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An American Teacher 


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From the Locals 





Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 





The American Teacher 


AMA A A 


Toward the New Physical Education 


REQUENTLY the defeat of mili- 
FF tary training in schools carries 
with it the defeat of all organized 
physical training. So it is encouraging 
that the movement for physical educa- 
tion has received new momentum, and 
perhaps a new direction, from our war- 
time experience. Military statistics have 
disclosed in vivid fashion the scale of 
our national deficiencies in health. At 
the same time we have had an object 
lesson in the ben- 


information and stimulate legislation. 
The Service does not put forward com- 
pulsory physical training as quite the 
millennial panacea that the militarists 
profess universal military training to 
be. They mention “good housing, good 
food, and sane regulation of juvenile 
labor” as “equally necessary” to the pro- 
duction of a sound citizenry; but they 
hold that a proper physical education 
will stimulate the development of these 

corollary agen- 





efits of systematic 


cies. By proper 





physical educa- 
tion from our 
training camps, 
which — however 
clumsy and in- 
appropriate their 
methods, and 
however bane- 
ful their ef- 
fect on individual 
initiative and re- 
sponsibility— 
have, on the 
whole, converted 
the flabby in 
health into the 
robust, and the 
lackadaisical in 


EpIToRIALs 


A PerpLexep PEDAGOG 


From THE LOCALS 








CONTENTS 


TEACHING How To Riot 

An AMERICAN TEACHER IN FRANCE....... 176 
Tue Octoser MESSAGE 

THe WASHBURN COLLEGE SITUATION...... 182 


Tue Spirit or TRADE UNIONISM.......... 183 


physical educa- 
tion they seem to 
mean — and here 
appears what 
promises the new 
direction in the 
movement— 
something more 
than perfunctory 
setting-up exer- 
cises and irrele- 
vant imitations 
of the manual of 
arms. They talk 
about “individual 
physical exami- 
nations at suffi- 
ciently close in- 














spirits into the 

exuberant. The proponents of universal 
military training base much of their 
plea upon this physical transformation. 
If it can be secured to our youth thru 
other means, we shail hear less about 
the supposed advantages of that regi- 
men in terms of obedience to authority 
and the like. To secure it thru compul- 
sory measures in the public schools, the 
Playground and Recreation Association 
of America has established a national. 
Physical Education Service to spread 


tervals to secure 
an accurate record of the child’s de- 
velopment” and about “provision for 
the correction of deficient bodily con- 
ditions that impair health.” They cite 
new French legislation that inau- 
gurates outdoor colonies for physical- 
ly defective children, reorganizes the 
school medical inspection systems, and 
aims at simplification of curricula, 
“which are frightfully overloaded and 
tend to destroy energy.”—From The 
Dial of September 20, 1919. 





Vol. VIII, No. & 


The American Teacher 


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


under the Act of March 3, 1879. 


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








Vol. VIII, No. 8 


OCTOBER, 1919 


One Dollar a Year 








GOOD WORK 


THE AUTHOR OF “Teaching How to Riot” 
published in this issue must be credited with 
the creation of a remarkable piece of literary 
work. We predict that Mr. Lawson’s article 
will command respect, and also stimulate the 
development of social justice, wherever it is 
read. We urge our readers to extend the in- 
fluence of the article by calling it to the 
attention of socially-minded persons thruout 
the country. Mr. Lawson is President of one 
of our strongest locals of colored teachers. 


A WOMAN ORGANIZER 


WE BELIEVE it is high time that the Ameri- 
can Federation of Teachers had a woman 
organizer who should give her entire time to 
the work of organizing locals of women 
teachers, or of teachers in general. There is 
in our organization so little of what may 
seem like sex-antagonism that we believe it 
is the more natural that a woman organizer 
should be selected from some of our pros- 
perous locals without any opposition what- 
ever. 


MORE NEWS FROM THE LOCALS 


THE MATTER OF MAKING use of the national 
organ by the locals is properly emphasized 
by Secretary Stecker in his “October Mes- 
sage” in this issue. In the early months of 
the periodical as a full-fledged national organ 
the management sent letters to all the locals 
urging them to appoint Publicity Committees 
whose duty it should be to keep the other 
locals informed of interesting work going on. 
Some of the locals responded, but most of 
them have given no sign. The large number 
of locals now makes circularizing for the 
management a heavy task when taken with 
other burdens. Therefore, the stimulus to 


action in this matter must come from the 
good examples set by those who do furnish 
us with good stories of what is going on. 
We most respectfully urge, however, that all 
make the fullest use of this avenue to worthy 
renown. 


THE NEWEST LOCALS 


IN MARCH AND JUNE of the present year 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER published the 
names of the locals of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers, closing in the June issue 
with No 81. The list is taken up in the pres- 
ent issue with No 82 and extended to its pres- 
ent limit, No 112. This means that since the 
publication of the June issue thirty-one lo- 
cals have been organized. As indicated in 
Secretary Stecker’s “Message” very little of 
this work was carried on in the summer vaca- 
tion. We regard this showing as remarkable. 

The American Federation of Teachers 
long ago reached out to the limits of the 
country, and is now cleaning up the terri- 
tory previously skipped over in the rapid 
growth. We hope soon to be able to announce 
that every state in the Union contains one 
or more locals of the organization and that 
every large city is represented in our list. 
Even now there are very few of the larger 
cities that do not have one of our locals. 
Among these are Cleveland, Cincinnati, 
Pittsburgh, Toledo, Detroit, Kansas City, 
Omaha, Seattle. We believe no other large 
city has escaped us. A pamphlet containing 
the names, numbers and the officers of the 
locals will be furnished on application to 
Secretary Stecker. 





Do you realize that the widespread tendency 
toward unionization of all the professions will bring 
your fellow teacher into the fold. Only help him 
along a bit. 


171 





The American Teacher 


LEST WE BE AFRAID 


WorD HAS COME to us that the strike of the 
Boston policemen has hindered the organiza- 
tion of unions of teachers in a certain part 
of the country. We can quite understand 
this, for during the time of a strike among 
the harbor men of the port of New York a 
number of teachers refused to join the local 
teachers’ union because of that strike. At 
another time a member of the same union 
resigned because members of the I W W had 
been making trouble in the far West. The 
habit of fear is still quite strong within us. 
However, let us not despair. 


For there are others who are equally 
timorous. Among them is one John F. Hylan, 
Mayor of New York, who has called upon 
the heads of the city departments to abolish 
the positions of all who are “agitators and 
troublemakers” in their departments. This 
order was given out because of the attempt 
of several organizations of city employes to 
combine and affiliate with. the American Fed- 
eration of Labor. These organizations had 
indicated no desire to strike; in fact, they 
expressed opposition to the strike as a 
method for their purpose. Nevertheless, the 
Mayor was afraid. 


We suspect that more self-contained per- 
sons than Mayor Hylan have also been afraid 
since the period of industrial upheaval has 
come upon us. Some of these persons have 
endeavored to conceal their fear by a show of 
high contempt for the striking workers and 
their demands. Incidentally they have be- 
trayed a contempt for certain elements of 
social justice established thru the union 
movement. We may mention the names of 
Lindley M Garrison, the Receiver of the 
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, George 
M Cohan, leader of the theater managers, 
Police Commissioner Curtis, of Boston, and 
Judge Gary, of the United States Steel Cor- 
poration. It is very unlikely that any con- 
siderable number of the workers themselves 
have been terrified by the fearful attitudes 
assumed by these four representatives of the 
employers. If the workers have not seemed 
to accept the challenges of these men in 
every case, it is not because they hesitate to 
meet threat with menace, but rather because 


* 


Vol. VIII, No. 8 


they are engaged in the terribly serious busi- 
ness of making human life possible for them- 
selves and their dependents. This is too 
important a business to interrupt by playing 
at the game of Chinese dragons. 

It is quite easy to see why the guild o/ 
unjust employers should be afraid, but it is 
not possible to explain the fear of teachers 
by a reference to the same set of economic 
factors. However, we do know that most of 
the mental processes of the members of our 
profession involve the ready submission to 
the voice of authority. And the voice of 
authority comes near to being the “master’s 
voice” of industry. 


FROM THE BUSINESS MANAGER 


THE BUSINESS MANAGER of The American 
Teacher desires to inform those members of the 
American Federation of Teachers who do not receive 
addressed copies of the periodical that copies can 
be addressed only in case the Secretary of the local 
has forwarded to the New York office the necessary 
list of members. All Secretaries are provided with 
blanks for this purpose immediately after the locals 
are organized. Secretaries who still receive bundles 
of papers for their members are urged once more to 
send in typewritten lists of names, alphabetically 
arranged, and with full addresses. All Secretaries 
are urged to keep the office supplied with names of 
their new members. 





Members are again urged to bring “The American 
Teacher” to the attention of everyone interested in 
education. Intelligent citizens are glad enough to be 
informed of a live movement that is directed toward 
the general good. 








The American Teacher 


Democracy in Education 
Published monthly, except July and August by 


THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
Henry R. Linvitte, Editor 
Max Rosennaus, Business Manager 





Education for Democracy 





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





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


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








Teaching How to Riot 


EDWARD H LAWSON 
President, The Washington Elementary Teachers Union, Local No 27, A F of T 


10TS, like Chinese, often forget they are 

dead, and come back. In movie spectacle 

alone, modern dramaturgy makes pro- 
vision for the race clash. Inter-racial mob 
violence at Washington next time will find 
scenarioist and camera-man on hand urging 
the thing be enacted, especially in the White 
House vicinity, by daytime exposure. And the 
dramatist per se, for the purpose of studying 
character and audience, will be in the midst 
of things shielded by a Ford tank. 

From the standpoint of realistic drama, to 
say which was the better riot, Washington or 
Chicago, would be idiotic enterprise, like re- 
citing Dunbar to a Swedish maid. To be 
honest at the start, I commend the Washing- 
ton riot for exceptional technique, and shall 
merely set forth certain bogus tenets in the 
Windy City situation. 

Causes of racial discord in Chicago can be 
accurately defined. They are included under 
the general and usual heads: (1) Influx of 
southern colored population and southern 
white population into a competing labor 
field; (2) exodus of southern colored popula- 
tion and a desire to frighten the masses of 
southern colored people into remaining on 
the farm; (3) political corruption; (4) crim- 
inality among whites and blacks; (5) sex- 
viciousness ; and (6) cheap journalism. These 
causes are so obvious as to require no ab- 
stract argument. Fact is, this sort of middle- 
class thing has been done to death in motion- 
picture and cheap magazine for years. The 
ability to define these cause accurately re- 
moves this riot from the sphere of art, and 
relegates it to the mercy of the divines and 
the college professors. 

