PUPIL-TEACHERS THEN AND NOW. 287 CHAPTER XXIV. JOINT UNIVERSITY AND NORMAL SCHOOL TRAINING-NECESSARY ARY SCHOOLS-ORGANISATION IMPROVED-EDINBURGH MER- I SHOULD be departing from the main purpose of these reminiscences were I to enter in any detail into the changes that have taken place during the last forty years in the attainments of pupilteachers on their admission to apprenticeship, and their mental equipment as teachers on leaving the Training College as qualified teachers. One has only to compare the ludicrously meagre attainments of pupil-teachers in the 'Sixties with what is now demanded of them, to see that the boy of sixteen has, all over, higher attainments than the boy of eighteen of forty years ago. The same is true of girls. Commencing their apprenticeship on a much higher level, many contrive, during the currency of it, to compete for more or fewer leaving certificates as a preparation for entering the university. This marks a height of attainment which forty years ago was hopelessly out of reach. A rapid sketch of the means by which this was brought about is probably not out of place. Joint University and Normal School Training. I had under my charge, during the first sixteen years of my service, the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray, in which, as I have already said, the parish schools were almost invariably filled by men who had a full university course. In view of prospective legislation which might interfere with the continuance of this, and of the fact that, in a number of cases elsewhere in Scotland, men of purely Normal School training had been appointed to parish schools, it seemed probable that in the course of a few years the majority of our parish schools would be similarly staffed. I therefore thought it important to consider how far the curriculum of the Normal School was (by itself) fitted to TRAINING COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY. 289 furnish a body of teachers who could maintain the fine tradition of the old parish school. There could be no doubt that it was totally unfit. The various Training Colleges did their work faithfully and well, but they did not pretend to more than the fringe of higher subjects, for the too good reason that the average pupilteacher was not prepared to receive more. In my first general report for 1865 I pointed this out, and sketched roughly a scheme by which attendance at the university might be conjoined with Normal College training without injury to the latter. During the two years that followed before a second general report was required of me, I had a very large amount of communication, personal and written, with Sir Francis Sandford, and the rectors of the four Training Colleges then existing, as to its feasibility. The result was general approval. My colleagues, Drs Wilson and Middleton, also made one or two references in support of it. Year after year I returned to the subject in successive reports, but it was not till after the separation of the Scottish from the English Department, and we had got a code of our own, that the first mention of permission to attend university classes appeared in the Code of 1873. Queen's T Scholars were allowed to attend not more than two classes, and their attendance at the Training College was correspondingly reduced. It commenced in a tentative way in 1874, when the four colleges sent up 33 students. In 1878 and ever since, the permission was practically extended to any number of classes, subject to the consent of the Training College authorities, who may dispense with the students' attendance at the Training College during the university session for such time as they may deem necessary. The number of students availing themselves of this permission has steadily increased, till now nearly 400 are enrolled every year, and when the report for 1901 appears, it will be found that not fewer than 5000 Training College students have during the last twenty-seven years received a more or less complete university education. In some, and probably in all the colleges, two-thirds of the male entrants come up having already gained so many leaving certificates as are considered equivalent to passing the preliminary examination for entrance into the university. It is expected that two or three years hence, between male and female students, from 150 to 200 Masters of Arts will be sent out every year as teachers. INCREASE OF GRADUATE TEACHERS. 291 My being in close contact with the parish teachers of the three Dick Bequest countiesmen of distinctly superior education-probably accounts for my attitude towards this question. But having taken an early and active interest in it, there is perhaps no part of my work in the education field to which I look back with greater satisfaction. Time This result could not be brought about without very considerable changes in the curriculum of the Training Colleges; but they were carried out gradually, and have been directed in almost every case towards something more robust and educative than the prescriptions of the early syllabus. Duplication of examination on the less important subjects was abolished, and the range of mathematics and science was extended. was found for higher work in the more educative subjects by cutting down or abolishing those that were less so, and for which satisfactory provision had been made during the four years of the pupil teacher's course. When the Training Colleges came directly under my supervision in 1888, I found that the most distasteful and harassing task of the students was the committing to memory for repetition, and repetition only, of 300 lines of poetry in both the first and |