Norway's educational authority is definitely centralized in the person at the head of the Department of Ecclesiastical and Educational Affairs, who is a member of the King's cabinet. The several departments, bureaus, commissions, and boards for control are radiations from this central focus. Furthermore, their schools are parts and parcels of one very definite, though somewhat complex, system; each class of schools, in its respective field, is ordered according to certain specifications; and all are coordinated so as to result in a unified whole without overlapping, or exposure of ragged and loose ends.
The controlling features of greater importance such as curriculum, appointment of teachers, plans of instruction, and the determination of qualifications for teaching positions are in the hands of the higher authorities. In effect the state determines the policies, the officers are expected to respect them, and the patrons exercise but little direct control. For example, the law provides that completion of certain grades of school work shall mean practically the same throughout the country, that the middle school and gymnasium examinations shall be uniform everywhere in the state, that standards of academic fitness for teaching positions must be the same, and that teachers' salaries shall not be below a certain minimum amount. Local opinion never has a thought of departing from these requirements.
Being vested with considerable authority the school officials are able not only to make suggestions and recommendations, but also to enforce all school regulations. This plan is successful in securing the most efficient service of which the officials are capable. They are expected to pursue their duties and perform their obligations according to directions without being too largely influenced by the opinions of individuals or community sentiment. Local politics plays a very small part in determining what shall be the educational trend, though the patrons of the school do enjoy considerable liberty and bear some responsibilities in arranging minor factors with reference to local situations.
We Americans might avoid a vast amount of leakage and unnecessary expenditure by improved organization of our educational institutions. A unified system of education, manned by competent officials with some authority, might easily raise the standard of efficiency of our schools several grades, and at the same time reduce the proportional cost. President Hall has given optimistic expression along this line. He writes:—"The time is not far off when we shall coordinate all educational agencies for all classes of children of school age.... All... institutions for the care and betterment of the bodies, minds or morals of children should correlate their work so that eventually it may all become so consolidated that each child can be placed in that position in the whole great system which will do most and best for it at each stage and so that changes from one to the other can be made whenever it becomes for the welfare of the child.... Diversities of agencies, aims and method should increase; and incorrigibles, defectives, homeless, neglected, backward children and the rest should each have special provision; but integration should keep pace with this differentiation."[27]
Were our public schools, reformatories, schools for defectives, etc., etc., all combined into one system they might perform their offices more effectively than they do now. Instead of permitting each to run along independent of the rest, they should be made to supplement each other.
Again, it is a matter of common knowledge that in our own country high school graduation, qualifications for teaching positions in the several grades of school work, college entrance requirements, college degrees, etc., are without uniform standardization. At present even a college degree has meaning only when the work and equipment of the institution granting it have been carefully estimated; state teachers' certificates may or may not be valid in other states; and reciprocity among the states in recognizing certificates is not in operation generally. While state certificates are not always demanded, some of the states are now requiring that all teachers in the high schools must be college graduates. In all too many instances the only effectual prerequisite to obtaining a position as teacher in the schools—primary or secondary—is the vote of the school directors. The gradation of educational activity according to a fixed basis and the raising of standards in academic and pedagogical preparation and in personal fitness for teaching positions would make the schools vastly greater factors in the country's progress and do the nation an inestimable service.
Centralization and uniformity in authority and purpose are distinctly evident in every school activity in Norway. The authority of the state is clearly stamped on the work of every official from the directing head to the last in position. Everyone connected with the system feels the obligations of the position occupied and, at the same time, recognizes his own security while keeping within the limits of the law. They all concentrate their energies in an earnest endeavor to realize the ends which the educational system is designed to reach. Even individual subjects of instruction are presented for specific purposes which in turn contribute to the general end to be reached through the course of study as a whole. Purposes, aims, and ends are always in the foreground of attention, and when teacher and pupils cooperate and are actuated by common ideals, their efforts are sure to be vital and successful.
TEACHERS' TRAINING
Proper pedagogical training is perhaps the most potent factor for good in educational activity. But few systems, if any, adequately meet the needs along this line. Some are well supplied with institutions devoted to the training of teachers so far as their number and distribution are concerned but they are lacking in quality; others have training schools very high in quality but they are poorly distributed and insufficient in number.