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The Third Yearbook 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC 
 
 STUDY OF EDUCATION 8 
 
 ' 5 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE IN 
 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 (1) JOHN DEWEY; (2) SARAH C. BROOKS; (3) F. M. McMURRY, T. D. 
 WOOD, D. E. SMITH, C. H. FARNSWORTH, G. R. RICHARDS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 CHARLES A. McMURRY 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS 
 

 ^-.2, 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 
 Charles A. McMurry 
 Chicago, Illinois 
 
 Published February. 1904 
 Second Impreasion May, 1912 
 Third Printing January, 1927 
 
 Composed and Printed by 
 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 
 
 Reprinted January, 1927 by 
 
 Public School Publishing Company 
 
 Bloomington, Illinois 
 
NOTICE TO ACTIVE MEMBERS. 
 
 There will be two meetings at Atlanta for the discussion of these 
 papers by active members. It is requested that the active members, as 
 far as possible, attend these meetings and come prepared for careful 
 discussion. 
 
 It is recommended that local round tables be organized at schools 
 engaged in the education and training of teachers for more general 
 and thorough discussion of this important phase of education. 
 
 Those holding such meetings can secure additional copies of the 
 Yearbook, and any of the previously published Yearbooks of the 
 National Herbart Society, from The University of Chicago Press, 
 Chicago, Illinois. 
 
OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF 
 EDUCATION 
 
 Wilbur S. Jackman, School of Education, University of Chicago, President 
 Charles DeGarmo - . - - Cornell University, New York 
 William L. Bryan - - - University of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind. 
 David Felmley - . - - State Normal University, Normal, 111. 
 C. P. Cary . - - - State Superintendent, Madison, Wis. 
 
 Charles A. McMurry, Northern Illinois State Normal School, 
 DeKalb, 111., Secretary -Treasurer. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 VAGB 
 
 The Relation of Theorf to Practice in Education. 
 
 John Dewey 9 
 Relation of Theory to Practice. Sarah C. Brooks - - 31 
 
 Theory and Practice at Teachers College, Columbia Uni- 
 versity. J^. M. McMurry, T. D. Wood, D. E. Smith, C. H. 
 Farnsworth, G, R. Richards - - - - - - 43 
 
 List of Active Members 65 
 
THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 THE RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE IN 
 EDUCATION.' 
 
 John Dewey, 
 The University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 
 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the proper relationship 
 of theory and practice without a preliminary discussion, respectively, 
 (i) of the nature and aim of theory; (2) of practice. 
 
 A. I shall assume without argument that adequate professional 
 instruction of teachers is not exclusively theoretical, but involves a cer- 
 tain amount of practical work. The primary question as to the lat- 
 ter is the aim with which it shall be conducted. Two controlling 
 purposes may be entertained so different from each other as radically 
 to alter the amount, conditions, and method of practice work. On 
 one hand, we may carry on the practical work with the object of giv- 
 ing teachers in training working command of the necessary tools 
 of their profession ; control of the technique of class instruction and 
 management ; skill and proficiency in the work of teaching. With 
 this aim in view, practice work is, as far as it goes, of the nature of 
 apprenticeship. On the other hand, we may propose to use practice 
 work as an instrument in making real and vital theoretical instruc- 
 tion ; the knowledge of subject-matter and of principles of education. 
 This is the laboratory point of view. 
 
 The contrast between the two points of view is obvious ; and the 
 two aims together give the limiting terms within which all practice 
 work falls. From one point of view, the aim is to form and equip the 
 actual teacher ; the aim is immediately as well as ultimately practi- 
 cal. From the other point of view, the immediate aim, the way of 
 
 *This paper is to be taken as representing the views of the writer, rather than 
 those of any particular institution in an official way ; for the writer thought it better 
 to discuss certain principles that seem to him fundamental, rather than to define a 
 system of procedure. 
 
 9 
 
lO THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 getting at the ultimate aim, is to supply the intellectual method and 
 material of good workmanship, instead of making on the spot, as it 
 were, an efficient workman. Practice work thus considered is admin- 
 istered primarily with reference to the intellectual reactions it incites, 
 giving the student a better hold upon the educational significance of 
 the subject-matter he is acquiring, and of the science, philosophy, and 
 history of education. Of course, the results are not exclusive. It 
 would be very strange if practice work in doing what the laboratory 
 does for a student of physics or chemistry in way of securing a more 
 vital understanding of its principles, should not at the same time 
 insure some skill in the instruction and management of a class. It 
 would also be peculiar if the process of acquiring such skill should not 
 also incidentally serve to enlighten and enrich instruction in subject- 
 matter and the theory of education. None the less, there is a funda- 
 mental difference in the conception and conduct of the practice work 
 according as one idea or the other is dominant and the other subordi- 
 nate. If the primary object of practice is acquiring skill in perform- 
 ing the duties of a teacher, then the amount of time given to practice 
 work, the place at which it is introduced, the method of conducting 
 it, of supervising, criticising, and correlating it, will differ widely 
 from the method where the laboratory ideal prevails ; and vice versa. 
 
 In discussing this matter, I shall try to present what I have termed 
 the laboratory, as distinct from the apprentice idea. While I speak 
 primarily from the standpoint of the college, I should not be frank if 
 I did not say that I believe what I am going to say holds, mutatis 
 mutandis t for the normal school as well. 
 
 I. I first adduce the example of other professional schools. I 
 doubt whether we, as educators, keep in mind with sufficient constancy 
 the fact that the problem of training teachers is one species of a more 
 generic affair — that of training for professions. Our problem is akin 
 to that of training architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. More- 
 over, since (shameful and incredible as it seems) the vocation of teach- 
 ing is practically the last to recognize the need of specific professional 
 preparation, there is all the more reason for teachers to try to find what 
 they may learn from the more extensive and matured experience of other 
 callings. If now we turn to what has happened in the history of train- 
 ing for other professions, we find the following marked tendencies : 
 
 I. The demand for an increased amount of scholastic attainments 
 as a prerequisite for entering upon professional work. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE II 
 
 2. Development of certain lines of work in the applied sciences 
 and arts, as centers of professional work ; compare, for example, the 
 place occupied by chemistry and physiology in medical training at 
 present, with that occupied by chairs of "practice" and oi ^'materia 
 medica'" a generation ago. 
 
 3. Arrangement of the practical and quasi-professional work upon 
 the assumption that (limits of time, etc., being taken into account) the 
 professional school does its best for its students when it gives them 
 typical and intensive, rather than extensive and detailed, practice. 
 It aims, in a word, at control of the intellectual methods required for 
 personal and independent mastery of practical skill, rather than 
 at turning out at once masters of the craft. This arrangement 
 necessarily involves considerable postponement of skill in the routine 
 and technique of the profession, until the student, after graduation, 
 enters upon the pursuit of his calling. 
 
 These results are all the more important to us because other pro- 
 fessional schools mostly started from the same position which training 
 schools for teachers have occupied. Their history shows a period in 
 which the idea was that students ought from the start to be made 
 as proficient as possible in practical skill. In seeking for the motive 
 forces which have caused professional schools to travel so steadily 
 away from this position and toward the idea that practical work 
 should be conducted for the sake of vitalizing and illuminating 
 intellectual methods two reasons may be singled out : 
 
 «) First, the limited time at the disposal of the schools, and the 
 consequent need of economy in its employ. It is not necessary to 
 assume that apprenticeship is of itself a bad thing. On the contrary, 
 it may be admitted to be a good thing ; but the time which a student 
 spends in the training school is short at the best. Since short, it is an 
 urgent matter that it be put to its most effective use; and, relatively 
 speaking, the wise employ of this short time is in laying scientific 
 foundations. These cannot be adequately secured when one is doing 
 the actual work of the profession, while professional life does afford 
 time for acquiring and perfecting skill of the more technical sort. 
 
 b) In the second place, there is inability to furnish in the school 
 adequate conditions for the best acquiring and using of skill. As 
 compared with actual practice, the best that the school of law or medi- 
 cine can do is to provide a somewhat remote and simulated copy of 
 the real thing. For such schools to attempt to give the skill which 
 
12 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 comes to those adequately prepared, insensibly and unavoidably in 
 actual work, is the same sort of thing as for grammar schools to spend 
 months upon months in trying to convey (usually quite unsuccess- 
 fully) that skill in commercial arithmetic which comes, under penalty of 
 practical failure, in a few weeks in the bank or counting-house. 
 
 It may be said that the analogy does not hold good for teachers' 
 training schools, because such institutions have model or practice 
 departments, supplying conditions which are identical with those which 
 the teacher has to meet in the actual pursuit of his calling. But this 
 is true at most only in such normal schools as are organized after the 
 Oswego pattern — schools, that is to say, where the pupil-teacher is 
 given for a considerable period of time the entire charge of instruc- 
 tion and discipline in the class-room, and does not come under a room 
 critic-teacher. In all other cases, some of the most fundamentally 
 significant features of the real school are reduced or eliminated. Most 
 "practice schools" are a compromise. In theory they approximate 
 ordinary conditions. As matter of fact, the " best interests of the chil- 
 dren " are so safeguarded and supervised that the situation approaches 
 learning to swim without going too near the water. 
 
 There are many ways that do not strike one at first glance, for 
 removing the conditions of "practice work" from those of actual 
 teaching. Deprivation of responsibility for the discipline of the room ; 
 the continued presence of an expert ready to suggest, to take matters 
 into his own hands; close supervision; reduction of size of group 
 taught; etc., etc., are some of these ways. The topic of "lesson plans" 
 will be later referred to in connection with another topic. Here 
 they may be alluded to as constituting one of the modes in which the 
 conditions of the practice-teacher are made unreal. The student who 
 prepares a number of more or less set lessons ; who then has those 
 lesson plans criticised ; who then has his actual teaching criticised from 
 the standpoint of success in carrying out the prearranged plans, is in a 
 totally different attitude from the teacher who has to build up and 
 modify his teaching plans as he goes along from experience gained in 
 contact with pupils. 
 
 It would be difficult to find two things more remote from each 
 other than the development of subject-matter under such control as is 
 supplied from actual teaching, taking effect through the teacher's own 
 initiative and reflective criticism, and its development with an eye 
 fixed upon the judgment, presumed and actual, of a superior super- 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 13 
 
 visory officer. Those phases of the problem of practice teaching which 
 relate more distinctly to responsibility for the discipline of the room, 
 or of the class, have received considerable attention in the past; bu 
 he more delicate and far-reaching matter of intellectual responsibility 
 is too frequently ignored. Here centers the problem of securing con- 
 ditions which will make practice work a genuine apprenticeship. 
 
 II. To place the emphasis upon the securing of proficiency in 
 teaching and discipline puts the attention of the student-teacher in the 
 wrong place ^ and tends to fix it in the wrong direction — not wrong abso- 
 lutely, but relatively as regards perspective of needs and opportunities. 
 The would-be teacher has some time or other to face and solve two 
 problems, each extensive and serious enough by itself to demand 
 absorbing and undivided attention. These two problems are: 
 
 1. Mastery of subject-matter from the standpoint of its educational 
 value and use; or, what is the same thing, the mastery of educational 
 principles in their application to that subject-matter which is at once 
 the material of instruction and the basis of discipline and control; 
 
 2. The mastery of the technique of class management. 
 
 This does not mean that the two problems are in any way isolated 
 or independent. On the contrary, they are strictly correlative. But 
 the mind of a student cannot give equal attention to both at the same 
 time. 
 
 The difficulties which face a beginning teacher, who is set down for 
 the first time before a class of from thirty to sixty children, in the 
 responsibilities not only of instruction, but of maintaining the required 
 order in the room as a whole, are most trying. It is almost impossible 
 for an old teacher who has acquired the requisite skill of doing two or 
 three distinct things simultaneously — skill to see the room as a whole 
 while hearing oile individual in one class recite, of keeping the pro- 
 gram of the day and, yes, of the week and of the month in the 
 fringe of consciousness while the work of the hour is in its center — it 
 is almost impossible for such a teacher to realize all the difficulties that 
 confront the average beginner. 
 
 There is a technique of teaching, just as there is a technique of 
 piano-playing. The technique, if it is to be educationally effective, is 
 dependent upon principles. But it is possible for a student to acquire 
 outward form of method without capacity to put it to genuinely educa- 
 tive use. As every teacher knows, children have an inner and an outer 
 attention. The inner attention is the giving of the mind without 
 
14 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 reserve or qualification to the subject in hand. It is the first-hand and 
 personal play of mental powers. As such, it is a fundamental condi- 
 tion of mental growth. To be able to keep track of this mental play, 
 to recognize the signs of its presence or absence, to know how it is 
 initiated and maintained, how to test it by results attained, and to test 
 apparent results by it, is the supreme mark and criterion of a teacher. 
 It means insight into soul-action, ability to discriminate the genuine 
 from the sham, and capacity to further one and discourage the other. 
 
 External attention, on the other hand, is that given to the book or 
 teacher as an independent object. It is manifested in certain conven- 
 tional postures and physical attitudes rather than in the movement of 
 thought. Children acquire great dexterity in exhibiting in conven- 
 tional and expected ways the form oi attention to school work, while 
 reserving the inner play of their own thoughts, images, and emotions 
 for subjects that are more important to them, but quite irrelevant. 
 
 Now, the teacher who is plunged prematurely into the pressing and 
 practical problem of keeping order in the schoolroom has almost of 
 necessity to make supreme the matter of external attention. The teacher 
 has not yet had the training which affords psychological insight — 
 which enables him to judge promptly (and therefore almost automatic- 
 ally) the kind and mode of subject-matter which the pupil needs at a 
 given moment to keep his attention moving forward effectively and 
 healthfully. He does know, however, that he must maintain order ; 
 that he must keep the attention of the pupils fixed upon his own 
 questions, suggestions, instructions, and remarks, and upon their "les- 
 sons. " The inherent tendency of the situation therefore is for him 
 to acquire his technique in relation to the outward rather than the inner 
 mode of attention. 
 
 III. Along with this fixation of attention upon the secondary at 
 the expense of the primary problem, /kerg goes the formation of habits 
 of work which have an empirical^ rather than a scientific^ sanction. The 
 student adjusts his actual methods of teaching, not to the principles 
 which he is acquiring, but to what he sees succeed and fail in an 
 empirical way from moment to moment : to what he sees other teach- 
 ers doing who are more experienced and successful in keeping order 
 than he is; and to the injunctions and directions given him by others. 
 In this way the controlling habits of the teacher finally get fixed with 
 comparatively little reference to principles in the psychology, logic, 
 and history of education. In theory, these latter are dominant ; in 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 15 
 
 practice, the moving forces are the devices and methods which are 
 picked up through blind experimentation ; through examples which 
 are not rationalized ; through precepts which are more or less arbitrary 
 and mechanical ; through advice based upon the experience of others. 
 Here we have the explanation, in considerable part at least, of the 
 dualism, the unconscious duplicity, which is one of the chief evils of 
 the teaching profession. There is an enthusiastic devotion to certain 
 principles of lofty theory in the abstract — principles of self-activity, 
 self-control, intellectual and moral — and there is a school practice tak- 
 ing little heed of the official pedagogic creed. Theory and practice do 
 not grow together out of and into the teacher's personal experience. 
 
