CHAPTER II

THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS 1

T

HE striking characteristic of American education is the fact that each school-better said, perhaps, each school board - is the measure of all things educational. And nowhere is this sophistic doctrine more apparent than in the secondary realm. What constitutes a secondary school, even the scope and purpose of secondary education itself, are debatable questions. This condition of affairs is largely due to the radically different tendencies in the development of our educational system. Part of it has come down from above in response to the intellectual and spiritual needs of colonial life; part of it has grown up from below to meet the demands of an ambitious people determined to win their way in the world. These two forces one of them essentially aristocratic, the other essentially democraticmeet in the secondary school. The conflict that results naturally makes extra hazardous any attempt to apply general principles derived exclusively from experience either in elementary or in higher education. Dictatorial college faculties too frequently join hands with ignorant demagogues in promoting evil in place of good. The secondary school is not merely the first four grades of the college course, nor yet is it the last four classes of the elementary school; it is at once both of these and neither.

1A revised reprint from National Education Association Proceedings, 1901, used by courtesy of the publishers.

The training of the adolescent mind presents problems unknown in the primary school; with the psychological new birth another mode of education becomes imperative. And on the other hand it is obvious that the requirements for admission to college do not exhaust the demands of life. The college and university can never enjoy a monopoly of higher education. The peculiar function of the secondary school is the selection and training of leaders for intelligent service in academic, professional, and industrial life. In no educational work can there be greater need of teachers fully alive to the responsibilities resting upon them; nowhere can there be greater need of teachers fitted by nature and training to discharge their duties aright.

The college graduate as a secondary-school teacher.It is only in these latter days that any question has arisen concerning the necessary qualifications of teachers for secondary schools. So long as the only secondary school of consequence was the academy or college preparatory school, so long the only teacher worth considering was the college graduate. He who would successfully fit boys for college must himself know by experience what the colleges demand. Moreover, in those days, what the colleges demanded was chiefly Latin and Greek, and it would have been idle for any man to have set himself up as a teacher of the classical languages who had not enjoyed the classical training. But with the growth of the curriculum, and especially since the rise of the high school has introduced variety not only in the subjects of instruction but in the purpose of secondary education as well, the former source of supply of teachers has proved inade

quate. It may as well be acknowledged, first as last, that the college graduate of the last generation could claim no considerable superiority over his non-collegiate competitor in respect either to special knowledge or to skill in teaching many subjects of the secondary course. In fact, only in the classical languages has he stood unrivaled. In the modern languages, English, history, mathematics, and the natural sciences he has often found his equal. Frequently the knowledge of the specialist, or the professional skill of the normal-school graduate, has been preferred to the so-called "general culture" of the collegian who has sauntered through the mazes of an "elective course" with no suspicion of sound scholarship attaching to him. Unquestionably the lack of special knowledge and of educational interests in the average college graduate has had great weight in promoting the popular tendency to discredit a liberal education as an essential pre-requisite to work in the secondary schools. We may deprecate the situation as we will, it is a fact, nevertheless, that the college-trained teacher has but slight advantage in gaining admission to the secondary school.

Teaching and its tangible reward. One other fact worth consideration: It is becoming year by year more difficult for college graduates to find employment in the schools at a living wage. Granted that the number of positions annually falling vacant is relatively stationary, and that the number of applicants is relatively increasing, but one result can be expected. The law of supply and demand forces salaries down. And in the majority of secondary schools in this country to-day no pecuniary inducement is offered the intending teacher to take a college

course.

On the contrary there is every reason uncertain tenure of office, political favoritism, and the like why the average teacher should invest the least possible amount of paying capital. Indeed, so lightly is the higher education regarded that it is a question whether the average teacher who must depend on the average salary can afford to spend the time and money necessary in acquiring the college degree. If this be true, or anywhere near the truth, then secondary education in America is in desperate straits.

A need for craftsmanship. The educational welfare of the country obviously demands that public opinion recognize a higher standard of professional merit. Public opinion, however, is a shrewd judge of merit of any kind. With respect to teachers as in other matters, Lincoln's aphorism is true: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." The college graduate has been carefully weighed these many years past, and too frequently he has been found wanting. The specialist and the normal-school graduate have also been tested and the popular verdict is that they, too, are poor craftsmen. But with nothing better in sight and with no recognized standard of professional fitness, the school board and the wage they offer have come to be the controlling power. Moreover, it is evident, I think, that this condition of affairs cannot be materially changed so long as the chief factors in the problem remain the same. Our only hope lies in the introduction of a new factor more powerful than any now existing the professionally trained teacher specially fitted for secondary work.

even now tends to exclude the best material from the majority of schools, no further expense can reasonably be expected by way of special preparation. While I acknowledge the strength of the argument and fully realize that professional standards must ultimately conform to economic laws I must still insist that a distinctly good thing appeals powerfully to the common sense of the American people. And if the American people see that a thing is worth having they know how to pay for it without grumbling. The better class of secondary schools, the country over, pays fair salaries and insists on getting the ablest teachers. The very fact that competition for these positions is so disagreeably keen is the surest guarantee of a better system of training teachers for secondary schools. An annually increasing number of college graduates learn from experience that the best preparation they can make is none too good for the places they desire to fill. They cannot afford to compete, other things being equal, with those whose preparation has been less expensive than theirs; the only hope of the ambitious collegian is to put himself distinctly above his competitors in his chosen field. He must do as the business man does under analogous circumstances: increase his capital and make ready for a bigger business. This is the opportunity of the departments of pedagogy and of the teachers' colleges. It is precisely this condition of affairs which makes possible for the first time in America a serious consideration of ideal methods of training teachers for secondary schools.