NOVEMBER, 1926 : VOL. XI—No. 3 


e 


Democracy in Education _ Education for Democracy 


The . 
American Teacher 


THE ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 














Workers’ 
Education 


As the laborers acquire knowledge, 
the foundations of the social edifice 
will be dug up from the deep beds into 
which they were laid in times past, 
they will be curiously handled and 
closely examined, and they will not be 
restored unless they were originally 
laid in justice, and unless justice com- 
mands their preservation. 

—Thomas Hodgskin 





— 








lished by 
E 





Publis P 
AMERICAN || FEDERATION B20 327 So. La Salle St., Chicago . 
Single Copy 15c—Yearly Subscription $1.00 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 











‘‘T am the Public School. 

‘I am of many-storied stone,- soaring above busy city thorough- 
fares, or I am a mere cluster of weather-beaten boards in a wilder- 
ness that is trackless save for the path leading to my door. 

‘*I am the guardian of the hopes of every generation, and I am 
true to my trust. 

‘In me all things are equal; in me are no distinctions among 
those who come to me except the paramount distinction between 
those who are proud to serve and those who seek only to be served. 


‘It is my duty not alone to teach but equally to learn; to keep 
perpetually a light upon my altars, kindling them forever afresh 
from the inextinguishable flame that burns in every young heart, 
the sacred fires of love of knowledge and love of freedom and love 
of country, for as I succeed, America succeeds. 

‘IT am the Public School.”’ 

JOHN J. TIGERT, 


Commissioner of Education 























CONTENTS 


What Does Workers’ Education Mean for Education 
A. J. Muste 


Teachers’ Unions in Other Countries 
Dorothy P. Gary 


When Outside Help Is Inside Help in Workers’ Education.... 
Selma M. Borchardt 


Labor Colleges 

Our Executive Board 

Editorials 

Attacks on Tenure and Academic Freedom 
Book Reviews 

Our Locals 























The Ainertcdy Teacher 


Entered as second class matter October 20, 1926, at the post office at Ch 


Illinois, under the Act of March 8, 1879. Acceptance 


for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of February 28, 1925, authorized November 3, 1926. 








Volume XI, No. 3 


NOVEMBER, 1926 


One Dollar a Year 








What Does Workers’ Education Mean 


for Education? 


A. J. MUSTE 
Dean of Faculty of Brookwood Labor College 


That millions of adults in all civilized lands 
should be attending classes, lectures, forums 
regularly, should be devoting time and energy 
to getting’ or extending their education, is a 
significant phenomenon. Even more significant 
perhaps, though the numbers involved are much 
fewer, is the fact that in the United States this 
winter several tens of thousands, in countries 
like Great Britain and Germany a hundred 
thousand or more, working men and women will 
gather in classes at the close of a strenuous day’s 
manual toil, digging into the mysteries of eco- 
nomics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, history 
and the like. What are some of the basic and 
important implications of this development in 
workers’ education? 

Workers’ education, as the very name implies, 
impinges on two great fields of human effort, 
the field of labor and the field of education. In 
this brief essay, we shall confine ourselves to a 
consideration of what workers’ education signifies 
in the field of education. 

First of all, these men and women in workers’ 
classes are the symbol and prophecy that the time 
is at hand when we shall realize the ideal of 
unlimited educational opportunity for all of the 
people all of the time. That was the ideal of 
those who were most earnestly concerned with 
the founding of the public school system in this 
country, though in practice their efforts were 
confined to attempting to provide free educational 
opportunity for all children. The ideal of un- 
limited educational opportunity for all of the 
people all of* the time has never been realized, 
and for two main reasons. In the first place, 
education has always been, to a great extent, a 
class privilege. If you belonged to a certain 
social group, if you had, that is, the money and 
the power, then educational opportunity was open 


for you, otherwise the doors were closed. But in 
the second place, the world has never been rich 
enough to be able to afford the luxury of open- 
ing up to all of the people all of the time just 
as much educational opportunity as they could 
take advantage of. 

Now the time is at hand when, at least in a 
country like the United States, if we will but 
take fair advantage of the resources to hand, we 
can afford to provide practically unlimited edu- 
cational opportunity, and hundreds and thousands 
of workers are serving notice that the masses will 
not longer be shut out from that opportunity which 
can be made available, and that we are, therefore, 
about to realize the ideal of free education for 
all of the people all of the time. 

Secondly, the development of workers’ edu- 
cation symbolizes the passing of the old notion 
that education is preparation for life. That has 
been the prevalent idea; a point arrives at which 
you are supposed to be prepared for life and 
then your education is at an end. This idea is 
bound up with another, namely, that life consists 
in making a living. That is, of course, what life 
has consisted of almést exclusively for the vast 
majority of people from the dawn of history until 
now. As long as life consisted of making a 
living, you were given as much education, and 
such a kind of education as would fit you for 
making a living at your particular vocation. 
When that had been achieved, your education 
was naturally at an end. 

Accordingly, if you were a peasant you received 
no formal education at all. You did not need to 
know how to read and write in order to drive 
a plough and milk a cow. But an illiterate can- 
not be trusted to run a modern machine or even 
to keep himself out of harm’s way in a modern 
factory. And so to serve the needs of industry, 





4 THE AMERICAN TEACHER ° 


a so-called common school education is placed at 
the disposal of most children in industrial coun- 
tries. It will be noted that common school de- 
velopment is still exceedingly backward in the 
rural sections of the United States, not to mention 
less wealthy countries. A certain number of 
people are required for clerical and lesser super- 
visory positions, and enough young people to 
meet this demand get a chance to go to business 
or high school. A still smaller number find 
opportunity for technical and professional training 
open to them. Those who are to own and control 
go to college, not so much because of what they 
may learn there, but because in order to be quali- 
fied to make your living out of owning and con- 
trolling, you must have a certain stamp of culture 
on you. In every case, when you have gone 
through the process whereby you can make a 
living at your particular job, your education ends. 
You are educated, prepared for life. 

Once enable man to get beyond the idea that 
life consists chiefly in making a living, education 
may cease to be preparation for life, for making 
your living at a particular job. Education may 
then become what it should be—a process by 
which on one hand a man absorbs the heritage 
of the past, what men before him have thought 
and felt, and on the other hand, constantly re- 
examines his own life, subjects it to exacting 
criticism, in order that all his capacities for action 
and appreciation may be enlarged. Such a process 
obviously is a continuous process. It does not 
come to an end Commencement Day. A man is 
never educated, but always being educated, for 
he who is already educated, is not yet educated. 
This conception of education, this ending of the 
old notion that education is a preparation for 
getting a living, save in a very minor degree, is 
symbolized by the Workers’ Education Movement. 

Incidentally, let anyone who has ever had any- 
thing to do with the schooling of children reflect 
for a moment and he will realize that nothing 
short of a revolution in our dealing with children 
will take place when once this conception of 
education as absorption of culture and self criti- 
cism of life, which is of the essence of workers’ 
education, is also applied to the problems of our 
kindergarten, elementary and secondary schools. 

In the third place, workers’ education sym- 
bolizes the passing of still another age-old con- 
ception, namely, that manual labor and culture or 


education do not go together. Since the indus- 
trial era came in, at any rate, that has been the 
dominant idea. If a man is cultured, educated, 
then it is not to be thought of that he should 
work with his hands: if he does, then why was 
the expense of educating him incurred? On the 
other hand, if a man works with his hands, it 
is taken for granted, that he cannot be educated 
or cultured. The workers themselves have for 
the most part accepted this ignominious idea. 
It has happened to our Brookwood graduates 
that when they have left Brookwood and gone 
back to work in shop or mine, their own families 
and fellow workers have not known what to make 
of it: to have gone to college and not to be at 
least a dentist or a shyster lawyer! To go back 
to the same old job: there must be something 
very wrong! 

Workers’ education suggests the coming of the 
time when there will be no arbitrary division 
between culture and work of any kind, when no 
work shall be menial, and when no culture shall 
be exclusive. In that day all men shall be pro- 
letarians in the sense of Nexo, the Scandinavian 
novelist, in that great and penetrating utterance of 
his: “A bourgeois is one whose material standard 
of living is higher than his spiritual, while a 
proletarian is one whose spiritual standard is 
higher than his material.” When no one has 
any longer to subsist on an inadequate material 
standard, then all may appropriate the heritage 
of culture freely, and live in fellowship truly, 
and so maintain a spiritual, intellectual, cultural 
standard higher than their material standard of 
living. 

It is apparent, we may note in conclusion, that 
only as these goals, implicit in the Workers’ Edu- 
cation Movement, are realized, can the dilemma 
of democracy be solved. Democracy we have 
worshipped with our lips, but in our hearts we 
confess its failure. Yet the democratic ideal can- 
not really be abandoned ; the people cannot resign 
the control of their own destiny in the long run. 
If, however, all men have unlimited access to 
educational opportunity, if a true conception of 
the educational process obtains, and if the artifi- 
cial divorce between work and culture is obliter- 
ated, it will be cause for rejoicing, and not for 
apprehension that the people cannot resign the 
control of their own destiny. Democracy will 
be by way of being realized. 





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Teachers’ Unions in Other Countries 


DOROTHY P. GARY 
University of Minnesota 


- Americans travel. to Europe for varying 
reasons. I went over this past summer with the 
definite idea of learning as much of the European 
Labor Movement as possible in two short months, 
and with only two and a half languages at my 
disposal. As a teacher, I was especially interested 
in studying the material situation and unionization 
of teachers. 

These articles presenting the facts as I gathered 
them, are merely sketches and not complete 
sociological studies. However, the facts are 
sufficient to make them of real value to our 
Federation members. 


Have the British Teachers a Union? 

As we Federationists understand the term, there 
is no full-fledged teachers’ union in England. The 
National Union of Teachers, a powerful organi- 
zation of 117,000 teachers (exactly two-thirds of 
the total teaching body), with a fifty-four year 
record of growth and achievement behind it, has 
all the essential characteristics of a union except 
one. It has conducted successful strikes, nego- 
tiated national agreements, protected and defended 
its dismissed members, and fought successfully 
for tenure and salary increases. It stands ir- 
revocably on the principle of collective bargain- 
ing—yet, as a national organization it has never 
affiliated with the British Trade Union Move- 
ment. This is its main shortcoming and source 
of weakness. 

The class lines are drawn very tightly in Eng- 
land, and the teachers are trying to hold on to 
the shreds of “respectability.” They want to be 
known only as ‘professionals’ and not also as 
workers. Also, they are not yet ready wholly to 
identify themselves with the interests and aims of 
the organized workers’ movement. 

In spite of this, the relationship of the N. U. 
T. with the British Trade Union Movement is in 
general most friendly. Organized labor has sup- 
ported the teachers in every struggle where aid 
was asked. There is no prohibition against any 
local unit of the N. U. T. affiliating with the 
local labor body, and some of the most active 
branches have done so. Many prominent mem- 
bers of the N. U. T. are active in the Labor Party 
(as other members are active in the Liberal and 


Tory Parties). One executive board member 
is a Labor M. P. 

A growing minority in the N. U. T. is agitating 
for affiliation locally, nationally and internation- 
ally with organized labor. 


