NOVEMBER, 1928 






VOL. XITI—No. 3 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 


The 


American Teacher 





THE ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 





EDUCATION AND 


FREEDOM 


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for himself without fear, to investigate in every possible 
direction and to bring us the fruit of all bis work.”— 
Rosert G. INGERSOLL. 








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CONTENTS 


Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union 
Katherine Devereaux Blake 
Greetings From Friends and Colleagues Abroad 
Workers’ Education in the South 
Louise Leonard 
The Institute of Politics and the Teacher 
Laura Puffer Morgan 
False Education in Our Colleges and Universities__—-11 
Emil O. Jorgensen 
Summer Conferences Are Media for Education 
Charles Hodges 
What the N. E. A. Did for Seattle 
W. B. Satterthwaite 
Just Observations 
Selma Borchardt 
Books 
Editorials 
A Productive Educational Conference 
Henry R. Linville 
Local News 



































The American Teacher 


Entered as second class matter Oct. 1, 1927, at the post office at Oklahoma City, Okla., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Sec, 1103, Act of Feb. 28, 1925, authorized Nov. 3, 1926. 





Volume XIII, No. 3 


NOVEMBER, 1928 


Two Dollars a Year 





Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union 


By KATHERINE DEVEREAUX BLAKE 


Principal of P. S. 6, Manhattan, New York City (retired) 


Address Delivered at the Membership Campaign Meeting of the Teachers Union of New York City, on November 18, 1927 


Mr. President, Honored Guests: Members of the 
Teachers Union are noted for their courage, but I am 
sure I never did so brave a thing as I am doing to- 
night, to come here and play the part of a sandwich 
between two such distinguished speakers, and you 
will all complain that there is very little butter in 
this sandwich. I had no idea I was to be the only 
woman and that I was to be between Mr. O’Hanlon 
and Mr. Dewey. I think I should have had a sick 
headache or something of that sort had I known it. 


The other day Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick said 
that he believed in the confessional for all people. 
But Dr. Linville after the fashion of the Union got 
ahead of him, and asked us all to come here tonight 
and confess why we joined the Union. I wonder 
how many of you had to go through the pangs that 
I had to go through. All the people with whom I 
was most intimate talked in very lofty tones of the 
profession of teaching, and said it should not sink 
to the level of a labor union. 

I have often wondered why in what is supposed 
to be a Christian country a labor union is not the 
highest association that there is, since the leader of 
the Christians worked with his hands and was a day 
laborer. Also he went to prison. It has always made 
me feel a little ashamed to think that good Christians 
do not value labor as they should. 

Owe ALL To LABOR 

’ This helped me to face my friends and say, “Yes, I 
am going to be a union member and all that it 
means.” And the more I thought of it the more I 
thought it was my duty. Do we not all teach labor’s 
children? Is it not labor that gives us work to do? 
Do we not owe all that we have to labor? Then I 
sent in my application for membership. And I was 
turned down. No place in the Union for me, (Dr. 
Linville did not expect this part of the confession): 
because I was one of those miserable administrators, 
and not a class room teacher. 


I said, “You are all wrong. You ought to let me 
in.” How did I get in? One night down at the Civic 
Club, Mr. De Frem said to me, “Do you know, I 
am going to organize a union of private school 
teachers and college teachers.” 

I said, “Let me in.” 

“Oh, I don’t think we could,” he said. 

We spent two hours arguing it back and forth. 
I tried to demonstrate to him that I was just the 
foreman. That is all I am. I think Mr. O’Hanlon 
will bear me out that the foreman must be a mem- 
ber. I said, “I am just a foreman; that is all. And 
you ought to let me in.” (Mr. O’Hanlon nodded 
assent. ) 

I went away quite discouraged. I could not get 
in. Two weeks after that I met Mr, De Frem and 
he said to me, “I have been thinking over what you 
said, and we are going to let you in.” 

I said, “All right, the minute you are organized 
I will join.” 

By and by Local 5 and Local 71 amalgamated and 
I am in. Then what did I find? I found that the 
members of the Teachers Union without exception 
are more than thirteen years old mentally. You know 
that is the average mental age of grown-ups, thirteen 
years. But I found that members of the Teachers 
Union are more than thirteen years old mentally, 
and they range all the way from more than thirteen 
years to Dr. Dewey. 

Way Nort Crasp Hanns WitH Lasor? 

What do the teachers always do when they want 
anything? Don’t they always come to you, Mr. 
O’Hanlon? Then why not join hands with labor? 
Go out and tell that to your friends, in this drive 
we are making for membership. Say you-are always 
going and asking for labor’s help when you want 
salaries, you ask for labor’s help when you want 
pensions, then why not clasp hands with labor and 
march on together? 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Labor has done some of the most wonderful things 
that have been done educationally. When I think 
of the big classes that those garment workers have 
organized, the struggle that they have made for edu- 
cation, and the high type of education that they give 
to themselves; it is wonderful. We ought to be 
proud of them. I think we all are proud, we who 
belong to the Union. 


The Union has done so much. You see, Union 
members are always leaders because they are more 
than thirteen years old mentally. Se they lead the 
thirteen-year-olds. The people that start ideas very 
often do not get the credit, because some of the 
thirteen-year-olds finally see that it is a good idea, 
and they come forward, claim it as their own, and 
when it is accomplished, say that they did it, but it 
_ is the Union that thinks of it first. The Union made 
the first step for increased salaries for teachers, made 
it in spite of the opposition of the conservative organ- 
izations of teachers. The Union has worked not only 
for better salaries and for better pensions, but they 
have worked for what is even more important, for 
the rights of teachers. 


THE CouraGE To Go AHEAD 

I was happy when I learned that the Union was 
working to get rid of those ponderous Rating Sheets 
that principals have to make out. I think I dreaded 
making out that Rating Sheet more than anything 
else I was obliged to do. It seems so stupid and un- 
fair. You can’t put little letters in little boxes and 
have them mean anything about the really vital work 
of a teacher, and that is why no one pays any atten- 
tion to those cumbersome Rating Sheets. 

It is courage that the Union means to us more 
than anything else, I think. It has been the courage 
to go ahead, not the courage of the wild animals, but 
the pure white courage that burns with a clear light 
of self-sacrifice. If you have that kind of courage, 
you are nearly always punished. Once in a while some- 
body gets by, but as a rule that is the courage that 
is punished, and all of the people that are leaders 
in this Union have been punished one way or another 
for the courage of doing what they thought right, 
no matter what happens. And that is why it is a 
beautiful thing to belong to the Union. The wonder- 
ful courage of it! And the leadership! 

This wonderful courage that you have, when it is 
big enough to be mass courage, ceases to be punished. 
So I hope you will all go to work at the drive, and 
tell the folks that don’t want to pay their quota each 
quarter, that they ought to be willing to pay it as 


a sacred duty to leadership. That is the wonderful 
thing that we have in this Union—leadership. And 
perhaps some day if we all get together and get hun- 
dreds and hundreds of teachers joining the Union, 
we may have the ideal school. The wonderful build- 
ing to begin with, the building that will have light 
rooms, the building that will have plenty of air, the 
building that will have stories, whole stories, just 
for play. 
A Dream ScHOOL 

I have a dream in my mind of a school. I have 
had it there for a long time. The dream is of the day 
when the school will take a whole block. It does that 
now sometimes, but not as it should. It will have 
the ground floor filled with shops which will rent 
probably at a very good figure and will help to pay 
your salaries. Then the whole block all the way round 
on one floor, the school with plenty of room, and the 
next floor playground, open air, winter and summer 
and then apartments also to rent—only to people that 
have children, or to teachers; and then a roof gar- 
den. You see that would be only four stories high. 
And the children would not any of them go up 
more than one flight, neither would the teachers, nor 
would the principal. I have been living on five floors 
for thirty-three years, up and down stairs all the 
time. In the Northwest corner there would be a 
tower with lovely apartments. On top of the fourth 
story all the way around the block a garden and play- 
ground and as most of the block would be only four 
stories high we would have in the center a playground 
on the street level. Then all the children could stay 
all the time in fresh air and sunshine and not on the 
street. Maybe some day you can bring this dream 
to pass. Then I have another dream, which says in 
summer all the children go out into the country, no 
schools in the city, and no children anywhere in 
town. I was very much interested the other day to 
see that Mr. Bertrand Russell said the same thing. 

The Union is always working toward the ideal 
school. Breadth of view on the part of teachers and 
pupils is their aim. They have dared to speak of inter- 
national friendship when others feared it was unpa- 
triotic. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Lef- 
kowitz for his admirable report on this. We owe our 
deepest thanks to our president and all our leaders 
who have dared for us, and set us an example of rare 
courage. 





“Thought makes everything fit for use.”—Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Greetings From Our Friends and Colleagues Abroad 


Dr. E. A. Hardy, President of the Canadian T each- 
ers Federation was present at our Convention in Chi- 
cago and brought us the following inspiring message 
from our neighbors across the line: 


Madam Chairman: It is a very great pleasure and 
privilege indeed for me to be here at this time. You 
have had a very long and strenuous session today, and 
I notice you are all looking very, very tired, and it 
would be cruel for me to keep you very long. As I 
have listened to your discussion today I felt that this 
session is likely to be historic in your organization. 
The message from the wild and wooly West has stirred 
up the energetic and not effete East and a combina- 
tion of East and West and center, I believe, is 
about to result in the creation of a fund which will 
surprise and delight Mrs. Hanson and give her some 
very happy moments in the expenditure of it in the 
next ten years. 

I don’t imagine that you are going to stop with any 
$10 contribution. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised that 
when your efforts to raise your salaries are as suc- 
cessful as you want them to be, you won’t think of 
stopping with less than $100. Think of all the good 
times Mrs. Hanson will have, riding around on Amer- 
ican transports and with American railway passes and 
stirring up this whole country. 

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT DEMOCRATIC 

I come to you this afternoon on behalf of the 
Canadian Teachers Federation to bring you our greet- 
ings, Our country is very essentially different from 
yours, very much so in our political organization. I 
am not prepared to argue the point, but I believe we 
are more democratic in our political institutions than 
you are. May I say just this one thing about our 
political institutions in support of the statement I 
have just made? In every one of our provinces, as 
in every one of your states, education is a matter of 
Provincial concern, but we have the cabinet system 
of government, that is to say the Prime Minister, 
who is elected by the people, has associated with him 
a group of men, each of whom has a definite respon- 
sibility, and in every province we have a Minister of 
Education, or what corresponds to a Minister of Edu- 
cation, as one of the cabinet. He is responsible on the 
floor of the legislature for all the legislative votes for 
education; he presents those to the legislature; he 
must defend them; and the whole system of respon- 
sible government with us provides a flexibility in 
regard to expenditure and popular representation 


which I fail to find in your system so far as I have 
been able to study it. 

Again, our boards of education I think universally, 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are elected by the 
people. May I take the case of the city from which 
I come, the city of Toronto, a city of 650,000 people. 
We have sixteen members of the board of education, 
two from each ward elected just as the City Council 
are elected, on the first of January every year. That 
is popular representation, and that is responsible gov- 
ernment in a local sphere as clearly as you can get it. 

Just how well that works out may be illustrated 
in this one thing, that the best member of the board 
of education in my time was elected continuously 
for thirty-four years, a man who had the interests of 
the teachers at heart, who did more for their interests 
than any other person on the board. Year after year 
people returned him without any question. 

May I apply another acid test of popular govern- 
ment, government ownership of public utilities? The 
Dominion of Canada owns and operates the largest 
railway system in the world, the Canadian National 
Railways, running from coast to coast, with 22,000 
miles of railway, and I believe that publicly owned 
and operated railway system gives as good service as 
is given by any railway system in the world. 

PuBLic OWNERSHIP BENEFITS 

The Province of Ontario and the municipalities of 
Ontario own and operate the largest hydro-electric 
system in the world, which now serves over seventy 
per cent of the people of our province, and serves 
them effectively. 

May I be concrete? My house is a seven-room 
house. I have always belieyed in burning all the lights 
I want. I don’t suppose I ever burn less than 
twelve or fifteen lights from the time I turn on the 
switch until midnight, and most of you teachers know 
you don’t get to bed before midnight. I have an elec- 
tric range, an electric heater, and my bill sometimes in 
the middle of the winter runs as high as $5 a month, 
but usually it is very much less than that. 

The City of Toronto in which I live owns and 
operates the street railway service, and we are modest 
enough to say that we have the finest service in the 
world. 

I just mention these facts to give you our political 
background. 

Our teachers organizations reflect that background, 
and they all are democratic. Every province in Can- 





6 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ada has its teachers organization. The province in 
which I live has three, the public school or the ele- 
mentary women teachers, the elementary men teach- 
ers, and the high school teachers. 


ReaL TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS 
Nobody is allowed into these organizations except 
teachers in active service, that is to say, none of the 
administrative staff is allowed in our organization; 
not that we have anything against them at all, but 
ours are teacher organizations. In the Province of 
Quebec they admit the inspectors. 


In the Canadian Teachers Federation the control 
rests absolutely and entirely with teachers organiza- 
tions. Classroom teachers or principals, or teachers 
who are now secretaries of teacher organizations, are 
the only persons eligible for the Canadian Teachers 
Federation. 

Thirty people constitute our Council, and we rep- 
resent about 20,000 people in active membership; we 
have three representatives from each of the nine prov- 
inces and three officers. 

As I listened to you today, there were some things 
I wanted to say to you. I wanted to tell you how a 
democratic organization could make itself felt. The 
organization to which I belong is the Ontario Sec- 
ondary School Teachers Federation, comprising both 
men and women. We have a membership of nearly 
3,000. About four or five years ago one of our school 
boards dismissed the principal without any notifica- 
tion. The first notification he had was when he saw 
his position advertised in the newspaper. 


Our Federation at once took up with that board 
of education this dismissal, not that they had not a 
perfect legal right to dismiss him—we did not dis- 
cuss that, nor did we discuss the grounds of dismissal, 
but we contended that it was unprofessional conduct 
to dismiss him that way. We could not pass over any- 
thing of the sort. We asked that board to apologize 
to our Federation for having dismissed a teacher in a 
discourteous and unprofessional way. The board 
would not discuss it with us. They went to the Min- 
ister of Education and told him that he should dis- 
cipline us. The Minister of Education sent for our 
officers. We told him our side of the story. The case 
was settled in this way: the board of education apol- 
ogized to us for having dismissed that teacher in the 
unprofessional way they did, and gave us a written 
promise that they would not do it again. (Applause). 


