A critic teacher should be appointed to the oversight of two such pupil teachers, each in charge of a schoolroom. The critic may also supervise one or more teachers practicing for brief periods daily with groups of children.

The pupil teachers are now to emphasize practice rather than theory, to work under the direction of one who regards the interests of the children quite as much as those of the teacher in training. The critic must admit the principles of education and general methods taught by the teacher of methodology, but she may have her own devices and even special methods that need not be those of the teacher of methodology. No harm will come to the teachers in training if they learn that principles must be assented to by all, but that methods may bear the stamp of the personality of the teacher; that all things must be considered from the point of view of their effect upon the pupils; the critic maintaining the claims of the children, the teacher of methods conforming to the laws of mind and the science of the subjects taught. The critics must teach for their pupil teachers and show in action the justness of their suggestions. In this sense they are model teachers as well as critics.

The critic should at the close of school meet her pupil teachers for a report of their experiences through the day-what they have attempted, how they have tried to do it, why they did so, and what success they gained. Advice as to overcoming difficulties, encouragement under trial, caution if need be, help for the work of to-morrow, occupy the hour. Above all, the critic should be a true friend, a womanly and cultivated woman, and an inspiring companion, whose presence is helpful to work and improving to personality.

LENGTH OF TRAINING SCHOOL COURSE.

There are three elements which determine the time to be spent in a training school-the time given to academic studies, the time given to professional studies, and the time given to practice. The sum of these periods will be the time required for the training course. Taking these in the inverse order, let us consider how much time is required for practice work with pupils. The time given to lesson outlines and practice with fellow pupil teachers may be considered a part of the professional study rather than of practice teaching. The period of practice with pupils must not be too short, whether we consider the interests of the pupils or of the teachers in training. An effort is usually made to counteract the effect upon the children of a succession of crude efforts of teachers beginning practice by strengthening the teaching and supervision through the employment of a considerable number of model and supervisory teachers and by dividing the pupils into small groups so that much individual work can be done. These arrangements, while useful for their purpose, destroy to a considerable degree the usual conditions under which school work is to be done and tend to render the teachers in training formal and imitative.

The practice room should be, as far as may be, the ordinary school, with the difficulties and responsibilities that will be met later. The responsibility for order, discipline, progress, records, reports, communication with parents and school authorities, must fall fully upon the young teacher, who has a friendly assistant to whom she can go for advice in the person of a wise and experienced critic, not constantly at hand, but constantly within reach.

Between the critic and the teacher in training there should exist the most cordial and familiar relations. These relations are based on the one hand upon an appreciation of wisdom and kindness, on the other upon an appreciation of sincerity and effort. The growth of such relations, and the fruitage which follows their growth, require time. A half year is not too long to be allotted for them. During this half-year experience, self-confidence and growth in power have been gained; but the pupil teacher is still not ready to be set aside to work out her own destiny. At this point she is just ready for marked advance, which should be helped and guided. To remain longer with her critic friend may cause imitation rather than independence, may lead to contentment and cessation of growth. She should now be transferred to the care of a second critic of a different personality, but of equal merit. The new critic is bound by her duty and her ambition to see that the first half year's advancement is maintained in the second. The pupil teacher finds that excellence is not all upon one model. The value of individuality impresses her. She gains a view of solid principles wrapped in diverse characteristics. Her own individuality rises to new importance, and the elements of a growth not at once to be checked start up within her. For the care of the second critic a second half year must be allowed, which extends the practice work with pupils through an entire school year. For the theoretical work a year is by general experience proven sufficient. The ideal training course is, then, one of two years' length.

. Provision for the extended practice which is here recommended can be made only by city training schools and by normal schools having connection with the schools of a city. To set apart a building of several rooms as a school of practice will answer the purpose only when there are very few teachers in training. In order to give each pupil teacher a year of practice the number of practice rooms must equal the num ber of teachers to be graduated annually from the training school, be the number 10, or 50, or 500. In any considerable city a school for practice will not suffice; many schools for practice must be secured. This can be done by selecting one excellent teacher in each of a sufficient number of school buildings and making her a critic teacher, giving her charge of two schoolrooms, in each of which is placed a pupil teacher for training.

This insures that the teaching shall be done as nearly as may be under ordinary conditions, brings the pupil teachers at once into the

general body of teachers, makes the corps of critics a leaven of zeal and good teaching scattered among the schools. This body of critics will uplift the schools. More capable in the beginning than the average teacher, led to professional study, ambitious for the best things, they make greater progress than they otherwise would do, and are sufficient in themselves to inspire the general body of teachers. For the sake of the pupil teachers, and the children, too, this plan is best. Its economy also will readily be apparent. This plan has been tried for several years in the schools of Providence, with results fully equal to those herein claimed.

TESTS OF SUCCESS.

The tests of success in practice teaching are in the main those to be applied to all teaching. Do her pupils grow more honest, industrious, polite? Do they admire their teacher? Does she secure obedience and industry only while demanding it, or has she influence that reaches beyond her presence? Do her pupils think well and talk well? As to the teacher herself: Has she sympathy and tact, self-reliance and originality, breadth and intensity? Is she systematic, direct, and business like. Is she courteous, neat in person and in work? Has she discernment of character and a just standard of requirement and attainment?

