ination; vitrually, however, any graduate of a standard high school could secure admission. Naturally with the new rule applying, making a rigid examination necessary for the admission of the lower third people of the St. Louis high schools and for students 80

1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 coming from outside of the city, the number in the January class of 1914 was lowered. This number reached the low water mark in January 1915 with thirty-one in that class. From this point on there has been a gradual increase in the number of graduates, corresponding to the increased attendance in the high school, with no appreciable decline in the number during the period of the war. For instance, in January 1921, there were thirty-six graduates. Yet this is two above the low mark of 1918 and five above the low mark of 1915. It is clear, therefore, that we shall have to seek reasons for the shortage of teachers in other causes than in a decline in the attendance of the Harris Teachers College.

Among the most important specific reasons for the scarcity of teachers at the present time are: (1), The fact that more marriages have taken place among teachers in the last years than formerly; (2), Teachers were called into war service and resigned for other services during the period of the war; (3), An unusual and growing number of teachers have requested leaves of absence for advanced study owing to their growing appreciation of education; (4), Fifty-four teachers, twenty-four for whole time work and thirty for part time work, have been called into the continuation schools; (5), Teachers have been taken from the grades into the junior and senior high schools. These causes, then, have produced a scarcity of teachers in the grades which, no doubt, will be taken care of now that the number entering the College is very rapidly increasing.

The growing tendency to take college education should not be discouraged in so far as it is possible to meet the needs of the St. Louis schools and at the same time grant the required leaves of absence. No practice points more favorably to the growth and appreciation of education and the feeling of the need of additional training to meet the serious educational problems than that of a growing desire for additional college work. Therefore, every provision should be made for ambitious teachers to get their college degrees. In general however, the policy of the office should be to require the graduates of the College to fulfill their obligations to the Board of Education before taking leaves for university study. More will be said later about the opportunities offered in the Harris Teachers College in this direction, but those opportunities can never take the place, for many people who are able to enjoy the experiences, of outside contacts in the big universities of the country. Also, the tendency to take the teachers into the continuation schools and high schools from the grades, is to be encouraged, for the opportunity to enter this enlarged service, when the promotion is based purely upon meritorious achievement, is a stimulus to the highest endeavor of the teaching corps. Furthermore, contrary to previous notions, the training acquired in the grades fits one for high school and continuation school work. The point of view in the grades is the development of the child and not the presentation of subject matter as so often characterizes high school instruction. For that reason the needs of the child are kept uppermost by the efficient teacher. After she has acquired this point of view and has become definitely fixed in her practices, she goes into the high school with a different attitude toward her work and toward the child that is helpful and stimulating. In the second place, she knows what she has to deal with because she has become thoroughly familiar with the type of training that the child has had in the grades, and this tends to discourage the feeling so commonly prevalent among instructors of a higher grade that those of the immediate grade preceding have not done efficient work. Finally, she has acquired scientific attitude toward education which is indispensable in a high school teacher. I think, therefore, that we should in every way encourage the grade teacher to equip herself for high school work, and when this has been done, she should be given the opportunity of doing that work. This is not meant to imply that teachers should be encouraged to leave the grades. It does mean that such teachers are among the best equipped for high school

work, and when they are best fitted for high school work and choose to do it, they should be encouraged in their ambitions.

In the annual report for 1916-1917 attention was directed to the need of a partial reorganization of the apprentice term. The war and its activities prevented us from carrying out some of the recommendations contained in that report. It would be wise here to recall some of these recommendations.

"The apprentice should return to the College for work during the apprentice term. This work should consist of (1) a course in classroom management, a need that is keenly felt by both principals and substitute teachers; (2) a course in measurement of child progress in the school; (3) some of the conferences which are now given in the senior term should be held during the junior term so that the problems might be discussed as they arise in the minds of the students."

The most serious problem is that of the conferences which take place in the senior term. They are too widely separated from the work of observation and practice teaching to be most helpful to the students. What the student needs is an opportunity for more adequate conferences and discussions for her work as an apprentice while she is doing the actual work. Also, the problem of tests and measurements should be a part of the course at the College, and if given while the student is out in the school, she could not only help in the administration of tests but also get an invaluable training at the same time. The apprentices could render invaluable service to the Division of Tests and Measurements. I suggest that we now go forward with the plan of having the apprentices return to the College for these courses during the apprentice term. The conference should perhaps be conducted partly by those in the service in the field—that is by supervisors and assistant superintendents.