Way out on the Pacific Coast there was a board 
of education which said to its teachers: ““We won’t 


give you any more money,” when the teachers said 
they wanted some more. 

The teachers said, ““Very well, there are two sides 
to that question, and we think you will.” 


“No, we will do nothing of the sort. To make 

it quite clear, you are now dismissed.” 
No APppuicaTions RECEIVED 

The teachers’ representatives ventured to point out 
that the board might have some difficulty in filling 
their places. : 

They said, “Oh pshaw! we can fill your places in 
twenty-four hours.” They advertised those places, and 
they didn’t fill them in twenty-four hours, and they 
didn’t fill them at all, because the B. C. Teachers Fed- 
eration broadcasted that news to all the other teach- 
ers’ federations, and they didn’t get a single applica- 
tion from a teacher in Canada in good standing in 
any teachers’ federation. (Applause). 

I could multiply instances of that kind. I don’t 
know just whether you would call that peaceful pen- 
etration or what you would call it. We simply said 
we were not prepared to teach with boards that did 
that sort of thing. 

I may say, by the way, that the association to which 
I belong is the only one of the eleven organizations 


‘which has a pledge in its constitution, and we have 


a pledge. We stand at every meeting and repeat the 
pledge, and the clause in the pledge that counts reads 
something like this: “I will not accept a position 
with any board which is not in good standing with 
the Federation.” It works. 

The result of all that has been that there has devel- 
oped in our province, and I speak generally for all 
Canada, a feeling of respect for the teachers. 

RESPECT FOR TEACHERS 

I have been one of the troublesome brethren in 
Israel who have had to interview the school boards. 
A trustee told me that they had great respect for the 
Federation. He said, “Why, you are organized now 
like the plumbers and electricians, and we know you 
mean business and we can deal with you as a busi- 
ness group. We are glad to know that you have got 
spunk enough to organize and tell us what we ought 
to do.” 

Madam Chairman, I am afraid I am transgressing 
on your patience in making this speech. I have no 
apology to make for saying that we believe in the 
material side of our profession. We believe in the 
spiritual side just as well. I believe that teaching 
ranks among the fine arts. Personally I believe it 
ranks among the very greatest of the fine arts, and I 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


know of no fine art which can be sustained or ever 
has been sustained in the world’s history without the 
expenditure of money. A great painter must have 
somebody to provide for his wants while he does a 
great work; so must a great musician or a great archi- 
tect. And a great teacher who is doing an infinitely 
more valuable thing and an infinitely more difficult 
thing, dealing with human souls, must have somebody 
to provide for his wants. We believe that that pro- 
vision for his material wants will come only through 
organization. I believe in talking shop with every 
teacher I get a chance to talk shop with. I have no 
apology to make for it. I have no sympathy with 
that kind of teacher who says, “I want to go away 
in the summer and not see any teachers.” I want to 
go in the summer where I can see lots of teachers, 
teachers who represent different viewpoints from my 
own. 
“TALKING SHOP” 


I belong to a club of artists and musicians and 
sculptors and architects, and I know that when I sit 
down at the table where they are, all the artists are 
talking pictures, all the architects are talking build- 
ings, all the musicians are talking music, and I can’t 
get them to talk anything else except when I open 
up and talk school, and they have to listen out of 
courtesy. 


I do love to talk shop to my fellow-teachers and 
I love to hear you talk shop, too. 


We were so glad to have had some of you at Tor- 
onto last year. I wish you could all have been there. 
We tried to put you up and give you a good time. 
Our memories of those of you who came last year 
are very, very pleasant. 


May I revert to a memory of one of your former 
members who came to see us in Montreal five years 
ago, Miss Colby, and brought your message to us? 
This is the first opportunity we have had of return- 
' ing those greetings to you in person. On behalf of 
our Canadian teachers and our Canadian eleven pro- 
vincial organizations, I do wish you the very best of 
success. I hope that your fund will grow beyond 
the dreams of avarice and that you will cover this 
country with an active organization of teachers, 
strong for teachers’ rights, strong also with a sense of 
the rights of the other fellow, so that through co-op- 
eration the American Federation of Teachers may 
build itself up to a very great protectorate of the 
rights of the men and women of the profession and 


the boys and girls of the schools. (Applause) 


THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SCOTLAND 
47 Moray Place 
Edinburgh, Ist June, 1928. 


Mrs. Florence C. Hanson, 
American Federation of Teachers 
506 South Wabash, Ave., 
Chicago, Ill., U. S. A. 

Dear Mrs. Hanson: 

Your letter of 18th May, addressed to Mr. Robert 
Dickson has been handed on to me. I regret to inform 
you that Mr. Dickson, who was Secretary to the 
Board of Examiners of the Educational Institute of 
Scotland, died last year. 

I am sorry it will not be possible for us to send 
representatives to attend your Annual Convention 
from June 25th to June 29th. 

I have very great pleasure, however, in conveying 
to you from the Educational Institute of Scotland a 
message of friendly greeting and goodwill and their 
best wishes for a very successful and profitable Con- 
vention. 

Yours sincerely, 
THomas HENDERSON, 
General Secretary. 


NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS 
Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, 
London, W. C. I. 
6th June, 1928. 
Dear Mrs. Hanson: 


I submitted your letter of the 15th ult. to the 
Executive of the Union at its meeting on Saturday 
last. With great regret the members found it impos- 
sible to arrange for the attendance of fraternal dele- 
gates at your Twelfth Annual Convention, but I was 
requested to convey the cordial greetings of the 
National Union of Teachers to your Federation, 
coupled with the very sincere hope that your meetings 
in Chicago will be very successful, and that the Fed- 
eration may continue in its earnest endeavors to raise 
educational and professional standards everywhere. 
There is a growing consciousness in all ranks of the 
teaching profession in Great Britain of the need for 
international solidarity, and I am quite sure this 
interchange of greetings between our two Organiza- 
tions will do much to strengthen the bonds of friend- 
ship already established between us. 

Yours fraternally, 
F. W. GOLDsTORE, 
General Secretary. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS 
Amsterdam, June 7th, 1928. 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
506 S. Wabash Ave., Room 526, 
Chicago, IIl., U. S. A. 
Dear Mrs. Hanson: 

I am in receipt of yours of the 18th May, in which 
you invite the I. F. T. U. to send a delegate to your 
12th congress, to be held at Chicago from June 25th- 
29th. 

We thank you for your kind invitation, but are 
unfortunately unable to accept it, partly on account 
of the great distance, and partly from reasons of prin- 
ciple, as we never send delegates to congresses of indi- 
vidual unions, but only to congresses of national 
centres. 

I regret this the more, inasmuch as the I. F. T. U. 
and I myself personally have the utmost sympathy 
for your activities. We have shown our interest in 
teachers by helping to create a Teachers International 


Trade Secretariat, with seat at 56 Heereng 
Amsterdam, so that the educators of the rising ge 
eration may have as close a contact as possible 
the international trade union movement. 

It is undoubtedly an excellent sign that teache 
in the most varied. countries are endeavoring to ge 
into more and more direct touch with the worker, 
to understand their position and their struggles, anj 
to co-operate in bringing up a new race which wil 
be on a higher intellectual and physical level. 

I feel sure, therefore, that I may speak in the nam 
of all the organizations affiliated with the I. F. T. VU, 
when I say that I wish your twelfth congress th 
utmost success, and your organization a full measur 
of prosperity and progress. 

Yours fraternally, 
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF 
TRADE UNIONS, 

Jou. SASSENBACH, 
Secretary, 





Workers’ Education in the South 


By LoutsE LEONARD 


Director, Southern Summer School for Women Workers in Industry 


The American labor movement has always fought 
for better educational opportunities for all children 
but it is only during the last eight years that there 
has been enough interest in the particular kind of 
education needed by older workers to give impetus 
to a growing movement for adult workers’ educa- 
tion in this country. 

During these years central trades bodies of various 
cities have started “labor colleges,” some state fed- 
erations of which Pennsylvania is an outstanding 
example have employed state secretaries to organize 
classes and Brookwood, the only resident labor col- 
lege in the country, has been established on a firm 
basis. 

Summer schools for women workers are a part of 
this same general trend; one at Bryn Mawr College, 
Pa., one at Wisconsin University, one at Barnard 
College, New York City, and for the past two sum- 
mers, one in the South, known as the Southern 
Summer School for Women Workers in Industry. 

TEACHERS UNION CO-OPERATES 

The Southern Summer School held its first session 
at Sweet Briar College in Virginia and the second 
session in the summer of 1928 at Carolina New 
College which is located at Burnsville, North Caro- 


lina. Both years the school has been under the aw 
pices of an independent committee of southernen, 
who saw the need for Workers’ Education and 
rented a college campus where they might begin to 
meet this need. 

The committee consists mainly of workers who 
have had some Workers’ Education experience 
garment workers, women from knitting mills and 
silk mills and it includes the President of the Amer- 
ican Federation of Teachers who is a southem 
woman, and others. 

The purpose of this school is to help industrial 
women to realize the position in which wome 
workers of the South are placed at the present tim 
and to fit them to assume their special responsibil- 
ities. . | 

Students came in 1927 and 1928 from eight 
southern states; from textile mills, including silk 


cotton, rayon, came spinners, spoolers and weavers 
from cigarette factories, packers; from _hosiet} 
mills, loopers; from garment factories, button and 
button hole operatives, overall, coat and shirt work- 
ers; from cigar factories, skilled cigar makers; from 
shoe factories, French “folders,” and fancy stitch- 
ers; from glove factories, laundries, telepho 





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hffices, box factories, and men’s clothing factories 
1g genmeirls came also so that in a group of twenty-five 
le wiiiiistudents, all typical southern industries were repre- 

sented by girls from some of the largest plants in 
he South. 













ENGLISH CouRSE PRACTICAL 

From economics to health education, the courses 
of study were especially designed for industrial 
workers. After studying industrial history since 
before the invention of machinery, these worker- 
students saw their jobs in a new light, as parts of a 
great modern industrial movement which is revo- 
lutionizing the South even as it has wrought 
changes in Europe, in New England, and of which 
beginnings are now evident in the Orient and dark- 
est Africa. They learned economics in relation to 
OF M their own jobs and labor problems in terms of their 

own long hours, low wages, unemployment and 

other handicaps, compared and contrasted with 
ary. Mother workers in other’ places. 

The object of the English course -was a practical 
one—to help girls, many of whom had had to leave 
school too early, to read more intelligently, to write 
more clearly and to speak in public. The material 
for this work also came to a great extent from the 
students’ work experience. For example, among 

; au MH subjects for public speeches were “Industrial De- 

rnets, @ mocracy in the Plant Where I Work.” “The Time 

aI Was Asked to Sign a Yellow Dog Contract.” 

in 0% “The Effects of Low Wages Upon Workers,” and 
“The Mill Village in Which I Live.” 

wh) An hour a day was given to physical education 


ss. the 


ce BH for the group with emphasis upon such exercises as 
and teach industrial women relaxation and muscular 
met- @ control; this work was supplemented by talks on 
hern personal health habits, social hygiene and care of 

children; also individual help was given each stu- 
trill BH dent regarding exercises and diet suitable for the 
men @ special needs growing out of her type of job. Many 


tim @ girls learned to swim and all took part in hiking, 
ibil- HH base ball, group singing and other recreational 

I activities. 

A week’s course supplementary to economics was 
given by A. J. Muste, dean of the faculty at Brook- 
wood Labor College, covering the position of the 
worker in different stages of history, labor prob- 
lems in the United States at the present time, and 
the structure and functions of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor. 

The faculty of the Southern Summer School is 
made up of teachers who have not only a wide 


PBrFEeEresgs & 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 9 





knowledge of subject matter to be taught but expe- 
rience in teaching workers. All are students of his- 
tory and economics; together they work to make 
their knowledge available to students and to draw 
upon the experience of these worker-students. 

All members of the school, students, tutors, 
teachers, attended most of the classes; discussion 
was free and the contribution of the student from 
her industrial life as enlightening to the group as 
that of the discussion leader who had spent more 
time studying theory. There were tutorial hours, 
individual conferences for each student about her 
written work, projects undertaken by a student or a 
committee of students working with faculty mem- 
bers. Thus the program was flexible, adjustable to 
needs of students as they appeared, and progressive 
educational methods were followed. 

Over one week end in August, a conference of 
Jabor men and women from three states met at the 
Southern Summer School in response to the call of 
the President of the North Carolina Federation of 
Labor. They considered the present status of labor 
organization in southern states in the light of reports 
from Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and North Caro- 
lina and tried to face problems to be met in organ- 
izing. Under A. J. Muste’s leadership they discussed 
Workers’ Education as a tool in the hands of work- 
ers. Plans were made for co-operation in support of 
the Southern Summer School and for a joint confer- 
ence of labor leaders of southern states this fall 
where other common problems may be attacked. 
This conference brought to many of the Summer 
School students their first direct contact with organ- 
ized labor since only twenty-five per cent of them 
belong to unions (United Garment Workers) and 
the rest are from trades unorganized in the South. 
Visiting trade unionists and students found the dis- 
cussions of mutual benefit and in a number of cases 
organized and unorganized saw chances to co-oper- 
ate in their home towns. 

SIGNIFICANT PIONEERING 

The committee sponsoring the Southern Summer 
School hopes it may be used more and more as a 
meeting place for all who are concerned with the 
problems of the industrial South and who are seek- 
ing a solution to these problems. 

The Summer School is supported by contributions 
from interested organizations and individuals in local 
southern communities from which students come as 
well as from other places where there is interest in 
the South and in Workers’ Education. The commit- 








































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


tee is encouraged by the support that has come from 
organized labor as well as from other sources, This 
next year the director of the school will travel in 
the South working with local committees to secure 
funds and applicants and offering workers’ classes 
as a means of following up the work begun during 


the summer. 


The school is not large—the aim is to have forty 
students next summer, but its contribution as q 
pioneer in Workers’ Education in the South is sig. 
nificant in so far as it releases the powers of southern 
women workers and sends them back more able to 
function in the labor movement of the South in this 
important period in its economic history. 





