TRAINING OF TEACHERS. NORMAL SCHOOLS. REMARKS UPON THE TABLE. Table 18 presents the statistics of public normal schools reporting to this office for the year 1885-'86. They numbered 116, with 1,115 instructors and 31,801 students. So far as the distinction of sex is noted out of a total of 25,750 normal students, 6,894 were men and 16,106 women; while of 6,051 students in other courses, 2,722 were men and 2,649 women. About four-fifths of the schools are co-educational, the women students being in the majority. The proportion of women to men is relatively greater than the corresponding proportion in the teaching force of the country, though probably not greater than among the teachers of elementary schools and grades, which is the branch of the service that draws most largely upon the normal graduates. The complaint is renewed from year to year that the number of normal schools is far below the number required to supply the annual demand for new teachers, nevertheless the statistics show considerable increase in the number in a period of years. Comparisons between the totals before us and those for any previous year cannot properly be instituted without taking into account certain changes that have been made in the table this year. Heretofore it has included normal schools and normal departments of universities and colleges. This arrangement was somewhat confusing, as many of the universities and colleges reported no particulars of their normal departments excepting the number of students. Moreover, in several instances, the work of the normal departments of the superior institutions was radically different from that of the normal schools in general, being adapted rather to the preparation of secondary teachers and of supervising officers than to the training of elementary teachers. It was, therefore, deemed advisable to confine Table 18, Part I, to public normal schools supported by State, county, or city appropriations, and to tabulate the statistics of normal departments with those of other departments of their respective institutions. Exceptions have been made to this arrangement in the case of the Branch Normal College of Arkansas Industrial University, State Normal College of University of Nashville, Tennessee, and Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Virginia, which appear in Table 18. Comparing then the statistics of the present year with those for 1880, we notice, first, that 13 departments included in the earlier table have been dropped; second, that 3 normal schools reported in 1880 no longer appear, while 26 schools not then tabulated are found in the table before us, of which number 23 have been organized since 1880. This gives a net increase of 23 schools reporting in 1885-'86, as compared with the number reporting in 1880. The proportion of graduates from the normal schools varies but little from year to year, being about one-tenth of the whole number of students. NUMBER OF TEACHERS WHO HAVE RECEIVED NORMAL TRAINING. The reports of this office from 1881 to 1885, inclusive, but omitting 1883, show that out of 14,419 graduates 8,861 engaged in teaching within a year of the date of graduation. A large proportion of non-graduates also engage in teaching; among these are included many students who were teachers before entering the normal schools, and interrupted their work to gain the benefit of training or of instruction in special branches. The extent to which the teaching force of the country is recruited from normal graduates or from those who have attended normal schools can only be partially shown. The following table summarizes all the specific information on his (307) point in the current reports received up to date, and shows the ratio of normally. trained teachers to the entire number employed in the States indicated: It is to be regretted that so few normal schools preserve any record of the subsequent career of their graduates. With the hope of exciting greater activity in this respect, statements of efforts made in this direction in two instances are appended to this article (p. 319). STATE APPROPRIATIONS TO NORMAL SCHOOLS. By reference to column 5 of Table 18, p. 323, it will be seen how widely the States differ in respect to their appropriations for the work under consideration. Omitting municipal and county appropriations, there were 5 States that appropriatod above $50,000 each for the current year, while 4 States appropriated less than $4.000 each. The full significance of these figures will be more fully realized when they are viewed in relation with other conditions as in the following summary: In the present state of our information a summary like the foregoing can only be made suggestive. For instance, we have no positive data for a comparison between the number of normal graduates and the number of new teachers required in any given year. Several years ago it was estimated that 30 per cent. of the whole body of teachers change annually; more recent estimates indicate that this ratio is too high for a large proportion of the States. Superintendent Draper, of New York, states that from 3,000 to 4,000 teachers, or from 7, to 10 per cent. of the entire number, are annually required in that State to fill vacancies. Probably this would be too low an estimate for the majority of the States, but for the purpose of an approximate statement, 10 per cent. of the whole number of teachers reported has been taken to represent the number of new teachers annually required in the States considered, excepting where the precise number was reported. The comparison serves at least to emphasize the discrepancy between supply and demand in the matter of trained teachers. Comparisons are hardly allowable in respect to appropriations, as in some of the States the whole or nearly the whole amount is expended upon normal pupils only, while in other of the States the larger proportion of the pupils benefited are not in the normal courses. In short, this, as every other similar study of the educational statistics of the United States, is embarrassed by the want of uniformity in the particalars. It is a fact worthy of special note that the two highest per capita estimates in the table are for States in which all, or nearly all, the students in the schools considered are classed as normal students. By reference to Table 18 it will be seen that the appropriations for normal schools in Virginia, as reported, amount to $55,240; but $10,000 of this sum being the interest on the Agricultural College land-scrip fund granted by the State to the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, hardly seems to come within the definition of a State appropriation, and hence is omitted in the foregoing comparative table. The sum total of appropriations for all the States, including $10,000 to Hampton, is $1,228,549. The view of what the States are doing to secure trained teachers for the common schools would be incomplete without some notice of teachers' institutes. The most important particulars relating to these agencies as reported for the current year are here tabulated: TABLE 15.-Statistics of teachers' institutes for 1885-'86. State and county. Attendance. Appropriation. * Number of counties having institutes. a From report of superintendent to the agent of the Peabody fand for 33 normal institutes. b For the 28 county institutes held during 1885 and 1886. * Cost of instruction only. d State institutes only. e In addition to these many "educational meetings" were held. |