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FEBRUARY, 1919 « 


SHUVUNGSSQV OANA UNAM A ik ai 0 


Democracy and Education 





Americanization, or Self- 
Mastery 





The Legal Status of Teachers 


Lifters and Leaners | 


Democracy in Education 
Education for Democracy 








The American Teacher 


What Kind of Educational Reconstruction? 


HERE is grave danger that ad- 
/ vocates of this or that political 
or economic creed will try to 
control the schools for propaganda pur- 
poses. It is quite likely that a whole 
series of conflicts, many of them very 
bitter, will be waged over the educa- 
tional question between the liberals and 
the reactionaries, between those who 
ardently believe in democracy and the 
possibilities of a new social order, and 
those who either 


thought and discourages leadership. 
And yet leaders we must have if demo- 
cracy is to survive, leaders who are 
truly representative of the aspirations 
and the will of the people themselves. 
So long as the masses of the people 
receive only a few grades of schooling, 
so long as children are taught beliefs 
rather than truth, the “lords of the 
earth” may look with complacency upon 
any democratic movement. So long as 

the common 





schooling is down 





consciously or un- T 
consciously want 
to return to the 
status quo ante. 
Nationally and lo- 
cally a very de- 
termined stand 
ought to be made 
in this recon- 
struction period 
against all the 
various leagues 
and historical 
boards who, with 
whatever good 
intent, are trying 
to ram into the 
schools their own 


Editorials 


Lifters and Leaners 








CONTENTS 


Democracy and Education 
Americanization, or Self-Mastery 

Labor and Progress, II. ............ 38 
Symposium on Teachers Unions 

The Legal Status of Teachers 

“The Way to Power” 


to a level only 
sufficient to turn 
out clerks or 
trade apprentices, 
and so long as 
even this limited 
schooling discour- 
ages all indepen- 
dence of thought, 
the mass of the 
people will fall an 
easy prey to those 
capable of han- 
dling the mob 
mind. Party ma- 
chinery, a cheap 
I press, all the arts 











particular brand 


and devices of the 





of “patriotism ” 

or “Americanism.” Children have a 
right to be protected against creed and 
dogma of whatever kind. 

Champions of the new social order 
have a hard task ahead of them if the 
schools are to become a fit instrument 
for democracy. Not only have too many 
of our educators been blind to the great 
liberal forces which are stirring the 
world, but they have become enslaved 
by a system of education which by its 
very nature irons out initiative, stifles 


demagogue with 
his sensational appeals and the holding 
out of unsubstantial benefits serve to 
make and preserve the mob mind, fluid, 
short-sighted, uncritical and credulous. 
Under such conditions there can be no 
rule of the people, and no real thinking 
thru of vital problems. 


AGNES DE LIMA, in the Bulletin 
of the Public Education Asso- 
ciation of the City of New 
York, December 7, 1918. 





Vol. VIII, No. 2 





Ex 


— ss © of & FO oF DD bk. 


a FT 





The American Teacher 


Entered as second-class matter) February 21 


1912, at the Post Office at New Yor 
"Pablighed at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, monthly, except 


N. Y.; under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
uly and August. 








Vol. VII, No. 2 


FEBRUARY, 1919 


One Dollar a Year 








New Locals of the A F of T 


ECENT additions to the roster of the 
American Federation of Teachers 
are the Associated Teachers of the 

University of Illinois, the Altoona (Pa.) 
Teachers Association, the Granite City (IIl.) 
Federation of Teachers, the Buffalo Voca- 
tional Teachers Association, the Lancaster 
(Ohio) Elementary Teachers Association, 
and the Stockton Township (Linton, Ind.) 
Federation of Teachers. The last named 
brings the charters issued up to forty-two. 

Hundreds of organizations of teachers 
thruout the country are in communication 
with the officers of the A F of T, and are 
seriously discussing the matter of affiliation 
with labor thru our national. Pride of pro- 
fession is right enough in its place, but it is 
marvelous what a sham it appears to be in 
the face of economic stress. Teachers are 
looking for plain, honest relief, and shams 
are being hung on the “whatnot,” along with 
the other curios no longer of value. 


The New Day 


T a time when the whole world is seeth- 
A ing with political and social dis- 
content, the teaching citizens of our 
country can no longer maintain their nega- 
tive attitude of indifference, or unintelli- 
gence. Much as their prehistoric training 
would cause them to pursue the paths oft- 
times trodden before, this will be especially 
difficult because not only the paths but also 
the highways are being broken up. We are 
living in a new world where the forces are 
gathering to break out new paths for human 
destiny. 


27 


There was a time when a good citizen 
could look upon politics and education, one 
as business for the ward-heelers, the other 
as the source of pin-money for the daughters 
of his neighbors. Now, over night, both pol- 
itics and education are the development and 
storage centers for the world energies. 
Whether teachers like it or not, whether they 
are intelligent or not, they must have a care, 
or the immense forces that now are bound 
to operate thru education will sweep them off 
their feet. Their only safety lies in seeing 
that they must learn to control the new and 
overwhelming power that the war has 
brought into existence from their hum-drum 
occupation. 

If teachers do not seek to control and guide 
the new forces of education in the direction 
of social betterment, then others, possibly 
harder masters than ever, will, for some 
other end. And teachers will be less satis- 
fied, and also less worthy, than they have 
ever been. 


° 9 
“Unprofessional 

The primary teacher taught her pupils beauti- 
ful old stories and fables about united effort. 
The grammar school teacher showed how our lib- 
erties were won by patriotic union. The high 
school teacher proved that “union is strength” by 
every science in the curriculum. But did all 
these teachers act together for their own inter- 
ests? Not always, for it wasn’t professional.— 
Editorial in The Common Ground for Jan., 1919. 


Upon application, a charter or a collection 
of charters in the American Federation of 
Teachers will be granted to the Massachu- 
setts Teachers Federation, of which The 
Common Ground is the organ. Otherwise, 
why write such unprofessional editorials ?— 
Editor, THE AMERICAN TEACHER. 





28 The American Teacher 


Little Lessons in Thrift 


N extract from a pamphlet prepared 
A by the Educational Committee of the 
War Savings Organization of the 
Seventh Federal Reserve District, and cir- 
culated thruout the Schools of Chicago. 


Lesson IX. The Bolsheviki vs Poor Richard. 
Bolsheviki means “Those who want more.” The 
Bolsheviki propaganda being spread among work- 
men and among the ne’er-do-well class of all 
countries teaches that all rights should be taken 
away from those who have been industrious and 
thrifty, and have accumulated some property of 
their own. That this property should be seized 
by the members of the Bolsheviki group and di- 
vided among themselves. This doctrine often 
finds ready acceptance among those who are not 
thrifty and have not managed to get ahead in 
the world. 

Bolsheviki means DIVIDE. It means divide 
the land; it means divide the money in the 
banks, it means divide the products of the fac- 
tory; it means kill and destroy if those who have 
earned and saved refuse to have their property 
divided. 


to say the worst of the Soviet Govern- 
ment of Russia and its extreme form of 
political philosophy called Bolshevism. In 
fact, unless one does say the worst, there may 
appear to be something suspicious or un- 
American about the writer or speaker who 


I T is of course the fashion to believe and 


does not go the limit. Certainly, no such 
unworthy suspicion could be breathed against 
the authors of “Little Lessons in Thrift.” 
They have gone the limit. 

We do not mean by this to accuse the Ed- 
ucational Committee of the War Savings or- 
ganization of misrepresentation. All we feel 
obliged to say is that everything the com- 
mittee charges against Bolshevism, except 
the alleged murderous propensities, has been 
charged against every brand of communistic 
or socialistic philosophy for generations of 
time, hundreds of years. 

The intelligent teachers of Chicago, of 
course, know all this, but possibly they did 
not feel free for reasons of weight in these 
days of slight tenure to raise an objection 
against an antiquated statement, and there- 


Vol. VIII, No. 2 


fore an unreliable statement, applied to a 
complex modern political situation. 

Let us hope the children of Chicago wil] 
be aided by the teachers in keeping track 
of the efforts of the Peace Conference to 
bring about a settlement of the troubles in 
Russia in a way that will be satisfactory to 
the Russians. Incidentally, the children may 
learn that political crises are met successfully 
by campaigns of reason and enlightenment. 
—EDITOR. 


Our members are reminded of .the need of 
giving earnest consideration to the problem 
outlined in the editorial, “The Way to Power,” 
in the January number. We may reasonably 
expect several responses in time for printing 
in the March number, which will go to press 
on March ro. 


TO MEMBERS OF THE A F OF T 


Every member of the American Federation of 
Teachers in good standing receives the American 
Teacher free of charge. In return for this, for the 
benefit of being protected and of having a fearless 
organization to help fight for the professional rights 
of the members, the Federation maintains that each 
member should feel it a deep obligation, as well as 
a privilege, to be faithful in those matters that enable 
the officers to carry out their duties with satisfac- 
tion and efficiency. The regular payment of dues 
to the locals, the regular attendance at meetings, 
and the generous grant of personal service, all help 
to make the movement “carry on.” 








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. 





Democracy and Education’ 
CHARLES B STILLMAN, 
President, The American Federation of Teachers 


sounds trite. Americans are some- 

times called boastful, and there are 
few things we boast of more than our educa- 
tional system. You have perhaps even heard 
it called the foundation and bulwark of dem- 
ocracy. While there is a sense in which our 
schools by making us a more or less literate 
nation, and offering instruction in the his- 
tory and forms of our institutions, have made 
democracy possible, there is also a very real 
sense in which one of the chief proofs of the 
vitality of our democracy is the fact that it 
has survived our schools. 