The Institute of Politics and the Teacher 


By Laura PUFFER MorGaNn, 
Local 198, Associate Secretary, National Council for Prevention of War. 


The Institute of Politics held its eighth session at 
Williamstown this summer. It is no longer an in- 
teresting experiment. It is a permanent institution 
which will soon be put on an endowment basis. Each 
year its round table and conference discussions are 
more widely reported in the press. Moreover, year 
by year new institutes are springing up in other uni- 
versities in widely separated sections of the country, 
and among the guests at Williamstown are often to 
be found observers who have come to study the In- 
stitute as a model. 


Under these circumstances, one wonders why so 
comparatively few teachers are to be found among 
the members of the Institute. One would have ex- 
pected it to be a Mecca for history teachers, at least. 
It is, to be sure, true that the numbers are limited 
and the membership carefully selected so that no one 
group may dominate. But that hardly seems suffi- 
cient explanation for the fact that outside of the 
lecturers, conference leaders and their secretaries, less 
than 20 teachers of history appear in the-Who’s Who 
for 1928, and of these scarcely half a dozen are 
high school teachers. 

For the teacher of modern or contemporary his- 
tory, the program of the Institute has much to offer. 
Each year it reflects the imminent world problems, 
and in particular those which have most direct bear- 
ing upon our own international relations. This was 
especially true this year, when Latin-American prob- 
lems received even more intensive treatment than 
in former years. Three round tables were devoted 
to these problems, which were studied separately on 
legal, economic, and political lines. 

Our relation to China is one of the most important 
problems to be solved by the State Department. That, 
and the equally puzzling question of the sovereignty 
of Manchuria, were considered in the round table on 


Problems of the Pacific, and the closely related econ- 
omic question was studied under Population Prob- 
lems of the Pacific Rim. 
First WOMAN SPEAKER FROM TURKEY 

Four general conferences were devoted to a dis- 
cussion on Problems of Africa. This might seem re- 
mote until one realizes that the policy of our’ State 
Department towards Liberia and the Firestone rubber 
plantation there is establishing a precedent which 
goes far beyond any methods used towards Latin 
America in the practice of imperialism. 


Leaving the United States for a moment, there 
was much food for the student of history in the 
courses of lectures on Current Political Problems, 
dealing mostly with the Labor Party, in Belgium; on 
Modern Turkey and its Problems; and on Germany’s 
Foreign and Domestic Policies, given by prominent 
nationals of each country. Incidentally, it. was 
rather an anomaly that the first woman to- appear 
on the Williamstown program should be a native of 
Turkey, where women so recently have come into 
their own. 

Nor does this cover the entire program. It may, 
however, be worth while to give a brief resume of 
what was in some ways the outstanding round table 
of this year’s program—that on Methods of Social 
Direction under Graham Wallas, professor emeritus 
of the London School of Economics, and well known — 
authority in Political Science. This was -of special 
interest to political scientists and was particularly 
timely during a year of presidential elections which 
furnishes many opposite illustrations. 

ProsLteMs Now Worip WIDE 

Professor Wallas expounded his problem as the 
“rationalization of politics” through the application 
of modern commercial and industrial methods to 
public affairs. “Rationalization” implies not only 











the recognition of cause and effect but the determina- 
tion to act upon that recognition. “Conditions of 
life in the great industrial nations of the world have 






THE AMERICAN TEACHER 11 





physician, for instance, to the relation between the 
voter and the public official; trust on the part of the 
voter, and conscious professional responsibility on the 


ig- 

™ been transformed during the last two generations,” part of the official. 

wr he said. “No longer are our problems simply na- 2. General adoption of the principle of non- 
his tional; they have been rendered worldwide by the political appointments, with public officials relying 


enlarged scale of society, the modern means of com- 
munication, the interdependence of peoples. We are 
living in new social dimensions. The war demon- 
strated the destructive possibilities of modern science. 
Mankind is confused and baffled by the new know- 
ledge and power which he has not yet learned how 
to use to control events. Universal education and 
universal suffrage are new social facts complicating 
the problems of government which arise from the 
new relationships of the modern world. What will 
happen when naive conceptions of democracy are 
abandoned, now that great sections of the world’s 
peasantry can read and consider for themselves how 
they shall be governed?” 

The readjustment of our social life to the new 
conditions calls for intense constructive thought. Dr. 
Wallas argued that the great Greek thinkers did re- 
form the world. ‘They conquered Rome intellec- 
tually. So did John Locke and his friends in their 
discussions formulate the ideas which inspired the 
American and French Revolutions. In the same way 
modern society may be reorganized. The Institute 
of Politics he sees as intended to revive the group 
method originated by the Greeks. “You and I,” he 
said, “have come to Williamstown in order to con- 
sider how far we can help in the rationalization of 
modern society.” 

Criticizing the dictatorships of both Stalin and 
Mussolini, Dr. Wallas contended that by this pro- 
cess of “rationalization” democracy could be made to 
function even though government has become largely 
a matter for expert knowledge. His solution of the 
problem involved three essentials: ? 

1. Extension of the principle of trust and re- 
sponsibility which exists between the citizen and his 


upon. experts with “supernormal minds trained by 
special study.” 

3. Government co-operation with non-political 
organizations and individuals in economic, intellec- 
tual and moral fields. 

It is in the third group that Dr. Wallas puts the 
Plato, the Aristole, the John Locke of the present 
day, and this directing force outside the organization 
of government, he believes, is equally essential for the 
successful control of civilization. 

Extending this theory beyond national limits, he 
declares the rationalization of international relations 
to be of “terrific importance,” and the quasi-organi- 
zation of individual thought and feeling in literary, 
scientific, and economic fields is still the strongest 
international force. 

Unfortunately, Dr. Wallas was called back to 
England before he had an opportunity to develop 
fully his theories in respect to international relations. 
In a brilliant public lecture, however, he pointed out 
the inherent contradictions in nationalistic thinking 
and showed that the problems of construction in- 
volved in the modern world necessitate co-operation 
with one’s neighbor, rather than protection against 
his interference. 

Professor Wallas has written several books which 
have introduced psychological analysis into the study 
of political science, and he is now working on another 
book which will deal with the relation of the vote 
to human society and its problems. 

A report of the round tables and open conferences 
with bibliographies is issued in mimeograph form 
every year by the Institute of Politics for its mem- 
bers. A few extra copies are usually available to 
outsiders upon application. 

































False Education in Our Colleges and Universities 


Address by Emu. O. JORGENSEN, 


Director of the Manufacturers and Merchants Federal Tax League, before the Third Henry George Mem- 
orial Congress held in Chicago, September 10-13, 1928. 











being, are young people becoming less and less in- 
terested in it?” 

I don’t know that I can give you a full and satis- 
factory answer to this question. One thing, how- 


One of the saddest questions that I have heard 
since coming into this convention is, “Why in view 
of the soundness and justice of the Henry George 
idea and its tremendous importance to every human 






12 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ever, I am very certain of, and that is that the false 
education regarding the Henry George reform which 
is streaming through our schools, colleges and uni- 
versities is chiefly responsible for the declining in- 
terest that our young men and women are taking 
in it, 

Now when I say false education I mean just that. 
I do not have in mind intellectual error; I have in 
mind untruthfulness and downright dishonesty. I 
can and do have the highest respect for any one who 
disagrees with me so long as he is sincere, but I can 
have absolutely no respect for anyone who disagrees 
with me when I know that he is not sincere. 

Let me give you an illustration of this false educa- 
tion which I feel is doing so much, not merely to 
turn the minds of our young people against the 
Henry George reform, but to hold back the move- 
ment for the public ownership of public utilities as 
well. 

Tax LEAGUE FoRMED 


About nine years ago, after a long period of 
thought and discussion, a group of men met in Chi- 
cago and formed the Manufacturers and Merchants 
Federal Tax League with my friend, Otto Cullman, 


as chairman. The purpose of this organization was 
to promote legislation along the Henry George lines 
and I was called in to act as the Director of Informa- 
tion. We had a bill drawn up which proposed to re- 
duce the tax burden on the fruits of human labor 
about $1,000,000,000 by substituting therefor a one 
per cent tax on, the unearned values of lands and 
natural resources in excess of $10,000. This bill was, 
of course, a long ways from the full single tax pro- 
gram of Henry George but it was at least a step in 
that direction. It was drafted by Jackson H. Ral- 
ston and introduced into Congress by Representative 
Nolan of California and become known as the Ral- 
ston-Nolan bill. 

We pushed the bill, of course, as hard as we could. 
Money was easier in 1919 and 1920 than it is now 
and we were able to send out over the country some 
two million pamphlets and circulars about it. Much 
discussion was aroused, a great deal of favorable sen- 
timent was developed and it looked for a time like 
the bill might go through, notwithstanding the fact 
that the National Association of Real Estate Boards, 
the railroads and other large “‘vested interests” were 
doing their best to inflame the farmers against it. 

About a year after the bill had been introduced, 
however, something significant happened. It was 
announced that Dr. Richard T. Ely had formed in 


Wisconsin University an “Institute for Research jy 
Land Economics and Public Utilities” which woul 
investigate in an “impartial, disinterested and scienti. 
fic manner” the various problems pertaining to land 
public utilities and taxation. We were delighted 
hear it. For any reform, as you know, that is x 
sound and just in principle as the Henry George re. 
form is, has nothing to lose but everything to gain 
by having the searchlight of impartial investigation 
cast upon it and we therefore welcomed the new; 
regarding Dr. Ely’s research Institute. 
PROPAGANDA—NOT RESEARCH 

To our great surprise, however, the Ely Institute~ 
which was privately financed—began its career by 
accepting contributions from the very corporations 
whose property interests it was going to investigate 
and which corporations had always fought any mea- 
ure looking in the direction of the Henry George 
idea. To our still greater astonishment Dr. Ely next 
had Prof. B. H. Hibbard write, in behalf of the In- 
stitute, a special article for the National Association 
of Real Estate Boards—one of the largest corporations 
back of the Institute—an article attacking the Ral- 
ston-Nolan bill in every shape and manner and which 
article, broadcast by the real estate boards in 1921, 
probably did more than anything else to bring 
about the bill’s defeat. 

It was a very strange beginning for a “‘disinterested 
research institute” and it staggered us. It looked very 
much as though the real purpose of the Institute was 
not to carry on “impartial, scientific and disinterested 
research,” but to carry on propaganda—propaganda 
for the benefit of the privileged interests supporting 
it. 

And that this was the real purpose of the Insti- 
tute has been amply demonstrated by the events that 
have occurred since this time. Today the Ely In- 
stitute, which is housed in Samuel Insull’s favorite 
university—Northwestern—not merely has upon its 
Board of Trustees such representatives of monopoly 
as Rufus C. Dawes, William S. Kies, Frank O. Low- 
den and General Nathan W. MacChesney, but the 
contributions received from the Rockefeller and 
Carnegie corporations, from the National Association 
of Real Estate Boards, the railroads, the public utili- 
ties and other interests with big axes to grind (st 
“Review of Reviews,” September, 1928) approxi- 
mate $100,000 a year. This would certainly indi- 
cate that the Institute is not “disinterested.” 

Again, from the very beginning the Institute has 
made a practice of submitting its manuscripts (and 








anda 
ting 


fifty books are scheduled to be written) to repre- 
sentatives of the large privileged organizations back 
of it before these manuscripts have been published— 
all-of which definitely shows that it is not “im- 
partial.” 

Exposinc ELy 

Finally, the Institute started out on its long task 
by laying down its conclusions in advance of any 
investigations—conclusions, by the way, that are 
worth billions of dollars to the public utility and 
land speculation interests—all of which shows very 
plainly that it is not “scientific.” 

After some four years of “watchful waiting,” 
therefore, we were fully satisfied that the Ely Insti- 
tute, instead of trying to live up to its claims, was 
making a foul attempt to wipe us off the earth. And 
since we were not disposed to be wiped off the earth 
without at least a struggle in self-defense we boldly 
decided to attack it. 

Our opening gun was fired in July of 1924. In 
that month we printed in our Bulletin an article en- 
titled “Prof. Richard T. Ely Exposed” which was 
promptly reprinted in pamphlet form. I asked four 
men—Otto Cullman, Harry H. Willock, James A. 
Bell and J. H. McGill—to stand the expense of hav- 
ing 20,000 of these pamphlets sent over the coun- 
try and they did. One thousand copies were sent 
directly to the authorities and faculty members of 
Wisconsin University where the Ely Institute was 
located. The shot hit the mark. Dr. Ely came out 
with an open letter denouncing the “unfairness” of 
his assailants while several of his colleagues rushed 
to his defense. We were pretty hard pressed for a 
while and many of our own friends withdrew their 
support but we kept right on. Each succeeding 
month we came out with a new article in our little 
paper about: the Institute. 


WarRNING FROM LAFOLLETTE 

This running fire soon began to tell. The whisper- 
ing increased and open discussion set in. Senator La- 
Follette wrote in his magazine an editorial entitled 
“Monopoly Subsidizes Education” and warned the 
university authorities to set their house in order. 
Rumors now began to float. Dr. Ely added Frank 
O. Lowden and Gen. Nathan MacChesney of Illinois 
to his Board of Trustees and in July of 1925—just 
one year after we had fired the opening shot—the 
Ely Institute moved out of state-supported Wiscon- 
sin University (where Dr. Ely had been teaching for 
thirty years) into privately-endowed Northwestern 
University in Chicago. In the following month the 









THE AMERICAN TEACHER 13 





Board of Regents of Wisconsin met and passed the 
folowing resolution: 

_“That no gifts, donations nor subsidies shall 
in future be accepted by or in behalf of the 
University of Wisconsin from any incorporated 
educational endowments or organizations of like 
character.” 

Well, that was that. But what to do now? The 
spurious Ely Institute was not dead; it had only 
moved into safer quarters. After a few more months 
of “watchful waiting” we therefore decided that the 
best thing to do was to lay the matter before some 
of the leading educational bodies of the land and 
ask for an investigation of it. At once there was a 
a wild scampering for cover. The officials of the 
American Economic Association and the American 
Association of University Professors, in particular, 
refused to look into the Institute regardless of the 
charges against it. 

