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THE
EDINBORO
QUARTERLY
Yol. Ill
September, 1916 No. 4
lE&mbnrn Q^uart^rlg
EDINBORO QUARTEIRLY is Usued in December, March, June, and September
by the Eidinboro State Normal School. The March number constitutes the Alumni
Register, the June number, the Catalog. The other two numbers are filled with announce
he
T
ments and general news matter.
"Elntered as second-class matter, December 11, 1913, at the postoffice at Eldinboro, Penn
sylvania, under the Act of August 24, 1912.
N obedience to the order of the
State Board of Health, the open
ing of the Edinboro State Normal
School has been postponed until
Monday, September 18
I
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I F L. LaBounty
Minimum Essentials in Capitalization and Punctuation.......■{ R. P. Anderson
I Ellene M. Sullivan
The Normal School Situation
F. E. Baker
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
THE FACULTY
1916-17
FRANK E. BAKER, PRINCIPAL ^
Education
A. B., Allegheny: A. M., Harvard
WILLIAM G. SIDDELL, VICE-PRINCIPAL ^
Mathematics
A. B., Syracuse: A. M., Clark
^__ ^NNIE L. WILSON 0
Librarian
Edinboro Normal School: Western Reserve Library Board
MARY ELIZABETH POWELL X
Art
Clarion Normal School; Valparaiso University:
Harvard Summer School
H. SACKETT ^
History and Mathematics
A. B. and A. M., Washington and Jefferson
OLIVIA J. THOMAS X
Music
A. B., Thiel: Dana Institute: Chautauqua Summer School:
pupil of Madame von Klenner
•^WALLACE J. SNYDER H
Sc. B., Bucknell
GEORGE B. FROST X.
Manual Training
Alden Academy
DAVID STANCLIFF ^
Science and Common Branches
Edinboro Normal: Leland Stanford
JANET GILLESPIE
•
Critic Teacher, first and second grades
Edinboro Normal School: Teachers’ College Summer School:
Ypsilanti Normal Summer School
MAUDE HOWARD
Critic Teacher, fifth and sixth grades
Edinboro Normal School: Teachers’ College Summer School:
Ypsilanti Normal Summer School
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
FRANCES BURCHFIELD
Critic Teacher, third and fourth grades
Edinboro Normal School; Teachers’ College Summer School;
Ypsilanti Normal Summer School
RUBY ANDERSON
Critic Teacher, seventh and eighth grades
Edinboro Normal School
HOWARD H. DENISON
Principal High School Department
A. a., Allegheny College.
FLORENCE FOWLER BAKER
Household Arts
Miss Cook’s School of Domestic Science, New York; New York
Library School
!/■ ELLENE M. SULLIVAN
Ehglish
Edinboro Normal School; Emerson College
FRANCIS L. LaBOUNTY
English
A. B. and A. M., Allegheny
i/WERA SCHUELLER
German and French
Hoehere Maedchenschule, Pirna, Saxony
STUART D. GRAHAM
Physical Training and Athletics
Edinboro Normal School; Springfield Y. M. C. A. Training
School; Harvard Summer School
j^EATRICE MILLER SHERWOOD >
^
Piano
Ohio Wesleyan Conservatory of Music
MRS. M. A. LOCKARD X
Matron and Nurse
ADA EVELYN JONES
Supervisor, Training School; Primary Methods
Auburn Training School; Teachers’ College
Y LUCY A. WARBURTON X
Psychology and Principles of Education
B. S., Teachers’ College
Y/MAUDE H. GAECKLER ^
'
Latin and English
A. B. and A. M., University of Nebraska; Ph. D., Yale
It Y
6
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
• Poetry, music, and painting
are fine arts.
3. When words connected by a con
junction follow in successive pairs, a
comma should be inserted after each
pair.
Sink or swim, live or die, sur
vive or perish, I am for the
Declaration.
4. A noun, a phrase, or a clause in
apposition, unless it is closely connected
with the word it modifies, should be
set off by commas.
Paul, the Apostle of the Gen
tiles, preached at Athens.
5. A relative clause, when it is not
restrictive, is separated by a comma
from the noun or pronoun whose mean
ing it modifies.
Restrictive—I will tell it to the
man that is at the gate.
Non-restrictive—I will tell it
to my father, who is waiting.
6 Appositive
and introductory
phrases and clauses and adverbial
phrases out of their natural order are
set off by commas.
General Wolf, wounded and dy
ing, learned of his great
victory.
If he come soon, 1 shall be glad.
' 7. A quotation is set off from the
rest of the sentence by a comma or
commas, unless it is formally intro
duced.
Beware the man who says, “I
am on the eve of a dis
covery.”
8. The omission of words is indi
cated by a comma.
To err is human; to forgive,
divine.
August 1, 1916. John Doe,
Edinboro, Pa.-.
Rules for the Semi-colon
1. The clauses of a compound sen
tence, when they are themselves sub
divided by commas, are separated by
semi-colons.
Having detained you so long al
ready, I shall not trespass
longer on your patience ; be
fore concluding I wish to
make this statement.
2. When a quotation or an illustra
tion is introduced by as or namely, a
semi-colon should be placed before the
introductory word, and a comma after
it.
