Mansfield University - Carontawan Yearbook (Mansfield, PA)

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« s V If The Dean of Instruction Mansfield is concerned with the training of teachers, who, to be good teachers, must first be competent students, patriotic citizens, worthy men and women. Mastery of the ever-changing technioue of teaching is vital; but, without wisdom and character, sound technique alone produces on pupils practical results comparable to the musical effect on an audience of a Beethoven Sonata, played by a competent, but crippled pianist on a decrepit instrument, badly out of tune. Only on the solid foundation of a well ordered life, mental, physical, emotional, moral, can a permanently sound and useful teaching technique be expected. The little we have yet learned scientifically about the mind and its working- agrees with all practical experience in stressing the importance of coordinated wholeness of personality. The best professional training is built on this fundamental insight. To be a preacher, an engineer, a physician or a teacher, one must know much more than theology, engineering, medicine or pedagogy and must be much more than one knows. Mediocre professional training always deals too much with what A. N. Whitehead has recently called particularized ideas of low generality and has lived from hand to mouth in a vain attempt to make teachers without first making men. Mansfield is a professional school for training- teachers. It knows many of its graduates will follow, in time, other lines of work than teaching, including largely home-making. It also knows that any branch of professional training, whatever its immediate practical aim, includes many branches and, even in professional courses, much material common to any education at the collegiate level. To impart teaching skill, without attention to other needed skills and qualities, is not our aim; but rather to train good men and women, sound scholars, useful and worthy citizens, vital person- alities, who in addition to this and also largely because of this- are good teachers. ARTHUR T. BELKNAP. 28

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The President The Mansfield State Teachers ' College is located in 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. The college 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 advantages. 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 institution a State Normal School. This was done in December, 1862. 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. 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 Teachers ' College basis; and was actually, in point of time, the first to be approved by the Penn- sylvania State Council of Education to confer degrees. This occurred June 4, 1926. On May 21, 1927, the name of the institution was officially changed to State Teachers ' College. WILLIAM R. STRAUGHN. 27 y y

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« v The Dean of Women The Department of Student Welfare works with a conscious effort to instil qualities of cooperation, of considera- tion for others, of self reliance and of initiative into the daily life and habits of the students. Affiliation with the Student Council, membership in organi- zations, service on committees and regular habits of study and worship are concrete aids toward the building of such qualities which, combined with an adequate background of subject matter, should enable any student to take his or her place as a leader in his or her future community. VICTORIA FREDERICK. a The Dean of Men This office witnesses the ever-chang- ing aspects of student life. The year has been especially rich and eventful in those traditions with which are asso- ciated the rarest and most cherished memories of college life. Blessed is the student, who, while enjoying these gifts and privileges, has evolved a philosophy of fine living and spiritual completeness, which has en- abled him to leave this college mentally, physically and spiritually equipped to meet the world. That student is worthy of his heritage. HENRY W. OLSON. 29 V V