From a viewpoint this side of the Appa- 
lachians it would seem that the matter of 
race was a minor factor in the Chicago dis- 
turbance. Chicago was a group clash, in 
which minor elements of the participating 
groups made inter-racial relations very un- 
comfortable. In the showdown, for the most 
part it has proved to be an economic read- 
justment incident to war times, guided by 
political jackals, anarchists and criminals of 


both races. This situation will be solved 
when Negro labor is reassured and properly 
unionized, the larger problem being reassur- 
ance. Colored university men are at work, 
and have been for months in Chicago, both 
for and against unionism. It is gratifying 
to note that large numbers of colored men 
are learning the value of affiliation. 

But Washington offered a different setting. 
The black Prince Dedajazmatch of Abyssin- 
ia had just been received at the White House 
when the storm broke. It cannot be denied 
that this recrudescence of the Booker T 
Washington incident caused the canon of 
racial subservience to lose some of the force 
which it had derived from tradition. Arro- 
gance and race snobbery, by this royal inci- 
dent, received a jolt at the very time that the 
Reverend Thomas Dixon, Jr, was sojourning 
at the Capital, in connection with “The Red 
Dawn,” looking on at the White House across 
the way, and boiling over. 

Washington city itself had been warming 
up for years. Animalism in ferment had been 
observed daily since thousands of southern 
white war workers had been called, and ex- 
plosion had been predicted by several eighth- 
rate mob pathologists. On the Negro atmos- 
phere there were pathognomonic symptoms, 
such as morbid consciousness of race, unde- 
veloped racial capacities, and strongly repres- 
sed vital human aptitudes, all leading to 
emotional tension and social hysteria with- 
out adequate outlet. A Caucasian atmosphere 
of arrogance and snobbery, tinctured with a 
dash of cynical dryrot, veneered with near- 
urbanity and pervasive charity, existed. This 
atmosphere was forced into a situation of im- 
perative coexistence, but intolerable coales- 
cence with the black. Given such a condition, 
add to it now a high percentage of ethical 
slackers among the personnel of schools and 
churches, and the operator is ready to film 
the climax. 

Colored Washington, immediately preced- 
ing the riot, perused tons of literature care- 
fully prepared by intellectual Bolshevists. In 
addition, such doctrine as the following by 
Woodrow Wilson was ringing everlastingly 


173 





174 


in their ears: “We have forgotten the prin- 
ciple of our origin if we have forgotten how 
to object, how to resist, how to pull down 
and build up, even to the extent of revolution- 
ary practices, if it be necessary to readjust 
matters.” Reading this, the Negro remem- 
bered Crispus Attucks and Boston Common. 


When, therefore, a foundation of scurrility, 
as at Atlanta, East St. Louis, Memphis and 
Chicago, began to be laid by newspapermen, 
by white boys, very possibly by products of 
the Washington high school classes in journ- 
alism—when anti-Negroid calumnies that 
have never been proved were set forth in 
massive headlines daily—it was natural that 
with this foundation of sophistry the super- 
structure must be compensatory. 

Flashing between the dual pathologic at- 
mosphere of white and black the spark was 
delivered by The Washington Post, which 
newspaper printed the following item of 
Monday morning journalism, by way of 
ignition : 

MOBILIZATION FOR TONIGHT 
“It was learned that a mobilization of every 
available service man stationed in or near 

Washington or on leave here has been ordered 

for tomorrow evening near the Knights of 

Columbus hut on Pennsylvania Avenue between 

7th and 8th Streets. The hour for assembly is 

9 o’clock and the purpose is a “clean-up” that 

will cause the events of the last two evenings 

to pale into insignificance.” 


The Washington blacks had twelve hours 
in which to make ready. In that time District 
of Columbia and Baltimore estimates dis- 
close the expenditure of about $14,000 for 
guns and ammunition. The Post article had 
caused among Washington’s colored popula- 
tion an anthropomorphic apprehension of 
the sequence of phenomena. The Washing- 
ton Negro foresaw an East St. Louis, a Hous- 
ton, a Chester. 

During the day the black intellectuals 
heard the sinister message directing that 
they stay within their homes. It appeared 
that the alley Negro of Washington, whose 
name is legion, had determined to meet the 
white rakehells and riffraff. This determin- 
ation was a culminative effect of years of re- 
pression accentuated by the war crisis in 
which the entire Washington Negro regi- 
ment, the 372nd, was given the war cross at 
Brest and the double-cross at Meade. 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. 8 


Certain it is, on Monday night, the ally 
Negro poured out on the front streets of the 
national capital like the steerage coming up 
from the hold—some sociological error had 
caused the ship of state to ride an uneven 
keel. The Negro was adequately armed, 
loose-fish and Nana Sahib, jade and Jezebel— 
and ripe for the clash. 

Bullies and bounders and hoodlums in the 
highly respectable uniform of the United 
States marines, in battle formation, without 
orders, amid sinister silence, marched into 
the heart of the Negro district. But when 
they proceeded to take the situation in hand, 
something went wrong. Brickbats flew, bul- 
lets sang, black men, fresh from Epley Ridge 
and the Sector Marbache and Hill 304 stood 
in the middle of the way and blocked the 
passage, and with more or less din, and roll 
of musketry, and braggadocio and fustian, 
the disturbance recurred nightly for four 
moderately well styled engagements. Alley 
Negroes had come to the conclusion that it is 
humanely dangerous to rely on virtue and 
prayer in every exigency. 

Now, to get to the muttons. Five hun- 
dred colored public school teachers of Wash- 
ington are in dire quandary. While every 
teacher feels that the best pedagogical treat- 
ment of the riot is not to treat it at all, most 
surely, as in the famous Wood case, some 
perverse urchin, alley-boy perhaps, is going 
to ask some riot questions. The Parents’ 
League, composed of 20,000 colored parents, 
is taking a very decided attitude on school 
matters, picketing buildings in which teach- 
ers to whom it has objections are employed. 
The league issued a manifest during the riot 
directing colored people to stay off the 
streets, but to defend themselves. 

Now when the inquiry comes as to the 
meaning of “defend yourselves,” as it will 
come, the teacher will be compelled to do one 
of two things. She will declare to the class, 
that like Miss Alice Wood, she is only an 
amateur in such matters, and should, there- 
fore, really not care to discuss them,—or she 
will enter into a free and full discussion of 
the entire matter. Taking the former step, 
she engages the displeasure of 20,000 par- 
ents! taking the latter, if we understand ‘he 
logic of events, she will gain the immediate 





(ictober, 1919 The 
censure of the Board of Education, possibly 
a reprimand from the Superintendent, and a 
probable suspension with loss of pay for a 
week or more. 

To be specific, let us take the case of Halb- 
finger of the Home Guard, shot dead on Tues- 
day evening. Halbfinger’s daughter is a 
teacher of little children. It is possible to 
prevent amateurish discussion of the riot 
wherever she is employed? Or take the case 
of J B Hunter, colored university man, mem- 
ber of the Washington Elementary Teachers 
Union, who, three weeks after affairs had 
cooled off, was surrounded by white men as 
he passed thru Lafayette Park in front of 
the White House at midday, and made to un- 
derstand that no Negroes should pass 
thru this branch of Paradise. When a 
crowd gathered, and policemen appeared, 
blackjack in hand, Hunter was hustled into 
a citizen’s automobile, taken to the police 
precinct, and compelled to deposit $25 collat- 
eral—charged with the disorderly conduct of 
walking through Lafayette Square in front. 
of the White House. The case was dismissed 
next morning in the Police Court. Is it not 
likely that there will be some very amateur- 
ish discussion of this incident in public school 
classrooms during the long winter hours? 

Then, is it not fair, in view of the Wood 
case circumstances, to ask that the Board of 
Education of the District of Columbia pre- 
scribe a course in rioting for the schools of 
Washington? Many good things could be 
put into such a course. Limits of classroom 
discussion could be accurately defined. The 
teacher could learn and iterate and reiterate 
those limits to the class without fear of fu- 
ture suffering. The following may serve as 
a basis upon which a committee, composed of 
inter-racial membership, could effect a worth 
while course in riot reaction : 

The fundamental major cause of Washing- 
ton’s mobocracy is race prejudice, a function 
often deliberately engendered where it does 
not naturally exist. Public schools in Wash- 
ington are powerless to attack this prejudice 
in any effective way. Spread of this preju- 
dice is a recidivist tendency in the Anglo- 
Saxon, and contrary to the liberal spirit of 
the age. The particular manifestation of cul- 
tivated prejudice conducive to Washington 
mobocracy is segregation. 


American Teacher 


175 


Washington operates a dual school system. 
It operates a complete white system from its 
superintendent down, and a similarly com- 
plete colored system from janitor up, with 
full board representation. In segregation the 
white Washingtonian develops a dogmatic 
criticism in relation to the black. The col- 
ored citizen, on the other hand, develops only 
an impressionistic criticism of the white— 
pardon, please, my Bergson. 

In many intellectual interests black and 
white are far apart and different. Often the 
black man’s thoughts are ponderous while the 
white man’s thoughts are effervescent, and 
vice versa more often. In segregate existence 
two intellectual, emotional and volitional at- 
mospheres are created and will be preserved 
separate as long as segregation endures. At 
critical moments it takes only a spark flashed 
between these atmospheres to effect an as- 
similation of specific densities down to the 
level of democratic idealism. This assimila- 
tion is accompanied by thunderous gunfire, 
by musketry and lightning flash, and by gusts 
of passion denoting the temporary dominion 
of mob rancor. 

After the riot subsides, segregation en- 
dures, and hence mob action will be increas- 
ingly recurrent. Whenever the spark is ap- 
plied, the surcharged atmospheres will assim- 
ilate. Certainly the school child, living in 
such a society as this which Washington af- 
fords, should be taught in the public class- 
room what to do when the inevitable riot 
recurs. And the Board of Education should 
prescribe what that instruction shall be. If 
Chicago wants a real race riot, and not a mere 
industrial derangement, she should turn to 
the politicians who want a segregate school 
system like Washington’s in the windy city. 

Rights and duties of black and white police, 
of black and white soldier, of black and white 
citizen should be a part of the curriculum. 
Otherwise the white boy who grows up to 
patrol the beat will believe as now that he has 
the right to search a Negro household with- 
out warrant and in plain clothes, and the 
Negro girl who grows up to keep her thresh- 
old inviolate, will feel it her duty to shoot 
the unidentified intruder dead. Instances of 
educational need, based on actual incidents, 
might be multiplied. 





176 


Why is the black population of Washington 
morbid? Is there surcease thru the agency 
of public schools? What are the undeveloped 
racial capacities of the black Washingtonian? 
Can the schools expand development of the 
Negroid element? How are the entirely hu- 
man aptitudes of the Washington Negro 
violently repressed? Who are the ethical 
slackers that shirk the duties of their pro- 
fession? Answers come to many of these 
questions, but there is none who dares, or 
cares to pronounce them. 


