=/\ MERICAN 
= TE ACHER 














FEB g 1919 


< 4 
PTT TLL sere. IWTTNUINLL aah 


The Way to Power : 





Why Labor Needs the Teachers 





Labor and Progress 





Four Months of Progress 


= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
g 
= 
| 
= 
= 
Z 
= 


Sun iRUSUNLNULN LUNN 


Democracy in Education 
Education for Democracy 





XN 


The American Teacher 


SNSSSVSRSVSNVLSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSVSSSSSSSSNNS 


Education Is Preparation for Life 


OTHING less than $1,200 
per year will be adequate 
or just as a minimum rate 

for our teachers. It can never be se- 
cured by teachers, as units, or by in- 
dividual effort; they must learn how 
to organize and protect their trade, 
occupational or professional interests 
like other people. Then they must 

emand a voice in the management 


of the schools of 


still a long distance from simon-pure 
democracy and will be until we re- 
alize that education is not expected 
or intended to be a luxury in which a 
superior child, or an exceptional 
child, or a well-to-do child may 
bask. Our future bricklayers, car- 
penters, plumbers, and blacksmiths 
need as much care and as much pre- 
paration for life as do our future 

doctors, law- 








their communi- 
ty, so that they 
can more gener- 
ously contribute 
from their 
knowledge and 
experience for 
the benefit of 
the schools. In 
addition they 
should study 
the methods of 
other elements 
in society by as- 
sociation and 


federation. T he 


Editorials 


What They Say 


Book Reviews 








CONTENTS 


Why Labor Needs the Teachers 


Labor and Progress 


Four Months of Progress 


yers, preachers, 
and teachers. 
T his great 
bread - and - 
butter question, 
politely called 
the economic 
problem, is the 
impelling force 
that will drive 
us flo a new 
brand of de- 
mocracy which 
will be safe for 
us and safe for 
the world, a de- 














right so to or- 
ganize and federate must be held in- 
violate for school teachers as well as 
for doctors, lawyers, mechanics, and 
laborers. When these new activ- 
ities are established success will fol- 
low, and long-deferred justice will 
be won for our teachers. 

So far as it goes, our educational 
system is all right, but it does not go 
far enough or deep enough. It is 


mocracy which 
means not only universal _liber- 
ty, but universal organization that 
will guarantee equal opportunities 
and equal justice to all. 


—From an address delivered at the 
Pittsburgh Convention of the N E 
A, by Arthur E Holder, member, 
Federal Board for Vocational Ed- 
ucation, Washington, D C 





Vol. VIII, No. 1 


SS SS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS 


The American Teacher 


Entered as second-class matter, Februfary 21, 1912, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y.; 


under the Act of March 3, 1879. 


Published at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, monthly, except July and August. 





Vol. VIII, No. 1 





JANUARY, 1919. 


One Dollar a Year 





Child Labor Day 


ONDAY, January 27, is Child Labor 
M Day. Quotations in this number 
from the Bulletin of the National 
Child Labor Committee indicate the present 
state of our child labor laws, and also the 
extent of child labor in this country. It has 
not been the custom of the schools to be in- 
terested except in a perfunctory, non-com- 
mittal way in the prevention of child labor. 
Possibly this has been due to the tacit under- 
standing that the powers that exploit the 
children in the mills are the same powers 
that exploit the teachers in the schools. But 
members of the American Federation of 
Teachers are embarked on a journey which 
may well involve the hunting down of the 
traffickers in the souls and bodies of little 
children. 

Let our members call the attention of 
school officials to Child Labor Day, and like- 
wise request the opportunity to tell some of 
the facts given in the quotations printed. 


A Leaf for Labor 


elicited the praise of the press thru- 

out the country. So many encomi- 
ums were heaped upon Samuel Gompers that 
labor became dizzy. Yet, no sooner is the 
armistice signed, than the same press un- 
limbered its guns, and prepared for war. 
When William H Barr, President of the Na- 
tional Founders’ Association, addressing the 
annual convention, declared that the first 
problem of reconstruction was the elimina- 


A loyalty of labor during the war 


tion of the eight-hour day and the reduction 
of wages raised during the stress of war, not 
a murmur of protest was heard against this 
proposal which not only ignored all humani- 
tarian considerations, but entirely disre- 
garded the fact that it was labor’s supreme 
sacrifices that made it possible for the Na- 
tional Founders’ Association to exist. Yet, 
when Samuel Gompers boldly accepted Presi- 
dent Barr’s daring challenge, he was flayed 
by that same servile press as an enemy of 
the republic. The editors, to cap the climax 
of their righteous indignation, should have 
dubbed Samuel Gompers a pro-German or 
Bolshevist. What a golden opportunity was 
lost! 


Stuffed Lions 


HE Survey for January 4 reprints a 
T Dyson cartoon, entitled, “The Stuffed 
Lion in the Path of Democracy.” It 
represents Big Interests holding into view 
before oncoming hordes of humanity a stuffed 
lion bearing the word “Bolshevism.” Con- 
cealed with Big Interests behind a barrier 
is the Lloyd George Coalition. The Premier 
is represented as saying, “Now, Gentlemen, 
when I give the word roar like a lion, and if 
that doesn’t scare them, I’m a Welshman.” 
There are stuffed lions lying about in the 
path of the union movement among teachers. 
One of them is named, “You'll Have to 
Strike,” another, “Don’t Be Unprofessional.” 
And they are real stuffed lions, because those 
who hold them up, are the over-conservative 
teachers themselves and their professional 
mentors who have long ago given up trying 
to overcome democracy in education by argu- 





4 The American Teacher 


ment, and are now trying to frighten poten- 
tial followers of the new ideas. But these 
stuffed-lion holders are beginning to see the 
light, and already are showing signs of quit- 
ting the game. Unlike Big Interests, teach- 
ers get nothing for their loyalty to antiquated 
ideals. Therefore, the lions may languish 
for want of supporters. 


The American Labor 


Party 


HE formation of an American Labor 
T Party, which now seems an assured 
development of the next few months, 
is of peculiar interest to unionized teachers. 
The old parties seem hopelessly unable to 
modernize themselves, and measure up to 
the reconstruction needs so emphasized as a 
result of the war. There is a great body of 
liberal opinion in America, but it has had no 
effective practical instrument to express its 
purposes. Socialism as represented by the 
American Socialist Party is hopelessly alien 
to, even repellent to, the great mass of 
American opinion in its present stage of po- 
litical development, yet the old unchecked in- 
dividualism is generally discredited. As 
citizens, as members of the great body of or- 
ganized workers, and as moulders of youth, 
who should be alive to important current de- 
velopments, all teachers should note well the 
rise of what promises to be a new and power- 
ful force in American life. 


Another Idea from the War 


Director of School Hygiene of the 

United States Bureau of Education, 
30 per cent of the men in the first draft 
were rejected for physical unfitness and 
nearly all who came to the training camps 
were physically uneducated. Moreover, 50 
per cent of the 25,000,000 school children be- 
tween the ages of six and eight have physi- 


N CCORDING to Dr Willard S Small, 


Vol. VIII, No. 1 


cal defects that impede their normal devel- 
opment. They have been living under more 
or less unhygienic conditions, and lack of 
positive physical education, organized, play, 
athletics, etc. 

The situation tescribed by Dr Small is 
overwhelming enough to stagger the average 
teacher and citizen. Of what value is educa- 
tion to a physically unfit child? Is it any 
wonder that so many seem dull and, stupid? 
As teachers we are aware that it is our func- 
tion to teach the youth of the land effectively, 
and if we cannot do it because of prevailing 
conditions, it is our business to become in- 
terested at once in changing these condi- 
tions? Are we aware of the conditions that 
make it impossible for 25,000,000 children 
to develop properly? Do we know the wages 
earned by the hardworking parents of these 
undernourished and overworked and improp- 
erly clad children? Do the struggles of the 
parents of these children against economic 
exploitation interest us? Do we sympathize 
with them? Have wé made efforts to aid 
them? Do we realize our power to make 
their conditions better? Consider well your 
answers. 

One reason we may fail to teach John and 
Mary is because their parents are exploited 
by profiteers, and hence the children are not 
properly fed or taken care of. When we 
fully comprehend that fundamental fact, we 
shall understand a good reason for having 
a teachers’ union and eventually awaken to 
the fact that it is our duty to use our intelli- 
gence and power to arouse a dulled public 
conscience into seeing that if it is important 
to spend millions to kill hog cholera, it is of 
greater importance to eliminate such eco- 
nomic conditions that make the rearing of 
healthy and intelligent citizens impossible. 
Alliance with labor gives an understanding 
of economic conditions under which children 
live, a knowledge of their hopes and aspira- 
tions, sympathy for their struggles, a broader 
and deeper understanding of great problems. 
The unionization of teachers is one of the 
hopes of America. 





January, 1919 


The Way to Power 


HE “Winter of Discontent” in the 
T teaching profession is now upon us. 
In one locality it leads to dumb de- 
spair and hopelessness ; in another, to sever- 
ance of relations with the educational sys- 
tem; in a third, to barterings with political 
parties for economic favors; in a fourth, to 
alliance with labor unions. 

In the American Federation of Teachers 
with very little doubt we are about to admit 
to membership large numbers of teachers 
who have chosen the fourth way out of dif- 
' ficulties. They are coming into the teach- 
ers’ unions frankly for the purpose of bet- 
tering their economic conditions thru affil- 
ijation with labor. Labor has won large in- 
creases in wages because long ago the work- 
ingman organized for his economic protec- 
tion. Labor now has great economic power, 
and is generously disposed toward all groups 
of unorganized workers and professional folk 
that ask to be admitted to the ranks of the 
successful. But the invitation that has been 
extended by labor to the teachers is par- 
ticularly cordial because it is based upon a 
common need. Labor needs the teachers, and 
the teachers need labor. It is far from being 
a one-sided bargain when teachers join with 
labor. Mr John Walker gives in this number 
a clear statement of the situation, but there 
are still other phases of it which our labor 
friends will discuss in future numbers. 

The analysis of the bases for a natural 
affiliation between the men and women who 
are supposed to work mostly with their hands 
and the teachers who are supposed to work 
mostly with their brains is destined to have 
important uses. In the first place, doubters 
and proud persons are disposed to inquire 
why teachers should seek to ally themselves 
with groups with whom they have nothing 
particularly in common. This query is often 
followed up with another seeking to know 
what labor gets out of the bargain. Fre- 
quently teachers do not know. The answer 
comes from the workers. 


The American Teacher #8 


It is important to get this answer espe- 
cially when our numbers are being increased 
by new members who have had no time to 
think tHru the situation to an adjustment 
which their minds will surely search for. If 
we are to hold the new members who are en- 
tering because they are driven to the act, we 
must prepare the social, the intellectual and 
the emotional setting for their ultimate as- 
similation. If this problem can be solved 
successfully, the misgivings of many good 
union members concerning “drives” for mem- 
bers will be allayed, and what is more im- 
portant, the union movement will possess 
that degree of strength necessary to its 
growth and security. This is the second no- 
tion of value that we shall derive from an- 
alyses of our movement. There is an even 
more important one. 

