and vocational lines.

5. To cooperate with the appointment office by supplying certain kinds of data necessary for making intelligent recommendations for positions. Such data would include trait ratings, intelligence scores, and indications of special aptitudes. Recommendations which were known to be based upon a painstaking analysis of students' abilities would soon come to have far greater weight with prospective employers than recommendations based upon off-hand impressions and expressed in the usual unstandardized terms.

6. Other lines of investigation would include such problems as the relation of interests to ability, the relation of highschool success to success in life, etc.

In a university enrolling 2,500 students, and with the opportunity we have to select our material both before and after registration, such a bureau would justify any reasonable expense. Important work could be done with a budget of $5,000 a year. Even $10,000 a year would amount to less than $5.00 per capita, or three quarters of one per cent. of the per capita cost of instruction. It is my personal belief that the expenditure of 1 per cent. in investigations of the kind suggested would make the other 99 per cent. of our expenditures considerably more worth while.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

LEWIS M. TERMAN

THE IMPROVEMENT OF COLLEGE

TEACHING

FOR Some years the writer has been interested in the improvement of the teaching of young college instructors but only recently has he been in a position to offer a course in college teaching. This opportunity having opened, courses have been offered, and certain experiences have

ministrators and faculties of colleges who are concerned about the matter.

The difficulties in the way of offering such a course are numerous. In the first place, some college instructors maintain that to become an expert college teacher one needs only an adequate knowledge of his subject, without special pedagogical training. Among such instructors, enthusiasm over a course in methods is lukewarm; and naturally this made me hesitate to offer such a course for fear of appearing presumptuous among my colleagues. Then, too, teachers of specialized subjects, such as mathematics or chemistry, question the ability of anybody like the professor of education, without thoroughly expert knowledge of the subjects, to teach specialists how to teach their subjects. Moreover, the professor of education, though having at hand a large body of methods of teaching in the elementary and the high-school fields, has no such mass of material dealing with the problems of college teaching and, therefore, is likely to feel that the teachers of mathematics and chemistry are partially correct in their contention; he knows that he has little information of the right sort at his command. Finally, there is the question of the method of attack; if one begins with psychology and philosophy and makes applications of a general sort, he must give a much longer course than can be offered to busy college teachers with any expectation of their continuous attendance. And without this fundamental information obtained in a leisurely manner they will have extreme difficulty in making the applications of the information to their concrete problems.

Fortunately for the initiation of a course in college teaching in this institu

tion,1 the writer has been gradually changing his point of approach to all methods of teaching. It has been the accepted practise of those writers on methods whose texts have received the most favorable attention from their colleagues in normal schools and colleges, to derive their general methods from psychology and philosophy and their special methods from general methods. In such cases the student is given the principles with a few applications for purposes of illustration but is expected to make the great remainder of the applications for himself. Because, however, of the extreme difficulty of applying principles in proportion to the ease of learning them, there is a wide gap existing between the point at which the text-book in methods ends and practise begins.

However, it has become increasingly evident to the writer that the point of attack should be changed. Descriptions of method should begin with practise and not with fundamental subjects. The first step should be to list the difficulties in teaching, the second to collect all possible solutions worked out by efficient teachers. These solutions should be experimentally evaluated to determine which are more efficient. They should then be classified according to common tendencies of method in order to obtain general methods and these should be interpreted in terms of such principles of psychology, sociology or philosophy as happen to apply to this body of method.

To carry the plan through these five stages is a long term task; but, in the mean time, all except the third can be carried on with ease. That is to say, difficulties can be listed and solutions collected. Without evaluation, these solutions

1 Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

may be used as suggestions, be classified and interpreted as far as possible, in terms of the principles of the fundamental subjects. Such a body of methods would at the same time become the basis of a most significant and spectacular program of experimental investigation into the comparative efficiency of the suggested solutions.

This point of attack, which has been presented in greater detail elsewhere,2 provides an adequate method for the course in college teaching. If we can determine the difficulties of the young college instructor, collect the methods of handling these as worked out by excellent college teachers, and interpret them in terms of the principles of psychology and philosophy, we shall be able to answer all or nearly all the objections mentioned in the opening paragraphs. The professor of education will certainly avoid being charged with presumption by the professor of mathematics when he shows that the methods collected are those used by excellent mathematics teachers themselves. This demonstration would also lay the objection that only those who know the subject are able to tell how to teach it; for only the methods of specialists are collected. The professor of education will not be concerned over having in his possession methods only for the high school and the grades; he has by this plan a great mass of college methods. And he will be able to introduce psychology and philosophy in interpreting these methods. Even those who claim that only a knowledge of the subject is necessary for good teaching will have to face the fact that the collected methods are such as the head of a department gives to his beginners if he is at all interested in training.

