American Teacher 


Democracy in Education; Education for Democracy. 


Vout. IV No. 6 NEW YORK, JUNE, 1915 

















Commenceme 


a 


Anithmetic teaches that the sum of all things endures 


forever; let us therefore seek no more to make 
something out of nothing. 


Biology teaches that nothing endures but change; let 
us therefore help along in life’s becoming. 

Chemistry teaches that things are not always what they 
seem; let us therefore seek the heart of things, 
and not be deceived by outward seeming. 


* *” * * * 


Geography teaches that the earth is man’s, and the 
fulness thereof; let us therefore render unto the 
child his due, for he is father to the man. 








History teaches that it is made in doing what was 
never done before; let us therefore leave the past 
and look into the future. 


* * * * * 


POR DMD rhe He tT te Ee 


Commencement teaches that this is the appointed hour; 
let us therefore begin our quest for the land of 
heart's desire. 



































SOME SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE GARY 
SCHOOL 


RANDOLPH S BouRNE 


EDUCATORS ARE NOT as a rule interested 
in the social implications of the public 
school. But the public is getting more 
and more critical of the product, and 
democratic teachers are becoming more 
and more dissatisfied with the nechanical 
methods and the hierarchical, semi- 
militaristic organization by which the 
public-school systems are run. 

Everybody is beginning to ask “What 
are the public schools for?’ and many are 
asking “What should they be for?” But 
the professional educator instead of asking 
what kind of a child our schools should 
turn out, what kind of aptitudes and at- 
titudes it is desirable that a boy or girl 
should have who enters the urban in- 
dustrial or professional life of to-day, 
what sort of imaginative background 
should the child have to appreciate most 
heartily the vital issues and ideas of the 
time—instead of asking themselves this 
and then devising a school machinery and 
pedagogy which should deliberately cul- 
tivate these desirable aptitudes and at- 
titudes and backgrounds, educators have 
devoted themselves to running the old 
traditional machine, tinkering it up here 
and there to meet the public’s demands. 
They have made no effort to cultivate 
the community sense, the social back- 
ground, the democratic and scientific at- 
titudes towards life, the versatile skill 
and intelligence, the well-rounded capaci- 
ty, that modern life demands. Only one 
public school I know of has made this 
attempt, but here it has been done with 
a completeness and comprehensiveness, a 
combination of genius and practical 
skill, which is astonishing as it is inspir- 
ing. In the Gary school, we actually 
seem to have the dawn of true democratic 
education in America. 

Now the radical distinction of the 
school which William Wirt has erected 
in Gary is that it seems actually to have 
been devised with a vision. The end 
desired has been seen and then the means 


82 


created to produce with all their power 
that result. The Gary school is too 
young, I will admit, to test with scientific 
exactness the product in actual human 
material. It is a pioneer, and it has to 
contend with all the influences of Amer- 
ican life which have been generated and 
supported by the old type of school and 
the conservative institutions of society. 
But already the indications are so plain— 
in the attitudes of the children, in the 
calibre and philosophy of the teachers, in 
all the tendencies of their activities, in 
the results which the school is deliber- 
ately setting itself to achieve—that we 
have a right to say that here at last is 
the modern public school, the school with 
a twentieth-century vision and an incom- 
parable technique and skill for realizing 
it. 

The Wirt school is, in the first place, a 
genuinely “public” school. It is the first 
“public” school that I have seen. Mr. 
Wirt does not believe that the school is 
an institution for those persons between 
the age of five and eighteen who can 
adapt themselves to its hours, curricula, 
discipline, etc, and for no other persons— 
an American belief and practise, which 
leaves, by cold statistics, one-half of the 
population of school age in this country 
out of school all the time, not to speak of 
practically the entire adult population. 
The Gary school, by the flexibility of its 
schedules, by its co-operation with out- 
side agencies such as the churches, 
libraries, settlements, music schools, and 
the home, by its varied instruction, by its 
freedom of discipline, adapts itself to 
any kind of a child. It is literally true 
that the only possible excuse for keeping 
a child home from the Gary school is 
that of contagious disease. For indi- 
viduality of needs and tastes and capa- 
bilities, the Gary school deliberately sets 
itself to provide. It is public in the sense 
that it is an all-year round school, open 
day and night, and Saturdays and Sun- 

















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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 83 


days, just like other public utilities— 
Saturday for voluntary schol, Sunday 
for entertainments or for use by any 
religious, political or social associations 
that may want it. The evening school 
resembles a popular university. The at- 
tendance of adults is actually greater 
than the day attendance of children. 
Gary people are justified in their boast 
that one out of every three persons in 
the town attends school. In such a 
school, one’s education is never ‘“fin- 
ished.” One never “graduates.” Chil- 
dren who are forced to go to work con- 
tinue their education uninterruptedly. 
Temporarily unemployed, they may come 
back in the day-time for shop-work. 
Furthermore, there is a far greater in- 
centive to stay longer in school. The at- 
tendance record at the Gary school is far 
superior to the average. Most of the 
children return to the voluntary Saturday 
school. The Gary school is “public” in 
a far broader sense than has ever been 
seen. It is actually, as Mr. Wirt calls it, 
a “clearing-house for community activi- 
ties.” It is not only a community for 
children, the centre of their work and 
play; it also touches intimately the adult 
life of the town. It is kindergarten, 
school and university rolled into one. It 
is deliberately devised to do for the in- 
tellectual life of the community what the 
indispensable streets, parks, water and 
light utilities do for its physical life. It 
is not run by a reactionary school board 
who regard the public schools as private 
property which they must protect from 
indiscriminate use and from dangerous 
doctrines, but by a scientific admin- 
istrator, aided by a board of three citi- 
zens, who treat the schools as a public 
utility to be managed in such a way as 
to give the maximum of service to the 
whole public. 

When I said that the educational world 
had never seriously considered what kind 
of a child it was desirable to turn out 
into this modern life of ours, I did not 
refer at all to a uniform type of mind or 
activity. The curse of the present pub- 
lic school system is exactly that its uni- 
formity of methods, its handling of chil- 


dren in mass instead of as individuals, 
tend to destroy personality and produce 
children as like as buttons. Fortunately 
children resist to a large extent this me- 
chanical standardization, and the school 
has failed because it has atterapted to 
apply to living human organisms with 
distinct potentialities and self-wills, me- 
chanical methods which were applicable 
to inanimate material alone. But in re- 
sisting the mechanization, our American 
children have resisted the intellectual con- 
tent which the mechanics of the school 
system were supposed to bring to them. 
Some educators of to-day actually preach 
uniformity as a necessary safeguard of 
social order. The school that develops 
too much individuality, they say, is start- 
ing influences that may undermine so- 
ciety. But those of us who do not accept 
so naively the belief in the excellence of 
things as they are, will not share these 
fears of an education that is democratic 
and individualistic. 

