THE
EDINBORO
QUARTERLY

Vol. II

January, 1915

No. 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Spring Term Courses........................................
Call for San Francisco Reunion—Rupert Peck, ’10
The Football Season, 1914—Robert P. Anderson.................
Illusions—Floyd Sayre, ’16..................................
Co-ordination in Pennsylvania Normals—Prank E. Baker
Manual Training for District Schools—George B. Frost.
Differentiation in Pennsylvania Normals—Frank E. Baker

NO. 1

VOL. 11.

SPRING TERM COURSES
For provisional certificate candidates:
Review classes in all common branches and algebra.
Additional branches for professional certificate candidates :
Physical Geography, Vocal Music, Drawing, History of English Literature,
and History of American Literature.
Professional courses for either provisional or professional candidates:
School Management, Seeley.
Rural School Methods, Betts & Hall’s " Better Rural Schools."
Primary Methods, no text.

2

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

CALL FOR SAN FRANCISCO REUNION
Rexburg, Ida., Jan. 12, 1915.
To the Alumni of the Edinboro State
Normal School:
It will be remembered by all who at­
tended the annual alumni meeting held
at the Normal School last June, that a
resolution was adopted at that time,
calling for a reunion at the next session
of the N. E. A. to be held in Oakland,
California, August 16th to 23rd, 1915.
Being a member of the committee on
information and arrangements, I have
been permitted to greet you through
this issue of the Edinboro Quarterly.
August 19th has been set for the first
meeting of all Edinboro alumni and
friends, in Oakland. August 21st is the
date set aside by the N. E. A. as Con­
vention Day, and the two days inter­
vening between the 19th and 21st will
give us ample time to make all arrange­
ments for Convention Day.
I hope every alumnus is planning for
a trip to the coast during the N. E. A.
Never before has there been such an
opportunity to combine pleasure and
profit in one short vacation, at a little
expense.
I attended the N. E. A. meetings in
1913, and can say that it is a great in­
spiration to meet with fellow teachers
from every state and city in the United
States. A live teacher must return
home with higher ideals and with a
greater love for his or her profession,
with all its perplexing duties and cares.
The great Panama Pacific Interna­
tional Exposition, under the auspices of
which the N. E. A. will hold its ses­
sions, will be one of the greatest
gatherings from all quarters of the
globe, that was ever held. Here will
be full opportunity for expression of
thought, the comparison of methods,
and an exchange of ideas such as the
world has never known before. Here

every industry, every race of people,
every human invention and every social
idea will be presented for the purpose
of broadening knowledge, widening our
social sympathies and harmonizing
national interests and understandings.
A tourist’s ticket from western
Pennsylvania to San Francisco and re­
turn, over any choice of route on land
will cost $82.00. Any ticket by way of
Chicago or St. Louis will permit the
holder to go south to New Orleans and
from there westward over the South­
ern Pacific, through southern Texas,
Arizona, New Mexico and Los Angeles.
Every one should go one way over the
Denver & Rio Grand Railroad, which is
the scenic railway of the United States,
crossing the national divide at a great
elevation and going near Pike’s Peak,
through Echo Canyon, Black Canyon,
and Royal Gorge.
I have been informed by the authori­
ties that ordinary expenses for a week’s
visit to the Exposition, San Francisco
and nearby points of interest, together
with cost of meals and room, need not
exceed $20.00.
All visitors should reach Oakland on
the 19th and immediately proceed to
the N. E. A. headquarters to register
and learn from the information bureau
where the Pennsylvania headquarters
for teachers are located. All Edinboro
alumni will meet at these headquarters
and arrange further plans for business
and pleasure.
No previous arrangements are neces­
sary, as the information bureau will
help guests to secure rooms and all
other accommodations.
With the sincere wish that I may
meet you on the Pacific coast and wit­
ness with you our first sunset through
the Golden Gate, I am.
Yours sincerely,
RUPERT PECK, 1910.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

3

THE FOOTBALL SEASON, 1914
ROBERT P. ANDERSON

A successful season, such as that en­
joyed by the Edinboro State Normal
School last fall, means far more than
is shown on the surface by the mere
record of the official scores, splendid as
that record may be. In Edinboro's