Charter No. 36 has been issued, and we are 
already becoming a numerous body in point 
of number of locations, and we cover about 
all the conveniently habitable territory there 
is belonging to the nation. From New York 
to Sacramento, and from St Paul to the Canal 
Zone, marks the stretch of our chartered 
area. We are still poor in financial re- 
sources, in perfect keeping with our circum- 
stances as individuals. But our poverty keeps 
us from coming together from the outermost 
regions. This is a considerable misfortune, 
but not insurmountable, even tho some local 
may never for a long time be able to send 
representatives to the national conventions. 

Of far greater concern than the geographic 
issue is the matter of unity of purpose and 
the social and professional outlook of the lo- 
cals that are already in the Federation. Some 
of the locals have never responded to the in- 
vitation to send news of their doings to the 
national organ, and hence the knowledge of 
what they are and want is not general. Some 
of the largest and most active locals carry on 
their work effectively no doubt, but they do 
not give to others information that might 
be helpful to smaller and less active locals. 
In other words, there is not enough exchange 
of ideas. This fact operates to develop and 





6 The American Teacher 


establish differences in a national union 
where more unity might develop simply thru 
frequent exchange of news. The columns of 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER are open for this 
purpose, but on account of the lack of infor- 
mation they are put to other uses. 

It is not the function of the management 
of THE AMERICAN TEACHER to tell the locals 
what their purpose, their social and profes- 
sional outlook should be. .But it is evident 
that in view of the fact that there is now an 
alliance between education and labor thru 
us as the means, we should be in the position 
to interpret the significance of this important 
fact to our members and to the public. Have 
we done this? Only here and there have at- 
tempts been made in this direction. We 
prophesy that if a beginning of this sort is 
made the next national convention of the 
American Federation of Teachers will show 
unmistakable signs of a social cohesion and 
clarity of purpose. 

There is enough ‘alent in each of the locals 
to make it possible to obtain general expres- 
sion of opinion on such questions as these: 
What should a teachers’ union do? In what 
way should a teachers’ union differ from the 
usual “association”? Shall a teachers’ union 
accept conditions as it finds them, trying first 
to increase its membership, or shall it strike 
out at once along aggressive lines at the 
possible sacrifice of the chance of a large 
membership? Shall a teachers’ union take 
part in political party activities, for example, 
a labor party? What are the best ways for 
going about the actual improvement of the 
conditions under which our work is done, for 
example, reducing the size of classes, modi- 
fying the course of study, eliminating the 
evils of supervision, etc.? 

It is our hope that all the locals will take 
this matter up and invite or impress their 
best writers to begin this important work. 
Short articles, not to exceed twelve hundred 
words, are preferable. There will thus be 
space for many in the same number. The 
first articles will appear in the February 
number. 


Vol. VIII, No, ; 


This is a periodical for those who bear the 
expense of its production, the members of 
the American Federation of Teachers. Let 
them get out of it the value of their invest. 
ment! , 


As Labor Sees It 


Mary Anderson, member of the executive 
council of the Boot and Shoe Workers’ Union 
and assistant director of the Woman in In. 
dustry Service of the U S Department of 


‘Labor, when asked why teachers should join 


labor unions, gave the following reasons: 

They should join, first, for their own sakes, 
to secure better wages and a larger share in 
the control of the conditions under which 
they work. 

They should join for the sake of their 
pupils because belonging to the labor move- 
ment would wake them up to the economic 
causes which usually are responsible for chil- 
dren’s backwardness and other handicaps. 

Teachers by joining labor unions can 
bring to other working men and: women a 
better understanding of children’s needs and 
so help to lay the foundations for the democ- 
racy of the future. 


LOST COPIES 


A number of bundles of the December AMER. 
ICAN TEACHER have been returned to the office 
of publication with addressed wrappers entirely torn 
off. Those locals that did not receive their full 
auota of copies will confer a-favor on the Business 
Manager by informing him of the fact. 








Ge American Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published 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. 





Why Labor Needs the Teachers 


JOHN H WALKER 
President, The Illinois State Federation of Labor 


HE following are some of the reasons 

T why I believe the teachers of America 

should organize and become part of 

the regular, bona fide labor movement in our 

country, even, if when organized they can- 

not come out on strike, sympathetic, or oth- 
erwise. 

Practically all who qualify as teachers in 
our country today, must not only go thru 
the common grade schools, but they must also 
go thru high school, and take two years’ 
training in some normal school. They must 
also qualify on the highest standards as to 
character, honesty, morality, temperance, 
etc. If there is any section of our citizen- 
ship that really should have an intelligent 
understanding of all our problems, and be 
capable of knowing what are the right things 
to do, it is the teachers.- The average work- 
ing man and woman have not had the oppor- 
tunity to get an education at all, and their 
view points are limited to their own local 
environment. Industry is competitive and 
related, thus tending further to restrict the 
opportunities of working people. One must 
have the larger point of view in order to 
know the thing that is right in the making 
and in the adjusting even of local industrial 
conditions. Teachers have or should have 
this larger social interest for the good of 
the common working man and his depend- 
ents, for the good of industry, for the good 
of the nation (the teachers themselves in- 
cluded). They should be in a position where 
they can have knowledge of the facts as to 
local situations, as well as the larger aspects, 
and be able to render the most helpful service 
in avoiding unnecessary conflicts and in set- 
tling disputes. 

I believe, too, that because the teacher is 
teaching the workingman’s child more than 
any others, and that in order to be an efficient 
teacher, and do the things that are best for 


these children, the teacher should have knowl- 
edge of the problems of the father and the 
mother,—of their mental attitude, their class 
characteristics, their desires and ambitions, 
their hopes and aspirations, and also knowl- 
edge of the things that are holding them back 
and keeping them down. They can then train 
the minds of the children in a way that will 
make the best citizens of them. They can 
deal with the practical problems of life in the 
fashion best calculated to conserve the rec- 
ognized interests of the children, training 
them at the same time in such a way that 
they may be helpful to their parents. 

So far as the teachers themselves are con- 
cerned, the very fact that they do not strike 
to increase their wages, or to improve their 
working conditions, should be possibly the 
strongest of all reasons why they should or- 


‘ ganize, and become part of the labor move- 


7 


ment. When teachers are organized they can 
bring their problems to organized labor,— 
to the workers who comprise the majority of 
the citizens of our country. They can then 
tell the workers their grievances, and get the 
help of labor. They can tell them what they 
believe they are entitled to as teachers. When 
the workers are convinced, it means that the 
teachers are able to enlist on an intelligent 
basis the support of a large percentage of the 
citizens, taxpayers, of our country. In this 
practical way, the most powerful influence in 
our country is immediately sympathetic to- 
ward the teachers in every righteous fight 
for the teachers, for the children, and for the 
public itself. 

Not only do I believe that it is for the best 
interest of the teachers that they should join 
their own unions, and become affiliated with 
the rest of the workers in our country, but 
I believe also that it is their duty as Ameri- 
can citizens, for the benefit of all the people 
of our country. 





Labor and Progress 


MARGARET SNODGRASS HARDING 
Washington, D C 


VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION FOR INDUSTRIAL 
CRIPPLES 

Hearings on the Smith-Bankhead Bill (H 
R 12880-S 4922) were held early in Decem- 
ber before the joint committees on Educa- 
tion and Labor of the House and Senate. Mr 
Gompers spoke in support of the measure, 
which would extend the scope of the Smith- 
Sears Act for the vocational rehabilitation of 
disabled soldiers and sailors to include “per- 
sons disabled in industry or otherwise.” 

Strong hopes are entertained for the early 
passage of the bill. Fortunately the number 
of disabled soldiers and sailors is not so 
large as was anticipated and a wise economy, 
in addition to other considerations, would 
indicate the utilization of the machinery built 
up for their aid by the Federal Board for 
Vocational Education. The Legislatures of 
forty-three states hold their regular sessions 
in 1919 and prompt action by Congress will 
enable them to make the necessary appropria- 
tions and provision for co-operation with the 
Federal Board. Massachusetts has already 
made such provision. 

SMITH EDUCATION BILL 

The Smith Bill to create a national depart- 
ment of education (S. 4987) received hear- 
ings in December. In addition to providing 
for the organization of a Department of Edu- 
cation under a Secretary of cabinet rank and 
with an annual appropriation of $500,000, the 
bill calls for an annual appropriation of 
$100,000,000 “in order to co-operate with the 
States in the promotion of education” on the 
same terms as under the Smith-Hughes Act 
for vocational education. 

This sum is apportioned as follows: 

Three-fortieths, $7,500,000 for the instruc- 
tion of illiterates, ten years of age and over. 

Three-fortieths, $7,500,000, for the Ameri- 
canization of immigrants. 

Five-tenths, $50,000,000, “for the improve- 


I 


ment of public schools of less than college 


grade, with the definite aim of extending. 


school terms and of stimulating State and 
local interest in improving, thru better in- 
struction and gradation, and thru consolida- 
tion and supervision, the rural schools and 
schools in sparsely settled localities.” 

Two-tenths, $20,000,000, for the promotion 
of physical and health education and recrea- 
tion. 

Three-twentieths, $15,000,000, “‘to prepare 
teachers, to encourage a more nearly uni- 
versal preparation of prospective teachers, 
to extend the facilities for the improvement 
of teachers already in service, to encourage 
thru the establishment of scholarships and 
otherwise a greater number of talented young 
people to make adequate preparation for pub- 
lic school service, and otherwise to provide 
an increased number of trained and compe- 
tent teachers.” 

THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT ELECTION 

The British Parliamentary election, the 
first general election since 1910, has been of 
exceptional interest for many reasons. By 
the Representation of the People Act of Jan- 
uary, 1918, the electorate was enlarged by the 
addition of 6,000,000 women over thirty 
years of age and 2,000,000 hitherto unquali- 
fied men. Millions of voters are in the army 
and navy. The British Labor Party, appeal- 
ing to “workers both with hand and brain” 
with a far-reaching program for reconstruc- 
tion, recalled its members from the Coalition 
and contested seats in about 400 constituen- 
cies. G. N. Barnes, Labor member of the 
inner War Cabinet, however, remained in the 
Coalition on the ground of anti-Bolshevism. 

The Labor Party’s election manifesto, LA- 
BOR’S CALL TO THE PEOPLE, demands a 
peace of international co-operation. It de- 
cleares against any form of economic war and 
the incorporation of an international labor 





al wall oe ea a 


or =. 


January, 1919 


charter into the structure of the league of 
free peoples, as an essential part of the peace 
treaty. Further demands include the imme- 
diate withdrawal of the allied forces from 
Russia, immediate restoration of the work- 
ers’ Internationale, the right of self-deter- 
mination within the British commonwealth 
of free nations extended to all its subject 
peoples, repeal of all war-time measures in 
restraint of liberty, abolition of conscription, 
and the release of all political prisoners. 

Among the domestic reforms called for are 
land nationalization, 1,000,000 new houses 
built at state expense, a comprehensive pub- 
lic health act, drastic amendment of laws 
dealing with hours of labor and factory con- 
ditions, and real public education, free and 
open to all, with maintenance scholarships, 
without distinction of class, and justice to 
teachers. 

