ans in Education; Education for Democracy. 











Vou. III No. 9 NEW YORK, NOVEMBER, 1914 50 CENTS A YEAR 








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Expansion Policip =~ Ta 
P cy > 


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‘te,’ 4 j 


4 * SY CF gourd s/f 
Get out beyond your Skin. You are a very nice person; ~~ 
But it is not worth while to spend all your time in your 

own company 


Get out beyond your Friends. Friendship is fine and 


necessary ; 
But not enough for a full-sized man or woman 

















Get out beyond your Classroom. That is where you 
make your living; 
But you''must have more room for}'your life 
Get out beyond your Church. That you need for 
your spiritual comfort ; 
Butfyou must have more for salvation 


Get out beyond your Town. That is where you spend 
your time 
But your soul should reach from the Mountains to the Sea 


Get out beyond your Nation. In that Humanity has 
a stake; 
But most of Humanity is elsewhere 


Getlout as far as you can—then it will be “worth while 
to come back Home 














—___. Pe i nt 


FREEDOM FOR TEACHERS* 


Tuomas W CHURCHILL 
President, Board of Education, The City of 


New 


IN THE DESIRE of the Board of Edu- 
cation to obtain help from every source 
in working out the school problems con- 
fronting it, the Board originated the 
proposition, now carried out with suc- 
cess, of organizing the principals and 
teachers into a council to enable it to 
utilize to the full the talent and experi- 
ence of the teaching force. The life of 
the schools is already being advanced 
by the free use of the ideas of teachers. 

Results accomplished have confirmed 
in me the belief that a thoroly represen- 
tative organization of all those in the 
schools would be able to discuss and to 
formulate in a broad way, not only prop- 
ositions to be transmitted to the Board 
of Education, but also questions which 
the Board of Education refers to such 
an organization. This the Teachers’ 
Council has done. In the doing of it, it 
has had the earnest and helpful co-opera- 
tion of all of the teachers from whom it 
has sought help. The experience and 
judgment of the teaching staff have been 
employed in the formulation of school 
policies. The resulting recommendations 
of the Council justify its organization, 
and I note in the Board of Education a 
sentiment favorable to the extended use 
by it of the Council. 

From time to time suggestions have 
come to me that the Council could be 
organized upon a more representative 
basis, that all of the teachers might be 
given a direct vote in their schools, 
rather than thru their associations; that 
elections might be by districts or by rep- 
resentatives selected in the districts or 
that each group of teachers in a grade 
should meet to elect. The present plan 
of organization was devised by a com- 


*Letter to the President of The Teachers’ 
League, New York, sent to meeting of the 
League on “Liberty in Teaching,” 23 Oc- 
tober, 1914. 


York 


mittee of teachers from the associations 
and was duly considered and approved 
by the Board of Education. It is my 
settled conviction that any recommenda- 
tions for a change ought to come from 
the Councii itself, rather than be im- 
posed upon the Council by the Board of 
Education. Surely that would be the 
more democratic way. The Council as 
at present organized is representative of 
the teaching force. It is a more repre- 
sentative organization than any in exist- 
ence prior to its formation. Naturally, 
therefore, the Board of Education looks 
to the Teachers’ Council to consider and 
to recommend, when it finds such recom- 
mendation desirable, what changes 
should be made in the plan of its Coun- 
cil. 

The movement for a teachers council 
began, and it should continue, with the 
spirit of freedom and autonomy. The 
method of securing general representa- 
tion of all teachers was left to the 
teachers. Whether the original electing 
bodies should be schools or existent or- 
ganizations of teachers was and is of 
less moment than the spirit and purpose 
which all recognize is paramount in this 
new movement. The Board of Educa- 
tion, I am certain, wants the teachers to 
be larger partakers in the work of edu- 
cation, the success of which must ulti- 
mately depend upon your own thot and 
effort. 


During the past -year many communi- | 
cations which I have received voice pro- | 
test against the too rigid prescriptions 
in the school system. As one principal | 
puts it “we are told too many things that 
we must do. What we need is more 
freedom to do the things we know ought 
to be done.” I recognize the fact that 
supervision and guidance are essential 
in a school system, but it must be a wise 
supervision. There has been in our sys- 


130 














ns 
al 











tem, due undoubtedly to its centraliza- 
tion of authority, a detailed prescription 
of what teachers should do. It magni- 
fies unimportant details in curriculum, 
methods, exercises and records. It leads 
to teachers emphasizing the covering of 
a course of study, rather than the teach- 
ing and training of children. 

There is in all this evidence of the 
need of larger liberty to teachers and 
principals. I recognize that there is dan- 
ger in allowing it. But any greater liber- 
ties, than are allowed to our teachers and 
principals, that are allowed in other sys- 
tems should be extended to them in this. 
It is necessary not that principals and 
teachers should do the same thing, but 
that each should give the best of him- 
self. 

At a time when so much official em- 


| phasis is placed upon the means of train- 
ing and upon uniformity of procedure, it 
| is difficult to effect a change in the 


teachers’ own viewpoint. I recognize 
fully the need of larger liberty in a freer 
selection by the teacher of the means by 
which the qualities children most need 
must be developed. The danger in al- 
lowing it should not result in failure to 
encourage experiment. 

The time is here when the Board of 
Education may encourage initiative and 
temper the errors of judgment of indi- 
viduals. Believing this, I have recom- 
mended to the Board of Education, the 
use of separate schools units as delibera- 
tive councils for educational inquiry in 
the following: 

What is it that the children attending 
school most need ? 

By what methods may they be most 
effectively trained to satisfy those 
needs ? 

Are those methods already employed 
meeting the situation? 

What improvement should be made in 
existent means and methods of in- 
struction ? 

This extension of teacher representa- 
tion to the school itself should be 
adopted. There is nothing in this rec- 
ommendation inconsistent with the plan 
of the larger deliberative body. On the 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 






131 


contrary, it is the logical outcome of the 
creation of the Teachers’ Council. There 
are many questions and problems which 
arise in each school which call for the 
individual and collective judgment and 
experience of the teachers in their solu- 
tion. This plan, I am informed, is being 
tried in a few of the schools and has 
been found by both principals and 
teachers to work well. It is not for the 
Board of Education, or for those high 
in authority, to outline what such school 
councils should undertake to do. That 
would develop in the course of each day’s 
work. 

