Fairmont State University - Mound Yearbook (Fairmont, WV)

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THE TRAINING SCHOOL Possibly the most decided sign of progress in the professional training of teachers within recent years is the ever increasing emphasis placed upon the training school. The principle that action is the end of education and that theory has a reason for existence only in so far as it leads to more efficient action, is not new. For many years law schools have had their moot courts, technical schools their laboratories and machine shops, medical schools their hospitals and clinics, but somehow the idea has prevailed in this country that any one who had a knowledge of his subject could teach. Recently however, we have been developing a professional conciousness in teaching, and this consciousness is made manifest in the development of training schools. In our best Normal Schools the training school is no longer a mere side issue provided for grudgingly in the financial budget; it has become the organizing center, the very life of the school. In view of these facts it is not too much to say that one of the most significant events in the progress of the Fairmont State Normal School for the present year has been the organization of a modern training school. It was the conviction of those who were responsible for this movement that, everything else being equal, the most efficient training school would be one embodying actual school conditions, not an isolated school where the pupils are selected on the basis of social standing or on any other basis, but a Normal School, connected with a we ll organized school system. Actuated by this conviction, in the summer of igii, the Board of Regents in conjunction with the Board of Education of the city of Fairmont concluded arrangements whereby the Fourth Ward School of the city became the training school for the normal school, thus providing for the student teachers of the Normal School superior opportunities for training under Normal School conditions. The favor with which the project has been received on all sides encourages us to believe in the soundness of the principles under- lying its foundation. Superintendent George. H. Shafer Grammar Grade Supervisor Cecyl C. Wilcox Primary Supervisor JESSIE B. Ice 25

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Ma M. Abbott iirii iHcirrli T. 1912 24

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Principal Eighth Grade Seventh Grade Sixth Grade Fifth Grade Fourth Grade Third Grade Second Grade First Grade C. C. Myer Maude Hull Virginia Gaskill Lillian B. Redic Gertrude Creel Jennie Harshbarger Susan Foiren Mary Ward Lulu Hogg 26