Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories..

GRADE

I. The Riverside Primer and Reader

The Hiawatha Primer. Cloth, 40 cts.. II. The Hiawa ha Primer. Cloth, 40 cts...

III. Grimms' Fairy Tales

47-48 30 .107-108 30 t

17-18 30

49-50 30

11-63 30

80 15

13-14 30

7-8-9 45

29-10 30 t

Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal; Commemoration Ode, etc...

Emerson's American Scholar, etc.

6 15

VII. Longfellow's Evangeline

I

15

2

15

55 5

*

Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables [Quadruple No.]

40-69 30

56 15

15

30

50 tt

15

**

15 **

15

15

15

+

Shakespeare's As You Like It.

XII. Milton's L'Allegro, Comus. Lycidas, etc. Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I-III Webster's Bunker Hill Oration, etc... Shakespeare's Macbeth

IV. Hawthorne's Wonder-Book.

Hans Andersen's Stories...

Longfellow's Children's Hour, etc.; Paul
Revere's Ride, etc...

V. Longfellow's Hiawatha

VI. Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. Hawthorne's Little Daffydowndilly, etc.; Biographical Stories...

Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc..

Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish, etc

Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills,

etc.; The Old Manse, etc Dickens's Christmas Carol.

VIII. Whittier's Snow-Bound, etc

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
Irving's Sketch Book

Also bound in cloth: * 25 cents;

Vol. XXVIII.

NATURALLY the list of high school teachers in this state which we publish this month will be scanned with a good deal of interest. We have indicated, so far as possible,-and but two or three exceptions will be found-the basis of the license to teach which each one holds. We have also indicated the schools which are accredited at the university, and the teachers who are new to their positions this year. Most of these matters we leave our readers who are curious in such things to sum up and compare for themselves, but call attention to a few facts. If our count is correct, there are 576 teachers enumerated in these lists, of whom 504 are employed in schools with four years' courses, and 72 in schools with

No. 11

three years' courses. There are, therefore, between six and seven hundred high school teachers employed in Wisconsin, -for the high schools of Milwaukee, La Crosse, Oshkosh, Superior, Menomonee, Manitowoc, and some others, are not in these lists. Changes of teachers seem to have been numerous-225 in all, or rather more than a third of the whole number. In the three years' group just half of the teachers changed, in the other group less than a third, and but a small per cent. of the principals.

ATTENTION need hardly be called to the articles on rural schools which we publish in this issue, as the subject is just now one of special interest in the state. One incidental topic in President Salisbury's article bears upon a subject emphasized several times in these columns, regarding which we are glad to have accurate information. Of the "intermediate" or "graded" schools, or "schools of more than one department having no high school," to which so little attention has been paid that we have not even a recognized designation for the class, it appears that we have 311 in all, a number large enough certainly to justify provision for their study and inspection by the state. What their enrolment is cannot be stated, but some estimate may be based upon the fact that the eighty-seven having three or more rooms, enrolled 14,830 pupils. Every year a few of these develop high schools and gain a standing on the state list. It would seem that advice, help and encouragement in no other part of our system would promise larger usefulness than in this unnamed and little recognized group of schools.

ATHLETICS come to the front again with the opening of our schools and colleges. With all the criticism and unfavorable comment which one hears must be mingled a recognition of the fact that our best principals and our school boards give them support because of the good in them. What this is we do not now intend to point out, but rather to raise the question whether the time has not come to promote a new development in athletics. So far interscholastic rivalry has been the great source of interest and the great cause of criti

cism. Must athletics always move on this line, which practically limits the benefits of them to a few specially successful men? Is the spirit of play confined in our high schools to this interscholastic rivalry? It seems to us that football and baseball may be attractive for the fun of the game, and may be cultivated by those who have no expectation of becoming champions; and that the time has come for an effort, not yet to do away with the meets and match games, but to make them fruitful in the love of natural, restrained sport for itself and the physical training it will afford.

It

GRADING teachers' certificates, and confining the validity of each grade to a certain range of school work may be said to be the general plan in modern European states. accords with right reason. The higher positions ought to be held for those most broadly prepared. We have commenced to move in this direction by confining high school posi

tions to those who hold state certificates. We

have created a special grade for county superintendents. The increase of high school and normal school graduates indicates that the time for the next move in this direction has come. Nothing less than a first grade certificate should qualify for grammar school work, or charge of rural schools of more than one department, or less than second grade for city primaries or the larger rural schools of one room. To prevent hardship to those now in the service the law might be made operative two years from next August, or consideration shown them in some other form. The state needs the services of the large number of well trained teachers whom its normal schools are now turning out, and should revise legislation which enables third grade teachers to compete with them for all positions below the high schools.

A GREAT gain would be made if our county superintendents could be elected for four years instead of two. It would make the position more desirable and so draw to it better men without increasing the salary. In two years a new man just fairly learns his field and gets the mastery of his duties; for the next two years he is worth to the county twice what he was for the first two. So apparent is this that tradition already dictates a second term. But a shift in the balance of power between the two great parties, or skilful manipulation at the primaries often defeats this tradition. Will not our legislators be fulfilling the popular will if they put it beyond the reach of political accident to upset so wise an arrangement? This year we are to have the biennial

upheaval; a large body of officers whom we have been training in conferences and institutes and actual work are to be displaced by new and untried hands. The work of training must be begun over again, with the certainty that they may be thrown away in two years. Is not the system unnecessarily volcanic, and a remedy easy to be applied?

