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THE AWAKENING OF THE UNIVERSITY TO THE NEEDS OF TEACHERS
WISCONSIN EDUCATIONAL NEWS

BOOKS RECEIVED

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$1.25 a Year

WILLARD N. PARKER, Managing Editor
The Parker Educational Co., Publishers

MADISON, WISCONSIN

15 Cents a Number

THE

PARKER THE Agency for Wisconsin, Northern Mich

igan and the West. Write for full details

of "The Parker Way" of placing teachers and Teachers' Agency dealing with school boards. The most liberal

MADISON WISCONSIN contract of any Agency in the country.

COLORADO TEACHERS FRED DICK, Ex-State Superintendent, Manager.

Rooms 236-237 Empire Building, DENVER, COLO. AGENCY Teachers Wanting Positions in the West Should Register With Us.

The HAZARD TEACHERS' AGENCY

18th Year. The Leading Western Agency. Booklet Free.

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., 317 Kasota Bldg.

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TEACHERS ATTENTION!

Do you know The Thurston Teachers' Agency is your direct and strongest factor in gaining promotion? Employers have confidence in our personal recommendation. Your desire will materialize through "The Thurston." Send for blank. No fee for a limited time, address

ANNA M. THURSTON, 378 Wabash Ave., Chicago, IlI.

ARE YOU WORTH A CENT?

Send us a postal today to see what we have been doing for the past twenty years in the way of helping teachers and schools to find each other.

THE CLARK TEACHERS' AGENCY,

B. F. Clark, Steinway Hall, Chicago

THE ALBERT TEACHERS' AGENCY

C. J. ALBERT, Manager

378 Wabash Avenue

Chioago, Illinois

In correspondence with 8000 Scnools and Colleges. Over 7000 teachers located. The best schools are our clients. Service prompt, effective and helpful. Address the Chicago Manager.

THE BREWERAGENCY

13.02. AUDITORIUM BUILDING, CHICAGO

Wright's Civil Government

WISCONSIN EDITION

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Jackson's Test Yourself in Arithmetic (excellent for self examination or for

.$1.00 .75

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MIDLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY

21 East Wilson Street, MADISON, WISCONSIN.

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EDITORIAL COMMENT

BY PROFESSOR M. V. O'SHEA, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
ELIMINATION OF NON-ESSENTIALS,

Probably the most important of the committees of the State Teachers' Association is that one, the function of which is to suggest desirable and practicable methods of reducing the quantity of material which is now being presented to pupils in the elementary school. This matter is at the present moment of supreme consequence to the teachers of our state. The situation with respect to overcrowding is no worse with us than it is elsewhere; but it is recognized as the most serious problem of the schools from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf. Go where you may over this country and you will find there is one proposition which laymen and experts alike agree upon, the schools are becoming overloaded, to the detriment of both the intellectual and the physical well-being of the child.

Shallow-minded people propose to relieve our distress by paring the curriculum down to the olden-time disciplinary course; but reasonable men know that a cure of this sort would be much worse for us than the disease. The needs of pupils in this as in other states are different now from what they were fifty years ago, and the schools must provide for these needs by teaching subjects and topics which relate to new conditions in society, and which incorporate recent discoveries and advances in all fields of knowledge and art. As society develops and the circumstances of life change, certain kinds of knowledge once of use may become valueless, if not absolutely, then at least relatively so. If the schools continue to teach everything that has been in the curriculum in the past, and if at the same time they keep on adding new materials, we will in due course eliminate our pupils; in the which case there will be some slight gain, for then we will not need to worry about eli

No. 2

mination of subjects, whether essential or nonessential.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED.