There are some immediate problems of the Junior College, or that part of the College which trains the teachers for the elementary schools, which will have to receive early consideration. Inasmuch as the supply of kindergarten teachers is likely to become rather rapidly exhausted within the next few years, provision will soon have to be made for those who wish to enter into the kindergarten work. Probably this training should be carried out in the regular classes in College with certain slight variation from the regular course. In fact it would appear that certain fundamental courses should be required of all persons with some specialization in the direction of (1) the Junior High, (2) the middle grades, and (3) the primary and kindergarten.

Furthermore, the prospective attendance for the opening of the school in September indicates that we shall very rapidly over supply the demand for teachers in St. Louis. This might seem over optimistic in the face of the shortage we have experienced, but a careful study confirms this conclusion. This oversupply of graduates presents the opportunity of either restricting the entrance requirements or lengthening the full time course to three

years.

In the annual report for 1918-1919 mention was made of the fact that it would soon be necessary, for reasons pointed out, to lengthen the course in the College. Among these reasons is the decreasing age of the students resulting from the entrance into the kindergarten at five and the more rapid progress through the grades and high school. However, war conditions made it inadvisable to lengthen the course at that time. It woud possibly be wise to undertake that extension of training at the present time. The extension of the course should at first be voluntary. In other words, those desiring should be allowed to elect an additional year. The lengthened course is particularly desirable because of the fact that we are facng the problem of training for junior high school work. With the building of addditional junior high schools now anticipated, it will be necessary to train teachers specifically for junior high work. Otherwise, we are reduced to training for the first six grades, and we shall have to go outside to acquire teachers for grades seven to nine. This greatly curtails the activities of the College and its service to the St. Louis schools. In my opinion it would not be wise permanently to attempt to train for junior high school work through the extension department alone for two reasons: First, teachers would be denied observation and practice teaching in junior high; and second, experimentation. would not be possible to so great an extent.

If this work is to be carried out as already indicated, then it would be necessary to have a junior high school like the Wyman, in order that observation and practice teaching might be carried on in the reconstruction of the curriculum for the junior high school. A full discussion for the possibilities along this line has been presented in previous reports. It is desired, however, to direct attention to the necessity of the College rendering a service to the senior high school, such as has been rendered in the past to the grades, and such as it is preparing to render to the Junior High School, when buildings are provided as outlined in the building program. The senior high schools throughout the country have

not come so directly under the influence of recent educational reconstruction, and this is partly due to the fact that training schools have, for the most part, confined their efforts to the training of elementary school teachers. The situation has now changed. Our state normal schools have been made state teachers colleges, with the aim of training high school as well as grade teachers, and this practice is taking place throughout the country. The sister cities of Cleveland and Detroit have established teachers colleges together with high schools for experimental work. In order to render the best aid in the reconstruction of secondary education, we should not only carry out the work as now organized in our Senior College through the extension department, but we should also have a four year course in the college together with observations and practice teaching in the high school. We should also provide for experimental work in the reconstruction of the senior high school curriculum. In order to do this work effectively we ought to have assigned to the College one of the high schools for experimental work, or in the building program of the future a senior high school should be constructed near the College for purposes of observation and experimentation. This development is in line with that taking place throughout the country.

The Senior College, or the extension department as now organized, has rendered a distinct and unique service to the St. Louis city schools. Eleven years ago few of the teachers were requesting leaves of absence for study because the extension work had been in operation only four years, and no effort had been made to organize that work for advance credit. This was not done in a systematic way until 1916. Despite the fact that no credit toward a degree in the College was allowed, there was a considerable growth in the number attending this department and in the demands for courses of various kinds. Since the work has been organized and the degree granted, an unusual interest has been aroused in college education.

The result, therefore, of the growing appreciation of education among the teachers, was that commencing in September, about one hundred desired leaves of absence, for college study and to secure a degree during the year 1921-1922. The demand is partly due to the fact, that these persons have acquired enough credit to be able to secure the degree in one year's time by continous study; partly to the fact that we have now graduated two classes with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Education,-classes of 1920 and 1921, and this has stimulated an interest in and desire for the degree.