FEBRUARY, 1929 VOL. XIII—No. 6 


Democracy in Education Kducation for Democracy 


The 
American Teacher 


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CONTENTS 


The Place of Teachers in the Labor Movement _____- 


William Mahoney 


Why We Behave Like Union Beings_____________- 


Dr. Dorothy P. Gary 


Editorials 


Conditioning the Superior Teacher__.__________---- 


Luella B. Cook 


The Child Guidance Clinic of Minneapolis -__.~-~- 
Alice Fitzgerald Drechsler 


Out St. Paul Way —____- 


Evolution and Legislation 


Dr. Arvid Reuterdahl 


Minneapolis Teachers Two Year Salary Fight _----- 


Florence Fish 


The Union Teachers of France____________------ 


David J. Saposs 


Report of A. F. of L. Education Committee ___----~- 


Local News 

















The American Teacher 


Entered as second class matter Oct. 1, 1997, at the post office at Oklahoma City, Okla., 
postage provided for in Sec 1108, Act of Feb: 28, 1926, 


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authorized Nov. 8, 1926. 





Volume XIII, No. 6 


FEBRUARY, 1929 


Two Dollars a Year 





The Place of F ekchiecn tn the Labor Movement 


There is a highly useful place in the labor move- 
ment for the teaching profession, and especially that 
branch employed in the public schools. As members 
of organized labor, school teachers may improve their 
own conditions, advance the interests of the working 
people, and promote and safeguard the public wel- 
fare. No other class of workers occupies so vital a 
position in the structure of the labor movement. 

The labor movement, as we know it today, 
emerged from humble and narrow beginnings, and 
has progressed in the face of the most adverse con- 
ditions; it has not had the advantage of scientists and 
philosophers for sponsors, nor of the power of mate- 
rial resources; it was born of necessity and has had 


to force its forward march in opposition to dominat-" 


ing economic and political power. 

It is not surprising that a movement with such 
origin and sphere.of activity as that which the work- 
ing class has sponsored should still have faults to 
correct, problems to solve, and opposition to over- 
come. At the present time, perhaps more than ever 
before, the labor movement needs the aid of trained 
intellectual elements to enable it to meet successfully 
the crisis that confronts it. 

Grown In Pustic EsTEEM 

From its inception the labor movement has pro- 
gressed in methods, in aspirations and in public es- 
teem; from the status of narrow and isolated groups 
with selfish aims it has broadened out to state, na- 
tional, and intérnational federations, striving for the 
emancipation of all workers and the solution of vital 
social problems. As its field of action has expanded 
the need for enlightened leadership and wise guidance 
has increased, 

Although the labor movement has expanded in as- 
Pirations~ and extended theéaseope it its activities, 
which have greatly enhanced its general social im- 
portance, it is still rooted in the soil of its origin; it 
continues to serve the immediate economic interests 
of its members; it-is this practical purpose that serves 
to attract support aid assures its permanency. 

Individuals engaged in the same line of work found 
it to their personal advantage to associate themselves 


! 


together; crafts in the same industry have recognized 
the advantage of mutual co-operation; and this prin- 
ciple has been extended so that practically all organ- 
ized groups are joined in a more or less close federa- 
tion for their mutual benefit. Experience has dem- 
onstrated that the interest of the individual is best 
served by the broadest solidarity of all who live by 
labor. 
Have CoMMON INTERESTS 

As a worker depending on an income from labor, 
the teacher has interests in common with all other 
workers, The same law of wages which governs the 
recompense of the humblest manual worker operates 
to determine the salary of the intellectual, and unless 
the same protective measures are employed the salary 
of the teacher will fall below the standard of com- 
mon decency. 

Teachers and other intellectual workers are begin- 
ning to recognize the practical advantages of organi- 
zation among ‘themselves and affiliation with all 
others who depend on their own labor for a living. 
As a result, within the labor movement have come 
organized musicians, actors, engineers, architects and 
teachers. They all stand on the common denomina- 
tor, labor. 

Just in the measure that all workers unite for their 
mutual interests will the benefits be proportionate. 
The strongest argument in favor of a labor organiza- 
tion is the practical, material result and only when 
all labor is fully organized will the maximum result 
be possible. 

Teachers have been slow to align themselves with 
the labor movement. A number of influences have 
operated to keep them aloof. They have been made 
to feel that it would be improper for men and 
women engaged in the profession of teaching to affil- 
iate with a movement composed principally of manual 
workers. It has taken considerable morai courage for 
them to overcome the ¢urrent antipathy-to labor 
unionism and the opposition of ‘dominating influ- 
ences of employers in the public schools. _ 

But progress: has been made and although late in 
making their advent, the organization of teachers 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


! 


and their association with other wage-working groups 
into the great labor movement is a most important 
event in its history. Our great public school system 
has sprung from the seeds planted more than a cen- 
tury ago by organized labor and the former has had 
no more loyal and steadfast supporter than organized 
labor. It would, therefore, be a most natural thing 
for the men and women employed as the active force 
in our public schools to be.a part of the movement 
that gave birth to our public school system. From 
this point of view teachers are beginning to find 
their place in the labor movement. 

