TheAmerican — 
TEACHER) 


OCTOBER, 1918 


SL MMMM 


Z 


e ! 3 RA 
Americanize,, 


The Salary Question 


TL ULL ULM OT 








A War Policy for Teachers 





From the Locals 


; 
= 


SHAAN NNN UNNNULLNAPNNLAIE AULA NN SLE MOEA AM NLT TTT 


WUHAN 


BPO MMR LLL LLU UMUC OULU 


| 


Democracy in Education 
Education for Democracy 





The American Teacher 


A Peoples’ War 


T every turn of the war we gain a 
fresh consciousness of what we 
mean to accomplish by it. When 

our hope and expectation are most ex- 
cited we think more definitely than be- 
fore .of the issues that hang upon it and 
of the purposes which must be realized 
by means of it. For it has positive and 
well-defined purposes which we did not 
determine and which we cannot alter. 
No statesman or assembly created them; 
no statesmen or ° 


when its character had become fully de- 
fined and it was plain that no nation 
could stand apart or be indifferent to its 
outcome. Its challenge drove to the 
heart of everything we cared for and 
lived for. The voice of the war had be- 
come clear and gripped our hearts. Our 
brothers from many lands, as well as our 
own murdered dead under the sea, were 
calling to us, and we responded, fiercely 
and of course. 


The air was 





assembly can al- 





ter them. . They 
have arisen out of 
the very nature 
and circum- 
stances of the 
war, The most 
that statesmen or 
assemblies can do 
is to carry them 
out or be false to 
them. They were 
perhaps not clear 
at the outset; but 
they are clear 
now. The war 
has lasted more 
than four years 
and the whole 


Editorials 


Librarians 


A Song of Fate 


What They Say 








CONTENTS 


A War Policy for Teachers 


The Trade Union Movement Among 


From the Locals of the A F of T.... 171 


Blessed Be the European War 


clear about us. 
We saw things in 
their full, con- 
vincing ~propor- 
tions as they 
were; and we 
have seen them 
with steady eyes 
and unchanging 
comprehen- 
sion ever since. 
We accepted the 
issues of the war 
as facts, not as 
any group of men 
either here or 
elsewhere had de- 
fined them, and 











we can accept no 





world has been 

drawn into it. The common will of man- 
kind has been substituted for the par- 
ticular purposes of individual States. 
Individual statesmen may have started 
the conflict, but neither they nor their 
opponents can stop it as they please. It 
has become a peoples’ war, and peoples 
of all sorts and races, of every degree of 
power and variety of fortune, are in- 
volved in its sweeping processes of 
change and settlement. We came into it 


outcome which 
does not squarely meet and settle them. 


—F rom President Wilson’s Fourth Lib- 
erty Loan Address, New York, Septem- 
ber 27, 1918. 

Teachers of America! Let us do our 
part in the great struggle by teaching 
world democracy and by interpreting cor- 
rectly the Peoples’ War to the younger 
generation. In so doing we _ shall 
strengthen the hand of our great leader. 


SOON MMMM MSS SSSARAKREAAAEG KXRXMAKAKAAKAAKANANAKALAKAKKAKNNA 


Vol. VII., No. 8 


XRKAAARAVAAAAAAAALVAAAVVAVVVVHVV HF 


; 
; 
4 
; 
4 
4 
, 
4 
4 
4 
é 
y} 
4 
4 
4 
vA; 
4 
v 
, 
y 
é 





The American Teacher 


Entered as second-class matter, February 21, 1912, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y.; under the Act of March 8, 1879. 


Published at 70 Fifth Avenue, New 


Vol. VIL, No. 8 





“OCTOBER, 1918 


York, 


‘One Dollar a Year 





Americanize 
O more serious task devolves upon the 
N men and women left in charge of the 
children in our schools than that of 
Americanizing the rising generation. 

This task involves much more than teach- 
ing anthems and flag salutes ; much more than 
teaching the colloquial and the lives of na- 
tional heroes; much more than loyalty and 
“good citizenship.” For all of these things 
are taught to the children in Prussia; and by 
all accounts, quite as thoroly as we can hope 
to do ourselves. 

The task is much larger and more difficult. 
It involves nothing less than training a gener- 
ation in ideals and conduct becoming a demo- 
cratic world. Nothing less will do. It means 
setting a new measure of personal success, a 
new standard of national honor, a new vision 
of human destiny. It involves the complete 
eradication of the cant and hypocrisy of our 
mercantile moralites; the complete destruc- 
tion of master and servant relationships, with 
all of their byproducts in fraud and brutality 
and exploitation and degradation. 

The task cannot be evaded. The spirit of 
the peoples engaged in the war is resolved 
upon a democratic peace, a peace that will 
truly make the world a decent place for hu- 
man beings. The people will no longer toler- 
ate an arrangement whereby the shrewd and 
the unscrupulous may dominate the rest of 
us; and the people look to America to show 
the new way. The people will no longer sub- 
mit to either the Prussian or the Manchester 
interpretation of “the struggle for existence,” 
and the American schoolmaster must teach 
the new meaning of human relations. 





Bonds bought by teachers is real sacrifice. 
Buy! 


Budgets 

NE of the educational factors that is 
() being vitally influenced by the world 
war is the educational budget. A 
bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Education pub- 
lished in April, 1918, states that colleges and 
Universities, because of the falling off of pri- 
vate donations, tuition fees and increased cost 
of coal and labor, find themselves with serious 
deficits on their hands. Unless some means 
are found to assist these educational institu- 
tions to weather the financial crisis confront- 
ing them, they will have to close their doors. 
The war has shown the vital need of edu- 
cation as no other event has. ‘here is but 
one way to meet the problem, and that is thru 
complete national and state support and con- 
trol for all educational institutions. How can 
we have present day economics taught and 
democracy encouraged in higher institutions 
of learning if they are largely dependent for 
their support upon donations of those who are 
really opposed to democracy both in govern- 
ment and in industry. If higher education is 
worth while, if it is for the benefit of the 
nation, then the nation should pay for it. 

What say you, fellow workers? 


Shibboleth or Principle 


R P P CLAXTON, in urging boys and 
girls to prepare for teaching, said: 


“As the war continues and as the 
cost of living increases, and the demand for 
services of the kind teachers can render 
grows larger, the numbers of teachers leav- 
ing the schools for other employment will be- 
come still greater, and this tendency is likely 
to continue long after the war is over unless 
the salaries of teachers should be increased 


159 





160 


far beyond the present average. How are 
their places to be filled? By trained or by un- 
trained teachers?” 

Boards of Education! Your answer to 
Commissioner Claxton’s query will prove con- 
clusively whether your cry “All for Democ- 
racy” is a shibboleth to catch the favor of an 
unthinking public or whether it is a principle 
which you believe in enough to make every 
possible sacrifice to attain it. Let your an- 
swer be in the spirit of the courageous and 
inspiring French who advise you to “con- 
serve, endure taxation and privation, suffer 
and sacrifice, to assure those whom you have 
brought into the world that it shall be not 
only a safe but a happy place—for them.” 
Why not, then, try to make it a happy place 
for the teachers who cheerfully sacrifice all 
to make the world a happy place for your 
children? Oh, men of power! Think well 
and long before you answer the query. 


The Worm Turns 


the teachers that the most patriotic 

duty they can perform is to stick to 
their jobs and teach patriotism to the youth 
of the land. What splendid and original ad- 
vice! How illuminating to the profession! 
One need not be @ deviner to realize that Dr 
Shaw is not a teacher trying to live on the mu- 
nificent salary of $600 to $1,200 annually at 
a time when eggs are 80 cents a dozen, milk 
15 cents a quart, meat 42 cents a pound, 
shoddy suits $30, newspapers 2 cents, lunch 
40 cents, and dinner $1. 

- Undoubtedly teaching is the noblest of pro- 
fessions even tho the remuneration does 
not show it. No doubt that teaching Ameri- 
can ideals to future American citizens is an 
inspiring occupation even tho those who 
are engaged in that sublime task get little or 
no consideration or respect from their supe- 
riors. But, granting all that, how can one 
expect a teacher to live on the nobility of his 
calling or the idealism he is trying to incul- 
cate in the young? Will nobility or idealism 


Dd ANNA HOWARD SHAW advises 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VII., No. 8 


feed four hungry children and clothe four 
naked little bodies? Will they provide the 
teacher with necessary medical care, reading, 
recreation or culture? Will they compensate 
him for the mental stagnation, lack of respec- 
table appearance, loss of spirit or for the 
scorn of the “so-called” superiors? No, they 
will not and must not! Too long has the 
teacher stood for noble words and empty 
stomachs! Too long has the teacher endured 
mental stagnation in order that the poor tax- 
payers might not land in the poor house! Too 
often have they been saved from being laid to 
rest in a potter’s grave by the kindness of 
friends in order to live true to the false pro- 
fessional ideals of their calling! The day of 
reckoning is dawning! The day of awaken- 
ing is here! And what, fellow teachers, has 
helped to bring about this remarkable 
change? The war! 

The college graduate who has toiled and 
sacrificed to get an education which will fit 
him to inculéate patriotism in the youth of 
the land now sees to his utter astonishment 
his own graduates earning more than he. He 
sees ignorant mechanics riding in their Fords 
while he must go to work in shoes that have 
seen better days and that have earned a place 
in the refuse heap. He reads such illuminat- 
ing advertisements as the following: 

Teachers—Three good teachers of at least 
five years experience wanted; salary $12 to 
$15 weekly ; training school or college gradu- 
ate preferred. 

And a few spaces below he notes with sur- 
prise the followng: 

Pile Drivers and Carpenters wanted; pay 
$60 per week or 85 cents per hour; double 
pay for overtime and triple pay for Sunday. 
Apply to , Philadelphia, Pa. Think of 
it! $3,000 annually and no education re- 
quired! $3,000 annually and the power to 
decide the conditions of labor. $3,000 annu- 
ally and the respectful consideration of the 
employer! Moreover, he sees ignorant, 
grasping, calculating business men growing 
enormously wealthy while he, serving his 
country nobly, grows ever poorer, ever more 
emaciated, ever shabbier. In short, he sees 
everybody Getting while he is continually 





October, 1918 


Giving and Sacrificing and getting in return 
_What? Words, more words, and still more 
words! 