 Ultimately there are two bases upon which the habits of a teacher 
 as a teacher may be built up. They may be formed under the inspira- 
 tion and constant criticism of intelligence, applying the best that is 
 available. This is possible only where the would-be teacher has become 
 fairly saturated with his subject-matter, and with his psychological and 
 ethical philosophy of education. Only when such things have become 
 incorporated in mental habit, have become part of the working tenden- 
 cies of observation, insight, and reflection, will these principles work 
 automatically, unconsciously, and hence promptly and effectively. And 
 this means that practical work should be pursued primarily with refer- 
 ence to its reaction upon the professional pupil in making him a 
 thoughtful and alert student of education, rather than to help him get 
 immediate proficiency. 
 
 For immediate skill may be got at the cost of power to go on grow- 
 ing. The teacher who leaves the professional school with power in 
 managing a class of children may appear to superior advantage the 
 first day, the first week, the first month, or even the first year, as com- 
 pared with some other teacher who has a much more vital command 
 of the psychology, logic, and ethics of development. But later "pro- 
 gress" may with such consist only in perfecting and refining skill already 
 possessed. Such persons seem to know how to teach, but they are not 
 students of teaching. Even though they go on studying books of peda- 
 gogy, reading teachers' journals, attending teachers' institutes, etc., 
 yet the root of the matter is not in them, unless they continue to be 
 students of subject-matter, and students of mind-activity. Unless a 
 teacher is such a student, he may continue to improve in the mechan- 
 ics of school management, but he can not grow as a teacher, an 
 inspirer and director of soul-life. How often do candid instructors in 
 
1 6 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 training schools for teachers acknowledge disappointment in the later 
 career of even their more promising condidates! They seem to strike 
 twelve at the start. There is an unexpected and seemingly unaccount- 
 able failure to maintain steady growth. Is this in some part due to 
 the undue premature stress laid in early practice work upon securing 
 immediate capability in teaching? 
 
 I might go on to mention other evils which seem to me to be more 
 or less the effect of this same cause. Among them are the lack of intel- 
 lectual independence among teachers, their tendency to intellectual 
 subserviency. The "model lesson "of the teachers' institute and of 
 the educational journal is a monument, on the one hand, of the eager- 
 ness of those in authority to secure immediate practical results at any 
 cost; and, upon the other, of the willingness of our teaching corps to 
 accept without inquiry or criticism any method or device which seems 
 to promise good results. Teachers, actual and intending, flock to those 
 persons who give them clear-cut and definite instructions as to just 
 how to teach this or that. 
 
 The tendency of educational development to proceed by reaction 
 from one thing to another, to adopt for one year, or for a term of 
 seven years, this or that new study or method of teaching, and then as 
 abruptly to swing over to some new educational gospel, is a result which 
 would be impossible if teachers were adequately moved by their own 
 independent intelligence. The willingness of teachers, especially of 
 those occupying administrative positions, to become submerged in the 
 routine detail of their callings, to expend the bulk of their energy 
 upon forms and rules and regulations, and reports and percentages, is 
 another evidence of the absence of intellectual vitality. If teachers 
 were possessed by the spirit of an abiding student of education, this 
 spirit would find some way of breaking through the mesh and coil of 
 circumstance and would find expression for itself. 
 
 B. Let us turn from the practical side to the theoretical. What 
 must be the aim and spirit of theory in order that practice work may 
 really serve the purpose of an educational laboratory ? We are met 
 here with the belief that instruction in theory is merely theoretical, 
 abstruse, remote, and therefore relatively useless to the teacher as a 
 teacher, unless the student is at once set upon the work of teaching ; 
 that only ''practice" can give a motive to a professional learning, and 
 supply material for educational courses. It is not infrequently claimed 
 (or at least unconsciously assumed) that students will not have a pro- 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE IJ 
 
 fessional stimulus for their work in subject-matter and in educational 
 psychology and history, will not have any outlook upon their relation 
 to education, unless these things are immediately and simultaneously 
 reinfotced by setting the student upon the work of teaching. But is 
 this the case ? Or are there practical elements and bearings already 
 contained in theoretical instruction of the proper sort ? 
 
 I. Since it is impossible to cover in this paper all phases of the phi- 
 losophy and science of education, I shall speak from the standpoint of 
 psychology, believing that this may be taken as typical of the whole 
 range of instruction in educational theory as such. 
 
 In the first place, beginning students have without any reference 
 to immediate teaching a very large capital of an exceedingly practical 
 sort in their own experience. The argument that theoretical instruc- 
 tion is merely abstract and in the air unless students are set at once to 
 test and illustrate it by practice-teaching of their own, overlooks the 
 continuity of the class-room mental activity with that of other normal 
 experience. It ignores the tremendous importance for educational 
 purposes of this continuity. Those who employ this argument seem 
 to isolate the psychology of learning that goes on in the schoolroom 
 from the psychology of learning found elsewhere. 
 
 This isolation is both unnecessary and harmful. It is unnecessary, 
 tending to futility, because it throws away or makes light of the 
 greatest asset in the student's possession — the greatest, moreover, that 
 ever will be in his possession — his own direct and personal experience. 
 There is every presumption (since the student is not an imbecile) that 
 he has been learning all the days of his life, and that he is still 
 learning from day to day. He must accordingly have in his own 
 experience plenty of practical material by which to illustrate and 
 vitalize theoretical principles and laws of mental growth in the process 
 of learning. Moreover, since none of us is brought up under ideal 
 conditions, each beginning student has plenty of practical experience 
 by which to illustrate cases of arrested development — instances of 
 failure and maladaptation and retrogression, or even degeneration. 
 The material at hand is pathological as well as healthy. It serves to 
 embody and illustrate both achievement and failure, in the problem of 
 learning. 
 
 But it is more than a serious mistake (violating the principle of 
 proceeding from the known to the unknown) to fail to take account of 
 this body of practical experience. Such ignoring tends also to per- 
 
1 8 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 petuate some of the greatest evils of current school methods. Just 
 because the student's attention is not brought to the point of recog- 
 nizing that his own past and present growth is proceeding in accordance 
 with the very laws that control growth in the school, and that there is no 
 psychology of the schoolroom different from that of the nursery, the 
 playground, the street, and the parlor, he comes unconsciously to 
 assume that education in the class-room is a sort of unique thing, hav- 
 ing its own laws.' Unconsciously, but none the less surely, the student 
 comes to believe in certain "methods" of learning, and hence of teach- 
 ing which are somehow especially appropriate to the school — which 
 somehow have their particular residence and application there. Hence 
 he comes to believe in the potency for schoolroom purposes of mate- 
 rials, methods, and devices which it never occurs to him to trust to 
 in his experience outside of school. 
 
 I know a teacher of teachers who is accustomed to say that when 
 she fails to make clear to a class of teachers some point relative to 
 children, she asks these teachers to stop thinking of their own pupils 
 and to think of some nephew, niece, cousin, some child of whom they 
 have acquaintance in the unformalities of home life. I do not suppose 
 any great argument is needed to prove that breach of continuity 
 between learning within and without the school is the great cause in 
 education of wasted power and misdirected effort. I wish rather to 
 take advantage of this assumption (which I think will be generally 
 accepted) to emphasize the danger of bringing the would-be teacher 
 into an abrupt and dislocated contact with the psychology of the 
 schoolroom — abrupt and dislocated because not prepared for by prior 
 practice in selecting and organizing the relevant principles and data 
 contained within the experience best known to him, his own."" 
 
 From this basis, a transition to educational psychology may be 
 made in observation of the teaching of others — visiting classes. I 
 should wish to note here, however, the same principle that I have men- 
 tioned as regards practice work, specifically so termed. The first 
 observation of instruction given by model- or critic-teachers should 
 
 ^ There is where the plea for " adult " psychology has force. The person who 
 does not know himself is not likely to know others. The adult psychology ought, 
 however, to be just as genetic as that of childhood. 
 
 » It may avoid misapprehension if I repeat the word experience. It is not a meta- 
 physical introspection that I have in mind, but the process of turning back upon one's 
 own experiences, and turning them over to see how they were developed, what helped 
 and hindered, the stimuli and the inhibitions both within and without the organism. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 19 
 
 not be too definitely practical in aim. The student should not be 
 observing to find out how the good teacher does it, in order to accumu- 
 late a store of methods by which he also may teach successfully. He 
 should rather observe with reference to seeing the interaction of mind, 
 to see how teacher and pupils react upon each other — how mind 
 answers to mind. Observation should at first be conducted from the 
 psychological rather than from the "practical" standpoint. If the 
 latter is emphasized before the student has an independent command 
 of the former, the principle of imitation is almost sure to play an 
 exaggerated part in the observer's future teaching, and hence at the 
 expense of personal insight and initiative. What the student needs 
 most at this stage of growth is ability to see what is going on in the 
 minds of a group of persons who are in intellectual contact with one 
 another. He needs to learn to observe psychologically — a very dif- 
 ferent thing from simply observing how a teacher gets "good results" 
 in presenting any particular subject. 
 
 It should go without saying that the student who has acquired 
 power in psychological observation and interpretation may finally go 
 on to observe more technical aspects of instruction, namely, the various 
 methods and instrumentalities used by a good teacher in giving instruc- 
 tion in any subject. If properly prepared for, this need not tend to 
 produce copiers, followers of tradition and example. Such students will 
 be able to translate the practical devices which are such an important 
 part of the equipment of a good teacher over into their psychological 
 equivalents ; to know not merely as a matter of brute fact that they do 
 work, but to know how and why they work. Thus he will be an inde- 
 pendent judge and critic of their proper use and adaptation. 
 
 In the foregoing I have assumed that educational psychology is 
 marked off from general psychology simply by the emphasis which it 
 puts upon two factors. The first is the stress laid upon a certain end, 
 namely, growth or development — with its counterparts, arrest and 
 adaptation. The second is the importance attached to the social 
 factor — to the mutual interaction of different minds with each other. 
 It is, I think, strictly true that no educational procedure nor pedagogical 
 maxim can be derived directly from pure psychological data. The 
 psychological data taken without qualification (which is what I mean 
 by their being pure) cover everything and anything that may take 
 place in a mind. Mental arrest and decay occur according to psycho- 
 logical laws, just as surely as do development and progress. 
 
20 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 We do not make practical maxims out of physics by telling persons to 
 move according to laws of gravitation. If people move at all, they must 
 move in accordance with the conditions stated by this law. Simi- 
 larly, if mental operations take place at all, they must take place in 
 accordance with the principles stated in correct psychological general- 
 izations. It is superfluous and meaningless to attempt to turn these 
 psychological principles directly into rules of teaching. But the per- 
 son who knows the laws of mechanics knows the conditions of which 
 he must take account when he wishes to reach a certain end. He 
 knows that // he aims to build a bridge, he must build it in a certain way 
 and of certain materials, or else he will not have a bridge, but a heap of 
 rubbish. So in psychology. Given an end, say promotion of healthy 
 growth, psychological observations and reflection put us in control 
 of the conditions concerned in that growth. We know that if we are 
 to get that end, we must do it in a certain way. It is the subordination 
 of the psychological material to the problem of effecting growth and 
 avoiding arrest and waste which constitutes a distinguishing mark of 
 educational psychology. 
 
 I have spoken of the importance of the social factor as the other 
 mark. I do not mean, of course, that general theoretical psychology 
 ignores the existence and significance of the reaction of mind to mind 
 — though it would be within bounds to say that till recently the 
 social side was an unwritten chapter of psychology. I mean that 
 considerations of the ways in which one mind responds to the 
 stimuli which another mind is consciously or unconsciously furnish- 
 ing possess a relative importance for the educator which they have not 
 for the psychologist as such. From the teacher's standpoint, it is 
 not too much to say that every habit which a pupil exhibits is to be 
 regarded as a reaction to stimuli which some persons or group of 
 persons have presented to the child. It is not too much to say that 
 the most important thing for the teacher to consider, as regards his 
 present relations to his pupils, is the attitudes and habits which his 
 own modes of being, saying, and doing are fostering or discouraging 
 in them. 
 
 Now, if these two assumptions regarding educational psychology 
 be granted, I think it will follow as a matter of course, that only by 
 beginning with the values and laws contained in the student's own 
 experience of his own mental growth, and by proceeding gradually to 
 facts connected with other persons of whom he can know little; and by 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 21 
 
 proceeding still more gradually to the attempt actually to influence the 
 mental operations of others, can educational theory be made most 
 effective. Only in this way can the most essential trait of the mental 
 habit of the teacher be secured — that habi-t which looks upon the inter- 
 nal, not upon the external ; which sees that the important function of 
 the teacher is direction of the mental movement of the student, and 
 that the mental movement must be known before it can be directed. 
 
 II. I turn now to the side of subject-matter, or scholarship, with the 
 hope of showing that here too the material, when properly presented, 
 is not so merely theoretical, remote from the practical problems of 
 teaching, as is sometimes supposed. I recall that once a graduate 
 student in a university made inquiries among all the leading teachers in 
 the institution with which he was connected as to whether they had 
 received any professional training, whether they had taken courses in 
 pedagogy. The inquirer threw the results, which were mostly nega- 
 tive, into the camp of the local pedagogical club. Some may say that 
 this proves nothing, because college teaching is proverbially poor, con- 
 sidered simply as teaching. Yet no one can deny that there is some 
 good teaching, and some teaching of the very first order, done in col- 
 leges, and done by persons who have never had any instruction in either 
 the theory or the practice of teaching. 
 
 This fact cannot be ignored any more than can the fact that there were 
 good teachers before there was any such thing as pedagogy. Now, I am 
 not arguing for not having pedagogical training — that is the last thing 
 I want. But I claim the facts mentioned prove that scholarship /<?r se 
 may itself be a most effective tool for training and turning out good 
 teachers. If it has accomplished so much when working unconsciously 
 and without set intention, have we not good reason to believe that, 
 when acquired in a training school for teachers — with the end of making 
 teachers held definitely in view and with conscious reference to its 
 relation to mental activity — it may prove a much more valuable peda- 
 gogical asset than we commonly consider it? 
 
 Scholastic knowledge is sometimes regarded as if it were something 
 quite irrelevant to method. When this attitude is even unconsciously 
 assumed, method becomes an external attachment to knowledge of 
 subject-matter. It has to be elaborated and acquired in relative inde- 
 pendence from subject-matter, and then applied. 
 