I need not take time to prove the import- 
ance of education to this group. This has 
been called a schoolmaster’s war, and cer- 
tainly the superpatriotism and “regimented 
docility” of the German people could have 
been developed only by the German school 


M Y subject, Democracy and Education, 


system, carefully designed to make unthink- 
ing obedience implicit in the 90 percent, and 
to train the remaining 10 percent in a quasi- 


leadership instinctively subordinated to 
higher authority. Many try by similar rea- 
soning to find justification for our educational 
system in our successful conduct of the war. 
But unfortunately most people cannot stress 
strong points without developing a blind spot 
for weaknesses. And I take it that this con- 
ference, tho sharing a patriotic pride in our 
accomplishments as a nation, and eager to 
give our schools their full share of the credit, 
is anxious also to face’frankly the weaknesses 
and failures of our institutions as an essential 
first step to their reconstruction. 

And the bitter fact is that our educational 
system from the primary grades thru the uni- 
versity has never been within hailing dis- 
tance of democracy. During the first half of 


* Address delivered at Reconstruction Conference of National 


Feoular Government League, Washington, D. C., January 10, 


the last century, when need was felt for a 
model of an educational system, we sent ed- 
ucators to Germany of all places for that 
model. And while we avoided the German 
caste division, we adopted and have developed 
the Prussian type of autocratic school admin- 
istration. The class room teachers, actually 
on the job and in daily direct contact with 
the educational problems, have practically no 
voice in the conduct of the schools, the deter- 
mination of educational policies, all power 
and authority originating at the top, and ex- 
tending downward from the upper reaches of 
the educational hierarchy. That this is true 
of universities, with some exceptions, is com- 
ing to be recognized. One university pro- 
fessor diagnoses the most dangerous disease 
afflicting our colleges and universities as 
“Presidentitis.” And when it is not “Presi- 
dentitis,” often an oligarchy of full professors 
rules with an iron hand, and any younger 
member of the faculty with lesser rank offers 
suggestions at the cost of advancement, or 
even of position. For in most institutions 
of collegiate rank, there is tenure only for the 
handful of full professors; all others are au- 
tomatically discharged each year and offered, 
or not offered, a new contract. You, of 
course, realize that this same condition ob- 
tains in our public schools with few excep- 
tions. In some universities, there are spy 
systems to check up on the private life; in 
most, academic freedom is a joke, and in 
almost all, it is a fragile thing to be handled 
with care. 

A brilliant university teacher recently said 
he was going to take up high school work, 
partly because he could come a little nearer 
to making a living, but chiefly because he 
could better develop the principles of democ- 
racy in the more democratic atmosphere of 
the public ‘school. And many public school 
teachers are keeping their optimism alive 


29 





30 


with the thought that at least a small per- 
centage of their pupils are going on to college 
or university, where they will find a freerer 
mental environment. 

For what are the corresponding conditions 
in the public schools? Let me read rules pro- 
posed some time ago by the school adminis- 
tration of Chicago at that time, and the pro- 
tests submitted by the union teachers of Chi- 
cago. The rules were not adopted, but they 
typify the traditional spirit of school admin- 
istration in this country, and the answers 
typify the spirit of the organized teachers 
affiliated with labor. 


Sec. 81. Exclusion of Partisan and Sec- 
tarian Questions. Teachers shall not permit 
the introduction of questions of a sectarian 
or partisan character into their schools. 


This, of course, is the old, traditional rule, 
incapable of literal enforcement, because of 
the difficulties of interpretation. Numerous 
matters of historical and scientific fact and 
theory, and frequently even matters social, 
economic and political are considered sec- 


tarian by various sects, and social, economic 
and political questions are considered par- 
tisan by almost all parties. One cannot com- 
mence to discuss good citizenship in a country 
governed by the party system without cut- 
ting cross sections thru all political par- 


ties. Our country would never have become 
a melting pot for all creeds and nationalities 
if the children had not come into contact in 
our public schools with a type of thinking 
and way of life often in violent contrast with 
their home environment and habitual sec- 
tarian and political atmosphere. 

The schools cannot develop mental fibre if 
the pupils are carefully shielded from knowl- 
edge of the topics that men and women think 
about. The schools cannot prepare for active 
citizenship, if the pupils are not allowed to 
discuss, under intelligent supervision, the 
problems of citizenship. The habits of tol- 
erance and of intellectual fairness towards 
opn ents, cannot be formed without the 
discussion of topics that give opportunity 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. 2 


for their exercise. The failure of our schools 
to develop these habits has been made all too 
evident by numerous campaigns in which rea- 
son has been clouded by embittered intoler- 
ance. 

The best of rules would require judgment 
in interpretation, but we believe that a word- 
ing can be found more in accordance with 
the spirit of our free schools, and we submit 
the following: 


Whenever topics on which honest men 
differ arise in the classroom, as in the study 
of science, history, civics, English, it shall be 
the duty of the teacher to inculcate the prin- 
ciples of tolerance, of the open mind, of cour- 
tesy and fairness to opponents; to stimulate 
intellectual honesty, and the desire to see all 
sides of a question ; to emphasize the sacred- 
ness of the right of the individual to his own 
honest beliefs and convictions, provided only 
that they do not conflict with the rights and 
welfare of the community and humanity. 


Sec. 81-C. Maintain Professional Stand- 
ards of Conduct. The behaviour of teachers 
toward the Board of Education and those 
holding positions of authority under the 
Board shall at all times be respectful and 
obedient. The standards of conduct of teach- 
ers both within and without the schoolroon 
shall be such as to comport with the higher 
ideals of the teaching profession and their 
habits, conduct and character shall be such 
that the children under their charge should 
imitate. 


We believe that it would be unfortunate if 
the Board of Education adopted the proposed 
rule. We consider the conception and phrase- 
ology unworthy of both the teachers and the 
Board of Education. Respect cannot be se- 
cured by coercion ; the superficial appearance 
of respect which might be successfully de- 
manded by rule would be degrading to both 
parties. Mutual respect should be assumed; 
it is not an appropriate subject for legisla- 
tion, at least in a democratic community. 

Similarly with the emphasis on “obedi- 
ence.” If a teacher refuses to carry out legi- 





February, 1919 


timate instructions, the method of removal 
is provided. But efficiency is secured only 
when instructions are carried out in a spirit 
of cooperation rather than of “obedience” 
to an official superior. 

In order to make the rule include all mem- 
bers of the educational department, and not 
merely the teachers, and to eliminate the 
features which would not call out the best 
efforts of the teachers, we respectfully sub- 
mit the following substitute: 

The Board of Education realizes that the 
schools can meet their full obligations to the 
public only thru the codperation of the teach- 
ers, principals, supervisory staff, and Board 
of Education, and expects each of the four 
groups to aid in establishing and maintain- 
ing conditions favorable to the most effective 
codperation. 

And that brings me to the key to our ed- 
ucational reconstruction. It is the teacher. 


Our American fondness for machinery may 
have had something to do with our over- 
weaning confidence in educational machinery 
and devices, and neglect of the human ele- 


ment. The best of equipment is none ‘too 
good, but without an efficient teacher, it is 
so much junk. And the most perfectly or- 
ganized system must fail to function without 
live teaching. 

I know it is shocking for a member of the 
teaching craft to mention teaching as a key 
to anything—unless it be the poorhouse. You 
expected me to say the children. I sometimes 
think that the majority of the crimes against 
childhood have been committed in the name 
of the children. Whenever a reactionary 
Board of Education or Superintendent plans 
to sandbag the public schools, the operation is 
cut off from the view of the public by a bar- 
rage of homilies on the sacred rights of the 
children. It is a tragedy that such concep- 
tions as patriotism and the rights of chil- 
dren have been exploited by reactionaries 
until liberals hesitate to mention them. But 
they are too valuable to be surrendered to the 
tories. 

The public is ready to see that the most 
important right of children is the right to 


The American Teacher 


31 


competent, free, unafraid teaching, and that 
it is a crime against childhood to expose it 
daily in the classroom to an atmosphere of 
timidity, of complacent aloofness from life, 
of servility. And two fundamental and re- 
volutionary things are essential if we are to 
secure and maintain the kind of human ma- 
terial in the teaching craft which can be 
made the basis for democracy in our schools. 

First, teaching must be made a self- 
respecting calling. The teacher must not 
only no longer be a political football, but 
must no longer be harassed and humiliated 
by petty treatment and autocratic dictation 
of official superiors, lay and professional. 
Conditions in that respect differ widely in 
various communities, and it is only fair to 
say that an increasing number of teachers 
are very happily working in an atmosphere 
of codéperation. But the intolerable tradi- 
tional condition still prevails so generally 
that young men and women of independent 
spirit hesitate long before entering the pro- 
fession. The obvious remedies are tenure of 
position based on competency, and the demo- 
cratic voice of the teachers in the conduct 
of the schools. 

Second, but not second in importance, 
teaching must be made a self-supporting 
calling. The majority of teachers either are 
partially dependent on what amounts to the 
charity of their parents or relatives, or eke 
out an existence by engaging in gainful oc- 
cupations on the side. Pupils, working out- 
side school hours while attending school with 
credit often make more than their teachers. 
Teachers have always been wretchedly paid, 
but now, when the purchasing value of a 
salary of $1,000 five years ago is only $400, 
their plight is desperate. Or more accu- 
rately, the nation’s plight is desperate. For 
teachers are being forced out of the schools 
by the thousand by sheer economic pressure. 
At this moment there is a shortage of 100,000 
trained teachers, and you cannot have an 
adequate conception of what that implies in 
lowering of standards and overcrowding of 
rooms. Even more threatening for the future 
is the natural refusal. of young men and 





The American Teacher 


women of ability to prepare to enter a pro- 
fession which will not provide them a living 
income. The normal schools of the country 
are less than half full. The Wilson Normal 
here in Washington has an entering class 
of nine instead of the usual ninety. Pub- 
lishing houses are already considering more 
elementary, ‘“fool-proof” textbooks, better 
adapted for teaching by green, untrained 
teachers. That is the situation at the begin- 
ning of the period of reconstruction when 
our schools will have greater demands made 
upon them than ever before. 

But the public cannot complain. They are 
getting more than they pay for. In 1916 
the total expenditure on public elementary 
schools by Federal, state, and local govern- 
ments was only a little more than half a bil- 
lion dollars. The same figure for public high 
schools was only a little over $100,000,000. 
The aggregate expenditure in the same year 
on all schools, public and private, was in 
round numbers, $900,000,000. 

