Illinois State Normal University - Index Yearbook (Normal, IL)

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Ubc ilnocg 9 student activity. Not that these elements were not already in the life of the institution -but they have received a fresh emphasis, the stimulation ofa mighty impulse from a new and original source. There have come. too. Professor Wilkinson. fresh from the practice school of Dr. Rein at Jenaq Mr. Bogardus with his shining morning face and genial pres- ence: Mrs. Gove to beget in us her own rare skill and devotion to song: Miss Blanchard from the University of Michigan with the high ideals and scholarly spirit that for two generations have given tone and purpose to the student life in that great institution. With the new reginzf' has come growth. Growth is not mere increase in bulkg it involves internal change to meet new conditions. ln this sense the growth of an insti- tution is not uniform and continuous. It rather grows like a crustacean that periodically sheds its skin that it may expand in tl1e freedom of a larger life. Whenever an institu- tion comes to regard itself as the best of its kind, and puts in its time compiacentiy viewing its own perfections. growth stops. lt becomes encrusted in its habits of thought and activity. and fails to respond to new demands. Possibly no year in the history of the Normal School has witnessed more radical changes. A new course of study has been adopted. By slow additions of new lines of work the old normal course had swelled, until in some terms students were due in thirty-one regular exercises per week. Little time was left for study or recreation. The student's energies were distracted and dis- sipated by the multiplicity of subjects. In the revised course each student is impera- tively limited to four lines only, and in each of these he will have an exercise every day. The recitation periods have been lengthened twenty per cent. iVith this concentration must come better scholarship. There has come. too, more freedom in the school life.-less pressure. more spon- taneity. Attendance is demanded only in the class-rooms, and at the devotional and general exercises of the noon hour. Spelling has ceased to vex the soul of the student whose sense of uniformity and whose abiding faith in the reign of law are constantly violated by the absurdities of the English tongue. The course has been made flexible

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,gx THE PRACTICE SCHOOL