Neglected Aspect of Graduate Instruction, by Prof. Lindsay Rogers Bibliography of Historical Pageants and School Dramatics, by the Editor American Colonies and the British Empire, by Prof. W. T. Root The Paterson Plan for a Federal Constitution, by Prof. C. R. Lingley Correlation of English and History, by Kate M. Monro Teaching of History in the Elementary School, by James A. Wilgus Published monthly, except July and August, by McKinley Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa. TO GO TOGETHER Morey's Ancient Peoples Professor of History and Political Science, University of Rochester $1.50 A new book giving particular emphasis to the life, customs, and culture of the ancient peoples. Simple and interesting in style and treatment of details. Lewis's Oriental and Greek Peoples - Study Outline Teacher of Ancient History, Central High School, Syracuse, N. Y. This new note-book helps the pupil to understand the relation between cause and effect, and to distinguish the landmarks of history from the minor details. Besides this it insures a stated amount of thought and work in each day's assignment. Chicago Illustrated Topics for Ancient and American History MAPS THE JOHNSTONNY STRONGE CHANTS ATLASES A.J NYSTROM & CO CLOCAL FURMED CHICACO These topics comprise a comprehensive notebook system, including a durable, low-priced cover with patent rings; and loose leaf pages containing analysis, references for topical reading, source studies, outline maps, and a very valuable collection of historical pictures. Teachers who have adopted the topics state that their use has organized the class work, has enlivened the study of history and awakened a deeper interest on the part of students. Any teacher who has not inspected sample copies of these topics should write at once to the publishers MCKINLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY upil effect rom the tated PANT IPLES OF Volume VI. Neglected Aspect of Graduate Instruction BY LINDSAY ROGERS, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 66 We have never expected the graduate of existing knowledge." Nowhere, however, in the symposium by graduate professors on the true function of the economic seminar, from which the quotations are taken, is there any mention of the fact that the vast majority of those trained in the seminar will be expected to conduct undergraduate classes. In short, seminary papers deal very largely with problems which are as yet unsolved; the students are trained in ascertaining and presenting new truths, and by means of the dissertation, that sine qua non of a Ph.D., they put the finishing touch to that process whose primary purpose is to train teachers. But this training is wholly in research, in scientific methods, in scholarly habits of thought-all, it is true, highly important for a successful teacher, yet all primarily designed to induce future productivity. A few of those who begin an academic career may be permitted, from the first, to present the results of original investigation; yet the majority, either for life, or as a preliminary to something else, must give instruction to college students, and nowhere in the scheme of graduate work that I have roughly outlined is this fact avowedly considered. To be concrete, a man who takes his degree, in Political Economy, we will say, writes half a dozen seminary papers; he seminary papers; he "reports on" a strike, a proposed feature of currency reform and a piece of social legislation pending at the State capital. In addition, he reads chapters from his dissertation, an able piece of work as such studies go, and the depository of some valuable information. For the student this piece of research should mean that his steps will be less faltering and his efforts more successful Graduate instruction in the United States, either implicitly or avowedly, is so conducted that the students are given a certain amount of information and are shown where to find a greater amount, the object being to approximate a complete disclosure of the Sources of knowledge in a particular subject. Even the undergraduate lecture system, in part, at least, ccomplishes this, but the graduate differs from the dergraduate work in that the students are expected do more than absorb facts; they are shown the sto scientific methods of able professors in attacking and expounding particular problems. If the preparation of teachers is the aim of the instruction, the graduate student should be equipped not only to pass on information which he has acquired from the lectures and collateral work, but to present it in such way that his undergraduate students will easily prehend and become eager to learn more. this sense, graduate and undergraduate instruction differ in degree as well as in kind, but the advanced lectures, properly appreciated, are calculated to enable the student to acquire the information, and, in Some measure, the knowledge of methods necessary for collegiate work. sien ced core ading the Com In if shortly he essays to complete a more important work, or to codify one branch of knowledge more completely than do existing text-books. But where in this process has future undergraduate instruction been considered? Has the young doctor of philosophy ever been given an opportunity to lecture as he would to an elementary class? Has any of his work had the acknowledged purpose, not of training him in methods of research, but of making him better equipped to teach? Instead of an original seminary paper, has he ever been called upon to expound an Can he explain But the other, perhaps the more important, and adequately explored problem? - certainly the more distinctive, feature of graduate instruction is the training in research. The "indispensable adjunct to true university work" is the sem inar, and its raison d'être is tion or dent how to handle his material, and by interpreta 'to teach the stu marginal utility, the various