Page:A history of the Michigan state normal school (now Normal college) at Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1849-1899 (IA historyofmichiga00putniala).pdf/74



jects which are strictly professional. The first course, which is designed to prepare pupils for teaching a primary or common school, will be called the ‘‘Normal Training Course,’’ and will embrace the following topics:

First Term—A Class.

(1) Concrete Arithmetic; Mental and Practical Arithmetic.

(2) Object Lessons in Geography; Synthetical Geography and Map Drawing.

(3) Drawing of Lines; Plane and Solid Geometrical Figures, and Leaf Forms,

(4) Reading, Spelling by Object Lessons, Penmanship; Composition by Object Lessons; Elementary Philosophy.

Second Term—B Class.

(1) Higher Arithmetic; Method of Teaching Arithmetic. (2) Synthetical Grammar; Composition.

(3) Drawing of Fruits, Flowers, and Animals.

(4) Elocution; Vocal Music, with the Method of Teaching it.

Third Term—C Class.

(1) Analytical Grammar, with Method of Teaching.

(2) Physical Geography, with Method of Teaching.

(3) Object Lessons in Common Things, Colors, Geometrical Figures, Botany, Zoology, Properties of Bodies; Lectures on Primary Teaching.

(4) Attendance and Practice in Experimental School,"’

While the course, as laid out, occupied a year and a half, the hope was expressed that many persons would enter with such knowledge of geography, arithmetic and grammar, that they could, at once, take up the professional work, and “‘ finish the entire Training Course in a single term.’? On completing this course the student would receive a certificate to that effect, and no one, leaving the school hereafter without such certificate would be recommended by the Board of Instruction to teach in the common schools of the State. No one would be admitted to the Training Course who did not signify an intention of completing it.

With the change of a few terms and of some forms of expression, it would not be difficult to imagine that the description of this course and its purpose had been recently written to set forth the excellency of methods supposed by many to be entirely new.