Perhaps I can express the policy no 
better than by quoting from my report 
as President of July 9, 1913, in referring 
to the contribution that each teacher 
might make to the formulation of poli- 
cies of the Board of Education. It is 
as follows: 

I am not one of those who fear the 
narrowness of the class teacher. If she 
is ever in any degree narrow-minded, we 
have particularly ourselves to blame for 
keeping her in a system so mechanical as 
to limit too much the exercise of her 
initiative and invention. Truly, a sin- 
cere invitation to teachers to become reg- 
ular purveyors of good to the entire 
school system, and not to be timid pro- 
testors in a far corner, will give us the 
benefit at first hand of the opinion of 
those who are the real educators. 


What we need to do is to keep clearly 
in mind the essential purpose of the school 
to develop sound character, and then handle 
all school subjects in that natural relation 
to life and its duties which springs directly 
from the nature of these studies and their 
bearing on life problems. Morality thus is 
genuine and essential and universal.—Chas 
A McMurry, in Conflicting Principles in 
Teaching. 


There is no point to providing health su- 
pervision for pupils, and then employing 
tubercular teachers and syphilitic janitors. 
—Ellwood P Cubberly, in State and County 
Educational Reorganization. 












































FIVE MINUTES’ walk below Fourteenth 
Street, New York City, lies Tompkins 
Square in the great East Side. All about 
and out from this little park extend the 
streets of small stores and tenements 
crowded with a population of Jews, with 
scattered aggregations of Italians and 
Slavs. On the bright October morning 
when I was there the park benches sus- 
tained a full quota of old men and 
women, mothers and little children, while 
hundreds of freer-moving people passed 
in and out across the cement walks on 
more urgent business. On the play- 
grounds in a corner of the park were 
scores of school boys, going thru the 
vigorous drill of physical training gladly 
and buoyantly because there were no 
walls about them, nor hissing steam, nor 
sodden air. And I thot their play was 
probably more important than the work 
of any that past them, for their pale, 
yearning faces told a pitiful story of in- 
door life, unventilated homes, ill-chosen 
food, and bad cooking. 

The time has now past when a prac- 
tical school person could be expected to 
express surprise at seeing children out- 
side a school building in school time. In 
the crowded districts of large cities we 
see classes exercising in the school yards; 
and in the outlying sections we even see 
them running up and down the hills, 
when formerly they should have been 
“studying.” The fight for field and mu- 
seum excursions in school time is nearly 
over, but almost all schools look forward 
to the day when they shall have a “li- 
brary” of their own. I was interested 
to find that Mr. William E. Grady, Prin- 
cipal of Public School 64, Manhattan, has 
no library, and doesn’t want one. What 
is more to the point, the school doesn’t 
need one, for around the corner of the 
park there is a branch of the City Li- 
brary, much better equipped and much 
better supervised than school libraries 
generally are. Here the classes of small 


children go to see the picture-books and 





SIXTY-FOUR, MANHATTAN 


Henry R. LINVILLE 


* 132 


the larger ones to read their stories in 
literature, all in school time, under the 
direction of their regular teachers, but 
with the assistance of the librarians. 
Copies of books needed are placed on the 
tables before the classes come in, and 
from nine o'clock till three the librarians 
have something to do, beside searching 
for scattered pamphlets to send to the 
binder. 

P. S. 64 has been sending classes to 
the branch library for three years, long 
before most of us ever heard of a Gary 
plan of outside school work. That is 
long enough to be a test of the sincerity 
of the librarians, the principal, the teach- 
ers, and the children when they say they 
like the scheme. 

Nobody had yet started an agitation 
to have the libraries used all the time, 
but their turn should come soon. Then 
the school children will be able to sup- 
ply the demand for users. Even when 
that time comes the children of a single 
school may not be able to tax the re- 
sources of one library. If libraries were 
conveniently located to three or four 
schools in crowded sections of the city, 
all could help to make the handsome 
facades a symbol of usefulness. Co- 
Operation of this sort would also help to 
make children acquainted with the li- 
brary who would otherwise never enter 
the place. Then, too, the unconscious 
social impress of an institution which in 
essence at least means the collected lit- 
erature of the ages, should be very great. 
The quiet, the dignity, the charm and the 
refinement of a well decorated and well 
managed library give us one more avenue 
of approach to the minds of the men 
and women of tomorrow. 

Christodora House is a_ settlement 
house. When I stepped from the school 
on the morning I visited there, I went 
with Mr Grady into the gymnasium of 
the settlement house, which adjoins the 
school building. I forgot for some 
moments that I was not in the school, for 





omar 


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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


there was a large class of little fellows 
of seven or eight with their physical 
training teacher in the settlement gym- 
nasium. In the old days the settlements 
and the schools held aloof from one an- 
other. The schools had (and generally 
still have) little interest in the social wel- 
fare of the pupils. But here and there 
a principal or a teacher has interested 
himself in children, and like Mr Grady, 
works on a settlement house committee. 
This is real codperation. It is effective 
along the lines of the purposes of the 
two institutions, and it also has the 
practical advantage of appealing to their 
citizen supporters. 


The playground, the library, and the 
settlement house are not enough for P. 
S. 64. The school feels the need of a 
clinic in the neighborhood. The three 
thousand boys include no doubt a con- 
siderable number whose health has been 
neglected so long that their condition has 
been accepted by their families as neces- 
sary, and by the school and civic authori- 
ties as normal for their group. A clinic 
well managed by medical experimenters 
would be helpful, but a clinic with a 
social outlook would be vastly more 
worth the while for the school and the 
rest of the community. 


There is no reason why the clinic 
should not be a psychological clinic as 
well as a physical one, for the schools 
should know more definitely than it is 
possible to know at present the exact 
grading of mentality within the pupil 
body. The scale of measurement used in 
the schools is 70 per cent perfect in 
academic subjects. The 30 per cent of 
leeway is supposed to give normal chil- 
dren their opportunity to be promoted, 
and to separate them from backward 
children who should not be promoted, or 
should receive other training. As a mat- 
ter of fact, in a large system of schools 
there is well-nigh resistless pressure upon 
the schools to promote many children 
who do not really perform the work they 
are supposed to do. The response to 
this pressure is dishonesty on the part 
of the schools. The dishonesty brings in 


133 


its train a great deal of disorderly con- 
duct on the part of pupils, and confirms 
in the administration the habit of neg- 
lecting mental, vocational and social ad- 
iustments. 

