American ae 


Democracy in Education; Education for Democracy. 


























Vou. IV -No. 8 NEW YORK, OCTOBER, 1915 Sten on 
| = " — = ’ 

| 4) a £3 sc i, es 
Be 4 Seuneny of EDUcdS 
cy 2 Unions and the Were-Wolves 
Fe 


{ ~~ 
: & They tel! us that our Cloistered Craft Should never 


| form a Bond of Union with the men of Mine or Mill, 
(saying that ours is a Learned Profession) 


Fighting for the Right to Live, 


They war us to Stand Aside when other Workers are 
(saying that we are Employes of the Public) 
| 


| Association, 
(saying that thru the Union we become a Menace to Lawful Authority) 


Who but 'the Were-Wolves of the Powersthat Prey 
would seek to control by Keeping the Workers apart? 
Or make a Cheap Appeal to the public whom they 
also throttle? 


Or threaten, when for Common Defense we Unite? 


They demand that we yield the Freeman’s Right of 
| 











CREATIVE EDUCATION 


GARIBALDI M LAPOLLA 
De Witt Clinton High School 


Yet the spirit of seeking was spread- 
ing steadily thru the world. Even the 
schoolmaster could not check it— 
H. G. WELLs, in The World Set Free. 





We make no consistent effort to cul- 
tivate a progressive spirit in our boys 
and girls. They are not made to real- 
ize the responsibility that rests upon 
them—the exhiliration that comes 
from ever looking and pressing for- 
ward.—J. H. Rosinson, in The Spirit 
of Conservatism. 





EDUCATION HAS ever been, and is, 
society’s attempt to propagate itself in 
its own image. Hitherto so severe has 
been the task of beating the haphazard 
forces of nature into a discipline favor- 
able to man’s advancing purpose, that 
whatever little victory was gained in this 
direction, necessarily represented an 
achievement to be cherished and pre- 
served at all costs. To an aboriginal 
tribe, the making of a flint-head arrow 
was an event fraught with serious social 
significance ; and it became their duty in 
consequence to preserve the process of 
its making. The possibilities of further 
invention were narrowly restricted to 
the accidental in those far away times. 
Nature yielded secrets only to the stum- 
blers upon them; not to scrutinizers, not 
to conscious doers. Observation was not 
then a component of the thinking pro- 
cess, but rather a delicate sensational 
function alone—a seeing, not a perceiv- 
ing. Gains over nature were not, there- 
fore, the yield of discovered principles 
fruitfully applied, but betterments at the 
best in methods, in small details, each 
detail in itself possessing great impor- 
tance. To lose one would have been a 
profound social loss; to conserve them 
all a serious social purpose. Add to this, 
moreover, the halo of sentiment, religious 
association or ancestral memories sur- 
rounding each, and the necessity imperil- 
ling the tribe or group to hand down all 


these details in their original integrity 
of form is seen to be fairly destinal in 
its force. And indeed evidence abun- 
dantly shows that the education of the 
child in primitive communities consisted 
of merely imparting the knowledge of 
stereotyped methods of hunting, sowing 
dressing, each steeped in a haze of ritual 
and reverence. 


This dependence upon the past did not 
cease with the emergence of man from 
the savage to the higher stages. Intel- 
ligence indeed began to supersede cun- 
ning and luck, and to throw the physical 
more and more into abeyance. 

Nevertheless, intelligence assisted in 
wresting but a precious little more from 
nature’s hoard of power. The force of 
environment remained still beyond man’s 
ability to modify effectively, and his atti- 
tude to nature remained one of acquiesc- 
ence and impotence. The history of man 
thru all this time has been in the main 
one of slavish crouching and fear in the 
face of the eternal, universal strength. 

Cruel, arbitrary power is the essential 
attribute of God for such a period. And 
the attitude becomes reflected thruout 
all of man’s activities. The racial crouch 
before the Eternal becomes a social 
crouch before the leader. The doings of 
the leader become objects of fear and 
worship in the same way as nature be- 
came because of her inexplicable mighti- 
ness. God is only a synthesis of the 
feared and worshipped forms of nature 
and the feared and worshipped types of 
man. A vast religious pall descends over 
society in consequence, and ifs activities, 
become conventionalized, they assume 
the character of finalities, they become 
‘last words’. And it is to continue these 
that education is established by society. 
It is these conventions, or notions, or 
ideals, or customs, whether in art, poli- 
tics, literature, or industry, that educa- 
tion attempts to pass down in a coating 
of reverence that shall be proof against 
the spirit of questioning. As in savage 

114 











THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


times the ways of the grandfathers are 
taught to the children, in Grecian times 
the works of Homer, the laws of Solon 
and of Lycurgus, are impressed upon the 
children; and likewise in Rome the 
magister and the rhaetor teach that which 
was done and thought of old. 

Yet must we occidentals be thankful 
that our societies have not suffered the 
stagnation which has attended upon a 
similar policy more thoroly pursued in 
the nations of the Orient. Be this as it 
may, the fact remains that the habit we 
drill into the new generation is one of 
reverence for tradition, acquiescence in 
the forms that were and are, jealousy to 
conserve them or, at least, to resist as 
far as possible all attempts at their modi- 
fication, to shear so-called radicalism of 
its so-called impossibilities, or to slacken 
its pace, to do anything in fine which 
will put off a change. This is a heritage 
of the days of limited control, of the 
days of confinement within a repressing 
understanding of nature. But the spec- 
tre of invincible material forces has been 
laid by the perception that man can direct 
them as he chooses. In consequence, it 
behooves us no longer to hold the accom- 
plishments of one generation, or of a 
number of generations, in reverence. 
We must no longer inculcate a spirit that 
accepts with thankfulness, and holds not 
back the receiving hand with distrust. 
What one generation has achieved is but 
an earnest of infinite achievements to 
come. Let us not teach alone the per- 
fection of past works; let us teach the 
wonder of possible works. Let us arouse 
in our young the mood of interrogation 
of what is and has been, and at the same 
time, the complementary mood of for- 
ward-looking thot. Let us show wherein 
the past has failed, and thus set up for 
solution the problem of the future. Let 
us not always praise those who have done 
what they wished to do. Let us turn the 
regard of the young to those who have 
struggled to accomplish that which is 
still to do, and thus urge them to take up 
the work that is still unfinished. 