An island is a portion of land
surrounded by water; as,
Australia, Iceland.
Rule for fhe colon
“A quotation or an enumeration of
particulars, when formally introduced,
is preceded by a colon.
Emerson says this: ‘‘The
plague of society is egotists.”
Rule for the period
1. The period should be used at the
end of a complete declarative or im
perative sentence, after initials, usually
after abbreviations, to separate hours
from minutes, whole numbers from
decimal fractions, after Arabic numer
als used to number a list of subjects,
after side heads at the beginning of
paragraphs, after titles when followed
by the ame of the author.
Rule for the Interrogation Point
1. An interrogative word, phrase, or
sentence should be followed by an in
terrogation point.
Where did you see him? In the
house? When?
Rule for the Exclamation Point
1. An exclamation point should be
placed after every exclamatory word,
phrase, or clause.
Stand! The ground’s your
own, my braves!
Rule for the Dash ,
The dash is used when a sentence
breaks off abruptly, when there is a
sudden change in the subject, and
sometimes before words used to explain
the meaning of preceding words.
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
7
THE NORMAL SCHOOL SITUATION IN
PENNSYLVANIA
[Read by F. E. Baker before the Conference of Superintendents and Principals of Western Pennsylvania
and Eastern Ohio,]
“You cannot make any improvement in this
world without overriding the satisfaction that
men have in things as they are and of which
they are a contented and successful part.“
The Pennsylvania State Normal
Schools were all established under the
Normal School Act of 1857. Those
legislators who voted for this act prob
ably did so, in most cases at least,
without any idea that the state was
assuming any responsibility for the
financial support of the schools. Had
some of them realized that the state
was creating an educational agency for
the support of which the state would
later be called upon to assume respon
sibility, even in part, they most likely
would not have favored the act.
The law was taken advantage of by
the trustees and backers of certain de
clining academies to create a new field
for their respective schools. If the de
mand for purely secondary education
was not sufficient to fill the halls of
their schools, it was hoped that the
growing demand for teachers and the
prestige growing out of their statebacked diplomas would regain lost
patronage.
The schools were founded to train
teachers professionally. They were di
verted from this central aim, in part
at least, from the very beginning. It
was early seen that teachers, even of
the common schools, should have had
the cultural and disciplinary training
derived from some of the so-called
academic studies. (I use academic
here as pertaining to a high school).
At that time there were few public
high schools in the state; there was a
goodly number of academies, but they
were not free and were not ad'equate,
either in equipment or numbers, to
supply the demand for academic educa
tion. As a result, the normal schools
were forced to function both as high
schools and as teacher training schools.
For a period of forty years they were,
both from the standpoint of curriculum
and spirit, at least three-fourths acad
emic and not more than one-fourth
professional.
That this period in the development
of Pennsylvania Normal Schools should
have continued so long was due en
tirely to the fact that this state was
slow, much slower than the New Eng
land and the other middle states, in de
veloping high schools.
Up to the adoption of the Township
High School Law in 1890, the state
had done nothing to encourage high
schoo's, and not until the adoption of
the act of June, 1895, did high schools
receive general encouragement and
financial assistance from the state.
Since 1890, and especially since the
adoption of the act providing state in
spectors of high schools, secondary
schools have multiplied and improved
rapidly. There are now few communi
ties in the state that do not have high
school facilities of some kind. Many
of the nigh schools are poor, some of
them offering only two year courses;
nevertheless, it is possible for nearly
every boy and girl in the state to get.
8
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
some sort of high school training with
out going far from home.
This development of high schools has
made a large part of the academic work
done in normal schools not only un
necessary, but actual waste, for al) un
necessary educational duplication is
waste. The normal schools still cling
to their prerogatives as secondary
schools and they are not to be blamed
for holding to a work which they were
originally forced to do, and, in the do
ing of which, they performed a great
service. The end of the work of the
normal school is the public welfare;
the end of its work is not to train
teachers to teach arithmetic, grammar,
history, geography; it is not to train
teachers for rural schools, for city
schools, for the primary grades or for
the grammar grades; it is not to train
teachers to' make a living, and become
successful: it is not to increase attend
ance, extend influence, or erect build
ings—the end of all its work must be
the public welfare.
The school system of Pennsylvania
is, in my mind, in a period of transi
tion, and the normal schools can per
form a great service for the public wel
fare by helping to bring about this
transition as rapidly as possible.
Normal schools are a public utility,
and as such must not only adapt them1 selves to changing conditons, but must
be dynamic forces in inaugurating and
directing desirable educational changes.
If the duplication of academic work
in the high schools and in the normal
schools is an educational waste and a
barrier to educational efficiency, it is
the duty of the normal schools, in the
name of the public welfare, to stop this
duplication as soon as possible. In my
opinion the normal schools of this state
can perform a great educational ser
vice by so adjusting their courses of
study as to bring about a better co-or
dination of their work with the work
now being done in the high schools.
To that end, they should adopt as soon
as possible a two-year course of study,
based on the completion of four years
of academic work in the high schools
of the state.
In doing this, they will serve the
public welfare in two ways; first, by
devoting themselves more exclusively
to professional training; second, by
holding out to the smaller communities
an incentive to develop and raise the
standard of their high schools.