But in addition to being in the labor movement 
properly as wage workers, subject to the same influ- 
ences affecting the compensation of all other workers, 
teachers occupy a unique and vital- place in the labor 
movement. Our industrial system at present is sub- 
ject to rapid and radical changes which react on the 
labor movement and affect its operation and results. 
Constant study of these changes and adaptation to 
their requirements is vital to the success of the labor 
movement. The laboratory stage has been reached 
in industrial processes and like methods must be em- 
ployed by organized labor in conformity therewith. 

More than ever before is the control of industry 
being concentrated in fewer hands; improved ma- 
chinery and new processes continue to displace large 
numbers of skilled and unskilled workers. Large scale 
employers have organized departments to study the 
labor problem and their experts have devised many 
ingenious forms to combat and weaken the labor 
movement. It is now a battle of brains, and organ- 


ized labor must be equipped to meet a most critical 
situation. The advent of trained investigators and 
thinkers like the teachers is a most fortunate thing 
for organized labor. If organized labor would charge 
the teachers with this great responsibility and if the 
latter will fulfill this function effectively the future 
of the labor movement is assured. . 
Lasor DereNDs ON SCHOOLS 

‘Teachers occupy a responsible relation to the pub- 
lic which can not be sustained unless economic inde- 
pendence and academic freedom is guaranteed. No 
force in society better than organized labor can supply 
this support, and no element more than organized 
labor depends so much upon honest instruction in 
the public schools. Unless teachers enjoy a full meas- 
ure of independence in the performance of their vital 
duty the very source of education is in danger. 
Nothing will conduce more to the diffusion of truth 
and the progress of society than honest, capable and 
fearless teachers. Organized labor ‘will yarn the 
backing for these qualifications. 

The conclusions set forth here are based on a 


number of years’ experience and observation with 


teachers working in the St. Paul labor movement, to- 
gether with a long study of the problems of organ- 
ized labor. The need for the type of service which 
the teachers possess and their readiness to render it 
to the labor movement when the opportunity is pre- 
sented have demonstrated beyond theory or specu- 
lation that teachers should be encouraged to join the 
labor movement and drafted into its services in the 


present crisis. WILLIAM MAHONEY. 





Why We Behave Like Union Beings 


(This is a brief summary of a talk given at a dinner of the Minneapolis Local No. 59, American Federa- 


tion of Teachers, and reproduced here at its request.) 


Why do we behave like union beings? 

Today, we live in a highly organized world. Doc- 
tors, lawyers, farmers, industrial workers, teachers, 
etc., all have their respective organizations, each of 
which aims to promote and protect the interests of 


the group it represents. Even in this country with 
its strong individualistic tradition, the powerlessness 
of the individual acting alone is increasingly recog- 
nized. In order to act effectively, each must co- 
operate with his kind. 

While the principle of organization is generally 
accepted, the rights of workers, including teachers, 
to form bona fide union organizations has only been 
won after hard struggles, and is continually under 


attack from business interests and other conserva- 
tive forces in American life. Such opposition, which 
of course is not peculiar to this country, is in reality 
a tribute to the significance of the Labor Movement. 

In spite of powerful opposition, however, the de- 
velopment of the Union Movement in all countries 
where the industrial revolution has wrought its work 
is one of the outstanding characteristics of the mod- 
ern world, At the present time there are approxi- 
mately fifty million organized workers. 

Stupy REVEALS VALUE 

Why is it that unionism develops out of the in- 
dustrial revolution? Study of the history of the 
evolution of the artisan class of the handicraft period 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 3 


of industry from a position of the relatively inde- 
pendent workman to that of the modern wage-earner 
in present-day society, reveals, among other things, 
the basis, even the inevitable necessity, of unionism. 
Just as study of the history of unionism reveals its 
value to the workers. 


While it is a mistake to idealize, as some historians 
* do, the lot of these artisans, their relation to their 
work and means of livelihood, furnish! a striking 
contrast to that of the modern wage-earner. 