We do not agree at all with those who 
confuse democracy with uniformity. The 
essence of democracy is not uniformity 
or even self-government, but equality or 
potential equality. The ideal of a 
democratic society is a group of free in- 
dividuals with a common background, 
common sympathies, common social aims. 
A democratic society would be one where, 
altho each person developed his aptitudes 
and interests freely in any direction that 
he chose, all could meet on some com- 
mon ground as equals, freely intermin- 
gling, mutually understanding. In a 
democratic society or in a democratic 
school, there would be no barriers or in- 
hibitions, except the purely personal ones 
of taste and interests, to keep its mem- 
bers from associating with one another 
on terms of perfect equality. 

Judged by these standards, our Amer- 
ican society is utterly undemocratic. It 
is shot thru with levels of social, indus- 
trial, intellectual, professional caste 
which are almost as rigid as if they were 
ordained by law. And the public school 
does practically nothing to break down 
these inequalities or to train the child to 
easy and sympathetic intercourse with all 











84 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


sorts and classes of men. Most children 
pass out of school feeling their inequality 
with all classes except that in which they 
were born. The very speech, manners, 
diffidence, clothes of the proletarian child 
will forever militate against his bettering 
his position, or being accepted as an equal 
in other classes of society. And this in 
spite of his intelligence or potential in- 
telligence. It is not so much that he is 
prejudiced against, but that he has had 
unconsciously stamped upon him in his 
family life all the marks of his class, and 
has found nothing in his school to 
obliterate them, and make him generally 
circulable in society. And the middle- 
class child is equally stamped. 


Now the Gary school is the only one I 
know that seems determinedly to make 
for equality, and so for democracy. One 
of the most insidious inequalities in the 
ordinary public school is that between 
teacher and pupil. The “authority” of 
the teacher stamps upon the child’s mind 
that idea of the “superiority of the adult, 
the omniscience of instructor and em- 
ployer, the essential virtue of instructions 
and rules, of differences of power. The 
effect of this is to make the docile chil- 
dren, who need fibre and self-assertion, 
only more docile, and to make the en- 
ergetic children rebellious and upstart 
when they need a sense of forbearance 
and sympathy. Now the Gary school 
undermines this class-division by making 
everybody in the school, pupil and teacher, 
both pupil and teacher at some time dur- 
ing the course. The teachers learn from 
each other and from the pupils; the older 
children teach the younger in the shops 
and laboratories, where the latter help 
as “apprentices.” The entirely different 
spirit that this cultivates has been re- 
marked upon by most of the visitors to 
the Gary schools. The lack of embar- 
rassment with which the children answer 
questions, the camaraderie between 
teachers and children, the natural way 
in which they go about their work—all 
this is evidence of a real sense of equality, 
a fundamental democracy, which, I 
imagine, has never before been seen in 


a public school. The practise of having 
all classes from kindergarten thru high 
school in the same building makes for 
this democracy. Older and younger chil- 
dren are constantly together in play- 
ground and shop and laboratory. In 
auditorium, they are hearing the same 
exercises and dramatic presentations. 
There is no artificial glamor attached to 
high school, making it a badge of class- 
distinction. There is not even any 
“graduation” from elementary school, 
that dream of many a hard-working 
mother. 


In fact, there seems to be no way in the 
Gary school by which class-distinction 
may be obtained. Athletic and fraternity 
snobbery are prevented, because all stu- 
dent activities are connected directly with 
the school work. Even the vocational 
work, which in other public schools has 
already become a very dangerous and 
sinister emblem of caste-division, is per- 
fectly democratic here. In the New York 
schools, vocational work is for those who 
will need to earn their living in industry. 
Those who take it are immediately 
marked off as a distinct social class from 
those pupils destined for professional or 
commercial work, where they are sup- 
posed to need their brains and not their 
hands. This new industrial training 
movement, therefore, emphasizes in the 
most pernicious way the artificial differ- 
ence between intellectual work and man- 
ual work, and perpetuates and very 
strongly fortifies the class-distinctions and 
class-prejudices based on that idea. 

The Wirt idea of treating the school 
as a community, so that vocational work 
falls into its proper place simply as the 
indispensable labor necessary to keep the 
physical equipment in repair, just as the 
art work flowers out in enhancing the 
beauty of the rooms, and the science 
work finds its application in cultivating 
the school-gardens and conservatories, or 
in testing chemically the materials used 
by the school. The school-life is a unity; 
class-room, shop, gymnasium, art-studio, 
science-laboratory, are all equally im- 
portant. All are essential to the life of 











ono = os 











THE AMERICAN TEACHER 85 


a child-community. All are engaged in 
real work. The work done in all of them, 
the ideas and attitudes acquired there, 
are accurate foretastes of the interests of 
the real world. A modern education will 
embrace them all. So each child in the 
Gary school gets training in all these de- 
partments of the school-community, with 
the opportunity of specializing in any one 
line of work that is interesting or poten- 
tially profitable. But no one is made to 
feel that any one activity is “higher” or 
“better” than any other, or that it dis- 
tinguishes the worker from his fellows, 
either favorably or unfavorably. They 
are all equally necessary to the embryonic 
community which the school is. 

The Gary school not only cultivates 
the democratic attitude, but the scientific 
attitude. No public school ever gave such 
comprehensive scientific training. Begun 
in the third or fourth grade, when the 
children go into the laboratories as ob- 
servers or helpers to the older children, 
science, reserved in most public schools 
for the few who reach high school, is the 
very essence of the instruction. Science 
explains the machines, and school ap- 
paratus, the weather, etc. It answers 
the child’s questions. The chemistry class 
is an extension of the municipal labora- 
tory. The children are deputy sanitary 
and food-inspectors. As science is the 


warp and woof of modern life, so it is 
of the Wirt school. 


The Gary school cultivates the social 
background. Not content with organiz- 
ing the school as a veritable democratic, 
self-supporting, self-enhancing communi- 
ty, it teaches history and geography, lan- 
guages and literature, from the standpoint 
of the social problems of the day. The 
town and state, with their institutions, 
are actually used as the text-books from 
which the interests in the wider world, 
past and present, are cultivated. 


