing being that both kinds be performed.
What kind of teachers should the university employ? Why, teachers who not only desire to do these two things, but who also know how to do them. If one is to do research work, he should know how to do it, economically and efficiently. His preparation should have included a certain amount of reflection upon the reasons for research and of training in the manner of conducting the same. Likewise, if he is to be a teacher, he should be well grounded in the theory and art of teaching. If he is going to shape opinions, mold character, give points of view, develop human minds, then it goes without saying that his preparation should have included a very thoro study of the human mind in its various relationships, activities, and stages of development. If a teacher is expected to equip young men and women for the duties of life as leaders in the great social, economic, and political activities, he must also possess great stores of knowledge, and likewise know how to impart that knowledge so that it will become equally the possession of others.
The University Teacher in His Classroom
The second of my three topics, "The University Teacher in His Classroom," is an even more intimate one than the one just treated. It is so intimate that perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor, but since I am at a considerable distance from the people and the institutions I am discussing, I feel that I can proceed with comparative safety.
There is abroad at the present time considerable hostile criticism of our higher education. Our graduates, it is said, are not able "to connect up"; "it takes them two or three years after they get out to find themselves"; "they first have to get rid of a lot of theoretical notions that have been given them before they can learn the practical things of life." President Foster of Reed College, Oregon, puts it thus: "It is possible to graduate from almost any college without an idea in one's head." Professor Wenley, Head of the Department of Philosophy in Michigan University, had about the same thought when he gave me his original definition of an American college as "A so-called institution of higher learning whose chief accomplishment is the inoculation of innocent youth against education." Or shall we put it in the words of our friend Mr. Dooley: "Nowadays when a lad goes to college, the prisidint takes him into a Turkish room, gives him a cigareet an' says: Me dear boy, what special branch iv larnin wud ye like to have studied f'r ye be our compitint perfessors?"
Such are some of the caustic remarks that we occasionally hear. Of course the situation is always exaggerated in such criticisms; but, as the old saw puts it, "Where there's so much smoke, there must be some fire." Where does the trouble lie? All sorts of guesses have been made, and some careful investigations entered into in an effort to discover the cause. The outcome of all such consideration, so far as I am able to learn, throws the responsibility upon the teacher rather than upon the institution as a whole, and upon his teaching ability rather than upon any lack of knowledge. We cannot teach, it is said. In spite of the knowledge that we possess, we do not know how to present that knowledge so that another can gain it. Nicholas Murray Butler, the brainy President of Columbia University, says, "The teaching of many very famous men [in colleges and universities] is distinctly poor; sometimes it is even worse."
These are rather interesting statements and worthy of thought. What is meant by teaching, anyway? Teaching involves a double process and two persons, both active upon the same matter. Both must be successful for either to be. Teaching is causing to learn, and when there is no learning, there can have been no teaching. "Learning is not merely the correlative idea of teaching, but is one of its constituent elements." No matter how much an instructor may know, no matter how much he may say nor what he may do, if he doesn't cause the student to put forth those mental activities that result in learning, he doesn't teach. And it is claimed that, in many cases, our university instructors do not know how to do this. He knows but he does not know how to cause another to know, is a common criticism.
I suppose it is true, tho loyalty makes me rather dislike to admit it, that with us the poorest teaching in our entire educational system is done in colleges and universities. My own observation both as a student and as a teacher all along the line leads me to say that, in the main, our best teaching is done in the elementary grades, second best in the high schools, and poorest in the higher institutions. Another puts it thus: "We have excellent teaching in the lower primary grades and in the graduate schools, but between these two extremes, we can call it teaching only by courtesy." Another, the president of a State University, is reported to have said, "I have resolved never again to turn my undergraduates over to young Ph. D.'s. It takes five years to make a commonsense teacher of a raw doctor fresh from three years of graduate work."
