Spurlos Versenkt! 


Democracy and Loyalty 


By JOHN DEWEY 


Accusing the Accusers 
By JOHN MARTIN 





What Is An Inquisition ? 


Democracy in Education 
Education for Democracy 








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The American Teacher 


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Discipline and Democracy 


tocracy in education has built 

up a tremendously powerful 

: machine, strong in its manifes- 

tation of a personal will to rule. Under 

discipline the system of supervision and 

the rating of the work of teachers puts 

into operation a personally conceived set 

of educational ideals by the most waste- 

ful method known to educational science 
—by force. Un- 


Ca the name of discipline, au- 


to gain the good-will of the teachers and 
the pupils, they may be ignorant of the 
very social forces that make the school 
a passable success in spite of themselves, 
they may flaunt their insolent demeanor 
in the very faces of the members of the 
community, but the teachers and the 
pupils must be loyal and obedient to 
these school officers as such, all in the 
name of discipline. 

In an administra- 


























der the system of | tion that would 
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power brings in a of the needs and 
horde of special PAGE the thinking of 
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crowds out every- } 

one who ph hr Democracy and Loyalty in the Schools. fe ee =e 
play the game as ED ai ideeeésceeesenesars 8 narrow, unin- 
nig oe P Accusing the Accusers. John Martin.. 10 f “poy Phar rac 

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group. Under dis- Why Were the DeWitt Clinton Teach- would be ete 
cipline the weak ers Dismissed? ...........+.2s2000- 12 in the process of 
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— of one * r DS oncdcadaneptenks tb cdenens 21 and a aid of er 
sts, Ww é teachers, wou 

proud retire into determine wheth- 


their corners and 

sneer. Under good discipline, the chief 
autocrat assembles unto himself a band 
of servile men and women who do his 
bidding, sing his praises, and stand 
ready to fight his battles, but none of 
them is competent to fill his place as the 
chief. Thus does the selfishness of au- 
tocracy contribute to its own ultimate 
destruction. 


Under discipline the serving men are, 
sent out to establish centers of discipline 
in the schools throughout the city. 
These men may be incompetent when 
away from the tutelage of the master; 
they may be vulgar, they may be unable 


er they should be 
closed or remain open, whether they 
should afford jobs for the friends of in- 
dividuals already on the inside, or 
whether they should be institutions to 
serve the children. 


Under a true democracy there would be 
less incompetence and dishonesty, be- 
cause the social stimulus and the cor- 
recting influence of the large body of 
workers would aid in the development 
of social and professional ideals. To 
this social program the Teachers Union 
consecrates itself with all the intelli- 
gence and the devotion of which it is 
capable. 


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The American Teacher 








Vol. VII., No. 1 


JANUARY, 1918 


One Dollar a Year 








Go Forth Serenely 


HIS is a time of trial for all men. You 

I are not alone in your doubts and un- 

certainties. You are not alone in 
your suspicions and misgivings. But neither 
are you alone in your faith and in your de- 
votion. 

You have gone forth to battle for Democ- 
racy. You have blundered and stumbled for- 
ward. You have been misled. You have 
yielded to the importunities of the loud- 
mouthed. You confided too readily in the 
enemies of Democracy. You have valued 
your masters at their own price. 

But there is a new day dawning. The 
people are awaking. They are seeking the 
light. They would overthrow all kings and 
rulers and masters of men. They too have 
faith in Democracy. They too are prepared 
to sacrifice. They too look askance upon the 
self-appointed leaders. 

Join hands with the friends of the people. 
Renew your faith in justice, liberty, fratern- 
ity. Assure yourself that the truth does in- 
deed go marching on. Be not distracted by 
the clamor of fear and hatred and bigotry. 
Democracy must win. 

Go forth serenely ; Democracy will win. 


Subversions 
K VERY departure from the accustomed 


mode is subversive of discipline. In- 

fect the soldiers of the Kaiser’s 
armies with the germs of democratic ideals, 
and the discipline of the troops at once be- 
comes subverted. Establish a new code of 
favoritism in the bailiwick of a political 
chieftain, and the discipline of the faithful 
is at once subverted. Attempt to replace 
formal rules of procedure with a rationalized, 
human relationship, and the discipline of 


the perfunctory and irresponsible legalists is 
at once overturned. 

But the subversion of discipline is intoler- 
able. However should you attempt to remedy 
these subversions by a forcible invasion of 
the prerogatives and prejudices of those who 
have become demoralized, for whatever 
reason, you would invite a storm that would 
make the remedy worse than the disease. 
You do not re-establish “discipline” by means 
of demoralization. 

For the guidance of the guardians of the 
public’s morals and welfare and children, let 
it be noted that force draws forth force— 
unless it draws forth fear; that brutality be- 
gets brutality—unless it begets supineness; 
that coercion arouses violence—unless it in- 
duces feeble compliance; that lawlessness in 
high places nurtures anarchism—unless it 
strengthens autocracy—or incites revolt. 

Most subversive of all discipline is the 
monstrous doctrine that a righteous end jus- 
tifies an alliance with the devil. 


Disillusioned 


ITH high hopes and elation young 

V\ men and women come every year 

to devote themselves to the noblest 

of all callings. Strangely enough, many of 

them actually believe that the teaching busi- 

ness calls for sacrifice and service of a lofty 

type. They count the cost, stated in terms 

of prices and wages, and resolve to bear the 
worst in a noble cause. 

They come. Some quickly find the strain 
too severe, the burden too heavy. They leave, 
acknowledging their incompetence or sooth- 
ing their pride as best they can. Others 
make a brave show against tremendous odds 
for the period of trial, they are acknowledged 
fit, and enter upon a career of destruction 
and waste of society’s most precious re- 





4 The American Teacher 


sources. Others adapt themselves to the de- 
mands of the “system,” struggle on mechan- 
ically, and get their reward in the various 
substitutes for a living wage that our ingeni- 
ous civilization has devised. 

There is one group that is especially pa- 
thetic. Here are the young men and women 
of unusual ability, of unusual energy, of un- 
usual enthusiasm, of unusual devotion. With 
all the defects of their virtues, including 
youthfulness and tactlessness and exuber- 
ance, they go forth in search of adventure 
and experience. They are assigned work 
under a chief; but they are denied life under 
a leader. Whatever impulses bring forth in 
action becomes habitual unless it be flagrant- 
ly objectionable. Without guidance and 
leadership, without inspiration and help, 
they move forward as best they may. They 
acquire modes of thought and action that may 
prove to be at last destructive of their own 
exalted purposes; but there is none to show 
them the better way. They arrive at a point 
from which further cooperation with those 
in authority appears impossible. After being 
defrauded of their faith and their devotion, 
they are cast out as unfit. 

This is in short the status of those high 
school teachers whom the New York Board 
of Education recently “disciplined” with 
transfers and dismissals. They came to the 
school with an abundance of ability and 
worthy purpose. In a few short years of 
professional neglect they have been driven to 
cynicism. Can anything more subversive of 
school spirit be conceived? Can anything 
more outrageous be inflicted upon high- 
minded and sensitive men and women? 

And not content with robbing them of the 
heart’s treasure and the purse, the system 
seeks to rob each of his good name. And this 
in 1918, almost. 


Spurlos Versenkt 


N experiment along the line of silent 
and expeditious elimination of unde- 
sirables has been successfully inaug- 


urated in.New York, now the leading city of. 


the world in so many ways. A group of 
teachers who had for various reasons become 








Vol. VII, No. 1 


personae non gratae were selected for the 
first test. Some twenty odd were individu- 
ally interviewed, selections were made from 
the answers they had given to certain ques- 
tions, and the transfers of six recommended. 
There was no hearing, no opportunity to face 
charges or accusers; there was no explana- 
tion to the public. The transfers were or- 
dered and put into effect. 

Children coming to school knew only that 
on one day such and such teachers were with 
them ; and that on another day, they were no 
more. Like merchant ships in time of ruth- 
less U-boat warfare, they start upon the high 
seas full of courage and of hope. Their 
names may endure, a little while, with the 
barbarous comment, Spurlos versenkt. 


* * * 


NCOURAGED by the success of the 
first attempt, the foremen of the 
educational system went a step fur- 

ther. They followed the same procedure as 
before, but restricted by the law, they were 
compelled to formulate charges and to give 
a “trial” when they decided to dismiss three 
of the most “undesirable” of the high school 
teachers. The teachers have had their trial 
—a trial which an experiénced lawyer and 
former president of the Board declared to be 
the most pitiable travesty of a trial he had 
ever witnessed—and they have been dis- 
missed. 

Altho charges were made and trials were 
held, the public does not to the day of our 
going to press know just exactly what it is 
that made these teachers undesirable. Of the 
twenty-five or more members who voted for 
the dismissals, the few who spoke alleged as 
many separate and distinct reasons for vot- 
ing as they did. And several reasons were 
suggested by those who voted against the dis- 
missal. But the real reason in each case is 
a secret. Everybody knows of the catas- 
trophe ; there has been a nasty lot of public- 
ity. But the purpose of the guardians of 
righteousness has been achieved. The objec- 
tionable teachers are now spurlos versenkt. 

Next time, with experience gained, it will 
be possible to turn the trick without stirring 
up such a mess, 
































January, 1918 





FTER the war, when you are in Venice, 
they will show you where stood the 
ducal palace, many years ago. They 

will tell you that on one wall was an opening 

large enough to receive a roll of paper or a 

breakfast roll. They will tell you that this 

opening bore at one time an ornamental lion- 
head, that the opening was indeed the mouth 
of this lion. 

The rest you know from the books you 
have read. In the declining days of the 
Republic, when Venice was governed by a 
closed group of merchants and adventurers, 
it was a very simple matter to throw into 
the Lion’s Mouth anonymous accusations 
against a business or political rival, and 
to have him disposed of with neatness and 
despatch—and with secrecy. 

It is a long time since civilized communi- 
ties accepted with complacence the political 
principle that the king can do no wrong. It 
is a long time since thoughtful people were 
willing to concede to a select group absolute 
authority over the people’s destinies. But a 
revival of the ancient and honorable prac- 
tises of medieval Venice seems about due. 
As frequently happens, the educational sys- 
tem leads. 


A Promising Outlook 


ITH the new year the Department 
of Education of New York City 


adopts a new machinery of admin- 
istration. A Board of forty-six members is 
replaced by a Board of seven. In appointing 
the members of the new Board, Mayor Hylan 
intimated that he approved a policy that 
would make use of the experience and ideas 
of the teachers ; and in accepting his appoint- 
ment, Commissioner Arthur S Somers de- 
clared *aat one of the first tasks of the new 
Board would be to establish cordial relations 
between the school authorities and the teach- 
ing staff. 

Here are two promises which every teacher 
should go forth to meet in good faith. What- 
ever distrust may lurk in our partisan preju- 
dices, whatever suspicions may have been 
aroused by the actions of school authorities 








The American Teacher 5 





in the past, here is an opportunity to start a 
new program in a new spirit. 