The social potentialities of the school 
which Mr. Wirt’s genius has organized 
in Gary seem limitless. I have done little 
justice to the subject, but I hope I have 
suggested that here is a public school 
at last that is deliberately cultivating that 
“public” sense, and those democratic and 
scientific attitudes which we most need in 
America to-day. What kind of children 
we are likely to have when the Gary 
school is widely imitated must be left to 
the imagination. Also what children 
brot up with such attitudes and back- 
grounds are likely to have to say to our 
present ways of running society. All 
who are working for democracy in educa- 
tion will see in the Wirt school the leaven 
to leaven the American social and indus- 
trial lump. 





THE SPIRIT OF THE GARY SCHOOLS 


ALIcE BARROWS FERNANDEZ, 
Director Vocational Education Survey, New York 


Visitors To GARY may be divided into 
three groups—those who cannot or will 
not see, those who see only the practical 
efficiency of the system, and those who 
comprehend the spirit of the schools. 

It is not surprizing that those who are 
themselves the victims of the old military 
régime, brot up under the insistent tyran- 
ny of the “course of study,” under the 
ever-present dread of supervision, cannot 
see what the Gary schols are doing or for 
what they stand. It is not to be won- 


dered at if they come away either skepti- 
cal and satirical, or gravely disturbed. 
The democracy of the Wirt plan, its flex- 
ibility, and the freedom and responsibility 
that it gives to both children and teachers, 
must be strangely disturbing and be- 
wildering to these guardians of the old 
régime. Such things shake the very 
foundation of their professional life and 
habits—the habits of order and system, 
of clocks and gongs, of schedules and 
programs, of being told what to do and 








86 


doing it, or of telling some one what is 
to be done and seeing that it is done. 

The people may have any kind of a 
school that they want. 

There is no reason why every one 
should do the same thing in the same way 
at the same time. 

There is no reason why a school 
should not be so elastic that every child’s 
individual needs may be met. 


These are commonplaces of the Wirt 
philosophy. But they are extremely dis- 
concerting to those who have been point- 
ing out for a good many years just why 
none of these things could be done. And 
when the observer sees that this phil- 
osophy is carried out in practise, that 
the people actually have the kind of 
school that they want, that children do 
not do the same things in the same way 
at the same time, that the children’s in- 
dividual needs actually are met, and that 
nevertheless the requirements of the state 
courses of study are fulfilled so satisfac- 
torily that children from Gary entering 
college take advanced standing in chem- 
istry, physics, Latin, etc—then the Gary 
schools become more than disconcerting. 
To the conservative schoolmen it must 
seem that all the familiar supports of 
their educational life are being swept 
away. It is not surprising therefore that 
they instinctively barricade themselves 
against the Gary plan and bring forward 
every kind of argument as to why it is 
not applicable to other cities. 

On the other hand, those who call at- 
tention only to the practical efficiency and 
economy of the system probably do as 
much as the conservatives to give a mis- 
leading impression of the schools. There 
is no question that the Gary schools are 
efficient. Take, for example, the simple 
application of the principles of public 
service management to the public schools. 
This in itself is so novel in educational 
practise that it is not strange that the 
average laymen are impressed with it, 
and can talk of little but the economy of 
“Duplicate Schools,” etc. Or again, they 
see only the marvelous advantage of 
getting playgrounds and swimming pools 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


and science laboratories and shops and 
studios for their children for less money 
than the taxpayer has been giving for the 
ordinary all-classroom school. 


All these things are true and yet they 
do not tell the truth. The Gary schools 
would not have caught the imagination 
of people all over the country if they 
stood only for efficiency and economy. 
The significant thing about the Gary 
schools is not their mechanism, but the 
spirit which is found in every detail of 
the school life. And this spirit cannot 
be fully realized until the motive respon- 
sible for the schools is understood. 


The important thing about the Gary 
schools for those who believe in democ- 
racy is that the Wirt plan is founded 
first, upon the belief that all the children 
in a republic should receive the advan- 
tages usually reserved for the favored 
few; secondly, upon the practical ability 
to get these advantages for all the chil- 
dren in spite of the obstructions inevitable 
in all public institutions. The Gary 
schools are not an experiment, they are 
an achievement in democracy. And their 
encouraging and inspiring feature is that 
they are not the product of a private 
venture, the unstable gift of a casual in- 
terest. On the contrary, they are the 
tangible results of a slow, steady, in- 
finitely patient struggle to transform one 
of our most unyielding public institutions 
to serve the purposes for which it was in- 
tended; a struggle carried on in the face 
of the opposition of powerful interests, 
and in spite of the red tape and pettiness 
which hampers and clogs the machinery 
of this glorious and clumsy democracy 
of ours. 

The Wirt plan does not involve run- 
ning away from ordinary life to build a 
Utopia. It is a triumph of overcoming 
obstacles in ordinary life. To take a 
hard-shelled institution like the public 
school, and make it blossom out with 
playgrounds, swimming pools, science 
laboratories, animal houses and chickens, 
shops and conservatories, kitchens and 
stores, markets and theatres. To make 
the school throw open its doors and let 














THE AMERICAN TEACHER 87 


children come and go, laughing and talk- 
ing and working and whistling—that is 
a thing to stir the imagination and rouse 
the flagging hope of a skeptical public. 
This thing has been done by the people 
themselves and for themselves. 

Again, one cannot live in the schools 
day after day without realizing that the 
democratic ideal responsible for the ex- 
istence of the schools is expressed in 
every detail of their organization and ad- 
ministration. The essence of the spirit 
of the schools is a real respect for indi- 
viduality, so deep-rooted and so taken 
for granted that there is no time nor in- 
clination upon anyone’s part to theorize 
about it. That, by the way, is one of the 
disconcerting things about the Gary 
schools. Everyone in the schools takes 
for granted the sort of thing that people 
in other places fight for so fiercely. They 
have passed the stage of arguing about 
the value of freedom, of giving respon- 
sibility, of respect for children and their 
undeveloped potentialities. They live 
these beliefs every day, and they are so 
busy living them, it has become so much 
second nature to them, that discussion 
of the value of such beliefs does not in- 
terest them. It seems irrelevant. They 
will listen possibly with an amused little 
smile, and a rather perfunctory “yes, in- 
deed” to your most impassioned eulogies 
of “liberty” and “placing responsibility,” 
etc, and get back as soon as possible to 
their own jobs. The result is that the 
teachers and officials of the Gary schools 
are extremely poor advertisers of their 
schools. They are so busy living what 
they believe that they are bored at the 


thot of arguing as to the possibility of 
living it. Consequently, visitors, trying 
to ride their pet hobbies of educational 
or social reform, and being met with a 
“Yes, just so. Now shall we go to this 
next class?” come away saying “It is 
wonderful, of course, but do they realize 
what they are doing?” The answer 
would seem to be that if the theory of 
William James, that you are happy be- 
cause you laugh, rather than that you 
laugh because you are happy, is true, 
then these teachers and officials have a 
good deal more vital realization of what 
they are doing than any outsider can 
have. 

