answer is
demonstrated, let the appointment be withheld. It might be salutary,
too, in dealing with the forces on the ground, to follow President
Foster's suggestion given in these words: "It would be well if more
teachers were dismissed because they fail to stimulate thinking of any
kind."

I come now to the last of my three sub-topics,

THE UNIVERSITY'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS FOR THE
SCHOOLS OF THE STATE

Fortunately, its discussion need not detain us long. What should be that
attitude? If you will analyze the relationship existing between the
teachers of a state and that state's progress and development, and then
recall my brief discussion of the function of a State University--to
provide leaders--the answer to the question is at once apparent. The
logic of the situation is clear. For what other body of people in a
state are so clearly the state's leaders as the teachers? Always
intellectually and, for the most part, in these days, morally and
physically, the teachers in our schools mold the coming generation and
guide it into paths of progress and accomplishment. This is true of the
teachers of a state more than of any other group of people within its
borders not excepting the ministry.

We have, in the States, a system of State Normal Schools maintained for
the purpose of preparing teachers for the elementary schools. Each state
of the Union has from one to a dozen of these institutions. North Dakota
has three. The course of study covers from one to two years' work in
advance of a four-year high school course. In the East it is usually two
years, in the West, one. This work is partly academic and partly
professional and is always supposed to include a certain amount of
practise teaching under expert supervision.

The elementary teachers thus provided for by the normal schools, there
are left for preparation at the university teachers for the secondary
schools, for city superintendencies, special teachers of various kinds,
and teachers for college and university positions. And this latter is a
work, it seems to me, the State University must perform. They are
already doing this, to quite an extent, for the high schools; a few are
doing it well and the rest are working in that direction. A few, too,
are taking up the more advanced phases of the work and are competent to
prepare for college teaching. The movement is strongly on.

It may not be uninteresting for me to trace this movement b