| American Teacher 


Democracy in Education; Education for Democracy. 
Vou. Al nd 8 NEW YORK, OCTOBER, 1916-3 FA Begs a Year 
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The Helping Hand 


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How can | best help the Children? 


By making up my mind to Stop 
Complaining 


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By thinking myself out of the Trivialities 
of Machine Existence 

By throwing the Weight of My Will 
upon my Best Gifts, and taking a 
Brand from a Flaming Ideal 

By joining with my Fellows in the 

Profession to make it Self-respect- 

ing and Respected 














RATING AND PROMOTION OF TEACHERS: 


F IsaBet DAVENPORT 
Teacher of Psychology, Training School for Teachers, New York. 


I take it for granted that the subject 
of the rating of teachers and of what is 
known as the “superior merit plan” have 
passed the academic stage as far as our 
attitude is concerned, and I shall there- 
fore not use any time to discuss the 
policy itself, or to talk about its mere- 
tricious effects. I shall deal instead with 
the practical question of the abolition of 
what is admitted to be a failure in its 
application, and both unpedagogica! and 
unsocial in its essential nature. 

Your committee on rating, promotion 
and salary has recently devoted consider- 
able effort to learning the opinions and 
convictions of teachers, principals and 
other supervisors, especially of those 
with whom its members ordinarily do not 
come in contact. It is the result of this 
investigation which largely determines the 
trend and character of my talk here to- 
night. 

Almost without exception every thot- 
ful, experienced person with whom we 


have talked, frankly recognizes and de- 
precates the evils attendant upon rating; 
but almost equally universal are such 
questions as, “How can the public and 
board of education be persuaded that 


teachers should not be rated?” “How 
can promotion be conducted without rat- 
ing?’ and “What shall we put in its 
place?” 

Further questioning and analysis in- 
dicate that one of the chief difficulties 
which lie in the way of the entire aboli- 
tion of the practise, is the fact that thru 
habit, rating and ratings have come to 
be confused with other issues in the thot 
of teachers and supervisors. That the 
minds of the men and women who com- 
pose the Board of Education are not so 
tainted by these associations, is our 
greatest hope for a speedy deliverance. 


First there is the confounding of 





*Talk before Teachers’ League, New York, 
June 5, 1914. 


technical rating with the general estima- 
tion which people everywhere form of 
each other’s character and ability. 
Linked with this is the feeling already 
mentioned that somehow it will be diffi- 
cult to persuade the public and the Board 
of Education that we should not be rated. 

When we speak of rating we refer to 
the formal expression of a supervisor’s 
opinion of a teacher by means of letters 
or other symbols or “marks”—these 
marks being recorded as the measure of 
the rated person’s efficiency; with the 
possibility of their being used as de- 
termining factors in his future welfare. 
As far as I have been able to learn this 
practise, which has been fastened upon 
the schools of New York City, is almost 
an anomaly in normal adult society. In 
no other of the so-called learned profes- 
sions, fields in which a premium is set 
upon scholarship and its application ; nor 
in any of the industries and arts wherein 
skill and creative power are demanded; 
nor in any of the other social institutions 
devoted to human uplift and growth, is 
it believed that efficiency can be secured, 
or that skill and power and high moral 
and spiritual aims can be obtained, thru 
giving marks. Indeed any efficient man 
of affairs and the president of any board 
of education would blush, knowing him- 
self to be weak and absurd, in resorting 
to the use of A’s, B’s, and C’s to coerce 
good work from a poor stenographer, or 
as a reward and incentive to a good one. 

I believe that it will not be over diff- 
cult for the Board of Education and the 
public at large to see that the maintain- 
ing of a practise so artificial necessitates 
a formalism that dehumanizes school 
work. 

IT 


Another difficulty which we meet with 
is due to the confusing of rating with 
the testing and measuring of efficiency. 
The rating of teachers has no value for 
the testing, or for the expressing of effi- 
ciency. Efficiency along any line must 


114 












be measured in units of the work done. 
Thus a typist can write so many words 
a minute, a machine do so many foot- 
pounds of work; a man average so 
many bricks laid a day. The efficiency 
of a teacher must be measured by the 
number and strength of valuable habits 
formed in her pupils, by the power which 
she has developed in each child to get 
and apply facts, by the child’s enlarged 
capacity and desire for social service, 
etc. No such standard of measurement 
yet exists. 

Some attempt has been made to meas- 
ure the teacher’s efficiency by the num- 
ber of pupils promoted, books read, or 
amount of subject matter covered. But 
everyone acquainted with school work 
knows how valueless these standards are 
as a real test of efficiency, and how de- 
moralizing to a teacher when actually 
applied. There has been some gain 
along the line of working out standards 
for measuring the pupil’s ability in cer- 
tain of the more formal operations, but 
even this is a test of what the pupil can 
do when under certain conditions, and 
tells little or nothing of habits established. 
As yet anything like adequate standards 
for measuring the efficiency of the in- 
dividual teacher in units of her most im- 
portant work, are entirely lacking. When 
research workers in education succeed in 
finding us such standards, and we have 
learned to apply them, we shall hope to 
have the results expressed in the honor- 
able terms of our labor and not in letters 
of the alphabet. 

III 

Another difficulty is due to the fact 
that in the thot of many rating is con- 
fused with promotion. That persons in 
all fields of activity are promoted with- 
out a system of ratings is evidence enough 
that there is no essential relation be- 
tween the two. But keeping to the school 
system in this city, probably no one sup- 
poses that the more highly paid positions 
are filled on the basis of the ratings 
which the candidates have previously re- 
ceived. I have recently examined five 
different blanks which are sent to be 
filled out in order to obtain information 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 115 






concerning candidates, but nowhere on 
these is there any inquiry concerning 
ratings. Principals state frankly that rat- 
ings are seldom considered in promotion, 
and teachers complain that while A’s 
do not obtain, B’s have been used to debar 
from advancement. Within our superior 
merit experience we know of cases where 
a majority of A’s have not secured the 
fit and meritorious mark, while a major- 
ity of B’s and B + ’s have been rewarded 
with declaration of superior merit and 
maximum salary. 

I do not wish to be understood as 
criticising adversely the fact that there is 
so little relation between ratings and 
promotion in our school system. I wish 
merely to point out that even those who 
give ratings, have no confidence in them 
as a basis for promotion, and that one 
of the chief reasons given for continuing 
the practise has little if any foundation 
in fact. 