Those figures must be immediately and 
greatly increased. The gains for democracy 
of our essential military victory can be con- 
solidated only thru education. England and 
France realize that, and despite war burdens 
and a war-weariness of which we can have 
no conception, have planned a reorganization 
of their schools and made unprecedented ap- 
propriations. America, with all her tradi- 
tional pride in her schools, lamentably lags 
behind. If America does not awake, that 
pride will soon be nothing more than a tra- 
dition. 

It is primarily a national matter, and 
Congress should point the way by appropri- 
ating $100,000,000 to be apportioned among 
the states, and duplicated by the states, to 
aid in raising teachers’ salaries to a level 
which will make it possible for every child to 
receive competent instruction under favor- 
able conditions. State legislatures should 
follow with greatly increased appropriations, 
and systems of local taxation for school pur- 
poses should be reorganized to provide more 
adequate revenue. 

In carrying out this financial program, and 


Vol. VIII, No. 2 


in democratizing our schools, we must make 
use of every available avenue of approach to 
public opinion. As a representative of the 
teachers affiliated with organized labor, it 
is natural and right for me to call attention 
to the keen and intelligent interest in our 
schools everywhere shown by labor, and the 
effective assistance rendered by labor in se- 
curing progressive educational legislation. 
For labor is fundamentally interested in se- 
curing the best educational advantages for 
the chi‘dren of all the people. Certain con- 
flicting forces are interested in keeping taxes 
down. Labor is determined that education 
shall be made to mean what it should mean 
in a democracy. 

There is no time to go into detail, but let 
me list half a dozen educational planks re- 
peatedly adopted by labor in both state and 
national conventions. 

1. Reduction in size of classes, the Illi- 
nois State Federation of Labor asking 
for a maximum of 25 pupils to a class. 

. The establishment of self-governing 
teachers’ councils for the purpose of 
utilizing the experience and initiative 
of the teaching body in the conduct 
of the schools, the recommendations 
of such councils to be made a matter 
of official public record. 

. The requirement that all our children 
shall be taught in the English lan- 
guage, in both private and public 
schools, a foreign language to be 
taught only as a subject in the curri- 
culum. 

. Elective boards of education. 

. Free textbooks. 

. The introduction of a modern system 
of physical education. 

. The establishment of a Federal De- 
partment of Education. 

. The appropriation by Congress of 
$100,000,000 to aid the states as ad- 
vocated above. 

. A minimum annual salary for teach- 
ers of $1,200. 

. The universal establishment of a min- 
imum school-leaving age of 16 years, 





February, 1919 


and the provision of compulsory con- 
tinuation schools to 18. 

11. The more vigorous teaching of the ob- 

ligations and privileges of citizenship. 

Many formerly hostile to the American 
Federation of Teachers are now admitting 
that affiliation of the teachers with labor will 
be necessary if the teachers, standing alone, 
without outside affiliations, fail to remedy 
conditions. We contend that they miss the 
main point. Our schools have been failing 
to achieve full success largely because the 
teachers have: been standing alone, holding 
themselves aloof from life. One logical rea- 
son for the spectacle of misgoverned Amer- 
ican cities is the inevitable failure of teach- 
ers who are themselves ignorant of life, to 
prepare their pupils to play an intelligent 
part in life. We try to impress on teachers 
the necessity, for the sake of our democracy, 
of connecting themselves intimately and ef- 
fectively with the economic, social and civic 
life of the community. 

In conclusion let me repeat that we cannot 
attain genuine democracy in education until 
we make teaching self-respecting, self-sup- 
porting, and an organic part of our national 
and community life. 


Librarians Also Belong to 
a Profession 


The problem of salaries, alike for librarians 


and teachers, has been made very difficult be- 
cause of the war. There is often discussion as 
to relative salaries and relative advantages in 
librarianship and in teaching, but the present 
problem is common to both fields and urgent in 
both. It is the man or woman of moderate salary 
who feels the pinch of war prices. Profits may 
have gone up, wages have increased, but mod- 
erate salaries never keep step with the increased 
cost of living. A twenty-per-cent raise would be 
but little, yet school and library authorities who 
must look to the public funds, face when they 
desire to raise salaries the trend of state and 
municipal authorities to decrease instead of in- 
crease budgets, to rob Peter without paying Paul. 
The Federal government has wisely sought to tax 
excess profits and large incomes and to avoid 
the increase of prices which comes thru taxing 
sales or wages—with possibly the exception of 
sales on luxuries above a standard price. Wise 
as this is, it does not go to the root of the mat- 
ter, nor can any combination of employees or 


The American Teacher 33 


strikes or other forms of protest solve the enigma, 
which is a puzzle only less distressing to those 
who have to pay than to those who receive the 
small and inadequate salaries. 

Under these circumstances, co-operation of the 
staff in bringing the facts to public attention 
may well be welcomed by trustees and library 
executives. Library assistants, who are so vitally 
interested, should have direct voice in shaping 
public opinion in the right direction and in bring- 
ing municipal appropriation authorities face to 
face with the actual facts. This does not involve 
the question of unionization or the intervention 
of the walking delegate as a rival executive in 
the library. A trade union within a library 
system makes the calling of the librarian a trade 
rather than a profession, and involves also the 
serious danger of attempting the administration 
of the library thru the influence of other unions 
not cognate with library work. With the growth 
of the large library systems, administration has 
become wholesomely democratic, as staff meetings 
have afforded opportunity for helpful coopera- 
tion and for enlightened discussion of library 
plans, methods and aims. Moreover, there has 
been no field of work in which the physical and 
social well-being of all concerned has been more 
fully kept in mind, and unionization would be 
likely to work much more harm than it could 
afford help.—Editorial Library Journal (New 
York) for January, 1919. 


This is too much. When teachers refuse 
to join a union because they are members of 
a “profession,” we can sympathize and un- 
derstand, but when librarians claim the same 
exclusion, we must protest. We did not 
dream that librarians who work for still less 
than teachers do would try to break into our 
circle. Well, go on. Only keep it from 
the hod-carriers! 


Occupational Pride and Good Pay 


When teachers assume an attitude of occupational 
pride and begin to demand adequate pay for a serv- 
ice ending in great public benefit without regard 
to the political coloring, they will find a supporting 
public sentiment greeting them. When teachers are 
able and willing to stand before the public and claim 
good pay for good work with —_ other considera- 
tion eliminated, they will find the public’s hand 
stretched out in fellowship. They seem on the point 
of adopting that posture now, and to insure success 
need only maintain the seeming advance. 

On the other side, the public must be convinced 
that if public school teachers are to be expected to 
retain their interest in the success of the popular 
system the interest mu.i be met fairly and warmly 
by those for whom the teachers give their labor. 
The public is coming to understand better every 
year that nothing concerns them more vitally than 
the results achieved in the public schools. The recog- 
nition has been tardy, but seems to have arrived. 

Teachers need only establish the good quality of 
their workmanship to find the public ready with 
consent for proper reward.—F rom editorial in Union 
Leader, Toledo, Ohio. ' 





“A mericanization” 


, or Self-Mastery 


CORNELIA W CLEAVELAND 
The Workers University, New York City 


E have heard much in the past year 

W about programs of Americaniza- 

tion. Every philanthropic agency 
that really considers itself in the social-serv- 
ice swim, is racking its brains for something 
new in the line of adding “education” unto 
the ignorant foreigner. 

And because it is not social-service etiquette 
to do anything simply, elaborate machinery is 
set up and more elaborate propaganda set in 
motion to start the machinery with currents 
of golden power. The most potent argu- 
ments are needed to touch into vibration the 
philanthropic chords in the hearts of mon- 
eyed men. What is the argument most 
potent to quicken the charitable pulse? Fear. 
Fear of “ignorant foreigners” who speak a 
foreign tongue and think foreign thoughts. 
Fear that all the sensible, comfortable every- 
day things which spell America to the third 
and fourth generation of successful Amer- 
icans, are being menaced by a strange, hover- 
ing, unpleasant shadow of hunger and rest- 
lessness and disinherited human aspiration. 
This shadow is called Unamerican because 
so many of the humans who make up the 
shadow are arrivals here today or only 
yesterday. 

Such is the appeal of the Americanizer to 
the man who is to furnish the means. What 
is the remedy offered for this unpleasant 
menace? Well, first, we must teach English 
to these uncomprehending and incomprehen- 
sible foreigners. And then they can under- 
stand us when we tell them what America 
really is—outside the slum and factory; and 
then they will understand what American 
prosperity means—to others. If the for- 
eigner won’t learn, and one fair worker in 
the cause of Americanization declares that 
the stubborn girls and men in the factories 
just won’t—why, then, the same enthusiastic 
organizer announced triumphantly, a law will 
be passed making it illegal to speak or read 
any language but English! So there now! 


34 


But all this complicated machinery of 
Americanization seems thus far to be whir- 
ling and spinning in a vacuum of its own. 
The “foreigners” are strangely unmoved as 
yet. Unmoved as serious-minded humans al- 
ways are when they see the Pharisee startled 
out of complacency into frantic “Welfare 
Work.” And they go on their own daily 
grind, uninterested in plans by which “the 
employer gives half an hour of his valuable 
time for English classes in the factory and 
the employee gives half an hour” and pays 
for the whole hour to boot. 

The reason for this apathy which the 
Americanizer deplores as willfulness and 
“Bolshevism” is not far to seek. Why is it 
that expensive pool-rooms and gymnasiums 
and moving pictures built by employers on 
their own premises are frequented by two or 
three workers, while small amusement halls 
and billiard “parlors,” cheap only in facil- 
ities for enjoyment, are crowded to the doors? 
For the same reason that a child indignantly 
rejects the expensive toy given as a bribe, 
or entailing future obligations, and prefers 
the packing-box chariot on castors which he 
himself has made. 

