Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-07-19

keeping with the course of study, and
giving sample pages from Teachers
Guide" and schedule of students in
Anne Arundel county, superintendent
OF the County Board of Education,
George Fox, in his first annual report
of the Board of Education of Anne
Arundel County says:
Next TO the course of study, the at
titude of the teachers due TO lack of
supervision has played an important
part. A large majority of our teachers
have had no professional training be-
yond possibly six weeks course at
summer school, and being without
systematic supervision they have been
influenced greatly by the course of
study.
DR.. p, p. Claxton in his speech to
the Women's Civic League said,
Think of the contrast between the
city and country school teacher in
point or organization and supervision
the aid rendered the city teacher by
superintendent, principals, etc. the
country teachers practical isolation,
visited only seldom by the County SUI
perintendent. To become a city teach
er-one must be a graduate of a high
school and of normal school, and in
sometimes on the country children)
before taking the classes. And yet the
teacher in the country school, who
must do so many more different
things, must render so much more in
the way of service of all kinds, has
less preparation than the city teacher
for her important work. At the tender
age of eighteen, often, with very little
professional knowledge, she is sup
posed to have the power of leader
ship in the community, to be able to
teach all subjects in all grades and to
be her own Board of Education, SUI
perintendent and Supervisor. The
teacher in the country school should
have as good an education and as
much strength and power as those
anywhere else"
On the other hand Prof. Cubberly
says: I'm some of our cities, it must
be admitted, no problem involving the
continuous education of the teaching
corps, nicely of educational adjust
ment, nor a high degree of efficiency
in the art of instruction, comes in to
disturb the even tenor of the educa-
tional administration. A self-satisfied
and relatively stationary city of 10000
to 10000 inhabitants, which has long
been fiattered by the assurance that
sifG cph0nIc 20 oY,aOno the la.@ q, Al, p,
lands, is very likely to produce such a
condition of affairs"
'The school system in way slides
along; home girls are awarded the
places: teachers who know that
things are not what they should be
either leave or learn to say nothing;
there is no attempt to educate the
public on school matters: private and
parochial schools flourish; the School
Board is satisfied and the taxpayers
make no complaint. Such condition
serves only to show how few people
there are in such communities, who
possess any educational standards by
which they can say that the school
system is not what it ought to be.
Teachers under such a system be-
come teachers of facts and text books
rather than of children, while the
ability of discipline and to cram in in
formation sufficiently well to make it
stick until the examination period is
over. together come to constitute the
chief essentials of the science of edu-
cation demanded of the teachers.
IF the schools in any city are to
render good service, there must be
plenty of close, personal, and helpful
supervision of the teaching corps.
Even the reasonably well-trained nor
NAL school graduate requires much
help at first to adjust herself properly
to the work of city school system,
and to enable her, in the course of
four or five years, to reach a maxi
mum of efficiency with minimum of
mistakes and struggle. The teacher
with no professional training natural
ly needs much more personal atten-
ton" public School Administration
page 1881
That these two pictures, drawn by
AS0SAhS3 S0uSdtlOAlal CApGAlc Vi
ca today, resemble conditions in our
own country needs no argument. We
will not attempt here to fix the blame
any more than to say that the low sal
aries paid have no doubt been a con-
tributing factor. The salaries paid
teachers in the past have not been
sufficient to induce trained outsiders
to come in, nor have they been suffi-
Gent to tempt home girls to spend
several years in preparing for expert
school work. The result is unframed
teachers, averaged children and a
wasteful school system
The method used, like the methods
used by the Springfield teachers, are
the kind of methods usually found in
systems without systematic supervis-
ion. When teacher regularly as
signs lessons and hears recitations, .
says the Springfield survey, 'she is
acting on theory that she has not