There are two great difficulties in the
way of the normal school in attempt
ing to adjust itself to these new condi
tions and place itself in a position to
co-operate with other educational
agencies: first, lack of financial sup
port; second, the present undifferen
tiated, inflexible course of study.
I have found that the average intelli
gent citizen of Pennsylvania, even the
average educator, feels that this state
has done fairly well toward its
normal schools. I know that in my
work at Edinboro, I have been greatly
handicapped by lack of finances. I
started in to build up the Edin
boro State Normal School through
good teaching. Good teaching can only
be had through good teachers and good
teaching conditions. Under good teach
ing conditions I do not include impos
ing buildings; I do include good
equipment, small classes, and a suffi
ciently small number of classes for
each teacher to make efficiency possible.
The state now pays the normal
schools one dollar and fifty cents a
week, or sixty dollars a year for each
student over seventeen years of age,
enrolled in the Norma' Department.
This, together with the tuition paid by
students under seventeen, is the sole
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
source of revennue for the support of
teaching. Under teaching, we must
include teachers’ salaries, training
school expenses, library books, lec
tures, printing and educational sup
plies.
Sixty dollars a year per student will
not pay for good teaching. Every year I
find it difficult or impossible to keep a
good teacher on account of inability to
pay adequate salaries. We have spent
during my five years at Edinboro,
seven or eight thousand dollars for
educational equipment and yet 1 am
compelled, even now, to blush when I
compare our equipment with that of
almost any city high school. I have
tried to limit the size of our classes,
and yet I am compelled every term to
assign teachers to classes that are far
too large for efficient work. Every one
of our teachers has thirty class recita
tions a week;
no city high
school requires more than twenty-five,
and the best only twenty.
In addition to the tuition fees, the
state pays each normal the lump sum
of $10,000, for maintenance. Heat,
light, fuel, power and power plant
wages alone cost us $7,600 a year.
To test the correctness of the aver
age man’s opinion of the support ac
corded Pennsylvania Normals, I col
lected statistics of the per capita
expenditure for the Normal School
students in Pennsylvania and in thirtyone other states. These states were
not chosen because they contrast un
favorably with Pennsylvania. All
states were taken which have developed
normals to any extent. The results
were obtained by dividing the total
amount spent by the state for normal
schools in the years 1912, 1913 and 1914
by the total number of students en
rolled in the normal schools of that
state during each of the years men
9
tioned. In Pennsylvania, all special
students were excluded.
The results are somewhat startling.
The three year average expenditure of
the thirty-one states is $16l46 the
student. The three year average for
Pennsylvania is $65.19. In order of
average per capita expenditure, Penn
sylvania ranks thirtieth. Only two,
Alabama and Indiana have a lower
average. Indiana has only one normal
school. In its total enrollment as
given in the reports of the Commis
sioner of Education, there is included a
large summer term attendance. In the
Pennsylvania reports, no summer term
students are included.
An investigation of the amount the
state is spending on its normal schools
leads naturally to an investigation of
what return it is getting, or has gotten.
This is a hard thing to determine, for
let it be rsmembered that for a period
of thirty years these schools functioned
as both normals and high schools. All
over the state, judges, lawyers, doctors,
ministers and business men received
their academic training in these schools.
The only part of the service rendered
the state that can be measured at all is
that rendered in preparing teachers
and ♦he amount of service these teach
ers have given. I have no access to
the records in the other normal schools
and the records at Edinboro, on account
of wars, changes of principals, etc.,
have been poorly kept. Probably any
other of the thirteen schools can give a
more complete and more valuable re
port on this point than can Edinboro.
Up to June 1915, the records show
that the Edinboro Normal School sent
out 2343 graduates. Of 678 we have no
records of teaching service. This
number includes the deceased and a
very large number who have not re
ported. The remaining 1665 were
10
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
divided into two classes, those whose
service was ended and those still serv
ing. Of the 78 still serving, 76 had
served only one year (this inluded 44
graduates of the previous year); 109,
two years; 81, three, years; 82, four
years; 63, five years; 44, six years;
25, seven years ,etc. One had served
39 years; one 38 years; two, 37 years;
two, 36 years; two, 36 years; three,
34 years, etc. The average for those
still serving was 7.84 years. If the rec- .
ords of these 708 could be obtained after
the period of service for all was
finished it would, no doubt, be increased
several years.
At first thought, it will seem strange
that the average period for those whose
service was ended is 'ess than the aver
age for the 708 still teaching. But, it is
to be remembered that this class in
cludes those who used the normal as a
preparatory or finishing school, and
teaching as a stepping stone.
Of the 967 in this class, 66 did not
teach at all. This means that only 66
out of 1665, or 4 per cent, rendered no
professional return to the state. Again
there are some notably long periods of
service. One taught 44 years; two 40
years ; two. 39 years ; one 38 years ; one
37 years, etc. The average period for
this class was only 5.34years. The av
erage period for the 1666 graduates
whose records we have, including both
classes, was 6.47 years. When the
service of all is completed this average
will be considerably increased.
This is a record of no small service.
If the average period of service for all
public school teachers is three and onehalf years, then from the average grad
uate of the Edinboro State Normal the
state will receive considerably more
than three years of service above the av
erage. When it is considered that a
teacher seldom becomes a master until
after three years of experience, this
service to the state is not small.