In medieval Europe, with its predominantly agri- 
cultural and feudalistic economy, the serfs formed 
the great exploited class. The artisans, a relatively 
small group in the towns, carried on production as 
relatively independent groups of workmen. Their 
few and simple tools were their own, their place of 
work was under their control, they purchased their 
own materials and the finished product was theirs to 
dispose of for such price as they could demand. True, 
their standard of living was low, and even the most 
skilled were far from being independent, as for in- 
stance the biography of Cellini and the life of Leo- 
nardo Da Vinci show. The wealth-owners of this 
epoch, the feudal landlords and, a little later, the 
growing merchant class, exerted 2-powerful control 
over all economic activities. Still, the artisan ex- 
erted some control over his conditions and means of 
work, a control lost, as markets expanded and the 
merchant class developed. In the period of commer- 
cial expansion, covering roughly the sixteenth, seven- 
teenth and early eighteenth centuries, the system of 
domestic manufacture developed whereby the mer- 
chant-capitalist took over the purchasing of raw 
materials, furnishing these and a small wage to work- 
men who worked with their own tools and in their 
homes as place of work. The product was now 
claimed by the merchant-capitalist. Many. of the 
workmen were agricultural laborers and their fami- 
lies who eked out a livelihood by carrying on home 
Weaving, etc., during the hours when they were not 
busy in the fields. This period marks the transition 
to our modern capitalistic industrialism. With the 
coming of the great technical inventions and rapid 
development of the factory system of production, 
control over tools (machinery) and place of work 
also passed into the hands of the business class, and 
the modern wage-earning class emerged. 


New Crass Grew Up 
So the industrial revolution ushered in, along with 
new and far superior methods of production of com- 
Modities, a new social order based on these new forms 


of property and property relations, and the new 
classes, on the one hand, of capitalists, owners of the 
new economic life, and, on the other hand, of wage- 
earners, an ownerless class who hire out their labor 
in the open market for wages, to those who own the 
means of production and consequently their means 
of livelihood. 

Massed in factories and slums of the rapidly grow- 
ing cities, men, women, and children working exces- 
sively long hours for masters eager for greater and 
greater profits, receiving out of all the new wealth 
created mere pittance for wages, and without any 
say of any kind in the processes of production and 
distribution, this new class of wage-earners early 
learned, in their struggle against such conditions, the 
lesson of solidarity in organizing their only, but most 
strategic, weapon, their labor-power. And so union- 
ism was born. 

Unionism, then, lias been a necessary development 
out of conditions and classes following on the indus- 
trial revolution. Further, it is, by its very nature, ¥ 
class weapon, born of the struggle between the own- 
ers of industry for maximum profits and the work- 
ers for higher wages and a generally better standard 
of living:—a “struggle which has characterized the 
present economic system from its inception and, ex- 
cept for temporary lulls and compromises and talks 
of “peace” and “harmony,” has continued on an 
ever-deepening and widening scale ever since. 


For over one hundred and fifty years, more and 
more millions of wage-earners in every part of the 
world have found the union to be the most effective 
tool with which to improve their working conditions 
and standard of living. Now, labor is learning to 
organize its political power, and its consumptive 
forces through its co-operative movement. These 
three phases of the Labor Movement, together with 
Workers’ Education, reinforce one another, and 
unionism takes on even larger significance. 

PopuLar EDUCATION AND UNIONISM 

With the development of a public system of edu- 
cation, coming out of the social changes following 
on the industrial revolution, we teachers, massed in 
large mechanized school systems, hired by school 
boards dominated by business interests, receiving 
poor pay, being continually speeded up and with no 
control over our means of livelihood, are also Jearn- 
ing the lesson of unionism, though more slowly than 
industrial workers. The “education” through which 
we passed, and certain professional traditions which 
we have been taught, seem to have dulled the intel- 











4 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ligent understanding of many teachers in this 
respect. 

However, we are learning also, to behave like 
union beings.. European teachers are in general 
strongly organized. Take England, for example, 
where approximately 125,000 teachers have a na- 
tional wage scale agreement with the national organi- 
zation representing the local school boards, and 
through their union have conducted successful 
strikes, reinstated unjustly discharged teachers, pro- 
moted educational reform, etc. While in many Euro- 
pean countries these unions have followed narrow 
craft lines, demanding and receiving aid in times of 
need from the Labor Movement, but refusing to 


affiliate and assume their share of social responsibili- 


ties, in other countries, as in Bulgaria, Rumania, 
Greece, Italy (before Fascism crushed the Teachers 
along with other bona fide unions), Austria, Russia, 
etc., the Teachers Union is, like our own, within the 
Labor Movement. Also teachers’ unions affiliated 
with organized labor exist in China, Japan, and in 
several South American countries, showing that 
teachers everywhere are slowly but surely waking up 
to the fact that they must behave like union beings. 

Wherever real teacher unionism exists, concrete 
accomplishments both for the teachers and the 
school system can be observed. In this country, we 
can point to achievements of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers in Atlanta, Chicago, the Twin 
Cities, Cambridge, Portland and New York City, as 
well as in many other places. These indicate clearly 
what could be accomplished if the teachers were 
thoroughly and intelligently organized. 

We behave like union beings, first, then, because 
we find through such co-operation that we can most 
effectively promote and protect our common eco- 
nomic interests as wage earners. Further, as workers 
in educational institutions, a significant reason for 
teachers’ organizing is that such organization fur- 
nishes a method of guaranteeing to the next genera- 
tion that it shall receive real education, from teach- 
ers unafraid of “consequences.” Students taught by 
unionized teachers stand a much better chance of 
securing a true understanding of history and the 
world in which we live. . 