“Labor,” the manifesto continues, “will re- 
sist every attempt to place burdens upon the 
poor by indirect taxation. Labor is firm 
against tariffs and for free trade. The way 
to deal with unfair competition of imports, 
made under sweated conditions, is not by 
tariffs but by international labor legislation, 
which will make sweating impossible. In 
paying the war debt, Labor will place the 
burden on the broadest backs by a special 
tax on capital. Those who have made for- 
tunes out of the war must pay for the war, 
and Labor will insist on a heavily graduated 
direct taxation with a raising of the exemp- 
tion limit. This is what Labor means by con- 
scription of wealth. 

“In industry, Labor demands immediate 
nationalization and democratical control of 
the vital public services, such as mines, rail- 
ways, shipping, armaments, and electric 
power ; the fullest recognition and utmost ex- 
tension of trade unionism, both in private 
employment and in public services.” 

The Coalition policies, so far as they may 
be learned from the speeches of Lloyd 
George, Bonar Law, Winston Churchill, and 
other leaders, as reported in this country, 
lay emphasis on the necessity for a league of 
nations and an “all-round reduction of ar- 


The American 


Teacher 9 


maments,” with abolition of conscription in 
Europe. British maritime supremacy, how- 
ever, is to be maintained unimpaired. 

On November 13 at a meeting of 200 Lib- 
eral peers and commoners, Lloyd George de- 
clared that victory must be utilized as an 
impetus to reforms. He said he feared 
neither revolution nor Bolshevism but he did 
fear reaction and dissension. Specific pro- 
posals were for land reform, a great rehous- 
ing program, reduction of the hours of la- 
bor, the introduction of a minimum wage, 
home rule for Ireland but no coercion of 
northeast Ulster. 

In later speeches he stresses the need for 
increased production, that “has not for its 
end enrichment of employers, but enrichment 
of all classes of the British people.” Produc- 
tion, he asserts, can be enormously increased 
with higher wages and shorter hours and un- 
der such industrial management as is pro- 
posed by the Whitley Committee. Shortly 
before the election the nationalization of the 
railroads was announced and an eight-hour 
day for all the wages staff of the railways 
of the United Kingdom. 

On the eve of the election, however, reac- 
tionary tendencies manifested themselves. 
Bonar Law announced the intention of the 
government to strengthen the House of 
Lords, shorn by the Parliament Act of 1911 
of all but a suspensive veto power. Lloyd 
George declared for the expulsion of all Ger- 
mans from Great Britain, for their exclusion 
from the country in the future, and for fore- 
ing the Central Powers to pay the entire costs 
of the war to the limit of their ability. This 
in spite of his speech to his liberal supporters 
on November 11, in which he said: 

“The peace of 1871 imposed by Germany 
on France outraged all the principles of jus- 
tice and fair play. Let us be warned by that 
example. We must not allow any sense of 
revenge, any spirit of greed, any grasping 
desire to override the fundamental principles 
of righteousness. Vigorous attempts will be 
made to hector and bully the government in 
an endeavor to make them depart from the 
strict principles of right and to satisfy some 





10 The American Teacher 


base, sordid, squalid ideas of vengeance and 
of avarice. We must relentlessly set our 
faces against that.” 

On December 13 he made a somewhat sen- 
sational attack on the Labor Party in which 
he said that the patriotic men of the party 
were not now running, that it was in the 
hands of an extreme pacifist-Bolshevist 
group: 

“It was they who pulled the Labor Party 
out of the Government at the moment when 
you needed the help of labor to reconstruct 
this country. They pulled them out. Sup- 
posing they had had their way. Belgium 
would be overrun; France would be overrun ; 
Germany would now have the whole conti- 
nent of Europe under her cruel heel; the 
Channel ports would be under Germany.” 

AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY 

“The time has now come when in order to 
protect our vital interests and to retain our 
self-respect we must take independent polit- 
ical action.” This is the statement of Presi- 
dent John Fitzpatrick and Secretary Edward 
Nockels of the Chicago Federation of Labor 
in a circular letter to local unions. The Chi- 
cago Federation at its meeting on November 
17, 1918, launched the movement for an In- 
dependent Labor Party by adopting unani- 
mously a platform of “fourteen points,” 
which was then submitted to the local unions 
and to the annual convention of the Illinois 
State Federation of Labor, meeting on De- 
cember 2. 

Among the fourteen points are the follow- 
ing: the right of workers to organize; “de 
mocratic control of industry and commerce 
for the general good by those who work with 
hand and brain ;”’ an 8-hour day and 44-hour 
week with “minimum rates of pay which, 
without the labor of mothers and children, 
- will maintain the workers and their families 
in health and comfort and provide a com- 
petence for old age, with ample provision for 
recreation and good citizenship”; abolition 
of unemployment through stabilization of in- 
dustry and by government work during per- 
iods of depression ; complete equality of men 
and women in government and industry; re- 
duction of the cost of living by the devel- 


Vol. VIII, No. 1 


opment of cooperation and the elimination 
of wasteful methods; democratization of ed- 
ucation through the participation of labor 
and the organized teachers in the determina- 
tion of new methods, policies, and programs 
in this fundamental field; the extension to 
all men and women, of government insur- 
ance on life and all insurable forms of prop- 
erty, and against accident and illness; liqui- 
dation of the national debt by the applica- 
tion of all inheritances above $100,000, sup- 
plemented by taxation of incomes, land val- 
ues, etc.; public ownership and operation of 
public utilities and the nationalization of 
basic natural resources; an international 
league of workers to supplement the League 
of Nations. 

The Illinois Federation of Labor endorsed 
the Chicago proposal almost unanimously, 
and plans are under way for the calling of a 
convention in January to perfect the party 
organization and to nominate candidates for 
the spring municipal elections. The Cen- 
tral Federated Union, representing 300,000 
trade unionists of New York City, has called 
a conference to be held early in January 
looking to the formation of a national labor 
party. The Central Labor Union of Brook- 
lyn and the Women’s Trade Union League 
are included in the call. The state federa- 
tion of California and Ohio have already 
promulgated independent labor platforms 
and there are indications of similar move- 
ments in other states. 

THE NON-PARTISAN LEAGUE 

The national convention of the Non-Parti- 
san League at St Paul, Minnesota, expressed 
its approval of the Independent Labor Party. 
The North Dakota legislature, convening 
January 7 will be controlled by the League. 
Governor Lynn J Frazier has announced his 
support of a workmen’s compensation law 
and state-owned packing plants, flour mills, 
and elevators. 

PAN-AMERICAN LABOR CONFERENCE AT LAREDO 

Firty-two delegates, the majority repre- 
senting the United States and Mexico, with 
one each from Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa 
Rica, and Salvador, met at Laredo, Texas, 
on November 14 and 15, 1918, under the 





January, 1919 


presidency of Samuel Gompers. Plans were 
formulated for the establishment of frater- 
nal relations among the American Federa- 
tion of Labor and the organized labor move- 
ments of Mexico and other American coun- 
tries, and for unionizing the million or more 
Mexican workmen now in the United States. 

The conference adopted the resolution pro- 
posed by Mr. Gompers, embodying the peace 
program of the American Federation of La- 
bor. The resolution declares that five “fun- 
damental principles must underlie the 
peace”: 

A league of the free peoples of the world, 
in a common covenant for genuine and prac- 
tical cooperation to secure justice and there- 
fore peace in relations between nations; 

No political or economic restrictions meant 
simply to benefit some nations and to cripple 
or embarrass others ; 

No reprisals based on vindictive purpose 
or desire to injure, but to right manifest 
wrongs ; 

Recognition of the rights of small nations 
and of the principle that no people must be 
forced under a sovereignty under which it 
does not wish to live; 

No territorial changes or adjustments of 
power except in furtherance of the welfare 
of the people affected and in furtherance of 
world peace. 

The resolution further calls for the incor- 
poration in the peace treaty of what has 
been termed “labor’s Bill of Rights’; 

That in the law and in practice the prin- 
ciple shall be recognized that the labor of 
human beings is not a commodity or article 
of commerce ; . 

Industrial servitude shall not exist except 
as a punishment for crime whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted; 

The right of free association, free assem- 
blage, free speech, and free press shall not 
be abridged ; 

That the seamen of the merchant marine 
shall be guaranteed the right of leaving their 
vessels when the same are safe in harbor; 

No article or commodity shall be shipped 
or delivered in international commerce in 


The American Teacher 11 


the production of which children under the 
age of 16 years have been employed or per- 
mitted to work; 

It shall be declared that the basic work day 
in industry and commerce shall not exceed 
eight hours a day; 

Trial by jury should be established. 

FRENCH INTERNATIONAL LABOR PROGRAM 

The labor committee of the French Cham- 
ber of Deputies on November 29 adopted a 
report on international labor legislation to 
be inserted in the treaty of peace. Meas- 
ures recommended include a minimum age 
of fourteen years for the employment of 
children, prohibition of night work for min- 
ors, an eight-hour day in factories and mines, 
reciprocal agreements among the nations for 
accident, health, and unemployment insur- 
ance and old age pensions, equalization in 
wages and working conditions for foreign 
and home workers. The report also calls for 
the institution of periodic international la- 
bor conferences, comprising delegates of 
workers and employers, with the object of 
promoting labor legislation by international 
agreement. 


Abandonment of School 
The opening of the schools for the fall term gave 
the Children’s Bureau an opportunity to find to what 
extent children were leaving school prematurely, 
whether those who had worked on vacation permits 
were returning, and, in general, the conditions among 


working children. A series of inquiries were made in 
typical industrial and commercial centers to throw 
light on these and other questions. The cities studied 
include New York, Philadelphia. Chicago, Boston, 
Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Washington, Wilmington, St. 
Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, and several smaller 
cities. In Washington it was found that this year 
T,095 permits to work either outside school hours or 
full time had been granted under the law which per- 
mits children of 12 or 13 to work, if, in the ovinion 
of the Juvenile Court, the poverty of the family 
justifies it. In 1916-17 only 277 such permits were 
issued. This is an increase of 295 per cent. The 
number of children from 14 to 16 who were granted 
regular working permits rose from 727 in 1916-17 to 
1.917 this year—an increase of 164 per cent. In 
Wilmington 61 per cent. more children have taken 
out permits this year than last. Practically all of 
this 61 per cent. have definitely left school to enter 
industry on full time. Reports of greatly increased 
shifting from job to job seem to indicate that the 
child is not finding in his work a steadily progress- 
ing training. The figures do not show that children 
are staying at their jobs more steadily because of 
higher wages, or that they are staying long enough 
to gain from their industrial training experience 
which will make them increasingly useful.—Child 
Labor Bulletin for November, 1918. 





Four Months of Progress 


CHARLES B STILLMAN 
President, The American Federation of Teachers 


HE first four months of the school year 
5 have shown substantial achievements, 
despite the severe handicap of the 
influenza epidemic, carrying with it closed 
schools and a ban on public meetings which 
made it exceedingly difficult for old locals to 
carry on, and almost impossible to organize 
new locals. However, even under those con- 
ditions, six new charters have been added to 
our roll, and over a thousand to our national 
membership. 