Our welfare workers and Americanizers 
are poor psychologists when they denounce 
the worker as ingrate because Americaniza- 
tion classes are poorly attended. They might, 
if they were willing to look that far, learn 
lesson number one in humility if they should 
but spend a short time in the classes of the 
Workers University. 

The Workers University? Why, what is 
that? Well, first, it is the self-respecting 
workers’ answer to the Pharisee. But far 
more than that it is the practical expresssion 
of the human instinct to create, to create 
something in response to actual need. For 
in spite of all the petulant despair which the 
Americanizer vindictively voiced, the worker 
in this country of ours, today as in the past, 
recognizes the value and power of knowledge 





February, 1919 


and longs for education and the leisure to 
gain it just as keenly as did the first im- 
migrants to this country. More than that 
he or she is just as willing to work for that 
education as were the forebears of the élite 
American. 

The worker has long since found, how- 
ever, that the conditions of his work are such 
that leisure and energy for education as it 
is given in the “public” schools are impos- 
sible. Hence he determines that education 
shall come to him, that he will fit the oppor- 
tunities for learning to the conditions of his 
life and work. 

Thru the long history of trade union de- 
velopment the worker has learned that 
strength comes thru unionization, hence the 
most natural organ thru which he works for 
new advantages and opportunities is his 
union. What more natural then, than that 


the union should initiate this tremendous 
movement for self-education of the worker? 
The movement, while new in this country, is 
by no means without a history of interesting 
experiment and achievement in England and 


other countries where the labor movement 
is mature. 

In the United States the first experiment 
of this kind, and it has now passed the stage 
of experiment, was begun three years ago 
by Local 25 of the International Ladies’ Gar- 
ment Workers Union in New York City. In 
1918 the work was taken over and amplified 
by the International itself. 

The Educational Committee, of which Mr 
Harry Wander is chairman and Miss Fannie 
M Cohn the secretary, appointed by the In- 
ternational Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, 
employs an organizer, Mr Sebastian Liberty, 
in New York City, and associate organizers 
in other cities. This report deals with the 
work of the parent organization in New 
York, and applies equally to the organiza- 
tion in other cities. 

The actual educational work is carried on 
thru rapidly growing Unity Centers, thru 
centrally located lecture centers, thru classes 
for business agents of the Union, and thru 
meeting halls of the locals. 


The American Teacher 


35 


The oldest established work is that carried 
on in the Unity Centers. At present there 
are four of these centers making use of con- 
veniently located public school buildings, one 
in the Bronx, one in the Brownsville district 
of Brooklyn, and two in Manhattan. This is 
of course evening work. 

The Unity Center is much more than a 
“school,” altho the classes in English taught 
by Board of Education teachers, often form 
the nucleus of the new center. The center 
is more than a school for instruction or for 
gaining Regents’ points. It is a little com- 
munity, a social group, a group drawn to- 
gether by the unifying spirit of a commom 
work and a common desire for knowledge. 
There are lectures on health and sex-hy-. 
giene, classes in gymnasium practise and 
classes in swimming. The student joining 
one of these health groups is doing so not 
for diplomas or Regents’ counts. He is join- 
ing to gain a new mastery of the conditions 
of his own life and physical well-being. 

In answer to the charge made by some 
that the “ignorant” worker does not know 
how to use his leisure time—what little 
he has!—the Unity Center would be a re- 
velation. The young men and women 
have in this center their own social club 
which cannot be outdone in social or in- 
tellectual value by any society in the coun- 
try. Once a week there is a meeting of the 
reading circle and dancing class. The en- 
thusiasts in this circle are not Hermiones 
dallying with the Cosmos, “taking up Plato 
seriously” or passing into trances at the bid- 
ding of entrancing humbugs. These students 
of life are reading diligently, deeply, widely. 
The books they read, some in English, some 
in Jewish, Italian or Russian, are huraan and 
vital, touching upon subjects of immediate 
interest to the worker. They study the his- 
tory of the great labor movement, the devel- 
opment of democracies, the growth of con- 
scious manhood and womanhood; they read 
the romance of humanity. In short, they are 
laying a broad human foundation for a work- 
ing class consciousness in the highest and 
noblest sense of the term. 





Se eee | 


rs ns ~ - —— 
ee 


“these classes as a part of Unity life. 
‘thru their own Union, of which they are dues- 


The American Teacher 


And then they dance or sing or listen to 
good music and talk just as any human peo- 
ple do, only they do it more spontaneously 
and charmingly than do our “society” folk. 
These students of life are not studying so- 
cial étiquette and formalities in their dancing 
class. They are simply developing social con- 
tacts and graces which their hard condition 
of life and work would otherwise make dif- 
ficult or impossible to get in natural, simple 
surroundings. 

And so thru all the activities of the Unity 
Centre: the dramatic circle, chorus, lectures 
on economics and sociology, concerts, field 
trips to museums, to woods or shore, pleasur- 
able work and inspiring pleasure, these young 
amen and women are studying and developing 
self-mastery and beauty in an earnest and 
self-respecting manner which cries shame on 
the professional philanthropist, or the petu- 
lant domineering Americanizer who would 
thrust an extinguisher upon all this enthus- 
iasm by charity. 


This work is no charity. With the excep- 


tion of the English teachers who are paid by 


the City in cooperation with the Union, all 
the teachers are Union chosen and Union 
paid teachers and lecturers. Even the Eng- 
lish classes are under the direction of the 
Union which is in this way helping to make 
the public schools of more direct service to 
‘the people who need them. In cooperation 


~with the Board of Education the Union stim- 


ulates and maintains regular attendance in 
Hence 


paying members, the workers are procuring 
“for themselves the education they crave. The 
“only limit to the growth of these centers is 
the limit of membership in the International 
Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. Whenever 
the workers wish a new course introduced or 
a particular lecturer or educational ac- 
tivity arranged, for they are at liberty to 
communicate with the central office thru their 
student council or individually. If a suffi- 
ciently large number wish the new course to 


“warrant the maintenance of a class the or- 


ganizer procures the lecturer and makes all 


Vol. VIII, No. 2 


the arrangements. In this way the Educa. 
tional Committee is at the service of the work- 
ers themselves. 

The educational work of the Unity Centers 
is only a part, tho a vital part of the program 
of the Workers University. DPuring the past 
year there has developed a very interesting 
and varied series of lectures in a centrally 
located high school building, the Washington 
Irving High School. The large attendance 
at these lectures and the constant call for new 
lectures of a serious nature throws a little 
light on the quality of intellectual seriousness 
of our “ignorant” workers. Some of the sub- 
jects which are being studied at present are: 

The Cooperative Movement—Dr James P 
Warbasse; 

Social Interpretation of Literature—Dr 
Henry Neumann; 

Evolution and the Labor Movement—Dr 
Everett Dean Martin. Equally impor- 
tant courses are being arranged for in 
the Spring. 

Well, where are our “ignorant foreigners?” 
Unless we wish to join the Society of Static 
Souls whose slogan is “Once a foreigner al- 
ways a foreigner, once an ignoramus always 
so,” we shall have to revise our concept of 
the great majority of the industrious inhab- 
itants of the City of New York. Not that 
they are none of them foreigners or ignorant. 
But they are quite unwilling to remain so. 
If our share of humble human curiosity is 
large enough, let us hope that it will lead us 
into one of these interesting lectures. There 
we shall be obliged to dismantle ourselves of 
our Pharisaic complacency as we listen to the 
questions of the students, mature, thoughtful 
men and women. Unless we are dead to all 
shame we shall quickly see the contrast be- 
tween the “Workers University” and “Classes 
in Americanization of the Foreigner.” 

Since the origin of this work of self-educa- 
tion was a local of the International, the 
committee of the International thru its pres- 
ent organizer, Mr Liberty, is endeavoring to 
stimulate the growth of the work not indi- 
rectly thru the central office, but directly 
thru committees in locals of the Union. 





February, 1919 


There are many reasons for this devolution 
of the work. We spoke in the beginning of 
this article of the need of the worker to fit 
his educational opportunities to the conditions 
of his life and work. In other words since 
he cannot go to educational centers, education 
must come to him in his home. 


The worker’s home is apt to be rather the 
meeting hall of his local than the not very 
luxurious tenement in which he and his fam- 
ily are obliged to eat and sleep. The physical 
environment itself is far pleasanter. And 
the mental and social environment of the 
union is generally freer and superior to the 
limitations forced upon family life and inter- 
course by the cramped life in the tenement. 
Hence the Union hall becomes the center of 
the workers’ social and mental life. 


What could be more natural and pleasant 
than to spend the time, usually wasted in 
waiting for the meeting to begin, in listening 
to a lecture illustrated by lantern slides or 
moving-pictures? Why cannot the local hall 
become a more accessible Unity Center for so- 
cial dances, concerts, lectures or dramatiza- 
tions? The Educational Organizer answers 
by urging the locals to form their own educa- 
tional committees to keep in touch with the 
central directing office to arrange for pro- 
grams and classes. The locals have begun 
to respond to this idea and will probably 
become in the future the centers around 
which the whole educational work will de- 
velop. There is no limit to the possibilities. 
The International has already begun the work 
of helping locals to establish their own read- 
ing rooms and libraries of books of special 
interest to Unionists. This is in itself a 
great venture. It looks like a realization of 
the vision of self-mastery, of the dignity of 
labor, of intelligent self-control] and control 
of conditions of life and labor. 


Every movement, in the process of becom- 
ing self-conscious, must train its own lead- 
ers and inspirers. The Workers University 
has not overlooked this need. This winter a 
new venture was begun, the training of lead- 
ership. Classes for the Business Agents, the 


The American Teacher 


37 


workers’ representatives in shop matters, 
have been opened in one of the Public Library 
reading rooms. English for speakers, eco- 
nomics, and other subjects needed by the 
Business Agent for his development as a con- 
scious, dignified, and responsible leader. Any 
student of labor movements, or of the Labor 
Movement, looking into one of these earnest 
classes can take great hope for the future of 
industrial democracy. 