There is another and even more important reason 
why we behave like union beings. The Labor Move- 
ment has a historical role to play, on an international 
scale. 

While not all, even among organized labor, espe- 
cially American labor, will agree fully to this state- 










ment, it is becoming increasingly clear to the most 
intelligent and studious in labor’s ranks, as well as to 
many of the best scientists of the age, that if some 
of our most pressing problems, as those of imperialis- 
tic aggrandizement, imperialistic wars, mass unem- 
ployment, racial exploitation, are to be solved, prob- 
lems which must be solved if the human race and its 
culture is to go on, they must be solved by the in- 
ternational Labor Movement. No other organized 
force, of such economic and socially strategic posi- 
tion, of sufficient proportions and potentialities exists. 
In speaking of the Labor Movement, I am of course 
referring not merely to unionism but to all phases of 
organized labor, economic and political. 

This fact may not appear clear to some, but the 
majority of you will recognize its sober truth. 

In every historical epoch in which deep-going so- 
cial changes are in process, some class has acted as 
the standard-bearer, the carrier-forward .of this 
change; the reasons for this being that this group’s 
own interests and destiny were bound up with the 
move forward, while other classes and groups found 
theirs identified with the old. Take for instance, in 
the epoch just preceding our own, it was the young 
rising bourgeois class; born of the commercial revo- 
lution, who championed the new order, based on 
science and mass production. 

New C.assEs COME FORWARD 

In periods of history where no new class has come 
forward as the champion of social change, then social 
disintegration has set in, and that society, as a civili- 
zation, has disappeared, although some of its culture 
has usually been absorbed by a younger, more vigor- 
ous social organism. Today, however, we are a world 
society so economically and socially interdependent 
that, should we fail to solve the problem facing us, 
we can only hope that Mars or some other planet 
would salvage what is worthwhile of our human 
world culture. 

To return to our immediate situation: It is gen- 
erally admitted that we live in a highly dynamic 
world. Today, the old order, under control of finan- 
cial. interests, shows every sign of being unable to 
cope with the problems it has engendered. Not only 
is it unfitted to control and direct pending social 
changes; it is in fact doing everything possible to 
hold back social changes (excepting those which 
enhance the business group’s ability to increase 
profits). 

The Labor Movement is clearly the béarer of the 
new social order, an order based on social as well as 














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mechanical science, an order organized for the service 
and well-being of its members, rather than for pri- 
vate gain, ; 


Lasor Is MopERN PIONEER 


Labor, then, is the modern pioneer in human 


culture. 


Because it is a movement, the Labor Movement is 
itself a highly dynamic organism, having to adjust 
itself to a continually changing world. Within its 
body have been and still are rather contradictory 
forces, forces opposing social change and forces 
championing it. There is a continual realignment of 
these conservative and revolutionary forces, the vic- 
tory going to those groups which at that time are 
most in line with historical developments. Any 
group, whether it be a union or a leadership, which 
can not keep up with developments, drops out of the 
picture; but while older issues pass, and along with 
them, older groupings, and new issues and new 
groupings are taking their place, the Union and La- 
bor Movement goes on. 


This is an important point for the unionist to rec- 
ognize, so as to keep a perspective on the whole. In 
attempting to keep himself and his groupings always 
abreast of current realities, the unionist’s basic faith 
and loyalty should be to the movement and its ob- 
jectives, and only identified with any particular 
leadership or organization in so far as this group re- 
mains true and adequate to the demands of the 
times. Unless this perspective is kept in mind, be- 
wilderment and severe discouragement may occur. 
On the other hand, it is an interesting fact that 
those who have once grasped the larger function of 
the Labor Movement rarely leave its ranks. These 
thousands are able to carry on tasks and undergo 
hardships which seem impossible for an outsider to 
comprehend. 


It is to a real purpose that we behave like union 
beings, Dorotny P. Gary. 





LEAVE SOME ADJUSTMENTS TO THE 
CREATOR 


To forget the miseries of the past and remember 
only its charm; to live in the present to the limits 
of its utmost possibilities, and to view the future as 
one who has traveled romantically in a colorful far 
Country views the skyline of his nearing homeland— 
with a sense of great content and a slightly sad resig- 
nation.—George Jean Nathan. 


- instead 


ey 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 3. 


