FEBRUARY, 1928 VOLUME XII, No. 6 


— | Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 


The 
American Teacher 


THE ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 





= ahem 

















Fig OO 





that popularity is the way to success in America. The way to success in 
this great country, with its fair judgments, is to show that you are not 
afraid of anybody except God and His final verdict. If I did not believe 
that, I would not believe in democracy. If I did not believe that, I would 3 | 
not believe that people can govern themselves. If I did not believe that the “3 
moral judgment would be the last judgment, the final judgment, in the “ 
minds of men as well as the tribunal of God, I could not believe in popular a 
government. But I do believe these things, and, therefore, I earnestly 
believe in the democracy not only of America but of every awakened 
people that wishes and intends to govern and control its own affairs.” — 
Woodrow Wilson, July 4, 1914. 


Noo KA” 


“I am sometimes very much interested when I see gentlemen supposing 
| 
: 


sl 











Sar, 














Office of Publication | Editorial Office 
Leader Building, eee 99 $27 South La Salle St, 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Chicago, Illinois a 
—t Single Copy 25c—Yearly Subscription $2.00 yy 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





THE EDUCATED MAN 

“That man, I think, has a liberal education 
who has been so trained in his youth that his 
body is the ready servant of his will and does 
with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a 
mechanism it is capable of; whose intellect is a 
clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts of 
equal strength and in smooth working order, 
ready like a steam engine to spin the gossamers 
as well as forge the anchors of the mind, whose 
mind is stored with a knowledge of the great 
and fundamental truths of nature and the laws 
of her operations, one who, no stinted ascetic, 
is full of life and fire, but whose passions are 
trained to come to heat by a vigorous will, the 
servant of a tender conscience; who has learned 
to love all beauty whether of nature or of art, 
to hate all vileness, and to respect others as 
human.”—-Thomas Huxley, address to a Work- 
ingmen’s College. 











UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF LABOR TO 
THE A. F. OF T. 
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 
Office of the Secretary 
Washington 
December 28, 1927. 
Mrs. FLORENCE Curtis HANsoNn, 
512 WeEBsTER BUILDING, 
327 S. LASALLE STREET, 
Cuicaco, ILLLINOIs. 
Dear Mrs. Hanson: 

My best wishes go out to the teachers of this coun- 
try, along with my warmest hopes for the success 
of their federated movement. The teachers of com- 
ing American citizens deserve the best we can give 
them in the way of appreciation and recompense. 
No work more important or more trying is per- 
formed by any of us. Our school system is one of 
our national prides and boasts, and stands as a model 
before the world. We lay out more money on 


school buildings and equipment than any other coun- . 


try. Yet after all it is not the buildings that make 
our schools; it is the teachers. My contention has 
always been that, having built the buildings on such 
a lavish scale, we should next turn about and pro- 
vide funds for the proper reward of those teachers 
who really make our system of education what it is. 

In this busy country, however, nothing comes to 
us of its own accord. We have to contend for what 
we want, and even for what we deserve. It is high 


time that our teachers got together and in concert 
presented their claims, In our great population the 
individual is too small to be heard. But where many 
voices are gathered together, their message is apt to 
be listened to. And I know we can trust the instruc- 
tors of our young to present their just claims with 
that tact and persuasiveness which is certain in the 
long run to win proper attention. 

It is characteristic of your organization that its 
first aim is not to enforce the claims of teachers to 
the money recompense they deserve. It is rather for 
the purpose of improving themselves in their work. 
It is formed in order to provide the individual teacher 
with the chance of an exchange of ideas. One might 
call it an intellectual bank, where each deposits his 
or her best thoughts toward the improvement of the 
teaching profession, and from which each teacher 
is privileged to draw suggestions for such improve- 
ment. 

At the same time I hope you do not neglect to 
stress the teacher’s claim to true recognition from 
our people for the value of service rendered. In that 
I once again wish you the success you deserve. 

Sincerely yours, 
James J. Davis, 
Secretary. 





CONTENTS 


Educational Ideals and Practices— 
Dr. Theodore G. Soares 


Danish Folk High School—Peter 
Manniche 


The Nursery School at Vassar College 
Lovisa C. Wagner. -_-_____--_----- 10 


The Conference of the New Education 
at Locarno—Ruth Gillette Hardy 

















The American Teacher 


second class matter Oct. — at the post office at Oklahoma City, 
mae SS I Of postage provided for in Sec. 1108, Act of Feb: 28, 1925, authorized Nov. 3. 1926. 


Acceptance for mailing at special rate of 


Okla., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 





Volume XII, No. 6 


FEBRUARY, 1928 


Two Dollars a Year 





Educational Ideals and Practices 


DR. THEODORE G. SOARES 
University of Chicego 


Madam President and friends, I think there has 
been a little discrimination against me. I noticed 
in the program that came to me a few days ago 
that Senator Borah, who was going to speak to you, 
had been excused because he has submitted to a 
tonsilectomy. Now I had a tonsilectomy later than 
he did. Why he should be excused and I not, I 
don’t quite know. 

I think you agree with me that if we look back 
five years we know something of the costs of educa- 
tional discussion. There has taken place a rather 
radical transformation in theory. I believe it would 
be rather difficult to go to any body of teachers 
in the country and discuss the meaning of education, 
and have that meaning expressed in any other than 
moral terms. Nobody is willing to talk of education 
in purely intellectual terms. Nobody is satisfied with 
thinking of goals of education as vocational fitness, 
but some forms of socialization, something that has 
to do with an efficient citizenship, something that 
has the spiritual quality of helping children to realize 
themselves in the world in which they are, is always 
dominant in any educational discussion today. 

That is an enormous gain. Of course when we 
come to consider what we mean by socialization, by 
social efficiency, by even character, then we find 
perhaps a rather definite cleavage. I suppose every- 
body throughout the land today believes that we 
ought to have character education in the public 
schools, that one of the great goals of education 
should be character. But what is character? I 
think there we find a cleavage. A very large number 
of people are thinking of that moral achievement in 
terms of conformity to the social practices, to the 
moral standing, that are generally accepted by the 
better class of people, shall I say, today. 


One of the newspapers recently spoke of the fact 
that in schools there had been an examination of 
students to discover whether they knew the Ten 
Commandments. This newspaper, was very pious in 





‘ From stenographic notes of address delivered at A. F. T, 
anquet at Webster Hotel, Chicago, June 29, 1927. 


its talk, especially on the subject of morality in the 
public schools. This newspaper was greatly dis- 
tressed because of the considerable percentage of 
students that could not repeat it. They said, “They 
don’t know the Ten Commandments, that is why 
they are so wicked. If we could only teach them 
the Ten Commandments.” 

I think perhaps as a matter of culture it might 
be well to be able to repeat that significant old He- 
brew epitome of righteousness, but I am not very 
sure that it matters much. It is infinitely more im- 
portant that children should make some command- 
ments of their own which have some relation to 
their lives as to what they must and must not 
commit. 

Have we not had in church, school and state, a 
sort of belief that we should give to our children 
that which was given to us? There is a sort of sneak- 
ing idea among us that if we could by any chance 
(we don’t expect to be able to do it) make our 
children as good as ourselves, we should have suc- 
ceeded extraordinarily in our education work. That 
old practice of a father and mother telling children 
how good we used to be when we were young and 
what a pity the children are not now, is after all 
pretty dominant in the whole idea of education. 
Bernard Shaw in his delightful way has said that 
no parent should ever hold himself up before his 
children as anything but a warning. 

Now whether that is equally applicable to the 
teachers is undecided. But the whole question is, 
are we going to try to help our children to believe 
that we have achieved such morality and such a kind 
of righteousness as we are very anxious for them to 
attain also, or that our fathers and ourselves have 
been engaged in an endeavor to work out social 
righteousness and we are going to do the best we 
can to help them to be more efficient than we have 
been in the discovery of that righteousness? 

Is not social living always something for which 
we strive rather than something which we hand on 
to the generation which follows? 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


I think you are going to have two entirely dif- 
ferent kinds of education. The one an invitation 
to the children to enter into this static morality that 
we have achieved, and the other an incentive for the 
children to come and share with us the enterprise, 
the adventure of trying to find out what righteous- 
ness really is. 

Now, curiously enough, it is only in the field of 
culture and morality, including of course, economics 
and politics, that we have that kind of view of 
learning as being a certain quantum of attained 
riches that are to be inherited by the next genera- 
tion. You never have that in science. A real 
scientist never thinks that what he is trying to do 
is to teach the children what he knows. He always 
thinks that what he is trying to do is to equip the 
children with a method to find out more than he 
knows. Science never thinks of itself as having a 
quantum of attained knowledge that it is going to 
hand on, perhaps with a sort of fear that anybody 
may change any part of it. Science always believes 
itself to be merely on the way. It is far more con- 
scious of its limitations than it is of its achievements, 
and it frankly says to even young boys and girls, 
“This is the way we do things, you see we don’t 
know this or that, some experiments are being tried 
here or there which may enable us to know some- 
thing more about this, but here is a method pres- 
ented by which if you want to spend the time and 
money you can find out things that have never been 
known.” The great riches of science are always in 
the future. Is it not the scientific method that we 
really need for our idealistic education? 

Why may we not then in the whole range of our 
training of children seek to introduce to them the 
idea that there is a human adventure, a great human 
enterprise, growing, and that the fact that it is 
growing is infinitely more important than any at- 
tainment it has made? For example, now young 
people will learn something of social development. 
They know that man begins his life in the primal 
communities, that he gradually develops into the 
clan life; that the cohesion of clans upon a particu- 
lar habitat develops into tribal life; that at last 
with the pressure of enemies, with the necessity of 
a common interest, there is formed something like 
what we now call the nation. Thus through the 
development as it has gone on particularly during 
these past few hundred years, there has come about 
that extraordinary social attainment, a nation. It 


is a marvelous possibility in our nation of 120, 
000,000 people, living together with some common- 
ness of life, with some large communities of interest, 
in a great era of peace, with a common language 
and certain common ideals, certain common purposes 
—the greatest thing that mankind has yet achieved, 
But because it is so great and because it is so glorious 
(not because of a finality, why should it be a final- 
ity; why should anything be a finality?) if it is 
possible for 120,000,000 people to live together with 
a certain measure of peace and a certain rather crude 
recognition of dominance of law, why can we not 
hope that over larger areas there may be the same 
dominance of the idea of right with the inclusion of 
greater peaceful areas, within which men may be 
able to work out some common life? What form 
it will take of course is something that only the fu- 
ture will disclose. 

But why should we be afraid of a little narrow 
patriotism? Why can’t we be daring, courageous 
enough, and patriotic enough to believe that the 
nation is so good that there will be something better, 
that all the nation itself may contribute to some 
larger organization of human life so that those dis- 
advantages that arise out of national antagonisms 
may be dissolved in a great international peace? 

Permit me to repeat what a teacher told me this 
afternoon. She said a boy in her school said to her, 
when there was some discussion about civilization, 
“Why, we haven’t reached civilization yet. If we 
had, there wouldn’t be any war.” Just think of a 
boy of real red blood saying that! It is terrible! 

I say why can we not make the dominant feeling 
of our whole educational process, that this social 
evolution is on the way, that all the good things we 
have achieved are only a promise of better things 
that we can achieve, if we will find out how to do 
it? I think one of the most dangerous aspects of 
our modern life is that we Americans have a sort of 
confidence in progress, a sort of national Divinity 
that takes care of Americans and makes us better 
all the time. Why can we not help them to see that 
as men in the past were willing to measure the 
achievements that were made and to press forward 
to something better, so the nobler organizations of 
life actually took place? 


Here we are in this great economic movement of 


today. Where did it come from? Even in th 
elementary schools, as we are studying the story o 
the past, we can see that man on this earth has 











it is 





all the time been trying to make a home for himself, 
trying to get the good things out of the earth. This 
wonderful, stubborn, old earth will give us what it 
has got if we work hard enough for it. It is very 
hard work. The natural tendency is to get the 
things without doing the work. That exists today 
and it comes from the primitive times. The first 
thing that man did was to look around and see if 
he couldn’t see somebody who was weaker than him- 
self whom he could make a slave. Your slave gives 
you the first great civilization. That is the only way 
in which men knew how to get civilization. I 
think we should never introduce the children to the 
glory of the splendor of Greece and the magnifi- 
cence of Rome, without helping them to realize first 
what those civilizations cost, and that it was only 
possible to get the pleasure and dignity for. culture, 
because the great mass of men reduced to hopeless 
slavery were compelled to bear the superstructure of 
civilization upon their aching shoulders. 

Not that we shall look upon the past with de- 
precation; no, but understanding that that was the 
best that men knew and it was the only thing they 
could see. Even in your Bible you have a slave civil- 
ization. Nobody in that whole Bible from beginning 
to end ever conceived that there could be a civiliza- 
tion erected upon any other basis but slavery. It 
was not immoral; that was all men knew. We do 
not turn our backs upon that great past with con- 
tempt, because they did not know that anything else 
could be done; but we do realize the tremendous 
price the mass was compelled to pay in order that 
the very few might produce the masterpieces of art 
and the glories of literature. 

Then shall we not see that man struggled out of 
that slavery-to serfdom, from the serfdom into the 
wage system, and that this wage system into which 
we have come today is just a stage in human prog- 
ress? There are a lot of people today, I suppose, 
who think that the economic organization of human 
society as we have it now is divinely inspired and 
that any thought of modification of it is blasphem- 
ous. The thing only began day before yesterday. 
What it will be day after tomorrow, nobody knows. 
The thing has changed and is changing before our 
eyes in this very city. 

Only 20 years ago a very prominent manufac- 
turer said to me as we were talking about the 
matter, “There is a great deal of nonsense taught 
about wages, about the cost of labor, the remunera- 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 5 


tion of labor; labor is a commodity, like anything 
else. You don’t talk about the price that you ought 
to pay for steel, or the price that you ought to pay 
for corn; you pay for steel what the market de- 
mands, what you have got to pay, and for corn 
what the market requires. It is a question of supply 
and demand and labor is exactly the same.” I think 
it would be rather difficult to find a business man 
in Chicago today who would say that. That man was 
already belated 20 years ago, but he didn’t know it. 

Since then we have been talking about a living 
wage, and we know that you don’t determine the 
price of labor by the least that you can make it 
accept. A laborer is a man. Labor represents that 
human unit in the family, and there is not any good 
in exploiting the earth if it does not support the 
people which work in it. 

Secretary Davis is talking to us about a saving 
wage, which is beyond the idea of the living wage, 
and what we shall be talking of tomorrow, nobody 
knows. Why cannot we have our children realize 
that this great economic evolution is going on and 
that one of the glorious things is that they are going 
to live longer than we are and they will have a 
share in the making of that kind of human society 
that will be better than the human society that we 
have had? 

I say that evolution of the ideal of human life is 
something that ought to be fundamental, and that 
there is not any real education, there is not anything 
that can be called moral education, that does not 
help children to see that it is their duty to be the 
makers of the morality of tomorrow, a morality that 
we do not yet know, any of us. Of course the 
children are quite ready to believe that they can 
make their own morality; that anything that we 
could offer them is absolutely out of style. 

