The San Francisco call., 1898-03-27
%A 4 < 4 4 4

For the ninth annual session of Orange County Teachers Institute to he helo al Santa Ana during the week commen,cing I eng March 2S a list of good things haS been prepared Following is a portion of 1t: Addresses by J. N. Greenwood. president N, E. A, Kansas City, Mo;; 1ect4aei oti of Stanford University; "Educau9f,n1 f,1o l1. In the State" superntendent S T. Black: as K, Teaching Reading,n An3rah or F5EemVlng; E Van Iiew of Los Angeles: Ancient Art, Henry T. Ardley. UniveIrsit; >of r, Callfor- % Professor Ardley will lecture on the subject, "The History of Ornament" and Wed9esday March SV wal oe GeGuee" by Dr. Thomas P. Bailey of Berkeley, and on Music in the Public Schools, by Mrs Gertrude Parsons of Los Angeles
 If we compare our city schools alone with the city schools of the East the odds are frequently against us. It IS only when we put all our schools into com parison with all their schools that we take the highest rank.
 The reason is because they are more closely related to and connected with Vii- lage. town and city schools-the weak with the strong. the rich with the poor. However, keynote is struck when 1t IS stated that rural schools suffer from the lack of trained teachers. l will go a step further and say that all our schools suffer from the same reason.
 The rural schools do not contain all the novices in teaching. Our schools also suffer from the too frequent change Of teachers. Under our system of county board examinations, a vast army or semi-annually licensed to teach. Armed with these county certificates they are, by the aid of friends, very frequently able to supplant the normal graduate or the experienced teacher, True, we often Se- cure excellent teachers through these county board examinations. and occa- sionally the normal school sends out very inferior teacher.
 Between these two classes of teachers communities all over the State are in doubt as to where they should look for strong teachers. The licensing of teach CTS by county boards is wrong in theory and pernicious in practice. It was meant only to meet early conditions of the State, and should cease soon, if not at once. The normal schools and other institutions that are training teachers should supply us with sufficient teachers and with better teachers. The professionally trained teacher should be so decidedly superior to the untrained one that the most back ward community would readily recognize the difference.
 l am inclined to the belief, from state ments received from the principals of our normal schools. that more normal teach CTS would to-day be in our schoolroomS if greater encouragement were given by Su- perintendents and by those with influence in placing teachers. A large number of normal graduates fail to get schools and many drop out of the work for lack of ap- preciation and preferment.
 l find them ready to go to our isolated rural school districts. We should demand that our normal schools and other inStitu- tions for the training of teachers pass and send out such persons only as are spe- Cially qualified It is perhaps little pre- sumptuous in me to so state, but my ob- ServatiOn and experience leads me to be- lieve that due discrimination is not al- ways exercised in graduating teachers;