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ADDRESSES OF WELCOME.
29
Important topic the difference between the normal school which prepares
seachers for the work of the elementary schools, and the college or univer-
sity which gives the degree of Doctor of Pedagogy. The course of study
in the regular normal school, on the other hand, is defined by contrast
with the ordinary high school or academy (secondary schools), and it is
claimed that the normal school introduces comparative study—like the
college, seeking to understand each branch in the light of the other
oranches of human learning—while secondary education usually teaches
ts branches as steps to higher studies, and not by a comparative method.
The college or university course in pedagogy, it is contended, should
make its degree stand for original work of investigation in the lines of the
literature and history of education as well as in lines of investigation into
she growth or development of the child physically and mentally.
No more important topics than these are on the programme for the
week as regards the improvement of our teachers.
But there are two department congresses auxiliary to this department of
professional training, the one on rational psychology, which considers the
iransient and permanent characteristics of mind, seeks to discover the fun-
damental characteristics which contradistinguish mind from mere bio-
logical phenomena—the mind as knowing primitive truth and as pure self-
activity. The other congress, that of experimental psychology, devotes
all its discussions to questions of child-study in physical, emotional, intel-
lectual, and volitional aspects.
The teacher, it is said, should understand psychology because he deals
with the growth of the mind. It is quite recent that a great revival has
segun in this country of the study of psychology.
The supervision of schools, which becomes every day more important
as people come to live more and more in cities and villages, discusses
the questions relating to the organization of schools, especially such as
relate to the examination of teachers and the improvement of their
work.
An interesting question, especially interesting in the presence of this
yreat World’s Exposition of the products of human Industry, is that of the
relation of technical skill and manual processes to the training of the
esthetic sense—the cultivation of the taste for the beautiful.
This question is brought out in many of its phases in the congress on art
Instruction, and still more of its phases are taken up in the congress on
‘ndustrial and manual instruction.
The difference between the great systems of training—those of the
Swedish 816jd, the Russian school-shop, and the French system—will be
setter understood, it is believed, at the close of these discussions, and that
this will lead to more profitable methods of preparation for our industries.
The department congresses of physical education, of educational publi-
cations, of vocal music, and of business education, have prepared pointed