University of North Texas - Yucca Yearbook (Denton, TX)

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realize how greatly they have increased their opportunity to be of service to the whole educational system of the State. The crying need of our public schools is for better trained teachers. Those who teach in high schools should have at least four years of study beyond the high school course, and this preparation should include professional training. The number of teachers with such preparation is at present totally inadequate to supply the demand, and would naturally remain so if the four-year courses for the training of teachers were limited to the educational departments of colleges and universities established primarily for other lines of technical or professional training. The Normal Colleges, distributed as they are throughout the various sections of the State, attract many students who would find it impossible to attend the other institutions; the number of college students is consequently increased, and the source of supply of thoroughly equipped teachers is correspondingly enlarged. So we welcome upon our campus the advent of cap and gown and the establishment of college tradition. And, as a last word, we bid God-speed to the five noble pioneers who with loyalty unshaken by war or drouth or the lure of well-trodden paths, forged ahead through the virgin wilderness and blazed a trail which countless others in the coming years will follow.

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OUR FIRST DEGREES te- HE session of 1918-19 marks an epoch in the history of ■ J our school, and of the other Normal Colleges of the X State as well, in the fact that it is the first year in which the course of study, as carried out, includes four years of college work leading to the bachelor ' s degree. Though each returning May for seventeen years has seen a troop of white-clad maidens and eager youths go forth from the campus of the North Texas State Normal College, each carrying the coveted document freshly adorned with the College seal, it is reserved for the eighteenth to see, mingled with this familiar company, a small group, clad in cap and gown, bearing diplomas which pronounce them the possessors of a degree. To those graduates who have included the study of a foreign language in their course the Board of Regents has chosen to award the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Education ; to others, the degree of Bachelor of Science in Education. This departure from the old order of things is significant in its bearing upon the progress of education in our State. It means that the teachers ' colleges, having attained full stature, are no longer limiting their function of teacher-training to the end of training teachers for the elementary schools, as was generally considered to be the case while they were only of junior college rank; but with a standard four-years ' college course in operation, these institutions may begin to realize the end for which the Normal College exists — that is, the special training of teachers for the public schools, including all the grades. Not only is it gratifying for their own sake to see our Texas colleges raising their standards and rising in rank to the level of the older colleges of the nation, but it is particularly gratifying to

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rfviNGMmopY of V ' i ' c iB aprittg! Ifmx uimtlb vat lay V aboitp tl|y Ijrart tl ta lurpatl) of blnfiuania fair: ijatiBtpa tl]at ha Bay lir ' U tip ' fr fargpt tlfti, DtnlplH blur aa ll|y lonri outljrrn aktra, ani liyaritttlja awpct an roli aa tl)ii uitjitr braui in bratli. Sl|pap flniucra uip aprak not an oturli tl|y yraiap. but utljiaprr low our lo op, anil tpll tl)pp tl)ou art tiatly mtaapb by tl)p mang uiljoap liora tl ou biiat ao tpubprlij tourl). 3Famtltar jilarpa appm lonrlii uiitl|ont tliy rlipprful Httiilp anb pypa io fill uiitlj Ipara at tl p inputton of tl)y iipar nantp. February 6tb, 1919