The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-12-27

eral sessions were on the program, too;
one in Plymouth church, this after
noon and one in the Auditorium to-
night.
Great interest attached to the gen.
eral session this afternoon in Ply
johnson, Mayor D. P. Jones, Superin-
tendent G. NJ. Jordan, State Superin-
tendent J. w. Olsen and Dean J. F.
Downey spoke for the city and state
and for the state university.
President Rankin's Address.
The main points of Professor Ran
"At present over half Of the teach,
ers of the state have had no special
preparation for their work. The fact
that 1900 of them cannot pass an eX-
animation in ARITHMETIC is an interest
ing one. but not so appalling as the fact
that other and more serious conditions
cessful men and women in other lines
of work would be puzzled by the ques-
tions set for the test in arithmetic: On
the other hand. many of the pupils II
or Is wears old in our eighth grades
could pass such tests. A child can pass
q test in arithmetic but child cannot
manage a school. Other more Important
such as mat tacf penL
erai adaptability, are exceedingly i'm
portant and cannot be tested in an ex-
animation. The real failures are the
ones lacking in power of leadership:
earnestness of purpose, maturity OF
character.
"Not only do we permit teachers to
enter the profession of teaching by tax
ing examinations, but we offer cand!-
dates a premium for so doing. Such
laws are menace to our schools ana
a disgrace to our state. The only way
we can properly fix the responsibility
for admitting new members to our pro-
fession is by giving the keys thereto
to institutions, special training schools.
The sooner we pass laws absolutely de-
barring applicants from the teaching
profession who are not graduates of a
professional training school the sooner
we shall be ready for other reforms.
Of course the good teachers already IN
the ranks should be retained, no mat
ter how they came in. We cannot
afford to lose any.
UThus far we have established two
kinds of training schools for teachers,
the normal schools and the university
training school, The normal schools in a
general way are confined to fitting
teachers for the grades, and the college
of education is supposed to prepare
teachers for high schools and superln-
tendents for schools in general. There
is need of more training schools and
these should be classified in more
definite way.
"Everv day the Importance of closer
relations between the school and the
social and Industrial environment Of
the school is more positively. asserted.
I think the advocates of this do not
propose to bring it about 50 that the
school shall train the child to be a
mechanic because the school is in the
midst of shops, or farmer because it
is in land of farms. The idea is that,
in order to get the proper sympathy
and cooperation between the activities
of the home and the school, the latter
must take the former into account: 1t
is important that home and school
work together in sympathetic rela-
Plea for Rural Schools.
''The foregoing being admitted, then
we must agre that the teacher for the
rural school and the one for the city
school should have different training.
1--WE have established five excellent
normal schools. These have all they
for schools in cities and large villages.
We should give up the attempt to get
teachers for the country from the nor
NAL schools as we have them at pres
emit. The normal schools should give
their attention strictly to the training
Of teachers for villages and cities.
" "We have In our state a most en-
couraging beginning in the line Of
training teachers for rural schools: 1
- L1,4 0r1- o+ In +aAo SA,,I-
tural school at St. Anthony Park. A
law will be presented to the next. legis::
]ature asking for the organization of
county training schools thruout the
state. In this bill it is provided that
the state shall pay share Of the ex-
pense Of such schools, the remainder to
be borne by the counties in which the
schools. are located. In my opinion,
the entire expense should be met by the
state. The schools should be branch
schools Of the agricultural school at St.
Anthony Park. The one thing that the
country does not need is a school mod
eled on the city school There should
be at least a dozen Of such schools
provided for at the coming session of
the legislature. : :.
'tThe present normal instruction in
city high schools should be abandoned.
It was an attempt in the right direc-
tion for the rural teacher; but it was
wrong in that it attempted to use the
city school for that purpose. We have
the beginnings Of complete and eff
cient system of training schools for
teachers. All that is necessary is to
20 ahead courageously. 49,.
Hold Trainers Responsible.
Gas rapidly as possible all laws pro-
viding for entrance to the teaching pro-
fession thru examination should be
made mare severe, and later repealed
entirely. Provide that the training
schools themselves shall have power to
recognize unusual worth in a candidate
who does not need the long course for
graduation; the university to issue GER
tifcates for it's graduates to teach in
primary rooms If a candidate shows ex-
ceptional capacity in that direction;
the agricultural school to permit it's
graduate to teach in the city if circum-
stances justify such action. Then we
could hold these schools responsible for
their graduates. This work of organ
izing state teachers training schools
is the next matter deserving our seri-
Gus attention. s,. i. BILL L
General Theme. rs
The general theme Of the session was
uThe School, Home and SocietyO
from an educator viewpoint. The dis
cussion was divided into subtopics deal