 Now the body of knowledge which constitutes the subject-matter 
 of the student-teacher must, by the nature of the case, be organized 
 
22 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 subject-matter. It is not a miscellaneous heap of separate scraps. 
 Even if (as in the case of history and literature), it be not technically 
 termed "science," it is none the less material which has been subjected 
 to method — has been selected and arranged with reference to con- 
 trolling intellectual principles. There is, therefore, method in subject- 
 matter itself — method indeed of the highest order which the human 
 mind has yet evolved, scientific method. 
 
 It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this scientific method is 
 the method of mind itself.' The classifications, interpretations, expla- 
 nations, and generalizations which make subject-matter a branch of 
 study do not lie externally in facts apart from mind. They reflect the 
 attitudes and workings of mind in its endeavor to bring raw material 
 of experience to a point where it at once satisfies and stimulates the 
 needs of active thought. Such being the case, there is something 
 wrong in the "academic" side of professional training, if by means of 
 it the student does not constantly get object-lessons of the finest type 
 in the kind of mental activity which characterizes mental growth and, 
 hence, the educative process. 
 
 It is necessary to recognize the importance for the teacher's equip- 
 ment of his own habituation to superior types of method of mental 
 operation. The more a teacher in the future is likely to have to do 
 with elementary teaching, the more, rather than the less, necessary is 
 such exercise. Otherwise, the current traditions of elementary work 
 with their tendency to talk and write down to the supposed intellectual 
 level of children, will be likely to continue. Only a teacher thoroughly 
 trained in the higher levels of intellectual method and who thus has 
 constantly in his own mind a sense of what adequate and genuine intel- 
 lectual activity means, will be likely, in deed, not in mere word, to 
 respect the mental integrity and force of children. 
 
 Of course, this conception will be met by the argument that the 
 scientific organization of subject-matter, which constitutes the academic 
 studies of the student-teacher is upon such a radically different basis 
 from that adapted to less mature students that too much pre-occupation 
 with scholarship of an advanced order is likely actually to get in the 
 way of the teacher of children and youth. I do not suppose anybody 
 would contend that teachers really can know more than is good for 
 
 'Professor Ella F. Young's "Scientific Method in Education" {University of 
 Chicago Decennial Publications) is a noteworthy development of this conception, to 
 which I am much indebted. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 23 
 
 them, but it may reasonably be argued that continuous study of a special- 
 ized sort forms mental habits likely to throw the older student out 
 of sympathy with the type of mental impulses and habits which are 
 found in younger persons. 
 
 Right here, however, I think normal schools and teachers' colleges 
 have one of their greatest opportunities — an opportunity not merely 
 as to teachers in training, but also for reforming methods of edu- 
 cation in colleges and higher schools having nothing to do with the 
 training of teachers. It is the business of normal schools and collegiate 
 schools of education to present subject-matter in science, in language, 
 in literature and the arts, in such a way that the student both sees and 
 feels that these studies are significant embodiments of mental operations. 
 He should be led to realize that they are not products of technical 
 methods, which have been developed for the sake of the specialized 
 branches of knowledge in which they are used, but represent funda- 
 mental mental attitudes and operations — that, indeed, particular scien- 
 tific methods and classifications simply express and illustrate in their 
 most concrete form that of which simple and common modes of thought- 
 activity are capable when they work under satisfactory conditions. 
 
 In a word, it is the business of the "academic" instruction of 
 future teachers to carry back subject-matter to its common psychical 
 roots.* In so far as this is accomplished, the gap between the higher 
 and the lower treatment of subject-matter, upon which the argu- 
 ment of the supposed objector depends, ceases to have the force 
 which that argument assigns to it. This does not mean, of course, 
 that exactly the same subject-matter, in the same mode of presenta- 
 tion, is suitable to a student in the elementary or high schools that is 
 appropriate to the normal student. But it does mean that a mind 
 which is habituated to viewing subject-matter from the standpoint of 
 the function of that subject-matter in connection with me/i fa/ responses, 
 attitudes, and methods will be sensitive to signs of intellectual activity 
 when exhibited in the child of four, or the youth of sixteen, and will 
 be trained to a spontaneous and unconscious appreciation of the subject- 
 matter which is fit to call out and direct mental activity. 
 
 We have here, I think, the explanation of the success of some 
 teachers who violate every law known to and laid down by pedagogical 
 science. They are themselves so full of the spirit of inquiry, so sensi- 
 
 * It is hardly necessary to refer to Dr. Harris's continued contention that normal 
 training should give a higher view or synthesis of even the most elementary subjects. 
 
24 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 live to every sign of its presence and absence, that no matter what 
 they do, nor how they do it, they succeed in awakening and inspiring 
 like alert and intense mental activity in those with whom they come in 
 contact. 
 
 This is not a plea for the prevalence of these irregular, inchoate 
 methods. But I feel that I may recur to my former remark : if some 
 teachers, by sheer plenitude of knowledge, keep by instinct in touch 
 with the mental activity of their pupils, and accomplish so much 
 without, and even in spite of, principles which are theoretically 
 sound, then there must be in this same scholarship a tremendous 
 resource when it is more consciously used — that is, employed in clear 
 connection with psychological principles. 
 
 When I said above that schools for training teachers have here an 
 opportunity to react favorably upon general education, I meant that 
 no instruction in subject-matter (wherever it is given) is adequate if it 
 leaves the student with just acquisition of certain information about 
 external facts and laws, or even a certain facility in the intellectual 
 manipulation of this material. It is the business of our higher schools 
 in all lines, and not simply of our normal schools, to furnish the 
 student with the realization that, after all, it is the human mind, trained 
 to effective control of its natural attitudes, impulses, and responses, 
 that is the significant thing in all science and history and art so far as 
 these are formulated for purposes of study. 
 
 The present divorce between scholarship and method is as harmful 
 upon one side as upon the other — as detrimental to the best interests 
 of higher academic instruction as it is to the training of teachers. 
 But the only way in which this divorce can be broken down is by so 
 presenting all subject-matter, for whatever ultimate, practical, or pro- 
 fessional purpose, that it shall be apprehended as an objective embodi- 
 ment of methods of mind in its search for, and transactions with, the 
 truth of things. 
 
 Upon the more practical side, this principle requires that, so far as 
 students appropriate new subject-matter (thereby improving their own 
 scholarship and realizing more consciously the nature of method), they 
 should finally proceed to organize this same subject-matter with 
 reference to its use in teaching others. The curriculum of the ele- 
 mentary and the high school constituting the ''practice" or "model" 
 school ought to stand in the closest and most organic relation to the 
 instruction in subject-matter which is given by the teachers of the 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 25 
 
 professional school. If in any given school this is not the case, it 
 is either because in the training class subject-matter is presented in an 
 isolated way, instead of as a concrete expression of methods of mind, 
 or else because XhQ practice school \^ dominated by certain conventions 
 and traditions regarding material and the methods of teaching it, and 
 hence is not engaged in work of an adequate educational type. 
 
 As a matter of fact, as everybody knows, both of these causes con- 
 tribute to the present state of things. On the one hand, inherited 
 conditions impel the elementary school to a certain triviality and pov- 
 erty of subject-matter, calling for mechanical drill, rather than for 
 thought-activity, and the high school to a certain technical mastery of 
 certain conventional culture subjects, taught as independent branches 
 of the same tree of knowledge ! On the other hand traditions of the 
 different branches of science (the academic side of subject-matter) tend 
 to subordinate the teaching in the normal school to the attainment of 
 certain facilities, and the acquirement of certain information, both in 
 greater or less isolation from their value as exciting and directing 
 mental power. 
 
 The great need is convergence, concentration. Every step taken in 
 the elementary and the high school toward intelligent introduction 
 of more worthy and significant subject-matter, one requiring con- 
 sequently for its assimilation thinking rather than " drill," must be 
 met by a like advance step in which the mere isolated specialization of 
 collegiate subject-matter is surrendered, and in which there is brought 
 to conscious and interested attention its significance in expression of 
 fundamental modes of mental activity — so fundamental as to be com- 
 mon to both the play of the mind upon the ordinary material of every- 
 day experience and to the systematized material of the sciences. 
 
 III. As already suggested, this point requires that training students 
 be exercised in making the connections between the course of study of 
 the practice or model school, and the wider horizons of learning com- 
 ing within their ken. But it is consecutive and systematic exercise in 
 the consideration of the subject-matter of the elementary and high 
 schools that is needed. The habit of making isolated and independent 
 lesson plans for a few days' or weeks' instruction in a separate grade 
 here or there not only does not answer this purpose, but is likely to be 
 distinctly detrimental. Everything should be discouraged which tends 
 to put the student in the attitude of snatching at the subject matter 
 which he is acquiring in order to see if by some hook or crook it may 
 
26 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 be made immediately available for a lesson in this or that grade. 
 What is needed is the habit of viewing the entire curriculum as a 
 continuous growth, reflecting the growth of mind itself. This in turn 
 demands, so far as I can see, consecutive and longitudinal considera- 
 tion of the curriculum of the elementary and high school rather than 
 a cross-sectional view of it. The student should be led to see that the 
 same subject-matter in geography, nature-study, or art develops not 
 merely day to day in a given grade, but from year to year throughout 
 the entire movement of the school ; and he should realize this before 
 he gets much encouragement in trying to adapt subject-matter in 
 lesson plans for this or that isolated grade. 
 
 C. If we attempt to gather together the points which have been 
 brought out, we should have a view of practice work something like 
 the following — though I am afraid even this formulates a scheme with 
 more appearance of rigidity than is desirable : 
 
 At first, the practice school would be used mainly for purposes of 
 observation. This observation, moreover, would not be for the sake 
 of 'Seeing how good teachers teach, or for getting ** points" which may 
 be employed in one's own teaching, but to get material for psycho- 
 logical observation and reflection, and some conception of the educa- 
 tional movement of the school as a whole. 
 
 Secondly, there would then be more intimate introduction to the 
 lives of the children and the work of the school through the use as 
 assistants of such students as had already got psychological insight and 
 a good working acquaintance with educational problems. Students 
 at this stage would not undertake much direct teaching, but would 
 make themselves useful in helping the regular class instructor. There 
 arc multitudes of ways in which such help can be given and be of real 
 help — that is, of use to the school, to the children, and not merely of 
 putative value to the training student." Special attention to backward 
 children, to children who have been out of school, assisting in the care 
 of material, in forms of hand-work, suggest some of the avenues of 
 approach. 
 
 This kind of practical experience enables, in the third place, the 
 future teacher to make the transition from his more psychological and 
 theoretical insight to the observation of the more technical points of 
 
 'This question of some real need in the practice school itself for the work done is 
 very important in its moral influence and in assimilating the conditions of "practice 
 work " to those of real teaching. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 27 
 
 class teaching and management. The informality, gradualness, and 
 familiarity of the earlier contact tend to store the mind with material 
 which is unconsciously assimilated and organized, and thus supplies a 
 background for work involving greater responsibility. 
 
 As a counterpart of this work in assisting, such students might well 
 at the same time be employed in the selection and arrangement of 
 subject-matter, as indicated in the previous discussion. Such organiza- 
 tion would at the outset have reference to at least a group of grades, 
 emphasizing continuous and consecutive growth. Later it might, with- 
 out danger of undue narrowness, concern itself with finding supple- 
 mentary materials and problems bearing upon the work in which the 
 student is giving assistance; might elaborate material which could be 
 used to carry the work still farther, if it were desirable ; or, in case of 
 the more advanced students, to build up a scheme of possible alterna- 
 tive subjects for lessons and studies. 
 
 Fourthly, as fast as students are prepared through their work of 
 assisting for more responsible work, they could be given actual teach- 
 ing to do. Upon the basis that the previous preparation has been 
 adequate in subject-matter, in educational theory, and in the kind of 
 observation and practice already discussed, such practice teachers 
 should be given the maximum amount of liberty possible. They should 
 not be too closely supervised, nor too minutely and immediately criti- 
 cised upon either the matter or the method of their teaching. Stu- 
 dents should be given to understand that they not only are permitted 
 to act upon their own intellectual initiative, but that they are expected 
 to do so, and that their ability to take hold of situations for themselves 
 would be a more important factor in judging them than their following 
 any particular set method or scheme. 
 
 Of course, there should be critical discussion with persons more 
 expert of the work done, and of the educational results obtained. But 
 sufficient time should be permitted to allow the practice-teacher to 
 recover from the shocks incident to the newness of the situation, and 
 also to get enough experience to make him capable of seeing \\iQ funda- 
 mental bearings of criticism upon work done. Moreover, the work of 
 the expert or supervisor should be directed t© getting the student to 
 judge his own work critically, to find out for himself in what respects 
 he has succeeded and in what failed, and to find the probable reasons 
 for both failure and success, rather than to criticising him too defi- 
 nitely and specifically upon special features of his work. 
 
28 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 It ought to go without saying (unfortunately, it does not in all 
 cases) that criticism should be directed to making the professional 
 student thoughtful about his work in the light of principles, rather 
 than to induce in him a recognition that certain special methods are 
 good, and certain other special methods bad. At all events, no greater 
 travesty of real intellectual criticism can be given than to set a student 
 to teaching a brief number of lessons, have him under inspection in 
 practically all the time of every lesson, and then criticise him almost, 
 if not quite, at the very end of each lesson, upon the particular way in 
 which that particular lesson has been taught, pointing out elements of 
 failure and of success. Such methods of criticism may be adapted to 
 giving a training-teacher command of some of the knacks and tools 
 of the trade, but are not calculated to develop a thoughtful and inde- 
 pendent teacher. 
 
 Moreover, while such teaching (as already indicated) should be 
 extensive or continuous enough to give the student time to become at 
 home and to get a body of funded experience, it ought to be intensive 
 in purpose rather than spread out miscellaneously. It is much more 
 important for the teacher to assume responsibility for the consecutive 
 development of some one topic, to get a feeling for the movement of 
 that subject, than it is to teach a certain number (necessarily smaller 
 in range) of lessons in a larger number of subjects. What we want, 
 in other words, is not so much technical skill, as a realizing sense in 
 the teacher of what the educational development of a subject means, 
 and, in some typical case, command of a method of control, which 
 will then serve as a standard for self-judgment in other cases. 
 
 Fifthly, if the practical conditions permit — if, that is to say, the 
 time of the training course is suflficiently long, if the practice schools 
 are sufficiently large to furnish the required number of children, and to 
 afford actual demand for the work to be done — students who have 
 gone through the stages already referred to should be ready for work 
 of the distinctly apprenticeship type. 
 