I am not so sure they are wrong. You can not 
hand over morality. Morality comes out of the 
analysis of a social situation. It comes out of the 
estimate of what you believe is going to be helpful 
to all the people in that situation. The very best 
thing that we can do is not to teach them a lot of 
things that they will remember about the stealing 
and lying and the rest, but help them when they 
come into a social situation to ask, “What does this 
mean to all the people concerned in it, and how is 
this particular enterprise, with regard to the whole 
life in which we are engaged, how is this going to 
operate for the highest well being of all the people 


































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


that are engaged in it, and for all the great world to 
which we contribute?” If we can give them any 
such scientific, ethical method as that, we have 
achieved a great deal in our moral education. 


I hope it is not too radical a suggestion, but I 
think we ought to help the children of our modern 
life to know what human life is today. I believe 
that in a great city like ours we ought to visit 
museums, the Art Institute, the universities, the 
great public buildings, statues of great heroes of the 
past, that we are erecting in the parks, and then I 
think we ought to go over to Halsted-st, back of 
the yards, and understand how people live and ask 
ourselves rather solemnly, “Why do people live that 
way?” We ought to face the grim fact of unem- 
ployment instead of teaching children the stupidity 
that unemployment is an operation of economic law. 
It would be just as sensible to say epidemics are the 
operation of hygienic law. We ought to teach them 
that conditions of that sort are consequent upon the 
fact that so far we have learned very little about 
how to conduct business. I do think we ought to 
help our children away from that very dangerous 
American idea that we are efficient in business. We 
ought to help them to know that we are only in 
the very beginning of finding out how to work to- 
gether. But it is a very difficult thing. I think 
we ought to be able to conduct teaching like that 
so that we carry the whole community with us. 


In a certain sense I do not feel myself on the side 
of the workingman. I would like to be bigger than 
that. We say we are on the side of the working- 
man because he happens to be down. But our object 
is a far bigger thing than the elevation of the work- 
ingman or even the teachers affiliated with them. 
It is the cohesion of our whole society. I am just 
as much interested in saving the rich man so that 
he becomes a socialized being as I am in elevating 
the condition of the workingman. In fact, the rich 
man is in about as difficult a condition as the poor 
man. He did not make this economic order that 
we have. Nobody made it. We are all here. There 
is a lot of natural timidity about changing any- 
thing; and those to whom the system works to ad- 
vantage are naturally more conservative. 


I hope I am not becoming class-conscious. The 
thing we most imminently need is to get beyond 
class-consciousness into the recognition that the 
whole enterprise is a great human enterprise. Are 


we going to do it on the basis of capital and labor 
as we are at present, or what modifications are we 
going to make? Whatever they are we are going 
to make them together, if we possibly can; and if 
we could have the right kind of education of the 
children in our schools, they would not be growing 
up together and presently dividing into classes, but 
they would come to understand each other so well 
that by and by they would know how to live to- 
gether and work together for the making of a real 
human society. 

I believe we need something of the sort because 
we have come into an era of timidity. It is sur- 
prising how frightened we are. I think this era 
of timidity is very largely the result of the war. We 
have been talking a good deal of nonsense during 
the war. We were talking about the great spiritual 
results that were going to come from the hell of 
those glorious young fellows. Men do not gather 
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. You do not 
get spiritual harvests out of war. The fact that you 
do have such superlative heroism is really the tragedy 
of wasted human idealism. It is a very ghastly 
thing how the spiritual inspiration of those years 
of war vanished over night. And why shouldn’t it? 
If this earth could be spiritualized by war, we should 
be in a worse plight than we are now. Of course an 
era of timidity followed. We have had exactly the 
same thing that happened after the Napoleonic Wars. 
The adoption of our own Constitution was a great 
triumph of the liberal movement among all the 
English peoples. There was great comfort given 
the liberal movement in the old country, and there 
was great forward advance and something would 
have been seen before the close of the eighteenth 
century if the Napoleonic wars had not intervened. 
Those wars crushed liberalism. They did not have 
reform bill in England until 1832. You had a great 
reactionary wave as men were afraid that the solid 
earth upon which they stood was shaking. Of cours 
that is what we have now. Bolshevism in Russia and 
the perfectly natural fact of the reaction of the 
Soviet have frightened the whole world. 


How well I remember that cartoon in The Chi- 
cago Tribune where two mothers were opening 
letters, the mother of a boy over behind the yards, 
and the mother of a boy on the gold coast. They 
were comrades and the two mothers were brought 
together. “America is never going to be the same 

(Continued on Page 16.) 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The Danish Folk High School 


Radio Speech of PETER MANNICHE, Principal of the International People’s College, Elsinore, Denmark, 
Over WCFL, Chicago, Under Auspices-of Chicago Local 2 and 3 


Denmark is of peculiar interest to educationalists 
because it is a living example of what education can 
do for a people. 

It is an agricultural country. Less than half of 
the people live in towns, and the co-operative move- 
ment which has increased the production of 
wealth, is a farmer’s movement. Although 
distribution is still far from nearing equality, 
there are very few millionaires and hardly any pov- 
erty. 

A hundred years ago the Danish peasantry was a 
poor, ignorant, submerged class. Now it is a well-to- 
do educated people, having an important influence 
upon the kingdom’s doings and with a capacity in its 
work, which is generally acknowledged. 

To a certain extent this is due to a single man, the 
Danish people’s spiritual leader in the nineteenth 
century, the clergyman, poet and educationalist, N. 
F. §. Grundtvig, whom the Germans have honoured 
with the title “The Prophet of the North.” 

Grundtvig is the creator of the folk high school 
movement which began about the middle of the 


last century. He worked from the standpoint that 
when the peasants were called forward to take an 


active part in Danish politics,* it was absolutely nec- 
essary, that they should be enlightened and educated 
for this. The people should not consist of dull serfs, 
but of wakened citizens. But how shall this civic en- 
lightenment be given? 

Grundtvig answers: The children’s school is no 
place for this. The child’s spirit shall be allowed to 
rest and grow in its rest. Here is a point, where 
Grundtvig meets Rousseau, who maintained that 
childhood is an independent part of life and not just 
a preparation for the work of later years; but the 
teachers’ standpoint should be in the manifold ques- 
tions which should be answered. 

In the transitional years, the children must not, as 
often happens, be shut up with books, pen and ink 
without any relation to nature and to physical activ- 
ity. The best school in these years is the farms of 
clever and thrifty farmers, the workshops of good 


artisans where the boys can get to like the vocation, 


_ they shall later follow and begin to get hold 
of it. 


“In 1833 consultative estates were introduced in Denmark, 
and the peasantry got an advisory power. 


Youth on the contrary, is the proper time for en- 
lightenment. But youth is not a mere preparation for 
the work of manhood. It has an independent signifi- 
cance of its own. It has its particular demands, joys 
and dangers. This is the age of mental awakening, 
when the great questions about life are asked. The 
foundation of the views of life is then laid. Then 
awakes the religious life, the feeling for poetry, 
fatherland, society. The erotic life also awakes then. 
The soul of the full grown youth is therefore far 
more filled with questions than in the transitional 
years. And answers must be given to these questions. 


At that time there was no other school for adults 
than the university, and its aim was to educate the 
young to become officials. Grundtvig therefore sug- 
gested the radical proposal that there should be 
established a popular “Hoejskole,” high school, whose 
pupils should neither become officials or scientists, but 
farmers, tradesmen, artisans, etc. The education 
should not finish with an examination. The breeding 
and enlightenment here given is each one’s own af- 
fair and is its own payment. It must be such that 
it does not after the end of the school years weaken 
the desire to go out again into the physical work. 


Books should have a smaller place in the popular 
““Hoejskole” than at the university. It had become 
more and more Grundtvig’s conviction, that spiritual 
life is propagated through living men. It goes from 
one personality to another, and the supreme exprés- 
sion of personality is the spoken word; when it is 
honest, powerful and warm it is also able to call out a 
corresponding life in him who hears it. The way then 
leads from the heart through the word to the heart. 
A merry joke, an indignant exclamation, an in- 
spired speech are witness of a real spiritual life 
which now is in operation. Therein lies the power of 
the spoken word. It is this idea, which Grundtvig 
expresses when he calls words living and writings 
dead. The written word, the word of the books, first 
comes into its rights, when it is taken up in living 
appropriation. 

Above all history should be spoken about. It 
must be taken for granted that in the young souls 
consciously or unconsciously lies the question: what 
is it to be man and what is human life? They should 
therefore hear about how the human race has lived, 





8 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


about its achievements and errors, its progress, its 
struggles and victories. To Grundtvig, History does 
not look like a meaningless mass of details, but like 
a great continuity, a real career of mankind. Christ 
is the center of this continuity. The young should 
be led into this continuity in such a way that they 
find their place in it and are encouraged to action. 
They should be educated not to become inactive 
spectators, but rather active participants in the great 
drama. They should be active in helping tc create 
a kingdom of God here upon this earth, a democratic 
commonwealth with freedom, equality and brother- 
hood, where “few have too much and fewer too 
little.” 

Grundtvig’s ideas were taken up by an increasing 
number of enthusiastic disciples, and many gifted 
young men, some of whom might otherwise have be- 
come statesmen, bishops and professors, went out 
from the universities and normal schools, and taught 
the farmers in folk high schools and identified them- 
selves with them. There are now about 60 folk high 
schools in Denmark, and about: one-fourth of the 
Danish country youth have been students, among 
them most of the leaders of the co-operative move- 
ment and of the farmer political movement. 


There are about 8,000 pupils in the schools, of 
whom 55 per cent are men and 45 per cent are 
women. Men attend for five consecutive months, 
from November 1 to March inclusive (the time 
when they can best be spared from their work in 
the fields), and women for three only, from May 
to July inclusive. Almost all are between the ages 
of 18 and 25. 


Along with the folk high schools, the chief sub- 
jects of which are history and literature and general 
culture, an increasing number of agricultural schools 
have come into being. There are now 30 agricultural 
schools in Denmark. They are often named as chil- 
dren of the “folk high school,” and are filled by the 
same spirit, but they are chiefly practical types. 

Both the folk high schools and the agricultural 
schools are owned by private individuals and al- 
though they are supported by the state, they are 
practically never interfered with so long as it can 
be shown that they are working in accordance with 
their scheme. 

The folk high schools have been described as hot- 
beds of co-operation. The farmers who had been to 


one or more of these schools began to take an added _ 


interest in their own economic life and to realize 


that their salvation lay in intensive small scale culti- 
vation and co-operation. The Danish farmers are now 
completely environed by co-operation. He borrows 
money for the purchase of his farm from a co-opera- 
tive credit association, he buys fodder and fertilizer 
from co-operative supplies, he gets his food from a 
consumers’ store and he gets the electricity, with 
which he runs his farm, from the co-operative elec- 
tricity supply of the village. Between 80 and 90 
per cent of all agricultural products, butter, bacon 
and eggs, goes through co-operative agencies. 

The important part played by the co-operative 
movement in the economic development of Danish 
agriculture is to a great extent due to the influence 
of the folk high schools, which have awakened in the 
young a desire to use all their gifts and powers, and 
has brought about a wider outlook—the capacity 
to see beyond the immediate sphere of the individual, 
the understanding of what the individual owes to 
the community, the feeling of confidence in others, 
and the will to join in common undertakings, 
through which the whole population are served. 


Hitherto, the folk high schools have appealed al- 
most exclusively to the farming population, only 
five per cent of the pupils being town dwellers; 
but of late two folk high schools of a unique posi- 
tion have come into being. One is the Esbjorg Work- 
ers’ College, which is supported by Danish Social- 
Democrats, and the other, is the International Peo- 
ple’s College at Elsinore, founded in 1921, to bring 
together for study and personal intercourse young 
men and women from different countries. It has 
for its primary purpose the forwarding of the cause 
of international peace by establishing human relation- 
ships between students of different nationalities, but 
its founders hope that it will also be useful in intro- 
ducing the traditions and methods of the Danish 
folk high schools in other nations and to city dwell- 
ers as well as to farmers. 

The International College began in a small way, 
with only 24 students from five different countries 
but it has grown steadily until it is now the sixth 
largest folk high school in Denmark. This last yeaf 
it has had 85 students. The chief subjects of study 
are History and Literature of different countri¢s, 
Modern Languages, Human Geography, Sociology 
and International Problems.* 

There are two terms, a winter term of five months 


*Special emphasis is placed upon the study of the Danish 
Folk High Schools and the co-operative movement. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


from November to March, and a summer term from 
April 20 to July 10. It is supported by the Danish 
state and private individuals, the fees being about 
$30 a month for board, lodging and tuition. It em- 
ploys teachers from Denmark, Germany, England, 
and America, the teachers from America being in the 
summer term of 1928, Professor E. C. Lindemann, 
New York and in the beginning of the winter term, 
Professor Paul Douglas of Chicago. About 75 per 
cent of the students have hitherto been industrial 
workers, the Danish element predominating in the 
winter term. Also an increasing number of elemen- 
tary and secondary teachers attend. This is particu- 
larly the case in the vacation courses which are held 
in July and August. Groups of teachers from Ger- 
many, England (under the auspices of Workers 
Travelers Association, London) and from America 
(under auspices of World Acquaintance Tours, 51 
West 49th-st., New York) mix with the Danish and 
Swedish teachers in fortnightly courses, where mod- 
ern social and educational movements are studied and 
discussed, places of interest visited and life lived in 
an atmosphere of international fellowship and good- 
will. 

The students of the International People’s College 
form a miniature League of Nations; and it is hoped 
that the personal development which is necessary to 
create harmonious social life out of so many types 
and nationalities will make the students better fitted 
to help the world towards a better future. The stu- 
dents must, in a small way, experience that which 
the whole world must experience if there is to be 
harmony in the international orchestra. They must 
develop a capacity better able to understand the 
problems to be solved, and gather from their exper- 
ience values for which a new and better world has 
use, 





ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR 
THE REMOVAL OF ILLITERACY 


Alabama will spend fifty thousand dollars out of 
the state treasury annually for the removal of illit- 
eracy, the legislature which recently adjourned hav- 
ing made such appropriation. This is $37,500 over 
its previous annual expenditures for this purpose. 
Since the county and city school boards are author- 
ized to make similar appropriations to meet state ex- 
Penditures it will probably mean one hundred thou- 


sand dollars expended annually to wipe illiteracy out ~ 


of the state. 


APPRECIATION 
Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London. 
, November 16, 1927. 
Dear Mrs. Hanson: 


Since I had the pleasure of meeting your two 
representatives at the Edinburgh Conference of the 
World Federation, your organization has been kind 
enough to mail me monthly copies of your journal, 
The American Teacher. I should like to tell you that 
of all the teachers’ journals which I receive, none 
gives me greater pleasure than yours. I look forward 
to receiving it and frankly confess myself indebted 
to its columns for a great deal of material which 
I find of the utmost help in my work as a represen- 
tative teacher in England. 