For instance, the man or woman who would 
suggest the staging of a competitive mili- 
tary drill, or shooting match, between the 
best best colored and best white company of 
high school cadets, or the city championship 
baseball game between the colored and white 
high school champions for the educational 
purposes incident to emotional outlet, would 
be branded as an agitator and inciter to riot, 
albeit the drill, or match, or game would be 
a riot-according-to-Hoyle—or rather an ade- 
quate substitute for a riot according to the 
rules of the Board of Education. 

Each new riot in Washington will bring 


the best elements of the races together for 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. & 


mutual protection. Striking machinists ai 
Union Station but yesterday stipulated that 
on the return of the shopmen to work all non- 
union colored laborers and operatives should 
be re-employed without prejudice. Decay of 
the system of social status will be a noticeable 
by-product of the riot. Ultimately, if not 
now, the schools will make Washington safe 
from mobocracy, which is an inevitable by- 
product of segregation. 


Riots, such as Washington’s, are regarded 
today not as criminal tendencies so much as 
weaknesses inherent in the being of the pres- 
ent social structure at the national capital, 
beyond the power of either white or black 
group to overcome. The cause and purpose 
and end of it all are mysteries as dark and 
inscrutable as they were in Egypt centuries 
ago. For the purpose of increasing mutual 
prosperity, expansion of business interests, 
growth in wealth and culture and liberal 
spirit, Washingtonians have conceived that 
the true way to accomplish these results is not 
by pulling others down, but by uplifting all 
to the level of common prosperity, that in 
union and affiliation all may grow greater and 
stronger together. 


An American Teacher in France 


WILLIAM I HELLER 


Honorary President, Federation of Teachers Unions of France 
and Member, Local No 5, New York 


T all happened as a matter of accident. 

Had I not arrived too late at the British 

Military Control Bureau one Saturday 
morning, in August, 1919, to have my pass- 
port vised, a painful and dilatory process al- 
ways, I should certainly not have gone to 
Tours, and had the honor thrust upon me of 
being an honorary president of the Federa- 
tion of Teachers Unions of France. As it 
was I found myself in Paris that Saturday 
afternoon with nothing to do, and likely to 
spend an uninteresting Sunday. Passing by 
one of the numerous newsstands or kiosks, 
and with my inveterate habit of glancing at 
the headlines, I noticed that the newspaper 
l’Humanité, founded by the great French 


Socialist Jean Jaures was featuring an ad- 
dress which Anatole France had just made 
before the annual convention of the Teachers 
Unions of France in session at Tours. 


After a hearty “Merci Monsieur” for my 
ten centimes, the paper was mine. Except 
for the speech there was a very meagre re- 
port of the doings of the convention, and 
there was no indication that the convention 
had adjourned or was still in session. I had 
given no thought or interest to school mat- 
ters or teachers since I had begun my Euro- 
pean trip which was purely a business one, 
but I saw in this new situation. an occasion 
for getting some interesting information 
which might be of use to my fellow teachers 





October, 1919 


in America, and which beside might throw 
some interesting light upon the position of 
the teacher and the conditions of teaching in 
France. I determined to “take a chance” 
at seeing perhaps some remains of the con- 
vention. At any rate, once in Tours, I would 
find myself in an interesting part of France, 
and could at least spend a delightful Sunday 
viewing the romantic chateaux of the Loire. 

From my room near the rue du Faubourg 
Montmartre, I took the metro Nord-Sud at 
Notre Dame de Lorette, and was soon at the 
Gare d’Orleans where the great French lines 
radiate to the South. The station was alive 
with the usual week-end crowds, and not a 
few of my fellow-countrymen, officers and 
ted Cross workers were making ready to 
return to Tours, which during the war was 
an army headquarters. There is always gen- 
erally interesting company when you travel 
in the French compartment trains, and much 
of what might otherwise have been a rather 
tedious trip on a hot Saturday afternoon was 
made interesting by the stories of an Ameri- 
can officer who had been wounded and gassed 
in the Champagne sector during the Ameri- 
can offensive in 1917. 


We arrived at Tours about six in the even- 
ing after passing several German intern- 


ment camps. A contingent of brawny Mon- 
tana and Wisconsin troops was just assem- 
bling at the station all beaming and happy at 
the thought that they were at last on their 
way to Brest and home, after twenty-two 
months’ service abroad. Entering the buffet 
of the station, I was immediately recognized 
as an American, and questioned closely about 
events in the States, a good many of the boys 
being suspiciously concerned about the work- 
ings of the new prohibition law. 

The first street leading from the station 
is the Avenue du President Wilson. I had 
read in the Humanité that the meeting of the 
teachers was held in the Bourse du Travail 
or Labor TempJe. After walking a short dis- 
tance I came into full view of the picturesque 
Hotel de Ville, a comparatively modern 
building, but with lines that harmonized with 
the ancient appearance of the city. I entered 
out of curiosity, and found myself in the 
midst of excited and gesticulating humanity. 
| knew then I had stumbled across something. 
A discreet inquiry from a neighbor elicited 


The American Teacher 


177 


the reply that this was indeed the “congres” 
of the “Federation des Syndicats d’Institu- 
teurs et Institutrices de France,” and that I 
had just arrived at the closing on the Satur- . 
day afternoon session, but there would be the 
final one that evening. My trip after all, 
had not been in vain. 

The word American has a magic ring to- 
day wherever you go on the European conti- 
nent. Even tho in some quarters in Eu- 
rope, it is denied or only grudingly admitted, 
it is nevertheless a pretty general opinion 
that the timely intervention of our armies 
prevented the German military power from 
accomplishing its work of destruction. Like- 
wise the American soldier has always seemed 
to be in possession of a good deal of wealth, 
and that combined with his universally good 
behavior and manliness has kept Americans 
high in the estimation of Europe. I edged 
my way up to where there seemed to be an 
important group of officials and having in- 
troduced myself as an American and as one 
who was interested in and knew a good deal 
of the union movement among teachers in 
America, I soon became the target for many 
inquisitive French teachers. They were en- 
thusiastic at the fact that there was some 
representative from a foreign country there, 
even tho by accident. By this time the 
various groups were leaving the hall, and 
upon the invitation of M. Foulon, the Secre- 
taire-Generale of the Federation, I accom- 
panied the executive committee to dinner. 

The conversation of the dozen or so French 
school teachers was extremely animated and 
as sparkling as the good Touraine wine which 
graced the table. There was also present M. 
Dumoulins, the Secretary Adjoint of the Con- 
federation Generale du Travail, with which 
the teachers’ unions of France are affiliated. 
The C G T corresponds in some particulars to 
the American Federation of Labor. M. Dum- 
oulins questioned me a great deal about Am- 
erican political institutions, altho he seemed 
to have a much better grasp of them 
than I. He told me he was eager to be up 
to date on the American labor situation, as 
he was to go to Washington in the Fall as a 
representative of France to the International 
Labor Conference. One of the teachers who 
had seemed a little skeptical as to whether I 
was well equipped to discuss international af- 











sseteeeteaeenen eee oem pee 


178 The American Teacher 


fairs, suddenly asked me if I was in the habit 
of reading The New Republic and the Nation, 
and when I replied in the affirmative he 
beamed with delight and listened to me very 
attentively thereafter. Another teacher 
asked me if I was familiar with Angelo Pat- 
ri’s book, “A Modern Schoolmaster,” and 
when I said that I even knew Mr Patri inti- 
mately, he seemed hardly to believe it. In 
my turn I asked whether the teachers were 
familiar with the works of John Dewey and 
whether there were any French translations 
of. “School and Society,” or “Democracy and 
Education.” None of them had ever read 
the books, but there was no doubt from the 
trend of their conversation that they were 
working along the lines indicated in Profes- 
sor Dewey’s works and that the chief mission 
of their unions was the democratization of 
education in France. It was not at all diffi- 
cult to imagine myself at a meeting of a 
teachers’ union in America, for the problems 
under discussion at that dinner table in Tours 
were almost identical with ours. 

After dinner we adjourned to the Hotel 
de Ville for the final evening session of the 
Convention. The delegates, to the number of 
about seven hundred, were already assembled, 
and one who was not familiar with the Gallic 
temperament and its propensity for garru- 
lousness, would have declared that the con- 
vention hall was characterized by “extreme 
disorder.” But silence came quickly as M. 
Bernard, a high school teacher of English and 
president of the session opened the meeting. 
Before I had an opportunity to intercept 
what seemed to be a plot to advertise me, I 
found myself occupying a chair in the most 
conspicuous place on the platform to the left 
of the president. As I looked upon the many 
earnest faces before me, I could not help 
thinking that only by meeting such an aud- 
ience, representative of the intellectual life 
of France, could one get a true estimate of 
French character. Like every other Ameri- 
can abroad, I had made more or less of a 
“study” of “boulevard life,” easy, careless 
and gilded. But here I was confrcnted with 
the builders of French youth, with the ser- 
ious minded men and women who will cer- 
tainly have one of the biggest shares in re- 
constructing France and saving it from the 
general wave of indifference, immorality and 


Vol. VIII, No. 8 


senseless pleasures that is threatening the 
integrity of the land today. I was surprised 
to note, as the number of vari-colored ribbons 
which the men wore in their button holes, in- 
dicated, the number of them who as Officers 
and privates, less than a year ago were de- 
fending the soil of France with their lives. 
There were several who were blinded and 
others who wore the cross of the Legion of 
Honor. And the thought came to me that 
these were all good union teachers, who at 
great expense had made trips from distant 
parts of France to attend the convention. | 
could not help thinking that there were cer- 
tain individuals in our own country, occupy- 
ing high educational positions, who held to 
the doctrine that it was inconsistent to be a 
lover of one’s country and a member of a 
labor union at the same time. What about 
these French heroes who withstood the he!l- 
fire of the German guns, and who were 
now as equally determined to defend their 
rights as members of a union organization? 
The fact that they believed in unionization; 
and in affiliation with the Confederation Gen- 
erale du Travail, made them none the less 
eager to leave the classroom for the battle- 
field when they felt that they had a just 
cause to defend. 

It may surprise the teachers who read this, 
as it surprised me that evening in Tours to 
learn of the radicalism which permeates the 
teachers’ unions in France. I frankly confess 
that I was taken aback at the nature of the 
topics which were under discusion that even- 
ing. And yet the meeting of the convention. 
the attitude of which was of most bitter 
hatred and antagonism toward what they 
called the “bourgeois” government of Clem- 
enceau took place in the City Hall, being held 
with the sanction of the Mayor. I could not 
help thinking of a certain teachers’ union in 
America which had been denied the use of 
the school buildings merely for criticising the 
educational policy of a board of education. 