That is the beginning and the end of 
wisdom—the realization of the need of 


115 


continuous struggle. But this need can 
never be sensed in all its invigorating 
force unless the human spirit questions 
at every step, refuses to avail itself of 
the anchorage of present satisfaction. 
We must learn as a racial habit discon- 
tent with what is as we catch a glimpse 
of a better that shall be. Oh that we 
might hang in the skies as a perpetual 
monitor, a huge question mark flaming 
with the brilliancy of the sun! Then 
should our path to progress be an illum- 
ined and inspiring way, with all the 
minions of gloom and error parched to 
death because exposed to the rays of that 
searching luminance. 

With this as an aim, education becomes 
creative. It partakes of the élan vital, 
the vital impulse of Bergson, the uncon- 
scious, yet visible, radicalism of nature. 
Teachers who thrill to this spirit, this 
attitude of mind, become real pedagogs, 
leaders by the hand into paths that the 
boy and girl only too willingly avoid, and 
that they are taught by the unconscious 
conspiracy of conservative outlook all 
about them to regard with suspicion. 
So we find our youngsters in our litera- 
ture classes glibly enumerating the quali- 
ties that make Dickens or Shakspere, or 
this one or that one, a poet, a writer of 
all times, the embodiment of ideas and 
ideals that are universal, or, as the liter- 
ary critic would have it, permanent. 
And this in the face of our knowledge 
that the past of the race as ordered into 
politics is but an infinitesimal fraction of 
the eternity that lies expansive and vast 
in the so-called gloom of the future. 
What is it to be ‘permanent’? Can any- 
thing be permanent? Not even the 
thunderings of the seas, nor the snow- 
capped ridges that shoulder out the 
heavens. Even they change, even they 
move into newer forms and meanings. 

Of course, this is a spirit, not a method 
that I have been expounding; it is a facet 
of the personality, a hue of the soul. It 
does not lend itself readily to practical 
illustration for imitation. But this will 
serve as an example: In our American 
history classes, it is the universal practise 
to study the Constitution of the United 








116 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


States as a document that is the ‘last 
word’ on the question of government. 
Its makers are denoted by the various 
terms that signify all-wise, all-far-seeing, 
etc, etc. The whole impression left on 
the minds of the pupils is one that hal- 
lows the Constitution as it has forever 
been hallowed in the gilded vaporings of 
Fourth of July orators. To question the 
all-wisdom of the Fathers, to get at the 
temporary, transitory psychology and 
conditions which produced the document 
so as to understand that at best it can be 
but partially applicable, seems to be sac- 
rilege. Again, no teacher dares these 
days to understand Lincoln as he really 
was—the politician in him, for instance, 
the methods common to all men in office 
under the pressure of bickerings and 
dickerings. Lincoln has become one of 
those worshipped types before whom we 
bend in reverence, and woe to him bold 
enough to doubt that Lincoln was guilt- 
less of human faults. The figure of Lin- 
coln has become encrusted with pre- 
judices, and we call them reverence. 
What freedom of outlook we should be 
giving our boys and girls if we once told 
them that Lincoln traded appointments 
for senatorial votes in favor of the 
Nebraska bill of admission! This would 
not destroy anything but a false myth. 
The true Lincoln of the far-reaching 
ideals, the upstanding, kindly Lincoln, 
would not suffer. And besides we should 
learn then to listen to an attack on our 
prejudices without becoming impatient 


and intolerant. It would, moreover, make 
it possible to believe that other Lincolns 
will come to birth, that, perhaps, that 
very agitator we condemn, that rebel 
among us, or that leader cordially hated 
is just that sort of man. 

The questioning spirit, then, should be 
the one to inculcate; not indiscriminate 
acceptance of what has come down to us, 
whether man, institution or belief. Just 
as unconsciously, yet perceptibly, nature 
constantly breaks thru present forms into 
newer ones—the process we call evolu- 
tion—so shall society be always consider- 
ing how to grow out of its present self 
into another, not how to transmit an ex- 
pressed resemblance of itself to the new 
generations. Couple this with forward- 
looking idealism, with a conscious aim 
toward which to push—a quality nature 
lacks—and what barrier shall there be 
to man’s progress along all lines of hu- 
man endeavor? But this should be the 
spirit of education, besides merely ani- 
mating a few leaders altogether outside 
of the sphere of school systems. For 
the school is to become the laboratory 
where the new generation shall be trying 
out its strength and aspirations. It shall 
be no longer what it has been too long, 
a huge flattery of the past, a submission 
to the inertia of minds accustomed to 
nothing but to what they have known, 
and jealous to conserve the whole bag- 
gage intact. It will be experiment, ad- 
venture; not routine, not a following. 
It will be not a memory, but a hope. 





LABOR UNIONS AND THE SCHOOLS* 


Joun C KENNEDY 
Alderman Twenty-Seventh Ward, Chicago 


THERE ARE many people who do not 
realize that organized labor was really 
responsible for the establishment of the 
public school system in the United 
States. 

Before we had the public school sys- 


*From Address before the Chicago Fed- 
eration of Labor. 


tem the children of the working class 
had to go to what they called charity 
schools. It was very much as if your 
children had to go to soup houses to get 
their meals to-day. It was looked upon 
as charity when the children of the work- 
ing class got what little education they 
did get in the period from 1820 to 1850 
in New York City, Philadelphia, and im 





ie i ee eS 


~~ 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 117 


many other eastern cities, as well as in 
a few western cities, and the workers 
rightfully resented it. 

They claimed that an understanding of 
the conditions about them was something 
that every child was entitled to, and that 
inasmuch as education is necessarily the 
foundation of any republic, and is nec- 
essary to the perpetuation of any repub- 
lic, it was the duty of this republic to 
guarantee to every child an adequate 
education. 

* * a 

At that time, when that argument was 
made everywhere by the labor men of 
that day, they were told: ‘That is going 
to destroy the family, it is going to de- 
stroy the home, it is going to undermine 
the state’, and your big business men of 
that day said, “You are taking our money 
away from us’, and all that sort of thing. 
They raised all sorts of arguments 
against the public schools; but, due to 
the persistence of the labor forces of 
that day the victory was won, and the 
system was established. 

But ever since that time there has been 
a perpetual warfare between the forces 
of progress and the forces of reaction, 
the forces of big business. The forces 
of big business have tried to control the 
system which they tried to prevent being 
established in the first place. They have 
ever since tried to conduct it and use it 
for their own purposes. They have tried 
to change it from a system of education 
for the development of the child, to a 
system to prepare a raw material for 
their factories and their shops and their 
mines and their stores. They have wanted 
to make the public school system of the 
United States a sort of an annex to big 
business, a sort of preparatory course 
to their industrial course. They have 
wanted to give only such courses and to 
give such preparation and such training 
to the children as would be useful to 
these business concerns in turning out a 
maximum amount of goods. 