I particularly admire the fearless nature of its 
criticism and the vigor of its policy in relation to 
such matters as tenure and the freedom of the 
teacher. We must never fail to insist that teachers 
have equal rights with other citizens to voice their 
opinions in political, social, and economic questions, 
and I feel that your paper is performing a service, 
not only to American teachers, but to the profes- 
sion throughout the world, by its forceful and vig- 


orous declarations on many vital problems. 


I should like also to congratulate you heartily on 
the attitude of your paper to the problem of world 
peace and international understanding. I am per- 
sonally in complete accord with you here, that teach- 
ers should uncompromisingly set themselves to teach 
the futility of war and the necessity of replacing 
this ancient barbarism by the sane and civilized 
method of arbitration in international disputes. It 
was a great pleasure to me to have the opportunity 
to work with you and Miss Borchardt at the Toron- 
to conference of the World Federation this year in 
the cause of the adoption of a more determined 
policy by that organization in the interests of world 
peace. 

I hope you will continue to send me your journal. 
I can assure you that its columns are scanned with 
eager interest by many of our colleagues in this 
country, who although they may not find themselves 
so fully in accord with your policy as you would 
wish, have, none the less, a very high appreciation 
of the vitalizing and stimulating nature of its pro- 
gramme, 

With all good wishes, believe me, 

Yours fraternally, 
Frank A. Hoare. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The Nursery School at Vassar College 
LOVISA C. WAGONER, Ph. D. 
Associate Professor of Child Study and Principal of the Nursery School 


It is something of a venture when a college that 
has devoted itself to the academic traditions turns 
its attention toward the practical application of 
science to those two occupations which have been 
regarded as being independent of any need of specific 
training—parenthood and the every day relationships 
of human living. 

Vassar College has undertaken such an adventure 
in education in the form of the Division of Euthen- 
ics. This division which has been in operation for 
some time, was organized not as a separate college 
within a university, but as a grouping of courses 
drawn from the regular offering of the curriculum 
of the college. This grouping comprises those 
courses which have to do with the improvement of 
the individual through improving his environment. 
The term “euthenics” was coined to describe such 
attempts at improving the individual, just as “eugen- 
ics” designates the effort to improve the race through 
heredity. 

Under the directorship of Miss Annie Louise Mac- 
leod, Ph. D., the Division of Euthenics is concerned 
not so much with the acquisition of skills which, 
after the manner of the efficiency expert, increase 
production and decrease expenditure, as with the 
enlargement and integration of life which result 
from the mastery of environment and the completer 
utilization of the individual’s capacities. 

It is a natural development in the field of euthen- 
ics that a group of courses under the general heading 
“Child Study” should be offered, since any “survey 
of mankind” involves some knowledge of the pro- 
cesses of development, of individuals on the highway 
to maturity as well as of adults. In the fall of 1927, 
Smiley Blanton, M. D., Frances Skinner Edris, Pro- 
fessor of Child Study, came to the college as professor 
of Child Study. It is possible to give theoretical 
courses in Child Study but if they are to be carried 
over into the actual experience of the students’ every 
day life, it is essential that such theoretical dis- 
cussions as are ordinarily given in lecture courses 
should be supplemented by laboratory practice. 
Through an objective study of childhood, the young 
adult as he learns to regard himself less subjectively 
is able to analyze for himself personality difficulties 
and handicaps and thus develops a more wholesome 
attitude toward himself and toward other people. 


Consequently Vassar College has seen fit to open 
a Nursery School which serves primarily as a labor- 
atory for courses in Child Study but also is available 
for courses in Child Psychology and in Nutrition. 
This school is under the direction of Lovisa C. Wag- 
oner, Ph. D., Associate Professor of Child Study, 
with Mary Mumford, A. B., Instructor in Child 
Study and Emily Payetta Turney, A. B., Instructor 
in Child Study, as Nursery School teachers, and Laura 
F. Heilman, Instructor in Child Study, as research { 
worker on the study of speech development and 
personality. 

The school is housed in a beautiful new building 
given to Vassar College by Charles A. Wimpfheimer 
of New York City in honor of his daughter, Mildred, 
who was a graduate of the class of 1927. This 
building is a part of the Euthenics group of build- 
ings in the northeast corner of the campus. The 
building itself is of stone in the style of the English 
manor house. East of the building stretches a large 
play yard which gives ample space for all kinds of 
activities. Any child who feels the need of solitude 
may detach himself from the group and find the 
sort of activity which for the time being satisfies 
his need. In this play yard have been set up the 
usual playground apparatus such as the Jungle-Gym, 
a slide and a sand box and in addition other pieces 
of equipment which are designed to call into play 
every muscle in the child’s body and help develop 
correct posture as well as skill in the handling of 
the child’s own body. Whenever the weather permits 
the children spend the afternoon in this play yard. 

If the weather is unsuitable for work out-of-doors 
the children spend the morning in the two work 
rooms on the second floor of the building. Thes 
rooms are spacious and well lighted and supplied 
with various materials which lend themselves to con- 
structive activity. In the selection of apparatus 
the staff has attempted to utilize materials which 
would come into the ordinary home, such as empty 
boxes, pictures from advertisements and so on. Such 
materials have a definite educative value for th 
child. One of the important things for young child- 
ren to learn is how to make use of the things which 
their own environment offers. The child who hs 
been taught to depend upon finished toys from the 
sho} is unfortunate because he has been denied the 





EEE REREBS BES FF SSE 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 11 


privilege of learning to make the most of any situa- 
tion in which he finds himself. 

On the second floor, in addition to the two work 
rooms are a toilet room, and the dining room and 
kitchen for the preparation and serving of the mid- 
day meal. On the third floor is a large airy sleeping 
room where the children rest for two hours every 
afternoon. 

The establishment of good and serviceable habits 
of eating and of sleeping, the building up of regular 
habits of elimination, the mastery of the child’s own 
body, the acquisition of motor control as developed 
by the use of the school equipment and by the man- 
ipulation of the fastenings of his own clothes: these 
constitute the curriculum of the Nursery School. 


Not only is the Nursery School child learning 
to manage his own body and to make use of the 
materials he finds at hand, but in addition, he is 
learning how to live and work with his contem- 
poraries. The school is fortunate in being provided 
with ample space so that any child may withdraw 
from the group and may have leisure and solitude 
whenever he desires. 

Not only is the child learning that other people 
have rights which he must respect, but he is learn- 
ing also that he has rights which are to be respected 
by others. 

Mental growth as measured by intelligence tests 
is recorded and a special study of the development 
of motor control is being made. Adequate teaching 


methods must wait upon more perfect knowledge - 


of the acquisition of motor control, of bodily read- 
iness to master a given skill. To aid in the discov- 
ery of criteria of such “readiness to learn” is one of 
the objectives this Nursery School has set for itself. 

Each child is given a thorough physical examina- 
tion by Dr. A. F. N. Christie of the medical staff 
of the college, who also looks over each child on 
arrival every morning for signs of cold or contagious 
disease. 

Research in the development of speech is accom- 
panied by correction of serious defects of speech. 
For example, one child, a girl of four because of 
greatly enlarged tonsils has developed habits of letter 
substitution which make her speech unintelligible. 
This peculiar speech is being analyzed phonetically 
and on the basis of such analysis the child is being 
taught correct habits of speech. 

To this school are admitted normal children from 
twenty-one months to four and one-half years. 


While every effort is made to correct any bad habits 
which may have been established, the school is de- 
signed not for remedial purposes but to facilitate 
wholesome development. Because the school serves 
as a laboratory for the students at Vassar College, it 
must offer to them an opportunity to study normal 
children; it is obvious that it would defeat its own 
purpose if it opened its doors to defective children. 

The Nursery School at Vassar College has two 
definite functions or obligations—first to the chil- 
dren enrolled, that adequate and suitable materials be 
provided which will stimulate normal and wholesome 
development, that health be safeguarded and that 
desirable sound attitudes may be established. In the 
second plan, the Nursery School must offer to the 
students of Vassar College a laboratory in which 
they may observe the growth of little children and 
may learn how to live and work with them, how 
to teach them and to enjoy them without regarding 
them as playthings. 

It is not so much the purpose of the school to 
teach precise methods, to develop specific skill in 
these students, as it is to form wholesome attitudes 
toward children, to indicate desirable adult-child 
relationships and to develop a point of view regard- 
ing children which is experimental in the best sense, 
that is, directs every resource toward the solution 
of a problem. 

In this school, then, the students have an oppor- 
tunity to observe the ordinary behavior of children, 
to get some idea of what may be expected from 
young children at various ages, and also have an 
opportunity of learning how the responses which 
seem desirable may be developed in the child. 

It is the belief of the Nursery School that by 
properly setting the,situation for young children 
undesirable responses may be prevented and desirable 
responses developed, that obedience may be made easy, 
and disobedience difficult. To this end the staff and 
building and equipment have been selected. 





“It is fundamentally wrong, it is a contradiction of 
the basic principles of this free Republic, that upon 
the shoulders of any child who has not attained its 
full, mature, physical development, who has not en- 
joyed a reasonable time in which to play, and who has 
not received an elementary English education there 
should be put the smallest fraction of the burdens 
of our modern competitive industrial life.” —Samuel 
McCune Lindsay. 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


SOME REASONS FOR BELONGING 


The American Federation of Teachers provides a 
unique opportunity for teachers to associate them- 
selves with the American Federation of Labor and 
to share in the humanistic aims of the American 
labor movement. ‘The teaching profession like any 
other craft or calling can become socially effective 
in our national life in proportion as it is prepared 
to join with other men and women of good-will for 
the advancement of the common good. The Amer- 
ican labor movement represents the self-conscious 
expression of wage-earners for a more abundant life, 
and as such should appeal particularly to the ideal- 
ism of the teachers of our country. 

s SPENCER MILLER, Jr., Secretary, 
The Workers’ Education Bureau of America. 


I am a member of the Teachers Union because 
the whole domain of education and schooling must 
be re-examined today by realistic and critical think- 
ers who will not be afraid of either economic or 
sentimental bugaboos, and who will eventually com- 
pel the public to listen to what they have to say. 
Such thinkers must, for the most part, be in the 


schools. They must have the support of at least 


some school people, and their tenure of position and 
their right to speak must be defended by school peo- 


ple. I am in the union because I want to do what 
I can to support and defend this critically realistic 
program. I may add that the union is the only 
organization to which I now belong. 
Josepu K. Hart, Professor of Education. 
University of Wisconsin. 


I belong to the Teachers Union because I believe 
in being an up-to-date democrat. An up-to-date 
democrat cannot operate as an isolated individual, 
however virtuous and well-intentioned he may be. 
He must operate through at least one effective group. 
The Teachers Union is such an effective group. It 
is formed for the purpose of achieving democracy 
in the schools. 

It is a foe of autocracy, a foe of inefficiency. It 
fights for high ideals in education and citizenship. 
I belong to the Teachers Union because outside of it 
I am pretty nearly powerless to accomplish the things 
in which I fervently believe. 

Harry A. OversTREET, Professor of Philosophy, 

College of the City of New York. 
I am a member of the Teachers Union for the 


following reasons, among others: 
‘1) I think it essential, in order to develop a 


genuine professional spirit, that every teacher have 
the sense of solidarity with other members of his 
profession. 

(2) Because in the present state of affairs, or- 
ganized co-operation is the most effective means for 
securing the public attention and respect without 
which the cause of education cannot progress. 

(3) The economic basis of education is so 
marked, and there are so many economic interests 
attempting to employ the schools for other ends, 
that it is important that teachers recognize the in- 
terest which they have in common with workers in 
all branches. 

,Joun Dewey, 
Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University. 
(From “Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union.” 


Prepared by the Teachers Union of the City of New York, 
Local 5, American Federation of Teachers.) 





MUST PUBLIC SCHOOLS BE 
FACTORY FEEDER? 

New York.—Would the National Association of 
Manufacturers have America’s public schools a feed- 
er for their factories? 

The manufacturers have recently professed inter- 
est in child labor, and issued a program to correct 
this evil. An examination of the program shows that 
its standard is the child-labor regulations of the most 
backward states. Night work for children in New 
York is illegal after 5 o’clock, but the manufactur- 
ers would change this to 9 o’clock. This indicates 
how the manufacturers would aid “the further pro- 
tection of employed children 14 and 15 years of 
age.” 

A more sinister declaration, however, was made 
by Howell Cheney, Connecticut silk manufacturer, 
in an address to the convention of the manufacturers 
at Chattanooga. He placed this question before 
school authorities: 

“Why can’t you come into factories, work with 
us on the construction of curricula, define the con- 
ditions of a progressive training which entitles em- 
ployers to use the labor of children and carry this 
mass forward with a creative ideal of accomplish- 
ment in place of the idea of idleness that you are 
instilling today?” 

Mr. Cheney was chairman of the committee that 
prepared the manufacturers’ child-labor program. 
His appeal that the nation’s public schools be factory 
feeders should place every friend of children on 
his guard. | 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 13 


The Conference of the New Education Fellowship at Locarno 
In August, 1927. 
By RUTH GILLETTE HARDY 
New York Local 5, A. F. of T. Delegate to Locarno Conference 


Soon after the close of the war a group of teachers 
from progressive schools in England formed a fellow- 
ship to promote this New Education and the New 
Psychology which lies behind it. They found an in- 
spired leader in Mrs. Beatrice Ensor, a mother who 
had found no school good enough for her children 
‘and therefore set up one nearer her ideals. Her school 
at Frensham Heights is still the center of her activ- 
ities even today when the work of the Fellowship 
requires most of her time. 


In 1921 members of this little group from Eng- 
land met (at Calais) with representatives of similar 
schools in France and Germany and branches were 
formed in both the latter countries, publishing maga- 
zines in each language and welcoming into their 
membership all who believe in the changing concepts 
of education. In 1923 a second Conference attracted 
300 teachers from 25 nations and in 1925 at Heidel- 
berg nearly 500 attended. When this year’s meeting 
was planned, called appropriately at the city which 
means to Europe the spot where a hope for perma- 
nent peace was at last made real, the organizers 
hoped for a gathering of some 600. The place, the 
charm of past Conferences, above all, the growing 
interest in new concepts of education combined to 
attract nearly 1,200; the old town was filled to over- 
flowing with the happy spirits which the new edu- 
cation at once attracts and creates. 

The plan of the Conference was unique to Ameri- 
can visitors. No hurry or bustle was evident and, if 
the days grew more and more crowded, Mrs. Ensor 
did not fail to remind us that it was our own fault, 
not the plan of the Conference. Covering nearly two 
weeks, there was time for more than speeches, for 
the fostering of fresh contracts and the growth of 
new friendships. Each day at 10 a. m. there was a 
lecture on psychology open to all who cared to come; 
in these the more technical problems were attacked 
by a great diversity of speakers. 