If these statements are true, and I am afraid that there's much of truth in them, the situation is rather serious. Still, it isn't at all surprising when one takes the whole matter into consideration. For relatively few university instructors have given any attention to the matter of teaching itself. They have studied the subject matter with which they are to deal. They have become proficient so far as knowledge is concerned. No fault can be found with them touching the matter of erudition. But they have not given any reflective thought to the art of teaching. They have not made a study of the human mind in its development in order to know how it receives knowledge as mental nourishment, and to understand the assimilative process; they have not given themselves to a systematic and scientific study of human life so as to know how to handle it in its various moods and characteristics. How differently these good people would have planned if they had expected to practise Law, or Medicine or to enter the Ministry! In every such case they would have made professional preparation for their work. Isn't it strange that any one should think that this profession—the most important—could be practised with success in its higher realms, by people who have never given its practise one moment's attention? President Butler, in giving reasons for poor college teaching, says, "Too few instructors are interested in education."
I am reminded of Socrates' shrewd parody of a supposed speech of Euthydemus who, totally ignorant of statecraft, desired election to an important position in the government of the city of Athens. It is suggestive here: "I, O man of Athens, have never learned the medical art from any one, nor have been desirous that any physician should be my instructor; for I have constantly been on my guard, not only against learning anything of the art from any one, but even against appearing to have learned anything; nevertheless confer on me this medical appointment, for I will endeavor to learn by making experiments upon you." Comment is unnecessary.
There are three kinds of knowledge that every teacher should possess, that every successful teacher does possess: first, knowledge of the subject matter with which he deals; second, knowledge of the human mind which he is trying to stimulate; and third, knowledge of the way to bring these two together in a helpful manner. Of the three, I am afraid that university instructors have, in the main, but the first. At any rate, all they know of the other two is of an empirical character and what they have picked up incidentally. There are exceptions, to be sure. Every worthy institution has them, striking exceptions, too, some of them are. A few of our older men have become good teachers thru practise and experiment, and an occasional young man now comes with professional preparation. But yet, as in so many other matters, the exceptions merely prove the rule.
Thus equipt, or rather with this serious lack of equipment, the young university instructor begins his work. If he is, to use the words of the university president just quoted, "a raw doctor fresh from three years of graduate work," he probably begins by copying the methods of procedure of his own recent instructors. He tries to set these immature boys and girls at research problems and, in classroom, tries to impart information by the lecture method.
How well I remember such an instance in my own freshman days. I fell into the hands of such an instructor in Greek. We were reading that most charming of Greek stories—The Odyssey. Textual criticism was this man's hobby, and we were put to work trying to compare texts, to delve into the intricacies of form and structure—trying to improve upon Homer! Such information as we could not find he gave us, in the formal lecture, day after day. But when we got it, we did not want it because we did not know what to do with it. Now, I am not quarreling with textual criticism. It would have been all right for that young doctor (he was younger than I was at that time) to deal with the facts of textual criticism, with some people, at some time, but it was all wrong for him to attempt to give those facts to us in our freshman year in the College of Arts. They were not adapted to our intellectual needs. They did not fit into our mental stomachs. We could not keep them down, or in, or something. But the pathetic fact was that the instructor did not know that they did not fit. I, being older than many in the class and thus appreciating better the barrenness of the Greek pasture in which we were trying to graze, finally managed, by a little skilful maneuver, to escape and to join another group that happened to be in the care of a real teacher who knew not only Homer but, as well, freshman boys and girls, the reasons for teaching Homer to freshmen boys and girls, and how to do it. He was acquainted with both the science and the art of teaching. Oh, how green was the pasture here, and how abundant and how nutritious the food! In all my university experience I recall nothing more delightful.
But this is ancient history? Yes, I know it is. But yet, I am sorry to say, history repeats itself. Those three great mistakes that that young doctor made in my Greek class some twenty or more years ago are being made this very year by young doctors and by old doctors and by many who are not doctors at all, in one subject or another, in well-nigh every college or university in the United States. Our instructors do not know well enough how to adapt knowledge to human needs; they have the erroneous notion that the chief function of an educational institution is to impart information; and, too, many of them are afflicted with the lecture craze.
