128 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
salaries, improve their tenure of office, and lengthen the normal course to 
a creditable degree course. 
(2) We can at once offer in all normal schools a post-graduate profes- 
sional course, side by side with the other courses, and perhaps attract to 
us the college men of broad education who should stand among the 
representatives of American scholarship. 
(3) We may later compel, through the legislatures, all normal schools to 
adopt the standards of the State institutions. 
If I have described with any degree of probability the ideal of the future, 
let us bravely work in its direction, and not think to dam the mighty cur- 
rent of the evolution of the schools with flimsy barriers of our own. They 
will surely in the end be swept away, and ourselves with them. Let us 
place ourselves in the line of truth and of advancement, with the satisfac- 
tion that the future, if not the present, will vindicate our course. 
SHOULD THE COURSE OF STUDY IN NORMAL SCHOOLS 
BE WHOLLY PROFESSIONAIL? 
BY FRANCIS B. PALMER, PRINCIPAL OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, 
FREDONIA, N. Y. 
Tuk subject for discussion is stated as follows : 
“Should the course of study in normal schools be wholly professional, or should 
it include work in the elementary and secondary branches, even where preparation is 
required as a condition for admission ? If so. to what extent, ©” 
[f the question were whether subject matter should be taught in normal schools to 
those thoroughly proficient in it, everybody’s common sense would prompt the answer, 
No. But why was the question framed so as to name requirements rather than prepa- 
ration ? I can sce no other reason than the fact that requirements and preparation are 
practically quite different ; and this gives an opportunity for difference of opinion and 
for debate. Those who think that requirements and preparation can be practically 
made the same, would oppose teaching subject matter, while those who think it impos- 
sible to secure a sufficient preparation on the part of a large number of those who might 
make good teachers would include it in the work of the normal schools rather than 
have another class of schools created under the same name. : 
It is not denied that some specially bright pupils will gain such a thorough knowledge 
of the subjects they study in the public schools that they are ready for method work. 
out a large proportion of those who offer themselves to the normal schools are not of 
this class. I believe these four propositions are fundamentally valid : 
(1) The average teacher of a class should be more thoroughly instructed in the subject 
1e teaches than the average pupils in the class. 
(2) We must look to the average pupils of a class for teachers of succeeding classes. 
(3) There must, consequently, be supplementary study of the subject matter some- 
where, or the work of the class will degenerate. 
(4) This supplementary work is done in preparation for teaching. It is not such 
as the average pupils of our schools want. but it should be provided especially for