Following this, at 11 a. m., there were group Con- 
ferences, dealing with various aspects of the practice 
of creative education in schools. These were purpose- 
ly left quite elastic, to permit varied interests, and 
more groups were formed each day. When some com- 


plained that they could not choose between the 
various subjects group meetings began to move into 
early morning hours, late evenings and even into the 
sacred afternoons, but always over the protest of the 
wise directors of the Conference. In the evenings we 
heard the addresses of the really distinguished speak- 
ers, Dr. Decroly from Belgium, Dr. Pfister and Dr. 
Adler among the psychoanalytic leaders, Dr. Paul- 
sen from Berlin and Herr Gloeckel from Vienna, as 
directors of the two most completely reconstructed 
systems of public schools in the’ world, and from our 
own America, Dr. Carson Ryan of Swarthmore, Dr. 
Harold Rugg from New York and Dr. Carleton 
Washburne from Winnetka. 


But the Conference was not made out of lectures. 
Afternoons were left free for the more important 
work of acquaintance. Locarno is one of the beauty 
spots of Switzerland; before us stretched Lake Mag- 
giore, on either side rose snow-crowned mountains 
and, in the narrow valleys between, road or tram- 
way wound up through vineyards and picturesque 
villages from almost tropic heat to glacier cooled airs. 
The funicular carried one in a few minutes to the 
little shrine of Madonna del Sasso with its glorious 
views, the public bathing beach was charming, under 
ancient planes the tea-room of the Kursaal tempted 
one, and every hotel had a garden. In all these places 
the real Conference was held, in the exchange of 
ideas, in the exploration of other minds, of other 
nationalities, in the cementing of friendships. One 
whole day’s excursion to beautiful Isola Bella, the 
loveliest of the islands; a delightful rustic tea given 
us by the mayor in a hillside resort where we all 
danced on the hard trodden earth terraces; folk- 
songs given by the local singing society; dancing 
in the Kursaal after the evening meetings; above all, 
the glorious singing of the Choir of the Bakule School 
of Prague, not ‘only at their formal concert, but in 
the early mornings at practice and on some evenings 
in the old garden of our headquarters at the Normal 
School; these are the things that brighten our eyes 
at remembrance of Locarno. For all these things were 
joyous without being frivolous. 

Acquaintance, argument over the ideas of the 











14 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


speakers, clarification of issues flowed in and around 
all these occasions. And when the final evening came 
and we heard once more from the leaders of the 
felowship and each national group sang its very best 
folk-songs until we all joined in “Auld Lang Syne,” 
sung English fashion, with intertwined hands (to the 
considerable astonishment of those who couldn’t 
understand a word of it), it was with a resolution 
to carry this joyful courage into our own work that 
most of us parted. 

The organization of the Conference is as unusual 
as its plan of activities. Arrangements are made 
through the heads of the three national sections, the 
affiliated groups in other nations and the interna- 
tional headquarters in London. The time and place 
of meeting are determined at each conference for its 
successor. A president of the Conference is chosen 
who is not an ordinary executive officer of the Fel- 
lowship and who is not responsible for the program; 
Professor Pierre Bouvet, Director of the International 
Bureau of Education in Geneva, filled this difficult 
office at Locarno. In presiding he was as charming 
as he was wise, and in struggling with perennial 
language difficulty he would, after two lightning- 
like translations of the meat of each speaker’s dis- 
course from one language into the other two offi- 
cially recognized, turn to the audience with his one 
appeal: “Ah, if before the next Conference, you 
would only all learn Esperanto.” 

All other management lay with the heads of the 
national sections. Since nobody was to be elected, 
these did not have to spend time in wire-pulling and 
there were no politics for anyone to play. To an 
American, at least, the atmosphere was delightfully 
refreshing. But it was more than that. The English 
and the German sections are fortunate in the leader- 
ship of two wonderful women, quite unlike one an- 
other, but supplemental to one another. Both of them 
are deeply inspired speakers who see the fundamen- 
tals of creative education through whatever ma- 
chinery of research and devices pedagogues may set 
up; Mrs. Ensor is, in a sense, the hostess of the Con- 
ference, a genius in drawing people together, but 
Dr. Elisabeth Rotten is its prophetess, who sees the 
New Education linked up with all that is best in 
modern social movements, in the efforts for world 
peace, in the creation of a world good to work in. 

Summaries of what was said can be found in the 


October number of the fellowship’s organ, “The 
New Era,” but the Conference was so much more 









than listening to what was said that I can only urge 
all who may read this: Come, and learn from its 
leaders, from its meetings. Both Mrs. Ensor and Dr, 


Rotten expect to be in this country lecturing during 
March and April. The next Conference will be held 
in Copenhagen in 1929. 











PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION MEET 

The Sixth Annual Convention of the Progressive 
Education Association is to be held March § to 10 at 
the Hotel Commodore in New York City. Thov- 
sands of progressive educators from all parts of the 
United States and from many foreign lands are ex- 
pected to attend the meetings, view the exhibits 
representing the products under progressive methods, 
and visit the numerous progressive schools in the 
metropolitan area. 

The convention will take up various new and 
important aspects of education in this country and 
in foreign countries. It will be opened Thursday 
afternoon, March 8, at 2:30 o’clock by Mr. Stanwood 
Cobb, Head Master of the Chevy Chase Country 
Day School, founder and present president of the 
Progressive Education Association. The opening 
address of the convention will be made by John 
Dewey, on whose philosophy the whole new move- 
ment in education in this country is based. 

One meeting of the convention will be given to 
Foreign Education. Dr. Elizabeth Rotten, one of 
the leaders in the new educational movement in Ger- 
many, will talk on the Hamburg experiment and 
other new schools in Germany; Dr. Lucy L. W. 
Wilson who has recently visited Russia will describe 
the new work being done there; and Professor Kil- 
patrick, who has just returned from a tour of the 
world, will speak on interesting new educational 
work in the Orient. There will be other well known 
speakers. 

An innovation will be the round table discussions 
which are being planned for Saturday morning, 
March 10. There will be group discussion meetings 
on problems of secondary school education, teacher- 
training, elementary school problems, the relationship 
of parents to the schools, and a number of others, 
each led by an able chairman. The whole morning 
will be devoted to these discussions by people doing 
and interested in the same type of work. 

The School Visiting Program extends from March 
5 to March 10. Within the city the Ethical Culture 
School, the Lincoln School, the City and Country 
School, the Horace Mann School, the Walden School 
and many others will be open to visitors. Other 
progressive schools in Connecticut, New Jersey aad 
New York State are preparing to receive the delegates 
















































oOo =; =» aA -s» 2 = = 


— 


to 
to 
co 
tie 


or; 
are 
ha 
lik 
fec 
str 
ins 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 15 


OPINIONS 


What Some Thinkers Have to Say About the 
Labor Movement 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT: 

“If I were a factory employe, a workingman on 
the railroads, or a wage earner of any sort, I would 
undoubtedly join the union of my trade. If I dis- 
approved of its policy, I would join in order to fight 
that policy; if the union leaders were dishonest, I 
would join in order to put them out. I believe in the 
union, and I believe that all men who are benefitted 
by the union are morally bound to help to the extent 
of their power in the common interests advanced by 
the union.”——-(From the Federal Employe, Nov. 29, 
1919.) 

Witt C. Woon, Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, California: 

“The teachers are beginning to adopt principles of 
organization similar to those of other wage earners. 
Already unions have been formed in several cities of 
California. The legal right of teachers to organize in 
this manner can not be challenged.” —(Address at 
Superintendents’ Convention, August 18, 1919.) 


Harry A. Overstreet, Professor of Philosophy, 

College of the City of New York. 

“If one stands for the public one stands inevitably 
for the ideas and activities of only a portion of the 
public. And of what portion? Surely of that portion 
which bas most deeply at heart the fundamental 
public good: . .. And where do we find more effec- 
tively an intent for the bettering of human condi- 
tions than in the labor movement? .. . lt has fought 
for human emancipation—for yours and mine and 
all the rest of us.”—(Address at Hotel McAlpin, 
New York, February 14, 1920.) 

Joun Dewey, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia 

University. 

“We (teachers) have not had sufficient intelligence 
to be courageous. We have lacked a sense of loyalty 
to our calling and to one another, and on that ac- 
count have not accepted to the full our responsibili- 
ties as citizens of the community. 

“To my mind, that is the great reason for forming 
organizations of this kind, and organizations which 
are affiliated with other working organizations that 
have power and that attempt to exercise the power 
like the Federation of Labor, namely, the reflex ef- 
fect upon the body of the teachers themselves in 
strengthening their courage, their faith in their call- 
ing, their faith in one another, and the recognition 


that they are servants of the community, and not 
people hired by a certain transitory set of people to 
do a certain job at their beck and call. 

“We should have an organization which shall not 
on the one hand merely. discuss somewhat minute 
and remote subjects of pedagogy with no certainty 
as to how their conclusions are going to take effect 
in practice, nor simply look after the personal and 
more or less selfish interests of teachers on the other 
hand. But we should have a body of self-respecting 
teachers and educators who will see to it that their 
ideas and their experience in educational matters 
shall really count in the community; and who, in 
order that these may count, will identify them- 
selves with the interests of the community; and who 
will conceive of themselves as citizens and as ser- 
vants of the public, and not merely as hired em- 
ployes of a certain body of men. It is because I hope 
to see the teaching body occupy that position of so- 
cial leadership which it ought to occupy, and which 
to our shame it must be said we have not occupied 
in the past, that I welcome every movement of this 
sort. 

“Objections are frequently made—generally, I 
think of a very snobbish character—against these 
federations, because of their affiliation with labor 
unions, I won’t stop even to argue against the merely 
snobbish features of that matter. I would like to 
point out that these labor unions are engaged in use- 
ful service; that they also are servants of the public 
and it may be that if the more enlightened, more in- 
structed—that is to say, the more lettered portions 
of the community like the teachers—put themselves 
fairly and squarely on a level with these other bodies 
of people who are doing needed and useful service, 
that they will hasten the time when all of these 
unions will look at all of their work and labor, not 
merely from the standpoint of their personal inter- 
ests and the protection of these personal interests, 
important as that is; but also from the standpoint 
of service to the general public.” 

Joun R. Commons, Professor of Economics, Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin: 

“Free schools supported by taxes, were the first 
demand of enfranchised labor. 

“In New England the principle of free schools 
for all was in theory accomplished but even in New 
England, free schools were much less efficient than 
private ones. Hitherto, our historical knowledge of 
the free school movement has ascribed that ‘move- 
ment to the great humanitarian leaders, with Horace 




















































16 


Mann at their head. The vitality of the movement 

for tax-supported schools was derived, not from the 

humanitarian leaders, but from the growing class 
of wage-earners.”——-(From Documentary History of 

American Industrial Society.) 

Ricuarb L. Ery, Professor of Economics: 

“At every period of our history, public school 
questions have been labor questions or labor meas- 
ures. And when I say this I do not exclude our uni- 
versities. What then has the labor movement brought 
us? I reply, first of all: 

It has been one of the chief causes which have 
brought us a public school system. Where shall we 
find guardians against assaults on our public 
schools? Where shall we find those who will not only 
protect what we have, but help us forward in new 
achievements in education, particularly by means of 
public schools? To both questions I reply, in our 
labor organizations. All over the world labor organi- 
zations are supporting and bearing forward every 
popular educational movement.” And again he tells 
us: “Public instruction was claimed by the party of 
the workingmen, but their demand was met by the 
sneer of derision on the one hand, and the cry of 
revolution on the other.”—-(From The Labor Move- 
ment in America. ) 

Dr. ABRAHAM LeFKowiTz, Teacher of History, 
High School of Commerce, New York City. Vice- 
president, American Federation of Teachers: 

“A strong united effort should be made to unionize 
teachers, so as to bring them into direct and inti- 
mate contact with labor—its problems, its hopes, 
and its aspirations. Such an alliance will not only 
insure to the youth of America the presentation of 
truth in the place of propaganda, but it will also 
enable labor to meet with a sympathetic response 
instead of a closed mind or a hostile attitude. 

“It will help teachers, not only by inspiring them 
with labor’s social idealism, its great visions of hu- 
man solidarity and brotherhood, but also by bringing 
them into close touch with realities and with the 
movement which holds out a promise for a solution 
of our industrial problems more in harmony with 
the theory of brotherhood which underlies all of la- 
bor’s struggle.”—-(From Labor Age.) 

Dr. Henry R. Linvitte, president of the Teachers 
Union of the City of New York. Vice-president 
of the American Federation of Teachers: 

“We bear a productive relationship to the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor in our being able to assist 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








‘in the formulation of the educational problem of the 
great labor movement. Our representatives at the 
annual convention are always on the convention 
committee on education and I myself am on the 
standing committee which is making important re- 
searches all the time. 

“As a by-product of our affiliation, we feel that 
the fundamental interest of the labor movement in 
education is in the reorganization of the public 
school systems along the lines that will be more so- 
cially helpful to all groups and freer than they are 
now from the domination of class interests. 

“It has been generally supposed that the labor 
movement is interested in education because it wants 
to set up a propaganda in its own behalf, but I can 
say with assurance, after ten years given to the la- 
bor movement, that such is not the demand of the 
labor movement. They are very earnest about their 
demand that the public school system shall not be 
used to launch propaganda against the labor move- 
ment, But on the other hand, they make no demands 
that the public school systems shall propagandize for 
organized labor. This seems to me a more generous 
and social position than is commonly attained by 
other organizations that have national extent, and 
for that reason we feel that the labor movement is 
ungrudgingly social-minded.” 





EDUCATIONAL IDEALS AND PRACTICES 
(Continued from Page 6.) 

again. We have fought side by side and we are 

going to be brothers.” But we do not get brothers 

that way. We are farther away than we were be- 

fore. It is because of this era of timidity into which 

we have come. 

Our business is to encourage young children to 
get the idea of that great ongoing human society 
into which they have been born, the future of which 
nobody knows. The opportunities and effects of 
a great fellowship is something beyond anything 
that anybody has ever dreamed, and it is theirs to 
make a contribution to that. 


My fellow teachers, do we talk about motivation 
of these dry subjects that we are sent to teach? 
Where will you find a motivation deeper and more 
glorious than this, that man has been struggling and 
striving to make a better life, a better life for the 
whole human family, which is something in which 
these children wherever they are and whatever they 
do, may have a part as definite contributors? 











THE AMERICAN TEACHER 17 


FOR WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY 


With the approach of February 22, teachers and 
principals planning a special observance of Washing- 
ton’s birthday will welcome a reading course on 
George Washington, by Albert Bushnell Hart. This 
has been published by the American Library Asso- 
ciation in co-operation with the Washington Bicen- 
tenary Commission established by the President and 
Congress. 


In the brief essay preceding the list of recom- 
mended books, Dr. Hart pictures a versatile Wash- 
ington—farmer, business man, explorer, engineer, 
founder of corporations, organizer of armies, com- 
mander, statesman and President. In his discussion, 
the author throws so many interesting side-lights on 
Washington that the reader is carried over into the 
suggested course of reading. Seven books, each 
chosen to give a different aspect of the great man’s 
life, are discussed, among them the biography of 
Washington by Woodrow Wilson and Percy Mac- 
Kays’s play, Washington, the Man Who Made Us. 


