Present status.-A few high schools had established training courses before the law of 1913 was enacted. Twenty-seven schools had adopted the work in 1916-17. The enrollment of students was 868. Four hundred and nine student teachers were graduated in June, 1917; of these 87 were classed as graduate students.

High-school training courses and county training schools compared.— It is of interest to compare these two classes of schools in the States where both are well established. Below are given excerpts from a statement on this subject by Rural School Inspector W. E. Larson, made recently at the writer's request:

HIGH SCHOOLS.

ADVANTAGES.

Students while getting their teacher training obtain a regular high-school education. This is an advantage to them. The advantage of the greater part of the highschool course as a preparation for country school-teaching, however, is greatly overestimated.

It helps to build up the high schools and improve the quality of the work done in them. The students who take the teachers' training course are usually the best students, as they have a definite purpose for their work. In many schools the teachers' training class has an excellent influence upon the student body. A great trouble with our high-school students in general is that they have little definite purpose.

DISADVANTAGES.

The training of teachers is likely to become a mere side issue. This is especially true if the principal does not recognize the significance or the importance of the work. The teachers in the high school are often specialists in particular subjects, and such teachers are not always suited to give the students the right attitude toward the common branches that must be taught in the elementary schools.

The social life of the high school is not always adapted to bring about a good professional spirit.

The work done in the high school is, to quite an extent, determined by the college, and this has a tendency to weaken the work that is absolutely necessary to make good country teachers.

The field work must necessarily be rather limited.

COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOLS.

ADVANTAGES.

The school has a singleness of purpose. It can give its whole attention to the work of training teachers. The whole school, therefore, has a professional atmosphere. All of the teachers in the school are interested in preparing people for a definite line of work. As a rule they are better teachers, more mature, and know more of country conditions and needs.

The county training school has a marked influence in the community aside from the preparation of teachers. It does considerable field work and as a result keeps more closely in touch with country life.

DISADVANTAGES.

Many of the students are young and immature and have too little academic preparation when they enter.

The courses are too short. In many respects the graduates are too weak when they go out. This is true of those who are high school graduates when they enter as well as of those who are not. In some of the schools three-year courses have been organized.

II. HOW THE TEACHER-TRAINING SCHOOLS ARE VIEWED

BY EDUCATORS IN THEIR OWN STATES.

The following pages contain excerpts from letters of educators in the States where rural teacher-training courses are in operation. These letters were received in answer to a communication by the Bureau of Education requesting the frank opinions of the persons addressed. In a few cases the answers have been held confidential at the request of the writers and are not included. While some of the answers may have been influenced somewhat by the writers' immediate environment, they are, upon the whole, remarkably frank and express the honest opinions of these men on the questions of expediency and value of the new kind of teacher training.

State superintendents of public instruction. The State superintendents of public instruction are placed first in the list as being vitally concerned with the question of teacher supply in the schools of their States. Their answers may properly be viewed in the large perspective of State needs. Of the 18 State superintendents or commissioners of education answering the communication, 10 are unreservedly in favor of the system, 4 wish to suspend judgment until they have had better opportunity to study the results of the trainingschool work, 3 others do not commit themselves one way or the other; finally, 1 is opposed to teaching courses in the high schools of his own State, but mainly because he believes the normal schools within the State are able to cope with the situation of providing a sufficient number of rural teachers. The excerpts follow:

Supt. W. D. Ross, Kansas:

Graduates of the State normal schools are almost always able to secure grade and high school positions, and, consequently, rarely go into the country schools, nor would the establishment of additional State normal schools greatly improve conditions in this respect, because students would not feel that they could go to the expense of leaving home and taking a four years' course in order to prepare themselves to become country teachers. But the fact that under the normal-training act they can get a year's professional training in the local high-school course and at the end of it secure a State-wide certificate good indefinitely if successfully used is serving at once to induce more young people to enter high school with the intention of becoming teachers and to hold more of those entering school until the course is completed.

