47

E.-15,

50 pupils each, or 1,300 in all. Its total cost was $210,000, or, say, £43,250, so that the cost per pupil was about £33 4s. (Our public schools cost from £7 to £10 per pupil.) The proportion of cubic feet per pupil for the entire building is 1,136, and the cost per cubic foot was 7d. for the whole contract, exclusive of architect's fees. The ordinary size of a class-room is 26 ft. 8 in. by 33 ft. ; but I was in some of them on dull days, and even with the large proportion of windowspace the lighting seemed insufficient in the remote parts of the rooms. The English rule of a maximum width of 22 ft. to 24 ft. for class-rooms would appear to be a safe one, even in the clear atmosphere of the United States or New Zealand. There is an average allowance of floor-space of 17%J square feet per pupil, and this, with a height of 12 ft. or 14 ft., would give 210 to 245 cubic feet per pupil. Some teachers find these rooms rather large for continuous speaking, and the distance of the wallboards from the light or from the pupils or both imposes a somewhat severe task upon the eyes of some individuals. In fact, I think the reasonable conditions are overstepped in these cases. If the classes are as large as fifty, 14 or 15 square feet per pupil ought probably to be the extreme limit of floor-space. It must be remembered that the eye is the organ that suffers most from schoolwork done in wrongly shaped or insufficiently lighted class-rooms. The Board of Education has its own architect's and engineer's departments. The total of contracts let during the year 1905-6 was $2,366,611, and the total cost of the architect's department for salaries and all other expenses was $65,000, showing a cost under this head of 2| per cent, on the contract price of the buildings. Teachers' 1 College and Normal School. The students who enter the Normal School have passed through all the grades of the High Schools, or have given evidence of similar training, so that it is not considered necessary to give them special literary work ; they study, indeed, many, if not all, of the subjects they have done before —but always with a view to the proper basis and the best methods of teaching the several subjects. Psychology, so far as it concerns the development of the child-mind, and, therefore, as it affects education, receives due attention ; but the training of the teacher to teach is the prominent feature of the whole course. In the New York and Brooklyn Training Schools, and in the Teachers' College of the Columbia University, the practice in teaching is separated from the observation of the child and of teaching-methods ; I have commented on this elsewhere. But in both the Education Department of the University of Chicago and the Chicago Normal School these closely connected parts of a teacher's training are not kept distinct, but the practising school is also the observation school, and the observation and practice go on to some extent side by side, although it is held (rightly, in my opinion) that observation of the nature of the child and of the methods adopted by trained teachers should precede practice as well as accompany it. The head of the Chicago Normal School, like that of the Brooklyn Training School, is a woman —Dr. Ella Flagg Young. The buildings are new, and of great architectural beauty. The school is well provided with laboratories for various purposes, with workshops, class-rooms, and assembly halls. Unfortunately, the acoustic properties of the auditorium or main assemblyroom are poor, and the wisdom of the plan which gathers the desks of all the 500 students in one great room, the study hall, is certainly doubtful ; it would be better, one would think, to have studies of moderate size, grouped, say, around a central library. The workshops are equipped for classes in woodwork, weaving, bookbinding, and other constructive work. It is evident that manual training —and this is true generally in the States —is becoming an effective factor in the preparation not only of the specialist, but also of the class-teacher. In many schools I heard very good chorus-singing, and at the Chicago Normal School the classes in chorus-singing are not only made an occasion for bringing the entire student-body together, and so fostering a warm esprit de corps, but prepare the teachers for acting as missionaries for this healthy and inspiring school exercise. For more detailed work, the students are taught in classes. Ten weeks during the student's course are now given to the academic work in music and ten weeks to the advanced practice work. The general chorus-singing goes on all the year round. Admission to the Chicago Normal School is granted to graduates of high schools —that is, to those who have completed satisfactorily a four-year course of secondary work —and to others who have been students at normal schools (or colleges) elsewhere. In the Appendix is given a portion of the " Announcement " for the year 1907-8.