The question of promotion is a prob- 
lem by itself, and we do not have to 
solve it in order to abolish ratings. But 
as we have been asked to say something 
along this line, we must say that the 
whole theory and practise of promotion 
in our schools rests upon a falsé concep- 
tion of education, a conception which, 
on the one hand, places almost any ac. 
tivity which a qualified teacher may be 
called upon to perform above the actual 
work of teaching; and which, on the 
other, ranks teaching of subject matter 
to children whose mental and physical 
habits are for the most part formed, as 
of more importance than the work of 
establishing valuable habits most of 
which, if they are to be established at 
all, must become fixed during the first 
years of school life. 

This reversal of educational values has 
resulted, especially in the high and train- 
ing schools, in an unfortunate system of 
superior and subordinate positions, with 
large differences in salary, among teachers 
having practically the same qualifications 
and teaching the same subject. The 
teacher appointed first assistant super- 
vises his fellows, and does such other 
work as he may be called upon by the 





































































116 


principal to do, such as taking charge of 
the attendance, looking after the heating 
apparatus or making out programs, etc., 
the number of hours of teaching he does 
being lessened accordingly. But what- 
ever the nature of the extra class ac- 
tivity may be, promotion consists pri- 
marily in one of the teachers of a given 
subject being made the permanent head 
and supervisor of the others, of being 
relieved to a greater or less degree, as 
the case may be, of the real work of edu- 
cation, and of receiving therefor five 
hundred dollars a year more salary. In 
some cases in the training schools, (I 
do not know whether the same condition 
exists in any of the high schools) there 
are departments consisting of but two 
and three teachers, one of whom, as head 
of the department, receives seven hun- 
dred and fifty dollars a year extra salary. 
Under such conditions the problems 
of promotion are serious, and much ill 
feeling is engendered which the practise 
of rating serves to augment. The soiu- 
tion of the problem here is thru the 
elimination of the position, and salary 
of the first assistant, and in substituting 
the practise of electing a department 
chairman who shall serve a certain length 
of time, say a term or a year, without 
extra pay. His hours of teaching could 
be lessened to give time for the added 
duties of chairman. This plan would 
save the city over one hundred, perhaps 
two hundred thousand dollars a year, 
would relieve the training and high 
schools of the caste system which now 
saps their vitality, and would release the 
tremendous fund of power which must 
be resident in the two thousand or more 
high and training school teachers, but 
which finds no adequate expression in the 
upbuild of the schools. Further, that 
may reveal other departments of 
the system where the same _ prin- 
ciple might be applied in solving the 
problem of promotions. But the first 
step is to get rid of ratings. It will then 
have been made possible to deal intelli- 
gently with the subject of promotion. 
IV 
But the question most frequently met 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








with in our investigation, is “what shall 
be put in the place of ratings?” Within 
the last two weeks I have talked with 
two superintendents. Each spoke frankly 
of the harmful effects of ratings. One 
was especially outspoken in declaring 
the practise of rating unpedagogical and 
pernicious, but when he was asked if 
he would join in an effort to have it 
abandoned, he said he would if anything 
could be found to take its place. 

The pertinent question thus arises, 
what is its place? 

Its place is not, as I have pointed out, 
to serve as a basis for promotion, or 
as a means of measuring or expressing 
efficiency. Its only excuse in the system 
is to serve as an instrument with which 
to deal with poor teachers, and as a 
means of securing conformity to what is 
euphemistically and vaguely termed “law- 
ful authority,” but which in actual prac- 
tise becomes the will of the supervisor. 

So the question resolves itself into 
first, What shall be put in the place of 
ratings as a means of dealing with poor 
teachers? and secondly, What shall be 
used in the place of the rating policy to 
secure conformity? 

There is but one way to deal with poor 
teachers when their failure to do good 
work is due to lack in scholarship and 
ability or to permanent moral or physical 
weakness, and that is not to have them. 
There is a three-year probationary period 
before a teacher in the city schools is 
granted a permanent license. If poor 
teachers are being admitted into the sys- 
tem in any considerable numbers the su- 
pervisors, without whose recommenda- 
tion they could not be admitted, are at 
fault, and should be held strictly to ac- 
count. What is needed in the place of 
ratings here is good supervision. 

But a flagrant cause of poor teaching 
is found in poor school conditions, such 
as too large classes, unsanitary buildings, 
and a militarism which weakens the men- 
tal and physical forces. In the place of 
ratings as a spur to enervated teachers, 
we need physical conditions that render 
health possible, and a conception of edu- 














—=S—lUTOnrrlUh Te —lhlCUr hO—OrlhC(Ci 





cation that makes teaching seem worth 
the while. 

There is but one real purpose, which 
the practise of rating teachers can satis- 
factorily fulfil, and that is to secure 
conformity. The function of rating is 
essentially the function of the whip. 
Granting this to be its sole real use, there 
is nothing to put in its place. It is not 
a matter of substituting birch for hick- 
ory, but of cutting out flogging. All that 
has been said against the use of the rod 
as a means of controlling children is to 
be said against the use of marks to con- 
trol teachers. In place of the whip in the 
hand of the teacher are needed scholar- 
ship, ability and a large regard for, and 
faith in, human personality; and on the 
side of the child a social environment that 
makes normal development possible. In 
place of the rating system in the hands 
of supervisors, there is needed first of all, 
well qualified teachers, and after that, 
plenty of means furnished for profes- 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 






117 





sional improvement, physical conditions 
favorable to good work, and, above all, 
opportunity for the exercise of the 
teacher’s powers in the vital life of the 
school. This will not secure conformity 
primarily, but it will result in growth of 
professional ideals, in the development 
of the powers of both teachers and su- 
pervisors, and in the type of co-operation 
which is the cordial working together of 
all for the highest attainable ends, and 
this is what I understand to be the only 
aim of education which is compatible 
with American ideals. 

In closing I wish to say that I have 
sufficient faith in the good judgment of 
the members of the Board of Education, 
and of its committee on by-laws to be- 
lieve that these facts, properly brought 
before them, would find a response which 
would result, before long, in the entire 
abandonment of a policy which they 
would be bound to see is detrimental to 
the best interests of the schools. 


THE DILEMMA OF THE TEACHERS’ PAY 


BENJAMIN C GRUENBERG 


AT THE ANNUAL meeting of The Na- 
tional Education Association, resolutions 
were adopted endorsing the principle of 
paying teachers without discrimination 
as to sex. Altho some nine-tenths of 
the teachers in the country are women, 
and altho the character of the member- 
ship of the N E A has not changed ma- 
terially in the last decade, this resolu- 
tion could not have been adopted half a 
dozen years ago. While the growth of 
feminism may have influenced some of 
the opinions that contributed to this 
resolution, that movement on the whole 
was not a decisive element in the situa- 
tion. 

