Measurement of community practice facilities of typical normal schools. With these figures as a basis, anyone can proceed to estimate the possible practice-teaching facilities in a number of typical normal schools, using as a basis the figures for school population and average daily attendance in the public schools of the community in which the school is located as given in the report of the United States Commissioner of Education. As a matter of fact, many of the normal schools do not actually enjoy such facilities as would be indicated by these theoretical calculations, owing to the fact that they have training schools with relatively few children, or they have not succeeded in making arrangements whereby they can utilize half of the time in the public schools for practice-teaching purposes. As a consequence some normal schools have outgrown the most liberal estimate of practice-teaching facilities at their command, while others will soon do so if they begin to provide the number of trained teachers needed in their districts. Chapter VI. STUDENTS AND GRADUATES. Numbers significant only in relation to educational policy.-To know the absolute number of students in the various State normal schools is of little importance. On the other hand, to be able to relate the number of students to their rank, to the practice-teaching facilities of the locality, to the scheme of certification in force in each State, and to the cost of instruction would be quite instructive in determining the value of various types of normal-school policy. Reliable data even on attendance are difficult to secure. Unfortunately, up to the present time it has not even been possible to secure reliable published figures of the absolute size of most normal schools in terms of the number of students under instruction at any one time. This is due to the fact that so many normal schools simply give in their catalogues and published reports the number of different students enrolled during the year, including the summer term. Inasmuch as many of these students are in attendance for only six weeks, the data merely confuse instead of enlightening the reader. Exceptional and excellent statistics by Supt. Evans, of Missouri.— The possibility of making a clear and illuminating report on normalschool attendance in a State where there are many short-term students to complicate the situation is illustrated by the accompanying table from the 1913 report of State Supt. Evans, of Missouri. [Missouri] State Normal School statistics [1912–13]. [A model table concerning students and faculty.] [Missouri] State Normal School statistics [1912-13]-Continued. [Missouri] State Normal School statistics [1912-13]-Continued. [Missouri] State Normal School statistics [1912-13]-Continued. Kirksville. Warrensburg. Cape Girar deau. Springfield. Maryville. 18 Spring term. 27 & 8 Spring term. Summer term. Average daily attendance...640 675 590 940 660 687 746 1, 415 412 425 575 575 433 481 792 1, 218 230 275 198 465 Number of daily recitations. 200 210 200 220 184 177 175 192 114 122 119 118 108 112 156 Highest number of pupils 224 74 80 75 93 64 59 48 39 10 6 5 26 19 20 20 This report is remarkable for the number of interesting things that can be learned from it. It gives practically every kind of information that anyone might want concerning the registration of students in any normal school in the State. For example, take the school at Warrensburg. According to the ordinary method of reporting, Warrensburg would be reported as having 1,994 students (different persons enrolled) during 1912–13. But a glance through the columns shows that the average attendance in the fall, winter, and spring terms was only 660, 687, and 746, respectively, jumping up to 1,415 in the summer. Furthermore, by glancing elsewhere in the table we can see that about half of these students are of high-school grade-i. e., in the fall term there were 354 college students, or about the same as the number in the larger Massachusetts normal schools. Moreover, the analysis of this number of college students in the fall term shows that there was only one senior (fourth-year student) and 17 juniors (third-year students). The rest were freshmen and sophomores. Unfortunately, this report does not give the number of graduates in the various courses offered. Need average attendance to measure number of students. One of the most important and most useful figures given in this Missouri table is the average daily attendance for each term. This figure is also given in the tables in Commissioner Snedden's report for Massachusetts which will be used in a later chapter. It is a figure that all school authorities are now familiar with as the standard basis for reporting attendance in elementary schools. Its utility as a basic measure in such reports, for making various calculations and comparisons, is generally recognized. It would be just as useful for normal-school authorities, and until it comes into common use in normal-school reporting there is little prospect of securing reliable comparative measures of most normal-school activities. Students of high-school rank reduce professional efficiency.-The proportion of high-school and college students in a State normal school is important from the standpoint of serving the State's purposes, for which most normal schools are established, namely, training teachers for the State rather than furnishing a convenient form of general education for certain communities. In other words, if normal schools have to spend a portion of their funds and energy in giving general high-school instruction, to that extent they are handicapped in their efforts to give special professional training for teachers. Hence, if the high schools of a community are capable of providing the necessary high-school instruction, it would be unnatural to find students of high-school grade in the local normal schools. If the high-school situation of a State has been inadequate, but is improving, a parallel elimination of high-school students from the normal schools might be expected. Examples of professional improvement through elimination of high-school pupils. Good examples of this process of gradually raising the normal-school standards as local high schools improve are found in the reports of a number of States. Idaho.-In Idaho, for example, the improvement in the Albion Normal School is described in the 1912 report of the State superintendent in the following words (p. 29): The last two years have seen a rapid advancement in educational work of all kinds in southern Idaho. The high schools are growing rapidly in numbers, and those established are strengthening their courses of study. In a few years practically all students will be enabled to secure the greater part of their high-school work in their home schools, with the possible exception of the work in science, advanced manual training, and advanced domestic science, proper laboratory facilities for which are too often wanting in the smaller schools. These increased facilities have already relieved and will relieve the State schools from the necessity of providing for the high-school training of many students who formerly were compelled to secure their high-school training at a State institution, if they secured it at all. The result has been a distinct change in the class of students attending the State Normal School at Albion. At the time of the opening of the school in 1895 there were not a half dozen real high schools in the State, and it is thought there was not a high-school graduate among the students enrolled the first year. The students were compelled to take up even seventh and eighth grade work because they had not had opportunities to get that work. In consequence, the lower classes far outnumbered the higher classes and the heaviest enrollment was in the preparatory department, which was really doing seventh and eighth grade work. Each year the students have offered better preparation in their work as the schools of the State have offered better facilities. The preparatory department has long since been dropped, and the few students applying for work formerly done in that department are accommodated in the training school. Each year the number of students asking for high-school work has decreased, and each year the number of high-school graduates enrolled has increased. * It is the policy of the school to relieve itself of all high-school work as rapidly as the advancement of the school facilities of the State will permit and ultimately to * * |