We have another strong California local in 
the Sacramento High School, Charter No. 31. 
The Shenandoah Teachers’ Association, No. 
32 is a vigorous addition to our movement in 
Pennsylvania. The Howard University 
Teachers’ Union No. 33, organized through 
Mr Lampson, is our first collegiate local, and 
the sixth in our capital city. December 5 
and 6, respectively, I talked to groups of 
teachers in Peoria, Illinois and Madison, Wis- 


consin, and chartered the Peoria Federation 
of Men Teachers, No. 34 and the Madison 
Teachers’ Federation, No. 35. On December 
7, we chartered the Associate Teachers’ 
League of New Orleans, No. 36, which is al- 
ready promising to be one of our strongest 


and most progressive locals. That makes 
the first week of December our banner week, 
especially when consideration is given the 
important stand on educational policies taken 
that week by the Bloomington Convention 
of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, dis- 
cussed elsewhere in this issue. All of these 
new locals are enthusiastically helping in- 
terest teachers in their vicinity in the for- 
mation of new locals. 

The Fort Wayne Convention of the Indi- 
ana State Federation of Labor also welcomed 
our movement very cordially, and pledged 
the assistance of the Indiana labor move- 
ment in securing necessary legislative relief 
and a more adequate recognition of the needs 
of the schools in their local communities. 


The epidemic has been unusually severe in 
Indiana, the ban sometimes being placed on 
public meetings after we had reached the 
point of calling a meeting to perfect final or- 
ganization; and in some cases the ban is not 
yet lifted. 

A somewhat milder form of the same situa- 
tion obtains in other states. I have visited 
communities in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Missouri and Pennsylvania, and am in cor- 
respondence with interested teachers in nu- 
merous other states. January will be a seri- 
ously overcrowded month, since we have only 
one worker giving full time to the movement. 
Fortunately we have a large number of de- 
voted workers in our various locals who are 
giving splendid service in addition to their 
wearing school work. Both old and new 
locals are increasing their membership and 
assisting in the extension of our movement. 
Notably Washington and New York have 
launched vigorous membership campaigns 
which are proving exceedingly effective. 

One of the most valuable services our 
movement can render is the formulation of a 
concrete program of educational reconstruc- 
tion, derived democratically from the first 
hand experience of the actual class room 
teachers, rather than handed down by super- 
intendents and schools of education. Both 
types have their value, but the teacher ac- 
tually on the job, who has so far been prac- 
tically disfranchised in the determination of 
educational policies, now has the opportunity 
to make his influence felt. The forward 
looking educational platforms of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor, and of the New 
York and Illinois State Federations of La- 
bor, are some of the results of that new in- 
fluence, of the new democracy in education 
which will ultimately make teaching a gen- 
uine profession. The American Federation 
of Labor is working on the broad problem of 
reconstruction, and looks to the American 


12 





January, 1919 


Federation of Teachers for the contribution 
of an educational program. The locals have 
been asked to appoint committees on, educa- 
tional reconstruction, and these committees 
will undoubtedly have the cordial co-opera- 
tion of the entire membership. 

The situation with regard to Federal edu- 
cational legislation is developing fairly well. 
The Smith Bill is outlined elsewhere in this 
number. 

If we all pull together, the balance of this 
school year will mean great growth, and in- 
creased effectiveness for our movement in 
this period when every democratic force 
must be strengthened to withstand reaction. 
The traditional prejudice of teachers against 
labor on pseudo-professional grounds is be- 
ing broken down. The teachers of the coun- 
try are commencing to realize that organized 
labor is fundamentally interested in securing 
the best educational facilities for the children 
of our people. Certain conflicting forces are 
fundamentally interested in keeping taxes 
down. Labor is determined to raise our 


schools to the highest level of efficiency, to 


make education mean what it should mean in 
a democracy. All aiming at that goal—and 
surely the teachers most of all—should wel- 
come the support for progressive educational 
measures, and the new possibilities for co- 
operation, which the affiliation of the teach- 
ers with the American Federation of Teach- 
ers, and thru the American Federation of 
Teachers with the American Federation of 
Labor with its 3,000,000 membership, will 
bring. 


ILLINOIS LABOR CONVENTION 

The Conyention of the Illinois State Fed- 
eration of Labor held at Bloomington, Dec. 
2-7, should convince skeptics of the value of 
the affiliation of teachers with labor of at 
least two things: labor’s fundamental interest 
in securing the best educational opportuni- 
ties for the children of all the people, and 
labor’s recognition of the organized teachers 
as part and parcel of the labor movement. 

The Chicago Federation of Women High 
School Teachers was represented by Lili H 


The American Teacher 


13 


Stecker, the Chicago Federation of Men 
Teachers, by F G Stecker and Chas B Still- 
man. Mrs Stecker was a member of the 
Committee on Resolutions, the most im- 
portant convention committee, Mr Stecker, 
of the Committee on Schools, Mr Stillman, 
in the absence of Matthew Woll, was Acting 
Chairman of the Committee on Schools, a 
member of the Committee on Officers’ Re- 
ports, and of the Committee on Reconstruc- 
tion, which is to be active thruout the 
year. It is interesting to note that three of 
the members of the Committee on Schools 
were members of the Boards of Education in 
their respective communities. 

It is significant that the plank in the fol- 
lowing platform which aroused the most en- 
thusiasm was the requirement that classes be 
limited to 25 pupils. Delegate after delegate 
told of the hideously overcrowded classes 
which were cheating his children of their 
supposedly American birthright, and making 
a farce of our boasted public education. The 
Convention also showed strong approval of 
the provisions for free textbooks, a state 
minimum of $1200 for teachers, and for the 
specific measures for increased school reve- 
nue contained in the resolutions following the 
platform proper. 


REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON 
EDUCATION 


Delegate Stillman, Secretary, reported as follows: 

The critical period of readjustment facing us 
places the greatest responsibility on our public 
schools. In securing the outcomes for which our peo- 
ple entered the war, the schools are secondary only to 
the victory just won. For some time leaders of na- 
tional influence have been .urging the teaching of a 
strident, intolerate nationalism, rather than of a sane 
nationalism as the basis of the international organi- 
zation, the leage of free nations, which is the hope of 
the world. The generations may grow up actuated 
by a sympathetic understanding of other peoples, 
and a desire for co-operation to mutual advantage, 
or by the selfishness of commercial imperialism, and 
an embittered hatred—the schools will decide, and 
on their decision hangs future peace or war. 

Upon the schools also will depend to a large meas- 
ure the kind and degree of industrial democracy we 
shall be able to achieve, whether our children shall 
grow up to become mere adjuncts of machines, dead- 
ened by the daily grind, or shall have a vision of the 








14 The American Teacher 





industry as a whole, and be trained to play an in- 
telligent part in it, and be able to feel something of 
the joy of making their individuality count in it, and 
in society as a whole. 

The schools must also consciously and intensively 
train for that most difficult of all human activities, 
self-government. One need only to look at the spec- 
tacle of misgoverned American cities to realize how 
lamentably we have failed in the past. We are fail- 
ing largely because we are starving our schools 
financially, and almost ignoring them as communi- 
ties. Surely one of the compensations for the sac- 
rifices of this righteous war, must be a quickened 
sense of social values finding its most important out- 
let in an educational development establishing in 
America’s schools, “Democracy in Education; Educa- 
tion for Democracy.” 

Your Committee on Education believes that if that 
educational development is to be brought about, and 
the powerful reactionary influences too often in con- 
trol of our schools are to be defeated, labor must take 
a more active and watchful interest than ever before. 
The following program, or outline of principles is 
submitted for the approval of the convention: 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

The most urgent educational matter before the 
state during the coming year will be the necessity of 
the formal acceptance by our legislature of the 
conditions and benefits of the Smith-Hughes law, if 
Illinois is to continue to receive federal aid under 
that law. The prescribed conditions still leave the 
legislature a great deal of latitude, and your com- 
mittee recommends that this convention endorse the 
following principles to be incorporated in the neces- 
sary legislation: 

1. Vocational education in [Illinois should be 
under unit control. 

2. A state appropriation for vocational education 
should be provided by a state vocational educational 
tax, and should in any case be in addition to an in- 
creased state distributive fund for general education. 

8. Local boards of education should be enabled to 
raise money for vocational education by local taxa- 
tion, all such tax levies to be strictly in addition to 
present or future taxes for general education. 

4. The State Board for Education should consist 
of two representatives of education, two of labor, two 
of the employers, two of agriculture, of two women 
who have made a special study of women’s work, 
and, ex officio, of the State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, who should be the chairman and execu- 
tive officer of the Board. Traveling expenses, and a 
substantial per diem compensation limited by law 
to a maximum number of days per year, should be 
provided for the members of the Board so that per- 
sonal means or financial backing would not become a 
necessary qualification for membership. 

5. This State Board should have broad adminis- 
trative powers, and it should be its duty and respon- 
sibility to administer funds, to study vocational edu- 








Vol. VIII, No. 1 


cation and promote its advancement, to train teach- 
ers, to make surveys of conditions of industry and 
employment, to make reports and recommendations 
to the legislature, to organize, standardize, supervise, 
and approve or disapprove the work in industrial, 
agricultural, household arts, and commercial train- 
ing. 

6. Under the executive officer there should be a 
director for vocational education with special qualifi- 
cations for the work. The state board should appoint 
all such deputies upon the recommendation of the 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The 
State Board should have the power to appoint upon 
such recommendation such agents and assistants 
under these deputies as may be necessary. Adequate 
provisions for salaries and expenses should of course 
be made. 

7. Your committee recommends the endorsement 
of the provision for local Advisory Committees urged 
by the A. F. of L.: ° 

“Boards of Education or township trustees admin- 
istering approved vocational schools and departments 
for industry, agriculture, or domestic science educa- 
tion shall, under a scheme to be approved by the 
State Board for Vocational Education, appoint an 
Advisory Committee composed of members repre- 
senting local trades, industries, and occupations. 

“It shall be the duty of the Advisory Committee 
to counsel with and advise the board and other school 
officials having the management and supervision of 
such schools or departments.” 

8. Short time specialized trade extension courses 
for journeymen mechanics should be provided in 
vocational schools where there is sufficient demand, 
so that present journeymen may become more efii- 
cient. 

9. Before instruction is given in any specific 
trade, industrial surveys should be made to deter- 
mine the opportunities and requirements in such 
trade, whether it is a seasonable employment, extra 
hazardous, subject to occupational diseases, the num- 
ber of people employed, the opportunities of securing 
positions and advancement, and the educational value 
of instruction in such trade. 

10. In all courses of study, and particularly in 
industrial and vocational course, the privileges and 
obligations of intelligent citizenship must be taught 
vigorously and effectively, and that at least in all 
industrial and vocational courses an unemasculated 
industrial history must be taught, which shall include 
an accurate account of the organization of the work- 
ers and the results thereof, and shall also include a 
summary of all legislation, both state and federal, 
affecting the industries taught. 

