The status of county teachers' institutes in Pennsylvania

Front matter

Book '~K Cr.

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Contents

Introduction — Purpose and Method of Study VI

Chapters

I. Historical Origins of Teachers' Institutes 1

Introduction

The present study is an attempt to determine the efficiency of County Teachers' Institutes in Pennsylvania. That there is a need for determining whether or not the county institute is functioning or whether it is contributing materially to the actual improvement and present needs of the teaching profession in Pennsylvania, can be readily ascertained by an examination of the literature bearing on Institutes, not only in Pennsylvania but thruout the United States. It is beyond the purpose of this investigation to review this literature or to quote from it to any greater extent than will shed light on our problem.

Two outstanding studies on "Teachers Institutes" are those by Smart in 1885,^ and by Ruediger in 1911.^ These are both national in scope. The former is a valuable collection of data and judgment that constitute a veritable brief for the institute. The latter study considers the institute as an agency in the improvement of teachers in service. It was in this study that the further value of institutes was begun to be questioned, tho even in Smart's "Circular of Information"^ we see striking evidences of warning and doubt. Commissioner of Education Eaton in submitting Smart's comprehensive survey used this significant sentence:

The aims, purposes, and methods of conducting these institutes in the several states are exceedingly diverse. It is evident that the institutes as a whole have been a means of great good and have probably been worth all they have cost; but it is also clear that, from lack of thorough organization and professional management, they have produced only a part of the good results possible. The facts presented in this report show that institutes may not only be valueless practically, but a positive source of mischief to the teachers and to the schools.^

A quotation from Ruediger's study^ shows further evidence of doubt as to the efficacy of the institutes. After giving several criticisms of the institute, Ruediger comments as follows:

' Smart, Circular of Information No. 2 — 1885, U. S. Bureau of Education. ^ Agencies for the Improvement of Teachers in Service — Ruediger, Bulletin No. 3 — 1911, U. S. Bureau of Education. ' Smart — op. cit.

* Commissioner of Education — Report 1885.

* Ruediger — op. cit.

VII

VIII COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA

If these arraignments of institutes were isolated examples, they might be passed by unnoticed, but of late years expressions of a similar nature have become suflGtciently frequent to arrest attention. The feeling is beginning to spread that institutes have served their usefulness and should be discontinued.

It is no doubt true that institutes, as they are stiU usually conducted, are an anachronism. They arose in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, before the normal schools had made such headway and when summer schools for teachers were unknown, to supply a distinct need in the training of teachers.

One of the severest of the critics of the institute is Dr. Homer H. Seerley, of the State Normal School, Cedar Falls, Iowa, who has arraigned the "institute system" as a "makeshift," and "not originally intended to be a permanent part of the educational system of any state. . . . The actual results claimed for teachers' institutes are usually greatly overestimated by those who conduct them. . . . They have no way to determine the facts, or to summarize the opinion of teachers, and the estimates they make are more or less visionary and unreliable. . . . The practical value of this system of work, is, therefore, much in doubt to candid observers. The expense of the method is serious when . . . the impossibility of accomplishing the purpose planned (is) considered."^*

In Monroe's "Cyclopedia of Education" we find this comment apropos of the growing questioning of the institute's efficiency:

The system of institutes has been severely criticized within recent years. The chief objection is that it is an anachronism. It had a place when there were no facilities for the training of teachers. But since the estabUshment of normal and summer schools it merely connives at inadequately trained teachers in attempting to do training work for about five days in a year.^

Button and Snedden'' thus comment:

The conspicuous defects of the institute are its failure to improve general culture appreciably or significantly to affect special scholastic attainments in the fields in which the teachers work. To a great extent, also, the average institute fails in the matter of method, both general and special, since the instructors are not sufficiently close to the problems with which the teachers deal, and there is small opportunity for demonstration. — The consequences are that many of their attempts at inculcating principles fail because they are unable to take into account the conditions under which rural teachers work — and these constitute one-half the teachers of the country.

fia Seerley, "Practical Value of the Institute System," "Educational Review," Nov. 1908, pp. 356-73.

