Essentials for teachers. But what is the ideal prep

aration for such teachers? First let me premise that the only method for us is to build on what we have, meet the demands of the times, while aiming at something better. Present conditions seem to me to indicate four qualities preeminently desired in the teacher: (1) general knowledge, (2) professional knowledge, (3) special knowledge, and (4) skill in teaching. The inability of the average teacher to present these four qualities in due proportion is the principal cause of the prevailing chaos in secondary education.

An intellectual perspective. -First, general knowledge. Four years ago the Sub-Committee of Fifteen reported that "The degree of scholarship required for secondary teachers is by common consent fixed at a collegiate education. No one with rare exceptions- should be employed to teach in a high school who has not this fundamental preparation." Such a qualification seems reasonable enough. The liberal culture implied in four years of training in advance of the grades to be taught is surely not too much to require from every applicant for secondary teaching. The fact that the secondary teacher is to some degree a specialist, that he knows his subject and exercises considerable ingenuity in satisfying the requirements of college entrance or some examining board, is no indication that he has a world-view of sufficient breadth to justify him in attempting the training of youth or that he has an understanding of related studies sufficient to enable him to teach his own subject in a scientific manner. The inspiring influence that comes from well-developed manhood or womanhood taught to view the subject matter of

secondary education in a comparative manner, trained to see the relationships everywhere existing in the various spheres of knowledge - yes, the unity pervading all knowledge is an influence that the secondary school

can ill afford to neglect.

A knowledge of educational needs and problems. Second, professional knowledge. It is equally important that the secondary teacher be able to view his own subject and the entire course of instruction in its relations to the child and to society, of which the child is a part. A teacher may be able to teach his subject never so well, may even have the reputation of being a distinguished educator, yet his life long be a teacher of Latin, or physics, or history, rather than a teacher of children. The true educator must know the nature of mind; he must understand, the process of learning, the formation of ideals, the development of will, and the growth of character. The secondary teacher needs particularly to know the psychology of the adolescent period - that stormy period in which the individual first becomes self-conscious and struggles to express his own personality. But more than man as an individual the teacher needs to know the nature of man as a social being. No knowledge, I believe, is of more worth to the secondary teacher than the knowledge of what standards of culture have prevailed in the past or now exist among various peoples, their ideals of life, and their methods of training the young to assume the duties of life. Such study of the history of education is more than a study of scholastic institutions, of didactic precepts, or of the theories of educationists; it is KulturGeschichte with special reference to educational needs

and educational problems. It gives that unifying view of our professional work without which it is idle to talk of a science or a system of education; it prepares the way for the only philosophy of education which is worth teaching. Under professional knowledge I should also include such information as can be gained from a study of school economy, school hygiene, and the organization, supervision, and management of schools and school systems at home and abroad. Some of this technical knowledge is indispensable for all teachers; all that can be gained is not too much for those who will become leaders in the field. But the least professional knowledge that should be deemed acceptable is an appreciation of the physical conditions essential to success in school work and a thorough understanding of psychology and its applications in teaching, of the history of education from the cultural standpoint, and of the philosophic principles that determine all education.

Specialized training. The strongest argument that can be urged against the average college graduate is that he has nothing to teach. The argument applies with even greater force to the normal-school graduate, however well he may be equipped on the professional side. Neither liberal culture nor technical skill can at all replace that solid substratum of genuine scholarship on which all true secondary education rests. A teacher with nothing to teach is an anomaly that needs no explanation. And I count that knowledge next to nothing which must be bolstered up by midnight study to hide its defects from a high-school class. No one who knows the scope, purpose, and methods of collegiate instruction, no one familiar

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with the work of the normal school, will posit for a moment that such training necessarily gives any remarkable degree of special knowledge. I say this without any disrespect either to the college or the normal school; it is not the first and foremost duty of either of these institutions to turn out critical scholars or specialists in some small field. But special scholarship, I maintain, is an absolute necessity in the qualifications for secondary teaching. Without it the teacher becomes a slave to manuals and textbooks; his work degenerates into formal routine with no life, no spirit, no educative power, because he knows no better way; the victims of his ignorance rise up to call him anything but blessed, and take their revenge as citizens in ignoring altogether professional knowledge in the conduct of public-school affairs - because they, too, know no better way. Now as never before, do we need to emphasize the possession of special scholarship as an essential prerequisite to secondary teaching. It would seem that no argument were necessary to convince a Yankee that there is virtue in perfect tools, but somehow the idea is abroad that the perfect tool is the perfect textbook. Now is an opportune time to convince the American people that it is "the man behind the gun," rather than the gun itself, which counts.

A technic of teaching. It is safe to say that no quality is more earnestly desired in the teacher, or more persistently sought for, than the technical ability to teach. The first question asked of an applicant is not "Has he had a liberal education?" or "What is his professional knowledge?" or "Has he anything to teach?" but this: "Can he teach?" The popular mind fails to recognize the

interdependence of these qualities, and failing in this it bases judgment of a teacher's ability on the relatively non-essential. Ability to maintain order in the classroom, to get work out of his pupils, to satisfy casual supervisors and examiners, to keep fine records and to mystify parents— this too frequently passes for ability to teach. How seldom, indeed, is a teacher tested by his ability to get something into his pupils, by his ability to impart his knowledge in a way that shall broaden their horizons, extend their interests, strengthen their characters, and rouse within them the desire to lead a pure, noble, unselfish life. School-keeping is not necessarily school-teaching. The technical ability to teach includes both. The art of teaching is mimicry, a dangerous gift, unless it be founded on the science of teaching which takes account of the end and means of education and the nature of the material to be taught. School-keeping may be practically the same for all classes of pupils, but true teaching must always vary with surrounding conditions and the ends to be attained. Graduates of colleges and normal schools alike must fail in technical skill if they teach as they have been taught. The work of the secondary school is unique. It requires an arrangement and presentation of the subject matter of instruction in a way unknown in elementary education and unheeded in most college teaching; it requires tact, judgment, and disciplinary powers peculiar to the management of youth. Herein is the need of that technical skill which is not, as has been well said, "a part of the natural equipment of every educated person."

Too poor to afford poor teaching. The question before us is: How can these qualifications best be secured? There