11. The development of vocational guidance and 
industrial education in both urban and rural com- 
munities, in proper relation to each other and to the 
needs of our democracy. 

12. The provision of increased facilities in public 

~9rmal schools for men and women in the trades who 








| 
1 
( 
é 
‘ 
. 
t 


January, 1919 


desire to prepare themselves for teaching industrial 
and vocational subjects and the expansion of both 
state and federal educational facilities, so that we 
will be decreasingly dependent on private endow- 
ments in the educational field. In this connection we 
call your attention to the movement in one state to 
introduce into the state university in co-operation 
with the State Federation of Labor a course designed 
to prepare young men and women of labor for intelli- 
gent and effective leadership in the labor movement. 

13. We heartily approve the vocational rehabili- 
tation of the soldiers crippled in service, carried on 
by the Federal Board for Vocational Education, and 
urge that the same machinery be used to help restore 
the victims of industrial accidents to economic inde- 
pendence. 

14. Your committee strongly urges the necessity 
of the enactment in Illinois of legislation establish- 
ing compulsory continuation schools for children 
after they leave school up to eighteen years of age, 
sessions aggregating not less than eight hours a 
week, to be held between 8 a. m. and 5 p, m., Satur- 
days excepted. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have al- 
ready taken similar action, and New York seems 
about to follow. England and France, while still in 
the stress of war, adopted comprehensive and thoro- 

_ going provisions. 


REORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS 


Supplementing the provisions for vocational educa- 
tion and for continuation schools, your committee 
believes that this convention should urge a reorgan- 
ization of our common schools in the interest of the 
children of all the people. Labor played an im- 
portant part in securing the establishment of our 
free public schools, but from the beginning they have 
been designed especially for the few who could go on 
to high school and college. They must continue to 
offer preparation for high school and college, and 
labor heartily approves, and helped to secure the 
tremendous expansion of high school and college fa- 
cilities during the last fifteen years. We especially 
endorse the tendency toward the establishment of 
junior colleges, the addition to high schools of two 
years’ of collegiate work without tuition, so that 
young men and women who cannot afford to leave 
home, can secure the advantage of additional train- 
ing. 

But your committee believes that the upper years 


of the elementary school should be reorganized to af- ' 


ford diversified training, so that boys and girls who 
cannot go on to higher schools, will receive training 
specifically designed for their needs, and not be com- 
pelled as at present to prepare for a role they will 
never play. These diversified courses should be so 
flexible that a pupil would be able to transfer from 
one to another whenever changes in his desires or 
economic situation made it possible to continue in 
school for a longer period than he had anticipated. 
We must not compel a child to pay the penalty 
thruout life for a mistaken decision made during 


The American Teacher 15 


childhood. Your committee believes that organized 
labor should demand, and help to secure an expansion 
and diversification of both elementary and secondary 
education, so that a democratic equality of oppor- 
tunity for preparation for the callings of their choice 
may be offered the children of our people. 
ADDITIONAL POINTS IN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 

As additional points in the educational program of 
the Illinois State Federation of Labor, your commit- 
tee recommends the following: 

1. The requirement that all our children shall be 
taught in the English language, in both public and 
private schools, a foreign langauge to be taught only 
as a subject in the curriculum. 

2. The provision of adequate facilities for the 
teaching of English to non-English speaking people, 


- and the utilization for this purpose of classes in shops 


and other places of employment, as well as in schools, 
under the direction of public school authorities. 

3. The provision of ample playground facilities 
as a part of the public school system, to be open to 
the public thruout the year at such hours as do 
not conflict with school purposes. 

4. Continuous medical and dental inspection and 
care thruout the schools of our state. 

5. The organization and equipment of special 
classes for children who are subnormal, either ment- 
ally or physically, and also special classes for chil- 
dren who are found capable of making more rapid 
progress than is possible in the standard school. 

6. Better enforcement in our state of the Com- 
pulsory Education Laws, and the raising of the 
school-leaving age to sixteen years. 

7. The establishment of a complete system of 
modern physical education, under specially trained 
instructors. 

8. The wider use of the school plant, securing in- 
creased returns to the community thru additional 
civic, social and educational services to both adults 
and children. 

9. Public forums should be established in every 
school where there is sufficient demand, under the 
direction of the Superintendent of Schools working 
in co-operation with advisory committees represent- 
ing the various elements in the community. 

10. Courses in history, civics, economics, health 
and compensation laws, and other laws affecting la- 
bor, should be offered by the public schools at such 
hours as will make them available to the workers, 
so that labor may be able to exercise intelligently its 
full political power. 

11. No activity savoring of militarism should be 
tolerated in our public schools. 

12. The establishment of vacation camps, sup- 
ported and supervised by state and cities, open to all 
public school children and minors up to twenty years 
of age, and offering additional opportunities for edu- 
cation and physical training. 

13. The establishment in Illinois of a free text- 
book system for all pupils in public elementary and 
high schools. 





16 The American Teacher 


14. We believe that the educational interests of 
the children and the future welfare of the state de- 
mand that it be made unlawful in our public schools 
to assign more than 25 pupils to a class. 

15. We believe that in its own interest the state 
should provide more scholarships for the graduates 
of our public schools, and should develop a system of 
state aid to the parents of school children so that the 
future citizens of our state shall be more adequately 
prepared for their duties and privileges. 

16. We urge that by statute or constitutional pro- 
vision as may be necessary or advisable, all boards 
of education in Illinois be made elective. 

17. The establishment of self-governing school 
and district councils of teachers for the purpose of 
utilizing the experience and initiative of the teach- 
ing body in the conduct of the schools, the recom- 
mendations of such councils to be made a matter of 
official record. 

18. The securing for teachers thruout our state 
of tenure during efficiency. There should be no dis- 
missals without full and fair hearings. 

19. The enactment of a state law providing that 
the minimum annual salary of a teacher in Illinois 
shall be not less than $1,200, so that an increasing 
number of more competent and better trained teach- 
ers may be secured and retained for service in our 
schools. There must be a thorogoing revision up- 
ward of teachers’ salary schedules, to meet the in- 
creased cost of living and the growing appreciation 
of the value to the community of the teachers’ ser- 
vices. 

20. The liberal, ungrudging reorganization and 
increase of school revenues as the only basis for the 
expansion of our schools along these lines. England 
and France, with their resources strained by the last 
four years, have made huge increases in the appro- 
priations for their schools. Surély the people who 
gave the world the conception of free, democratic 
education must not longer loiter behind. 

21. We urge all members of organized labor in 
Illinois to take active measures to secure the ap- 
pointment or election of an adequate representation 
of labor on all boards of education in our state. 

22. Your committee believes that the most ef- 
fective guarantee of democracy and of progress in 
our schools is the affiliation of the teachers with the 
great democratic force of organized labor, and recom- 
mends that all central labor bodies of Illinois give 
their support to the American Federation of Teach- 
ers, and appoint an educational committee to co-op- 
erate with them in organization work, and to co-op- 
erate with them and other agencies of the schools in 
their various communities. 

23. We recommend thaf this report be printed as 
a separate pamphlet, and forwarded to the labor 
press, to all International unions for publication in 
their official organs, to all State Federations of Labor 
and central labor bodies, and to other organizations 


Vol. VIII, No. 1 


and individuals sincerely interested in the progress 
of our schools. 
Respectfully submitted, 
MATTHEW WOLL, 
Chairman. 
CHas B STILLMAN, 
Secretary. 
C A PENSE, 
STEVE C SUMNER. 

een Committee on Schools appointed at this Con- 
vention concurs in the report of the standing com- 
mittee on education and recommends its adoption by 
the convention. 

REPORT ON COMMITTEE ON SCHOOLS 
Delegate Stillman, Chairman of the Committee: 
Resolutions 18, 54 and 63 all deal with the same 

subject matter, and the committee substitutes for 
the three Resolutions No. 54, amended by striking 
out the second Whereas and adding at the close of 
the first Resolution, “and advisable on educational 
grounds.” 

RESOLUTION NO. 54 

By Illinois Typographical Union, Geo. P. Lischer, 
President; H. C. Maddox, Secretary. 

Whereas, The Illinois State Federation of Labor 
has on numerous occasions declared itself in favor of 
a free text-book law; and, 

Whereas, The close of the world war will compel 
the revision of all histories and spplmentary text- 
books employed in teaching that subject; and, 

Whereas, The political readjustment of Europe 
and the consequent alteration of national boundaries 
will compel revision of geographies and maps used 
in illustrating that subject; therefore, 

Be It Resolved, That we renew our demand for 
a free text-book law, and that this law include pro- 
vision for uniformity of text books wherever and 
whenever practicable; and advisable on educational 
grounds. 

Be It Resolved, That the officers of the State Fed- 
eration of Labor be empowered to draft a bill for an 
act providing for the enactment of legislation as 
above demanded, and present same to the next gen- 
eral assembly; 

Resolved, That all unaffiliated labor groups and 
detached bodies, be asked to co-operate with the Joint 
Labor Legislative Board in an effort to secure enact- 
ment of this needed legislation at the next session of 
the general assembly. 

The Committee recommended that Restiution No. 
54, as amended by the Committee, be substituted for 
the resolutions. 

A motion was made and seconded to adopt the rec- 
ommendation of the committee. 

The question was discussed by Delegate Stillman, 
Teachers; Delegate Haskin, Allied Printing Trades; 
Delegate Bann, Westvill Central Body; Delegate 
Grills, United Mine Workers; Delegate Madsen, Chi- 
cago F. of L.; Delegate Sumner, Milk Wagon Driv- 
ers; President Walker. 





January, 1919 


Vice-President Whelan presided during the discus- 
sion of the subject by President Walker. 

The motion to adopt the report of the Committee 
was carried. 

Delegate Stillman continued the report of the 
Committee on Schools as follows: 

Since the new subject matter in Resolution No. 19, 
not already acted on in Resolution No. 54, concerns 
the establishment of a state owned plant for the 
production of school equipment, the committee elim- 
inates the las€ three preambles, and chauges the reso- 
lutions to represent action by this Convention, rather 
than by Local Union No. 490, U. M. W. of A., the 
amended resolution then reading: 

RESOLUTION NO. 19 


By United Mine Workers Union No. 493, John G. 
Smith, President, L. Ramsey, Secretary. \ 

Whereas, The matter of education is the most im- 
portant factor in the welfare of any people; and, 

Whereas, The problem that confronts the working 
class at the time of school starting its terms, by way 
of having to buy the necessary equipment for the 
education of their children, is at most times a hard 
one owing to the high prices charged for the equip- 
ment; and, 

Whereas, We feel that there is an abundance of 
profits made by the corporations making those neces- 
sities; and, 

Whereas, We feel that the State couid, by insti- 
tuting necessary equipment for the purpose of pro- 
ducing the necessary school equipment and selling 
same at cost, save a large amount of money for the 
people; and, 

Whereas, By selecting the best authorities of the 
State to form a system of first class text books and 
other educational matter the same could be used for 
quite a number of years; therefore, be it 

Resolved, That this Convention instruct the Leg- 
islative Committee of the II1., S. F. of L. to use their 
bets efforts to secure the establishment of a state 
owned plant for the production of school equipment. 

