The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1899-04-28
OTHER PEG, korloNs.

Editor Free Press: When the masses
of the people fully understand the eff
feet of the recent change made in the
course of study the State nor.
NAL schools, as reported in the press
last week, there will be united pro-
test, more vigorous than elegant. Few
people grasp the real meaning of the
change.
1t will not be disputed, think, that
the normal schools were established for
the express purpose of carrying out to
the common schools of the state, the
school of the farmer and laboring man,
where rs per cent of the children reared
in the state get all the education they
ever get, force of teachers who are
educated, 10 some degree at least, in up
to date ideas of pedagogy, and to carry
to these schools from year to year all
that is new and advanced in school
work and school methods The graded
schools and high schools of the towns
and cities do not need the assistance of
such training institutions as normal
schools to give them the benefit of new
and modern educational ideas and
methods, because there they have the
financial ability and facilities for call
ing in the graduates of colleges and
universities, of both our own state and
other states, thereby acquiring teachers
of higher education and modern
thoughts and learning, but this class of
teachers cannot be secured in the COM
mon schools. They have the education
to command more wages than the coun-
try districts can possibly afford to pay,
and they have fitted themselves for
special work, usually, and they cannot
afford to enter the miscellaneous work
of the country school. Then where do
the large mass of the children of the
state get modern training and modern
| instruction? 1t comes, almost eXclus,
lively, from the Undergraduates of the
normal schools of the state, most of
whom teach.part Of the year during the
time they are taking the Normal
course, and from the graduates from
the elementary course in the normals
who take that course with the expecta
ton of taking up the work in the COM
mon schools 1t is this class of gradu-
ates that is now cut off, and the effect
will be felt in the common schools and
not elsewhere. 1t will be argued that
| they will then receive the benefit of in
| struction from the graduates of the lat
I'LL, VI duNduC6Ol VI Uu0 NOIuldl
school, but this will not follow. A
young man or woman who takes this
extensive course, will seek higher posi-
tions, and Jan usually get them, and
they will not go into the common
schools to teach the limited course there
studied and for the meager wages there
paid Such person will enter other pro-
fessions and vocations rather than take
up common school work. The dissent
nation of the influence of these institu-
tions has been accomplished through
the medium of the under graduates and
elementary graduates, who expect to,
and are willing to take up that class of
work, The recent change will cut off
this source from the country schools
and the primary purpose of the Normals
will be destroyed The effect will fall
on those who never receive any modern
instruction, only what is given them in
the "little red school house" by the
aforesaid under graduates and gradu-
ates from the elementary course of the
Normal school When this effect is felt,
the people of the state will either have
change or demand the adjustment of
the Normals. Perhaps it is this latter
object the friends of the new plan wish
to accomplish The Normal schools are
now, practically, abolished, when we
take into account their original pur-
pose. w. h. GEDDES,