How British Teachers Won National 
Agreement 

In 1913-14 the N. U. T. launched an intensive 
campaign to raise salaries, which were surpris- 
ingly low. This campaign resulted in 50% of 
the 320 scales then in existence being improved. 
The outbreak of the World War, and the plea 
for the teachers to be “patriotic” and accept their 
low salaries as part of winning the war, caused 
the N. U. T. to temporarily abandon the cam- 
paign. But by 1916-17 patriotism seemed not 
enough to the teachers, and they again opened 
their campaign to.improve their poor standard 
of living. This campaign raged throughout Eng- 
land and Wales for the next four years. Es- 
pecially after the Armistice, the struggles of local 
branches of the N. U. T. with local education 
authorities increased in number and determina- 
tion. Strikes were widespread. In every 
instance where the teachers placed their cause 
before the union workers, they received undivided 
support. This support, of course, greatly 
hastened the capitulation of the L. E. A. (Local 
Education Authority) to the teachers’ demands. 

This is the story, as told me by the N. U. T. 
national woman organizer, Miss S. Griffiths, of 
a fight waged by the teachers in 1919, in Rhondda, 
South Wales. ‘ 

“Rhondda is 2 union mining town, but we 
teachers were absolutely unorganized, and fear- 
fully underpaid. Unlicensed certificafed men 
teachers were earning as little as 30 shillings 
($7.50) a week. Many of these men had families 
to support. Elementary teachers were earning 
£70 a year ($350), with the maximum at £110 
a year. Cost of living was high at the time. 

“Union miners were earning £5 a week, so we 
teachers decided to organize a union and increase 
our salaries. Our negotiations with the L. E. A. 
failed, so we came out on strike. Eleven hundred 
teachers, one hundred per cent out. We appealed 
to the local trade union council, and put our case 





6 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


before the local union meetings, and they gave us 
great support. Our local affiliated to the trade 
union council. The N. U. T. sent down, organi- 
zers and for the month we were out on strike 
they paid our salaries in full. We won the best 
scale in the country, and as news of this spread, 
teachers in Southampton, Gateshead, and various 
other places went on strike also. The authorities 
soon tired.of this, so at the invitation of Mr. 
Fisher the Union combined with the L. E. A.s 
in the formation of the “Burnham Committee,” 
appointed ‘to secure the orderly\and progressive 
solution of the salary problem in Public Elemen- 
tary Schools by agreement on a national basis’.” 

This Burnham Committee, composed of twenty- 
five members of the Union, published its first 
national scale in 1920. 80% of the L. E. Avs 
accepted the scale. At first the scale applied 
to only elementary teachers, but in the last few 
years, an annual national: scale has likewise been 
formulated for Secondary and Technical schools. 

Some indication of the progress made may be 
gathered from the average salary figures pub- 
lished by the British Board of Education (re- 
produced in “National Union of Teachers” Bul- 
letin, for 1925, pg. 24). 


Average Salaries of Elementary School 
Teachers, England and Wales 

1914 1923 
Certificated Head Teachers—Men £177 £410 
Certificated Head Teachers—Women 327 
Certificated Assistant Teachers—Men 310 
Certificated Assistant Teachers—Women ... 254 
Uncertificated Assistant Teachers—Men .... 68 182 
Uncertificated Assistant Teachers—Women . 57 148 
* £=$4.86. 

Of course, the increased cost of living during 
these years means that the actual increase in real 
wages is not as great as appears here. However, 
the increase is substantial. 


This national scale ‘has its shortcomings, and 
its dangers. I am sure that every Federationist 
has noted the discrepancies between the scales 
for men and women. The union claims to stand 
for equal pay, and as women teachers compose 
80,000 of its 117, 000 membership, this continued 
discrepancy is hard to understand.* 

In 1922 the teachers through the L. E. A. Panel 
(Burham Committee) offered a 5% reduction in 
salaries due under the standard scales for 1923-4. 


*This differentiation between men and women in the 
salary scales has led to 9,000 women withdrawing and 
forming their independent union. There is also an in- 
dependent union of men, with a membership of 5,000. 


The L. E. A. Panel expressed its appreciation. 


of the “public-spirited action of the teachers in 
thus making a substantial contribution to the final 
necessities of the nation and of the Local. Author- 
ities.” (N. U. T. Bulletin, 1925, pg. 24.) This 
offer of a 5% abatement was renewed in 1923, 
for the year 1924-25. Great pressure had been 
brought to bear on the teachers, to again show 
their patriotism by aiding the British Government 
out of its financial difficulties. In 1924 a demand 
for a 15% reduction was successfully resisted, 
but the 5% reduction continued, and a system of 
“marking time” introduced. 
The present scale, in force for 1925 and 1926, 
is given below. 
Standard Scales of Salaries* 
Public Elementary School Teachers 
UNCERTIFICATED ASSISTANT TEACHERS 
Maximum 
Appointed Appointed 
Annual on or After Before 
Mini- Incre- Ist April, 1st April, 
Scales mum mentt 1914 1914 
Men 
£102 £7 10s £156 
108 7 10 174 
117 7 10 192 
Women 
£ 93 £6 Os £144 
99 6 0 153 
6 0 162 
+The first increment is payable after two years’ serv- 
ice at the minimum. 
tScale I refers to rural schools. Scale IV to London 
Schools, primarily. Scales II and III refer to interme- 
diary districts, primarily county and county-borough 
districts. 
CERTIFICATED ASSISTANT TEACHERS (TWO 
YEARS COLLEGE TRAINED) 
Annual 
Minimum Increment} Maximum 
Men 
£168 Os £12 0s £312 0s 


1680 120 330 0 
12 0 366 0 
192 0 120 4080 


Standard 
Scales 


£150 0s. £9 0s £246 0s 
90. 2580 
90 288 0 
90 32u0 
+The first increment is payable after two years’ serv- 
ice_at the minimum. 
CERTIFICATED HEAD TEACHERS 
Grade I—Not over 100 in average attendance. 
Grade. II—Over 100 but not over 200. 
__Grade II1I—Over 200 but not over 350. 


~ * July 30, 1926, issue of School Master and W omen 
Teachers Chronicle. Inside cover. 


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'THE AMERICAN TEACHER 7 


Grade 1V—Over 350 but not over 500. 
Grade V—Over 500. 
Promotion Increments per Grade of School— 
Scales Men Women 
£18 £13 10s 


Maxima— 


Scales Grade I Grade II Grade III Grade IV Grade V 
£378 £408 £438 £468 
393 426 459 492 
438 474 510 546 
4x9 528 567 606 
Women 


£324 
342 


348 378 
390 423 
Secondary Schools 
The following are the figures of the Scales awarded 
by Lord Burnham (March, 1925). 

ASSISTANT MASTERS AND MISTRESSES 
Men Women 
Minimum Maximum Minimum Maximum 
Graduates 

£528 

480 
Non-Graduates 

£432 

384 


£372 
396 


438 
486 


£300 
315 


£348 
369 


408 
456 


Areas 


£264 
216 


£420 
Provinces 384 
£192 

174 


£342 
306 


London 

Provinces 

Annual Increments :— 
Graduates: Men, £15; Women, £12. 


Non-Graduates: Men, £12; Women, £9. 
The first increment is payable after two years’ serv- 
ice at the minimum. 


HEAD TEACHERS 

Minimum Commencing Salary :— 
Head Masters 
Head Mistresses 

There is a rumor going the rounds of the 
teachers that another attack on the standard scale 
is to be made, when the scale comes up for re- 
newal, in the spring. If so, the teachers are 
prepared to fight. The government has been cut- 
ting its nation! budget for education, and many 


local educational authorities are already protesting’ 


the scale. In September a strike to enforce the 
scale in one county was narrowly averted by the 
L. E. A. giving in to the teachers’ demands. 


Organization of N. U. T. 

The N. U. T. has 612 local associations, which 
are combined into 56 county associations. Its 
supreme authority is the Annual Conference, of 
about 2,000 representatives appointed by Local and 
County Associations. At this conference, the 
national executive board and standing committees 


are elected, and legislation covering the work of 
the N. U. T.’s various departments enacted. 

The work of the N. U. T. is divided into the 
following departments: Organization, Law 
(tenure), Education, Examinations, and Press 
and Publicity. In the Organization Department, 
there are five full-time organizers whose work 
is divided between organizing new locals, and 
aiding the local branches in various organizational 
problems. The Law Department deals with 
questions of tenure. It hires a full-time lawyer 
to handle the cases of dismissed teachers; also, 
cases of accident, and unemployment. On the 
average, this department handles two thousand 
cases each year. The teacher-member gets these 
services with no additional expense. (Dues range 
from ten to twelve dollars a year.) 

The union also was primarily instrumental in 
the establishment of a government pen-system for 
teachers. In addition, it has established its own 
sustentation fund. Any member who loses his 
teaching license without just cause in the eyes 
of the union receives a life “sustentation” from 
the union. Unemployed teachers are aided and 
teachers on strike receive their full salary from 
the union. 

The strength of the N. U. T. lies in its alert 
militant program on immediate issues of salary, 
tenure and working conditions. It has fought 
long and usually successfully to protect and im- 
prove the British teachers’ standard of living. 

The great weakness of the N. U. T. is its lack 
of fundamental objectives beyond its own group’s 
needs. This idea of group self-sufficiency is 
gradually breaking down. One prominent mem- 
ber of the organization predicted that the eco- 
nomic pressure of the next few years would 
force the National Union of Teachers to join 
hands with the organized workers of Great 
Britain. 

British Teachers and the General Strike 

How did the majority of British teachers feel 
about the general strike? No one really knows. 
As the teachers were not among those groups of 
workers called out, they were not put to the test. 

The N. U. T. declared itself “neutral” through- 
out. (Of course, actual neutrality is impossible 
in such a crisis.) However, a Relief Fund for 
Miners’ Children was established by the union, 
and some thousands of dollars subscribed. This 

(Continued on Page 21) 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


WHEN OUTSIDE HELP IS INSIDE 
HELP IN WORKERS’ EDUCATION 
SELMA M. BORCHARDT 
Washington Local No. 8 

How much and what kind of education should 
a worker have, and what good is this education 
going to do him and his community? 

The Industrial Department of the Y. W. C. A. 
is answering this question in “our Janguage.” 
Reaching the girls in industry as it does through 
social clubs, athletic organizations, and similar 
interests, it directs the attention of the girls so 
- gathered to their obligation, as working women, 
to the community. Educational classes, discus- 
sion groups, camp conferences are part of the 
machinery which it uses to further this project. 

There are some of us who felt that the Y. W. 
C. A. because it is essentially a religious organi- 
zation would perhaps quite rigidly adhere to 
certain creed formulae and would devote itself 
largely to a rather narrow technically theological 
study of religion. Valuable as such an approach 
may be, I for one am very happy to find that 
the Industrial Department of the Y. W. C. A. 
gives expression to its fundamental and essential 
religious approach by seeking actively and earn- 
estly to secure to the working woman and for the 
working woman “that fuller life” that the worker 
can gain through her own intelligent approach 
to the industrial and social problems of the com- 
munity—a practical expression, as it were, of 
the Y. W. C. A. ideals. 