The booklet will furnish students of upper grades 
and high school with fresh material for essays, 
themes and orations; and will offer teachers the op- 


portunity to interest pupils in American history 
through the reading of biography. The essay can 
be used as a basis for the assignment of talks or 
themes on various phases of Washington’s life, or 
for reading aloud. The list of books described will 
be useful as references on the different character- 
istics of Washington which are developed by Dr. 
Hart. 

This course is the latest published of the Reading 
with a Purpose series, ‘and is available, along with 
the books recommended for reading, at most libra- 
ries or may be obtained directly from the Chicago 
headquarters of the American Library Association. 





EDUCATORS TO DISCUSS 
INTERNATIONALISM 

“Promoting International Understanding Through 
Teaching the Social Studies,” was the topic of 
discussion at a meeting of the Social Studies Section 
of the Pennsylvania State Educational association 
when it met at Lancaster, Pa., Dec. 29. Dr. Lucy 
C. Wilson, of Philadelphia, and Roscoe L. West, joint 
authors of “International Civics,” were among the 
speakers.—News Bulletin, National Council Preven- 
tion of War. 





CENTRALLY LOCATED 





The Mayflower 


Willson s Finest Hotel 


An Institution in Keeping With the Beauty and Grandeur 
of the Nation’s Capital 


Connecticut Avenue at L Street 


LUXURIOUSLY APPOINTED 











The American Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published Monthly, except July and August 
Official Organ 
THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
Office of Publication, Leader Building, Oklahoma City, Okla. 
Editorial Office: 
327 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois 
Frorence Curtis Hanson, Secretary-Treasurer 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. 


SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, TWO DOLLARS FOR THE YEAR 
FOREIGN $2.10—SINGLE COPIES, 25c 








Advertising rates made known on application. 





EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 
President 
Mary C. Barxer, Atlanta No. 89, 685 Myrtle Street, N. E., 
Atlanta, Georgia. 
Legislative Representative and Vice-President 
SeLtMa M. BorcHarpt, Washington No. 8; 1741 Park Road, 
N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Vice-Presidents 
Lucie W. ALLEN, Chicago Women No. 3; 1803 Livingston 
Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. 
Amy A. Fox, Minneapolis No. 59; 2809 Park Avenue, Minne- 
apolis, Minnesota. 
ABRAHAM LeEFrKow!Tz, New York No. 5; Grand Avenue, East 
Elmhurst, New York, N. Y. 
Henry R. Linvitte, New York No. 5; 70 Fifth Avenue, 
New York, N. Y. 
A. J. Muste, Brookwood No. 189; Brookwood, Katonah, N. Y. 
Firorence Roop, St. Paul No. 28; 328 Cedar Street, St. Paul, 
Minnesota. 
E. E. ScHWARTZTRAUBER, Portland No. 111; 
Box 68, Portland, Oregon 
W. J. Scorr, Atlanta No. 89; 212 Kings Highway, Decatur, 
Georgia. 
F. G. Strecker, Chicago No. 2; 1618 Lake Avenue, 
Wilmette, Illinois. 
Cuarces B. Stmx1Man, Chicago No. 2; 827 Ridge Avenue, 
Evanston, Illinois. 
Secretary-Treasurer 
FLrorENce Curtis Hanson, Chicago Women No. 3; 327 South 
La Salle Street, Chicago, Illinois—Telephone Harrison 2950. 


AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
ORGANIZED Aprit 15, 1916 


Affiliated With the American Federation of Labor 


R. F. D. §; 





The teacher is the irreducible minimum without 
which other elements of education are impotent, the 
course of study is dead, supervisors are of no effect, 
and the material means supplied by the principal, 
superintendent and board of education are but so 
much fuel powerless to release its energy.—Dnr. J. M. 
Givens, Supt. of Schools, San Francisco. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


THE A. F. L. AND THE A. F. T. 

When the charter members of the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers organized and looked about them 
to find civil and social groups of organized citizenry 
which would be interested in helping to put over an 
advanced educational program, in raising the eco- 
nomic status of the teacher, in improving teaching 
conditions, in establishing higher professional quali- 
fications and which would be not only interested to 
do this but would be sufficiently powerful to do it 
and which would seek nothing in return for them- 
selves, they turned to the only group they could 
find that met these requirements, Organized Labor, 
And Organized Labor welcomed the teachers. Its 
members were glad to help the teachers as they had 
helped themselves and to assist the teachers to a 
position where they would partake democratically in 
the administration of the schools. They said, “We 
were the major instrumentality in the establishment 
of free tax supported public schools. We ask noth- 
ing of them but an education for our children. We 
never have sought to use the schools for special 
propaganda and we shall not. But we do want our 
children taught by men and women who are free 
and unafraid, who have raised themselves to the 
standard of a profession and we are glad to help.” 


That Labor has helped is indisputable. Salaries, 
teaching conditions, professional qualifications, ten- 
ure, freedom from repression in teaching, all these 
and other things have come in a fuller measure to the 
communities where the teachers are unionized and 
have had the help of Organized Labor. 

And then Labor came to know the teachers and 
to realize that it was not all give, not all what 
Labor could do for the teachers. Labor began t0 
recognize that the teachers have a real contribution 
to make to the Labor movement, that they are pro- 
gressive and social minded, that to the solution of 
vexed economic and social as well as educational 
problems, they can bring a trained intelligence, 4 
civic conscience and a social mind. 

Dr. Henry R. Linville, vice-president of A. F. T. 
and president of New York Local 5, is a member of 
A. F..of L. permanent committee on education. A. 
F. T.’s delegate to the A. F. of L. convention acts 
as secretary of the convention committee on educa- 
tion. In various communities the chairmen of edu- 
cation committees in the central labor and staté 
labor bodies frequently are teachers. In these posi- 
tions the organized teachers have no little part-it 




























































fo 


cil 
all 
sha 
hay 


gra 


the 


for 


the 
eri 
sch 
par 
ma 


tim 
sen 


nat 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 19 


forming what is acknowledged by all to be a progres- 
sive educational program second to none. 

The American Federation-of Labor is in good 
hands. Its leadership is able and devoted. It is 
marked by human sympathy and social devotion. It 
ranks among the constructive social forces of Amer- 
ica. It is increasingly reliant upon the spirit of con- 
ciliation. It makes fewer and fewer mistakes. In 
all this the American Federation of Teachers has a 
share for it is an integral part of this great movement 
having an effective voice in the formulation of pro- 
grams and policies. 

The founders of A. F. T. have reason to regard 
their handiwork with pride and should be honored 
for the vision that was theirs. 





SHORTER SCHOOL DAYS 

Argument for a short school day, especially for 
the younger pupils, is submitted by Dr. James Fred- 
erick Rogers, chief of the physical education and 
school hygiene division, Bureau of Education, De- 
partment of the Interior, in a statement recently 
made public. 

“The length of the school day fluctuates from 
time to time,” says the statement, “‘and just at pre- 
sent the day seems to be waxing rather than waning. 
While this may be a good thing for children unfortu- 
nate in their home conditions, it should be constantly 
kept in mind that children, like other animals, thrive 
best with open air, sunlight, and activity, conditions 
which ordinary school life does not yet afford. 

“It needs also to be remembered that it is just as 
fallacious to affirm that the more we school a child 
the better educated he is, as to believe that the more 
we exercise his muscles the stronger he will become, 
or the more we feed him the bigger he will grow.” 

Coinciding with this opinion is that of Dr. F. H. 
Richardson, consultant of the New York State De- 
partment of Health, who says: ‘The most menacing 
habit of childhood is nothing more or less than undue 
indulgence in school attendance.” 

Dr. Richardson found that in many patients, by 

shortening the hours of school attendance a gain 
was made in health, and the child developed an in- 
creased capacity for study. 
“In the lower grades a child’s capacity for work 
is exhausted in three hours or less,” Dr. Richardson 
found, “and to urge him to work thereafter is as 
effectual as trying to persuade a horse to drink when 
he has no mood for so doing.” 


To this add the testimony of L. M. Terman, in 
his recently published “Genetic Studies of Genius,” 
“Within a given age group the intelligence and 
achievement scores earned are totally uncorrelated 
with length of school attendance.” 

Such evidence from noted authorities lends sup- 
port to the program of the American Federation of 
Teachers, “The normal five-hour day in the public 
schools,” “‘normal” meaning in the middle of the 
day, neither beginning at 7:30 a. m. nor closing 
at 5:00 p. m. 





CINCINNATI'S SALARY SCHEDULE 

Two principles for which A. F. T. has campaigned 
for years are teacher participation in the formation 
of policies and équal salary for equal preparation 
irrespective of grade taught. Hence the A. F. T. 
most heartily congratulates the city of Cincinnati 
on its adoption and use of these two principles in its 
recent establishment of a single salary schedule. The 
report which led to the acceptance of the schedule 
was prepared by a committee representing all groups 
in the school system. Standard qualifications for 
teachers call for graduation from college and a max- 
imum of $3,500 is set for teachers meeting these 
qualifications. Teachers not college graduates are 
encouraged to take additional training and this addi- 
tional training brings automatic salary increases. 

The voters of the city showed their desire for better 
teachers by voting a tax increase to be used solely for 
improving salaries. 

The entire situation in Cincinnati is one that en- 
courages the friends of the public schools and not 
least among them, the A. F. T., which modestly 
calls attention to its reflective as well as its direct 
accomplishments. 





COMPULSORY SGHOOL ATTENDANCE 

Childhood is the period of development and the 
state undertakes to assure children opportunity for 
mental development. Compulsory school-attendance 
laws and their administration are the key to these 
purposes. Realizing the importance of these laws 
the Committee on Education of the American 
Federation of Labor two years ago compiled a chart 
of the provisions of state laws regulating school at- 
tendance and employment of minors. 

The chart which shows clearly which states have 
low standards and which are making progress was 
sent to all central labor unions. Labor thus has 
before it basic information necessary in considering 
legislative standards. States where low standards 














20 








prevail should try to reach the higher ones that have 
proven their practicability in other states. It may 
not be possible to make the shift in one effort but 
the standard should not be lower than the highest 


one practicable. 

The National Association of Manufacturers has 
recently issued a program on education and school 
attendance which proposes standards higher than 
prevail in some states, but lower than are already in 
effect in other states. Labor would welcome the 
aggressive action of employers to help raise standards 
in states where the laws fall short of the employers’ 
program, but it insists there must be progress beyond 
the standards proposed in the National Association 
of Manufacturers’ program. 

Labor believes that boys and girls of fourteen 
years are too young to begin factory work; that 
boys under eighteen shall not work in mines; that 
9 p. m. is too late for minors to work; that the 
standard for educational requirements should be 
higher than the sixth grade; that the time spent in 
continuation school should be subtracted from the 
eight-hour day; that the work of minors should not 
exceed eight hours per day and six days a week; and 
the suggestion that “proper provision for vacation 
permits” might open the way for exemptions that 
would invalidate the law. 


The subject of compulsory school attendance is 
an important one for the whole nation and Labor 
welcomes concentration of interest in this field.— 
The American Federationist. 





A man’s life is made by the hours when great 
ideas lay hold upon him, and except by way of living 
persons there is no channel down which great ideas 
come oftener into human lives than by way of 
books.—Harry Emerson Fosdick. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





In looking over the Research Bulletins of the 
National Educational, Association, we find in the 
May number some interesting material on teachers’ 
salaries. The result of much painstaking investiga. 
tion shows that teaching is compensated on a lower 
level than are other forms of service in general for 
which direct money incomes are received. Workers 
in general have 349 chances in 1,000 of reaching 
$2,000 or more—and teachers 174 chances, reports 
the Bulletin. Teachers have only 1.9 chances in 
1,000 of reaching $5,000 or above, whereas workers 
in general have 25 chances out of 1,000. 

Again, The Bulletin reports that teachers are 
paid lower wages than unskilled and skilled labor 
in factories, than high grade clerical workers, or than 
govermental service considered as a whole. 

The obstacles that delay adequate compensation 
for teachers are given (1) as failure of the public 
to recognize that they are today demanding trained 
instructors while still paying compensation suited to 
untrained; (2) to the fact that the product of 
teaching is not like the product of an automobile 
factory, immediately at hand, but is deferred. Society 
therefore fails to make the proper correction. 




















The conclusion of the matter is that the product 
in this case as in others will accord with the pay- 
ment made. Poor wages mean poor workers. Inade- 
quate salaries for teachers will attract only the me- 
diocre. As the A. F. T. has always maintained, 
alert college trained young people will not go into 
teaching when poor salaries mean no opportunities 
for further study, for travel, cultural surroundings 
and recreation. Education and society will suffer. 




















“What the best and wisest parent wants for his 
own child, that must the community want for all its 
children.”—John Dewey. 
















WORLD 


Onegai dint smtp vionighs tebe 7 days 
Scandinavian Countries .............. 14 days 
Central and Eastern Europe........... 16 days 
"Betinetiané. «. ssadicen dep crwcriol wveseke 10 days 
I i cl is a es oe i a 10 days 


American Teacher, 
327 S. LaSalle St., Chicago III. 
Charlotte Merrill, Chicago Representative 








Acquaintance — Study — Pleasure 


EUROPEAN TRAVEL FOR RECREATION AND EDUCATION 
June 30—September 3, 1928 


Opportunities for Informal Conferences with Eminent Educators. 
For Information Address 


TOURS 





NEW EDUCATION program under direction of 
DR. PETER MANNICHE, 
International College 
Elsinore, Denmark 
Study of Folk High School Movement. 





World Acquaintance Travel, Inc., 
51 W. 49th St. 
New York City 





x 





















as an 
treatin 
wants 
especi: 
selves 
nation 


















THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


BRIAND’S FRIENDLY CHALLENGE 

Attention is called to the announcement elsewhere 
in these columns of the Nationa Oratorical Contest 
on Outlaw-war Treaties. A large number of prom- 
inent high school principals from many parts of the 
country are on the committee in charge. Eight state 
superintendents of public instruction were invited 
to serve on the committee and all accepted, heartily 
endorsing the project. 


Secretary Watkins writes: 


The committee considers the community contest to be the 
ideal plan. Wherever the school authorities consider it feasi- 
ble, there would, of course, be no reason why contests should 
not be arranged in high schools and junior high schools. Like- 
wise, churches or groups of churches might well arrange con- 
tests. However, the committee hopes that in each community 
school people—superintendents, principals, and teachers—will 
take the initiative or co-operate with ministers and church- 
school leaders, as well as with local editors and club leaders, 
in promoting as many bronze-medal contests and later as 
many silver-medal contests as possible—generally as community 
projects. Especially should contestants be encouraged to write 
their own speeches and so have a chance to win the large 
cash prizes. 