Courses in college teaching were offered. 2 Journal of Administrative and Supervision, September, 1920.

in this institution. No one was admitted except young instructors who are more likely to feel the need for such a course and would be overawed by older instructors of higher academic rank. Attendance has always been voluntary, and credit may be given when the young instructor is working for a degree. Each course is in the form of seminar which meets for two hours in the evening once a week for a quarter.

The plan of the first course, which is standardized in succeeding courses, consists, in brief, of the following steps. The group make simple job analyses of their duties as instructors and check those duties with which they have had difficulties. These are then listed. For instance, in the first course, fourteen points of a very simple very simple and practical sort were listed and selected for study. These were:

1. Learning to know students.

2. Apportioning material to time (session, daily).

3. How do you prepare?

4. How handle discussion?

5. How get students to think?

6. How get interest?

7. How test class? Daily, session?

8. How grade papers?

9. How grade students?

10. How get students to work consistently?

11. How make assignments?

12. How get students to use what they know?

13. How get students to memorize and form habits?

14. What kinds of examinations are given? The group were then trained to interview. They were asked to interview some one successful colleague and find out how he handled these difficulties. The descriptions were written on fourteen sheets of paper (for mechanical ease), brought to

the seminar, and criticized by the group. Particularly was it emphasized that the question "How do you do this?" must be constantly asked whenever the one interviewed failed to give specific statements of method. In addition, it was found advisable to ask constantly for illustrations; when the one interviewed made a statement and was asked for an illustration of what he meant, the resulting story frequently was illuminating. Finally, the interviewer was required to write rapidly and fully, to conserve the exact and often vivid and picturesque expressions of the instructor questioned.

Before the end of the quarter the group had interviewed forty of the best college teachers in the community and had written up full descriptions. These were then sorted so that all the forty answers to each question could be considered together. The methods of handling each problem were classified according to common tendencies and written up without evaluation in organized form. At times partial quotations from the interviews were inserted and at other times full quotations were used. This material was mimeographed and courtesy copies were distributed to those who contributed their methods. The materials were used as the basis for study and interpretation in the seminar in which specific references to books and methods of teaching and educational psychology were read and discussed.

Certain definite results have been clearly observed. In the first place, and most important, the influence upon the members of the seminar has been pronounced. They make daily use of the suggestions obtained from the interviews; and in some cases they report that their teaching has been revolutionized. They appreciate most deeply the opportunity to talk in an intimate way to instructors whom they re

spect and of whom in some cases they have stood in awe. They report, also, that they are forming the habit of talking to other instructors about their methods of teaching, to their own great advantage.

In the second place, the instructors interviewed have revealed a deep interest in their teaching. They talked freely and at great length, the record interview to date being four hours and a half, with the interviewer merely asking questions and the one interviewed going strong at the end of the conference. These excellent college teachers love their teaching so much that, to the writer, the almost complete absence of any discussion of methods of teaching in current conversation in college circles is both unfortunate and inexplicable.

In the third place, the instructors interviewed have many excellent methods which they have worked out from their own experience. This is to be expected in view of the fact that they are men and women of more than average intelligence who, when they are confronted by a difficulty, whether in teaching or in their fields of specialization, can be expected to produce effective and unusual solutions. The causes of the heavy criticism of college teaching, in so far as it is just, lie in the facts that some of the teachers are young and inexperienced, or old and ineffieicnt, and that others have not become aware of difficulties in teaching which have been noticed by high-school and grade teachers under the more acute conditions arising with younger and less docile students. But the difficulties of which they have been conscious they have met with excellent methods of solution.

Finally, it is quite apparent that any member of the department of education who is interested in methods of teaching and in the improvement of college teach

ing can conduct a seminar of this sort with the full cooperation of his colleagues in the academic and technical departments.

W. W. CHARTERS

CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
PITTSBURGH, Pa.