« Monroe, "Cyclopedia of Education," Vol. 2, pp. 467-69.

"> Button and Snedden, "Administration of Pubhc Education in the U. S.," Rev. Ed. pp. 277-84.

COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA IX

Continuing the same authorities say:

The institute seems to have an established place so long as the conditions which now prevail in the teaching force — lack of training, lack of maturity, and extreme mobility on the part of many teachers — shall continue. Therefore, the problem of improving it is a vital one.

A recent writer has thus stated his view of the institute:

Tho the usefulness of teachers' institutes is now largely a thing of the past because of their utter inadequacy under present conditions, they were a nourishing half-loaf in those early days when otherwise there would have been no pedagogical bread.*

This view probably summarizes the attitude of our most recent educational writers.

In view of the fact that this inquiry pertains mainly to Pennsylvania institutes, the defence on which our county institutes are placed, is admirably illustrated by a few excerpts from city and district superintendents in the state. A few of these are:®

Institutes as now conducted in our counties are a farce — oriental, dead, lack definiteness, are a conglomeration of nothingness.

They have outlived their original purpose. The reformer is needed. I believe visits to good schools would be of more profit to the teachers.

The practical value of these meetings as at present constituted, is almost negligible.

This whole thing of institutes has grown so disgusting to me so far as results are concerned that I cannot see any reason for perpetuating this parasite upon the profession.

I don't think there is any aim or purpose except a blind, antiquated fulfilling of a section of the school code.

On the other hand, the protagonist of the Institutes beginning with Barnard and Mann, are legion. As far back as 1852 Barnard said:!*^

The value of this class of meetings — the institute — both to teachers and the communities where they are held, is universally acknowledged, and not an intimation has reached me from any quarter, that they should be abandoned. (This was 13

* Ross L. Finnej', "The American Public School," 1921, p. 123. ' Selected from replies to questionnaire to County and District Superintendents, q. V. in Appendix.

'" Barnard, "American Journal of Education," 7th Annual Report, p. 314.

X COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA

years after inaugurating an institute in Conn, and 6 years after the first teachers' meeting under the name "Institute" in New York.)

As will be seen in Chapter I, "Historical Origins of Institutes," without exception educational writers and authorities were a unit in their advocacy of the Institute as a means to improve teachers and to stimulate an apathetic public. Without exception, all the state superintendents of public instruction in Pennsylvania from A. G. Curtin, thru Hickock, Wickersham, Higbee, and Schaeffer were firm believers in the Institute. Supt. Curtin said in 1856:

The scarcity of competent teachers is the great want of our schools. The Teachers' Institute, recognized by public authority, and encouraged by a small appropriation for each county, is beyond aU question, the means to be relied on for this purpose (training of teachers), and is accordingly unhesitatingly and earnestly recommended.^^

In 1857 Supt. Curtin again said:

The County Institute, properly conducted, is undeniably the great lever in the hands of the county superintendent to lift the school system from the dead level of apathy and indifference ; the most effective and powerful agency at his command to reach and arouse public opinion, vivify the profession, and energize the administration of the system.i^

Supt. Hickock eloquently voiced his belief in the County Institute when in his annual report he said in part:

The value of the institute as provisional schools for instruction in the theory and practice of teaching, for the interchange of teachers' opinions and experiences, and in the cultivation of a fraternal esprit de corps that should inspire and elevate the profession, has been heretofore presented in conclusive terms, which experience has abundantly confirmed.^^

Thirty-one years after Institutes had been legalized in Pennsylvania, Dr. Higbee, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in his annual report:

Our county institutes, as partial aids to our Normal Schools, have been doing excellent service in promoting the professional knowledge and zeal of teachers. In no other state of the Union, perhaps, have county institutes awakened such general and sympathetic interest in educational matters."

" Curtin, Report of Department of Public Instruction, 1856, p. 14. 12 Curtin, Report of Department of Public Instruction, 1857, p. 24. " Hickock, Report of Department of Public Instruction, 1858, pp. 13-14. " State Report, 1881.

COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA XI

Both Smart^^ and Ruediger'^'' give numerous expressions of approval for the work of the Institutes. Smart, after commenting upon the poorly trained rural school teacher, says:

This wide spread and lasting condition of this explains the necessity of supporting and maintaining teachers' institutes in addition to Normal Schools.'*

This same authority and investigator after giving a brief summary of the uses of the Institutes and of the limitations of the Normal Schools and Normal Institutes (not to be confused with County Institutes), gives a strong endorsement as follows:

All these and many other uses of the institute have been tested since it was first introduced by Dr. Barnard. Without doubt it is destined to an equally useful and varied career in different parts of the country, new and old, during the future.'^

But all the praise for the Institute and its work is not all as old and as far back as 1885. In 1889 John Hancock of Ohio placed the professional influence of teachers' institutes above that of Normal Schools on the ground that they reached more teachers.^** The Institute Manual prepared by Supt. Shawkey of West Virginia in 1910 states that while "there is a disposition on the part of some thinkers to do away with this phase of school work and substitute summer school work ..." yet, ''inasmuch as it has stood the test for many years, it fills a peculiar mission in our scheme."

"The County Institute" was the subject of discussion before the County Superintendents' department at the meetings of the Pennsylvania State Educational Association at Erie in June, 1910, and at Harrisburg in December, 1910. Co. Supt. Robt. C. Shaw of Westmoreland County in a paper^" read before the department, said among other things:

We do not hesitate to say that in our opinion the most capable institute instructors of America are brought to Pennsylvania institutes, and because of this every teacher of the state has the opportunity of hearing the best and most advanced thought along educational lines. . . .

At no other time in the year is there so much interest taken locally in the work of the public school as during the week of the county institute.

'* Smart, op. cit.

" Ruediger, op. cit.

" Smart, op. cit. p. 10.

** Proceedings of Department of Superintendence, N. E. A. 1889, p. 71.

" Shaw, "The Annual Institute," Pa. School Journal, Aug. 1910, p. 103.

XII COUNTY TEACHERS' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA

In this paper Supt. Shaw quotes Dr. Brumbaugh, then Supt. of Philadelphia and later Governor of the state, to the effect that in the Pennsylvania Institute "we have a week of professional uplift which is of great value to the school system as a whole. I trust we shall not depart from it." Continuing Supt. Shaw quotes Dr. D. J. Waller, then Principal of the Bloomsburg State Normal School:

Teachers' institutes as now conducted in this state are of inestimable value in their effect upon the teachers and directors immediately interested and upon the cause of education thruout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth. I know of no evils that should be charged to them as "results."

Supt. L. E. McGinnes, of Steelton in his discussion of the County Institute before the department's meeting at Harrisburg in Dec. 1910 had this to say among other things r^"

Without doubt, this annual gathering is the great educational red-letter rally week of the year, and will remain so in Pennsylvania as elsewhere, as long as teachers and superintendents need to grow and as long as wholesome public sentiment needs to live. Institute spells vacation to pupUs, pleasure and profit to patrons, and it ought always to spell an inspiring, professional uplift to teachers. ...

The State of New York abolished Teachers' Institutes in 1911. Four years before the Institute was abolished "Teachers' Institutes" was an important topic of discussion at the "52nd Annual Meeting of the New York State Association of School Commissioners and Superintendents" held at Syracuse, November 6-8, 1907. In view of the fact that the Legislature of the State within a few years voted to abolish the Institute, it may be of interest at this point to quote briefly from Dr. Sherman Williams, Institute Conductor. After discussing the inadequacy of supervision as then conceived, and lamenting the fact that "there are lecturers of educational topics, whom the great mass of teachers never hear," Dr. Williams gave this tribute to the institute, so soon to be discontinued in his own state:

The Institute is the one attempt that has reached the great mass of the teachers. It is stUl the most helpful means of reaching and influencing the mass of teachers, the only one that has had sufficient vitality to last for more than 60 years. There is a common but mistaken notion, that institutes are chiefly valuable for teachers of meager training and limited experience. Here as elsewhere it is true that "to him that hath

2" McGinnes, "The Instructor and the Institute," Pa. School Jour. Mar. 1911, p.

COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA XIII

shall be given." The more a teacher brings to an institute, the more he gets from it if the institute is what it ought to be.-'

A striking contrast to this judgment is that uttered by Co. Supt. John F. Carr, of Marion County, Indiana, a state where the Institute is still in existence and is carefully controlled by the state:

The County Teachers' Institute in Indiana remains practically unchanged from what it was at its origin. Surely, it did not leap into existence fully developed and perfected. On the contrar>% it is full of defects, and if it were not for an indifferent legislature that has control of it, it would long ago have abolished itself or have made radical reforms. ^^

In contrast to the action of New York in abolishing Institutes was the action of the Education Commission of Illinois, composed of seven prominent educators of the State, whose duty was "to make a thorough investigation of the common school system of Illinois" and "to make a comparative study of such other systems as may seem advisable and to submit — a report including such suggestions, recommendations, revisions, additions, corrections and amendments as the commission shall deem necessary. "^^ This commission issued its report in a number of bulletins, one of which (No. 5) covered a very thorough and nation wide investigation of Teachers' Institutes. This commission recommended a County System of Institutes, on a modified New York and Pennsylvania type, i.e., a state directed system with institute agents, and compulsory attendance and pay for teachers. This suggested plan was never approved by the Legislature. The interesting part of this notable report on Institutes is the fact that Institutes were recommended to be continued.

Another report that mention must be made of is that of the Commission on Rural Schools authorized by the Pennsylvania State Educational Association in 1913 and which made its report in 1914. One phase of this report^* dealt with Institutes. This commission did not recommend the abolishing of the Institute. A few ex-

" N. Y. State Education Dept. Bulletin, July 15, 1908.

*^ Carr, "Symposium County Teachers' Institute — "The Educator Journal," Nov. 1907, p. 134.

23 Illinois School Report, 1908-10, p. 259.

** Commission Rural Schools, Report Pa. State Ed. Association Proceedings, 1914, p. 38.

XIV COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA

tracts from this report will suffice to show that the commission believed in the Institute :

"The County Institute is a most valuable instrument for improving the educational work of the state."

"Institutes still have a place in Pennsylvania education. In scattered communities they call the teachers together for some days, create a soUdarity of opinion, give inspiration and some good ideas that afterwards affect teaching."

"It is difficult to exaggerate the value and importance of the Pennsylvania system of institutes to the teachers of the commonwealth."

"The value of the institute is a necessity to the growth and professional life of the teachers."

"As an educational agencv the institute is a necessity."

It is very evident from the excerpts given that sharp differences of opinion have existed for many years as to the real status of the institute; at present when the agencies for improving teachers are so numerous, there is a genuine doubt as to whether or not the institute functions. But thus far we have had nothing but judgment, in most cases, biased, because of the interests represented. To arrive at a scientific determination of the work of the County Institute, removed as far as possible from personal judgment and bias, is the purpose of this investigation. That it is difficult to measure the work of the institute, is obvious. Even with the standardized tools we have to-day for measuring the products of the school room, we frequently find divergence of results. So far as the investigator is aware, there is no ready and infallible tool to measure in a concrete way the actual results of the institutes as they exist to-day. No extensive effort has, therefore, been made to follow up any group of teachers to determine whether or not their work in the schoolroom was better done after the institute. This would be the ideal way to measure results. Other methods, however, have been employed, which should assist in evaluating the institutes. Much effort has been put on the problem of determining the aims and functions of Institutes in the past, and contrasting these with the present day needs of teachers. These aims and purposes are, wherever possible, expressed in terms of achievement. This, it seems, is the natural operation of the simplest law of efficiency — the squaring of the aim or purpose with the product. These aims and purposes have also been exam-

COUNTY teachers' INSTITUTES IN PENNSYLVANIA XV

ined with the object in view of determining their appropriateness and sufficiency in the light of current educational practices and needs.

