Methods of teaching teachers how to teach were warmly debated yesterday at the annual meeting of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, attended by President Conant and Dean Henry W. Holmes '03 of the Graduate School of Education.

Professor Ralph A. Burns of Dartmouth attacked the Graduate School of Education and similar schools at Yale and Boston University for not attracting the best university students to the teaching profession.

He charged that the "so-called graduate school of education in New England" is "nothing more or less than a department of education which has been expelled from the college with due pomp and ceremony," and urged that undergraduates be taught the "social significance of teaching."

Conant Defends Schools

In defense of the schools. President Conant described to the educators the progress of Harvard's department of education, stating that the University has "set itself squarely against the traditional procedure of granting a professional degree in teaching on the basis of credits in courses".

Dean Holmes, who has just been appointed chairman of a new University Committee on Educational Relations, discussed the problems facing the Graduate School of Education.

Among these he mentioned the "difficulty of defining standards to be attained in the several subjects of the academic program: the difficulty of conducting adequate apprenticeship for practice in teaching; and the difficulty of testing achievement instead of accepting credits in courses.