Under the new State law, the Board of 
seven will have large and well defined pow- 
ers. The educational and the administrative 
functions of the Department approach clear 
separation. Already it is announced that a 
systematic building program is to replace the 
happy-go-lucky or district-preferential chaos 
of the past. Waste is to be eliminated for 
purposes of economy ; but essential activities 
are not to be curtailed. There is no promise 
of increased salaries for teachers, but per- 
haps the new Commissioners are sufficiently 
open-minded and willing to be shown whether 
indeed such increases are justifiable. 

Interviewed on his appointment, Mr Som- 
ers, subsequently elected President of the 
Board, is reported to have said: 

Our first task will be to find means of 
restoring confidence of teachers, parents 
and children in the school administration. 
We want all united to do their best work 
for the schools. There will be no favors 
or prejudice shown, and we will play the 
game with the cards on the table. 

It is to be hoped that Mr Somers, in mak- 
ing these observations, was not speaking in- 
vidiously. Since he has himself been a 
member of the Board of Education for nearly 
a quarter of a century, he must know whether 
there has ever in the past been lack of con- 
fidence in the school administration ; whether 
in the past there has been failure to obtain 
united action for the benefit of the children ; 
whether in the past there has been undue 
favoritism or partisanship in the administra- 
tion. 

We bespeak for the new Board the sincere 
and whole hearted co-operation of all teach- 
ers, that they may learn its purposes and 
methods thru its actions. Forget past fail- 
ures: give the New Board a Chance. 


THEN AND NOW 


In the seventeenth century, not only did heresy 
mean possible burning, or imprisonment, but 
the very suspicion of it destroyed men’s peace, 
and rendered calm pursuit of truth difficult or 
impossible—T. H. Huxley in Descartes’ Dis- © 
course on Method (1870). 





6 The American Teacher 


Professional 


HE school system is clogged and bur- 

I dened with many unfit teachers. It 

matters not of which school system 
you are speaking. Mr William G Willcox, 
president of the Board of Education that 
went out of existence with the old year in 
New York City, was speaking of the system 
under his direct observation. He was asking 
for the abolition of the “permanent tenure” 
evil, and for the establishment of a plan 
whereby the teacher’s position would be sub- 
ject to periodical approval by “some compe- 
tent and independent body.” 

None knows better than the teachers do 
themselves how much need there is for the 
destruction of that bulwark of the incompe- 
tent. But perhaps none knows so well how 
unreliable and how dangerous is the plan 
that Mr Willcox offers to substitute. The 
present law for the teachers in many of the 
States, and for practically all the larger 
cities, makes removal dependent upon the 
proving of charges. This is a serious handi- 
cap to the administration. It makes almost 
impossible the removal of teachers for po- 
litical or personal or sectarian reasons, in 
that it makes the frank application of such 
anti-social animus extremely difficult. The 
recent episode in New York, the Chicago 
affair of June, 1916, the removal of the Buf- 
falo teacher for participation in political 
demonstrations, and many other incidents 
show that in spite of the law it is still pos- 
sible to get rid of those against whom the 
“authorities” are really anxious to move. 
The persistence of incompetent teachers and 
principals is not in itself an indication of the 
need for legislative reform; it shows at the 
most that superintendents have been indif- 
ferent to incompetence and that commission- 
ers have been more concerned with partisan- 
ship and personalities than they have with 
professional standards and proficiency. 

Mr Willcox bemoans the fact that the 
“opinions of the supervising staff and the 
principal of the school, who are best qualified 
to judge of the work and influence of these 
teachers” count for little or nothing in the 
determination of reappointment or dismissal. 





Vol. VII, No. 1 


It is here that boards of education need edu- 
cation. It is so easy to assume that because 
one happens to be the principal of a school, 
he is thereby qualified to judge the “work and 
influence” of teachers. Likewise supervising 
staffs. What pathetic blindness! So many 
of the principals, as any experienced teacher 
can tell you, are qualified only to judge of the 
emotional impression wrought upon them by 
the teachers in question. They have not—so 
many of them—either scholarship or insight, 
they have not either training or vision, to 
understand more than the success or failure 
of teachers in meeting certain formal re- 
quirements, in meeting certain personal re- 
quirements. So many of the principals see 
in teachers only good fellows or cranks, only 
regulars and irregulars, only subservience or 
independence. 

There is a serious loss to the public in the 
burden of the incompetent teachers. The in- 
competent teacher leads to incompetent prin- 
cipals and supervisors, who in turn engage 
and retain more incompetent teachers. The 
remedy does not lie, as Mr Willcox seems to 
think, in placing the entire responsibility in 
the hands of the professional chiefs. It is a 
step forward to recognize the province of the 
professional members of the system as dis- 
tinct from the lay members. It is a mistake, 
however, and one that is fundamental, to con- 
ceive of the principals and supervisors as the 
professionals. You will not have competent 
teachers in quantum suff until you require all 
teachers to be professionals ; nor will your re- 
quirements avail unless they go hand in hand 
with opportunity for democratic participa- 
tion in the professional conduct of school 
affairs. 
~ The incompetents must go. But they are 
not to be eliminated thru the administration 
of chiefs selected by a system that places a 
premium on certain types of incompetence, 
and that penalizes other types of incompe- 
tence—both in utter disregard of the actual 
social and technical needs of the children. 
When teaching becomes a profession and 
when the war for democracy is won, Mr 
Willcox may rest assured that the schools will 
not long retain the burden of which he com- 
plains. 














January, 1918 


They Mean Well 


HE is one of the twenty-two thousand. 

She considers herself a person of ad- 

vanced ideas. She is not a teacher of 

the “ordinary” type. She thinks of 

social problems and has notions that are dif- 

ferent. She has met and spoken with some 

of the leaders in the fight for democracy in 

education and elsewhere. Oh, yes, she knows 

some of the leaders quite well. She attends 

all the rallies conducted by friends of free- 

dom. Everybody knows she is for progress. 
She is not afraid to think. 

But she has not done a thing to help in the 
fight. She has not yet contributed one cent, 
she has not contributed one suggestion which 
might help in the battle. She is afraid to run 
the risk of committing herself. She belongs 
to the family of “bum” sports. She has many 
brothers and sisters among the twenty-two 
thousand. 


Patriotic Service for 
Teachers 


HE Chicago Federation of Women High 
School Teachers, affiliated with the 
A F of T, outlines plans for work 
that should prove valuable to teachers in all 
parts of the country. The committee realiz- 
ing the gravity of the present world situa- 
tion, and looking ahead to the post-bellum 
reconstruction, is organizing courses of study 
along social, economic and administrative 
lines to prepare teachers for the new forms 
of service which will undoubtedly be neces- 
sary in the near future. To pass successfully 
thru this critical time and emerge with the 
principles of democracy and justice triumph- 
ant, there must be in all countries a well in- 
formed and thinking public; and this is cer- 
tainly a part of the teacher’s responsibility. 

It is the imagination and vision of this 
committee that enable them to see the need 
for a broad basis for intelligent citizenship— 
a broader basis than the school can furnish 
thru a smattering of “civics.” 

In addition to this plan the Federation is 
working along three lines, educational, indus- 
trial, civic and legislative. In the industrial 
field the committee is cooperating with the 
Committee on Women and Children in Indus- 





The American Teacher ? 


try of the State Council of National Defense. 
Under the Civics and Legislative Depart- 
ments is included cooperation with organi- 
zations with which the Federation is affili- 
ated, that is, the Federation of Labor, the 
Woman’s Trade Union League, the Public 
Ownership League, and the Committee on 
Public Affairs. There will also be a commit- 
tee to watch and report on the action of the 
City Council in the interest of teachers and 
citizens and a similar committee to report on 
the School Board. 


A Slip 


T is unfortunate that the members of the 
I new Board of Education of New York 
City had not an opportunity to confer 
before issuing statements to the press. 
Mr Frank Wilsey, later elected Vice-presi- 
dent, declared that he would do all in his 
power to eradicate the unions from the teach- 
ing body. He evidently was not aware that 
Mr Somers contemplated the establishment 
of harmony and cooperation. Nor did he 
say anything about getting after the janitors’ 
union. 

Perhaps the experience of the Federal 
Government with its postal employes on the 
one hand, and with the railroad administra- 
tion on the other, will teach Mr Wilsey a 
lesson on the subject of unionism. 


——— 


GeAmerican Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published monthly, except July and August, by 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER COMPANY, INO., 
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Democracy and Loyalty in the Schools 


JOHN DEWEY 


AM somewhat overwhelmed by the ve: y 

I generous words of the speaker and this 

warm reception which you have given. 

I am deeply touched by it. I feel it is 

one of the compensations that comes to a 

teacher in the feeling of identity with his 

fellow-teachers. I pity more than anything 

else those teachers who have not the imagina- 

tion and who have not the courage to identify 

themselves with the interests of their fellow- 
teachers. 

I want to say a few words first from the 
standpoint of a citizen who is deeply inter- 
ested in the nation at the present crisis. Not 
because I think my personal attitude is a mat- 
ter of any great importance to anybody but 
myself, but because it will explain the stand- 
point from which I approach this matter. 
Ever since President Wilson asked for a 
breaking of relations with Germany and 
afterwards for war against that country, 
more and more as he has stated why we are in 
this war, I have been a thoro and complete 
sympathizer with the part played in this 
country by this war and I have wished to see 
the resources of this country used for its suc- 
cessful prosecution. As has been said over 
and over again, this is not merely a war of 
armies, this is a war of peoples. There is no 
aspect of our lives to which this war does not 
come home, or which it does not touch. And 
in my judgment we ought not to be neutral 
when the war comes home in one form or an- 
other and to talk about being neutral is to 
talk foolishness. Now, in a situation of this 
kind unity of mind and effort is of great im- 
portance. We find a considerable number of 
persons whose methods I will not attempt to 
describe, who are wasting a great deal of 
time and energy of their own and other peo- 
ple by running about and making irrespon- 
sible accusations against opinions of people 
they do not happen to agree with. If I were 
to follow their example and use their lan- 
guage I should accuse them of disloyalty and 
sedition to the nation when unity of thought 
is demanded of all. I was glad to read the 
letter of President Willcox. I only wish that 
he or someone else in authority whose words 
would carry weight had said something of 
that kind with equal vigor a little earlier. 
If it had been said positively and earlier per- 
haps we could have been saved some of this 
disagreement which has happened. 


bed "© Address delivered at DeWitt Clinton High School, December 
15, 1917, at a meeting held by the Teachers’ Union. 


I wonder whether any of these gentlemen 
have asked themselves seriously what the 
effect upon the pupil in the public schools 
may be, especially upon the older boys and 
girls, in seeing their teachers held up to sus- 
picion, if not to direct accusations, as persons 
whose loyalty needed to be proved before it 
could be taken for granted; of putting the 
teachers in a position where all of the cynic- 
ally-minded students may say, after hearing 
their teachers speak seriously on the subject 
of loyalty and patriotism, “Oh, they have to 
~~ those things or lose their jobs if they 

on’t.” 


