Mansfield University - Carontawan Yearbook (Mansfield, PA)

Page 30 text:

PRESIDENTS MESSAGE TRAINING TEACHERS AT MANSFIELD Mansfield State is located at the foothills of the Alleghenies where these mountains begin to level out toward the lower lands of the great lakes — one of the most picturesque parts of Pennsylvania, along the trail made famous long ago by the Seneca Indians. The col- lege is the third oldest teacher training institution in Pennsylvania. It was originally founded in the late fifties as a Seminary under the control of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At that time the North Tier of Pennsylvania was only lightly settled, and the young men and women of this section had but little opportunity for educational ad- vantages. It was during this period that an agitation arose for more technically trained teachers, and as a part of the state program the trustees of the Seminary petitioned the Pennsylvania legislature to make the in- stitution a State Normal School. This was done in De- cember, 1862. Then for a period of almost sixty years this Normal School continued to grow and to serve the cause of education and of teacher training over a large area, so that today a large percentage of the population in the North Tier counties of Pennsylvania has enjoyed the opportunities of an education at this institution. It was one of the first normal schools to seek to go on a Teacher College basis, and was actually in point of time the first to be approved by the Pennsylvania State Council of Education to confer degrees. This was on June 4, 1926. On May 21, 1927, the name of the insti- tution was officially changed to State Teachers College. a iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiifli

Page 32 text:

DR. BELKNAP ' S MESSAGE Beik nap Teaching is not properly a commercial or a political job. It claims to be a science; it is certainly an art. Without the idealism, the enthusiasm, and the devotion of the artist it is a dismal and disheartening failure. If engaged in primarily because of financial profits or social advantage, it becomes at once a futile mechanical process and the most disheartening of menial tasks. The current depression, temporary but just now very real, is taking its toll among teachers as in all the professions. The com- mercially minded, the politically inclined are quickly losing heart, and with the first improvement in business conditions will hasten to seek for other employment. Teaching for a livelihood is no longer attractive. Teaching as an opportunity to make a new generation into a better world will be even more attractive than ever. Fathers and mothers were the first teachers and still their love and devotion make them the most influential instructors. Their ideals are the finest the profession knows. Formal teaching was early and long in the hands of the church and clergy. Religion furnished both the environment and subdivision of contemporary life ; home, church and school, parent, priest, and teacher cooperated together in training the coming generation. The prime motives of education are still the love of the parent, the zeal of the church and the social idealism of organized society. Perhaps the current depression may perform one useful bit of surgery in eliminating ultimately from the teaching profession those whose chief interest is commercial or political. If so, it will materially assist us in strengthening in the teaching profession the spirit and the ideals of the home and the church where education had its birth. 28