Number 6 But all else being consistent, a plea for the outing, the annual associations, and the summer schools cannot be withheld. Not so much because "fitting one's self for one's sphere" is an obligation, but for the genuine "good time" and future benefit these meetings offer to the teacher who has been compelled to localize herself, soul and body, for a year. What is this future benefit? Those who have made a determined effort and some sacrifice to attend these meetings can answer this question from experience. Everything did not meet expectation — of course not. Summer schools may have "hitched their wagon to a star," but they haven't quite touched celestial heights yet. Granted there was often occasion for criticism and disappointment in instructors and courses, and, perhaps, they "didn't hear anything they didn't know before" (?) there is not much to hazard in the opinion that they have not worn off the benefit of it yet, if "worn off" can apply to things indefinable. And we will go farther yet. Even if they are unconscious of the good they brought away with them, it has still been a force, and been felt by others. "A strong statement! Yes, but based on a life-long experience in attendance upon these meetings, and a wide observation of the comparative stature of the two classes of teachers: those who scorn such meetings and those who are too much interested in the work to stay away from them when attendance is possible. But there are ways and ways of attending these summer gatherings. To go with stacks of note books that must be packed with facts for " practical" use; to be fettered by an armor of prudish conventionality that will not allow one teacher to rescue another from drowning unless she has been introduced that is one way and far too much the common way. But there is another way. There is an atmosphere that attracts like a magnet-born of a great warm heart, an earnest nature and a loving sympathy with teachers everywhere. Such an influence will radiate like sunlight, and not only draw to its possessor every good thing, but will carry a certain blessing to everybody fortunate enough to come within its radius. A teacher clothed with this spirit as with a garment, will have a good time and a good school if she but sits on one end of a log with only a stranger-teacher who does not know as much as she does, at the other end. That the good teacher, the good spirit, the good time, and the good school may all come together, and that we may be there to see, is the good-bye hand-shake of the year. This paper is not published in July and August. Summer Schools. As a Means of Professional Training. By EMERSON E. WHITE, LL. D. (The following extracts are taken from a paper read by the author before the National Educational Assoc ation at Asbury Park, N. Į, July 11, 1894. The portions selected have been taken here and there from the original paper, and omissions are not indicated here.- ED.) Τ' HE Summer School, as differentiated from the normal institute, is of comparatively recent origin. It is but twenty years since the great Agassiz organized the Penikese Summer School of Natural History, the most illustrious, if not the first, experiment in this direction in the United States. Nearly all the Summer Schools of modern languages, literature, biology, physical science, psychology, etc., have been organized since 1874; and the Summer Schools of Pedagogy, usually called Summer Schools of Methods, are of still more recent origin. 1. Schools that teach Special Branches of Knowledge, as ancient and modern languages, literature, psychology, natural science, etc. 2. Schools that teach the Arts, as drawing, industrial art, music, oratory, etc. 3. Schools that teach Pedagogy, including psychology, principles and methods of teaching, the history of education, school management, kindergarten principles and methods, etc. properly called Summer Schools of Pedagogy. First Class. Many Summer Schools of the first class are now annually held in different parts of the country, increasingly in connection with colleges and universities whatever may be the difference between these institutions in this country. Their multiplication has been greatly stimulated by the Chautauqua movement, and later by the university extention movement; and there is likely to be a considerable increase in the number from year to year. They are proving very helpful to earnest students who have not enjoyed full college advantages, and also to graduates who wish to pursue special lines of study and are not able to take a resident post-graduate course. This class of Summer Schools also includes those that initiate special research and investigation, as in child-study, physiology, physiological psychology, etc.-schools that promise valuable additions to pedagogical knowledge. Second Class. The practical value of brief courses of instruction in the several arts under skillful teachers, has been widely attested. How many students have received their first impulse and guidance in some art from a few lessons by a great master! This is especially true of teachers of the elementary school arts, eminently so of self-taught and inexperienced teachers. A few inspiring lessons to such persons by a skillful teacher are of very great value. Scores of the most successful teachers of writing, drawing, and music in our schools have been greatly helped by such instruction; and this is just what every Summer School of art should provide. To this end it must be manned by great teachers and artists. The novice has no place in the teacher's chair in a Summer School. This is the place for inspiration and This is the place for inspiration and high ideals, and here must be the master's hand and the master's spirit. Normal Institutes. In the above