In a number of places there is the most cordial 
and direct co-operation between the Y. W. C. A. 
and organized workers’ groups. One would ex- 
pect this, as both groups are working for the 
social betterment of the community. Each group 
gains much from the experience of the other. This 
is in itself a very valuable form of workers’ edu- 
cation. And then there are the educational classes 
—Y. W. C. A.’s Industrial Department’s—and 
they are educational classes for they make the 
girls think and give them something to think 
about. There are classes in current history, in 
economics, in all the subjects in which a good 
worker as a good citizen interests herself. Here 
material is presented, discussed, and absorbed. 
The teaching is thorough; it’s true. Take for 
example the symposium on the Child Labor 
Amendment prepared for Y. W. C. A. group 
discussions. It’s a fine piece of work. It would 


be difficult to find a better outline or a more 
thorough approach for discussion groups on the 
subject than this. 

And then there are the industrial conferences 
usually held in the form of summer camps. These 
conferences are a high spot in a year’s program 
of the Y. The girls themselves help to plan 
them, and it is the girls themselves who carry 
the responsibility for making them “register” 
back home. 

And the conference is a happy experience. 
The girls are happy. They’re outdoors. They 
are free; they play—play so well. They stop and 
think—about their work, their fellow workers, 
their home, themselves. Camps are not just a 
matter of routine; they are occasions for living. 
They are projects which are workable in what-- 
ever form they take. In different years and in 
different sections of the country, the theme and 
the actual conduct of the conference itself varies, 
as, of course, it would, as the ideas and experi- 
ences of the girls themselves necessarily vary. 
Though the expression of these ideas may vary 
and the form of the conference itself may change 
from time to time, yet a certain emphasis on social 
values, on the social responsibility of the worker, 
underlies almost all the conference programs. 

The girls gather at the conference and a well- 
informed, highly-trained specialist in economics 
and sociology “lectures”; the lecturer may be a 
man or the lecturer may be a woman but the 
lecturer does present the woman’s place in indus- 
try. To be sure, she gives the background which 
it is necessary for the worker to have to under- 
stand her present status. The industrial history 
of this country—of the world itself—is briefly 
yet graphically given. The why and wherefor 
of our present social order is touched upon. The 
worker begins to realize that she is a part of the 
intricate social order as at present constituted ; 
that from any social order she has a right to 
expect an opportunity to earn a living, a certain 
amount of protection and a degree of safety in 
earning that living and an adequate and equitable 
return for her work. She begins to realize the 
interdependence of one group of workers upon 
another. And after the lecturer presents her 
material the conference resolves itself into a num- 
ber of small discussion groups. The discussion 
leaders of these groups may be trade unionists, 
chosen because they are likely to have had more 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 9 


intimate and hence more valuable experience in. 


industrial work, or the discussion leader may be 
an expert on legislation of interest to women. 
She may be a woman who has approached the 
industrial problem through a woman’s club or 
through the Y. W. Industrial Department, as such. 
But no matter who she is, or what she is, she is 
only the discussion leader and the discussion is 
really carried on by the girls in the groups. These 
discussion groups thrash over in terms of their 
own experience the material which as untrimmed 
data has been presented to them. And it is 
straight fact that the girls get ; there is no propa- 
ganda at a Y. W. C. A. camp. At times the 
workers’ discussion precedes the lecture. The 
girls discuss their own jobs. Each one realizes 
that her job presents certain problems to her and 
to her community. What is the reason for all 
this? The lecturer then organizes the material 
which the girls present, and also in a strictly 
scientific way (there is no personal interpola- 
tion)—there is given the why and wherefor of 
it. And the conference makes the workers grow. 

At one of the conferences this summer, there 
was a worker from an unorganized factory. Sle 
was quite elated with her present lot. The factory 
owner had told them in her shop that trade unions 
were terrible things and that if any of their 
workers ever joined a union she would be dis- 
missed, and furthermore if a union were formed 
throughout the plant he would simply close up 
his plant, and then they would all be out of work. 
“And you know this is true,” said the naive little 
worker, “for he has lots of money and he could 
do it.” And besides she saw no need for organi- 
zation. Only kickers, she thought, would think 
of joining any organization. Why should her 
factory have a union? They got good money, 
some as much as $18 a week, for a “legal” nine- 
hour day in a six-day week, and their conditions 
were ideal. The company had a highly developed 
welfare system and in days gone by (and perhaps 
the good times would return) they used to get 
two weeks leave with pay, and they used to have 
an insurance plan to which workers contributed 
four-fifths of the fund and the employer one- 
fifth. But after a while, at this conference, this 
same little girl heard that in other places where 
there was some form of employee representation, 


that they did not take away the eight-hour day 
after a one-week’s trial because it was said to be 
unprofitable, as had been done in her plant. And 
while other plants did not provide a free welfare 
system, the employees sometimes received wages 
high enough to enable them to supply their own 
amusements and medical care. Towards the end 
of the conference this same little girl began to 
muse, and she thought that maybe she had not 
read enough, that maybe the employer was not 
justified in making the girls go down the fire 
escape at night when the factory inspector came 
into the building to see if they were working over 
their nine hours; and maybe it was not right to 
arbitrarily take away the insurance fund, and 
maybe lots of ‘things. And there were other 
workers who also through the Y. began to think 
and to think in terms of social responsibility. 

The girls ‘realized the value of employers’ or- 
ganizations. They realized how much more effi- 
ciently the employer conducts his business when — 
he works in co-operation with other employers 
and other business men, and how in turn the 
worker is able to contribute much more to the 
good of the factory, to workers in general, and, 
of course, to her own self-improvement if she 
works in organized co-operation with other 
workers, as her employer works in organized co- 
operation with other employers. 

It’s a form of workers’ education which is help- 
ing us ever so much. It’s real education that 
makes unorganized workers begin to think in 
terms of social responsibility and begin to realize 
that their conditions affect the conditions of 
workers everywhere, and that the conditions of 
workers elsewhere affect theirs. And so they 
begin to think about what should determine a 
wage level or a minimum wage for a community, 
and wonder about the ideal standard of living, 
and they feel that perhaps there is something 
more in life than a mere going to work and com- 
ing home and going to bed. That bigger, better 
something in them is aroused, and they know that 
they, as human beings, are entitled to a spiritual 
life, a life of pleasure and happiness, “a fuller 
life.” This is what the Industrial Department 
of the Y. W. C. A. is doing for the industrial 
worker. 











“The Workers’ Education Bureau is the medium 
through which we are giving to the worker an under- 
standing of industry and society and his relation to 
both. The worker is being taught, through a course of 
study formulated and arranged by the Workers’ Edu- 
cation Bureau, the value of his economic strength and 
the importance of joining with his fellowmen in 
wisely directing the use of their intellectual and organ- 
ized powers along constructive lines in the furtherance 
of the work of,organized labor. Through this work of 
education much latent ability is being developed into 
active use and service. The net result is that the cause 
of the worker is being intelligently strengthened edu- 
cationally and economically."—William Green, Presi- 
dent, American Federation of Labor. 





Labor and the Universities 


About three per cent of the population in this coun- 
try attend our institutions of higher learning. During 
the last year, 54 per cent of all these students were in 
25 of the 184 leading institutions of learning. The 
total increase over the previous year was 7 per cent, 
although it is significant that the enrollment in many 
engineering’ and agricultural colleges has actually 
decreased. The distribution of the 17,000,000 industrial 
workers means a wide diffusion in location. It will 
require a wide extension of knowledge to meet their 
cultural needs. If workers cannot go to the university, 
universities must go to the workers, through their rep- 
resentatives—the instructors. — Worker's Education 
News. 





" “Adult education is the outgrowth of our present 
conception of education as paralleling human life. 
There is something of mental growth beyond the for- 
mal training which public schools offer or even the 
wider discipline of college and university. Our prob- 
lem is to suggest flexible institutions and methods that 
will meet the intellectual needs of the masses of our 
people—a large percentage of whom are wage earners. 
I want to attest not only the appreciation of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor, but my own personal as well 
as official endorsement of the movement inaugurated 
by the Workers’ Education Bureau.”—Samuel Gompers, 
Late President, American Federation of Labor. 





“The labor movement, in the modern sense, is barely 
fifty years old. But think of the crises not made by 
labor leaders but by forces outside of the labor move- 
ment. Can we doubt that in the future—in the long 
sweep of centuries—labor will have to make decisions 
and take actions more fraught with human destiny 
than any thus far taken! Therein lies the significance 
of the labor education movement.”—Charles A. Beard, 
American Historian. 


The Education of the Worker Is the Hope 
of America 





10 


Labor College Is Growing 
(Special: to Labor) 

Katonah, N. Y.—Railroad labor organizations~ are 
well represented this year at Brookwood, labor’s resi- 
dent college in Katonah, N. Y. Six of the 34 new stu- 
dents and two of the returning second year students 
are members of railroad labor unions. 

Brookwood opened its sixth year with the largest 
enrollment in its history, and with a campaign well 
launched for a two million dollar building and guar- 
antee fund, which will increase the capacity of the 
school from its present 45 students to 100 or more. 

Many of the students attending Brookwood come on 
scholarships established by their unions. The Brother- 
hood of Railway Carmen through President Martin F. 
Ryan has been especially active in this respect, and this 
year is sending two men, providing them in addition, 
with an allowance of $50 a month if they are single, 
$100 if married, and train fare if they cannot secure it 
otherwise. : 

Hector Daoust, of Ottawa, Canada, employed on the 
Canadian National Railway, and R. M. Ware, of 
Wichita Falls, Texas, are the carmen’s scholarship stu- 
dents. Ware is remembered as the man who presented 
Samuel Gompers at his last El Paso convention with a 
gavel made from a famous tree in Texas. 

Since -25 carmen applied for these two scholarships, 
Brookwood offered, in addition two scholarships of its 
own, and these were awarded to J. B. English of Cum- 
berland, Md., and Edgar E. Martin, Staten Island, 
N. Y. : 

The International Association of Machinists is rep- 
resented this year by Philip Powers, of Chester, Pa. 
In its six years, seven machinists have been graduated 
from Brookwood, most of whom have held important 
positions in their local unions. 

There is also one member of the Electrical Workers’ 
Union at Brookwood this year, Jack Rubenstein, of 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

The second year railroad students are both railway 
clerks, Stanley Guest of Covington, Ky., and Charles 
V. Maute of Brooklyn, N. Y. 

In all 18 industries, 15 states and 16 nationalities are 
represented at Brookwood this year, giving a cross 
section of the labor movement geographically, racially 
and industrially. Painters, garment workers, bakers, 
tailors, miners, hosiery knitters, plumbers and even 
taxi drivers are included, and there is a student from 
England and one from Canada.—Labor. 





Director of Workers’ Education, R. V. Holwell of 
Wyoming and Colorado, reports interest in workers’ 
education as increasing over these states. He organ- 
ized classes in Cheyenne and went from Cheyenne to 
Laramie, Hanna and Kemmerer for further organiza- 
tion of classes. 









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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 11 


The Portland Labor College 

The Portland Labor College, one of the oldest and 
most efficient schools for workers’ education, was 
founded September, 1921, under the auspices of the 
Central Labor Council. The college is wholly financed 
by the trade unions of Portland through voluntary 
contributions in the form of monthly per capita levies 
and through registration fees of students. 

