Each September, during the past nine years, when the summer interval has passed, I have always said how glad I was to be back on the air with Little Talks on Common Things. But never before have I been quite so glad to be back as I am tonight. This spring for the first time in the nine years, the program has been interrupted for seven weeks before its seasonal close. I spent those seven weeks in the hospital and recuperating at home, and I know” I am fortunately blessed to be back on the air tonight.<\/p>\n
I want to thank the many listeners to this program who sent me cards, letters and flowers wh i Ie I was in the hosp ita I. Some of you I di d not knaol even by name. Others of you had been long time contributors to the program. To at I of you my grateful thanks.<\/p>\n
Usually we close the season for this program early in June. But, because of the recent interruptions, we shall continue this season unti I June 30. Now I promise you faithfu:llythat I won’t continue to talk about my operati on, and the I ast word I have to say about it is in the four lines of a Ii tt Ie ditty that my happy convalescence urged me to compose. Here it is:<\/p>\n
HDi vi ded in three parts is Gau I. n<\/p>\n
I swear it is not true at al I;<\/p>\n
For the surgeon with ecstatic glee<\/p>\n
Took whole the gall right out of me.<\/p>\n
When I last talked with you on March 10, I told you how the newly organized State Board of Education in 1847 was trying to straighten out a chaotic situation in <\/em>the Maine schools — a situation that called for substantially increased\u00a0 financial support from both community and state — a situation where even the mi Id laws already existing were being carelessly evaded and sometimes deI i be rate I y de fie d \u2022<\/p>\n Let us now see what that State Board felt about a situation that is desperately with us 110 years later. Those\u00b7 fine citizens on the State Board in 1847 had no way of knowing that in a time of unprecedented prosperity, in a\u00a0 time of things they could not even dream of — things like automobiles and airplanes, telephones and te Ie ~ s i on sets — another Ma ine State Board of Educati on would be just as concerned as they were 110 years earlier about the supply of qualified teachers.<\/p>\n I have told you what that board said about the influence of low pay, how the best teachers were being drawn away into other vocations. But the Board regarded the whole matter as so seri ous that they appointed a corrmi ttee on the\u00a0 “Qua Ii f i cat i on and Educat i on of Teachers”, and that commi ttee’ s long report i s inc I uded in the Board’s own pri nted report of 1847. The commi ttee sa i d: “Who can wonder that many schools should be supplied with incompetent teachers? Is it not the greater wonder that so many among us can teach at all? The teachers are not at fault in the matter of unsuitable qualifications, for these are as high as the people have cal led for. And why should the teachers improve their qualifications unti I the people call for improvement?”<\/p>\n The committee suggested the establishment of teachers’ institutes (what we would now cal I workshops) which had proved successful in other states. This movement had begun i n 1839, with the estab I i shment of a so-ca lied teache rs ‘ c I ass in Hartford, Connecti cut, the object of wh i ch was to gi ve teachers fran opportunity to revise and extend their ~nowledge of the studies usually pursued in district schools, and of the best methods of school arrangement, instruction and government.” The name Teachers’ Institute was applied to a simi lar plan in New York State in 1843, and had since been adopted by seven other states, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The committee felt it was time to try them in Mai ne.<\/p>\n In 1847 there was no such thing as certification of teachers. To determine whether a teacher was qualified was entirely a local matter. The practice was exam i nat i on by the dis t r i ct comm i ttee \u2022 I remembe r we I I my mothe r’ s accoun t of her first teacher examination. She was an applicant for teacher of a one-room school in the town of Poland, near the farm later occupied by Governor Bert M. Fernald. Fernald’s father was one of the school examiners. He was a kindly gentleman and trying to put the young teacher at ease when one member of the committee said, !’I want to see if this gal knows anything about history. Let me ask her a questi on.” And frown i ng at the teacher, he asked, “Vie <\/em>II, young lady, you tell me where Benedict Arnold was buried.” The best Mother could do was to say, “I don’t know.” She felt better later when Mr. Fernald took her aside and sai d, “Mr. H- —- doesn’t know any more than you do where Arno I d was buried but he says he’s going to ask every new teacher unti I he finds out.”<\/p>\n The State (bard in 1847 pointed out that examination of teachers is a twoway street. “The exam i nati on”, sa i d the report, !!shou I d be made the occasion of giving the teacher as much information as possible about his or her duties.<\/p>\n Plans and modes of examination should be made more uniform and should be made known to the pub I i c \u2022 ”<\/p>\n As for the training of teachers, the Board said, “Let the legislature doits duty by granting an appropriation for the estab Ii shme,nt and support of a\u00a0 teachers! i nsti tute i n each county of the state. Our peop Ie must un de rstand that it is as necessary for school teachers to be trained for their office as it is that their tai lors and cobblers should serve an apprenticeship before they can be trusted to make a coat ora shoe, or as it is that their minister, lawyer and physician should each have thei r school of preparation.”