These are some of the questions one must answer before he pronounces any teacher a success or a failure.

Admission to a training school assumes that the pupil has good health, good scholarship, good sense, good ability, and devotion to the work of teaching. If all these continue to be exhibited in satisfactory degree and the pupil goes through the prescribed course of study and practice, the diploma of the school should naturally mark the completion of this work. If it appears on acquaintance that a serious mistake has been made in estimating any of these elements, then, so soon as the mistake is fairly apparent and is probably a permanent condition, the pupil should be requested to withdraw from the work. This is not a case where the wheat and tares should grow together until the harvest at graduation day or the examination preceding it. With such a foundation continually maintained, it is the duty of the school to conquer success for each pupil.

Teaching does not require genius. Indeed genius, in the sense of erratic ability, is out of place in the teacher's chair. Most good teachers at this close of the nineteenth century are made, not born; made from good material well fashioned. There is, however, a possibility that some idiosyncrasy of character, not readily discovered until the test is made, may rise between the prospective teacher and her pupils, making her influence over them small or harmful. Such a defect, if it exist, will appear during the practice teaching, and the critic will discover it. This defect, on its first discovery, should be plainly pointed

out to the teacher in training and her efforts should be joined with those of the critic in its removal.

If this effort be a failure and the defect be one likely to harm the pupils hereafter to be taught, then the teacher in training should be informed and requested to withdraw from the school. There should be no test at the close of the school course to determine fitness for graduation. Graduation should find the teacher serious in view of her responsibilities, hopeful because she has learned how success is to be attained, inspired with the belief that growth in herself and in her pupils is the great demand and the great reward.

TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Perhaps one-sixth of the great body of public school teachers in the United States are engaged in secondary work and in supervision. These are the leading teachers. They give educational tone to communities, as well as inspiration to the body of teachers.

It is of great importance that they be imbued with the professional spirit springing from sound professional culture. The very difficult and responsible positions that they fill demand ripe scholarship, more than ordinary ability, and an intimate knowledge of the period of adolescence, which Rousseau so aptly styles the second birth.

The elementary schools provide for the education of the masses. Our secondary schools educate our social and business leaders. The careers of our college graduates who mainly fill the important places in professional and political life are determined largely by the years of secondary training. The college or university gives expansion and finish, the secondary school gives character and direction.

It should not be forgotten that the superintendents of public schools are largely taken from the ranks of secondary teachers, and that the. scholarship, qualities, and training required for the one class are nearly equivalent to that demanded for the other.

Our high schools, too, are the source of supply for teachers in elementary schools. Hence the pedagogic influences exerted in the high school should lead to excellence in elementary teaching.

The superintendent who with long foresight looks to the improvement of his schools will labor earnestly to improve and especially to professionalize the teaching in his high school. The management which makes the high school an independent portion of the school system, merely attached and loftily superior, which limits the supervision and influence of the superintendent to the primary and grammar grades, is shortsighted and destructive.

There ought also to be a place and a plan for the training of teachers for normal schools. The great body of normal and training schools in the United States are secondary schools. Those who are to teach in these schools need broad scholarship, thorough understanding of edu cational problems, and trained experience. To put into these schools

teachers whose scholarship is that of the secondary school and whose training is that of the elementary is to narrow and depress rather than broaden and elevate.

If college graduates are put directly into teaching, without special study and training, they will teach as they have been taught. The methods of college professors are not in all cases the best, and, if they were, high school pupils are not to be taught nor disciplined as college students are. High school teaching and discipline can be that neither of the grammar school nor of the college, but is sui generis. To recognize this truth and the special differences is vital to success. This recognition comes only from much experience, at great loss, and partial failure, or by happy intuition not usually to be expected, or by definite instruction and directed practice. Success in teaching depends upon conformity to principles, and these principles are not a part of the mental equipment of every educated person.

These considerations and others are the occasion of a growing conviction, widespread in this land, that secondary teachers should be trained for their work even more carefully than elementary teachers are trained. This conviction is manifested in the efforts to secure normal schools adapted to training teachers for secondary schools, notably in Massachusetts and New York, and in the numerous professorships of pedagogy established in rapidly increasing numbers in our colleges and universities.

The training of teachers for secondary schools is in several essential respects the same as that for teachers of elementary schools. Both demand scholarship, theory, and practice. 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.

It is not necessary to enter in detail into the work of theoretical instruction for secondary teachers. The able men at the head of institutions and departments designed for such work neither need nor desire advice upon this matter. And yet for the purposes of this report it may be allowable to point out a plan for the organization of a secondary training school.

Let it be supposed that two essentials have been found in one locality: (1) A college or university having a department of pedagogy and a department of post-graduate work; (2) a high school, academy, or preparatory school whose managers are willing to employ and pay a number of graduate students to teach under direction for a portion of each day. These two conditions being met, we will suppose that pedagogy is offered as an elective to the college seniors.

Two years of instruction in the science and art of teaching are to be provided-one, mostly theory, with some practice, elective during the senior year; the other, mostly practice, with some theory, elective for one year as post-graduate work.

During the senior year is to be studied: