any such series of fertile devices for the prevention of disgust for the book and of parrot-like habits as those that have proceeded from the prolific brain of Colonel Parker.

All of his energy is directed to prevent spiritual death in the teacher, which ensues upon adopting habits of formal prescription or habits of arresting the activity at any mechanical stage of progress.

To this is due the fact that excellent teachers have proceeded from his training school. They have shown themselves full of resources to create interest among their pupils and secure enthusiastic self-activity. If a book could be filled with an account of all these devices, I believe it would be the best book of all those that have proceeded from the educational reformers. For most of those books have been negative-tearing down the existing pedagogy without offering an equally good system in its place. Colonel Parker, as we all know, is fiercely destructive of what he considers pernicious in school methods, but he is full of help for the novice or the unskillful, bringing both hands heaped up with ingenious devices to awaken interest and furnish enlightenment in those studies where dryness and dullness had prevailed before.

The public school has been much blamed for its discouragement of individualism among pupils. It is claimed that all its products are on the same patternmachine made, like so many pins made by the factory.

I think, however, that the account of themselves given by our citizen soldiers educated at the common school does not show a lack of resources. Nor do our pioneers who go to the mining regions of the borderland compare unfavorably with adventurers from other lands in respect to their ability to govern themselves and overcome obstacles of nature. In fact, the versatility of the American pioneer always attracts attention and praise. See how the school aids in its development. There are two ways of developing individualism. First, there is willfulness and opposition to established authority. Individualism of this kind does not lead to a rational life. It sets itself against the social whole, and society is obliged to crush it for the benefit of the public peace.

The second mode of developing individualism is by gaining power over the community, by learning to understand its motives and purposes, and learning the best means of helping their attainment. He who would be chief among his fellows must be the servant of all-that is to say, the one who aids the whole to its well-being.

In the school the child learns how to understand science and the conquest over nature by mind. He learns to command the service of nature, and this is one part of a healthy individualism. He learns, moreover, to understand human nature by the study of literature and history, for literature is wholly devoted to showing how mere feelings grow to clear ideas and to deeds. Individualism is, therefore, powerfully developed by the good school. It is strange to think of it, but it is true that the large school furnishes a better place for the development of individualism than the small school, for the large school must necessarily have a more carefully devised system of regulations in order to prevent the individual from colliding with the social whole, and the pupil comes to know how to get along without being crushed by his fellows, or, on his part, furnishing stones of offense for others. He has a better opportunity to study the art of combining one's fellow-inen for reasonable purposes.

The child who has attended a good school has learned much of human nature, and, if it has gifts that way, has found means to learn how to govern others. It has acquired directive power. This is really a development of individualism. The frontier settler shows individualism in combating the obstacles of nature, but the boy or girl in the city that learns how to combine fellow-pupils and sway them shows a far higher degree of individualism.

The best thing that can be said of the Quincy movement is that it tends to create a healthy individualism among the pupils of our schools.

Small as it is, the schooling given by our nation to its people, some five years apiece, it suffices to make reading and writing universal, and with them also a limited acquaintance with the rudiments of arithmetic and geography. This is a beginning of eye-mindedness, which will grow throughout life by reason of the fact that everyone in this country becomes a reader of the daily newspaper. This is an important matter, and we can see it if we turn off our attention from the obvious evils of bad newspapers and think on the inevitable good that a newspaper civilization brings with it, for a newspaper civilization is one that governs by public opinion. No great free nation is possible except in a newspaper civilization and with government of public opinion rather than of a police system, for the newspaper creates public opinions and then makes it the ruler. It makes eye-mindedness forever necessary for all citizens. Thus the school suffices to produce a government by public opinion. Every citizen who reads the newspapers spends a portion of each day in contemplating world events and in discussing them. Thus each eye-minded person lives an epic life in the age of newspapers. The school likewise enables the citizen to readjust his vocation in an age when the industries that deal with the production of raw material are needing fewer laborers, and the skilled industries that manufacture these raw materials and transport them from the places where they are not needed to places where they are needed are demanding more laborers. The school enables the workman to learn how to direct a machine to perform his drudgery.

Great is the fanction of the elementary school in our civilization and blessed is he who improves its quality of instruction and brings in more humanity into its discipline and management.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF THE COOK COUNTY AND CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL FROM 1883 TO 1899. a

By FRANCIS W. PARKER.

It may not be out of place for me, at this time, when I sever my connection with the school, to sketch briefly its inner evolution-how it rose from weakness and crudeness, by a zigzag route of experiments, failures, and successes, to the partial realization of a great ideal.

THE FACULTY.

