girls from the superb teachers they often get in our best high schools and put them under immature and inexperienced assistants and tutors. One distinct advantage that the small college has is just here. I will not insult your intelligence by elaborating that point.

6. Some sorts and degrees of leadership, easily escapable amid large numbers, are forced upon most students in a college. This is one of the greatest advantages of limited numbers. It is of large significance for women, in an age laying increasing obligations upon them for sane and strong leadership.

7. Statistics abundantly show a far larger proportion of graduates of smaller colleges "doing well" than of larger institutions. A Harvard man has recently, in a brilliant paragraph, shown that this is strikingly true of his own college, comparing Harvard the "small college" before 1860, with "Harvard University" since that time. Some of the best men this country has known would probably never have been known but for some small college.

8. The small college can, and does, cultivate a spirit of loyalty to itself, and to its members, that no great institution can by any possibility do. If the older colleges that have become universities still retain it, it is because of what remains of the "small college" still nestling in the heart of the great university.

In the chief city of the Pacific coast effort has several times been made to organize the considerable number of graduates of one strong Eastern University into an alumni association. The effort has as often failed. Loyalty and college spirit are wanting. The men never knew each other or of each other. Several such associations of "small colleges" of the East are vigorous in this same coast city. Men in the great universities may indeed "know as many students, but they do not know them in the same way."

A physician in a city of two hundred thousand people, a man who in that city stands at the head of his profession, said to me a few days ago: "It is the thirtieth anniversary of my college graduation; my college is three thousand miles away; but my patients must seek other help. The college calls to me and I must go." It is the college of which Daniel Webster, pleading his college's case in the Supreme Court, said: "It may be a small college, but there are those who love it." Let us not lose the glorious friendships of our youth, such as go with the best American college spirit. They are among the choicest things in our lives. God pity us, if the mad spirit of commercialism or any other delusion robs us of great life itself! There are few brighter pages of life than the beautiful memories and friendships of our best American Colleges.

Finally this general word: that higher education, which will permanently command respect and allegiance will be found to consist chiefly of the enlargement of life. However "practical" or impatient our age, "getting a living" of whatever sort will not satisfy as a goal or ideal. We may as well understand that there can be no "tendency," looked at in the long and large, that fails to justify itself before the bar of the clearest vision and the sanest judgment of what human life is for. That unique thing, the American college, seems to have an abiding place in ministering to such an ideal.

THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS IN GERMANY

DR. LEOPOLD BAHLSEN, COMMISSIONER OF THE GERMAN SCHOOL EXHIBIT AT THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION1

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all I wish to thank you for the honor you have shown me by inviting me to speak in this magnificent Festival Hall, the universally admired central feature of this glorious World's Fair; and to speak to an audience composed of ladies and gentlemen who are all interested in the important questions regarding the culture and the intellectual progress of the human race-the question of education. I assure you, the government which has sent me here to represent the German school exhibit takes the most active interest in all matters pertaining to the National Educational Association, and its various educational councils and congresses.

The question on which you have kindly invited me to speak to you-the preparation of teachers-is one of the most important among the many questions which you touch upon in your various meetings and congresses, in so far as it is the question of the training of men and women to whom the parents intrust the education of their boys and girls, the future citizens and hope of their country.

The occupation of teaching is a noble, a difficult, a highly responsible one, requiring a vast amount of idealism and a full devotion to the noble cause. And this, I am happy to say, is to be found among American teachers no less than in my own country. It was one of the most impressive pedagogical experiences in my life when I had the opportunity of teaching in the United States, in the Teachers College under the auspices of the Columbia University of New York, whose highly respected president, Professor Nicholas Butler, may be considered an ideal educator, both as a teacher in the university and as a leader in the most difficult problems and questions of public education.

From my experience and observations in this country of rapid progress, I know there is no lack here, as there is none in the old country, of well-educated earnest teachers. Your work is not in vain, and your teaching will take root in the young hearts, and will bear fruit in the later life of those who are to work after us in the great field of education and humanity.

The teacher in our German schools-and I suppose in all well-regulated schools of other countries-must be able to fulfill two requirements: First, he must have the humanitarian qualities necessary for every true teacher, a love for his work, and a genuine interest in the child who is to be intrusted to his care, combined with the moral qualifications without which he could never be the shining example which his pupils have a right to expect him to be, not only in matters of scientific knowledge, but in matters of heart and home.

By request of the author the simplified spellings adopted by the Association are not used in this

paper.-EDITOR

The second requirement is that he shall be thoroughly versed in his line of work; for, while it is quite true that the most highly educated people do not always develop into the best and most successful teachers, yet it is equally true that knowledge should be the first requisite of the teacher, and that nothing weakens his authority or his usefulness so quickly as the realization on the part of his pupils that he is not well versed in that which he is trying to teach them.

I could add a third thought to these requirements, and that would be in regard to the pedagogical skill which to a great extent is a gift of nature, but which is not generally recognized, or appreciated, until the teacher stands before his pupils to fail or to succeed. Even the best-equipped teacher must necessarily pass through a period of practice work before he can safely rely on his ability.

Now as one must recognize the truth that pedagogical skill can be developed to a great extent with due practice, we give our applicants the necessary scientific training first of all.

In Germany we classify the teachers into four groups, according to the schools in which they work and the educational courses which they must take up: (1) teachers of the lower and middle schools; (2) teachers of the higher schools; (3) teachers of technical, art, and manual-training schools; and (4) the professors of the universities.

