Through the kind permission of Colonel Parker, I was able to hear all lessons and to see the entire working of the school. Daily visits for nearly a fortnight served to show, that much educational life was centered there, and that teachers who occupied responsible positions in all parts of the States were receiving new light and stimulation for the working out of their own particular problems.
At the college of the well-known summer assembly at Chautauqua, New York, there was no professional instruction for teachers this year. I heard some excellent teaching in physics, German and French; but beyond the fact that many of the Chautauqua college students were teachers taking holiday courses of study to equip themselves better for future teaching, the work that I saw here had no direct bearing upon the training of teachers.
At Cornell University, courses in pedagogy are usually given in connection with the summer course in philosophy. These are for graduate students only. Psychology lectures, with experimental demonstrations, are given every day in the week; lectures on psychological and psychophysical method, with demonstrations and laboratory practice, are delivered three times a week; pedagogy and the history of education are studied by means of lectures and conferences; methods of teaching the special subject of study are discussed in connection with the other summer courses for graduates at Cornell University. I was present at a very interesting meeting of teachers who were attending a summer course in English. Individual members of the class gave their own experience as regards the teaching of English and literature in the schools. The students were mostly specialists in English, and teachers in private academies, or High Schools, and an informal discussion of special difficulties and methods which had been actually tried was very interesting and helpful to the class as a whole.
A general survey of Summer Schools of all kinds seems to show that their work cannot be regarded as that of “Training,” but rather as accessory to it. Where the principal or conductor of the Summer School is a man of enthusiasm and enlightenment, teachers can be refreshed and stimulated in many ways, by a summer course of work; but to regard a course as training which supplies no practice-work, and exists under highly artificial conditions, for a few weeks only, is to overlook some of the most important features of training.
As a general summary of the work of Training, seen in Normal Schools, City Training Schools and University Departments, it may be stated:
(i.) That the State Normal Schools, adhering to old traditions, and failing to insist on adequate and thorough scholarship as an entrance qualification, have been obliged to devote themselves, either to securing that scholarship, or to the pursuance of so-called training under conditions the most conducive to mechanical lines of work, and dead forms of method.
(ii.) That the City Training Schools, being entirely local institutions, supported by local funds, and only supplying teachers to the schools of the vicinity, are in danger of being cramped in their methods by seeking to win public favour.
(iii.) That the University Departments of Pedagogy, especially those belonging to State Universities, are capable of affording the widest and best opportunities for the thorough training of primary and secondary teachers, and in supplying these opportunities, they will not only help forward the cause in which they are immediately engaged, but afford a valuable means of unifying and stimulating education generally.
The existence of the good and the bad side by side is as marked a feature in training institutions as in any other department of American education, and suggests great rapidity of progress in some directions. Where the training is bad, old methods have been retained under new conditions; and where good results have been obtained, they are due to the readiness to try new methods, and to keep in touch with the educational progress of the day. The stimulus to much that is good in the present training of teachers in America is the psychological study of children, which now is being systematically organized in a “National Association for the Study of Children.” Not only scientific workers, but teachers and parents throughout the country, are beginning to realize the important bearing of child-study upon all educational questions, and nowhere is their enthusiasm for matters educational more shown than in their united devotion to the solution of this new problem.
Amy Blanche Bramwell.