The resolution comes at the end of a 
series of agitations carried on in different 
parts of the country for the establish- 
ment of what has been called “equal 
pay for equal work.” In New York 
City this principle of equal pay went in- 


to practise in January, 1912. In his last 
annual report the City Superintendent of 
Schools in Cincinnati urged upon the 
Board of Education the desirability of 
adopting this idea as soon as possible. 
And elsewhere the idea is gradually be- 
coming familiar to city officials and ad- 
ministrators, at least as a slogan. 

The growth of the agitation and the 
decline of active opposition to the idea 
of paying women teachers the same sala- 
ries as are paid to men teachers mark 
the emergence of a new attitude toward 
our economic relations generally. They 
indicate that people are asking them- 
Selves. the meaning of their wage or 
salary. And it is only natural that those 
workers who are by training and habit 
more given to asking questions than the 
rest of the community should be — 
the first to push this question forwar 
into consciousness. 












































































118 





The simple cynic who distinguishes be- 
tween a wage and a salary by saying that 
one is paid by the week and the other 
by the month has seen only the surface. 
There is a more fundamental difference, 
and one that involves serious difficulties 
when it comes to adjusting the size of 
a worker’s pay. There is involved, in- 
deed, the whole matter of the relation 
of pay to the value of services. 

We have been accustomed for so long 
that the memory of no living man can 
recall to the contrary, to paying women 
lower wages than men receive for similar 
work, that the first reaction to the pro- 
posal to equalize the salaries of teachers 
was naturally enough the self-assured 
declaration that it could not be done— 
it was absurd on the face of it. Women 
never had received the same pay as men, 
and therefore they should not in the 
future. This reply was just as obvious 
as would be your answer to the proposal 
to equalize the incomes of all men, re- 
gardless of the kind of work they do. 
Men who do dirty work have always 
been paid less than those who do clean, 
attractive work, therefore they should 
continue to get less. 

But as soon as men could catch their 
breaths they were prepared with a better 
answer—two of them in fact. The first 
is that it is contrary to the “law of 
supply and demand” to pay women as 
much as men. The second one calls at- 
tention to the fact that in general men 
have others dependent upon them, where- 
as the women workers do not as a rule; 
and that therefore men are morally en- 
titled to higher rates of compensation. 
A little thot will convince us, however, 
that these attempts to place the issue on 
the lofty plane of law and morals was 
but a bit of pedantry into which we are 
all apt to slip when placed in the argu- 
mentative attitude. 

For the statement that the law of 
supply and demand requires women to 
be paid less than men is simply another 
way of saying that in the labor market 
women have been cheaper than men. It 
is a rather dim recognition of the fact 
that under existing economic conditions 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








the wage bears no relation to. the cost 
of living on the one hand, or to the hu- 
man or social value of the product on 
the other. We are pushed about in the 
labor market, now going up, now down, 
our momentary level determined by such 
irrelevant factors as a new design by a 
French costumer and a patent decision 
by the court. It is in its form of an 
attack upon the agitation for “equal 
pay” an aggressive claim to an implied 
right; it is in substance, however, a 
weak concession to those who pay wages, 
an admission that these have the right 
—hbecause they have the power—to pay 
just as little as they need, or just as 
much as they must. 

The second formal reply at once ex- 
plains the first, and then shifts the issue. 
For one of the reasons why women are 
cheaper in the market than men is this 
very fact that the man’s wage is—or 
in the past has been—generally the family 
wage, whereas the woman’s wage has 
generally been an individual wage. But 
whereas the acceptance of the law of 
supply and demand seemed necessary to 
the opponents of the “equal pay” agita- 
tion, it is at once repudiated in the at- 
tempt to make the opposition stronger. 
For in claiming that men have a moral 
right to higher pay because of their 
greater responsibilities we discard the 
market standards and adopt one based 
solely on the needs of the workers and 
their dependents. Surely, those who 
adopt this line of argument prove too 
much. 

Suppose you object to equal pay on 
the ground of the economic law of supply 
and demand. If then the women formed 
a sufficiently powerful union and held 
out for “equal pay,” it would be right 
enough for them to get it, altho we 
should recognize that they would be re- 
ceiving a monapoly wage. On the other 
hand, suppose that you object to equal 
pay on the ground that men, having 
greater responsibilities, are entitled to 
higher rates of compensation. In that 
case, would you agree to scaling the pay 
of public employes on the basis of the 
size of family? For if the spinster lady, 


















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doing what is acknowledged to be the 
equivalent of my work, but having no 
one dependent upon her, while I have a 
wife and a handful of ‘children depen- 
dent upon me, is not allowed by right to 
receive the same pay as I get, am I not 
entitled to an additional bonus over 
what Smith is getting, who is not mar- 
ried at all, and is a jolly good sport? 
Thus we may see that the opposition 
to equal pay on the ground of market 
conditions simply accepts what has been 
as what ought to be; whereas the opposi- 
tion on the ground of different social re- 
sponsibility despite equivalence of service 
repudiates the market methods of de- 
termining pay and accepts the principle 
of paying each according to his needs. 
But how is it with those who approve 
the idea of equal pay? There are first 
of all those who accept the idea because 
the formula sounds essentially right— 
how can anyone claim “unequal pay for 
equal work?” Most of these people do 
not ask themselves the question as to 
what is meant by equal work. It would 
not be difficult to show, as has indeed 
been claimed by the opponents, that there 
never is absolute equality of service in 
the business of teaching. This is how- 
ever without significance ; for if it is true 
that the work of women is never identi- 
cal with the work of men in teaching, it 
is equally true that no two men do iden- 
tical work, and yet they would claim 
pay according to a uniform scale. The 
important point is that in certain occu- 
pations the value of the service is not 
to be measured by hours or by material 
units of product. In teaching the value 
of service varies with experience and 
devotion and enthusiasm and energy and 
scholarship and maturity of thought and 
outlook—a hundred immaterial factors 
that cannot be weighed or counted or 
measured, but that do nevertheless make 
the services of one teacher highly valu- 
able to the community while the services 
of another are indifferent or worse. Un- 
der these circumstances it is out of the 
question to speak of equal pay for equal 
work, for there is no equal work. But 
the inequality is independent of the sex 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 119 


of the teacher, so that the only claim 
which the reformer can make is that the 
determination of salaries shall not be 
influenced by the sex of the incumbent, 
which, from an abstract point of view, is 
certainly just. 

