As teachers improve, so do
schools; and, as schools improve, so do teachers. The influence exerted
by teachers is first beneficial to pupils, but, as a result, we soon
have a class of better qualified teachers. With these ideas of the
importance of the teacher's vocation to primary instruction, and,
consequently, to all good learning, it is not strange that I place a
high value upon professional training. A degree of professional training
more or less desirable is, no doubt, furnished, by every school; but the
admission does not in any manner detract from the force of the statement
that a young man or woman well qualified in the branches to be taught,
yet without experience, may be strengthened and prepared for the work of
teaching, by devoting six, twelve, or eighteen months, under competent
instructors, in company with a hundred other persons having a similar
object in view, to the study, examination, and discussion, of those
subjects and topics which are sometimes connected with, and sometimes
independent of, the text-books, but which are of daily value to the
teacher.
At present only a portion of this necessary professional training can be
given in the normal schools. If, however, as I trust may sometimes be
the case, none should be admitted but those who are already qualified in
the branches to be taught, the time of attendance might be diminished,
and the number of graduates proportionately increased.
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