 Nothing that I have said heretofore is to be understood as ruling 
 out practice-teaching which is designed to give an individual mastery 
 of the actual technique of teaching and management, provided school 
 conditions permit it in reality and not merely in external form — pro- 
 vided, that is, the student has gone through a training in educational 
 theory and history, in subject-matter, in observation, and in practice 
 work of the laboratory type, before entering upon the latter. The 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 29 
 
 teacher must acquire his technique some time or other; and if condi- 
 tions are favorable, there are some advantages in having this acquisition 
 take place in cadetting or in something of that kind. By means of this 
 probation, persons who are unfit for teaching may be detected and 
 eliminated more quickly than might otherwise be the case and before 
 their cases have become institutionalized. 
 
 Even in this distinctly apprenticeship stage, however, it is still 
 important that the student should be given as much responsibility and 
 initiative as he is capable of taking, and hence that supervision should 
 not be too unremitting and intimate, and criticism not at too short 
 range or too detailed. The advantage of this intermediate probationary 
 period does not reside in the fact that thereby supervisory officers may 
 turn out teachers who will perpetuate their own notions and methods, 
 but in the inspiration and enlightenment that come through prolonged 
 contact with mature and sympathetic persons. If the conditions in the 
 public schools were just what they ought to be, if all superintendents 
 and principals had the knowledge and the wisdom which they should 
 have, and if they had time and opportunity to utilize their knowledge 
 and their wisdom in connection with the development of the younger 
 teachers who come to them, the value of this apprenticeship period 
 would be reduced, I think, very largely to its serving to catch in time 
 and to exclude persons unfitted for teaching, 
 
 In conclusion, I may say that I do not believe that the principles 
 presented in this paper call for anything Utopian. The present move- 
 ment in normal schools for improvement of range and quality of 
 subject-matter is steady and irresistible. All the better classes of nor- 
 mal schools are already, in effect, what are termed ''junior colleges." 
 That is, they give two years' work which is almost, and in many cases 
 quite, of regular college grade. More and more, their instructors are 
 persons who have had the same kind of scholarly training that is 
 expected of teachers in colleges. Many of these institutions are already 
 of higher grade than this; and the next decade will certainly see a 
 marked tendency on the part of many normal schools to claim the right 
 to give regular collegiate bachelor degrees. 
 
 The type of scholarship contemplated in this paper is thus practi- 
 cally assured for the near future. If two other factors co-operate with 
 this, there is no reason why the conception of relation of theory and 
 practice here presented should not be carried out. The second neces- 
 sary factor is that the elementary and high schools, which serve as 
 
30 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 schools of observation and practice, should represent an advanced type 
 of education properly corresponding to the instruction in academic 
 subject-matter and in educational theory given to the training classes. 
 The third necessity is that work in psychology and educational theory 
 make concrete and vital the connection between the normal instruction 
 in subject-matter and the work of the elementary and high schools. 
 
 If it should prove impracticable to realize the conception herein set 
 forth, it will not be, I think, because of any impossibility resident in 
 the outward conditions, but because those in authority, both within 
 and without the schools, believe that the true function of training 
 schools is just to meet the needs of which people are already conscious. 
 In this case, of course, training schools will be conducted simply with 
 reference to perpetuating current types of educational practice, with 
 simply incidental improvement in details. 
 
 The underlying assumption of this paper is, accordingly, that 
 training schools for teachers do not perform their full duty in accepting 
 and conforming to present educational standards, but that educational 
 leadership is an indispensable part of their office. The thing needful 
 is improvement of education, not simply by turning out teachers who 
 can do better the things that are now necessary to do, but rather by 
 changing the conception of what constitutes education. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE. 
 
 Sarah C. Brooks, 
 Baltimore, Md, 
 
 A LATCH key was given me recently, with instructions as to its use, 
 by the lady of the house. As she inserted the key and opened the 
 door, she said: "I don't know whether you can use this key, for it 
 doesn't always behave. If you push it in too far, or press upon it with 
 too much force, it will not unlock the door." 
 
 While accepting the doubtful treasure with thanks, I humbly made 
 note of the cautions given, resolving to exercise the greatest care in its 
 use. When that closed door stood between me and lunch, a few hours 
 later, and I essayed to enter the house, my first efforts failed, because 
 in my efforts to profit by instructions I neither inserted the key the 
 required distance nor turned it with sufficient power. My precon- 
 ceived notions were lacking when put to the test. Repeated experiments 
 gave the proper adjustment at last ; but with the experiments came a 
 decided modification of my estimate of instructions given. Frequent 
 use has made me familiar with all the aggravating peculiarities of the 
 key, and compelled me to return to the first theory of adjustment. If 
 turning it over to a stranger to use, I should probably give the same, 
 directions that were given me. 
 
 Now, what is the difference between the theory as held in the first 
 case and in the second? While identical in form, the first was poor 
 from lack of judgment in interpreting and applying ; the second is 
 enriched by experience. Between the two lie a period of doubt and 
 uncertainty as to the value of the instruction given, and a return of 
 confidence. The one was adopted ; the other has been proved. The 
 one was the formulation of another's experience ; the latter is my own 
 through experience. 
 
 The incident, while of no value in itself, affords a typical illustra- 
 tion of the relation of theory to practice in ordinary life. However 
 efficient instruction may be, the learner is almost certain to go wrong 
 in the application from lack of ability perfectly to interpret and apply; 
 and much practice is necessary to bring about the proper adjustment. 
 The more delicate the material and the nicer the adjustment, the more 
 practice is required before skill is attained. 
 
 31 
 
32 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 The key and the lock afford an illustration of the simplest form of 
 problems, because, being mechanical contrivances and subject to fixed 
 laws, they are more or less constant in action, even when imperfectly 
 adjusted. Life is full of problems of a much more complicated char- 
 acter, for humanity is by no means a constant quantity, subject to fixed 
 laws. Among these complicated problems is the preparation of stu- 
 dents for the profession of teaching. 
 
 If this problem were as simple as that of the key and the lock, the 
 practice of Dotheboys Hall would answer every purpose, and Dickens 
 would have lived in vain. To spell *' horse" and then proceed to curry 
 him covered the theoretical and the practical in the process of becom- 
 ing familiar with this branch of zoology at Dotheboys Hall. If nothing 
 were necessary but a slight knowledge of the subject-matter, the incipi- 
 ent teacher would need only a spelling acquaintance with the subjects 
 to be taught, and then proceed to teach. Dotheboys Hall has still its 
 disciples; for few days pass without some query as to the value of 
 training schools, or some suggestion, even from teachers, of the supreme 
 and overmastering importance of practice in the preparation for teach- 
 ing. Yet among intelligent students of the problem of teaching there 
 can be no question of the immense importance of the theory. 
 
 The point of danger to the student teacher is in the inadequate 
 time allowed for adjustment of practice and theory. There should be 
 leisure, during the term of practice or afterward, for comparison and 
 explanation of experiences, and a fresh inspection of general principles 
 both of mental development and of pedagogy. If the student is turned 
 out into the city schools before this adjustment takes place, the result 
 is a distinct loss in two directions : first, to the schools in efficient 
 work ; and, second, to the young teacher in the time spent in helpless 
 floundering in what too frequently proves to be a veritable slough of 
 despond. It may be years before a professional attitude toward the 
 work is finally attained ; and many drop out of the ranks because of 
 these early discouragements. Mark Twain says that his first lesson in 
 piloting a boat was received on the way from New Orleans to St. 
 Louis, and that he took the greatest pains to impress upon his mind 
 the various sand bars, shifting currents, appearances of islands, bends 
 of shore, and what not ; but when the boat was headed down the stream 
 everything presented such a different aspect that he had to learn the 
 lesson the other way around. The young teacher's experience is some- 
 what similar to that of the gifted pilot. Fortunate for her if both 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 33 
 
 lessons are learned while she is still within the training school, where per- 
 plexities and doubts may be cleared away, and apparent contradictions 
 are reconciled by means of sympathetic explanation and exposition. 
 
 Omitting the question of natural aptitude, the importance and 
 elusiveness of which none will deny, it may be well to inquire into the 
 causes which complicate the training-school problem, and to discuss 
 ways and means of securing the most satisfactory results under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 The first element of complication, and the element upon which 
 all other things depend, is that of time devoted to training. Accept- 
 ing students on the scholarship basis of a high-school course, the time 
 varies, according to schools and localities, from one to two years, with 
 a large balance on the side of a one-year course. Sometimes a two- 
 year course includes the last year of the high school, during which time 
 certain professional studies are pursued, or certain reviews given in 
 preparation for the regular training-school year. 
 
 Now, if the fourth year of the high school be devoted to studies 
 which shall prepare certain students for the training school, it is worth 
 while to consider which branches will prove most helpful when the 
 professional work really begins. 
 
 Proceeding by elimination, first of all, psychology and the history of 
 education are basic professional studies of such value that no teacher 
 of theory would be willing to have them divorced from pedagogy. The 
 laws of presentation are ordained by the laws of mental development, 
 and must be present at the same time in the consciousness of the stu- 
 dent. A knowledge of the progress of educational theory and the growth 
 and development of the course of study should be presented at the 
 same time with, or under the same conditions as, those under which the 
 theories of presentation are given. Psychology especially calls for an 
 attitude of mind not at all compatible with the manifold interests, dis- 
 tractions, and pleasing excitements incidental to graduation year in 
 the high school. Psychology calls for reflection, for subjective and 
 objective study and experiment, and these require a professional atmos- 
 phere in which to thrive. 
 
 Secondly, teachers are required, more and more, to be thinkers, to 
 reserve judgment, and encourage pupils to do so until testimony 
 accumulates in any given case — to experiment, to observe. Nature- 
 study is an accepted topic in our present course of study, and the teacher 
 must have first-hand acquaintance with nature before she can present 
 
34 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 the various phases of the subject to children. For these reasons biol- 
 ogy is one of the most important subjects for the high-school student 
 looking toward a professional career. The free use of a laboratory in 
 the study of any science is a modern necessity, not only for the sake of 
 the student, but, looking to the future, if the student hopes to become 
 a teacher, for the sake of enlightened methods of presentation to children. 
 
 As a means of saving time in the professional year, and also of 
 refreshing memory in preparation for pedagogical treatment, there 
 should be a review of the elementary branches and physiology, if the 
 latter has not been previously presented in the high-school course. A 
 general survey of subjects at this time which were necessarily presented 
 piecemeal through the grades, does much to unify the topics of the 
 various subjects. This, of course, would be just as true if the reviews 
 should be given in the training school as in the high school ; but, as we 
 shall see later, the training-school program is crowded even with the 
 omission of elementary reviews. 
 
 Therefore, from my point of view, those subjects to be presented 
 during the fourth year of the high school most helpful to the training 
 are biology, physiology, and a review of the elementary branches. I 
 would not be put upon record as limiting science to biology and physi- 
 ology, for the attitude of mind induced by a right study of science is 
 of untold value to the teacher; and consequently there is nothing more 
 desirable than a scientific training, if I may use the term in that sense. 
 Both physics and chemistry, studied upon the laboratory plan, are 
 exceedingly valuable to the teacher. English literature, the languages, 
 mathematics, are all, likewise, essential, but presupposed in a regular 
 high-school course. I am not so sure, either, of the value of elective 
 courses in the high school, if the young students themselves are to be 
 the judges ; for it not infrequently happens that one is led to regret the 
 loss of the training and preparation of certain life-experiences incidental 
 to the study of subjects excluded, by immature judgment, from the 
 course to be pursued. But this is far afield ; considering the training- 
 school period proper, the disposition of time varies as greatly as does 
 the amount of time given to the course in various localities. In some 
 cases one year of consecutive work is devoted to theory and five months 
 to practice in the ward schools under a director of practice. In other 
 cases, after the expiration of the term of training, including practice 
 under supervision in the practice schools, the students are required to 
 teach four months in the ward schools without the assistance and criti- 
 cism of a critic-teacher. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 35 
 
 Still Other schools, notably normal, as distinguished from the ordi- 
 nary city training school, devote two full years to the course, receiving 
 students upon a scholarship basis of high-school graduation. These 
 schools vary in time and amount of practice afforded each student. 
 Some devote the first year entirely to theory and observation, and the 
 second year largely to practice. That is, each student teaches at least 
 one hour a day, giving attention to but one subject at a time, and pre- 
 senting that subject to but one grade at a time. When the term of 
 practice, which may be five or ten weeks, expires, the student may 
 present the same subject to another grade, or present a different sub- 
 ject, as the case may seem to require. At least one other normal 
 school devotes a portion of each day of the two-year term to practice. 
 The practice work is under the supervision of certain members of the 
 faculty, and the plan provides that new students shall act first as assist- 
 ants to older or more experienced, and later be given charge of rooms 
 for a specified period each day. The new and inexperienced students 
 are thus strengthened and assured by observing and assisting the work 
 of one more experienced. 
 
 Other training schools having a one-year course, from lack of facil- 
 ities, size of classes, limit of time, or other reasons, divide classes into 
 sections, each of which, in turn, is sent to practice under expert direc- 
 tion. In some cases the practice is given in various ward schools in 
 which are provided classes under the care of a critic-teacher. Some- 
 times the term of practice is completed in a central building housing 
 the two branches of theory and practice. Again, part of the students 
 practice in the central building, and part in the ward schools. This 
 plan is due, perhaps, to lack of facilities in the central building, or it 
 may be from the desire to scatter classes which are under the care of 
 students, and so distribute the discomforts due to fault-finding on the 
 part of parents. The term of practice varies from eight to twelve weeks 
 or more, according to circumstances. For economic reasons, this 
 division frequently necessitates sending students to practice who have 
 had no training in theory, unless arrangements are made for two 
 entrance periods yearly to the training school. 
 
 The next complication in the problem of training is in connection 
 with the studies pursued by students during the time at their disposal. 
 These studies have been suggested, in part at least, under the high- 
 school phase of scholastic preparation for the training school. First 
 in the list stands psychology, with both subjective and objective studies 
 
36 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 of children. History of education, pedagogy, and school management 
 follow in the order of importance. Pedagogy is a title which includes 
 a number of subjects. In its first aspect, of general method, it is inti- 
 mately associated with psychology. In its second aspect of special 
 method, it deals more directly with the actual presentation of subjects 
 in the schoolroom, and gives opportunity for much illustrative teaching. 
 It includes nature-study, children's literature, drawing, and music, as 
 well as the elementary branches. Some of the richest and most prac- 
 tical experiences of the professional term are the direct outcome of 
 special method. 
 
 I have not found the subject of enthusiasm in any text-book which 
 can be placed in the hands of students, but it is a fact beyond dispute 
 that enthusiasm is one of the most important subjects considered. 
 Like charity, one may have all the other qualities and yet, lacking 
 enthusiasm, is nothing in the educational world. It does not appear 
 on any program or in any course of study, yet it not only is an essential 
 qualification of the teacher, but requires time for cultivation. 
 