But freedom, the giving of responsi- 
bility, respect for individuality and for 
others rights—these things are charac- 
teristic of the lives not only of the chil- 
dren in the Wirt schools but of the 
teachers. Not enough has been written 
or said about what the Gary schools mean 
to the future of the teaching profession. 
As I see it, it means giving an oppor- 
tunity for initiative and for creative 
work, which will make the word 
“drudgery” in connection with what 
should be the most stimulating of pro- 
fessions, a thing of the past. And, sec- 
ondly, because the school under the Wirt 
plan becomes a social institution closely 
related to all civic and municipal activi- 
ties, it will give the teacher a dignity and 
power in the community which he has 
never had except perhaps in the early 
days of the republic. The Wirt plan is 
the teachers’ great opportunity. Will 
they have the imagination to see it in 
time? 





EDUCATIONAL DILEMMAS 


FROM TIME TO TIME new issues arise 
that perplex the thotful and conscienti- 
ous, because they seem to offer us a 
choice between the devil and the deep 
blue sea—or between two equally attrac- 
tive alternatives. We have, for example, 
the simultaneous demand for the so- 
cialization of education and for the in- 
dividualization of education. Both de- 


mands seem equally reasonable. If we 
are to adapt our work to existing condi- 
tions, we cannot overlook the facts of 
social interdependence. But if we are 
to adapt our work to real conditions, we 
cannot overlook the fact that each indi- 
vidual is essentially unique. Like the 
empty and endless disputes about free- 
will and determinism, the issue here ex- 











88 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ists only in the minds that insist upon a 
formal division of the world into ab- 
stract categories. If we are willing to 
face the facts, we may discover that ed- 
ucation means nothing except as an ad- 
justment of individuals to each other, 
that the individual does not exist except 
in relation to others, and that society is 
the sum of these same individuals. Now 
the only way in which we can conjure up 
a conflict between socializing of educa- 
tion and individualizing of education, is 
by assuming a fundamental conflict be- 
tween the individual and the rest of so- 
ciety. This conflict does indeed exist, 
but not as a normal condition of human 
life; it exists only where individuals or 
groups of individuals utilize their talents 
and resources in outrageous exploitation 
of their fellows. The Russian student 
who is “against the government” is not 
an enemy of society ; it is the government 
official and those whom he supports that 
are the enemies of society. In our own 
country the conflict is not a normal 
strain between the unit and the com- 
munity, it is the by-product of the cor- 
ruption and control of government and 
other institutions for private gain at 
the expense of the rest of the people. 
For these conflicts the only remedy lies 
in genuine democracy. 

Another dilemma, closely related to 
the first, is presented by our apparent 
necessity of choosing between “uni- 
formity” in education, and perfect free- 
dom. Those who advocate uniformity 
may do so on account of certain tradi- 
tional psychological or theological 
theories, which assume that a “training” 
value resides in mechanical school pro- 
cesses; but they may also do so in full 
recognition of the teachings of modern 
psychology, on the ground that only by 
means of a large body of uniform in- 
struction can the members of the com- 
munity acquire sufficient thot elements 
in common to make possible a harmoni- 
ous and stable society. Those who ad- 
vocate freedom in teaching do not reject 
the common body of thot as insignificant ; 
they expect to attain it in other ways. 
In the Gary schools, for example, the 


community of interest, the harmony and 
co-operation of action are secured not by 
teaching all the children the same things 
at the same time in the same way, but by 
means of common, co-operative enter- 
prises in work and play, by means of the 
auditorium and theater, by means of 
constant interchange of diverse ideas and 
experiences. In the name of democracy 
we have two radically different systems 
offered us. It is likely that here, as in 
so many other conflicts, we have one side 
standing firmly by a form, while the 
other side looks as steadily at a remote 
aim and moves toward it. 

The demand for homogeneous classes 
as against composite heterogeneous 
groups is another case; and again there 
is no essential conflict. For purposes of 
instruction in organized facts or princi- 
ples, the small homogeneous group is 
most favorable. But for vital experi- 
ences in human relations, the heterogene- 
ous group is essential. It is therefore 
quite reasonable for us to demand the 
strict classification of pupils when we 
have one purpose in view; and just as 
reasonable to lump all the children from 
the kindergarten thru the high school 
when we have different aims. In the 
Gary system it is found practicable to 
bring together mixed types of children, 
and to do with them a variety of profit- 
able things, educationally and socially. 
It is practicable also to redistribute the 
children, according to their distinctive 
needs and capacities, into smaller groups 
for intensive instruction. We are not 
compelled to choose between a separate 
school for every group of three or four 
grades, and composite classes containing 
wide ranges of ability and maturity. 


Tue InpIANA LEGISLATURE has given retire- 
ment fund laws to teachers in all cities of a 
population of twenty thousand or over. What 
objection is there to the teachers in the rest 
of the state having such laws also? These 
teachers also work hard and wear themselves 
out and grow old. This is the age of the 
“square deal.” All Indiana teachers ought to 
be treated alike—The Educator-Journal, No- 
vember, 1914. 














The 


American Cearher 





Demecracy in Education ; Education for Demecracy 


Published monthly, except July and August, by 


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VOL. IV JUNE, 1915 No. 6 








This paper is striving to do its part 
in the creation of a real profession of 
teaching, the members of which shall 
be self-respecting and respected, thru 
stimulating clear thinking on the work 
and the social position of teachers, and 
thru intelligent criticism of systems of 
educational administration. No greater 
service than this could be rendered to 
the children of the state. 





VACATION HINT 


WE BELIEVE in vacations. We need 
them to break up the monotony of some 
people’s work; and we need them for 
sheer rest. Or they are useful as relaxa- 
tion periods for the strenuous ones who 
never know when they are tired. And 
in many cases they are the sole oppor- 
tunities for whatever growth is still pos- 
sible, thru travel or study or the forming 
of new associations. We don’t care; we 


89 


believe in your vacation, no matter why 
you need it. But when you are forming 
new acquaintances, do not forget THE 
AMERICAN ‘TEACHER—every subscrip- 
tion that you add to our list lends 
strength to whatever efforts you may 
care to make toward a happier day in the 
teaching business. 