CAPTAIN LOCKARD

case, for instance, eight games were
played in all, and of these eight only
two were lost; one, the first game
played, to a team obviously and admit­
tedly out of their class, and the other,
the third game, to a team later de­

feated by a greater score. Of the six
victories five were shut-outs, including
the final game of the season against
Meadville, the runner-up for the cham­
pionship of Northwestern Pennsylvania,
and in no game did Edinboro fail to
score. In three games the score ex­
ceeded forty points, the highest in any
one game being sixty-one, and the total
score for the season was 235 against 68.
Simply as an exhibition of winning
football such a record would be credi­
table to any school, and in a normal
school with its short course and com­
paratively small attendance of boys, it
is particularly remarkable. But, as
suggested above, this record constitutes
only a portion of that which goes to
make up a wholly successful season.
If football meant only the winning of
games and scoring of points it would
find no proper place in so serious and
purposeful a centre of activity as a
normal school. Everyone who has even
the most superficial knowledge of such
matters knows how much time, money
and energy are necessary to build up a
successful football team and take it
through an active season. In return
for these large demands it must pay
back something bigger, better and more
vital than a pleasant recreation for a
few boys or a little advertising for the
school. What return then did the last
football season make to the Edinboro
Normal and was it as successful in this
deeper and more vital aspect as it wa,s
in the more obvious one?
Most evident of all are the benefits
derived by the players themselves:
the hard outdoor exercise,
the
regular hours, the necessary re­
fraining from all injurious habits, the
enforced care for their physical health,
and the splendid discipline of long sus­
tained effort for an ideal. There is

4

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

further the necessity of learning to
subordinate the individual to the team,
to work together for a common end,
to rely upon one’s fellows for what is
beyond one’s own powers and in turn to
accept a similar trust imposed by those
same fellows. In addition to all this
comes the spirit of fair play, good
sportsmanship, self-control under sud­
den and fiery temptation with the
blood already hot through fierce exer­
tion ; generosity in
acknowledging
another’s, even an opponent’s, good

football of just that sort was consist­
ently taught; and anyone who followed
the team closely from beginning to
end of the season could observe the
steady growth of just those qualities,
both in the team as a whole and in the
individual players. One of the results
was that in their last game the players
displayed a spirit, a courage, an esprit
de corps, and a power of sustained and
concontrated effort that made them
more than a match for a first class
team, man for man. their physical

BETWEEN HALVES—MEADVILLE GAME

playing, willingness to take blame
when deserved, and cheerfulness under
defeat when that is inevitable. Too
much emphasis cannot be layed upon
the acquirement of these things in the
training of self-reliant, efficient and
forceful men and good citizens, nor can
too much praise be bestowed upon an
agency by which they are inculcated.
Football, when properly taught and
properly coached, is just such an
agency.
In Edinboro last fall, under the wise
and capable direction of Coach Hayes,

superiors. Nor have these qualities
lapsed with the close of the football
season. The leaders of the school are
drawn, almost without exception, from
the football players, not from any false
glamour of publicity, but because of
their increased efficiency, initiative, and
qualities of natural leadership.
Another fact to be noted is that the
time and energy expended on the foot­
ball field did not seem to detract in any
way from the players’ sholarship. On
the contrary their hard training seemed
to lend an added vigor to their minds.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

5

FOOTBAU. TEAM

and if anything their scholarship im­
proved during the season. Thus there
can be no doubt that in every way as
regards the players the football season
was the very highest and truest success.
But, after all, the entire football
squad numbers only from twenty-five
to thirty boys. How about the others?
What has football to offer to the nonathletic? It is of just this point, it
seems to me, that, in the discussion of
football, too little has been made.
Football offers to those physically un­
fit or otherwise unable actually to play
it, an absorbing, but simple, healthy
and manly interest. As regards schools,
the objections to “athletics by proxy”
have little weight. Even if it be
demoralizing for older men to watch
hired players engage in professional
contests (which I am not at all ready to
admit) this objection cannot hold in the
case of a schoolboy watching his own
friends and companions. On the con­
trary the appeal is all to his emulation

and to his admiration of what is strong,
vigorous, clean and manly, about as
healthy an appeal as a boy can have.
And in a co-edueational school, where
there are so many appeals in other di­
rections the breezy virility of football
games and the daily football practise,
often as interesting as any game, is
particularly refreshing and invigorat­
ing.
It is clear that any benefits to any
considerable number of individuals in a
school, such as those to the boys which
have just been suggested, must benefit
the school as a whole. Furthermore,
the football season begins soon after
the opening of the school year, and it
is around the football team that the
students rally first and first feel them­
selves parts of one united whole ; and
thus it is around the football team that
that inestimable asset to any school,
school spirit, first crystallizes. The
football team last fall was particularly
successful in arousing school spirit, and

