a teacher, so that in discharging your duty in the humbler rôle you may rise to certain ideals of duty in the higher. Are you doing oral work of any kind, demonstrating a Ideals to be kept in mind while in the high school, theorem in geometry, explaining a principle in physics, translating French or Latin, answering a teacher's questions? The thought, of course, takes precedence always. But there are standards of voice, of fulness, completeness and accuracy of expression, of manner of presentation, of aim in satisfying others, which, if kept before you and striven for, will tend to lift your work from the commonplace and make it thus early what it should be later, a means of molding others by the unconscious power of example. Are you doing written work in connection with any subject? Here, too, there are standards of accuracy and finish to be kept in view. There is no better way of keeping your English steadily under review than in close, everyday attention to its details of spelling, syntax, capitalization, punctuation, paragraphing, and the like. An excellent authority goes so far as to say "that the desire to make every word and letter plain consorts naturally with the desire to make the thought plain, and slovenliness in the one begets slovenliness in the other." If this is true of one's handwriting, much more is it likely to be true of details that come still closer to the thought. In the next place, plan to do some of your school work in permanent and attractive form, partly that it may serve as evidence of successful high school work when you apply for admission to the normal school, but chiefly because doing it in such form is inspiring both to yourself and to those that examine it. The teacher more than most people needs to do work in good form because there are so many to be influenced by whatever example he sets. I refer to your laboratory note-books, to your drawing books, to your books of composition or other exercises in English, to articles with or without illustration which you may prepare in connection with any scholarly investigation, to your personal collections of plants, minerals, chemical products and what not, in short, to any evidences of scholarly power or personal skill that are susceptible of presentation to the eye. Permanent and attractive forms of high school work. Finally, if you are fortunate in working under an able and sympathetic principal or other teacher who approves your plan and would like to help you carry it out, you might, under his advice and direction, do many things that come more closely within the range of a teacher's duty and yet are helpful to you as a pupil. There is the correction or supervision of certain school exercises; there is the lending of a helping hand to pupils who need guidance; there is the explanation of matters, from a teacher's standpoint, to a class; and so on. Union of student service with teaching service. Services like these are helpful alike to the teacher and yourself. If you are really "called" to teach, you should discover in yourself a readiness, at least, if not an impelling force or passion, to do some work in the line of your calling before you formally enter upon it. In all your high school work there is a certain push, a certain spirit to make the most of the passing opportunity, a certain intellectual forwardness that is yet consistent with modesty, which I strongly commend to you. It is more than mere conformity to average school requirements; it is responding early to some demands that are sure to be made upon you later when you are in charge of a school, - demands for self-reliance, originality, leadership, and so on. While the evidence of your fitness to receive normal training has to be sought, of course, in your school record, in what may be learned of your personality, and in your scholarly power as seen in your treatment, both oral and written, of a few themes selected from subjects Evidences of fitness. once studied by you, the fitness itself, if it exists, must exist apart from schemes of examination. Therefore do not work merely to meet anticipated questions, but aim always for mastery and power in whatever you do. As between excellence in a narrow field and mediocrity in a broad one, if you must choose between them, choose the former. Study carefully the circular of requirements for admission. It is not intended to ask for more in these requirements than the public schools are required by law to offer. Nevertheless, conditions may require you to supplement the work of the school by work outside. If, for example, the books prescribed for use in English cannot all be Preparatory work outside of school. taken in school, read some of them out of school. There is much, also, of what you did in the grammar school, in geography, arithmetic, and other subjects, for whose review you should hold yourself personally responsible. Review United States history by reading some standard work on the subject. Some practice in self-teaching when other teaching fails you is good for you. The State wants sturdy, self-reliant teachers, that are not easily cast down themselves, to hold pupils up to similar sturdiness and self-reliance. Prepara Perhaps you do not expect to teach long, and so question the wisdom of special preparation. Whether you teach a long time, a short time, or not at all, the training of the normal school is good for the general purposes of education as well as for the specific purposes of teaching. In any event, the need of the schools for trained teachers, whether you recognize it or not, remains constant and urgent. tion for short service. you Local training schools for teachers. It may be that live in a town or city that has a local training school for teachers, and that your only avenue to appointment, if you wish to teach at home, lies through this school. Even if you are indulgently permitted to enter this school directly from the high school, it would nevertheless be better for you to attend a normal school first. One reason for maintaining such schools is doubtless found in the earnestness of school authorities to discover who of numerous applicants for appointment are likely to serve them best. If this is the case you are more likely, other things being equal, to do good work in the local training school if you enter it with previous normal school experience than if you enter it without such experience; and this means for you a greater likelihood of timely appointment as a teacher and for the schools a greater likelihood of satisfactory service from such appointment. Under no circumstances have you a just claim to be employed as a teacher except that which fitness to do the work of a teacher gives you. Other claims than those of fitness no school board has a moral right to respect. If such fitness exists, there is not only room for you — there Fitness the teacher's only claim to consideration. Helpful reading on is a pressing demand for you in the schools of the Commonwealth. Let me commend to you in connection with your student work the reading of one or two helpful books. Todd's "Student's Manual," for example, is rich in suggestions for young people who are ambitious to make the most of themselves during their academic years. It is possible, too, that you might find excellent stimulus in some of the Essays of Emerson, particularly those on the following themes: Power, Culture, Manners, Behavior, Self-Reliance and Spiritual Laws. aims and methods. Although it would be premature for you to enter upon a course of professional reading while in the high school, yet a preliminary glimpse of what is needed in the teacher- - such a view as you might get, for instance, from Page's "Theory and Practice of Teaching"might give you invaluable aid as to the color and tone your high school work should receive from your purpose to become a teacher. Sincerely hoping that your choice of teaching as a profession has been wisely made, I wish you success and joy in the important work of preparing for it. FRANK A. HILL, Secretary. |