in the Department for Training Teachers of Backward and Defective Children, New York University. This course was organized by the Department after consultation with many experts. It is presented here as indicating the composite judgments of these specialists as to what should constitute the professional training of a teacher of backward and defective children. It is essential that teachers. of special classes should have satisfactory experience as teachers of normal children, and that prior to this they should have taken a two-year course in a normal school, city training school or kindergarten training school.

REQUIRED WORK

This work presents the fundamental principles and should be taken by all teachers of special classes.

5.

6.

Psychology of Defectives.

Methods of Teaching with Special Reference to Backward and Retarded Children.

7. Methods of Teaching with Special Reference to Low-Grade Mental

Defectives.

8. Organization and Management of Special Classes.

9. Woodwork for Defective Children.

The electives should be chosen by each teacher with special reference to her individual needs.

PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION:

This course should formulate the most important principles and problems with special reference to the biological aspect of education, including evolution and the light it throws on education; heredity and its bearing on the education of normal and defective children, recapitulation and the instincts so far as they are concerned in educational theory.

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY:

The material included in this course is necessary for understanding the physical constitution of the backward child. It provides the foundation for the work of physical education, speech defects and medical clinic.

This course should include the study of the skeleton, muscles, brain and spinal cord, the digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems, the effect of nutrition, rest and fatigue on mental efficiency, and the common sensory and motor disturbances.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

This course should be given with special reference to the correction of physical defects. It should include a discussion of corrective exercises and plays and games in connection with physical education, and it should introduce the element of team play with special reference to the defective child.

SPEECH DEFECTS AND THEIR CORRECTION:

This course should deal with the physiology and psychology of speech. It should consider the principal types of speech defects, stuttering, stammering and the methods to be employed in their correction.

PSYCHOLOGY OF DEFECTIVES:

This course should include a consideration of the classification of defectives, and the methods and means used in the determination of each type of laboratory practice in the use of tests should be given.

METHODS OF TEACHING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BACKWARD AND RETARDED CHILDREN:

The course should presuppose a knowledge of the general methods of teach ing normal children and should be composed largely of the presentation of the modifications of these methods which must be made in the work of ungraded classes. The work in this course should be differentiated in order to cover the special conditions of backward and retarded children in one section and the low-grade mentally defectives in another.

ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF SPECIAL CLASSES:

Among the problems which should be considered in this course should be the program, lesson plans, condition, keeping records, personal histories, relation. between individual instruction and group work, adaptation to industrial education, class management, rewards, prizes and other incentives.

WOODWORK FOR TEACHERS OF DEFECTIVE CHILDREN:

Woodwork offers the defective child another means of motor training and expression. The work must be conducted primarily from this point of view.

This must be a practical course and should include models that are especially adapted to the interests of mental defectives and the proper order of using tools. and models. The course should also include the consideration of the fundamental principles of wood construction and the application of these principles to the special conditions of backward and defective children.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR DEFECTIVE CHILDREN:

The course should include practical work in brush-making, weaving, bookbinding, basketry, sewing, etc., which would be of value to the defective child in earning his livelihood. An industrial survey should be included in the course in order to determine what industries exist in each community to provide employment for defectives.

OBSERVATION AND PRACTICE:

This course should provide an opportunity to observe under the guidance.of experts the work of experienced teachers in special classes.

MEDICAL CLINIC:

This course should include the clinical study of diseases that are closely associated with mentally backward children, for example, neurasthenia, hysteria, malnutrition, epilepsy, hyperthyroidism, brain tumors, etc. The purpose of this course is not to prepare for practice of medicine but to familiarize teachers with physiological conditions of backwardness. The course must be conducted under the direction of a large medical college and hospital in order to have an abundance of material for clinical purposes.

Elective courses should be taken with special reference to the phases of the work in which the teacher desires to specialize. In the practical field there should be courses in Advanced Woodwork, presenting additional models; Methods of Teaching Manual Arts which will include a general discussion of the adaptation of models and methods to the conditions of the various grades of a mental defective; Household Science, the study of practical work taught under home conditions in cooking and housekeeping; Phonetics, Advanced Medical Clinic, Treatment of Delinquents, General Psychology, Educational Hygiene and Diagnosis of Backward Children.