Americanization is an important and in- 
teresting thing. But the worker of New York 
City and Philadelphia (and soon of every im- 
portant city in the country, for the movement 
is growing) has something equally vital and 
important on hand. The American worker 
is interested in becoming a conscious master 
of his own destiny as it is bound up with the 
destiny of all his fellows. He can afford 


to smile at the frantic gestures of the Amer- 
icanizer, or the wail of the philanthropist. 
For he is busy hewing out his way toward the 
New Freedom of the New Day. 


The Schools for Propaganda 

While the Peace Conference is weighing the ques- 
tion whether or not the nations shall abolish the 
system of universal military service, the pupils in 
the New York high schools, by order of the Depart- 
ment of Education, must be taught, “in the most 
inspiring and efficient manner” that volunteer serv- 
ice is irregular and unfair, that the national guard 
or state militia is insufficient in numbers and extent 
of training, that a regular army is inadequate and 
that therefore universal military service is the ulti- 
mate desideratum. The high school student must be 
taught, efficiently and inspiringly, that universal 
service is a just duty, that it is not militarism, 
that it is democratic, that it is a benefit to the in- 
dividual in health, in physical development, in the 
formation of good habits. See The World War, a 
Syllabus. No doubt the Department of Education 
and many of the teachers in the system believe in 
universal training, as many of the rest of us do. It 
is none the less a moot political question, and we 
should like to know, on what theory of public policy 
do our authorities proceed when they undertake to 
jam their partisan views down the throats of our 
high school students? If they happened to be pro- 
tectionists or single taxers would they attempt to 
use the schools likewise for the propagation of 
partisan views?—The New Republic of February 
8, 1919. 








Labor and Progress 


II 


MARGARET SNODGRASS HARDING 
Chicago, Ill. 


AMERICAN LABOR PARTY 

HE Independent Labor Party of Cook 
County, Illinois, organized December 
29, 1918, has put forth a municipal 
platform ; it has nominated John Fitzpatrick, 
president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, 
for mayor of Chicago, and has launched a 

weekly party organ, The New Majority. 
The platform deals with local issues, mak- 
ing concrete application of principles laid 
down in “Labor’s Fourteen Points,” pub- 
lished in the January number of THE AMER- 
ICAN TEACHER. It declares for municipal 
ownership of all public utilities, “without al- 
lowance for any payment for franchise rights 
and intangible values,” and for the establish- 
ment of wholesale and retail municipal mar- 
kets and cold storage warehouses. It advo- 


cates home rule and. unification of local gov- 
ernment, popular control to be exercised thru 


the initiative, referendum and recall; better 
labor conditions in the city government; im- 
proved housing, health, and sanitary regula- 
tions; electrification of steam railways; de- 
velopment of recreation and transportation 
facilities. It demands democracy in the 
the schools, involving a system “that will 
equip every child for some useful vocation, 
without neglecting the cultural studies that 
are essential for the understanding and en- 
joyment of life” and that will guarantee “the 
rights of free speech, freedom of association, 
and secure tenure of office to all persons con- 
nected with the school system.” 

The convention held January 11-12, 1919, 
by the central labor bodies of New York 
and Brooklyn and the Women’s Trade Union 
League of New York, resulted in-the forma- 
tion of the American Labor Party of Greater 
New York. The platform adopted conformed 
in the main with the “fourteen points” of the 
original Chicago platform. Additional points 
include: self-determination for Ireland, non- 
intervention in Russia or elsewhere, a refer- 


endum on war, opposition to any form of 
compulsory military training, opposition to 
prohibition, limitation of the power of the 
Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress 
unconstitutional. 

The New York and Chicago parties have 
as yet no official connection, tho both are 
looking toward the formation of a national 
party. Similar movements are reported to 
be under way in twenty-five other cities. A 
referendum vote on an Illinois Labor Party 
is now being taken. 

BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION 

The British parliamentary election of De- 
cember, 1918, resulted in an even more 
sweeping victory for the Lloyd George Coali- 
tion government than had been forecast. In 
a House of Commons of 707 members Lloyd 
George has secured 485 supporters, a major- 
ity of 263 over all other sections combined. 
Asquithian Liberals are reduced to 26. Irish 
Nationalists have been practically wiped out 
of existence by the Sinn Feiners, while the 
Unionists retain one-fifth of the Irish repre- 
sentation. The Labor Party, tho polling a 
quarter of all the votes, has increased its 
membership from 35 to only 59. These are 
for the most part experienced officials of the 
great trade unions, such as J H Thomas, 
secretary of the National Union of Railway- 
men, with an occasional journalist and ex- 
teacher. A serious loss was the defeat of 
Arthur Henderson, former member of the 
Lloyd George War Cabinet and secretary of 
the Labor Party. 

The conclusion drawn by most commen- 
tators is the almost universal repudiation of 
candidates suspected of pacifism, defeatism, 
or extreme radicalism of the Russian Bol- 
shevist type. An interpretation by Sidney 
Webb of the significance of the election from 
the point of view of the Labor Party is to be 
found in the New Republic of January 
25, 1919. 


38 





—_— ek 


ov < ol 


February, 1919 


The reorganized Coalition ministry con- 
tains few new figures. Its critics maintain 
that there has been a mere “shuffling” of po- 
sitions. George W Barnes, Laborite, becomes 
a minister without portfolio and G H Rob- 
erts, former minister of labor, is the new 
food controller. 

The Labor Party’s representation in par- 
liament, now the largest body outside the Co- 
alition, becomes for the first time in history 
the official Opposition to the Government. Its 
leaders will take their seats on the front Op- 
position bench as the alternative combina- 
tion to the ministry of the day. William 
Adamson, a miner representing West Fife, 
is the new Opposition leader. His deputy is 
John Robert Clynes, who was food controller 
in the preceding Coalition government bvt 
who resigned in compliance with party man- 
dates. 

On January 30 the parliamentary Labor 
Party announced that at the first opportunity 
after parliament meets in February, it will 
raise the entire question of industrial un- 
rest. It hopes to draw a declaration of policy 


from the government, and should that be 
unsatisfactory, it will present plans of its 


own. (Note: The figures quoted are those 
of Sidney Webb in the New Republic. They 
differ considerably from those given in the 
Survey of January 4.) 
A F OF L RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAM 
The Reconstruction Committee of the 
American Federation of Labor presented its 
program on January 15 to the Senate Com- 
mittee on Education and Labor. The Senate 
Committee has been conducting extensive 
hearings on labor problems with a view to 
legislative action. The program, which had 
been approved by the executive council of 
the A F of L, recommends: That it be made 
a criminal offense for employers to hamper 
the organization of trade unions or their leg- 
itimate activities ; prohibition of the labor of 
children under 16; provision for the reénact- 
ment of laws declared unconstitutional by 
the Supreme Court; government ownership 
or operation of public and semi-public util- 
ities; graduated tax on all useable agricul- 


The American Teacher 


39 


tural land above the acreage cultivated by the 
owner; further regulation of corporations by 
Federal license; state insurance; prohibition 
of immigration for two years after the decla- 
ration of peace; progressive taxes on in- 
comes, inheritances, and land values; Fed- 
eral “advisory supervision” over and sub- 
sidies to public education; a small standing 
army and volunteer state militia; no reduc- 
tion of wages; equal pay for men and women 
doing the same work; an eight-hour day. 
LABOR AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 
That international labor standards, ap- 
proximating those of the Leeds conference 
of 1916 and the Berne conference of 1917, 
will be embodied in the final treaty of peace 
seems probable. Still more important and 
equally probable is a provision in the consti- 
tution of the Leagne of Nations for a per- 
manent commission of some sort to deal with 
international labor problems as they arise. 
On January 25 the allied peace conference 
adopted the following resolution on labor: 
“That a commission composed of two rep- 
resentatives apiece from the five great pow- 
ers and five representatives to be elected by 
the other powers represented at the peace 
conference be appointed to inquire into the 
conditions of employment from the interna- 
tional aspect and to consider the interna- 
tional means necessary to secure common ac- 
tion on matters affecting conditions of em- 
ployment and to recommend the form of a 
permanent agency to continue such inquiry 
and consideration, in cooperation with and 
under the direction of the league of nations.” 
Samuel Gompers and Edward N Hurley 
are the American members of the commis- 
sion provided for in the resolution above; 
George N Barnes is the British Labor mem- 
ber, altho the Labor Party protests that he 
does not represent that organization. 
NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH 
An interesting experiment in the field of 
higher education is the ““New School for So- 
cial Research,” 465 West 23d Street, New 
York City, which opens with preliminary 
courses of lectures on February tenth. The 
list of lecturers includes such well-known 





40 


names as Charles A. Beard and James Har- 
vey Robinson, Thorstein Veblen, Prof Wes- 
ley C Mitchell, Harold J Laski, and Ordway 
Tead. 

The official announcement states that the 
new school “is organized to meet the needs 
of intelligent men and women interested in 
the grave social, political, economic, and ed- 
ucational problems of the day.” Small 
-groups of specially qualified persons will be 
organized for practical research, with a view 
to preparing for the fields of journalism, 
municipal administration, labor organiza- 
tion, and the teaching of social sciences. The 
school will be open with an enlarged staff 
and a full program in October, 1919. 


Teachers’ Housing in 


Hawaii 

ONSIDERABLE dissatisfaction 
C against teachers’ housing conditions 
has been expressed during recent 
months by mainland teachers who have taken 
positions in Hawaii. The following state- 
ment, recently made in the San Francisco 
Bulletin, is said to be descriptive of the lo- 

cal situation: 


Declaring that hundreds of American school 
teachers are induced by misrepresentation on the 
part of school authorities of the Hawaiian ter- 
ritorial government to give up good positions here 
and go to the Hawaiian islands, were educational 
systems are antiquated and housing conditions in 
outlying districts unbearable, Miss A. Joses is 
on her way to her home in Ione, following her 
arrival recently on the steamship Sachem of the 
Matson Navigation Company’s line. 