Now, that fight is not won yet. It has 
been going on for a long time, and there- 
fore we should realize that after all it 
is going to depend on the forces of labor 


to say whether the children of the work- 
ers are going to get a real education in 
our public schools or whether they are 
going to be turned out as a machine made 
product ready for these business institu- 
tions and fitted only to work and be a 
part of the machinery of industry, in- 
stead of being human beings with a life 
of their own and a right to live that life. 
That is the fight in which organized labor 
is engaged at this time. It is a continua- 
tion of the original fight. 

* * a 


The present business system, which 
dominates to such a large extent the 
life of this city and this country, cannot 
continue to exist as it is if our children 
are well educated and broadly educated. 
If they get a thorough grounding in 
science, in economics, in sociology, if 
they get a taste of real life, they cannot 
be made servile wage earners ; they won’t 
stand for it, and the business interests 
realize that. Therefore, those who are 
now exploiting out of the life of the 
community millions of dollars, those who 
want to hold labor in subjection, these 
also want to get at and control the public 
school system, because they know they 
cannot hold onto what they have unless 
they also get control of the public schools. 
They realize that, these business interests, 
who are only a small minority of the 
people, but who are tightening their 
grasp and injustices upon the masses of 
the people ; they know they cannot retain 
their supremacy, they cannot retain their 
control, unless they also control the 
schools where the oncoming generation 
is to get its instruction. 

That explains why they are so eager 
to control the school board. It also 
explains why they are fighting against 
the organization of the teachers in the 
public schools. This alliance of the 
teachers with the Chicago Federation of 
Labor is a crime—a crime, don’t forget 
that—in the eyes of the business inter- 
ests; in the eyes of those who want to 
crush out organized labor; in the eyes 
of those who want to grind down labor 
to a bare existence. This affiliation of 
the teachers with the Chicago Federation 








118 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


of labor is a great crime. If they had 
not united with their fellow workers, if 
they had not followed the words of 
Abraham Lincoln, when he said, “The 
strongest tie binding people on this 
planet aside from the family tie, should 
be the tie that unites those who toil’—if 


they had not followed his advice and fol- 
lowed his direction, perhaps they would 
not have looked bad in the eyes of the 
big business. But they have committed 
that crime. They recognize that their 
interests are identical with the interests 
of the rest of labor. 





CHICAGO TEACHERS’ FEDERATION 


J L Encpauv 


THE SCHOOL TEACHERS Of Chicago are 
the pioneers among the school teachers 
of the nation. Brave and courageous, 
they have taken the lead. Undaunted 
and fearless in the face of all the terrors 
that the powers of plunder could bring 
to bear against them, they have blazed 
the way toward the brighter day. 

They recognized that they must join 
the growing ranks of the labor move- 
ment. They discovered, long, long ago, 
that their place was in the great indus- 
trial struggle, in the great economic con- 
flict in the interests of peace and human 
emancipation, and against militarism and 
war and the wages system. 

* * * 


The Chicago Teachers’ Federation, like 
all organizations of labor, was born in 
battle, and grew in strength and influence 
as it won its way through many raging 
conflicts. It went thru its baptism of 
fire in 1895 when it forced the state 
legislature to pass a teachers’ pension 
law. This was followed by an effort to 
secure an increase in wages. It learned: 

First, that self interest for the teachers 
included the whole school system. 

Second, that it included the welfare 
of all workers. 

Third, that it can be promoted only by 
those forces which tend to promote the 
general betterment of social conditions. 

Having learned this thoroly the teach- 
ers saw clearly that they could not com- 
promise with the political and financial 
powers and accept in return such small 
concessions as these powers might deign 
to make. They clearly saw that they 
must refuse to compromise upon any- 


thing less than the rights of the whole 
class to which they belonged. 
* * * 


With the strength of this conviction 
to aid them they began war against John 
D. Rockefeller and his attempts to con- 
trol the Chicago school system, once he 
had closed his clutches upon the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. Dr. William Rainey 
Harper, president of Rockefeller’s 
Standard Oil University, was a member 
of Chicago’s School board, which led to 
his appointment as head of “The Mayor’s 
Educational Commission” that was going 
to “reform” education in Chicago. This 
commission prepared a bill for presenta- 
tion to the state legislature, providing 
for many changes in the school system. 
The bill become known as the “Harper 
Bill” and was the first great cause of a 
universally expressed discontent at the 
close connection between Rockefeller’s 
University of Chicago and the Chicago 
board of education. 

“You needn’t ask me to vote for that 
bill,” said a member of the state legis- 
lature to a lobbyist. “I can smell kero- 
sene all over it.” 

Rockefeller’s hired man, Dr. Harper, 
was outspoken in his desire to bring the 
University of Chicago into closer touch 
with the public schools. But he made 
his adroit advances as though conferring 
a great favor upon the public school 
system. It was evident from the start 
that public opinion was not with the 
doctor. 

The “Harper Bill” fixed the school 
superintendent’s term at six years; pro- 
vided that his salary could not be reduced 








ol- 
ld 
he 
ed 
oir 
ts 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 119 


during that time; placed in the superin- 
tendent’s hands full power in the appoint- 
ment and dismissal of assistant superin- 
tendents, principals and teachers, and 
also power in the choice of text books 
and school materials and the planning of 
the course of study. This would give 
despotic power into the hands of one 
man completely protected from the con- 
sequences of his acts by the salary and 
tenure of office clause. Only one prob- 
lem then remained to elect the right 
kind of a servile school superintendent. 
If the kerosene control back of the 
University of Chicago could name him, 
a great step would have been taken in 
building up the despotic power of the 
Standard Oil Trust. John Dee’s clutches 
would then have closed upon the Chicago 
public school system and the way paved 
for complete control by the Rockefeller 
interests over the education of all the 
nation’s children. 


x~ * * 


Both as president of the University of 
Chicago and as a member of the Chicago 
Board of education, Dr. Harper tried to 
poison and pervert the Chicago school 
system by placing the prejudiced gradu- 
ates of the kerosene institution as teach- 
ers in the Chicago public schools. He 
even went so far as to prefer Chicago 
University students in place of the gradu- 
ates of Chicago normal schools in pick- 
ing teachers for the public schools, but 
Rockefeller’s scheme came to nought. 
The “Harper Bill” was defeated in 1899. 
An effort to revive it in 1903 met a 
similar fate. 