To the objection that the disregarding 
of sex is in violation of the economic 
law of supply and demand, many teachers 
make the sufficient answer that the rec- 
ognition of a principle of justice is more 
important than the compliance with a 
rule of the market-place. We know of 
course that this so-called “law” is more 
than a rule of the market-place; it is a 
real and active force in determining the 
level of prices and wages. What the at- 
titude of these teachers and their pro- 
tagonists really means is that the de- 
termination of these rates of pay should 
be removed from the competitive field in 
which alone the law of supply and de- 
mand has any validity. In other words, 
like those who oppose equal pay, they 
would seek a new principle for determ- 
ining rates of pay for service. They 
would make the rate rest on some ob- 
jective standard of social value of ser- 
vice, whereas their opponents would have 
it rest on some subjective standard of the 
needs of the individual worker—or of 
classes of workers. 

So long as we continue to do as we 
have always done, we may live without 
theory and unhampered by the pale cast 
of thot. But when a new line of 
action is proposed we are at once forced 
to scratch our heads and stimulate the 
gray matter to activity, and this whether 
we accept the new proposal or repudiate 
it entirely. And here we have the in- 
teresting situation of groups of people 
who are diametrically opposed to each 
other on the subject of equal pay ap- 
proaching each other unawares by way 
of the back stairs. 

For what is implied by the rejection 
of the supply-and-demand system of fix- 
ing pay? 

Supply and demand rule the rates of 
wages where men and women have labor- 
power to sell in the “open market.” This 
view assumes a certain fluidity and mobil- 










































































































120 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ity of labor which in fact is never real- 
ized; but never mind, the point is that 
wages have nothing to do directly with 
the cost of up-keep of the laborer—as 
witness the thousands of workers en- 
gaged in the so-called “parasitic” indus- 
tries—and they have nothing to do direct- 
ly with the social utility of their services 
—as witness the thousands of workers 
engaged in industries that are positively 
harmful to the workers themselves as 
well as to society at large. 

When we once begin to raise questions 
as to the human cost of keeping a worker 
in condition to continue his work, we 
say that the cashier ought to be relieved 
of any apprehension as to the future 
of his family, he ought to be free to de- 
vote himself to his work without being 
obliged to press his own trousers or 
carry a dinner pail—and presto! we 
put him on a salary. That is, when we 
are confronted with the necessity of 
keeping a worker on a rather high level 
of efficiency, we subsidize him to attend 
to the business in question, and insure 
him and his family against his being 
thrown out on a week’s notice—or on no 
notice at all, as happens to ordinary 
wage-earners—and we insure him also 
that so long as he attends to business, he 
and his family will continue to be fairly 
comfortable, so far as the material con- 
ditions of life are concerned. In other 
words, we place him on a salary. We do 
not ask, How cheap a man can we get 
to do this work? We ask, What does it 
cost to support a man in such a station? 

The adoption of the principle of equal 
pay is virtually a shifting from the wage 
basis of compensating teachers to the 
salary basis. It is true that in all the 
larger cities the teachers have been nom- 
inally on a salary basis for many years. 
It is now only in the smallest communi- 
ties that the trustees bargain with the 
candidate as to the amount of money 
she is to get for keeping school next year. 
But the salaries of teachers in most 
cities have been for the most part sala- 
ries in form only. Essentially they have 
been amounts paid on a scale determined 
not by considerations of what it costs to 





maintain efficient men and women for 
certain kinds of public service, but on 
the consideration of what we must pay 
per month or per day, to get enough 
fairly acceptable men and women to take 
these jobs. 

The difference may be brought out by 
showing the different attitude toward the 
public service that is implied by each of 
these methods. 

We may conceive of the relation be- 
tween the state and the public school 
teacher in this fashion: The state is en- 
gaged in a certain enterprise (namely the 
training of its future citizenry) that re- 
quires the services of so many thousand 
men and women; this involves the pay- 
ment of moneys from the public treas- 
ury; what is the smallest sum of money 
for which we can get men and women to 
fill these jobs? 

The other relationship may be ex- 
pressed somewhat thus: The state is 
engaged in a certain enterprise that re- 
quires the services of thousands of men 
and women, who must, by virtue of this 
service, withdraw from the usual com- 
mercial and industrial enterprises thro 
which people support themselves; now 
what does it cost to support the kinds 
of men and women we need in this bus- 
iness, with their families? 

We may note that the reciprocal of 
the first point of view may read, “I 
need a job; I can get one working for 
the state at so much per year; I need 
the money and will take this job, and 
get what I can out of it.” 

The reciprocal of the second point of 
view may read, “I would like to be a 
teacher, but there is no money in it 
If I was sure I could meet all my neces- 
sary expenses—and my family’s —I 
would take that job, and put all I can 
into it.” 

It is not to be supposed that raising the 
salaries of teachers, or equalizing the 
salaries of teachers, will have the im- 
mediate effect of changing the attitude 
of the teachers in service from that sug- 
gested in the first of the above points 


(Continued on page 126.) 





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The 


American Cracker 


Democracy in Education ; Education for Democracy 


Published monthly, except July and August, by 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER COMPANY, INC., 
129 Lafayette Street, New York. 














Be Bn hg 00:0000060.0606000 President 
Louise M. Dirmeipce............ Treasurer 
EDITED BY 
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-Managing Editor 
Jay D. Lester 


BenjaMin C. GRUENBERG.. 


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Cuagtotte E. Les Gasrizt R. Mason 


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Copyright, 1914, Taz AMERICAN TEACHER Co., INC. 


ae 


Entered at the Post Office of New York 
as second-class matter. 


























VOL. Ill OCTOBER, 1914 No. 8 








This paper seeks to advance the status 
of the teacher to the dignity and the in- 
fluence of a profession, by advocating 
high standards of admission to the call- 
ing; by urging an extension of the op- 
portunities for the participation of teach- 
ers in the direction of educational affairs ; 
and by supporting the organization of 
teachers for all legitimate professional 
purposes. 





TAKE THE BETTER JOB 


IF you FEEL that your work has not 
been appreciated, and that near the end 
of a long career of sacrifice and devotion 
you have had the stone-cold cheek of 
indifference turned toward your aspira- 
tions for approval and recognition, you 
may say in your disgust, “I am done with 
the whole infamous and heartless busi- 
ness. Hereafter I shall do as little as 


121 





I possibly can do, and still hold the job 
against the day of final dissolution. 
They will get nothing more from me.” 