6

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

in drawing to itself the loyal and hearty
support of the student body. And this
spirit still continues to animate the
students in all directions and is one of
the most noticeable features of the
school life.
Further a truly successful football
team, in the largest sense—and;by that
much more is meant than the ability to
win games—creates wherever it goes a
feeling of respect for its school. It is
the best, because the most authentic
and ■ self-evident advertisement. It
stimulates interest and a desire to at­
tend such a school on the part of pros­
pective students. And it gives to its
own students individually a feeling of
loyal pride and pleasure, which they in

turn carry to their homes and spread
far and wide among their friends and
associates.
In the preceding paragraphs an
attempt has been made to sketch
roughly a few of the most evident
benefits to be derived from football,
and to show that the game as taught
and played at Edinboro makes ample
return for whatever time and energy
are put into it. In particular,we would
add that the 1914 team showed a |)eculiar ability to extract this retnr,n| and
to interpret it in terms of ”*uie^)|l de­
velopment for themselves and Mr their
school, thus establishing beybnd all
question t’.:eir claim to a thoroughly
and truly successful season. •:

SHRIVER MAKING A TOUCHDOWN-FREDONIA GAME

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

7

ILLUSIONS
FLOYD SAYRE, CLASS OF 1916

Each of our senses has its own
peculiar language, by means of which,
beginning the day of our-birth, we
have learned what we know of the
world. We live on, day after day,
with scarcely a thought as to whether
or not our senses are telling us the
truth. If we think seriously about the
matter, we may recall many instances
in which one or another of our senses
has deceived us for a time, only to be
corrected, if at all, by the help of an­
other sense, or by a more careful use
of the one at fault. Speaking in terms
of Psychology we should say that the
mind had for some cause misinterpreted
a sensation. Any misinterpretation of
sensation is known as an illusion. One
author defines illusion as any species of
error which counterfeits the form of
immediate, self-evident, or intuitive
knowledge whether as a sense percept
or otherwise. In the following pages I
will attempt to illustrate and explain
errors both of sense perception and of
judgment, for errors of judgment
sometimes constitute illusions.
Since illusions are produced in differ­
ent ways I shall make three divisions
of the subject calling the parts organic,
functional, and illusions of judgment.
The first is so called because illusions
of that type are the ' natural result of
the general make-up of ’ the sense
organs. Organic illusions are those
which represent an abnormal relation
between stimulus and sensory reaction,
and so may regularly characterize
sense perception as normal activity.
Nearly all the senses are subject to
these errors, but illusions of sight or
optical illusions are the most numerous.
One of the most common and one of
which ,we rarely speak is that
of the picture of a solid object,
drawn upon a plane surface, appearing

to have the third dimension. An ex­
ample of this illusion is an outline pic­
ture of a cube or a stairway, parts of
which may appear to be either convex
or concave.!
Another very common optical illusion
is produced when we swing a live coal
in a circle so fast that it appears to be
a ring of fire. The cause of this is
much the same as that of our seeing an
image of a bright light, as the sun or
a window from a dimly lighted room,'
after the real light has been removed
from the field of vision, or after the
eyes are closed. The cause of these
illusions is that the nerve ends which
receive the light, waves have been set
in vibration so forcibly that they con­
tinue vibrating and reporting sensa­
tions of light to the brain after the stim­
ulus has been removed, and so we per­
ceive light in the geometrical form of
the original stimulus. These retinal
images are called after-images. The
coal, in constantly moving from one
position to another leaves after-images
which connect and, being reinforced
again and again, form an unbroken
circle. When I have tried the experi­
ment of looking steadily at a light and
then closing my eyes, I have observed
that the after-image is usually of a
color complementary to that of the
stimulus or real light. If we look for
a time at a fixed point on or near to a
window from within a dimly lighted
room and then close the eyes lightly, the
after-image is negative, that is, it
appears dark on a light field, instead of
the reverse, which is true of the real
object. The reason generally given for
to the after-image’s being negative or
of a complementary color is that the
parts of the retina which receive and
transmit to the brain the color im■ pressions are fatigued, but the nerve

