therefore, have reference to the general policy applicable to any State, rather than to the adjustment which may best fit Iowa. 1. The foundation of all our educational system is the elementary school. In most states the elementary school is rural. Everywhere it is conceded that our rural schools are lamentably deficient, chiefly so because teachers are poorly trained and ill-equipped to give instruction that fits into farm life. We are slowly coming to realize that a rural school is bound to fail if it is run on the lines of the city elementary school. The present situation is largely due to the fact that our normal schools have been working on city lines. I say that without intending to criticize the normal schools. They have been obliged to meet the most pressing demands, and the call from the city has so far been the most insistent and remunerative. But I am convinced that from this time on rural teachers will be better paid and that those who are thoroughly fitted for the work will be in great demand. In my judgment, therefore, the chief task of the normal school in the next generation will be to ascertain how to train teachers for rural schools, to educate rural communities to the point of demanding a suitable rural education and to elevate the professional position of the rural teacher. All this is a great work probably the greatest educational work ever attempted in this country. It is the most interesting and inspiring task that has ever been proposed to any body of educators. Any institution fortunate enough to be permitted to enter upon it is to be congratulated.

2. The training of teachers for high schools and of administrative officers should be superimposed upon a sound collegiate foundation. It is useless to talk of professional training for persons who do not have a good academic training. In fact, the ordinary college course is insufficient. High school teachers need specialized information, in precisely the way that lawyers, engineers or farmers need specialized information. The ordinary Arts course does not give that kind of training. Hence the criticism of those who advocate normal school training as a corrective, and of those who would remedy defects by a post-graduate course in academic studies. Both are right and both are wrong. What is wanted is a general education as broad and liberal as circumstances will permit; next, specialization along the lines which the teacher will follow; then training to develop technical skill in teaching.

3. It needs no demonstration that the cheapest way for any state to train its secondary teachers is in connection with the State University. Every department of such an institution is already equipped to give the first steps in the preparation of the high school teacher. The diversity of interests in secondary education makes

imperative a wide range of studies. The necessary subjects can be given, of course, anywhere, but when a state needs only a few hundred teachers a year it is not good financial policy to duplicate collegiate courses for a few when they must be given in a university for many. Moreover, it is no easy task to build up a thoroughly good Arts course even in one institution; to say nothing of the difficulty and indirect loss involved in trying to maintain two or more such courses under one general management. If the two were equally good the chances are that both would be inferior; while with the funds expended upon two, one good school might be maintained. In other words, I regard the separation of the Arts work into two institutions as tending to lower the quality of both, or as increasing unduly the expense of what the state needs.

4. The chief criticism of the University as a training school for teachers is that it restricts itself to the academic work and opposes all professional interests. We should have no law school, or medical school, or engineering school, worthy of respect if these schools were relegated to the position of departments in a college and the administration vested in the typical college faculty. Professional work presupposes specialized knowledge-mechanics as well as physics, statute law as well as economics and ethics, pathology as well as physiology. So the teacher needs to study every subject in the light of its uses in the school-room and from the viewpoint of the school pupil. Next comes the practical application of his knowledge in actual school work, as guided and determined by sound educational theory and practice. Unless the University is prepared to do for the teachers what it does for the engineer, the lawyer, and the physician, the training of teachers might better be entrusted to the normal school - better a poor training along right lines, than something supposedly better directed away from the proper goal. I believe that a School of Education should be a part of every State University, that it should have charge of the instruction in specialized academic courses and give the theoretical and practical courses in secondary education and school management, and that it should have access to a real school or school system for the same reasons that a clinic and a hospital are needed in connection with a medical school.

5. In my scheme, the normal school should confine itself to the training of teachers for elementary schools. In order to save expense, until the school becomes unduly large, I would have both phases of elementary education (rural and urban) taught in the same institution, but there is enough difference in point of view and in spirit to warrant two distinct courses -- one for rural

teachers, the other for teachers in city schools. Of course, there would be much overlapping, but in some way rural teachers must be made to feel that they are in no sense inferior to city teachers. The creation of a proper attitude of mind and the infusion of high ideals are quite as important in teacher training as anywhere else in the world much more important, in fact, than in most other vocations and professions. Hence, I would do everything possible to exalt the work of the rural teacher, as compared with the teaching in city schools; and for similar reasons I would dignify the study of elementary education in general. Such a process is most difficult in a university atmosphere. Almost to the present day collegiate conventions and traditions have succeeded in strangling the training of secondary teachers. In many universities the process is still going on, but it can be overcome, and the university association can be made a source of strength in the training of secondary teachers and school administrators. I doubt if it is possible in the elementary field. Fortunately, the great number of teachers needed annually in elementary schools makes it quite as economical to segregate them in a special institution. Hence, the separate normal school.