This Committee on Elimination ought to proceed to its task in a large way. It ought first to ascertain the experience of older civilizations with respect to the modification of school curricula under changing social conditions. It ought then to make a careful study of the actual social changes which have occurred in our state in recent times. It should then distribute the various subjects in the schools among competent experts, requesting them to determine in an effective manner if possible what in these subjects is really most vital for a pupil today. In some such a way as this results can be reached that will have genuine worth, and that will appeal to the teachers of the state. But if the Committee simply gathers the more or less off-hand opinions of its own members and embodies them in a report, we predict that such report will speedily meet the fate which has overtaken so many others of its kind,-it will be forgotten within a week after it is made, and it will exert little if any influence upon educational practice in this state. Gentlemen of the Committee, here's an opportunity and a crying need to do some high-grade educational work in accord with. modern scientific methods; all of which is respectfully submitted.

A LAYMAN'S OPINION OF TEACHERS.

People are gloriously free these days in expressing their views regarding the strong and the weak points of pedagogues. The educational press has always been frank in pointing out the personal and other limitations of teachers, but the lay press has in recent times become even franker than the professional press. As a rule the average layman is not a very keen student of educational condi

tions, and his opinions of teachers can not be regarded as of transcendent value. But the writer knows one layman who has devoted a good deal of time energy, and money to the study of practical educational work, and to the observation of teachers in different parts of the country. Not long since he had some dealings with rather prominent educators; and when matters were finally adjudicated he sent in the following reflections, which are submitted to the readers of the Journal without editorial comment at this time. If any readers feel moved to express themselves in respect to the criticisms made by this layman, the writer will be pleased to receive their contributions, and later he will undertake to present a summary of them in these columns.

quite what it is. Lacking other terms of condemnation, many malcontents give vent to their feelings by charging teachers with being "faddish." The lay press is busy lambasting the schools becaue they do not prepare for the practical life. They are said to be theoretical, and too much devoted to things that are "ethereal," so that they do not equip their pupils for the serious situations of life. From every quarter come exhortations to the teacher to be more practical, to keep on the earth, to cut out all subjects except those which prepare pupils for the struggle for existence.

Some timid teachers are inclined to wilt before the virulent criticism of a non-expert press; but no sooner do they begin to think of eliminating from the curriculum all except downright practical sub

Here are Mr. Blank's views of the character- jects than they are taken severely to task by the istics of educators:

As a rule, the educator, big and little, compared with his grade in business life is an individual of broader horizon and better understanding of moral principles, but in actual practice this very mental acuteness lands him on a lower moral plane, and right here may be found the broken key to the educational arch.

The business man is either honest or dishonest; he either lies or tells the truth, and after a wide experience with business men of all grades and classes, I am impelled to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of business men are truthful and honest. Their selfish interests have unconsciously grounded those who are not naturally straight.

On the other hand, the average educational man and woman, big and little, busy holding their jobs, are trimmers, have acquired the arts of the politician, and are inferential if not frank liars. The lie by inference gradually honeycombs the moral foundations, and blunts the moral perceptions. The inferential lie is a much more dangerous foe to the moral nature than the candid, self-acknowledged falsehood.

Witness the disposition of educators to accept presents from publishers and other supply houses, and political assistance from the same sources which they know must be "tainted"; the superintendent who keeps incompetents on his force by misrepresenting their mental equipment because they have political influence; the teacher who will grade Johnnie up because Johnnie's father is influential; the principal who will lie for the superintendent who stands between him and a prolonged vacation; and all of them allowing publishing houses to settle their hotel bills when attending conventions away from home.

This, of course, does not apply to the great army of honest men and women in the teaching profession who are struggling in an upright and courageous way on meagre financial consideration to lift the profession of developing souls to a higher level.

SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.

The lines of the present-day teacher have fallen in hard places. He is almost continually under fire from non-experts, who feel something is the matter with the schools, but they do not yet know

idealists among us, who run up and down and to and fro in the earth claiming that the schools are already materialistic, that they are dominated by the one aim of preparing pupils for industrial and commercial life, and that they have altogether forsaken the higher ideals. The distress of these idealists is expressed in the following wail of a prominent writer:

Educational science regards the development of the inner life as the true course, and yet it is almost entirely neglected in both common school and college. A material education is the one sought, and though this is against all philosophy, it is kept up by the clamor and clatter of the world's perverted ideals. The energy of the school purpose is diverted almost wholly to how to make a living, while how to live, which is the greater quest, is quite neglected.

