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Kansas University Weekly.
It is a significant fact that the general tendency among the more important law schools of the United States is toward higher requirements for entrance and more rigid tests for admission to the bar. This tendency is founded the upon two principles that the legal profession is so public in its nature that higher requirements are necessary for the protection of the public and that the legal profession, a successful practice of which demands much general information, a close insight into human nature, and a sympathy with the thoughts, feelings and tendencies of mankind, should be prepared for by a deliberate, thorough and general study of history, philosophy, literature and the natural sciences.
The requirements for entrance into the law department of the University of Kansas are English, and American and English History. These requirements are very low as compared with those of Eastern law schools or even with those of Michigan University. Other departments of our University have made efforts to keep abreast the rapid progress of the times and it is to be regretted that the same spirit has not been manifested in connection with this very important department. It is the moral duty of the management of the law school, to the people of the State of Kansas, to the University and to the legal profession, to make all possible efforts to increase the requirements for entrance into the law school and thus place this department upon a parity with the other schools in the University of Kansas. J.E.S.
The Granting of State Teachers' Certificates.
IN THE granting of teachers' certificates in Kansas the State Board of Education seems to evince a disposition to favor certain institutions at the expense of others. This, however, is not to be ascribed to prejudice on the part of members of the board but to the existence of laws on the subject, which state to whom certificates may be granted.
At the University of Kansas, graduates of the four years' course in the School of Arts can obtain state certificates only on condition of
taking an examination in the professional branches. This necessitates taking a year and a half's work in Pedagogy, which works a hardship to students who have certain special lines of work laid out for their University course. On the other hand at the State Normal school the conditions are much simpler. A student there has to complete a three year's course only in many respects in no way superior to the ordinary high school course, to obtain the state certificate.
A comparison between the curricula offered by the State University and the State Normal will be interesting and instructive. To enter the University a student must have completed a high school course, including three years of Latin. After his entrance he is given a thorough training in languages, ancient and modern, and in the sciences. After four years of this kind of work he is graduated, equipped and ready to teach almost any branches required in both the common and high schools. But he is still required to take an examination in Pedagogy. The student at the State Normal, even after he graduates, is not prepared to teach above the common schools. There are almost no requirements for admission and the course afterwards is deplorably deficient in language work, particularly in Latin. The only advantage the student there has over the University student is the required course in Pedagogy. In three years he graduates, authorized to teach in any schools in the state, while his less fortunate but bettter equipped brother from the University, after four years' study, still has to take an examination to obtain the desired certificate.
It is cheering to notice how much success University graduates are having all over the state in spite of this handicap. They are obtaining foot holds in high schools where their language training comes into play, while the Normal graduates are content with the lower schools. Cases have been reported where a University graduate without a certificate has been given the preference over a graduate of the Normal. All this is encouragement for the hope that in the future the awarding of state certificates may be made on a more equable basis. R.R.P.