CHAPTER XIX THE WEAKEST LINKS B. THE IMMATURE AND UNTRAINED TEACHER THE Soul and substance of every school is the teacher. In the last analysis, all buildings, apparatus, and school revenues are purely material things, — helps, aids, means to an end. The teacher is the personal and human agency that gives life and significance to the work that the school sets out to accomplish. The success of the school and of the school system is measured by the amount of real educative activity that goes on in the minds of the pupils, and it is the personal, human factor that determines this. In so far as the state or the Nation depends for stability and progress upon its schools, it depends upon the teachers. Teaching is an art. Indeed, good teaching is a fine art, — which is to say again that the personal and human factors constitute its soul and substance. But, like other fine arts, it has a technique, and this technique can be mastered by competent persons under the proper conditions. Certain of these conditions are of outstanding importance the maturity of mind that comes only with age and experience; the knowledge that comes only by study; the character that comes only with reflection, responsibility, and acts of intelligent choice; and the insight, resourcefulness, and good sense that come in part from native endowment and in part from the discipline of training and experience. The old saw "Teachers are born, not made" means that some people possess these fundamental qualifications without a definite and specific course of preparation, - some people have a "knack" of teaching. It is just as true, perhaps, as the statement that musicians are born and not made; but while a person may be born with every physical and mental quality that goes to make up musical talent, no person is "born" an accomplished musician. And by the same token, no person is "born" an accomplished teacher. Preparation for teaching should rest upon the largest possible equipment of native talent for teaching, but to put persons even well qualified by native endowment into the actual work of teaching without preparation is simply to give them their preparation at the expense of the children whom they teach, — or, as is more frequently the case, to leave them permanently on the plane of amateurish bungling. In Chapter XVIII it was pointed out that the solution of the problems presented by illiteracy, limited literacy, and physical and health deficiencies could be effected only through a solution of the rural-school problem. But in its turn, the rural-school problem cannot be solved until the teacher problem has been solved. We P come, then, in the present chapter to the most fundamental source of weakness in American public education. THE RURAL-SCHOOL TEACHER A clear conception of rural-school deficiencies can be gained only by understanding the limitations of the rural-school teacher. There are required for this branch of the public-school service approximately three hundred thousand teachers. These teachers as a group constitute by far the youngest, the most inexperienced, and the least well-educated portion of the total teaching population. Of the three hundred thousand, more than half would be debarred from voting because of their youth, and yet to them the public nonchalantly delegates a responsibility in comparison with which the individual franchise is a mere bagatelle - for each of them is a potential factor in determining the votes of from fifteen to forty citizens in embryo. These three hundred thousand rural and village teachers, as a group, have had for their responsible duties no training that deserves the name. Some of them are products of neighboring high schools, and in several states an effort is made to give a little instruction in the high schools that will make the work of a beginner a little less bungling. In no state, however, has this been looked upon as anything more than a temporary and most unsatisfactory expedient, and the majority of rural-school teachers lack even this modicum of training. A large proportion of them have not com-( pleted a high-school course. Indeed, it is estimated that no fewer than a million children now enrolled in the rural schools are under teachers who have had no more than eighth-grade education themselves, and many even less than that. The rural-school teachers are transient in the calling. The Federal Commissioner of Education estimated the number of recruits needed for this service in a single year (1918-19) as 130,000, an annual "turn-over" of more than one in three. In one of the most prosperous of the Middle Western states, the Bureau of Education reports the average term of service of the rural-school teacher to be not more than two years. It has already been pointed out that the ultimate elimination of illiteracy and the reduction of limited literacy depend upon the reform of rural education. It should now be clear that the first step in this reform should be to insure for the rural schools a relatively permanent and stable body of teachers, thoroughly trained to undertake the responsible duties which these isolated posts impose. Into these schools should go the best talent that the calling can attract. Obviously, the only way to attain this end is to advance the rewards and raise the standards of the rural-school service. The situation could be entirely transformed in a few years and at a paltry cost, - a cost paltry in comparison with what the Nation would gain. Three hundred thousand well-selected, well-trained, and permanent teachers in the rural and village schools could undoubtedly, as a group, do vastly more for the Nation than an equal number of men and women, as well selected and as well trained, could do in any other form of public or social service, for they could profoundly influence our national life for the greatest good at the very root and source of whatever elements of strength it may possess. THE PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SERVICE The situation in the rural and village schools throws its dark shadow over every type of educational work. Urban schools are, in many ways, vastly better off, and yet the fact that the rural and village teachers, constituting nearly one half of the teaching population, are immature, transient, and untrained, operates to depress standards throughout the entire field. Most of the larger cities, for example, maintain local training schools for elementary teachers, and could easily require reasonably high standards of preparation. With a few notable exceptions they demand but one or two years of professional training after the candidate has completed a high-school course. It is generally agreed that two years represent the lowest minimum that should be tolerated; yet even our largest and richest cities are content with this. Indeed, of all our public-school |