<\/p>\n T he (bard’s report i tse I f does not ment i on norma I school s, wh i ch we re ve ry new indeed in 1847. But the secretary, in his report to the Board, definitely\u00a0 used that term. He wrote: 7’1 tis made a part of the duty of th i s board to i nquire and report upon the advantages of normal schools or schools for the education of teachers. Entertaining, as I do, the highest regard for the institution of the normal school, and believing it to be the most efficient method for training and qualifying a class of teachers to become the educaTors of the hearts and intellects of the young, yet I cannot refrain from expressing my conviction\u00a0 that the time for the establishment of such an institution in this state, at public expense, has not yet arrived. Moreover, we cannot wait for the completion of such training. The demand is for an immediate supply of competent teachers, and it is too urgent to admit of delay. Among the 4,000 persons in Maine who are employed, at least part of the year, as teachers, are men and women of the right material and possessed of the right spirit, whose deficiencies are the consequence, not of a lack of native talent, but of inexperience and ignorance of what may be styled the art of teaching. It is from this source that the supply of teachers must come to meet the immediate demand, and the instrumentality by which they can be_ most speedily fitted and qualified to be efficient teachers is the Teachers’ Institute.”<\/p>\n It would be many years before Maine would get its first normal school, but Teachers’ Institutes were established and did bring into Maine education for the first time a sense of professional zeal.<\/p>\n The Board’s report was quite outspoken about the existing method of qualifying teachers. It seems that dependency was placed chiefly upon the principals of academies who said that so-and-so would make a good teacher. The board denounced th i s practi ce in these words: “Too often th i s method is a system of flattery. It consists in granting complimentary certificates to pupi Is, wherein the writer certifies that the bearer has attended under his instruction for a certain length of time and that he or she is well qualified to teach. These certificates are often granted without any regard to the qualifications of the individual. The writer feels no special responsibi lity, and the holder is f;lattered TO think he is ready to teach. Thus, swarms of young and inexperienced persons, who cannot by any stretch of thinking be cal led teachers, are thrown out to try their luck on innocent children. Our laws are very severe about counterfeiting money. Why should they not be equally severe about counterfeiting our school teachers? Which is more important, genuine currency or genuine school teachers?<\/p>\n In 1846 the movement toward graded schools was just beginning, especially in New York and Massachusetts. The Ma i ne Board in that year di d not ca II for grading the schools. Its committee on classification of pupi Is did, however, make recommendations which would lead directly to the later device of grades.<\/p>\n Listen TO what the Board then called the best classification: HThe best classification in towns of 3,000 or more inhabitants is into three levels of English schools: primary, intermediate and high schools. In the primary schools, chi 1- dren of both sexes under the age of 8 would be taught by mistresses. The studies would be the elements of reading, spelling, oral arithmetic, writing (or rather drawing upon the blackboard or slate) so far as to give a free use of the hand, geography in relation to the general form and structure of the earth, with a somewhat particular account of our own country.<\/p>\n HAT the second, or i ntermedi ate, leve I the studi es wou I d be readi ng, spelling and defining; grammar; geography and general history of the nations of the world, and detai led study of the government and history of the United states; and bookkeeping so far as is necessary for persons not engaged in mercanti Ie pursuits. Pupils in the intermediate school would be between the ages of 8 and 12.<\/p>\n f!The thi rd level, the high school, would contain the pupi Is who have a good knowledge of the ordinary English branches. Latin and Greek might be taught if desirable. The English stUdies would be history, ancient geography, natural phi losophy, chemistry, geology, and natural hIstory with particular reference to agriculture, descriptive astronomy, algebra, geometry, surveying, navigation, penmanship and bookkeeping.<\/p>\n “In towns or districts where the number of scholars is sufficient, the sexes in the intermediate school should be divided, and taught respectively by an instructor of their own sex. In the high school, it would probably be better and cheaper to have the two sexes in different rooms in the same building under the d i recti on of a ma Ie pri nci pa I, wi th the fema Ie pup i Is under the i mmedi ate government of a female teacher, subordinate to the principal.”<\/p>\n How did they know when a pupi I was ready to go from primary into intermediate school? Was it just a matter of age? After his eighth birthday, did a chi I d go to the latter, whether he had learned anyth i ng in pri mary schoo I or not? No, indeed. That kind of stupid procedure was left for a later 20th century day. Just because the primary school was ungraded, it was the teacher’s duty to see that each chi Id got the necessary instruction to be ready as soon as the chi Id could for the rigid examination on which promotion into the next schoo I depended. When the teacher thought the ch i I d ready for the exami nati on, he took it, and if he fai led it, he stayed right on in the lower school unti I he was truly ready.<\/p>\n With the low pay, the multiple text books, the lack of teacher training, the fact that some of the older pupi Is often knew more about a subject than did the teacher — no wonder the new state Board of Education that Maine set up in 1846 found a job on its hands. But it has always been so, and always wi I I be. In education, as in every other of life’s activities, the price of progress is vigi lance and hard work.<\/p>\n Year: 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #336, Broadcast May 5, 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}