classification of Summer Schools, we have not included those short session schools which are organized for the review of the several branches of study in which teachers are required to pass an examination in order to receive a certificate. These review schools are called by different names, sometimes normal institutes, a title wholly inappropriate when they do not add to the reviews of the legal branches helpful pedagogical instruction. In the absence of such instructions, no school is entitled to the appellation "Normal." These review schools are here and there called "Summer Schools," a misleading appellation. I have long doubted the real value of many of these brief review schools as a means of preparing teachers for their high office. They undoubtedly assist their students in passing their examinations for certificates, especially when the instructors are the examiners! It is feared, however, that they do not greatly improve the real scholarship of teachers as a class. It is one thing to cram for an examination, and quite another to acquire real knowledge and abiding power. In so far as these brief reviews enable poor scholars to pass examinations and thus gain admission to the schools as teachers, they are of questionable benefit, to say the least. But these hurried reviews often, if not usually, present bad methods of school instruction. While classes are formed, even lessons daily assigned, the instructors do very little genuine class work - such work as must be done in the school-room with young pupils. They do most of the talking, the young teachers being listeners; they teach much by outlines and summaries; and these and other bad methods of real school work are carried by imitation into the elementary schools. The saving element in these review schools is the pedagogical instruction given, if any, and the interest and zeal in teaching awakened. Summer School of Pedagogy. But the special purpose of this paper is to consider the professional value of Summer Schools of Pedagogy, properly so called. The aim of these schools is to present in brief courses the best that is known of teaching and school organization and management, and to afford fruitful personal contact between superior teachers and those who aspire to superiority. The courses of instruction should be as continuous and complete as possible, piecemeal and uncoordinated work being of little value, and the instruction in each course should be "beaten oil." To these ends, the instructors should be selected with special reference to their ability to give the results of successful experience, as well as special study. They should indeed be experts, specialists, if you please; but not specialized specialists who, in their microscopic search for isolated facts, often stumble over obvious principles. The Summer School of Pedagogy is not the place for would-be philosophers to air the uncertain results of their excursions into the regions of the pedagogic unknown, nor is it a place where pedagogic Athenians can come year after year to hear or tell some new thing. The Summer School is a place to which earnest and aspiring teachers come for light and inspiration in their great work. It stands over against the teachers professional need, and its duty is to meet that need in the most helpful and practical manner possible. It should indeed be possessed of the spirit of investigation and inquiry and should present the most advanced results of pedagogical study and experience. It should bring to teachers the latest report from the laboratory, but it should be a verified report. All its instruction should have passed through the assay-room of successful experi ence. Earnest teachers who cross half a continent and spend half of a needed vacation, at great expense, seeking professional assistance, should receive the clearest light and the most helpful instruction which pedagogical research and experience can give. They ask for bread and should not be given a stone. The Summer School of Pedagogy assumes that some things in education are known and determined; that there is a body of truth that may be so taught as to be clearly grasped and successfully applied in school work; and that there are also true methods of teaching which may be so presented and illustrated as to be profitably studied. I have the habit, possibly an unfortunate one, of transferring instruction in pedagogy to the school-room and there endeavoring to harness it and put it to work. This habit involves the belief that all truth will work well, and when a theory of education can neither be harnessed or yoked, I half suspect that there may be error or uncertainty in it, and when the would-be philosopher has never harnessed his own theories, or seen them harnessed, there is at least ground for the fear that the average summer-school student will never do so. I have sometimes visited the schools of teachers who were fertile in pedagogical theories but weak in their application, and, disappointed, have left, thinking, "What a sad divorcement of theory and practice, and what a strange alliance of new doctrines and old methods !" What is greatly needed for the improvement of the American school is the successful application of true principles in actual school work. In the school-room there ought to be no wide divorcement between doctrine and method, principle and practice. It is not urged that practice should keep fully abreast of opinion, but opinion that has not seen practice is poor help for teachers who are earnestly seeking for assistance in their work. Value of School Pedagogy. The special value of the true Summer School of Pedagogy is that it puts fruitful professional training, under superior educators, within reach of teachers who are actually engaged in teaching. Its