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS

MEDICAL EDUCATION IN CHINA

AT a meeting in February of the medical men of Great Britain to advance the cause of medical education in China, Mr. Harold Balme, of the school of medicine of the Shantung University, gave the principal address, of which the following summary is given in the Journal of the British Medical Association. Western medicine was introduced into India Company, in 1827, and a little later by China by Colledge, a surgeon of the East

Parker, a medical missionary from America. The first Chinese medical college was established at Tientsin in 1881, thanks to Kenneth Mackenzie, of the London Missionary Society, and the help of Li Hung Chang. Six years later a second medical school for Chinese students was founded in Hong Kong. After the Boxer rising, a school of medicine was established in Peking, the result of a combined effort of British and American medical men, and, following this, missionary medical colleges sprang up in other parts of the country -too many of them, indeed, in view of the limited staffs and equipments available. Meanwhile, a body of Chinese medical men, who had received their training in England and America formed a National Medical Association, with Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a graduate of Cambridge, as leader. Other organizations, not specifically missionary, in America, Germany and Japan, took a share in the work of medical education, especially the Rockefeller Foundation, which took over the complete financial responsibility of the Peking College, to which a large staff of expert teachers had been appointed, mostly from the United States, but including thirteen Chinese professors. The Council of Medical Education of the China Medical Missionary Association had

asked the Rockefeller Foundation to assist in the support of at least one medical school teaching in Chinese, and had also urged that all missions interested in the advance of medical education in east and central China should concentrate their forces upon the development of such a school. The school chosen was the one at Tsinan, now the school of medicine of the University of Shantung. The Rockefeller Foundation had asked the school to take over the three junior classes formerly under instruction at the medical college in Peking, and had made a very generous grant towards staffing, building and equipment. The school had secured a faculty of over twenty full-time teachers, representing some of the leading British and American universities. Similar efforts were being made in Moukden, Chengtu, Shanghai and other places. The Council of Medical Education had also outlined a twoyear course of pre-medical instruction to be taken by students previous to entering upon their five-year medical course. The speaker touched also upon the great improvements in the Chinese nursing service, the interest of the modern Chinese in preventive medicine, and the sympathetic attitude of the Chinese government. The policy of the Board of Education of China, as stated by a representative of the board at the last conference of the China Medical Missionary Association, included the provision of a modern medical college in each province, the opening of an institute for research, and the registration of general practitioners.

THE AFFAIRS OF THE NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION

FRANK D. WILSEY resigned on April 13 his membership in the Board of Education in a letter to Mayor Hylan calling the board a failure, and expressing his intention of supporting the bill to establish a board of nineteen. Mr. Wilsey had been a member of the board for over twenty-five years. He said in this letter that from the beginning the tendency of the present board had been one of "drift and vague opportunism."

Wavering and failure have attended its efforts, and finally caused a loss of public confidence the like of which I have never seen during my long term of service. Important issues, instead of being squarely faced, have been shunted to one side whenever possible. Thus the board was at times indifferent or hostile to the crying demands of teachers for a decent living wage. The resort of the teachers to the legislature for salary legisla tion was necessary because the board of education deliberately ignored the teachers' desperate plight out of deference to the wishes of the board of estimate.

In accepting the resignation Mayor Hylan wrote: Is it not a fact that at the time of your appointment to the board of education you were a resident of the Borough of the Bronx, and that this residence has now been changed to the Borough of Manhattan? This change of residence would preclude your reappointment as a member of the board from that borough. With this knowledge of your ineligibility for reappointment and with scarcely three weeks of official life left for you, is it not rather late to belabor the board of education and find fault with the president of that board, whom you helped to place in office?

The Mayor then referred to the proposed bill, declaring that, if enacted, it would take the control of the public schools out of the hands of the people. He said in conclusion: "The Robinsin bill is a vicious measure and should be defeated. However, as you have expressed your purpose to work heart and soul for its enactment, your resignation is hereby accepted."

The bill sponsored by former Commissioner Ernest F. Eilert to abolish the present Board of Education and create a board of nineteen was introduced by Senator Robinson, of Herkimer. On the objection of Senator Walker the bill was not advanced to the order of third reading but was referred to the Committee on Education and was apparently not voted on before the adjournment of the legislature. Mr. Eilert rewrote his bill and the measure now provides for the creation of a commission consisting of the Mayor of New York City and the four regional regents