Now I repeat it is because I believe in a 
vigorous prosecution of this conflict until we 
have made secure the cause of democracy and 
because I recognize the need of unity in sen- 
timent and ideas for that purpose that these 
things grieve me deeply; they more than 
grieve me; they arouse my indignation that 
we, the public, should approve and encourage 
these irresponsible men simply to gain a 
momentary weight or to make a success of 
some private point of their own. I do not 
think that to defeat Prussianism abroad it is 
necessary to establish Prussianism at home. 
The other day when a friend of mine some- 
what recklessly referred to me in conversa- 
tion with a member of the Board of Educa- 
tion as being in favor of a reasonable degree 
of free speech at the present time, a member 
of the Board said, “Why, no, that cannot be 
so. Mr Dewey is pro-Ally.” In other words, 
apparently if you are pro-Ally, you must be 
in favor of establishing Prussianism in New 
York City. This war is going to be a war of 
free people on the basis of the actions appro- 
priate to a free people. 


I did not expect until to-day to speak more 
specifically of the issue with respect to the 
trial of the persons who have been suspended 
and transferred because I had not been able 
to get to the hearing and I did not wish to 
prejudge the case nor did I wish to speak 
simply on the basis of having heard opinions 
and views of one side. But a transcript of 
the evidence and proceedings of the trial of 
the three who are under suspension has been 
put into my hands and I have had time 
enough to make a reasonably thoro study of 
that document and I wish to give you the 


result of as fair and unbiased an opinion on 


this testimony as I can. 
I speak without any violence of language 
































January, 1918 


or without any accusations against anybody, 
but simply set forth what seems to me the 
clear inference from what is contained in the 
statement—which is not one-sided but the 
testimony of all of the people who appeared 
before the High School Committee. In doing 
that I shall leave out of the account for the 
most part the question as to how far the in- 
quiry may have been motivated by the action 
of the teachers of De Witt Clinton High 
School, and especially of the Teachers’ Coun- 
cil of the high school in passing their resolu- 
tions in disapprobation of Mr Whalen. All I 
will say about that is, that there is a series of 
most extraordinary coincidences; and that an 
expert mathematician working on the ordi- 
narily received formula of reason probably 
would arrive at some interesting results as to 
the probability of a number of coincidences 
that point to the same impression. However, 
all that is like a large part of Mr Tildsley’s 
testimony, a matter of inference, and there- 
fore I shall leave that out of the account. I 
wish to say simply something about the meth- 
ods of conducting the public schools of New 
York City as herein demonstrated, with ref- 
erence to the treatment of teachers—and I 
still am inclined to believe that teachers are 
an important factor in any school or educa- 
tional system. 

The first is that a teacher at the present 
time is subject to discipline and discipline of 
a serious kind, to dismissal, and on the basis 
of charges so vague that there is no court of 
law in which they would have the slightest 
standing. Our forefathers have had to fight, 
and I think they put up a good fight. I am 
not a pacifist myself, but would be for the 
right of individuals in society to a hearing in 
courts that had an orderly method of proce- 
dure. I do not think all the technicalities of 
indictment are necessary, but at least those 
technicalities are demanded which protect in- 
dividuals from loose accusations. In so far 
as this trial is an example, we have not se- 
cured to our teachers those ordinary civic 
rights. I only know that after reading the 
testimony, in voting, I should not know what 
I should have voted on. I have Mr Tildsley’s 
public statement that the teachers were not 
disloyal, the newspapers have published that 
they are disloyal, and if nine out of ten per- 
sons in the street were asked, they would say 
the teachers were disloyal. If teachers can 
be suspended under a condition where it can 
be said they are and are not disloyal, these 
teachers have not gotten the rights of a fair 
hearing ; everywhere else in the life of a citi- 
zen they have the right to fair trial before 
being held guilty. 

These teachers are not under trial for acts 


The American Teacher 9 


of any kind. They are under accusations, 
mind you, I do not say there were not any 
acts. There were, evidently, acts, judging 
from the series of strange coincidences I re- 
ferred to. I merely say they were not ac- 
cused of any acts, but so far as the evidence 
brought against them there is absolutely 
nothing but charges about their private 
views and private opinions; and those views 
and opinions not expressed within any school, 
but brought out, taking it at their worst, 
taking it at Mr Tildsley’s and Mr Paul’s 
statements, views and opinions brought out 
in a purely private, personal interview. I 
don’t know what this is called in 1917, but I 
know what it used to be called. It used to be 
called the Inquisition. 

I am not given to taking at the face value 
statements made by a lawyer in the course of 
a legal trial, but when Mr Smyth said the 
following, I believe it is the literal truth: “It 
is something comparable to the old Salem 
witchcraft trials that a person who is sup- 
posed to have views that were not in accord- 
ance with the views of the community, to put 
on trial and asked supposititious questions, 
not as to what they had done, not as to what 
their duty requires them to do, but taking a 
case that is not in point at all, what would 
you thendo...... ..?” 

Questions such as “What would you do in 
a certain case?” constantly occur in the testi- 
mony. “What would you do?” and then when 
the person would say, “There could not be 
any such case,” there would be another 
hypothesis built up to support the first. It is 
on record here. When Mr Mufson said he 
would not have a discussion on Anarchism in 
his class, the lawyer on the other side, after 
many preceding supplementary hypotheses 
said, “Supposing the Board of Education or- 
dered you to have such a discussion, what 
would you do?” Well, Mr Mufson’s reply 
ought to become a literary classic. He said, 
“If the moon were made of green cheese, 
would I let the cow jump over it?” Ladies 
and gentlemen, if this thing were not seri- 
ous it would be one of the most humorous 
documents of the ages. But it is serious not 
merely from the standpoint of these individ- 
uals but because this shows what any and 
every teacher in the public school system of 
the City of New York is subject to to-day; 
and that is a serious matter. 

Now my last point is that on certain mat- 
ters there is a pretty direct conflict of testi- 
mony and in one of the three cases at least 
the whole and only accusation, so far as I can 
see, is with respect to points of disagreement 
and different views on the parts of the prose- 
cutors and defendants. I am not going into 





10 The American Teacher 


a legal analysis of the testimony. I do not 
think it is necessary to suggest any in this 
suit. There are such things as perfectly 
honest differences on matters. But such a 
serious thing as terminating a man’s career 
and doing it in the present time under these 
vague clouds of treason and disloyalty, pos- 
sibly terminating his career everywhere, all 
of that in the form of a trial where there is 
no stenographic report of interviews upon 
which the evidence was based—now is that 
fair? Is that a basis for disciplining any- 
body at the present time? What would hap- 
pen in a case taken to a higher court, in a 
civil court of the country when it is a ques- 
tion not of action, but of what was said in 
the lower courts and one party got up and 
said “a certain thing was said,” and someone 
else, “something else,” and there was not a 
witness or an account of such statements? 
Well, that is the condition as demonstrated 
here under which the teachers of New York 
City are living to-day. 

I have come to the conclusion that it is not 
the teachers who are under indictment; it is 
the method of administering the public school 
system of New York City in relation to the 


Vol. VII, No. 1 


teachers. I do not say that the present Board 
is responsible for it. I do not say a Board of 
Superintendents is responsible. The respon- 
sibility comes back to the public that 
supports these accusations. And I hope 
this meeting to-night will be ‘a_ special 
one in the manifestation of a greater 
interest on the part of the public, the 
citizens of the City of New York, in 
the treatment of the teachers. Some day we 
may arrive at a point at which education, 
public education in the city, will be dignified 
as well as a serious and a progressive thing 
because it has the intelligent understanding 
and backing of the citizens of the city, and 
the teachers are given the responsibility and 
the protection that is necessary to the per- 
formance of the social function which is cer- 
tainly second to no other in its public im- 
portance. 

And if you want my opinion of the day 
when there will be satisfactory evidence that 
the teachers’ profession is adequately pro- 
tected in the pursuit of its calling, I would 
suggest this test—when teachers can no lon- 
ger be dismissed by 24 votes while it takes 34 
votes to dismiss a janitor. 





Accusing the Accusers 


{The following paragraphs are extracts from a 
speech delivered by Mr. John Martin, member of the 
New York Board of Education, during the debate 
preceding the dismissal of three teachers charged 
with holding views “subversive of discipline.” The 
facts in the case may be found in the December 
number of THE AMERICAN TEACHER, pages 160 to 
163.—THE EDITeRS. ] 


* * * In all these cases, the issue is 
clear and simple. It depends entirely upon 
one’s acceptance or rejection of well-author- 
ized and highly endorsed principles of peda- 
gogy. The teaching of instinctive respect, 
the teaching of the instinctive attitude of rev- 
erence, the teaching of instinctive bowing 
before authority is condemned by the best 
and most modern authorities on education. 
And Mr Schmalhausen, in asserting his pref- 
erence for reflective respect, reflective sub- 
mission to authority, reflective obedience to 
law, and in his actions in the classroom along 
these lines was merely expressing in word 
and action the teaching of Professor Dewey, 
of Edmond Holmes in England, of a number 
of the highest authorities in education. * * * 


Is it not a fact that in Prussia the teachers 
have been forbidding reflection on open ques- 
tions of patriotism, and is it not this that has 
brought on this horrrible catastrophe to the 
world? Mr Schmalhausen was justified in 
saying that he would not teach instinctive, 
dog-like, mechanical respect for authority. 
Are we to declare that the teachers of New 
York are ordered, under penalty of dismissal, 
to teach instinctive respect for Governor Sul- 
zer? A dog-like devotion, as Schmalhausen 
expressed it, to the man who sat in the gover- 
nor’s chair? Or do we prefer that there shall 
be reflective respect, aye, and reflective pat- 
riotism? 

I speak from the viewpoint of one who 
agrees that it is essential in this crisis that 
we shall have a united nation. It is essential 
that we shall have behind the President of the 
United States and the force of the army and 
navy an earnest public opinion which will 


lead the nation to endure without complaint 


great hardship and to make without murmur- 
ing, if necessary, the last great sacrifice. 





on 























January, 1918 


And, in order that we may have that continu- 
ing public opinion, it must be an informed 
and reflectively patriotic public opinion. 

We have seen the outcome of merely in- 
stinctive patriotism in the downfall of Rus- 
sia. There was a nation that had been 
brought up in instinctive respect for the Czar 
and the government, not permitted to reflect 
in the schools, not allowed to have education 
which allows all discussion in the classroom, 
and not allowed to discuss the questions that 
were before the government—and that na- 
tion in the hour of trial has failed, because 
this instinctive patriotism was not a sure 
foundation. On the other hand, in France 
where the doctrines that Schmalhausen ex- 
pressed at that trial have been taught * * * 
there is consummated a reflective patriotism 
which has carried the nation through the 
fiery furnace with sturdy endurance. 