Citizens of America! Don’t push the teach- 
ers too far! Don’t ignore the fact that teach- 
ers are human and must live just as ordinary 
workers do. Don’t hand out words of advice 
and superior wisdom to people trained to do 
that. Don’t talk of nobility of profession or 
the need for inculcating patriotism. Don’t 
advise us to stand by our guns to the last. 
Tell us this and only this—Henceforth, you 
shall have a living wage, shall receive respect- 
ful consideration and the right to help deter- 
mine the conditions under which you labor. 
Tell us that or remain silent! 


The Indignity of Teaching 


HE disgrace of being a teacher lies not 
e} in the low compensation, not in the 
low esteem accorded by the Promi- 
nent Citizens, not in constant association with 
immature minds. It lies in the necessity of 
working always under the direction of supe- 
riors for whom you can have no respect. That 
is to say, it lies in the serious menace to your 
own self-respect. But for this menace teach- 
ers are themselves largely to blame. We ac- 
cept this condition rather than assert our- 
selves in the only way our civilization per- 
mits; we accept this condition rather than 
assert ourselves as members of the class that 
works for a living; we accept this condition 
in return for a false reputability, for a mis- 
branding as ladies and gentlemen. 


The Salary Question 


HE sad plight of the stationary salaried 
T and woefully underpaid teacher has 
at last outraged the dignified leaders 

of our idealistic profession to such an extent 
that this material question played a promi- 
nent part in the deliberations of our mosi 
eminent and respected educational body—the 


The American Teacher 


161 


National Education Association. Lotus D 
Coffman, dean of the School of Education in 
the University of Minnesota, said: “If we are 
to maintain present efficiency salaries must 
be increased 33 per cent. If we are to im- 
prove at all, salaries must be increased 100 
per cent.”; while President Swain, speaking 
for the Committee on Salaries, reported that 
the average salary of teachers in 1915 was 
$543, while that of the railroad men was 
$1,020, since increased to $1,428, the mini- 
mum wage on which a family can exist. He 
felt that the cure for this deplorable situation 
was the creation of a national department of 
education and the national appropriation of 
$100,000,000 to aid the states to raise the sal- 
aries of teachers. To achieve these ends he 
requested an appropriation of $10,000. Is it 
any wonder that Margaret Haley, one of the 
organizers of the first teachers’ union in 
America, arose to say that $10,000 looked to 
her like thirty cents? While we approve the 
recommendations of President Swain, we feel 
they are worthless as far as securing salary 
increases for teachers now or in the imme- 
diate future. 

The solution of the salary question lies not 
with Washington but with the teachers of 
America. Why have skilled laborers received 
from three to six increases since the inaug- 
uration of the war? Was it because they 
were eminently respectable in appearance or 
in the presentation of their case? Was it be- 
cause their employers were philanthropic or 
just or both? No! It was because the work- 
ers had confidence in their strength and the 
justice of their cause. Their confidence is the 
result of their unions which forced their em- 
ployers to. recognize the fairness of their 
claims. Hence victory, justice and temporary 
harmony. 

The teachers of America cannot win salary 
increases unless they, too, force their employ- 
ers, thru efficient unionization, to see the jus- 
tice of their cause and their power to make 
them grant necessary salary increases. Wit- 
ness the remarkable achievement. of the New 
York teachers who after two years of agita- 
tion forced the Board of Education to such 
liberality that they granted a temporary 








162 


bonus of $5 monthly to some, $8 to others 
and nothing at all to those earning over 
$1,500! Would they have thus dared to trifle 
with 20,000 teachers organized into a union? 
Force is still the quickest means by which 
salaries are at present increased. All other 
eminently respectable means having failed to 
bring about adequate salary adjustments, 
will the teachers have the courage to use 
potential force that comes with unionization ? 
Or will they let their eminent respectability 
reduce them to actual starvation from which 
so many of them are now saved by their hold- 
ing of two positions, thus depriving them- 
selves of the necessary recreation and culture 
which are indispensable to good teaching? 

The war has developed another means of 
settling industrial disputes,—governmental 
mediation thru arbitration boards on which 
workers and employers are equally represent- 
ed. A similar body can be selected to settle all 
disputes arising between teachers and their 
official superiors but that would imply a rec- 
ognition of the teachers as thinking individ- 
uals and of the principle of democratic school 
administration. That is something which the 
boards of education or trustees will no more 
willingly agree to than did the industrial 
autocrats who succumbed to the force of the 
Federal Government—a force reluctantly ex- 
erted to save the nation in the greatest crisis 
that ever confronted it. It will need the force 
that comes with the unionization of teachers 
to compel our educational autocrats to give 
us salary increases commensurate with the 
increased cost of living and decent represen- 
tation on boards of education and school 
boards and councils. 


Educational Salvage 
ROM the industrial and educational 
fk viewpoint, one of the greatest prob- 
lems brought up by the war is the 


treatment of the disabled soldier. At first 
our war enthusiasm and gratitude for our fel- 
low townsmen who fought so valiantly 
against the Hun, will no doubt manifest 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VII., No. 8 


themselves, and the disabled soldiers feted 
and made much of, will temporarily forget 
their incapacity. In time, our war enthusi- 
asms will cool and grim reality displace our 
war idealism and fancies. The war hero will 
then see himself as he is, human wreckage 
with nothing but a pension and a care-woin 
family to console him for the sacrifice of 
wealth, position, ambition and health. Black 


- despair will then seize him. He will eventu- 


ally become an embittered man destined to 
live, but often longing to die. 

In order to prevent not only what had hith- 
erto been regarded as an unfortunate but un- 
avoidable catastrophe, the government, with 
its enthusiasm tempered by sanity as well as 
sentimentality, determined not only to do al! 
it should for its disabled, but also that the 
disabled shall do all they can for themselves. 
Its policy was incorporated in the Smith- 
Sears Vocational Rehabilitation Act which 
was signed by the President on June 27, 19138. 

The law, with its $2,000,000 appropriation 
immediately available, empowers the Federal 
Board for Vocational Education to establish 
schools where disabled soldiers and sailors 
shall have their capabilities analyzed by ex- 
perts ; where they shall be guided as to the se- 
lection of a skilled occupation which shall not 
only fit their needs but also provide for steady 
and remunerative employment; and where 
they shall be given the necessary training and 
when trained be placed in positions. The act 
further provides that those taking the reha- 
biliation courses receive a monthly compensa- 
tion equal to the amount of their monthly pay 
for the last month of service. ; 

This great work of reconstruction is not 
only the product of a nation’s gratitude for 
its heroes but also the embodiment of sound 
business principles. Skilled labor has always 
been in demand and will be so to even a 
greater extent after the war when labor will 
be scarce because of the tremendous war 
losses and because the ravages of war will 
have to be gradually replaced. By training 
these disabled soldiers we not only meet an 
urgent economic need but also transform de- 
pendents and hopeless men into self-respect- 
ing, ambitious, skilled workers who will 





October, 1918 


add greatly to the productive wealth of the 
nation instead of detracting from it. 

In this work of rehabilitation the teachers 
and the general public can, according to our 
yovernmental experts in charge of this work, 
play a vital part. Disabled soldiers must not 
be spoiled by being pampered. They should 
not be allowed or encouraged to feel that they 
have been permanently incapacitated and are 
therefore a government charge. On the con- 
trary, friends and relatives of the disabled 
should emphasize the fact that altho they had 
rendered a great service to their country in 
the war, they can still render an equally great 
service not only to their country and their 
families but to themselves as well by taking 
advantage of the opportunities offered by the 
Smith-Sears Act to become capable, efficient 
and self-respecting citizens. It cannot be too 
strongly impressed upon them that in many 
cases an even greater career lies open to 
them. That this is not an exaggeration is 
evidenced by the fact that so many men are 
square pegs in round holes whereas, under 
this act, they will be placed by experts into 
callings for which they are especially fitted 
and trained, so that the war, for many, will 
prove a blessing in disguise! How well this 
is being done in France, Belgium, Great Brit- 
ain, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Can- 
ada and other countries is admirably set forth 
and illustrated in Bulletin No. 15 published 
by the Federal Board of Vocational Educa- 
tion. 

One of the redeeming features of this war 
is that it has taught the world that the dis- 
abled men and women, like many wrecks, can 
be salvaged. After this war shall have been 
won and its human wrecks salvaged, what 
will the government do with its rehabilitation 
schools with their specially trained teachers 
and remarkable equipment? Scrap them? 

Unfortunately, we are living in an age that 
produces wealth for sale rather than for use. 
Things are made not because they properly 
satisfy human needs, but because they bring 
a profit to the producer. To secure large 
profits vigorous men and women in the prime 
of life and growing healthy children are sac- 
rificed to the patron saint. of the Profiteer. 


The American Teacher 


163 


In the past these unfortunate wrecks of an 
inhuman economic system have been discard- 
ed to become public charges or family bur- 
dens. Only recently some states are forcing 
employers to contribute partly to the support 
of their injured employees. Yet, not a state 
in the union has seriously endeavored to solve 
the problem of rehabilitating the wrecks of 
an industrial system that enthrones greed in 
place of humanity! Now that the war has 
shown the way, shall we lag behind? Why 
not enlarge the scope of the Federal Board to 
include the wrecks of industry as well as 
those of war? 

The disabled soldiers of industry are far 
more numerous than those of war, are daily 
increasing in numbers, and, like the poor, we 
are destined to have them with us as long as 
the present economic idealism lasts. Are the 
sacrifices of the worker any less for the pub- 
lic welfare than those of the soldier? Are 
not the soldiers of industry as important as 
the soldiers of war? If the latter are to re- 
ceive just consideration at the hands of the 
nation, why not the former? 

Teachers, yours is the task of sharpening a 
dulled public conscience concerning its duty 
to those hitherto neglected soldiers of indus- 
try who have been maimed because our pres- 
ent profit system regards human life as 
cheaper than life-guarding machinery. 








te American Teacher 








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


THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
HENRY R LINVILLE, Editor 
ABRAHAM LEFKOWITZ, Business Manager. 








At the time of expiration, a bill will be found in the copy. 
Subscribers are requested to give prompt notice of changes 
in address. 





Remittances should be made in postal money-order, express 
order, draft, stamps or check (New York exchange). 





SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, ONE DOLLAR FOR THE YEAR— 
FOREIGN, $1.10. 








