The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-09-25
ELEMENTARY COURSE.
Superintendent Freeman Writes a Let.
ter in It's Defense.
From TUESDAYS Daily.

The following communication Is recelv-
ed from w. Z. Freeman, superintendent
of the Blue Earth county schools:
1t is a well known fact that many peo-
pie of the state and many newspapers
have been and are opposed to the res
t~oration of the elementary courses of
study to the normal SCHOOLS. Their
only argument being that the normal
schools should confine their work entirely
to the professional training of teachers,
that the young people of the state should
secure their academic education in the
high schools. This position sounds very
plausible, but how does it work in ac-
tual experience?
Right up to the very time that the
elementary courses were eliminated from
the normal schools, the Mankato state
normal enrolled about 600 young men
and women who came almost entirely
from the rural communities and from the
common schools. These young people,
during their first year in the normal,
were given a thorough course in the
common studies which they would be
required to teach in the common
schools. At the end of the first school
year, they returned to their homes where
many of them took and passed the re-
quired teachers examination and taught
in their home schools for a year or so,
then returned to the normal school to
complete their education.
AS a matter of fact lave these young
people entered the high schools in any
such numbers as they did the normal in
years past? They have not and they will
not, for the simple reason that a young
man or woman of twenty OF twenty
five will not enter a class where most
of the pupils are not more than fourteen
of fifteen years of age.
Not many years g the normal
schools were regarded as the farmers
school," Why? Because the boys and
girls from the farm went there for their
academic and professional education and
because a vast majority of the teachers
in the common schools of the state re-
ceived their final fitness there.
As a matter of fact are the state high
schools meeting the demand of the rural
schools for teachers? Are they or have
they attempted to shape a course of
study that would take the place of the
work which the normal schools were
forced to give over to the high schools
some years ago? The results do not show
that they have.
At the recent teachers examination in
this county, eighteen high school gradu-
ates of the class of 1908 of several high
schools applied for certificates and wrote
upon the examination. Of the eighteen
who applied, just two received certi-
~ficates, the other sixteen failed, to pass,
some of them falling so low that a coun
ty superintendent cannot con%scientiously
grant them a third grade certificate.
The high schools of this state have
had several years in which to demon
strate their ability to meet the demand
for common school teachers. They have
certainly failed. The result of the re-
cent examination of high school pupils
in this county parallels the result in
every county of the state. The high
schools of the state have entirely, or al
most entirely, ignored the teaching of
physiology and hygiene in the face of
the law requiring it to be taught and in
the face of the fact that the two sub
jects are required to be given at every
teachers examination, but this is not the
only subject in which high school grad
yates fail. However, it shows how COM
pletely the high schools disregard the
burden they assumed when they under
took to supply the demand for teachers
and to do the work which the normal
schools once did.
1t is only fair to the Mankato schools
to say that the high school has been
thrown open to country pupils who have
completed the work in the common
schools and they will find a warm well
come here. Lake Crystal and Mapleton
have also welcomed the country pupils
and many of them entered all of these
schools. Mankato, so far as l am able
to know at the present time, is the only
high school system in this part of the
state that has arranged for a course of
study in physiology and hygiene which
means anything. All high school pupils
claim to have a Systematic course" in
physiology and hygiene but the results
of their Systematic course" does not
fit the pupils to pass an examination in
the subjects.
At the end of the fourth week of the
summer school recently held in this city,
thirteen young ladies, all graduates of a
certain high school not many miles from
here, withdrew from the school. Upon
being asked the reason of their with
drawal, all admitted that they were GO
ing home to do some hard work on ply
siology and hygiene during the two
weeks that remained prior to the teach
ers' examination. They all admitted
that they had never made any study of
these subjects and knew absolutely moth
ing about them. Some of them personal
ly admitted that they had never heard of
such a thing as Hygiene"
l do not regard it as the duty of those
outside of the high schools to shape the
courses of such schools which have lit
tie in view other than to fit pupils to
enter the university, but L do regard it
as the duty of those outside of the high
schools, and especially those engaged in
educational work, to look elsewhere for a
place to train teachers for the common
schools of the state. Where shall we
look? Not to the high schools, for they
have refused to listen to the demand for
a curse that would prepare teachers to
pass the required examination; not to
the eighth grade, for the age of the pu-
pills in that grade will not permit of
their taking the examinations; not to the
common schools, for it is physically i'm
possible to do the work that should be
done to prepare young men and women
for rural school teaching in the common
schools. Having covered the whole field
of educational institutions of the state,
excepting the university and colleges. J
discover no place to which we may look
for teachers in any considerable numbers,
with any degree of certainty, except to
the state normal schools with their ele-
mentary courses restored. 1t may take
years to recover what has been lost by
the elimination of the elementary courses