theories of interest, or the elements of public finance, so that a beginner can. understand? My illustration is taken from a particular field of study, but my argument holds good in the natural sciences, and, although perhaps not so discovery to make a contribution to the store forcibly, in the languages. It is, perhaps, unfair to support my criticism by reference. to the purely professional schools, but in all cases the general purpose is certainly the same— to produce a company of trained workers-and the comparison is in some measure invited by the efforts which the professors are now making to approach the organization of a full-fledged profession. So it is perhaps permissible to point out that only graduate schools have neglected the aspect of instruction that I have been considering. In medicine, for example, the student acquires knowledge; what is more important, however, is to put this knowledge into practice, and he learns how, not by doing research, but in making people well. His dispensary and hospital training, under competent guidance, is a most important part of his course. At the law schools of the country, much attention is devoted to moot courts where the future lawyers meet and fight out disputed issues just as in the trial of a real cause. The same is true of theological instruction, and perhaps this analogy is closest, for both the clergyman and the teacher give the public not what it demands, but what is good for it. At the theological schools a man is prepared, among other things, to preach, and before he graduates he is taught the principles of preaching and given the opportunity to put them into practice. Even in the schools of journalism-a recent development of professional education-the students write stories,' "build" head-lines, and practice actual newspaper work. But in graduate instruction, the aim being to train teachers, there is no effort made to do this; the student is given his degree as evidence of his fitness to teach, and neither the professor nor the student himself knows whether he can do it. To borrow the expressive, if inelegant, phrase used to describe experiments in dramatic production before provincial audiences prior to the metropolitan first night," there is no dog upon which the graduate student tries his abilities, and therein is a neglected aspect of his instruction. Such is the problem by which, as a graduate student, I have been puzzled. A remedy I do not propose, and, above all, am not so rash as to imply that there should be any required study of the pedagogics of undergraduate work, as is the case in Europe. My point is simply that some time should be devoted to training the student in oral and extemporaneous discussion of elementary problems, and that, before turning him out into academic life, the professor should discover whether the student is able to teach. In the discussion of the economic seminar to which I have already referred, Professor Taussig stressed the fact that at Harvard the reading of papers is frowned upon; the students are desired to talk, but about original work that they have done. This is a tendency in the right direction; but certain it is, I think, that the seminars, discussion clubs, reading classes, however conducted, make little, if any, conscious effort towards giving a student instruction and practice, similar to that which, in the strictly professional schools, is considered well nigh indispensable both for rounding out his training and enabling him to see, ofttimes, that a mistake has been made in his choice of a vocation. President Butler's last report to the Columbia trustees comments on the prevalence of ineffective teaching, and attributes it, in part, to the bad tradition which prevents the inspection and supervision of the work of young teachers by their elders." The youngest of instructors," says President Butler, "is shut up in the classroom with a company of students and left to his own devices. The damage he may do in learning what teaching is all about is not frequently irreparable, but no older or more experi enced head is at hand to counsel and direct him.” May we not go back farther and assign as the initial cause of this evil the methods of graduate instruction which do not train the student to teach, and do not ascertain whether he can do so? 1 How Far Does the High School Course in History Fit for the College History Course? A High School View BY HARRIET E. TUELL, HIGH SCHOOL, SOMERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS. The very fact that this subject has been chosen for discussion in an association of college and high school teachers marks a distinct advance in the status of high school history. Certainly the situation has changed since I was a college student. In those days, I am sure, no college professor thought of taking into account the possibility of previous training on the part of his pupils. However optimistic his temperament, he planned his elementary history course in the spirit of Pope's familiar beatitude: "Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." Now, the college pro fessors say that they expect definite results from the high school course, and they are here to-day to define those expectations. It is the mark of a new time, and, we hope, an earnest of better things to come. An especially hopeful sign is the choice of a subject that holds the attention of teachers focussed on the work of the higher institutions rather than on the entrance examinations. Too long have we regarded the entrance examinations as an end in themselves. Teachers who have flattered themselves that they 1 This article was printed in somewhat abridged form in "The Nation" for September 9, 1915, p. 327. were preparing students for college have really had I only the entrance examinations in mind. College professors, too, have been prone to gauge every proexposed reform in the preparatory work by the single test: Is it