A War Policy for Teachers 


BY “‘A WELL-KNOWN PUBLICIST” 


that Great Britain was spending 

$25,000 a minute to carry on the war, 
and then that this country was spending half 
as much again. $37,500 a minute; $18,- 
000,000,000 a year! We spend it willingly, 
we spend it gladly. We have long been told 
that the best goods are the cheapest in the 
end. They wear better. We want a peace that 
will wear, a lasting peace. One that will not 
run. We want it backed up by the other party 
to the deal. We mistrust him just now. The 
stockholders in the corporation may be all 
right at heart, but the head of the business 
and his assistants have been caught in some 
nasty transactions. So we are talking in 
large figures. A billion this way or that way 
is of little consequence as long as we get what 
we want. And we are going to get it. 

Let us think a minute. For many years 
the budget system has been one of the policies 
upon which the political parties were willing 
to stake their claims to office. And the bud- 
get system in its essentials involves an esti- 
mate of the relative worth of the projects 
upon which the government intends to spend 
its money—the people’s money. The head of 
the family says to the other head of the fam- 
ily, “We can buy that car this year or we can 
move into a larger house, but we cannot do 
both.” The family moves into a larger house. 
Next year he says, “We can buy that car this 
year or we can send Willie to college, but we 
cannot do both.” Willie goes to college and 
the family walks. And the family will con- 
tinue to walk until the car overshadows in 
importance every other want of the family or 
the total income increases. 

We have been evaluating education for 
many years, and from the point of view of 
the national government (measured at least 
in terms of appropriations) the schools have 
been much in the position of the car that the 
family never got. One may easily point to 
the millions spent upon education as a refuta- 


\ MONTH ago the newspapers told us 


tion of the charge, but on the other hand one 
may as easily point to the millions of people 
who never got any education or who got onl 
a meager fraction of the education which they 
would have got had they had the opportunity. 
And opportunity means in the last analysis 
money, both to support the educational insti- 
tution and the individual attending it. Some 
of these conditions are becoming painfully 
apparent now. Weare teaching thousands to 
read and write. Think of it, thousands of 
able-bodied men between the ages of twenty- 
one and thirty-one cannot read or write. 
Many cannot even understand enough Eng- 
lish to obey simple military commands. We 


are teaching them. We need mechanics and 
machinists. Weare teaching them. We have 
always needed them, but we allowed them to 
learn by the trial and error method. These 
are immediate war needs which have. to be 
met without delay. How many minutes a 


day, at $37,500 a minute, are we giving to 
them? 

But these needs are utilitarian. Anybody 
can see them, understand them, and provide 
for them. Let us get down to the real pur- 
pose of the war.. Democracy. Freedom. 
Civilization. Self-determination. Those are 
some of the things we are fighting for, and 
nothing could be more worth while fighting 
for. We believe in those things and a great 
President has made them articulate for us. 
Because I do not think that all of us in this 
country or among our Allies feel the full sig- 
nificance of these ideals that I venture to sug- 
gest that a few of these valuable minutes be 
devoted to an important sector on our political 
front. When accredited representative of one 
of our Allies, an Ally with a King, says that 
“democracy is a political condition which has 
no direct connection with any particular form 
of government,” I should like to know what 
he means. And I should like the growing 
children of the land to know what he means, 
and I should like them to know that in this 


164 





October, 1918 


country democracy has a direct connection 
with the form of government. Well, there I 
have revealed my military secret. That im- 
portant sector is our own educational system. 
But I want one or two more shots at some of 
those enemies within. 

Representatives of several foreign coun- 
tries have expressed the thought that self-de- 
termination is a fine policy, but it must be 
taken with a grain of salt. In just those 
words. And they go ahead to prove that 
while it is an excellent principle for others it 
really cannot be applied to the particular 
piece of the earth which they (the speakers) 
desire. Now does that mean that when the 
war is drawing to an end and the manhood of 
this country is spread out in blotches over the 
fields of France, that they are going to turn 
to President Wilson and say, ‘““We know you 
talked about self-determination, but of course 
we understood all along that you did not mean 
itfor us. Bes'des, you know that the common 
people must always have high ideals pre- 
sented to them to make them fight well’? ! 
should like self-determination made some- 
thing very real to our boys and girls. In 
other words, there are tremendous problems 
which must be solved by teaching growing 
youth all that there is to know about them. I 
must take for granted that this is realized, 
for I would speak more particularly of the 
necessity of applying our war aims to the 
problem of getting the teachers to do the 
teaching. 

That teachers are scarce and are growing 
scarcer is well known by this time, and to 
those who are genuinely interested there is no 
doubt that the one remedy susceptible of im- 
mediate application is the raising of salaries. 
That has become an axiom, a sine qua non. 
However, such an admission can be wrung 
from the lowliest, or the wealthiest taxpayer, 
because he forthwith asks you where you are 
going to get it—meaning the money. The tax 
rate has been raised to the breaking point. 
That may or may not be true, but let it pass. 
I do not know whether or not our children 
should be broken before the taxpayer, as 
such. Assume the tax rate at the breaking 
point. Is there any money available to raise 


The American Teacher 


165 


the teachers’ salaries? 

There are two problems to be solved where 
money is involved. One is how to get it and 
the other is how to get rid of it. This is not 
flippant. On the same day that the papers 
told us of the value of modern minutes, July 
31, to be exact, the New York Times made 
editorial comment upon the efforts of the 
Finance Committee of the House of Repre- 
sentatives to apportion the huge impost of 
taxes necessary to finance the war. In lieu 
of an excess profit tax the paper proposed a 
universal sales tax on the ground that it 
would be of wide incidence and would produce 
great revenue. “The House prefers to harass 
wealth rather than to raise revenue, esteem- 
ing that a sure road to popularity. Wealth 
does not dare to say a word in defense, lest a 
worse thing should happen to it.” “Excess 
profits,” do not excess profits mean profiteer- 
ing? Shall we condone profiteering in spite 
of our high ideals? Shall we not harass 
wealth? Only life? Does the drafted soldie: 
speak of himself as being harassed? And 
what is this worse thing which may happen 
to wealth? The soldier may die. But that is 
his sacrifice. He is placed upon the roll of 
honor. 

The Times continues, “There is no objec- 
tion to excess profits if the production neces- 
sary to profits is not hindered. But there can 
be little increase of production without in- 
crease of plant, and increase of plant is made 
expensive if there is a discriminating tax on 
undistributed profits.” Now we get the clue. 
Wealth must not be harassed (altho thru a 
universal sales tax of wide incidence, poverty 
may), and a tax must not be placed upon it if 
it interferes with profits and is expensive. 
In other words, says Wealth, “We want de- 
mocracy, we want freedom, and all that, but 
we do not want it if it is expensive, or if we 
have to make a sacrifice.” 

Now let us turn over the news columns of 
the same day. We find that the United States 
Steel Company declares an extra dividend of 
three per cent besides its regular quarterly 
dividend of one and a quarter per cent, and 
all this after laying aside enough money to 
anticipate the excess profits tax which it ex- 








166 


pects the Government to levy. This is a sev- 
enteen per cent profit, and since the United 
States Steel Company is doing nothing but 
government work, every cent of it comes from 
the pockets of the people, from Liberty Bonds, 
which in time the people themselves will have 
to repay, while they who hold the bonds get 
only four and a quarter per cent on their in- 
vestments. Now, would it be harassing 
wealth or would it kill productivity (consid- 
ering the fact that the Government guaran- 
tees continued production) to hold the corpo- 
ration to the same profit as the man who 
holds the bond? 

We talk of making sacrifices. Well, sup- 
pose the stockholder of the United States 
Steel Company sacrifices forty of those sixty- 
two millions of profit, leaving a fair profit of 
between five and six per cent. Those forty 
million would equal the educational budget of 
the city of New York and if applied in that 
one city alone would double the teaehers’ sal- 
aries. The finest teaching talent in the world 
could be commanded and one million children, 
constituting the nation’s second line of de- 
fense, could be magnificently trained along 
the lines that Wilson has set forth. 

Of course, there are many more than these 
forty million to be obtained on the same 
terms from other companies benefiting from 
the war, and there is no necessity of raising 
salaries one hundred per cent or of favoring 
any one locality. But the conclusion is unes- 
capable that if some persons are making a 
great deal more out of their investments in 
the war (the mere phrase “investment in the 
war” seems horrible, yet it expresses the 
truth) there should be an equalization of the 
return, and if there is a weak spot in our de- 
fense, it should be strengthened. 

Now we have the money. How are we to 
get the teachers? War activities are luring 
teachers from their profession. Are we to 
lure them back and thus deprive war activi- 
ties of their workers? Shall we not be doing 
the same thing for which manufacturers have 
been condemned—stealing help from each 
other? Precisely. Let us turn to another 
column of the same paper. The Government 
will begin to control the hiring of labor thru- 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VII., No. & 


out: the United States. Men will be place: 
where they are needed and taken from re- 
gions where they are in excess. There is to 
be no compulsion. A workman may or not 
work where he pleases, but he will be kept 
informed of the opportunities. Employers 
may not advertise for labor, but must get it 
thru Government agencies. There is likeli- 
hood that skilled labor will be dealt with in 
the same way. Why not skilled teachers? if 
the welfare of the country, of each and all of 
us, is bound up one in the other, why should 
not the question be viewed in the broadest 
possible way? Wages must be arbitrated on 
the basis of strikes or else a minimum wage 
must be set on the basis of the cost of living, 
and that minimum must be as flexible as the 
cost of living. Something must be done and 
undoubtedly will be done for the morale of 
the nation and there is every reason why the 
teachers should be included in the general 
plan. The objection that they should not be 
considered in the same class as labor falls to 
the ground when the doctors are considered. 
They are necessary for the winning of the 
war, and they have been or are about to be 
mobilized. Why not the teachers? 

Among the million other fallacies that this 
war is exposing is that of the inability of the 
teacher to do any other work than that of 
teaching. If it were true it would be a sad 
commentary on our educational organization. 
It would be preposterous to suppose that the 
men and women who introduce boys and girls 
to life should be unable to live it themselves. 
Teachers can and do go into other professions 
and make good. I believe that the majority 
who engage in teaching do so for the love of 
the work, not because they can do nothing 
else. Like the British Tommy, they grouse 
about it, but after all, they love it. The sup- 
posed rare skill of business people is a snare 
and a delusion. There are just as many in- 
competents among them and they make jus 
as many mistakes. The man or woman who 
can successfully conduct a class or a schoo! 
can successfully conduct a business. It must 
be remembered that those who sell and must 
have genius for money making do not make 
up a large. per cent of those in business. 