WHY WAIT UPON THE JOB? 

To EVERY GOOD CAUSE that is about to 
become popular there is likely to come 
an enthusiastic group of persons who 
satisfy a love of publicity by climbing 
into seats in the band wagon. As occu- 
piers of those seats they seem to be the 
leaders of the cause itself. Of course, 
the type of human character that finds 
keen satisfaction in thus posing before 
the public seldom has the patience or 
the strength to take part in the hard 
work of pioneering. For that reason, 
the noise-producing leaders are always 
regarded with disfavor and suspicion by 
the real leaders, the ones who perhaps 
inconspicuously formulated the cause it- 
self. 

Very recently, the idea of teachers 
being chosen to membership in the Board 
of Education in New York City has be- 
come popular, at least with those who 
have taken up with “democracy” in ed- 
ucation. An indefinite number of these 
are getting into the band wagon. To be 
in the band wagon of this cause is al- 
ready being regarded as affording an op- 
portunity for selection as early represen- 
tatives of education on the Board. 

Those who conceived the idea that ed- 
ucational policies applicable to the needs 
of the three-quarters of a million school 
children of the great city could be better 
worked out with the aid of the persons 
who were doing the work of teaching 
may well feel concern for the success 
of their idea, when it is taken up and 
exploited by those of whose intellectual 
honesty and professional intelligence 
there is cause for serious doubt. But this 
concern should not operate to cool the 
ardor of any who are devoted to the 
idea, rather than to dreams of emolu- 
ments. 











go THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


It is obviously of prime importance to 
work for the adoption of the plan of 
teacher representation on the Board of 
Education, and then be prepared to take 
“pot luck” on appointments to fill the 
places. Possibly we could not agree at 
all on who are the fittest persons, be our 
efforts ever so sincere and ever so highly 
conceived in the public interest. 

If we win for education the projected 
privilege of really sharing in the man- 
agement of education, we shall be in a 
position to come nearer to specifying ex- 
actly what the qualifications of appointees 
ought to be than has seemed possible 
under autocratic educational administra- 
tion. For the first time, we should be 
able to make effective the conclusions 
which common experience with unfit 
officials has developed in our minds. 

We may reasonably take the ground 
that even educational politicians might 
represent us. We are beginning to get 
the power to compel our representatives 
to behave. However, let us hope that in 
time we shall produce in our own pro- 
fession a supply of strong leaders who 
will hold firmly to the best ideals form- 
ulated by our common thinking. 


BEING MANAGED 


THE CITY OFFICIALS, the commissioners 
of education, the superintendents of all 
degrees and many of the principals in 
the city of New York are deeply agitated 
upon the question—among others—of 
whether the “Gary” plan should be 
adopted in principle and adapted to local 
conditions. They are holding confer- 
ences with each other and with “experts” 
and they are “taking sides.” But they 
have not consulted the teachers, and the 
teachers do not seem to feel slighted. Is 
it because the teachers do not care what 
happens, or is it because their judgment 
is worthless? Or perhaps they are so 
loyal to their paid and unpaid superiors 
that they are glad to obey orders regard- 
less of their own judgment or prefer- 
ences, 

Whatever the reasons for the sys- 
tematic treatment of teachers in the man- 


ner of the unfranchised, we would like 
to give our colleagues a chance to find 
out what the issues are, and urge them 
to give serious and prayerful considera- 
tion to the various changes proposed. 
And it would not be amiss for them to 
make up their minds and give expression 
to their views. 





Delays are dangerous. Send in your 
subscription at once. 


CO-OPERATION AND 
CORRELATION 


IN AN ARMY, in a factory, in a chess 
game, where many units operate toward 
an end that lies concealed within the mind 
of one person (or of a small group of 
persons) it is necessary that there be 
correlation of the several operations. 
Unity of product can emerge from the 
isolated and discrete activities only thru 
the accurate performance of each unit 
in accordance with a predetermined plan. 
But in a school it is quite possible for all 
the units to understand the purpose of 
their activities, and to determine their 
several performances in accordance with 
the common needs. The first type of or- 
ganization and performance requires a 
certain “discipline” if the major purpose 
(of the chiefs, not of the workers) is to 
be successfully achieved. In the second 
type of organization there should be such 
intelligence and such effective self-direc- 
tion on the part of the workers that the 
question of discipline need never arise. 
When teachers realize that they are en- 
gaged in an enterprise that is to carry 
out their own major purposes, and not 
the aims of various others, remote and 
impersonal “representatives of the pub- 
lic,” they will be in a position to conduct 
their schools co-operatively and demo- 
cratically—and not until then. The first 
step toward democracy in education is 
for the teachers to answer the question 
“Why do I teach?” 


Get more subscribers, to give us the 
time and energy for making this a 
more helpful magazine. 

















THE AMERICAN TEACHER gI 


BUSINESS AND EDUCATION 


EVERYBODY KNOWS, by this time, that 
the schools have failed. Blending more 
or less inharmoniously with the praises 
of the great men who furnish the texts 
for commencement orations, come the 
wailings of the other great men, who 
deplore the fact that things are not what 
they were “when we were young,” and 
who complain specifically that the youth 
of to-day is incapable of performing the 
tasks required by business conditions as 
well as did the youth of an earlier gen- 
eration. 

The prosperous business man ignores 
the fact that the earlier generation “grad- 
uated” from its schools for the most part 
boys and girls who had been selected for 
the very ability that qualified them to 
“make good” in the processes that busi- 
ness demands, whereas at the present time 
the particularly able girls and boys are 
more likely to be in high school or college 
than at the back door applying for a “job” 
of the kind the business man has to offer. 
(We are not overlooking the fact that 
thousands who should be in high school 
or college are actually at “work” or look- 
ing for jobs; but in general the business 
man has not the pickings that he formerly 
had.) Neither has he kept any records 
that would enable us to make an exact 
comparison between the actual abilities 
of the youth of to-day with those of 
yesterday ; and we sometimes suspect that 
his memory is somewhat mellowed. 

