San Diego State University - Del Sudoeste Yearbook (San Diego, CA)

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6 WHITE 'AND GOLD Truly, all of us must admit that while we have had faith in teaching, we have not had that full faith and confidence in teachers that we would have if we knew that their professional attainments were based' upon a novitiate thoroughgoing in fundamentals followed by a period of real apprenticeship in the public system, and concluded by a year of study of the problems and methods of teaching done in the light of a real and responsible teaching experience. Modern society pins its faith on teaching, on the educative process. Society will have an equal faith in teachers, as the conductors of that process, when it is sure that they have something to teach and a truly professional skill in teaching it,-when it is reasonably assured that the teacher is not only a master of arts and letters, but equally a master of life. Since the foundations of life are physical, it should be the aim of any school dedicated to the training of teachers, to give an adequate physical education to all of its students, particularly to the pupils of the training school. In that school, at least, the whole conception should be, as nearly as possible, right, from the beginning. For this reason, adequate facilities, tincluding lockers and shower bathsl for playground work and athletics Will be installed on the campus for the training school, and proper, system- atic, physical education will be given to the children of the elementary school as well as to the students of the normal school. The giving of assist- anCe in the direction of this work will be an invaluable experience to the future teacher. Other new projects to be undertaken by the school are: the installation of a department of elementary agriculture, with especial reference to the work of the rural school; the equipment of a laboratory for work in edu- cation; an increase in the amount of training in rhythmic movement, oral expression and dramatization of history and literature in the elementary school; properly graded instruction in sex hygiene in the upper grades of the training school and full discussion of its problems in the student-teach- ersl conferences ; the olfering of one hundred hours of elective work in the upper division of the senior year, together with other developments in curri- culum and administration that cannot be here set forth for lack of space. You will pardon me, if in conclusion, I reiterate the thought that the day is past when the relation that a Normal School bears to the people can be narrowly formal and institutional. A school for teachers must be a living part of the Whole social body. As such, the more it has of distinctive social personality and the less of the spirit of the bureaucratic functionaire, the more will it be' able to foster for State service the loyalty and enthusiasm that have, in these latter years, been invoked by the ideal of service for one is city. It was this thought that led ex-President Black to declare, at a dinner in San Diego at which the leading men of the city were present to do him honor, All that I am, I owe to California. Our response to this pledge is instant, for all that we, as men and women in public service, are and can be, we will gladly owe to California.

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STATE NORMAL $CHOOL, SAN DMD, CAL. JUNE. I91 I COMMENCEMENT NUMBER Aims of the Administration BY PRESIDENT E. L. HARDY Frankly, my aim, as president of the school, is first to cultivate such relations with the faculty, together with the alumni as the sons and daughters of Alma Mater, and the body of students as her children, that we shall be all one body, dominated, as teachers and student-teachers, by one ideal of personality. For personality. as I suggested in a recent message to the alumni, is the greatest gift to man, and our school should grow in stature and in grace of personality, as it hopes to grow in size and in usefulness to 'the State. Our conceptions of this ideal of a personality that shall make us all one body should be very clear cut. Just as we may say that our school colors, white and gold, symbolize, the white, truth, and the gold, worth, so that together they mean that our school stands for True Worthtt, so our ideal of the personality of the school should so definitely figure forth truth to type and social worth that we may say that our school stands for true culture and worthy craftsmanship. During the coming summer, a prominent normal school president will discuss, at a great meeting of teachers to be held in our own State, the problem of the relations of academic work and professional work in normal schools. There can be but one relationship,eit is that of soul to body. We can sum it all up in a very liberal paraphrase of one of the sayings of So- crates, by declaring that wherever there is teaching, there will -be teachers, -that wherever there may be, of social and personal worth1 something to communicate, there will be the communicating teacher. Our grand aims will be, then, to assure ourselves of what we have been pleased to term the literacy of intrants ; to give them a year of work in the definite blocking out of ore-bodies in the vast mine of knowledge; and, finally, after they have passed the scrutiny of the faculty as to fitness for teaching, to put them into the training school Where they may learn to smelt and mint this ore into current coin. The time seems too short. Would it not be well if the State were so to legislate that the diploma of the Normal School would entitle a graduate to teach as a cadet or an apprentice for not more than two years, returning thereafter for a hnal year of professional work before acquiring the right to hold a permanent certificate to teach in an elementary school? Let us consider again what Socrates said: Did ever any man believe in horse- manship, and not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not in iiute-playerst , or, tso We can easily imagine him saying ttin teaching and not in teachers .