Who are they? Is it for the educa- 
tional masters that you have been work- 
ing? If so, quit now! 

Begin over, and give the best of your 
remaining strength to a big ideal. 


SCHOOL COUNCILS 

ANY EXPERIMENT in democracy is lia- 
ble to suffer from the inexperience of its 
promoters. But no matter. 

The school council idea is a feasible 
plan for getting the teachers to share in 
the government of the school. No more 
practical way has been suggested. Altho 
feasible and practical, the propect of as- 
sured success in this movement lies most 
likely in the direction of working out a 
method of approach; in other words, we 
must develop workable tactics. 

It has been a mistake for over-en- 
thusiastic promoters of democracy in 
education to try to wrest from the prin- 
cipals of the schools the authority which 
the system of schools has given them. 
In return for the authority given the prin- 
cipals, there is a definite responsibility 
imposed. It would be a one-sided matter 
if the school council should possess it- 
self of the authority, while leaving to the 
principal the responsibility. 

We should not forget that great num- 
bers of teachers do not care for authority 
at all. The success of the democratic 
movement depends upon the indifferent 
majority no less than upon the aggres- 
sive minority, for democracy brings its 
benefits to all with the aid and under- 
standing of all. Therefore, a practical 
appeal must be found which will draw 
the sympathy of a large number of 
teachers. This appeal may be made thru 
a call for codperation. The call in each 
school should be made with entire sin- 
cerity. If this is done no sane principal 
should want to withstand, or could with- 
stand, the pressure of the common desire 
for better administration and better spirit 
in the school. 

It may happen that a small number of 

























































































122 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


teachers enamored of the ancient forms 
of boss rule will go out of their way 
to embarrass the bearers of the demo- 
cratic standard. To quiet these dis- 
turbers it is only necessary to produce 
a few concrete benefits as fruits of the 
cooperative idea. This is far better than 
entering into a controversy, and the coun- 
cil saves its energy for more productive 
work. 

A third feature in a well-worked-out 
plan of action is one that has a valuable 
educational character. For a time many 
trivial suggestions may come to the coun- 
cil from the teachers. Some of these 
suggestions may spring from old sources 
of irritation in the principal’s manage- 
ment of the school. If the council gives 
its time to working over these trivial 
matters, rubbing off only the crudest of 
the exterior before laying the complaints 
before the teaching body for considera- 
tion, the council will fall in short order. 
But if the trivialities are mentioned in 
frequent repetition, there is something 
fundamentally wrong with the adminis- 
tration. This is what the council should 
go after with deliberation but with cour- 
age, for the social power of the school 
is in jeopardy. If the council insists 
upon the teachers bringing to its atten- 
tion matters of fundamental importance, 
then in time it will get fundamental 
thinking. That is where the education 
will come in. 

More experimenting with the school 
council idea and more thinking about it 
will bring still greater assurance of suc- 
cess for this new piece of democratic 
machinery. 


The craft spirit will insist that its 
own trained and expert judgment 
shall establish craft standards of ex- 
cellence and efficiency. It will resent 
the unwarranted interference of laymen 
in purely technical matters. It will re- 
sent such interference manfully and 

i y as would a reputable physi- 
cian, a reputable artist, or a reputable 
eer in a similar situation.— 
WituraM C Bac ey, in Classroom Man- 
agement. 










GOOD PEDAGOGY 


NOTWITHSTANDING the absurdities that 
have been committed in the name of 
“pedagogy,” the technique of teaching 
has made wonderful advances in the last 
quarter century. In no direction has this 
advance been more marked than in the 
almost universal recognition of the prin- 
ciple that children learn to do by doing. 
So convincingly has this principle been 
demonstrated over and over again, that 
even the older educators are coming to 
urge upon teachers the substitution of 
experience and practise for the memoriz- 
ing of precepts and rules. It is very 
gratifying to find that Superintendent 
Maxwell of New York City urges upon 
the principals that they give the pupils 
the opportunity to learn the arts of 
democracy thru actual experience with 
the problems of self-government. In his 
annual address he placed before them 
the following, with unusual emphasis: 


In order that pupils may have actual ex- 
perience in governing themselves they 
should be given some responsibility and 
some opportunity for self-government by 
allowing them to manage or take an active 
part in managing the discipline of the 
school, the recitation, their own clubs, 
games, playgrounds, fire drills, opening ex- 
ercises, entertainments, excursions, class and 
school libraries, athletic contests or class 
savings banks. 

Pupils should be made to feel their re- 
sponsibility by being made responsible for 
something in the preservation of school 
property, in the tidiness of school premises 
and school rooms, and thereby learn that 
mutual assistance and co-operative service 
are the fundamental principles of all 
healthy self-government. 

Pupils should be led to see that without 
law, liberty itself is impossible; that in- 
fractions of the law are injurious to the 
people individually and collectively, and 
that is the duty of each citizen, young or 
old, to aid in the enforcement of the law. 
“Good laws, good administration, and the 
perpetuity of the government itself depend 
upon the manner in which the people dis- 
charge their public duties.” 








orm =O 


an nan hain ao oe 





















THE AMERICAN TEACHER 123 










To be sure, he says nothing about the life force men to seek distraction and 


older children who act as teachers learn- excitement wherever they can be found— 



















































that 
e of ing the principles of government thru and there is nothing more exciting or 
hing participation in government. He seems distracting than war. The picture of the 
last to assume that teachers, trained as they Belgian girl smiling while surrounded by 
this are for dealing in formulas and abstrac- the German “foes” need not mean any 
the tions, can learn all there is to know more than the natural acceptance of an 
rin- about government from the printed page. opportunity for novel experiences, for 
ing. | In time the superintendents and the com-__ real adventure, in a humdrum existence. 
een | missioners of education, and the public If we should all follow the counsel of 
hat at large, will learn that teachers are very Tolstoi and refuse to fight, there could 
to much like other human beings, and can of course be no war. But we cannot 
of learn thru doing. Then teachers will follow the counsel of Tolstoi. Aside 
‘iz- either be given the ballot and urged to from all other considerations, the human 
ry ff take part in public affairs, or they will animal retains so much of the elemental 
nt § be given a responsible share in the man- . restlessness of protoplasm that it can not 
on ff agement of their professional affairs— be happy in the absence of stimulation 
ils § or they will be forever enjoined from and action. If we can not go out to 
of teaching “government” to the children. shoot the rapids or kill big game, we 
th That task will be reserved for the pro- must get the excitement by proxy thru 
is fessional politicians. books or moving pictures. If we can not 
mf In the meanwhile, let us be grateful wander far from home in search of the 
for every bit of progress. heroic and romantic, we must enjoy life 
iH vicariously thru the heroes of fiction and 
, the stage. The quest of the unknown, 
the excitement of danger, are just as 


