The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-01-27

| wish there would be time to read
these letters to you. But hope car
supplement- this paper by publishing
extracts from them. Suffice it, at this
juncture, to scall attention to only 9
! few.
The Forward Normal School Move
ment in California
/ President Hardy, of the State Nor
NAL School at San Diego, sent me a
letter and a copy of a report prepared
/ to cover the normal school situation in
! California. In this letter he says that
the California State Board Of Educa.
ton and all of the educational organi-
cations of the state have endorsed q
! program of legislation which will be
presented to the state legislature in
January, 1921. The program asks
| that all the normals in California be
| designated teachers colleges; that the
legislature be empowered to hear the
application of any normal school in
| the state for degree-granting status
and to authorize that status, should
the standards of equipment and per-
sonnet of the normal school in question
warrant it. W
The report emphasizes the fact that
the normal school offers too little OPP
portunity for development, and too
much occupationa drill and grind;
! that it's curricula are overcrowded;
! that it stands up for continued pupil
age in school and leaves too little mar
gin for students activities; that cul-
ture is being crowded out in favor of
highly specialized dress-aettions of
public school technique until we have
the absurd spectacle of a solemnfaced
| program of making out of an mex
perienced young woman, fresh from
, the factory-like processes Of the mod
ern large high school, specialist IN
drawing, in music, in manual training,
in physical education, in agriculture,
in rural school teaching, in city school
teaching, in tests and measurements,
etc., etc.-all in the period of seventy
two to seventy-eight weeks" The re.
port properly AYERS that the normal
school would be making a sad mis-
take, if it should attempt to become
"a college in the ordinary sense of the
term. 1t must remain professional, a
"trade school," but should be one with
cultural or collegiate base. 1t should
give a four year course. The state
should prescribe the minimum essen
tials of sound Misunderstanding
course in the subject Of pedagogy and
sociology, while the school should
formulate the rest of the program.
The School of Education in the Uni
versity of California is assigned the
task of taking up the advanced work
in education and leaving the collegiate
phase of teacher-training to the nor
NAL schools.
The Massachusetts Plan
The state of Massachusetts, like
wise, which has been pioneer in so
much that pertains to Education, is
working for the teachers college.
Principal Wm B. Aspinwall, of Wor-
cester, who the past winter was ap-.
pointed chairman of committee of the
principals of the normal schools of his
state to investigate the normal school
situation, wrote me that he is heartily
in favor of the four year course. He
sent me copy of report, Whlch
! had been endorsed by the School Sup
! erintendents Of Massachusetts and by
, the School masters Club.
This report advances twelve very
good reasons for the four year course.
shall give two Of them: .
"The present two year normal
school course is entirely inadequate to
prepare students properly in both
scholarship and technique for the
comprehensive demands upon the
grade teachers of today; for, then (a)
we had better quality of students;
(b) they were required to know few
er subjects; the standard Of scholar
ship was not as high as now. But it
is not sufficient for this training today,
because the opposite conditions con-
front the normal school, viz, (a) the
quality of students has greatly deter
iorated; (b) much larger number of
subjects is required; (c) far more
scholarship is demanded. This is
tue of medicine, law, engineering and
other occupations. 1t is not strange,
therefore, that it should be true also of
teaching. As an indication of some
of the work that has been added in the
last fifteen or twenty years to the pro-
gram of the grade teacher, one might
mention agriculture study,
citizenship, Americanization, English
to foreigners, manual training, art,
music, hygiene, thrift, work with sub
normal pupils, etc:
"Thes6ormal school does not have
the same dignity and standing that the
college enjoys. Consequently the high
schools urge their students to choose
college rather than normal school. .
If the normal school compared
favorably with the college in length of
course, and in comforting degree, it
is clear that the attitude of the high
school teachers would change more in
favor of the normal school, and many
students would seek the four years of
education that would be, offered by the
Normal school who are either pre-
pared to go to college or in many
instances are deprived of either OPP
portunity.
The report recommends. that the two
year course be abolished from normal
schools in Massachusetts after the
year 192O-1921; that all students en-
tering the normal schools September:
1921, be required to take a three year
course; that Ito test the efficiency of
the proposition) in 1924 one or more
normal schools be privileged to take
four year course and the degree of
B. S. in Education; that students who