6. So far as the situation in Iowa is concerned, I think the normal school has been fully justified in training secondary teachers, but my opinion is based on the wretchedly poor support given to the department of education in the University. The moment the University is prepared to treat secondary education as it treats other professional work, that moment the normal school can go over body and soul to the greater task of meeting the needs of the state in elementary education. The elementary field, including rural education, offers incomparably the greater and more inspiring work, but it will need all the ingenuity and self-sacrifice of the normal school faculty, coupled with the strongest support that your board can give, to educate the state to a realization of its dependence upon the elementary teacher (rural as well as urban) for the conveyance to the people of that culture and scientific knowledge which the University and the Agricultural College are designed to afford.

I realize that this is a long letter; perhaps too long to be of any use to you, but I am greatly interested in what you are doing, and would gladly be of some service to you. According to my present plans, I expect to be in the central west late in October, and if you can use me in any way you are free to command.

I am,

Sincerely yours,
JAS. E. RUSSELL.

III. TRAINING CLASSES IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS

Both Kansas and Nebraska have done very remarkable work in the development of high school training classes as a means for securing a supply of trained teachers for the rural schools of the state. The following report of the then State Inspector gives a very clear idea as to the work and results of such classes. The correlation of the industrial work with that of training teachers is a marked point of merit in the Kansas plan. In connection with the new county schools of agriculture this plan for teacher training promises much for the future for the rural schools.

1. Normal and Industrial Training in High Schools [Report of Kansas State Inspector. From the 18th Bien. Rept. Supt. Publ. Inst. Kas., 1911-1912, pp. 23-32.]

Hon. E. T. Fairchild, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Topeka, Kan.:

DEAR SIR - In the line of my duty, I beg to submit the following report of normal and industrial training in high schools for the biennium 1911-'13. For the sake of comparison, I have also deemed it advisable briefly to review the history of normal work in Kansas high schools from its inception.

Since 1886 there have been a few high schools in the state authorized to offer normal-training courses and to grant graduates from such courses a two-year county teacher's certificate; but these schools never exceeded twenty-three in number, were widely scattered, and benefited only their own immediate localities.

Realizing the need for better schools, particularly better rural schools, and recognizing that the first requisite for better schools is better trained teachers, the Kansas Educational Commission of 1908 recommended the enactment of a law providing for a normal-training course in at least one high school in practically every county in the state. In pursuance of this recommendation the legislature passed the normal-training act, which became operative May 29, 1909. By the provisions of this act, the State Board of Education was empowered to prescribe regulations under which accredited high schools might offer a course in normal training for prospective teachers. To further the work $50,000

per year were appropriated for the biennium. This money was to be used only for the payment of additional teaching force, and was to be apportioned by the State Board of Education to deserving schools in such a way as best to serve the school interests of the entire state, provided that the amount apportioned to any one county was in no case to exceed one thousand dollars. The law further provided that to be eligible to participate in the fund a school must have at least ten students each semester in regular attendance upon the normal-training course. At the completion of their course these students should be given an examination by the State Board of Education, and upon passing such examination should receive a normal-training teacher's certificate, good in the public schools of any county in the state for a period of two years, and to be indefinitely renewable for two years at a time upon conditions fixed by the Board. Accredited academies might receive all the privileges and benefits of the act except that of state aid.

The more important regulations as first prescribed by the State Board of Education for the conduct of normal-training classes

were:

The distinctively normal-training work should be given only in the senior year of a four years' high-school course, and only seniors or postgraduates should be permitted to take it. This work was to consist of one-half year in psychology, one-half year in methods and management, a year in American history and a review of arithmetic, geography, grammar and reading. A pedagogical reference library consisting of not fewer than thirty volumes was to be provided by each school. All teachers teaching normaltraining classes were required to be graduates of accredited colleges or state normal schools, to have had at least two years' teaching experience, and to be approved for the work in question by the state superintendent of public instruction. Observation visits were made a regular part of the normal-training course, and these visits were to be made once a week, or at least often enough so that the class should make at least one visit to each grade in which each subject was taught.

As will be observed, the normal-training work was originally confined to the senior year. This was done in order that existing high-school courses might be disturbed as little as possible. But a year's experience with the work as first outlined, together with the popular demand for its extension, led the State Board to provide that, beginning with the school year 1911-'12, one-half year of hygienic physiology, one-half year of civics and one-half year of psychology should be required of all normal-training students