The training of teachers in the United States of America — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The training of teachers in the United States of America
John Stuart Mill · en
From Chicago we went to Chautauqua, the huge encampment by the side of
Lake Chautauqua, in New York State. Here for several months in the year
people gather (no longer in log huts, but in hotels and boarding-houses
erected for the purpose) to attend the summer school, or the religious
meetings, or simply to enjoy the social life and popular lectures,
concerts, etc., which make the time pass quickly for them. Not only,
however, in the summer does Chautauqua exercise its influence. An
elaborate system of reading circles and education by correspondence has
been established, and connects one summer meeting with another. It does
educational work among those who are reached in no other way, and its
influence is felt not only throughout the States and America generally,
but even in Europe and far Japan.
We returned to New York through Ithaca, where we stopped to see Cornell
University. A University Summer School was being held, and we were able
to attend some lectures, and interviewed one or two professors.
A breakdown of the train by which we were to leave Ithaca delayed
our journey, so we arrived in New York too late to see any more
institutions, and sailed from thence feeling sad at the thought that
such a delightful tour was ended; but glad, too, at the remembrance of
the many friends we had made, and feeling that America would be no more
to us a land of strangers.
MILLICENT HUGHES.
REPORT I
BY AMY BLANCHE BRAMWELL, B.Sc.
In making my report of observations in one department of the
Educational System of the United States, I am anxious to point out, at
the very outset, that the nature of that System (its complexity, its
many modifications, and the vast extent it covers) renders the work of
drawing general conclusions from the data supplied by the observations
of one person a task of extreme difficulty. The difficulty is further
increased by the fact that my personal observations were limited to
the North-Eastern States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois. These States, although
covering only a small portion of the whole field of observation, differ
so greatly as regards conditions and organization that they exhibit
results widely opposed, and furnish facts from which it is not easy to
generalize.