If the contest is understood and announced in this way, the 
committee believes the project will awaken great enthusiasm 
in local communities throughout the entire country, and, 
especially so, because the subject of the “renunciation of war 
as an instrument of national policy” by means of outlaw-war 
treaties certainly is not a controversial subject. Everybody 
wants to see it done; young people and their teachers are 
especially concerned to have it done and to familiarize them- 
selves with modern and amicable methods of dealing with inter- 
national disputes. 


BLACK SHIRT IDEALS GAINING IN 
AMERICA? 

San Francisco. — America is facing Black Shirt 
domination, according to Professor Guido Marx of 
Stanford University. He predicts: “At the present 
trend, Fascism will rule America in 10 years.” 

“Our liberties are stealthily being stolen,” he said. 
“Examples of recent encroachments upon them are 
rather shocking in their frequency and scope.” 

“It is easy to cry ‘radical’ at every critic,” he 
said, “but today even conservatives are becoming 
uneasy over judicial encroachments. 

“Thoughtful people might well read and ponder 
over a recent article in Harper’s on “The Courts and 
Free Speech,’ an amazing revelation on how far we 
have gone from democracy. 

“Liberty is not something to be conferred upon 
a nation, nor does it reside within the covers of a 
book to be used in an emergency. It exists in its 
exercise, and those who have not the courage and the 
will to exercise it can never possess it. ‘ 

“I was brought up to consider myself a sovereign 
citizen and to state to some extent the expression of 
my will. Now the whole shift is toward a concep- 
tion of a sovereign state and a subject citizen. 

“We are fast becoming a nation of subjects, and 
if that doesn’t lead to Fascism I do not know what 
Fascism means. It certainly is not a trend toward 
democracy.”—A. F. of L. Weekly News Service. 














THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





BOOKS 


Books are the legacies that a great genius _ 
leaves to mankind.—Addison. 





COMPANY UNIONS 
By Rosert W. Dunn, 


Two hundred and six pages; published by Vanguard 
Press, Inc., 80 Fifth-av, New York City 

Industrially, organized labor is keenly aware of 
developments affecting its existence. An employer is 
either a union employer, or a non-union employer, 
and the company union, whether sold by super-sales- 
men bent on presenting it as an agency for helping 
the lower class without hurting the upper class, or 
when frankly resorted to as a first-aid measure in 
preventing labor union activity, has been recognized 
and scored as an insidious enemy. 


Robert W. Dunn, who is well known as co-author 
of “The Labor Spy,” and as a painstaking and in- 
telligent industrial investigator, has compiled a very 
creditable summary of the development, extent and 
effect of the company union, in the United States. 
“Company Unions, Employers’ Industrial Democ- 
racy” is a factual account of company union objec- 
tives, and their relation to the organized labor 
movement. Mr. Dunn interviewed scores of workers 
in company unionized plants, employers, labor lead- 
ers and personnel managers. He devotes the first half 
of his book to the development of the company union 
from its inception during the latter part of and 
immediately after the World War when liquidation 
and readjustment, reorganization and retrenchment 
added to the chaos of the day. The desire for stabili- 
zation of working forces gave great impetus to the 
formation of company unions. 

Company unions, or works councils, as they are 
usually called by employers, seemed to have taken 
hold first in the metal trades, but while later de- 
creasing in the metal trades, quickly spread and 
grew in the railway, printing, textile, lumber and 
public utilities industries, in fact, in most large con- 
cerns employing over 10,000. The employer becomes 
the “labor leader.” The company union is initiated 
by the management and serves as a buffer for the 
management, It does not, like genuine collective bar- 
gaining, come as the result of pressure from workers 
who have organized themselves into a union. It is 
one of the devices of management used to control 


the labor force in a given plant or area. It pretends 
to give the worker a say in the management of the 
plant by consulting him on such matters as a new 
cafeteria, picnics, a company paper and other non- 
essentials. At the worst, as in the notorious case of 
the Amoskeag Manufacturing company, it becomes 
the agency through which the workers grant them. 
selves wage decreases. 


Mr. Dunn, in the latter part of his book, deals 
with labor’s case against the company union and 
concludes with the conviction that the company 
union will not be wrested from its present position 
in American industry by anything except energetic 
campaigns to organize the unorganized into indus- 
trial unions. The old line craft union, Mr. Dunn 
contends, is ineffectual in a fight against the com- 
pany union. 

“Company Unions” should be in the hands, not 
tucked away in the library, of every labor organizer 
and student of industrial problems. It is published by 
the Vanguard Press and sells at 50 cents a copy. 


What does the company union mean to the teacher? Wha 
are our company unions? I think we need a book on our own 
company unions. I suggest you refer to the italicized portion 
of the review and apply to ourselves. If you feel like writing 
the book, let me hear from you.—The Editor. 





A STATE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF WORK 
M. V. O’SHEA 
The Bernard B. Jones Fund 1927 

M. V. O’Shea, University of Wisconsin, has pub- 
lished the result of his study of public education ia 
Mississippi in 1925. The funds were provided by 
Mr. Bernard B. Jones, of Washington, D. C., but 
were not sufficient to investigate many fundamental 
problems. However Professor O’Shea has made : 
Jarge number of important findings regarding th 
intellectual status and educational achievement of 
the students of elementary and high schools, and 
first year college. Professor O’Shea makes the it- 
teresting and somewhat startling statement that high 
schools of Mississippi hold the pupils throughout the 
entire four-year course more successfully than a0) 
other state in the union. 





A man should hear a little music, read a little 
poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life 
in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the 
sense of the beautiful which God has implanted » 
the human soul.—Goethe. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 23 


EDUCATIONAL BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS BY 
JOHN E. KIRKPATRICK 
For Sale by J. H. Sours, Olivet, Mich. 
Toryism in American College Government 
(George Wahr, Ann Arbor, 1923)-_--$ .35 
Constitutional Development of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan (George Wahr, 1924) .25 
Rise of Non-resident Government in Har- 
vard University, and How Harvard Is 
Governed (George Wahr, 1925) Paper_ 
Cloth 
The Constitutional Development of the 
College of William and Mary (1926) .25 
Educational Revolt Series: 
The People’s Colleges of Den- 
mark (1927) 
What's Wrong With Our Col- 
leges? (1927) 
Our Academic Awakening (1927) —--- 
The American College and Its Rulers 
(New Republic, 1926) 

Concerning the last named work, Professor John 
Dewey in a three-page article on the “Bankruptcy 
of Modern Education” (Modern Quarterly, June- 
September, 1927) says in part: 

Dr. Kirkpatrick has made a valuable contribution 
to our knowledge of the origin, development and 
present status of higher education in this country, 
from the standpoint of its organization and control, 
and the effects of the system upon the teaching body 
and students, He has assembled material which is 
little known regarding the early history of Harvard, 
Yale, Princeton, William and Mary, and a short- 
lived institution called “The Log College.” The ac- 
count brings out the fact that there was at the out- 
set a period of wavering between the system of ex- 
ternal and non-professional governors, and control 
by the faculty and graduates, following the English 
system. He makes it clear that the desire of clergy- 
men to make sure of keeping collegiate instruction 
orthodox, according to their own notions of right 
belief, was the decisive factor in establishing the 
outside trustee government which has now become 
the regular method of university government. 

The system thus formed persisted when education 
became secularized, and the preparation of the clergy 
became the smallest part of college work. Business 
men became, except in the smaller denominational 
colleges, the residuary legatees of the functions of 
ecclesiastics, and in amy case, given the economic 
Conservatism of the church, an alliance was not hard 
to effect. The greater part of the book is devoted to 
an account, of a factual and non-sensational charac- 
ter, of later developments which have reflected un- 
favorably upon educational freedom, and to a de- 


-50 
1.00 


scription of present tendencies of discontent with ex- 
ternal, non-professional control, and of the move- 
ments: toward greater participation in government 
of faculties and students—“democratic stirrings,” as 
Dr. Kirkpatrick calls them. Under the caption of 
“The Next Step” he outlines a good plan for the 
substitution of democratic for autocratic control— 
what a former colleague of mine once termed “‘des- 
potism tempered by resignation.” Dr. Kirkpatrick’s 
own statements are moderate and he has avoided rely- 
ing upon gossip and rumor. He gives full credit to 
the work accomplished by the present system in the 
extraordinary expansion of physical resources and 
scholastic opportunities. But like most teachers in 
higher institutions, he feels that the time has come 
for bringing college rule into line with democratic 
institutions. 





THE DAILY PROGRAM OF THE HIGH 
SCHOOL, 1927 

High school teachers these days have much to say 
in protest of the manner in which the school day 
is filled. Mr. Running has made a study of some 
300 high schools in cities of more than 5,000 pop- 
ulation located in every state and in the District of 
Columbia. The survey included time of morning roll- 
call, time building is opened to pupils, time of dis- 
missal, length of recitation periods as related to the 
number of periods in the school day, and provision 
made for supervised study. Mr. Running finds a 
wide difference in the manner in which high schools 
use the school day. 

Teachers should find this study extremely inter- 
esting and may have something important to add 
regarding the day’s schedule. 





The English report of the Locarno World Con- 
ference on New Education held in August is now 
ready. Price 2/2 or 60 cents post free. The general 
theme, “The True Meaning of Freedom in Educa- 
tion,” is reported in sections: “Psychological Free- 
dom,” “Freedom through Method,” “Freedom 
through Environment,” “Freedom through Co-Edu- 
cation,” “Fredom through Creative Art,” “Freedom 
through International Understanding.” Among the 
speakers reported: Dr. A. Adler, Prof. P. Bovet, Dr. 
O. Decroly, Mrs. B. Ensor, Dr. E. Rotten, Dr. A. 
Ferriere, Dr. Del Manzo, Dr. H. Rugg, Dr. Carle- 
ton Washburne, Dr. Lucy Wilson, Sir Jagadis Bose. 

From the New Education Fellowship, 11 Tavis- 
tock Square, London, W. C. 1. (Agents in U. S. A. 
Bookshop for Boys and Girls, 270 Boylston Street, 
Boston. ) 





24 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


NATIONAL ORATORICAL CONTEST ON -; 
OUTLAW-WAR ‘TREATIES 
Briand’s Friendly Challenge 

A national committee, with former U. S. Com- 
missioner of Education, Philander P. Claxton, as 
chairman and Arthur Charles Watkins, associate sec- 
retary, National Council for Prevention of War, 
Washington, D. C. and Rev. Sidney L. Gulick, sec- 
retary, Commission of International Justice and 
Good Will Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
in America, as secretaries, has announced a National 
Oratorical Contest on Outlaw-war Treaties for Am- 


erican Young People. The announcement states: 


If such treaties are to be negotiated and ratified this winter 
or next spring, the President and Senate must know that pub- 
lic sentiment favors such action. This sentiment doubtless 
exists in a large degree throughout the country; it should be 
given expression. The young people of the world are deeply 
concerned in the discovery of other and better methods than 
war of settling international disputes. 

To arouse and direct the thought of the youth of the United 
States along these fruitful lines, national prizes are offered by 
Clement M. Biddle of New York for the preparation and pub- 
lic delivery by young people not over 19 years of age of ad- 
dresses on permanent world peace through treaties for the 
renunciation of war and the settlement of all international 
disputes by other means than war. 

There will be 

(1) Contests in public speaking. 
(2) Contests among the writers of their own speeches. 

Any newspaper editor, school superintendent, school 
principal, minister, church-school superintendent, teacher, club 
leader, or other interested person in amy community who 
arranges for five or more entrants may apply to the national 
committee in charge for a commission to act as supervisor and 
organize a bronze-medal contest. Upon receipt of his appli- 
cation the national committee will send him directions for 
organizing his local committee and proceeding with the contest, 
and will also furnish him with the bronze medal to be awarded 
to the winner. 

Arrangements for Bronze-Medal Contests 

The supervisor will organize a committee to have charge of 
the local contest. This committee will enlist as many young 
people as possible to compete for the medal. Young people 
who on May 18, 1928, will not have passed their nineteenth 
birthday are eligible to compete. The committee will arrange 
for the public contest to be held before March 15, 1928, and 
select the judges—three or five in number. 

Each participant may present a declamation to be derived 
from a book of approved articles of about 1,000 words 
entitled “Brief Discussions of World Justice, Goodwill, and 
Peace,” published by the Commission on International Justice 
and Goodwill of the Federal Council of Churches, 105 E. 
22nd-st, New York City, where orders for the book may be 
sent. (Single copies, postpaid, 25 cents; in lots of five or 
more copies, 15 cents each.) Or, a participant may deliver an 
original oration of not more than 1,000 words prepared by 
himself on the general subject of permanent world peace through 
treaties for the renunciation of war. Any person intending 
to write his own speech may, if he wishes, obtain from the 
office of the committee in charge bibliographies of articles and 
other useful material. 

At the public contests the judges selected by the local com- 
mittee will award the bronze medal to the speaker who pre- 
sents his or her address in the most effective and convincing 


way. The committee will arrange to take up an offering a 
the public meeting, and the supervisor will send the amount 
of this offering to the national committee to help meet the 
expenses of the national contest, any surplus to be utilized 
under direction of the committee in charge in harmony with 
the purposes of the contest. 


Leadership for Silver-Medal Contests 
The national committee will furnish a silver medal to 
any supervisor of a bronze-medal contest who will enlist five 
or more winners of bronze medals and organize a group con- 
test to be held on or before World Goodwill Day, May 18, 
1928. The group shall be composed of winners of bronze 
medals within a town, city, county, or other convenient area. 


Arrangements for Silver-Medal Contests 

The supervisor will organize a committee to have charge of 
the silver-medal contest. This committee will arrange for a 
public meeting at which the five or more contestants will 
compete for the silver medal. The committee will select the 
judges—three or five in number. These judges will award 
the silver medal to the speaker who presents his or her address 
in the most effective and convincing way. The committee 
will arrange to take up an offering at the public meeting, and 
the supervisor will send the amount of this offering to the 
national committee to help meet the expenses of the national 
contest. 

Contestants are encouraged to write their own addresses in com- 
petition for the bronze medal. Wherever a bronze-medal con- 
test is held, whether as a part of this or any similar peace 
sratorical competition of young people not over 19, the judges 
may select not more than two of the original speeches that 
they regard as most meritorious in point of contest as well as 
form and submit them to the National Committee before 
March 31, 1928. A.National Board of Judges will consider 
all such manuscripts and award prizes before May 31, 1928. 


Prizes for Original Speeches 
First—$500, to be used, preferably, for a summer trip to 
Geneva, Switzerland, and other points in Europe. 
SEconD—$300, to be used, preferably, towards the meeting 
of school or college expenses. 
Tump—$200, to be used, preferably, toward the meeting of 
school or college expenses. 


Gold Medal for State Winners 
In addition, a gold medal will be awarded to the writer of 
the best original speech in each state. Applications for com- 
missions to act as supervisors of local contests and all requests 
for information should be addressed to the Secretary of the 
Committee in Charge, National Oratorical Contest on Outlaw- 
War Treaties, 532 17th-st, N. W., Washington, D. C. 