organization is demanded by the fact that there are thousands of teachers in American schools who had no special training for their work before entering upon it. The summer school offers to these teachers helpful professional training while teaching, and few, who have had no experience in this direction, can realize how much three. or four weeks of vital instruction in pedagogy means to such teachers. Both observation and testimony justify the statement that a teacher, with two or more years' experience in the school-room, will receive much more help from three or four weeks of instruction in a good Summer School than the student, who has not taught, receives in as many months in the normal school. Certainly no one who has taught the two classes of students will question this statement. The fact is that the great majority of American teachers must receive most of their professional training while they are actually engaged in teaching, and to these the Summer School affords a coveted opportunity. It is not possible for any one to make full preparation for teaching in advance of experience. Preparatory training is very important, but experience and training must also go hand in hand. It may be too early to establish a Summer School of Pedagogy of high grade in every state, but it ought now to be feasible to organize one such school of the highest grade in each section of the country, say ten or more in the United States. To this end, each school ought to be at least partially endowed, making it possible and financially safe for the managers to employ the best qualified instructors in the profession. It may be proper to add that it is feasible to unite the three classes of schools above named in one Summer School, and this is now done in a few of the best Summer Schools in the country; but in their fuller development, differentiation will, I am sure, more and more appear movement already initiated by the organization of schools of the first class in the universities. a What is imperatively needed in this country is a College of Pedagogy of University rank-an institution which in faculty and equipment is at least the equal of the best schools of theology, medicine and law now established. It is my earnest hope that this century may not close without seeing in the United States at least one high and worthy College of Pedagogy. Whose name is to be forever associated with such an institution as founder and patron? His would be the highest service that this century has yet rendered education. Froebel on the Danger of Discipleship. "Again a life whose ideal value has been perfectly established in experience never aims to serve as a model in its form, but only in its essence, - in its spirit. It is the greatest mistake to suppose that spiritual human perfection can serve as a model in its form. This accounts for the common experience, that the taking of such external manifestations of perfection as examples, instead of elevating mankind checks, nay represses its development.." W 'HAT to do with vacation. The question surely means to cast long delightful shadows of anticipation through this last month of the working-year, and give new supplies of patience and courage. The Summer schools and Institutes have no need, at this day, of defence. They are an established fact, and countless, grateful witnesses are ready to testify to their value. They are so firmly established and well recognized as valuable aids that they will necessarily form a foremost part of summer plans for many. Should not the question of symmetry and balance also be regarded as an important one, from the human and also from the professional point of view. Although the story is an old one, an oft-repeated criticism, one that we all know by heart, I believe the peculiar demands of our profession are such that we need again and again to be told by our friends on the outside, of the tendency of our very virtues to become faults. The zealous, faithful worker falls without knowing it into a narrow round, which excludes all active interest in the things that stand for culture. prejudiced view, the unlovely manner. The primness of the school-room develops the Cruel parsimony in salaries is responsible for crudeness and lack of refinement in many cases where the impulse exists for better things. That this topic has been freely discussed recently by various pens is a sufficient reason why we should once more think of it and speak of it to one another. I quote from a well known magazine : "As a matter of fact I am not at all sure, patriotism and daughter to a public school, unless I were convinced from logic to the contrary notwithstanding, I should send a personal examination, that she would have neither a vulgar teacher nor vulgar associates. Manners mean so much to a woman, and by manners I refer chiefly to those nice perceptions of everything which stamp a lady, and which you can no more describe than you can describe the perfume of the violet. The objections to the public schools for a girl is that the unwritten constitution of this country declared years ago that every woman was a born lady, and that manners and nice perceptions were in the national blood, and required no cultivation for their production. Latterly, a good many people interested in educational matters have discovered the fallacy of this point of view; so that when the name of a woman to act as the head of a college or other first-class institutions for girls is brought forward to-day, the first question asked is, Is she a lady?"" "I am confident—at least if we as a nation really do believe in obliterating class distinctions that it won't be long before those who control the public schools recognize more universally the value of manners, and of the other traits