8

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

ends are still vibrating; so the sensation
is of the color which the less tired parts
transmit.
Many times I have stood on the banks
of a smoothly flowing stream and
watched the water until it seemed to
stand still while everything else, in­
cluding myself, seemed to be in motion.
1 have often experienced a similar
sensation while riding on a railroad
train, when I seemed to be at rest and
the scenery beside the track was whirl­
ing past. Although exactly opposite in
effect, the cause of these two illusions
is practically the same. While standing
upon the bank of the stream I allowed
my eyes to become fixed upon a certain
spot of the water which was in motion.
As the retinal image of the water was
stationary and that of the surrounding
objects was constantly changing, it was
perfectly natural for the interpreting
function to tell me the conditions as it
did. The effect was prolonged by a re­
peated conscious or willful shifting of
my eyes up stream to some other point
and following it downstream for a
short distance. The illusion of the
railroad train is more easily pro­
duced and may be explained in this
way. Since the retinal image of any
part of the train remains the same as
long as our eyes are fixed upon any
part of it, while the image of the
scenery is constantly changing, the in­
terpreting function regards the situa­
tion as it is reported by the sense
organ. These examples may seem to
be illusions of judgment rather than
organic, but if the given conditions are
fulfilled, the results will be the same for
all normal individuals. This character­
istic marks a distinction between or­
ganic and functional or illusions of
judgment.
The ringing in the ears which is
often heard after a loud noise, is
brought about in much the same way
as the optical after-image. The audi­
tory nerve ends are set in vibration so

strongly by the sound waves that the
vibration continues after the stimulus
has been removed.
A well known example of tactual
illusion which is used by magicians is
that of pressing a coin or other object
against the palm of the hand or the
forehead and then taking it away,
whereupon the subject is led by the
illusion to believe it still there; in
reality he perceives only the abnormal
vibration of the nerve ends which have
been affected by the pressure of the
object.
It is a very easy matter to confuse
organic with functional
illusions,
owing to the fact that they sometimes
overlap in their parts and may be
classified under either. While in or­
ganic illusions the fault lies in the
structure and working of the sensory
apparatus, functional illusions are the
result of an abnormal influence of the
interpreting function upon the sensory
impression, that is, the mental function
is temporarily preoccupied in such a
way that it distorts the sense percep­
tion. A concrete example of an illusion
which consists of both kinds is that of
the picture of the stairway. Since it
appears either concave or convex, it
may be called organic but as the
change from one form to the other is a
result of the interpretation of the sen­
sation, it may be classed as functional.
The trees, houses, roads, mountains,
and clouds which we see so vividly in
the background of a modern stage
would not appear so real if viewed from
the stage itself. Here we find another
distinction between the organic and the
functional illusion in that the latter
may usually be corrected by a change
in the relative positions of the observer
and the subject.
When I was about seven years old I
once had occasion to walk alone after
dark, through a deep valley, about a
half mile wide. At the top of the hill
next my destination stood a large

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
farmhouse and barn, both surrounded
by tab trees. When I reached the
brow of the hill my eyes met a sight
which caused me great alarm. The
buildings appeared to be afire, the
flames, which reached nearly to the
sky, being partly hidden by the trees.
In a few seconds I heard a voice close
at hand and immediately the scene
assumed a more pleasing form. Know­
ing that I was afraid of the dark, my
parents had started to meet me with a
lighted lantern. The flames which I
had seen were only the light of the
lantern reflected upon and partly hidden
by a horse and buggy which stood in
the road a few yards away, with the
driver of which my parents were talk­
ing. This was a true functional illusion
since it was the result of a misinter­
pretation of a sense percept and was
easily corrected by the suggestion
offered at hearing the voice and by a
second look.
The third kind of illusions, those in
which judgment is involved, are dis­
tinctly in a class by themselves, since
they are neither common to all normal
beings, nor merely misinterpreted sen­
sations, but rather misjudged percepts.
Avery common example of this kind
of illusion is seen in the apparent
greater size of the sun and of the full
moon, when near the horizon com­
pared to their sires when high over
head. As the fact that there is no
difference in the apparent size of these
bodies when viewed from different

9

angles has been proved by actual
measurements, the illusion must be a
fault of judgment.
Many times, while standing at the
top of a hill and looking across a valley
at the opposite slope, I have thought
the land on which I stood to be more
nearly level than that opposite, but
upon crossing the valley and looking
back, found the situation to be quite
the reverse. The reason for this
illusion is that in glancing from the
bottom of the valley to the horizon
one has to raise the eyes and the act of
so doing makes us believe that we are
looking at something high instead of
broad. Another familiar form of this
same deception of vision is the ap­
parent height of the ocean when viewed
by one who is unaccustomed to seeing
it, especially a person who lives in­
doors a large part of the time, and is
accustomed to fixing the eyes upon
objects near to or upon the ground.
Although our eyes are subject to
error more than any other sense organ,
if we recall some of the incidents of
childhood we may think of many in­
stances in which our ears have deceived
us. On a dark night, when everyone
else was asleep how easy it was to hear
voices and other mysterious sounds.
In fact, we do not need to recall our
childhood days to find instance when
our minds being prepared for weird
sounds, we have thought that we could
hear voices or footsteps, when really it
was only the effect of the wind or rain
which we heard.