MINNEAPOLIS ESTABLISHES GREATER SECU- 
RITY IN PENSION FUND 


On May 24, 1928, the teachers, by a vote of 2,328 
to 1, approved four amendments to the articles of 
incorporation of the Minneapolis Teachers’ Retire- 
ment Fund Association. These amendments were 
immediately submitted to the Ways and Means Com- 
mittee of the city council for approval. This com- 
mittee ordered an investigation by the city attorney 
and the Charles H. Preston Company, certified ac- 
countants. When the investigation had been com- 
pleted, three out of five members of the Ways and 
Means- Committee indicated that they would not 
vote for the amendments until certain changes were 
effected. This was clearly the decision on Monday 
afternoon, October 8. On Tuesday, October 9, the 
teachers in every school in the city were asked. to 
vote on three definite changes. 


In this referendum the teachers indicated, by a 
vote of more than 2,000 for, and from 1 to 29. 
against, that they would be willing to effect these 
changes in the articles. Briefly, the changes will 
provide that the accounts be kept on a cash basis 
of on the accrual basis. . The second 
change provides that future budgets should not carry 
the item of uncollected taxes and interest thereon, 
and the third provides that teachers leaving the sys- 
tem before completing ten years should surrender the 
city deposit set up for them. 

On Wednesday, October 10, when the results of © 
the referendum were presented to the members of 
the Ways and Means Committee, they voted unani- 
mously to approve all four amendments. On Friday, 
October 12, the city council, by a vote of 21 to 1, 
ratified the four amendments. Immediately upon this 
ratification, the Board of Estimate and Taxation fixed 
the rate for 1929.at one and a quarter mills. This 
millage will give the association about $80,000 more 
than the one mill tax would have produced, and the 
fourth amendment will release about $66,000, which 
otherwise would have. gone into the amortization 
fund. There will, therefore, be about $146,000 addi- 
tional. revenue to be distributed as city deposits. It 
is hoped that these changes will make possible full 
deposits according to the plan for the year 1929.— 
Pup E. Carison, in The Federation News. 





A bill has been introduced into the Canadian 
House of Commons seeking to establish a Depart- 
ment of Peace. A hopeful sign. Let us all take heart. 











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 
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EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


President 
Mary C. Barker, Atlanta No. 89, 685 Myrtle Sesesk, N. E., 
Atlanta, Georgia. 
Legislative Representative and Vice-President 
Serma M. Borcnarpt, Washington No. 8; 1741 Park Road, 
N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Vice-Presidents 
Lucrs W. Aten, Chicago Women No. 3; 1803 Livingston 
Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. 
R. W. Everett, Sacramento No. 31; 2740 Portola Way, 
Sacramento, California 
Amy A. Fox, Minneapolis No. 59; 2809 Park Avenue, Minne- 
apolis, Minnesota. 
ABRAHAM LerxowiTz, New York No. 5; Grand Avenue, East 
-. Elmhurst, New York, N. Y. 
A. J. Must, Brookwood No. 189; Brookwood, Katonah, N. Y. 
Frorence Rocp, St. Paul No. 28; 328 Cedar Street, St. Paul, 
Minnesota. 
W. B. SarrertHwarre, Local No. 200; 
Seattle, Washington 
W. J. Scorr, Atlanta No. 89; 212 Kings Highway, Decatur, 


1837 12th Ave, West 


Georgia. 
F. G. Srecxzn, ~ cetagg ag 1618 Lake Avenue, 
Wilmette, Illinois. 
CHartes B, Srmiman, Chicago No. 2; 827 Ridge Avenue, 
Evanston, Illinois. 


Western Organizer 
E. E. Scrtwarntzrrauser, Portland No. 111; R. F. D. 5, 


Box 68, Portland, Oregon 
Secretary-Treasurer 


Frorence Curtis Hanson, Chicago Women No. 3; 506 South 
Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois—Telephone Harrison 2950. 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
OrcaNnizep Apam 15, 1916 
Affiliated With the American Federation of Labor 


TWIN CITY NUMBER 
This number of THE AMERICAN TEACHER is 
issued as the Twin City number. Material for it was 
collected by a Joint Committee, representing Local 
28, St. Paul, Local 59, Minneapolis, and Local 43, 
St. Paul. The special numbers of THE AMERICAN 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





TEACHER to follow will be the Southern Number in 
March, the Pacific Coast Number in April, and the 
Chicago Number in May. 





TENURE OF OFFICE FOR TEACHERS IN 
TENNESSEE 

A bill for teacher tenure has been prepared to be 
presented to the General Assembly of Tennessee now 
in session. The proposed bill will provide that teach- 
ers can not be dismissed from their positions by a 
city or county superintendent and school board until 
after the charges are preferred in writing. The 
teacher will have the right to make defense against 
the charges, employing an attorney if necessary. 