October, 1918 


There are thousands of executive positions 
that require the same tact, efficiency and hu- 
man sympathy that make the successful 
teacher. 

There is one way to handle the problem 
of the school teacher and that is to treat it as 
a live problem, one just as live as any con- 
nected with the war. Make the Commis- 
sioner of Education a cabinet member. Give 
him power to act in establishing minimum 
standards. Make him a member of the War 
Labor Policies Board. We have too much 
talk about the nobility of the profession and 
the sad plight that it is in. We don’t just 
talk about coal and wheat and shells and 
ships. We have action and we are able to get 
it because the country is at war and there is 
no time for delay. Well, the country is at 
war and the children are at war and the 
teachers are at war and talk does not do them 
any more good than it does the soldiers. So 
let us have action. President Wilson was a 
school teacher and none can know better than 
he the power to be wielded or to be lost thru 
the schools. To talk democracy and freedom 
and civilization while the schools are disinte- 
grating is to court disaster. If we are to win 
the war let us win it for all it is worth. That 
means to make that sector of the front 
marked Education impregnable. 





American Education 
The American public educational system is fac- 
ing the first grave crisis in its history. There have 
been other pedagogical storms, but they have all 


blown over. Great battles were fought over the 
introduction of natural science into the public 
schools, over the separation of history and civics, 
over the substitution of modern languages for an- 
cient tongues. And yet all these were trivial mat- 
ters in comparison with the issue at hand today. 
Now the public schools are face to face with a real 
task—the task of preparing millions of boys and 
girls for citizenship in a changing world of rising 
democracy. It is one thing to teach the principles 
of citizenship in a static society where nothing 
changes and all is settled forever, where the village 
priest performs the ancient rites, the housewife 
cards her wool, and the peasant pleds about his 
weary tasks with scythe and flail. It is another thing 


The American Teacher 


167 


to prepare for citizenship in a progressive democ- 
racy with staggering domestic and foreign problems, 
the decision of which must at last come home to the 
judgment of the people. Democrats, Republicans, 
Socialists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Poles, Swedes, 
and Yankees can let the village teacher use any- 
body’s text in arithmetic or in Latin; but what about 
the texts that deal with the vexing issues of Ameri- 
can. life? Can pupils be prepared for democratic cifi- 
zenship by arithmetic, grammar and Latin? By texts 
in history and civics that do not mention labor unions, 
strikes, the woman movement, poverty, farmers’ 
alliances, nonpartisan leagues, the _ I W W, single 
tax, Socialism, municipal ownership? Are these 
dreadful things to be mentioned in the presence of 
the children of the nation? Or, if mentioned, to 
be condemned, praised, or even given a fair hear- 
ing? Prepare for citizenship? Yes, and fill the 
schools with social dynamite? Or are the children 
to be prepared by memorizing the Constitution of 
the United States and the Declaration of Independ- 
ence? Does that prepare, important as it may be? 
Since the millions never go beyond the grade schools, 
must they venture out into a changing world with 
no knowledge of the burning issues which men 
and women face there? Must they learn their les- 
sons first at the flaming forge of life where men 
beat out the weapons for the struggle for existence? 
Shall there be no historical background, no consid- 
eration in the school room in advance? We put 
this question squarely to perhaps the leading “ed- 
ucator” in America and he answered like a shot, 
“No controversal subjects should be taught in our 
public schools.” And yet a few nights later the 
same educator announced with a straight face that 
the first task of the public schools was the prepa- 
ration of the millions for citizenship. Strange con- 
tradiction—nothing controversial must be consid- 
ered in our schools, and at the same time children 
must be prepared for citizenship in a democracy 
where even the foundations of social economy are 
in controversy, whether we like it or not. This 
is the real crisis. The public schools will either 
serve the forces of science, scholarship, moderation, 
open-mindedness, or—like the universities—they 
will shuffle and trundle along after a civilization 
that is made in spite of them. The choice is with 
the teachers. Have they the courage of initiative 
and leadership?—The Dial. 


Bright 
Bright? What do you mean, Miss Simp- 
kins is bright? 
Oh, she always reflects my brilliant re- 
marks. 





BE RA aii callin cen itt dP ES ata cid 


PS Bes Fo aceasta TEs Caicit 





The Trade Union Movement Among Librarians 


TILLOAH SQUIRES, — 


President, Library Employees Union of New York 


like teachers, have had numerous or- 

ganizations for many years. For ex- 
ample, there is the American Library Associ- 
ation, a national group, organized in 1876, 
and now prominently before the public 
through its extensive book campaign for 
army camps, the Tri-State Library Associa- 
tion, comprising the states of Pennsylvania, 
New York and New Jersey. In almost every 
state there are state organization of libra- 
rians‘and various local clubs. In New York 
City the two most widely known groups are 
New York Library Club and the Special Li- 
braries Association. 

These organizations seem to j;have been 
formed chiefly for cultural and professional 
purposes, and for the most part have ap- 
peared to consider any agitation in the econ- 
omic field to be both unbecoming and undig- 
nified. At least there has been little or no 
organized action in that direction and the re- 
sult has been that this branch of public edu- 
cation, important tho it is, ranking second 
only to the universities and the public schools, 
has been for years underestimated and con- 
sequently undeveloped and underpaid. There 
has developed a strong belief among libra- 
rians and their assistants, due no doubt to the 
attitude of library authorities, to whom the 
great mass of librarians always look for lead- 
ership and initiative in all phases of their 
work, that an effort on their part to obtain 
better salaries would be frowned down as un- 
professional, and even insubordinate. 

To meet this situation and attempt to take 
an intelligent and active part in the control 
of their working conditions, the librarians in 
the City of New York organized the Library 
Employees Union and in May, 1917, obtained 
a charter from the American Federation of 
Labor. This was the first trade union of 
librarians to be formed in the United States. 


| IBRARIANS throughout the country, 


All librarians and library assistants in the 
Public, College and general business libraries 
of Greater New York are eligible to member- 
ship. There are about 2,500 librarians in 
New York City, of these 2,000 are employed 
in the three large public systems, and 500 in 
the business, school and settlement libraries. 

The Librarians Union, though formed but 
a short time ago, has lost no time in begin- 
ning an active campaign to increase salaries 
and improve conditions of work in libraries. 
One of the first steps was to call the attention 
of the public to the general situation. 

Three months ago New York Librarians 
welcomed the Boston Library Employees 
Union, also affiliated with the American Fed- 
eration of Labor. Boston and New York are 
now looking forward to the formation of the 
“American Federation of Librarians.” 

It might not be amiss to say a word about 
the attitude of many librarians who we may 
characterize as having “arrived” in the pro- 
fession, and who are not so keenly aware of 
the high cost of living as their less fortunate 
fellow workers. The two leading library 
periodicals greeted the announcement of a 
trade union among librarians by misconstru- 
ing the meaning or spirit of unionism which 
usually exists among the would-be profes- 
sional classes. That I may not appear to 
overstate I will quote a few lines from Public 
Libraries, July, 1917: ““Now comes this last 
movement of organizing library employees 
into a labor union—one of the most far- 
fetched ideas of improvement possible. As 
usual, the names of the prime movers in form- 
ing this labor union suggest no previous con- 
tribution to betterment, either of service or 
personal equipment in library work and 
doubtless their ideals of the benefit of the 
labor union has to do with the improvement 
solely of their own pecuniary situation, with 
scarcely a thought of what their contribution 


168 


_ 





October, 1918 


may be to the betterment of the labor condi- 
tions in their environment—a situation which 
is already the bane of labor unions generally 
today. No right-minded librarians 
can possibly favor this latest move for self- 
assertion as a creditable effort in library ser- 
vice.” 

The Library Journal, under the same date, 
says: “If Union principles should be followed 
to their logical result, union members of a 
library staff might decline to serve with non- 
union members, or to circulate books and 
periodicals not bearing a union imprint, or to 
work in buildings in which the bricks had 
been made or laid by non-union workers. 
This is distinctly in contrast with what we 
know as the library spirit, and would indeed 
separate the unionized workers from their 
professional fellows. An endeavor some 
months ago to unionize authors thru the Au- 
thors’ League came to nothing because the 
leading authors felt that authorship was a 
profession rather than an industry.” Thomas 
L. Montgomery, Librarian of the Pennsy!l- 
vania State Library, and late president of the 
American Library Association, in a recent 
letter to our organization says: “While I am 
writing to you I cannot express to you more 
appropriately my disappointment at the for- 
mation of any such association as you have 
attempted. In the first place, there is no dis- 
crimination made against employees in our 
profession. There is no similar work where 
women stand higher or are paid in propor- 
tion to their services in the same way. The 
forming of a trade union in such a profession 
unquestionably lowers that profession in the 
eyes of the public. I am not, of course, in any 
way denying your right to do anything you 
choose. I would be the last person in the 
world to persuade that such a course was un- 
wise. I am simply saying this as my view of 
the matter.” Chas K Bolton, Librarian of 
the Boston Athenaeum, writes in the Library 
Journal, June, 1918, in commenting upon the 
action taken by our fellow librarians in Bos- 
ton: “It has from time immorial been the 

‘rule among professional men and women that 
an organization to advance wages is unpro- 
fessional and undignified.” 


The American Teacher 


169 


The librarians’ union recently wrote to the 
Chief of Circulation Department of the New 
York Public Library for permission to hold a 
public meeting in an auditorium of one of the 
branch libraries. These auditoriums are fre- 
quently used in certain types of community 
or civic work. 

The Acting Chief refused our request on 
the following grounds: “It has been custom- 
ary to grant the use of branch library build- 
ings for the holding of public meetings only 
in the case of local or neighborhood organiza- 
tions which have no headquarters of their 
own. It has not been considered proper or 
possible to furnish meeting places or head- 
quarters for societies or associations which 
cover a wide territorial field like the entire 
City of New York, especially when such or- 
ganizations have quarters of their own where 
meetings are held at regular intervals. Such 
having been our policy in the past, I do not 
feel authorized to grant your request.” 