 What is the least time that can be devoted with profit to these 
 studies, provided there is one year given to professional training? 
 What a pity, too, that in school matters, matters pertaining to the 
 training of that which is imperishable, we must always ask for the least 
 rather than for what is adequate ! 
 
 A year is none too much for theoretical preparation ; but by keeping 
 up steam and filling the program with recitations, instead of providing 
 periods of alternating rest and study each day, or periods of observa- 
 tion of grade work, the ground can be covered in seven months. In 
 the hurry to accomplish a necessary amount of work in a given time we 
 frequently lose sight of the educational importance of a little leisure, 
 and yet it is one of the essential conditions of perfect comprehension. 
 Seven months devoted to theory leaves an aggregate of three months 
 for practice ; and the conditions under which the practice is given have 
 much to do with the degree of benefit accruing to the individual 
 student. It is, therefore, exceedingly important that the practice 
 school be so organized and situated as to afford both teachers and 
 students the best possible conditions for work. In order to know 
 what these conditions are, it is necessary to know the specific needs of 
 the student. 
 
 First, in connection with a study of the theory of presentation, and 
 later when practice begins, there is urgent need of observation of the 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 37 
 
 work of a skilled teacher. The "what "and the "how," however well 
 presented theoretically, need the anchcft- of practical illustration with 
 pupils of a given degree of advancement. Then, when students begin 
 to teach they need to observe the work of a skilful teacher who fur- 
 nishes a model by which they are enabled, in a measure, to "true" 
 their own imperfect efforts. 
 
 Secondly, the students need direct daily contact with children while 
 studying the laws of mental development and of the presentation of 
 subject-matter. The period from childhood to maturity is so full and 
 rich of experiences, so marvelous with both physical and mental devel- 
 opment, so roseate with dreams, hopes, and aspirations, that the student 
 of eighteen or twenty is completely out of touch, ordinarily, v>'ith chil- 
 dren. Life has been so strenuous as to afford no time for intimate 
 associations with the outgrown self of childhood. Consequently, the 
 incipient teacher must now be encouraged to renew acquaintance with 
 the past self and to observe children daily. Intelligent sympathy with 
 the needs and tendencies of children is one of the first qualifications 
 of the teacher; and the parent, for that matter. 
 
 Thirdly, there must be opportunity for actual practice in teaching 
 and in the care of a room ; and this work should be done under the 
 most encouraging conditions possible to the student — necessarily sub- 
 ject to criticism from those who have the supervision of her work ; for 
 this is the proving-ground of the teacher; she is timid and doubtful 
 of her own powers, as a usual thing. She is also subject to criticism, 
 of a less intelligent character from the pupils, who have been fed from 
 the pedagogical spoon until they have grown critical even of the way 
 it is presented, not to mention the quality of the food it contains. It 
 is therefore important that an air of dignity and a feeling of confidence 
 be established first of all, for the sake of both student-teacher and 
 pupils. The slightest neglect of these precautions is unfortunate in 
 its effects, however trivial they may seem. 
 
 The term of practice should furnish as much variety of teaching 
 experience as possible, and also opportunity to learn something of the 
 details of managing a room. The management of a room calls for 
 many more qualifications than that of successfully conducting a recita- 
 tion, important as we acknowledge that to be. The order of exercises 
 for the day, change of classes, seat work, temperature of the room, dis- 
 cipline, make constant and insistent demands upon the teacher's time 
 and judgment, and every detail must be settled before we pronounce the 
 aspirant ready for regular work in the city schools. 
 
38 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 It is therefore important that the term of practice include two 
 phases : first, variety of teaching experience, and, second, concentra- 
 tion of energy in the mastery of the details in connection with the 
 management of a room and the daily preparation of all lessons. In a 
 period of twelve weeks, five weeks may be given to the first phase and 
 seven to the second, apportioning the time in accordance with the 
 demands made upon the student-teacher by the second phase. But 
 even under the best of conditions a twelve-week period of practice is 
 not long enough to meet the various needs of the student-teacher. 
 
 Now, in actual practice in the various training schools of the coun- 
 try, so far as I have been able to learn, either one phase or the other is 
 made prominent ; and in many cases one or other phase occupies the 
 entire period. The neglect of either causes a distinct loss to the young 
 teacher, although insuring a greater amount of proficiency in the other 
 direction. 
 
 Take the case of a school whose course covers two years. Suppose 
 the practice to cover a period of forty weeks, the student teaching one 
 period daily. This would afford opportunity of presenting one sub- 
 ject to any one grade for another period of five weeks. In this way 
 one subject may be presented to all grades in the practice school ; or, 
 during the same period, different subjects may be presented to the 
 various grades, the plan varying according to conditions. The value 
 of such an arrangement as this is apparent, acquainting the student with 
 the various divisions of the subject-matter, and the necessary modifica- 
 tions in presenting these to the different grades. Unless provision is 
 made, however, for the practice in school management, the efficiency 
 of the plan is lessened somewhat. 
 
 Where students spend three, or even five, months quietly in one 
 room, teaching, observing, and managing the various requirements of 
 the day, in any one grade, they leave the practice school at the close 
 of the period proficient in the work of that grade, and more or less 
 settled as to convictions, according to the circumstances under which 
 the practice was conducted. If these students can be appointed to cor- 
 responding grades in the ward schools, their experience will prove 
 beneficial to themselves and to the city. If, however, the opposite 
 course is pursued, the results are disastrous, because the young teacher 
 lacks perspective. It is vain to urge that the teaching spirit is the same 
 in all grades. That water has power to float a human body is of no 
 particular value as a physical fact to a drowning man. Give a student 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 3^ 
 
 practice for three or five months in the first grade, and then appoint 
 her to the third grade ; or give practice in the fifth, and then appoint 
 to the first ; and you behold, usually, the floundering of a drowning 
 man. Results are disastrous, not only so far as the work is concerned, 
 but in a far sadder way, to the young teacher herself, in unsettling her 
 mind regarding the value of previous instruction and experience. 
 
 Any real or apparent disparity between the principles deduced in 
 the study of psychology and pedagogy, and their application in prac- 
 tice, or any lack of harmony between the departments of theory and 
 practice, is unfortunate for the student-teacher who has little power of 
 adjustment from lack of experience. It has much the same effect as that 
 produced in the primary school when the home interests are ignored 
 or slighted. A soul cannot develop steadily and perfectly without a 
 harmonious adjustment of relations. For this reason, it is incumbent 
 on the two departments to work together for the attainment of the one 
 end in view. In all other matters admitting of a variety of opinion 
 the utmost care and the utmost consideration should be exercised. 
 
 The final need of the student-teacher is that of participation in 
 critic meetings — meetings in which there is both constructive and 
 destructive criticism. To be of the greatest benefit, the student should 
 meet here, not only with practice teachers, but with teachers of theory 
 as well. The most fruitful source of discussion in these meetings, of 
 course, is the illustrative lesson, in the process of which it has been the 
 purpose of the teacher to show the application of some principle of 
 pedagogy. All parties participating in the discussion after the lesson 
 is concluded, the student begins to. feel part of a whole body of seek- 
 ers after truth, be that body great or small. She also sees the real 
 meaning of criticism as applying to her own efforts. If what she does 
 is in accordance with general principles, her work is commended; if 
 not, someone is ready to point out the errors and suggest a remedy, as 
 far as possible. If she is brainy and capable, she responds to the stimu- 
 lus and improves in her teaching. These meetings react in a whole- 
 some manner upon the training teachers also. Personally I know of 
 no greater stimulus to teaching, nor of a more wholesome check to 
 idiosyncrasies of every kind, than this form of critic meeting. 
 
 We have determined the needs of the student-teacher, in her term 
 of practice, to be observation of model lessons; direct contact with 
 children for purposes of study and of reviving past states of mind; 
 and actual practice in teaching which shall give variety of experience 
 
40 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 and at the same time a knowledge of the management of some one 
 grade or class. We have also decided thai a unit of experience, so far 
 as theory and practice are concerned, is most desirable for the student. 
 Our next and last question concerns the manner in which all these 
 needs may be met. What disposition shall be made of the practice ? 
 Shall it be distributed among the various ward schools under compe- 
 tent critic-teachers, or shall both the theory and the practice be in one 
 building. 
 
 Distributing the practice among the various ward schools has some 
 distinct advantages. Among these are a greater variety of working 
 models, as afforded by the examples of the critic-teachers of the various 
 localities, who have little opportunity to compare work, and are com- 
 paratively free from any dominating influence that might be felt if all 
 were collected in one building and under one head. 
 
 By this arrangement, also, the training school has numerous points 
 of contact with the city schools, thereby affording more opportunities 
 for sharing with the city teachers whatever good may accrue to the 
 training school from the combined study and efforts of its various 
 members. 
 
 With only two or four practice rooms in any one locality, the 
 discomfort of complaints of parents on account of the supposed unsat- 
 isfactory work done in critic classes is reduced to a minimum. This 
 consideration is scarcely worth noting ; for, as every experienced person 
 knows, these classes compare most favorably, in the long run, with 
 those taught by regular teachers. The critic-teacher, who is always 
 selected for superior qualifications, sees to it that children do not lose 
 in the change of student-teachers, or in the event of unsatisfactory work 
 by the student-teachers. 
 
 The distinct disadvantages to distributed practice are these : 
 
 Isolation does away with that indefinable, but necessary, something 
 we call a professional atmosphere, which is possible only where numbers 
 are working together, and are in such accord with each other that unity 
 of purpose and enthusiasm are everywhere and at all times in evidence. 
 It is as necessary to the incipient teacher as sunshine and moisture are 
 to the incipient tree. 
 
 Observation of grade work, except in the case of the class immedi- 
 ately under her charge, ceases with the term of theory. She is then 
 confined to one set of experiences until the expiration of her period of 
 practice. She has no opportunity to practice in the different grades, 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 41 
 
 and consequently must lose the good accruing from a broad experience 
 in teaching. In other words, she will know but one grade or class. 
 
 Critic meetings whose distinctive feature is the illustrative lesson 
 are an impossibility. The classes are so widely dispersed that meetings 
 must be conducted after school, when children are no longer in the 
 building; or, if held for the meeting, are subject to unnatural condi- 
 tions, which place both themselves and the teacher at a decided 
 disadvantage. Teachers and students are wearied with the day's work, 
 and enthusiasm is thereby reduced to the minimum. 
 
 It may also be necessary, for reasons incidental to organization, 
 while a mutual understanding is being established and the course of 
 study considered, that student- and critic-teachers have separate 
 meetings. Here the separation sometimes reacts in misunderstanding 
 of suggestions and criticisms given when the students assemble for 
 critic work ; for it is not often possible for the critic-teacher to attend 
 both meetings. 
 
 Supervision is rendered difficult and unsatisfactory, the more so as 
 the schools are widely separated. While it is both the duty and the 
 pleasure of principal and assistants to visit the critic classes, many 
 duties make inroads upon time; and the various customs regarding 
 general exercises, sewing, manual training, teachers' meetings, and the 
 like, in spite of the fact that arrangements are made to prevent conflict, 
 render a portion of the actual visits abortive. A consensus of opinion 
 is always possible and profitable, but no one visitor feels that the 
 results personally are in any sense commensurate with the effort put 
 forth and the energy expended. Where it is possible to have the super- 
 vision in the care of one person, results are more satisfactory. 
 
 Last of all, there is no adequate opportunity to work out a course of 
 study where classes are isolated. The necessity of a separate course of 
 study for the practice school is in some cases essential to a unit of 
 instruction for the student-teachers. Under any circumstances it must 
 have points of contact with that of the city schools, but may vary in 
 some essential features. Suppose a third grade to be in the hands of 
 critic- and student-teachers. Previous to this period the regular course 
 of study has been followed. Succeeding work will come from the same 
 source. What foundation and what perspective has any departure in 
 this present year from established customs ? A brave effort may be put 
 forth by all parties concerned ; but here again results are not commen- 
 surate with the time and energy expended. 
 
42 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 Where schools of both theory and practice are housed in one build- 
 ing there is always the danger of a deadly sameness in ideals and of 
 practice ; and danger, too, of self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction means 
 mental inertia, and nothing is a greater menace to progress. This may 
 be obviated in great measure by the active co-operation of all mem- 
 bers of the faculty. Study and independent thinking, with good- 
 natured freedom of expression, will do wonders in keeping the spirit 
 of originality alive ; and these activities are easily encouraged. 
 
 The question of dissatisfaction of parents is met in every city sup- 
 porting a training school for teachers ; and, while unpleasant, it is not 
 unanswerable nor unreconcilable. 
 
 The unified training school certainly does afford fewer points of 
 contact with the city schools, but it may, by the very fact of its unified 
 life, have greater richness of results and of suggestion to present to 
 those who visit the building. 
 
 The distinct advantages of the unified school, on the other hand, are 
 as follows : 
 
 It affords frequent and varied opportunities for observation of 
 expert teaching. 
 
 Students are placed in direct contact with children of the various 
 grades before beginning to teach. 
 
 They have opportunity to practice in the different grades, thus 
 gaining variety of experience in presenting work to children of differ- 
 ent degrees of advancement. 
 
 They have the benefit of participating in the discussions based upon 
 illustrative lessons, and of all other phases of discussion incidental to 
 critic meetings. 
 
 It is possible in the one-building plan to create an atmosphere con- 
 ducive to growth and to unity of purpose. This condition is most 
 essential to the right development of the young teacher. 
 
 For the same reason, a course of study for practice schools is 
 possible from the fact that it has both foundation and perspective. 
 
 If, therefore, as I believe, the foregoing conditions are necessary in 
 order that the best possible results may accrue to the student-teacher 
 in her inadequate term of practice, a one-building plan is essential, 
 under ordinary circumstances, to the harmonious and effective workings 
 of the schools of theory and practice. 
 
THEORY AND PRACTICE AT TEACHERS COLLEGE, 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 
 
 COMPLEX NATURE OF TEACHERS COLLEGE. 
 
 The extremely complex nature of Teachers College renders any 
 discussion of the above theme peculiarly difficult. Students may enter 
 the college as freshmen, specialize in Education the last two years of a 
 four-year course, and receive a B.S. degree in Education. They may 
 then continue their studies three years longer until the degree of Ph.D. 
 in Education is received. 
 
 The undergraduate two-year professional courses prepare students 
 for teaching in the kindergarten, the elementary school, or the second- 
 ary school, or for teaching domestic art, domestic science, fine arts, 
 manual training, music, or physical education, in both schools. The 
 graduate courses allow more advanced work in any of these lines, and 
 for the work of supervision and administration. 
 
 Thus a student may spend seven years at the college in preparation 
 for educational work, five of which are devoted to professional study; 
 or, in accordance with his previous training and the special line which 
 he has chosen, he may spend only one year there. It is evident from 
 these facts that it is very difficult to make statements that apply to all 
 students completing a course, and to all grades of work. 
 