But not so the American Federation of Teachers. 
The Chicago local of this organization was the first 
to inquire into the case and in April of 1926 this 
local—the Chicago Federation of Men Teachers— 
passed a resolution denouncing the Ely Institute as 
“an insidiously dangerous factor in the social and 
educational fabric of our country.” The national 
body, however, not wishing to pass judgment on the 
Institute without the fullest possible investigation of 
it ordered its Education Committee to make such an 
investigation. The Education Committee spent 
practically a whole year at its task examining books, 
records and documents and in 1927 reported to the 
annual convention of the American Federation of 
Teachers that the Ely Institute was “‘misusing the 
conception of research and masquerading under false 
colors”—in other words, that it was not a true in- 
vestigational body, as it claimed, but was a huge 
propaganda organization in disguise. 

BaTrLe Witt Go ON 

This report of the teachers was followed some two 
months later by a similar report from the Illinois 
Federation of Labor which, in annual convention as- 
sembled, condemned the Ely Institute for sailing 
under false colors and for “degrading research to the 
level of special pleading.” The American Federation 
of Labor, however, which met in annual convention 
in October not merely declined to coricur with the 
teachers, but postively refused to investigate the 
matter in any shape or manner. 

This action of the American Federation of Labor 
is all the more amazing in view of the startling dis- 













a SS ~ a 












» 
























14 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


closures now being made by the Federal Trade Com- 
mission. ‘The Federal Trade Commission has shown 
that the Ely Institute has received from the Na- 
tional Electric Light Association alone, a total of 
$75,000 during the last three years; that the “‘facts” 
it has gathered and the reports, pamphlets and text- 
books it has published are decidedly favorable to the 
corporation from which its contributions are re- 
ceived; and that it has gathered unto itself, not 
merely officials high in public utility circles, but 
educators who have always been friendly to the 
utility interests—educators who have repeatedly 
fought legislation that would reduce the utilities’ 
profits, who are secretly paid by the utilities to ad- 
dress gatherings of students and teachers, and who 
are awarded munificent salaries and expense accounts 
to “survey” text-books and establish utility courses 
in American schools and colleges. 

Notwithstanding the strange action of the A. F. 
of L., however, the storm of indignation against the 
Ely Institute is slowly but surely rising. Civic asso- 
ciations, reform leagues and other bodies, one after 
another, are now voicing their protest in resolutions 
against it and it may well be that the A. F. of L. 


itself will soon reverse its decision, The publishers 
of the Institute’s books, we have reason to believe, 
are growing alarmed at the course events are taking 
and if the publishers once refuse to accept new manu- 
scripts from the Institute the financial support back 
of it will soon peter out. 


However, in a matter of this kind it is never safe 
to count your chickens before they are hatched. The 
Ely Institute is still going strong and every fortifica- 
tion is being thrown around it. Its vitality appears 
to be unimpaired and its financial support is certainly 
as great as ever before. It has turned out seven crops 
of teachers, it has published fourteen of its proposed 
fifty text-and-reference books, and these teachers 
and text-books it has, with the aid of the public 
utilities and the real estate boards, now got into more 
than three hundred schools, colleges and universities 
in the United States. So while the movement has 
been started that will certainly finish the Ely Institute 


if it keeps on, there is always a danger that it might 
not keep on. And if the movement does not keep on 
to the bitter end the great battle for honest education 
will be lost instead of won. 





Summer Conferences Are Media for Education 


By CHARLES Hopces 


Associate Professor of Politics at New York University 


Every summer finds the world in conference. 
Though governmental and League meetings continue 
throughout the twelve months, international groups 
usually hold their congresses during the summer. 
These private activities mount rapidly in number 
from May onward until the peak is reached in July 
and August; then there comes an equally sharp decline 
with the return of these “citizens of the world” to 
their daily tasks. 

This human passion for organization and inter- 
organization gatherings from the four corners of the 
earth contributes mightily to the development of 
world leadership. In any summer month, these con- 
ferences cover every sort of world interest; they really 
constitute training schools for international co-oper- 
ation. 

There are in existence today between three and 
four hundred international associations which serve 
private interests on a world scale. 

Well over two dozen such international bodies have 
been meeting in August. Included in these activities 


are two congresses for the advancement of an inter- 
national language—the rival artificial tongues of Ido 
and Esperanto; four academic meetings, with interests 
which range from the Sixth International Congress of 
Historical Studies to the World Association for Adult 
Education; several scientific gatherings, typified by 
the Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health; 
a half-a-dozen conferences on problems of interna- 
tional politics in which the peace theme dominates, 
such as the Geneva Institute of International Rela- 
tions, the Twenty-Fifth Session of the Inter-Parlia- 
mentary Union, and the World Youth Peace Con- 
gress; and many other world activities as divergent 
as the International Conference of World Alliance 
Through the Churches and the Fourth International 
Congress of the Technical and Professional Press. 

Through such international activities, we are build- 
ing up world outlooks that range through the length 
and breadth of the individual nations. 

Obviously, thete must be convergence of every sort 
of educational agency upon the common problem. 





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That brilliant world thinker, Alfred Zimmern, Dep- 
uty-Director of the International Institute of Intel- 
lectual Co-operation, has pointed out the seven stages 
of public education for the post-war community of 
nations. The first is the pre-school period, the “most 
important stage in all education,” in which the grow- 
ing citizen ie tied into his environment of locality 
and nation. The second is that of the primary school, 
the “initiation into the wider world,” where the teach- 
ing profession is facing possibly its greatest respon- 
sibility in the creation of an attitude of mind which 
is open or closed toward the greater community. The 
third, that of the secondary school education, per- 
sonalizes the relation between the citizen to be and 
the community and gives a definite set toward inter- 
national attitudes. The fourth, the college years, con- 
stitutes the apex of public education—representa- 
tive of “national intelligence and national traditions 
at their highest power and in their most characteris- 
tic forms” yet withal international in the “ideal of 
the unity and universality of knowledge.” Here, the 
individual’s connection with the nation is completed; 












THE AMERICAN TEACHER 15 






the nation’s, through this national center, with inter- 
national intellectual co-operation. From this vantage 
point, we extend ourselves in three world phases. 

These may be summed up as the “school of inter- 
national contacts,” introducing the student to the 
larger world problems; the professional school, giving 
the teaching profession its materials and methods for 
the study of international relations; and the research 
into international affairs, called by Zimmern “preven- 
tive medicine in public affairs.” 

Given this formal educational program for inter- 
national leadership we may well regard the summer 
conferences and congresses as a kind of continuation 
school in world affairs. They bring together the lead- 
ers in various lines of activities as their prime object; 
but they also serve a larger orientation of these men 
and women. Their minds are opened to the world 
unity which lies beyond their segmental interests. 
The world conference becomes a medium for educa- 
tion along broader lines—an adult school for inter- 
national contacts that carries leadership back to its 
national. source.—League of Nations News. 





What the N. E. A. Did for Seattle 


By W. B. SATTERTHWAITE, President, Seattle High School Teachers Union, Local 200, and Vice President, 


The readers of THE AMERICAN TEACHER know 
what action the American Federation of Teachers has 
taken in the case of the Seattle High School teachers 
who were forced to sign a yellow dog contract last 
June. It will interest them to learn what another 
great educational organization did for these Seattle 
teachers. The following is the story of the disposi- 
tion of the Seattle case by the convention of the 
National Education Association held in Minneapolis 
last July. 

A number of delegates to the N. E. A. convention, 
some of whom are members of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers, signed the following resolution: 


Whereas, The Board of Education of Seattle, Washing- 
ton, has required as a condition of employment, that all 
the high school teachers of the city shall sign a contract 
which restricts their liberty to join professional organiza- 
tions of their choice, and 

Whereas, The effort to control a fundamental civil right 
of teachers inevitably has the effect of hindering the move- 
ment for democracy in education in this country, and 
tends to encourage those who seek to dominate the think- 
ing of teachers in behalf of certain large corporate in- 
terests, and 

Whereas, The unreasonable increase of restrictions in 
contracts of Boards of Education with teachers will in- 
evitably weaken the movement for promoting sound ten- 
ure laws for teachers by giving educational authorities 


American Federation of Teachers 


legal power to dismiss for trivial reasons, thus tending to 
keep intelligent, discerning young men and women from 
entering the profession, therefore be it 

Resolved, That the National Education Association in 
convention assembled regrets the conduct of the Seattle 
Board of Education and requests that the Seattle board 
withdraw the restrictive regulation now applying to the 
high school teachers of that city. 
The resolution was submitted to the resolutions 
committee of the convention on Tuesday, and one of 
the signers appeared before the committee on Wednes- 
day morning. As this‘was the fourth day of July, it 
seemed a most appropriate time to plead for the inde- 
pendence of five hundred members of the teaching 
profession who were being deprived of certain inalien- 
able rights. 


The resolutions committee of forty-one members, 
all but about forty of whom were class room teachers, 
refused to recommend the adoption of the resolution, 
and even refused to submit it to the convention. Sup- 
erintendent Claxton of Oklahoma spoke against the 
interference of the N. E. A. in local affairs. 

To CONVENTION FLOOR 

Balked in their attempt to get action by the com- 

mittee, the signers of the resolution notified President 














































































16 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Adair of their intention of bringing the matter before 
the convention from the floor and asked for recogni- 
tion for that purpose, when the resolutions committee 
reported. 

Miss Adair informed the delegate who asked to be 
recognized, that it would be necessary to notify Sup- 
erintendent Cole of Seattle in order that he be given 
an opportunity to oppose the resolution if he so de- 
sired. 

Every effort was made to locate Mr. Cole Thurs- 
day evening, but he could not be found. As Mr. Cole 
was not a delegate to the representative assembly, he 
had undoubtedly left the city. 

The committee reports of the N. E. A. are made 
on Friday morning’s final session of the representa- 
tive assembly. So much time was taken up in the dis- 
cussion of proposed changes in the constitution that 
it was after one o’clock, or the end of the fourth 
hour of the final session, before the chairman of the 
resolutions committee was given the floor to make 
his committee’s report. 

Copies of the resolutions prepared by the com- 
mittee had been distributed to the delegates earlier in 
the session. The chairman did not read the report but 
merely moved its adoption as a whole. 


EVERETT PRESENTS RESOLUTION 
At this point Delegate Everett of California asked 
for recognition. When he had been recognized by the 
president, he proceeded to the microphone and read 
the resolution which has been quoted and moved its 
passage as an amendment to Resolution No. 10 sub- 
mitted by the committee, quoted as follows: 


10. FREEDOM OF THE TEACHER 

The National Education Association believes there is 
urgent need for recognizing the influence of the teacher’s 
status on the whole process of education in the public 
school. This is especially true in the nature of the con- 
tract, the status of the teacher in the school and in the 
community, and in relation to those in authority. We 
believe there should be more genuine freedom for the 
teacher, freedom in mind and spirit to achieve-and create 
and to take pride in the art of teaching, so that he may 
have the same satisfaction in achievement and recognition 
that the lawyer, the doctor and the engineer have in the 
practice of their professions. Such freedom should be ac- 
companied by a proper restraint and a sense of obligation 
and responsibility in all relations. 

This association approves for all those engaged in public 
education that academic freedom which means, not the 
propagation of unsound or revolutionary theories, but 
rather the exercise of initiative and independence in the 
preparation of individuals for freedom in a democracy. 
The men and women engaged in the work of education in 
our country should illustrate in their professional activi- 
ties the finest type of American citizen. 


President Adair seemed at a loss for the moment, 


then asked if there was some one from Seattle to 
answer. Evidently an invitation for Superintendent 


Cole or some representative of the Seattle Board of 
Education. No one appeared. Then the president 
stated that as the mover of the amendment was not 
from Seattle, the convention did not know whether 
the Seattle teachers concerned desired its passage or 
not. She asked if there was any one from Seattle who 
could speak for the Seattle teachers. : 

The writer of this story, who was one of the dele- 
gates to the N. E. A. representing the Seattle High 
School Teachers League, was recognized and given 
the floor. First it was necessary for him to assure the 
chair that he was from Seattle and that he was a dele- 
gate to the convention. 

He told the convention that he was the president of 
the Seattle High School Teachers League, an organiza- 
tion which included all the high school teachers of 
Seattle. That the League, only about half of whose 
members had joined the teachers union, with only 
eight dissenting votes, had protested the action of the 
school board in asking the teachers to sign a yellow 
dog contract. That the protest resolution which had 
been sent to the board had been drawn up by a com- 
mittee of five members who had not affiliated with 
the American Federation of Teachers. 


After answering the question raised by the chair- 
man, the writer of this article took the liberty of 
addressing a few remarks to the convention in behalf 
of the class room teachers who are members of the 
National Education Association. It is not often that 
a mere teacher has the opportunity under such cir- 
cumstances to speak to the administrators who make 
up, very largely, the representative assembly. 

Crass Room TEACHERS IGNORED 

The convention was told that the impressions gath- 
ered from an attendance at the sessions of the depart- 
ment of class room teachers of the N. E. A. and from 
conversations with many teachers, seemed to convey 
the idea that the class room teachers and their interests 
were not well represented in that organization. The 
class room teachers furnished probably 85% of the 
members and 85% of the finances of the N. E. A. 
On the other hand, one class room teacher has been 
elected to the presidency in more than sixty years. 
A very small minority of each committee are class 
room teachers, even the committees having to do with 
teacher tenure and retirement allowances. 


As a last appeal, the N. E. A. was asked not to 
countenance a direct attack upon the American Fed- 
eration of Labor, a body always friendly to education 
and educators. The action of the Seattle Board was 
such an attack, with a vengeance. 




















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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 17 


A Seattle grade school principal spoke in opposi- 
in to the amendment, giving as his chief reason 
at any criticism of the Seattle Board’s action would 
construed as a criticism of the courts as the courts 
d decided against the union teachers. This statement 
bs absurd. A lower court, in refusing to grant the 
ion teachers an injunction, stated that a school 
bard had a right to put any clause into its contracts 
ith teachers. The court did not decide that it was 
ise or fair for the board to make such contracts but 
erely that it had the legal “right” to do it. The 
se is now on appeal to the supreme court of the 
te. : 
The chairman of the resolutions committee opposed 
e amendment on the same grounds it was opposed 
efore the committee. 
The President put the question. A few scattering 
otes, presumably by the few class room teachers who 
ecame delegates to the N. E. A., were “aye.” Then 
large chorus of noes from the others. The motion 
as lost. 