The teachers were congratulating them- 
selves on the fact that a law had just passe: 
in the Chamber of Deputies, permitting al! 
government employees to unionize and to 
affiliate with any political party they desire«. 
This made it possible for another group ©! 
teachers organizations, known as the Am'- 





October, 1919 


cales, who were not affiliated with the Con- 
federation Generale du Travail, for fear of 
offending their superiors, to come over in a 
body to the teachers’ unions or “syndicats” 
and thus to make the teachers’ unions of 
France one of the most powerful labor groups 
today. 

There was the same recital there at that 
‘convention at Tours that one might hear at 
a union meeting in the States. There were 
stories of official oppression, of examples of 
tvranny toward the teacher at the hands 
f school inspectors, insufficient salaries, un- 
sanitary schoolbuildings and limited higher 
educational facilities. The French unions 
are conducting a vigorous campaign for the 
“emancipation of the schools” claiming that 
a good deal of the high school education in 
France, which is paid for, restricts education 
to the children of the richer classes or the 
“bourgeoisie.” They demand a free system 
of education from the primary grades to the 
university as in America, so that higher as 
well as lower education will be within the 
reach of-all. 

The session lasted till two in the morning, 
but so absorbed was every one in the topics 
under discussion that few left the hall. In 
fact, I was one of the few, for the oratorical 
efforts of some of the teachers began to tire 
me. I met my friends at the hotel the next 


The American Teacher 


179 


morning and had lunch with them when they 
gave me their impressions of the results of 
the convention. I was flattered to be told 
that they considered the visit of their Ameri- 
can friend one of the things they would re- | 
member with interest. 


I took the train home to Paris that after- 
noon. In my compartment was one of the 
French teacher-delegatés. Sne had come trom 
Morbihan, Brittany, to attend the convention. 
“But when I get back to Paris,” she said, “I 
shall have a sad duty to perform. I must 
go to Verdun to locate the grave of my fiance 
who fell in the war,” and tears welled to her 
eyes, and her voice choked with sobs. 


It may not be my lot to visit Europe for a 
long while to come, but I shall always cherish 
the memories of my visit to Tours in August, 
1919. 


Mr. Heller does not inform his readers, but the 
fact is that he addressed the Convention at the urg- 
ent invitation of the President. And now French 
teachers know thru their representatives, and 
from the published address in l’Humanité, all 
about the teachers’ union movement in America, in- 
cluding some of the characteristic abuses of educa- 
tional authority such as have shamed New York 
and Washington. We are under the greatest obliga- 
tion to Mr. Heller for his initiative in attending the 
Convention of French teachers, and congratulate 
him on his ability to use his college French so ef- 
fectively as to draw rounds of applause. 


EDITOR, The American Teacher. 


The October Message 


F G STECKER 
Secretary-Treasurer, The American Federation of Teachers. 


HE American Federation of Teachers 

has passed the ten thousand mark in 

membership. Its prospects are better 
than ever before. The increasing number of 
inquiries daily received indicate a great 
awakening among the teachers. Nor is this 
metamorphosis confined to any one region of 
the country. It comes from all directions, 
from all States, from cities and country dis- 
tricts, from elementary, high, normal and 
college instructors. It is a period of recon- 
struction in education as in all other things. 
In view of present-day conditions there is 


deep significance in the ten thousand mem- 
bership. It means, first of all, that the Am- 
erican Federation of Teachers has already 
acquired the foremost place among organiza- 
tions of classroom teachers. In its member- 
ship, its committees, its officers and its activ- 
ities lie great possibilities. To this must be 
added of course, labor’s great strength and 
keen interest in educational matters. The 
success of this movement depends very 
largely upon the appreciation on the part of 
the membership of the significance and the 
possibilities of the movement. Success will 





180 


be measured in a growing consciousness of 
the things that remain undone; the things 
that can be done. Classroom teachers have 
had so small a part in the creating and direct- 
ing of educational policies that they are slow 
to grasp the opportunities when presented. 
If each of the ten thousand members were 
to make a careful inventory of the improve- 
ments which he sees could be made if each 
local attempted to crystalize the suggestions 
and formulate a platform of objects to be 
worked for, if the locals in each State were 
to carry this process a step further, having 
in mind the peculiar needs of that State, and 
if the national needs were to be inventoried 
and worked out in the same manner, who can 
foresee the results? 

But the teacher is necessarily interested in 
many things not strictly a part of the educa- 
tional system. He lives in an economic world 
as well. A meager salary and the ever in- 
creasing requirements in life constantly 
bring home the realization that the economic 
need is the basic one; and yet, how much at- 
tention has ever been paid to economic con- 
siderations by the teacher? Thought has 
been so influenced as to make it appear that 
all facts and theories dealing with economic 
affairs are political and controversial in their 
nature, and hence “verboten.” As the teach- 
ers enter into the educational reconstruction 
they will find themselves constantly coming 
up against barriers which limit hopelessly 
the scope of their work. It will therefore be 


enlightening to take lessons from organized- 


labor. It will became natural to add to the 
campaigns for salary and working conditions 
and a democratic school system other cam- 
paigns for other objects equally desirable. 
A timely instance is the subject of co- 
operation. Organized labor has long been 
interested in this movement. If it: does 
not now appeal to teachers, it is sure to do so 
as soon as their acquaintance with its mean- 
ing and importance begins. Altho not so 
thorol¥ developed as in England, the co- 
operative movement is beyond the experi- 
mental stage in many States in this country. 
The American Federation of Labor long ago 
endorsed it and have even requested that all 
affiliated national and international organiza- 
tions take up the matter of the contributions 
requested by the Buffalo convention. At that 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. & 


convention in 1917 a special committee on 
co-operation had reported as follows: 

“1. That a qualified trade unionist co- 
operator be appointed by the President of 
the American Federation of Labor to serve 
one year as lecturer and adviser on the prac- 
tical work of Rochdale cooperation. 

“2. That this appointee shall have office 
room in the American Federation of Labor 
building in Washington, which shall be the 
center of information by correspondence an 
otherwise on the subject. 


“3. That he shall visit localities in which 
cooperative societies are in process of forma- 
tion or have already been formed and give 
practical information to the officers and mem- 
bers of such societies, making out routes of 
travel for this purpose so as to conserve his 
time and perform the work at a minimum of 
expense. 


“4. That it shall be understood that cen- 
tral labor unions and local trades unions as 
such shall not form cooperative societies but 
shall appoint committees from their member- 
ship to act in cooperation with other citizens 
who are in sympathy with the trade union 
movement in assisting in the upbuilding of 
a general cooperative movement. 


“5. That every local trade union under 
the jurisdiction of the American Federation 
of Labor be requested to contribute the sum 
of ($1.00) one dollar in order to establish 
succesfully the Federation bureau for pro- 
moting and advancing the cause of true co- 
operation in the United-States and Canada.” 


“The convention declared itself in full ac- 
cord with the intent and purpose sought 
to be obtained by the recommendations of the 
special committee, approved the plan sub- 
mitted and referred the entire matter to the 
Executive Council with recommendations to 
make such deviations therefrom as may be 
deemed expedient, advisable and essential. 
The Executive Council thereupon declared 
that it wil! be essential that all affiliated or- 
ganizations—that is, local unions of the na- 
tional and international unions, shall con- 
tribute not less than $1.00 each in order to 
successfully inaugurate and conduct the co- 
operative movement for the purpose of serv- 
ing the men and women of labor as. well as 





October, 1919 


conserving their means of livelihood.”—A F 
of L Bulletin. 

This request by the American Federation 
of Labor has been made. The contribution 
has been made out of the A F T treasury. It 
is the belief of the Executive Council that the 
locals should not be asked to contribute $1.00 
each, in view of the wide range in member- 
ship of the locals. It is, however, their be- 
lief that the members and officers of the 
locals will be sufficiently interested to meet 
a request of one cent per member which 
would bring the same total at $1.00 per local. 
This is not in the nature of an assessment but 
an appeal to the membership of the American 
Federation of Teachers to interest themselves 
in a great economic movement which has 
proved its value and will bring great relief 
to teachers as well as to other workers. The 
members will do well to seek literature on 
the matter; to get in touch with workers in 
the cooperative movement; to join in with 
local committees and lend their support in 
various ways. The Executive Council would 
be very glad to receive communications on 
the subject and suggestions for a campaign. 
Literature dealing with the subject may be 


secured from cooperative organizations or 
from the Secretary-Treasurer. 

An extended Western trip was begun by 
Mr Stillman September 6th, from which he 
will probably not return before November 


ist. During this time he will have visited 
many cities and the majority of Western 
States to the Pacific Coast. Mr Lampson’s 
itinerary beginning with September 11th in- 
cluded the Central and North Atlantic States 
and the end of October will find him in Mis- 
souri after having visited many cities in the 
Ohio Valley. He will later spend some time 
in Kansas, and other Western States. Those 
who know of teachers anywhere in the coun- 
try and especially in the States referred to, 
who are interested in the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers, will confer a favor upon 
all concerned by communicating with Mr 
Stillman or Mr Lampson at their home ad- 
dresses as printed in this paper. Altho their 
schedules are well crowded with correspond- 
ence, conferences and addresses to meetings 
of teachers, arrangements can be made to 
lengthen their stay or otherwise meet any 
new situation called to their attention. 


The American Teacher 


181 


On another page of this issue will be found 
a list of locals chartered up to the date of 
going to press. Fourteen charters were is- 
sued in June, one in July, three in August 
and seven in the first half of September. The 
St. Louis local has three hundred and seven 
charter members out of a possible three hun- 
dred and forty. From March 25th, to Sept. 
17th, as many charters were issued as in the 
three previous years of existence. 

In attempting to show the growth and de- 
velopment of the American Federation of 
Teachers I have not been influenced by a 
spirit of boastfulness, but rather by a feeling 
of a growing responsibility which rests upon 
all of us to make the most of the advantages 
it affords us. At this point I wish to call at- 
tention to the almost complete failure of our 
members to appreciate the means which the 
teachers have never had before, to set forth 
in a paper conducted for class-room teachers 
the story of their working conditions, their 
relations with each other, the board of ed- 
ucation, the newspapers and the public. 
There are more than a score of groups of 
teachers which could tell stories of unusual 
interest, stories of well laid plans and well 
conducted campaigns, stories of success and 
acquired influence, stories such as have never 
appeared in print. Probably the weakest 
spot in our organization thus far is the fail- 
ure to make the American Teacher a real 
official organ with a vital message for every 
reader. The Editor deserves great credit 
for what he has been able to do with so little 
support. It is obvious that a magazine of this 
sort cannot be the creature of the Editor’s 
brain. How long will it take us to realize 
what can be done to advance the interests of 
ourselves and of other teachers thru its col- 
umns? 