Touching these three mistakes, let me say, briefly: first, as to the adaptation of knowledge: the word education is derived from the Latin educo, educare, and means to nourish, and nourishment, physical, mental, or moral, is never secured save as the food is adapted to the organism. And just as much care as our scientific dietitians give to our dining-room service, our university instructors should give to the mental and moral pabulum that they serve to their students, especially the lower classes if not the entire body of undergraduates. They should know this knowledge as mental nourishment; they should know the condition of the mind, and they should know how to select and prepare this food for digestion and assimilation.
As to the second mistake, the undue emphasis upon the mere imparting of knowledge: let me quote a few words from President Wilson, uttered when President of Princeton University: "We should remember," said he, "that information is not education. The greater part of the work that we are doing in our colleges to-day is to impart information." I am afraid that he is correct. I am very much afraid that that is mainly what we are doing. But it is wrong. The greater part of our work should not be to impart knowledge. It should be to assist in interpreting the knowledge that the student himself gets—to fit it to his own life needs and to help him learn how to study and how to think for himself. In other words, this information in which we deal should not be an end in itself, but a means to an end. And that end should be development, mental power, point of view—character. To be sure, we must deal in knowledge facts (do not, I beg of you, misunderstand me) but not for the mere possession of those facts.
And lastly the lecture craze, under the domination of which otherwise sensible people get into the habit of supplying information to students who already know how to read instead of telling them where to find it and then discussing it with them. How common it is! But why? Simply because it is easy. How much easier it is than to conduct a real live recitation in which there is the give and take, the action and reaction, of eager vigorous young minds, where the instructor is the agency of interpretation and the inspiration! To conduct such an exercise with from thirty to fifty bright college students and keep them on the alert is no lazy man's task. It requires brains and skill, whereas anybody can do the other thing! President Foster is correct in saying, "There should be fewer lectures ... the easiest of all methods of instruction."
Again let me give an illustration drawn from my own sad experience, just to show what at least some of this lecturing is. This, you see, is getting to be a confession as well as an exposition. I was taking a course in the History of Philosophy. It was given by a man well known in the educational world, then and now. He was well thought of both as a teacher and a man. He read his lectures from manuscript. We were supposed to put into our note books every golden word that dropt from his inspired lips. And the most of us tried to do so, and in the effort got down some that were not golden. I did as the rest did till one day, fresh from the lecture, I went into the library and chanced upon a copy of Burt's "History of Greek Philosophy." I opened it and shortly found the very discussion, and some of the very sentences, word for word, that I had just copied with so much labor into my note book. And they were in print, too, so much easier to read than my note book writing! I at once sent to the publisher for a copy of the book and took no more notes in that course. Nor did I take any more courses under that instructor.
And so it was in a course in history—only there the kind old professor was naïve enough to tell us the name of the book from which he got his lectures. And again, let me say that history repeats itself. Am I wrong in my criticism? Let me quote from one whose words carry more weight than do mine—Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University—(Ed. Rev. Apr., 1915, p. 399): "To use—or rather to abuse—the academic lecture by making it a medium for the conveyance of mere information is to shut one's eyes to the fact that the art of printing has been discovered. The proper use of the lecture is the critical interpretation by the older scholar of the information which the younger has gained for himself. Its object is to inspire and to guide and by no means merely to inform."
I do not mean to condemn the lecture method absolutely. There are certain lines of work in which it is quite necessary. This is true in some advanced courses, especially in the sciences, where an instructor is doing both lines of university work—carrying on research and giving his advanced students the results of his findings. Of course these have not yet been embodied in a text or other printed form and cannot be thus given.
And this same justification can be urged for some of the work in our professional schools where both the material used and the end sought are different. In still another line of work the lecture is permissible—if it deal with a relatively new subject or with new phases of an old subject not yet covered by a satisfactory text. But here it need not continue long because some enterprising instructor will soon satisfy the need. The formal lecture has therefore no place in the earlier and but slight place in the later years of undergraduate work. Its place should be taken by the text and reference book and the class discussion. One of the finest accomplishments that we can help our students to gain is the ability to master the book.