Those who wish to teach in the technical, manual-training, and art schools must be able to demonstrate their ability in their chosen line, and must have attended institutions in which they could best receive the necessary training. He who wishes to teach in the university must have attended one of the three varieties of higher schools, and then have studied at least three years in some German university; after which he must win the degree of doctor by special examination, and must prove by some printed, literary or scientific, contribution that he is on the road to independent literary effort.

However, what you invited me to speak about is the training required of teachers in the lower, middle, and higher schools of Germany; and in this connection I wish to say that by the lower schools we mean all elementary schools, the public schools (having only one or two classes, as we find them in the German villages) as well as the primary and grammar schools, their courses of study extending through even seven or eight years, as they are arranged by the local authorities of the larger cities.

In these lower schools no foreign language is taught, and in all other branches the aim of the course of study does not differ materially from that of your elementary schools. Coeducation does not exist, except in some of the smaller villages, and in a very few of the higher schools in Baden. In general, lady teachers are employed only in the girls' schools. These girls' schools are also graded as lower, middle, and higher schools; and of late some higher girls' schools include even Latin and Greek. In its main features the training of the male and female teachers for the lower schools is the same. For the

middle schools, in which one foreign language, generally French, is taught, the teacher must, of course, be proficient in this language.

He who wishes to teach in the elementary schools must have attended a normal school-we call it Seminar. No coeducation exists in the German normal schools. He is not qualified to enter such Normal school, or seminary, until he has taken a six-year course in some high school, or (and this is generally the case) has successfully completed the work in some preparatory school, which he can enter from the common schools. No one under the age of eighteen years is admitted to the normal school.

The course of such a Seminar is of three years' duration. Their curriculum embraces a course in German and religion, besides history, geography, Mathematics, elementary geometry, biology, pedagogy, method of teaching, teaching in class, agricultural instruction, French or English, drawing, gymnastics, and music. Most of the seminaries are Protestant schools, but we also have many Catholic seminaries of this kind in Germany, and some schools to which both Protestants and Catholics are admitted.

In Germany there are now about two hundred seminaries for male teachers, and only thirty for female teachers; but for the latter there are also many private and municipal seminaries. One-third of these schools are "internate”—that is, boarding schools; one-third are "externate”—that is, have no dormitories; and one-third are a combination of both systems. The number of pupils seldom exceeds eighty or ninety.

During the third year the pupils have opportunity to do practical work in teaching, in a training department connected with their normal school, and under the direction of an able and experienced teacher. This training department consists sometimes of one, sometimes of two classes. In Berlin this training or practice school, connected with the normal school, is completely graded as a middle school. All the male normal training schools are royal institutions, but to some higher city schools for girls has been given the right to combine a normal training school with their higher grade work. The graduates of such schools must pass examinations given by the state commission.

As a rule, the candidates who take these examinations or graduate from normal schools are twenty years of age. Although they have had opportunity during the last year of their work to do practical teaching under the guidance of experienced instructors, this examination, which is the first they have to take, consists only of written and oral tests.

After the candidates have completed the normal course they may be employed as substitute teachers, as occasion requires; but before they may hold permanent positions they must pass a second examination, and that must be sometime within the following five years. Then they are qualified to hold positions in the primary or grammar schools; or they may, according to their ability, receive a certificate which will entitle them to the possibility of working up to a principalship of a primary and grammar, or intermediate, school.

Now as to the training of the teachers of the high schools in Germany: They must have attended a university, the title of doctor of philosophy being a very agreeable, though not an absolutely necessary, addition to their honors.

The educational course of a future senior teacher (Oberlehrer) in Germany is as follows: He must attend a higher school-Gynasium, Realgymnasium, or Oberrealschule-whose course of study extends over a period of nine years. From that he graduates at about nineteen years of age. Then he attends a university to study philology or mathematics, history or geography, or the various branches of natural science, in connection with philosophy and pedagogics, including psychology and logic. After studying for three or four years in such a university, he may acquire the title of Ph.D., if this be his ambition, by some dissertation and an oral examination, and then he takes the so-called scientific state examination, which every teacher of the higher schools has to pass.

The government appoints an examining commission for each province, the members of this body being partly very prominent schoolmen, and partly professors of the university of that province. Having successfully passed this scientific state examination, the candidate sends his certificate to the royal board of education of the province in which he wishes to be employed as teacher. Then he is appointed to some state or city school, in which he will have ample opportunity to gain experience by practical teaching. A teacher of the ancient languages is, of course, assigned to some college, while one who teaches the modern languages is assigned to a Realgymnasium, and one who teaches mathematics and natural science is assigned to an Oberrealschule. This course of practical schoolroom work takes up two years of his time; during the first of which he attends various classes to listen and learn by the example of the older and more experienced teachers. He receives instruction regarding the matters of discipline, organization, rules, and regulations of school life.

He must write essays on various important pedagogical books, essays on the lessons which he has attended, and must plan and write original programs or outlines of such lessons. In the second year he is allowed to teach, under the direction and criticism of the principal of the school. At the end of the year he receives a certificate, as to his qualifications and ability as a teacher, from his principal. And now, finally, he is ready to be employed as a senior teacher, or Oberlehrer, in one of the higher schools.

The matter of salary is definitely regulated in the state as well as the city schools, and after ten years of active work the teacher is entitled to a pension, a part of which is transferred to his family in case of his death. This rule regarding salary and pension applies to the teachers of higher as well as lower schools, and to male as well as female teachers.

The educational course of some of the teachers in the higher schools includes a sojourn in foreign countries. Those who wish to instruct in the ancient languages are given an opportunity to continue their studies for a year or so in