The college stands for two distinct purposes: First 
and foremost, to train workers for growing responsi- 
bilities in industry and the state, which implies also 
that the college is intended to train the workers, not 
OUT of the labor movement, but FOR the labor move- 
ment; and, second, to serve as a gateway to the enjoy- 
ment of a larger life than the monotonies of industry 
and the cramped opportunities of the average worker’s 
life permit. 

The courses include English, public speaking, home 
economics, America today, national social problems, 
crucial problems in American education, the world we 
live in, history of trade unions and the place of women 
in the labor movement. FE. E. Schwarztrauber, vice- 
president of the American Federation of Teachers, 
was a member of the first executive board, to which the 
launching of the college was entrusted, and has repeat- 
edly served as chairman of the Board of Directors. 


Workers’ Education in Pennsylvania 

It is impossible in one article to deal adequately with 
workers’ education in Pennsylvania. Too much of it is 
already carried on within the state to permit of that. 
Nothing will be said here of Philadelphia with its 
extensive program and its full time labor educational 
director, Mr. E, J. Lever. Nor will District No. 2, 
United Mine Workers be dealt with, with its equally 
extensive program and its full-time labor educational 
director, Mr. Paul W. Fuller. 

Here are a few notes about what is being done by 
the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor itself. Only 
three things are mentioned, no attempt being made to 
include all of the federation’s activities. These three 
things are mentioned because of their importance and 
because they may form valuable suggestions for those 
state federations that have not yet taken similar action. 

The first of the things to be mentioned is that, after 
giving careful consideration to the several candidates 
for the position, the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor 
has appointed a full-time educational director. The 
work of the federation’s educational director will in no 
way conflict with that of the work being carried on in 
Philadelphia and in District No. 2. In the first place, 
workers’ education everywhere is a self-directing affair, 
carried on by the labor organizations in each commu- 
nity in the way that they see fit. No state federation 
attempts to put restrictions upon it. The work of the 
state federation’s educational director is always one of 
stimulation, encouragement and help. He does not 
“direct” in the sense of commanding. In the second 
place, Pennsylvania is a big state and the new educa- 
tional director will have much more than he can do in 
Parts outside of Philadelphia and of District No. 2, 


although he probably will visit these from time to time, 
in order to give inspiration and to receive it. The 
man appointed educational director is Mr. John P. 
Troxell, a wage earner with experience in many parts 
of the country, a prominent student in the University 
of Wisconsin, an able promoter of the Workers’ Col- 
lege at Madison, Wisconsin. Both Pennsylvania and 
Mr. Troxell are to be congratulated. 

The second thing to be mentioned about Pennsyl- 
vania is that the federation displayed an educational 
exhibit at its convention May llth to 14th. An educa- 
tion exhibit has been a feature of recent American Fed- 
eration of Labor conventions but probably this is the 
first time that there has been such a project at a state 
cunvention. 

The third thing to be mentioned is that the Pennsyl- 
vahia Federation of Labor held this summer two labor 
Chautauquas. These have already been much used in 
District No. 2 under the auspices of the United Mine 
Workers and have proven of very great value, provid- 
ing both recreation and instruction. 

It pays to give attention to what is being done in the 
way of workers’ education in Pennsylvania—and also 
in most of the other forty-seven states. 


CODE OF ETHICS OF THE NATIONAL 
LEAGUE OF TEACHERS’ 
ASSOCIATIONS 

We believe that one who ‘aspires to be a leader 
of youth should have first of all, character—that 
subtle and indefinable quality which is finer than 
the finest deeds, greater than the greatest facts, 
which includes, but transcends honott—a_ nice 
sense of what is right, just, and true, with a 
course of life corresponding thereto; 

Vision—a supreme faith in the ultimate tri- 
umph of the ideal good ; 

Patience—which means the ability and the will- 
ingness to wait, and may also mean kindliness 
to evil-doers, and bearing with the weakness of 
others ; ; 

Justice—recognizing in our fellowman another 
self—seeing both sides of every question ; 

Remembrance—that which helps another to 
help himself—not indulgence ; 

That energy and enthusiasm which can be satis- 
fied only by seeing ambition realized ; 

Service—“The power to give the world more 
than I take.” 

And with these a broad education, both liberal 
and professional, as a preparation for one’s life 
work, so that he will do it conscientiously and 
with pleasure because he can do it well. 

“And it came to pass that after a while the 
artist was forgotten—but the work lived.” 








12 





Some explanation for the tardy appearance of any 
acknowledgment of the long services of Mr. Stecker 
for the American Federation of Teachers is due to our 
members. Last August Mr. Stecker requested that no 
such notice be taken and it was only a short time ago 
that he was persuaded to withdraw his opposition and 
gave his consent to have an article appear. 

The following article will be as heartily received by 
the members of our organization as it is published by 
the editor: : 

F. G. STECKER 
(Report adopted by Chicago Federation of Men 


Teachers ) 

At this time when Brother F. G. Stecker has 
‘completed over a decade of service as secretary- 
treasurer of the American Federation of 
Teachers, and a change has been made in that 
position for the first time since the beginning of 
the organization, the Chicago Federation of Men 
Teachers desires to make a brief statement. 
Individuals are, of course, of much less import- 
ance than principles, but principles can secure 
expression only through individuals and groups, 
and in this case there is striking occasion for 
recognition of a personality devotedly loyal to the 
dominant principles of the organization. 

First, to Brother Stecker more than any other 
individual, is due the organization of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Teachers. He visualized it 
and worked towards it for years before its incep- 
tion. He was one of the committee of three 
which drafted its constitution, and he conducted 
the correspondence which united a sufficient num- 
ber of locals to secure a charter from the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor. From those arduous 
pioneer days to the still more arduous present, 
he has never lost his vision of a genuine national 
union of teachers. And through it all he has 
had the responsibility of the job that more than 
any other makes or breaks an organization, the 
always thankless job of keeping down expendi- 
tures, and raising revenue, of keeping after the 
dilatory and developing business-like methods in 
the locals, a job peculiarly thankless and exhaust- 
ing during the last few years when the American 
Federation of Teachers could not escape the 
general decline in membership of the labor and 
all liberal movements. And during these same 
later years of unusual burden he has also, as the 
only full-time officer, borne executive and editorial 
responsibilities formerly shared with others. 
Anyone can secure some measure of his long 
continued financial sacrifice by merely comparing 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





his salary with the salary he would have received 
in school, but his sacrifice of nervous force, of 
vitality, of himself, only his intimates can fully 
appreciate. 

The question of policies to be pursued by the 
organization has always been crucial, and often 
hotly contested. Stecker has always loyally stood 
by the purposes and principles upon which the 
American Federation of Teachers was established, 
and which it has steadilly maintained through 
periods of prosperity and depression. To many 
conservative teachers, those purposes and prin- 
ciples seem radical, and to some so-called radicals 
they seem too conservative. The Chicago Feder- 
ation of Men Teachers is no worshipper of 
tradition, or it would not be a labor union. But 
it does not believe that the principles which have 
governed the American Federation of Teachers 
for ten years, and with which Stecker has been 
so closely identified, are outworn. Nor does it 
believe that the membership of our national miove- 
ment is weakening in its adhesion to those prin- 
ciples, or is inclined to judge them by the degree 
of success or failure they may attain in any 
given period. 

The Chicago Federation of Men Teachers 
therefore looks forward to a continuance of basic 
policies, and does so with the more confidence 
because it has long respected the ability, character, 
and sane balance of Stecker’s successor, Mrs. 
Florence Hanson. ' 





OUR EXECUTIVE BOARD 

Wilbur Joel Scott, vice-president of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Teachers and president of the 
Atlanta Public School Teachers’ Association, 
Local No. 89. Mr. Scott was educated in the 
public schools of Johnston, S. C., and was gradu- 
ated from the University of South Carolina with 
the A. B. degree in 1915. He taught for two 
years in the public schools of South Carolina 
before he enlisted in the Eighty-first Division 
during the World War. As a second lieutenant 
he served for twenty-six months in this country 
and in France. In 1919 Mr. Scott joined the 
English Department of Technological High 
School of Atianta and for the past six years has 
served as the head of his department. 

For the past three years Mr. Scott has served 
as president of Local No. 89. Under his leader- 
ship much constructive work has been done and 














THE AMERICAN TEACHER 13 


a very ambitious program has been undertaken 
by the iocal. The membership has grown to 
include eighty-five per cent of the white teaching 
force of Atlanfaj,and a corresponding increase 
of interest in °4 work of the organization has 
been shown by the membership. In January the 
Board of Education adopted without a dissenting 
vote an up-to-date salary schedule which has been 
drawn up and adopted by Local No. 89. Much 
of the success of the campaign was due to the wis- 
dom of the president in presenting and insisting 
on the adoption of the schedule in spite of the 
fact that the Board of Education was facing a 
huge deficit before the end of the year. With 
the assistance of organized labor, Local No. 89 
has also played a prominent part in helping to 
save the progressive school program of the super- 
intendent and the Board of Education which was 
being attacked by certain vested interests in the 
city. The increasing calls for assistance by other 
civic bodies on our organization shows recogni- 
tion of the contribution of the local to the edu- 
cational and civi¢ life of the city. Much of this 
has been due to the wise discretion and inspiring 
leadership of our president. 

Mr. Scott has served. as a delegate to the 
Atlanta Federation of Trades for five years. His 
prestige in that body has been shown by his 
appointment on several important committees, and 
he is riow serving as the chairman of the Publicity 
Committee. For the past two years Local No. 89 
has participated in the annual Labor Day parade. 
Mr. Scott has also attended three conventions of 
the American Federation of Teachers as a dele- 
gate, and has served as chairman of several im- 
portant committees. His election as vice-president 
of the Ameriean Federation of Teachers at the 
last convention came in recognition of his splendid 
services to the teaching profession. He has also 
been appointed chairman of the Committee of 
the Federation on Professional Improvement. 

In the eyes of all, Mr. Scott has proved him- 
self to be a scholar and a splendid leader, one 
who is trusted and respected by the whole teach- 
ing force, the administrative forces of the schools, 
and the citizenship of the city. 





Seattle is the first Pacific Coast city to adopt the 
Sabbatical year. The Seattle Teachers’ Association 
Promoted the idea. Twenty teachers, 1% of all, are on 
leave this year for the first time. 


Dear Mrs. Hanson: 

Anent Mr. Judd’s proposal of a six years’ secondary 
school to follow a six years’ elementary school, have 
you thought of applying the Antioch plan of alternate 
work and study? Instead of a six years’ secogdary 
school, let us make it eight and include in it so much 
of practical work that the pupils graduating will have 
not only a good foundation for their subsequent occu- 
pations but will also have made an intelligent choice of 
trade or profession—a choice guided by months of trial 
in a number of, occupations. 