 COURSES IN EDUCATION VERSUS ACADEMIC OR SUBJECT-MATTER 
 
 COURSES. 
 
 In the year 1902-3 there were 146 separate courses offered in 
 Teachers College, varying from i to 6 hours per week, and extending 
 over a period of either a half or a whole academic year. Fifty per 
 cent, of all the work offered dealt with Education proper, in distinction 
 from academic courses, although the subject-matter of nearly all of the 
 latter was distinctly professional, as, for instance, courses on Textiles 
 and Foods, for prospective teachers in domestic art and domestic 
 science. 
 
 Less than half of the hours taken by students, however, were in 
 Education. In fact, on the average, a student taking 16 hours of 
 instruction per week chose 6 of them in Education proper and 10 in 
 subject-matter courses. This fact shows conclusively the prevalent 
 
 43 
 
44 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 conviction in the college, that knowledge of subject-matter is at least 
 not inferior to a knowledge of method and of other educational 
 theory in the training of teachers. And this was true in spite of the 
 fact that of the 729 students in residence in 1902-3, 230 were college 
 graduates, 107 had had a partial college course, and 181 were normal-, 
 training-, or technical-school graduates, before entering Teachers 
 College. 
 
 In addition, the amount of time spent in study per each unit of 
 credit was probably somewhat greater in the subject-matter than in the 
 education courses. Returns from 229 students giving their estimate 
 of their amount of study show the average amount per each hour of 
 credit to be 2.16 hours, the average for each hour of credit in subject- 
 matter courses to be 2.37 hours, and that for each hour of credit in 
 Education courses to be 1.87 hours. This may be misleading, because 
 the time spent in practice-teaching and other practical work can 
 with difficulty be estimated, since it usually consumes a large amount 
 of time for only a few weeks, and it is very probable that most students 
 omitted entirely this item from consideration. Yet these figures 
 approximate the facts, at any rate. 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ACADEMIC WORK OF TEACHERS COLLEGE 
 AND THAT OF NON-PROFESSIONAL COLLEGES, LIKE COLUMBIA AND 
 BARNARD. 
 
 I. Teachers College offers 146 courses, aggregating 328 hours, an 
 "hour" meaning one hour a week for one year. There are, besides 
 these, four courses (Botany 11, 13, 17, 28) given in connection with 
 other institutions. 
 
 Of the 146 courses, 74 (50 per cent, of the total, aggregating 164 
 hours, also 50 per cent, of the total) are purely educational, although 
 in the case of Kindergarten courses. Music 10, 11, Physical Education 
 12, 14, and Physical Science i, 2, they are not called courses in Edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Of the nominally academic courses a surprisingly large number are 
 professional in fact, and are not given in non-professional colleges like 
 Barnard and Columbia. There are 58 of these courses (81 per cent, 
 of the nominally academic courses), and they aggregate 131 hours 
 (81 per cent, of the number in the nominally academic courses, and 40 
 per cent, of the total number of hours). 
 
 The following are the courses nominally academic, but in fact 
 professional : 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 45 
 
 Biblical Literature i (2 hours), taken by those who are preparing for 
 Bible teaching. 
 
 *. Dofnestic Art 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17 (14 hours), taken by those who are 
 preparing to teach domestic art. 
 
 Doinestic Science 10, 1 1, 12, 13, 14, i 5, 51 (18 hours), taken by those who 
 are preparing to teach domestic science. 
 
 Hospital Economics 10, 12, (3 hours), taken by those who are preparing 
 to train nurses. 
 
 English 10 (i hour), "Folk Story," taken by elementary teachers for use 
 with children. 
 
 Fine Arts i, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23 (24 hours), taken 
 by those who are preparing to teach art. 
 
 Geography 1,2, 10 (7 hours), taken by those preparing as elementary 
 teachers, or as special teachers of geography. 
 
 German \Q (2 hours), " Reading Educational German;" offered, as its 
 name suggests, for the use of teachers only. 
 
 Greek 5 1 and Latin 5 1 (4 hours), reading courses for high-school teachers. 
 
 Manual Training i, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 (38 hours), 
 taken by those who are preparing to teach the subject. 
 
 Mathematics 51 (2 hours), a course in the history of the subject, designed 
 especially for high-school teachers. 
 
 Music 2, 3, 4, 12, 14 (9 hours), taken by those who are preparing to teach 
 music in the schools; the same might well be said of music i, included below 
 in the purely academic list. 
 
 Nature Study 10, 12 (4 hours), taken by elementary teachers. 
 
 Physical Science 51 (2 hours), a course in the history of the subject, 
 designed especially for high-school teachers. 
 
 While occasionally some of these courses — as, for example, Geog- 
 raphy 10, or some of the courses in Music or the Fine Arts — are 
 duplicated in name in some non-professional college like Columbia or 
 Barnard, this is exceptional, and even in that case, the aims of the 
 courses being radically different, there is only a nominal duplication. 
 Take, for example, a subject like Geography i. While courses in 
 General Geography, arranged to fit one to become an investigator in 
 this line, and given with only the scientific end in view, are offered in 
 academic colleges, and are excellent in their results, these courses 
 would need to be materially modified to give the best academic prepa- 
 ration for a teacher. 
 
 2. There are 14 purely academic courses, that is, courses not per- 
 taining to teaching (10 per cent, of the total), aggregating 33 hours 
 (10 per cent, of the total), offered in Teachers College. These are as 
 follows : 
 
46 
 
 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 French A. and i, German A and 2, History A, and Mathematics A — 
 all offered for economical reasons, there being sufficient students to fill 
 one or more sections of each. There are also History 2 and 10, 
 demanded by the number of teachers wishing these courses for high- 
 school work; Music i, a preliminary for the teachers' courses in music, 
 and demanded for all kindergarten teachers; and the courses in 
 Physical Education, which are so manifestly professional that, although 
 offered in non-professional colleges, they must be given here. 
 
 It will, therefore, be seen that the only real duplication of work 
 with Columbia and Barnard Colleges is necessitated by the size of the 
 sections, and is as follows : 
 
 French A and i (6 hours). History A and 2 (6 hours). 
 
 German A and 2 (6 hours). Mathematics A (3 hours). 
 
 This is a total of 7 courses, 21 hours, or 5 per cent, of the total 
 number of courses offered in Teachers College, and 6 per cent, of the 
 total number of hours. It is evident, too, that the method of instruc- 
 tion in these courses is, by the nature of the aims of the students 
 involved, quite different from that in non-professional colleges, 
 although this point can hardly be made clear to the instructors to 
 whom these classes are often left in such institutions. 
 
 Nevertheless, these subjects in group 2 might with no serious harm 
 be handed over to Columbia and Barnard Colleges, if it were not for 
 the economical question involved. If the university should cease to 
 require subjects like Mathematics A, German A, and History A, the 
 problem would be to quite an extent solved by the diminution in the 
 size of classes. 
 
 3. The following is a summary of the courses offered at Teachers 
 College : 
 
 
 Courses 
 
 Hours 
 
 
 Number 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Number 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Purely educstioriEl 
 
 74 
 5« 
 
 50 
 40 
 
 164 
 131 
 
 50 
 
 Education in fact, though not in name . . . 
 
 40 
 
 Total 
 
 132 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 90 
 
 5 
 5 
 
 295 
 12 
 21 
 
 90 
 
 Purely academic, though not duplicating 
 Columbia or Barnard Colleges 
 
 4 
 6 
 
 
 
 Grand total 
 
 146 
 
 100 
 
 328 
 
 100 
 
 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 47 
 
 It is evident that the above -outlined policy of Teachers College in 
 regard to subject-matter courses calls into question the special fitness 
 of the academic subjects in the customary college for those persons 
 who are expecting to teach. 
 
 NATURE OF GENERAL AND SPECIAL COURSES IN EDUCATION THEIR 
 
 RELATION TO EACH OTHER AND TO PRACTICE. 
 
 In the organization of Teachers Colleges a number of courses 
 bearing on the general problems of education are provided, as well 
 as special courses relating to the theory and practice of teaching in 
 each of the separate departments represented. 
 
 The nature of the general courses is twofold : first, a number of 
 courses that deal with the basic facts of child-life, fundamental educa- 
 tional principles and leading points in methods of teaching that are 
 considered as essential elements in the work of all undergraduate 
 students; and, secondly, a larger number of courses that consider 
 more advanced problems of the educational philosophy, child-study, 
 supervision, and school administration, and which are in general 
 intended for senior and graduate work. 
 
 In the first group fall courses in the Elements of Psychology, Educa- 
 tional Psychology, the History and Principles of Education, and in 
 General Method and Practice-Teaching, although the latter is a 
 required course only for the students preparing for general teaching 
 in the elementary school. 
 
 In the second group are courses in Educational Problems, Modern 
 Educational Theory, School Administration, Child-Study, Genetic 
 Psychology, Supervision, Critic Work and Experimental Teaching, 
 and general courses on Secondary Education. In addition to these, 
 seven "practica" and six seminar courses are offered for further 
 graduate study. These latter courses call for research work and 
 intensive study on special phases of general problems, and are open 
 only to graduate students. 
 
 In the first group the course in the Elements of Psychology deals 
 with the fundamental facts of mental life. While aiming at breadth 
 and thoroughness, the needs of the prospective teacher are given 
 prominence through the selection of topics of special pertinence, and 
 by the use of illustrations from school life whenever possible. 
 
 The course in Educational Psychology aims to develop in students 
 the power to apply the facts of psychology to the problems of teaching. 
 Special study is made of the meaning of apperception, the problem of 
 
48 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 attention, the relation of memory to knowing, the part played by 
 imagery, the emotions and interests in child-life, the importance of 
 habit, and the place of suggestion in teaching. 
 
 As a part of the course there is systematic observation of teaching 
 in the Horace Mann School, during which the points previously 
 considered are kept to the front. And besides that, a study is made 
 of ten or more lessons from text-books, the good and the bad points 
 being noted and the decisions justified. 
 
 These two courses, each a three-hour course for one-half year, are 
 required of all students in the first year of the undergraduate two-year 
 professional courses for the Bachelor's diplomas and degree in Educa- 
 tion, and more than any other courses in the institution they are 
 intended to furnish a basis for the specialized study of education in 
 each department during the senior year and later. 
 
 The only required work in the senior year for all undergraduate 
 professional courses is the History and Principles of Education. 
 
 The first portion of this course examines the ideals and character 
 of education in oriental countries, in Greece and Rome, passing 
 thence to the influence of the Middle Ages, and later to the concep- 
 tions and types of education developed at the time of the Renaissance 
 and the Reformation. After this, the influence of the great educators 
 of modern times — Rabelais, Montaigne, Milton, Locke, Rousseau, 
 Basedow, Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel — is analyzed, and their 
 contributions to the present thought and practice are studied. 
 
 The psychological conception of education, as represented by 
 Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel, is contrasted with the sociological 
 conception, as advanced by Spencer, and the influence of the latter 
 idea on subject-matter is considered. 
 
 At the end of the course a study is made of contemporary concep- 
 tions of education, involving the nature and aim of Education, the 
 institutional factors in the process, the subject-matter and method, 
 and the organization and administration of education. 
 
 This is a three-hour course for one year, and, since the average 
 student is expected to take fifteen hours of work per week, the pro- 
 portionate time belonging to it is evident. Returns from loi students 
 who were taking this course last year show it, too, to have required 
 possibly more than the average time for educational courses, namely, 
 1.96 hours of study for i hour in class. 
 
 Several important questions arise in regard to the relation of this 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 49 
 
 course to other requirements of students, particularly to those of 
 students in the several technical departments of the college: 
 
 1. Is not the total amount of the time required for it out of pro- 
 portion to the other work of the senior year ? 
 
 2. Does it not devote too large an amount of students' time to the 
 study of ancient educational ideals and practices, which have relatively 
 small direct bearing on modern thought, and which lack vital 
 suggestiveness and stimulating quality to students whose main 
 interests are in the present problems of the methods courses ? 
 
 If the reply is made that one important aim here is culture, is it 
 not true that the devotion of a large amount of time to this early 
 period for its culture value is out of place in the most strictly pro- 
 fessional year of the undergraduate work ? Also, may it not be true 
 that as great breadth of view can be obtained from a more intensive 
 study of problems that appear more vitally related to the student's 
 outlook and experience ? 
 
 On the other hand, is not too little time devoted to the more 
 recent ideas of educational theory and practice, such as the ideas of 
 unification and correlation in the course of study, the relation of 
 school life to community life, the influence of vocational demands and 
 conditions upon school work, the place of art and occupations in 
 interpreting social life ? In brief, how practical should a course in the 
 history and principles of education plan to be ? 
 
 These problems are too difficult to attempt to solve them at the 
 present time, but since much the same questions arise in other insti- 
 tutions for the training of teachers, the hope may be here expressed 
 that they will receive due attention in the near future. 
 
 The undergraduate special methods courses need no description at 
 this point. Among the graduate courses the "practica" are of special 
 interest because they aim primarily to teach the proper methods of 
 investigating educational problems. It is true that ideas are still 
 vague as to how the scientific method can be applied to the field of 
 education, but it is certainly in place to undertake the task. The 
 advance of the science of education is directly dependent upon the use 
 of the scientific method, for otherwise the conclusions reached are 
 only views, opinions, not fairly proved facts. The seminars are 
 continuations of the "practica," their special purpose being the 
 preparation of dissertations for the degree of Ph.D. A consider- 
 able portion of the advanced work, therefore, has for its distinctive 
 
50 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 aim the teaching of right methods of investigation of educational 
 prd>lems. 
 
 PRACTICAL WORK. 
 
 The term "practical work" was finally hit upon in the search for 
 a suitable name to cover the various kinds of practice, in distinction 
 from theory, undertaken by students in the Horace Mann School and 
 the Speyer School. Included among these kinds are : 
 
 Observation of a single child, a small group, or a class. 
 
 Instruction of a single child, a small group, or a class. 
 
 Preparation of materials for use of a class. 
 
 Examination of papers, collecting data for a class. 
 
 The observation or study of a school as a whole, its organization and 
 discipline. 
 
 Any work that involves direct contact with children, or with their parents, 
 or with the environment of both, for the purpose of influencing the school 
 instruction, or for improving the condition of either, through educational 
 means. 
 
 The practical work, therefore, finds its center in the government, 
 instruction, and study of children, although it includes whatever 
 neighborhood work is primarily educational. Thus the practical work 
 in Teachers College includes far more than observation and practice- 
 teaching, as these terms are commonly used in training schools for 
 teachers. 
 
 The two schools used for practical work differ widely in their nature. 
 
 THE HORACE MANN SCHOOL. 
 
