Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1873-05-16
The Normal and High school Ones.
tfOna

Editor Of the Star: Highly approaching the
intelligent interest in the welfare OF our public
schools ever manifested by your paper, L ask
the space necessary to permit me to point out
what appears to me fallacy i'm your brief
argument against the establishment Ut high
or normal school.
You say "the work needed is really at the
base of the structure: the primary schools" and
refer to the opinion of those who % advocate the
selection OF the most capable and most expert
enced teachers for those schools"
For precisely that reason the establishment of
q normal school Is urged. In order 10 have the
best teachers, we must educate them for their
profession Experience comes only from prac-
tice; and the most valuable experience from
practice under the most skillful superintepdence
HOW are the teachers OF primary schools to
acquire experience? Not by first learning in
me higher grade, for the processes employed in
the latter are very different from those which
lead TO success in the former. Those who would
accomplish much with the youngest pupils
should devote their energies to this particular
may not prove failures, they must commence
with correct methods. A normal, or more
strictly training school is necessary to teach
them these methods and enable them, before
entering on otherwise untried duties, to prac-
tice under the direction of a skillful super
wrong.
would not disparage the primary teachers
OF our city. They deserve all credit for their
diligent efforts and their readiness to receive
In truction. Yet, to great extent, they must
begin by cropping in the dark, and must devote
their early labOrs to almost exclusively tentative
processes. They have had little or no oppOr-
tur'ty Of becoming acquainted with the inn
proved methods of teaching which the past few
own crude ideas, instead Of the systems that
have grown from the mature experience of
others, and their efficiency is limited by their
inSsxperien 1 and consequent ,, ignorance.
assistance which our young teachers need to fit
them for the most successful discharge of their
duties; 1t would enable them to receive in
structiOn in the theories of teaching and gov
erning, and In connection Herewith afford prac-
tce in applying these theories under the watch
full oversight Of an experienced preceptor.
TheexPense of conducting such school would
not exceed % 900 per annum, while the conse-
quent withdrawal from the grammar schools
Of those who remain there to wait for positions
as teachers would make room for promotions,
thus making vacancies in the Intermediates, to
be filled by those now kept out by insufficient
accommodations The experience OF other cities
prove that by establishing a training school the
more than % per cent; indeed, it is claimed
that not less than 80 per cent. more Is accom-
plished in unfolding-not simply cramming-
the minds Of the pupils.
The salaries paid to the sIxty-one primary
teachers OF this city amount to $4,000 annually.
Does not true economy demand that the value
Of the product be so greatly increased. If it can
be by so slight an addition to the outlay as
would be the cost of training school?
As to the effect OF high school upon the
lower schools, let me quote from the last report
Of the superintendent of the st. Louis schools
Mr.. VIM. T. Harris, one of the best practical
educators, as well as one of the most accom-
plished scholars In this country =" Some hold
that democracy should undertake to provide
only an inferior sort of education, and exclude
all higher courses of study as being only for
those who are wealthy enough to pay for the
same. Free schools held strictly to this prin-
eiple become ragged schools and it soon
becomes the practice of all people who can af-
ford 1t to send their children to u pay SC lool'
By this arrangement the distinctive advantages
Of our public school system would be lost''
Is not this in great measure the fact in this
city? He says further =" Unless a single
standard Of measurement il furnished by which
the work OF the lower schools is measured and
reSriated, . city cannot be said to have any,
thing like A svstem. The annual expense of
the high school 6spartment (of st. Louis) is,
perhaps, ten per cent. of the eutire amount ex
pended for the whole system. Its effect ii i'm
proving the value Of the work done in the lower
grades must be reckoned at three times its ac-
tual cost. II one were to compensate for the
want Of high school at the head of a system
Of schools, he would find il necessary to paw out
In increased salaries and other appliances at
least three times as much much money as a
high school would cost" "If community does
not educate its own directive power 1t must
import 1t, and pay high premium for it," or,
he might have added, suffer from the want
Of il.
To . very great extent these remarks are
true, even rs applied to as modest and inexpen-
sve an addition TO our system a. the proposed
I .-.~-.AA MORN L. SCHOOIA.