Dr C C Williamson, late Librarian of the 
New York Municipal Reference Library, 
points out in a very able article in the Sep- 
tember issue of the Library Journal, with the 
significant title ‘““The Need of a Plan for Li- 
brary Development,” what librarians could 
do for themselves and the profession. Dr 
Williamson, though not at present in the pro- 
fession, and for that very reason able doubt- 
less to use a freer hand in indicating certain 
of our weak points, seems to me to imply that 
our so-called professional and cultural groups 
have been quietly sleeping on the job. His 
message is certainly a very timely and worth- 
while one. “If we really believe that library 
service has any future worth while, why do 
we not plan for it?” he writes. “Why are we 
so loath to try experiments, to initiate new 
methods, to subject our processes and results 
to acid tests... . .” No library association, 
in spite of years of bewailing the backward- 
ness of most states in library development, 
has ever taken the trouble to frame and adopt 
a model library law—the statutory basis of 
an efficient state library system—the cost 
would be nothing—a little imagination, a lit- 
tle spirit of co-operation, a little hard work— 
and the thing is done.” Of the schools Dr 





A EE PRR at 5 


2 Me ane: 





170 The American Teacher 


Williamson writes as follows: “Library 
school facilities in general are inadequate to 
meet the need for a trained personnel in the 
higher ranks. The existing schools are doing 
good work, tho perhaps their courses are not 
flexible as they should be in view of the great 
diversity of requirements in the positions 
which graduates are called to occupy. 


.It is evident that the capacity of existing 


schools is not equal to the demand. Schools 
must be enlarged, others established and 
training by other methods provided.” “The 
responsibility,” he concludes, “rests squarely 
upon the profession and cannot be shifted. 
This is a situation which we could accept 
with complacency if there were not reason to 
suspect that the library profession has a 
pretty low average of initiative.” 

I have endeavored to sketch very briefly a 
few of our problems and a little of the sur- 
rounding “atmosphere” with which our 
Union has to struggle. The solution will 
come I believe when librarians, like “‘teach- 
ers, learn that fundamentally their interests 
are one and that to protect them they must 
organize as one—Union,” as you say in your 
fine little magazine, THE AMERICAN TEACHER. 


A Success in Democratic 


Education 

OTWITHSTANDING the number of 

N young men who have enlisted or been 

drafted for military service, the New 

York School for Printers’ Apprentices opened 

its doors on September 30th with a good en- 

rolment and prospects for another successful 
year. 

The coming year will be the seventh in the 
history ‘of this unique school, which was 
launched in 1912. It is managed jointly by 
Typographical Union No. 6 and a group of 
employing printers, and occupies quarters in 
the Hudson Guild Settlement at 436 West 
27th St., New York. 


The course of study, which is open to reg- 
istered apprentices afternoons and evenings, 
includes practical work in type composition, 
advertising and layouts, together with edu- 
cational courses in grammar, spelling, punc- 
tuation and proof reading. 

The value of the apprentices school, which 
is conducted on a co-operative, non-profit- 
making basis, is attested by the increase in 
the attendance from a mere handful of stu- 
dents in 1912 to nearly 400 last year. It is 
planned to add other departments of the 
printing trade to the curriculum and thus 


make the school a model for the entire coun-. 


try, with a view to encouraging the establish- 
ment of similar institutions in other printing 
centers. 





This is the Official Organ 
of the 
American Federation of Teachers 
ORGANIZED APRIL 15, 1916 
Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 
OFFICERS OF THE A F OF T 


President, CHARLES. B STILLMAN, Chicago, 
1620 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, III. 


Secretary-Treasurer, F G STECKER, Chicago, 
1618 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, III. 


National Organizer; First Vice-President, 
L V LAMPSON, Washington, D. C., 
1336 Otis Place, N. W. 


Editor, The American Teacher; Sixth Vice-President, 
HENRY R LINVILLE, New York City, 
36 Terrace Avenue, Jamaica. 

Second V.-Pres., MABEL L REEs, Brooklyn, N. Y. C., 
39 Winthrop Street. 

Third Vice-President, ANITA BAILEY, Gary, Ind., 
650 Buchanan Street. 

Fourth V.-Pres., JupIrH G Rippick, Norfolk, Va., 

722 Duke Street. 

Fifth V.-Pres., S E Compton, Washington, D. ©., 
Dunbar High School. 

Seventh V.-Pres., CLARA K Stutz, Washington, D. C., 
1628 Swann Street. 

Eighth V.-Pres.; CARRIE L CoLBURN, Olean, N. Y., 

803 West Henley Street. 


Ninth V.-Pres., ISABEL WILLIAMS, St. Paul, Minn., 
916 St. Clair Street. ~ 





Vol. VII., No. 8 


dll an ao i ME 


QO eee ee 


From the Locals of the American Federation 
of Teachers 


THE FEDERATION OF 
WOMEN HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS 
OF CHICAGO 


Teachers of Chicago sends greeting 

to THE AMERICAN TEACHER as it 
makes its first appearance under the new 
management. Those of us who attended the 
Convention also feel moved to say how much 
we enjoyed meeting the rest of you who had 
the same privilege. Nothing in the three 
years and more of the Federation’s existence 
has so heartened us for the long campaign 
ahead, It was inspiring to meet so many 
others that had seen the “vision.” Now, 
thru the columns of THE AMERICAN 
TEACHER, we are to become better acquainted 
with one another’s problems and their solu- 
tion. It will certainly be very interesting and 
tend to unite us more closely. 

One of the most valuable assets of this 
Federation is its co-operation with the Wom- 
en’s Trade Union League. We are fortunate 
in having the National Headquarters here, as 
well as one of the most influential locals in 
‘ the country, a local that ranks high in the 
Illinois Federation of Labor, in the State 
Federation of Women’s Clubs, and among the 
civic organizations. Those of us who have 
been active workers in the League have come 
into association thru it with Mrs. Raymond 
Robins, Mary McDowell, Agnes Nestor, Alice 
Henry, Emma Steghagen, a pioneer with the 
Knights of Labor, and many fine young wom- 
en who are forging to the front. 

Mrs. Robins and Miss Nestor spend much 
of the time in Washington, the latter repre- 
senting women workers on the Woman’s 
Committee of the Council of National De- 
fense. Mrs Margaret Snodgrass Harding, 
former corresponding secretary of the Amer- 
ican Federation of Teachers, is Miss Nestor’s 
executive chairman in Washington, where 
Professor Harding is editing the Red, White 


‘i HE Federation of Women High School 


and Blue Books. Miss Mary Anderson, of the 
Chicago League, is assistant to Miss Van 
Kluck, and Elizabeth Christman, of the Glove 
Workers, is newly chosen by Frank P Walsh 
as National Investigator of the National War 
Labor Board, headed by Mr Walsh and Mr 
Wm H Taft. 

The presence of so many officers of the Chi- 
cago League in Washington will go far to 
make the new Washington League strong and 
enable it to assume soon the greater respon- 
sibilities arising from its location. 

It is the importance of the Chicago League 
in all its affiliations with organizations of 
working women and with clubs co-operating, 
that gives large significance to “the fifth an- 
nual conference of women trade unionists of 
Chicago and vicinity, which was held at the 
Bowen Country Club, Waukegan, IIl., Sept. 
27, 28 and 29.” Who can measure the value 
of “three days of concentrated, earnest 
thought upon the questions of interest to 
women workers in these momentous times?” 
The Women High School Teachers sent three 
delegates. Sunday, the last day of the con- 
ference, visitors were invited. 

One of our members has been on the exec- 
utive board of the Chicago League for two 
terms, another is official speaker on “Mrs. 
Robins’ Committee” on Women and Children 
in Industry of the State Council of Defence, 
while three have taught in evening classes 
organized by the League and have secured 
also the services of friends outside the Feder- 
ation as teachers. 

We urge our fellow-federationists every- 
where not to miss the breadth of view and 
the solid purpose to be gained by active work 
in the Women’s Trade Union League. It is 
not enough that your union affiliates. Join as 
an individual and lend a hand! If your town 
has no League, help to organize one. 

LyDIA J TROWBRIDGE, 
President, The Federation of Women High 
School Téachers of Chicago. 


171 . 








172 The American Teacher 


Chicago Salary Increases 
Cc. C. WILLARD, 
Chairman of Finance Committee, Chicago 
Federation of Men Teachers 


HE long fight of the organized high 
school teachers of Chicago has 
achieved a considerable measure of 
success. The Board of Education recognized 
the justice of the teachers’ claims, and during 
the suramer adopted the appended schedules 
dated back to the beginning of January, 1918. 
The majority of the Board also admitted the 
absurdity of a seventeen-year schedule, but 
were unable this year both to grant the abso- 
lutely essential increases and to shorten the 
schedule to twelve years. That is a develop- 
ment which we are still working for with 
reasonable hope of early success. 

The immediately urgent thing is the secur- 
ing of legislative relief from Springfield for 
our restricted school revenue. The Juul Law, 
under which Chicago has struggled long, lim- 
its the educational tax levy to $1.20, while in 
every other Illinois city it is $1.50. (In both 
cases this is exclusive of the $1.50 levy for 
school buildings.) The last legislature re- 
fused the usual million dollar increase in the 
state distributive fund on the ground of war 
retrenchment. The country is coming to real- 
ize that regardless of the unanticipated total 
to which war expenditures are mounting, edu- 
cation is an even more fundamental necessity 
in time of war than in time of peace, and we 
expect careful consideration and fair treat- 
ment of the schools at the approaching ses- 
sion of the Legislature. The educational 
forces of the state are advocating a bill to 
permit boards of education to levy an addi- 
tional $1.50 for high school purposes, as is 
now done in those districts in the state where 
they have consolidated district high schools. 
If this relief is granted by the State Legisla- 
ture the boards of education of the cities of 
Illinois will be able to grant much needed 
salary adjustments. 

We are also very glad to report the success 
of the long campaign of the Chicago Teach- 
ers’ Federation for increased salaries for ele- 
mentary teachers—particularly the raising 
of their intolerably low minimum, and the 


Vol. VII., No. 8 


final enforcement of their maximum which 
was promised when their twelve year sched- 
ule was adopted, but has been hitherto a mere 
paper maximum. 

The schedules themselves make further 
comment unnecessary. 