This defeat of Rockefeller’s attempt 
to dominate the public system of the 
nation was directly due to the growing 
power of the school teachers’ union. 
The victories the teachers have won dur- 
ing the last 15 years are the real reasons 
why they are now being persecuted by 
the plunderbund, which includes big 
national business interests that center in 
Chicago. 

There is no cringing or cowardice 
among the Chicago school teachers. 
They learned long ago that when they 
went out to face the corporations they 


must face them alone. Old party poli- 
ticians offered to aid them but when the 
fight grew hot these deserted them. Re- 
form organizations at times offered their 
support, then gradually grew lukewarm 
and finally chilled into inactivity, and no 
wonder. The prominent officials and 
members of these “reform” organiza- 
tions were frequently the tax dodgers 
the teachers were after, and they were 
also the officials of the corporations the 
teachers were attacking. 

So the teachers found their place and 
their support in the labor movement. 
The “black coated proletariat” of the 
universities, the college professors, hast- 
ily crawl under their desks and out of 
sight when one of their number is dis- 
charged for giving voice to the thots that 
are in his brain. Compare with him the 
lowly hodcarrier. If an injustice is done 
one day-laborer on one building under 
construction in Chicago, the Hodcarrier’s 
Union of Chicago can tie up every job 
for a score of miles, from Evanston on 
the north to Gary, Indiana on the South. 
The Hodcarrier’s Union has done and 
is doing and will continue to do this. 
Millions of dollars invested in building 
construction work obey the dictates of 
these hodcarriers. The teachers saw in 
the power of organized labor the support 
they needed. If organization could win 
better working conditions, a shorter 
work-day, increased wages for hod car- 
riers, who had muscle power to sell, it 
could at least accomplish as much for 
the brain power the teachers had to sell. 

*x* * * 


So the teachers established their place 
in the labor movement, and now they are 
not hunting hiding places, like the pro- 
fessors at the state universities and col- 
leges. They have not been intimidated 
by threats coming from the most power- 
ful citadels of capitalist greed. They are 
out in the open, fighting, and fighting 
hard, for victory and humanity. 

They need the support of every father 
and mother who has a hope and ambition 
for son or daughter. There should be a 
teachers’ union in every city, town and 
hamlet that boasts a public school. You 
can help. 








120 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


PROFESSIONAL AID 


THE FOLLOWING quotation from an 
editorial in a recent issue of The Boston 
Teachers’ News Letter should be of 

rtinent interest to the teachers of New 

ork at the present time: 


THE SUFFRAGE QUESTION 

Do teachers want the vote? There is 
a question easier of solution—namely, 
Do teachers need the vote? 

To this there is but one reply possible 
from every teacher who has worked to 
better the conditions of her profession. 
They do. 

Wherever you find women who have 
been seeking to secure higher salaries, 
pension systems, better working condi- 
tions for women and children you will 
find suffragists. Set the daintiest anti, 
possessed of an adoring husband and 
sons, with never a wish unfulfilled, to 
work upon these matters and in a year, 
or two at the most, you have an ardent 
suffragist. 

The fact is that the problem is no 
longer one of sentiment. It no longer is 
susceptible of argument upon the basis 
of right or wrong, of expediency or 
non-expediency. It is an economic prob- 
lem and is settling itself, tho too slowly 
for the best good of humanity. 

There is no doubt that Woman Suf- 
frage is settling itself because of its 
relation to economic problems. The at- 
tempt by the New York Legislature to 
amend or nullify or pass laws that would 
put the schools of New York back where 
they were fifteen years ago, caused the 
teachers, many of whom have been but 
partially interested in suffrage, to form 
The Teachers’ Branch of the Empire 
State Campaign of the Woman Suffrage 
Party with Miss Katharine D. Blake, an 
ardent suffragist, as president. In the 
struggle of the teachers to defeat legis- 
lation which they felt would be harmful 
to the schools, the women teachers real- 
ized as never before what a wasteful, 
archaic method this so-called indirect 
influence is. They quickly appreciated 
how much more dignified their position 
would have been as voters than as 
pleaders with the men who are the happy 
possessors of votes. Women workers 
everywhere are beginning to see that the 
ballot is a most efficient weapon in the 
industrial conflicts that are constantly 


being waged by selfish individuals or by 
selfish corporate bodies. Indeed, in the 
light of the attempts to weaken the effec- 
tiveness of the ,Workmen’s Compensa- 
tion Act, and the strong effort to legis- 
late in favor of the Canneries, not only 
the women but the majority of earnest 
men also, have come to believe that the 
enfranchisement of women is vital if we 
would conserve even the small measure 
of remedial legislation now on the stat- 
ute books of the State of New York. 

In the City of New York there are 
about 19,000 women teachers and about 
2,000 men of the same profession. The 
men are beginning to realize what the 
American Federation of Labor realized 
three years ago, namely, that women 
without the vote in trades or professions 
who form the major part of the workers 
in those lines, are a positive menace to 
men who seek to attain the ideals of the 
profession. Here, then, is a common 
cause to work for, one which holds 
promise not only for those immediately 
affected by its outcome, but for genera- 
tions to come. 

That the movement toward Woman 
Suffrage is ever onward, is indicated in 
press dispatches from different parts of 
the world. Near at home is Canada 
offering equal suffrage to her women; 
across the sea, Queen Wilhelmina of 
Holland announced at the opening of 
Parliament, September 21, that the gov- 
ernment of Holland would introduce a 
bill to eliminate the existing hindrances 
to the granting of suffrage to the women 
of Holland. And, adds the dispatch, 
“the announcement was greeted with ap- 
plause.” Verbum sat sapienti. 


The normal school should contribute to 
the hygiene of the profession by conscien- 
tiously refusing to place its stamp of ap- 
proval on candidates who are careless, ugly- 
tempered, cynical, and void of sympathy for 
children. The public is not in a position to 
protect itself against poor teachers who 
have once been brevetted with the school’s 
diploma. We must stop the stream of un- 
desirables at its source.—Hoag and Terman, 
in Health Work in the Schools. 


2. Fl bp 





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Demecreer in Education; Edacation for Democracy 


Published monthly, except July and August, by 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER CORgPAnTY, INC., 








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VOL. IV OCTOBER, 1915 No. 8 








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. 