_ We all know that our pupils in high school are sur- 
feited by book work, that their nature demands more 
practical activity, that the problems of attention and 
discipline arise largely because we are working at cross 
purposes with the instinctive impulses of young human 
beings. Now, my proposal is that the contemplated 
secondary school be so organized that the pupils’ time 
be divided between the scholastic work and some occu- 
pation connected with industry or professional life. 
This occupation should be of economic value to the 
community and should pay the pupil a fee depending 
on its market value. With the young high school 
pupils the work should be done on the premises, under 
the careful supervision of teachers. Of course a reor- 
ganization of the school plant would have to be made. 
Older pupils would go out into the factories, offices 
and fields and take their places in the regular activities 
of the community. Their work would be safeguarded 
and supervised by teacher inspectors and would be 
standardized and credited as any other school activity. 

Pupils would alternate between school studies and 
the practical job, two or in some cases possibly four 
pupils co-operating to hold down a steady job. Was 
not this plan tried in Cincinnati some years ago? 
After working at one job one or two semesters or 
years the pupils would shift and try something else. In 
this way they would have an opportunity to try out 
several lines of work and make an intelligent choice of 
a life occupation. 

To be earning some part of his expenses adds dignity 
to a child’s life. The objections to child labor would 
be avoided, since the primary aim is education not 
profit, and the work would be directed by teachers, not 
profiteers. 

As to the eight years instead of six, there is no need 
of haste in getting our young people out of school, If 
they are to some extent productive earners while in 
school they might well prolong their school days by 
several years and gradually taper off into full time 
industrialists or professionals. Perhaps so they would 
be more likely to retain in after life some literary, art, 
or scientific activity in their leisure time—much to their 
advantage. Professionals are not fit to assume the 
responsibilities of medicine, law, the ministry, or teach- 
ing until they are well along in the twenties. Our aim 
should be excellence not speed in preparation. There 
are workers enough in the world, too many out of jobs. 
Let us put more care in preparing and organizing the 
workers instead of rushing them into an overcrowded 
and economically chaotic world. Ratpx E. Biounr. 





14 | THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








The American Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published monthly, except July and August, by 
THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
327 South La Salle Street, Chicago 


FLoreNce Curtis HANSON 
Sec.-Treas. and Editor 











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





Remittances should be made in postal money-order, 
express order, draft, stamps or check (Chicago ex- 
change). 


SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, ONE DOLLAR FOR THE 
YEAR—FOREIGN, $1.10—SINGLE COPIES, 15c 








Advertising ratcs made known on application. 


> 


“This movement they call organized labor is the uni- 


versal, vital problem of the world.” 
—Thomas Carlyle. 




















THE ALL-YEAR SCHOOL 


Every so often the cry for the all-year-round 


school breaks out again on the basis of economy 
and efficiency. Business boards of education, in 
their endeavor to save money, have eagerly seized 
upon the all-year school as a panacea for all 
financial and educational ills and superintendents 
with no educational ideals and with the sole idea 
of standing with the board echo them. 

Recently one of the assistant superintendents of 
Chicago has advanced a proposition advocating 
the adoption of a five term year in place of the 
two semesters and summer school. He believes 
that the change would reduce the number of 
“repeaters” 50% and would thereby keep in 
school those who are now discouraged by having 
to “do over” a weary semester. His plan has been 
submitted to the committee on curriculum re- 
vision, and will be given a place in the com- 
mittee’s report, which is promised in March. 

Some members of the New York Board of 
Education are suggesting again the idea of the 
all-year school. They believe it can furnish a 
better education at a smaller cost. 

But how about this economy and efficiency ? 

The all-year school in Nashville, Tenn., has 
failed in many ways and is being severely criti- 
cized both by teachers and by public. 


After a thorough trial of the all-year school 
the Board of Education of Newark, New Jersey, 
voted to discontinue its experinfént and to return 
to the ten-months school. Fadse who realized 
fully the tremendous strain of modern factory 
type of school upon both pupils and teachers, 
could have predicted the failure of this money- 
saving scheme—so dear to the heart of the effi- 
ciency expert who puts the dollar above humanity 
and citizenship. Not only was the all-year school 
abandoned because of its unfortunate effects upon 
the well-being of the pupils but for what to them 
is far worse—it was “inefficient.” 


The Teachers’ Union of the City of New York 
offered the Board of Education two plans where- 
by better education could be furnished at a lower 
cost. Did these disciples of efficiency rush to 
put these sound pedagogical plans into effect? 
On the contrary, this constructive proposal to 
substitute for the inefficient, regimented, factory 
type of school a cheerful little child community 
functioning freely and effectively on the basis of 
self-initiated projects of the school children, was 
rejected upon a mere technicality, which showed 
that there was no desire to meet the issue raised 
by the proposal. When a proposal for democratic 
administration was submitted it received scant 
consideration. 


That the public in large cities will ever submit 
to an all-year school is unbelievable. On the 
other hand, it might lend an ear to the suggestion 
of the New York Teachers’ Union that sunimer 
camps be established under the auspices of the 
Board for all children who are suffering from 
various -physical defects. The ideas of the 
teachers should be compared with those of the 
administrators and the public decide which make 
for a better child, a better school, a better com- 
munity, and a better world. 

A dollar or a man! 





Educators now generally recognize the need of elimi- 
nating from school geographies unfair and biased 
statements concerning foreign countries which do 
irreparable harm by prejudicing children against other 
nations. The Division of Education of the Pan Ameri- 
can Union put into operation last year a plan looking 
to the gradual elimination of such erroneous state- 
ments as regards the countries of Latin America. It 
alse actively promoted friendly relations through the 
exchange of correspondence between school children of 
the American continent. 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 15 


“The sabbatical leave with adequate compensation, 
automatically operative in order of application.” 


Program of Action for 1926 


Sabbatical Leave for the whole United States 
is coming and at no very distant date. Lack of 
solidarity is one of the most frequent criticisms 
of teachers but there seems an amazing unanimity 
for the Sabbatical Leave. Boards of Education 
favor it since it costs the taxpayers nothing. The 
teachers favor it because it gives them an op- 
portunity for cultural and professional, also rec- 
reational improvement, such as they have never 
had before. 

The values of the Sabbatical Leave include 
favorable opportunity for work for higher col- 
lege degrees, for extended foreign travel with 
its attendant cultural growth, for physical bene- 
fit that will enhance the teacher’s value to the 
school and to the community, for improvement 
to the school system through the training of 
teachers taking the places of those on leave, and 
offer an incentive to young men and women to 
enter the teaching field. 

Cambridge, Mass., adopting the Sabbatical 
Leave in 1896, became the pioneer in this move- 
ment. Boston followed suit ten years later. The 
practice is on the increase. A total of 36 cities 
have now established some form of Sabbatical 
Leave, Cleveland being the last. Chicago is a 
conspicuous exception. In Chicago the proposed 
“rule” failed last year because it contained the 
following provision : 

“Regulations governing the operation of this 
section in respect to applications for leave of 
absence, return to service, salary increment, 
length of service for the purpose of retirement, 
contributions to the Retirement Fund, reports of 
absentee to the Superintendent of Schools, as- 
signment of substitutes, shall be determined upon 
the recommendation of the Superintendent of 
Schools, approved by the Board of Education.” 
and the teachers, fearful of its interpretation and 
the possibility of favoritism, desired a more auto- 
matic basis of choice. They asked that the rule 
read instead : 

“He (the Superintendent) shall have authority 
to grant leave of absence with pay to any teacher 
or principal for the purpose of travel or study 
for a period not exceeding one year. This leave 
may be granted at the completion of seven or 


more years of continuous service in the public 
schools of the city of Chicago, and at the com- 
pletion. of any subsequent period of seven or 
more years of such service. The pay of any 
teacher or principal during such leave of absence 
shall equal his regular monthly salary less the 
cost of a substitute for the same period 

“The teacher or principal taking such leave of 
absence shall be entitled to return to the position 
which he left; and, after completing the year of 
service at the salary which he was receiving when 
he took his leave, shall automatically receive his 
salary increment. The teacher or principal taking 
such leave shall present to the Superintendent of 
Schools a brief statement in writing of the extent 
of, travel or the courses of study pursued during 
the sabbatical year. It shall be one of the pro- 
visions of the sabbatical year that any teacher 
or principal taking such leave shall render at least 
two years of service upon his return to the school 
system.” 

Rules in other cities are much more detailed, 
Chicago evidently not being the only city in which 
it is felt that the application of the rule must be 
automatic and the interpretation must not be 
left open. 

Col. Ellicott, president of the Chicago Board 
of Education at a meeting of the Chicago Feder- 
ation of Men Teachers, declared himself entirely 
in accord with the position of the C. F. of M. T. 
for a sabbatical year with no restrictions at all 
except that the teacher on such leave of absence, 
must not engage in teaching. 

California is seeking a legal decision as to 
whether or not a constitutional remedy is neces- 
sary. There is a national organization for the 
professional advancement of teachers through the 
Sabbatical Leave. 





Dr. Joseph K. Hart, in speaking before the 
Liberal Club of Chicago, at the Woman’s City 
Club on the evening of Nov. 3 on “Making up 
our minds for the Future” said in reply to a 
question as to what groups could be entrusted 
the work of liberalizing our minds, “There is 
a group of teachers who are seeking to teach 
themselves and the public; there are: some liberal 
labor leaders, and a few men in civic groups.” 
Dr. Hart says the reference was to the American 
Federation of Teachers. 





16 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ATTACKS ON TENURE AND ACADEMIC 
FREEDOM 

In several places in the country, further attacks 
are being made on tenure and on academic free- 
dom. One case of great interest to the A. F. of 
T. involves our members in New York: Dr. 
Jessie Wallace Hughan, Miss Ruth Gillette 
Hardy and Dr. Abraham Lefkowitz. 

The Board of Examiners has ranked these 
teachers among the three highest on respective 
elegible lists, but the Board of Superintendents 
has passed them by in making promotional as- 
signments. This latter board has charged, but not 
proved, that the teachers in question hold repre- 
hensible views on war, the respect due our law 
makers, and kindred subjects, but nobody charges 
that the teachers in question are not unusually 
able, successful teachers. The facts probably are 
that the opposition to the promotion of these three 
arises from the fact that they have fought political 
control of the schools and have strongly recom- 
mended the abolition of the politically chosen 
Board of Superintendents and have urged the 
substitution therefore of a Supervision Council, 
democratically chosen from district superin- 
tendents, principals and teachers. 

The teachers attacked, with the support of their 
local and the Central Labor Body, have organized 
a Citizen’s Committee of one hundred for Aca- 
demic Freedom. This committee, with Prof. 
George A. Coe as chairman, contains, in addition 
to representatives from the teachers local and 
from various labor unions, such members as Dr. 
John Lovejoy Elliot, Dr. John Dewey, Prof. 
Robert Morss Lovett, Dr. Henry Neuman, Mr. 
Robert N. Bruére, Dr. Joseph K. Hart, Mr. 
Herbert Croly, Mrs. Florence Kelly, Professors 
Charles B. Barnes and Harry A. Overstreet, John 
Haynes Holmes and Christopher Morley. 

A mass meeting has been called, which includes 
Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard among the speakers. 

The public press supports the cause of aca- 
demic freedom. The mayor, in an interview with 
representatives of the Central Labor Body, ex- 
pressed himself as favorable to that cause also. 
All in all, the attackers seem to be getting the 
worst of it. 

