PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Those who are familiar with teaching conditions in the secondary schools of this country are impressed with the oft-noted inability of new teachers to deal with actual teaching problems as presented by classroom experience? The art of successful teaching requires the knack of dealing with the human element just as much as it necessitates mental capability. In teaching, as in everything else, experience brings ultimate perfection, and often the early years of a teacher's career may be mainly spent in setting accustomed to handling classes.

The system of apprenticeships in the art of teaching, recently inaugurated by the Graduate School of Education, provides a means by which the student of teaching may smooth off the rough edges of his technique by actual experience in conducting classes, both in the public high schools and in private schools in the vicinity of Cambridge. Such an opportunity can be of great benefit to prospective teachers in that it gives an opportunity to try out new teaching methods and to become accustomed to dealing with class work in fact rather than in theory.