And this is what the N. E. A. did TO Seattle. 





PROPAGANDA VICTIM 
The fact that the Power Trust put in some ma- 
erial on the subject in the form of a booklet for 
lasses in the public schools apparently with the offi- 


cial approval of Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston, was 
used to encompass that lady’s defeat as Superintend- 
ent of Publbic Instruction. Holding office so long, no 
doubt, it was felt that no great harm would be done 
or believed to be done in the admission of such a 
booklet, but it was used against her with deadly 
effect by her opponents. Showalter’s victory was a 
notable one. He was placed on the Hartley ticket 
but has never intimated that he regarded himself as 
beholden to the governor, nor did his supporters and 
workers solicit votes on that account.—Tacoma La- 
bor Advocate. 





CIVIC DEPRAVITY AT ITS WORST 

Seattle once stood before the world in a misrepre- 
sented sense as the core of all extremism. The 
world got a good deal of a distorted picture of 
Seattle in those hectic days. It is getting no such 
picture now. 

School teachers, denied the right to organize, com- 
pelled to sign hateful, enslaving, un-American yellow 
dog contracts, have gone back to their classrooms 
relinquishing for the time being their rights as 
American citizens. 

That any community should make such demands 
upon citizens in any category is an example of civic 


depravity hard to beat.—Toledo Union Leader. 


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 





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 


CHARLES L. BAINE 
General Secretary-Treasurer 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Just Observations 


By SELMA M. BorcHARDT 
Legislative Representative, A. F. T. 


The United States Bureau of Education needs funds 
very much. At present one can get but very little 
information from it. They have practically nothing 
on the progressive education movement; very little 
on curriculum adjustment to meet the needs of the 
child; nothing compiled on teachers salaries, teachers 
contracts. 

At present when one asks for information he is 
referred to some private agency or institution. 

We don’t want figures pertaining to education 
compiled by any private agency! Data on public 
education should be available through the govern- 
mental agency charged with getting information on 
education. 

True, we believe in the establishment of a federal 
department of education for research, but until such 
a department is established we must make Congress 
see the urgent need of making adequate appropriations 
for the Bureau of Education, so that it can function 
properly. 

* * * * 

One of the most interesting and truly progressive 
magazines here received is the Bulletin of Lalnterna- 
cional del Magisterio Americano. This organization, 
comprising a number of the educational organizations 
of Latin America was formed last January. Its pro- 
gram shows that it is very actively interested in the 
“new education” in the biggest sense of the word. 

Press reports have indicated that there is a move- 
ment which seeks to affect an affiliation between the 
I. M. A. and the labor movement. An affiliation of 
this organization with the bona fide trade union 
international at Amsterdam would certainly have 
great value. 

And may we express the hope too that they will 
join with us in the World Federation of Education 
Associations. We need their influence and informa- 
tion and they, in turn, would no doubt find profitable 
the association with the teachers of other lands, which 
the World Federation affords. 

oF + * * 

“The New Prospect in Education,’ Educational 
Pamphlet No. 60 published by the Board of Educa- 
tion in London sets forth some definite plans looking 
to make effective the proposals of the Hadow Report 
on the Education of the Adolescent, published some 
time ago. Much of the material deals with the prac- 


tical problems incident to school organization for 
pupils of the age of our junior high school children, 
The recommendations are definite, and if evaluated 
in terms of our own educational organization, ar 
very practical. The publication may be purchased 
through His Majesty’s Stationery Office, from its 
New York City Office. 


* * * * 


The latest report on the Geneva meeting of the 
World Federation of Education Associations, received 
from its president, Dr. Augustus O. Thomas, is most 
interesting. It gives promise of a well co-ordinated, 
balanced program of great educational and social 
value. Tentative plans and preliminary reports from 
the several sections and groups given indicate, also, 
that the meeting will be most worth while. 


Many of the questions, pertaining to. the general 
organization of the conference, which we raised in 
regard to the earlier reports seem to have been ad- 
justed. Sections and groups authorized by previous 
conventions continue to function. The continuing of 
the section groups to meet the varied needs and inter- 
ests of the many delegates makes possible again the 
fuller participation of the teacher himself in the dis- 
cussion of his problems. In this program, as planned, 
“overlapping” seems to have been practically elimi- 
nated. 


And we venture still two more rather practical 
recommendations for the conference; first that there 
be appointed a Committee on Credentials so as to 
facilitate the seating of the duly elected delegates, 
and as a means of more effectively controlling the 
conduct of the plenary sessions; second, that one 
plenary session, early in the conference, preferably 
the first evening, be set aside for hearing such recom- 
mendations and reports of the affiliated organiza- 
tions as they may wish to present formally for con- 
sideration. 

At present, except when “time is called” for a for- 
mal caucus by the organization (as was done during 
one of the plenary sessions in Toronto) there is no 
place for the organizations to present projects oF 
plans or to express an opinion, offer suggestions of 
criticisms on matters presented to the body. At such 
a meeting, too, the formal report of the Board of 
Directors containing recommendations for the work 
of the Federation in general, and particularly the 
agenda for the plenary sessions of the conference, 
would be considered. We venture these suggestions 3 
we recognize that the. machinery of an organization 








n for 
Idren, 
uated 
l, are 


mM. its 


‘ical 
here 
» to 
ites, 


one 
bly 


)m- 


on- 


is fortunately or unfortunately a very important 


part of it. 
7 ~ oe a 


This year a number of state legislatures will meet. 
Will the child labor amendment be ratified by any 
of the states which have so far turned it down? Sev- 
eral years ago many of them said that the proposed 
federal amendment was unnecessary for the states 
themselves would enact better state laws, and so bring 
the standard not only up to the proposed federal 
minimum, but even excel it. Beautiful theory, but 
unfortunately practically nothing has been done by 
the states. The federal child labor amendment is still 
before the states. We differ with the Manufacturers’ 
Association. It is not dead, only delayed. We still 
hope for humane action. 

a % a ca 


A very comprehensive bibliography has been com- 
piled in support of the Platoon System, and published 
by the United States Bureau of Education. This bib- 
liography together with one, presumably to be com- 
piled in opposition to the plan, will make a very valu- 
able document on this much discussed scheme. 


. = -— = 


A local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has 
put itself on record as condemning the method of 
teaching American history now being used in the 
public schools of the District of Columbia. The post 
unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the work 
being done by Lieut. Col. Thomas J. Dickinson, for- 
mer chief of chaplains, First Division, A. E. F. The 
former chief of chaplains has been very active in his 
efforts to secure good history textbooks for our 
schools. It was due to his efforts that the Connery 
Bill, providing that the United States Congress cen- 
sor history text books, was introduced several years 
ago. It was he who sought to have a similar bill 
introduced last year. 


No hearings have yet been held on the bills spon- 
sored by Col. Dickinson. 

The American Federation of Teachers, the only 
teacher organization in the United States which op- 
posed the Connery bill, found it hard to understand 
why the United States Congress should censor his- 
tory text books, 

Are all members of Congress trained historians and 
educators? Has our Congress nothing else to occupy 
it? Is it the duty of the federal Congress to concern 
itself with the administration of education? Isn’t 
education a state function? Yet—Col. Dickinson has 









THE AMERICAN TEACHER 19 


much information, he says, on how many dogs were 
or weren’t used in any battle—and lots more. 
‘ oe at ce a 

Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston, for sixteen years 
superintendent of public instruction in the state of 
Washington, has been defeated in the Republican 
primaries of that state. Mrs. Preston was accused 
before the Federal Trade Commission by Homer T. 
Bone, of Seattle, of having been responsible for the 
introduction of the power trust propaganda in the 
schools of Washington state. 

Included in the books used under the direction of 
Mrs. Preston was one entitled “monograph of the 
Puget Sound Power and Light Company.” It showed 
beyond the shadow of a doubt how vastly superior 
private ownership of public utilities is to public own- 
ership. 

The attorney for the Puget Sound Power and Light 
Company is the attorney for the Board of Education 
of Seattle. He represented the Board of Education in 
court when the validity of the Yellow Dog contract 
which had been submitted to the teachers of Seattle, 
was being contested. 


Mrs. Preston has been defeated. What will happen 
to the Board of Education at the next school board 
election? We trust the people of Washington state— 
and hope for un-propagandized education in that 


state, 


Good News! Brookwood is definitely under the ban 
of the Communist Party. Members of the Commun- 
ist Party are being forbidden to attend Brookwood. 
What a relief for Brookwood! As a labor college 
under the direction of bona fide trade unionists it 
has accepted such representatives of trade unions as 
these organizations sept them—because the trade 
union themselves sent them. And now the communist 


party itself places the ban on Brookwood. 


And there’s a good reason why the Communists 
might want to keep their people away from Brook- 
wood. Perhaps they feel that there’s a danger that 
Brookwood may develop a critical-mindedness in 
their people—and then, maybe, they feel that after 
that those students wouldn’t be their people any more. 


* + * 





“You will find here, as in all other institutions, a 
strong trend for the reduction of armaments and 
for the reduction of all other activities that made 
for war sentiment.”—David Felmley, President, Ill- 
inois State Normal University, Normal, Ill. 


















































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





. 


BOOKS 


“There is no frigate like a book 
To bear us lands away.” 
—Emily Dickinson. 


\ wh 











EVERYDAY PROBLEMS OF THE COUNTRY 
TEACHER, by Frank J. Lowth. The Macmillan 
Company, 1927. Hlustrated. 


The age-old idea that country man and city man 
are fundamentally different, after being pooh-poohed 
for some generations in this land struggling to real- 
ize a single social level, is justifying itself in a new 
and more rational way. The failure of so many coun- 
try churches is ascribed to the fact that country pul- 
pits are so often filled by city-bred men. The man 
who tills his fields and tends his stock is—so the 
argument runs—a man who loves solitude, and has 
a radically different psychology from his pastor, who 
loves the busy city street. 


And now Mr. Lowth, Principal of Rock County 
Normal School, Janesville, Wis., has been prompted 
to write this book of over 500 pages on country 
school problems, because he feels that they are dif- 
ferent from city school problems and “peculiarly 
difficult.” The book is designed for either class or 
reference, for prospective teachers in rural schools. 
From the first day he says the situation is peculiar. 
There is no principal or superintendent (the county 
superintendent being adviser rather than supervisor) ; 
the teacher’s relations with parents, pupils, and board 
are more intimate; her responsibility for building and 
equipment is absolute. In a word, her social and busi- 
ness contacts are distinctly rural. The persorality 
of the teacher counts far more than in town. Execu- 
tive ability and leadership are far more requisite. 


Mr. Lowth may have added, though I did not find 
it, that the greater individuality of children whose 
parents are perforce resourceful, do their own think- 
ing, (however faulty), and have a passion for free- 
dom, calls for a teacher robust physically and men- 
tally and original, one who can train individuals, not 
classes. 


If the author tends to minute detail, he may for 


that very reason be more helpful to the young teacher. 
The older one will take care of herself. 


Lypia J. TROWBRIDGE. 


THEORY VS. PRACTICE 

“Too much money is wasted on education noy; 
said the prosperous looking man in grey in a to 
so emphatic, so final that even those trite wor 
caused me to forget the cards on the table before m 
and listen eagerly. That voice belonged to one wi 
DID things, and I was hardly conscious of the “Wh 
do you think that?” from the wiry, scholarly look 
ing man who sat opposite him. 

“Why!!” came the resonant voice, “Why simp 
too much theory; too much written on wnaj 
OUGHT TO BE and not enough on WHAT 
BEEN DONE. In business we improve our method 
and service by studying the successful and unsw. 
cessful practices of others; but in education every: 
thing seems to be built upon a hypothesis—” 

As he paused for breath his companion very qui 
etly asked, “Have you ever seen a copy of The Voce 
tional Guidance Magazine? Do you know anything 
about the work of the National Vocational Guidance 
Association?” 

If the words of the man in grey express your 
opinion—or even if they do not—you will be inter- 
ested in the October, 1928, issue of The Vocationd 
Guidance Magazine. This magazine is the only pub- 
lication devoted to the entire field of vocation 
guidance, and in this issue there are articles by people 
actually doing the work. Minnesota has made much 
progress in the field of vocational guidance and Dr. 
J. B. Johnson, of the University of Minnesota, gives 
a very comprehensive survey of what has been done 
in the “Twin Cities,” while Miss Barbara H. “Wright, 
of the Minneapolis Public Schools, describes how they 
use the group conference as a guidance device. Dr. 
Mary H. S. Hayes, Director of Vocational Service 
for Juniors in New York City, tells what they have 
actually accomplished, and in the form of a letter 
entitled Promoting Your Own Campaign or Getting 
Your Own Job Mr. Eichholz, of the West Side Y. M. 
C. A., NewYork City, gives a young man advice in 
securing a position. 

In our educational program today are we neglect: 
ing the INDIvipUAL and over-emphasizing th 
GRouP? Read what Mr. Morris $, Viteles of th 
University of Pennsylvania has to say about it in his 
article The Clinical Approach in Vocational Guid- 
ance which appears in this issue. 

There are several other articles and the Field an/ 
Review departments which will be of interest 
value to you whether you are an administrator, ' 
teacher, a vocational counselor, a personnel office 





4 soci 
Sar 
writil 


Schoc 


Th 
issued 
First 
titles 
be ex 
readit 

Th 
caref 
child 
Child 
this i 





id 











a social or civic worker, or just a friend of youth. 

Sample copies of this magazine may be secured by 
writing to Bureau of Vocational Guidance, Graduate 
School of Education, Harvard University. 





The Child Study Association of America has just 
issued a new book list, “Suggestions for a Parent’s 
First Book Shelf.” This list contains twenty-five 
titles with author, publisher and price, and should 
be extremely valuable to any one who is doing serious 
reading along the lines of child training. 

This book shelf is the result of a great deal of 
careful thought and has been prepared by leaders in 
child training and the Bibliography Committee of the 
Child Study Association of America. The price of 
this is 5c. 





BROOKWOOD PUBLICATIONS 


The Place of Workers’ Education in the Labor Move- 
ment. A 7S-page pamphlet containing the pro- 
ceedings of the 1928 conference of teachers of 
workers’ education at Brookwood February 24-26. 
Should workers’ education enterprises be subordi- 

nated to strategy and tactics of unions; should they 

be given autonomous rank on a co-ordinate footing 
with the unions, or should they operate as free-lance 

auxiliaries, independent of the movement? E. C. 