subject to adequate examination? Yet the real aim of the schools is not to get students into college, but to fit them for the work after they get there. The requirements for this work are complex and many-sided. For convenience we may group them under four heads as, informational, mechanical, disciplinary and inspirational. Of these various lines. of preparation, the informational, which has hitherto received almost exclusive attention, perhaps shows least in the work of the college class. Was it Mohammed who said, "The calamity of knowledge is forgetfulness?" He was a true prophet, as every history teacher knows. Despite all the agonics of preparation, I doubt whether the painfully acquired information remains clear enough in the mind of the average freshman or sophomore so that he can use it in any definite and concrete way for the enrichment of his college work. This does not necessarily mean that the preliminary work is thrown away. have found one college professor, at least, who held that it justified itself, even admitting that the knowledge retained in the mind was not definite enough to answer in any large way to the call of recitation or examination, since, even so, it contributes to the general background of intelligence which colors all newly acquired information. The boy who has taken. a preliminary course in history must, it would seem, bring to his work far higher possibilities of reaction than the boy who has had no such experience. Although we may not hope to give to high school graduates wisdom and certain knowledge, we may, and I think we do, endow them in a measure with the gift of understanding. I More purely vocational work for the future student of history is preparation in the mechanics of history study-familiarity with the tools of the trade, with books and libraries and reference work of all sorts. Here a well-equipped school should save time otherwise wasted in useless blundering. Where the collateral reading is done in a well-selected library where pupils are trained to read in many books, the bewilderment of the beginner in college is reduced to a minimum. I am aware that one whose opinion we are all inclined to respect has recently pronounced against the whole system of required collateral reading, partly on the ground that schools will not make proper provision for it, but I believe that teachers who demand such facilities insistently enough will find them forthcoming. It has been my personal experience that others besides an unjust judge will yield to a woman because of her importunity." In fact, at the present time the school library movement is growing by leaps and bounds. It may be true, indeed, as the critic above referred to has said, that scarcely a baker's dozen of the high schools of New England possess anything that might fairly be called an adequate school library," but his assumption that similar conditions prevail elsewhere is not borne out by the facts. In a recent investigation of high school libraries conducted by a committee of the National Education Association, no single section of the country, save only the South, made so poor a showing as New England. In Boston, for instance, one high school of a thousand pupils spends annually $50 for library books; another school $20. In one school only does the expenditure for the purpose reach the moderately respectable sum of $200 to $400. In New York City, on the other hand, the annual appropriation varies in different schools from $250 to $800. Rochester spends each year $750, and Albany for high and elementary schools together $1,000. In the far west there is even more generosity, Los Angeles spending for libraries from $600 to $2,000, according to the need, while Portland, Oregon, started the library movement for two high schools with an appropriation of $10,000 a year for the first two years. In other sections of the country, then, the interest in school libraries is genuine enough to loosen the purse-strings. If New England is behind the procession, it would seem to be the duty of history teachers to provide a remedy rather than to give up the game as lost. Moreover, teachers are not limited to the possibilities of school libraries alone. Public libraries, county libraries, state library commisions and state boards of education are all showing a disposition to help. In Somerville we have within a year inaugurated a system which is, I believe, new in this State, but which is in successful operation in other parts of the country. We have a school librarian, who is also one of the public library staff, and whose salary is partly paid from the school fund and partly from the library fund. She is a trained librarian with previous experience in college libraries. In the morning at the school, and in the afternoon at the public library she is at the service of teachers and pupils. She also gives definite instruction in methods of using a library, and aims not only to give help in specific instances, but to teach pupils to help themselves. With such assistance I see no reason why the college freshman should not go to the college library as to a familiar hunting ground, of which he is prepared to take fullest advantage. The disciplinary value of collateral reading, as of all history study, depends altogether on how it is done, and how carefully it is supervised by the teacher. Where young pupils are turned loose into a library without definite guidance, they may get certain elements of a liberal education from the mere handling of many books and becoming wonted to their use; they cannot fail also to get some dim idea of the richness and variety of historical literature from even a superficial acquaintance with its stores; but if this were the only gain, it might be questioned whether it were worth the cost. The practice of col1" College Entrance Requirements in History, in Theory and Practice," William A. MacDonald. 'Education," June, 1914, p. 621. 66 |