Shall we, the Board of Education, in this 
time of stress issue an. edict to our teachers 
that they are forbidden in future to cultivate 
reflection, but that they must react on their 
pupils with brute force, forbidding reflection, 
but asserting always what views may be held 
and must be held without question? 

It is said that Schmalhausen’s reaction to 
that hateful letter was not strong enough. I 
think any person with experience in the class- 
room reading his corrections on the sheet will 
recognize immediately the spirit in which the 
corrections were made. He could have said: 
“You are insane; you ought to be incarcer- 
ated” But under the present principles of 
pedagogy that is not the attitude of the 
teacher toward the budding mind when the 
budding mind is growing wrong in the Amer- 
ican school. He says to the boy, “Is this ra- 
tional?” leaving him to inquire into the ra- 
tionality of his own state. He treats the boy 
with gentlemanly courtesy, not as a Prussian 
would treat the boy, with brutal severity, but 
opening up the boy’s mind to perceive his 
error, in the language which one gentleman 
would use to another and not in the language 
which one brute would use to another. It is 
the language of the university, not of the gut- 
ter. It seems to me that the teacher is there 
to guide the youth with wisdom and with 
mercy, not to chastise the boy with scorpions 
for every error of which he may be guilty. 


You have said there are no charges of dis- 
loyalty because he proved his loyalty up to 
the hilt. Do you or do you not believe him? 
Well, then, you are against a stone wall. All 
you can allege is that any teacher who de- 
clares his loyalty to the United States, who 
is supporting the government in the present 
war, who expresses his approval of the acts 











The American Teacher 11 


of the President in conducting the war 
against Germany, you know by intuition is 
lying. That is what it comes to. Under oath, 
these teachers declared their allegiance pre- 
cisely as officers of the government are called 
upon to declare their allegiance. And if you 
repudiate their statement you are only saying - 
that a teacher, under oath, will not be be- 
lieved if you intuitively in advance are con- 
vinced that he is a disloyal subject. * * * 

These men are not professing a right to 
hold disloyal views. When the cases were 
first brought up that was what I thought was 
coming out—that they had a perfect right in 
a democracy to teach extreme pacifism, oppo- 
sition to conscription and the like, but there 
is not an atom of that in the whole proceed- : 
ing. There is not one of them who claims the 
right to say things that a number of people 
in England are saying. There is not one of 
them who is asserting that the doctrine of 
free speech justifies disloyalty. They are as- 
serting that they teach positive, constrictive 
patriotism and abhor such sentiments as were 
expressed by that poor misguided boy. What 
do we ask from our teachers, pray? Do we 
ask that they should submit to a decision 
upon their thoughts which are not expressed 
by word or action? Are we to pass upon 
them as holding opinions subversive of dis- 
cipline, notions which they have never ut- 
tered. Surely, if we want our teaching staff 
to be in conformity with the noble spirit of 
loyalty, we will say to these men, “We respect 
your assurances. We exonerate you from 
charges of guilt. Go forward and in the 
classroom stimulate in all your boys and girls 
to the utmost of your ability, the highest and 
noblest reflective patriotism.” 


This is the Official Organ 
of the 
American Federation of Teachers 
(Affiliated with American Federation of Labor) 


OFFICERS OF THE A. F. OF T. 

CHAs B STILLMAN, President 

1225 Sedgwick St., Chicago, II. 
ETHEL E Beers, Vice-President 

3414 S. Paulina St., Chicago 
C C WILLARD, Recording Secretary 

7218 Cornell Ave., Chicago 
MARGARET SNoporass, Corr. Sec. 

1061 Dakin St., Chicago 
F G Stecker, Financial Sec. 

1618 Lake Ave., Wilmette, III. 
JAMES A MEADE, Treasurer 

2628 Sayre Ave., Chicago 

TRUSTEES 

Henry R Linville George J Jones 
Anita Bailey Wm T MeCoy 
Lydia J Trowbridge 








Why the De Witt Clinton Teachers Were 
Dismissed 


THE SUGGESTED REASONS 


“To the Editor of The Evening Post: 

Sir: The Evening Post and other critics of 
the Board of Education should at least under- 
stand the grounds on which its verdict was 
based before accusing the Board of arbitrary 
and autocratic interference with the indi- 
vidual opinions and rights of its teachers. 

From a great mass of testimony and argu- 
ment, which, like the flowers that bloom in 
the spring, had nothing to do with the case, 
the following stand out as the main reasons 
which influenced the members of the Board 
in reaching their decision. 

Mr Schmalhausen, when faced with an in- 
solent and seditious letter addressed by one 
of his pupils to President Wilson, evinced no 
reaction of patriotic indignation, and showed 
no appreciation of the need of vigorous effort 
on his part to correct such views in his pupil. 
On the contrary his whole attitude convinced 
the members of the Board that he had no 
rein ag conception of the obligation of a 
teacher to exert a positive and forceful influ- 
ence in inculcating in his pupils the duty of 
respect for public officials and patriotic sup- 
port of the American Government. 

Mr Mufson was dismissed partly because 
of the attitude indicated by his statement 
that he would not allow a man in the United 
States uniform to address his pupils in the 
classroom, but mainly because of his refusal 
to answer any of the following questions: 

Do you believe that you labor under an ob- 
ligation to inculcate respect for the President 
of the United States in the minds of your 
pupils? 

Are you in sympathy with the United 
States in this war against the German Gov- 
ernment? 

Do you believe it is your duty to urge the 
pupils in your class to give active support to 
the United States in this war against the 
German Government? 

In these two cases the Board of Education 
based its action upon the conviction that their 
evident lack of patriotic attitude and influ- 
ence in support of the American Government 
in carrying forward the war disqualified 
these men for teaching in our public schools. 

Mr Schneer was dismissed mainly because 
of the bibliography which he had published 
and placed on sale in the school. The mem- 
bers of the Board considered that his de- 
scriptive comments printed as sub-titles to 


12 


the books listed in this bibliography (such as 
‘The Tremulous Poesy of Passion,’ “The Hid- 
den Springs of Sex and Desire,’ ‘The Heart 
Throbs of the Midnight Hour,’ ‘The Wilder 
Fires of Sex’) indicated a total unfitness to 
be entrusted with the education of high- 
school boys. 

With this brief statement, the public will 
be better able to judge whether the action of 
the Board of Education deserves its condemn- 
ation or approval. 

WILLIAM G WILLCOXx, 
President Board of Education. 
New York, December 24.” 


THE REAL REASON 


To the Editor of The Evening Post:* 

Sir: The letter of Mr William G Willcox, 
President of the Board of Education, which 
you published in your issue of December 24, 
narrows the controversy concerning the dis- 
missal of the three DeWitt Clinton High 
School teachers in a very important way. If 
the reasons for dismissal which Mr Willcox 
gives are the significant ones, all intelligent 
citizens should regard his letter as helpful in 
clearing up much confusion of mind on the 
part of a great many honest persons. But it 
is apparent that Mr Willcox is laboring under 
the same mental perplexity that caused sev- 
eral other members of the Board of Educa- 
tion to disregard the sum total of the evi- 
dence that was presented in the trial of the 
teachers. The perplexity of Mr Willcox is 
so great in his letter that he has credited to 
Mr Mufson an attitude which the testimony 
shows is charged only against Mr Schneer, 
namely, the alleged objection to the appear- 
ance on the school assembly platform of a sol- 
dier in uniform. 

If, as President Willcox states, Mr Schmal- 
hausen’s attitude “when faced with an inso- 
lent and seditious letter addressed by one of 
his pupils to President Wilson evinced no re- 
action of patriotic indignation, and showed 
no appreciation of the need of vigorous effort 
on his part to correct such views in his pupil,” 
it is legitimate to inquire concerning the 
proper attitude of a teacher toward his 
pupils. Of Mr Schmalhausen’s attitude 
toward the act of the boy, there cannot well 

"A letter sent to the Editor of The Evening Post, but not 
published because virtually the same ground was covered in a 


reply made by Mr I Montefiore Levy, member of the Board 
of Education, and published in the Evening Post of Dec. ‘26.—Fo. 












































January, 1918 


he any doubt, for the testimony contains this: 
Question (by Prof. Giddings). Mr. Schmal- 
hausen, what in your mind is the most essen- 
tial offensiveness in Herman’s letter? An- 
swer. I think the worst offensiveness lies in 
the utterly brutal misconception of the Presi- 
dent as an official, and from that flow all 
other statements, which imply his tremendous 
discourtesy and his disloyalty. 

Those who would be inclined to exact the 
limit of retribution in the case of a misguided 
and lurid-minded boy might criticize him di- 
rectly in language as strong as Mr Schmal- 
hausen used in the answer given to Professor 
Giddings. Considering the fact that Mr 
Schmalhausen, who before the day of the “In- 
quisition” had never seen the letter written 
by his pupil, Hyman Herman, wrote a criti- 
cism on the manuscript of the letter in terms 
much less severe, but none the less pointed, 
we have a demonstration of the reaction of a 
humane teacher endeavoring to set a boy 
right in a constructive way. That Mr 
Schmalhausen wrote this criticism practically 
while Superintendent Tildsley “waited,” as 
the evidence shows, is clear proof of Mr 
Schmalhausen’s faithfulness to his ideals and 
to his courage in maintaining them, for he 
had good reason to believe that Dr Tildsley 
meant to attack him at every possible point. 
If the Board of Education had been disposed 
to take the official estimate previously given 
of Mr Shamalhausen’s work as a teacher, and 
especially if it had taken the trouble to ascer- 
tain his standing as a teacher in the depart- 
ment of English of the school, no sober- 
minded member could have voted for dis- 
missal. 

Eliminating the rather important error of 
statement in Mr Willcox’s letter attributing 
to Mr Mufson the belief that a man in the 
uniform of the United States should not be al- 
lowed to address the pupils, we have remain- 
ing the statement that Mr Mufson was dis- 
missed mainly because he refused to answer 
certain questions relating to the President 
and the conduct of the war. The evidence 
shows that Mr Mufson took the position that 
none of these questions bore upon the charges 
under which he had been brought to trial. 
While this attitude gave the impression of 
“mulishness” to an influential member of the 
Board, it is difficult to see why it should have 
been regarded as being tantamount to a con- 
fession of guilt. If the Board had given con- 
sideration to the letter to the press which Mr 
Mufson wrote on March 29, 1917, it could 
have been assured fully of the teacher’s undy- 
ing enmity to Kaiserism. 