CO-ORDINATION IN PENNSYLVANIA
NORMAL SCHOOLS
At the meeting of the Department of
Colleges and Normal Schools of the
Pennsylvania State Educational Asso­
ciation he'.d in Harrisburg on December
29 and 30, Dean Graves of the Depart­
ment of Education of the University of

Pennsylvania, announced that hereafter
that university would allow two years
advanced credit toward the degree
B. S. in education to all Normal gradu­
ates who entered the Normal School
as graduates of first grade high schools.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

10

This announcement marks an epoch lum, they differed in part, but only in
in . the evolution of Pennsylvania part.
That this period in the deveopment
Normal Schools. To understand its
full significance, one needs to go into of the Normal Schools should have con­
the history of secondary education in tinued so long was due entirely to the
the state. The Normal Schools were fact that Pennysylvania was slow,
established by law in 1857 to prepare much slower than the New England and
teachers for the common schools. But the other middle states, in developing
it was early seen that teachers, even free high schools. Up to the adoption
of the Township High School Law
of common schools, should have had
the cultural and disciplinary benefit in 1890, the state had done nothing to
derived from the study of at least some encourage high schools, and not until
of the so-called secondary studies. At the adoption of the Act of June 1895,
that time there were no high schools did high schools receive general en­
in the state; there was a goodly num­ couragement and financial assistance
ber of academies, but they were not from the state.
Since 1890, and especially since the
free and were not adequate, either in
adoption of the act providing state in­
equipment or numbers, to supply the
demand for secondary education. As a spectors of high schools, secondary
result, the Normals were forced to schools have multiplied and improved
function both as high schools and as rapidly. There are now few communi­
teacher training schools. For a period ties in the state that do not have high
of forty years, they were at least school facilities of some kind. Many
three-fourths academic and not more of the high schools are poor, some of
them offering only two year courses;
than one-fourth professional.
The relation between the various never the less, it is possible for nearly
units of public and popular education every boy and girl in the state to get
in the state of Pennsylvania during some sort of high school training with­
this period is graphically shown by the out going far from home.
This development of high schools
following diagram.
has made a large part of the academic
work done in the Normal schools not
only unnecessary, but actual waste, for
Colleges
4 years
all unnecessary educational duplication
is waste. The Normal Schools st’ll
HighSchools and Normal Schools
cling to their prerogatives as secondary
2, 3 or 4
Academies
schools, and they are not to be blamed
4 years
years
for holding to a work which they were
originally forced to do, and, in the do­
ing of which, they performed a great
Common Schools
service.
8 years
This is a period of change in Pennsyl­
vania schools and a little patience and
toleration on the part of educators and
teachers will enable all the parts of the
As will be seen from the diagram,
from the standpoint of both the com­ educational system to adjust them­
selves to the changing conditions and
mon school and the college, the Normal
bring
about a proper co-ordination
Schools were co-ordinate and in direct
among high schools, normal schools and
competition with the high schools and
academies.

As to spirit and curricu­

colleges.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
This recognition of the Normal
Schools by the Department of Educa­
tion of the University of Pennsylvania
will go far, we think, toward bringing
about a better co-ordination among
colleges, high schools, and normal
schools. It places Normal Schools in
their proper relation, that of pro­
fessional training schools for those who
have laid an adequate foundation in the
disciplinary and cultural studies of the
secondary schools. It enables a boy or
girl to get the professional training
offered by the Normal Schools without
loss of time in the securing of a college
education. It recognizes professional
courses as of as great value in the
growth of a human s'^ul, which we
commonly call education, as the purely
academic and so-called cultural and
disciplinary subjects. We hope that
other colleges maintaining departments
of education will follow the lead of the
University of Pennsylvania.
For some time to come the Normal
Schools will have to maintain prepara­

n

tory departments for those students
coming from two or three year high
schools. Never the less, we believe
that they are developing rapidly
toward the condition of being largely
professional, both in spirit and in cur­
riculum. When this condition has been
reached the relation of the various
parts of the educational system may be
graphically shown by the diagram
below.

College
4 years

CoJlege
2 years
Normal School
2 years

High School
4 years

Common School
8 years

MANUAL TRAINING FOR DISTRICT
SCHOOLS
The following list of tools, and ar­
ticles to be mads in mannal training
classes in district schools, was prepared
by Mr. George B. Frost, head of the
Department of Manual Training. The
list is printed with the hope that
it may be of assistance to some teacher
who is trying to vitalize the work in
her school.
ARTCLES TO BE MADE IN A DIS­
TRICT SCHOOL
1. Bird house.
2. Rectangular tool box made of i
inch boards, 14 inches wide by 16 inches
high by 30 inches deep.
3. Hand tool box made like a knife

box, but large enough to carry a num­
ber of saws, hammers, planes, etc.
4. Ironing board.
6. Sleeve board.
6. Wash bench.
7. Barrel covers.
8. Pig trough.
9. Milking stool.
10. Rustic benches, chairs, etc.
11. Shoe shining stand.
12. Clothes bars.
13. Roller towel rack.
14. Mail box.
16.Plate rack.
16. Boot jack.
17. Bread board.
18. Cake board.