 The Horace Mann School, in a building connected with Teachers 
 College, consists of a kindergarten (37 children), an elementary school 
 of seven grades (424 children), and a high-school with a five-year 
 course (430 students); the three departments together having 891 pupils. 
 The number of teachers is 65. The tuition in the kindergarten is II75 
 per year, which is gradually increased in the grades, until the amount 
 per pupil in the high school is $250. 
 
 The school is under the control of a superintendent, assisted by 
 three principals, i. e., of the high school, the elementary school, and 
 the kindergarten. Thus the so-called " Horace Mann School " is 
 really a system of schools, corresponding to a full city system, in 
 miniature. 
 
 The numerous heads of departments in the college bring in an 
 additional factor. These have always been active in determining ::L:ie 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 51 
 
 Horace Marin School curriculum in their respective subjects, and in 
 the selection of text-books, apparatus, etc. They also meet the teach- 
 ers frequently, individually and in groups, for discussion of the work 
 of the school. Yet their relation to the school in all these matters is 
 advisory only, the superintendent and principals possessing the final 
 authority to decide upon curriculum, text-books, etc. The reason for 
 this arrangement is the conviction that specialists, no matter how com- 
 petent and energetic, are unprepared to control the instruction in a 
 school. Final responsibility must be centered in one person and his 
 assistants, in order to secure a good curriculum and a fair degree of 
 unity in other respects. 
 
 This arrangement, however, leaves it practically to the option of 
 each department how much energy it shall expend in trying to better 
 the school. It is the opinion of the undersigned that a faculty regu- 
 lation, whereby each department shall put in writing its recommenda- 
 tions as to curriculum, text-books, method, etc., would effect an 
 important improvement. If such a recommendation were expected to 
 reach the superintendent of the school by a certain date each year, a 
 positive responsibility would be placed upon each department. If, in 
 addition, a brief reply to the main points, in writing, could be expected 
 from the principals or superintendent of the school, a business relation 
 between the two parties would be established which might prove very 
 beneficial to all concerned. 
 
 Yet there is another need more important than this. Thus far the 
 Horace Mann School has not been a center of interest for Teachers 
 College as a whole. Each department bears a certain relation to the 
 school, to be sure, but the many departments have failed to work 
 together in the solution of the problems of instruction there. The 
 result is that both the college and the school lose the benefit of a close 
 contact between departments in the discussion of practical school ques- 
 tions. This means that the college fails to take advantage of its 
 highest opportunity. 
 
 Whether this evil can ever be largely remedied is a question. The 
 size of the city, which places the homes of members of the faculty ten 
 to fifteen miles apart, makes it extremely difficult to bring many 
 together for evening meetings. But, worse than that, the diverse 
 interests of the departments render it difficult to find vital questions 
 of common interest. For example, departments representing the 
 kindergarten, elementary instruction, secondary instruction (such as 
 
52 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 Latin, Physical Education, Music, and Handwork), college instruction 
 (as History of Education), school administration, and child-study, can- 
 not readily unite in the discussion of practical problems. 
 
 Possibly it is best not to attempt unity in such diversity. But it 
 might, at least, be feasible for the departments to be grouped in two or 
 more divisions ; for instance, those interested primarily in elementary 
 instruction constituting one group, aud those interested in secondary 
 instruction, another group. Each should have its own executive com- 
 mittee or chairman and its stated meetings, and the latter could well 
 equal the library as a stimulus and source of suggestions. 
 
 The high tuition is partial explanation for the fact that the school is 
 little used for practice-teaching, although some instruction is under- 
 taken by students in each of the three departments. The absence of 
 such practice, however, render^ the school all the more valuable as a 
 model for observation, which is its chief function. 
 
 There are at present twenty-three methods courses that make much 
 use of the Horace Mann School for various kinds of practical work. 
 They are given by sixteen departments in the college and average 
 about fourteen students per class, with the exception of one required 
 course that has two hundred members. One of these is a kindergarten 
 course, one is a kindergarten and primary course combined, seven deal 
 with elementary instruction alone, eight with secondary instruction, 
 and six with both elementary and secondary teaching. Twenty of 
 these are special methods courses, only three being general. These 
 twenty- three courses average almost three hours per week for one year, 
 and a little more than one-third of this time is spent in practical work 
 in the Horace Mann School, the remainder being occupied in class- 
 room instruction in the college. Several other education courses make 
 some use of the Horace Mann School. 
 
 It is evident, from the above, that it is the policy of the college to 
 have subject-matter and methods courses quite distinct from each 
 other, although all departments would agree that a large amount of 
 method is taught in the subject-matter courses. The idea prevails that 
 there is a sufificient quantity of work pertaining to method to make it 
 necessary to offer separate courses in that field. 
 
 Each of these professional courses has been developed independ- 
 ently by the department concerned. No extensive uniformity exists, 
 therefore, or has been aimed at, although comparison of views has no 
 doubt influenced every course materially. In general, it can be said, 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 53 
 
 however, that the students are divided into small groups, and each 
 group is placed in charge of a regular teacher of the Horace Mann 
 School. In case a methods class has very few students, they may con- 
 stitute only one such group ; but a class of twenty-five members might 
 be divided into two or three divisions, and asssigned to as many 
 teachers, for practical work. 
 
 These teachers naturally have their preferences even in the primary 
 department, and some degree of specialization is customary in the 
 grammar grades, as well as in the high school. Each head of depart- 
 ment, therefore, can without difficulty find satisfactory teachers particu- 
 larly interested in his field among whom to divide the students in his 
 methods courses. Notices of assignment and records of the same are 
 all attended to by an administrative officer of the college, and the stu- 
 dent's program must be arranged in this respect, as in others, at the 
 beginning of the year. 
 
 From the time of receiving a group of students, the teacher in the 
 Horace Mann School is the one primarily responsible for their welfare 
 in this work. Indeed, the head of department concerned may seldom 
 put in an appearnce to see what the students are accomplishing, 
 although this is the exception rather than the rule. But, on the other 
 hand, it is the rule that the teachers having charge of students in any 
 branch are intimately acquainted with the desires of the college depart- 
 ment that they represent, and are in such sympathy with it that they 
 are capable of acting as valuable assistants to it in the field of practice. 
 Indeed, their very reliability offers a temptation to the heads of depart- 
 ments to leave with them the entire responsibility. It should be 
 remembered, too, that the professors in the college are usually experi- 
 enced teachers of children or of young people below college rank, and 
 in conjunction with the teachers in the Horace Mann School have 
 largely determined the present curriculum of the school. They are, 
 therefore, capable of keeping in close touch with the practical work 
 of their students, without seeing a large amount of it. The responsi- 
 bility for accepting the practical work for college credit rests primarily 
 with the teachers of the Horace Mann School. This is a serious 
 responsibility, in addition to their other regular duties ; but usually 
 any one teacher has no more than one group of college students to 
 supervise, and the cheerfulness with which, almost universally, this 
 duty is undertaken is convincing proof of its worth to the teachers. 
 The requirements for the various diplomas and degrees are so 
 
54 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 different that it is impossible to state exactly how much practical work 
 a student takes. But, in general, each undergraduate student pursues 
 at least one general methods course, and the undergraduate and grad- 
 uate students alike pursue from one to four other methods courses, 
 general and special. Ordinarily, therefore, a student cannot receive 
 any kind of diploma with less than one hour per week, for one year, 
 of practical work in the Horace Mann School, and it is the rule to take 
 from two to three times that amount. 
 
 The observation work naturally finds its motive partly in the 
 practice-teachirfg that is to follow; yet the time devoted to observation 
 by the student is much greater than that devoted to actual teaching. 
 In fact, the amount of instruction, in the Horace Mann School given 
 by a student does not, as a rule, exceed a half-dozen recitation periods, 
 although there are numerous exceptions. The fact that the Speyer 
 School is primarily the school for practice-teaching partly explains 
 this, as does also the high tuition, already referred to. But, in addi- 
 tion, the faculty of Teachers College is practically unanimous in its 
 hearty belief in the great value of observation, when preceded and 
 accompanied by well-developed theory, and when the observation is 
 tested in discussion by competent critics. 
 
 THE SPEYER SCHOOL. 
 
 The Speyer School, located eight blocks directly north of Teachers 
 College, at 94 Lawrence street, is a free school entirely supported by, 
 and under the control of, the College. The term "school" here, how- 
 ever, includes not only a school in the ordinary sense, but an organiza- 
 tion for neighborhood work as well. The school proper consists at 
 present of a kindergarten and six grades (160 children in all), the 
 seventh and eighth grades to be added as the present sixth grade 
 advances. The number of regular teachers is 7, besides an acting 
 principal and several supervisors. The children are desired to repre- 
 sent average families in their home advantages, and have been chosen 
 with this in view from those who have happened to offer themselves as 
 pupils. 
 
 The neighborhood work is under the control of a director, who is 
 assisted by three regularly employed assistants, besides twenty or thirty 
 other workers, giving one or more hours per week each. The resident 
 workers occupy the fifth floor of the building. The school and neigh- 
 borhood work together keep the greater portion of the building occu- 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 55 
 
 pied throughout the day and evening. The "school," including these 
 two kinds of work, is under the general supervision of two departments 
 of the college, the department of school administration being responsi- 
 ble for all matters of business, and the department of elementary edu- 
 cation for all matters strictly educational, such as curriculum, selection 
 of text-books, etc. The other departments of the college have a 
 decided influence on the school ; indeed, in several cases, a very active 
 share in its work ; but their relation is only advisory, as at the Horace 
 Mann School. 
 
 The school proper is primarily a school of practice and experiment. 
 It is used mainly by college seniors and graduate students. A large 
 percentage of the former are normal-school graduates, and many are 
 experienced teachers. They undertake practice-teaching as a required 
 part of their methods courses, and they find its chief value in the 
 criticisms received. As a rule, they teach one branch of study for a 
 month or more, after having observed a class long enough to become 
 fairly well acquainted with the children and their work. 
 
 The graduate students who do work at the school are more numerous 
 than the undergraduates. They get the benefit of criticism, as do the 
 others ; but that is not the main profit aimed at. Their work is usually 
 of an experimental nature, although they sometimes act as supervisors 
 and critics of other students. Most of such work, as most of the other 
 practical work both at the Horace Mann and at the Speyer School, is 
 immediately a part of some college course, the class-room discussion 
 dealing with theory, and this practice aiming at the application of that 
 theory. In connection with such courses, some topic bearing on the 
 curriculum or on method may be selected that calls both for research 
 in the library and for actual experiment in the Speyer School. For 
 example, this year two students have chosen the problem of teaching 
 children how to study history; one, the problem of primitive life in the 
 first two grades ; three, the possibility and feasibility of a much better 
 kind of problem in arithmetic; one, the difficulties in the way of uni- 
 fying the kindergarten and primary school, and the remedies for them. 
 The last topic calls for library research and observation mainly, rather 
 than practice-teaching. Whatever assistance can be gotten from any 
 department is entirely admissible, but the student must have force 
 enough to carry on his investigation in his own way, and reach safe 
 conclusions of some sort from data that an outsider can appreciate. 
 Valuable new knowledge is one thing aimed at, but a good method of 
 
56 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 working on educational problems, approximating a scientific method, 
 is not less important. Thus there are two values aimed at in such 
 graduate work that are not expected for undergraduate students. 
 
 The neighborhood or settlement work has been begun by attempt- 
 ing to duplicate such work as is done in the better ** Settlements" in 
 cities. To this end classes in cooking, sewing, and dancing have been 
 conducted in the afternoon ; numerous clubs have been established for 
 the evenings, devoting their time to exercises in the gymnasium, includ- 
 ing the use of the bath, to manual work, to literature, to parliamentary 
 law, home nursing, etc., and the library with two reading rooms, has 
 been kept open at certain hours for the use of adults and children. 
 In addition, a large number of children collect at the building on 
 afternoons for games of various kinds, and for story-telling; and 
 on certain evenings young people and adults meet there for social 
 entertainment, including games, music, reading, and dancing in their 
 program. Through these means as many as three hundred families 
 are affected more or less, while the school proper reaches about one 
 hundred and fifty other families, the two groups of families overlapping 
 very little. Thus the neighborhood work supplements that of the 
 school, so that the two together influence between four hundred and 
 five hundred families in a community of perhaps 150,000 persons. And 
 since the classes and clubs are conducted or supervised mainly by vol- 
 unteer students from Columbia College as well as from Teachers 
 College, the value to the university as a whole is apparent. Much of 
 this volunteer work is no part of any course and receives no credit, 
 being undertaken solely on account of a desire to engage in some 
 form of social work. 
 
 The moment, however, one attempts to do considerably more than 
 entertain children in a club for an hour or more — that is, the moment 
 one undertakes to put such work on an educational plane — he is con- 
 fronted with a most difficult problem. Proper discipline requires more 
 judgment and successful appeals to interest demand more skill, than 
 in the day school. Both subject-matter and method, must therefore, 
 receive special attention. More originality and a more careful study of 
 home habits, street life, etc., are demanded than in ordinary instruction. 
 For such reasons this work may now also be accepted in Teachers Col- 
 lege as practical work with credit for graduate students. For example, 
 one student the present year has general charge of the manual training 
 in the several boys' clubs ; two together are in control of a club that 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 57 
 
 aims at the good oral reading and also telling of classic stories, dramas, 
 etc.; one will soon undertake the instruction of a class of children 
 defective in hearing ; and one is responsible for teaching games and 
 other kinds of entertainment to a class of fifteen-year old girls. All 
 such work is peculiarly difficult and truly experimental, since neither 
 the customs of the schools nor those of the settlements can be adopted. 
 There is the assumption here, too, that social service is fully within the 
 sphere of the duties of teachers in training, and experience of this sort 
 will have a much-needed effect upon the common school. 
 
 As time passes an attempt will be made to modify this neighbor- 
 hood work radically, and to bring it and the day school together. At 
 present, although the two are conducted in the same building, they 
 deal with different classes of people and have different aims, so that 
 they are practically unrelated. In consequence, each is seriously defec- 
 tive. Anyone must admit that even the so-called good school of the 
 present is a thoroughly theoretical institution, imparting a large amount 
 of theory about how to live and exciting a good degree of interest, but 
 not following up either to the point of use or practice. So it is with 
 the Speyer School. The neighborhood work, on the other hand, is 
 superficial and scattering, offering little of theory; in fact, trying to be 
 practical on a meager quantity of thought. 
 
 If the two efforts could be united into a single work, something of 
 far more value might be accomplished. Then the solution of probably . 
 the greatest modern educational problem would be undertaken, namely, 
 the question : Is it possible for a school to be so conducted as to com- 
 bine theory with practice abundantly? The first step toward a solution 
 would consist in centering the attention of the teachers and neighbor- 
 hood workers alike upon largely the same set of persons ; that is, the 
 children in the school and their parents. A few concrete examples 
 will suggest the possibilities that might follow. 
 