Miss Joses declared that she was persuaded to 
leave an excellent position in the Sacramento 
High School to go to Honolulu at the opening of 
the fall term, and believing that she would be 
stationed in Honolulu she accepted; but on being 
transferred to Hilo, found conditions so unbear- 
able that she broke her contract, thereby for- 
feiting four months’ salary and returned home. 

“T found that the term ‘furnished houses’ for 
teachers meant houses furnished without fur- 
niture, and after trying to live in a barren barn 
of a place I finally gave it up,” said Miss Joses. 
She declared that many other teachers would 
leave the islands if they were financially able. 

Miss Joses says that many of the white teach- 
ers are forced to serve under native principals. 
S. F. Bulletin. 


The American Teacher 


Vol, VIII, No. 2 


Education—An Inside View 


The Tsar is gone: the Kaiser is gone: but the 
little tsars and kaisers of our educational system 
continue in their ways of tyranny. Their latest ob- 
ject of persecution is Benjamin Glassberg, as alle 
and honest a teacher of history as we have any- 
where in the public schools. Thru the process 
of delation that dishonors our teaching profession, 
the report reached the higher authorities that Mr 
Glassberg had said in class discussion that Bol- 
shevism had brought about the cracking of the Ger- 
man power and that the Russian Bolsheviki had 
aided in the work, that the newspapers printed 
great untruths about Russia, and that certain offi- 
cials returning from Russia were not permitted to 
tell the truth about the Bolsheviki. We do not 
know whether Mr Glassberg said these things o: 
not. All we know is that they are the plain truth, 
and that no person so illinformed as not to know 
it ought to be permitted to teach history in our 
public schools. But the New York City Depart- 
ment of Education has its own official account of 
what has happened in Russia. That account musi 
be transmitted by the teachers of history as if it 
were Gospel. Therefore in permitting the truth 
to shows its unwelcome head in the discussion of 
Russia, Benjamin Glassberg was guilty of “con- 
duct unbecoming a teacher” and suspended with- 
out pay to await an inquest designed to produce ex- 
cuses for expelling him from the service. He is a 
Socialist, a Jew and a man of ability. What more 
is required for conviction?—The New Republic of 
February 1, 1919. 


On Universal Military Training 


I am opposed to compulsory military. training 
because it is a reactionary military measure with 
the sole objective of committing us to the out- 
worn and discredited Prussian method of keep- 
ing the peace; because it menaces the permanent 
settlement of international relations on a friendly 
and mutually helpful basis; because it means 
(and will be understood all over the world to 
mean) the mobilization of our entire man-power 
for that “next war” so dear to the militarist’s 
heart; because it means the creation of a power- 
ful military class already too well entrenched 
in Washington and the metropolitan press; be- 
cause is would waste the time of millions of 
youths who would otherwise be reaching earnest 
hands for a grasp on the ladder of civil and 
industrial life; because it would subject millions 
of youths to a pitiless and stupid military dis- 
cipline, with the liability of severe penitentiary 
sentences for unimportant offences: because it is, 
in essence, the heart and core of miiltarism which 
Webster’s Dictionary defines. you know. as “the 
spirit and temper which exalts the military vir- 
tues and ideals and minimizes the defects of mili- 
tary training and the cost of war and the pre- 
paration for it.”—Charles T Hallinan, in he 
Arbitrator for February, 1919. 





A Symposium on Teachers’ Unions 


Arranged for the purpose of bringing out positive convictions on the relations of teach- 


ers to the union movement. 


The subjoined letter was sent to selected persons in educational and social leadership. 
Two of the responses are printed herewith, one for and one against the idea that teachers 


should join labor unions. 
posium. 


We invite criticism of the points of view expressed in this sym- 





The Teachers Union of the City of New York is 
conducting a campaign for a large membership. In- 
cidentally, we are bringing before the teachers the 
importance of belonging to an organization that is 
affiliated with labor unions, for economic reasons as 
well as for professional reasons. 


We find considerable opposition to joining with la- 
bor unions on the ground that “teachers have nothing 
in common with labor,” and also for reasons of pro- 
fessional pride. Furthermore, many teachers frankly 
say they are afraid to join our Teachers Union be- 
cause they feel that their principals would not ap- 
prove, and that a promotion for which they hope 
would be prevented by some other official who is also 
believed to be opposed to the Teachers Union. In 
not a few cases the teachers are correct in saying 
that principals are opposed to the Union, for some 
principals have refused to permit meetings of our 
organizations in their schools and have even refused 
to the teachers the privilege of distributing our lit- 
erature. 


As you doubtless know, the Teachers Union is a 
professional organization that is conscientiously 


striving to improve the conditions under which teach- 
ing is done. The organization is doing this under 
the stimulus of an ideal, realizing as well that in 
some important ways it is liable to run counter to 
prevailing practises in educational administration in 
such a way that antagonism may actually be created. 
This, of course, would be unfortunate, because we 
are desirous of avoiding useless friction in the at- 
tainment of a high purpose. 

We find that teachers are often influenced by what 
those higher in the educational ranks say of a given 
proposition, and also by the opinions of “outsiders.” 
Therefore, the Union will appreciate a short state- 
ment by you concerning the proposition of teachers 
joining a Union by which they will be affiliated 
with labor. What seem to you to be the advantages 
of this new relation between teachers and labor 
unions? We shall ask the privilege of publishing 
your entire statement in THE AMERICAN TEACHER, 
and of taking extracts from it to publish in a pam- 
phlet with the statements of others. This letter 
is going to about fifty leaders in the theory and 
—- of education in New York City and else- 
where. 





For 


MRS FLORENCE KELLEY 
General Secretary, National Consumers 
League 

AM grateful to you for the opportunity 
| you offer me to express my conviction 

that the teachers in the public schools 
thruout this nation should have unions of 
their own, and should affiliate with the la- 
bor unions. 

The great mass of children in the public 
schools are obviously sons and daughters of 
men and women who work. The first re- 
quisite for intelligent teaching is compre- 
hension of the minds of the children, and this 
is clearly impossible without understanding 
their home environment. Teachers who con- 
sider beneath them the organizations that 
parents find necessary for themselves are, ob- 
viously, out of sympathy with that home en- 
vironment. ° 


The standard of living of children in in- 
dustrial centers depends in great measure on 
the size, organization and intelligence of the 
trade unions now in existence; and in the 
near future the people of this Republic will 
be compelled to recognize the fact that the 
absence of similar organizations in the rural 
districts is a prime cause of the stagnation 
and wretchedness that characterise the 
schools in so large a part of the agricultural 
area. 

Hitherto the teaching profession—the most 
important and responsible of all the profes- 
sions—in this country has consisted chiefly 
of disfranchised, insufficiently educated, un- 
organized young women, whose remuneration 
has been beggarly. Even yet, less than a 
third of the states have conferred full voting 
power on the mothers and women teachers. 
This accounts, I believe, for the fact that 
our schools have been conducted so largely 


41 





42 


by business men who have, doubtless uncon- 
sciously, used them to fit the masses of chil- 
dren to become cheap labor, allowing them 
to leave school in many states at the. earliest 
ages and from the lowest school grades at 
which they can be turned to account in in- 
dustry. 

In the interest of the children, it is 
urgently necessary that the teachers should 
strengthen their own position. Hitherto 
their efforts in this direction appear to have 
profited largely groups of teacher-politicians 
who have notoriously used the teachers’ as- 
sociations for their own purposes—e. g., ob- 
taining desirable and well-paid positions in 
the teaching body. 

In no other way, I believe, can the teachers 
of this Republic so well serve the children, 
at this time, as by affiliation with organized 
labor in the cities and with the farmers’ 
unions in the country, and by the intelligent 
use of the ballot. 


Against 


PROFESSOR DAVID SNEDDEN 
Teachers College, New York 


HIS is in reply to your circular letter 

of December 28 asking my opinion 

as to certain possible relations be- 

tween public school teachers and labor 
unions. 

I think it very important that teachers 
should form organizations for the purposing 
of promoting the desirable and worthy aims 
of education, including the conditions under 
which teaching is done. I think it especially 
desirable that teachers in similar or closely 
related fields should so organize—e. g., Kin- 
dergarten Teachers, High School Teachers 
of Latin, Superintendents, etc.—because the 
specific ends and means of improvement with- 
in the areas indicated can be most easily un- 
derstood and worked for by the rank and 
file in each group. For purposes of consider- 
ing and promoting larger policies these 
homogeneous organizations would naturally 
federate and be represented by delegates. 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. 2 


For the purpose of promoting still larger 
social policies it seems to me desirable that 
teachers organizations, large or small, should 
form connections with non-educational organ- 
izations also engaged in promoting social wel) 
being in particular areas—e. g., medical so- 
cieties, unions of manual laborers, chambers 
of commerce, granges, ministers unions, civic 
organizations, etc. 

The desirable objective of these larger af- 
filiations would be chiefly in the promotion of 
better mutual understanding and cooperation 
on larger and more clearly defined matters of 
public policy. As society grows more com- 
plex, the group—often the vocational group 
—will often tend to become the best unit for 
the promotion of social ends rather than the 
individual. And the group will increasingly 
have to learn to act through representatives 
or delegates. 

I have very strong objections to public 
school teachers selecting some one or a few 
non-teaching organizations for purposes of 
special affiliation. Public school teachers are 
the teachers, potentially certainly, of the chil- 
dren of all the people. For the good of their 
work they should so conduct themselves that 
they can justly claim the moral and overt 
support of all worthy groups. Especially 
must public school teachers in an organized 
capacity avoid entangling alliances with or- 
ganizations believed, justly or unjustly, to be 
promoting partisan or sectarian ends. The 
freedom of a group is here much less than 
that of an individual member of a group. 

It is sometimes asserted in defence of close 
affiliation of teachers organizations with !a- 
bor unions that the majority of their pupils 
come from “labor union homes.” You do 
not need to be told, of course, that such is 
rarely the fact. I can find no satisfactory 
recent statistics, but those of 1914 now ac- 
cessible seem to me to indicate that then not 
more than four percent of the population, or 
twelve percent of working adults, or fifteen 
percent of manual laboring, wage earning 
adults, were members of labor unions. I very 
much doubt if more than two or three percent 
of the elementary school teachers of New 





February, 1919 


York State are teaching children a majority 
of the fathers of whom are members of 
labor unions. 

