3 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, June 1, 1917. SIR: The number of new teachers required annually to fill vacancies in the public and private elementary and high schools in the United States is estimated to be approximately 130,000, of which more than 85,000 are required by rural schools. The number of graduates from our normal schools and from classes, schools, and departments of education in our colleges and universities is less than 35,000. This leaves nearly 100,000 positions to be filled each year by teachers who have not had the education and professional training of these schools. Most of the graduates from the normal schools and of the graduates in education from the colleges and universities find positions as teachers in high schools or in the elementary schools of cities and larger towns. Only a small per cent, therefore, of the teachers in the rural schools of most States have any adequate professional training. As a partial remedy for this evil, nearly half the States have provided for some degree of professional instruction and training of teachers in county normal schools of elementary grade or in public high schools. The growing recognition of the need that teachers in rural schools should have at least some kind and degree of professional training has resulted in a rapid extension of this policy and a desire on the part of school officers, legislators, and students of education for information in regard to its results. That this information may be available I am transmitting herewith for publication as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education a manuscript on the status of rural-teacher preparation in county training schools and high schools, which has been prepared at my direction by Harold W. Foght, specialist in rural-school practice in this Bureau. Respectfully submitted. The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. P. P. CLAXTON, Commissioner. 4 PREFACE. There is considerable difference of opinion among educators in regard to the wisdom of preparing rural teachers in academic institutions of secondary rank. Many fear that this may result in lower standards of academic work, while others insist that such teacher preparation will add dignity and a new sense of responsibility to the tasks of the secondary schools. The question as to the wisdom of this instruction is of little concern to the present study. The real thing of concern is the expediency of teacher training in secondary schools. 1 It is well to bear in mind, as has been shown in a previous study made by the Bureau of Education that one-third of the great army of 350,000 rural teachers now in the service have little or no professional preparation for their work. According to the same study, it appears that the average rural teacher remains in the teaching profession less than four school years of 140 days each. This means that a number of teachers equal to the entire personnel must be brought into the schools every four years or that about 87,500 new teachers must be provided annually. During the school year ending 1915 the 273 public and private normal schools enrolled 100,325 students and graduated 21,944. It is quite certain that most of these found positions in towns and cities, as did most of those who graduated from the schools of education in universities and colleges. The agricultural colleges have done something for the preparation of secondary teachers in agriculture and teachers for some of the strongest consolidated schools; but the fact remains that until the normal schools and the schools of education graduate annually much larger numbers of men and women than they now do the great majority of these 87,500 new teachers must go into their field of activity professionally unprepared or other institutions than those mentioned above must come to their assistancei. e., secondary schools must undertake the task. The present study aims neither to encourage nor to discourage the establishment of county training schools and teacher-training departments in high schools. The study was made to let the public at large see what has been accomplished for rural-teacher training in this kind of institution, and particularly to offer suggestions in the hope of making the schools now in operation more effective, as 1 United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1914, No. 49, Efficiency and Preparation of Rural Teachers. well as to assist the States that are now contemplating the organization of rural-teacher training in secondary schools. It seems certain that the normal schools and other higher professional schools must begin in all seriousness to work out the problem of adequate preparation for rural teachers within their own institutions, or secondary schools will become permanent teacher-training institutions. In sections of the country where the normal schools have been able to offer specialized preparation for teachers the demand for similar instruction in the high schools is very limited. In sections where the normal schools have their hands full preparing teachers for town and city schools additional normal schools ought to be provided wherein to prepare strong teachers for the large number of farm-community schools which are rapidly developing in every section of the country. H. W. F. |