The history of a school is the history of its faculty. The Cook County and Chicago Normal School is no exception to this rule. Dr. John Dewey says: “The school is society shaping itself." The function of the teacher, then, is to make life, society, the State, the nation, what they should be; and the function of a normal school is to train men and women for these duties, which are indeed higher and more important than all others. A normal school should have a much broader scope than the training of teachers; it should be a laboratory, an educational experiment station, whose influence penetrates, permeates, and improves all education and educational thinking. Hence the faculty of a normal school should consist of the very best teachers-best in education, best in culture, best in professional training, and best in experience.

a Reprinted from the Parker memorial number (June, 1902) of The Elementary School Teacher and Course of Study, University of Chicago Press. An explanatory note by the editor of that periodical says: "This account of the normal school was written by Colonel Parker in the summer of 1899, soon after he had left the normal school to become president of the Chicago Institute. It was intended to form a part of the report of the city superintendent of schools. It may be taken as a brief but perhaps the best portrayal of his work in connection with the norinal school that has yet been written. This is the first time it appears in print, this memorial number being thought a fit place for its publication."

It may be frankly admitted that our faculty did not reach this high standard of excellence. The best that can be said is that we fully recognized our immense responsibilities, and strove faithfully and earnestly to meet them. With us a faculty means a body of earnest, devoted students of education, who believe that human progress is coordinate with educational progress, and that human progress depends upon education as its fundamental and intrinsic factor.

Not to understand the history of education and, through it, all that has in the past been done for schools; not to know its reformers, its heroes, who bravely and wisely fought battles for the masses; not to be cognizant of the very important and interesting educational movements of the present day, would have been proof positive of our inability to grapple with the problems of education. But gratefully recognizing the wealth of knowledge, experience, and method which the past has brought, and comparing the achievements of the past with present human necessities and possibilities, it seemed to us true that education as a science was in its swaddling clothes; that genuine educative work in the schoolroom was comparatively meager; that the cause of this inefficiency sprang from the low grade of demands made upon the pupils; that the systematic cultivation of selfishness through bribery by means of rewards and per cents, and the improper stimulation by promotion, were immoral and often rendered nugatory the best efforts of the teacher; that education, as it was, aimed, for the greater part, at the development of verbal memory, with too little regard for the evolution of thought power; that the training of the will was left in abeyance; that the children had little opportunity to choose and execute for themselves; that their reasoning power was not appealed to through the imposition of responsibility; that education was too often mental and moral starvation; that the needs of the body were neglected; that the mind content was sacrificed for vague word images; that the moral power was not strengthened as it should be, owing to the lack of proper opportunity for moral action; that the common schools were not adequate to the demands of selfgovernment; that vast sums of money and much toil and drudgery were being expended for schools, with very scanty results; in short, that education left much to be desired, and that by the proper means it could be infinitely improved. This arraignment applied generally, though there were, it is true, many bright spots all over our land. Thousands of teachers were earnestly and honestly searching for that which would make education more rational and effective. We went to work with enthusiasm and earnestness, determined to solve some of the immediate and pressing questions of school economy. Once a week, for two or three hours, we met to discuss questions that were forced upon us by our daily teaching and training. Every teacher was required to explain his teaching and give reasons for it. He was also required to criticise all the instruction and plans of order that came within his observation. He was asked to present suggestions, new plans, and devices which, in his opinion, would improve the school. When the printing establishment became available, each teacher made out a syllabus, which was printed and distributed for study and discussion at the faculty meetings. The regular faculty meeting was by no means the only meeting. The heads of departments held many conferences, and the grade teachers had their meetings to discuss questions of daily work.

Each teacher was expected to penetrate and permeate the whole faculty and the whole school with the intrinsic value of his subject and its relations to all other subjects, and to discover in what manner his specialty might enhance the value of the rest of the work. Our aim was to establish perfect unity of action, consistent with the greatest personal liberty, recognizing that personal liberty is the one means of making the individual of worth to the mass. There was much friction and earnest and prolonged struggles, which were reconciled in the outcome

by oneness of purpose. Constant change, elimination, innovation, experiment, tentative conclusions-this was the manner of progress.

The teacher of teachers should be a great teacher in every sense of the word. He should be an earnest, devoted, open-minded student of education, with unbounded faith in possibilities; a person of marked wisdom, ready to abandon the useless and to adopt the useful; one not chained by prejudice or controlled by caprice; a person who "inherits the earth" through meekness and willingness to listen and understand, and who has, at the same time, the firmness and courage to withstand wrong public opinion and personal influence. The one thing, above all, by which the teacher of teachers exerts a powerful influence is the spirit in which he works. If he betrays a genuine hunger and thirst after righteousness, if he shows meekness and open mindedness and an overmastering love for children and all mankind, then his spirit passes over to the students and inspires them to do the best work of which they are capable.

