READING FOR TEACHERS. We have compiled a table, to accompany this report, from estimates made by county superintendents, showing the number of papers in the state that maintain an educational column, and also the number of educational periodicals taken in each county. To this list of papers must be added those that occasionally devote a column to the school news of the county, besides several that are distinctively educational in their nature. Many teachers subscribe for two journals, and there is often au interchange of papers by those who live near each other. It would seem, then, that the amount of professional reading of the kind referred to is probably seventy-five per cent larger than is indicated by the number of periodicals taken. But the value of such reading has its limitations. While much of it is of special worth to the young teacher, the teacher of wider experience finds but little in it to interest or instruct. It is true that many of these journals furnish outlines of new devices in teaching; they provide excellent programs of exercises for noted days in the school calendar, and they contain something of that harmless gossip which characterizes every occupation and goes far to make men akin to each other. The older teachers cannot well dispense with them. But they fail to reach very deep beneath the surface; they do not provoke and stimulate thought; their contents do not provide the food which ministers to the real strength of the teacher, and makes him self-dependent. The reading circle usually carries on two lines of reading, one strictly professional, and the other for general culture. This reading is always purely voluntary, is sometimes only hurriedly done, and is liable to be interrupted and left unfinished. It suffers from want of supervision and of direction towards a specific end. There is no purpose in it. We do not say this by way of criticising the work of the reading circle, for we are in hearty sympathy with it. It is at present the best means at our disposal for inducing teachers to enter a line of systematic reading. We have the rare opportunity to organize in Iowa a system of reading, in connection with the normal institutes, beginning with the first year of the course, and finishing with the last. It should be carefully graded, and a review of the books selected should be made a part of the regular work at each institute session. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose that professional reading alone, that which treats of methods and devices, of the art and science of teaching, of the history of education, is all that is necessary to the successful teacher, He must have some knowledge of the best prose and poetry, of living authors, of history, literature, and science, of biography, and fiction, that he may be instrumental in guiding the pupils under his care in the choice of books and good reading. The tastes and habits of the teacher have a very important bearing for good or for harm upon the reading prevalent among the pupils. No expenditure of the public money would produce richer or more durable returns in the improvement of our schools than tɔ. place the direction of the reading by the teachers of the state in the hands of some competent person connected with the department of public instruction. He should have authority to make out the course, to select the books and to inspect at institutes, and at other times, the manner in which the work is performed. No one should be granted a certificate until he has read at least one year of the course, or its equivalent, and no one should be granted a state certificate until he has completed the entire course. |