Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/70

60 the welfare and progress of the children. To attempt to give, in this article, details as to the methods of securing real practice teaching, and yet conserve the interests of the children, is not practicable. That these objects are attained is evidenced by two facts,—the practice school is popular with the city patrons, and the term of practice work is generally regarded by Oswego graduates as the most valuable in their entire course. It is justly so regarded; for five months of teaching under searching but kindly and constructive criticism may be worth more than years of unaided experience. The critic teachers, while employees of the city Board of Education and responsible to them for the discipline and progress of the city pupils, are chosen and nominated by the State Normal School authorities, and are responsible to them for the normal practice teachers. This arrangement gives opportunity for difficulty and friction; but there has been little serious trouble at Oswego, a fact which speaks volumes for the good sense and tact of all concerned. The executive ability and teaching power required to drill a succession of inexperienced teachers, and during this process to work through these teachers the same or better .discipline and teaching than prevails in the other city schools, can be better imagined than described. Whether the saying, "A teacher is born and not made," is true in all branches of the profession or not, it certainly is true of the critic teachers of a great practice school.

On the second floor of the building are eight recitation rooms, seating from fifty to one hundred students, devoted to mathematics, language, history, etc., and supplied with maps, charts, models, ample blackboards, and abundant light. The reading room and library on this floor have the standard periodicals and well-selected books. The visitor can not forbear the wish that some of the thousands yearly wasted by New York State could be used to increase this library; yet smallness is not an unmixed ill for a school library if the books are the best of their kind, and the limited number secures concentration of attention and thorough acquaintance. The Oswego School Library is supplemented by the City Library, whose volumes are accessible to the normal students.

The Normal Assembly Hall occupies the entire upper portion of the west wing. This wing, although of the same height as the main part of the building, is divided into but two stories above the gymnasium, thus securing extra height of ceiling for the assembly rooms of the practice school below and for the Normal Hall above. This hall is sixty-eight by seventy-six feet, seated for four hundred students, and has a capacity for three hundred additional seats on public occasions; it has large windows on three sides, and plain but tasteful coloring and decoration.

The third floor is the domain of the natural-science department