Let us, however, grant that the busi- 
ness man’s complaint is well founded. 
The children that apply for the jobs are 
not as proficient in the language arts as 
he would like to have them, and as we 
would like to have them. They are not 
as skilfull in the manipulation of writing 
implements as we should all like to see 
them. And in the number arts, they are 
far from promising as financiers. We 
may go even farther, and deplore the 
comprehensive igorance that obtains 
among these children concerning the na- 
ture of the society in which they are 
to take part ,and concerning the nature 
of the industrial and commercial insti- 


tutions that are so soon to reduce them 
either to trustworthy machines for 
grinding out profits, or untrustworthy 
grinders of profit from the labors of 
others. We deplore their untrained 
tastes in the matter of clothing and furni- 
ture, that make of them easy prey to 
those unscrupulous exploiters of human 
vanity who are engaged in the molding 
of fashions. We deplore their ignorance 
in matters of science, which exposes 
them to the exploitation of the quacks 
and adulterers—business men all! We 
regret deeply our inability to inplant in 
them, during the few years we have 
them in our charge, an adequate apprecia- 
tion of the methods by which corrupt 
business and corrupt politics combine to 
rob them of what the employer on the 
one hand and the unscrupulous vender 
on the other have failed to take away. 


It is coming to be really tiresome to 
hear the tired business man complain 
about the shortcomings of the schools 
and other public institutions. Thru the 
sheer iteration of his complaint, in a 
brazen self-confident tone of voice, he is 
coming to impose upon the other mem- 
bers of the community a certain awe of 
his displeasure, a certain apologetic con- 
cession to his wildest claims. Is it not 
about. time for us—that is, those of us 
who are not “business men’”—to ask 
timidly what warrant this bully has for 
imposing upon us his standards of life 
and learning? Have his criteria been 
tested by the ultimate yard-stick of the 
gods? Has he a monopoly on the eternal 
verities—or has he merely a tight grasp 
on the purse-strings? Has the world 
conceded his mode of life to be an index 
of his inherent righteousness, or has it 
accepted him merely because it had to? 


It is the duty and the right of the 
architect to make for us our private 
dwellings and public monuments ; it is the 
duty and the right of the physicians to 
guard our health and heal our ills ; and it 
is the duty and the right of the teachers 
to introduce the youth into the arts and 
mysteries of life. Each group has its 
responsibilities and the opportunity to 











92 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


serve ; each must find in society the needs 
to be met, and in its craft the means for 
service. No group can claim to be para- 
mount in society. But the business man 
claims not only the right to conduct his 
business “in his own way’—which has 
frequently meant in brutal disregard of 
the claims of humanity and decency— 
but he even insists that all others conduct 
their business in a way that is most agree- 
able to him. And the others have too 
easily conceded to his demands. 

It takes but little thot to enable one 
to realize that business is the foundation 
of social prosperity. But when we say 
this, we mean by business all the activi- 
ties related to the production and distri- 
bution of goods, the rendering and ex- 
changing of services, the organization of 
services to meet new needs, and so on. 
The business man who is engaged in the 
rendering of service realizes these things, 
and is in many ways as much a profes- 
sional worker as the physician or the 
engineer; and he makes no claim to su- 
perior authority in the conduct of public 
affairs. Being an expert, he knows both 
his own limitations and the value of 
other experts. But we must not let our- 
selves be deceived by the “business man” 
who plays upon our regard for general 
well-being in claiming special considera- 
tion for his needs and convenience. This 
man of business is as likely as not to be 
an ignorant, greedy, anti-social exploiter 
of his fellow men; and when he speaks 
in the name of “business” he is then an 
unmitigated swindler. When he speaks 
in his insolence of the failure of the 
schools, we may not silence him with an 
appeal to reason. But we may give him 
—and his dupes—occasion to pause if 
we ask “What does business do for the 
children of the public?” 


The educational profession as a whole 
must soon grasp the principle that co- 
operation is increasingly necessary as the 
tasks within schools become more spe- 
cialized—HENryY Svuzza.o, in Introduc- 
tion to Palmer’s Trades and Professions. 


HELPS BY THE WAYSIDE 


THE CHARGE has been made, perhaps 
not without foundation, that the young 
teacher beginning her work in the schools 
of the City of New York, is cast into a 
classroom and there allowed to sink or 
swim, survive or perish, as temperament, 
power of endurance, or happy chance 
may decide. Tho this heroic treatment 
may be in vogue here and there, the op- 
posite form of treatment is far more 
prevalent. We have seen several com- 
pilations of “Advice to Young Teachers” 
all intended to guide them thru the first 
hard steps of their work. Some ex- 
tracts from one of the best of these 
guide-books, prepared by one of our 
prominent principals, are herewith given: 


The motif, as announced at the end, is 
found in the following lines by Henry Van 


Dyke: 


Let me but do my work from day to day, 

In field or forest, at the desk or loom, 

In roaring market-place, or tranquil room; 

Let me but find it in my heart to say, 

When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, 

This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; 

Of all who live, I am the one by whom 

This work can best be done in the right way. 

Then shall I see it is not too great, nor 
small, 

To suit my spirit and to prove my powers; 

Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring 


hours, 
ae pean turn, when the long shadows 
a 
At eventide, to play and love and rest, 
‘Because I know for me my work is best. 


Instruction is intended to include all points 
on teaching ability, scholarship, and effort. 

Teaching ability means the use of good 
methods, the power to interest, skill in ques- 
tioning, cleverness in blackboard illustration, 
effectiveness in developing subject, thoroness 
of drill—and the greatest of these is thoro- 
ness of drill. 

The teacher’s ability manifests itself here 
very patiently. She must be active in devis- 
ing new and interesting drill exercises. 

The secondary meaning of the term schol- 
arship is the teacher’s general culture: Does 
she give evidence of a sincere striving for 
ideals of self-education that will enable her 
to lead her class to the highest culture? 











= 3S @& 8 











THE AMERICAN TEACHER 93 


Children in their imitativeness become the 
loudest exploiters of their teachers’ scholar- 
ship as evidenced in the little things. 


Interest in the abnormal child is the best 
evidence of the teacher’s effort. 

Does she study the individual child patiently 
and sympathetically? 

She may find him physically or mentally 
weak. 

She may find him badly treated at home. 

She may find him with a disposition un- 
happy and hard to manage. 

These are the children that try the souls 
of the most experienced teachers, and in be- 
half of whom the most untiring efforts must 
be put forth in order to really teach them the 
lessons of life in addition to the school les- 
sons. 

It is in handling these children that the 
teacher displays her finest qualifications, altho 
results in class work may not stand high in 
comparison with other classes. 

Discipline includes personality, control of 
class, and self-control. 

The mechanizing of routine, the method of 
obtaining order, the appearance of the class 
and of the room, all are evidence of proper 
control of class. 

A teacher should never hesitate to appeal 
to the principal for assistance in helping to 
discipline any child whose conduct is a men- 
ace to the general discipline of the class. 