Lindeman, M. H. Hedges, A. D. Sheffield and others 

discussed this at the conference. Their papers are 

here presented, together with the discussions of the 25 

teachers who took part in the conference. 

Is workers’ education to be classed with the pana- 
ceas? See what Abraham Lefkowtiz, Arthur W. 
Calhoun and A. Epstein have to say on the subject. 
Activities of unions, political parties, co-operatives 
and free-lance agencies are summarized by leaders of 
these projects. Price 50 cents. 

Peace or Pep. In this pamphlet, reprinted from 
Labor Age, A. J. Muste, chairman of the Brook- 
wood faculty, discusses what tactics the labor 
movement should adopt. In a second section en- 
titled “Whose Job?” he discusses the organization 
of the unorganized workers, particularly in the 
basic industries. Price 10 cents. 

The Labor Approach to Psychology. By Arthur W. 
Calhoun. International Publishers. $1.75. (Will 
be out in November.) A hand-book of labor 
psychology. Particualrly adapted for use in work- 
ers’ classes. ’ 

Unionism That Will—and Won’t—Organize. By 

A. J. Muste. Price 10 cents. 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 21 


The Worker Looks at Government. By Arthur W. 
Calhoun. International Publishers. $1.60. An 
excellent text book for workers’ education classes 
or for reference. 

LEssONS SERIES 
Could you organize some workers’ classes if you 
only knew what to teach them? Arthur W. Cal- 
houn, director of studies at Brookwood, has prepared 
two series of 12 lessons each, called respectively “Out 
of Work,” and “How to Raise Wages” which are 
available in mimeographed form at 10 cents per set. 

Others are in process of preparation, 





PRACTICE IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE, 


edited by Frederick G. Allen. McGraw-Hill Com- 
pany, publishers. 1928. 306 pp. Price $2.50. Re- 
viewed by Ruth M. Bartlett. 

One of last year’s contributions to vocational 
guidance literature is “Practice in Vocational Guid- 
ance”, edited by the late Frederick J. Allen, who for 
so long played such an important part in the develop- 
ment of the vocational guidance movement. As the 
name suggests, and in contrast to its companion piece, 
Principles and Problems of Vocational Guidance”, 
this volume deals not with abstract theories, but with 
the actual problems and programs of guidance, re- 
search, testing and placement in various cities 
throughout the country. It is a compilation of 
papers, many of which have appeared in the Voca- 
tional Guidance Magazine, written by persons well 
known in the fields in which they write. 

Five papers which comprise Part II discuss the 
various methods of presenting occupational informa- 
tion in the schools, including vocations classes, “Life- 
Career” classes and methods of teaching vocations in 
English classes. The most comprehensive of the sec- 
tions is Part III, devoted\to Research in Occupational 
Information. It includes the results of a painstaking 
survey of the research carried on in this field by per- 
sons connected with the schools, and a «complete 
bibliography of occupational studies, as well as a dis- 
cussion of the problems of gathering occupational in- 
formation and evaluating occupational material. Dis- 
cussion of Tests and Measurements and of Placement 
and Follow-up round out the general subject. 

This account of attempts on the part of the schools 
to help children choose wisely and enter upon occu- 
pational careers should prove of special interest to 
all teachers associated with labor groups. To those 
who have an opportunity for guidance work it should 
prove an inspiration. 




































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


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: 
$06 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois 
Frorence Cuatis 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 $2.20—SINGLE COPIES, 25c 








Advertising rates made known on application. 





EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 
President 
Mary C. Barker, Atlanta No. 89, 685 Myrtle Street, N. E., 
Atlanta, Georgia. 
Legislative Representative and Vice-President 
Secma M. BorcHarpt, Washington No. 8; 1741 Park Road, 
N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Vice-Presidents 
Lucm W. ALLEN, Chicago Women No. 3; 1803 Livingston 
Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. 
R. W. Everett, Sacramento No. 31; 2740 Portola 
Sacramento, California 
Amy A. Fox, Minneapolis No. 59; 2809 Park Avenue, Minne- 
apolis, Minnesota. 
ABRAHAM LEFKowrTz, New York No. 5; Grand Avenue, East 
Elmhurst, New York, N. Y. 

A. J. Muste, Brookwood No. 189; Brookwood, Katonah, N. Y. 
FioreNnce Roop, St. Paul No. 28; 328 Cedar Street, St. Paul, 
Minnesota. 

W. B. SatrertHwairTe, Local No. 200; 1837 12th Ave West 
Seattle, Washington 
W. J. Scorr, Atlanta No. 89; 212 Kings Highway, Decatur, 
Georgia. 

F. G. Srecxer, Chicago No. 2; 1618 Lake Avenue, 
Wilmette, Illinois. 

CHartes B. Strmiman, Chicago No. 2; 827 Ridge Avenue, 
Evanston, Illinois. 

Western Organizer 
E. E. Scttwartzrrauser, Portland No. 111; R. F. D. 5, 
Box 68, Portland, Oregon 
Secretary-Treasurer 
FLorENcE Curtis Hanson, Chicago Women No. 3; 506 South 
Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois—Telephone Harrison 2950. 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
Orcanrzep Aprit 15, 1916 
Affiliated With the American Federation of Labor 


Way, 





There is an idea abroad among moral people that 
they should make their neighbors good. One person 
I have to make good—myself. But my duty to my 
neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying 
I have to make him bhappy—if 1 may.—Robert Louis 


Stevenson. 


POWER TRUST PROPAGANDA 

“‘Not in many a year,” writes the famous historian, 
Dr. Charles A. Beard in the National Municipal Re. 
view for September, 1928, “have we had an inves. 
tigation in Washington as important as the inquiry 
into the so-called ‘power trust,’ which is being con- 
ducted under the auspices of the Federal Trade Com. 
mission. In comparison the various senatorial inyes- 
tigations that have ‘rocked the country’ sink into 
trivial insignificance. The latter have merely involved 
temporary scandals, the reprehensible’ conduct of 
public officers and private individuals. . . . 

“The inquiry has revealed many things, according 
to the recently published preliminary report. It 
shows utility concerns hiring professors to carry on 
campaigns of agitation against municipal ownership, 
otensibly under high university authority, subsidizing 
newspapers under the guise of advertising, deluging 
the public school with biased propaganda, assailing 
municipal ownership advocates as Bolshevists and 
resorting to back-stair tactics to dicredit them, and 
granting money to universities and research institu- 
tions with an eye to ‘proper’ results. In short, the 


propaganda of the utility interests stands fully re- 


vealed in all its nakedness, and a powerful light is 
thrown on the nature of the ‘public opinion’ made 
by newspapers, distinguished speakers and controlled 
school books.” 





ACADEMIC FREEDOM 


“Academic freedom does not require that .a prop- 
agandist be permitted to pose as an educator,” says 
an editorial in the Aszerican Federationist, the offi- 
cial magazine of the American Federation of Labor. 

The American Federationist has stated exactly 
and concisely the position of the proponents of the 
resolution on the Ely Institute for Research in Land 
Economics and Public Utilities presented to the Los 
Angeles convention of the American Federation of 
Labor by the American Federation of Teachers. It 
is a great gratification to the American Federation 
of Teachers that the position of the teachers on this 
matter which seemed not to be understood or agreed 
with by the Resolutions Committee of the Lo 
Angeles convention has been accepted and advanced 
in the American Federationist. 





He who thinks it too much trouble to attend 4 
union meeting loses his right to kick about union 
shortcomings. 





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CHARGE AGAINST NASHVILLE 
TEACHERS 


WEBER’s SLANDEROUS STATEMENT 
The following article appeared in The Nashville 
Tennesseean, evening edition, Tuesday, September 25: 


“Teachers these days wear patches in their 
pants instead of wearing out shoe leather,” H. 
C. Weber, Superintendent of the city schools, 
told members of the City Board of Education at 
their regular meeting last night in the Hume- 
Fogg High School. 

“What we need is more teachers who will 
stand up to their jobs. It is getting so you can’t 
get a person of much ability to teach school. 
The teachers don’t want a job, they want a 
position. 

“The more degrees, the more education the 
teachers get, the more they sit in their chairs. 

“There are numerous pupils in this high school 
right now who are going to school just to get 
out of work. 

“Children should be taught to work, as well 
as to learn books. It is a tragedy the way a great 
many are going through college until they are 
25 years old, and coming out knowing nothing 
but what is in the book. They want to do every- 
thing the way the book says. They are utterly 
helpless to take care of themselves.” 

Mr. Weber concluded his scathing remarks of 
“teachers who are paid not for the work they are 
doing but for the education they have.” 


The Labor press and the public are much incensed 
at this gratuitous insult and slanderous charge 
against a group of conscientious, painstaking, under- 
paid workers, couched in most inappropriate lan- 
guage. 

What are the Nashville teachers doing about this? 
Are they meekly submitting? Or do they propose 
to organize with the American Federation of Teach- 
ers and put themselves in a position of freedom and 
self-respect? 


While the teachers of Memphis, through the efforts 
of the Memphis Teachers Association, Local 52, A. F. 
of T., are enjoying a salary increase, the teachers of 
Nashville are enduring the gross insults and slan- 
derous charges of their superintendent. . 


What shall they do? 
There is but one answer. The American Federa- 
tion of Teachers was organized as a protest against 
the abuses of power that had grown up in school 
administrations. Organize then under the banner 
of the one organization that stands for the freedom, 


SUPERINTENDENT WEBER MAKES SERIOUS 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 23 


dignity and self-respect of the teacher, that is build- 
ing a teaching profession. 

When a teacher becomes free from fear and intim- 
idation, the pupil immediately becomes the heir to 
new possibilities for growth and development. The 
constitution of the American Federation of Teach- 
ers says: “Servility breeds servility, and if the schools 
are to produce free, unafraid men and women, Amer- 
ican citizens of the highest type, the teachers must 
live and work in an atmosphere of freedom and self- 


respect.” 
Superintendent William J. Bogan says: 


“We all know that it would be impossible to 
train independent, upstanding men and women 
through servile, weak teachers forever in fear of 
dismissal. There is an old saying that a lion was 
never begotten by a rabbit, a saying that might 
be paraphrased by another: Independence was 
never begotten by servility. It would be well for 
every one who believes in democracy to know 
that the nation will never have the independent 
citizens so necessary to carry out this great 
experiment in democracy until we encourage 
teachers to develop vision, wisdom, independence 
and courage.” 


Nashville teachers, come in with the group that is 
fostering a spirit of self-reliance and courage, that 
will protect you from such attacks as this to which 
you have just been subjected. Join the organization 
that will bring to-you better economic, social, civic, 
and educational conditions as it has brought them to 
other affiliated groups. 





TEACHERS, ORGANIZE 

If the teachers do not organize and make their 
unions effective instruments for the carrying out of 
their desires, they have no one to blame but them- 
selves. Merely because Some boards of education 
oppose organization of the teachers is no reason why 
those who must bear the burden of training the youth 
of the land in the ideals of character, mind and cit- 
izenship should sit down in servile submission to such 
dictation. They must have courage enough to do 
the things their judgment informs them to be the 
proper thing or admit that they are cowards un- 
worthy of the attention or assistance of their fellow- 
men, unworthy of their own high calling. 

Let them question why the opposition to organiza- 
tion on the part of chambers of commerce and school 
boards? When they have honestly answered that 
question they will have in this very opposition one 
of the strongest reasons for organization. 























































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


TEACHERS’ TENURE 
The recent convention of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers declared for the principle of indefi- 
nite tenure during good and satisfactory service. 
Such legislation would give to teachers a professional 
standing that would help to attract high grade peo- 
ple to public school work. Annual reappointment of 


teachers creates opportunity for control of educa-: 


tion by agencies promoting special interests or for 
practices akin to the spoils system. 

An adequate tenure law would establish merit as 
the basis for appointment for continuation in service 
by stimulating professional standards for which the 
applicant must qualify, fixing the period of proba- 
tion and providing for dismissal only on stipulated 
professional grounds. The object of such a law would 
be to assure the appointment and retention of good 
teachers with ability and professional training. 

Teachers’ tenure legislation would set up for teach- 
ers the protection that civil service gives to other 
public employes. It would insure efficiency by pre- 
scribing qualification standards and would protect 
teachers by permitting dismissal only for due causes. 
It would prevent teachers from being made the foot- 
ball of politicians—a fundamental step toward better 
teaching.—American Federationist. 





PROPAGANDA IN THE SCHOOLS 


“Has the propaganda of the power trust got into 
your school?” asks Labor editorially in a recent issue. 
The paper of the railroad brotherhoods continues: 

“Every father and mother in the United States 
should be asked that question, and should make sure 
of the answer. 

“The federal trade commission has exposed the 
most outrageous conspiracy against youth ever 
known in America. To keep their monopoly and 
gather their exorbitant profits, the organized utili- 
ties—mere units of the power trust—are seeking 
to corrupt education. 

“They are hiring high school teachers and college 
professors, subsidizing lecturers to talk to children, 
doctoring text books to suit the utility case, and 
putting their paid propaganda into the schools as 
‘reference books.’ 

“It takes a little thought to grasp the full vil- 
lainy of this dirty business. 

“Youngsters are naturally trustful, and in school 
they are used to dealing with subjects that they can 
trust. There is no propaganda in mathematics, or 
chemistry, or physics. History is not quite so une- 


motional as science; but at least it is not cut on a bias 
to put money in the pockets of monopoly. 

“Trusting these text books, the youngster almost 
inevitably trusts the utility propaganda when he 
finds it on the same shelf—and what does he read 
there? 


“That the utility business is run by unselfish men, 
seeking to give service rather than to promote their 
own gain. That it is ‘effectively regulated.’ That 
rates are so low that little profit is made. That, in 
fact, the utility business is ‘practically unable to 
make profits.” That this business is owned by ‘wid- 
ows and orphans.’ That government ownership is 
always wrong, and municipal ownership always a 
costly failure, and that people who advocate public 
ownership are ‘Bolshevists.’ 

“Every one of these statements is a lie. No politer 
word will fit the case. 

“Utility propaganda in schools has well been 
called a ‘crime against youth.’ It is educational 
counterfeiting. 

“Is any of this bogus stuff in your school? Are 
any of the crooked teachers who are taking power 
trust money in your school? 


