DEAN HOLMES TELLS OF WIDE SCOPE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL

This is the ninth of a series of articles which is being published by the Crimson, written about the work of the various graduate schools by their respective Deans or leading professors.

Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

The scope of the Graduate School of Education is not adequately indicated by the phrase "the training of teachers". The School is much concerned, to be sure, with technical problems of teaching, and will always make special provision for inexperienced students, who need not only a general introduction to their profession but also a practical apprenticeship in the work of instruction. It would be difficult, however, to justify the establishment of a Graduate School for the sole purpose of perfecting teachers in craftsmanship. Not that this is unimportant; indeed it is highly desirable, and many teachers fail or are less effective than they might be for the lack of a properly supervised apprenticeship: but even the practical training of a novice, to say nothing of more advanced study on the part of experienced workers, can not be well conducted apart from the much broader and more difficult work of training men and women for the supervision and direction of instruction, the organization of school programs and school systems, and the administration of educational enterprises. The study of the technique of teaching is, in fact, but one part of the preparation of a teacher, and the preparation of teachers is but one part of the work of a School of Education. Directors and administrative officers must also be prepared for their work. Their effectiveness, in turn, depends on a preparation concerned with problems more fundamental than those of mere technical routine. Accordingly, for all its students, the work of a Graduate School of Education demands a broad constructive approach to problems of immediate practice--an approach, that is, which provides for every student the perspective which will render his efficiency something more than mechanical. "The training of teachers" must therefore be interpreted out of all recognition if it is to express the meaning of what the Graduate School of Education is undertaking to do.

In many instances, the graduates of the School will become superintendents of school systems, either in cities or in counties and states. School administration is now a well defined profession in which men (and more recently women) of the requisite professional preparation may command good salaries and be sure of the opportunity to use their best talents in a recognized form of public service. Already a considerable number of men whose training in Education was secured at Harvard are superintendents in larger cities. Superintendents F. V. Thompson of Boston, F. W. Ballou of Washington, D. C., C. R. Reed of Akron, and H. S. Gruver of Worcester, are, for example, Harvard graduates. Positions of the sort they hold now command salaries as high as $10,000. Administrative positions in states are not quite so well paid, but sometimes offer a wider field of work. There are Harvard graduates in the State Departments of Education of Massachusetts, West Virginia, Alabama, and other states. Education administration may safely be said to offer a career as well established, as adequately rewarded, and as constructive as any profession which depends fundamentally on public support and legislative enactment. It is probably in better case than diplomacy or the consular service. In comparison with the Law or Medicine, it suffers on the score of independence and the chance of large reward, but it has the advantage of being directly and obviously a field of general social service.

Graduates of the School also become principals of secondary schools, both public and private, teachers in normal schools, college teachers of Education, and supervisors of special subjects and particular forms of educational activity in schools and school systems. For some of these posts, much specialization during the period of preparation is required. Thus, for example, a supervisor of physical education in a city school system must have a highly specialized training. On the other hand, a college teachers of Education must have not only a special subject of which he is master but must be broadly prepared in such fundamental fields as the social theory of education, educational psychology, educational administration, and the history of education. As college departments and schools of education multiply--a process which has gone on with great rapidity during the last two decades--members of their faculties are more and more required to be specialists whose advanced studies have been based on a broad preparation in education and its contributory disciplines, such as sociology and economics, psychology and philosophy.

Study Principles and Methods

A Graduate School of Education must also provide training for secondary-school teachers of various subjects. Some of these will be teachers who have already had experience and who see the need of readjustments in their teaching. They return to the University for the study of Education with special emphasis on problems of the organization of knowledge in their respective fields into courses and curricula. This involves the study of aims and principles as well as the study of methods. They seek also the opportunity for further study of the subjects they are teaching, and this is made possible at Harvard by cooperation between the Graduate School of Education and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Such students become heads of departments in schools, both secondary schools and normal schools, and supervisors in school systems.

For inexperienced students, who start for the most part in secondary schools, it is necessary to place much emphasis on supervised practice in teaching. The University has an agreement with eight cities and towns in the vicinity by which students are given the opportunity to teach under direction, and this work forms the basis for all training in the technique of classroom practice. At the same time, students of this group study the general problems of the institution in which they are to work; the mental and physical development of adolescents; the characteristics of the secondary-school population; the aims and purposes of the secondary school; the values of the various subjects, and their organization into courses and curricula.

In meeting the needs of these and other groups of students, there is a constant necessity for the interpretation of new movements in education and the discussion of tendencies and proposals, both conservative and radical. The reorganization of secondary education with special reference to the junior high school is a case in point. Out of its very program of training, therefore, there arises in a School of Education the demand for continued research. The general educational situation presents so many unsolved problems that a university professor of education could not, in any case, avoid the demand for continued investigation and study. Research is therefore part and parcel of the work of both Faculty and students, just as it is in the Business School and Medical School.

School's Aim Constructivemindedness

If it were possible to express in a single word the result the School aims to achieve in its students, perhaps the best term to use would be constructivemindedness. To be constructiveminded in a profession calls for a "professional consciousness" such as can be fostered by study of the history and theory of the profession and of the institutions in which its work is carried on; it calls also for mastery of the technical elements of the profession, its routine of habits, skills and adjustments; but it calls most of all for the spirit of research. The Graduate School of Education would avoid making radicals or iconoclasts of its students, but it would avoid equally making them narrowly skillful practitioners in an accepted educational scheme.

The School offers distinctive professional degrees--the Master of Education and the Doctor of Education. It deals in its courses with the entire range of educational problems and the principles that underlie modern educational practise. Students of varying purpose and varying ambitions are, of course, desirable and welcome and a number of special programs are provided, as for example in physical education. Although the School wants most those men and women who seek something more than mere drill in the business of teaching, it includes among its aims that of rendering inexperienced students more immediately effective in their first school posts. The requirements of various states and cites for licenses to teach now make some technical work in education a necessity, and such requirements are amply met by the offering of the School. Admission is limited to graduates of approved colleges and scientific schools, and the requirements for the new degrees correspond to those for the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. Instruction in the summer is necessarily an important part of the work of the School, especially for teachers already in service; and Summer School courses may be counted, under special regulations, toward degrees.

Growing Demand for Teachers

Now that the affairs of the world seem likely to get back to something like a normal basis, at least for a while, it may be expected that larger numbers of men and women will be attracted by the opportunities for public service offered by teaching and school administration. It is hardly possible, of course, to emphasize too much the importance of education in the progress of democracy. The United States is certainly far from the stage at which its provision of education is commensurate with the needs of the nation. Men and women of larger ability, broader education, and better training are very greatly in demand. Public recognition of the educational leader, including his material reward, puts him in a situation more advantageous than any he has ever had before, and the demand is constant for those who can exercise fuller leadership and deserve still greater recognition. That is the justification for the establishment of a Graduate School of Education in Harvard University and the reason why the General Education Board contributed half a million dollars to the endowment of the School. For that reason, it was also especially appropriate that the gift of the General Education Board should have been made with special recognition of the work of one who has preached the gospel of educational leadership in a democracy throughout his professional career--Professor Paul H. Hanus. That reason gave especial appropriateness, also, to the designation of the fund of the School by the name of Charles William Eliot. The School therefore makes it appeal to those who see education as an opportunity for constructive service in the public interest