BAD BUSINESS 


WILL ANYONE rise up and declare that 
waste and extravagance are to be pre- 
ferred to economy? Will anyone hold 
that bungling and blunder are better than 
efficiency? Certainly not—no one here 
will. 

Must we conclude, therefore, that 
“business administration” is to be pre- 
ferred to all other kinds? By no means! 


I2t 





“Business administration” sounds so 
fine that even when we see it result in 
gross injustice and maladjustment, we 
are at a loss to find a point of attack. The 
trouble lies in the ambiguity of the word 
“business.” For campaign purposes, and 
in all sincerity, business administration 
means the management of affairs in ac- 
cordance with the principle of orderly, 
economical, effective organization. It 
means putting the thieves out and keeping 
them out; it means closing the doors 
against those who make a business of 
looting the public thru fraudulent sup- 
plies or service. But “business admin- 
istration” in the hands of “business men” 
too often means, in practise, the manage- 
ment of affairs in accordance with the 
principle of exploiting the workers for 
the purpose of producing a large profit— 


or “saving.” It means “buying cheap and 
selling dear,” whether applied to goods 
or to labor. 


Business administration means at best 
the protection of the public against ex- 
ploitation by private interests. It means 
at worst—that is, ordinarily—the ex- 
ploitation of one part of the public for 
the benefit of another. 

A very crude example of the applica- 
tion of “business” methods to the admin- 
istration of the public schools—in the 
interests of “economy”—is furnished by 
the assignment of teachers in the schools 
of New York City. There hundreds of 
teachers who have been regularly licensed 
are appointed to regular vacancies—as 
“substitutes.” This means that although 
they have qualified technically to serve 
at a minimum salary of $720, and al- 
though they are doing the work required 
of regular teachers, they are being paid 
on a per diem basis. This is a hightoned 
way of mulcting some hundreds of young 
men and women workers out of their 
“holiday and vacation” pay. There are 
no doubt legimate reasons for “econo- 
mizing” but it is curious that egonomiz- 
ing can be effected only at the expense 
of the workers. It would be considered 
outrageous to change the designation of 
some of the supplies furnished to the city 
by contractors, and then withhold from 
ten to fifteen percent of the contract 
price. But it is considered good business 











122 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


to change the name of a teacher from 
“regular” to “substitute” and then with- 
hold a handsome part of her earnings. 

The same board of education is now 
contemplating another business venture. 
Teachers-in-training have been assigned 
to high schools, where they teach one or 
two classes a day, under supervision, for 
a merely nominal sum, and thus acquire 
the experience which is to qualify them 
to become regular teachers. Such as- 
sistants have heretofore been assigned in 
the ratio of one to fifteen regular teach- 
ers. Some genius in mathematics has 
figured out that by changing the ratio to 
one to ten, the city would save several 
thousand dollars more a year, since more 
classes could then be “covered” by the 
cheap teachers-in-training. This is the 
“business” principle according to which 
clever manufacturers fill their shops with 
“apprentices” and are thus able to com- 
pete handsomely with their less enter- 
prizing competitors, who employ regular 
men and women at regular wages to do 
regular work. 

Let it be noted also that the same board 
of education is now conducting a series 
of very important experiments in part- 
time codperative vocational training. This 
plan has always been under suspicion 
from the side of the laboring people, be- 
cause it offers the opportunity to over- 
load a given trade, thus depressing wages. 
If the New York City board of education 
conducts its own business on the principle 
of excessive numbers of substitutes and 
apprentices, the interested public may 
well believe it will use its schools, en- 
gaged in vocational education, to assist 
employers in the same nefarious prac- 
tises, at the expense of the workers. 

All this may “look good” to the “tax- 
payer.” But in the long run the public 
will find that it is bad business—very 
bad business. 





UNION or no Union—are the chil- 
dren’s interests safer in the hands of 
lawyers, real-estate speculators and 
profit-mongers, or in the hands of 
teachers and workers? 


ADMINISTRATIVE DISCRETION 


THE STATE LecIsLaTuRE of New York 
enacted legislation in 1911 and in 1912, 
making mandatory upon the City of 
New York the payment of increased 
salaries to certain classes of teachers. 
The promotion of the teachers to these 
grades was stayed by a court order, un- 
til December, 1914. The Board of 
Education now requests of the Board 
of Estimate the necessary funds for the 
increased salaries of the teachers af- 
fected. The controller of the city, ever 
watchful of the interests of the “tax- 
payer,” requests a legalistic ruling upon 
the matter, and is informed by the Cor- 
poration Counsel that the granting of the 
additional funds is “discretionary” with 
the Board of Estimate, because the City 
had already provided funds for educa- 
tional purposes. The Board of Estimate 
then informs the teachers that they are 
not to be promoted, because it is “dis- 
cretionary” with the Board, which 
chooses to exercise its discretion against 
the promotion of teachers at this time. 

What is really within the discretion 
of the Board of Estimate is the granting 
of funds to the Board of Education, 
that the latter may not be embarrassed 
in carrying out the necessary work of 
the Department. 

Let us remember that in September, 
1914, J. P. Morgan, a financier, “came 
to the rescue of the city” by lending a 
hundred million dollars, at a profit of six 
millions—$1,500,000 more than the usual 
rate. Let us, therefore, “practise econ- 
omy” that our rescuers may be paid. 


A CONTRAST 


Genuine conservatism is the true basis 

for radical reforms. 
Dr. E. T. Devine, in The Survey. 

Every bit of progress we have made is 
the result of revolution. 
CoMPTROLLER W. A. PRENDERGAST, 

Before the Teachers’ League of New 
York. 





ll, i ee ee a, ae 








WHEN SHALL WE LEARN 
ABOUT SOCIAL FORCES ? 


In “THe Survey” for September 4, 
1915, Dr Edward T Devine considers at 
some length the relation of teachers to 
the social forces surrounding them. He 
calls attention to the fact that teachers 
are in touch with families in which exist 
poverty, overcrowding, under-nournish- 
ment, ignorance and incompetence; and 
thus, the data and also the inspiration to 
become active social reformers would 
seem to be at hand. But the teaching 
profession “has contributed far less than 
might naturally have been expected to 
the radicaliy progressive measures for 
the improvement of living and working 
conditions.” 

Dr Devine offers a few suggestions 
concerning the causes of this backward- 
ness of teachers, but does not pursue the 
analysis to a satisfactory conclusion. 
He seems to consider that the attitude of 
the general public in expecting among 
teachers no understanding of business, 
of legislation, of the public health, of 
courts and hospitals, of wages and rents 
and taxes and politics” has had some- 
thing to do with the neglect of these 
matters by teachers. He does acknowl- 
edge, however, with a touch of sarcasm, 
that teachers show considerable compre- 
hension of business when it comes to 
securing positions and pensions. 

