iration, no life, nothing, in short, that connects with
real life. Such a teacher could not maintain himself in a wide-awake
high school for a half year. The boys and girls would desert him even if
they had to desert the school. And yet teachers and prospective teachers
must endure and not complain. Those who submit supinely will attempt to
repeat in their schools the sort of teaching that obtains in his
classes, and their schools will suffer accordingly. His sort of teaching
proclaims him either more or less than a human being in the estimation
of normal people. Such a teacher drones forth weary platitudes as if his
utterances were oracular. The only prerequisite for a position in some
schools of education seems to be a degree of a certain altitude without
any reference to real teaching ability.

=Statistics versus children.=--Such teaching palliates educational
situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition
that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to
see it establishing precedents only to find it following precedents.
When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such
teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children. Indeed,
children are but objects that become useful as a means of proving
theories. It lacks vitality, and that is sad; but, worst of all, it
strives unceasingly to perpetuate itself in the schools. Real teaching
power receives looks askance in some of these colleges as if it bore the
mark of Cain in not being up to standard on the academic side. And yet
these colleges are teaching the teachers of our schools.

=Teaching power.=--Hence, the work of vitalizing the school must begin
in our colleges of education and normal schools, and this beginning will
be made only when we place the emphasis upon teaching power. The human
qualities of the teachers must be so pronounced that they become their
most distinguished characteristics. It is a sad commentary upon our
educational processes if a man must point to the letters of his degree
to prove that he is a teacher. His teaching should be of such a nature
as to justify and glorify his degree. As the preacher receives his
degree because he can preach, so the teacher should receive his degree
because he can teach, even if we must create a new degree by which to
designate the real teacher.

=Degrees and human qualities.=--There is no disparagement of the
academic degree in the sta