Then, in conclusion, touching the matter of teaching, fidelity to truth compels me to admit, tho reluctantly, that much of it is very poor. It satisfies the external demands and that is about all. It is not of a character to kindle enthusiasm nor to develop high ideals of scholarship. Much of it, I said, not all. Every institution has some good teachers, some very excellent ones, but no institution is overstockt with species of that genus. The great majority of our undergraduates are poorly taught. That examination mortality is not greater than it is is due to two fine qualities, one in the student body and the other in the instructors. It speaks eloquently of the initiative of the students, and demonstrates that instructors can be fair even if they can't teach. Many times we know that we are to blame for the poor work of the student and, knowing it, will not visit the penalty upon the unoffending head.
The reason for this lamentable situation can be traced to two practises: In the first place, up to the present time, as said before, very few prospective college teachers have made any professional preparation for their work as teachers. In the second place, it is the almost universal custom to place the freshmen and sophomores, by all means our largest classes and the ones in greatest need of skilled teachers, in the hands of young instructors who have not yet learned how to teach. Relief will come thru two changes; first, when either the State or the governing board of the college shall demand professional preparation of every one allowed to occupy a teaching position, just as we do now for positions in the elementary and secondary schools. And if any one should raise a question as to the value of such preparation, my only but all-sufficient answer is to point to the universally recognized improvement in the character of teaching in those parts of our educational system since that requirement was put into effect. And the second needed change is this—for Presidents seeking teachers to ask candidates two questions instead of one as heretofore: first, of course, the question should be, "What do you know?" Satisfied as to that, let the second come clear and strong, "Can you teach?" And until an affirmative answer is demonstrated, let the appointment be withheld. It might be salutary, too, in dealing with the forces on the ground, to follow President Foster's suggestion given in these words: "It would be well if more teachers were dismissed because they fail to stimulate thinking of any kind."
I come now to the last of my three sub-topics,
The University's Attitude Toward the Preparation of Teachers for the Schools of the State
Fortunately, its discussion need not detain us long. What should be that attitude? If you will analyze the relationship existing between the teachers of a state and that state's progress and development, and then recall my brief discussion of the function of a State University—to provide leaders—the answer to the question is at once apparent. The logic of the situation is clear. For what other body of people in a state are so clearly the state's leaders as the teachers? Always intellectually and, for the most part, in these days, morally and physically, the teachers in our schools mold the coming generation and guide it into paths of progress and accomplishment. This is true of the teachers of a state more than of any other group of people within its borders not excepting the ministry.
We have, in the States, a system of State Normal Schools maintained for the purpose of preparing teachers for the elementary schools. Each state of the Union has from one to a dozen of these institutions. North Dakota has three. The course of study covers from one to two years' work in advance of a four-year high school course. In the East it is usually two years, in the West, one. This work is partly academic and partly professional and is always supposed to include a certain amount of practise teaching under expert supervision.
The elementary teachers thus provided for by the normal schools, there are left for preparation at the university teachers for the secondary schools, for city superintendencies, special teachers of various kinds, and teachers for college and university positions. And this latter is a work, it seems to me, the State University must perform. They are already doing this, to quite an extent, for the high schools; a few are doing it well and the rest are working in that direction. A few, too, are taking up the more advanced phases of the work and are competent to prepare for college teaching. The movement is strongly on.
It may not be uninteresting for me to trace this movement briefly as it has developed with us. For it has been a development. Our system of education was not planned at the beginning from a careful theoretical study of our present or prospective educational needs, but has grown up, little by little, step by step, to meet and satisfy from time to time present and pressing needs.
The movement for the professional preparation of teachers began in the first quarter of the nineteenth century in Massachusetts. That state, with others, was suffering from an educational declension that had been going on for a long time. Matters were getting serious. Finally, a few clear-headed, far-seeing leaders made an analysis of the situation hoping to bring about a betterment of conditions. They quickly put the finger upon the sore spot—the poor quality of teaching being done in the schools. A remedy was sought. It was found in the European Normal Schools, an institution devoted to the professional preparation of teachers for the elementary schools. An agitation was begun for its establishment on this side of the water. After many weary years the efforts were crowned with success when, in 1838, the State Legislature of Massachusetts planned for the equipment of three. Thru their work the character of the teaching in the elementary schools was at once improved. Other states followed the example and this new institution soon began its westward sweep, following the development of the country.
