and this requires that they should devote themselves to applying in practice the truths ascertained and verified by the psychologists.  For this purpose it will be necessary that they should know something of the method by which these truths are sought and proved.  It is also an advantage for teachers to learn something of the history of education, not as a series of biographies of so-called Great Educators but rather with the object of learning what has been suggested and attempted in former times.  Such a knowledge furnishes the teacher with the necessary power to deal with new proposals and with the many “systems” and “methods” which are continually arising.  Instead of becoming an eager advocate of every novelty or adopting an attitude of indiscriminate scepticism he will be in some measure able to estimate the true merit of new proposals, and his knowledge of mental operations will serve as an aid in judging whether they have any germ of sound principle.  The alternative plan of leaving the teacher to learn his craft solely by practice often has the result of confining him too closely to narrow and stereotyped methods, based either on the imperfect recollection of his own schooldays, or on the method of some other teacher.  Imitation is cramping and serves to destroy the qualities of initiative and adaptability which are indispensable to success in teaching.

It will be noted that no extravagant demand is put forward on behalf of what is called training in teaching.  The methods of training hitherto practised have been based too frequently on the assumption that it is possible to fashion a teacher from the outside, as it were, by causing him to attend lectures on psychology and teaching method and to hear a course of demonstration lessons.  This plan may fail completely since it is possible to write excellent examination answers on the subjects named and even to give a prepared lesson reasonably well without being fitted to undertake the charge of a form.  It should be recognised that the practice of teaching can be acquired only in the class-room under conditions which are normal and therefore entirely different from those existing in the practising school of a training college.  When this truth is fully apprehended we may expect to find that the young teacher is required to spend his first year in a school where the head master and one or more members of the regular staff are qualified to guide his early efforts and to establish the necessary link between his knowledge of theory and his requirements in practice.

The Departments of Education in the universities should be encouraged to develop systematic research into the principles of teaching and should be in close touch with the schools in which teachers are receiving their practical training.