No more industrial rivalries, no more wars: work 
and peace. Whether we wish it or no, the hour is 
come when we must be citizens of the world or see 
all civilization perish. My friends, permit me to utter 
a most ardent wish, a wish which it is necessary for 
me to express too rapidly and incompletely, but 
whose primary idea seems to me calculated to ap- 
peal to all generous natures. I wish, I wish with 
all my heart, that a delegation of the teachers of 
all nations might soon join the Workers’ Interna- 
tionale in order to prepare in common a universal 
form of education, and advise as to methods of sow- 
ing in young minds ideas from which would spring 
the peace of the world and the union .of peoples. 
—Anatole France, from address to Convention of 
Teachers’ Unions at Tours, on August 7, 1919. 





The Washburn College Situation 


CHAS B STILLMAN 
President, The American Federation of Teachers. 


HE summary dismissal of J E Kirk- 

patrick, Professor of History and 

Political Science at Washburn College, 
and a member of Washburn Teachers Fed- 
eration, No 99, is another indication of the 
most dangerous weakness in American 
education. The success of popular govern- 
ment depends on the effective education of 
the citizenry in the spirit and methods of 
democracy. And yet the field which the Am- 
erican people have, perhaps unconsciously, 
allowed to be most thoroly Prussianized, 
is that of education. The great majority of 
our educational systems and institutions, 
from the lowest to the highest, both public 
and private, are autocratically administered 
by a hierarchy, with all authority originat- 
ing at the top. Such evidence of a democrat- 
ic atmosphere as we occasionally find is due 
usually to the presence at the top of a benevo- 
lent despot who permits it, seldom to any 
organic provision for it in the method of or- 
ganization. 

President Womer of Washburn College ap- 
parently sensed the evil influence of this sit- 
uation, when on June 7th he secured the en- 
dorsement of the Washburn faculty of his 
plan for an advisory faculty committee to be 
consulted on all matters of academic concern, 
and specifically on all faculty dismissals. 
This committee was to have only advisory 
functions, and was only partially democratic, 
since but two members were elective, the bal- 
ance consisting of the deans. But the resig- 
nations of three members of the faculty had 
been demanded summarily during the year, 
and autocratic habits of mind and action are 
not easily broken. On June 11, President 
Womer demanded Professor Kirkpatrick’s 
resignation, and refused to give any charges, 
or to consult the faculty committee just au- 
thorized at his own request for that very 
purpose. 

The psychology of the autocrat Americans 
have tolerated in so many presidents of col- 
leges and universities, boards of education, 
trustees and other school authorities, that it 
has become a menace to our national life. It 
is most disastrous in our public schools be- . 


cause of the greater number affected, but the 
comparative maturity of college students 
makes it particularly deadly in its effects in 
higher institutions. Nothing tends to de- 
velop cynicism in a student’s mind so rapidly 
as the constant mental query, “Is he saying 
that because he believes it, or because he 
would lose his position if he said anything 
else?” 

Legally, President Womer may be respon- 
sible only to a self-perpetuating board of 
trustees, which in turn is responsible only to 
itself. But in a democracy, all educational in- 
stitutions, public and private, are perform- 
ing an essentially public function. If we are 
to develop genuine American manhood and 
womanhood, a generation equipped for self- 
government, from the elementary school 
thru the college and university our children 
and young men and women must never be 
exposed in the classroom to an atmosphere of 
servile bowing to coercion. Organized labor 
has been alert in seeing the danger and in 
suggesting the remedy. Its latest action in 
that connection was the adoption at the At- 
lantic City Convention of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor of the following principle: 

“Teachers should have tenure of position 
during efficiency. There should be no dis- 
missals without full public hearings before 
a commission on which the teachers are fairly 
represented.” 

President Womer, during my interview 
with him, assured me that steps were about 
to be taken to democratize the constitution of 
Washburn College, and that in the future, be- 
fore recommending changes in the faculty, 
he would consult a faculty committee. But 
inconsistently, he insisted that the case of 
Professor Kirkpatrick was closed. 

Serious as is the personal and professional 
injustice to Professor Kirkpatrick, by far the 
most important issue is that of the elimina- 
tion of official favoritism, and of petty per- 
sonal considerations in matters of promotion 
and reemployment, and in general, of demo- 
cratic administration. On that fundamental 
issue, there can be no doubt of the verdict of 
an awakened public opinion, in the light of 


182 





October, 1919 


the bitter German object-lesson of the mold- 
ing of a nation thru an autocratic educational 
system. 


THE SPIRIT OF TRADE UNIONISM 
LypDIA J TROWBRIDGE 


President, The Chicago Federation of 
Women High School Teachers 


OU ask why I am a trade unionist. Let 
me try to make you understand. You 
who have just been swept into a union 

on a wave of protest against certain work- 

ing conditions. 

Of course, if you have no ideals, no stand- 
ards of what a self-respecting worker should 
do and be, no longing for a channel thru 
which to reach your fellow men in other 
walks of life—if you have none of these, or- 
ganization means nothing to you but a way 
to get shorter hours and more pay, a club to 
hold over somebody’s head. And when you 
have won the added per cent. and your work 
has been lightened, you will neglect the union 
till a new crisis arises. 

To many of us organization means far 
more. It is the expression in practical form 
of brotherhood, of cooperation; it is an in- 
strument thru which our single voice may 
be magnified a thousand, a million fold, till 
all the world must hear. 

No wise business man today dreams of con- 
ducting his affairs without reference to other 
business men. He joins the Business Men’s 
Association or the Commercial Club, or what- 
ever the local merchants call it. If the town 
is too small, they organize the township, or 
the county. If eligible he joins the Manufact- 
urers’ Association or the Rotary Club. He 
knows that he must fail, alone; that he must 
cooperate. What plain Paul Smith says, no- 
body cares; but everyone listens to the State 
Fruit-Growers’ Association, of which Paul 
Smith is a member. 

Just so with the worker. The world “will 
little note or long remember” the woes of 
Pauline Levinsky ; but the demand issued by 
a union of fifteen thousand garment workers 
or a thousand film workers the public reads 
and discusses. 

But the spirit of co-operation is only the 
lirst step in the education of a trade-unionist 


The American Teacher 


183 


—an education, not thru books, but thru liv- 
ing, pulsing human beings; people often who 
have little time for books, who do not give a 
fig for some books that you and I like im- 
mensely, but people who have ideals, and the 
brains to distinguish between what will 
reach those ideals and what will not. They 
see visions and dreams of a real democracy. 
More than that they are willing to give their 
lives to win it, a democracy that draws 
neither color line nor race line, that includes 
business manager as well as humblest worker. 

“Our country is the World,” said Garrison ; 
“Our countrymen are Mankind.” Such a 
democracy can be founded on Brotherhood 
only. The workers of the world are catching 
the spirit. Thru organization they pass it on. 


A PERPLEXED PEDAGOG 


BENJAMIN C GRUENBERG 
Julia Richman High School, New York 


OME weeks ago I was conversing with the 
principal of one of the largest high schools 
in the world, in what seemed to me at the 
time a perfectly friendly and human fashion, 
about things in general. In the course of the 
conversation he remarked, in what was ap- 
parently a casual sort of way, that he had the 
impression that the newspapers were very 
unsatisfactory in their dealings with Russia. 
He felt, as I recall, that they were not only 
concealing important information about that 
unhappy county, but were actually. saying 
things about it that were not one hundred per 
cent. so. At that time, I was inclined to 
agree with him, in a general sort of way. 
Since this occurrence, which at the time 
did not arouse very deep feelings in me, I 
have been driven to brooding over it, and to 
lying awake o’ nights. This is bad both for 
my family and for the public—for I am en- 
gaged to teach in a public school, and lying 
awake o’ nights affects the quality of my 
service to the public. The reason for my 
brooding is that I have made an important 
discovery since that apparently casual con- 
versation. I have discovered that it is con- 
sidered wicked for a person (or at least for 
a teacher) to do one or more of the following: 
(a) Suspect the veracity of the news- 
papers, or of any of them; 
(b) Suspect discrimination in the pre- 





184 


sentation of news, on the part of the news- 
papers; 

(c) Think that any good may still be left 
in Russia outside the remants of the czarist 
system and personnel. 

A teacher in Washington (D. C.) has been 
publicly stigmatized and penalized for hav- 
ing ventured the opinion, in reply to a ques- 
tion in a “current events” class, that the 
Soviet government might be of greater bene- 
fit to the people of Russia than was the abso- 
lutism of the czar. 

A teacher in a still larger city was sus- 
pended for eight weeks without pay and with- 
out charges; and was then put on trial for 
having said in substance what the Principal 
above mentioned said to me, and what two or 
three Senators (U S) said repeatedly on the 
floor of the Senate chamber and elsewhere. 

Now what perplexes me and keeps me 
awake nights is my inability to decide as to 
what my own course should be. 

(1) Should I publicly denounce the Prin- 
cipal for having said what it now appears 
improper for anyone to think—much less 
say? 

(2) Orshould I be loyal to this particular 
Superior Officer and say nothing? 


If I report to the still more Superior Offi- 


cer,.and get that Principal in bad, I should 
have to answer (a) for my disloyalty to the 
first Superior Officer; and (b) for not hav- 
ing more promptly exposed his infamy. 

If I do not report to my still higher officers, 
this unprincipled educator might go on cor- 
rupting the school system to no one knows 
what calamitous end. And besides, there is 
constantly fluttering about the threshold of 
my conscience the unspeakable suspicion 
that this Superior Officer was trying to trap 
me, that sooner or later he will expose my 
silence as evidence of conduct unbecoming a 
teacher. Under the rules of our system it is 
an unpardonable sin to make adverse com- 
ment, report or complaint against a “supe- 
rior ;” and it is an unpardonable sin to think 
on certain subjects. But it is evident that I 
permitted another to commit the latter sin 
without knocking him down on the spot; and 
one of my constant dreads is that he is hold- 
ing it over me until he is good and ready to 
let it fall upon my head. 

. What is a poor perplexed pedagog to do, 
torn thus by conflicting emotions? 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. 8 


WHAT THE HOUSE BILL FOR TEACH. 
ERS’ RETIREMENT PROVIDES 


There shall be deducted from the basic salary of 
every teacher in the public schools of the District of 
Columbia every year an amount sufficient, with interest 
at 4 per cent per annum, compounded annually, to 
purchase an annuity equal to 1 per cent of his an- 
nual basic salary for each year of his whole term of 
service. If a teacher teaches 40 years after this legis- 
lation goes into effect on an annual basic salary of 
$800, enough money will have been deducted from his 
salary at the end of the 40 years to buy him an an- 
nuity for the rest of his expectancy of life after re- 
tirement of 1 per cent of $800, or $8, multiplied by 40, 
the number of years that he has been in the service, 
making $320 per year. 