12

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

19. Kneading board.
20. Umbrella rack.
21. Jardiniere stand.
22. Kettle holder.
23. Letter file.
24. Kitchen table.
25. Salt box.
26. Sled.
27. Wheelbarrrow.
28. Cart.
29. Skis.
Tools for a class of 10 in a District
School.
One rip saw.....................................$ .65
Two handsaws. No. 8 points, 28
in. long, at 65c..................................... 1.30
One coping saw................................... 10
One keyhole saw............................... 10
Two hammers, at .35....................... 70
Two nail sets, at .10........................... 20

One pair pliers...................................10
One pair dividers or compasses.. .10
One block plane...................................25
One smoothing plane................. 1.26
One jack plane, 16 ” long.......... 1.65
One marking gauge........................... 10
One sliding T level........................... 25
Six carpenter’s 2’ rules, at .08.. .48
Two bit stocks, at 25c....................... 50
Three try squares, at .10................30
One set of chisels, 6 assorted
sizes, at .25........................................ 1-50
One set of auger bits, 6 assorted
sizes, at .25........................................ 1.50
Two wooden mallets, at .20............ 40
One half dozen cabinet makers
clamps, at .10.......................................... 60
One screw driver............................... 10
One spoKe shave............................... 25
$12.38

DIFFERENTIATION IN PENNSYLVANIA
NORMALS
The greatest weakness in the present
course of study for Pennsylvania
Normal Schools lies in the fact that it
offers almost no opportunity for differ­
entiation. There were enrolled in the
Junior and Senior years in the thirteen
Normal Schools of the state during the
year 1913-14 approximately thirty-five
hundred students.
This number is
considerably,
perhaps
one-fourth,
higher this year. We may consider
this the total enrollment in the regular
Normal course, for all the students en­
rolled in the years below the Junior and
Senior are, in reality, doing prepara­
tory work. According to the present
practice, graduates of first class high
schools are admitted to the Junior year
on an equal standing with those who
have done the work of the Freshman
and Sophomore years. For all practi­
cal purposes then, all the work done in
Pennsylvania Normals below the Junior

and Senior years may be considered as
purely preparatory, and all the profes­
sional work may be considered as con­
fined to the last two years of the course.
Of the thirty-five hundred enrolled in
the regular Normal course, a very large
per cent, at least ninety-five and
probably ninety-eight, will enter the
public schools of this or other states as
teachers, and continue in the work for
varying periods of time.
There are no statistics available to
show the relative proportions that take
up the different grades of school work.
This proportion doubtless varies some­
what in the different schools, but it is
safe to say that the largest group
enters the rural schools ; a very large
number enters the primary grades, I to
V, possibly an equal number the ad­
vanced grades, V to VIII; while the
number that takes up high school work
is by no means small.

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY
These thirty-five hundred students
are preparing, then, to teach all grades
of school work and they will find, when
they go out to seek positions, a definite
and growing demand for specially pre­
pared teachers. They will find that
superintendents and school officials
everywhere are asking for kinder­
garten, primary, grammar, or high
school teachers, and are demanding of
the applicants for these positions
special preparation for the grade of
work they expect to do. It is only in
certain communities that the demand
has arisen for specially trained rural
school teachers. Nevertheless, this
demand is growing, and will soon be­
come insistent, and Normal Schools
should not only cater to it but encour­
age it. In fact. Normal Schools should
be first in seeing and creating these
demands, and it is my opinion that they
have lost standing in this state by
failing to do so.
The present Normal course offers
almost no opportuntiy for specializa­
tion. The thirty-five hundred students
enrolled in the Junior and Senior years
are taking, from a professional stand­
point, practically the same course.
What little variation there is in their
schedules, made possible by substitu­
tion, does not tend toward professional
specialization.
So far as I know, the only professional
specialization that is being attempted
in any of the schools is in connection
with the methods and practice teaching
in the Senior year. It is customary
for those seniors who expect to take
up primary work to observe and prac­
tice in the primary grades, and those
who expect to take up grammar work
to observe and practice in the advanced
grades. This specialization has been
further strengthened, in some cases
at least, by dividing the senior class in
Methods into two groups, giving those
who have elected primary practice
work. Primary Methods, and those who

