132 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
ais chosen vocation. This principle applies with peculiar force in the training of 
seachers. The normal pupil acquires the power to teach and manage successfully in 
she effort he puts forth to convert his knowledge of the laws of physical and mental 
development and of methods of teaching into acts. Hence the work done in a well- 
organized practice department is the most important and essential feature of rightly 
conducted normal training. 
I present the following as a summary of the course that should be pursued in conduct- 
ing the work of the practice department: 
(@) Provision in the practice department to have one class in each grade of primary 
and grammar-school work instructed permanently by experienced teachers, whose work 
will present an accurate model of the application of right principles of teaching. These 
classes should be the only ones used, at first, in the work of the observation course. 
(b) Every feature of the practice work of the pupil teachers should be under the con- 
stant supervision and friendly yet exacting criticism of ~xperienced teachers. 
(¢) Pupil-teachers should be placed in full charge of the classes they instruct for not 
ess than from five to ten weeks, and during that time they should be held responsible 
lor the management and work of these classes in the same sense as if they were in 
charge of a school of their own. 
(@) Each pupil-teacher should be required to give instruction, for the timenamed in (¢), 
n at least one representative subject of each kind of work he is preparing to teach. 
(e) Pupil-teachers should be required to execute, under the gaidance of the supervising 
eachers, every detail of organizing and managing the practice school. 
(f) The supervising teachers, during the progress of the practice work, should con- 
duct regularly class exercises, in which hints, suggestions, and correciions of a general 
nature should be freely given to the pupil-teachers. The chief object of these exercises 
should be to point out the application of right principles of teaching, in correcting 
defects noticed in the practice work. In this exercise ail personalities should be avoided, 
but the greatest freedom should be allowed the pupiis in asking and answering ques- 
tions. in making suggestions, and pointing out excellences and defects. 
DISCUSSION 
Dr. J. M. HarPER, Inspector of Superior Schools, Province of Quebec, Canada : The 
discussion as to the function of the normal school has brought out in clear outline the 
ideal normal school, which is neither more nor less than the institution which shall pro- 
vide trained teachers for all the schools in any given district. What we have heard of 
the work done by the normal school in the various sections of the world represented in 
this congress shows hcw inadequate they are in face of the desire to realize this ideal. 
The preparation of a limited number of teachers to be sprinkled over a wide district is 
about all that has been reached in what our chairman has called ‘‘the younger sister 
republic,” and this is about all that has been attained in a province so well organized 
educationally as Ontario is. No teacher is employed in Ontario who has not had some 
professional training, and the same may be said of many of the States ; but this is falling 
short of realizing the professional ideal of which we have had so many pleasant glimpses 
this morning. 
David Stowe, of whom mention was made yesterday, could hardly have foreseen the 
time when in Scotland the training-school of which he was the founder would place at 
the disposal of every parish a trained teacher. and yet it is interesting to learn that in a 
direct line through the influence of David Stowe the ideal which we have been discuss- 
ing has actually been realized. Yesterday I referred to the influence of Old Scotia on 
Nova Scotia through one of Stowe’s pupils. the Rev. Dr, Forrester. He it was who 
tounded the first normal school down by the Canadian provinces near the sea. and in his 
mind, when he organized that institution, there was no doubt the intention to supply