ANNUAL BROOKWOOD CONFERENCE OF 
TEACHERS IN WORKERS’ EDUCATION 
(Arranged by Brookwood Local 189, American 

Federation of Teachers, as authorized by the Amer- 

ican Federation of Teachers.) 

TENTATIVE PROGRAM 
February 24-26, 1928 
SUBJECT 
The Place of Workers’ Education in the Labor 
Movement. 


FIRST SESSION 
Friday, February 24, 8:00 p. m. 
Informal Symposium: Discussion on current is 
sues in Workers’ Education. Leader, A. J. Must 
(Open to students). 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


SECOND SESSION 
Saturday, February 25, 10:00 a. m. 

Is Workers’ Education to be classed with the 
panaceas? Chairman, James H. Maurer (?). 

What light can we get from labor’s historic re- 
lation to the public school question? A Lefkowitz. 

What light can we get from the historic role of 
panaceas in general? A, W. Calhoun. 

What light can we get from the history of Work- 
ers’ Education since the War? A. Epstein. 


THIRD SESSION 
Saturday, February 25, 2:30 p. m. 
Chairman, Fannia M. Cohn. 


What have organizations and free-lance groups 
done about Workers’ Education? 

Summary of significant aspects of union activity. 
Spencer Miller, Jr. (?). 

Summary of significant aspects of Socialist activ- 
ity. Algernon Lee (?). 

Summary of significant aspects of Communist 
activity. Bertram Wolfe. 

Summary of significant aspects of Co-operatives’ 
activity. Cedric Long. 

Summary of significant experiences of a free-lance 
venture. Hilda Smith. 


Saturday, February 25, 8:15 p. m. 
The Brookwood Players under the direction of 
Jasper Deeter, will give “The Inheritors.” 


FOURTH SESSION 
D. J. Saposs, Chairman. 
Sunday, February 26, 10:45 a, m. 
What experiences have people in Workers’ Educa- 
tion had in getting effective relations with the labor 
movement? 


I. Mufson, Paul Fuller, Leonard Craig (?), Tom 
Tippett, Chas. Reed, Mabel Leslie. 


FIFTH SESSION 
Josephine Colby, Chairman. 
Sunday, February 26, 2:30 p. m. 

What relation should Workers’ Education enter- 
prises sustain to the Labor Movement—(1). Subor- 
dination to strategy and tactics of union, party, co- 
operative? (2). Autonomous rank in the move- 
ment, on a co-ordinate footing with union, party, 
co-operative? (3). Free-lance independence as aux- 
iliaries to the labor movement? 

John P. Frey (?), E. C. Lindeman, A. D. Shef- 
field, John Brophy (?). 





Buy Union Stamped Shoes 








We ask all members of organized labor to 


purchase shoes bearing our Union Stamp on ° 
the sole, inner-sole or lining of the shoe. We 


a7 





ask you not to buy any shoes unless you 


actually see this Union Stamp. 


Boot & Shoe Workers’ Union 


Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 


246 SUMMER STREET, BOSTON, ‘MASS. 


COLLIS LOVELY 
General President 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





Local News 











TEACHERS UNION OF THE CITY OF NEW 
YORK, LOCAL 5 

In the January American Teacher the figures for 
Local 5’s new members during the month of its 
drive should have read 157 instead of 107. The 
figures on January first were 167. Adding to this 
the very appreciable salary increases and Mr. Lef- 
kowitz’s promotion, Local 5 has a record of accom- 
plishment on which it is entitled to much praise 
and congratulation. 





WasHINncToNn, D. C. 
Loca No. 8 

On January 14, the Teachers’ Union of Washing- 
ton, D. C., Local No. 8, A. F. T., gave a dinner in 
honor of Miss Selma Borchardt, Vice President and 
Legislative Representative of the A. F. T., member 
of the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee, and 
member of the Board of Directors of the World 
Federation of Education. 

Among the guests and speakers were the Superin- 
tendent of Schools, Dr. Ballou; Senator Capper; Rep- 
resentative Zihlman; Miss Mary Anderson, Director 
of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor; 
Judge O’Toole; Major William E. R. Covell, Assist- 
ant Engineer Commissioner of the District of Colum- 
bia; and Mrs. Florence Hanson, Secretary-treasurer 
of the American Federation of Teachers. 

Local 8 had an addition of 72 members in De- 


cember. 





ST. PAUL FEDERATION OF WOMEN 
TEACHERS, LOCAL 28 

The Federation of Women Teachers has under- 
taken an important study as a feature of its year’s 
work. It proposes to make a careful investigation of 
the “interruptions” in school work. With each year 
there appears an increasing number of activities 
which have been taken into the schools. Many 
teachers feel that it is no longer possible to do what 
is supposed to be the work of the schools because, 
with all the additions, there has been no curtailing 
of the program which heretofore has filled the normal 
school day of five hours. 

At present there will be no effort made by the 
federation to place values on these “interruptions.” 
Many of them may have their rightful place in the 
work of the schools. After the study is completed, 
a move will be made to eliminate or to assign to other 
agencies certain detailed and clerical work so that 
teachers may return to teaching, a move which the 


public will undoubtedly support. 

Two meetings of the Joint Salary Committee com. 
posed of representatives of the Federation of Men 
Teachers, the Federation of Women Teachers and the 
Principals’ club have held two meetings this month, 

A highly successful delegate dinner was given with 
65 schools represented and members of the Board of 
Education and special members of the Federation 
present. 

The Federation has had some good publicity lately 
and friendly co-operation with the press. One news- 
paper has lately changed hands. A joint committee 
including principals, was sent to call and _ get 
acquainted, with good results. 

The Federation is having a share in the proceeds 
of this week’s performance of the Stock Company 
and hopes to realize a reasonable amount. 

FLORENCE Roop, 
Vice-President, A. F. T. 


MEN TEACHERS’ FEDERATION LOCAL 43 


The Federation has three or four important mat- 
ters under way. There is not much fanfare con- 
nected with the work—there never is with that 
which brings lasting results in any field. 

Our members on the Charter Committee, com- 
posed jointly of persons from the two Federations, 
are Messrs. Harrell, Pennell, Tingle, Bergh and 
McMillen. This committee sent a letter to the fram- 
ers of the proposed City Manager Charter which 
embodies the following minimum points. 

1, That the business management of the schools 
be placed in the hands of an official or officials to be 
elected at large for that purpose by the voters of 
the city. 

2. That the management of the schools and the 
business connected with the administration of the 
schools be left entirely in the hands of the commis 
sioner of education or school board. 

3. ‘That the commissioner of education or school 
board appoint a superintendent and an assistant sup- 
erintendent of schools and fix their salaries. 

4. That nomination and appointment of teach- 
ers be made by the superintendent and approved by 
the commissioner or school board. 

5. That the commissioner or school board b 
authorized to determine the salaries of teachers and 
to adopt all necessary rules and regulations having 
to do with salary schedules. 

6. ‘That salaries of officials and limitations of 
expenditures in the department of education be n0t 
fixed by the charter. 

7. That teachers be given the same protectiom 
in tenure of position as that provided in Chaptef 
36 of the 1927 Statutes of Minnesota. 





izatio 
ders 
from 
Feder 
gathe 
other 
will | 
An 
the s 
Howe 
vidua 


St. Pa 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 27 


8. That provision be made for a board of teach- 
ers, advisory to the superintendent of schools, to 
meet regularly once a month during the school year. 
The first meeting of this board shall be on the sec- 
ond Monday following its election, in the Council 
Chamber of the Court House, at 4:00 P. M. At this 
meeting the board shall elect all necessary officers. 
Thereafter, the board shall meet once a month at the 
call of the chairman or of a majority of the mem- 
bers. The members shall hold their offices until 
their successors are elected and qualified. 

9. That the superintendent of schools shall sub- 
mit proposed changes in courses of study and the 
selection of text books to this board before their 
adoption. That the board shall, from time to time, 
advise the superintendent upon the methods of 
teaching and the general welfare of the schools. 
That the board shall keep a permanent record of its 
proceedings which shall be open to the public. 

10. That city employes be required to live within 
Ramsey County. 

The Insurance Committee will soon start calling 
on those members who are not policyholders. Letters 
from all parts of the United States within the past 
year testify to the widespread interest among teach- 
ers. We were the first to work out a plan and put 
it in operation. Judging by the large number of 
organizations now carrying the group insurance, it 
would seem to prove our sound judgment. 

A joint salary committee of five members each 
from the two Federations and from the Principals’ 
Club, is now at work. The delegates from our organ- 
ization are Messrs, Harrell, Christoffel, Tingle, San- 
ders and J. E. Anderson. Ivan Johnson, delegate 
from the Principals’ Club, is also a member of the 
Federation. Three committees are already at work 
gathering various sorts of information. Numerous 
other committees are to follow, membership of which 
will be drawn from outside the Joint Committee. 

Any campaign undertaken will likely be based on 
the social value of the teachers to the community. 
However, the idea is not that all the teachers as indi- 
viduals are worth more money, but rather that every 
St. Paul child is entitled to a first-rate teacher. 


ST. PAUL LABOR CLASSES 

1. Shop Economics (Mondays), Mr. Ramsted, in- 
structor. Pertains to class members’ own industry 
and trade. Laboratory method. Full enrolment. 

2. History of Labor Movement (Tuesdays), Miss 
West, instructor. Almost full. 

3. Practical facts of government (Wednesdays). 
State Representative Starkey, Finance Commissioner 
McGlogan, and Mf. MeMillen, instructors. Deals 


with state government and with city administra- 
tion from workers’ standpoint. Study of forms of 
government, especially city-manager form. Full en- 
rolment. 

4. Public Speaking (Fridays). 
enrolment. 

5. Budgets and accounts. Mr. Pavlicek, instruc- 
tor. Budgets and accounts of unions, for business 
agents, treasurers and presidents. Also for family 
use. 
Mr. P. A. McMillen, director of Labor College, 
member of St. Paul Men Teachers Union, No. 43. 

Classes run 16 weeks. Tuition $4. Most unions 
refund tuition for certain number of members. 


Nearly double 





LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER NOW 
HEADS CALIFORNIA TEACHERS’ ASSO- 
CIATION FOR NORTHERN SECTION 

R. W. Everett, teacher in the Sacramento high 
school and prominent in the work of the American 
Federation of Teachers, is now president of the Cali- 
fornia Teachers’ Association, Northern section. 

Mr. Everett is prominently mentioned in the cur- 
rent December issue of The Sierra Educational News, 
which is the official state journal of the California 
Teachers’ Association, and goes out monthly to its 
32,000 members. Mr. Everett is one of California’s 
leading school men and has a distinguished record, 
particularly in the field of educational legislation.— 
Sacramento Chronicle. 





MINNEAPOLIS FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
LOCAL 59 

The fall semester for the Minneapolis Federation 
of Teachers has been an energetic one, with its 
members active in the following business: 

TEACHER SALARY DRIVE 

The central committee made up of representa- 
tives from the three teachers’ organizations, has 
put on what a prominent Minneapolis citizen has 
called a very high-class, business-like campaign for 
more adequate teachers’ salaries, The Federation has, 
of course, taken an active part in that campaign, 
under the leadership of Mrs. Alice Drechsler, chair- 
man of the salary committee. Mrs. Drechsler has 
proved herself to be particularly alert in meeting 
insidious plans to defeat the desires of the teachers, 
and to be fearless when opposition was needed. 

The Central Committee conferred upon Miss Flor- 
ence Fish, a charter member of the federation, the 
honor of acting as the publicity agent of the teachers 
in this salary campaign. She gave brilliant service, 





28 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


carrying the needs of the teachers convincingly to 
the people, to the Board of Education, and to the 
business men. She did this work during last summer 
and the month of September, during which time she 
had a leave of absence from school, and was paid by 
the Central Committee on the basis of a teacher’s 
maximum salary. The schedule for which she has 
worked has already been accepted by the Board of 
Education and is now under advisement by the Board 
of Estimate and Taxation. 

In response to a request from Miss Fish, Mr. J. E. 
Meyers, president of the Board of Education, gave 
a courteous and cordial invitation to the presidents 
of the three teachers’ organizations to present the 
salary matter at an open meeting of the board. Miss 
Myrtle Hooper spoke for the class room teachers, 
Mr. Charles R. Richardson for the Teachers League, 
and Miss Amy Fox for the Teachers Federation. 

A FEDERATION Pep FESTIVAL 

One afternoon Local 59 received with pleasure the 
news that Mrs. Florence Curtis Hanson, en route 
to Chicago from Superior, Wis., where she had just 
installed a new local, would stop in Minneapolis for 
a brief visit. Miss Lettie Hunt, the financial secre- 
tary of No. 59, sensing an opportunity for gaining 
new inspiration and the latest federation news, set 
many wires buzzing with invitations to members and 
their friends to meet Mrs. Hanson at Miss Hunt’s 
attractive home, where we have had many a good 
time. We greatly enjoyed Mrs. Hanson, and gath- 
ered in, not only the fine news of Federation growth, 
but also some energetic new members. We believe 
that Mrs. Hanson is doing as excellent a piece of 
work in revitalizing old members as in bringing in 
the new. 

A ViriL—E MEMBERSHIP DRIVE 

Many of our committees have conspired this year 
to do effective work for membership publicity. First 
Miss Margaret Thomson, chairman of the member- 
ship committee, laid plans for individual member- 
ship work in each school building. 

Second, Miss Thomson and Miss Alice Henry, the 
chairman of the Publicity Committee, published a 
dashing little orange colored booklet which was issued 
on Hallowe’en and which contained tabloid informa- 
tion on the federation. 

Third, to Miss Thomson and to Miss Saidee In- 
gram, chairman of the Social Committee, belongs the 
credit for a very happy open house meeting before 
the fire-place of the home-like reception room at the 
Unitarian Center. Dr. Albert Parker Fitch, a col- 
league of Dr. Meikeljohn at Amherst, spoke engag- 
ingly and challengingly on the subject, “The School 
and the State,” and Miss Florence Fish, very inspir- 


ingly on “Federation Principles and Ideals.” Later 
we all hovered over the punch bowl, and either up. 
held or attacked one another’s pet ideas induced 
into the open by the two stimulating talks. Als 
we had the pleasure of learning that some guests of 
the evening had determined to join the federation. 

Fourth, the Executive Board at Miss Thomson’s 
instigation, thinking that our members, as well a 
prospective members, should be occasionally circu- 
larized sent out a letter suggesting regular attend. 
ance at meetings, and the dedication of the necessary 
time to Federation business. Miss Louise Kuehn has 
given us valued service by efficiently managing the 
distribution of printed material. 

INSURANCE DRIVE 

As Local No. 59 has accepted the group plan, the 
chairman of the insurance committee, Mr. O. E 
Pederson, has been very much engaged telling the 
world about it, and separating members from the 
twenty dollars necessary to make out the papers. 