It is figured that the deduction for teachers who 
enter the service and teach for 40 years will be ap- 
proximately 4 per cent of their salary each year, or 
$32 per year for the teacher who receives a basic salary 
of $800 per year. The amount will be greater for 
those who enter the service later in life and for those 
who have been teaching a number of years at the time 
the law goes into effect, but the bill provides that the 
deductions shall in no case exceed 8 per cent of the 
teacher’s annual basic salary—From School Life of 
September 15, 1919. 


LABORERS PAY BETTER 


Boarding House Keepers Loathe to Take 
Teachers on This Score 


PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 5.—It is easier for a laborer 
than it is for a school teacher to get accommodations 
in an Ardmore boarding house. 

This is the discovery made by S. E. Downs, super- 
intendent of schools of Lower Merion township. 

He made an extended effort at obtaining board 
house accommodations for a half dozen teachers for 
the township schools who are coming here from other 
localities. 

“The situation is becoming worse,” he said. “I had 
one boarding house keeper explain to me that she 
would much rather have school teachers as boarders 
than day laborers, but that the day laborers pay bet- 
ter. They can afford to pay more than teachers can.” 
—From the New York Evening Sun of September 5, 
1919. 


IMPORTANT ARTICLES FOR 
TEACHERS 


“The Payment of American Teachers,” in the 
Nation of August 30, by Prof E S Evenden, of 
Teachers College, New York. 

“The American Federation of Teachers,” in the 
Monthly Labor Review, Vol IX, No 2, Washington, 
D C, by Mrs V B Turner. 

“The Organization of Teachers in the United 
States,” in the Dial of September 20, 1919, by Benja- 


_min Glassberg. 





From the Locals of the American Federation 


of Teachers 


FROM LOCAL NO 5 
(The Teachers Union, New York) 

The Teachers Union of New York has 
launched another membership drive. This 
time the drive has taken the form of a One 
New Member per Member per Month Cam- 
paign. Every member is pledged to be re- 
sponsible for at least one new member each 
month. The task is definite and feasible. 
There is every reason to believe that the 
campaign will result in the unionization of 
the largest school system in the world,—and 
one of the most reactionary. 

Local No 5 has its work cut out for it in 
the field of legislation, in the school world, 
and in the larger labor world. 

Heretofore teachers have been deluded by 
a false sense of security as to their tenure. 
They have believed that their tenure is safe- 
guarded by limitations imposed upon the 
Board of Education as to the manner in 
which teachers may be tried and as to the 
causes for which they may be removed. They 
are beginning to realize now that in New 
York State the Education Law prescribes 
that a teacher may be removed “for cause.” 
The nature of the cause not being described, 
it is within the discretion of the Board to re- 
move the teacher for any cause which to it 
seems reasonable and proper. This general 
fact finds one interesting illustration in the 
dismissal by the Board of a teacher who re- 
fused to answer a question which had no bear- 
ing on the charges which had been brought 
against him. In the case of another teacher 
the efficient cause for her dismissal was her 
membership in the Society of Friends and 
her consequent refusal to take part in certain 
war activities. In the former case, an appeal 
to the courts resulted in the refusal of the 
courts to interfere in what it considered a 
purely administrative matter. Thus, the 
teacher is told that he has no right of appeal 
to the courts, a right which is conceded to the 
policeman and the fireman. 

The Teachers Union is planning to bring 
about legislation which will define the causes 
for which teachers may be dismissed and 
which restore to the teacher the right of re- 
view by a court. In the method of trial also, 


the Union is at work to evolve a plan where- 
by the teacher may be tried by a jury com- 
posed at least in part of his fellows. 

New York City is one of the few large 
cities in which organized labor is not repre- 
sented on the Board of Education. The Board 
is composed of seven members, the term of 
one member expiring each year. The Union 
has already started a campaign the object 
of which it is to secure the appointment of a 
labor man to fill the next vacancy. The Union 
is arousing the labor bodies to the need of 
representation on the Board, and to the 
havoc in the school system for which the 
absence of such representation is partly re- 
sponsible. Labor is responding to the call 
and the chances for success in this direction 
are bright. 

The Teachers Union has begun to collect 
data on the operation of the school system 
in New York. These data it will obtain from 
a source hitherto neglected by all other in- 
vestigators, namely, from the teachers them- 
selves. The Board of Education has author- 
ized recently an investigation on its own ac- 
count. The manner, the purpose, the nature 
of the Board’s investigation are not quite 
clear, but the Union will submit its informa- 
tion to the official investigator and to the 
public generally. As a result of its investiga- 
tion and on the basis of accurate informa- 
tion, the Union hopes to be in a position to 
propose a program of reorganization of the 
administration of the schools and a revision 
of the course of study. 

Another line of activity, which has great 
possibilities, and along which the Union has 
mapped its course for the year, is a closer 
cooperation between the Teachers Union 
and the United Labor Education Board. This 
Labor Education Board has charge of the 
educational work of a number of the most 
powerful and progressive unions in New 
York City. It is no new enterprise. It has 
conducted night classes in the common 
branches, courses on social questions, and 
musical concerts of high quality. Members 
of the Teachers Union will be both teachers 
and students in this cooperative school. 
This affiliation will furnish an invaluable op- 


185 





186 


portunity for an exchange of views and a 
sharing of experience. It will be an addi- 
tional pledge of fellowship between the 
teacher and his fellow worker in other fields 
—and in that fellowship lies the salvation of 
the teacher, and of education. 
JOSEPH JABLONOWER, 
Organizer, Local No 5 


FROM LOCAL NO 59 
(The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers) 


Not long did the Minneapolis Federation 
of Teachers, Local No 59, remain the young- 
est child of the national federation. We had 
barely made ourselves known to the public 
when Local No 70 was announced, and now 
no doubt he is an older brother. 

We came to life just at the moment when 
the opposition thought we had been denied 
forever. There had been a great deal of en- 


thusiasm for some kind of unijon brought 
to a focus at the time of Mr. Stillman’s ad- 
dress on February 1, 1919. The next Satur- 
day was set as a time to decide whether or 


not Minneapolis teachers should join the 
American Federation and align themselves 
with the forces of organized labor. Before 
the appointed time our opponents began to 
work, and on Thursday at an annual pension 
meeting they produced three speakers for 
the opposition, with no one appointed to 
speak for the union. Mr. Robert Cowling, 
Chairman of the organization committee, 
took the floor and begged all present not to 
go away satisfied, but to come to the Satur- 
day meeting in order to hear both sides of 
the question. But the pendulum had swung 
over. The bogey of strikes, disloyalty, un- 
professionalism, dignity of labor without suf- 
ficient remuneration, were all too present. So 
a Teachers League was formed which would 
not affiliate with the A F of L. Perhaps the 
League would have seemed sufficient had it 
not made the mistake at its second meeting 
of allowing principals to become members. 
Soon after this a small group of teachers 
known to be in favor of a federation with 
affiliation was called together and definite 
plans for organization were made. An exec- 
utive committee of five was appointed. This 
committee chose a second committee of thir- 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VILI, No. + 


teen, and the eighteen members drew up « 
constitution, by-laws, and a program. 

We delayed sending for a charter from 
March 1 to March 31 on account of the critica! 
salary situation which the League was al- 
ready handling. On April 12 at our firs: 
public meeting the charter had not arrived, 
but it bears the date April 2. The meeting 
of April 12 adopted the constitution and by- 
laws, accepted the tentative program, elected 
officers and decided to rent an office. Since 
then we have held meetings, committee and 
Federation alike, served tea, and enjoyed 
ourselves generally at headquarters, 109 So 
9th Street. 

Our membership is growing steadily. We 
have begun to work out our program on cer- 
tain points “For the Teacher,” and “For the 
Community.” We have also printed a smal! 
paper called “Federation News” the first of 
two issues we hope to produce this year. Mr 
Louis Wallis addressed one of our meetings 
and Miss Alice Paul addressed our June 
meeting. 

Fraternally yours, 
ALTHEA HEITSMITH, 
Publicity Chairman. 


A LIVING WAGE 


The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Again 
Demands That Their Positions Be Dignified 
By Reasonable Incomes 


Last: year the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers 
deferred to the unionized teachers in the matter of 
the salary campaign. This was done to keep faith with 
those who were afraid that the union would embarrass 
the efforts of the committee appointed by the massed 
teachers thru giving the impression that there was div- 
ision among the teachers. At the same time we filed 
with the board a protest against their calling the in- 
crease granted a bonus, or war cost extra that will 
logically be withdrawn when a new schedule is 
adopted. We protested also against being put into a 
position where. we could not campaign for salaries, 
for we considered the increase granted last year as 
a mere makeshift, in no way adequate to the crisis 
which confronted us. The plain fact is that whereas 
in the last decade every article commonly used by those 
who board, clothe and shelter us or by those of us who 
have taken the responsibility of supplying ourselves, 
has been increased over 100 per cent; during the same 
time our incomes have not averaged an increase of 
more than 50 per cent. To be more concrete, in 1916 
the cost of living for a working-man’s family of five 
was, according to a wage commission reporting in Chi- 





October, 1919 


cago, $1,000; in 1919 that cost, according to conserva- 
tive authority is $1,600. While we class ourselves with 
workimen, it is unnecessary to point out to an intelli- 
gent community that the positive requirements of our 
positions make an increase of at least 33 1-3 per cent 
a reasonable estimate. Immediately, then, the salary 
»f every teacher in Minneapolis should be increased 
to meet the absolute need. We call the teachers of 
Minneapolis to rally as never before to meet the issue 
here presented. This year should be the grand oppor- 
tunity to strike for right. Any one who cannot see 
this must be either possessed of private means or be 
steeped in the lotus dream of natural selection. Let 
us march to this tune: It goes manly; less will be the 
portion of the beggar: 


Schedule for 1920 

A minimum of $1,500 for every 
schools. 

All teachers now in the schools to receive another 
advance of $200. 

No merit system—no maximum—no dismissals ex- 
cept for proven cause. 

This last plank is important, for there is evidence 
that the temptation to replace experienced teachers 
who are expensive by young graduates who come into 
the system at the minimum wage is too great to resist 
unless the organized teachers put stamina into the 
executive force. This can be done only by the insti- 
tution of a faculty committee, similar to the shop com- 
mittees in the English factories, in every school build- 
ing, grade or high, this committee to advise the prin- 
cipal concerning the matters of educational efficiency 
that they understand better than he or she does. This 
committee would be of great use to safeguard the in- 
terests of pupils now often sacrificed to a false econ- 
omy, as well as to block the extravagance that often 
obtains under the impression that something or other 
is being done to increase efficiency. 

