The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-03-15
THURSDAY EVENING. MARCH Is. 1906
BREAKING DOWN THE BARS.

applicants for teachers certificates
credit in examination for marks Sc
cured in the common studies in clas-
sified high schools is long step in
educational progress in this state.
Whenever there can be built up a
teaching profession that will have
something of permanency, as we'll
as professional standing, the schools
will receive better returns for the
money expended for them.
One of the great troubles has been
not only in this state but practically
everywhere, is that the profession of
teaching is 4 temporary one-a sort
OF makeshift until something better
is found, or Il means of livelihood dur
ing the preparation for some other
profession.
Consequently, those who have been
to Il great extent filling this calling
have given it only the most specifi-
cial study. They have not given any
time to preparation either because
they do not expect to remain long in
the work or because during the time
they are so engaged their minds are
entirely upon another profession.
1t would be absurd to believe that
carpenter would spend three or four
years learning his trade if after fol-
lowing it a couple or three years he
I! intended to become q farmer. So also
| would it be if man were learning
the carpenter trade while working at
the forge.
In the Industrial caliings therefore,
men pursue the trade they have learn
ed. Likewise in the other profession.
| A law student does not dip into theo-
logy. nor does the man studying for
the counting room give serious con-
sideration to the details of electrical
engineering.
These deal with mantle things, and
those who engage in them give their
ripened thought to the work The
teaching profession is engaged in the
development of a character and the
training of a mind for time and soul
for eternity, yet the work is largely
entrusted to amateurs.
One way to remedy this evil is to
reduce the examinations on what to
teach and give more attention to how
to teach. The schools must get away
from the idea that the facts learned
are the sum total of an education.
They must understand that the mind
develops by proper training just as
| does any other part of the body.
Swinging Indian clubs within itself
| is an absurdity, but the development
| of the muscle is the object sought.
Running a race is worthless within
itself, but the living capacity and the
control and endurance Of the muscles
! USED is the desired end.
| AS it is in the physical development,
SO is it in the intellectual. Books
must be the means and not the end.
The ability to so teach requires the
very highest training-a special train
ing. This ability, as in all other pro-
LESSONS, increases with experience.
and the longer teachers can be kept
in the profession the better it will be
for the schools.
One thing that either drives them
out or prevents those who would en-
gage in the work because they desire
to make it a permanent calling, is
that they are required to repeatedly
undergo examinations on subjects that
are not only stale but which they have
not found necessary to use for years.
The idea of giving credit for high
school work does not go to the gist
of the matter. 1t does not offer any
practical solution for the transitory
character of the teaching profession
but it does point the way to a break
, ing down of the bars which have
hindered advancement along this line.
In this particular it has done an in
estimable good.