necessary for human happiness as pro- 


_ - oS 'f 


WAR AND EMPTINESS tection against the weather and the 
Our INDUSTRIAL civilization ought to quenching of thirst. 
make war impossible because of the close Without in any way disparaging the 


interrelations of material interests of the sincere patriotism or the outraged sense 
various nations, because of the close of righteousness that move many of 
economic interdependence of the various those who rush into the battling regi- 
nations, because of the opportunities for ments, we must recognize that the most 
better mutual understanding, because of wide-spread and the most deep-seated 
the tremendous costliness of a suspen- motives lie in the restlessness and the 
sion of industry. Yet it is our very in- craving for adventure that we have in- 
dustry that has made the present war herited from our migrant ancestors. 
possible. The economists have told us These instincts must find an outlet; if 
of the struggle for world markets and not in the activities of peace, then in war. 
concessions and of the “spheres of in- We must continue to teach the iniquity 
fluence” and trade routes. But apart of war, its wastes, its manifold miseries, 
from all these things, the fighting is done its ultimate futility. We must teach an 
by men and women who really ought to appreciation of human values, a regard 
know better. In spite of the high de- for life and for its possibilities. But we 
velopment of humanitarian sentiments, in must also teach that human life is more 
spite of the keen appreciation of the suf- than pig life, we must teach the rising 
fering and misery and waste that war en- generation to demand an existence that 
tails, and in spite of the prevailing igno- is so full of action and color that it will 
rance among the masses of people con- leave no room or time for envies and 
cerning the economic and political forces quarrels. We must teach it to regard hu- 
that drive governments to declare war, man life as too sacred to be exposed to 
the monotony and tedium of the common arrogance and exploitation on the one 























124 


hand, or to drab dullness on the other. 
And finally we must teach that all wars 
are from Hell except the war for human 
rights: God is for mankind, not for a 
nation. When the children will have 
learned to demand life in its fullness, 
adults will refuse to accept the emptiness 
of mechanical routine or the desolations 
of war. 


DANGEROUS SPORT 
THOSE WHO play foot-ball or polo as- 
sume certain risks; but the danger in 
these sports is practically all for the par- 


ticipants. Those, however, who play fast. 


and loose with our laws are endangering 
the stability of our institutions, and 
something should be done to stop the 
frivolity with which the legal profession, 
with its official head in the courts, ma- 
nipulates the fortunes of a whole people. 

Everyone who has been weaned from 
press-made opinion recognizes that the 
courts with their “officers’”—the lawyers 
—are only incidentally concerned with 
justice. Primarily they are concerned 
with translating statements and allega- 
tions into conclusions and decisions ac- 
cording to a certain set of very complex 
rules. On the assumption that these rules 
are so constructed that decisions evolved 
in harmony with them must necessarily 
secure justice, the work of the courts is 
of course identical with the establishment 
of justice. But when we consider on the 
one hand the formalism and rigidity of 
legal procedure, and on the other hand 
the frequency with which court decisions 
in strict accordance with the law are 
nevertheless substantially unjust, we can- 
not avoid the suspicion that there is 
something fundamentally wrong with the 
administration of “justice.” 

However, this is in itself no serious 
matter. Legal injustice is so small a 
part of the total of injustice that while 
we should do well to eliminate it, we 
can still bear the burden. So long as 
the game is played on bewildered busi- 
ness men who can shrug their shoulders 
and say “Better luck next time,” it does 
not seem to matter much that injustice 1s 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


done. So long as the wage worker is 
mulcted of his hard-earned cash, it may 
be possible to assure him that his is an 
individual case, and the lawyers may 
continue to laugh in their sleeves. So 
long as tenants may be ruthlessly evicted 
in accordance with the “law,” a few 
disreputable and inconsequential people 
may become embittered; but that is not 
serious. 

A real danger appears when teachers 
—common or garden variety of school 
teachers—come to have direct personal 
experiences with the workings of the 
law. The teacher has a way of general- 
izing from very few facts. She has also 
a way of arousing in her pupils reflec- 
tions of her own feelings. She cannot 
be silenced with the assurance that jus- 
tice is a matter of getting the right 
lawyer. She cannot be put off with the 
encouraging hope that she may have bet- 
ter luck next time. Her prejudice for 
righteousness cannot be outraged with 
impunity. To trifle with teachers in the 
matter of the law is an extremely dan- 
gerous thing. 

But this trifling has commenced. Com- 
missioners of education who are also 
lawyers have told teachers who had ab- 
sented themselves from school when they 
had to give birth to a child that in ab- 
senting themselves without leave they 
were violating the law and were there- 
fore subjecting themselves to dismissal 
—for violating the law. When women 
teachers have asked for leave of absence 
for the purpose of bearing a child, leave 
was refused. Lawyers have told us, in 
other words, that it is unlawful for a 
pregnant woman to stay at home at the 
time of child-birth. They have not gone 
so far as to say that it is unlawful for 
a woman teacher to be pregnant; they 
have not been called upon to decide that 
question—technically. They say that a 
woman teacher may be pregnant, or not, 
as she chooses; that is none of their con- 
cern. But she must not stay away from 
school without permission: that ts their 
concern, and they mean to uphold the 
sacredness of the law at all hazards. 

‘The case of Mrs. Bridget Peixotto, a 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


teacher in the New York public schools 
who was dismissed technically for 
“neglect of duty” in being absent from 
school without permission, but in reality 
for presuming to become a mother with- 
out permission of the Board of Educa- 
tion, has just been “decided” by the 
Court of Appeals. Mrs Peixotto had 
brot suit, after her dismissal, for rein- 
statement. The mandamus upon which 
she was reinstated was upheld by the Ap- 
pellate Division of the Supreme Court. 
The Board of Education appealed to 
the Court of Appeals, and the earlier de- 
cision was reversed. A minority opinion 
of the court sets forth the importance of 
determining the general principle in- 
volved in the case—that is, two of the 
judges thot that they were called upon 
to render decision on the “merits of the 
case.” The majority, however, (presum- 
ably more experienced lawyers) con- 
sidered it the duty of the court to decide 
the “legal” questions involved, and acted 
accordingly. “Legally”—that is, technic- 
ally—the decision means that Mrs Peix- 
otto committed a grave error in going to 
the court instead of going to the State 
Commissioner of Education for rein- 
statement or for redress of grievances. 
And that is absolutely all that it means. 
A year of litigation and expense and 
mental discomfort, not to say distress, 
for the purpose of finding out that when 
a teacher is dismissed by a board of edu- 
cation for “neglect of duty” it is her 
business to go to the State Commissioner 
instead of going to the court. It does 
not matter that at the time there was 
no State Commissioner ; it does not mat- 
ter that the new Commissioner, appointed 
months after his predecessor had died, 
left for Europe shortly after his appoint- 
ment. The mountain labored, in several 
waves of effort, and brot forth the valu- 
able principle that a teacher has no busi- 
ness going to court. 