The report of the committee was adopted. 


RESOLUTION NO. 38 

By Delegates F. G. Stecker and C. B. Stillman, 
Chicago Federation of Men Teachers. 

Whereas, The General Assembly of Illinois has 
provided a system of free public schools in this state 
in accordance with Article 8 of the constitution of 
the state and with the rulings of the Supreme Court 
of Illinois consisting of both elementary and high 
schools; and, 

Whereas, The General Assembly has enacted laws 
whereby two or more districts may unite to form a 
high school district, elect boards of education, and 
levy additional taxes to build and maintain high 
schools in said consolidated school districts, and fur- 
thermore the General Assembly has provided that all 
territory not in a high school district shall be or- 
ganized into non-high school districts and separate 


The American Teacher 17 


taxes levied in such districts to pay the tuition of all 
eighth grade graduates residing in ‘said non-high 
school districts that they may attend some high 
school; and, 

Whereas, Many school districts in Illinois, espe- 
cially in the cities, have maintained to the present 
both elementary and high schools within their gen- 
eral tax levy, but now, due to the increased cost of 
nearly every item required to maintain efficient 
schools, and to the greatly increased number of activ- 
ities and the broadened curriculum demanded by the 
people and the law, said districts are no longer able 
to support both their elementary and high schools 
within their regular tax levy; therefore be it 

Resolved, That the General Assembly of Illinois 
be asked to enact laws empowering boards of educa- 
tion in school districts having a population of two 
thousand inhabitants or more to levy a tax not to 
exceed one and one-half per cent. for building pur- 
poses and one and one-half per cent. for educational 
purposes, to build and maintain high schools in said 
school districts under the control of the regular 
school officers of said school districts. 

Your Committee concurs and recommends adop- 
tion by the Convention. 

The recommendation of the committee was adopted. 

RESOLUTION NO. 39 

By Delegates F. G. Stecker and C. B. Stillman, 
Chicago Federation of Men Teachers. 

Whereas, The-school districts of Illinois are in 
pressing need of increased funds properly to carry on 
the established activities of the schools; and, 

Whereas, The bill providing for the customary bi- 
ennial increase of $1,000,00.00 in the state education- 
al distributive fund failed of passage at the last ses- 
sion of the General Assembly, therefore be it 

Resolved, That the General Assembly be asked to 
increase the state distributive fund for education by 
$2,000,000, and thus raise the amount of said fund 
more nearly to the amount that would be available 
were the law providing a two mill tax for said fund 
still in force. 

The Committee concurs and recommends adoption 
by the convention. 

The recommendation of the Committee was adopt- 
ed. 

RESOLUTION NO. 40 

By Delegates F. G. Stecker and C. B. Stillman, 
Chicago Federation of Men Teachers. 

Whereas, The Congress of the United States has 
enacted a law, generally known as the Smith-Hughes 
Law, providing for the distribution of funds from the 
Federal Treasury to the states to be used in the pay- 
ment of salaries of teachers of vocational education; 
and, 

Whereas, The States are required to match dollar 
for dollar all monies so received from the Federal 
Treasury, either from the state treasury, or from the 
funds of the school district in which the vocational 
instruction is carried on; and, 





18 The American Teacher 


Whereas, Many school districts throughout the state 
have not now sufficient funds properly to carry on 
the school activities already established, and the es- 
tablishment of these courses in vocational training 
will mean a further tax upon this present inadequate 
revenue, due to the increased school enrollment which 
will come as a result of the general establishment of 
such courses; and, 

Whereas, This vocational education is of utmost 
importance to the youth of the state, and provision 
should be made that the courses of instruction in vo- 
cational subjects may be available generally thru- 
out the state; therefore be it 

Resolved, That the General Assembly of the State 
of Illinois be asked to appropriate from the general 
funds of the state a sum equal to that received from 
the Federal Treasury, said appropriation to be ap- 
portioned in the same manner as the funds received 
from the Federal Treasury, to further the extension 
of vocational education in Illinois. 

The Committee concurs and recommends adoption 
by the Convention. 

The recommendation of the Committee was adopt- 
ed. 
Chairman Stillman: The report of the permanent 
Committee on Education, which was submitted to you 
yesterday morning, with the recommendation that it 
be adopted, has been in your hands since this morn- 
ing. I once more, Mr. Chairman, move the adoption 
of the Committee’s report. (Seconded). 

(Printed in Wednesday’s Proceedings) : 

The recommendation of the Committee was adopt- 
ed unanimously. . 

This completes the report of the Committee, which 
is respectfully submitted. 

CHARLES B STILLMAN, 
Acting Chairman. 
T G VANCE, 
Secretary. 
F G STECKER, 
CLAYTON A PENSE, 
WILLIAM REZINCEK, 
JOHN E PETERS, 
WILLIAM A PRATT, 
STEVE S SUMNER, 
Tim F PELL, 
THOMAS CAMERON, 
WILLIAM MONTPETIT, 
L J SALCH, 
Committee on Schools. 

Chairman Stillman: I now move the adoption of 
the report of the Committee as a whole. (Seconded 
and carried unanimously.) 


Vol. VIII, No. 1 


Staff of Chairmen of Press 
Committees 


Local No. 3, Chicago, Ill, Eruer E Beers 

Local No. 5, New York, N Y, Witmer T 
STONE. 

Local No. 8, Washington, D C, Susanne 
ULRICH. 

Local No. 16, Washington D C,Grace Lino. 


Note: The names of the Chairmen of other 
Press Committees will be added as they are re 
ceived form the locals. 


From Local No. 5 


HE salary increase campaign has pro- 
gressed favorably since the report in 
. the November issue of the AMERICAN 
TEACHER. Several folders presenting argu- 
ments for joining the Union have been pre- 
pared by the Literature Committee, and they 
are being circulated among teachers with 
considerable effect. The response of candi- 
dates to the legislature when asked to en- 
dores the Union’s salary program was very 
gratifying. Most important of all, the mem- 
bership drive to secure pledges to the num- 
ber of ten thousand by February 15, is meet- 
ing with great success. Hundreds of pledges 
are coming in already, while many more are 
still being held for additional signatures. 
The difficulty is to reach teachers in those 
schools in which the Union has no repre- 
sentative, but several meetings have becn 
held in such schools, with very encouraging 
results. Besides pledges, actual paid-up mem- 
bership applications are coming in literally 
by the hundreds. If we get our ten thousand, 
we surely shall win our salary fight, altho 
we may win without the ten thousand. At 
any rate, the Union movement among teach- 
ers in New York City is very, very much 
alive. WILMER T STONE. 





A New York high school teacher has been suspended without pay on the basis of state-. 


ments made by pupils relating to political issues discussed in the class. 


The teacher was 


given no opportunity to testify. Well may outsiders inquire, “Is New York in America.” 





What They Say 


Success in Seattle 
To the Editor, THE AMERCAN TEACHER: 

We have just won an equal pay fight here. The 
men in the high schools were given a $300 war bonus 
for this year, and the women nothing. We began a 
campaign of publicity and got all the candidates for 
school director pledged to our victory. Then we 
elected yesterday the most generous one, a man who 
in the press advocated an eight-hour-day for the jan- 
itors and engineers and a higher schedule of salaries 
for teachers, especially the grade teachers. 

We elected this candidate over the only woman 
candidate, altho the latter was also pledged to our 
cause, and she was an appointed member of the 
board,—and had voted for our bonus. But she was 
the appointee of the reactionary board, so we en- 
dorsed the man, Walter J. Santmyer and elected him 
five to fhree. We expect our bonus to be granted 
January 1, to date back to the first of the school 
year when the new members take office. 

ADELLA M PARKER, 
Chairman Salary Committee. 
SEATTLE, Wash, December 8, 1918. 


A Call from Yucatan 
The President, Teachers’ Union, 70 Fifth Avenue, 
New York City. 
Dear Sir: 

You know most probably that we have a progres- 
sive and radical form of government in this State. 
All elected officials, and also the appointed ones, are 
Socialists, as are about 1,500 of the 1,830 teachers. 

We are attempting to get away from the hack- 
neyed methods of education. We realize that schools 
are not for the purpose of dulling and punishing 
children. The Governor, Carlos Castro, is with us in 
everything we do. 

There is, however, a lack of proper material for 
the introduction of special and modern methods of 
education, and to this end I take the liberty of ad- 
dressing this to you requesting you to please suggest 
new plans for normal schools (we are installing four 
which we want to turn out TEACHERS). Also send 
us the names of some manufacturers of moving pic- 
ture machines and films, educational, also modern 
supplies, furniture, etc. 

Please go as far as you like in your suggestions, 
in fact make it very far. We do some strange things 
in this country, one of which was that we had the 
teachers of the State, through the Teachers’ Union 
(Liga de Profesores Adscrita al Partido Socialista) 
name every one of the 32 District Superintendents or 
as we call them here, Inspectors. 

We take great pleasure of enclosing the first four 


19 


Will you please 


publications of this department. 


send us yours? 
We thank you for everything that you may do for 


us. 
Fraternally, 
H Ayuso y O Horise, 
Chief of the Department of Education, 
State of Yucatan, Mexico. 


Another Letter to a Friend 


Dear W———— 

Recently, when S asked you to join the 
Union or to pledge yourself to join it, you answered 
him in a manner which does credit to your honesty 
but which also betrays in you a lamentable lack of 
the qualifications not only for the higher positions to 
which you aspire, but even for:the job you now hold. 

What is it you said to him when he asked you to 
enter the professional fellowship? This in sub- 
stance: I don’t want to remain a teacher all my life; 
I want a higher position; there is only one way to get 
it and that is, by ingratiating myself with the powers 
that rule; and if necessary—these are your very 
words—“I should black the boots of my principal if 
he ordered me to do so.” 

You are not alone in that attitude of abandoned 
subservience to your supervisors. But you are 
unique in your frank statement of your attitude. 
You alone of your kind are not given to prating 
about “profession,” “‘refinement,” and the other shib- 
boleths of the shabby genteel. You say frankly that 
you do not want to compromise your chances for pro- 
motion by joining the Union. You believe that you 
enhance your opportunities by bootlicking, and you 
proceed to do so. 

I shall not cite instances of teachers whose mem- 
bership in the Union proved to be no handicap in 
their efforts to advance in their calling. Such citing 
would be catering to the cowardly prudence which 
for the present is an all too pervasive motive with 
you and your type. Will you answer the following 
questions in the same spirit of frankness and hon- 
esty which charactedized your statement to S 
1. Would you want all your colleagues to know that 

yap eee willing to black the boots of your princi- 

pal? 

. Would your principal think well of you if he knew 
of your readiness to black his boots? 

. Do you respect any other teacher who is ready to 
black the boots of his principal? 

- Would you send your son or daughter to a school 
in which the teachers are ready to black the boots 
of their principal? 

. Should teachers who are willing to black the boots 
of their principal be permitted to mould the char- 
acters of future citizens of a democracy? 

. Should you be permitted to remain a teacher as 
long as you are ready to black the boots of your 
principal in order to strengthen your chances of 
promotion? 