This new course has given the high school itself a higher place in the esteem of the people, because it serves in part to meet their demand for curricula that are more practical, for even before there was any attempt at special preparation for the work substantially 40 per cent of all our high-school graduates went immediately to teaching. The introduction of the normal-training course has also had a most salutary effect upon the entire school life of the communities concerned. The study of psychology, methods, and management gives a new view to school problems and school responsi

bilities, and this awakening has had a marked effect on the attitude of the whole school toward matters of discipline and administration. Then, too, the observation work has not only greatly benefited the prospective teachers, but by reacting upon the work of the teachers visited has also resulted in infusing new life and energy into the work of the grades.

Ex-Supt. Payson Smith, Maine:

We do not have any approved teacher-training courses in public high schools in this State. We have had such courses in some of the academies subsidized by the State for a number of years. I have found that these courses serve to some extent a limited area in the way of producing a fairly trained teaching corps. It has seemed to me that the areas served by these schools do on the whole represent a somewhat lower professional standard because of the fact that graduates of standard normal schools are less likely to be employed within them. From the somewhat limited experience that we have had in Maine with secondary training courses for teachers I believe there is little likelihood of the approval of a general scheme of high school teacher training for the State as a whole.

Supt. Fred L. Keeler, Michigan:

When our present system was introduced it was the custom to rely upon the high school faculty for the academic teaching, and the county normal training teacher conducted the practice teaching, utilizing the grades of the city schools for this purpose. At present we have in each normal school two teachers, one a principal who takes charge of the academic teaching and the other a critic who has charge of a room representing several grades and which represents as nearly as may be rural school conditions. The critic teacher directs the practice teaching. These two teachers have nothing on their minds but the training of rural teachers. They are selected especially for this purpose. The ordinary high-school teacher is a specialist in high school subjects and is seldom interested in the rural problem.

Supt. C. G. Schulz, Minnesota:

These training departments have proved their usefulness beyond any question. The county superintendents are unanimous in their approval of this method of training teachers for rural schools. Since practically the whole output of the State normal schools is absorbed by the village and city schools, the high-school training departments constitute virtually the only source for the training of rural teachers. The county superintendents and superintendents of high schools cooperate most excellently, with the result that the high schools are brought a little nearer the country and the country is brought a little nearer the high schools. In a great many cases country schools adjacent to the training department are used for practice purposes. At any rate, the whole attention of the student teachers is directed to the country schools, and the course of training is adapted entirely to the needs and demands of the country school.

I believe I am safe in saying that the results of the training departments in Minnesota high schools have exceeded the anticipations of the school authorities and that these departments have come to stay as a practical and satisfactory method of training teachers for rural schools.

The late Howard A. Gass, then State superintendent of Missouri: The system seems to be a wise move educationally, since (a) it gives the pedagogical point of view to teacher-training students and gives them the professional attitude toward teaching; (b) it encourages those high-school students who desire to teach to stay until they complete their high-school course; (c) there seem to be a

number of indirect advantages, among which might be mentioned: (1) Through requirements made by the State department better grade teachers have been secured in teacher-training schools; (2) it causes some of the better high-school students to turn to teaching as a vocation; (3) it has made boards of education acquainted with the problem of the professional training of teachers; (4) the teacher-training course has aided in promoting a professional spirit among the teachers in schools where it is offered. The teacher-training classes are composed of good students on the whole. Students ranking among the lower third of high-school students are not allowed to enter the classes. The teaching of teacher-training instruction is, on the whole, good. Superintendents and communities seem enthusiastic over the courses. Though it is too early to speak very positively, it seems that, on the whole, the teacher-training graduates do as good work as teachers in the rural schools.

Supt. J. Y. Joyner, North Carolina:

Here and there a school does attempt to give a short normal course or institute course, though there is no special legal provision for this at the present time. We had hoped that legal provision for it would be made by our legislature, which recently adjourned, and that a special appropriation would be made for this purpose; but nothing was done. I may add that in my personal opinion such a system is not only wise but necessary. The principle has the approval of our State teachers' assembly and of the various other teaching organizations of the State as well, and, as I said above, we had hoped that something would be done by the legislature which met this year.