Courses in some or all of the subjects included in this course of study are offered by several large universities. The courses are usually held on Saturdays. and on other days after school hours, and are also given in the Summer Session. This enables a teacher to secure her special professional training in this department without giving up her teaching position.

I believe that every teacher of backward and defective children should take

at least two professional courses each year. The studies should not, however, be determined by chance or by convenience, but should be chosen by each teacher for the purpose of rounding out her professional training and of completing the courses in each department. The teacher who consistently pursues her graduate work while teaching will be less likely to settle into pedagogical ruts. She will see her daily tasks in their relation to the larger problems of education. This will make each problem significant and elevates teaching into a profession. When tasks are merely tasks to be done as part of a day's work, teaching is reduced to the level of a trade.

Twenty-five years ago, even educators were not convinced that courses in pedagogy were of value to the teacher, and the layman was entirely skeptical. While there were "born teachers" who were more successful than others, still any one could teach who had a knowledge of the subject and could maintain discipline. In other words, he could put a given number of facts into his pupil's mind, and if he was lucky he could draw them out on examination dày.

We have gone so far beyond this point of view that cities and states are spending large sums of money to provide free courses for teachers and it is considered a good investment of public money. There is also an increasing number of experts who maintain that the best-trained teachers should be assigned to the elementary grades. This widespread recognition of the value of training means that we realize at last that education is a science--has underlying principles which it is of value to know.

If such knowledge is necessary for the teacher of elementary grades, it is doubly so for one in charge of the special class. Unfortunately, there is no short cut, for her professional training must be superimposed on that of the grade teacher.

To study the psychology of the defective without grounding it on an up-todate psychology--and there is no science which has grown more in ten years— is to fail to keep in mind the points she needs most to know wherein the defective child differs from the normal; to study methods with special reference to the mentally defective without thoroughly mastering the principles of education is similar to working examples without knowing the rules. You may get the right answer, but it takes longer and you are not sure of your result. In both cases, it is putting the cart before the horse, and we all know how proverbially slow this method of locomotion is.

Infinite patience is one of the prerequisites of the special-class teacher, but even the amount Job possessed will not take the place of knowledge.

For example, there are certain types of the mentally defective who are improvable mentally, others who cannot visualize an abstraction; therefore, can never do more than the most concrete, elementary examples in arithmetic. They only lose ground if kept at tasks beyond their powers. It is of great value to the teacher to know in which way her work will count the most, for she, like the child, needs the stimulus of success.

If the way seems long to acquire the training the rewards are real. There is nothing more pathetic than to see a helpless, feeble-minded child who has drifted into crime who might have been made self-supporting under supervision if he had been helped in the best way at the right time.

Subject Matter and Methods

By ELIZABETH A. WALSHI

ROBINSON CRUSOE

POSSIBILITIES IN THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS, WITH ROBINSON CRUSOE AS CENTER OF INTEREST

I. TRIP TO AN ISLAND.

Trip to museum to see Indian and Eskimo dwellings.

II. ENGLISH.

Stories told to the children :

(a) James Baldwin's Robinson Crusoe furnishes fifty stores told in

series.

(b) Additional stories, some of which may be used for dramatization: The Little Goats Gruff (Dramatize). Graded Library Reader, Book I.

The Fire Bringer.

The Cat and the Parrot (Dramatize). Stories to tell to children.
Sarah Cone Bryant.

The Shadow. Short stories. Laura Richards.

Moni, the Goat Boy. Spyri.

The Boy and the Three Goats (Dramatize). Primary Education.
The Bag of Winds. (Spring.) Month by month.

(c) Oral:

Descriptions of Robinson Crusoe's pets, cat, dog, parrot, goat, etc.
Account of trips to island and museum and experiences.

How to play a game.

How to make things.

How Robinson Crusoe went from place to place, from castle to his summer home, etc.