TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 219 
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teachers of considerable experience, who come to us for a short time, give 
ns the benefit of their experience, help to keep us in touch with practical 
jetails, and in turn learn, themselves, of the newest thoughts and prac- 
tices in education. 
During the last seven years I have studied the plans of training colleges 
in England and in several other countries, and I have always felt that 
where we fail most is in the means we employ to enable the students to 
get practical skill in teaching and governing. We have been experiment- 
ing in Cambridge quite freely and have been obliged to experiment. Our 
conditions have been very special, and as our plans have been transplanted 
to other colleges, I venture to refer to some of them. 
I am strongly opposed to any system of training which is purely theoreti- 
sal. In order to learn how to teach, you must teach, as well as do several 
other things, besides learning some theory. I cannot enumerate some of 
our plans without emphasizing for a moment what appears to me tobe the 
fundamental idea of teaching. If itis anything, it should be individual 
and original. If I give a good lesson, it must have enough of originality 
in it, so that no one else could have given it in the same way. We must 
all find out by experiment the best way for us to teach or to govern. I 
oelieve that imitation is more fatal in teaching than in anything else. 
There are, of course, fundamental principles which all good teachers 
tollow ; but the applications of these principles are innumerable. To 
attempt to copy a good teacher is fatal ; the conditions are not the same. 
{ do feel very strongly that the most important of all lessons to be taught 
young teachers is, Never imitate. Now, I find that young teachers are 
exceedingly apt to imitate, and one has to be on the alert to insist that they 
shall be individual ; that each student must find out for herself her own 
way of teaching. ¢ Then what is the use of a training college ?” it may 
se asked. Largely to foster individuality of teaching, to develop it in 
every possible way, and especially to arrange the conditions, so that the 
teacher shall, as quickly as possible, find out her own way of teaching and 
governing, without any damage to the children. In consequence of hold- 
ing this view of teaching, I object strongly to model lessons and to model 
schools. I believe that when an experienced teacher hears a good lesson 
sho learns much from it, but largely because she will not be inclined 
olindly to copy. There is a time when it is of the greatest importance 
50 hear good teaching, but I do not think it comes carly in the course. 
As far as we have reached at present in Cambridge, we maintain the 
following four stages in the practical work : 
First Stage.—The students begin their observation of children in school 
and out of school. We have organized a series of children’s parties in order 
to provide for the latter. The observations for the schools are of two 
kinds ; first, observation of individual children ; second, observation of the 
vhole class. The students are advised not to listen to the teacher, but to