It is anticipated that this measure will be passed 
by the General Assembly without serious opposition. 
A sound Tenure-of-Office Act will mean not only 
greater freedom and self-respect for teachers, but 
also better schools. Tenure is not merely an eco- 
nomic ‘necessity to give a feeling of security of live- 
lihood, but a spiritual necessity if the schools are to 
be a dependable factor in the welfare of the nation. 
“If thé “schools are to produce free, unafraid men 
and women, American citizens of the highest type, 
the teachers must‘ive'and work in an atmosphere of 
freedom and self-respect.” ‘Tenure is the first requi- 
site if the teachers are to do the job which America 
has set for its schools, which is ‘not alone to teach 
reading and writing, but to perpetuate the demo- 
cratic form of government,” to develop American 
citizens who shall have rich intellectual and ae 
lives. 

When Tennessee has passed its Tenure Law, it ¢ will 
have taken the first long step toward making teach- 
ing a profession. 





TEACHERS’ SALARIES ARE LOW 

“Salaries of teachers in the higher branches of 
learning are inadequate,” speakers of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science conven- 
tion, declared at a recent meeting of this body. 

A survey of 302 cuileges of arts, literature and 
science showed that the average salary for the yeat 
1926-1927 was $2,958. 

Sad, but true, the salaries of the teachers in out 
colleges and our schools, as well, are low; so low 
in fact, that it is a wonder that our colleges and 
schools can induce men and women of learning t 
continue in this calling. 

A comparison in the salaries paid our teachers, 


both those in the schools and those of the higher 











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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 7 


colleges, with the wages paid in other professions, 
will show that the teacher, with his many years of 
training and study, is receiving less money. 
Believing that the laborer is worthy of his hire, 
and that all who work, whether it be in the factory, 
mine, workshop or school room, should be paid for 
services rendered, The Advocate suggests that the 
teachers in our colleges and schools are entitled to 
better salaries than they are now receiving. 
However, the first aid in relieving this unfortu- 
nate situation does not lie with the friends of the 
teachers, it is a matter for the teachers themselves 
to begin. Organization is the hope of the teachers, 
just as it is for the workers. Without organization 
and collective bargaining the teachers of the country 
can well count on being underpaid forever, as his- 
tory has proven that nothing can be gained by indi- 
vidual effort that will benefit the classes as a whole. 
The teachers in our schools and colleges should 
awake. They are intelligent and should realize that 
if their wages, or salaries if you choose to call them 
that, are to be raised to the standard and increased 
in proportion to the services they render, it will 
have to be through their own efforts. and - with 
the assistance of the organization of school teachers, 
an affiliation of the American Federation of Labor. 
A thoroughly organized teaching body in our 
schools and colleges would be in a position to demand 
and would receive salaries in keeping with the profes- 
sion—an unorganized teaching body will continue 


to be the lowest paid class of intellectuals in the~ 


country. The choice must be with the teachers.— 
Nashville Labor Advocate. 





HOW GOOD ARE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS? 

Helen Taft Manning, dean of Bryn Mawr College, 
makes a plea for the supernormal in an article in 
McCall’s Magazine entitled “How Good are our Pub- 
lic Schools?” She says: 

“When the National Education Association, which 
represents the public school teachers and superintend- 
ants from all parts of the cowntry, met in Boston a 
little while ago, the newspapers devoted most of their 
attention to the fact that Mrs. Lindbergh flew across 
part of the continent to attend the meeting. While all 
American women must have been interested in this 
reminder that the spirit of adventure is not confined 
to the masculine side of her eminent family, it is 
Worth noting that the object which attracted her 
to this meeting was the perennial question of the pub- 
lic schools, 


“The most notable speech made before the Associa- 
tion was that in which President Lowell of Harvard 
University contended that our public schools were 
far behind the schools of Europe in the speed and 
efficiency with which they prepared students for col- 
lege. Boys and girls who enter our universities today, 
according to Mr. Lowell, are not really prepared to 
do college work at all, and almost two. years must be 
spent in college classrooms over work which is usually 
accomplished by the preparatory schools, public and 
private, in Europe. Well and good then, he concluded, 
the colleges can do this if they must, but let the 
schools at least speed up the work they do now and 
try to send their graduates to college at seventeen or 
eighteen instead of holding them back until they are 
nineteen or twenty as at present. 

_ “Naturally, President Lowell’s remarks did not es- 
Cape severe criticism. In many points the accuracy of 
this statement of the situation was disputed, but sev- 
eral of the leaders in the Association went further and 
challenged the very assumption that our public schools 
should be judged on their ability or inability to pre- 
pare for college. Since the public schools of America 
are required to educate the entire youth of the coun- 
try, only a small fraction of which will ever attend 
college, is not the problem of higher education a-negli- 
gible one in our educational situation as a whole? 
Many of the later speakers at this Boston meeting 
urged that the high schools should break even more 
completely with the colleges, and should refuse to 
shape their courses to meet the college requirements. 