The origin and antecedents of the
present four year course of study for
normal schools are not hard to find.
From 1900 to 1912 the normal schools
worked under the three-year course,
which required one year of Algebra, one
year of plane geometry, one-third
year each of solid geometry, trigo
nometry and surveying, 3 orations of
Gieero, 3 books of Vergil, 28 weeks of
physics, 28 weeks of chemistry, etc.In academic work the normal gradu^
ate under this course could not get
equal standing with the graduates of
first class high schools. As the high
schools multiplied the contrast became
more invidious, hence the demand for
a course that put the normal graduate
on an equal footing academically with
the high school graduate.
A course was drawn up containing
four years of academic work, then two
years of professional work were
crowded in. There were still many
people having access to four year high
schools who did not care to devote six
years to the high school and the normal
course, hence the entrance requirements
were placed exactly on a par with those
of the high school, the completion of
the eighth grade. But there were some
who would complete the high school
before entering the normal. These
were admitted to the junior year condi
tioned in those professinal and voca
tional subjects of the freshman and
sophomore years not given in the high
school. Hence the normal course be
came a bag open at the bottom to catch
grammar school graduates and, in the
middle to catch high school graduates,
and turned all out at the top with the
same diploma. Graduates of second
class high schools were admitted to the
sophomore year allowing only one year’s
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
credit for the three or four year’s
work done in these schools, while grad
uates of third class high schools were
to enter freshman, allowing them no
credit whatever for their high school
work.
Now several difficulties arose. The
high schools objected to the repetition
of academic work in the normals. Furter, if students were required to re
peat the academic work and make up
school management, sophomore meth
ods, drawing, vocal music, grammar,
arithmetic, etc., the junior year be
came impossiible on account of crowd
ing.
In November, 1914 a resolution was
adopted by the Board of Principals,
allowing credit for all work done in
first, class high schools. But, this gives
rise to another difficulty. The junior
year, minus all or most of its academic
work,becomes spineless ; it does not con
tain a year’s solid work. And this diffi
culty is not remedied by requiring these
students to make up the back work of
the freshman and sophomore years, for
this back work is not the kind of work
that high school graduates shou Id have.
The junior year simply does not fit
graduates of first class high schools
and cannot be . ade to do so.
I have stated the greatest difficulties
in the normal school problem as I see
it. What is the remedy? I don’t know,
but I do know that the first thing the
normals should do is to take the public
into their confidence. I believe our first
step is to state frankly our difficul
ties, our weakneses, our faults, not be
littling the service we have rendered.
I believe that a survey of Pennylvania
Normals should be made by the State
Board of Education and the Depart
ment of Public Instruction, co-operat
ing with the Board of Principals, and
that this survey should be used as a
II
basis of a complete reorganization of
our administration, our methods, our
course of study, etc.
We need to adopt a two year course
of study based on the completion of a
first class high school course; a course
of study so differentiated or grouped
that it will allow students to prepare
definitely for the primary grades, the
grammar grades, or for rural schools.
But, let us guard against running into
the path that has been followed by the
normal schools in some of th e other
states, which have a two year course
of study devoted exclusively to profes
sional work. The work of the normal
school must not be devitalized by re
moving all academic studies from its
course of study. The normal school
should offer academic courses, but these
courses should be of college grade
rather than of high school grade.
In order that we may do this, help
us to secure such financial support as
will enable us to become real public
utilities, serving the educational needs
of the state, not commercialized insti
tutions seeking patronage. Help us to
give up circus advertising, cut-throat
competition, carpet bag soliciting, and
undignified pandering to those who are
looking for a short cut to a diploma.
Give us sufficient financial support so
that we may be independent of num
bers and devote ourselves singly to pro
fessional training of students who are
in some degree qualified, both by per
sonality and because of preference for
the great work of teaching; instead of
devoting part of our energies to those
whose personalities are so mean that
they should be told to take up some
work that requires skill of hand only
and not breadth of heart and depth of
sympathy, and another part to
those who have taken up the nor
mal course
simply as a cheap
12
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
method of getting
an educa
tion. We have fifty students at Edinboro now who have no business to try
to teach, and who when they get a li
cense, will be a professional liability to
the state rather than an asset. Why
do I keep them? I have to keep them
to keep the school alive. This number
of the same kind of students can be
equaled, doubled, trebled, or quadrupled
by every other school in the state.
Make us independent of numbers so
that each school may be content to take
as many students as it can accommodate
well and no more. There are schools
in the state that have senior classes of
three hundred and four hundred and that
do not have training school facilities
adequate to give more than one hundred
seniors the modest amount of practice
teaching required by law.
Tbe duplication of special depart
ments in tbe various normal schools is
great waste. Let us hope that the
State Board of Education will some day
eliminate this waste by designating
certain schools to do special lines of
work.
I appeal to you as educators to help
us in this great field of educational
co-operation. Help us to work not for
victory, but for public service. Help
us to work out a state policy for normal
schools.
At present the normal schools have
no state policy, either educational or
financial. It is each school for itself
and tbe devil take the hind-most.