Another strong objection, as I see it, to 
specially close affiliation of teachers organ- 
izations with labor organizations is that 
teachers, as public servants and especially as 
members of a service striving to maintain 
something of professional morale, one of the 
very important, even if less tangible, factors 
in which is a willingness to give service on 
something other than a strict quid pro quo 
basis, cannot, without serious damage to their 
prestige and permanent usefulness, adopt or 
ally themselves with those ysing militant 
methods. Certainly some of us have been 
led to believe that one of the objects of the 
affiliation you refer to has been the possible 
combination of resources for militant action 
to procure the ends sought by either. 


The Legal Status of 


Teachers 
JENNIE A WILCOX 
Chicago, Ill. 

OMETHING over a year ago, there ap- 
S peared in an obscure corner of one of 
our most important newspapers, the 
decision of a federal court judge, which seems 
to establish the legal status of teachers in 
all schools not of university rank. The case 
in question is as follows: A Japanese school 
teacher, a graduate of the Kumamota Normal 
School of Japan, came to this country to teach 
Japanese children “of differing ages and of 
no regular grade, somewhat in the nature of 
a private school,” his salary to be paid by 
the Japanese Association of Guadalupe, Cal. 
He was refused admittance and ordered de- 
ported by the department of immigration, 
and the case was immediately taken to the 
federal court of the district in which Seattle 
is located, and of which Jeremiah Neterer is 

the presiding judge. 
After preliminaries declaring that the pe- 
titioner had not been denied any rights or 
privileges in his appeal to the courts, the 


The American Teacher 


43 


judge goes on to say in his decision: The 
further suggestion of the petitioner that la- 
bor of like kind unemployed cannot be found 
in the U. S. cannot be considered, since no ap- 
plication was made to the Secretary of Labor 
before such importation, or at all, to examine 
into such fact as provided by the Immigra- 
tion Act. Nor does the petitioner belong to 
any recognized learned profession. The term 
“learned profession,” I think, under this act, 
applies to learned professions other than 
teaching, I use the term “other than teach- 
ing” because teaching, as a profession, some- 
times is confounded with the term “learned 
profession.” I think there is a distinction 
made by the express provisions of the act, 
because the term “professors for colleges and 
seminaries” must be considered in one class, 
and “recognized learned professions” in an- 
other, else the terms would not have been so 
used. 

He then defines the terms “colleges and 
seminaries,” quoting from the New Standard 
Dictionary, Webster, and Bouvier’s Law Dic- 
tionary and denies that the proposed Jap- 
anese school would fall within these defini- 
tions. He then proceeds to quote the defini- 
tions of the terms “professor” and “teacher” 
and finally concludes that “in no sense could 
his status be comprehended within the term 
‘professor,’ that being a distinctive term 
purposely employed by congress used to dis- 
tinguish higher institutions of learning.” 

“This order for deportation,” concludes the 
judge, “was affirmed by the Secretary of La- 
bor, and he is remanded to the custody of the 
commissioner of immigration.” 

This decision by a federal court, concurred 
in by the Secretary of Labor, evidently places 
the teacher in the ranks of common laborers, 
or, if we ignore the apparent contradiction, 
in a profession which cannot be classed with 
the “learned professions.” 

In view of this decision, can teachers con- 
tinue to ignore the fact that their place is 
in the ranks of organized labor? Secretary 
Wilson, in reply to a letfer of protest against 
the definition of a teacher as outlined by 

(Concluded on fage 46) 





“The Way to Power” 


MARY R PARKMAN ’ 
James Ormond Wilson, Normal School, Washington, D C 


T was at a meeting held to further the 
I cause of school gardens. The Secretary 
of the Interior was saying a word to the 

’ regional directors. ‘You will have to contend 
with two kinds of conservatism,” he said, 
“that of the superintendents, who are fre- 
quently hard to interest in anything which 
they do not feel that they are initiating. 
Well, just so that the children get the gar- 
dens, let the superintendent think it is his 
movement. Quite another sort of an ob- 
structionist is the over-worked, underpaid 
teacher—I have a great sympathy for her, 
but I may remark here by way of parenthesis 
that she is herself to blame for the low 
salary scale of which she is a victim... .” 

Some teachers among those present looked 
at each other quizzically. “Still another way 
of looking at our unhappy plight!” they 
seemed to be saying. 

“Of course the teacher is used to being 
held responsible for anything and every- 
thing,” some one was overheard to remark 
at the close of the address, “but isn’t it ad- 
ding insult to injury to say that she is starv- 
ing herself?” 

“Tf so, she can’t be said to have made any- 
thing out of her hunger strike,” another 
added. “Pathetically futile there as else- 
where !” 

“Now, what could the Honorable Secretary 
have meant?” pondered a certain progressive 
pedagog; and since she was one to whom to 
think meant to act, she forthwith sat down 
and wrote to the speaker of the afteronon, 
not in a spirit of criticism or belligerency, 
but quite simply as'a progressive pedagog 
who-—like Rosa Dartle—“wanted to know.” 

In the course of a day or two she had her 
answer. . 

“My thought regarding teachers’ salaries,” 
the Secretary wrote, “is that they are ex- 


tremely low because the standard for teach- 
ers is not sufficiently high. The teachers 
themselves ought to see that only those peo- 
ple who are fitted for teaching are permitted 
to teach and the standard should not be one 
of scholarship alone. This should be but 
fifty percent of the qualification. 

“The teacher is an inspirer. There should 
be a determined effort made by the teachers 
of the country, I believe, to elevate their pro- 
fessional standing and make it impossible to 
get teachers for a non-living wage... .” 

Cordially yours, 
(Signed) FRANKLIN D LANE. 

“There should be a determined effort made 
by teachers of the country... .” Dowenot 
have there in a nut-shell the reason for the 
failure in the past and a guide-post on the 
way to power in. the future? Only thru 
organization can there be any gain for the 
individual or the group. We all know “what 
’twere good to be done,” but we lack the 
power to profit by our knowledge—to put into 
practise our teaching. And power can come 
only thru solidarity—when the individual 
is not a voice crying in the wilderness, but 
one standing shoulder to shoulder with his 
fellows, strong and confident with the might 
of the many who are working together as 
conscious, intelligent parts of a great whole. 

Of all classes of workers, the teachers have 
been the last to realize by experience the 
strength of union. Only now are they begin- 
ning to glimpse the benefits that may come 
to the individuals of the profession from co0- 
operation with their fellows. 

It is strange the way in which we have 
had to learn anew in field after field and 
adapt to each particular corner of experience 
the lesson of the bundle of sticks, so easily 
broken when taken separately but together 
able to withstand every effort to bend or 


Ad 





February, 1919 


crush them. Each separate nation where the 
people have won their place in the body pol- 
itic and the assurance of their right to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, have 
had to learn this lesson. And, as in all the 
crafts, trades and professions, where ad- 
vancement has come to each worker thru 
availing himself of the spirit and strength 
of the mass, so in efforts for the public weal 
—social service work of every sort—the need 
and the benefit of cooperation has been 
proved. 

An instance in point is that of the found- 
ing of the American Red Cross. Clara Bar- 
ton was obliged to work long and earnestly 
against indifference, opposition and deeply 
rooted prejudice in bringing the public and 
the government officials to an appreciation of 
the gain that would come through organiza- 
tion. In France during the war of 1870, 
she had an opportunity of seeing the work 
of the International Red Cross and compar- 
ing it with'the unorganized efforts of sur- 
geons and nurses during the Civil War. 

“As I went about,” she said, “I saw the 
work of these Red Cross societies in the field 
accomplishing in four months under their 
systematic organization what we failed to ac- 
complish in four years without it—no mis- 
takes, no needless suffering, no waste, no 
confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and 
comfort wherever that little flag made its 
way—a whole continent marshalled under 
the banner of the Red Cross. As I saw all 
this and joined and worked in it, you will 
not wonder that I said to myself, ‘if I live to 
return to my country I will try to make my 
people understand the Red Cross!’ ” 

The teachers are only beginning to feel the 
results of organization. Can they not one 
and all realize that the way to power lies 
in their determined, united effort for better 
conditions, conditions that make for profi- 
ciency, sufficiency, and efficiency—proficiency 
in the teacher’s all-around preparation and 
equipment; sufficiency in compensation and 
popular esteem, and efficiency in the task of 
preparing the children of today for the 
world’s work of tomorrow. 


The American Teacher 45 


To the Editor, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 

THE AMERICAN TEACHER grows better with every 
issue. Give us all the news you can about the spread 
of the organization “bug”. Stillman seems to be 
doing great things! We are watching New York- 
All America is watching you. 

Always your friend, 
Ipa L M FuRsMAN. 
CxH1caco, Ill, February 6, 1919. 


To the Editor, THE AMERICAN TEACHER: 


You have asked me to express my opinion as to 
what trade union membership can do for teachers 
and what teacher members can do for the trade 
union movement. The great need of the present is 
a tolerant, reasonable, and constructive attitude 
toward the problems of reorganization with which 
the world is faced. A dangerous tendency exists to 
arouse class against class, to appeal to passion and 
prejudice, and to advance personal, class, and party 
interests at the expense of general welfare. 

Organized teachers are in a strategic position. By 
virtue of their education they can become inter- 
preters of the ideals and philosophy of the trade 
union movement to the wide general public with 
which they come in contact. And in turn they 
should throw the weight of their influence in the 
labor movement against the stimulation of class 
consciousness and class hatred and suspicion. They 
can thus help to develop among all groups of our 
society a spirit of mutual understanding and ac- 
commodation, of national unity and cooperation for 
the common good. 