Besides being indifferent to social 
forces, teachers are discovered to be 
lacking in the intellectual grasp of the 
possibilities of their work. 


Thus they become experts in their art, 
but not competent critics of the results. 
They conserve old types but do not create 
the conditions out of which new and 
higher types may emerge. They serve 
law and order, but not life and progress. 
They prevent deterioration but do not 
insure reform. They teach the elements 
of civics but not of justice, liberty and 
human brotherhood. They teach the ele- 
ments of negative personal hygiene but 
not the ideal of positive health which 
must rest upon the basis of social policy 
and democratic control. They teach, 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 









123 






very incompletely it is true, the elements 
of individual thrift and economy, but do 
not lay the foundations for social econ- 
omy and the conservation of public re- 
sources. 


Dr Devine maintains that philosophy 
and pedagogy are not to be blamed for 
this state of affairs. Therefore, a revolu- 
tion in educational theory is not the way 
out. “Teachers’, he says, ‘must learn to 
see more than their pupils, to know more 
than their textbooks, to live a larger life 
than that of their classroom. They must 
claim their legitimate place among adults, 
as observers of all human life, as parti- 
cipants in all social activity.” 

Here we have once more but in slightly 
different form, the old advice that lec- 
turers have been giving to teachers for 
a generation or more. Not only lec- 
turers have been giving it; supervising 
officers and superintendents have also 
presented it, accompanied by “orders” 
ever since there were “systems” of edu- 
cation. Would it be of interest to Dr 
Devine to learn why those trained “in 
schools of philanthropy”, or those who 
have been trained by experience in set- 
tlement work, do not enter the profession 
of teaching in public schools in order to 
attempt to work out on a large scale the 
social problems so commonly met in that 
environment ? 

The answer seems to be that these 
socially minded workers are unwilling to 
subject themselves to the machine ex- 
periences of the public school, or to the 
autocratic system of management so 
characteristic of systems of schools in 
America. 

There is so much machinery in school 
systems that the ordinary requirements 
of soulless efficiency would appear to 
determine that machine-like personalities 
in all of the wheels within wheels should 
fit into and become dynamic parts of the 
system itself. At least, it would be very 
strange if the men and women teaching 
in the schools should in general be any 
different from the kind that are found 
serviceable under the conditions that 
exist. And it would be stranger still if 
the teaching force of any large city should 





















































































124 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


contain any considerable number of 
socially minded persons, alive to prob- 
lems that lie about them on every hand, 
precisely as it would be worthy of marvel 
if the police force of a city should con- 
tain even a small number of men in- 
formed upon or interested in the rela- 
tion between crime and the existence of 
defective human strains. The generally 
accepted and the more obvious of the 
requirements in school systems as well 
as in police departments has resulted in 
the selection of persons fairly well ad- 
justed to their several jobs. And they 
have not been adjusted to the ideal re- 
quirement of comprehending or caring 
much about the social forces with which 
they work. 


Now, if anyone seriously desires to 
see the state of affairs in the schools 
changed, he should not expect the change 
to be brought about thru the method of 
lecturing the teachers. Rather let him 
hold himself in readiness to encourage 
by every means in his power the por- 
tentous manifestation of the passion for 
freedom that is even now stirring the 
souls of teachers everywhere. And let 
him not sneer if one expression of the 
new spirit seems to be in the direction of 
increase of salary. Out of bitter ex- 
perience the teacher feels the urgent need 
of improving the conditions under which 
he works. Also out of his experience 
he resents the tyranny and the insolence 
of educational autocrats. Thru this ex- 
perience he begins to see the supreme 
need for democratic control of education 
in which shall be manifest in large degree 
the influence of the teacher himself. 


Those teachers who are part of the 
new spirit and have helped to give it 
power and effectiveness have come to 
regard the great field where social forces 
play in and thru the schools and the 
community as one which teachers would 
enter naturally, developing interest and 
understanding as they grow in the real- 
ization of their own professional ideals. 
To expect a similiar outcome thru ad- 
vice handed down from above indicates 
a dependence on the improbable. 


NOTE FOR FUTURE REFERENC : 


REPORT OF THE Professional Improve- 
ment Committee of the Teachers’ 
League: 

As the Chicago Teachers’ Federation is 
a body formed to improve the status of the 
teachers of that city, and as its past history 
proves it to have been an important factor 
in the development of one of the ideals for 
which the Teachers’ League stands,— de- 
mocracy in the schools,—it seems fitting at 
this time to send to the Chicago Teachers’ 
Federation the following resolution: 

“Whereas, the Chicago Board of Edu- 
cation has recently passed a resolution 
demanding that the members of the 
Chicago Teachers’ Federation resign from 
that organization or suffer dismissal from 
the teaching corps, 

“Therefore, be it resolved that the 
Teachers’ League of New York City ex- 
tends sympathy to the Chicago Teachers’ 
Federation in its fight for American citi- 
zenship.” 


SPAIN AWAKENING $ 

WHILE A MEMBER of the Romanones 
Cabinet, Senor Ruiz Jimenez did not see 
his way to allow a teachers’ congress, 
convinced as he was, that the Govern- 
ment and especially the then Minister of 
Public Instruction were quite equal to 
the task of supervising and regulating 
national education and of watching over 
the interests and the welfare of the 
teachers themselves. The present Gov- 
ernment and its Minister of Public In- 
struction have thot otherwise, and a 
congress has just taken place in Madrid. 
The discussions were of the most prac- 
tical nature. Several instances came to 
light where teachers received but forty- 
one pesetas a month while board and 
lodging cost sixty. They were thus re- 
duced to the impossibility of earning 
their living and were obliged to request 
the mayors to close the schools. The 
Congress made a strenuous effort to free 
the teachers from the grip of undue 
State supervision and to further the fed- 
eration of their various associations.— 
America, October 2, 1915. 


PRESIDENT SCHURMAN recommended 
in his annual report the participation of 
the faculty in the business administration 
of Cornell University. 