Henrv P- Miller pianos are used in the Edinboro State Normal School
EDINBORO
QUARTERLY
Yol. Ill
September, 1916 No. 4
lE&mbnrn Q^uart^rlg
EDINBORO QUARTEIRLY is Usued in December, March, June, and September
by the Eidinboro State Normal School. The March number constitutes the Alumni
Register, the June number, the Catalog. The other two numbers are filled with announce
he
T
ments and general news matter.
"Elntered as second-class matter, December 11, 1913, at the postoffice at Eldinboro, Penn
sylvania, under the Act of August 24, 1912.
N obedience to the order of the
State Board of Health, the open
ing of the Edinboro State Normal
School has been postponed until
Monday, September 18
I
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I F L. LaBounty
Minimum Essentials in Capitalization and Punctuation.......■{ R. P. Anderson
I Ellene M. Sullivan
The Normal School Situation
F. E. Baker
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
THE FACULTY
1916-17
FRANK E. BAKER, PRINCIPAL ^
Education
A. B., Allegheny: A. M., Harvard
WILLIAM G. SIDDELL, VICE-PRINCIPAL ^
Mathematics
A. B., Syracuse: A. M., Clark
^__ ^NNIE L. WILSON 0
Librarian
Edinboro Normal School: Western Reserve Library Board
MARY ELIZABETH POWELL X
Art
Clarion Normal School; Valparaiso University:
Harvard Summer School
H. SACKETT ^
History and Mathematics
A. B. and A. M., Washington and Jefferson
OLIVIA J. THOMAS X
Music
A. B., Thiel: Dana Institute: Chautauqua Summer School:
pupil of Madame von Klenner
•^WALLACE J. SNYDER H
Sc. B., Bucknell
GEORGE B. FROST X.
Manual Training
Alden Academy
DAVID STANCLIFF ^
Science and Common Branches
Edinboro Normal: Leland Stanford
JANET GILLESPIE
•
Critic Teacher, first and second grades
Edinboro Normal School: Teachers’ College Summer School:
Ypsilanti Normal Summer School
MAUDE HOWARD
Critic Teacher, fifth and sixth grades
Edinboro Normal School: Teachers’ College Summer School:
Ypsilanti Normal Summer School
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
FRANCES BURCHFIELD
Critic Teacher, third and fourth grades
Edinboro Normal School; Teachers’ College Summer School;
Ypsilanti Normal Summer School
RUBY ANDERSON
Critic Teacher, seventh and eighth grades
Edinboro Normal School
HOWARD H. DENISON
Principal High School Department
A. a., Allegheny College.
FLORENCE FOWLER BAKER
Household Arts
Miss Cook’s School of Domestic Science, New York; New York
Library School
!/■ ELLENE M. SULLIVAN
Ehglish
Edinboro Normal School; Emerson College
FRANCIS L. LaBOUNTY
English
A. B. and A. M., Allegheny
i/WERA SCHUELLER
German and French
Hoehere Maedchenschule, Pirna, Saxony
STUART D. GRAHAM
Physical Training and Athletics
Edinboro Normal School; Springfield Y. M. C. A. Training
School; Harvard Summer School
j^EATRICE MILLER SHERWOOD >
^
Piano
Ohio Wesleyan Conservatory of Music
MRS. M. A. LOCKARD X
Matron and Nurse
ADA EVELYN JONES
Supervisor, Training School; Primary Methods
Auburn Training School; Teachers’ College
Y LUCY A. WARBURTON X
Psychology and Principles of Education
B. S., Teachers’ College
Y/MAUDE H. GAECKLER ^
'
Latin and English
A. B. and A. M., University of Nebraska; Ph. D., Yale
It Y
6
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
• Poetry, music, and painting
are fine arts.
3. When words connected by a con
junction follow in successive pairs, a
comma should be inserted after each
pair.
Sink or swim, live or die, sur
vive or perish, I am for the
Declaration.
4. A noun, a phrase, or a clause in
apposition, unless it is closely connected
with the word it modifies, should be
set off by commas.
Paul, the Apostle of the Gen
tiles, preached at Athens.
5. A relative clause, when it is not
restrictive, is separated by a comma
from the noun or pronoun whose mean
ing it modifies.
Restrictive—I will tell it to the
man that is at the gate.
Non-restrictive—I will tell it
to my father, who is waiting.
6 Appositive
and introductory
phrases and clauses and adverbial
phrases out of their natural order are
set off by commas.
General Wolf, wounded and dy
ing, learned of his great
victory.
If he come soon, 1 shall be glad.
' 7. A quotation is set off from the
rest of the sentence by a comma or
commas, unless it is formally intro
duced.
Beware the man who says, “I
am on the eve of a dis
covery.”
8. The omission of words is indi
cated by a comma.
To err is human; to forgive,
divine.
August 1, 1916. John Doe,
Edinboro, Pa.-.
Rules for the Semi-colon
1. The clauses of a compound sen
tence, when they are themselves sub
divided by commas, are separated by
semi-colons.
Having detained you so long al
ready, I shall not trespass
longer on your patience ; be
fore concluding I wish to
make this statement.
2. When a quotation or an illustra
tion is introduced by as or namely, a
semi-colon should be placed before the
introductory word, and a comma after
it.