_ But there is more wisdom in this de- 
cision than the honorable judges sus- 
pected. The practical effect of the de- 
cision should be to discourage teachers 
from going to court. A person with only 
a fraction of an eye can see what would 


125 


happen if teachers went to court in con- 
siderable numbers and received technical 
decisions. There would result in a 
dozen or fifteen years such a revulsion 
of popular feeling against the courts and 
their decisions, there would result such 
a vast contempt for the law and for its 
officers that the foundations of our gov- 
ernment would be shaken and shaken to 
their utter destruction. You may play 
cat and mouse with tenants or hoboes; 
you may defraud workingmen and shop 
keepers; you may brow-beat the mes- 
sengers of new gospels. But you cannot 
—safely—let teachers acquire contempt 
and loathing for the law and for its ad- 
ministration. 


LEAVE OF ABSENCE 


IN REPLY to a questionaire sent out by 
the Division of Reference and Research 
of the New York City Department of 
Education, information was obtained 
from sixteen cities concerning leave of 
absence granted to teachers, without pay. 
The question was: Are teachers granted 
a leave of absence without pay for pur- 
poses of study or restoration of health? 
If so (a) what is the period for study? 
(b) what is the period for the restora- 
tion of health? 

All the cities that answered grant leave 
of absence for the purpose of study or 
the restoration of health, without pay. 
In the following cities one year is allowed 
either for study or for restoration of 
health, without pay: Cincinnati, Minne- 
apolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. In New 
Orleans and in Indianapolis the time is 
indefinite, and may be a year or more. 
In Newark it is two years, and this may 
be extended by decision of the Board. 
In Baltimore leave of absence either for 
study or for restoration of health may 
be secured only by special action of the 
Board, and only to the end of the school 
year. 

For purposes of study, one year with- 
out pay is allowed by Chicago, Cleve- 
land and Los Angeles; in the latter two 
cities the leave may be renewed. In 
Buffalo, any time may be taken, without 


















































< ee 


126 


pay; but if a teacher remains away two 
years it is assumed that he has resigned. 

For purposes of restoring health, 
Chicago allows five months without pay, 
Cleveland two years (which may be re- 
newed, if the teacher is not sufficiently 
renovated) and Los Angeles, Rochester 
and Providence grant indefinite leave. 
In Buffalo the teacher is absent without 
pay “at the discretion of the Superin- 
tendent.” 

Boston, Louisville and Rochester make 
provision for paying teachers on leave. 

In Boston a teacher may be granted 
leave of absence for a period not exceed- 
ing one year, for purposes of study and 
travel, every eighth year of service, with 
a deduction of 1/400th part of the an- 
nual salary for each day absent. This is 
half pay for a year for each seven years 
of service. In case of absence for “rest” 
or restoration of health, the same deduc- 
tions are made, for a period not exceed- 
ing one year; but this condition applies 
only after twenty years of service. 

In Rochester a teacher may obtain 
leave of absence on half pay for one 
year, for purposes of study. In Louis- 
ville, “if a teacher has been employed 
in the public schools for a number of 


years, she may have a leave of absence 


for five months, with one-fourth salary, 
in the event she is in poor health.” 


THE DILEMMA OF THE 
TEACHERS’ PAY 
(Continued from page 120.) 


of view to that expressed in the second. 
All that may be expected is that with the 
new point of view on the part of the 
community that employs teachers, we 
shall be in a position to ask for and to 
get men and women who are able and 
willing to devote themselves to the pub- 
lic service on a salary basis in larger and 
larger proportions; and that gradually 
the wage-workers who are now in the 
business may be eliminated. 

It is doubtful whether teachers gen- 
erally are coming around to the conscious 
distinction between a wage and a salary 
implied in this discussion. But it is cer- 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


tain that the leaders of thot among the 
teachers have been decidedly dissatisfied 
with the economic status of the calling 
and have been working hard to make 
both their colleagues and the public see 
that a change is urgently needed—for the 
benefit of the public no less than for the 
benefit of those engaged in this line of 
work. 

But this feeling among the leaders in 
the teaching profession is but typical of 
the feeling among thousands of other 
men and women in all kinds of occupa- 
tion,—the feeling, namely, that the mar- 
ket-place method of determining the sta- 
tus of the worker and of his family is 
not a satisfactory one—for the workers 
and their families. That it is not sound 
in theory and not fair in practise has 
been recognized by a few employers here 
and there who speak of the “economy of 
the high wage.” But what is needed is 
not a high wage, altho of course a high 
wage is better than a low wage; what 
is needed is a machinery for distributing 
the national income on a basis that takes 
cognizance of human needs and of the 
value of human services. This the wage 
system has never done; this the salary 
system only approaches. 

It is significant and encouraging that 
the teachers of the nation, as represented 
at the N E A convention, have taken so 
decisive a step in the repudiation of 
the wage view of life and labor. It is 
encouraging and significant in more ways 
than one. Teachers are traditionally the 
transmitters to the future of the accom- 
plished fact, but today they aspire to be 
in the position of leaders to show the way 
to their fellow men—the new way. That 
is the most significant and the most en- 
couraging event of the year. 


Unfortunately, we have the quack 
in medicine, the shyster in law, the 
jerry builder in engineering and the 
theologaster in the ministry. What is 
the corresponding term for the peda- 
gog-for-pelf whose presence in the 
schools is a disgrace to the profession 
and a danger to the community? 








B 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


BOOK NOTES 


All books may be ordered from 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








AN EXCELLENT brief statement of the place 
of Industrial Education in the Elementary 
School, from the point of view of a demo- 
cracy, is presented in the Riverside Educa- 
tional Monographs by Dr Percival R Cole, of 
the Sydney (Australia) Teachers’ College. In 
an hour’s reading we make a quick survey of 
the social ideals back of the educational sys- 
tems of various peoples, review the modern 
conditions in industry and society that gave 
rise to the present problems in education, dis- 
cover the necessity for reconstructing the 
school curriculum and the school methods, 
and find the relation of the subject of In- 
dustry to this reconstruction. This little 
book can be highly commended to every pub- 
lic school teacher, no matter what the special 
subject of interest may be. (Houghton Mifflin 
Co. 35 cents.) . 


The perplexities that arise from a multi- 
plicity of counsel often make the young 
teacher despair of ever seeing clearly the 
one right way of doing things. Professor 
Chas A McMurray, Director of the Training 
Department in the Northern Illinois State 
Normal School, has gathered a large number 
of conflicting doctrines in pedagogy, and has 
analyzed these with a view to finding—not 
the true alternative from each pair—but the 
transcendent point of view that is capable of 
reconciling the apparent antagonisms. And 
the result is an unusually helpful little book 
for the teacher that really tries to understand 
what he is doing. The book is divided into 
two parts, the first dealing with dualisms in 
school discipline and instruction, the second 
with opposing elements in general educational 
problems and theories. If a thotful reading 
of the book would only make us somewhat less 
dogmatic in our convictions, somewhat more 
tolerant of opposing views, it would be worth 
all the time it costs, and the price of the 
book thrown in. (Conflicting Principles in 
Teaching and How to Adjust Them, Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co. $1.) 


127 


To help us distinguish between neurological 
clinics, mental tests and school inspection on 
the one hand, and psycho-educational clinics 
on the other, has been a part of Dr Wallin’s 
task for several years. Nineteen of his ad- 
dresses and studies have been gathered into 
a single volume entitled The Mental Health of 
the School Child, and provided with a good 
index. As psychological studies accumulate, 
the application of ‘psychological principles be- 
comes more certain, but only to the extent 
that the studies are checked in a quantitative 
manner. Part of Mr Wallin’s work has been 
the critical examination of Binet-Simon tests, 
and of other methods of examination. The 
application of psyshological analysis to the 
planning of special educational processes for 
exceptional children and eventually for each 
individual child is the great task before the 
educational clinician. This book should be of 
special interest to supervisory officers and to 
those who have to deal directly with the or- 
ganization of schools and school systems. 
(Yale University Press. $2.) 


The first duty of the teacher is to 
expand and enlarge his own limited 
personality so as to take in and ap- 
preciate the rich variety of character 
with which the boys and girls surround 
him. It is his one chance to grow into 
the larger and richer life which his 
duties demand. If he can wake up to 
the situation and crawl out of his nar- 
rower self into a broader sympathy, 
he will soon discover, in any school, 
children who have higher forms of 
ability. This is his best chance to 
build out and fortify the weaker, 
neglected spots in his own character. 
The teacher is, of necessity, limited 
in his knowledge, but he should be 
sympathetically open to all phases and 
peculiarities of human nature. He is 
under obligation to encourage every 
child to a free and full development of 
the best points in his own character.— 
Cartes A McMurray, in Conflicting 
Principles in Teaching. 


Slaves beg favors. Men assert rights. 

















128 


We are the dead, sprung fresh, 

A thousand times at your call. 
We are the quick, whose flesh 

You have builded into your wall. 


Not as your soldiers die, 

Have we poured life’s votive stream; 
We have given it, sigh by sigh, 

We have given it, dream by dream. 


We have given the hope that dies, 
When the last of youth departs; 

We have given the light of our eyes, 
And the song that lived in our hearts. 


Our hands to the task are true, 

Though our hearts, at length, are dead. 
We have given our souls to you; 

O City, give us our bread! 


M M in The Masses, October, 1914. 


The survey of the Springfield (Ill) 
school system, conducted by the Russell 
Sage Foundation under the direction of 
Dr Leonard P Ayres, showed that the 
average length of service of all the 
teachers in the system is seven years. 
This is an unusually stable teaching force, 
but about two-thirds of the teachers re- 
ceived their training in the local schools. 


CHEER UP! 


No teacher can teach a good school un- 
less she is living a happy normal life. If 
she is constantly bent under the load of 
her daily program, if she is bored and an- 
noyed by the dull, coarse community into 
which a cruel fate has thrown her, she 
can never be a big, whole-souled teacher. 
While school teaching must be the main 
thing, it is well for us to lose it occa- 
sionally in order that we may find it big- 
ger and better. The teacher who can 
have a good time, ought to have a good 
school, and her pupils ought to get some- 
thing out of it over and above “reading 
and writing and ’rithmetic.”—State Su- 
perintendent F G Brair of Illinois, in 
Monthly Letter for September. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER 


ONE KIND OF REGULATION 


The purpose of these regulations is in no 
sense to hamper the individuality of any 
teacher or pupil of the school. Order and 
regularity are, however, necessary for effici- 
ency. 
of doing the same thing, but in an organiza- 
tion as large as this school, uniformity of 
practise is indispensible, and it is with the 
purpose of creating such uniformity that 
these regulations are published. 

Every one of these regulations is subject to 
change; many of them are issued tentatively. 
Every teacher is urged to bring to the at- 
tention of the principal any change in reg- 
ulation that will be beneficial to the school, 
Any regulation which does not meet with the 
approval of a majority of the teachers will 
be rescinded at once; but so long as a reg- 
ulation is in operation, teachers are urged 
to co-operate with all their power in seeing 
that it is strictly carried out. 

The principal’s office is open to teachers and 
to pupils at all times. ABH 

It is assumed from the beginning that the 
school is a democratic institution; that, as 
far as possible, the voice of each individual 
connected with it shall be heard and the 
opinion of each respected. The principal is 
merely the head of the school, not its master. 

The will of the school should be 
expressed thru ‘he person of its official repre- 
sentative—ArTHUR M WotFson, in Preface 
to “General Regulations, Julia Richman High 
School,” New York. 


A correspondent writes to The New 
York Mail to ask “Don’t you think the 
time’s ripe for the teaching of humani- 
tarianism, not patriotism, in our public 
schools?” The editor prints the question, 
but not the answer. The wise editor 
knows his place. This question is to be 
answered by the teachers themselves. 


Have you thot over the reasons for short- 
ening the summer vacation? 


In the long vacation have you been able 
to drop a few of the burdens of mind you 
gathered up during the year? Or have you 
fastened them on more firmly? 


There are many ways, equally good,