The general trustworthiness of a class is 
the strongest proof of ability to discipline. 
How does the class conduct itself on the 
stairs, on the street, in the yard, or when the 
teacher is absent or is called away from her 
class? 

The self-control of the teacher is shown 
by her tone of voice, her personal appearance, 
her punctuality and attendance, and her at- 
tention to duty. All these bear a part in de- 
termining the control of the class. 

Personality is evidenced in the teacher’s at- 
titude toward her work. Does she bring to 
the classroom a contented mind and a spirit 
of love and sympathy for the children en- 
trusted to her care. 

Is her work uppermost in her mind, or is it 
only a means to an end? What is her in- 
terest in the general welfare of the school? 

Does she identify herself with all the activi- 
ties of the school, with everything that will 


give her pupils not only good instruction in 
the subjects of the Course of Study, but also 
a chance for broader, better, higher living? 

All of which is very interesting and 
instructive and quite in line with the re- 
cent utterance of the Board of Superin- 
tendents in regard to the teacher of su- 
perior merit. 

THE AMERICAN TEACHER hails with 
joy every evidence of a desire on the part 
of superintendents or principals to en- 
courage teachers to look upon their work 
in a professional spirit; every sign that 
teachers are being urged to think for 
themselves; every indication that the 
fruits of their thot and their experience 
are being counted as factors in the cause 
of education. But we must just as 
strongly protest against anything which 
looks like bargaining in education. A 
set of rules or regulations designed to 
make a teacher aspire to an A rating— 
and to that alone—this offends the dig- 
nity of our office, and cannot but lessen 
the power of the influence that teachers 
should exert. Daniel Webster has said: 


If we work upon marble, it will perish; 
if we work upon brass, time will efface it; 
if we rear temples, they will crumble into 
dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, 
if we imbue them with principles, with the 
just fear of God and love of fellow-men, we 
engrave on those tablets something which 
will brighten all eternity. 


No price can be set on a work of this 
character. It is indeed, “above rubies” 
and above rating. 


What They Say 


To the Editors, THe AMERICAN TEACHER: 


New York teachers have of late been giving 
a good deal of attention to a consideration of 
pending legislation which will, if enacted into 
law, effect their salaries, tenure of office and 
other practical issues. It is a matter for 
congratulation that the teaching body can be 
stirred into activity. Those who slightingly 
remark that the teachers are not alert on any 











94 


public questions except those which concern 
their own pocketbooks, should bear in mind 
that those who cannot be stirred to action in 
defense of their own bread and butter are 
not likely to co-operate from motives of pure 
altruism. A child creeps before he can walk. 
In a somewhat similar manner, the mind moves 
gropingly away from the simple idea of each 
one for himself to the more complex idea 
of co-operation with others for the more effec- 
tive accomplishment of common ends. The 
growth of the altruistic sentiment is very slow. 
Those who unite to further the aims of their 
own profession will some day unite to further 
the ends of other groups of workers. Those 
who learn to co-operate to defend their sal- 
aries will, later, having once gotten into the 
habit of co-operation, unite to protect less 
material rights. 


Neither can we agree with those who say: 
“If we are actively interested in community 
affairs, we need not fear for our salaries.” 
Experience shows that there is no necessary 
relation between devotion to the good of the 
community and remuneration for that devo- 
tion. Certain recent events in our own profes- 
sion ought to convince us of this if we have 
any doubt about it. In fact, it is often note- 
worthy that those who manifest the greatest 
devotion to community interests are rewarded 
the least. Those who regulate the rewards do 
not even recognize the devotion as being one 
to an altruistic regard for community interests. 

If the theory that those who devote them- 
selves unselfishly to the community welfare 
need not worry about a living were true, the 
average mother would be receiving an income 
ample for her own needs and those of her 
children. Far from this being the case, 
mothers are probably the most poorly paid 
class of woman workers in the community, 
millions of them fsaving a bare living for 
themselves and their children and constant 
anxiety about the future. 


So long as any class of workers can be 
paid with subtle flatteries and high-sounding 
words, the community is glad to adopt this 
form of payment and save its money. To 
show a sane and intelligent interest in the 
practical side of life is no disgrace. On the 
contrary, it is a virtue sorely. needed among 
professional people. It may be that, as a 
profession, we suffer almost as. much from 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


the impractical dreamers among us as from 
the “inert mass” of unthinking ones who 
cannot be moved to any form of activity. 

Furthermore, defense of one’s salary is not 
such a low motive as some would insinuate. 
The assumption is that teachers live on their 
salaries and have no other means of support. 
In the majority of cases they have dependents. 
A teacher’s salary, therefore, represents more 
than mere money. It stands for the health 
and education of children, for the support 
of parents, for the buying of books, for a 
decent standard of existence, for all the hu- 
manizing and broadening influences which he 
needs to have in his life, and which, in justice 
to his pupils, he must have. 

An intelligent self interest is not incompati- 
ble with the highest altruism. If the suggested 
legislation at Albany has taught teachers that 
co-operation is not a mere word but an ab- 
solute necessity, if it has aroused some teachers 
to the sense of a common interest, it has not 
been an unmixed evil. 

It should be remembered, also, that the pro- 
posed legislation had other features, which 
might have become, in practice, quite as ob- 
jectionable in other ways. LMD 


New York 


To the Editors, THz AMERICAN TEACHER: 
The cover maxims printed on THE AMERrt- 
CAN TEACHER from month to month impress me 
as mosaics remarkably well done. . 
They show that some one has boiled dows 
thoughts to concentrated essence and is able 
to present it in a remarkably clear and effective 
manner. Wma. McAnpReEw, 
Associate Superintendent of Schools, 
New York 


Editors, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 

Your paper is rendering a much needed 
service. It is desirable for all of us to hear 
or read things which are not always in accord 
with our set opinions. We teachers become 
set altogether too early in our careers. Your 
paper has a tendency to crack our plaster 
casts. Joun L Tixpstey, 

Principal, High School of Commerce, 
New York, 

















THE AMERICAN TEACHER 95 


BOOK NOTES 


Order your books thru 
The American Teacher 








ADOLESCENT ASCENDANT 

THE GROWING importance of the high school 
in the community and of the high school 
problems in education is indicated by the fact 
that the high school population is growing 
much faster than any other factor of our 
national life. That special literature on the 
high school problems should come to us in 
increasing volume is accordingly comprehensi- 
ble—and frequently disconcerting. We noticed 
four additions to this literature in THe AmER- 
ICAN TEACHER for November, 1914. Im- 
portant new books in this field approach the 
problems from different angles. Professor 
Irving King of the University of Iowa gives 
an excellent summary of recent studies on the 
psychology and physiology of the adolescent 
in The High School Age (Bobbs Merrill, $1). 
While based on technical studies and contain- 
ing much of the original material, the text is 
adapted to the use of younger teachers and 
lay readers. A more comprehensive study of 
the methods of high school procedure, from 
a scientific point of view, is Professor Parker’s 
Methods of Teaching in High Schools (Ginn 
& Co. $1.50), which is based on three assump- 
tions: (1) that the school should be radically 
adapted to contemporary social needs; (2) 
that instruction should be based on psy- 
chological principles determined, so far as 
may be, by actual experiment; and (3) scien- 
tific management should be applied to the con- 
duct of school affairs. The serious teacher 
will find this book suggestive and helpful. 