“American parents can smash the utility propa- 
ganda to atoms. But they will have to start at home 
and hit hard.” 

And let us not forget the Teachers Union, in the 
front ranks of the fight on the Power Trust. Boost 
this organization at every opportunity.—The Mon- 
tana Labor News. 





The Commission on interracial Co-operation is 
offering to high school students three cash prizes 
aggregating $100 for the best papers on “America’s 
Tenth Man” submitted on or before March 1, 
1929. The purpose of these prizes is to encourage 
the study of the Negro’s part in American history, 
which, according to the Commission, is much more 
creditable than is generaliy supposed. It is believed 
that such a study will be helpful to the children of 
both races, promoting more tolerance and sympathy 
on the one side, and developing wholsesome race 
pride on the other. The Commission earnestly asks 
the co-operation of high school principals and 
teachers. Full particulars, together with a sixteen- 
page pamphlet of suggestive source material, will be 
sent without charge to anyone interested. Address 
R. B. Eleazer, Educational Director, 409 Palmer 
Building, Atlanta, Ga. 








as 





AN ADVENTURE IN INTERNATIONAL 
GOODWILL—FRIENDSHIP SCHOOL 
BAGS TO MEXICO 

The first project of the Committee on World 
Friendship among children, instituted by the Federal 
Council of the Churches of Christ in America, was 
with Japan. It consisted of sending 12,739 Doll Mes- 
sengers of Friendship to attend the Doll Festival, 
March 3, 1927. The Dolls were sent from every state 
in the Union and were distributed by the Department 
of Education to primary schools and kindergartens, 
one Doll to each school. Not only the Japanese chil- 
dren but the adults as well were deeply stirred by this 
expression of goodwill from the children and young 
people of the United States. 

The second project of the Committee is with Mex- 
ico. It consists of sending Friendship School Bags to 
be distributed among the primary schools by the 
Mexican Department of Education. These are beau- 
tifully embossed, durable, fabrikoicd bags, in three 
colors, each containing six or more articles selected 
by the children sending the Bag. 

In addition to the children’s gifts is a package of 
beautiful picture cards showing the two great patri- 
ots of the United States, Washington and Lincoln; 
Mexico’s two great patriots, Hidalgo and Juarez; our 
Liberty Bell and their Liberty Bell; our great water- 
fall and their great waterfall; our goodwill flier, 
Lindbergh, and their goodwill flier, Carranza. 

Schools and groups in every part of the United 
States have already taken joyous part in this adven- 
ture in goodwill. In many communities remarkable 
send-off programs focussed popular attention on 
friendship for Mexico. 

Twenty-six thousand of the Friendship School 
Bags have already reached Mexico. The plan is to con- 
tinue sending bags until December 5, and it is hoped 
that by that time 35,000 will have gone. This will 
mean that among the primary school children one 
child in thirty will receive a Friendship School Bag. 

Mexico has understood as clearly as did Japan the 
feelings of friendship and goodwill that the children 
of the United States have tried to express to the 
children there. Shall we make every effort btween 
now and December 5 to carry this second project on 
to a successful completion? 

Mrs. Emrich, who has just returned from Mexico, 
reports the welcome in the great Stadium on Septem- 
ber 15 as extraordinarily colorful and enthusiastic. 
31,000 boys and girls took part. An old American 
resident declared that he had never seen such popular 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 25 





goodwill expressed toward the United States before 
during all his years in Mexico. 

Mes. Emrich also reports that a course on interna- 
tional friendship has already been made a regular part 
of the curriculum of the primary schools of the coun- 
try, due entirely, as Dr. Saenz stated, to this friend- 
ship project from the United States. 

One Mexican teacher told Mrs. Emrich that they 
“are now studying about the United States, its his- 
tory, its accomplishments, its people, and all in a 
friendly way.” “This,” she added, “is a new thing 
and strange, but we are happy in doing it.” 

Another teacher said, ““We have heard a great deal 
about our enemies in the United States, but we have 
not heard before about the friends we have there.” 

Can we not do something to forward this project 
and to promote goodwill between Mexico and the 
United States? If you are interested write to Sidney 
L. Gulick, Secretary, 289 Fourth Avenue, New York, 
N. Y., for pamphlet giving full directions. 





ARE LYNCHING DAYS OVER? 
For Four Months No Lynchings Have Occurred 


The four months at the beginning of 1928 may 
well be noted on the calendar which marks the ad- 
vance of civilization. For in May of this year Mr. 
James Weldon Johnson, secretary of the National As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Colored People, 
made the interesting announcement that for four 
months there had been no lynchings in the United 
States. 

Lynchings, or the violent actions of the people in 
taking the law into their own hands, were familiar 
especially in pioneer days when the law was bungling 
or nonexistent. The word is of uncertain origin, 
though some people try to connect it with Charles 
Lynch, a justice of the peace in Virginia some hun- 
dred and fifty years ago. But Webster’s New Inter- 
national Dictionary says on this point: “Said to be 
derived from a Virginian named Lynch, who took the 
law in his own hands. But the origin of the term is 
very doubtfu:.” Earlier forms were “Lynch’s law” 
and “lynch law.” 

It has been suggested that the word lynch, or 
Lynch’s law, may have come from Lynch’s Creek, 
South Carolina, where bands of Regulators—lawless 
bodies establishing their authority with~violence— 
met just prior to the American Revolution. Words 
coming from geographical association are common in 
English. A common example is “china,” applied to 
fine crockery coming from China. 

































































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


A Productive Educational Conference 


By Henry R. LINVILLE 
President, Local 5, New York City 


One of the most productive and satisfying of the 
enterprises undertaken by Local 5, New York, is the 
October Conference. The first conference was held 
the first week-end of Octobr, 1924, at Hudson Guild 
Farm at Netcong, N. J., fifty miles from New York 
City on the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad. 
The Farm is the property of Hudson Guild, a settle- 
ment in the densely populated middle west side of 
New York, and is equipped to take care of about 
150 persons. After the summer season week-end par- 
ties or social groups that desire to conduct confer- 
ences may arrange with the management to live on 
the farm, enjoy its unusual facilities and hold their 
meetings, or wander through the wooded hills or 
along the ponds and waterways, or do both. 


When the Teachers Union and the Teachers 
Union Auxiliary developed the idea of the confer- 
ence, they did not do so for the purpose of giving 
their members a good time, but it has been worth 
while to do that, too. The main purpose was to 
create an occasion for critically examining and eval- 
uating educational practices, procedures and ideals 
as well as to decide how the Union and the Auxiliary 
could best promote their own work in the field of 
education. 

INCREASINGLY INSPIRING 

While distinguished educators and thinkers were 
invited to participate in the sessions, our two organ- 
izations kept in mind the need and the value of 
bringing to the attention of the visitors our own 
experience and our own thinking about that expe- 
rience. By careful attention to the matter of organ- 
izing our programs, we have succeeded in building 
up an enterprise that has become increasingly enter- 
taining, effective and inspiring. 

The Fifth October Conference was held on Hud- 
son Guild Farm from Friday night, October Sth, to 
Sunday morning, October 7th, and was divided into 
four formal sessions with Saturday afternoon set 
aside for five concurrent informal round-table con- 
ferences. Our October Conference weather gener- 
ally behaves itself, and hence most of the day-time 
sessions could be held on the lawn with the circle of 
mile-distant golden autumn foliage of the wooded 
hills serving as the stimulating back-drop to our 
thinking. 


The fifth conference was given over to the exam. 
ination of progressive education, and the effort was 
made not only to analyze the ideals and the proced. 
ures of the new education, not to see if they can k 
made to fit into public school situations, but mor 
especially to determine where progressive education 
itself may be effective and sound in organization, 
or otherwise. Perhaps the particular phase of the 
conference just closed that makes it the most suc- 
cessful of the series is the degree to which the 
critical thinking engaged in opened up new avenues 
of thought and yielded a degree of inspiration and 
even of exaltation, that is rarely experienced in 
situations where education is a theme of discussion. 

The topics of the sessions and the speakers are a 
follows: 

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 8 P. M. 
The Historical Setting of the Progressive Education 
Movement 

What do we mean by progressive education? 

What are the faults in education which the pro- 
gressive movement is intended to correct? 

What are the accomplishments and the promises of 
progressive education? 

Dr. V. T. THayer, Educational Advisor, Eth- 
ical Culture School. 

Discussion led by Miss EL1zaABETH IRWIN, Psy- 
chologist, Public Education Association; Di- 
rector, Experimental Division, P. S. 61, Man- 
hattan. 

Chairman: Mrs. S. §. Go_tpwaTER, Chairman, 
Board of Directors, Teachers Union Auxiliary. 


SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 6, 10 A. M. 
The Material and the Procedures of Progressive 
Education 

How shall the Curriculum be Reorganized for 
Progressive Education? 
Dr. Haroxp O. Ruse, Professor of Education, 
Teachers College; Educational Psychcologist, 
Lincoln School. 
What has been done in Making use of Available 
Material under Experimental Procedures? 
Miss Letta Stott, Teacher, City and Country 
School, New York City. 
Chairman: Dr. Henry R. Linvite, President, 
The Teachers Union. 





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SATURDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 6, 3 P. M. 
Round Tables on Phases of Progressive Education 
The Curriculum for Young Children. 

Mrs. Marion Paine STEVENS, Teacher Train- 
ing Department, Ethical Culture School. 

Literature in the Progressive School. 

Miss SARAH N. CLEGHORN, Teacher of English 
Literature in the Manumit School, Pawling, 
N. Y. 

Geography in the Progressive School. 

Mrs. Lucy SPRAGUE MITCHELL, Bureau of Ed- 
ucational Experiments, New York City. 

Mathematics in the Progressive School. 

Dr. JoHN R. Crark, Professor of Education, 
New York University. 

History in the Progressive School. 

Dr. Roy W. Hatcn, Professor of Social Stud- 
ies, State Teachers College, Upper Montclair, 
New Jersey. 

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 8 P. M. 

Progressive Education in the Present Social Order 
What are the Conflicts in which Progressive Edu- 

cation finds itself Engaged? 

Dr. GeorcE S. Counts, Professor of Education, 
Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Chairman: Mr. JosEpH JABLONOWER, First 
Vice-President, The Teachers Union. 

After the evening’ sesssion, an informal musical 
program was given by Mr. Pierre Henrotte, concert 
master of the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra, 
and Mr. Collin MacFee, pianist and composer. 

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 10 A. M. 

Progressive Education in a Better Social Order 

Are there any implied social objectives in the new 
or progressive education? 

To what extent is it possible in the present genera- 
tion to organize within the range of materials used, 
procedures followed, and educational objectives 
sought, a kind of education that may influence our 
present social order progressively toward a better 
social order? 

Dr. Wiuram H. Kicpatrick, Professor of Ed- 
ucation, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- 
versity, 

Chairman: Dr. JouHn Loveyoy Eiuiott, Head- 
worker, Hudson Guild. 





The aim of existence, the purpose of it is inner 
growth. A great tragedy develops us. A noble sor- 
tow develops us, but sordidness never develops any- 
one.—Count Keyserling. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





Local News 











Cuicaco Locats 2, 3, AND 199 

A signal victory was won by Locals 2 and 3 for 
the vocational advisers when on August 8th the 
superintendent recommended that the advisers in the 
schools be put on the time schedule of the high 
school teachers, yearly, weekly, and daily, and that 
the advisers at the central office be put on the ten- 
month year. Previously they had worked a twelve- 
month year, a seven-hour day, and a five-and-a-half- 
day week. The yearly rates remaining the same, this 
has meant an increase in monthly rates of salary 
from $30 to $45. The victory is a culmination of a 
seven years struggle, the Federations helping to bring 
to a successful outcome what the advisers had in- 
effectually attempted for years alone. 

Locals 2, 3, and 199 ushered in the work of the 
new year with a Joint Bulletin of 16 pages, which 
tells graphically of past achievements and anticipates 
many future activities. 

FLORENCE E. CLARK. 





St. Paut WomEN Loca. 28 


Meetings held in September. 

A meeting of what we call Building Representa- 
tives, a dinner, with about eighty present, at which 
we discussed: membership, group insurance, credit 
union, the American Federation of Teachers. Mrs. 
Hanson’s letter about the year’s plans was discussed 
and three delegates elaborated on the convention. 
These dinners are quite popular. They are served here 
at our club rooms and we charge 35c for them. They 
are good, too, proof that, with management, palata- 
ble meals may be served at reasonable prizes. We plan 
to invite different groups in for similar discussions as 
an effective method of getting the local and national 
program across. 

At the dinner mentioned above, the representatives 
did not feel that a membership campaign was nec- 
essary. They hope with what the Federation offers 
that the membership can be increased on a basis of 
profit from belonging. ‘The success of the salary com- 
mittee is bringing in old members who had dropped 
membership. 

FLORENCE Roop, 
Publicity Chairman. 





St. Paut MEN Loca. 43 

On Friday, October 19th, 6:15 p. m., at Carling’s 
Restaurant, the St. Paul Men Teachers Federation 
had its first smoker. “Speed” Holman talked on avia- 
tion developments; Rev. H. Y. Williams and Repre- 
sentative M. Maas, Congressional candidates, spoke 
on Congressional issues. 

The Joint Salary Committee declared for the sin- 
gle salary standard as basic; for four years college 
training a $3,000 maximum; for two years Normal 

















EE OR SEETHER 


























































28 


school training a $2,400 maximum. Complete details 
of the schedule for the transition period have been 
approved by the Committee but are not being pub- 
lished at present. The schedule is intended to bring 
St. Paul up to about the same figures as those of 
other cities of our size. 

Both Federations have endorsed the United Im- 
provemeat Council’s bond issue program with the 
provision that they will push the program when as- 
sured that St. Paul residents only will be employed 
and at fair wages. The program appears to be well 
thought out. Part of the projects will be income pro- 
ducing. With a larger per cent of St. Paul people 
employed the Salary Committee’s work should be less 
difficult. 

The members should remember our old friend, Dr. 
Henrik Shipstead, November 6th. He has worked 
for our interests as teachers and given of his time 
to our local. His opponent has on several occasions 
opposed St. Paul teachers. 