_Mr Willcox states that “Mr Schneer was 
dismissed mainly because of the bibliography 





The American Teacher . 13 


which he published and placed on sale in the 
school.” In this bibliography were printed 
some sub-titles which described in poetic lan- 
guage the sex significance of a very small 
number of the books mentioned (books of un- 
questioned literary standing). The printed 
evidence of the trial shows that the bibliog- 
raphy, a compendium of reference to current 
literature in fiction, literary criticism, and sci- 
ence, and approved by Richard Le Gallienne, 
Bliss Perry and others, was offered to the fac- 
ulty committee having in charge the school 
book store. The book was accepted and was 
placed on sale. It was also accepted for ad- 
vertisement in the “Magpie,” the school 
paper. Moreover, the principal of the school 
had been given a copy of the book, and had 
not disapproved it. Even if responsibility 
for placing the book on sale at the school can- 
not be charged to Mr Schneer, it may be con- 
ceded that even a poetic reference to the sub- 
ject of sex is not thought by many persons to 
be proper reading for young boys. Granted 
all this, the offense is one against taste, and 
not one indicative of moral weakness, unless 
supported by other evidence. There was ab- 
solutely no other evidence presented by the 
prosecution bearing out this charge. To 
blacken the reputation of an able teacher 
with an ugly charge of this kind, and to dis- 
miss him from the service because of it, con- 
stitutes an offense that will go further toward 
“undermining good citizenship” than will 
anything else thus far uncovered in the school 
system. 

The evidence adduced at the trial indicates 
that Mr Schneer in the now discredited “In- 
quisition” conducted by Superintendent 
Tildsley regarded with disfavor the appear- 
ance on the school assembly platform of a sol- 
dier in uniform, unless such a man as Mr 
Walter Lippman, an adviser of the President 
of the United States, should be invited to pre- 
sent for consideration the giving of other 
kinds of service than fighting. It appears 
that the issue turned partly on whether a cer- 
tain teacher late of DeWitt Clinton, now an 
officer from the training camp at Plattsburg, 
N. Y., should be allowed to speak. It is ad- 
mitted that this man cannot speak well, any- 
way, while Walter Lippman can. The evi- 
dence brought out on this incident at the trial 
reveals no disloyalty. Possibly Mr Schneer 
may be granted the right to entertain a doubt 
as to the advisability of presenting military 
ideals to the consideration of boys at an early 
age. If this is really his opinion, perhaps 
even the Kaiser would agree with him. 

As much as the teachers of the city believe 
in general in the good intentions of Mr Will- 
cox, it is nevertheless a matter of regret that 





14 The American Teacher 


he has permitted certain notions of disciplin- 
ing teachers to outweigh an issue of civic jus- 
tice to able and conscientious teachers. After 
a trial of the three teachers lasting from 3 
P. M. to 12.30 A. M. the Chairman of the 
trial committee, Mr John Whalen, asked the 
last witness, Mr Schneer, to give the names 
of the one hundred and five teachers who had 
been present at the meeting in DeWitt Clin- 
ton High School which voted on the resolu- 
tions mentioned in the evidence. This was 
proof enough that Mr Whalen considered that 
an important issue. In fact, the resolutions 
disapproving the attitude of Chairman 
Whalen in threatening to “close up the 
schools” because some of the children had 
gone out on strike against the “longer day,” 
were asserted by Mr Thomas W Churchill of 
the Board of Education on the day the case 
came up for final disposition to be the real 
reason underlying the charges of “holding 
views.” His statement was not contradicted. 

Indeed, Mr Willcox himself at the meeting 
of the Board of Education held on November 
14 declared after reading the Whalen resolu- 
tions that “such a statement cannot be al- 
lowed to pass unnoticed by this board, which 
must assert its authority in no uncertain 
tone.” He continued, “If any teachers in the 
system have such a false conception of their 
position as to brand as ‘autocratic and arro- 


Vol. VII, No. 1 


gant’ Mr Whalen’s statement that neither 
pupils nor teachers will be allowed to run the 
schools, they should promptly be undeceived.” 
This appears to be the last public reference 
made by Mr Willcox to his proposal to “unde- 
ceive” teachers for what in the same speech 
he called an act of insubordination. It seems 
improbable that he forgot to follow out his 
own suggestion. 

In the realm of scientific interpretation, 
that statement of a cause which explains all 
the facts is considered to be the true one. 
There is no way of explaining the suspension 
of three teachers and the transfer of six 
others from the DeWitt Clinton High School 
except by interpreting the acts as punish- 
ment of the teachers for being concerned sup- 
posedly in the formulation of the offending 
resolutions. 

Much was made in the “school inquisi- 
tion” conducted by Associate City Superin- 
tendent Tildsley of “instinctive obedience” to 
authority. It is a sad commentary on the 
efficiency and the fair-mindedness of school 
authorities that they should put themselves in 
a position where they are obliged to rely on 
instinctive respect to maintain themselves. 


HENRY R LINVILLE, 


President Teachers Union. 
Dec. 25, 1917. 





What is an 


HEN Professor John Dewey declared, 
\\ in an address before a mass meeting 
of New York teachers, that he did 
not know the current name for the kind of 
proceedings that led to the suspension and 
final dismissal of three high school teachers, 
but that it was called “Inquisition” in earlier 
times, many of his hearers felt that he did 
not mean to be taken literally. Many thought 
that “Inquisition” was both metaphorical 
and derogatory, and were satisfied to leave it 
at that. 

A cursory inquiry, however, shows that 
the characierization was neither extreme nor 
purely rhetorical. Not that the proceedings 
in New York were in all respects identical 
with those of the medieval Inquisition; it is 
sufficient to point out certain striking resem- 
blances. 


Inquisition? 


In the modern, as in the classic, the object 
is not so much to ascertain particular offenses 
as to determine tendencies. Thus, the mur- 
derers of Peter the Martyr of Verona, in 
1252, were tried by the Inquisitors not as 
assassins, but as heretics and as opponents 
of the Inquisition. So the modern exemplars 
were tried not for committing any act or 
speaking any word contrary to law and mor- 
als, but for holding views (on hypothetical 
questions) and for opposing the wills or the 
whims of their superiors in office. 

Under the Inquisition, the accused was 
presumed to be guilty until proven innocent; 
and from the nature of the circumstance no 
accused ever got a clean-cut acquittal. In 
contrast to modern, democratic jurispru- 
dence, which presumes every person to be 
innocent until proven guilty beyond reason- 


































January, 1918 





able doubt, the accused teachers were con- 
demned in advance of the trial, and were 
tried under circumstances that put upon them 
the onus of establishing innocence. And in 
the inquisitions as in the present case, the 
judge was himself the accuser. 


Under the Inquisition denunciations could 
be made in secret. The accused was sum- 
moned suddenly and secretly. He had the 
right to get the accusations against him in 
writing; but he might not know who the ac- 
cusers or informants were. It was his privi- 
lege, however, before knowing what the 
charges were, to file a list of his enemies, 
with the statement of reasons why any might 
wish to do him harm. Today this form of 
procedure would not be tolerated. Instead, 
the person who is to be dispatched is invited 
into a friendly conference or conversation on 
educational and general topics, and selections 
are made from his answers to hypothetical 
questions, with a view to having him con- 
demn himself. Charges are preferred in a 
highly impersonal manner; and the accused 
is accorded the right to face the “witnesses” 
who have anything to say against him. Here 
is a real difference. 

Under the Inquisition, the failure of a per- 
son to heed the summons of the judges was 
considered an act of contumacy; and such 
failure was taken to be presumptive evidence 
of guilt. Today matters are somewhat better. 
The accused is required to answer not 
charges, but cunningly framed hypothetical 
questions. If he answers them in one way, 
he thereby shows his utter unfitness to be a 
teacher. If he answers them in the opposite 
way, he thereby shows that he is only lying 
to retain the favor of his overlords. If, how- 
ever, he refuses to answer, he writes himself 
down as not only guilty, but mulish in addi- 
tion—and is thus demonstrated to be unfit 
to hold his position. 

Under the Inquisition, women, children 
and slaves might give testimony against the 
accused—but no evidence from such sources 
as to his virtuous acts or pious words could 
be admitted in favor of the accused. This is 
in striking similarity to the attitude of our 
educational trustees today. The prosecution 
selects from a group of over seventy-five 











The American Teacher 15 





patriotic pupils of the defendant one boy 
whose attitude is unique in its crude disloy- 
alty, and uses him as witness against the 
accused. Not only this, but the accuser gets 
his preliminary evidence from informers — 
among the pupils. No account, however, is 
taken of such testimony of pupils when it is 
favorable to the defendant. 

Again, if a witness withdraws adverse 
testimony, that witness may be punished for 
perjury; but the testimony might not be 
withdrawn from the record against the ac- 
cused. So today, conflicting, contradictory 
and obviously perverted statements against 
the accused have to stand; the judges may or 
may not later seek to remedy the minds of 
those who bore false or misleading testimony. 

Under the Inquisition, the judges were sup- 
posed to consult with leading men of the dis- 
trict before pronouncing sentence. This was 
the only protection the accused had. But the 
discretionary powers of the judges were ab- 
solute, and were generally used in an arbi- 
trary fashion. So today, the Board of Edu- 
cation, despite the articulate protests of the 
leading thinkers and publicists of the com- 
munity, proceed to cast into outer darkness 
on the basis of a farcical trial, men whose 
chief offense appears to have been that they 
incurred the enmity of those in power. 

Under the Inquisition various devices were 
developed for the encouragement of confes- 
sion—moral subterfuges, intimidation, ex- 
haustion thru persistent confusion, irritation 
and nagging, and finally thru physical tor- 
ture. Today the public would not tolerate re- 
sort to physical torture; but anyone reading 
the minutes of the “trial” without prejudice 
would be amazed at the close similarity be- 
tween the discredited browbeating and bru- 
tality of former times and the methods fol- 
lowed in the case of the dismissed teachers. 
The ordinary tricks of the trial lawyer are 
mild and almost gentlemanly by comparison. 

Under the Inquisition it was necessary to 
encourage “confession” because under the 
rules of the game the final condemnation had 
to be based on “freely” confessed iniquity. 
Since torture could be applied but once (com- 
pare our own principle that a person might 








16 The American Teacher 


be but once put in jeopardy of his lifé for a 
given offense) it was frequently necessary to 
“continue” the torture. So we find that the 
investigator had to continue his interviews 
with those selected for slaughter before he 
felt that he had enough “confession.” And 
at the final, public session, members of the 
committee declared with righteous tremors 
that they were condemning the men not on 
what the witnesses had said against them, 
but on what they had said themselves. 

Those who confessed immediately were 
variously penalized ; but persistent refusal to 
confess was conclusive evidence of guilt. In 
the case of the teachers, it does not appear 
that they were given an opportunity to com- 
mute their offense by open confession. Under 
the Inquisition, the accused were given an op- 
portunity, even after public pronouncement 


Vol. VII, No. 1 


of sentence had been made, te confess. Those 
who then did confess were received as peni- 
tents and then condemned to lifelong impris- 
onment. Those however who still persisted 
in defying the judgment of their accusers and 
inquisitors, were handed over to the mercies 
of the executioner. At this point the modern 
inquisition is not true to type. 