TEACHERS: Not your own interests, alone, but the 
good of the Minneapolis schools, and indeed of the 
entire nation, demands your unified action. Work 
with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and 
thru it with the American Federation of Teachers, in 
over 100 organizations in city, village and country; 
and thru it with the American Federation of Labor, 
representing over 3,000,000 taxpaying families in the 
United States, and now closely allied with millions of 
taxpaying farmers, and thereby exerting unprecedented 
influence in the counsels of the nation. 

TEACHERS! Arise, come with us and we will do 
you good. Join Local 59—From The Federation News 
for September, 1919. 


FROM LOCAL NO 72 
(Fresno High School Local, Fresno, Cal) 
We are getting along nicely. We are al- 
ready doing things which we think are worth 
while. And at the same time we are gain- 


teacher in the 


The American Teacher 


187 


ing strength. Our grammar and grade 
school teachers have formed an organization. 

We are looking forward anxiously to the 
time when teachers all over the country will 
be firmly organized into this federation, for 
we feel that in this way, and only in this way 
will the teachers of the country come into 
their own. We cannot rely upon sentiment 


and the kindheartedness of the other fellow. 
Fraternally yours, 
WM A AUSTIN, 
Corresponding Secretary, Local No 72. 


FROM LOCAL NO 107 
(Moniteau County Teachers Union, 
Tipton, Mo) 

While attending the summer session of 
the State Teachers College at Warrensburg, 
Mo, we learned of the American Federation 
of Teachers. Tentative plans were made to 
organize locals in every county where it was 
possible. Accordingly, at the regular Aug- 
ust Association of Public School teachers in 
Moniteau County the matter was presented 
and 43 signatures were signed to a petition 
applying for a charter in the American Fed- 
eration. A temporary organization was 
formed with the following officers: Chair- 
man, W I Oliver, California, Mo; Secretary, 
C O Williams, Tipton, Mo. 

A letter from the National Secretary ad- 
vises me that our organization for which a 
charter was granted on September 6th, is 
the first to be formed in this State. We are 
planning to effect a permanent organization 
on September 27th. At that time we shall 
make a special effort to get every teacher in 
the county lined up. 

I am expecting a big movement in the 
unionization of teachers in Missouri this 
Fall, and I am pleased that we were able to 
form the first organization. 

Our teachers are underpaid and schools 
are handicapped for lack of funds. Both of 
these conditions we expect to be remedied by 
a compact organization of teachers. 

Fraternally yours, 
C O WILLIAMS, 
Secretary, Moniteau Co Union No 107. 


Miss Lizzie Wooster, state superintendent of public 
instruction in Kansas, is reported to have cautioned 
the women school teachers of the Sunflower State 
against the use of too much cosmetic——From The IIli- 
nois Teacher of September, 1919. 





188 


UNIONIZING THE PROFESSIONS 


First it was the Teachers Federation of Chicago, 
followed by the teachers of other cities, then the pro- 
fessors of Harvard, then the scientists and specialists 
of Washington, who had unionized their profession 
and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. 
The once despised labor union has become a power that 
the brain worker looks to as the only agency that can 
redress his grievances. 

The Chicago teachers as teachers were laughed at 
by the politicians and ignored by the press; but they 
were taken seriously when they became members of 
the American Federation of Labor. The professors 
have been a sort of standing joke as men of highest 
learning who command the wages of children. And 
the technical experts have seen brawn with almost no 
training enjoying better wages and more freedom than 
brains with years of training. 

Now it is the actors, best loved and most abused of 
our fellows! 

Time was when the theatre was thought of as a 
combination of playwright, actors, and audience. A 
new factor has entered—the manager. He calls him- 
self a manager, but is really an exploiter. He knows 
nothing of histrionic art. Like the vendor of patent 
medicines and gewgaws he tries to discover what will 
draw the public to the box office. If he can find a 
popular actor he starves the rest of the troupe and the 
playwright. If he gets a popular play he starves both 
the star and the troupe. He knows little of literature 
and less of art. His sole guide and measure is the box 
office receipts. He fixes royalties for authors, salaries 
for actors, and thru speculators juggles prices with 
the public. 

He advertises himself instead of his troupe. And 
even when he has a great actor to exploit his announce- 
ment reads, “Mr. Blank presents Mr. Star.” He has 
been deaf ‘o all protests. He has treated the temper- 
amental genius as he would the phlegmatic coal heaver. 
Consequently, there was nothing left but to organize 
the actors after the manner of the coal heavers. But 
when the actors as a profession attempted to bring 
pressure to bear upon the managers they merely pro- 
voked derision. As members of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor, however, it will be different. The man- 
ager cdred little if his actor struck—he could hire an- 
other. But if his audience strikes also it will be serious. 

And that is what the new move means; for the hod 
carrier, coat makers, scrub women and the various 
trades will not patronize the “unfair” theatre. It was 
humiliating to some to ally themselves with trades 
unions, but now that teachers, professors, scientists, and 
actors have taken the plunge, it will be easy for the 
rest to follow. The Authors’ League seriously con- 
sidered the step a year ago, but the proposal was voted 
down. Next time there will probably be a different 
result. The worker is asserting himself in politics, in- 
dustry and in the professions—From The Public of 
August 23, 1919. 


THE ACTORS’ STRIKE 

The actors and stagehands’ strike, centering in New 
York and ramifying into the theatrical unions of Chi- 
cago, Boston, and Providence, ended after more than 
three weeks of bitter controversy with each faction 
claiming victory; the Actors’ Equity Association, hav- 
ing won the recognition of the managers; the Fidelity 
League of actors, a new organization; loyal to the 
managers, satisfied that it would not be discriminated 
against; and finally, the managers, elated with the 


The American Teacher 


Vol. VIII, No. & 


privilege of still keeping open shop. The theatrica! 
workers agreed not to go on sympathetic strike during 
five years; a board of arbitration, representing man- 
agers and actors was created; and complete amnesty 
so far as personal discrimination is concerned, was de- 
clared. The chorus is hereafter to receive a min- 
imum of $30 per week; full salaries are to be paid 
to actors after four weeks of rehearsal in the “legit” 
and five weeks in musical plays; and eight perform- 
ances are to constitute a week’s work. stus 
Thomas, who presided at the final getting together, said 
that it was neither the actors nor the managers who in 
reality won the fight. The true victors were the stage 
hands, who walked out on sympathetic strike in 68 
of the theaters thruout the country. Meanwhile, in 
Paris the players, musicians, and stagehands, emulating 
the American precedent, organized in strong unions, 
and either walked out or were loched out, and th 
Madrid theatrical workers formed associations for th: 
purpose of presenting demands for more favorable 
contracts.—From The Public of September 13, 1919. 


TEACHERS’ STRIKES 


More than once in recent months we have expressed 
our views on the method of the strike as employed 
by teachers, and we observe with great regret that it 
still seems to find favour among a considerable section 
of the profession. We are glad to note that Mr. Fisher, 
in his recent address to the teachers of Dorsetshire, 
took exactly the view which we have ventured tu 
urge in these columns. No one can say that Mr. Fisher 
is not a friend of the teachers. Most of us would 
probably say that he is the truest, as well as the most 
powerful, friend that the teachers ever had in high 
places. But he warns us that a teachers’ strike, : unlike 
any other strike, injures not the employers, who lose 
nothing by it, but the children, who lose a very great 
deal, and the teachers themselves, who may lose in 
calculably in moral prestige, and ultimately in pro- 
fessional prospects. It is no answer to say as we 
understand The Schoolmaster to say, that moral in- 
fluence ought not to be expected from teachers alone, 
but from Education Committees as well. The locked- 
out children who swarm the streets of certain areas 
know nothing of Education Committees, and even their 
parents are apt to see these matters through the chil 
dren’s eyes. Except in a very indirect sense, one may 
as well talk about the moral influence of the moon as 
about that of an Educational Committee. Moral in 
fluence is essentially personal influence, and it is just 
there that teachers on strike stand to lose irreparably 
—From The Journal of Education (London) of 
August, 1919. 


THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LOCAL 
EDUCATION AUTHORITIES 


Greatly as we deprecate force as a remedy for 
teachers’ grievances, we would still urge upon the em 
ployers of teachers—i. e. upon the Local Education 
Authorities—how great a responsibility lies upon them 
in these days of collective action. Assuming, as we 
suppose we may do, that The London Teacher fairly 
reflects the present frame of mind of the teachers oi 
the metropolis, the position there is obviously serious. 
The remarks of the editor betoken a studied restraint 
which cannot but command respect. Yet he tells us 
that “the blight of despair hangs over the London 
teaching service,” that “the teachers are bruised in 
spirit and sore at heart,” and that two years ago 





October, 1919 


“mutiny was averted only by arbitration.” He believes 
that the London County Council, as a body, desire a 
contented teaching service relieved from penury, and 
that a majority of the Council is anxious to see 
justice done to the teachers. We welcome the im- 
provement in salaries on which the Council have just 
decided; but the Council is a large body, the rank 
and file of which are accustomed to follow their 
leaders, and there is clearly a lurking fear lest those 
leaders should “gamble on the docility of the teach- 
ers.” The warning here conveyed, and conveyed with 
a due sense of responsibility, is unmistakable. We 
trust that it will not be lost upon the Council, but 
that they will realize the vital importance of doing 
everything that is reasonable and just for the teachers 
in their employ—From The Journal of Education 
(London) of August, 1919. 


TEACHERS’ STRIKES IN ENGLAND 

\ll the elementary schools in Northampton were 
closed recently in consequence of the strike by 400 
teachers of the city. The strike was called to enforce 
demands for an improved scale of salaries. A similar 
occurrence took place at North Riding, where, as a 
result of dispute over the salaries question, about 150 
out of 400 schools in that area had to be closed.—From 
School Life of August, 1919. 


WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE 
TEACHER’S JOB? 

The Independent of New York in its issue 
of July 19, 1919, asked the question given 
in this title. The Independent “along with 
many others who are interested in educa- 
tion, is convinced that there is something the 
matter with the teacher’s job. We want to 
find out if we can what is the matter, and 
what can be done about it. We are asking a 
large group of teachers in every State in the 
Union what they can tell us.” 

In addition teachers who read the article 
are asked to give the Independent the benefit 
of their experience. 

The following interesting questions were 
asked: 

How much do you have left after the bills 
are paid? 

Should the principal select the teachers, or 
the teachers the principal? 

Should school organizations be democratic? 
Why is a school board? Are teachers Ish- 
maels in the community? Are teachers un- 
derpaid? What can be done about it all? 
Have teachers the right of free speech? 