which distinguish the woman of breeding from the woman who has none." It is easy to retort that such utterances often come from a class of persons to whom the surface charm of agreeable manners counts for more than even character. Let us rather admit that the world would be a far lovelier and happier place if quick sympathetic perceptions and gracious, kindly ways of living were more prevalent than they are. Since next to contact with human examples of rare, sweet personal atmosphere, the expression of the ideal is most helpful, may I quote again, this time from Dr. Holmes. "A woman who does not carry a halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented, about with her whereever she goes, an atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace of at least six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of talking to, as a woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with." Surely one summer resolve not the least worthy or of high import may be to seek the good and beautiful in human intercourse and in expressed ideals of human conduct; to gain that new quickness of admiration for such excellence, which must be in ourselves the beginning of any attainment of such ideals. Move Forward! By M. ADELAIDE HOLTON, Supervisor Primary Schools, Salt Lake City. T is to-day impossible for teachers to close their ears to the bugle call "Move Forward!" because it is sounding in every corner of our broad land. Just what this command means is well worth earnest consideration; it meansbe progressive, keep out of ruts, build upon the fruitage of the past, and improve our qualifications. The world does move and the teachers of '95 must have grown stronger by last year's experience, otherwise they are not progressive. No one can stand still, if he would; it is either improvement or decay. The educational field is only a camping ground; real teachers pitch their tents at one point to-day and to-morrow fold them and move onward to to the next higher plane of thought. To move, in the true and helpful way, is to move by understanding, not by imitation and copying. Moving by Moving by imitation, at first, appears like moving forward; but it is soon and easily detected, and it is narrowing and robs the teacher of all originality and freedom of thought. Moving forward by understanding is growth. It can never be done for a person. Each one must do his own work, if he gets the benefit or reward. The method used for the development of a lesson by one person can no more exactly meet the needs of another than the gown of the one can fit another. Educational papers should be read, conventions attended and books studied; but their real value, to the progressive teacher, is the thought which they suggest, not the thought which they contain. The teacher whose growth is by understanding recognizes a good suggestion as such, studies it, modifies it, makes special application to her particular school, and places the stamp of individuality upon it before thinking she has a right to use it, or considering it of practical value to herself or his school. Too many teachers doubt their own ability to act for themselves. This is an unhealthful condition and fear must be destroyed before improvement really begins. It is more individual thinking and less copying, more of the spirit and less of the letter that will cause the majority of teachers to move forward ! "The secret of the failure of the object lesson craze twenty years ago was the fact that it made the imparting of information the chief object. The teacher did the seeing and thinking for the child. The great end was to bring palpable facts into the child's consciousness and to associate the proper word with the fact. The movement lacked true educational philosophy." GLIMPSES SCHOOLROOMS 'Don't Look for Flaws." "Don't look for flaws as you go through life; It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind, "His Greatest Need is Self Respect." By FANNY ELLYN. COMMY MURPHY was unquestionably a bad Joy. 66 And yet, He only He had been born in a low home, of the most material of parents, and had been utterly destitute of that indefinite commodity termed "early training." no one thought of this when he came to school. brought his own individual world with him as we all do, but someway, his world failed of the recognition which was given to others. He was branded as a I mean boy;" ugly, stubborn and rude, and between his world and that better world which he had never seen,- from objective rather than subjective reasons,- there hung a dense curtain of frowns, harsh words, and pedagogical compulsions and leather straps which his faith was, as yet, too feeble to penetrate. Of course, he was neither bright nor studious. He could not have been bright, from the facts of his birth, and he had never been given any motive for being studious, except that lowest of all motives,- fear of punishment, and, unfortunately for his teachers, Tommy was not a coward. And so his school days passed on. He was retained as long as possible in one grade, and was then reluctantly passed on to the next, his "yellow passport" of ignominy going with him, until his eleventh year, when his teacher told me that she was obliged to "strap the boy once in four or five weeks to keep him decent." She said that it was all she could do. I had no reason to doubt her assertion, though I could not refrain from pitying the boy and wishing that she were as addicted to the study of practical school-room psychology as she was to the use of "straps." But, fortunately, for Tommy at this time, a new teacher was appointed to take charge of his room. She was small and frail looking, but possessed of that combination of wisdom, sympathy and tact which knows no fear in the school-room. Of