” i m- te afew tt ae 2 











THE AMERICAN TEACHER 125 


NOT A PROFESSION— VI 
SCHOOLS AND VACATIONS 


IF WE LOOK upon the school as the 
home of childhood, the school should be 
open three hundred and sixty-five—or 
six—days a year, because healthy chil- 
dren should have a chance to get together 
every day, and to do something worth 
while, under suitable guidance, every 
day. If we look upon the school as the 
social or civic headquarters or meeting 
place of the community, the institution 
should be open every day of the year. 


Looked at merely from the view-point 
of the children’s needs, it must be recog- 
nized that it would be somewhat worse 
than stupid to do the same things in 
school, day in and day out. We have to 
take into consideration not only the ages 
of the children, but also the seasons of 
the year. Certain things can be done in 
summer that cannot be done in winter, 
and vice versa. The work can be done 
the whole year round, is just the work 
whose value is being most seriously 
questioned—that is, the formal work done 
with benches and blackboards within 
four walls. Certainly the traditional 
“book work” does not do itself so easily 
in the hot months. When we speak of 
school the whole year round, we do not, 
therefore, mean the distribution of the 
present program over four equal quar- 
ters, or the extension of the present pro- 
gram so as to enable the children to get 
more of the same. 


In the cities it is especially true that 
children do not know what to do with 
themselves thruout the summer days. 
But it is almost as fully true in the 
smaller towns and in the country. There 
is really very little work that the children 
can do that it is worth while for them to 
do, from every point of view. And 
whatever value the regular program of 
the school may have is in large part 
neutralized by the drift and irregularity 
of the summer “vacation.” Every teach- 
er of experience knows the difference be- 
tween new classes received in September 
and those received in February. The 
summer vacation is “demoralizing” in 


more ways than one. If it is undesirable 
to coop the children up during the hot 
weather, let us remove the bars from the 
cage—and see how long we may leave 
them off. But the essential thing 
about the school is not—or at least 
should not be—the confinement and the 
mechanization of activities. It is the 
presence of opportunities for interesting 
and profitable activities, with enough 
guidance to insure safety and progress. 
These factors in a regulated life—and 
the life of the child must be regulated— 
are just as valuable during the hot part 
of the year as during the cold part. 


In the interests of the children, there- 
fore, we should be in favor of continuous 
activities in the school plant. And those 
children who are fortunate enough to be 
taken to the country or the woods or the 
seashore need these opportunities quite 
as much as those who are left behind to 
the parks and playgrounds and cobble- 
stones. Indeed, the movement to provide 
“camps” for boys and girls during the 
past fifteen or twenty years, is in large 
measure an attempt to combine the ad- 
vantages of a sensible school with those 
of the summer’s special opportunities. 

One of the gravest injuries produced 
by our traditional summer vacation has 
been the development of the idea that 
regular work—whether in school or in 
some gainful occupation—is a good thing 
to escape. The necessity for regular 
hours, for meeting engagements, for ac- 
complishing assigned tasks, is looked up- 
on as a penalty. Vacation time has be- 
come traditionally the happy time, the 
joyous time. Now one of the urgent 
needs of the day is to change our schools 
in such manner that this pernicious tradi- 
tion may be quickly destroyed. It is 
the lot of honest men and women to 
work, and they must insist that the work 
be joyful. And whatever it is that the 
child must do day in and day out should 
be accompanied by joyful feelings. There 
may be some technical necessity for 
carrying on work that simply cannot be 
carried on joyfully; but there should be 
no excuse in the case of school work, or 
in the case of most of the world’s work. 








126 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The school is the place for the child to 
learn that people have a right to be 
happy. 

We understand well enough the origin 
of the American school vacation in the 
fact that in the early days only a few 
weeks of the winter could be spared for 
schooling; the summer time was needed 
for help on the farm. We also under- 
stand the origin of the business man’s 
and the clerk’s two weeks of vacation. 
These are primarily shoddy imitations 
of the perpetual vacations more or less 
enjoyed by parasitic classes. In so far 
as the stenographer has needed her two 
weeks for rest and recuperation they have 
been gradually wrested as grudging 
concessions from the employer. But 
most workingmen and workingwomen 
get their vacations without pay when 
work is slack and when funds are low, 
in other words, when they would rather 
not. 

Now, if the interests of the children 
require the continuous opportunity to use 
the school, the same interests require 
that the teacher be not used too continu- 
ously—that is that the teacher have 
plenty of vacation. And this for reasons 
quite different from those usually advan- 
ced. It is true that conscientious teach- 
ers work very hard, and that there is an 
appalling percentage of nervous break- 
downs among teachers. It is true that 
many use their vacations for rest and 
recuperation. But people in other lines 
of work exert themselves just as strenu- 
ously, and generally manage to get along 
with shorter vacations. We do not know 
whether the two weeks of the book- 
keeper are quite sufficient. If the worker 
continues at the task year in and year 
out with only two weeks of vacation, we 
do not yet know how much longer he 
could do it with three weeks, or how 
much more efficient his work would be. 

The important reason for breaking in- 
to the teacher’s work with something 
different is the danger of becoming stale. 
This shows itself physically in chronic 
fatigue. Being so tired every Friday 
night that you must go to the theater or 
a party of some kind is a bad sign. The 


worker should show some signs of being 
tired at the end of the day, and at the 
end of the week. But when workers get 
to looking forward to the respite, the 
work is bound to suffer. 

On the mental side, the repetition of 
teaching to plan, year in and year out 
must debase the quality of the week. 
In teaching, as in perhaps no other work, 
there is need for constant renewal of 
outlook and inspiration. This we do not 
get from the ordinary types of recreation, 
so called. We need contact with new 
ideas and with dynamic personalities ; 
these are not to be found where you meet 
other teachers only, nor among those you 
see regularly during the hours out of 
school. 

On the professional side, we need to 
keep in touch with what is being done in 
other places, in other lands. It is neces- 
sary to read pedagogical periodicals and 
books ; but it is not enough to read peda- 
gogical literature. It is necessary to know 
what is going on in the world, into 
which we are supposed to be introducing 
the children; but it is not enough to read 
the papers and magazines. It is neces- 
sary to know the inside of the human 
spirit ; but it is not enough to read novels 
and psychologies. 