In some places the Inquisition gradually 
took on a political aspect, which is compre- 
hensible to the student of history. The politi- 
cal aspect of the present-day inquisition has 
been apparent from the first. The country 
is at war with the last of the powerful autoc- 
racies ; after the war it will not be possible to 
use autocratic methods so easily in this coun- 
try. Those who have accounts to settle must 
hasten to do whatever they can before democ- 
racy comes into her own. 





Among My Books 


up my ideas on education. That is, 

when I am not marveling as to where 

others whom I know gathered theirs. 
Just why the term “radical” should be ap- 
plied to some conceptions is often beyond me. 
If it is the Ferrer School as against a military 
academy, I can understand. If it is the teach- 
ing of sociology as against the classics, I can 
understand that. But when it is democracy 
in education as against democracy in politics, 
or when it is education for democracy as 
against education for—well, Democracy—my 
power of discrimination fails me. Or to put 
it otherwise, what discriminating sense I 
have assures me that in the ideas themselves 
there is no difference. Hence we must find 
the distinction in those factitious circum- 
stances which accompany expression. 

The outstanding feature of radicalism is 
more likely to be found in the temperament 
of the proponent and the manner of expres- 
sion. It is the combination of utter sincerity 
and open-minded naivete that leads many of 
us to take our pedagogical mentors seriously. 
Some of us have studied for examinations and 


S OMETIMES I wonder where I picked 


have learned to pass them by talking about 
initiative, spontaneity, socializing the class 
room, and preparing the children for citizen- 
ship in a democracy. By dint of repetition 
and thru common honesty, we have come to 
believe in these ideals. We believe in them 
so strongly that we actually want to see them 
attained. So we talk and write and live as 
Americans, while others sometimes talk, 
sometimes write, sometimes practice, but 
more often theorize on the basis of democracy 
while teaching middle age thought processes 
under the sanction of Prussian authoritari- 
anism. 

Somehow the esthetic conception of unity 
and coherence works to disadvantage. There 
is a strong tendency in normal minds to look 
for thorogoing consistency. The radical must 
be wild and the conservative a mossback. A 
Times editorial writer would feel that he had 
missed doing justice to his subject did he not 
characterize a radical as Socialist, anarchist, 
Bolshevik, and free lover. As a matter of 
fact few minds are toned in one color, and 
still less is the collective mind of a board such 
as edits this paper. Utter faith in its demo- 





January, 1918 


cratic motto dwells in each of its component 
parts, but there unanimity ends. And thus 
it is that this inverted argumentum verecun- 
diam falls to the ground. 


When I found some of my pedagogical 
ideas classed by a supposedly reputable and 
intelligent person as those of a moral degen- 
erate, I wondered whether I had been (to 
borrow a zoological phrase of Dr Horna- 
day’s) a victim of the “evil communications 
that corrupt good teachers.” And lo, I found 
that I was merely peddling at retail the ideas 
of my masters, that my education had really 
functioned, and that all I lacked was a mem- 
ory for the sources of my teaching. It is all 
in the books and what more can one ask? 


Democracy demands of the individual citi- 
zen not instinctive reverence for authority 
(of office or books), but does require a highly 
developed critical faculty, with an ability to 
sense the truth. For he himself must be pre- 
pared to assume authority and it is these 
qualities which will save him from acting the 
tyrant and the autocrat. I really thought 
this was good doctrine, but recent events have 
proved otherwise. So now for the masters: 


The fact that rational thought invariably involves 
a crisis in the habitual mental processes makes it 
necessary at times to stir up the pupil to intellec- 
tual unrest in order to break up his dogmatic meth- 
ods of thinking. It is the function of the teacher 
to guard against too great assurance and inertia 
in the reasoning of the pupil, who must be made 
to feel that complete dependence on his own previous 
opinions and those of others is intellectual slavery. 
However, it must be remembered that such a radical 
method of procedure as is involved in raising serious 
doubts in regard to ordinarily accepted facts is not 
permissible in the earlier as in the more advanced 
stages of education. Still the teacher in the pre- 
adolescent period should seek to inculcate in the 
minds of his pupils a certain caution in accepting 
general beliefs and statements simply because such 
statements are made. The pupil, tho he is naturally 
under the dominance of authority in this period of 
his development, and altho for the most part he can 
not be taught to reason correctly by having his 
belief in such authority overthrown, still cannot be 
made with safety an absolute slave in his intellec- 
tual and moral life to the scientific and ethical stand- 
ards of his parents and teachers. Both Freud and 
Jung have pointed out the danger of too much 
parental authority and reverence for this authority 
on the part of the child, in that child’s later devel- 
cpment. The danger, however, applies less to Amer- 
ican children than it does to the children of Euro- 
pean parents. In America we have perhaps gone 





The American Teacher it 


to the other extreme, and have not considered the 
great significance of authority for the child, par- 
ticularly in his formation of religious and social 
ideals.—STEPHEN S COLVIN in The Learning Process. 

.... It is safe to lay down the general rule. 
that the right of generalization from particulars 
and the right of inference from generalizations be- 
long to the pupil. This conclusion is based upon a 
firm conviction borne out by a great deal of em- 
pirical evidence, that the judgments that the pupil 
makes for himself and puts into systems largely thru 
his own efforts are infinitely more valuable to him 
than those in which the thought connections are 
supplied—in which the reasoning is done for him.— 
WILLIAM CHANDLER BaGLey in The Educative Pro- 
cess. 


Cultivate in pupils the habit of independent think- 
ing. Ask such questions as necessitate it, and be 
inwardly discontent until you have secured it... .. 
When a diffident pupil has met us with his inde- 
pendent opinion, deal with it gently. Entertain 
originality hospitably. The very aim of the class- 
room work is not uniform knowledge, but multiform 
thinking. 


Do not tell the class what to think—this is dog- 
matism, with us the authority; but direct their 
thinking, hesitating not to express your own opinion 
at the right time. Our class-room discussions are 
not so much to settle things as to arouse the in- 
vestigating spirit. For young people to be on the 
hunt for truth is transcendently more important 
than for them to suppose they have learned it. And 
why is not the statement equally applicable to our- 
selves? It is an error to suppose that the class 
comes out right, when we tell them what is right; 
teaching is not telling, it is stimulating -—HERMAN 
HARRELL HorNE in The Psychological Principles of 
Education. 


As a class are we not in bondage to tradition? 
We are among the conservative members of society. 
We teach what is known, the present and the past, 
mainly the past. The goal toward which we are, 
or ought to be, moving rarely comes within our ken. 
We have not awakened to our work as a great con- 
structive effort to shape developing human society 
toward its true goal. Instead, we hand down tradi- 
tional knowledge and socially standardized view- 
points. The school does not lead social progress, 
it hardly keeps up with it. It ought to be develop- 
ing social leadership and not merely conservative 
following. We should communicate, not merely es- 
tablished knowledge, but also ideas regarding the 
end and means of social progress. Society requires 
guidance as well as information—HERMAN HARRELL 
Horne in The Teacher as Artist. 





18 The American Teacher 


Modern psychology, like Christianity, affords no 
sufficient excuse for a morality of repression. It 
conceives both individual and social life as funda- 
mentally active, and it is able to translate both 
emotion and thought into the results or forms of 
activity. Since life consists essentially in activity, 
a wise system of educational discipline, either indi- 
vidual or social, should seek primarily to release and 
develop rather than to dam up the instinctive sources 
of action in human nature. Indeed, the attempt to 
dam them up is fruitless, and results merely in 
the substitution of pathological for natural forms 
of expression.— HERBERT CROLY in Progressive 
Democracy. 


So much for education for democracy. Just 
what is democracy in education? When does 
the organization take on autocratic form? 
How much voice should teachers have in the 
management of a school? We can do no bet- 
ter than to quote a city superintendent’s 
words on democracy among pupils and then 
ask whether the principles stated therein 
should not apply in even greater measure to 
adults—teachers, for instance. 


The temptation is always present, and is gen- 
erally overwhelming, for the child culprit who suf- 
fers punishment ... . at the hands of an autocratic 
authority such as the principal or the teacher, to 
pose as a hero or a martyr. If, however, the same 
punishment were inflicted by a jury of his peers, 
the consolation of strutting as a hero or posing 
as a martyr would be entirely removed. The efficacy 
of the punishment would be reinforced by the whole 
strength of the public opinion of the class or the 
school. The ridicule or the pity of his fellows is 
what the child finds it hardest to endure and what 
he will strive most earnestly to avoid. In this 
psychological fact lies the chief reason for the suc- 
cess, such as it is, that has attended the different 
forms of pupil self-government that have been tried 
at various times in the history of education. Add 
to this, that the exercise of governmental powers 
by the pupils in the administration of a school is an 
excellent training in executive ability and an unsur- 
passed preparation for the duties of citizenship, 
and an exceedingly strong case is made out in favor 
of pupil self-government.—WILLIAM H MAXWELL in 
Annual Report for 1905. 


If we err in taking the words of authority 
literally, if we fondly delude ourselves when 
we imagine they mean what they say, then 
our purpose is fatuous. However, if the true 
word is theirs, and we must suffer obloquy 
because we prefer to shout it from the house- 
tops instead of letting it lie buried among 
dust-covered volumes, then we have our place 
in society and Heaven help us. PLATO. 


Vol. VII, No. 1 


Under Fire 


INGRAINED in the soul of the meanest of us 
is the love of adventure, of thrilling, heart- 
stirring, even harrowing experience—pro- 
vided we are spared to tell the tale. Past 
miseries are sweet. The icy cold of the poles 
is as nothing when narrated by the blazing 
hearth. The ache of starvation is a measure 
of fortitude when recounted at the well-pro- 
visioned board. We forget and glorify. 

Henri Barbusse, in that incomparable epic 
of the war, “Under Fire,” pictures in the last 
chapter a veritable hell, an inundated battle- 
field under bombardment. The wounded and 
the dead spot the landscape, the few that are 
living are wet to the core and caked in mud. 
The very elements seem to pin them to earth 
—to suffer all the miseries of life eternally. 

“We’ve seen too much to remember.” 
“And everything we’ve seen was too much. 


We’re not m to hold it all. It takes a damned 
hook in all directions. We’re too little to hold 


D6 aces 

“ That’s true what he says,” remarks a man 
without moving his head in its pillory of mud. 
“ When I was on leave, I found I’d already jolly 
well forgotten what had happened to me before. 
There were some letters from me that I read 
over again just as if they were a book I was open- 
ing. And yet in spite of that I’ve forgotten also 
all the pain I’ve had in the war. We’re forget- 
ting machines. Men are things that think a lit- 
tle but chiefly forget. That’s what we are.” 

“Then neither the other side nor us’ll remem-. 
ber! So much misery all wasted!” 

This point of view added to the abasement of 
these beings on the shore of the flood, like news 
of a greater disaster, and humiliated them still 
more. 

“ Ah, if one did remember! ” cried some one. 