This early work, however, had in mind the improvement of teachers for only the common schools, rural and urban. Indeed, at that time no one even suggested that any other teacher needs special preparation. But when, after the Civil War, the high schools began to develop so markedly, the problem of teachers became a pressing one. Since teachers with normal school preparation were everywhere being recognized as superior to all others in the elementary schools, it was the most natural thing in the world for those in charge of the new high schools to demand professional preparation of their teachers.
But where could it be obtained? Not in the normal schools, because it should be of different character than that planned for elementary teachers. To make a long story short, the universities and colleges took the matter up and provided the professional work thought necessary by adding Departments of Education. Michigan University was the first to act when, in 1878, the Regents established a chair called the "Theory and Art of Teaching." The example was followed by others, and, tho limited in scope and experimental in character, it was at once seen to be justified in the improved character of high school teaching. Improvements were sure to follow. The next step was the expansion of the department of education into the Teachers College, or School of Education, as it is getting to be called, which is now recognized as a professional school of equal rank with the School of Law or the School of Medicine. An essential element of its equipment is a high school for observation and practise under expert supervision, just as an elementary practise school is an essential part of a well equipt normal school.
New York University, in the city of New York, was the first to move in this direction. This was in 1890. For fifteen years progress was slow and halting and confined to private institutions. But it was justifying itself. In 1905 the University of North Dakota effected the larger organization, the first of the State universities to do so. During the last five or six years, however, several others have fallen into line including such institutions as Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The institutions that have not yet effected this change and thus organized schools of education still maintain their Departments of Education and thus try to satisfy the need. The University of North Dakota was also one of the very first to make use of the high school for observation and practise, and in all lines of development has been recognized as occupying an advanced position. Other institutions, older and larger, contemplating a change, have frequently advised with us. If this mention seems borne of institutional pride, I trust that it will also be regarded as pardonable.
Thus the movement—not the result of a theoretical formulation, but a situation forced upon us by the logic of events. It is as logical, however, and as irrevocable, as tho produced by deductive reasoning. An explanation of a statement made earlier in the paper as to the relative teaching abilities of elementary, secondary, and higher teachers, can now be seen in the periods of development of the corresponding professional schools.
What should be the attitude of the university toward the education of teachers? Let us follow the development a little farther.
During the last few years another very interesting phase of the movement has begun to show itself. You will recall that as soon as professional preparation demonstrated its usefulness in improving the character of elementary teaching, it was demanded for teachers in the secondary schools. And now that it has proved efficient in that field, it is being demanded in the field next higher—the colleges and universities. And this demand, like the others, is no longer confined to professional schools or educational journals—to the people from the inside. It is being taken up by laymen, even the daily papers, and prest with some vigor. To give the point of view, I give a single quotation from an editorial in a recent issue of the Minneapolis Journal: "None of our graduate schools require any course in education or teaching methods, or any previous experience in teaching work for a Ph. D. degree, except, of course, in the field of education, where theory is cultivated, if not practised. May it not be found that the best method to increase the teaching efficiency of the undergraduate instruction in colleges and universities will be to provide every graduate student with definite and detailed instruction in teaching methods for his chosen subject?"
This demand, thus clearly voiced, and coming from many sides, will continue until granted as has been the case with each of the others. And as a result the teaching of our undergraduates will be improved. To do this added work, however, will not require another institution. The present universities, thru their Schools of Education, amplified and strengthened, will supply the need.
Just as the University, thru its Medical School, provides its community with skilled physicians and public health officers to secure and preserve public health, and thru its Law School performs a similar service in sending out men who become competent lawyers and judges to secure the administration of justice, and thru its College of Engineering, its engineers to safeguard property, public welfare and life itself, so, thru its School of Education, it must provide its teachers for all these and other advanced fields. And all this service must be performed not that individual citizens may be better prepared to make a living, amass a fortune, or achieve fame, but that the community may be served.
So the School of Education, now given equal rank with other professional schools of the university, must ere long be recognized, by virtue of the work thus forced upon it, as, in a very definite way, superior to them all in opportunity and responsibility.