“Certainly Mr. Lowell’s criticism is narrow in its 
scope and there are many other points of view than 
that of college preparation from. which our public 
school system should be considered. Yet I think that 
his speech raises a vital question for any democracy 
to face. Whether or not'boys and girls are to be pre- 
pared for college, it is certain that the kind of educa- 
tion given ought not to be adapted to the lowest levels 
of intelligence among the pupils. If the duller and 
slower children in any large group set the pace for 
the brighter ones, it means that the more promising 
members of the rising generation instead of learning 
to work hard and go ahead for themselves, will be 
encouraged to take things easy and waste their time— 
an unhealthy viewpoint. 

“Tt is not so much the goal of the schools. whether 
that be preparation for college or for a trade, as the 
leisurely pace set in making for it, that is open to 


criticism. Slow minds and slow fingers have to be 


trained as well as nimble ones, and no doubt there 











3 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


are more of the former for the schools to handle. But 
as the slower pace is actually bad for the abler pupils 
in any subject, we shall have to come to some method 
of reclassification by which the better students can 
be pushed ahead. Already there are a few special 
classes for the ‘backward’ children. But we are less 
willing to recognize the excepticnally quick ones, in 
part, because they themselves soon learn and in time 
may actually prefer to travel at the slower pace. Our 


school system will never really meet needs of the 


country until it searches out in every class the boys 
and girls who might be racing ahead, for they should 
be the ones to set the pace and fix the standard of 
achievement for. their own generation. ‘We must,’ 
says Mr. Abraham Flexner of the General Education 
Board, ‘have done with the idea that boys and girls 
will be mental prigs or physical wrecks if their super- 
ior endowment is utilized. Assuredly a nation of a 
hundred million will not make its proper contribution 
to civilization, unless excellence is esteemed and en- 


abled to play its proper part.’ ” 





THESIS ON THE AMERICAN FEDERATION 
OF TEACHERS 

Special attention is called to the notice of the pub- 
lication of the thesis of Mr. J. M. Graybiel, of San 
Francisco, on the American Federation of Teachers. 
Mr. Graybiel is a member: of San Francisco Local 61 
and has written a thesis favorable to our Federation. 
The very fact that such a thesis could pass through 
the university in spite of definite opposition deserves 
recognition. 

Mr. E. J. Duprey, secretary of the Pacific Coast 
Teachers Publishing Company, and co-editor of the 
Public School Journal, is also a member of Local 61 
and a former vice-president of the National. 

It is hoped that the membership at large will sup- 
port the publishing of this thesis. Locals are urged 
to place orders for their members. 





INVICTUS 
Better to fall in daring 
The sunlit heights to scale, 
Than to rest in the valleys 
And smile at those who fail. 


Better to fall in striving 
The summit to attain, ~ 
Than to dwell securely and 
Be unaware of pain. 
—Mary Dixon Thayer. 


SECRETARY HANSON VISITS ATLANTA 


Locals 89 and 183 have been very fortunate in 
having a visit from Mrs. Florence C. Hanson, the 
beloved and efficient Secretary of the American 
Federation of Teachers. As Mrs. Hanson was the 
delegate from the A. F. of T. to the convention of 
the American Federation of Labor in New Orleans 
in November, Local 89 invited her to make Atlanta 
her headquarters between visits to the various south- 
ern cities where she planned to make visits in the 
interest of the A. F. of T. Mrs. Hanson arrived in 
Atlanta on Thanksgiving day and was able to give 
the Atlanta locals about ten days visit during which 
she was the guest of Local 89 at the Georgian Ter- 
race Hotel. . 


On Saturday, December Ist, Mrs. Hanson was the 
guest of honor at a luncheon given by the Execu- 
tive Committee of Local 89 at the Henry Grady 
Hotel. The purpose of this luncheon was to give the 
members of the Executive Committee of Local 89 
the opportunity of meeting Mrs. Hanson and to 
discuss with her the plans for her organization cam- 
paign in the south. While several members were 
out of the city for the Thanksgiving holidays Miss 
Mary C. Barker, President of the A. F. of T., Mr. 
Ed. L. Sutton, formerly Vice President of the A. F. 
of T., and ten members of Local 89 were present to 
welcome Mrs. Hanson officially to the city. 

On the following Monday’Mrs. Hanson made an 
address at the regular general meeting of Local 89 
and was heard by a representative group from Locals 
89 and 183. Mrs. Hanson made a splendid outline 
of the program and policies of the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers which made the local members 
feel much closer to the National since they had 
gained information which they had desired. Mrs. 
Hanson complimented the Atlanta and Fulton Coun- 
ty Locals on their work and progress and stated that 
the situation here was one of her best talking points 
in trying to convince unorganized teachers of the 
advantages which teachers could gain through affili- 
ation with the A. F. of T. and with Organized La- 
bor. At this meeting it was unanimously voted to 
send Mr. W. J. Scott to Savannah to assist Mrs. 
Hanson in her efforts to organize a local there. 