SALARY SCHEDULE FoR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS, 
CITY oF CHICAGO 
Adopted July 17, 1918 
To date from January 1, 1918 
General Certificates Limited Certificates 
Former New Former New 
Salary Salary Salary Salary 
$1,100 $1,200 $1,100 $1,200 
1,210 1,315 1,155 1,257.5 
1,320 1,430 1,210 1,315 
1,430 1,545 1,265 1,372.5 
1,540 1,660 1,320 1,430 
1,650 1,775 1,375 1,487.5 
1,760 1,890 1,430 1,545 
Upper Upper Upper Upper 
Group Group Group Group 
1,870 2,005 1,540 1,660 
1,980 2,120 1,650 1,775 
2,090 2,235 1,760 1,890 
2,200 2,350 1,870 2,005 
2,310 2,465 1,980 2,120 
2,420 2,580 2,090 2,235 
2,530 2,695 2,200 _ 2,850 
2,640 2,810 2,310 2,465 
2,750 2,925 2,420 2,580 
2,860 3,000 


Language, Household Arts, Commercial 


Year Former Salary New Salary 


Same as Limited Certificates 


Upper Group Upper Group 

$1,485 $1,602.50 
1,540 1,660 
1,590 1,717.50 
1,650 1,775 
1,705 1,832.50 
1,760 1,890 
1,870 2,000 


Com NAamrnownde 


SALARY SCHEDULE FOR ELEMENTARY AND KINDER- 
GARTEN TEACHERS, CITY OF CHICAGO 


Adopted by the Board of Education, June 5, 19/8 
To date from January 1, 1918 


Lower Group 


——Primary 
Old ew Old New 

$675 $775 $700 $200 
725 825 750 850 
775 875 800 00 
825 925 850 150 
875 975 900 1,000 
925 1,025 950 1,050 
975 1,075 1,000 1,100 


Grammar- -— 





ing 


October, 1918 


Upper Group 
1,125 
1,175 
1,235 
1,355 

*1,475 


8 1,025 
9 1,075 
10 1,125 
11 1,235 
12 1,355 

* This maximum was adopted on Feb. 18, 1914, to 
go into effect on Jan. 1, 1916. Its enforcement was 
suspended on Dec. 29, 1915. 


1,050 
1,100 
1,150 
1,260 
1,380 


1,150 
1,200 
1,260 
1,380 
*1,500 


The Washington Salary 
Fight 


ARGUMENTS PRESENTED BY THE GRADE TEACH- 
ERS’ UNION OF WASHINGTON, D. C. 
The Hon J Walter Smith, 
Chairman, District Sub-Committee, 
Committee on Appropriations, 
United States Senate. 
My Dear Mr Smith: 

As the accredited representative of the 
Grade Teacher’s Union, I wish to respectfully 
submit to you and to your committee argu- 
ments in favor of a $1,000 minimum for all 
teachers of the District of Columbia in place 
of the $750 minimum as now appears in the 
District of Columbia Appropriation Bill, page 
38, lines 23, 24, 25, and page 39, line 1. 

Since 1906, when the present salary sched- 

- ule was made effective, the value of the dollar 
has shrunk to 50 cents, or, according to some 
estimates to as little as 33 1/3 cents, so that 
substituting a $1,000 minimum for the pres- 
ent $500 is partially restoring the value of 
the dollar. 

The $750 minimum proposed by the House 
Bill is not sufficient to maintain a teacher at 
any approximate maximum efficiency. In 
view of the fact, that $50 a month ($600 a 
year) will only meagerly cover the living ex- 
penses, that in addition $3 a month (or $36 
ayear) must be paid for carfare, leaving only 
$114 per year to cover clothes, professional 
work, doctors and dentists bills, books, lec- 
tures, recreation, vacation, etc., it is easily 
seen that no teacher can live properly and 
decently and conserve her strength for teach- 
ing on so small a wage as $750. 


The American Teacher 


173 


Teaching is not an art that can be acquired 
once and for all time. A teacher must be 
continually spending her salary to keep her- 
self efficient enough to earn it. Study, some 
travel, a broader experience than can be ob- 
tained with a salary so low as to forbid the 
refinements of life are essential. Expense 
budgets gathered from a large number of 
teachers, many of whose salaries reached 
$1,000, showed 60% of teachers in debt— 
40% doing work other than teaching to meet 
actual expenses—one hospital experience 
wipes out a teacher’s entire savings. 

The Government realizing the high cost of 
living in Washington is paying $1,100 and 
$1,200 to clerks, some of them with less than 
a grammar school education, many without 
a high school education. This sort of thing 
is stripping the teaching profession of its 
new material. Young women with the char- 
acter and qualifications to make good teach- 
ers, for economic reasons cannot afford to 
spend years of training in High and Normal 
schools when six months of stenography and 
typewriting fit them to earn a higher salary. 
It is not safe at the present crisis to allow 
the already trained and well equipped teacher 
to withdraw from her chosen profession. 
Thousands are doing so all over the United 
States ; their places are being filled by unpre- 
pared and inexperienced recruits. In our 
own city this has happened to an alarming 
extent. 

When Congress in the recent Deficiency 
Bill placed the Public Schools on the same 
basis as governmental establishments and 
prohibited teachers being transferred to other 
departments it safeguarded to some extent 
the loss to the schools of the well equipped 
teacher—but now private business concerns 
are beginning to offer better salaries than the 
schools and in order to raise her own eco- 
nomic standing and meet the present condi- 
tions of life the teacher will undoubtedly ac- 
cept these better paid positions. 

Teachers are also beginning to seek employ- 
ment outside of Washington and by another 
year it is feared the schools will be crippled 
to a greater extend than at the present time. 

The teachers of Washington in asking this 





174 


consideration of the National Congress wish 
to add that their efficiency has been attested 
by the endorsement of practically every 
civic organization in the city, by the hearty 
endorsement of the Labor Federations, by 
the National Education Association, by the 
National Woman’s Trade Union League rep- 
resenting thousands of women. 

We trust that the reasons here given are 
strong enough to enlist your interest and that 
in consideration of this matter you will real- 
ize that the welfare of the Public Schools of 
the nation are at stake. Are we not running 
the risk of a fatal blunder if we allow the 
exodus of teachers to other industries to con- 
tinue? We are at a crisis—can a Democracy 
afford to save on its schools and withhold the 
promotion of the basis of its national growth? 

Very respectfully yours, 
MAUDE E AITEN, 
Chairman Legislation Committee, 
Grade Teachers Union. 


Labor Behind New York 
Teachers’ Salary 


Increases 

T the meeting of the New York Central 
A Federated Union held on September 
27, 1918, Delegate Lefkowitz of the 
Teachers Union of the City of New York 
“was privileged (quoting the Report of the 
C F U) to discuss the teachers’ salaries. He 
introduced the following resolution which 
was adopted. Copies will be sent to the Spe- 
cial Legislative Committee of the C F U and 
to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment 

of the City of New York”: 

“WHEREAS, The cost of living has been 
mounting skyward since the outbreak of the 
European war; and, 

WHEREAS, The salary schedules of the 
teachers of the public schools of New York 
City have not been revised since 1912; and, 

WHEREAS, The teachers of the public 
schools being unable to meet necessary living 
expenses are rapidly leaving the school sys- 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VII., No. 8 


tem for more remunerative private employ- 
ment; and, 

“WHEREAS, Such desertions at this critica] 
moment in our history are fraught with dis- 
astrous consequences to the schools and ‘he 
nation, not only because they lead to serious 
inroads upon the supply of teachers, but also 
because they tend to lower the standing of the 
teaching profession ; and, 

‘“‘WHEREAS, Organized labor has ever most 
zealously guarded the interests of the schools; 
therefore, be it 

“Resolved, By the Central Federated Union 
of New York that the President of the Board 
of Education, the Mayor and the Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment be requested by 
the Secretary to make immediately every 
effort to increase the salaries of the teachers 
commensurate with the increased cost of liv- 
ing; and, be it further 

“Resolved, That the Educational Commit- 
tee of the Central Federated Union be re- 
quired to appear at any public hearing on 
teachers’ salaries in order to represent the 
views of organized labor as stated in the reso- 
lutions adopted by the American Federation 
of Labor at the St. Paul Convention. 


Courage 


HE war has hit the Teachers’ Union a 
T hard blow by taking so many of its 
splendid fighters, but its members are 
cheerful because their loss is the world’s 


gain. The formation of another union local 
composed of all the trade teachers .in the sys- 
tem is another great drain on its resources, 
but the union members still remain optimistic 
because their loss is unionism’s gain. More- 
over, during the past year the union had to 
struggle valiantly against the insidious at- 
tacks of its enemies and despite the number 
and power of its opponents, despite the in- 
roads upon its membership made by the war 
and the division into two locals, its fight for 
democracy in.the schools and for the preser- 
vation of teachers’ tenure which is now great- 
ly endangered, was such that it attracted the 
attention and the unstinted admiration of the 





October, 1918 


leading educators and thinkers of America. 
The opening of the schools found the Teach- 
ers’ Union girding its loins for even a more 
strenuous’ campaign on behalf of the teachers’ 
rights, teachers’ salaries, abolition of ratings 
and superior merit and democracy in the 
schools. 

The union movement, like every great 
movement, whether it be the desire to achieve 
national unity, establish scientific truth, con- 
stitutional government or universal suffrage, 
has had to fight the stupid and selfish reac- 
tionary or encounter the vigorous opposition 
of the unthinking. The courageous souls 
who led the forward movement of history suf- 
fered not only loss of position and prestige, 
but often ridicule, imprisonment, bodily harm 
and even death in order that truth might go 
marching on. Shall we unionists weakeh 
or desert our cause? Shall we, the stand- 
ard bearers of Democracy in education, 
falter because of persecution or petty official 
tyranny at a time when thousands are dying 
to make political and industrial democracy 
the possession of mankind? 


A SONG OF FATE 
(Dedicated to the Allied Soldiers) 

Not yet the inevitable pean— 
Who knows that glorious date 
Which nature set when life began 
And civilization dawned! 
Nor ever a savage Chant of Hate 
With which they spur the heart of slave. 
Let those by abject vassals fawned 
Point flimsy fangs of calumny 
To pierce eternal freedom’s heart 
And lay its immortal spirit low— 
This is a song for freedom’s brave 
Who have dared to take its part 
And vowed to kill vile tyranny 
That democracy may live. 
This is a song that true men know 
And, knowing, will not misgive— 
This is a Song of Fate... . 


