On the Firing Line in Education

by Adoniram Judson Ladd

"3. To teach the history of education and of educational systems and doctrines.

"4. To secure to teaching the rights, prerogatives and advantages of a profession.

"5. To give a more perfect unity to our state educational system, by bringing the secondary schools into closer relations with the university."

"Higher position in the public school service" meant, in the main, in the early days, city superintendencies and high school principalships. To these, others have been added, one by one, owing very largely to the great success of the movement and the growing appreciation of the value of professional preparation for occupants of such positions, until now they include city superintendencies, high school and grade principalships, subject supervisorships, high school, normal school, and college instructorships. Already the leading teachers colleges, the ones at Columbia, Missouri, and Chicago universities, are being definitely looked to for these later added and more responsible workmen.

Thus far I have but stated historical facts known to all who are reasonably well informed touching the history of education and current educational practise in our country. I have done this all too briefly, I am well aware. But the reason that I could do it briefly is the fact that the readers of this journal are well informed upon the historical phases of the subject. All that I needed to do was to cull out and bring to the fore the pertinent facts. But the question now arises, is this differentiation logical? Are there any reasons, psychological, economic, or otherwise, for such differentiation? If there are, it is going to continue, and these types of the institution which now seem to have been given each such a definite and separate work to do are going to be relatively permanent. If not, we shall continue to cut and try, undoing to-morrow what was done to-day, and chaos will result.

This institution, with its various types, is not one that has evolved from a careful theoretical study of our present or prospective educational needs, but one that has grown up, little by little, step by step, to meet and satisfy from time to time the present and pressing needs of the larger system of which it forms a part, and for the service of which it was called into existence. But is it not true that oftentimes the logic of events—the movements of history—reveal to us our fundamental principles, outline for us our policy of action, and even write out for us our program of procedure as correctly and even more irrevocably than philosophical formulation could do? Is not that especially likely to occur under such a form of government as ours? I think it has occurred in the present case.

It is interesting to note in this connection the fact that the logic of events has led us, in our efforts to solve the difficult problem of the education of our teachers, to practically the same solution as that already reached by France and Germany, which countries proceeded more nearly along the pathway of theoretical philosophical formulation.

I believe that at least two of these institutions, the state normal school and the teachers college, have come to stay, and with practically the functions outlined above. Of the county normal school, as said before, I do not feel quite so sure. I am led to the belief in the relative permanency of these types of professional school, not only by a knowledge of the history of their development, but also by the conviction, formed by a somewhat careful study of the entire problem, that there are fundamental reasons, psychological as well as economical, for the differentiation. In other words, my own somewhat careful study of the entire situation brings me to the same position that the logic of events has brought us all.

As to the county normal school: it is so apparent as scarcely to need mention that the teacher of the rural school needs a preparation differing in many ways from that needed by the teacher of the city grades. The environment, physical, psychical, and social, is so different that a teacher equipt to do thoroly good work in either one place might signally fail in the other. And the present economic situation speaks with nearly the same insistence. Even if our state normal schools were sending out teachers ideally equipt for service in the rural communities, the remuneration there offered is, and for an indefinite time will remain, so low as practically to keep them out of the schools. Either we must have special institutions for the preparation of the teachers of the rural schools, or else those schools must, in the main, continue to do without professionally prepared teachers.

Turning now to the other type, it is equally clear to me that the very character of the work in the elementary and secondary schools should be different one from the other, different as to discipline, ends in view, subjects of study, and methods of handling the same. In the elementary school the pupil is a child, with the mind, the tastes, the ambitions of a child, and he should be allowed to remain a child. The ends in view are right habits, right ideals, and knowledge facts. In the secondary school the student is an adolescent, with the mind of an adolescent, having peculiar and erratic tastes, changing ambitions, and conflicting emotions. He is neither child nor adult, but passing thru the most dangerous and critical period of his entire life. The ends in view are no longer merely habits, ideals, and knowledge facts, but, added to these, and now more important for emphasis because presumably right principles have already been established, breadth and fixity of character, self-acquaintance, scholarship, and culture. Tell me that the atmosphere, psychical and spiritual, and the training, academic and professional, that will produce the ideal teacher of the child will also produce the ideal teacher of the adolescent? Nay, verily! You might as well tell the florist that the American Beauty rose and the Snow Flower of the Northern forest will both reach perfection if grown side by side. Then surely we need different kinds of institutions. I cannot better conclude this thought than by using the words of Dr. Wm. T. Harris found in the introductory paragraph of an article on "The Future of the Normal School." (Ed. Rev., January, 1899, p. 1.) Dr. Harris says: "I have tried to set down in this paper the grounds for commending the normal school as it exists for its chosen work of preparing teachers for the elementary schools, and at the same time urging the need of training schools with different methods of preparation for the kindergarten, below, and for the secondary school, the college and the post-graduate school, above the elementary school."