The practice room should be, as far as may be, the ordinary school, with the difficulties and responsibilities that will be met later. The responsibility for order, discipline, progress, records, reports, communication with parents and school authorities, must fall fully upon the young teacher, who has a friendly assistant to whom she can go for advice in the person of a wise and experienced critic, not constantly at hand, but constantly within reach.
Between the critic and the teacher-in-training there should exist the most cordial and familiar relations. These relations are based on the one hand upon an appreciation of wisdom and kindness, on the other, upon an appreciation of sincerity and effort. The growth of such relations, and the fruitage which follows their growth, require time. A half-year is not too long to be allotted for them. During this half-year experience, self-confidence and growth in power have been gained; but the pupil-teacher is still not ready to be set aside to work out her own destiny. At this point she is just ready for marked advance, which should be helped and guided. To remain longer with her critic friend may cause imitation rather than independence, may lead to contentment and cessation of growth. She should now be transferred to the care of a second critic of a different personality, but of equal merit. The new critic is bound by her duty and her ambition to see that the first half year’s advancement is maintained in the second. The pupil-teacher finds that excellence is not all upon one model. The value of individuality impresses her. She gains a view of solid principles wrapped in diverse characteristics. Her own individuality rises to new importance, and the elements of a growth not at once to be checked start up within her. For the care of the second critic a second half year must be allowed, which extends the practice work with pupils through an entire school year. For the theoretical work a year is by general experience proven sufficient. The ideal training course is, then, one of two years’ length.
Provision for the extended practice which is here recommended can be made only by city training-schools and by normal schools having connection with the schools of a city. To set apart a building of several rooms as a school of practice will answer the purpose only when there are very few teachers in training. In order to give each pupil-teacher a year of practice the number of practice rooms must equal the number of teachers to be graduated annually from the training-school, be the number ten, fifty, or five hundred. In any considerable city a school for practice will not suffice; many schools for practice must be secured. This can be done by selecting one excellent teacher in each of a sufficient number of school buildings, and making her a critic-teacher, giving her charge of two schoolrooms, in each of which is placed a pupil-teacher for training.