At the general teacher meeting at the beginning 
of the term the Commissioner remarked that it would 
be nice if teachers looked after their sick with flowers 
and see that they are financially helped. Well, that is 
exactly what our welfare committee has been doing 
for ten years. As for financial assistance, we have 
the voluntary group insurance plan. It pays the sick 
member $100 per month during confinement. It does 
not offend self-respect, as donations do, and it is 
there when you want it. 

The Executive Board recommends that our mem- 
bers on the Joint Salary Committee be reimbursed 
for their cash outlay for meals downtown while work- 
ing on the committee. The Federation has always 
preferred to pay its own way rather than sponge from 
its members. 

In the Seventh Ward, John T. Hanley is opposing 
Milton Lightner for election to the Legislature. All 
members recall that Mr. Lightner went out of his 
way to oppose the present teacher tenure bill and pre- 
sumably is still opposed. (It is not an offense in St. 
Paul for teachers to take part in elections.) 

The first regular monthly meeting was held Thurs- 
day afternoon, October 11th, at Wilder Bldg. The 
subject of salaries brought a large turnout.—From 
the Local’s Bulletin. 





SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA Loca 31 

The Sacramento Federation, through the kindness 
of a former teacher, is able to spread its influence 
considerably this year by conducting a column every 
Sunday in the Sacramento Union. The column is 
edited by the press committee, but the articles are 
contributed by members of the organization. So far 
we have printed, besides the list of officers and com- 
mittees, R. W. Everett’s report of the national con- 
vention, a paper on tenure by H. G. Baugh, and the 
resolutions concerning educational matters passed by 
the State Federation of Labor. 

An opportunity to become more closely affiliated 
with the Federation of Labor was afforded Local No. 


“ 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 






31 by the fact that the state convention of that or- 
ganization was held in Sacramento September 17 to 
22. R. W. Everett and E. A. Cook, delegates from 
the Teachers Federation, were responsible for two of 
the resolutions passed by the Federation of Labor, the 
one concerning the Seattle case and the other, tenure, 

The annual reception to new members took place 
October 4th. This was the first of a number of 
affairs planned by the social committee and -was 
frankly of the nature of bait. The president, J. N, 
Gardner, in his welcoming address, made a strong 
plea for membership, showing the need of an organ- 
ization of class room teachers and citing the tenure 
law as an example of the constructive work done by 
the Federation. After mentioning the fact that Jchn 
Dewey is a staunch supporter of the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers, “Why,” said the president, “to 
paraphrase a Scriptural saying, do many say ‘Dewey, 
Dewey,’ but do not the things which he commands?” 

A good prorgram of music and solo dancing was 
very much enjoyed and the remainder of the evening 
was spent in dancing and card playing. About one 
hundred and fifty members and guests were present. 
Future social occasions, according to a plan agreed 
upon last year, will be for the enjoyment and better 
acquaintance of members only. 

Further study groups are planned for this year, 
and an intensive membership campaign. 
MarGarRET Moore, Chairman, 

Press Committee. 





ATLANTA, Loca. 89 

Local No. 89 seems to face a very active and suc- 
cessful year from the spirit which has been shown 
in the first meetings of the year. At a special called 
meeting on September 7th with an attendance of six 
or seven hundred members it was overwhelmingly 
voted to increase the dues two dollars and fifty cents 
a year for each member and to secure a permanent 
office in a down-town office building, to secure a 
part-time secretary, and to publish a monthly news 
bulletin for the membership. The enthusiasm of the 
membership for this raise in dues promises not only 
as large membership as last year but indications point 
to an increase due to an awakened interest in several 
schools which have not had as large memberships as 
other schools of the same size. 

At the regular election of officers on October 5th, 
the following officers were unanimously elected: 
James P. Barron, President; Miss Allie B. Mann, First 
Vice President; Miss Lucile Nolan, Second Vice Pres- 
ident; Miss Lamar Jeter, Third Vice President; Miss 
Belle Clein, Secretary; Mrs. R. B. Whitworth, Finan- 
cial Secretary; and Mr. E. L. Floyd, Treasurer. Miss 
Mann is the only new officer and she had been a mem- 
ber of the Executive Committee as High School Mem- 
bership Chairman last year. The confidence of the 
membership in these officers has been shown repeat- 
edly in the past two years under rather trying condi- 
tions and the feeling seemed to be general that any 
change would be unwise at this time. 



















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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 29 


Local No. 89 is particularly fortunate to be able to 

,ve a visit from two officers of the American Federa- 
on of Teachers within a month of each other. Dr. 
_ J. Muste, President of Brookwood Labor College 

Katonah, N. Y., was invited to address the Insti- 

te held by the Women’s Auxiliary of the Interna- 
onal Brotherhood of Machinists at their convention 
» Atlanta in September. Locals No. 89 of Atlanta, 
nd No. 183 of Fulton County, had Dr. Muste as 
heir guest at several luncheons with members of the 
xecutive Committees and Boards of Directors, and 
uch benefit will result from the splendid addresses 
ie delivered and from the very fine impression Dr. 

uste gave of the A. F, of T. 

Both Locals are anticipating with a great deal of 
bleasure the visit of our beloved Secretary, Mrs. Han- 
on, in November. Mrs. Hanson will make Atlanta 
er headquarters during a campaign in the South 
which we are hopeful will result in several new Locals 
or the A. F. of T. As our own Miss Barker as Presi- 
tent of the National is with us all the time we feel 
hat we are very fortunate and hope to have a record 
ar in the history of our organization. 

J. P. Barron. 





COMMONWEALTH Loca. 194 
Commonwealth, the only independent self-govern- 
ing resident workers’ college in the United States, 
pened on October Ist with an enlarged student body 


hailing from sixteen states and two foreign countries, 
with the strongest teaching staff in its history, and 
with a new quarterly school schedule which permits 
students to enroll four times a year; on October Ist, 
@December 24th, March 17th, and June 9th. 

“The student body this year,” says Dr. William 
Edward Zeuch, Director of Commonwealth, “is much 
better from almost every point of view than any 
student body we have ever had. It is more mature, 
has a broader background of experience, is represen- 
tative of more organized and unorganized labor 
groups, and has a higher average of educational prep- 
aration than any entering student body in the six 
years of the school’s existence. We look forward to 
the best year in our school history.” 

New members of the teaching staff are Dr. Edward 
Clinton Wilson who has charge of the work in psy- 
chology and education; Alice Owings Wilson who 
handles the English in the Orientation Year; Clay 
Fulks, well known writer and member of the Arkan- 
as bar who offers the courses in law; and F. A. Post, 
Prominent engineer who instructs in science and 
mathematics, 

The new quarterly school schedule, aside from per- 
mitting the entrance of new students four times a 
year, has many other advantages. It will enable 
Workers in seasonal trades or occupations to attend 
college during their off seasons. It will also make it 
posible for the college to operate its farms and to 
‘ary on its other work the year round with student 

- Under the new schedule all courses are upon 
‘quarterly basis. 


Those who have followed the development of work- 
ers’ education will remember that Commonwealth was 
founded in 1923 by Dr. William Edward Zeuch and 
Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare as an institution to work 
out by experiment the idea of self-supporting, non- 
propaganda education for adult workers. All the work 
in the school is done by teachers and students. The 
students pay only a nominal tuition of .$40 a quarter, 
earning board, room, and laundry service by four 
hours work daily. The college, after years of pioneer- 
ing and hard work, is now emerging into the co-op- 
erative educational community the founders planned. 

Students and teachers, along with other work, are 
finishing up cottages in order to accommodate those 
applying for entrance at the beginning of the winter 
quarter on December 24th. 





SEATTLE, Locat 200 

The Seattle Teachers Union is holding regular 
meetings and furthering its plans for continuance of 
its court case, for a state teacher tenure law, and for 
the election of progressive state officials, friendly to 
tenure and freedom to organize, 

Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston was defeated for the 
nomination for the state school superintendency, the 
press says, on account, of the power trust propa- 
ganda expose—but largely through the efforts, of the 
teachers who worked for the successful candidate, 
N. D. Showalter, who is well known to favor a state 
tenure law. As Mr. Showalter is without opposition 
in the election, he will be the superintendent after 


January. 





SUPERIOR FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, LocaL 202 

The Superior Federation of Teachers held the first 
meeting of the 1928-1929 school year Wednesday 
afternoon, September 20th, at the Superior Central 
High School, at which a successor to Peter Baechle, 
the president, was to have been elected. Mr. Baechle, 
instructor at the high school last year, has left 
Superior. 


MILITARISM IN THE SCHOOLS 

The Committee on Militarism in Education pops 
a question at all of the presidential candidates, asking 
them to state their views on compulsory military drill 
in high schools and colleges. 

Military training in the schools is imperialistic sab- 
otage upon the minds of the young. 

Now that the treaty outlawing war is being ac- 
cepted by all of the powerful nations, if it means 
what it says, the last shadow of excuse for militariz- 


ing the minds of American youth vanishes. If it does 
not mean what it says, there is no excuse for mili- 


tarizing the minds of the youth, anyhow, for it only 
leads to war by creating a war psychology. Let mil- 
itarism be outlawed in the schools—Oklahoma Week- 
ly Leader, 





~* ~*~, ~-—5— -- -— 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


LABOR VETERAN DEAD 


James Duncan, First Vice President of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor, died at his home at Wollas- 
ton, Quincy, Mass., Friday, September 14th, at 11 
A. M. Funeral services were held at the Masonic 
Temple, Quincy, Mass., on Monday, September 17th, 
at 2:30 P. M. 

James Duncan was born in Scotland, May 5, 1857. 
He was a pioneer of the organized labor movement 
and a granite cutter by trade. He was secretary of 
the New York branch of granite cutters in 1881; of 
the Baltimore branch in 1884. 

In March, 1895 he was elected General President 
of the Granite Cutters’ International Association and 
held that position continuously until July, 1923. In 
1900 he led the successful strike in the granite cut- 
ting industry for the eight-hour day. 

He was a delegate to the conventions of the Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor from 1886. 

He was elected Second Vice President of the Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor in 1894 at the convention 
held in Denver, Colorado. Four years later he was 
elected First Vice President and has since contin- 
uously served in that office. In 1898 he served as A. 
F. of L. fraternal delegate to the British Trade Union 
Congress. 

In 1911 he represented the American Federation 
of Labor at the meeting of the International Secre- 
tariat held at Budapest, Hungary. 

In 1913 he was selected as one of the five United 
States Commissioners to investigate and report on 
the subject of workmen’s compensation. 

In 1917 he was appointed by President Wilson with 
five others as envoy extraordinary on a diplomatic 
mission to Russia. 

In 1919 he was appointed by President Wilson as 
a member of the American Labor Mission to the Peace 
Conference in Paris. 

He is survived by his widow. 





ARKANSAS EVOLUTION FOE BEATEN 
IN PRIMARIES 

The first round in the fight to defeat the Arkansas 
anti-evolution bill, on which a state-wide referendum 
will be held in November, was won by opponents of 
the measure when the bill’s author was defeated in 
the primary elections, according to advices received 
by the American Civil Liberties Union from its Little 
Rock representative. 

A. L. Rotenberry, who drafted the bill submitted 
by the fundamentalists through initiative petition, 


ran for attorney general on a straight anti-evolutiog 
platform. His political advertisements in the Ar. 
kansas papers carried the caption “The Man o 
Monkey Question,” and asked voters, ““Do you believe 
that your ancestors were monkeys? Do you want 
this absurd un-Christian farce taught in our public 
schools?” “If you do not,” the ads continued, “J 
shall expect you to express your disapproval by 
voting for me for attorney general.” If elected he 
promised “exceptional legal service and support of 
the Biole.” 

Rotenberry was overwhelmingly defeated. If 
Arkansas voters make his bill law in November, $500 
fine and immediate loss of his job will face every 
Arkansas teacher who describes the theory of evolu- 
tion to his students in schools wholly or partly tax- 
supported. Text books mentioning the forbidden 
doctrine will be banned. 

In Tennessee also the evolution issue was up in the 
primary when Judge Ralston, who tried the Scopes 
case, ran for Governor. He too was snowed under. 





THE SOCIAL PURPOSE 
Some one has said that “The single public end of 
a common public education in America must here- 


inafter be neither life, nor the getting of a living, 
but living together.” 





PIONEER YOUTH OF AMERICA 

Joshua Lieberman, secretary of Pioneer Youth of 
America, announces the increasing growth and activ- 
ity of the movement. To meet this situation it has 
been found necessary to appoint two directors to 
carry on the work of the organization. In addition 
to Mr. Lieberman, who as Executive Secretary has 
previously acted, W. Walter Ludwig, formerly of 
Ohio University, will also serve as director. 

Mr. Ludwig has a record of service to the labor 
and liberal movements. He has been Director of the 
work of the Evanston Continuation Committee and 
has planned conferences for students in industry. At 
Ohio University he worked for better race relations. 
He organized and taught classes in workers’ educa- 
tion among the miners of the Hocking Valley, Ohio, 
and his activities in the miners’ strike resulted in the 
loss of his job at Ohio University. He is a member 
of the American Federation of Teachers, Local 5, and 
an honorary member of the Columbus Federation of 
Labor, Columbus, Ohio. His ability and personal 
qualities should aid greatly in the development of the 
organization. 














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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





For Your Health’s Sake 















T. J. Crowe, President, is seeking re-election on his splendid executive 
record and his constructive administration of the District’s affairs. 


James M. Whalen, Chairman of the Committee on Engineering, has 
guided the operations of the vast health projects of the District. 


Henry A. Berger, Chairman of the Committee on Federal Rela- 
tions, as a former assistant State’s Attorney and for years legal adviser 
to public officials of Cook County, is well qualified to cope with the diverse 
details of Sanitary District administration. 





Alderman Ross A. Woodhull, former chairman of finance of the City 
Council, has demonstrated his ability in big undertakings. He is a candi- 
date for Trustee to fill vacancy caused by the death of George Hull Porter. 


\ 





DEMOCRATIC NOMINEES FOR TRUSTEES 
SANITARY DISTRICT OF CHICAGO 


[X] T. J. CROWE 

[X] JAMES M. WHALEN 

[X] HENRY A. BERGER 

[X] ALD. ROSS A. WOODHULL 




















32 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








American Federation 


of 


‘Teachers 


506 S. Wabash Ave., 
CHICAGO, ILL. 


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


0 EER o 


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. ; gai nig 

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. 




















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