An island is a portion of land
surrounded by water; as,
Australia, Iceland.
Rule for fhe colon
“A quotation or an enumeration of
particulars, when formally introduced,
is preceded by a colon.
Emerson says this: ‘‘The
plague of society is egotists.”
Rule for the period
1. The period should be used at the
end of a complete declarative or im
perative sentence, after initials, usually
after abbreviations, to separate hours
from minutes, whole numbers from
decimal fractions, after Arabic numer
als used to number a list of subjects,
after side heads at the beginning of
paragraphs, after titles when followed
by the ame of the author.
Rule for the Interrogation Point
1. An interrogative word, phrase, or
sentence should be followed by an in
terrogation point.
Where did you see him? In the
house? When?
Rule for the Exclamation Point
1. An exclamation point should be
placed after every exclamatory word,
phrase, or clause.
Stand! The ground’s your
own, my braves!
Rule for the Dash ,
The dash is used when a sentence
breaks off abruptly, when there is a
sudden change in the subject, and
sometimes before words used to explain
the meaning of preceding words.
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
7
THE NORMAL SCHOOL SITUATION IN
PENNSYLVANIA
[Read by F. E. Baker before the Conference of Superintendents and Principals of Western Pennsylvania
and Eastern Ohio,]
“You cannot make any improvement in this
world without overriding the satisfaction that
men have in things as they are and of which
they are a contented and successful part.“
The Pennsylvania State Normal
Schools were all established under the
Normal School Act of 1857. Those
legislators who voted for this act prob
ably did so, in most cases at least,
without any idea that the state was
assuming any responsibility for the
financial support of the schools. Had
some of them realized that the state
was creating an educational agency for
the support of which the state would
later be called upon to assume respon
sibility, even in part, they most likely
would not have favored the act.
The law was taken advantage of by
the trustees and backers of certain de
clining academies to create a new field
for their respective schools. If the de
mand for purely secondary education
was not sufficient to fill the halls of
their schools, it was hoped that the
growing demand for teachers and the
prestige growing out of their statebacked diplomas would regain lost
patronage.
The schools were founded to train
teachers professionally. They were di
verted from this central aim, in part
at least, from the very beginning. It
was early seen that teachers, even of
the common schools, should have had
the cultural and disciplinary training
derived from some of the so-called
academic studies. (I use academic
here as pertaining to a high school).
At that time there were few public
high schools in the state; there was a
goodly number of academies, but they
were not free and were not ad'equate,
either in equipment or numbers, to
supply the demand for academic educa
tion. As a result, the normal schools
were forced to function both as high
schools and as teacher training schools.
For a period of forty years they were,
both from the standpoint of curriculum
and spirit, at least three-fourths acad
emic and not more than one-fourth
professional.
That this period in the development
of Pennsylvania Normal Schools should
have continued so long was due en
tirely to the fact that this state was
slow, much slower than the New Eng
land and the other middle states, in de
veloping high schools.
Up to the adoption of the Township
High School Law in 1890, the state
had done nothing to encourage high
schoo's, and not until the adoption of
the act of June, 1895, did high schools
receive general encouragement and
financial assistance from the state.
Since 1890, and especially since the
adoption of the act providing state in
spectors of high schools, secondary
schools have multiplied and improved
rapidly. There are now few communi
ties in the state that do not have high
school facilities of some kind. Many
of the nigh schools are poor, some of
them offering only two year courses;
nevertheless, it is possible for nearly
every boy and girl in the state to get.
8
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
some sort of high school training with
out going far from home.
This development of high schools has
made a large part of the academic work
done in normal schools not only un
necessary, but actual waste, for al) un
necessary educational duplication is
waste. The normal schools still cling
to their prerogatives as secondary
schools and they are not to be blamed
for holding to a work which they were
originally forced to do, and, in the do
ing of which, they performed a great
service. The end of the work of the
normal school is the public welfare;
the end of its work is not to train
teachers to teach arithmetic, grammar,
history, geography; it is not to train
teachers for rural schools, for city
schools, for the primary grades or for
the grammar grades; it is not to train
teachers to' make a living, and become
successful: it is not to increase attend
ance, extend influence, or erect build
ings—the end of all its work must be
the public welfare.
The school system of Pennsylvania
is, in my mind, in a period of transi
tion, and the normal schools can per
form a great service for the public wel
fare by helping to bring about this
transition as rapidly as possible.
Normal schools are a public utility,
and as such must not only adapt them1 selves to changing conditons, but must
be dynamic forces in inaugurating and
directing desirable educational changes.
If the duplication of academic work
in the high schools and in the normal
schools is an educational waste and a
barrier to educational efficiency, it is
the duty of the normal schools, in the
name of the public welfare, to stop this
duplication as soon as possible. In my
opinion the normal schools of this state
can perform a great educational ser
vice by so adjusting their courses of
study as to bring about a better co-or
dination of their work with the work
now being done in the high schools.
To that end, they should adopt as soon
as possible a two-year course of study,
based on the completion of four years
of academic work in the high schools
of the state.
In doing this, they will serve the
public welfare in two ways; first, by
devoting themselves more exclusively
to professional training; second, by
holding out to the smaller communities
an incentive to develop and raise the
standard of their high schools.