Two books that attempt to give a general 
survey of the modern high school proceed in 
different ways toward the goal. Professor 
Stout of Cornell College, Iowa, gives in a 
comparatively small volume a unified discus- 
sion of The High School, Its Function, Or- 
ganization and Administration (Heath, $1.25), 
with a good chapter on changing social and 
educational conditions. Professor Monroe of 
Teachers’ College, Columbia University, 
brings together as edifor and joint author in 
Principles of Secondary Education (Macmil- 
lan, $1.90), a well organized body of expert 


knowledge and judgment on the scope, his- 
tory, methods and administration of high 
schools. In all of these books one is struck by 
the growing emphasis upon the importance of 
reorganization and readjustment in view of 
changing social and economic conditions. It 
is this that makes teaching today the most 
responsible kind of business; and it is this 
that makes it incumbent upon each of us to 
keep informed on what is going on about us. 


The conservation of the child is a prob- 
lem which, like that of world peace, is bound 
to take possession of the minds of all hu- 
manitarian people. To the ethical prin- 
ciple of humanitarianism is added the stern 
counsel of biological laws, which teach us 
that an elaborate scheme of mental culture 
which proceeds without regard to the needs 
of the body is but a house built upon the 
sands.—Hoac anp TERMAN, in Health Work 
in the Schools. 


Send us names and addresses of 
prospective subscribers. 


Statement of the ownership, management, circula- 
tion, etc., required by the Act of August 24, 1912, ef 
THe American TeacHer, published monthly (except 
July and August), at New York, N. Y., for April 
1, 1915: 

Editor-in-Chief—Henry R. Linvitte, 
Ave., Jamaica, N. Y. 

~~ oe ee C. Gruenserc, 230 West 
ro7th St., N. Y. City. 

Business Manager—J. Epw. Mayman, 914 Eastern 
Parkway, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Publisher—Tue American Teacuer Co., Inc., 129 
Lafayette St., N. Y. City. 

Owners—Tue American Tracer Co., 
Lafayette St., N. Y. City; Beny. C. Gruenserc, 230 
West ro7th St., N. Y. City; Marx Horrman, 1143 
Vyse Ave., N. Y. Cas: Henry R. Linvitie, 60 Ter- 

7. © 


60 Terrace 


Inc., 129 


race Ave., Jamaica ._Y.; Gasprrer R. Mason, 1107 
Forest Ave., . City; J. Epw. Mayman, 914 
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, N. Y. : 
Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security 
holders, holding 1 per cent or more of total amount 
of bonds, mortgages, or other securities—None. 
J. EDWARD MAYMAN, 
Business Manager. 
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 7th day of 


April, 1915, 
g ' SAMUEL AUSTER, 
Notary Public, N. Y. County. 


(SEAL) , 
(My commission expires March 30, 1917.) 





If this magazine helps you, help 
yourself by helping to increase the 
circulation. 











96 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


TALKING DOWN 


The board member excitedly talks 
down to the city superintendent. 

The city superintendent majestically 
talks down to the associate superin- 
tendent. 

The associate superintendent loftily 
talks down to the district superintend- 
ent. 

The district superintendent patroniz- 
ingly talks down to the principal in 
his district. 

The principal superciliously talks 
down to the class teacher. 

The class teacher, harassed to dis- 
traction and the last to be kicked, 
talks down pettishly to the child. 

Why not discard the buncombe of 
authority? 

Why not act like real human beings? 

There is no “down” except in be- 
trayal of one’s trust. 

There is no “up” except in service. 


SIGNS OF PROGRESS 


Let us look forward to the day when 
the teachers in any given community 
shall be so well trained and shall take 
such pride in their profession, that they 
will rise in revolt at the appointment to 
high and responsible positions of un- 
worthy school men who are shrewd “poli- 
ticians” and succeed in getting their 
appointments by low and unworthy 
methods. 


BIRCHMONT CAMP 


For Women 
EAST WOLFEBORO, N. H. 


Ninth season. Ideal for rest or rec- 
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ins. $8 to $12 per week. Boating, bath- 
ing, etc. Excellent service. Illustrated 
booklet. 


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TEACHERS AND LAWMAKERS 


OREGON Is the first to establish equal 
pay for the entire state. New York City 
may feel that its equal pay law—which 
some teachers say does not secure equal 
pay at all—was thrust upon the city by 
those who do not foot the bills. Now 
we have a state “inflicting” upon itself 
an equal pay law. But in Oregon the 
women vote. 

In Massachusetts a bill has been pre- 
sented making it illegal for any school 
official or school teachers’ agency to soli- 
cit of an applicant any information con- 
cerning the applicants’ religious belief, or 
to furnish any such information. 

The Wisconsin legislature proposes one 
bill raising the minimum salary of 
teachers from $40 to $60 a month and 
another that forbids any public educa- 
tional institution to employ any teacher 
or professor who smokes cigarettes, or 
to grant a certificate of graduation to any 
person who smokes cigarettes ! 


Let us who are formulating concepts 
about Democracy in Education be 
awake to the danger of dogmatism. 


BEHIND ALL the conflicts of nations, 
the armies, the quarreling, the oppression 
and the stupidity, is a false notion of the 
value of human life. All our political 
thinking goes wrong because we cannot 
remember that states exist for men, that 
politics exist for human happiness. War 
is only the last and most dramatic result 
of this blindness ; it is the last issue of a 
statecraft not.made human, and of polit- 
ical systems that follow false gods. Every 
agitation against this topsy-turveydom of 
political thinking is a useful service. For 
only by constant reassertion of the hu- 
man ideal can crooked thinking be made 
straight, a cleansing and healing sanity 
brought to the flushed and tired nations. 
—The New Republic, February 13, 1915. 


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