13

have elected t i teach in the advanced
grades methods appropriate to those
grades.
Several of the schools have, in con­
nection with their practice schools, the
first two years of high school, where
those teachers who expect to take up
high school work may practice and
observe, but none of them that 1 know
of, has attempted to make the theory
department co-operate
with
this
specialization by offering classes in
Secondary Methods.
At present, one or two of the schools
are giving special classes in rural school
methods and management to seniors
who expect to teach in country schools,
but in no case is this specialization in
theory followed up ai.d reinforced by
actual practice in a model rural school.
It will be noticed that these meagre
attempts at specialization are confined
entirely to the departments of theory
and practice. There has been. I be­
lieve, no attempt in any of the Normals
of the state to differentiate the work
from the standpoint of scholarship.
There are three forces in every Normal
school that should be in daily and
effective co-operation in the prepara­
tion of teachers for definite lines ot
work; viz, scholarship, theory and
practice.
The only opportunity to adapt subject
matter to the later needs of primary,
grammar or high school teachers, is in
the review courses in History, Geo­
graphy, Arithmetic and Physiology.
The Junior class in History might be
divided into three divisions, one to be
given the materials of primary history,
primitive life stories, myths, biogra­
phy and so forth; another, the or­
ganized material of United States
History ; and the third, or high school
group, more of the philosophy of His­
tory. The subject matter of a course
in History for primary teachers differs
as greatly from the subject matter of
a course for high school teachers as

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

14

ous. Some of them may be stated as
Arithmetic differs from Grammar.
follows:
The same is true of History Methods.
■ The present course of study,
There is no good reason why a boy pre­
1. Does not give due recognition to
paring to teach in high school should
be compelled to spend his time on the work done in first grade high
schools.
primitive life stories.
2. Makes no allowance for difference
The courses in Geography and Geo­
in preparation of students who have
graphy Methods for primary teachers
should differ greatly from the same pursued different courses in high schools
course for grammar teachers, and I am or who have elected different subjects.
3. Does not encourage co-operation
sure that the work in Arithmetic
Methods could be made much stronger between the teachers in the Normal
if it could be differentiated for primary school and the critic teachers in the
practice school.
and grammar grade groups.
4. Is not sufficiently elastic to allow
It might be argued that, from the
cultural standpoint, all teachers should of adaptation to the varying tastes and
natural tendencies of students.
have had the same course in literature,
6. Is not sufficiently elastic to allow
and yet I am sure that the primary
teacher could profitably spend a much any adaptability in the training of
larger portion of her time on juvenile teachers for the different social and in­
dustrial needs of different sections of
literature than the high school teacher,
without any sacrifice of cultural train­ the state.
The following group courses are
ing.
As 1 said, the present course of study offered as merely suggestive' It is
offers this opportunity to specialize in not claimed that they are based on
the subject matter of the review sufficient data or that they are care­
fully worked out from the data at hand.
branches, but, in actual practice, I have
found it impossible, with the present It is not thought that every school
crowded course,
to maintain the would want to offer all four groups.
division lines; and I am of the opinion All would doubtless give the primary
that all efforts to specialize will come and grammar grades courses, some
to little until all the students in'the would specialize in the training of high
regular Normal course are divided into school teachers, some in the training
definite groups, with a well arranged of rural school teachers, while each
school would doubtless want to main­
course of study for each group.
and emphasize at least one addi­
While the lack of differentiation is tain
tional special department: stmh as.
the chief weakness of the present Music, Drawing, Manual Arts, ii.indercourse of study, there are others, less garten. Physical Training, or Com­
fundamental, but never the less seri­ mercial.

PRIMARY GROUP—GRADES I—IV
Educational Psychology 3
Nature Study
2
Primary Meth. and Ob. 6
Language Study rnd M. 5
Phys. Cult. (Gymnastics)2
Drawing
3
Elective
5

JUNIOR YEAR
Winter
Educational Psychology 3
Nature Study
2
Primary Meth. and Ob. 6
Language Study and M. 5
Phys. Cult. (Gymnastics) 2
Drawing
3
Elective
5

Sch. Manag. and San. 5
Primary Meth. and Ob. 5
Agriculture. (School
Gardens)
Phys. Cult. (Gymn.)
Music
Elective

26

26

26

to w

Spring

cn

Fall

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

Teaching
History of Ed.
Agriculture (School
Gardens)
Phys. Cult. (Games)
Geography Review
Elective