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WHITE AND GOLD 7 Joumeyings WW BY FORMER PRESIDWI' 8. T. BLACK ' Leaving San Diego on the morning of September seventh, 1910, we travelled by train to Seattleastopping 0135 for a few days in Oakland and San Francisco to say good-bye to friends and relatives. Then up the gorge of the Sacramento, round the base of majestic Shasta, on through the States of Oregon and Washington, clothed in autumnal tints, we journeyed pleas- antly enough. We boarded the good steamship iiMinnesotaii at Seattle and began our westward voyage, sailing westerlyealways westerly-towards the east. In two weeks we reached the other side and were in the Orient- Japan! What a wonderful countryeinhabited by an equally wonderful and intensely interesting peopleI-in many ways the most interesting of all the many peoples we have met. They are bright, courteous, honest and cheerful. The streets of their cities literally swarm with merry, well-be- haved children, who were as much interested in us as we were in them. We spent three most delightful weeks in travelling through the country. One is impressed everywhere with the efficiency of the J apanese They are quite cap able of taking care of themselves and can hold their own with the most advanced western nations. After a week in Yokohama, and another in Tokio, the capital twhere it rained all the timeD, our steps then turned southward to Kyoto, the ancient capital, where we met friends Whom we had known in California thirty, years ago and more. We visited schools, shops, tea houses, parks, private residences, castles, and royal palaces. Only in schoolhouses did we find any furniture. Even the palaces are destitute of furniture. The iioors are covered with rich matting, and the walls are adorned with specimens of Japanese art. The natives use their feet for chairs, and the matted iioors serve both for tables and beds. We could not catch the sitting art, so we just lolled around as best we could-much to the delight and amusement of our hosts. After seeing J apanese women and girls load our steamer With coal at Nagasaki, we turned to the south for three days, and entering the Yang-tsi-Kiang River, we dropped anchor at Shanghai. Foreign Shanghai, that is, that portion made up of concessions to foreign nations, is a beautiful, up-to-date city, with all the advantages of the most modern civilization-churches, schools, clubs, parks, athletic grounds, beautiful homes, splendid equipages drawn by spirited horses and driven by gorgeous coachmen. The honk, honk of the automobile is as familiar here as among western nations. Electric cars are as common as in the United States. The jinrikisha and the wheelbarrow of the native may also be seen ming- ling with the modern means of locomotion. Shanghai is one of the wealthiest of oriental cities, and is generally known as the Paris of the Orient. But there is another Shanghai, inclosed by walls and inhabited by natives. It is char- acterized chiefly by its bad smells, its narrow, dirty streets; its beggars, jugglers, and thieves. 0 yes, we visited it, in charge of a guide, and then took a bath. Hong Kong was our next stopping place. It is an English city, and therefore clean and well governed. It consists of an island mountain--the ' streets zig-zagging across its face up to an elevation of some 2000 feet. Its electric-lighted streets present a charming sight at night from the ships anchored in the bay. A very pleasant day was spent here. We went up to iiThe Peak by ,ricksha and funicular railway, whence we had a gor- geous view of the bay, the China sea, the ocean, and some ttback country. After leaving Hong Kong we ran into a typhoonethe real thing. The least said about our experiences there the better. We don,t often think about it.