Ex-Supt. Frank W. Miller, Ohio:

From present indications these county normal schools are successful. They prepare teachers to remain in the rural service better than the regular State normals do. All of these normals are located in the smaller towns or rural districts, and none of them are in connection with city high schools.

The students come under the direct influence of an able director (in most cases), and they get an inspiration equivalent to that secured in larger normal schools or colleges. Besides, Ohio State University cooperates with these county normals by sending out extension lecturers and supervisors in domestic science and agriculture. These schools are all under the direct supervision of a supervisor of normal schools, who spends a large part of his time on the road visiting the various county normals. The county superintendent is obliged to teach some of the time in these county normals, and the district superintendent must teach in them upon direction of the county board of education.

Supt. J. A. Churchill, Oregon:

The county superintendents, in general, speak very highly of the work done by these teachers in the rural schools of the State. The very fact that we require 15 weeks of teaching practice makes the course of especial value to the rural schools, as the teachers prepared under such a course go into the rural schools with certain standards which otherwise they would not have. They know the number of words a child should have in his reading vocabulary at the end of the first month, how to present a language lesson to second or third grade pupils, the length of time required of an average pupil to become thoroughly grounded in fractions and decimals, and much other information that distinguishes the teacher who is partially trained, at least, from the one who has had no training.

Ex-Supt. Mason S. Stone, Vermont:

The teacher-training courses were established for the purpose of meeting existing conditions and of supplying the rural schools with teachers specially prepared there

for. The two normal schools, one of which is located in a village of less than 150 elementary school children and the other in a village of less than 115 elementary school children, have never been able, on account of their unfortunate location and limited training capacities, to affect the rural schools in any large degree. But the teacher-training courses, through proper encouragement, will be able to place a trained teacher in every rural school in less than three years. These teachers will be as well equipped, if not better, through the special training received to teach the rural schools as the graduates from the one-year course of the normal schools who have received only general training.

Supt. R. C. Stearnes, Virginia:

We have been very much encouraged with the results of the normal-training departments. We have 25 normal-training classes in high schools and the last legislature increased the appropriation from $15,000 to $20,000. Each normal-training department costs the State $750.

Supt. M. P. Shawkey, West Virginia:

The law does not go into effect until next month, and we have not as yet made out our course of study. The course will probably be a four-year course after the eighth grade with something like one-fourth of the work devoted to education with a little practice teaching. I regret that I can not give a satisfactory report, but we are anxious that our work be started out as nearly right as possible, and we are therefore giving the question very careful preliminary study.

Presidents of State normal schools and teachers' colleges.—It has been assumed by many that the heads of the State normal schools would look upon the new teacher-training as an infringement on the legitimate field of their schools, and that on this account they would be aligned against the teacher-training courses. This is not, on the whole, the case. Of the 12 normal school presidents who answered the communication sent them, nine express themselves as favorable; of these, three do not wish to be quoted. Three out of the whole number are opposed, one of whom likewise did not care to be quoted. All seem to feel that the normal schools have suffered no serious effects from the high-school teacher courses. At least four presidents are of the opinion that the high-school courses have had a positively stimulating effect on their normal school attendance. Finally, it is the general opinion that the teacher-training courses must be looked upon as temporary expedients to be abandoned as soon as the normal schools can get their new rural school departments more fully organized.

One of the presidents quoted as being opposed to the high school systems feels that the new training encourages too many immature persons to enter the teaching field; the other finds this kind of instruction "illogical" and thinks that "it should not be encouraged:"

President J. J. Doyne, State Normal School, Conway, Ark.: Teacher-training in the high schools of our State has proved fairly satisfactory. Ast we have only one State normal school, inadequately supported when the needs of the State are considered, the normal training high schools have supplemented to a considerable extent the work that should be done in the preparation of teachers.