5
6
3
2
5
5
25

Pub. Sch. Music
Story Telling
Sewing
Arithmetic Review

10
5
6
5

SENIOR
Teaching
Child Psyc.
Hand work in Pr. Gr.
Phys. Cult. (Games)
Geog. Methods
Story Telling
Elective

6 Teaching
6 Philosophy of Ed.
3 Hand work
2 Phys. Cult. (Games)
3 Phys. and Hygiene
2 Elective
5

25
ELECTIVES
Public Sch. Drawing 10
Games & Polk Dancing 5
Principles of Teach.
5
Arithmetic Methods
3

15

5
5
3
2
6
5
25

Kindergarten Theo.
General Science
History Review
Library Methods

5
15
5
5

ADVANCED GROUP-GRADES V, V/, VII, VIII
*
Educational Psychology
Nature Study
Arithmetic Review
Drawing
Grammar Review
Physical Culture
Elective

3
2
5
3
5
2
5
25

Teaching
History of Education
Agriculture
Physical Culture
Geography Review
Elective

5
5
3
2
5
5
25

Geology
Astronomy
General Science
Principles of Teaching
Advanced Psychology
Industrial Geography

7i
15
5
6
5

JUNIOR YEAR
Educational Psychology
Nature Study
Arithmetic Methods
Reading Methods
Drawing
Methods in Grammar
Physical Culture
Elective

3
2
3
2
3
5
2
5

Agriculture
History Review
School Hygiene
Reading Methods
Music
Physical Cult.
Elective

3
5
3
2
5
2
5

25
25
SENIOR YEAR
6
Teaching
5 Teaching
6
Child Psychology
5 Philosophy of Ed.
Manual Training or
Manual Training or
3
Domestic Science
3 Domestic Science
2
Physical Culture
2 Physical Culture
Methods in His. & Geog. 5 Physiology & Hygiene 5
5
Elective
5 Elective
25
ELECTIVES
Advanced English
10 School Management
Public Speaking
5 General Methods
Pub. Sch. Music
10 Library Methods
Pub. Sch. Drawing
10
Games & Folk Dancing 5
Metal Working
5

25
9
9
5

RURAL SCHOOL GROUP
Educational Psychology 3
Rural Sch. Meth. & Man.2
Language Study & Meth.3
Nature Study
2
Arithmetic Review
5
Drawing
3
Physical Culture
2
Elective
5
25

JUNIOR YEAR
Educational Psychology
Rural Sch. M. & M.
Language St. & Meth.
Nature Study
Methods in Arithmetic
Reading Methods
Drawing
Physical Culture
Elective

3
2
3
2
3
2
2
3
5
25

Agriculture
Rural Sch. Hygiene and
Sanitation
Geography Review
Reading Methods
Music
Physical Culture
Elective

3
3
5
2

5
2
5
25

16

THE EDINBORO QUARTERLY

Teaching
History of Education
Agriculture
Physical Culture
History Review
Elective

5
5
3
2
5
5

SENIOR YEAR
Teaching
Rural Sociology
ManT Tr. & Hd. Wk.
Physical Culture
Methods in His. & Geog.
Elective

25
General Science
Chemistry
Astronomy
Biology

5
5
3
2
6
6

Teaching
Philosophy of Education
ManT Tr. & Hd. Wk.
Physical Culture _
Physiology & Hygiene
Elective

25
ELECTIVES
Farm Acctg & Marketg 5 Adv. Agriculture
Physics
15 Geology
Cooking
8 Sewing
Library Methods
6

15
15
7J
15

5
5
3
2
5
5

25
6
Ih
6

HIGH SCHOOL GROUP
Psychology
Arithmetic Review
Physical Culture
History Review
Elective

3
6
2
5
10

JUNIOR YEAR
Psychology
Arithmetic Methods
Grammar Review
Physical Culture
Public Speaking
Elective

6
5
5
10

SENIOR YEAR
Teaching
5 Teaching
Sociology I
\ 2i Ethics
Ethics
i
12i Advanced Psy.
Prin. of Teaching
5 Elective
Elective
10

25
Any Foreign Language
30
or Languages
9
Physics II
9
Chemistry II
74
Solid Geometry
74
Trigonometry

Secondary Education
Methods in Grammar
Physical Culture
Methods in History
Public Speaking
Elective

25

25
Teaching
Sociology
History of Education
Elective

3
3
5
2
2
10

ELECTIVES
Adv. Algebra
English History
Constitutional His.
Modern History
English
Industrial Geog.

5
3
2
3
2
10
25
5
5
5
10

25

25

16 Geology
74 Astronomy
74 General Science
74 Manual Training or
Cooking
18
5 Agriculture

74
74
15
8
12