“If we remembered,” said another, “ there 
wouldn’t be any more war! ” 

A third added grandly, “ Yes, if we remem- 
bered, war would be less useless than it is.” 


And thus of all experience—if we remem- 
bered, it would be less useless than it is. We 
teachers speak gaily of our substitute days, 
when our hearts were heavy and our souls 
distraught, when our entire career, as 
mapped out for years, seemed blasted be- 
cause of our inability to discipline a class. 
In itself there is much to be thankful for in 
this spirit; to carry the burden of the years 
upon our shoulders is not conducive to erect, 
forward-looking aggressiveness. But when 
we forget to the extent of becoming callous to 
the suffering of others, when memories of 
our own trials are unawakened by those of 
the initiates, then can we say, “Yes, if we re- 
membered, life would be less useless than 
it is.” 

It is often stated that the protests of sub- 
ordinates are often but the whine of the under 
dog who is merely awaiting his chance to get 





January, 1918 


on top so that he in turn may growl. Which 
is very much like asserting that in a competi- 
tive system it is necessary to compete, or that 
in a war it is necessary to,fight. There is no 
necessity of holding a brief for heavenly 
human qualities when a person is suffering 
under the stress of circumstances, but there 
is no limit to the fine traits that may develop 
if training begins early enough—for toler- 
ance begets tolerance, kindness begets kind- 
ness, but cruelty begets only vindictiveness. 
The source of influence must arise among 
those in authority, at least if the transforma- 
tion is to be effected peacefully. Or else there 
must in some way be developed in our young 
teachers a memory for emotions aroused by 
experience. We so soon forget. 
If we could only remember! 


Labor on Education 


IN the report of the Committee on Educa- 
tion made to the Buffalo convention of the 
American Federation of Labor there are 
many statements which stand out as the 
prophecy of the coming democracy in the 
schools. We wish we could print all of them, 
but two selections must suffice. The other 
day one of the labor men spoke of helping 
“the white collar fellows” in return for the 
support of the latter on questions concerning 
those in “blue overalls.” This was only a 
graphic and homely expression of the idea 
that we are all striving toward the same goal, 
the development of a great American democ- 
racy. The following has the endorsement of 
the entire labor body of the country: 

Teachers should be secured tenure of position 
during efficiency. There should be no dismissals 
without a full and fair hearing. And, in this con- 
nection, it is timely to insist that while actual dis- 
loyalty to our country cannot be tolerated in our 
public schools or anywhere else, the public must 
carefully assure itself that charges of disloyalty, or 
of any other nature that may be peculiarly effective 
at the time, are not cloaks under which official su- 
periors may attempt to secure retaliation for a self- 
respecting lack of subserviency on the part of teach- 
ers under them. 

Your committee is alarmed by the lack of democ- 
racy in the conduct of our schools. Our American 
school system is administered autocratically, the 
teachers actually on the job in the class rooms hav- 
ing a negligible voice in the determination and car- 
rying out of policies. Self-governing school and dis- 
trict councils of teachers should be established for 
the purpose of utilizing the experience and initiative 
of the teaching body in the conduct of the schools 





The American Teacher 19 


and the recommendations of such councils should be 
made a matter of official record. WHEN CONSID- 
ERATION IS GIVEN THE EFFECTIVE PART 
PLAYED BY THE PRUSSIAN SCHOOL SYS- 
TEM IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
HABIT OF INSTINCTIVE, UNTHINKING 
OBEDIENCE ON THE PART OF THE MASSES 
OF THE PEOPLE, THE VITAL IMPORTANCE 
TO AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS OF BREAK- 
ING AWAY FROM PRUSSIAN METHODS IN 
OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM IS DRIVEN HOME. 
+ * 


oa 


FUNDAMENTALS 


Most of the indifference felt toward the 
labor movement among middle class and in- 
tellectual radicals is predicated on the as- 
sumption that higher wages, shorter hours 
and similar concessions furnish the unions 
with their primary reason for being. If this 
were true, the labor movement could rightly 
be condemned as short-sighted and futile, so 
far as the attainment of fundamental re- 
forms is concerned. 

But in spite of what leaders in the trade 
union movement may say to the contrary, 
higher wages and shorter hours are not the 
primary objects of union organization. The 
primary impulse and the primary need gen- 
erating unionism is that of reducing the 
arbitrary power of the employer over his em- 
ployes’ lives. It is the impulse to self-ex- 
pression, the need of fostering self-respect 
by winning a voice in determining the con- 
ditions of labor. 

In other words, unionism is the beginning 
of industrial democracy, and there is in the 
labor movement the same irresistible life- 
impulse that has given us freedom of thought 
and action in the religious and political fields. 
And because this is so, the labor movement is 
today the great democratic movement of our 
times, great out of all proportion to and in 
spite of its inadequate immediate professed 
i " gmaes P. West, in The Public, March 

3, 1917. 


Educational Leadership 


The superintendent must have leadership, 
high ideals, inspirational force. He must not 
inspire fear and dread, the hope it will be 
long before he comes again. He must have 
capacity for growth, retiring before he 
strikes 12. The tendency to become stagnant 
is greater than in any other occupation.— 
Superintendent Andrew W Edson, at New 
York State Conference of Superintendents at 
Albany, October, 1917. 





ee He = Ae 


oe SS le a ee 


i ae cee 


The American Teacher 


WHAT THEY SAY 





December 15, 1917. 
Dear Mr. Linville: 

After following the testimony for several 
hours and examining with care the docu- 
ments available to the public the problem ap- 
pears to me by no means simple. It is evi- 
dent that there was bitter feeling between 
Mr Whalen and the teachers of DeWitt Clin- 
ton High School before the loyalty issue 
arose. It is therefore in large measure an 
administrative fight—Mr Whalen being 
prosecutor, judge and jury in his own case. 

On careful inquiry I find no little anti- 
Semitic feeling in the case—the three teach- 
ers accused being Jews. This is denied, but 
it is a fact. 

In the next place, there is involved the 
question as to whether ers as such 
should be considered as mere employees of 
the Board of Education or cooperators in a 
great educational enterprise. 

The accused are not openly charged with 
disloyalty and yet they are so branded by im- 
plication. While I do not want to pass judg- 
ment on all the issues of the case, I am con- 
vinced that the matter called for a more judi- 
cial hearing than has yet been accorded to 
the men whose careers are thus blasted by the 
charges of administrative officers. 


I cannot believe that the judgment given 
amid the passions aroused by the charges and 
recriminations will stand the test of time and 
moderate counsels. I expect to live to see the 
men now accused restored to their old places. 


Sincerely, 
(Signed) CHARLES A BEARD. 


To the Editors, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 


You may at once discontinue my subscrip- 
tion. I donot wish to receive into my house a 
magazine founded on habitual and causeless 
revolt, decorated with lies, propagating un- 
American ideas. 

I shall post your paper in my school and 
call attention to the disgraceful article en- 
titled “Safe Thinking.” A disgruntled child 
of surly temperament is capable of the coarse 
and silly thought in that article. I resent 
strongly your title “American Teacher.” A 
real American teacher would have nothing 
whatever to do with a vehicle of foreign so- 
cialism and ignorant trades-unionism. 


S G Coster. 





Vol. VII, No. 1 


To the Editore, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 


Enclosed please find $1 for subscription to 
your splendid paper. I will send you a sub- 
scription after Jan. 1st to help in the deficit 
that you may be suffering. You are helping 
to enlarge the teacher’s viewpoint. Success 
to your efforts. Yours for the good work, 


MARY E YorRKs. 


To the Editors, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 


Enclosed find $1 for next year’s sub. I 
think you are doing a good work. Teachers 
are about contemporaneous with Cotton 
Mather, and it is high time somebody re- 
minded them that Columbus did really dis- 
cover a new world and that the 20th century 
is fairly under way. Of course those who do 
not know it are to be pitied, I suppose, only 
they are just as happy as tho they had good 
sense ; while those of us who do know it really 
need the sympathy and encouragement while 
the others are waking up. So here is my en- 
couragement to you, for the encouragement 
you will send me during the year. 


D A MCQUEEN. 


To the Editors, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 


I have just finished reading the November 
issue of THE AMERICAN TEACHER from cover 
to cover and cannot resist the impulse to tell 
you how admirable I find it. I am especially 

leased with the article “The Schools in 

olitics.” Of course we are always espe- 
cially pleased with a clear and forceful pres- 
entation of ideas that coincide with ours. 


ETHEL E BEERS. 


To the Editors, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 

THE AMERICAN TEACHER for November is 
the brightest ray of hope I have ever seen on 
the teachers’ horizon. In the midst of the 
prevailing intolerance and stupidity, it is 
good to see the calm, steady thinking in “The 
Schools in Politics,” “Courage” and “Fight.” 
The surest indication that Democracy is ap- 
proaching is that even now there are teachers 
who dare}to think and to express their 
thoughts without overworking the sacred 
phrases compiled for us. 

Congratulations on the intelligence and 
courage of the New York teachers! 

Thank you for your inspiring November 
issue. FLORENCE S HALL. 





January, 1918 


READINGS 


Science and Democracy 


To replace empiricism with systematic de- 
termination of standards, and to replace au- 
thority or autocracy with democratic cooper- 
ation—these seem to be the motivation of the 
two new additions to the Educational Survey 
Series. Self-Surveys by Teacher Training 
Schools, by WILLIAM H ALLEN and CARROLL 
G PEARSE, and Self-Surveys by Colleges and 
Universities, by DR ALLEN, take the position 
that surveys have come to stay and that it is 
the part of wise people not to oppose them but 
to utilize them by getting the inside tack 
before the outside investigators get a chance. 
The advantages of the auto-survey lie in that 
it precedes the storm, in that it is most fruit- 
ful, and in that it leads to continuous self- 
scrutiny. The eight teacher-training schools 
of Wisconsin made auto-surveys under direc- 
tion of the State Board of Public Affairs. The 
surveys were cooperative, made by experts 
familiar with conditions and with the prob- 
lems, and they were immediately and continu- 
ously constructive. The questions used were 
prepared and criticised in advance, avoiding 
recriminations and heartburnings. The 
practical changes resulting from the surveys 
are described in considerable detail; and they 
affected every side of the school’s life—ad- 
ministrative, curricular, supervisory, in- 
structional, and others. The appendices to 
this volume include one on medical service 
and the questionnaire on teacher-training 
schools drawn up by Dr Albert Shiels for 
New York City. 

The volume on the university and college 
auto-surveys describes adequately the proce- 
dure for cooperative self-surveys, and seeks 
to establish general principles to guide in the 
conduct of such undertakings. Of special in- 
terest, and suggestive for other educational 
groups, are the analysis of personality of in- 
structors, the discussions of vocational guid- 
ance, of the use of community activities for 
educational purposes, of the relation of re- 
search to teaching, and of extension work. 