Fortunately we in the United States are not as 
yet a nation of stratified classes; we have no great 
proletariat, no mass of illiterate peasantry. Our 
political system, antiquated and cumbersome though 
it is in many ways, still makes possible orderly and 
progressive reform amounting to revolution, and 
without the destructiveness of revolution by violence. 
Our conception of democracy is still government by 
majority, with protection of the rights of minori- 
ties; not the dictatorship of any class, however 
numerous or powerful. 

Teachers, with their knowledge of the past and 
as servants of the future, have the solemn duty of 
combating with all their strength, forces making 
for destruction and chaos. A spirit of vindictive- 
ness and of selfish aggrandizement of party and 
class is abroad. Should it prevail, it is by no means 
impossible that, in the words of H G Wells, “the 
world may welter in confusion for many generations, 
thru such ruinous and impoverished centuries as 
close the Roman imperial story, before it develops 
the vitality for an effective reorganization.” 

MARGARET SNODGRASS HARDING, 
Cuicaco, Ill, January 30, 1919. 





46 The American Teacher 


(Concluded from page 43) 
Judge Neterer, expressed his surprise, evi- 
dently believing that the act of congress, 
upon which the decision was based, would 
bear no other interpretation than that teach- 
ers are to be classed as “laborers.” 

Is any further “jolt” needed to arouse 
teachers to throw off their mantle of self- 
complacency woven of the delusion that they 
are members of “a learned profession”? 





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, II. 


Secretary-Treasurer, F G Stecker, Chicago, 
1618 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, IIL 


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 Rippick, Norfolk, Va., 
722 Duke Street. 


Fifth V.-Pres., S E Compron, Washington, D. C., 
Dunbar High School. 


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


- 
Eighth V.-Pres., CARRIE L CoLBuRN, Olean, N. Y., 
803 West Henley Street. 


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


Vol. VIII, No. 2 


Effective Organization 

The signing of the armistice on November 11 his 
focused attention on the difficult reconstruction per- 
iod at hand. Almost every group in society is hop- 
ing for a larger effectiveness in the reorganized 
world. “Cooperation,” “collective bargaining” are 
master words now. The trade unions of England 
have formulated the only clear after-the-war policy 
for that country. Here collective bargaining, fos- 
tered by the government, has had an enormous de- 
velopment. Organization is focusing and making 
effective the collective experience and will of large 
groups. 

Yet teachers have no effective organization. Ed- 
ucational reports, it is true, print long lists of asso- 
ciations, but they consist for the most part of pro- 
fessional groups interested in single subjects. There 
is no closely organized body that voices the needs 
and experience of teachers and speaks with author- 
ity in education, protecting the interests of its mem- 
bers, and guiding in the formation of public opinion. 

Under the present arrangement almost any ex- 
pression by experienced teachers on matters of school 
policy is regarded as an impertinence by the school 
board: 

“Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die.” 

In the financial pinch caused by the war none 
have been at a greater disadvantage than the teach- 
ers. Pretty much everything has been left to in- 
dividual bargaining, and every kind of advantage is 
taken of the individual. The results are about what 
one would expect. For instance, in a Maine village 
where the gate-tender of the railroad is making 
$32.00 per week, college graduates teaching in the 
high school are receiving as a maximum $14.44, and 
the village regards its public-school system with 
pride and complacency. 

From time to time teachers are invited to form a 
union, to become part of the labor organization of 
the country. They usually catch their breath and 
reply that it would be unprofessional. It is begin- 
ning to look, however, as if professional and ineffec- 
tive might turn out to be synonyms. At any rate, 
it is time to do something besides trying to stop 
discussion with a word. What are the great ends 
we are seeking in our profession? Surely in a new 
world whose watchword is cooperation we cannot 
hope to secure them by the antiquated method of 
individual effort. What then, shall we do? Can 
we really make our old professional organizations 
into an effective new one with an authority com- 
mensurate with the importance of education among 
world problems; or must we follow in the line of 
the great cooperative movement of the day—the 
trade unions? At least, it is high time that we work 
the matter out. 

Louise S EARLE. 





February, 1919 


(Clubs looking for education 6n the point dis- 
cussed by Miss Earle will find Miss Mabel Gillespie, 
of the Minimum Wage Commission, a discreet and 
helpful speaker if they are so fortunate as to secure 
her services. Epiror—From the Common Ground 
(Mass.) for January, 1919. 

But why discreet? 

Editor, THE AMERICAN TEACHER. 


Department of Education Bill 
Introduced in the House 


CONGRESSMAN TOWNER SPONSORS MEASURE GIVING FED- 
ERAL AID—HAS SUPPORT OF AMERICAN FEDER- 
ATION OF LABOR, FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, 

AND NATIONAL EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION 


Congressman Horace M Towner, of Iowa, intro- 
duced into the House on January 28 a bill creating 
a Federal Department of Education, with a secre- 
tary in the President’s Cabinet, and appropriating 
a hundred million dollars to encourage education in 
the several States. The measure has the backing 
of the American Federation of Labor, the American 
Federation of Teachers, and the National Education 
Association, as well as of a number of other organi- 
zations. 

The bill is similar in its provisions to the Smith 
bill (S 4987) introduced in the Senate October 10 
by Senator Hoke Smith, of Georgia, but contains a 
number of modifications to meet objections that have 
been raised. It is understood that Senator Smith 
is favorable to the changes that have been suggested 
in the bill and will incorporate them in his bill when 
reported, which, it is expected, will be within the 
next few days. 

Unified support was assured for the Smith-Towner 
measure when the American Federation of Labor, 
already on record as favoring a Department of Edu- 
cation and Federal aid for education, accepted the 
suggestion of officials of the American Federation of 
Teachers that with certain modifications it would be 
possible for the union organizations to indorse and 
work for the bill drafted by the National Education 
Association Commission and already introduced by 
Senator Smith. A conference between Hugh S Ma- 
gill, recently appointed legislative representative of 
the National Education Association, and Henry Ster- 
ling, C B Stillman, and L V Lampson. of the Fed- 
eration of Labor and the Teachers’ Federation, re- 
sulted in an agreement to combine forces in advocacy 
of a joint measure. 

Judge Towner’s bill differs from the first draft of 
the Smith bill chiefly in further precautions to safe- 
guard local control in education, and in making cer- 
tain that the $50,000,000 appropriated for general 


The American Teacher 47 


improvement of schools shall be used in part for the 
payment of teachers’ salaries. 

The bill provides that the Federal appropriation 
shall be used— 

(a) For the elimination of illiteracy. 

(6) For the Americanization of immigrants. 

(c) For physical and health education. 

(d) For preparation of teachers. 


(e) For equalization of educational opportunities 
thruout the various States. 


COMMENTS ON THE TOWNER BILL 

Representatives of the various organizations inter- 
ested in the bill stated that they intend to urge 
prompt action. Henry Sterling, legislative represent- 
ative of the American Federation of Labor, said: 

“IT consider the unifying and coordinating of the 
various educational agencies of the Federal Govern- 
ment within one department, and full cooperation 
with State and local agencies, essential and vital to 
the promotion of public education. The American 
Federation of Labor has discussed the matter at a 
number of its recent conventions and is practically 
unanimous and thoroly in earnest in its support.” 

The Smith-Towner bill will have the hearty sup- 
port of the American Federation of Teachers, accord- 
ing to L V Lampson, national organizer for the fed- 
eration. He said: 

“The Smith bill as amended by Representative 
Towner and introduced by him in the House to-day 
will have the strong support of the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers. The new measure provides for 
Federal aid in the payment of teachers’ salaries and 
fully safeguards the control of the States over their 
schools. The amendments were made in response to 
public sentiment thruout the country and meet 
with the hearty approval of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers, and the National Education Asso- 
ciation. The people will demand the passage of this 
bill.” 

Hugh S. Magill made the following statement for 
the National Education Association: 


“The bill introduced by Congressman Towner pro- 
viding for a Department of Education and making 
an appropriation of $100,000,000 to encourage the 
States in the performance of certain definite educa- 
tional work has the hearty indorsement of the Na- 
tion Education Association. This bill recognizes the 
vital importance from the national standpoint and 
outlines a broad, comprehensive program for ob- 
taining definite and practical results. The English 
Parliament has passed the Fisher bill, one of the 
most important educational measures ever enacted 
into law. If America is to meet the educational 
demands of this critical period a bill of this character 
should be enacted by Congress.” 


—School Life, for February 1, 1919. 





The American Teacher Vol. VIII, No. 2 


¥) 


LIFTERS 
and LEANERS 


There are but two classes of teachers—lifters and leaners. Lifters are 
judged by what they do or try to do, leaners by what they don’t. Leaners 
impede every good cause, and hence do not deserve the name teachers. 
Worse, indeed, they are Barnacles on the back of Progress. A community 
which tolerates them for its teachers, not only insults the profession, but 
also inflicts its children with a perpetual blight. 


We have a League. Its purpose is to remove blight. “How do you pro- 
pose to accomplish it?”, you may ask. Thus: Our aim is 100 per cent mem- 
bership—plus quality. 


Like an army in the field, we have had successes and repulses. The 
achievements may properly be accredited to our efficient leaders, while the 
failures were due largely to the do-nothings. We have them. 


On the bright side of our League’s endeavors we note with pride : advances 
in salaries, better fellowship, and a steady stream of budding and blossoming 
orators of the Clay and Patrick Henry type. Besides, there are signs of 
intellectual growth as teachers. No doubt this is due to the assimilation of = 
ideas; because brain power conscientiously united always tends toward the 
goal sought. 


If we may judge from the Press, teaching school is coming into its own. 
Being one of the oldest arts, and I believe one of the most honorable and 
essential, we would naturally expect it to forge ahead second to none. While 
this is not the case in the main, yet public sentiment is creating a force which 
will ultimately result in the American public school teacher being compen- 
sated in a fashion commensurate with the dignity of the profession. 


May God abundantly bless the lifters; and may the same Power abun- 
dantly prod in the ribs the leaners— 


“Who let others bear 
Their portion of labor, 
And worry and care.” 


WILLIAM HOY, 


The Teachers League of Coal Township 
(Local No. 22, A F of T), 


Shamokin, Pa. 


ATA