Where, where are the dreams of empire 
That drenched the world in blood 

And held the clock of progress still 
With ambhition’s mad desire! 

Where’s Alexander, Macedonian’s pride, 
Who shook the world at will; 

Great Cesar, too, whose conquering heel 
Made many a mighty kingdom reel 


The American Teacher 


And oft on royal neck has trod; 
Where’s Atilla, the Scourge of God, 
And his hordes like a human flood; 


And Napoleon, beloved and feared, 


Who out of chaos dominions reared, 

Who held a trembling world at -bay 

And trampled on thrones with haughty stride 
Like a child with toys at play! 

Where are they all who sought their glory 

In sword and cannon and fields all gory, 

Who say no light save ambition’s gleam— 
Where are they! There too a kaiser’s dream. 


Then fight once more, brave freemen, 


Wield sweet freedom’s sword 

To save our babes and women 
And bend a tyrant’s knee; 

Aim with an eye that sees no goal 
Save bleeding heart of tyranny! 
Strike once more, brave freemen, 
And make them pay the toll— 
They who seek to conquer 
With iron, blood and lies; 

Strike once more, brave soldiers, 
Cut down that savage horde 
That knows no bonds of honor 
And God and man defies; 

Strike hard, you sacred soldiers, 
Battling for human laws: 

*Tis a fight tween beast of jungle 
And humans it abhors! 

Fight on you sacred soldiers; 
You fight for a holy cause! 


Back of each steadfast sailor 
Fighting upon the sea, 

Back of each steadfast soldier 
Fighting that the world be free, 
Stands in its radiant glory 

The spirit of liberty. 

In place of each fallen sailor 
Fallen upon the sea, 

In place of each fallen soldier 
Fallen “ over there,” 

Stands Liberty with flag unfurled 
Proclaiming freedom for the world. 


Then fight, imperilled freedom’s soldiers 
Battling for human laws, 
Fight on, you valiant soldiers 
Wrestling the world from despot claws; 
Stand fast, you sacred soldiers, 
Fight on for the holy cause— 
Fight on and shout with every breath 
Till the world re-echoes “ Liberty — 
Democracy or death!” 

MORRIS ZATZ, 

Stuyvesant High School, New York. 





What They Say 


THE PRESIDENT ON MAINTAINING 
THE SCHOOLS 
The White House 
Washington 
My dear Mr. Secretary: 

I am pleased to know that despite the un- 
usual burdens imposed upon our people by the 
war they have maintained their schools and 
other agencies of education so nearly at their 
normal efficiency. That this should be con- 
tinued throughout the war and that in so far 
as the draft law will permit, there should be 
no falling off in attendance in elementary 
schools, high schools or colleges is a matter of 
the very greatest importance, affecting both 
our strength in war and our national welfare 
and efficiency when the war is over. So long 
as the war continues there will be constant 
need of very large numbers of men and women 
of the highest and most thorough training for 
war service in many lines. After the war there 
will be urgent need not only for trained leader- 
ship in all lines of industrial, commercial, so- 
cial and civic life, but for a very high average 
of intelligence and preparation on the part of 
all the people. I would therefore urge that 
the people continue to give generous support 
to their schools of all grades and that the 
schools adjust themselves as wisely as possible 
to the new conditions to the end that no boy 
or girl shall have less opportunity for educa- 
tion because of the war and that the Nation 
may be strengthened as it can only be thru 
the right education of all its people. 

Cordially and sincerely yours, 
Woodrow Wilson. 


Hon. Franklin K. Lane, 
Secretary of the Interior. 





A Letter From the Front 


ON THE WAR FOR DEMOCRACY IN NEW YORK 
“In Camp, July 28, 1918. 
My Dear : 

Thanks very much for the copy of THE 
AMERICAN TEACHER. I have read the case 
with interest [of the three New York high 
school teachers dismissed in December, 1917, 
‘for conduct unbecoming a teacher’]. From 
the evidence I don’t see how I could hang a 


cat. I tried my utmost while out here in 
France to come to their rescue, but found it 
impossible. Of course, I am against anybody 
who in our present struggle resists the draft 
and is disloyal to the great cause. But I fee! 
these men are not disloyal. I am convinced 
they have been railroaded because they have 
always stood for greater democracy in the 
schools. I know full well what they have 
fought for, and I’ll stand up for them at the 
first opportunity. 

I volunteered because I believe in demo- 
cratic institutions, and maybe after the war if 
I am alive I shall be in a position to give my 
active support in the fight to democratize our 
schools. It’s a man’s fight for man’s sake, 
and that thought ought to be sufficient reward 
for anybody who champions the cause. 

Sincerely, 
MEYER ROSENBLATT” 

Mr Rosenblatt is a graduate of the College 
of the City of New York, class of 1906. He 
taught in the New York elementary schools 
from 1906 to 1917, when he enlisted in the 
Eleventh Engineers Corps, United States 
Army. He went across in August, 1917, and 
fought with the engineers at Cambrai and 
elsewhere. He was wounded slightly in one 
of these engagements. While Mr Rosenblatt 
was a teacher in P. S. 37, Bronx, in May, 
1917, he signed the protest to the compulsory 
loyalty pledge which was exacted of the 
teachers by the Board of Education of New 
York.—Eb. 





The I W W Fditorial 


To the Editor, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 

Your stimulating editorial on the I W W trial 
leads me to suggest one thought that appears not 
to have been given the prominence it deserves in 


the discussion of the case. At bottom, the hostil- 
ity felt by the general public to the I W W rests 
upon their refusal to confine themselves to legal 
means in their efforts to better their condition— 
admittedly in sore need of alleviation. But has the 
general public sought to understand the cause of 
the lawless spirit of the “Wobblies”? 


176 





October, 1918 


To anyone who has lived in the I W W districts, 
or has informed himself on the subject, the cause 
is not far to seek. Most of the “Wobblies” are 
automatically disfranchised, bec@use the migratory 
character of their work prevents them from living 
in one place long enough to acquire, under our 
present laws, the right to vote. Furthermore, many 
of the polling places are on the private property 
of large corporations—timber and mining compa- 
nies—who also control the local election officials. 
These conditions easily lend themselves to abuse, 
which does not tend to increase the Wobbly’s con- 
fidence in legal, political weapons in the struggle 
for better conditions. To me it seems that this prob- 
lem is fundamental. 

While we are punishing Wobblies for violation 
of the law, we must, if our democracy and equality 
before the law mean anything in practise, seek to 
remedy local conditions so that these migratory 
workers may be able to vote, to vote without intim- 
idation and violent coercion, and with the assur- 
ance that the ballots will be counted and recorded 
honestly. Only then can society feel that its con- 
science is quite easy in dealing sternly with those 
who do not respect the law. 

WILBUR T STONE, 
DeWitt Clinton High School, 
New York. 





Are We Human?Pp 


To the Editor, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 
I regret exceedingly that I cannot continue my 
subscription to THE AMERICAN TEACHER. My salary 


is $1,000 a year. I must pay out two per cent to 
the pension fund. I must live, pay rent, buy coal, 
and almost entirely support my parents, both of 
whom are old and sick, on the remaining $980. I 
have asthma and must have medicine. No relief 
for Philadelphia teachers is in sight, and we are 
all greatly troubled over the prospects for the win- 
ter. 


Philadelphia, June 22, 1918. 





From the Press 
SCHOOL TEACHERS GET WAGE RAISE 
PROMISE BY STRIKE IN MEMPHIS 

MEMPHIS, TENN., September 19.—Three hundred 
public school teachers who have been on strike here 
since Monday for an increase in salaries, returned 
to their class rooms today when the board of educa- 
tion promised to ask the state legislature for an 
increase in the tax assessment sufficient to raise 
all teachers’ pay $10 to $20 a month.—N. Y. Call. 


The American Teacher 


177 


SCHOOL VICTIMS 

Looking at it from the material side—which is 
the side from which so many of us do look at our 
occupations—school-teaching is the most beggarly 
profession in the United States. No other calling 
that is presumed to require anything-like the same 
amount of training and ability is so ill-paid. No 
other calling that is presumed to require a consid- 
erable mental discipline and development is held in 
such low regard or is so little supported by public 
admiration. No other learned calling except the 
ministry is pursued under conditions that involve 
so much humiliation, and the minister’s trials with 
his vestrymen or trustees are somewhat ameliorated 
by the fact that in very many cases he is free to 
take an appeal over their heads, whereas the local 
board of education is generally a supreme court 
for the teacher. 

These are not flattering things to say of a na- 
tion that has been declaring for a hundred years 
that its hope lay in public education. But they 
are true. 


Just now the teacher is in an exceptionally un- 
pleasant situation. His or her cost of living has 
gone ballooning, like everybody else’s. But on the 
whole there has been only a feeble response on the 
other side of the ledger. The result is depletion 
of the profession. Under present conditions especi- 
ally—when nearly every other field of activity is 
bidding eagerly for labor of nearly ever sort— 
teaching looks less attractive than ever. 

The less attractive it looks the more inferior the 
teaching force will become—inevitably. Already 
operating the system upon which we say the hope 
of the nation depends has become, for a portion 
of those engaged in it, a mere incidental, pin-money 
stop-gap between graduation and getting married. 

There is danger of its becoming an accepted no- 
tion that upholding the hope of the nation is some- 
thing any fairly intelligent girl can do between 
dances. 

But of course the real victims are not the teach- 
ers. The real victims are millions of prospective 
citizens, particularly in the country, on whom we 
are palming off a niggardly swindle—The Saturday 
Evening Post. 


AN EDITOR ON TEACHERS’ SALARIES 

“It is all very fine to deliver high-flown orations 
on the nobleness of the pedagogue’s profession and 
his solemn obligation to put aside more alluring 
offers in other fields of activity, but the truth is 
that the average teacher who depended on the 
remuneration of his profession for a living would 
simply starve to death. If, therefore, he deserts 
‘the noble calling of the teacher’ for the fleshpots 
of Egypt we may depend upon it he’s hungry and 
wants a square meal. 





178 


“There are in the United States today some- 
thing over 740,000 school teachers, and their aver- 
age salary is materially less than $600 per annum. 
Just think of it! 