To retain our freshness, our enthu- 
siasm, our understanding of our ma- 
terials—which are constantly changing— 
and of our professional technique, which 
is constantly growing—we must do more 
than is possible in the leisure spells be- 
tween one day’s work and the next. The 
teachers who went to the expositions in 
California, the thousands who attended 
summer courses, those who traveled no- 
where in particular, and those who rusti- 
cated back home or among strangers— 
they all probably did more to increase 
the efficiency of next year’s work than 
they could have done in any other way. 
It is not necessary to take courses every 
year, and it is not healthy to rest every 
year. It is probably true that very many 
teachers take courses only in anticipation 
of approaching examinations, or in hopes 
or receiving recognition toward promo- 
tion. But I have been happy to find at 

















THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


summer schools many teachers who took 
courses “just for fun’—than which no 
better reason can be found for doing 
anything. Just to the extent that our 
studies are accelerated by the hope of 
immediate reward, we lack of being pro- 
fessional teachers. But to the extent 
that we do utilize our summers for mak- 
ing of ourselves larger men and women 
we are making ourselves professional 
workers. 

Those who have given little thot to 
the subject cannot see why, even for 
professional improvement, the teacher 
should require more time than does the 
engineer or the physician. The answer 
is that the practitioner in any profession 
who becomes something more than a 
grind must have—and does have—a very 
liberal allowance of time for his advance- 
ment in professional proficiency. The 
danger in every profession is that we 
shall continue to prescribe in accordance 
with the rules which we learned before 
we got our diplomas. It is not necessary 
for the physician to take his vacation at 
fixed intervals, and the only thing that 
makes the vacation periodic for the 
teacher is the organization of the school’s 
work, There is one other feature about 
the teacher’s work that differentiates it 
from that of other professions in this 
connection, and that is the constant in- 
tercourse with immature minds. The 
physician deals with all sorts of people, 
and with adults as well as with children. 
The teacher’s intercourse is for the most 
part restricted to a rather narrow range 
of types, even among the children. 

It is for the reason that the profession 
requires skill, and enthusiasm and adapt- 
ability and continuous readjustment, as 
well as current contact with people and 
ideas and events, that the teacher must 
be given the margin of time—which you 
may call vacation if you like—for pro- 
fessional improvement. 

The teacher, in ordinarily good health, 
who must use the vacation regularly for 
resting up is probably in the wrong de- 
partment. It is quite possible to organ- 
ize school work in such a way that with 
all the devotion and enthusiasm the 


127 


work can be done without wearing the 
human machine out too quickly. But 
even under the best circumstances, the 
demand for a vacation must be made, 
purely on professional grounds. 

If it is said that workers in other 
fields do not get such long vacations, the 
answer is that they would all be better 
off if they did—and society can already 
afford to give all workers vacations of 
reasonable length—“with pay.” It is 
part of our business, as teachers, to de- 
velop standards of living that will help 
to elevate the general standards. And 
the hold upon a certain amount of 
leisure must not be relinquished : we owe 
it to the other workers to show that such 
leisure is worth while—socially and eco- 
nomically, as well as personally—and to 
show them how to use it. 


SCHOOLS AS POLLING PLACES 

Now THAT THE use of school build- 
ings as polling places for general and 
primary elections has been tried in a 
number of towns in various parts of the 
country, without serious injury to the 
morals or prosperity of the communi- 
ties, New York City is ready to experi- 
ment on a small scale. Three of the 
five hundred buildings are to be used 
this year, for the first time, as tho they 
really belonged to the citizens. And 
elections are to be carried on, in three 
districts, as tho they were public func- 
tions, and not merely pretexts for rent- 
ing space in some barber or tailor shop. 
The educational, the social and the eco- 
nomic advantages of using the school as 
the polling place, and of using the school 
principal as the polling clerk, are set 
forth so simply and convincingly in Ed- 
ward J. Ward’s monograph on the sub- 
ject (United States Bureau of Educa- 
tion, Bulletin 1915, No. 13) that we 
may hope to see the most conservative 
communities adopt the simple and demo- 
cratic plan, before very long. 


ARE we today training children to 
live tomorrow under conditions that 
disappeared forever yesterday? 











128 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


THE LAY BOARD 


A Board of Education of twelve to 
fifteen, composed of citizens from all 
walks of life—merchants, clerks, law- 
yers, blacksmiths and men of no par- 
ticular occupation—would constitute 
an average city board of education. 
These divide up into committees on 
course of study, teachers, text books 
and apparatus, janitors and sanitation, 
promotions and graduation, kinder- 
garten, elementary schools, etc. To the 
public they seem to be very busy and 
to do their work reasonably well, and 
for the reason that the whole matter 
of standards of work in public educa- 
tion is as yet so new that the public 
does not know whether or not the 
board of education is doing what it 
should. What they do may be very 
bad for the schools, but the public has 
as yet little means of judging the 
value of what the board does. Educa- 
tional malpractise is as yet hard for 
the layman to recognize. 

The case may be made clearer if we 
imagine the same board to have been 
elected, not to manage the schools 
now, but to manage a municipal hospi- 
tal, and then have them divide up into 
committees and attempt to manage 
the hospital in the same way they 
now do the schools. The committee 
on course of study would be replaced 
by one on medical treatments, the 
committee on teachers by one on doc- 
tors and nurses, the committee on 
text books and apparatus by one on 
drugs and surgical instruments, the 
committee on janitors and sanitation 
by one on nurses and sanitary work, 
the committee on promotion and grad- 
uation by one on operative cases, the 
committee on kindergartens by one on 


maternity ward, and the committee on 
elementary schools by one on chil- 
dren’s diseases. Now assume that 
these committees and the board as a 
whole attempted to exercise the same 
degree of control over the details of 
the management of the hospital that 
boards of education now too often do 
over the schools, giving directions to 
the superintendent, nurses and doc- 
tors as they now do to the superin- 
tendent of schools, the principals and 
the teachers, and we can easily im- 
agine the resulting chaos. Yet the mis- 
management which would take place 
in the case of a hospital would be no 
greater than often takes place to-day 
in the management of some of our city 
school systems. In the case of the 
hospital the results are visible, and 
easily brot within the comprehension 
of the people; in the case of a school 
system the results are more concealed, 
and not so easy to bring within the 
understanding of the electorates. Yet 
a good city superintendent of schools 
makes about as thoro preparation for 
his work as does a physician or sur- 
geon, and is about as competent in his 
line as the doctor is in his.—Ellwood 
P. Cubberly, in “Desirable Reorgan- 
izations in American Education,” 
School and Society, September 18, 
1915. 


KEEPING JOHN AND MARY 
IN SCHOOL LONGER 


STATES WHICH have recently adopted 
laws granting pensions to dependent 
mothers are Wyoming, Oklahoma and 
Nevada. This type of legislation is im- 
portant in facilitating the enforcement of 
compulsory education and _ child-labor 
laws. 





Vi