ExecuTIveE Boarp TEAS 

The Executive Board has met regularly the sec- 
ond Wednesday of each month at the apartment of 
the president, Miss Amy Fox, to drink tea and trans- 
act business. That group keeps faithful guard over 
the general teacher welfare. 

FEDERATION MINUTE MEN 

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers is well or- 
ganized to get into quick touch with its member, 
and into immediate action at a time of emergency. 
Two recent insidious attempts to put over on tht 
teachers things they did not want were: 

(1) The alluring bait of an immediate $100 
increase if the teachers would forego for the present 
insistence on their improved salary schedule. 

(2) Am attempt to induce the teachers them- 
selves to vote for extra pay for extra curricular ac- 
tivities, which would be a dangerous opening wedgt 
for the merit system. 

Amy A. Fox, 


Vice-Pres. A. F. T. and Pres. Local 39. 





ATLANTA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION 
LOCAL 89 


Local 89 has had two general meetings and two 
directors’ luncheons since schools opened in Septem- 
ber. 

At the October meeting, the following officers 
were elected: James P. Barron, president; Lamat 
Jeter, Ernestine Dempsey, Lucile Nolan, vice-pte 
idents; Mrs. R. B. Whitworth, financial secretafy; 
Belle Clein, secretary; E. L. Floyd, treasurer. Mr. 
Barron has already served well for one year as pre 
dent of No. 89. All of the officers are experi 





izatic 
the ic 
woul: 
arriv 
that 
econc 
becat 
City 
schoc 
the « 
teach 
Boar 
the p 
but 1 
tions 
tures, 
to dis 
consc 
that : 
cond: 
The 
briga 
Ac 
avow 
cial s 
step \ 
tive | 
direc: 
ized | 
woul 
step 
as th 
meeti 
speci: 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 29 


in the work of the organization. Their experience, ad- 
ded to the able directing ability of Jimmie Barron, 
should mean much toward a--wonderful year for 
the local. 

In the October meeting the matter of teacher 
pensions was also considered. During the summer 
the City and County Employes’ Local of which the 
teachers are not a part, was successful in securing 
passage of their pension bill. Just why the teachers 
were not asked to co-operate in this movement we 
cannot say. Although their bill is much better than 
the old one, it is not satisfactory to the teachers. 
Since we may participate, we think that it is much 
better to take what is provided in their bill, but 
to work for certain amendments which are necessary 
to protect those who participate. The most import- 
ant matter of business considered in the October 
meeting was that concerning a program of action 
for the year. Because of the existence of a very 
unsettled political situation in city affairs, the organ- 
ization adopted, a year ago, a stand-by policy, with 
the idea in mind of waiting for a time when speaking 
would be most effective. That time seemed to have 
arrived early in October when it became evident 
that the continuation of the program of drastic 
economy that the Board had been forced to adopt 
because of the lack of funds and the refusal of the 
City Council to provide further support for the 
schools would mean the crippling of the system to 
the extent that conditions for both students and 
teachers would become extremely burdensome. The 
Board of Education had done all it could to arouse 
the people to a realization of the needs of the schools, 
but their efforts were off-set by the many accusa- 
tions of inefficient management, wasteful expendi- 
tures, too many education frills, etc., which served 
to discredit in the minds of the citizens an unusually 
conscientious board. So it seemed to the teachers 
that the matter of getting over to the people the real 
conditions that exist in the schools was their job. 
The zero hour for the advance of our particular 
brigade had arrived. 


Accordingly Local 89 opened a campaign, the 
avowed aim of which was to secure adequate finan- 
cial support for the public school system. The first 
step was to put on a part-time worker. The Execu- 
tive Council chose President Barron as the man to 
direct and organize the campaign because they real- 
ized that a large part of the work in such a campaign 
would naturally fall upon the president. The next 
step was to rent a modest up-town office to serve 
as the center of the campaign and as a convenient 
meeting place for the Executive Council and the 
special steering committee. Since November 1 Mr. 


Barron has spoken to dozens of groups of citizens 
in almost every section of the city with the most 
encouraging results. This campaign has the en- 
dorsement of the Superintendent of Schools and the 
Board of Education. A campaign fund was raised 
by asking each member to contribute to the cause 
one per cent of one month’s salary. The response 
was very encouraging, especially when the fact that 
contributing was absolutely voluntary is considered. 

The December general meeting was taken up largely 
with matters of routine business and a hearing of the 
reports relative to the progress of the campaign. 
Announcement was made that there was some possi- 
bility of a salary cut for the teachers in order to 
close the year without a deficit. The action of 
Local 89 in its December meeting, we believe, was 
the beginning of the influences that culminated a 
week ago in the action of the City Council in appro- 
priating enough money to enable the Board of Edu- 
cation to give the teachers a full check for the 
month of December. Great help was given the local 
in this movement by the local labor press which car- 
ried a very forceful editorial from the pen of Jerome 
Jones. This editorial was reprinted on the editorial 
page of one of the largest dailies, and the other two 
dailies carried editorials of their own. 

No. 89 is proud of the fact that Miss Mary C. 
Barker was chosen as the official delegate from the 
central labor body to the convention of the Ameri- 


can Federation of Labor. 
; W. L. Scorr. 





PATERSON TEACHERS UNION LOCAL 92 

The officers of the Paterson Teachers Union, 
Local 92 were elected at the October meeting 
as follows: President, A. K. Harris; Vice-President, 
Ralph Maxwell; Corresponding Secretary, Raymond 
P. Maronpot and Financial Secretary, Morris Savage. 

At the November meeting were elected three trus- 
tees whose business it will be to handle all matters of 
finance, Mr. A. Lagos, for three years; Miss Anna 
Long, two years, and Mr. Otto Durholz, one year. 

A grievance committee composed of four mem- 
bers, an elementary teacher, a high school teacher, 
a head of department and a principal or vice-princi- 
pal was created. 

Mr. Kyle is chairman of the committee to re- 
write the constitution. 

Publication of the local’s official publication, The 
School News of Paterson, has been resumed with 
K. O. Klaessing as editor in chief and A. K. Harris 
as business manager. The paper will reach every 
teacher in the city and every delegate on the Central 
Trades and Labor Council. It is expected that the 





30 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


paper will be a financial asset rather than a liability. 
It can be if you know how to manage. 

Ruth Gillette Hardy, New York Local 5, was the 
speaker at the January meeting. 





PORTLAND TEACHERS UNION LOCAL 111 

Members of the union have noted in The Oregon 
Labor Press some of the results of our protest to 
the Central Labor Council regarding tendencies in 
the Community Chest drive. In our letter we 
pointed to reports of coercion being used in various 
business institutions in the city and then to a ten- 
dency toward such in the public schools. A copy of 
our letter, together with a protest of similar nature, 
was sent by the Central Labor Council to Commun- 
ity Chest authorities. The reply of Mr. E. B. Mc- 
Naughton, as quoted in full in last week’s Labor 
Press, of course politely called upon the teachers 
union to furnish Chest officials with the names of 
teachers who had suffered coercion, in order that 
the cases might be looked into and steps taken to 
avoid any such possible mistakes in the future. Call- 
ing our bluff, was this? If it was not, we wonder 
if Mr. McNaughton was so foolish as to assume that 
we would expose any teachers to possible future dif- 
ficulties. That difficulties are assumed to be a pos- 
sibility is attested to by the fact that, in a majority 
of the cases reported to the Central: Labor Council 
investigating committee, teachers requested that 
their names be withheld. Evidence of coercion is 
always difficult to prove and Mr. McNaughton 
knows it. Institutions and individuals under such 
charge will deny the use of coercion and, probably 
in most instances, honestly. However, there are re- 
finements of coercion in direct ratio to the nature 
of the cause being sponsored. Giving for the needy 
will bring forth the gentlest of these refinements, 
though none the less cruel in their final effects upon 
the individual. 


Of all institutions the schools would be the last to 
admit use of coercion. Neither the superintendents 
nor the board of education would countenance it 
directly. However, when quotas are placed for each 
school, when competitive methods are employed to 
raise those quotas, when the principal is expected to 
announce, “Our school is 100 per cent” then, sooner 
or later, pressure will be applied by the over-zealous. 
It is against that possibility that we of the teachers 
union are protesting, and are attempting to forewarn 
those in power. If the teachers union, at the risk 
of losing what little favor it may enjoy with the 
school administration, can help keep the spirit of 
giving free in the schools and in the city at large, 
it will have performed a great service. 

One other practice in the past Community Chest 


drive which the teachers union and teachers gen. 
erally objected to, was the specification as to how 
much each of us ought to contribute. The attempt, 
whatever its source, to set for us the amount each 
of us should give is an effrontery, if nothing more. 
Who, but the individual himself, can be the true 
judge as to what he can give? If the amount wanted 
is to be a tax, then let us not call it giving. Further- 
more, if the proposed day’s pay is to be in the nature 
of a tax, then the tax ought by all means to be a pro- 
gressive one. In which case, the Community Chest 
should announce that whereas day laborers are to 
give a day’s pay, skilled laborers and teachers should 
give, perhaps, a day and one-fourth pay, lawyers and 
bankers, five days, captains of industry, ten days, etc., 
on up the line. But no, we hear of only one day's 
pay for everyone. It’s a safe guess that a day laborer 
did not sit on the original committee that devised 
that brilliant idea. 


One lesson ought to be apparent to all of us and 
particularly to those of our teacher friends who look 
upon organization as “unprofessional.” It is that 
there is a common basis of interest between teachers 
and workers in general. The Central Labor Council 
backed up the teachers union to the limit. Would 
the Chamber of Commerce do the same for the 
High School Teachers Association or the Grade 
Teachers? Neither of those latter organizations 
would look upon affiliation with organizations like 
the Chamber of Commerce as “unprofessional.” And 
yet, only from organizations of workers, having inter- 
ests common with themselves, do some teachers draw 
their skirts aside for fear of —well, what? Have they 
gone beyond John Dewey? 


The Portland Grade Teachers Association Bulle- 
tin for November gave the union some two page 
of space in quotations from the Pacific Coast num- 
ber of the American Teacher and from our own 
local bulletin. The High School Teachers Magazine 
published an article by Mr. Schwarztrauber, entitled 
“Scholarship or Mediocrity—Which?” The article 
evidently drew blood, for according to the current 
issue of the same magazine, replies from teachers 
were warm in denial of the essential argument of 
the article that scholarship th the public schools 
generally mediocre. The replies should have been 
published. 


PORTLAND TEACHERS UNION BULLETIN. 


COMMONWEALTH, LOCAL 194 
Commonwealth Local, 194, is a unique organiZi- 
tion, because, as one member put it, “the union 
owns the school.” While this is not true, the ide 
is there. The teachers at Commonwealth compo* 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


the Commonwealth College Association, in the naine 
of which the college property is held. 

Here there is absolutely no dictation to teachers, 
either from the educational director or donors, and 
the instruction therefore is not shaded or biased. 
Neither is there that fear so common elsewhere that 
one’s place is in jeopardy. 

F. M. GoopHvE. 





SUPERIOR FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
LOCAL 202 

An open discussion upon the advantages of affil- 
iating with the American Federation of Teachers, 
led by Miss Agnes Kirk, former president of the 
teachers union at State Teachers college several years 
ago and delegate from that body to the Trades and 
Labor assembly, constituted the first meeting of the 
new local union here since the charter was received 
at Central High School Wednesday afternoon. 

It will be the policy of the organization, according 
to Peter Beachle, temporary chairman of the group, 
to hold a series of meetings that will be open to all 
class room teachers in the public school system who 
are interested in the movement. 

“There seems to be a slight undercurrent of mis- 
understanding among some of the principals and 
teachers in the city as to our purposes and princi- 
ples,” Mr. Beachle said. ‘We cordially invite the 
doubters as well as those who are interested to our 
open meetings so that all may more fully understand 
our policies.” 

In speaking of the advantages of such a teachers 
union, Miss Kirk pointed out that most of the teach- 
ets organizations, especially the state and national 
associations, meet but once a year, affording little 
or no chance for actual contact, and that since they 
are conducted wholly by administrative officers, the 
class room teachers have no chance to actually work 
together. The teachers union offers both the advan- 
tages of a local unit and a national organization, 
which the average local teachers’ club does not. 

ADVANTAGES LISTED 

Miss Kirk named four distinct advantages to be 
gained from a teachers union: “The first, that of 
strength, because of the backing received from the 
Trades and Labor assembly; second, that of inspira- 
tion, because of the advice and co-operation received 
from that body; third, a’ wider field of service, be- 
cause such affiliation brings about a closer contact 
with a considerable group of the population of a 
community not otherwise reached; and fourth, a 
wider vision because it gives a perspective that re- 
sults in a poise that cannot be got in any other 
way,” Miss Kirk explained. 


YOUTH AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT 

Katonah, N. Y.—“Youth and the Labor Move- 
ment” ‘was discussed at a two-day institute at 
Brookwood Labor College here December 30-31. 
Organizing young workers, serving their interests in 
trade union activity, apprenticeship regulations and 
training received special attention. 

Speakers included Francis Mahoney, Building 
Trades Apprentice School, New York; William 
Smith, secretary-treasurer, American Federation Full 
Fashioned Hosiery Workers; Tom Tippett of the 
Brookwood faculty, formerly director of workers’ 
education, Illinois Mine Workers; Spencer Miller, Jr., 
secretary, Workers Education Bureau of America; 
J. Schlossberg, Amalgmated Clothing Workers of 
America; A. I. Shiplacoff, Leather Goods Workers; 
Philip Umstadter, Printing Pressmen’s Union; Rose 
Schneiderman, Women’s Trade Union League, and 
others. 

“It is frequently said that it is difficult to 
organize young people into unions,” said A. J. Muste, 
dean of Brookwood, in explaining the purpose of the 
institute. “Unquestionably many of our unions are 
composed of middle-aged and old people, young peo- 
ple being conspicuous by their absence. From leaders 
in unions that have apprentices and therefore do 
have young people in their membership, the com- 
plaint is often heard that these young people are 
interested in movies, baseball, boxing, petting parties, 
better jobs—everything under the sun except trade 
unionism. Young people in the movement on their 
part assert that the movement does nothing to appeal 


. to the young and that activity on the part of young 


members is discouraged rather than encouraged. 

“In the meantime, we have in this country a labor 
movement with perhaps five million members, 
whereas we ought to have from 20 to 25 million 
organized workers. The basic industries are almost 
completely unorganized and there is no indication 
that anything effective is being done about this 
problem. 

“Since it seems possible, even likely, that the atti- 
tude of young people to the movement, and of the 
movement to young people has something to do 
with the general state of the movement and its 
future progress, it is of the greatest importance to 
have at this time a full and frank discussion on the 
subject of youth and the labor movement.” 





Good—to forgive. Best—to forget. : 











32 


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 
Ee 


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

The American Federation of Teachers desires to 
co-operate with all civic organizations for improved 
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 $2.00 per year, 25 cents per copy. 





a ES a 
=> 


Oe me 
% 








| 





— 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER