LAST month I asked the question, "What makes a good teacher?" Let us now consider: "How can we make a good teacher?" On this point, Dean Elmer Ellis of the University of Missouri makes some remarks in a recent article1 which will be worth elaborating. He picks up the discussion a t the point we left it, after considering the common criticism of the graduate school for its failure to train college teachers adequately. He accepts this as inevitablethat is, to the extent that exclusive emphasis upon subject matter implies inadequate training. He points out that this suhjectmatter emphasis is the primary objective of the graduate school, for which it exists and which it cannot avoid, and from which it cannot risk being diverted by any other objective. Subject-matter preparation is the one aspect of the future college teacher's education which only the graduate school can give. Otherwise, adequate preparation becomes entirely a matter of later self-education. The undergraduate department in which the young teacher later finds himself can do little about this; nevertheless, it can do something about his introduction to teaching, by providing an on-the-job training which can go a long way toward meeting the need. No college, thinks Dean Ellis, needs to accept poor teaching as inevitable unless i t wants to. The opportunity and the facilities for avoiding it are a t hand; it is only necessary to set up a little machinery. Other agencies-such as industry and the independent research institutions-compete with the colleges for the product of the graduate schools, and usually with conspicuous success. But these agencies do not assume that the newly-fledged Ph.D. is a finished scholar; they usually put him through some sort of in-service training program before giving him any great responsibility. Why should the college do less? The nature of su-h a training program and the mmner of its orgznization must depend upon the particular
local circumstances, hut there are certain obvious and desirable features. The new instructor must not be given too heavy a teaching load, nor a motley array of different courses which requires elaborate and painful preparation on his part. He should be required t o visit courses similar to his own, conducted by competent and successful teachers who in turn visit his classes and are then available for consultation and advice. A seminar or discussion group of some kind should be organized, including all new instructors in the department or in the whole college, a t which their various teaching problems are dealt with, by themselves and by others who are competent and able to contribute experience. "Most important of all," says Dean Ellis, "an atmosphere of approval for good teaching must prevail. Prestige for superior teaching must be present in all places in the college, including the student body and the administration." This solution to the problem of college teschertraining has a t least one virtue: I t puts the responsibility where it may seem t o he most appropriate. It is perhaps the only plausible solution if one is disposed to accept the original assumption that the graduate school cannot and should not take the responsibility for it. It must be admitted that college administrations are as likely t o shirk the responsibility as others have been, hut it may be replied that in such case they should not thereafter make any complaint. However, the complaint about the present situation does not come entirely from collega administrations, but also from students, the public, and from teachers themselves. Should this solution be adopted it would of course not be universal. There would be many places where the situation remained hit-or-miss. The young prospective college teacher would then have to be more than ever critical in accepting his first appointment, t o be sure that it offered him the training opportunities which would start him off on a successful career in ' ELLIS,E., "Making competent teachers of new instructors," his chosen profession. Perhaps this 'might be a very J. Highm Educ., 25, 204 (1954). desirable outcome.