Will some one kindly suggest how a teacher can adapt his philosophy and his practice to the demands of both the realists and the idealists among us? It is the present writer's opinion that the materialists and the idealists alike are utterly incapable of forming any intelligent opinion of what the schools are doing. Many of the men who are shouting the loudest in condemnation of the schools have the least right to speak about them from careful, expert study of actual conditions and tendencies. When it comes to teaching, the average man's opinion is simply the average man's prejudice. This is not to say that the schools are above criticism,-of course, they are not; but surely they can not be both grossly materialistic and inanely idealistic at the same time. Under the circumstances, it would be perfectly proper for teachers to go on serenely about their work, and

let the materialists and idealists settle their troubles among themselves.

COLLEGE CRITICISM OF THE SCHOOLS.

The public schools are catching it going and coming these days. Not only do the non-expert materialists and idealists castigate them, but college teachers, who might be supposed to know what they are talking about, find a good deal of fault with them. Criticism from this latter source ought, it would seem, to be of distinct service to the individuals who are concerned; but without doubt it is often not intelligent or effective, because the men who criticise are not well-informed regarding the particular phases of education which they discuss. Substantially this view was recently expressed in bitter terms by the school management committee of the board of education of Chicago, in response to the censure of the Lake High School made by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The committee says it was "impertinent" for the North Central Association to presume to make investigations of the schools of Chicago, and it condemns the tendency, as it claims, of the colleges to "meddle" with the work of the secondary schools. It declares that colleges are exerting an undue influence on the high schools, with the result that the latter are not adapting their work to the needs of their students, the vast majority of whom will not pursue a collegiate course. The opinions advanced by the Chicago committee are in effect the same as those expressed by individuals and committees in all parts of the country during the past few years.

The present writer can remember the time when the secondary schools were not much concerned about the needs of pupils who were not going to college. In those days the academy, the progenitor of the high school, was quite remote from the real life of the community in which it flourished. But it is cause for rejoicing that in every part of this land of ours the high schools of today are thoroughly aroused over questions regarding the relative merits, for the majority of their pupils, of various courses of study and methods of instruction. Any careful observer can see that the high school is rapidly becoming a very different institution from what it was twenty-five years ago. In one sense it is already the people's college, and only good results can come from a frank discus

sion of the demands of the higher institutions upon the secondary school, in the effort to determine whether these demands actually interfere with its proper functions as a people's college.

THE SITUATION IN OUR OWN STATE. For ourselves we believe that on the whole the influence of our method of inspection has been helpful to the secondary school. Such inspection has vitalized the teaching of special subjects; it has improved the quality of the instructional force in the high schools; it has assisted teachers in securing proper equipment for effective teaching; and, in brief, it has brought to more or less isolated communities throughout our own and other states the best teaching ideals which have been developed anywhere. Nevertheless it is entirely possible that such inspection has in some cases tended to unduly emphasize preparation for college as the primary function of the high school. Colleges everywhere have at times been indifferent and even hostile to the introduction into the high school curriculum of important new subjects which have been demanded by changing social conditions. That the attempt to lay stress upon work that would prepare for college has led some schools to neglect matters of more immediate and vital interest to the majority of its pupils is certain. But that these difficulties are being remedied, especially in our own state, through liberal provisions being made for entrance to the university and the colleges is equally certain. It is true that our problems are not yet solved, and it is well that we should keep the whole question in a plastic condition until all factors have been duly considered. In this way we will be likely to develop a method of organization and a curriculum in even the small high school, which will meet the requirements alike of those who will pass immediately into practical life, and those who will pursue their studies into the higher institutions.

STATE REGULATION OF SCHOOL HYGIENE.

At the International Congress of School Hygiene in London, August 5-10, 1907, which was largely attended by delegates from every part of the world, the fact was brought out that we are much behind countries like Switzerland, Germany, France, England, and Scotland in the medical inspection of schools with a view to protecting the health and improving the vigor of school children.

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