There are two great difficulties in the
way of the normal school in attempt
ing to adjust itself to these new condi
tions and place itself in a position to
co-operate with other educational
agencies: first, lack of financial sup
port; second, the present undifferen
tiated, inflexible course of study.
I have found that the average intelli
gent citizen of Pennsylvania, even the
average educator, feels that this state
has done fairly well toward its
normal schools. I know that in my
work at Edinboro, I have been greatly
handicapped by lack of finances. I
started in to build up the Edin
boro State Normal School through
good teaching. Good teaching can only
be had through good teachers and good
teaching conditions. Under good teach
ing conditions I do not include impos
ing buildings; I do include good
equipment, small classes, and a suffi
ciently small number of classes for
each teacher to make efficiency possible.
The state now pays the normal
schools one dollar and fifty cents a
week, or sixty dollars a year for each
student over seventeen years of age,
enrolled in the Norma' Department.
This, together with the tuition paid by
students under seventeen, is the sole
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
source of revennue for the support of
teaching. Under teaching, we must
include teachers’ salaries, training
school expenses, library books, lec
tures, printing and educational sup
plies.
Sixty dollars a year per student will
not pay for good teaching. Every year I
find it difficult or impossible to keep a
good teacher on account of inability to
pay adequate salaries. We have spent
during my five years at Edinboro,
seven or eight thousand dollars for
educational equipment and yet 1 am
compelled, even now, to blush when I
compare our equipment with that of
almost any city high school. I have
tried to limit the size of our classes,
and yet I am compelled every term to
assign teachers to classes that are far
too large for efficient work. Every one
of our teachers has thirty class recita
tions a week;
no city high
school requires more than twenty-five,
and the best only twenty.
In addition to the tuition fees, the
state pays each normal the lump sum
of $10,000, for maintenance. Heat,
light, fuel, power and power plant
wages alone cost us $7,600 a year.
To test the correctness of the aver
age man’s opinion of the support ac
corded Pennsylvania Normals, I col
lected statistics of the per capita
expenditure for the Normal School
students in Pennsylvania and in thirtyone other states. These states were
not chosen because they contrast un
favorably with Pennsylvania. All
states were taken which have developed
normals to any extent. The results
were obtained by dividing the total
amount spent by the state for normal
schools in the years 1912, 1913 and 1914
by the total number of students en
rolled in the normal schools of that
state during each of the years men
9
tioned. In Pennsylvania, all special
students were excluded.
The results are somewhat startling.
The three year average expenditure of
the thirty-one states is $16l46 the
student. The three year average for
Pennsylvania is $65.19. In order of
average per capita expenditure, Penn
sylvania ranks thirtieth. Only two,
Alabama and Indiana have a lower
average. Indiana has only one normal
school. In its total enrollment as
given in the reports of the Commis
sioner of Education, there is included a
large summer term attendance. In the
Pennsylvania reports, no summer term
students are included.
An investigation of the amount the
state is spending on its normal schools
leads naturally to an investigation of
what return it is getting, or has gotten.
This is a hard thing to determine, for
let it be rsmembered that for a period
of thirty years these schools functioned
as both normals and high schools. All
over the state, judges, lawyers, doctors,
ministers and business men received
their academic training in these schools.
The only part of the service rendered
the state that can be measured at all is
that rendered in preparing teachers
and ♦he amount of service these teach
ers have given. I have no access to
the records in the other normal schools
and the records at Edinboro, on account
of wars, changes of principals, etc.,
have been poorly kept. Probably any
other of the thirteen schools can give a
more complete and more valuable re
port on this point than can Edinboro.
Up to June 1915, the records show
that the Edinboro Normal School sent
out 2343 graduates. Of 678 we have no
records of teaching service. This
number includes the deceased and a
very large number who have not re
ported. The remaining 1665 were
10
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
divided into two classes, those whose
service was ended and those still serv
ing. Of the 78 still serving, 76 had
served only one year (this inluded 44
graduates of the previous year); 109,
two years; 81, three, years; 82, four
years; 63, five years; 44, six years;
25, seven years ,etc. One had served
39 years; one 38 years; two, 37 years;
two, 36 years; two, 36 years; three,
34 years, etc. The average for those
still serving was 7.84 years. If the rec- .
ords of these 708 could be obtained after
the period of service for all was
finished it would, no doubt, be increased
several years.
At first thought, it will seem strange
that the average period for those whose
service was ended is 'ess than the aver
age for the 708 still teaching. But, it is
to be remembered that this class in
cludes those who used the normal as a
preparatory or finishing school, and
teaching as a stepping stone.
Of the 967 in this class, 66 did not
teach at all. This means that only 66
out of 1665, or 4 per cent, rendered no
professional return to the state. Again
there are some notably long periods of
service. One taught 44 years; two 40
years ; two. 39 years ; one 38 years ; one
37 years, etc. The average period for
this class was only 5.34years. The av
erage period for the 1666 graduates
whose records we have, including both
classes, was 6.47 years. When the
service of all is completed this average
will be considerably increased.
This is a record of no small service.
If the average period of service for all
public school teachers is three and onehalf years, then from the average grad
uate of the Edinboro State Normal the
state will receive considerably more
than three years of service above the av
erage. When it is considered that a
teacher seldom becomes a master until
after three years of experience, this
service to the state is not small.
