Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/385

 COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 379

Prom this point of view, therefore, the work of a college depart- ment of education will be the training of teachers to fit into this existent school situation. Such training will linger long on such courses as the « Principles of Education, "Methods, "Child Study," and the like; with, if possible, some practise work in the school system. In all of this the eflfort will be made, in very sympathetic ways, to help the pro- spective teacher realize the conditions of school-room procedure, and the appropriate ways of doing things under all circumstances. A course in the history of education may be offered, or required, but, if so, its function will be largely informational. So, also, courses in th& social aspects of education or theory of vocational education, and the like, may be offered; but these will be for the purpose of making sure that the prospective teacher knows what is going on, and is properly fortified with arguments against the educational fallacies of the age.

In it all there will be little, if anything, deliberately intended to stir the native hue of intelligent resolution in the prospective teacher and make him feel his own creative and constructive responsibility in the educational tasks of his community. The argument will even be advanced that children must have a larger freedom of opportunity and initiative in education to-day; that the school must learn how to offer this greater freedom; and that therefore the teacher must have a more complete training. But the training must be of this "safe and sane" sort: it must acquaint him with assured results, so that he will fit into the institution.

Or, if there be some work offered in the field of experimental edu- cation, it partakes largely of the nature of the alchemy of the middle ages. It is pseudo-scientific. It looks for curious facts. Assuredly, it is not for the purpose of stimulating such a spirit of intelligent in- quiry as might make the student independent of the teacher — a free citizen of the realm of science.

That is to say, the whole effort of departments of education organized from this point of view is traditional, rather than scientific. Their spirit is really that of the old time normal school — ^wherein teachers learned how work was to be done: the knowledge was existent; the student " took it on."

But what is the real spirit of science ? Whatever else it may be for other departments or in other fields of life, in the field of the training of teachers, science can mean but one thing: the development in the prospective teacher of the spirit of inquiry and the method of the in- vestigator. This will involve the growth of knowledge, of course; but it will be knowledge, not as an esthetic possession, but as a tool of analysis of the community's life and need. It means not mental cer- tainty and satisfaction, but mental alertness and the open mind.

Is it possible to organize a program for a college department of

�� �