Does a school board ever ask a teacher‘s ad- 
vice? Should it? Is the teacher—like the doc- 


tor and the lawyer—respected as a member of 
a profession? 


These questions indicate that the IJnde- 
pendent itself has been receiving a liberal 
education in the union movement. When that 
periodical is quite ready, we trust that it will 
deliver itself of its convictions on this im- 
portant matter. 


The American Teacher 


HOWLERS 
FROM THE “BOLSHEVIK” 
EXAMINATION CONDUCTED IN THE HIGH 
SCHOOLS BY THE NEW YORK BOARD OF 
SUPERINTENDENTS IN JUNE, 1919. 

“Kerensky was the Czar of Russia who 
was overthrown.” 

“Allenby is comander of the English troops 
on the East Side.” 

“Alsace Lorraine was a cause of the war 
because the Germans wanted to come thru 
Alsace Lorraine to Fiume that’s why Alsace 
Lorraine was a cause of the war.” 

“Kerensky was a Russian Bolshevik 
leader.” 

“The Russian Bolsheviki are people who 
believe in governing by the mass and equal 
rights for all. They originated in Russia 
but spread in all countries. They do not be- 
lieve in order or in law. They want to cut 
out all politics, taxes and graft.” 

“The right of each person to the products 
of his efforts is not in accordance with the 
Bolsheviki way of thinking, because they are 
against work of any kind.” 


It is for you, without hope of aid or support, or 
even of consent, to change primary education from 


the ground up, in order to make workers. There is 
place today in our society only for workers; the rest 
will be swept away in the storm. Make intelligent 
workers, instructed in the arts they practice, know- 
ing what they owe to the national and to the human 
community. 

Burn all the books which teach hatred. Enxalt 
work and love. Let us develop reasonable men, ca- 
pable of trampling under foot the vain splendor of 
barbaric glories—Anatole France, from address to 
Convention at Tours, on August 7, 1919. 


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, Cuar.es B Stittman, Chicago 
1620 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, III. 


Secretary-Treasurer, F G Srecxer, Chicago 
1618 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, IIl. 


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





Roster of Locals of the American Federation of Teachers 


(With Names of Secretaries) 


Hosoken FeEpERATION OF TEACHERS 
Florence H Yeaton 204 Eleventh Street, Hoboken, N J 


CoLLinsvILLeE GRADE TEACHERS FELLOWSHIP 
Cora M Jones 904 W Clay Street, Collinsville, Ill 


Fresno ELEMENTARY TEACHERS LOCAL 
Hattie Hammat 1020 Roosevelt Avenue, Fresno, Cal 


Union or Boston H S Women TEACHERS 
Margaret C Cotter 7 Ashton Place, Cambridge, Mass 


Newark TEACHERS UNION 
Edna Furman 156 N 7th Street, Newark, N J 


Jersey Crry Teachers UNION 

Helene R Cummings 2128 Boulevard, Jersey City, N J 
Boston Women TEACHERS UNION 

Anna M Niland 202 Byron Street, East Boston, Mass 
Atitanta P S TeacHers ASSOCIATION 

Mary C Barker 123 Myrtle Street, Atlanta, Ga 
INDIANAPOLIS TEACHERS COOPERATIVE Ass’N 

F H Gillespie 1520 E Vermont Street, Indianapolis, Ind 
Sioux Crry Senior Hich ScHoot CHAPTER 

Jane Chase 
Paterson TEACHERS UNION 

Lillian Mitchell, 114 Paterson Street, Paterson, N J 


MERIDAN 
Sue F Hamm 2008 Eleventh Street, Meridan, Miss 


FitcHpurG TEACHERS FEDERATION 

Helen F Stratton 80 Highland Avenue, Fitchburg, Mass 
PAWTUCKET TEACHERS FEDERATION 

Mary E Keenan Box 488, Providence, R I 
Cottece TEACHERS ORGANIZATION 
(North Dakota Agricultural College) 

Katherine Jensen 1106 College Street, Fargo, N D 
CAMBRIDGE 

Mary G Snow 1129 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Mass 
Senior High ScHoot TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF 
TRENTON 

Ona E Reed 32 N Clinton Avenue, Trenton N J 


WasHBurRN TEACHERS FEDERATION 
AM Hyde 16th and Boswell Streets, Topeka, Kans 


Boston FEepERATION OF MEN TEACHERS 
John A: Marsh 56 Peter Parley Road, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Mass 


Superior State NorMAt Sch or CHAPTER 

Agnes V Kirk State Normal School, Superior, Wis 
BEAUMONT TEACHERS ASSOCI’.TION 

Effie Piland 496 Highland Avenue, Beaumont, Tex 


BELLINGHAM FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
P H Evanson 159 Howe Street, Seattle, Wash 


Lynn LocaL 
Mary P O’Neill 58 Autumn Street, E Lynn, Mass 


San Antonio TEACHERS LOCAL 
Mrs L E Gates 311 S San Jacinto Street, San Antonio, Texas 
McCracken County FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
S J Billington | R FD No 5, Paducah, Ky 
Monireau County TEACHERS UNION 
C O Williams Tipton, Mo 
Jounson County TEacHERs UNION 
Nellie Hart Sterling Warrensburg, Mo 
Bates County TEACHERS UNION 
Charles A Lee Butler, Mo 
St Louis Hich ScHoot TeacHers ASSOCIATION 
L Gilbert Dake 5854 Maple Avenue, St Louis, Mo 
111 HicH ScHoot TeacHers UNIon or Portianp, OrE 
Nettie Mae Rankin 1157 E Broadway, Portland, Ore 
112 Lorain 
W C Phebus 1143 Eighth Street, Lorain, Ohio 
California State Federation of Teachers, Organized May 31, 1919. (Vallejo, Sacramento High School 
Sacramento Elementary, Visalia, San Francisco, Fresno High School, Benicia, Fresno Elementary Locals.) 
ei S G McLean, 1723 M Street, Sacramento, Calif. Sec, Josephine Colby, 124 N Van Ness Boul, Fresno, 
alif. 
When practicable the locals of any state may. organize a state federation of teachers, draft a constitution, 
elect officers, levy per capita, and take steps to advance the interests of the membership in that state, by an 
with the consent of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Teachers. 


190 


1620 Jackson Street, Sioux City, Ia 





Cooperative Scholars 


Dr HIRCANO Ayuso Y O’HORIBE 


Chief of the Department of Public Education of Yucatan, Mexico 


HE establishment of cooperative socie- 

ties is a problem of evident reality, 

which the working-classes, for their 
part, are already trying to solve, as a remedy 
for tempering the severity of their economic 
difficulties; and this same problem, because 
of its importance, because of its indisputable 
transcendency, must also reach the school, 
altho in a different form, so that the minds 
of the children, the workmen of to-morrow, 
may be trained to it from the beginning, and 
in order to prepare for the advent of a social 
order, better than our own, resulting from 
the well-being of each of its members. 

There is a true school of love and frater- 
nity in cooperation. When our wills join 
and cooperate in the execution of the same 
aim, the personality which induces the ac- 
tion becomes one. Then the force of cohesion 
between human entities develops, and one 
learns the never-to-be forgotten fact, that in 
union there is strength. Cooperation is an 
element making for order, as it inspires love 
for propriety, always the enemy of disorder ; 
it increases the spirit of association, estab- 
lishing among individuals bonds of union, 
brotherhood and solidarity ; it contributes to 
the fortification of the spirit of morality, 
through the custom of making good use of 
savings; and it inspires ideals of economy, 
stimulating each one, by the example of the 
rest, to strive to be better, more skilful, and 
more intelligent, with the purpose of gain- 
ing respect and esteem among his associates. 

An attempt at cooperation could be made 
in the school. Not only the cooperation of 
capital, nor only that of production, nor only 
that of consumption; for the children are 
not exclusively capitalists, nor producers, nor 


consumers, but something of each. All chil- 
dren have savings, however, small they may 
be, and in these capital is represented. All 
children produce, either in the scholastic 
field, or in manual work, or in the numerous 
little tasks and industries which their awak- 
ening activity induces them to undertake; 
and in all this production is represented. All 
children consume, for they buy books, note- 
books, pencils, candy, etc.; and in this is 
represented consumption. Then why not 
profit by those laws which govern the small 
society of the school, opening the eyes of the 
child to the light, which to-morrow, in the 
great society of life, will blind him, if he has 
not been taught about it, or will ennoble him 
if he has been educated to it? 

The above expressed considerations the 
Department of Public Education of Yucatan 
has made to the faculty of the schools of 
Merida, the Capital for this department is 
trying to bring about a first trial at coopera- 
tion in the institutions of learning, for which 
purpose it has recommended to the faculty 
that they should study attentively the fitness 
for this which the pupils show, and how it 
may be taken advantage of. 

Cooperation has an indisputable import- 
ance in the child-mind. If we succeed in es- 
tablishing small but complete cooperative so- 
cieties in our schools, we shall have gained 
for the future of our people a surety of bet- 
ter times. 

The School Republic has already been 
tried. 

Now we are going to try this useful and 
important reform.—Translated by Miss 
Edna Davidson, Jamaica High School, Ja- 
maica, N. Y. 


191 





The American Teacher Vol. VIII, No. 8 


Theres one article - 


TEACHERS! | Ycteelsquiteent otic 


Mahe Money WEB STER*’ - si 


by Getting Advertisements 


for The American Teacher NEW INTERNATIONAL 
DICTIONARY 


We Pay Good Commissions. Buff Buckram Binding 








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Some business firms in your less than it did four years ago; still, you 
3 may buy for your school or for your personal 
locality would surely welcome use this “Supreme Authority,” containing 

’ hundreds of the New Words, including war 
the chance to reach the terms (a better book thanin 1914) ~~—__- 


at no increase in price. 
teachers of the country. Rt. NEW INTERNATIONAL is as 
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One Inch J < ‘‘What Fun to Play Merriam-Dicti Games,” 
“Unlocks the Door,”’ “‘Dog-Day Club.”’ 


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POWTTOVeG UUMTUARGUULLL ADU LLAUAAPS L119 




















DON’T BUY FURS THIS WINTER 


until you have called on 


The Teachers Cooperative, 1181 Broadway, New York 


NATURALLY every woman likes furs. Yet she is liable to stint 

herself in her ambition to wear that article on account of the 
present high prices which it brings. By arrangement with some of 
the leading fur manufacturers, we are enabled to sell to the teachers 
at practically wholesale prices. 


How Would You Like to Save from 25% to 35%? 


The Teachers Cooperative, composed of a group of New York city 
school teachers, is studying the problem of solving the high cost 
of living for the teacher. We have begun with furs, which today 
is a woman’s necessity. We help you buy and save. 


Furs of Every Quality and Description. 
Call or Write Without Delay. Out of Town Orders Filled. 




















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