The A. F. of T. congratulates itself and the 
New York local on the vigor and acumen dis- 
played in its taking the offensive against efforts 


which would intimidate teachers and prevent their 
opposing activities which would injure the 
schools. | 

A case with entirely different concomitants is 
that of Dr. Suzzalo who has been discharged from 
his position as president of Washington State 
University by Gov. Hartley without any prefer- 
ment of charges. 

The case is a difficult one to judge, as there are 
various opinions as to Dr. Suzzalo’s political 
affiliations. What interests the Federation, how- 
ever, is that this seems to be a case in which an 
educational position is considered as a part of 
political spoils. The Federation stands squarely 
for the separation of schools and politics, and for 
a, teachers tenure which holds until charges of 
misconduct or professional inefficiency have been 
proved. 

R. W. Everett, chairman of Committee on Aca- 
demic Freedom and Tenure is investigating, and 
preparing our action. : 

Correspondence ‘with the American Association 
of University Professors is in progress, in an 
effort to determine the merits of the case and an 
advisable course to pursue. Pres. W. L. Semple 
of the A. A. U. P. writes that the matter is being 
vigorously considered and that additional infor- 
mation from the Washington Chapter of the A. A. 
U.P. is being awaited before taking further 
action. This is the position also of the A. F, 
of T. , 

A third very interesting case is the recent at- 
tack of some members of the Arkansas American 
Legion on Commonwealth College at Mena, 
Arkansas. To quote from the college bulletin of 
Sept. 15, 1926, Commonwealth was organized in 
1923 to provide education for workers on a self- 
supporting basis. Agriculture and other basic 
industries are carried on by both teachers and 
students. Commonwealth seeks to develop in 
young men and women the capacity to serve 
the labor movement. It is non-sectarian. It has 
great faith in the present and future contribu- 
tions of science. 


Mr. W. E. Zeuch, educational director, writes 


that a member of the Legion, declaring his charges 
based on a report of the U. S. Department of 
Justice, asserted that the college was guilty of 
teaching bolshevism, socialism, free love, afd 
revolution. Mr. Zeuch asked the Department of 





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politic 
labor. 
be abz 
We 
the ac 
experi 
Per 
the di 
Board 
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minist 
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Aft 
summ« 
inforn 
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THE AMERICAN TEACHER | 17 


Justice for a copy of report referred to, and 
received answer that no such report was in 
existence. 

The Arkansas Federation of Labor, the Civil 
Liberties Union, and many Arkansas citizens 
have come to the support of the college. The 
Arkansas press has been, on the whole, fair and 
friendly to Commonwealth. Several papers have 
sent representatives to the college to study its 
aims and methods, and have given these publicity. 


The attack is now said not to represent the 
sentiment of the Legion as a whole but to be due 
to political intrigues of individual members. 
Taken as a whole, the experience has probably 
aided Commonwealth by giving the public, gener- 
ally, in Arkansas and neighboring states, some in- 
formation of this labor college. It ought to be 
possible, however, to make the results of bring- 
ing false charges so uncomfortable to tricky 
politicians or others, that this sport of baiting 
labor organizations and institutions would have to 
be abandoned. 


We hope to give our readers an early report on 
the activities of this very interesting educational 
experiment at Mena. 

Perhaps the most flagrant of these attacks was 
the discharge of Dr. J. E. Kirkpatrick by the 
Board of Trustees of Olivet College as a result 
of the expression of his views of college ad- 
ministration, views recently made public in his 
book, The American College and Its Rulers. 


After students and professors had left for the 
summer, the Board of Trustees of Olivet College 
informed him of their resolution that his services 
were no longer required “not because of any 
inefficiency on your part as a classroom teacher 
but because your views of college administration, 
which views you have always been free to ex- 
press and advocate, are not in harmony with the 
views of the Board of Trustees and of substantial 
friends of Olivet not on the board who are giving 
financial support to Olivet College.” The action 
was taken “in agreement with the understanding 
with Dr. Kirkpatrick made a year ago.” Dr. 
Kirkpatrick denies the existence of the under- 
Standing. He charges the Trustees with acting 
secretly when they had given the faculty “every 
reason to believe that no dismissals would be 
made without giving the persons, who so desired, 
a hearing before the faculty.” The Olivet College 


Echo, a student publication, expressed “deep re- 
gret” at the dismissal, and sympathetic students 
and professors propose to challenge the Trustees’ 
action. 

Unlike most educational critics who focus on 
the present, Dr. Kirkpatrick is curious to find out, 
as many of us are, how we got that way. So 
he traces the mechanism of college government 
from the beginning when, with few exceptions, 
governing groups of clergymen dictated policy, 
treating professors as mere hirelings, to the pres- 
ent day when college presidents enforce the orders 
of the “man in the skyscraper.” “Our traditional 
system of academic organization,” he says, “has 
invited the shifting of the directing power from 
‘Main Street to Wall Street’ and from Wall Street 
to the private office of a director of the House of 
Morgan. The shifting process is well nigh com- 
pleted. The consequences we are now beginning 
to recognize.” Dr. Kirkpatrick looks hopefully 
for the coming of democracy on the campus 
through student revolts and the advent of demo- 
cratically-minded scholar-president; like Glenn 
Frank of Wisconsin; also through the few ex- 
perimental colleges such as Antio: h, Brookwood 
and Commonwealth. To some dezree these ven- 
tures embody Dr. Kirkpatrick’s ideal educational 
system. 

For further discussion of the book, see 
page 20 called The Democratic Goal. 

The American Federation of Teachers wishes 
to impress upon its members the very great gravity 
of the situation when a professor may be calmly 
discharged because his views are not in harmony 
with those of substantial friends who give finan- 
cial support to a college. No longer is it necessary 
for the Trustees to resort to any subterfuge as 
to professional inefficiency. No case could more 
fully substantiate Dr. Kirkpatrick’s assertion as 
to the real ruler of American colleges than does 
Dr. Kirkpatrick’s own. 





In October a new workers’ college was inaugurated 
in Charleston, W. Va., under the auspices of the 
Kanawha Valley Central Labor Union. The Workers’ 
Education Bureau sent literature on how to organize, 
the city locals were canvassed, Sunday meetings were 
held- to discuss vital topics, with an eye out. for an 
instructor or two. Then came Clinton S. Golden of 
Brookwood College, to address a mass meeting, and 
just the man turned up for instructor. So work has 
begun in earnest with a course in history. 





18 ; THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT IN 
WORKERS’ EDUCATION 
Alice Henry 

The movement for workers’ education is one 
of the youngest of mankind’s efforts after self- 
expression and self-development. In every 
country it, as yet, means a feeling of the way. 
So experiments abound. Sometimes classes are 
entirely supported, year after year, by one na- 
tional trade union, as in the case of the German 
metal workers. Sometimes the state or the muni- 
cipality or a great educational institution like a 
university helps. Sometimes, again, as in Britain, 
it divides into two branches; one primarily em- 
bodying the effort to acquire knowledge, like the 
Workers’ Educational Association, and the other, 
the Labor College group, more concerned with 
instilling antl expounding class conscious eco- 
nomics. But whatever form workers’ education 
may take and no matter how systems are run, no 
ones can dispute that it is a workers’ movement, 
and that the workers are behind it, and more and 
more will push forward its activities. On the 
continent, the organization most energetic in both 
recruiting and supporting, are the trade unions 
and the labor parties. 

There have even been already international 
schools and conferences, and these afford a bird’s 
eye view of progress in many different countries. 
The last conference held in Oxford in 1924, and 
called together by the International Federation of 
Trade Unions, had a roll-call representing twenty- 
three countries. Besides handling the main busi- 
ness, which was to lay the foundation of a per- 
manent international body, opportunity was taken 
of the time allowed—all too short—to discuss a 
few practical questions, which are apparently in 
every country vital matters. These were such 
as: 


What can the evening class accomplish? 
What are the limits of class work? 


With the resident college, should it be planted 
out in the country or in the heart of an industrial 
city? 

What should be the length of a residential 
course? (These rum all the way from four 
months to two years. Six months was the gener- 
ally approved time.) 

How should students be recruited for either 
class or residential work ? 


What qualifications should be demanded from 
teachers ? 

It all had a very familiar sound, and made the 
American delegates feel quite at home, seeing 
that these are some of the very questions that 
are puzzling us here today. All who were present 
on that occasion looked forward eagerly to the 
results of the next international conference. 





Frank H. Beasley, Jr. 

Frank H. Beasley, Jr., of Witt, Illinois, is the holder 
for this year of the scholarship established at Brook- 
wood Labor College by the Chicago locals of the 
American Federation of Teachers. Beasley is in his 
thirties and has a wife and family to support. They 
and he are gladly making the sacrifice involved in his 
leaving the mine for a year in order to gain some 
training that will make him a more efficient member 
and officer of his organization. He does not expect to 
derive any personal advantage or pecuniary benefit 
from taking the Brookwood course. As he himself 
stated it, “I believe workers’ education should teach us 
to speak and write correctly, think progressively, .so 
that we may be able, if called upon, to lead our broth- 
ers upon the right path and to act at. the proper 
moment in order that the best interests of the labor 
movement may be advanced.” Before coming to 
Brookwood, Beasley was an active attendant and sup- 
porter of the splendid educational work being carried 
in Sub-district Five of Illinois, under the direction of 
Tom Tippett. 

Beasley has been for fifteen years a member of the 
United Mine Workers of America and for nearly as 
long, a member also of the American Federation of 
Musicians. He has held many of the offices in the gift 
of his local and his sub-district, and is at present audi- 
tor of Sub-district No. 5. 

Commonwealth College 

Commonwealth was organized in 1923 to provide 
education for workers on a self-supporting basis. It is 
located in the Ozarks, near Mena, Ark., where it opert- 
ates agricultural and other basic industries by means of 
four hours’ daily labor from its students and teachers. 
It seeks to develop in young men and women of the 
working class the capacity to serve the labor move- 
ment. 

Commonwealth is a non-sectarian, non-propaganda 
institution. It sponsors no particular religious, politi- 
cal, or economic dogma. It holds that scientific experi- 
mentation carries the only hope of adjustment or solu- 
tion of personal and social problems. Commonwealth 
is the only institution for higher education where both . 
teachers and students earn their maintenance by part- 
time labor while engaged in academic work. 





It is by working together instead of trampling on¢ 
another under foot that the human race will become 
better. 





— 


2 aS oe ee SS lS OO ae ee” eC 


=| 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 19 


EDUCATION AND THE A. F. OF L. 
CONVENTION 

Labor’s sustained interest in education was reflected 
in the range of educational subjects considered as well 
as in the time devoted to their discussion. The con- 
vention commended the permanent Committee on Edu- 
cation for its work in collecting the data upon which a 
model compulsory school attendance bill can be based. 
The relation between school attendance laws and their 
enforcement, and child labor was emphasized as the 
way to provide more adequate protection for children. 
Labor feels that every child ought to be assured the 
widest possible educational opportunities in the early 
formative years of his life. The convention considered 
the summary of the child labor situation submitted by 
the Executive Council and urged all state federations 
of labor and city central bodies to continue their efforts 
to secure ratification of the federal child labor amend- 
ment. ; 

Organized labor was the major instrumentality in 
establishing the public school system, and it is also 
assuming its responsibility for contributing to the 
maintenance of an impartial synthesized point of view 
in the presentation of social subjects. Texts for the 
teaching of history, civics, sociology ought to interpret 
society as a composite structure, presenting all major 
institutions including the labor movement. 


