BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONTRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937
OF DISSERTATION
On the Principles of Secondary Education
On the principles of secondary education.-The literature of secondary education has recently been enriched by the publication of a new book in that field.' In this volume the author gives us a stimulating discussion of the current philosophy of secondary education. The style is pungent, occasionally caustic, but always interesting. The method of treatment of the issues raised is dialectic rather than statistical. Tables are sparingly employed, and these only in the more historical portions or chapters of the book. The method of treatment is chosen, presumably, on account of the fact that the author is undertaking to paint a picture of the school that ought to be rather than to give details regarding the school that is. He therefore takes the position that the philosophical principles and the desirable objectives of secondary education must be agreed on and formulated before effective effort can be applied in the direction of achieving those objectives. The book has an analytical introduction and twenty-eight chapters. Three of these chapters describe education in other countries, primarily in England, France, and Germany; three are devoted to secondary education in America; one, to the changing curriculum; two chapters discuss the characteristics of adolescence; three are taken up with a discussion of the issues in secondary education; two deal with the functions of secondary education; one, with articulation between the administrative units; two, with curriculum principles; four, with emotionalized attitudes; two, with mores; four, with interests as liberal education; and the final chapter gives a vision of secondary education as it might be. In the chapters on secondary education in other countries the traditional three-England, France, and Germany-are discussed. There is, however, much new material, and the picture is brought up to date. One could wish, nevertheless, that some attention had also been given to the more experimental types of secondary education that are to be found in Russia and Denmark. The treatment of adolescent characteristics does not differ much from that found in other books on the principles of secondary education. It is in his treatment of the issues and the special functions of secondary education that Professor
Teaching the Teachers: Establishment and Early Years of the B.C. Provincial Normal Schools
In North America, supporters of public education express their faith in superlatives. Superintendent of Education Alexander Robinson proved no exception. When B.C.'s first Provincial Normal School opened at Vancouver High School in 1901, he rejoiced. It was, he declared, "the most important event in many years in the history of Education in this Province." Robinson had good reason for optimism. Up to his time, the 1872 Public Schools Act ruled all teachers subject to certification. But this legislation guaranteed nothing, since rigid observance would have closed a dozen schools for want of legally certified teachers. During the tenure of the first superintendent, John Jessop, qualified teachers came to B.C. from eastern Canada and Britain. Native or resident British Columbians could sit challenge examinations or periodically attend teachers' institutes. These were informal gatherings aimed at regularizing teaching methods. Under 1876 laws, moreover, minimal funds were generated in aid of pupil teachers to be trained in the Vancouver and Victoria High Schools. In Jessop's view, however, what was principally needed was a normal school like the one at Toronto from which he had graduated in !855. With Jessop removed through political contretemps in 1878, others took up the cause, justified in part by the assumption that it was possible to teach people how to teach. Superintendent C. C. Mackenzie believed this. He warned in 1885 that so long as B.C. had no normal school, it would falter under a defective education system. His successor, S. D. Pope, agreed. A normal school, he explained, was a wise economy. It would produce devoted, methodical teachers, "an earnest band of workers equipped with ability to control." In the legislature, politicians 1 Superintendent of Education, Annual Report of the Public Schools of the Province of British Columbia [hereafter ARPS] (Victoria, B.C.: King's Printer, 1901), p. 227. 2 ARPS, 1885, p. 156. 3 ARPS, 1890, p. 128.