A paper of Miss Shirreff's, read at the Social Science
Associa- tion this day week, apparently advocated raising the class of 'teachers into a profession, to which the access should be as diffi- -cult as to any other of the learned professions,—a licence to teat& being granted only after special training in the art of teach- ing, as well as in that of the subjects to be taught, and after an examination to test the training. We do not suppose that the writer .of the paper meant to advocate any veto on private teaching by unlicensed persons,—indeed, there is no veto on private .doctoring by unlicensed persons, except the much greater danger of a verdict of manslaughter in case of a bad result,— but only that she intended to make the teaching in public schools impossible except to the holders of a license. Even so, is there the sort of advantage to be gained by a regular technical training in the art of teaching, which would justify its being made assists qua non, or is there the kind of harm to be done by those teachers who have not had that special training which obviously might be done by incompetent medical practitioners? If not,—and
• -we should be inclined to answer both questions in the negative,— 'we very much doubt the policy of further limiting the supply of public teachers by insisting, at present, on their having been trained to teach as well as trained to learn. We want all the fresh vigour we can press into the ranks of teachers, and we have great doubts whether the art of pedagogy, at least so far as it has been pursued as yet, has not done as much to stiffen, as it has done to discipline, the minds of those who have been appren- ticed to it.
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