University of Northern Iowa - Old Gold Yearbook (Cedar Falls, IA)

Page 14 text:

THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT Mamie F. Hearet, M. A. VV. W. Gist, M, A., D. D. Jennette Carpenter, M. A. Carrie B. Parker, H. Ph. Mary i£. Simmons, M. A. Margaret Oliver, M. A. Eva‘„L. Gregg:

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The Professional Department Then» are two sources of knowledge, viz.: Experience and authority. The teachers in this department of the Normal School may justly be said to be equipped in both kinds of knowledge, for all have labored industriously for years to know what authority has said on education and have also served long and severe apprenticeships in actual experience before taking up their labors here. Collectively their experience covers work in country schools, academy, college tutorship and professorship, assistant in high school, and long experience in city supervision. The head of the department, President Seerley, has long been a recognized authority himself on problems of theory and administration. There are two views of professional work in a normal school. The purely theoretical and academic consists of ordinary class work in the subjects involved. The practical application of these principles in the training school under compe- tent supervision is the other phase. Some schools have one of these; some, thi other. Rarely as in the Iowa State Normal School do we find .the two combined. The problem of correlating the various subjects in the academic work is a constant though simple one; methods, management, principles and philosophy of education, Psychology, History of Education, supervision and a course of lec- tures by President Seerley on American Education, comprise the work in this line. The principle of proving all things and holding fast that which is good is a constant guide in practice here, and, while the attempt is made to keep in touch with educational progress elsewhere, there is no attempt to follow the “Lo, here,” or “Lo, there,” heard in many quarters; but rather to keep in mind the tact that the mind of the child is an organic unity, that th • personality of every child is an open text-book in the ‘‘New Psychology,” and that the chapters in this text-book repeat themselves from generation to generation with a certain degiM of sameness plus infinite variation. This constitutes the correlation of the professional department. It is as absurd to suppose that any of these .sub- jects can he taught separately as to think that algebra can be taught with no reference to arithmetic, or to suppose that memory or reason can be treated as belated powers of the mind independent of the will and the imagination; and if it be true that science is related and classified knowledge, then certain it is that the inter-relation of these subjects is the basis of the Science of Education, and th master of these subjects who has also acquired skill in their application in some general or special lint of instruction is entitled to he regarded as a profes- sional teacher, a member of the new profession founded upon the needs of civilization. Who is able for these things

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The English Department The work of the English department of the Iowa State Normal School is .somewhat more varied in its character than that of similar departments in other institutions of learning, owing to the fact that in this school the literary society work is a part of the required and accredited English, and, consequently, under the supervision of the English faculty. As a result the student is more or less under the care of this department throughout his entire course — from the time of his first scheduling day when, with reluctant feet he goes to the room of the spelling examination, until he breathes a breath of relief over the delivery of his last society oration. From the nature of its work this department must be brought into very close relationship with that of public speaking and oratory, which is discussed in an- other article. In addition to the Grammar section under the cart of Miss Mamie F. Hearst and Miss Eva Gregg, the work in other branches of English language and liter- ature is supplemented by the supervision of rhetorical divisions and professional societies by Miss. Margaret Oliver and Miss Carrie Parker, and the care of the ten regular literary societies, by Miss Jennette Carpenter, Miss Mary E. Sim- mons and Dr. T. W. Todd, with Dr. W. W. Gist as advisory member of the committee. A single term’s work for a student in any one of these societies consists of one recitation, one esvsay or written production and one exercise in debating, all of which must be reported for approval or criticism to that member of the Eng- lish department who is the regularly appointed critic for the society represented.