The old-fashioned principal is of 
course ignorant of the Binet test, as he 
is of the age-progress basis for grouping 
pupils, and wouldn’t take any stock in 
either if their purposes were explained 
to him. But happily the blessings of 
mortality make it possible for us to ex- 
periment here and there with scientific 
methods of determining mental capacity, 
and of trying plans of training and of 
grouping that will fit the situations dis- 
covered. None but defectives are given 
Binet tests now, but why should not some 
modification of the test be given to all 
children by the staff of a psychological 
clinic? 

Against the day when such a plan may 
be possible, Public School 64 has under 
operation a system of grading by age 
and progress which has already accom- 
plished two objects. First, it has re- 
moved mental misfits from classes in 
which their only successes have been in 
the line of creating disorder ; and second, 
it has permitted the adoption of a kind 
and rate of training which enables the 
brighter pupils to do far more than they 
could with the dead weight of the in- 
efficient. At the same time, average or 
dull pupils are brot together in their 
several groups under the care of teachers 
who understand their capacities and in 
a measure their needs. 

The grading of the pupils has resulted 
in the creation of the following groups: 
(1) Atypical children, (2) Immigrant 
children who cannot speak English, 
called C classes, (3) Average foreign 
children with inadequate knowledge of 
English, (also some average, retarded 
pupils) forming E classes, one class in 
each year from the second year thru the 
sixth, (4) Classes in each grade made up 
of pupils who did exceptionally well in 
the preceding term, (5) Classes in each 
grade made up of the oldest pupils in the 
grade, the grouping being made on the 











134 


basis of chronological age in the first four 
years, and on the basis of physiological 
age in the fiifth, sixth, seventh and 
eighth years, and (6) classes made up of 
normal average children in each grade. 
The result of grading in accordance with 
this plan is homogeneity. I visited a 
good many classes in the school, and got 
the agreeable impression in each case 
that the similarity in development would 
simplify the work of teaching greatly. 


But at its best, grading in our elemen- 
tary schools leaves untouched the new 
social problem of fitting the children for 
life. Whether it was because P. S. 64 
has succeeded so well with its outside 
work, and in its practical grading system, 
or whether because of these and other 
considerations, it is a fortunate circum- 
stance that this school was selected as 
one of those in which the experiment of 
pre-vocational work in the upper grades 
is to be carried on. The movement for 
vocational education has great social and 
also intellectual significance for the 
schools, no less from the point of view of 
the welfare of the children than from 
the point of view of progress in intelli- 
gent and artistic teaching. It would 
therefore be very unfortunate if the ex- 
periment were to fall into the hands of 
narrow-minded or unskilled principals. 


In general it is understood that the ex- 
periment which is to be tried in the upper 
grades of the elementary school consists 
in offering to boys the opportunity to 
learn for three hours each school day the 
elements of one or another of the 
journeymen trades, such as electrical 
work, printing, plumbing, painting, wood 
work, etc. Four hours of each day is 
to be spent in academic study that is, 
however, more closely related to their 
vocational work than the regular studies 
would be. 


The equipment for this work is now 
being installed, but in the meantime the 
old manual training shops are being used 
and incidentally remodeled for the wood 
working. In imagination I could see the 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


old tabourets and a goodly portion of the ° 


formalism they stand for being swept out 
with the new shavings. 

One of the problems connected with 
carrying on the pre-vocational work in 
the schools has been to find suitable 
teachers. Young artisans who teach in 
the evening schools are applying for these 
positions, and so are some of the young 
journeymen of the trades who have never 
taught before. As I observed two 
of the latter who were visiting the prin- 
cipal the day I was at Sixty-four, 
their fine presence suggested to me the 
thot that here was a splendid by-product 
of manliness for the teaching body of 
the schools, one which probably few of 
us have been expecting. We are in sore 
need of manliness, and we have too little 
encouragement for it in school systems. 

The combination of the manliness, and 
the womanliness, and other qualities of 
character, of mental equipment, and of 
skill, tend to make up the good teacher. 
In our enthusiasm for devices and or- 
ganization we may sometimes forget that 
the lasting work of the school goes on 
in the class room, both the bad work and 
the good work. There are good teachers 
at P. S. 64, and there are probably some 
unskilled ones. It would not be strange 
if there were poor ones who are doing 
some bad, lasting work. I didn’t see their 
work, because I went purposely to see 
the good teaching. 

I had time to see work in English and 
in geography. Both classes were having a 
great deal of fun with their work, which 
does not mean of course that they were 
having fun with the teachers. On en- 
tering the English class unannounced and 
unattended, I found half the class of boys 
standing in the aisles violently waving 
their hands toward the teacher, and three 
boys lined up near the teacher facing the 
class. When I took a seat I could see 
that the three boys were not being pun- 
ished, for their faces showed entire satis- 
faction with the situation. They were 
being used as “material” for a laboratory 
exercise in English, and during the lesson 
other material was called to the front. 

The lesson of the class was the com- 
























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parison of adjectives. Descriptive ad- 
jectives of size, appearance, and condi- 
tion were suggested by the teacher and 
by the boys themselves. Neither the 
boys nor their clothing escaped analysis, 
but nobody betrayed embarrassment. The 
three boys on the floor when I entered 
the room were on the order of a stair- 
case, and of course they were “large,” 
“larger,” “largest,” and “tall,” “taller,” 
“tallest,” and a number of other things 
which I do not recall. 

Other boys had hair which was “short,” 
“shorter,” “shortest,” and neckties that 
were “blue,” “bluer,” “bluest.” The boys 
wore no coats in school, but they had 
waists which were “clean,” “cleaner,” 
“cleanest.” Then suddenly, some in- 
spired youngster got the floor probably 
by force of assurance (it was done so 
suddenly that I was dazed, and could not 
tell how it happened), and called out, 
“Weinstein is dirty, Sasonoff is dirtier, 
and Dubinsky is dirtiest!” The class 
wasn’t broken up, altho even the teacher 
laughed, as she should have done. 


Later in the period there was some 
drill on the identity of “positive,” “com- 
parative,” and “superlative,” and then 
some more extended applications of what 
they had learned. The laboratory method 
in English ought to be a success every- 
where, but as an advocate of live animal 
work in biology classes, I can understand 
why some teachers would prefer to stick 
to the books. 

The boys in the geography class were 
a little older than the boys in the English 
class, and quieter. The reason for the 
greater composure was that the teacher 
and his map of China compelled rather 
steady and continuous thinking. The 
lesson began with short statements by 
the boys about articles from China that 
they had seen since the previous lesson 
was discussed. They had seen chop- 
sticks, and were required to tell what 
they are used for. They had seen vari- 
ous articles of food, and ornaments and 
fabrics, and they gave their reasons for 
thinking the articles had come from 
China. 