Your colleagues think you entertaining. Your 
classmates in the coaching class tell me you are con- 
scientious though you are not gifted with much orig- 
inality. Rate yourself and tell me whether you are 
fit to teach or to lead teachers. 





20 


When we who teach enter our profession, we find 
ourselves thrown suddenly into a realistic, practical, 
sordid field of activity. The ideals of service with 
which we were imbued do not seem to function in this 
sordidness. As a result of this disillusionment some 
of us become hard, indifferent, hopeless cynics; others 
of us become “practical” and play the game as we 
find it, becoming subservient ene we must be sub- 
servient, and arrogant where we dare be arrogant. 
You have cast your lot with the second group. 
Whether we cast our lot with the first group or with 
the second group, we become unfit for our jobs. 

There is a third group, a group which is growing 
in confidence and increasing in numbers, which is 
transforming the first group and making the schools 
unsafe for the second group. This third group is as 
alive to the sordidness of the situation as is any 
other, but it knows that the sordid reality is capable 
of change so that it will square with the ideals. It 
does not discard ideals with which all beginners in 
teaching are imbued. Only teachers in this third 
group are fit for their jobs, because they do not 
despair of the future. 

The Teachers Union does not contain all the teach- 
ers in this third group, but the Union draws its mem- 
bership from this group alone. If after these years 
of all too willing “adapting” and “acclimating” your- 
self to your environment some spark of original hope 
and idealism remains with you, I urge that you en- 
list with us and help us build the school system of 
the future, where principals and teachers will work 
together in mutual respect under influences to which 
we shall be glad to expose our children. 

Yours sincerely, 
JOSEPH JABLONOWER. 





Keeping Up the Fight 

Peace has its need of man power no less than war, 
and so the end of the war must bring no relaxation of 
effort to secure a federal child labor law to take the 
place of the Act of 1916, which was declared un- 
constitutional by the Supreme Court last June. The 
enactment of such a law should be made a part of the 
American program of reconstruction. National effici- 
ency in the future requires a continuance of our 
wartime policy of conservation; let us be thrifty with 
our material resources, but let us be more thrifty than 
heretofore with our most precious resources—the chil- 
dren of the nation. They represent potential man 
power. Man power, of which so much has been said 
during the war, is a national conception and a na- 
tional issue, and as we take up the duties and obliga- 
tions of peace it remains a national conception and 
a national issue. This man power will be needed not 
only for puropses of industrial and economic pros- 
perity, but for the spiritual development of American 
life—for the furtherance, in particular, of democratic 
ideals and actualities. Soldiers and civilians have 
been fighting a war for democracy, but the children 
of today must “carry on” tomorrow for democracy; 
and it is quite essential, if they are to do this wisely 
and successfully, that they should be fit for the work. 
A logical way of translating the phrase “constructive 
democracy” into practical effect is to build up democ- 
racy by beginning with the children, saving them 
from the exploitation that stunts and perverts their 
development, in health, intelligence and morals, and 
keeping them in school where they can be trained. 
both for individual efficiency and for civic usefulness. 
—Child Labor Bulletin for November, 1918. 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. 1 


The New Greeks 


The ancient Greeks are said to have had a method 
of election whereby the candidates appeared one at a 
time before the populace, and judges concealed with- 
in hearing decided the winners by the volume of ap- 
plause. This is the process that is now going on in 
Europe where President Wilson, representing the 
principle of an enduring peace and a League of Na- 
tions, have appeared before the French populace, 
and soon will appear before the English and the 
Italian people. Is any one simple enough to suppose 
the diplomats of the world, like the Greek election 
judges of old, are not weighing the wild acclaim that 
has greeted the President? And does any one for a 
moment doubt that he will win? Fifty diplomats 
might have out-voted him at the peace table; but 
fifty times fifty will not dare to decide against this 
vote of the people. Incidentally, it would be inter- 
esting to have a record—if there is any instrument 
fine enongh to detect the sound—of the applause that 
would greet Senators Lodge, Knox, Penrose, and the 
other little naggers in the “greatest deliberative body 
on earth,” riding through the streets of Paris, before 
or after the President.—From “The Public,” of De- 
cember 28, 1918. i 





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, 
86 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 Ruippick, Norfolk, Va., 
722 Duke Street. 


Fifth V.-Pres., S E Compton, Washington, D. C., 
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. 





Book Reviews 


“The Woman Citizen,” by Herbert A Hollister. D 


Appleton & Co., New York. $1.00. 

Woman’s remarkable achievements during the su- 
preme crisis in history has once more focussed the 
attention of the world on the question of woman 
suffrage, and especially the relation of women in in- 
dustry. The economic revolution produced by the 
world war means a new woman before whom will lie 
tremendous possibilities. In order to ascertain if 
woman will measure up to the potentialities incident 
to changed conditions, a survey of her past adapta- 
tions would be both valuable and desirable. Such a 
task Prof Hollister ably performed in his book on 
the woman citizen. 

Prof Hollister presents a survey of woman’s 
achievements in poetry, music, war, athletics, indus- 
try, etc., showing the remarkable contributions made 
by them in every field of human endeavor despite the 
difficulties that confronted them. He believes that 
the family, of which woman is the centre and es- 
sence, is the basis of social progress rather than 
civilization, and that with the advance in the ideal 
of the family civilization will advance. By granting 
woman social, economic and poltical equality, society 
will make possible a truer democracy in which 
woman, by her vote, will be able to help ameliorate 
the conditions of life by aiding in the prevention and 
elimination of disease, the nourishing and care of 
children, the elimination of licentiousness and the 
improvement of education and legislation especially 
in helping to remove all those disabilities under which 
they still live. The tremendous influx of women in 
many industries that had been closed to them, their 
rising economic independence and educational oppor- 
tunities, means the rise of new problems and a new 
woman to solve them. To those who doubt the abil- 
ity of the coming woman to so measure up to the 
great career awaiting her, Prof Hollister’s book 
will prove both reassuring and instructive. 


“Man's Unconscious Conflict,” by Wilfrid Lay, PhD. 
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. $1.50. 
No student of psychology, no teacher, no educa- 
tional administrator can afford to be ignorant of 
Freud’s remarkable revelations of the influence of 
man’s unconscious mind upon his actions nor of Dr 
Lay’s work which carries. out Freud’s theories and 
explains them in a colloquially appealing way. Dr 
Lay shows that the Unconscious is a force that ef- 
fects every act of our lives and is responsible for 
such simple errors as are made by pupils in reading 
and writing or in their daily conduct: that the Un- 
conscious comes into contact with the requirements 
of society and tho often submerged, seeks again, 
thru various symbols, such as gestures, dress, facial 
expression, ete., to gain admission to consciousness. 


21 


By means of psycho-analysis, the teacher can pen- 
etrate what is to him at present, an unknown world 
—the Unconscious—and thereby solve many of his 
puzzling problems of discipline, and become more 
efficient. 

Man’s primal cravings manifest themselves in 
some form of symbolism which is ignored by our 
untrained teachers and educators who force the 
pupil into a Procrustean mould instead of permitting 
his natural endowments to bloom. The teacher, 
ignorant of the Unconscious, oppose the child’s crav- 
ings and earns its hostility. In place of self-devel- 
opment, the child is forced to conform to certain 
arbitrary rules. That is, we crush in the child, 
what in the long run, we are trying to develop— 
an independence of thought and self-conscious adap- 
tation to society. By thus relieving the child of 
responsibility for his acts during school life and 
then thrusting him into a world which demands 
initiative and responsibility, we insure disastrous 
results to both the child and society. It is the 
duty of our educators to summarize the achievements 
of the psycho-analysts and to make them a neces- 
sary part of the teacher’s training. Only thus 
will the child come into his own. 

“The World War and Leadership in a Democracy,” 
by Richard T Ely, New York. The MacMillan 
Co., $1.50. 

To one who is familiar with Prof Ely’s volumes in 
the field of economics, his latest volume, while inter- 
esting and at times stimulating, is, nevertheless, a 
keen disappointment. Nowhere in his book does he 
show an adequate understanding of the Russian Rev- 
olution, of the possibilities of democratic tendencies, 
or the best method of developing democratic leader- 
ship. In fact, at times he is bitterly hostile toward 
the newer democratic tendencies such as the recall, 
the initiative and the referendum, or to democracy in 
government and industry, seeing nothing but their 
weaknesses and ignoring their possibilities. 

In his lectures he shows that Germany began the 
war to achieve world leadership for which they were 
utterly unfitted, and makes a strong plea for a gov- 
ernment that will secure the best leadership which 
is to be devoted to the service of the community. He 
believes that governmént depends primarily on the 
character of the individuals which, in turn, depends 
upon morality and religion, ignoring the fact that 
neither morality nor religion can mould mass char- 
acter effectively unless economic conditions are fa- 
vorable. To read his plea for universal military 
training, his contempt for economic radicalism 
which he misunderstands, his misreading of history 
when he places the blame for the American Revolu- 
tion on the stupid German king who occupied the 





22 The American Teacher 


English throne, his praise for the royal puppets of 
our allies, his splendid tribute to men of big business, 
one would draw the conclusion’ that his book was 
not the product of a trained economist, keen thinker 
and impartial student of events, but the work of a 
propagandist in the employ of such an un-American 
organization as the American Defense Society. 
Democratic leadership based on industrial and politi- 
cal democracy in which equal opportunity is the key- 
stone, is something which he dilmy perceives, but 
does not know how to achieve. 





Teach Cooperation 


Every secondary school should give concrete and 
well-illustrated instruction in all the co-operative 
enterprises in which young people can take part for 
the ben_fit of the community, and in all the protective 
and helpful services which young citizens can render. 
The altruistic sentiments and services should be set 
before the pupils, and should be exemplified in the 
lives of their teachers, parents, and natural leaders. 
The influence of all teachers and parents should be 
steadily exerted to diminish the selfishness and self- 
reference which often accompany thoughtless child- 
hood, and to develop as early as possible good-will 
and serviceableness toward others and consideration 
for the needs of others. 

It should be made a special object in all schools 
to develop among the children and youth what is 
called in sports “team play”; to impress all the pu- 
pils with the high value of co-operative discipline, 
that is, of the discipline imposed with the consent of 
the subjects of discipline in order to increase the 
efficiency of the group, and therefore the satisfaction 
of every member in his own contribution. This con- 
tent in a strict discipline which he has a share in 
planning and imposing is today the chief need of all 
workmen in industries which require punctuality, or- 
der, system, and a common purpose to be efficient on 
the part of all concerned. There should be many op- 
portunities during school life to learn this enjoyable 
acquiescence in the strict, co-operative discipline nec- 
essary when many persons have to combine in the 
prompt and accurate production of a given effect or 
result. 