Actual teaching is the culmination of the teacher's profession, but it is by no means the main or the most difficult part of the work. Finding and arranging subject-matter for the mental nutrition of every pupil and for all grades of pupils is the problem of problems. Old as most subjects are, the subject-matter of the fundamental thought-nourishing studies is quite new. Physiography, geology, biology, and other subjects of nature study present almost entirely new phases in the field of learning. Nearly all the eminent discoveries in the realm of science belong to the second half of this century; indeed, most of their inventors are still living, and some of them are comparatively young.

Knowledge in itself is one thing, and knowledge pedagogically arranged is quite another. The adaptation of both to the learning mind comes within the broad range of the teacher's art. An efficient normal school teacher not only discovers and arranges the facts of his subject for his immediate students, but for the city, the county, the State, and the nation. He must be a close student of his subject and be familiar with all the latest discoveries in his field. He must, to a certain and reasonable extent, verify his facts and then adapt them by a continued and continuous study of the children.

If a normal school teacher is burdened with many recitations, if he is obliged to teach various subjects, his energy is overtaxed, his time for study and research is lessened, and his work is weakened in every direction. As a result of overpressure he loses freshness, vigor, and enthusiasm. These facts are presented in order to explain that as a faculty we were too often restricted in our efforts by overwork and by the struggle to expend energy in teaching for which, in the very nature of the case, we could not be adequately prepared. As the work of the school progressed this difficulty was in some degree overcome. It is not easy to convince even an intelligent school board that the number of hours a teacher spends in the schoolroom is by no means the measure of his work.

This is a very brief and imperfect sketch of the duties and functions of our faculty as they presented themselves year after year of transformation "in the newness of light. Some of the faculty passed over, some left the school to assume other duties, while new ones came in to reenforce us. In June, 1899, there were two who were members of the faculty January 1, 1883. One of them had been a teacher in the Cook County Normal School six years when I took charge of the institution. I have never known a faculty so devoted, so earnest, and so selfsacrificing. I trust that some day its history may be written and published under the auspices of the alumni. In such a volume would be found the life record of some of the heroes and heroines of education.

The foregoing. I trust, has prepared the way for a description of our work.

THE PRACTICE SCHOOL.

Without the practice school we could not have taken one practical, efficient step in the education and training of teachers. To the faculty the practice school furnished an indispensable means of close and careful study and investigation. Unapplied theories-and the world is full of them-are of little use. They float peacefully in the upper air, a sweet consolation to unpractical souls. Faith without works is dead." We decided that every well worked-out theory which met with general approval must have its final test in the schoolroom. In discussion each teacher's opinion had the corrective check and criticism of every other teacher. No plan or theory entered the practice school in slipshod fashion. The whole faculty watched with critical eyes every new movement, and fresh discussions followed. In this way the faculty concentrated all their efforts upon the care, treatment, training, and teaching of children.

Most members of the professional training class had had during twelve, sixteen, or more years little or no practical use for the knowledge they had acquired. Knowledge to them had meant passing examinations-gaining per cents and promotions. The stimulus of definite purpose, a feeling of the intrinsic function of knowledge, rarely had been theirs. Moreover, a large majority of the students were soon convinced by experience that their stock of knowledge was exceedingly scant for use in teaching, and that their skill also was far below the demands of their pupils. In the practice room they were brought face to face with the problems of teaching. Learning now had for them a very practical use. A hunger for righteousness was created, and this became the special teacher's opportunity. The students, under the pressure of a genuine demand, began to study as never before.

It is needless to say that the more a student knows and the stronger his power to study the better he is prepared to learn the art of teaching. We met, however, in a prescribed one year's course, not a theory, but a condition. The best way to meet that limitation was to set the students to work in the practice school, under the most favorable circumstances.

The practice school has one very important function. It is, if efficient, an influential object lesson for the teachers of the city and the county, and for the parents and the public in general. It proves that there is a science of education and an art of teaching, and that that science and that art mean everlasting progress, mean economy of personal energy; it proves that knowledge and skill are means for the development of character. Under present circumstances it is not possible for other schools to do the work of a properly managed practice school. The practice school is the real center and core of a normal school. It requires the most careful attention and study on the part of the entire faculty. I maintain that our practice school was a far better school for children than schools in general. The preeminent advantage of a good practice school is the individual attention and teaching made possible for all pupils.

On January 1, 1883, the practice school consisted of two rooms and one regular teacher. One room was managed and taught in turn by the special teachers. There was no appropriation for this department. Later, District No. 10 made the practice school one of the regular schools and paid the county $1.25 per month for each pupil on the roll of average attendance. The income from this was not enough to support an efficient school.

We found that the position of practice (critic) teacher is in many ways more difficult to fill than that of special teacher or even that of department head. The practice teacher must teach and criticise as the students practice month by month in her room; she must see that the practice teaching is a genuine reenforcement of her own work-that the largest amount of good is done. The subject-matter pre