THE AMERICAN TEACHER 135 





Then an idea of the extent of China 
as compared with the United States was 
developed with the help of the map. The 
time it would take goods to come from 
China to this country was calculated from 
knowing the time it takes to cross the 
Atlantic and to travel from New York 
to San Francisco. 


The interpretation of the map of 
China seemed to me to be especially valu- 
able, because of the stress laid upon the 
relation of the flow of water to the loca- 
tiun of plains and plateaus. This rela- 
tion considered in connection with the 
nearness of mountain ranges to the rivers 
was used to enable the boys to picture the 
contour of the country. The ideas came 
with some difficulty, but it was well 
worth the while, because the teacher lead 
them into doing it for themselves. 

The probable weather conditions of 
China were considered with reference to 
weather conditions in our own country. 
The great distance between the two 
countries seemed an _ insurmountable 
obstacle to the conception of similarities 
in climate. But a boy who had left his 
former home in Russia in the summer 
time and found it summer still when he 
arrived in New York helped the other 
boys back to what they must have previ- 
ously learned about degrees of latitude, 
and their bearing on seasons and climate. 
All this was good, clean work, relieved 
now and then by a bit of fun when a 
boy’s reasoning became entangled. 

It has been the custom among high 
school people to maintain . t the ele- 
mentary schools do not train the children 
to think. The elementary schools might 
easily reply, “Neither do you!”—and 
both would be right; for thinking is un- 
common. If in our teaching we intro- 
duce the charm of variety and the light 
touch of fun, without buffoonery or 
coarseness, we can develop in the chil- 
dren the habit of thinking, and make 
thinking attractive—provided we can do 
our own clear thinking. 

I have no desire to put an extra bur- 
den upon the courteous principal of Six- 
ty-four, Manhattan. But I should like 



































































































136 


to suggest to principals and teachers in 
high schools that they spend less time 
in condemning the elementary schools in 
their faculty ineetings and elsewhere, and 
go down and get acquainted with the 
principals and teachers who send up the 
boys and girls that keep the high schools 
going. If other schools are not as good 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








as Sixty-four, their output may seriously 
interfere with the work the high schools 
are trying to do. High school people 
should then search for the spots where 
good work is being done, and learn their 
methods, for they exhibit a measure of 
attainment of an educational and social 
ideal. 





IMPORTANT EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS 


IN THE questionaire sent to candidates 
for the position of Associate Superin- 
tendent of Schools in New York City, 
one question called for a statement of 
the applicant’s opinion as to the “five 
most important educational problems of 
today.” Of the thirty-three applicants, 
none gave it as his opinion that the selec- 
tion of superintendents and other super- 
visory officials is an important educa- 
tional problem. Some of them could not 
think of five important ones, as only 161 
statements appear in the list, out of a 
possible 165. 

The replies to this question have been 
analyzed and tabulated by the Division 
of Reference and Research, and the re- 
sults are interesting to the student of 
educational tendencies, as well as to the 
student of candidate-psychology. More 
than half of the opinions relate to re- 
vision of the course of study (77 replies). 
The selection and training of teachers and 
the care of special types of children re- 
ceived the same emphasis (19 replies in 
each group), but the applicants from the 
city are apparently more concerned in 
the former problem, whereas the appli- 
cants from outside the city are more in- 
terested in the latter. Five city appli- 
cants and four others considered the 
standardization of methods and supervi- 
sion as one of the most important educa- 
tional problems; but no specific sugges- 
tion as to standardization was made, ex- 
cept that classes be limited to forty 
pupils. 

Among the most interesting results of 
the analysis is the list of “General aims 


and theses” suggested by applicants as 
among the important educational prob- 
lems, with the number of times that each 
was offered. This list is printed below: 

Reduction of waste of effort in admin- 
istration and supervision (5). 

More efficient teaching and administra- 
tion in elementary and high school (3). 

Relate school work to the life of the 
pupils (3). 

Keeping operative in the American mind 
and in the mind of the educational 
group an adequate conception of the 
meaning of education in a democracy (2). 

More democracy in school government 
without sacrifice of discipline. 

Elimination of educational preferment by 
political and religious influence. 

Bring together all religious denomina- 
tions into a general patronage of pub- 
lic schools. 

Personal touch should be kept between 
teacher and pupil. 

More individual teaching is necessary. 

The need of a new definition of educa- 
tion. 

Schools to have their rightful place and 
function in the work of education de- 
termined. 

Proper administrative units in rural and 
city schools. 

Furnish motives for creative work. 

Improve the whole spirit of the school 
so that children will remain until grad- 
uation. 

Less use of text-books and more oral 
work. 

. Build habits for success. 






















The 


Amperiran Crarher 


df, 2 ° 
D acy in E: tion ; 








Education for Democracy 





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








BS WE nsdacdneseodteneseed President 
Louise M. Ditruerpcz............ Treasurer 
EDITED BY 
Henry R. LInNvILie......... Editor-in-Chief 


BenyaMin C. GRUENBERG... Managing Editor 


uti H. Doyie Jay D. Lester 

fark HorrMan Josern Loew 

CuarLoTTe E. Lee Gasrret R. Mason 
J. Epwarp MaymMan....... Business Manager 





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Subscription price, 50 cents for the year. 
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Copyright, 1914, THe American Teacuer Co., Inc. 


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

















VOL. III NOVEMBER, 1914 No. 9 








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. 





UP OR DOWN? 


IT HAS BEEN discovered, after years of 
trial, that a formal examination is not 
an adequate instrument for discovering 
ability—except ability to pass the formal 
examination. As practical people we 
shall want to make full use of this dis- 
covery. We shall seek for some better 
instrument for discovering ability. We 
shall not declare that inasmuch as formal 


137 





examinations are inadequate, we would 
do better to let superintendents or com- 
missioners select teachers on the basis 
of their relationships or connections. 
We shall seek to go forward to a method 
of selecting teachers that really discover 
the ability concealed in a certain pro- 
portion of the candidates. We shall not 
wish to go back to the vicious system of 
collecting the calling cards of politicians, 
or the autographs of men high in the 
councils of the dominant political party, 
as cards of admission to the public school 
service. 

In the rating of pupils in schools and 
colleges, in the admission of students to 
colleges and universities, in the adminis- 
tration of the merit system of civil ser- 
vice in cities and states, it has been found 
that formal examinations do not do ex- 
actly what was expected of them a quar- 
ter of a century ago. There is no use 
hanging the examiners; there is no use 
damning the examinations, The exam- 
ination system was a great improvement 
on the help-my-friend system; but it is 
time to find something still better. By 
all means let us abandon the examination 
system if it is unsatisfactory. But let 
us by no means go back to the judgment- 
of - the - experienced - business - man- 
interested - in - the - welfare - of - the- 
schools when it comes to the selection of 
teachers. 





QUICKSANDS 


“Elimination of education preferment by 
political and religious influence.” 


THE QUESTION that brot forth the 
above statement was, what is your opin- 
ion as to the five most important educa- 
tional problems of today? and it was 
given by a candidate for the position of 
Associate Superintendent of Schools of 
New York City, altho one who hailed 
from “outside.” 

Big educational systems are accus- 
tomed to having their critics cry “Poli- 
tics!” at them, but the educational bosses 
pay very little more attention to the criti- 
cism than more skillful politicians do 
when they are attacked. This makes it 
























































































138 


possible to discuss the question of poli- 
tics in education even with the educa- 
tional politicians themselves, and carry 
it thru with equanimity and good humor. 
It would relieve educational critics of 
one of their many burdens if similar 
good humor might prevail during the 
discussion of the use of religious in- 
fluence in school systems. 


However, the ideal good service which 
a school system may give to a community 
must not on any account be impaired to 
save the sensitive feelings of those who 
hold to special religious faiths, provided 
it can be shown that a religious organ- 
ization is using the resources of a public 
institution, such as the public school 
system is, to promote the economic in- 
terests of a special group of persons. 
There is very little question that our 
country is full of instances of attempts 
of religious bodies to control the educa- 
tional output and the supply of educa- 
tors in large and in small public sys- 
tems. The candidate cited knew it, and 
he thot the eradication of the influence 
of religious groups quite as important as 
the elimination of political influence. 
What he suggests as a principle must be 
taken up by each community as its own 
problem. 


In many parts of the country one or 
another of the Protestant churches have 
exercised a dominating influence thru the 
selection of superintendents and princi- 
pals of schools, at least, by a representa- 
tive board of education. Much of the 
time there is no opposition from the 
non-partisan group of the community, 
sometimes because it is a question which 
of two contending religious organiza- 
tions would do better by the community, 
sometimes because of a widespread feel- 
ing that education is more or less the 
business of the church anyway. 


Altho the development of the idea of 
education as a social function has made 
the benevolent patronage of the church 
largely a thing of the past, communities 
are still extremely backward about realiz- 
ing that partisan representatives of prac- 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





tically all religious creeds are offenders _ 






against the common weal in their policy 
of trying to get control of educational 
administration. In many New England 
towns, the Congregationalists and the 
Catholics contend for the mastery. In 
the South, the Methodists have the con- 
trolling power. In the West, here one 
and there another Protestant creed en- 
deavors to get the upper hand, but the 
West is a battle ground that no com- 
munity group representing but a fraction 
can claim for long. 


In the large cities of the country there 
are enough of spoils for a bi-partisan or 
tri-partisan division to be a matter of 
practical importance. And besides, the 
experience of those in a large city who 
“want something” tends to show that one 
must have the backing of an organization 
in order to “land” that something. The 
use of the cohesive power of a great 
church organization as a means of mu- 
tual aid for its adherents engaged in 
public education comes dangerously near 
being the dread scourge we sometimes 
call “politics.” If the members of one 
creed do not possess the assurance to 
take all the educational plums for them- 
selves, but are willing to divide with an- 
other for a time, their shyness bodes no 
good to the public. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER is not an 
anti-religious periodical in any sense 
whatever. The social vision which it en- 
deavors to manifest is too clear to be 
dimmed in any degree by an ill-concealed 
screen of religious prejudice. The well- 
being of the community that should have 
its schools administered and the chil- 
dren taught by the best equipped persons 
mankind has produced, is the only 
consideration that ought to weigh with 
any self-respecting organ or individual. 


A lay board should themselves select as 
little expert service as possible. Having 


selected the superintendent, they should 
trust his judgment, or remove him.—Ell- 
wood P Cubberly, in State and County Edu- 
cational Reorganization. 








ee a i re 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


WITH DISCRETION 


THE ATTITUDE of the superintendent 
or the principal toward the teaching pro- 
fession is to a certain extent gauged by 
his respect for the teacher’s judgment or 
discretion. Of course, his experience 
with teachers will largely determine how 
much respect he has for their judgment; 
but some principals or superintendents 
will never get a chance to find out how 
much good sense teachers may exercise 
on occasion for the simple reason that 
they never give the teachers a chance to 
show just how they do use their head- 
pieces. The comments heard from vari- 
ous parts of the country on what the 
teacher should or should not do with re- 
gard to the present European War are 
very illuminating in this connection. 

One acting superintendent forbids all 
mention not only of the war, but of the 
various belligerent countries ; he goes so 
far as to suspend the study of history 
and geography for the year—fearing, 
among other things, that the poor chil- 
dren might have to relearn the bounda- 
ries after the war is over! On the other 
hand, the principal of a high school in 
one city engages a military expert to 
come to the school at stated times to ex- 
plain the maneuvers and developments 
of the armies. This is offset by the prin- 
cipal who takes practically the same stand 
as the superintendent mentioned, and 
further orders the teachers not to relate 
any experiences they may have had while 
abroad this summer, or to mention any- 
thing else that might even remotely sug- 
gest the cruel conflict. 

The absurdity of this position must be 
obvious to all who do not sympathize 
with it. Carried out logically the teacher 
of mathematics or of physics must re- 
frain from mentioning Napier or Poin- 
caré; the teacher of biology must avoid 
the name of Darwin or Mendel; the 
teacher of hygiene must teach bacteri- 
ology with Pasteur and Metchnikoff left 
out; chemistry must be ignored because 
so many of its great ideas and most of 
the apparatus come from belligerent 
countries, and all important literature 
will be given a vacation. 


139 


Superintendent William H Maxwell is 
one of those who have no sympathy with 
this position. “Children,” he says, “who 
have reached the age at which they can 
read the newspapers are neither made 
nor kept virtuous by preserving silence 
in the classroom regarding what they and 
all the rest of the world know, at least 
vaguely, and beyond doubt ignorantly.” 
Recognizing that it is possible for most 
people to discuss the war foolishly, not 
to say viciously, he is content to warn 
teachers that certain topics must be 
treated with discretion—which is not the 
same as ignoring them. This position, 
it seems to us, is the only one that an 
educator can take, if he has any respect 
left for his calling. 

If there is no confidence in the discre- 
tion of the teacher, we may as well close 
up shop this year as wait until next. 
The teachers must be prepared to dis- 
cuss every topic that is of vital import- 
ance to the community and to the chil- 
dren—whether it be sex or war, whether 
it be honest graft or corruption in high 
places. They must treat these themes 
with discretion—of course; but if there 
is any doubt as to their having discretion 
—get other teachers. 


A GOOD SUGGESTION 


IN THE FIVE or six years since the 
Rochester idea started to convert un- 
used school-building-hours into commu- 
nity assets by establishing “social centers” 
we have found ever new ways of making 


the buildings pay for themselves. The 
latest suggestion concerns teachers as 
men and women of leisure, and tends to 
raise them to the level of citizens. It is 
found in the following extract from the 
annual address to principals and super- 
intendents delivered in September by 
Superintendent William H Maxwell of 
New York: 

This community and its representa- 
tive, the Board of Education, ought to 
feel proud of the teachers of this city as 
a body for the work they have accom- 
plished in the schools, for their steady 













140 































































application to duty under all trying con- 
ditions, and in nothing more than for 
what they have done by their own in- 
itiative toward bringing about profes- 
sional self-improvement. Thru their 
various associations and thru individual 
effort this work of self-improvement has 
gone steadily on and was never stronger 
than it is today. The time has arrived, 
it seems to me, when the Board of Edu- 
cation should recognize the importance 
of the professional and social training 
which the teachers have been providing 
for themselves. How may the Board of 
Education best give such recognition? 
There are probably many ways, but 
one presents itself prominently to my 
mind at this moment. The Board of 
Education may recognize the efforts of 
teachers at self-improvement by giving 
them the exclusive use of certain school 
buildings in the evenings. These build- 
ings will be clubhouses or recreation 
centres for teachers. They may be kept 
open in the evening without expense ex- 
cept for light, heat, and janitorial service. 
It would be the most natural thing to 
use the training school buildings for this 
purpose. They have the most suitable 
equipment. To use them in the evening 
for the service of the teachers would be 
a mere extension of the service required 
of them during the day. They are not 
needed and are not used in the evening 
for elementary or secondary school ac- 
tivities, or as social recreation centres. 


Education, like everything else in 
life, to be good at all must be good for 
something—it must have a value in 
real social life, either immediately or 
mediately. In other words, education 
is fast taking on a utilitarian form and 
character—utilitarian in the large, 
worthy and comprehensive sense of 
ministering to the needs of a varied 
and progressive society and to the real 
happiness of its individual members.— 
Carvin O Davis, in High School Courses 
of Study. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


BUSINESS AND EDUCATION 

THIs Is NoT to be a discussion of the 

need for commercial training for the 
pupils in the schools. It is rather a plea 
for the education of commercial people 
in the needs of the pupils. About this 
time every year many of the cities in this 
country are struggling—thru their offi- 
cials—with the problem of working out a 
budget that will supply the funds for the 
necessary activities of the various public 
departments, and at the same time meet 
the approval of the “taxpayers,” who are 
generally embodied in a group of real 
estate dealers and speculators. We need 
say nothing of the fact that in many cities 
the budget is loaded down with fat items 
with a view to frying the fat out later for 
the benefit of certain interested parties. 
Nor need anything be said of the fact 
that it is to the interest of all citizens, 
whether “taxpayers” or not, to have the 
public business administered as efficiently 
as possible, and with as little waste as 
possible. But it is interesting to find that 
every year the real estate citizens are the 
most solicitous about what kind and how 
much education the city is planning to dis- 
burse the following year; and these very 
same people seem to be the least inter- 
ested in education all the rest of the 
year. 

Several curious items appear in the 
statement presented to the Board of Esti- 
mate in New York City by the “Real 
Estate Board” on the subject of the 1915 
Budget. As usual, these people find that 
the city is spending too much money giv- 
ing people something for nothing. The 
gentlemen recall that the city did not do 
so much for them when they were boys, 
and can see no reason why so much 
should be done for the boys of today— 
boys who have obviously done nothing 
for the prosperity of the city. They 
question the propriety of “indiscriminate 
extension of the principle of higher edu- 
cation,” by which they mean that the 
sons and daughters of people who can- 
not patronize private schools really do 
not need more than the “essentials.” 
They apply similar criticisms to the bud- 
get of the Department of Health. 








— 7 =e er HSH 4 ew fF ff Cf ee 








@ 


a ee ae a ee ae oo oe oe 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 14I 


As an example of human incapacity 
for seeing its own beams while staring 
at the motes of others, this is exquisite. 
The Real Estate Board declares that in 
the Health Budget the “fundamental 
wrong in the whole matter is that free 
medical service, free nurses and all the 
various things done for people by the 
Board of Health, are done only for a 
small part of the community. While all 
are taxed, mainly the part of our pop- 
ulation which is always seeking to get 
something for nothing is benefitted.” 
Now we had always entertained the no- 
tion that it was the real estate specula- 
tors who are par excellence those who 
are “always seeking to get something 
for nothing,” since they live essentially 
on increments not earned thru their own 
services. 


The statement furnishes also an ex- 
ample of the readiness with which those 
whose independent spirits resent every 
suggestion of paternalism may yet be 
ready to crawl on their bellies in the 
search for patronage. The Board argues 
that the amount asked by the Department 
of Health would be largely a waste of 
public money, since much of the re- 
search work essential to maintaining the 
health of the community can be per- 
formed by the Rockefeller Institute, a 
privately endowed institution. In other 
words, if the people really care about 
their common health problems, they 
should apply to a private philanthropist 
to help them, instead of taxing them- 
selves. 


The secret of these confused and con- 
iusing arguments lies in the fact that the 
portion of the community represented by 
these highly respectable “business men” 
constitutes an _ essentially predatory 
class and finds its interest con- 
stantly in conflict with the public 
interest. It should be the business 
of teachers, as of all concerned pri- 
marily with advancing the interests of 
the public, to guard against the demoral- 
izing influence of these gentry. By arro- 
gating to themselves the titles “tax- 
payers” and “business men” they mislead 


the unwary or the uninformed into the 
reactionary attitude is representative of 
the best thot of the community. 

We understand that in Wisconsin, 
where the proportion of owners of “real 
estate” is very much larger than it is in 
New York City, the citizens tax them- 
selves to provide education—from the 
kindergarten thru the university—for 
themselves and for their children, with- 
out waiting for the assistance of a Car- 
negie or a Rockefeller. We are in great 
need for a more general diffusion and a 
more profound penetration of the Amer- 
ican Spirit. In addition, we need a sys- 
tem of organizing municipal finances 
that will leave the determination of edu- 
cational policies in the hands of those 
who are interested and informed, not in 
the hands of the political or fiscal spe- 
cialists. 

We have been rather proud in the past 
of our public spirited philanthropists 
who have donated their unusable super- 
fluities to some general benefaction in- 
stead of expending it on bizarre monkey 
dinners or architectural freaks. But 
when we think of ourselves as objects of 
charity, we feel an almost irresistible 
impulse to resent the gifts as most in- 
solent. Almost irresistible—for we rec- 
ognize that the philanthropists, like the 
rest of us, have been brot up to look 
upon charitable gifts as rather virtuous 
forms of self-expression. Here is the 
will of the late Mrs Virginia Gay, which 
provides $400,000 for a home, $50,000 
for a hospital, devoted to teachers who 
have grown old in teaching in Ohio. Just 
think of yourself growing old in the ser- 
vice and then depending upon the fore- 
thot of a particular old lady for an op- 
portunity to keep out of the alms-house. 
What is the matter with Ohio? 





Instead of insisting upon the deepening of 
our academic ruts, the school must stimu- 
late the public intelligence, inculcate ag- 
gressive public righteousness, and exalt con- 
scientious public service—Wm D Lewis, in 
Democracy’s High School. 








































































































NOBODY’S BUSINESS 


President George A Hubbell of the 
Lincoln Memorial University, Cumber- 
land Gap, Tenn., sends a circular letter 
to 2,000 teachers in all parts of the coun- 
try, soliciting financial aid in rebuilding 
one of the dormitories. In the letter 
occurs the following: 


Something happened here this morning 
that I want you to know. 

About nine o’clock a young fellow swung 
in onto the campus with a long-legged stride 
that would have been an astonishment any- 
where else. He had come a hundred miles 
from his home in the mountains of North 
Carolina. 

I turned him over to Dean Ford, but I 
listened to the conversation. He had 
brought with him the sum of $10—no more 
—all he had on earth. That was his finan- 
cial equipment for college. The Dean told 
him he did not know what to do with him 
and explained as kindly as he could that 
the rooms were spoken for and occupied, 
and every available bed taken, everything 
“full-up.” 

I looked at the young man, he never 
flinched; he smiled, confidently faced us 
both, clear-eyed and steady,—and this is 
what he said: “Dean, I didn’t come here 
to get a room, nor to get a bed, I came to 
get an education; I can sleep on the floor.” 

There wasn’t any answer to that that we 
could think of, so we made a place for him; 
we had to. We can’t turn that sort down; 
we can’t do it, and we won't do it as long 
as there’s a dollar in sight. 

These boys the the salt of the earth, big, 
strong, upstanding, determined fellows; old 
revolutionary stock, ninety per cent of 
them; mountain born, fearless, quiet, loyal, 
high principled and clean. 

There are boys of that kind all over, 
and girls, too. Not all of old revolution- 
ary stock—some of them not of revolu- 
tionary stock at all, but worth while, 
nevertheless. And thousands of these 
must depend for an opportunity to pre- 
pare for life and for service upon the 
“charity” and patronage of impersonal 
strangers. Thousands of them go to the 
mills and the shops every year because 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


their parents cannot afford to, send them 
to school. We accept the situation with- 
out recognizing that we—you and I— 
cannot afford to deprive them of an ade- 
quate education, that we cannot afford 
to let them go to the shops and mills. 
But instead of taking up this burden 
that concerns all the people and all their 
children, we cast about for some kind 
persons who are willing to part with some 
of their surplus wealth to do this thing 
for us. We have a tradition in this 
country that it is more elevating for a 
people to depend upon private charity 
than to depend upon its own efforts. We 
think that what is everybody’s business 
is nobody’s business, and we either let 
George do it, or let it remain undone. It 
is a false tradition, and the sooner we 
realize it the better. 


THE LARGER PURPOSE 


THE OLD IDEA of “keeping school” ap- 
pears to be giving place to a newer idea 
of the school influencing and improving 
the community, as well as teaching the 
community’s children. The former peda- 
gogic mission of teaching reading, writ- 
ing and arithmetic apparently is being de- 
veloped into a larger modern task in 
which the teaching of these subjects fre- 
quently becomes merely incidental— 
whether rightly or wrongly is not here 
under discussion. This change is an ex- 
perimental one in so far as it depends 
largely on the teacher whether it shall 
be made to appear evolutionary or revo- 
lutionary; whether the community will 
adjust itself so as to accept the larger 
mission of the teacher, or if there will 
be a reaction against the broadened field 
of the teacher which will compel a re- 
turn to the restricted activity of the 
school as an institution which shall be 
concerned primarily with teaching the 
children certain set subjects, and leaving 
to the church, the home, and the other 
institutions of the community the larger 
task of developing the moral, vocational 
and artistic life of both children and 
adults in the community.—The Atlantic 
Educational Journal. 





naeewnewenono#F#s0se sto 


am os Oa 














THE AMERICAN TEACHER 143 


BOOK NOTES 


BOOKS ON HIGH SCHOOL 
PROBLEMS 


The public high school in the United 
States occupies a critical position. It has 
developed with remarkable rapidity out of 
a type of school that was distinctly char- 
acterized by formalism in its methods, 
scholasticism in its curriculum and by 
snobbery in its spirit. In a very short time 
this relic of medievalism has been com- 
pelled to overhaul its traditions and prin- 
ciples, and to formulate a justification of 
its existence in terms of vital service in a 
progressive democracy. The transformation 
that the public high school is thus com- 
pelled to undergo is nothing short of a 
revolution. 

With the college setting up arbitrary units 
of requirement on the one hand, and the 
children of the people clamoring for bread 
on the other, the situation of the high 
school is difficult enough. But its friends 
have rallied to its assistance and the out- 
look is very hopeful. The most compre- 
hensive treatment of the high school prob- 
lem appears in the form of a co-operative 
enterprise entitled “The Modern High 
School; Its Administration and Extension,” 
edited by Professor Charles H Johnston 
(Secondary Education, University of IIli- 
nois) and prepared with the assistance of 
some twenty-five men and women who 
have made special studies of various phases 
of the high school situation. The relation 
of the high school to the other institutions 
that make up society, the methods of the 
high school in relation to the numerous so- 
cial purposes—both on the side of trainng 
and on the side of administration—are dis- 
cussed in a thorogoing manner. Nearly 
seventy pages of classified bibliography, a 
detailed table of contents and numerous 
tables and diagrams help to make this a 
useful handbook of the high school of to- 
day. (Scribners, $2.) 

Two volumes of the School Efficiency 
Series dealing with the high school are at 
hand. In the “High School Courses of 
Study” Dr Calvin O Davis adds three chap- 





ters to his original report to the Hanus 
Committee on School Inquiry—The newer 
conceptions and aims, The general aspects 
of the program of studies, and The special 
aspects of the program. The discussion of 
the categories of educational values should 
be of interest to other than high school 
teachers. Professor Davis made a compara- 
tive study of the high school systems in 
ten cities and compared these with the 
schools of New York. His criticisms and 
recommendations will continue to be of 
value in all parts of the country for some 
years to come. On the administrative side, 
Dr Frank W Ballou, (who has become the 
head of the new department of Investiga- 
tion and Measurement of the Boston Pub- 
lic School system) has contributed a help- 
ful book, “High School Organization.” In 
this the problems of size of classes, chair- 
men of departments, the internal organiza- 
tion, estimating need of teachers (as to 
numbers) etc are treated primarily from 
the point of view of New York City. But 
as this is the largest system of high schools 
in the country, and has the most complex 
problems to solve, the work is of rather 
general application, especially as the por- 
tions having a purely local bearing have 
been omitted. (World Book Company, $1 
each.) 

In the Riverside Educational Mono- 
graphs, five of Dr William D Lewis’ papers 
on high school are reprinted from The 
Outlook and The Saturday Evening Post, 
under the general title “Democracy’s High 
School.” Those who know what the Wil- 
liam Penn High School has been doing in 
recent years will find nothing new here; 
but as most people—not even most teachers 
—are acquainted with Mr Lewis and his 
thoroly human and democratic outlook, 
the book should have a wide reading. 
When we realize that the “school adminis- 
trator will decide the numerous questions 
that arise in the day’s work very largely 
according to his idea—perhaps mostly sub- 
conscious—as to the nature and end of 
education,” we are tempted to wish that 
the administrators would more generally 
adopt Mr Lewis’ ideas as to the nature and 
end of education. (Houghton Mifflin Co., 60 
cents. ) 

































































































WHAT THE TEACHERS’ LEAGUE OF NEW YORK CITY 


HAS UNDERTAKEN DURING THE PAST YEAR 


I, The League has promulgated the 
idea of teachers’ councils for individual 
schools, and in a circular has proposed 
an organized method by which the 
teachers may share in the management 
of the school. School councils are in 
successful operation in several New York 
City schools. 


II. Ina set of resolutions on the ques- 
tion of the method of electing members 
of the Teachers’ Council of the Depart- 
ment of Education, the League has main- 
tained that the plan of permitting organ- 
izations alone to choose members of the 
Council gives excessive power to a few 
individuals in control of organizations, 
and is therefore undemocratic. The 
campaign for real democracy in this 


branch of the school system will be kept 
up. 

III. The League in a series of attrac- 
tive bulletins has given valuable informa- 
tion on the pension question, and has 
advocated the establishment of a pension 
law that will guarantee fair pensions to 
all, but gratuities to none. 

IV. The League has taken a stand 
for the abolition of the rating of teachers, 
and has conducted an active campaign 
to spread and popularize the idea. 

V. The League has a number of plans 
for investigating the conditions under 
which the teachers work. Some of these 
touch the size of classes, the part-time 
situation, the clerical work required of 
teachers, and the unsanitary state of 
schools. 





NOT SO STINGY 


ACCORDING to the comparative study of 
school statistics made by the Russell Sage 
Foundation some time ago, New York 
State ranks 33 in the ratio of school ex- 
penditures to wealth. But the school 
budget for New York City for 1915 will 
amount to something very near $42,123,- 
456.78—which is almost a million dollars 
for every man, woman or child on the 
Board of Education. 





Each school should show individuality, 
and minister to the peculiar needs of the 
community in which it is located, without 
being hampered by state control--E P 
Cubberly, in State and County Educational 
Reorganization. 


Children are compelled by law to go to 
school. Would it be unreasonable to re- 
quire by law that all schoolrooms should 
be kept free as far as possible from con- 
tagious and infectious diseases, and from 
unsanitary conditions that impair physical 
health?—Chas A McMurry, in Conflicting 





144 


Whatever is done, no pupil should be 
driven out of school because of inability to 
accomplish any one line of work. The ideal 
of the course should be, thoro work along 
various lines selected with a view to the 
tastes and abilities of individual students.— 
Wm D Lewis, in Democracy’s High School. 


STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGE- 
MENT, CIRCULATION, ETC. 


of THe American TEACHFR, Ba — N ~ (ex- 
cept July and August), at New York, N. Y., for 
October 1, 1914, required by the Act of August 
24, 1912. 

Editor-in- -Chief—Henry R. Linvitre, Jamaica High 
School, Jamaica, N. 

Managing | Editor—Beny. C. Gavenserc, Commer- 
cial High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Business x Mgnager—I. Epw. Mayman, P. S. 84, 
Brome . 

Poblichery— Tune Acsmnecny 
Inc., 129 Lafayette St., N. Y. 

Owners—Tue AMERICAN TEACHER Company, at 
129 Lafayette St., New York, N. Y.; 
Gruenserc, Commercial High School, Brooklyn, N 
Y.; Marx Horrman, Manual Training High hool, 
Brooklyn, N. Y.; a ory R. Linvitte, as High 
School, Jamaica, N. ; Gaprret R. Mason, P. S. 62, 
New York; | 4 Ya “Mayman, P. S. 84, Brooklyn, 


“Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other se- 
curity holders, holding 1 per cent. or more of total 
amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities— 
None. 


TeacnHer CoMPANyY, 


J. Epwarp Mayman, Business Manager. 
Sworn to and subscribed before me this day of 
September, 1914. 
Maxwett F. Littwin, 
Notary Public, Kings Co. 


[sear] 
(My commission expires March gt, 1915.) 








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