Evidence that labor conceives education to be a con- 
tinuous process is found in consideration of workers’ 
education enterprises, workers’ colleges, summer 
schools and institutes. Union members were urged to 
develop plans for study identified with the work and 
interests of the union which may be reflected into union 
meetings both by merging of discussion and by individ- 
ual capacity to render more responsible service. The 
organization of summer institutes was commended as 
an opportunity to continue study with recreation. The 
institutes of the past year, railroad, textile and power, 
were for the purpose of focusing attention on the prob- 
lems of a single industry. 

As texts for studying labor problems and policies, 
the convention commended the official magazine and 
pamphlets of the federation as well as the literature of 
the unions in which a specific study group may belong. 


.For texts in other subjects the publications and recom- 


mendations of the Workers’ Education Bureau were 
recommended. 

The Workers’ Education Bureau was again approved 
by the convention as the educational arm of the labor 
movement. Affiliation to the bureau was urged upon 
all national and international unions as well as subor- 
dinate units thereto. As convincing evidence of its 
approval, the convention recommended the adjustment 
of the per capita dues paid to the bureau, thereby to 
increase its revenues. 

To provide the machinery through which educational 
work may be furthered, the convention recommended 
the creation in each state federation of labor, a depart- 
ment of education with a director of education for the 
state. The continuance of local committees on educa- 


tion was endorsed and every central body was urged to 
provide such permanent committee.—American Federa- 
tionist. 


EDUCATIONAL COURSE OF UNION WILL 
TRAIN WORKERS TO .THINK 


New York—In its latest bulletin, the Educational 
Department of the International Ladies’ Garment 
Workers’ Union explains its purpose and announces its 
policy for the coming year. 

“The function of workers’ education,” it is stated, 
“is to assist in the all-important task of making our 
world a better place for all. The truth is clear that it 
is the mission of the workers themselves to abolish the 
inequalities and injustices which they suffer, and that 
they can accomplish this only through organization. But 
it is equally clear that economic strength is much more 
effective if directed by intelligent, well informed, clear- 
thinking men and women. 

“The purpose of the educational activities of the I. L. 
G. W. U. is to provide the labor movement with such 
men and women. The courses arranged for the Edu- 
cational Department are designed to give the members 
of the union those facts of the social sciences which’ 
may serve as a basis for sound conclusions, may help 
create true social and spiritual values and may train 
them for active and successful participation in the labor 
movement as leaders and workers. 


“The members of our union who attend the lectures 
and courses learn a great deal about matters connected 
with their industry, their organization and the labor 
movement. They learn some of the psychologic laws, 
which govern the relations between human beings. 
They are inspired by literature which deals with life, 
hopes and sorrows of other men and women. 

“Knowledge of conditions outside the union is essen- 
tial to those who would be of the greatest usefulness to 
their union and the labor movement.” 

Fannia M. Cohen is executive secretary of the Edu- 
cational Department. 


The National Women’s Trade Union League, co- 
operating with eight dther national women’s organiza- 
tions, will participate in a conference on the Cause and 
Cure of War, to be held in Washington, D. C., Dec. 5 
to 10. A similar conference, organized,in January, 
1925, resulted in a demand from the women of America 
for a second meeting to discuss war prevention meas- 
ures. Five million women will be represented by dele- 
gates at the conference. 

The very timely Foreign Debt problem and the situa- 
tion in Mexico as it affects the “United States will be 
discussed by nationally prominent speakers and at round 
table meetings. The United States’ attitude toward 
China, Japan, Latin America and the Philippines will 
also occupy a portion of the program along with talks 
on disarmament, arbitration and national security. 

Nine hundred delegates will represent the five million 
club women of America at this gathering. 





20 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


THE DEMOCRATIC GOAL 

“History and Social Intelligence,” by H. E. 
Barnes. Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. Pp. xii+-597. 
$5.00. 

“Only history,” Mr Barnes argues, “through 
its ability to demonstrate the growth of knowl- 
ledge and accumulation of experience, can ade- 
quately prove the futility of looking backward 
for guidance and show the necessity of concen- 
trating our interest on the present in the hope 
of improving the future.” 

Because he is sure that we do not yet know 
certainly what democracy is or how it can be 
realized, he attempts, by a review of the past, to 
awaken intelligent interest in the history of demo- 
cratic theory and practice. He also deals in a 
fresh, vigorous way with some leading contem- 
porary problems which have arisen in the actual 
operation of democracy. 

From first to last, his book is of absorbing inter - 
est. Often views advanced arouse hearty agree- 
ment; equally often new facts presented cause a 
tumultuous readjustment of ideas. Perhaps the 
book’s best service to the average teacher will 
come after the first reading when it is used as a 
guide for independent study of recent historical 
literature. It is possible to question the finality 
of certain psychological theories which Mr. 
Barnes accepts, but at the same time to adopt 
cordially the main thesis of his text: “Unless we 
are able to supplant doctrinaire idealism by social 
engineering founded upon the best results of 
natural science, technology, and the social sciences, 
there\is no prospect whatever that democracy or 
any other type of political institution will be able 
to cope successfully with the ever-increasing com- 
plexities of contemporary civilization.” 

“Today and Tomorrow,” by Henry Ford in 
collaboration with Samuel Crowther. Doubleday 
Page & Co., Garden City, 1926, Pp. 481, $3.50. 

The Educational Review for September, 1926, 
enthusiastically recommends “Today and Tomor- 
row” as a tip-top book for the “schoolmaster.” It 
is a facinating study for anyone who is concerned 
about the progress of industrial democracy. 

There is a strange contradiction in it. Some- 
times Ford has a clear vision of what work means. 
“Always,” he says, “I have found fun in a great 
many directions, the greatest fun of all being in 
a day’s work. Thinking men know that intelligent 
work is salvation morally, physically, socially.” 


“. ,. .Work does more than get us our living; 
it gets us our life.” “. What we (manu- 
facturers) are doing is not making this or that; 
we are making life and the opportunity of life, 
and the conditions of life.” 

Yet he blandly describes the sort of “life” he 
is making for his men. “Our system of manage- 
ment consists of planning the methods of doing 
the work as well as the work. All that we ask. 
of the men is that they do the work which is set 
before them.” “The key of our pro- 
duction is inspection. More than 3 per cent of 
our entire force are inspectors.” 

Mr. Ford seems not at all aware that, for his 
men, such unintelligent work may mean death 
morally, physically, socially. He does see that 
unthinking men are a boon to management. He 
gives them good wages so that they may accu- 
mulate enough money to buy an abundace of 
cheap, well-made goods. Also he wants them to 
have more leisure, because with leisure they will 
“have time to expand their sense of need and 
therefore will increase their consumption.” 

Quotations from Ruskin crowd to the mind, but 
Ford is too modern to heed the theories of a 
Victorian. He is even sure enough of his posi- 
tion to speak calmly of the labor movement. “We 
are not opposed to unions; we have no dealings 
with them because they have nothing to aid us 
in our management.” 

Perhaps, however, he can be stirred by the 
voice of a modern prophet who wrote recently :* 
“Has he (the modern industrial employee) not 
a deep and unsatisfied need for functional free- 
dom, a smouldering sense, which may be awak- 
ened, that he is being deprived of the essential 
experience of industry? On the hope that he 
has and that either the labor movement or some 
similar force will find and resolve it, seems to 
depend the possibility of a full individual and 
social life under mechanical civilization.” 

—*New Republic, Oct. 20, 1926. 


“The American College and Its Rulers,” by 
J. E. Kirkpatrick, Ph. D., New Republic, Inc., 
New York, 1926, Pp. viii+-309, $1.00. 

Mr. Kirkpatrick believes that there can be no 
adequate education for either the industrial 
worker or the educational worker apart from all 
the responsibilities that belong to his task. There- 
fore he writes a whole-hearted plea for “academic 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 21 


democracy,” which he defines as “that type of 
school in which first, the patrons and supporters, 
second, the teachers and officers of administration, 
and finally the pupils or students, are so related 
to each other that they share mutually in the 
conduct of all the major as well as the minor 
interests of the school.” 

Mr. Kirkpatrick, however, is no visionary ad- 
vocating sudden change from a feudal organiza- 
tion to a utopia. The present weaknesses of 
American teachers and students are faced fairly 
enough in his discussion. He believes that the 
better time must come slowly and that the first 
step toward it must be a long and careful con- 
sideration of principles and*ideals. Academic 
democracy will come when those who now possess 
authority and power are convinced that actual 
zest, keenness, and creativeness will not return 
to schools until increasing responsibility is put 
upon teachers and pupils. When that is done, 
and when, after some failures, a few successful 
experiments, in academic democracy are in 
existence, the battle will be won. 

As his contribution towards the development 
of a new attitude favorable to creativeness, Mr. 
Kirkpatrick writes a calm, objective description 
of the way education is functioning in such typi- 
cal schools as Harvard, Clark, Amberst, and 
Brookwood. ; 

He suggests a reorganization of the academic 
world which may keep the president’s excessive 
weight from disturbing the balance. This aca- 
demic head has become of more value in the puBlic 
eye than the universal academic group. It is time 
for this vast man to fall. “The office of presi- 
dent fitted into the frontier and the age of exploi- 
tation but does not harmonize with the necessary 
responsibility and self-respect which are essential 
for the student and teacher today. We must 
prepare leaders wise enough to develop genuine 
political and industrial democracy in our land. 
“When schools are regarded as laboratories, when 
students and teachers are regarded as expert 
workers seeking to improve the human race, then 
and not until then we may look for a new and 
better social order.” 





“A good book is the precious life blood of a master 
spirit.” —Milton. 


TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN OTHER 
COUNTRIES 
(Continued from Page 7) 
is perhaps one evidence of the way the wind 
blew. 

There was one organization of teachers which 
very frankly allied itself with the workers, This 
was “The Teachers Labour League,” a unit of 
the British Labor Party, with a membership of 
about one thousand. The league published a 
Manifesto, calling on the teachers to contribute 
their services as speakers, organizers, etc. Some 
of its active members lost their teaching licenses 
as a result, but the league reports a substantial 
gain in membership. (Incidentally, it numbers 
among its vice-presidents such internationally 
known men as Prof. Sidney Webb, Betrand Rus- 
sell, H. G. Wells, and R. H. Tawney.) 

This Teachers Labour League is a very inter- 
esting organization. We have nothing compar- 
able to it in this country. Most of its members 
are also members of the N. U. T. and they com- 
pose the backbone of the minority who are work- 
ing for the affiliation of the National Union of 
Teachers to the British trade union movement. 





UNIONS RESPOND TO EDUCATION FOR 
SERVICE 

Go into the average trade union meeting of what- 
ever character—local union, district council or cen- 
tral body, state federation or international union 
convention—and talk on the beauties of life, the gran- 
deur of the world, appreciation of art and the glories 
and advantages of culture, and unless you are a clever 
orator, capable of arousing emotions in a considerable 
number of people, the response will be negligible. 

