iii. Anthropology (the investigation of myth, custom, belief).
iv. Ethics (the investigation of criminals, paupers, defective classes).
v. Feeling (investigations of conditions of the agreeable and disagreeable, abnormal states, the hypnotic, the insane).
vi. Neurology (researches on brain fatigue, etc.).
For investigation in these departments, there are four psychological laboratories, a neurological laboratory, and an anthropological laboratory. Opportunities are also given to students to observe patients in State and city lunatic hospitals, and in institutions for the defective and criminal classes. The departments of research, most closely bearing upon the teacher’s work, are perhaps those of experimental psychology and neurology. Investigations on muscle and brain fatigue, the diurnal variations of mental vigour, the memory of children, etc., bring results important to the teacher, and especially so when carried out as at Clark University, by experts in scientific experiment. The American Journal of Psychology, edited by Dr. Stanley Hall, and published quarterly, contains the results of many of the researches in the psychological laboratories of Clark University.
It is to the contribution of new scientific facts to the educational world that Clark University chiefly devotes itself, and in doing this valuable work it has shown itself quite willing to acknowledge the results of observation and experiment of a very different kind from its own—viz., that of parents and teachers in the home and school. The records of the observation of children made by the students of the Worcester Normal School are given to Dr. Stanley Hall to be used in any way that may help true scientific research on the subject. It is evident that results gain by approaching the same problems from the practical and scientific standpoints, will be much more secure than they could be otherwise, and will supply valuable contributions to the educational world.
SUMMER SCHOOLS AS ACCESSORY TO THE WORK OF TRAINING.
Among the most distinctively American educational institutions are Summer Schools for Teachers. They are meetings organized during the long summer vacations by private individuals, or in connection with some University Normal or Training School, for the help and stimulation of teachers who have otherwise no opportunity for training.
The exact character of the work of a school is dependent entirely upon the educational aims and methods of the principal of the school, and the purpose for which teachers give up three or four weeks of their holiday to attend a Summer School may be different in different cases. The teachers of country schools, inadequately prepared for their work of teaching, often attend the Summer School in their county, in order to gain a State training certificate of a higher grade than that which they already possess; while teachers in city schools, most of whom have been trained in Normal Schools, attend a Summer School like that of Colonel Parker, at Englewood, to get stimulation for future work, and to pursue, in addition, a systematic study of pedagogy. Graduates, who are teaching in schools and academies during the year, often attend a Summer School in connection with an University, in order to pursue further study in various branches. The Summer Schools I visited at Benton Harbour, Englewood, Chautauqua, and the Summer School of Cornell University, illustrate the different lines of work mentioned.
At Benton Harbour, a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan, a Summer School was held for four weeks, and was attended by about fifty teachers of the rural districts of Michigan, who came to prepare for a third-grade Teachers’ Certificate of the State of Michigan. Lessons were given in ordinary school subjects, pedagogy and drill from half-past seven in the morning until three or four o’clock in the afternoon. I spent three or four days at this school, heard daily lessons in psychology, physical culture, civil government, English, elocution, and other subjects, and saw the working of the school generally. The teaching in all subjects was very elementary, as little previous knowledge could be assumed.