Some of the familiar means to this end are singing 
in parts, producing music in a band or orchestra, 
folk-dancing, combining in groups to perform gym- 
nastic feats, acting plays, and giving descriptions or 
narratives before a school audience in which many 
speakers combine to produce one harmonious and con- 
secutive story. In modern warfare a soldier’s work 
in an active army depends for its success chiefly upon 
the soldier’s skill and satisfaction in action guided 
and determined by strict, co-operative discipline. The 
same is true in almost all the large national indus- 
tries. Success in them involves the general sub- 
mission of all participants to a strict, cooperative 
discipline. This discipline does not much resemble 
the old-fashioned, automatic, unthinking obedience, 
which was long the ideal in military and industrial 
organization. It requires the voluntary coopera- 
tion of intelligent, free individuals whose wills con- 
sent to the discipline for an object which seems good 
to them and in a method which they think reasonable 
and appropriate. All schools and colleges should 
systematically provide much practice in this kind of 
discipline.—F'rom an address by Dr. Charles William 
ey in New York, in Reconstruction for January, 
1919.: 


Vol. VIII, No. 1 - 


An Independent Labor Party 


No more inspiring program has come from any 
press in many a day than the proposed nationa] 
platform of the Independent Labor Party, drafted 
and unanimously adopted by the Chicago Federation 
of Labor. To realize just how good this program js, 
it should be compared with such utterance as those 
of Mr. Charles Evans Hughes, and the Nationa] 
Grange, both of which appear to belong to a past age, 
Instead of trying to build a fence around land al- 
ready under cultivation for the benefit of present 
owners, as the National Grange would do, these Chi- 
cago workingmen would reclaim as many million 
acres of land as may be necessary to provide homes 
and occupations, not only for returning soldiers and 
sailors, but for war-workers whom peace may soon 
deprive of employment. Nor do these Chicago work- 
ingmen share the view of Mr. Hughes that the pub- 
lic ownership and operation of the railways and other 
great utilities would be a mistake. On the contrary, 
they believe it would be a mistake not to own and 
operate them. 

In this platform we hear, without doubt, the voice 
of labor. That voice is a clear, bold call for the ap. 
plication of the principles of democracy both to gov- 
ernment and to industry. We recommend this docu- 
ment to the careful consideration of comfortable gen- 
tlemen as a possible alternative to the Bolshevism 
in the United States which they would avoid. It 
counsels no violence. It counsels no law-breaking. 
It asks only that the government and the industries 
of the United States be placed under the control of 
the people of the United States who do useful labor. 
And, quite properly, it calls attention to the fact that 
the politicians of the Democratic and the Republican 
parties have no sympathy with the reconstruction 
that labor desires. 

These Chicago workingmen speak for the age that 
is here. Mr. Hughes speaks for the age that is gone. 
The more quickly gentlemen like Mr. Hughes realize 
this, the less danger will there be of Bolshevism in 
the United States. Mr. Hughes is an adroit lawyer, 
and therefore, while denouncing government own- 
ership, was too cautious to advocate the return of the 
railroads and other national utilities to private 
ownership. But his suggestion of an undefined “su- 
pervision” by the government will hardly deceive 
those who are familiar with the manner in which 
that other Hughes device—the Public Service Com- 
mision—has NOT succeeded in compelling electric 
railway companies to hold to their contractural obli- 
gations to furnish transportation for 5-cent fares.— 
Reconstruction for January, 1919. 





Ineed, we believe that our liberal publicists beget 
a dangerous political cynicism by their quevulous 
preference for complaint against their public servants 
rather than for calling on the people to correct the 
almost ludicrous conditions of irresponsibility under 
which those servants work. The liberal element in 
politics, the liberal press, have little more of value to 
offer usually than might be simmered down to the 
inept suggestion to “turn the rascals out.” The peo 
ple, appraising this feeble stuff by instinct at its 
proper value, are led into a cynical despair of their 
own power and a belief that the ills they suffer are 
somehow part of the order of nature and must be 
borne with a quietist indifference—From an edito- 
rial on “Responsible Diplomacy” in the Nation o 
December 28, 1918. 





January, 1919 


English Teachers Better Paid 

A comparison of the salaries of teachers in the 
United States before the war with those paid to 
teachers in England and Wales, appears to indi- 
cate that, upon the whole, American school staffs 
are the worse off. In commenting upon this some- 
what surprising result of investigations, the School- 
master observes that in the United States there is 
no such well-organized association as the English 
National Union of Teachers. The National Educa- 
tio Association represents such a body as might be 
obtained in England by bringing together the Na- 
tional Union of Teachers, the Headmasters Confer- 
ence, the Headmasters Association, the Headmis- 
tresses Association, the Assistant Masters Associa- 
tion, the Incorporated Association of Assistant Mas- 
ters and the Teachers Guild. It has therefore the 
merit of being much less sectional in character than 
these English societies. On the other hand, the 
National Education Association ought to contain 
200,000 members in order to be on the same footing 
with regard to the population of the country. At 
present, the figure is only 10,000, but there is to be 
a special effort made this year to bring up the total 
to 20,000. While noting this sign of progress, the 
Schoolmaster is inclined to think that the reason 
why England and Wales have a new Education Act, 
a supplementary grant for augmenting salaries, and 
a system of pensions, is that the teachers are well 
organized, especially as regards the National Union 
(public elementary schools) of which this journal is 
the official organ.—From English Education Notes 
in The Christian Science Monitor. 


Teachers and Strikes 


The fact that teachers, who are strongly opposed to 
the policy of the strike, should have adopted it in 
several parts of the country illustrates the desperate 
economic position of the teaching profession gener- 
ally. While the wages of the artisan have doubled 
since the outbreak of the war, the grudging bestowal 
of a few additional shillings weekly represents in the 
majority of cases the only recognition of the right of 
the teacher to exist. On one hand the teacher per- 
ceives the apparent ease with which the nation main- 
tains a daily expenditure of six or seven millions 
upon the war; on the other, he is rebuffed by the cry 
of rising rates whenever he asks his Education Com- 
mittee for justice. “To grant your demands would 
mean an addition of 1s. in the pound on the rates,” 
he is told in effect; and in consequence teachers are 
tacitly expected to continue to bear, as they have 
done for a generation, the equivalent burden of this 
rate—which is a tax upon their flesh and blood—in 
addition to their ordinary quota as rate-payers. For 
their part the Board have instituted a minimum rate 
of salaries for teachers which no corporation to-day 
dare lay down for its municipal dustmen. They have 
also published the Department Report on salaries. 
The great problem of the teacher—how he is to live 
from day to day, and especially how he is going to 
face the coming winter—remains untouched. Thou- 
sands of teachers throughout the country are in a 


The American 


Teacher 23 


condition of grave unrest, often kept from public 
knowledge owing to the elforts of officials. A deci- 
sion to strike at once secures open inquiry into griev- 
ances, and redress is, as a rule, expeditiously given. 
In view of the seething spirit of dissatisfaction 
among teachers the number of strike outbreaks has 
been small. It is probable that there would be none 
at all if representative standing sub-committees were 
set up in every educational area for the purpose of 
adjusting scales of salaries to the prevailing eco- 
nomic conditions as promptly as possible-—The Jour- 
nal of Education (London). 


Soldiers as Strike Breakers 


From the weekly paper published by soldiers for 
soldier patients in one of the big hospitals we quote 
this passage: “When we ‘get back on the job’— 
whatever that job may be—we will demand a square 
deal—not toadying and flattery. We are men and 
we are not so modest as to doubt our friends when 
they tell us we proved it over there. We want to 
be treated as men, not as sick children or family 
pets.” The soldier wants primarily to be replaced in 
industry, from which the draft so suddenly withdrew 
him; he wants a normal place again in the commu- 
nity, and we trust that he wants a better community. 
Grateful patriots and clubs are willingly entertain- 
ing him, and head-lines reporting conventions of 
business men assure him continually that “jobs are 
waiting all soldiers”—but just how much is actually 
being done to bring the job and the soldier together? 
Unfortunate and probably temporary delay has in- 
terfered with the payment of his allotment, and an 
increasing number of soldiers are reported to be 
walking the streets without money in their pockets. 
Under such circumstances, they will doubtless be in- 
terested in an advertisement appearing in the New 
York papers for December 20, asking their aid to 
avert a threatened strike in the harbor: “Here is a 
chance to help yourself and at the same time to do a 
good turn to the fellows who are ‘Over There’ and 
who are yet to come back. You would not have hesi- 
tated to share your grub with them in the trenches. 
Help to give them a lift and assure them a continuous 
supply of food and other necessaries.” Thus the ad- 
vertisement. In the announcement of the employers, 
drawn up at the Towboat Exchange, the cause of the 
strike is indicated: “We are informed that the Na- 
tional War Labor Board will come here on Saturday. 
If it is the purpose of these excellent and well-mean- 
ing gentlemen to try to force us into arbitration of 
the eight-hour-day question they might just as well 
save their time and the Government’s money by stay- 
ing in Washington.” We trust that employers do 
not base their rosy prophecies of “prosperity” on the 
hope of discontented soldiers as strike-breakers; for 
the soldiers are scarcely likely to consider such treat- 
ment “a square deal”; they may not even regard it 
as “toadying and flattery.”—-The Nation of December 
28, 1918. 


To-day the situation is changed. Good chemists in 
the industries are not only paid big salaries, but they 
also now have a real voice in the affairs of the com- 
panies with which they are associated.—From an 
article on “Chemist, Teacher and Manufacturer” in 
the Nation of December 28, 1918. 





The American Teacher Vol. VIII, No, 1 


The American Federation 
of Teachers 


DO YOU BELIEVE The American Teacher fairly presents 
the Ideals of the Future in Education and in Educational Admin- 
istration, as well as the Teacher’s Part in all this important Future? 


ME i iA 
To the Members of 
= 
& 


DO YOU BELIEVE The Union Movement among Teachers 
is destined to Play an important role in the Great Advance? 


DO YOU BELIEVE it is worth while to bring these Ideals 
and this Movement to the attention of Intelligent Persons in the 
Public in Labor Unions and in the Great Unorganized Outside? 


IF YOU DO, Induce as many as you can to subscribe for the 
American Teacher. Do them the favor of telling them about this 
idea, and thus win their gratitude, and likewise, Help your Organi- 


zation. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


70 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY 
Subscription Price, $1.00 per Year 





Toward the New Education 


A memorable battle was fought in the year 1918 in the City of New York, between 

we Forces of Educational Reaction and the Self-Respecting Teachers of the Teachers 
nion. 

Involved in the contest on the one side are notions of “Conduct Unbecoming a 

Teacher” conceived by the Reactionaries, and on the other, the Ideas of the Place in 

Society to be held by Teachers under the Idealism of the New Education. 

In a booklet of 164 pages are portrayed in clear-cut fashion Educational Trickery, 
Official Stupidity and Vengeance, Visionless Leaders in Administration, and the Teach- 
ers with their Backs to the Wall fighting for their Economic and Professional Lives. 

There is a stirring account of a Trial before a Committee on High Schools. But 
it is not all Tragedy. A Misplaced Official furnishes Humor that will last thru the Ages. 
For a Cross Reference to the Same Official, see THE NEW REPUBLIC of January 


II, pay PP. 305-307. 
end thirty cents in stamps for a copy of TOWARD THE NEW EDUCATION. 


ee cr nn 





THE TEACHERS UNION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
70 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 


MMR A AER ii il