But show the same audience that workers’ education 
is not “education for education’s sake,” but, rather a 
tool or a process that can be utilized to provide the 
membership with a greater degree of understanding of 
the social, political and economic forces of the past and 
present and equip them with a knowledge and training 
that will serve to aid them in their day-to-day strug- 
gles for collective recognition and advancement, and at 
the same time give them a vision of a new and better 
world, pointing out the possible paths thereto, and a 
hopeful and encouraging response will be forthcoming. 
—Clinton S. Golden, from the Proceedings of the 
Third Annual Conference of Teachers in Workers’ 
Education at Brookwood. 


“Half of the 500,000 wage earners in American cot- 
ton mills.are now employed in the South. The raw 
material is close at hand, labor is cheaper and THE 
ILL-ORGANIZED WORKERS ARE EASIER TO 
HANDLE.”—Editorial, N. Y. World. 








22 > 


Three prizes of $250, $100 and $50 are offered by the 
Harmon Foundation and the Survey Magazine for 
“the best unpublished manuscripts dealing with some 
adventure, invention or accomplishment in the field of 
public education.” The winning story will be pub- 
lished in The Survey and in collaborating newspapers. 

The contest is open to everyone, including profes- 
sional and amateur educators, writers and students. 
The story may be about “the new education” in a pub- 
lic instead of an expensive private school; about work- 
ers’ ‘education classes at a state university; about a new 
state educational plan; about the rejuvenation of the 
little crossroads school house; about a fine piece of 
co-operation between a community and its schools. 

So long as it deals with public education there is no 
limitation. It is hoped in particular that those who are 
actually engaged in educational enterprises will write 
out of their first-hand experience. 

The judges will be Glenn Frank, president of the 
University of Wisconsin; John H. Finley, editor of 
the New York Times; Joseph K. Hart, former profes- 
sor of education at the University of Washington and 
at Reed College; Henry R. Linville, president of the 
Teachers’ Union of New York City; Lucy Sprague 
Mitchell, head of the Bureau of Educational Experi- 
ments; Nathaniel M. Salley, dean of the School of 
Education, Florida State College for Women; Mary E. 
Woolley, president of Mt. Holyoke College; Will C. 
Wood, state superintendent of public instruction, Cali- 
fornia; Beulah Amidon, education editor of The Sur- 
vey. 

Conditions 

The manuscripts must be not less than 1,000 nor 
more than 2,500 words in length, tppewritten, double 
spaced on one side of the paper. 

Delivery must not be later than noon, December 31, 
1926. 

Address them to Jury, Harmon-Survey Award 3, 
care of The Survey, 112 East 19th Street, New York. 

Identification must be by means of a pen-name signed 
to the manuscript, with an accompanying plain, sealed 
envelope having on the outside the pen-name and on 
the inside the pen-name and the real name and address 
of the author. 

Manuscripts are sent at the owner’s risk and none 
will be returned unless accompanied by sufficient post- 
age. 


$1500 IN CASH PRIZES FOR HIGH SCHOOL 
STUDENTS 


A new annual group of prizes for creative work 
done by secondary school students in the fields of liter- 
ature, art and civics has been announced by the pub- 
lishers of the Scholastic, a national magazine for the 
high school classroom. A total of $1500 will be 
awarded to successful contestants. 

Four groups of major awards will be made for crea- 
tive writing: 1. poetry; 2. short story; 3. essays; 4. 
dramatization. Another group of awards will be made 
for the best drawings or paintings by secondary school 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


students; and a special group for the best plan (for. 
mulated and executed by students) for concrete par- 
ticipation in the civic affairs of a community by stu- 
dents. 

Numerous other minor prizes will be given for work 
done in connection with the annual student-written 
number of the Scholastic. The contests will close on 
March 20, 1927, and the awards will be announced in 
the student-written number of the Scholastic to be 
issued in April. 

Dr. William M. Davidson is chairman of the Com- 
mittee on the Scholastic Awards, which is composed of 
twenty prominent educators. 

Because the prizes are for strictly creative work on 
the part of students; NO SUBJECTS ARE 
ASSIGNED in any of the contests. The awards are 
being sponsored by the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, 
A pamphlet containing complete information, including 
rules and regulations, may be had on application to the 
Scholastic, Wabash Building, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Grant Overton has issued some helps for Scholastic 
contestants. Summarized, they are: 

1. Think of the contest as little as possible. 

2. Be original, which is to say, be candidly and 
whole-heartedly yourself. 

3. Do not enter a story unless you have a story you 
must tell. The same applies to poem, éssay, or cover 
design. 

4. Remember a short story involves something sig- 
nificant happening to somebody—significant to that 
body, rather than to us. 


ANOTHER VICTORY FOR THE NEW YORK 
UNION AND AUXILIARY 


The report of a committee of teachers of the N. Y. 
Teachers’ Union on the conditions in the Julia Richman 
High School caused Mrs. Francis D. Pallak and other 
members of the auxiliary to visit many high schools 
and gather data as to size of classes and intricacies of 
program arrangement. Data and opinions pointed 
clearly to the economic extravagance and educational 
miscarriage of high schools of over three thousand. 
The claim of economical operating cost of the high 
school was not borne out by the facts. 

After gathering and compiling the data, a special 
committee of prominent citizens was formed. It inter- 
viewed first the Board of Education and later the 
Board of Estimate, sending to the latter, at the mayor's 
request, a long and explicit estimate of its findings. 
Later the board decided to cut the size of the proposed 
DeWitt Clinton High School to 4,100 seats, a decrease 
of 1,365. Associate Superintendent Shallow gave the 
committee full credit for this change. 

Now the committee intends, with expert help, to plan 
an ideal high school which shall meet the practical 
requirements of a large city. 

The N. Y. Teachers’ Union and Auxiliary are proud 
of the work of Mrs. Pallak and the special committee, 
and feel that the success of this initial project forecasts 
a remarkable future in the line of securing smaller 
schools in New York City. 








eA2aerer RTE BARB 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 23 


Our Locals 


The Federation of Women Teachers, St. Paul, Minn., 
Local No. 28, is continuing its work in advertising its 
organization. The second step is a blotter bearing the 
invitation to enjoy 

“Our Group Insurance—Health and accident at half 
price. 

“Our Hospital and Friendly Benefits—Added income 
protection. . 

“Our Credit Union—Deposit at good interest rates— 
borrow at reasonable rates. 

“Our Club Rooms—Free use to members—use the 
Baby Grand. 

“Swimming Clubs—Golf instruction—book clubs— 
special and club rates.” 

It is not stopping with two stéps but plans a real 


‘hike. ” 


The Chicago Federation of Women High School 
Teachers and the Chicago Federation of Men Teachers 
held a joint luncheon October 23rd, at the Morrison 
Hotel. Dr. Joseph K. Hart, educational director of the 
survey was the chief guest and speaker. He spoke on 
The Community and the School. Victor A. Olander, 
secretary of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, 
spoke with his usual eloquence and idealism of the 
needs of the public schools. Charles B. Stillman 
explained briefly the tax situation in Chicago and urged 
the teachers to support and finance the tax campaign 
and capital tax suits of the federation. 


Miss Carlotta Pittman, president Memphis Local No. 
52 and vice-president of the American Federation of 
Teachers is spending the year until February at Ancon, 
C. Z., Panama. She is editing the woman’s page on the 
Panama Star and Herald, promoting the interests of 
the American Federation of Teachers, and having a 
general good time. 


Granite City, Local No. 38 is due to receive congrat- 
ulations. It had a membership gain of over 15% in 
October. The local is now working on a sick benefit 
plan. 


WHAT IS AN INJUNCTION? 


An injunction is a law that is found on no statute 
book. 

A law that has never been voted on by any set of 
legislators. A law which has never been signed by 
any governor or president. A law which exists with- 
out the consent of the people. A law which came into 
being as the will of one man. An injunction is law 
made by a judge; and its penalties are fixed by the 
same judge; and the offenders are tried before the 
same judge;.and the verdict is rendered by a jury of 
one man—the same judge; and the sentence is pro- 
nounced by the same judge. 

That is an injunction —The Searchlight. 


THE ATLANTA SITUATION 

In Atlanta, as in many other cities, the early months 
of the fall find the school treasury out of funds. Bor- 
rowing has been resorted to until the current years’ 
taxes are available. This in time has produced so large 
a total deficit that this year, two remedies were sug- 
gested: closing schools for a time, or issuing scrip to 
the teachers for salary. This scrip was not acceptable 
to the local business men as one group of citizens who 
do not believe in a thorough system of public educa- 
tion, plan resort to the courts to gain their ends and 
prevent adequate school expenditure. 

_ The superintendent declares that an antiquated form 
of government gives the schools too low a tax rate. 
In this view the president of the Board of Education 
concurs, declaring that Atlanta cannot operate good 
schools on 26% of city’s revenue, that the cost per 
pupil in Atlanta averages $51.74; in 25 other cities it 
comes to $88.66. Atlanta is growing fast and the num- 
ber of school children increases faster than does the 
revenue. 


Miss Barker, president of the A. F. of T., writes 
that the crisis had to come sometime and that it may 
be so solved as to be for the benefit of the schools. 
The situation she reports to be a complicated one 
involving many interests and points of view. The 
teachers will have a hard fight to maintain the present 
school standards, she concludes. 

Later information advises us that a group of public 
spirited citizens have endorsed notes, as security for a 
loan of $500,000 to keep the schools open. Warrants 
were sent by special delivery to the 1200 teachers in 
payment of the over-due September Salaries. 


Certainly this group of citizens deserves much credit 
and praise for their aid in the time of a financial crisis. 
Such aid, naturally cannot be anything but temporary 
and Atlanta will have to face the situation now com- 
mon throughout the country. Everywhere a larger 
and larger percentage of pupils graduate from gram- 
mar schools and enter\high school. To train these 
young people for effectiveness as citizens and workers 
in the present complex business and social organiza- 
tion requires an enriched curriculum and a high type of 
teacher. These necessitate the expenditure of a great 
deal of money. _Not only that. As time goes on and 
the public lays more responsibilities on the schools, 
public education will cost even more. In many places, 
there are antiquated tax systems which allow vast 
amounts of intangible property to escape taxation alto- 
gether. There are also faulty or corrupt practices in 
the collection of what is taxed. The Federation believes 
that there is no more vital subject before the American 
people of today than the question of an intelligent, 
modern, just system of taxation, and, in connection 
with it, an evaluation of the contribution of the public 
schools to the country and a comparison of their cost 
with the cost of amusements, tobacco, cosmetics and 
the like. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








American Federation of Teachers 


327 S. La Salle Street 
CHICAGO, ILL. 


Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 
Organized April 15, 1916 
eer 


The American Federation of Teachers desires to establish an intimate contact and an effective 
cooperaticn between the teachers and the other workers of the community. 


The American Federation of Teachers desires to co-operate with all civic organizations for im- 
proved civic life. 


Groups of seven or more public school teachers are invited to affiliate with this National 
Organization of Classroom Teachers, for mutual assistance, improved professional standards and 
the democratization of the schools. 


Our Slogan Is: 
Democracy in Education: Education for Democracy 


**The American Teacher’ is published monthly by the American Federation of Teachers. 
Membership dues carry subscription to the magazine. To all others the subscription price is $1.00 
per year, 15 cents per copy. | 

















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