“It is safe to say that there isn’t a first-class 
school teacher in the country who in some other 
work couldn’t make more than twice the salary he 
commands today, and all of them could better them- 
selves financially by a change,.”—Editorial in the 
Fort Wayne (Ind.) News. 


LABOR LEADERS ON WAR-TIME EDUCATION 

The Glove Workers’ Union, both local and inter- 
national, has always been, and will continue to be, 
most concerned as to the educational opportunities 
of children. I can assure you for our organization, 
that you have our heartiest co-operation in any 
matter that may enable this country to keep up our 
present standard of education during the period of 
the war. We believe that education now, and in 
the reconstruction period after the war, will con- 
tinue to be one of our greatest assets—Elizabeth 
Christman, secretary-treasurer, International Glove 
Workers’ Union of America. 


* * * 


Your letter of August 24, telling of the co-opera- 
tion you have received from the central labor unions 
throughout the Nation, and in maintaining the pub- 
lic schools of the country at their full efficiency, 
both as to work and attendance during the war, 
has been received. It is your hope that this stand- 
ard shall be maintained thruout the war, that is 
also the desire of the officers of the Illinois State 
Federation of Labor, and you are assured that we 
will co-operate in every way possible to have the 
central labor unions thruout the State of Illinois 
help to maintain the standard—Al Towers, acting 
secretary, the Illinois State Federation of Labor. 

* * * 


We have your welcome letter of recent date and 
are pleased to have our attention called to the need 
of watching carefully the opportunities for the ed- 
ucation of the children during the period of in- 
creased cost in the maintenance of the schools. 

We shall be pleased to co-operate with you in 
every way possible in this important matter. An 
appeal will be sent to the officers of each local 
branch of the Railway Mail Association and the 
Women’s Auxiliary will also be requested to aid in 
the work.—E J Ryan, president, Railway Mail As- 
sociation. 

* * * 

I pledge myself to work for the maintaining of 
the public schools of our country in their work 
during the war.—Frank A Byrne, secretary, Pipe 
Calkers and Tappers’ Union of Greater New York. 
—Letters to Bureau of Education, from School Life. 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VII., No. § 


Educational or Teachers’ 
Councils 


Cleveland, Ohio, which in some respects is lea:- 
ing the country in educational statesmanship ap- 
plied to the publicity supported schools of tlhe 
city, has, with the championship of Superinten- 
dent Spaulding, recently formed an educational 
council for advisory purposes, on which he may 
and will call for aid in settling all questions per- 
taining to the schools. The 26 members will in- 
clude principals and teachers elected by the 
grades ranging from the kindergartens to the 
normal schools. 

—Christian Science Monitor for June 27, 1918. 


regards the establishment of councils 

in school systems as evidence of educa- 
tional statesmanship. Very fine. Superin- 
tendent Spaulding has given proof before of 
being an educational statesman, for he 
founded a similar council while he was super- 
intendent of schools in Minneapolis. But we 
should like to see these councils established 
on the initiative of teachers themselves. 
That would be proof of democratic states- 
manship.—EDITOR. 


I T is interesting to note that the Monitor 


Professors Report on Study 
of German 


Boston, Mass.—A committee of the American 
Association of University Professors, which is called 
the Emergency Council on Education, announces in 
the last bulletin of the association, published here, 
its recommendations on the question of the study of 


the German language. The council recommends 
that the Modern Language Association be asked to 
approve a commission to consider what revision of 
modern language text-books is desirable with refer- 
ence to national ideals and what modifications, if 
any, in college entrance requirements in modern |2n- 
guage text-books is desirable with reference to na- 
tional ideals and what modifications, if any, in mod- 
ern languages are required by the present emer- 
gency. 

’ By way of stating its position, the council says 
it recognizes that instruction in the German lan- 
guage has been misused in the past as a means of 
preserving the foreign quality of Germanic pop- 
ulations in the United States and as a means of 
general German propaganda. 





October, 1918 


it expresses, further, its belief that activities of 
this character should be peremptorily suppressed 
by the state authorities, and that instruction in Ger- 
man has no proper place in the elementary schools. 
It advises, however, that public authorities, dealing 
with the question of instruction in the German lan- 
guage in higher schools and colleges, give great 
weight to the following considerations: 

“(1) The fundamental distinction between any 
language and the ideals and principles held by the 
nation using it. 

“(2) The necessary of understanding national 
enemies as well as national friends. 

“(3) The importance, if only as a matter of na- 
tional defense, of maintaining of the most complete 
contact with the results of German intellectual ac- 
tivity. 

“(4) The advantage of making it possible for 
future college students to begin the study of Ger- 
man in the high schools. 

“(5) The impressive example of our allies—Eng- 
land and France—which for the preceding reason, 
and in spite of sufferings incomparably greater than 
our own, have maintained their instruction in Ger- 
man.” 

—Christian Science Monitor for July 3, 1918. 


America’s Teachers 


America must teach itself what Americanism is 


and what it is not. And the burden of doing these 
two things must fall in the greatest part upon the 
school teachers of America. 

The country has come out of one phase of its na- 
tional life and has entered upon another which, 
after all, is but the prelude to a third phase that 
also will be marked by many changes in the thought 
processes of the masses. 

As a people, we have laid aside our comfortable 
thoughts of peace and our easy belief that nothing 
could happen which would array America against 
a foe who did not actually invade the republic’s 
territory. 

Now we are engaged in a mighty struggle to de- 
termine whether the principle of free government 
shall be the world’s inspiration, or whether man’s 
upward progress shall be halted by the triumph of 
powers that uphold the doctrines of militarism and 
autocracy. 

Following this war, America will not take up the 
thread of life where it was laid aside when war was 
declared. New problems will confront the people, 
new plans in government will have to be worked out 
and the nation will have to be prepared for these 
changes. 

Throughout the war, therefore, and after it has 
ended, the school teachers of America must train 


The American Teacher 


179 


the young to take up the burden of statecraft where 
this generation lays it down. They must interpret 
Americanism to those who, in their day, will give 
a new value and a new meaning to the word and 
the things for which it stands.—From address of 
Secretary Lane before National Education Asso- 
ciation at Pittsburgh, July 5, 1918. 


Statement of the ownership, management, circu- 
lation, etc., required by the Act of Congress of Au- 
gust 24, 1912, of THE AMERICAN TEACHER, published 
monthly except July and August, at New York, N. Y., 
for October 1, 1918, State of New York, County of 
New York. Before me, a Commissioner of Deeds, 
in and for the State and county aforesaid, personally 
appeared Abraham Lefkowitz, who, having been duly 
sworn according to law, deposes and says that he 
is the Business Manager of THE AMERICAN TEACHER, 
and that the following is, to the best of his knowl- 
edge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, 
management, etc., of the aforesaid publication for 
the date shown in the above caption, required by the 
Act of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 443, 
Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse 
of this form, to wit: (1) That the names and ad- 
dresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, 
and business managers are: Publisher, American 
Federation of Teachers, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York; 
editor, Henry R. Linville, 36 Terrace Avenue, Jama- 
ica, N. Y.; managing editor, none; business manager, 
Abraham Lefkowitz, Grand Avenue, East Elmhurst, 
L. I. (2) That the owners are: American Federa- 
tion of Teachers; Charles B. Stillman, 1620 Lake 
Avenue, Wilmette, Ill., president; F. G. Stecker, 1618 
Lake Avenue, Wilmette, IIl., secretary-treasurer; 
L. V. Lampson, 1336 Otis Place, NW.,. Washington, 
D. C.. first vice-president. The American Federa- 
tion of Teachers has 2300 members. (3) That the 
known bondholders, mortgages, and other security 
holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total 
amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are 
none. (4) That the two paragraphs next above. 
giving the names of the owners, stockholders. and 
security holders. if any. contain not only the list of 
stockholders and security holders as they appear 
upon the books of the company but also, in cases 
where the stockholder or security holder appears 
upon the books of the company as trustee or in 
any other fiduciary relation, the name of the per- 
son or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, 
is given; also that the said two paragraphs con- 
tain statements embracing affiant’s full knowledge 
and belief as to the circumstances and conditions 
under which stockholders and security holders who 
do not appear upon the books of the company as 
trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity 
other than that of a bona fide owner; and this 
affiant has no reason to believe that any other per- 
son, association, or corporation has any interest 
direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other 
securities than as so stated by him. 

ABRAHAM LEFKOWITZ, 
Business Manager. 


Sworn to and subscribed before me 
this 26th day of September, 1918. 
[Seal] James S. Hurwitz, 
Commissioner of Deeds, 
New York City. 
My commission expires February 13, 1920. 





< 
2 
= 


The American Teacher 


Ss 


mw 


BLESSED BE THE EUROPEAN WAR 


Because 


IT HAS MADE America realize that it had neglected its greatest asset— 
human beings—in order that profiteers might have their usual and un- 


usual profits ; 


IT has taught America that the worker has as much right as his employer 
to determine the conditions under which he is to labor; 


IT has made America realize that Democratic Education which puts a pre- 
mium on initative, courage, love of truth and skill, alone makes for prog- 


ress and happiness; 


IT has made Americans realize that the wrecks of industry as well as the 
wrecks of war can and should be salvaged; 


IT has taught Americans that public utilities which cannot serve the nation 
best in private hands, shall do so in public hands; 


IT has taught Americans that if billions can. be raised to destroy the Hun, 
then similar sums can be raised to give all workers a living wage, to elim- 
inate poverty, disease, crime and other evils; 

IT has taught the world that it was not necessary to support huge standing 

. armies to crush the most powerful exponent of militarism that has ever 
cursed the world; 

IT has taught America that there is something more sacred than private 
property-public welfare; that when the two come into conflict, the former 
must go; 

IT has taught Americans that men, women and children are not machineé 
to be worked to exhaustion for the benefit of the employer, but property 
of the nation to be husbanded and protected with the utmost care; 


IT has made millions of human beings who are now fighting shoulder to 
shoulder to overwhelm Germany feel that they are brothers in a great 
cause, that their interests are identical and not antagonistic; that they 
are the producers of the world’s goods and, as such, entitled to the bene- 
fit of their labor. 


IT is teaching mankind that the swords must be beaten into plowshares if a 
world state is to be created and peace on earth reign supreme. 


He) | AURAL PT Ph) 


hd 


Ue ‘ay 


di i iii 


Zz 
} 
oo 


line 


ll 


ii