Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/47

Rh our teachers. This will be seen most clearly by a comparison with the situation in the German schools. Candidates for positions in German secondary schools must hold certificates for a full course in one of the secondary schools and must have done three years' work in a German university. The doctor's degree is not required, but is held by a large number. Searching examinations are required of all to determine both the preparation for teaching special subjects and also the professional fitness of the candidates. The latter examination includes psychology, philosophy, the history of education and the principles of pedagogy. Three grades of positions are recognized, each with its corresponding examination. These examinations presuppose a more extensive training in the specific subjects than is required of teachers in our high schools. It is obvious that only those with professional as well as specialized training may find a place among the teachers of the German secondary school. But the passing of the examination is not all that is required of a candidate for a gymnasial position. In most parts of Germany he is required to spend two years in further preparation, the seminary year (seminar Jahr), usually in connection with some gymnasium or university, and a trial year (probe Jahr), during which he gives from eight to ten hours of instruction weekly without pay, under the guidance of the director and the department teacher. If he has met the exacting standard required during these two preliminary years of special professional training and experience, and has finally presented a satisfactory thesis of a professional character, he is given a certificate authorizing his appointment to teach in a secondary school.

I have presented these detailed facts regarding the requirements for teaching in the German secondary schools in order to indicate clearly one cause of waste in our own school system. Some cities require of candidates for high-school positions graduation from college and some professional training; the state of California requires for a high-school certificate a college training and one year of professional training. But even the highest requirements do not equal those which are practically universal in Germany, and in most parts of our country the scholastic requirements are low and there is no professional requirement whatever. A large number of our high-school teachers of both sexes enter upon teaching not with the expectation of making it a life work, but because it offers the most convenient means of earning a living until some more attractive opening is offered into the fields of matrimony or business. So long as the requirements for high-school positions are so low we must expect our ranks to be filled by teachers of meager training, and often without serious purpose. While there are a large number of teachers in our schools well trained and professionally expert, it is apparent that the results secured must be far short of what might be expected if our schools were taught by uniformly well trained teachers.

A third source of waste is found in the short tenure of position