The study will reveal that one of the outstanding aims of the institute has been and should be the training of teachers in service, tho this aim is not always recognized or granted. The study will also attempt to show that the institute must be an agency to improve teachers in service, if, as in Pennsylvania, it should continue as an institution supported by public funds. It will further be shown that historically, at least, the institute had another very important aim, viz., the formulation of a healthy public sentiment for the improvement of the profession of teaching and for the wider and more adequate support of public education. In a general way, too, but not as a main problem, this investigation will contrast teacher training facilities in 1850 with those of the present day. Essentially, the continuance or discontinuance, the improvement or the change of the type or organization of the County Teachers' Institute, is a concern of the teacher training agencies of the state. It is proper, then, that the present day institute be considered, also, in the light of the possible role it might play in the teacher training program of the state.

The method employed in this investigation is a combination of the historical with the questionnaire and statistical. The former will furnish thru original and secondary sources the aims, character, and early work and organization of the first institutes, and their gradual evolution to the present status. The latter method attempts thru the judgment and experience of teachers, supervising principals, county and district superintendents, and state departments of public instruction, to determine the present status of institutes as to their aims, organizations, preferences, values, programs, etc. Replies have been received to questionnaires devised for each group from nearly 3000 teachers in 12 counties and four districts; 66 county superintendents in the state, 283 district superintendents and supervising principals; from 46 out of 48 State Departments of Public Instruction; and from many prominent educators in many states.

The results of the replies to these questionnaires^^ are used primarily to justify or reject certain conclusions. These reactions from

25 Questionnaires are given in the Appendix, q. v.

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all these factors are interpreted thruout the chapters and shed an important light on certain phases of the problem.

A very important part of this study is the analysis of the programs and the personnel of the county institutes in Pennsylvania for 1919 and 1920. This is an attempt to determine the content of the instruction given, the personnel of the instructors, in the light of the present needs and tendencies in the training of teachers in service, and in consideration of what the present demands. It is upon this phase of the investigation that the achievement of the aims of the institute depends. The discussion of costs will also play an important part in the investigation.

The concluding chapter summarizes the results of the study and will sum up not only the main findings, but will endeavor to formulate a constructive policy in the matter of Teachers' Institutes in Pennsylvania.

CHAPTER I Historical Origins Teachers' Institutes Part of Larger Movement

Historically, the growth and development of Teachers' Institutes in the U. S., and particularly in Pennsylvania, constitute an important link in the progressive evolution of the public school system. The retrospect in this chapter is necessarily brief, but it is essential for a proper understanding of the real mission and function of Institutes in the past, and the possible policy to be adopted regarding them. Teachers' Institutes are intimately connected with the struggle in the U. S. for establishing the public schools on an adequate basis thru improvement of the training of teachers by the founding of Normal Schools, the creation of the County Superintendency, and, therefore, supervision and the molding of a healthy sentiment for free schools It must not be forgotten that the Institute was a step in this upward movement. Ruediger^ has well pointed out that, "this beginning of institutes and the displacement of teachers' conventions by them are of interest in this connection because these data seem to give us the key to the ultimate outcome of institutes. To rail against institutes in a general way does little good. What is needed is an adequate conception of their origin, and with this information at hand it may be possible to infer something in regard to their destiny." Hence, the purpose of this chapter is not to delve deeply into the origin of institutes, but to give that historical background which will throw light on our own problems, and especially on the aims, purposes, and functions of teachers' institutes.