course, she was informed from many sources of the notorious " case " which she would soon be called upon to manage." Each of his preceding teachers considered it her duty to inform Miss L in detail of his misdemeanors during her particular reign and closing the account with a remark like this: "I do not want you to think that I wish to injure Tommy but I thought it was no more than right that you should know what to expect, so as to be prepared." Ah, that "yellow passport"! Who can estimate the number of children's lives that have been blighted by those same words, so sweetly spoken? For it is but rarely that they fall into Wisdom's ears. But Miss L -smiled and said, "We shall see. I trust he is human." And then came the first day of the new term. Tommy more than maintained his reputation, for, as he said to the boys, "She ain't big enough to lick a feller like me. I'd fight first and I guess she knows it." But she had been studying him. He certainly did look ugly, low forehead, over hanging brows, deep set eyes and round, stubborn head, but the more she studied him the more thoroughly she became convinced that the greater part of that look came from habitual expression, rather than from the gifts of nature, and she fell to wondering how that face would look if it should wear the light of happiness upon it. He was making spit balls. She was looking at him but at that particular time she cared more for the boy than she did for the balls. "Poor fellow," she thought, "he has been strapped at school and beaten at home, until from the world's thinking no good of him, he has come to think no good of himself. It seems to me his greatest need is self-respect." Just then Tommy looked up. He caught the expression of her face. There was no frown there,- no expression of weakness either, as though she were afraid to attack him. But someway, he wasn't quite used to that kind of a look and it rather dampened his ardor for spit balls. They slid into his desk and did not appear again that day. In the afternoon she placed the spelling words toward the top of the board. Several children raised their hands, when the study period was over, to erase them. "They are rather too high for you," she said quietly, "I think we shall have to depend upon Tommy to do that for us." Master Tommy was bending a pin for the toe of his shoe at that particular time, and had not one word of his lesson, but he was so surprised to hear his name spoken in such a way, that he dropped the pin. "Depend upon him"! No one had ever depended upon him before, in all his short life! And then she began to seek to interest him in his work. She began in his own world, with ant hills and oriole's nests and gradually pushed aside the curtain which had concealed from his sight that better way of life. She gave him new motives and kept his mind well filled with new thoughts. She was constantly curbing his nature, but she did not once draw the reins so tight that he knew it. She was always his friend and reposed all the confidence in him that she could, never going so far as to give him the chance to betray any trust. To be sure, he frequently made trouble; she punished him by denying him some pleasure,- he was fond of sports - but he was always led to see the justice of his punishment and treated like a rational human being, which many of his class are not. Gradually there came fewer complaints from the playground and halls, and when June came, the principal congratulated Miss L——— upon the improvement manifested in Tommy's looks and deportment. There was a suspicion of tears in her eyes as she said, "I shall be sorry to part with Tommy. We have been good friends. I thought it was self-respect that he most needed." One Way of Using Stories. I have cut the stories into sections or paragraphs, and put them into envelopes; each envelope containing a complete story and its titl. For seat work, I have distributed these envelopes among the class, one to each pupil, and requested them to put the stories together. After the stories have been put together, they are told by the ones who arranged them, and then read. The day following the stories are reproduced on paper, and serve as a language lesson. It seems to me that this method has all the advantages of a regular exercise in reading, besides giving excellent training in composition. The principles of expression and development may be acquired in this way, and the mind disciplined in study. My pupils are much interested in this story building, if I may so call it, and I am quite sure that other teachers, if they try it, will be pleased with the results. Will not the following be helpful in resting the hands of the little children in a writing lesson? "Lay aside the pen, hang down the hand, and shake the stiffness out of it. Then expand it to its utmost and allow it to close slowly of its own will. Then sway it aloft and shake the stiffness from it again. Then expand it to its utmost and allow it to close of itself. Next swing the hand relaxed around in a circle, the action mainly at the wrist. drop it for a few seconds and return to the writing." Games in School-Room. Dear Editor: Then I send two games which I have arranged for my own school (first grade) for rainy days, indoor recesses, etc. One child leaves the room, while the others select some familiar animal. The child returns and tries to guess what animal has been selected, having the right, of course, of asking any questions about its appearance and habits. After this animal has been guessed, another child leaves the room, another animal is selected and the game goes on. It adds much to the children's enjoyment, if at the close of the game, the teacher passes a small basket containing one of the fancy "animal crackers" for each child. |