 The fourth grade in the school recently planted some narcissus 
 bulbs in a small flower garden out-of-doors, and afterward made some 
 study of such bulbs. Suppose, in this connection, that the children 
 were brought to realize that the long winter is before us, during which 
 the coloring of vegetation can be little enjoyed, and that the narcissus 
 bulb is a special means of securing beautiful flowers at the earliest 
 possible moment in the spring. Suppose that it is also shown that 
 thousands of persons in our city so hunger for such beauty during the 
 cold season that they spend money for flowers, just as for bread, thus 
 
58 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 supporting a florist's establishment every few blocks. Suppose, finally, 
 that similar flower-producing bulbs are studied and associated with the 
 narcissus, such as the hyacinth, tulip, jonquil, and tuberose. At this 
 point school instruction must usually stop owing to pressure of other 
 duties. 
 
 But the real fruitage of the learning is lost, unless other things are 
 added. Awakened to a sense of the beauty and need of more color 
 in winter, the children might be led to care for some house plants dur- 
 ing this period. But what kinds, where obtained, where placed, and 
 how cared for ? Under guidance they might form the habit of visiting 
 the florists occasionally for the purpose of seeing the variety of plants 
 on hand, renewing the acquaintance with some, and buying some. 
 The children even in the kindergarten have volunteered the informa- 
 tion that they can "work" their fathers for pennies, if they ask for 
 one at a time, and the first five cents spent by a child for flowers marks 
 an epoch in his life much as when one's first book is purchased. 
 Where, also, might some of these several kinds of bulbs be bought, 
 how much would they cost, where and how might they be planted, and 
 how should each be cared for ? The school breaks down at such work 
 as this because of a lack of helpers; and at this point it is proposed 
 that the neighborhood workers come in to give assistance, following 
 up each of these points to its execution. 
 
 But these workers might well, also, make demands on the school. 
 In the course of their visits to the homes in the neighborhood they dis- 
 cover what newspapers and magazines, if any, are read, and to some 
 extent how they are read. They make some observations on the topics 
 of conversation at meal times, the furniture of the home, the sanitary 
 conditions, the extent to which the families spend their evenings together, 
 the behavior of older children toward their younger brothers and sisters 
 and their parents, the games that are played, and other amusements. 
 Conscious of the needs that these observations suggest, why should 
 not these workers influence the teachers to instruct the older children 
 about differences among newspapers, what the characteristics of the 
 best ones are, what the best parts of a paper are, and how to read the 
 various parts ? Why should they not, likewise, expect the teachers to 
 acquaint the children, and the parents through parents' meetings, with 
 the faults of poor magazines, and the names of some of the best and 
 cheapest, including some discussion as to how to read them ? Why 
 might they not further insist that more topics be included in the school 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 59 
 
 curriculum that would prove acceptable as topics of conversation at 
 home, the teacher aiming to present these in such a manner that the 
 children would be able to converse about them intelligently ? Why 
 not, in addition, suggest that the ability to tell a story and read well 
 aloud be so developed — on classic subject-matter — that the ability 
 may often prove the means of holding the members of a family 
 together in the evening ? The school already partly accomplishes 
 these tasks. If it would go farther, the neighborhood workers could 
 be of great assistance in carrying them to the end, in executing the 
 theory offered by the school. In this manner the teachers and the 
 neighborhood workers might well co-operate, each assisting the other 
 and each asking assistance from the other. 
 
 The problem involved calls into question the nature of the school. 
 So much of what is taught there is never followed up to the point of 
 execution, is not made to meet real needs, even when it might well 
 meet them. And so much of what is taught is quite unrelated to real 
 needs, to life ! It is no wonder that many persons doubt the possi- 
 bility of making the school strongly practical as well as theoretical. If 
 a number of experimental stations, such as the Speyer School, would 
 work energetically on this problem, a different faith might come into 
 being. It would take a larger force of teachers to conduct a school that 
 actually applied a fair part of the knowledge that it presented, but the 
 public would finally be far more willing to employ a larger number.. 
 There are many indications that the school of the future will combine 
 many of the characteristics of the present public school with those of the 
 present settlement work, being perhaps a sort of cross between the two. 
 It is the purpose, at least, to strive in this direction in the Speyer 
 School, and to call upon graduate students to share in such work, 
 whether they undertake "practical work" in the school proper or in the 
 other branches of the institution. Gradually the two must become one, 
 if the educational theory of the college finds realization in the school. 
 
 In conclusion, it is impossible to determine from the preceding 
 statements just how much observation, practice-teaching, or other prac- 
 tical work is required from students of Teachers College. It should 
 be remembered that this is due to the great variety of purpose and 
 advancement of the students. It is at least a question whether college 
 graduates who have taught for a number of years, and who are now 
 specializing in the history of education or child-study, should be 
 
6o THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 required to do any practice-teaching whatever. And it is evident that 
 others should do more or less of such work, according to their past 
 training and present object. But, on the other hand, any student who 
 wishes to specialize to a considerable extent in practical work in the 
 " elementary " school can do so to his heart's content at Teachers Col- 
 lege. The two schools offer ample facilities at present. When it comes 
 to secondary work, however, this is unfortunately not yet the case. 
 
 PLANS OF RECITATIONS. 
 
 There is a general agreement among the departments of the college 
 that written plans for recitations are an essential element in the train- 
 ing of teachers. But the nature of such plans has been differently con- 
 ceived by the various instructors, so that students taking a methods 
 course under one professor have made out one kind of plan, and taking 
 such a course under another have followed a different scheme. This 
 lack of harmony has led to much confusion and loss of time. It has 
 seemed important, therefore, that some agreement be reached as to the 
 main characteristics of these plans. Following is a typical plan, taken 
 from Manual Training, whose form has been agreed upon as acceptable 
 by about half of the departments of the college. Quite possibly it will 
 prove acceptable to the remainder when opportunity has been found 
 for its careful consideration. 
 
 LESSON PLAN FOR MAKING A SAILBOAT — FIFTH GRADE. 
 
 PREPARED BY DR. E. B. KENT. 
 
 Teacher's aim.— To make a sailboat which shall have value for the children as a toy, and thereby 
 to determine some fundamental principles of boat construction. Illustrations of these principles are to be 
 observed at the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth street piers. 
 
 Children's aim. — ^To make a sailboat. 
 
 SUBJECT-MATTER. METHOD. 
 
 How many of you have made sailboats? 
 What difficulties, if any, did you meet in 
 
 making them? In sailing them? 
 We shall try to avoid these. 
 A. The hull. What shall we make first? 
 
 I. It must float; i.e., be lighter than i. What is the most important point to 
 equal bulk of water. look out for in making the hull? 
 
 Advantages of wood, paper, etc. What, then, are good materials? 
 
 How iron may be used. But are not steamships built of iron? 
 
 Why do they float? Illustrate with 
 a cup. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 
 
 6 1 
 
 SUBJECT-MATTER. 
 
 Hollowness, rather than lightness 
 of material, keeps most boats 
 afloat. 
 
 Wood best for our purpose because 
 it will float without being hol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Form. 
 
 a) Must be such as to allow the 
 
 greatest speed. 
 
 Sharpening the prow will in- 
 crease speed. 
 Length of point, 3" — 4". 
 
 b) Must be such as to sail straight; 
 
 i, e.y bi-symmetrical. 
 
 Prow must be in middle of end. 
 Slant must be the same on both 
 
 sides. 
 Use of chisel. 
 
 Advantage of making the cuts 
 parallel to the line. 
 c) Other details of form affecting 
 speed. 
 
 All splashing by the boat is 
 wasted energy. 
 
 Occurs at corners. 
 
 Bottom to be rounded with 
 
 plane or knife. 
 Stern cut to semicircle, and 
 made to slant upward from 
 keel. 
 Motive power. 
 I. Mast. 
 
 The larger the sail, the more power. 
 
 METHOD. 
 
 What, then, has lightness of material 
 to do with keeping the ordinary 
 boat afloat? 
 
 Best material for us to use? 
 
 a) Why not use these blocks just as 
 they are (i"X2"Xio") for our 
 hulls? 
 Why make them pointed? 
 
 How long shall the point be? 
 i) In planning the point, we must 
 
 think of something else besides 
 
 speed. 
 How would a boat act if shaped 
 
 like this? ( 
 
 (top view). 
 
 > 
 
 How, then, must we plan the point? 
 Draw lines for point. 
 
 What tool shall we cut them with? 
 Who can show us how to use it? 
 {Class begins work.) 
 
 c) Is there anything else which we 
 may do to the hull to increase 
 the speed? 
 
 The point increases speed because 
 it reduces the splashing of the 
 boat — saves the water from turn- 
 ing sharp corners. 
 
 At what other points will there be 
 splashing and disturbance of 
 water? 
 
 How remedy this? 
 
 Process treated as above. 
 How describe a good hull? 
 {Work.) 
 
 What shall we do next? 
 How tall a mast? 
 
62 
 
 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 SUBJECT-MATTER. 
 
 The size of sail is limited by the 
 height of the mast. 
 
 The height of the mast is limited 
 by the stability of hull. 
 
 Consequences of too high a mast. 
 
 Ballast. 
 
 Steadies boat and so allows in- 
 creased sail area. 
 
 Freight ships depend on their car- 
 go for ballast. 
 
 Racing yachts have a deep-reach- 
 ing metal keel. 
 
 Use of large nail as ballast. 
 
 a) As common keel, fastened to 
 bottom of boat with staples. 
 
 Better for use in shallow 
 water. 
 
 b) As "fin" keel, by driving per- 
 pendicularly into bottom of boat. 
 
 Much steadier, but requires 
 deep water. 
 Best height for mast. 
 
 Determined by experiment at sink 
 or in pail of water. Allow some- 
 thing for weight of sail. 
 
 A mast should taper to give maxi- 
 mum of strength and lightness 
 respectively where each is most 
 needed. 
 Process. 
 
 i) Bore X " hole through boat i" 
 or 2" forward of center. 
 
 2) Split a long piece from a X" 
 board and fit to boat. 
 
 3) Test in water and cut off at top 
 till boat becomes steady. 
 
 4) Cut off about ^ more to allow 
 for weight of sail. 
 
 5) Taper mast using plane or knife. 
 
 6) Split the lower end of mast, in- 
 sert in hole, and secure by driv- 
 ing wooden wedge into the split. 
 
 METHOD. 
 
 Why so tall? 
 Why not taller? 
 
 Can we do anything to the hull which 
 will enable it to carry more mast and 
 sail without capsizing? 
 
 Is this done with real boats? How? 
 
 In what two ways could you use this 
 spike as ballast for your boat? 
 
 Advantages of each? 
 
 (Work.) 
 
 Now, once more, how tall shall we make 
 the mast? 
 
 How find out? Only by trying. Begin 
 with a mast you are sure is tall enough 
 and cut it down till boat behaves prop- 
 erly in water. 
 
 What is the proper shape for a mast? 
 Why? 
 
 What shall we do first in making the 
 mast? Why? What next? Why? etc. 
 
RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE 
 
 63 
 
 SUBJECT-MATTER. 
 
 3. Sail. 
 
 a) Size — as high as mast will al- 
 low and almost as broad at 
 bottom . 
 6) Shapes. 
 
 (i) Common, four sided; gives 
 
 largest surface. 
 (2) Triangular, or "leg of mut- 
 ton;" less surface, but 
 more easily made and 
 rigged. 
 c) Spreading. 
 
 Use of boom, gaff, hoisting-line. 
 Loops for attaching to mast. 
 Hems for holding boom and gaff. 
 Process. 
 Cut sail. 
 Make hems. 
 
 Attach mast-loops and hoist- 
 ing-line. 
 Insert spars. 
 
 Make small hole in top of 
 mast and pass hoisting-line 
 through it. 
 C. Means of steering. 
 Necessity of rudder. 
 
 It tends to push the stem of the 
 boat away from the side toward 
 which it is turned. 
 A sailboat cannot be steered very much 
 by the rudder alone. The slant of 
 the sail must often be changed too, 
 and this we cannot do on our boat. 
 Still we shall need a rudder to hold 
 the stern in place, and thus make the 
 boat point always with the wind in- 
 stead of turning around and around. 
 (Possibly discuss tacking and ex- 
 plain how a boat may sail almost 
 into the wind.) 
 Making a rudder. 
 
 Surface about i ^ " square. 
 Fitted to hole in stern. 
 Conclude with excursion to the One 
 Study the adaptation of the different types 
 explain in this way the larger differences in 
 
 METHOD. 
 
 What shape and size of sail shall we use? 
 
 Advantages of the different shapes. 
 
 How kept spread? 
 
 Cut paper pattern just the shape and size 
 
 you wish your sail to be. 
 Cut from cloth, allowing enough for the 
 
 hems. 
 Now, what do you think are the two 
 
 most important things to look out for 
 
 in making a sail? 
 
 Does the boat need anything else? How 
 are boats steered? 
 
 On a sailboat, is the steering done en- 
 tirely by the rudder? 
 
 (State facts opposite.) 
 
 What shall be the shape of the rudder? 
 
 How large? 
 
 How attached? 
 
 Hundred and Twenty-ninth street piers. 
 
 there seen to their various purposes, and 
 
 form, speed, motive power, etc. 
 
64 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 
 
 The first characteristic of this plan is that it has two parts, subject- 
 matter and method, that are quite distinct from each other. The 
 primary reason for this separation is that poor teaching is as often due 
 to lack of digestion of subject-matter as to bad method ; and when the 
 subject-matter is not placed entirely by itself it is difficult to see how 
 poorly it has been organized or how meager it is in content. And 
 since it is necessary to think subject-matter through, independently of 
 method, indeed de/ore method has been considered, the former is 
 placed on the left. 
 
 The method of presenting any portion of the subject-matter is 
 found immediately to the right in the method column — a plan that 
 can be followed in most cases, though not in all. 
 
 The method of presentation is shown in direct discourse because, 
 when the recitation is finally being conducted, the thought of the 
 teacher must take that form. This characteristic, also, cannot belong 
 to all recitations, although it can to a great part of them. 
 
 The paragraphing and indentation, both in subject-matter and 
 method, are intended to reveal the relative values of facts and remarks, 
 a matter of the utmost importance in teaching. Only when relative 
 values are thus clearly foreseen by the teacher are they likely to be 
 appreciated by the learner. 
 
 There is no opposition between the Herbartian "formal steps" and 
 the form of plan here suggested. In fact, they merely supplement 
 each other; the "formal steps" indicate the main steps in the inductive- 
 deductive movement, and this form of plan merely suggests other 
 thoughts besides those that might well be guides when one is preparing 
 lesson plans. 
 
 F. M. McMuRRY. 
 T. D. Wood. 
 
 D. E. Smith. 
 
 C. H. Farnsworth. 
 
 G. R. Richards. 
 
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