It cannot be said with any degree of certainty when institutes first came into existence. This is in a large measure due to a confusion in the use of terms, as will be shown later. Ruediger^ and Smart,' seem to agree that the first teachers' institutes held in America was October 1839, when Henry Barnard, Secretary of the State Board of Education of Connecticut, "assembled twenty-six young men to-

1 Ruediger, Op. Cit. p. 32. ^ Ruediger, Op. Cit., p. 10. ' Smart, Op. Cit., p. 35.

gather and formed them into a class They were taught for six weeks by able lecturers and teachers and had the advantage of observation in the public schools of Hartford.* Continuing, this same source says: "In 1846 a convention of teachers was held, at which more than two hundred and fifty assembled. The exercise consisted of instruction and continued through five days." It will be noticed that the term, "institute" is not used in this report. Furthermore, it should be noted that the term "convention" is used, and that the meeting of 1839 continued six weeks, whereas the "convention" of 1846 only 2 weeks.

Horace Mann in his report for 1844-45 says:

They (institutes) originated in the State of New York in 1843, and they have so commended themselves to the friends of education that they have been held during the current season in more than half the counties of New York, and in the States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

Mann thus gives the claim for the first teachers' institute to be held under that name to New York. Confirming this claim is this extract from an ofl&cial volume issued by the Education Department of the State of New York:^

The first teachers' institute ever held in this State (New York), and probably the first ever held in this country, was organized at Ithaca on the 4th of April, 1843. . . . The Ithaca institute was held by County Superintendent J. S. Denman of Tompkins County, and was in session for two weeks. Supt. Denman was the originator of the system to give instruction to teachers under the plan of teacher's institutes, which has become quite general throughout the country.

Development of Institutes from Teachers^ Associations

There is little doubt that the first school for teachers or "institutes" as State Supt. of Conn, in his report of 1848 called them, had their first practical origin in the State of Conn, in 1839, originated by Henry Barnard, and that a meeting of this kind first called "institute" was held by Supt. Denman in New York in 1843. The one important link that seems to be overlooked, however, is the incontrovertible fact, already alluded to by Ruediger,^ that "institutes," whether under that name or any other name, were the logical development from teachers' conventions or associations, held first among

* "Agencies Employed in Training Teachers," p. 285. Document issued by State Department of Public Instruction, Albany, N. Y.

^ Ruediger, Op. Cit.

* MUler, Monograph "History of Educational Legislation in Ohio," pp. 106, 107, 108.

private school teachers for social or convivial purposes, and then gradually assuming the character of voluntary local organizations whose purpose was the molding of public sentiment and the welfare of teachers. This fact has been very clearly established by a recent "History of Educational Legislation in Ohio from 1803 to 1850."'^ In a chapter in this history on "The Training of Teachers" we find this statement:

It was through the activity of voluntary associations of teachers and friends of education that the first efforts were made to raise the standard of the teaching profession. As early as 1829 such an association had been meeting regularly in Cincinnati for the discussion of educational problems, and at a general convention to which friends of education thruout the Mississippi Valley were invited an association was formed called the Western College of Teachers. . . .

Continuing this same chapter says that in 1834 — five years before the first institute in Connecticut, and nine before the one held in New York State — "an act was passed to incorporate 'The Teachers^ Institute.^ The preamble and first section are of interest and show an advanced educational sentiment on the part of the incorporators and a definite attempt to meet the needs for better trained teachers, and illustrate the general legislative willingness to legalize educational effort through incorporation." This act provided "that there shall be established and instituted — a college for the instruction of candidates for professional school teachers, and for the purpose of qualifying such teachers in the best manner to instruct and govern schools, etc." This plan of the Ohio pioneers anticipated that of Carter in Mass. by five years, tho their plan did not materialize. It was worthy of note, however, that the so-called "teachers associations" had gradually developed into "Teachers' Institutes," and that these "Institutes" were legally transformed into a "college of teachers." The cycle seems to be complete — meetings of teachers, associations, institutes, college or normal school for teacher training. True, the "college for the instruction of candidates for professional school teachers" did not go beyond the stage of incorporation, but the vision and controlling motive were already there. The close relation between institutes and teachers associations is further illustrated by the fact that even Henry Barnard speaks of the institute as a convention: "During the year, nine Institutes or Conventions of Teachers have been held in different parts of the State (Conn.), etc." 1. In fact, the very name — "teachers' institute" seems to