A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

TEACHER TRAINING

427

of the school be given constant contact with children. Without facilities
which meet these conditions no teacher-training institution can successfully
perform its function.
In this respect the normal schools now in operation in the Islands
are notably deficient. Insufficient practice classes are provided; so few
critic teachers are employed that supervision is impossible even when
they work as no teachers should be asked to work; the practice classes
are sometimes located so far from the normal school that proper use
cannot be made of them.
The Philippine Normal School in Manila has received more attention,
has been more adequately supported and better equipped than have any
of the provincial schools. The failure to give attention there to the
provision for proper training-school facilities indicates the failure to
realize the importance of this phase of normal-school work. The Jefferson Training School is at least twenty-five minutes walk from the
normal school. With its seventeen classes of children it must make
provision for the following work: (1) Observation and conference
daily throughout the second year for students in home economics. (2)
Observation and practice daily throughout the third year for students
enrolled in the academic course. (3) Practice teaching daily through
the fourth year of the academic course. (4) School supervision for
one-half year for students enrolled in second year of the course for
supervising teachers and principals.
On January 12, 1925, 502 students reported to the principal of the
Jefferson School to be given teaching assignment of one period each
a day for the remainder of the school year.
Simple arithmetic shows the impossibility of performing the task.
The number of pupil groups in the school multiplied by the number of
periods in the school day is only 136. Three hundred and sixty-six
teaching assignments had to be taken care of by makeshift provision.
Moreover, these figures leave no margin of time when the pupils are to
be taught by other than student teachers, a situation which seriously
jeopardizes the welfare of the pupils of the school. Good practice
requires that pupils shall be under instruction by student teachers for
not more than two-thirds of the school day. To have them so for a
larger proportion of the time is extremely hazardous.
The welfare of the children of practice schools seems to have been
entirely overlooked in the provision of practice facilities. The fact has
also been ignored that except possibly in the very last stages of apprenticeship, where the supervision may be relaxed somewhat and even be