The origin and antecedents of the
present four year course of study for
normal schools are not hard to find.
From 1900 to 1912 the normal schools
worked under the three-year course,
which required one year of Algebra, one
year of plane geometry, one-third
year each of solid geometry, trigo
nometry and surveying, 3 orations of
Gieero, 3 books of Vergil, 28 weeks of
physics, 28 weeks of chemistry, etc.In academic work the normal gradu^
ate under this course could not get
equal standing with the graduates of
first class high schools. As the high
schools multiplied the contrast became
more invidious, hence the demand for
a course that put the normal graduate
on an equal footing academically with
the high school graduate.
A course was drawn up containing
four years of academic work, then two
years of professional work were
crowded in. There were still many
people having access to four year high
schools who did not care to devote six
years to the high school and the normal
course, hence the entrance requirements
were placed exactly on a par with those
of the high school, the completion of
the eighth grade. But there were some
who would complete the high school
before entering the normal. These
were admitted to the junior year condi
tioned in those professinal and voca
tional subjects of the freshman and
sophomore years not given in the high
school. Hence the normal course be
came a bag open at the bottom to catch
grammar school graduates and, in the
middle to catch high school graduates,
and turned all out at the top with the
same diploma. Graduates of second
class high schools were admitted to the
sophomore year allowing only one year’s
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
credit for the three or four year’s
work done in these schools, while grad
uates of third class high schools were
to enter freshman, allowing them no
credit whatever for their high school
work.
Now several difficulties arose. The
high schools objected to the repetition
of academic work in the normals. Furter, if students were required to re
peat the academic work and make up
school management, sophomore meth
ods, drawing, vocal music, grammar,
arithmetic, etc., the junior year be
came impossiible on account of crowd
ing.
In November, 1914 a resolution was
adopted by the Board of Principals,
allowing credit for all work done in
first, class high schools. But, this gives
rise to another difficulty. The junior
year, minus all or most of its academic
work,becomes spineless ; it does not con
tain a year’s solid work. And this diffi
culty is not remedied by requiring these
students to make up the back work of
the freshman and sophomore years, for
this back work is not the kind of work
that high school graduates shou Id have.
The junior year simply does not fit
graduates of first class high schools
and cannot be . ade to do so.
I have stated the greatest difficulties
in the normal school problem as I see
it. What is the remedy? I don’t know,
but I do know that the first thing the
normals should do is to take the public
into their confidence. I believe our first
step is to state frankly our difficul
ties, our weakneses, our faults, not be
littling the service we have rendered.
I believe that a survey of Pennylvania
Normals should be made by the State
Board of Education and the Depart
ment of Public Instruction, co-operat
ing with the Board of Principals, and
that this survey should be used as a
II
basis of a complete reorganization of
our administration, our methods, our
course of study, etc.
We need to adopt a two year course
of study based on the completion of a
first class high school course; a course
of study so differentiated or grouped
that it will allow students to prepare
definitely for the primary grades, the
grammar grades, or for rural schools.
But, let us guard against running into
the path that has been followed by the
normal schools in some of th e other
states, which have a two year course
of study devoted exclusively to profes
sional work. The work of the normal
school must not be devitalized by re
moving all academic studies from its
course of study. The normal school
should offer academic courses, but these
courses should be of college grade
rather than of high school grade.
In order that we may do this, help
us to secure such financial support as
will enable us to become real public
utilities, serving the educational needs
of the state, not commercialized insti
tutions seeking patronage. Help us to
give up circus advertising, cut-throat
competition, carpet bag soliciting, and
undignified pandering to those who are
looking for a short cut to a diploma.
Give us sufficient financial support so
that we may be independent of num
bers and devote ourselves singly to pro
fessional training of students who are
in some degree qualified, both by per
sonality and because of preference for
the great work of teaching; instead of
devoting part of our energies to those
whose personalities are so mean that
they should be told to take up some
work that requires skill of hand only
and not breadth of heart and depth of
sympathy, and another part to
those who have taken up the nor
mal course
simply as a cheap
12
THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
method of getting
an educa
tion. We have fifty students at Edinboro now who have no business to try
to teach, and who when they get a li
cense, will be a professional liability to
the state rather than an asset. Why
do I keep them? I have to keep them
to keep the school alive. This number
of the same kind of students can be
equaled, doubled, trebled, or quadrupled
by every other school in the state.
Make us independent of numbers so
that each school may be content to take
as many students as it can accommodate
well and no more. There are schools
in the state that have senior classes of
three hundred and four hundred and that
do not have training school facilities
adequate to give more than one hundred
seniors the modest amount of practice
teaching required by law.
Tbe duplication of special depart
ments in tbe various normal schools is
great waste. Let us hope that the
State Board of Education will some day
eliminate this waste by designating
certain schools to do special lines of
work.
I appeal to you as educators to help
us in this great field of educational
co-operation. Help us to work not for
victory, but for public service. Help
us to work out a state policy for normal
schools.
At present the normal schools have
no state policy, either educational or
financial. It is each school for itself
and tbe devil take the hind-most.
Henrv P- Miller pianos are used in the Edinboro State Normal School