With the exception of the teachers engaged 
in one-teacher schools, or in schools employ- 
ing but very few teachers, and of the teachers 
who consider themselves too old or too wise 
to learn, all those who take their profession 
seriously will find in both of these books a 
= of stimulating and practical sugges- 

ion. 

Yonkers, The World Book Co. Teacher 
Training Schools, $2.25. Colleges and Uni- 
versities, $3, 





The American Teacher 


° ’ 
Time’s Legacy 

The Permanent Values in Education, by 
KENNETH RICHMOND. New York: E. P. 
Dutton and Company. 1917. $1. 

IN our college days Pestalozzi was a joke. 
The name sounded like opera bouffe to us, and 
for all we were concerned, the character fitted 
in well enough with the daily comedy known 
as History of Education. Our lives would 
have been wonderfully enriched were it not 
for some of the courses we took. One day a 
professor, off his guard, replied excitedly to 
a number of harsh criticisms of Locke’s the- 
ories, that this philosopher was no fool, that 
much of his educational doctrine was in the 
nature of a rebellion against the defective 
practice of his time. And only then did we 
realize that even if we went as far back as 
Socrates, we could find wiser men than our- 
selves. But it has taken a long time to think 
of the history of education as a live, vital 
study—something useful in helping us to live. 

Mr Kenneth Richmond perceives in the 
ideals of each of the ancient peoples and phil- 
osophers some one outstanding feature of 
everlasting worth. In the Greeks it is 
beauty; in the Jews a sense of nationality; 
in Comenius a desire to train minds and 
spirits that would be sensitive and responsive 
to the present but would not live in the pres- 
ent alone; in Rousseau a message of libera- 
tion; in Locke the quest off truth; in Pesta- 
lozzi love and human understanding of chil- 
dren; in Froebel a faith in “growth by 
doing”; and in Herbeart an insight into 
method. We remember reading words like 
these before, but never has the emphasis 
been placed so strongly upon the relation of 
the man’s historic importance to the perma- 
nent value of his educational ideas. This is 
in sympathy with the new teaching of his- 
tory, both political and economic, and its 
effect in vitalizing education cannot be over- 
estimated. 

Mr Clutton-Brock writes an introduction 
of exceptional interest. These English edu- 
cators are feeling the democratic urge of the 
war and reflect the best in democracy that has 
been evolved during the centuries. 

The aim of education, for Locke and for all 
the great educators, is to give the child that free- 
dom of spirit which can only come with obedience 
to the sense of absolute values, to his, the child’s 
own sense and not to his teacher’s. The child 
must know that his good actions come from him- 
self, if they are to be his good actions. But, 
the parent and the schoolmaster may desire this 
f om for the child, there is so ing in both 
which makes them fear this freedom; and 


teach the child himself to be afraid of it. What 
is the cause of this fear? 


It is not merely the vulgar will to power over 





The American Teacher 


the child, but something far subtler and more 
unconscious. It is their constant tendency to 
associate education with status, to regard it as 
a means, not to freedom of the spirit, but to some 
kind of superiority So status always robs 
those who are keenly aware of it of their critical 
faculty; their egotism is enlisted on the side of 
their education, and they prize their education 
with the blindness of self-love. : 
So again it comes down to democracy in 
education and education for democracy. Ever 
do we herald it anew, but in one form or an- 
other it pervades the thought of many of the 
great thinkers. Mr Richmond, speaking of 


Milton and his caste education, says: 

The modern public school has many of the 
characteristic virtues and faults of a partial 
democracy; and the elementary school is at least 
potentially open to be made the training-ground 
of an almost German docility. But it is true in 
the absolute sense that two tendencies pervade 
our system which are implacably at war with 
one another, the one encouraging class-separa- 
tion, the other class fusion. The conflict is, in 
education, mainly subterranean; but everyone is 
aware that it goes on continuously. Nearly every 
teacher is at heart a propagandist on the one 
side or the other. — ; 
We could only wish, for the sake of Ameri- 

can education, that the authors, English tho 
they be, had illustrated concretely the essen- 
tial bearing of their findings in history upon 
some specific problems of to-day. If the 
school should not be a “training ground of an 








Ins rsanerngengast2evoaareeetetarenneavescycenengegMmap ne nnn Ogee NUN ARENAS 


TEACHERS ATTENTION 


The biggest fight waged in the United 
States today for the people’s rights is being 
carried by the National Nonpartisan League. 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


in a series of articles on the League calls 
it the Farmer’s Revolt and calls especial 
attention to our progressive educational 
program. 





We need organizers, men for executive 
positions, speakers and writers. An oppor- 
tunity for full time work or for the vacation 
period — good pay—and real work for 
democracy. 


Write for particulars. 


The National Nonpartisan League 


Educational Department, 
Gilfillan Block, St. Paul, Minn. 








VENENNLOYY PEALE ES AU ESAURAOAUONY TONSA HUUNS DED AAU EA REE NNT 





Vol. VII, No. 1 


almost German docility,” just how far can the 
teacher go without becoming “‘subversive of 
discipline”? If the teacher is to “develop and 
train intellectual initiative as well as mental 
facility” (as he says in the chapter on Locke), 
must he stop short of teaching (which can- 
not be done) “instinctive respect for author- 
ity as such”? And finally, we cannot help 
wondering whether he would allow British 
teachers to believe in that doctrine held, ac- 
cording to Sidney Webb, by two-fifths of the 
population of England, the British Labor 
Party—that “only by the widest possible par- 
ticipation in power and the most generally 
spread consciousness of consent can any civ- 
ilized community attain either its fullest life 
or its utmost efficiency.” But we must not 
expect writers on education to know every- 
thing about the administration of schools. 


ROSTER OF LOCAL UNIONS 


AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, WITH 
NAMES OF SECRETARIES 


No. 

2. Chicago Federation of Men Teachers, C 
C WILLARD, 7216 Cornell Ave., Chi- 
cago, Ill. 

3. Chicago Federation of Women High 
School Teachers, ETHEL E BEERS, 
3414 S. Pauline St., Chicago, Ill. 

. Gary Teachers’ Federation, Mr E B Car- 
LILE, 1325 Ellsworth St., Gary, Ind. 

. Teachers’ Union of the City of New York, 
J EDWARD MAYMAN, 70 Fifth Ave., 
New York City. 

. School Teachers’ Association of Scran- 
ton, Pa., MARGARET PADDEN, 210 Mad- 
ison Ave., Scranton, Pa. 

. High School Teachers’ Union of Wash- 
ington, D. C., MAUDE C GUNTHER, 
1827 Eye St., N. W., Washington, D. C. 

. Armstrong-Dunbar High School Teach- 
ers’ Association of Washington, D. C., 
SAMUEL E CoMPTON, Dunbar High 
School, Washington, D. C. 

. Manual Training Teachers’ Association 
of Washington, D. C., H PHILLIPs, 16 
Bryant St., N. W., Washington, D. C. 

. Punxsutawney Teachers’ Federation, O 
C WILLIAMS, Perry St., Punxsutaw- 
ney, Pa. 

. Teachers’ Federation of Hamilton Co., 
Tenn., W J ZIEGLER, 307 Hanover St., 
North Chattanooga, Tenn. 

. Bi-County Federation of Teachers, Fay- 
ette and Westmoreland Counties, Jo- 
SEPH MEILEY, 505 E. Green St., 
Connellsville, Pa. 

. Jasonville Teachers’ Union, ZELLA CRAIG, 
221 S. Washington St., Jasonville, Ind. 





January, 1918 The American Teacher 


111) TTA ELA WAHT TH 


Che Teachers Gnion 


70 Fifth Avenue 


January, 1918. 
Fellow Unionist: 


The fight for Democracy in Education has at last been forced into the open. 

The Teachers’ Union, true to its fundamental principles, has taken its stand 
on the side of RIGHT as opposed to MIGHT. 

The fight is on. And, as far as the Union is concerned, it will be a fight 


to a finish. 
The immediate plan of the Union includes among other things: 


. The reinstatement of the three dismissed teachers. 
Preferring charges against one of the associate superintendents. 

. Establishing (with the aid of others) a “ teachers’ court.” 
Amending the new educational law so as to insure tenure of office. 
Increasing salaries. 


In all this work we have the moral support of leading educators, thinking 
teachers, organized labor, and the enlightened citizenry. 

From the same sources we have also received financial support. 

Within the last two months the Union has spent over $1,500. 

If expert advice and counsel is to be continued, if extra clerical and other 
help is to be had—if our program is to be carried to a successful conclusion— 
MORE MONEY MUST BE RAISED. 

It is estimated that we must raise a defense fund of $10,000. 

The contributions received to date vary in amount from 50 cents to $250— 
a range wide enough to suit any pocketbook. 


MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION TODAY 


Enlist your friends — all of them — in the cause 


Fraternally yours, 


J. EDWARD MAYMAN, 


Secretary-Treasurer. 


P. S.—A verbatim transcript of the minutes of the trial of the three men is 
now in book form, and is for sale at $5.00 a copy. A smaller swmmary is for 
sale at 25 cents the copy. 





24 











The American Teacher Vol. VII, No. 1 





If you had a brother 
would he like green cheese? 


NCREDIBLE as it seems, American teachers are being charged with 
disloyalty because of answers to snap, secret session, hypothetical 
questions which would make the above-quoted question from Alice 
in Wonderland sound statesmanlike. 


No person who loves Democracy more than Peace or Victory can afford 
to be indifferent to the way in which boards of education—and ex- 
cited public opinion—are trying, discharging, transferring, branding 
American, teachers for alleged disloyalty of act or attitude. 


aveowy CW Te 


Travesty and menace are weak pictures of this grotesque mis-defense 
of loyalty. 


Not one-third of forty-six board members heard the testimony. 


Only three copies of the testimony were typed; members do not pre- 
tend to have read it. 


No court would call a tramp disloyal on the basis of such facts as are 
adduced to justify branding and dismissing three teachers as dis- 
loyal. 


It is not claimed that they ever expressed a disloyal sentiment in class 
or anywhere else except at a private Prussianistic, un-American 
inquisition by an associate superintendent. 


Although not charged with disloyalty they are to be discharged for dis- 
loyalty. (The charge is: holding views subversive of discipline.) 


Shorn of specious appeals to war-time fear of disloyalty the indictments 
really indict those who have for years been rating these teachers 
high more than they indict the teachers. 


The snap, secret-session hypothetical questions (not recorded stenograph- 
ically or otherwise) included these: 


Do you think teachers are qualified to criticise their superiors? 

Should teachers inculcate in pupils instinctive obedience to super- 
iors whatever the orders may be? 

If anarchistic doctrines were advanced in your [mathematics] 
class, would you set pupils straight? 

Did you criticise Commissioner X [who presided at the trial] ? 


The dismissal of three teachers, on facts given, is infinitely more disioyal 
and dangerous to American ideals than anything charged or implied 
against the teachers. 


From Pvatic Service, Decemser 18, 1917