Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Observation and Practice Teaching in College and University Departments of Education
The colleges and universities have offended, too, in assum ing that they can do the work of the normal schools. True their education departments might be so organized that they could discharge this responsibility, but constituted as they are at present, the emphasis is largely on the side of teaching subjects rather than on teaching children. The normal school that requires a four-year high school course for entrance and is thus free to devote itself largely to the professional side of the elementary school subject-matter has the advantage of the college and university departments of education, as they are constituted at present, in the preparation of teachers for the lower schools. If the elementary schools generally were organ ized on the departmental plan, some of the disadvantage might be obviated, but at present it is manifestly impossible for the university to give that attention to all the subjects of the ele mentary school curriculum that is so essential for teachers eu tering upon that particular field. Our best normal schools spend a relatively small amount of time in taking up new sub jects of study per se, but they devote themselves primarily to reviewing the elementary branches through the media of those more advanced. It is not so much a more extensive study of the lower subjects that is needed as a more intensive study of those same subjects with a view to teaching them. To the extent that the institutions of higher learning fail to do this - it is by no means to their discredit; they have another function in the intellectual world - to that very extent do they fall behind the normal school in the preparation of elementary teachers. Be cause all our normal schools are not ideal either in their condi tions for entrance or in the character of their work, does not justify the universities in attempting to assume part of these burdens. Each institution has abundant work in its own par ticular field. Let us rather work together to build up the standard of these lower professional schools until they attain the highest type of efficiency of which they are capable. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