IDEALS OF THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS.

Naturally

There are two distinct conceptions as to how teachers should be prepared for their work. One is closely practical, emphasizing the importance of experience and laying stress upon methods, practice-teaching, and criticism of actual work. This makes the effective routine teacher. Perhaps the English scheme is the most complete one of this type. This is built upon the employment of pupil teachers for part of the work in elementary schools. Promising pupils who wish to teach, on completing the elementary work, which means substantially what preparation for the high school does with us, are put to work as pupil teachers under the direction and guidance of the principal. This is a kind of apprenticeship which lasts four years, during which they receive instruction not less than five hours a week, and teach not more than twenty-five. they are entrusted with more work and more advances, and receive a small salary for their difficult work as the period of apprenticeship services. They are examined every year by the inspectors, and in case of failure may have to teach a longer time. The best of them at the close of the apprenticeship may go to the training or normal schools, where they pursue study for two years, and continue to practice under competent criticism. Here they receive also some theoretic and academic instruction, and if they pass the examinations at the close of the course they become "certificated teachers" with a second class certificate; after ten years more of work, and an examination more advanced than the former, they may receive a first grade certificate, and may become elementary school principals. Obviously they ought to be skillful practical teachers. Their defects are a certain narrowness arising from limited culture, and a routine spirit little likely to recognize the higher aims of school work or to take a growing interest in educational movements or the discussion of educational questions. Probably preparation of this type can not reasonably be expected to give a better result. They are good, thorough, but not progressive workmen.

The other conception of the preparation of

teachers lays great emphasis upon the historical and theoretical training. Its aim is to produce progressive men, who have a broad outlook into the work upon which they are entering, such a sense of its significance as will lead them to look after the formation of character and the development of interest in the things of the understanding, and an interest which will keep them in vital connection with the best thot and ideals of their time. Those of them who have the force and instincts necessary for leadership will thus be enabled to come to the front and help to shape the conceptions and policy of the time. They will at first be less facile and effective in the school than those practically trained, but they will have broader horizons and do stronger and wiser work in the long run. This may be said to be the university conception. Its weakness is on the practical side. It needs to be supplemented by practice work and criticism of class exercises, and at present our larger universities are reaching out for ways to supply this lack. They need practice schools, observation, criticism in seminars, and some opportunities for experimentation. It would certainly be a serious mistake to substitute the practical conception for the larger one they now hold, or to attempt any elaborate training like that found in the English system. If the ideals are to be combined obviously the latter must always lead in preparing teachers with more extended academic culture.

S.

NORMAL COURSES FOR COMMON SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Last September we expressed our regret at not finding in the normal school catalogues of the state any indications as to the students pursuing the one year course for common school teachers. In a private letter President Salisbury, of Whitewater, writes us as follows:

"In the September number of the JOURNAL, you raised some questions as to the "One Year Course of Study for Teachers of Common Schools." I have been meaning to write you on that point. I gave the certificate of that course last year to twelve persons; about the same number took it the year before last. There will never be great interest in that course on the part of country teachers until this certificate obtains some legal sanction and is recognized as a teaching certificate. Until it receives such recognition, country teachers will rather press towards the county second grade certificate. That seems to them to have some tangible legal value; but in my opinion it has by no means the real value that the certificate of this one year course has."

As to numbers this statement seems on the whole encouraging. It indicates at least that there is a body of persons who are disposed to avail themselves of such instruction. If conditions were rightly arranged this body would be greatly increased. The course ought to count for some kind of a certificate. For what kind? Any intelligent answer must be based on the assumption that certificates of different grades imply fitness for some special range of school work. But that is not the case in Wisconsin at present. For any place below the high school a third grade certificate is now as valid as a first grade. It would be a move in the wrong direction to make a one year certificate at the normal schools as good as one from a two years' course at the normals. The first step towards making this course valid seems to be the introduction of grades of validity among teachers' certificates.

What should the course be? We do not presume to say in detail, but some things it ought to do seem evident. Admission to it is already established at passing a third grade examination, which ought to mean that the pupils enter with a fair knowledge of these branches. Their purpose is to learn to teach, and school management-if that can be stripped of nonsense and adjusted to rural conditions and methods for the common branches so far as to make clear the objects sought and the type of work to secure them, must claim attention. Besides these country life ought to be the central thot, and the aim in view ought to be to make its resources available for intellectual development, to begin preparation for an intelligent performance of its work, and to give it some breadth and refinement.

Literature is the chief means for the latter, and the course ought to prepare the teachers to appreciate and use the libraries which our law is now providing for the schools. A systematic course in literature is out of the question, and what is done ought to drive sharply at the end in view-to awaken a taste for suitable literature, to acquaint with a certain range of it and how to keep up with its growth, and to develop ways of managing a small library and making it attractive and useful.

The other aim, which we have stated above in two formulas, is still more complex and difficult. It is new, and experiments will have to be tried before we shall know what is possible and how to attain it. We assume that the conceptions advanced in the Report of the Committee of Twelve on Rural Schools, together with some elementary instruction in agriculture, represent the lines along which development is to take place. It must be ad