On Friday night, December 7th, Mrs. Hanson 
was guest of honor and principal speaker at a ban- 
quet at Rich’s Tea Room sponsored by Local 89 


Among the invited guests were Miss Mary C. Barker, 
President, and W. J. Scott, Vice President of the 





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A. F. of T., Mr. George W. Powell, President of the 
Board of Education, Mesdames West and Nelson and 
Messrs. Gaines and Maddox and Dr. Burns, of the 
Board of Education, Dr. Willis A. Sutton, Superin- 
tendent of Schools, and Assistant Superintendents 
R. R. Ritchie, H. Reid Hunter, and Mary W. Pos- 
tell, Mr. Carl Karston, of the Atlanta Federation of 
Trades, Mrs. H. G. Parks, President of the Atlanta 


P. T. A. Council and Mrs, Lloyd, President of the 


Fifth District of Georgia P. T. A. Council. There 
were present also a large number of Atlanta and 
Fulton County teachers, 


Addresses of welcome were made by Dr. Sutton, 
Mr. Karston, Mr. Powell, Mr. Gaines, Mrs. Parks, 
Mrs. Lloyd, and Mr. W. F. Dykes, President of Local 
183. All of the speakers gave Mrs. Hanson a most 
cordial welcome on behalf of their various organiza- 
tions and each stressed the very valuable results 
which have come to Atlanta’s educational system as 
the results of the affiliation of the teachers with the 
American Federation of Teachers. All of the speak- 
ers stressed the spirit of harmony which prevails in 
Atlanta between the administrative forces and the 
teachers and Mr. Powell expressed the unanimous 
opinion that Mrs. Hanson represented the “greatest 
organization in the entire nation.” 

After the addresses of welcome Toastmaster Bar- 
ron, President of Local 89, called on Miss Barker to 
introduce the speaker of the evening. Miss Barker 
stated ‘‘that office confers no honor on any person 
but will disgrace anyone unqualified for the post.” 
In presenting Mrs. Hanson she reviewed her activi- 
ties as Secretary-Treasurer of the national and stated 
that she knew of no one who could better represent 
the traditions and ideals of the American Federation 
of Teachers, 


After expressing her appreciation for the cordial 
reception which she had received in Atlanta Mrs. 
Hanson made a masterful address in which she re- 
viewed the evils of the American educational system 
and pointed out the fact that the enly hopes for the 
correction of these evils rests in the hands of - the 
teachers. Mrs. Hanson pointed out how the Ameri- 
can Federation of Teachers had been organized as 
a protest against abuses of power by administrators 
and as an effort on the part. of the classroom 
teacher to correct the evils of our educational sys- 
tem. She gave a splendid outline of the social pro- 
gram of the American Labor movement and pointed 
Out that it was the only recourse for the teachers 






9 


since Organized Labor is the only body interested 
in the protection of the schools from exploitation 
by special interests and for the protection of the 
teacher in her economic, social and political rights. 
All present were enthused by this splendid and ring- 
ing message, and the only regret expressed was that 
every teacher in the two systems had not been able 
to hear this inspiring address. 

Mrs. Hanson was invited to address the regular 
meeting of the Directors of Local 183 on Monday 
afternoon before she left the city for Augusta and 
Savannah. She was given a most enthusiastic recep- 
tion and heard a report of the splendid results in 
the membership drive which has brought ninety-five 
per cent of the Fulton County teachers into the local. 
Much interest was-shown in the National and a lib- 
eral subscription was made to the organization fund. 
Tc is the general opinion of all who heard Mrs. Han- 
son that her visit had done both locals much good 
in bringing the membership into closer touch with 
the National and in giving the membership a clearer 
conception of the purposes and policies of the Ameri-. 
can Federation of Teachers. J. P. Barron. 





— 


AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST | 

The official’ magazine of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor, The American Federationist reported 
excellent progress both financially and educationally 
to the New Orleans convention. This magazine has 
an outstanding position among the labor magazines 
of the world and is widely quoted by publications 
in the United States and foreign countries. It has 
been used as a text book in colleges and universities 
and by trade union study groups. 

The New Orleans Conyention adopted the follow- 
ing recommendation with respect to The American 
Federationist: 

“It is recommended that every officer of national 
and local organizations, who has not already sub- 
scribed, subscribe to and read The American Federa- 
tionist, and urge their membership to subscribe and 
read this magazine. It is especially recommended 
that editors of labor papers make full use of the 
current articles for publication in their papers and 
for suitable comment, It is also recommended that 
all local bodies endeavor to see that, The American 
Federationist is placed in the public and school 
libraries of their localities, where it will serve an 
important purpose in educating students and the 
general public in our trade union movement.” 











































10 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Conditioning the 


Physicians and psychologists, these days, are talk- 
ing about the “drives” of personality which regulate 
our well-being. Aged people, a doctor tells me, do not 
recover easily from influenza because they do not 
feel the “drive” to live. A child who did not talk 
until he was seven years old, a psychologist explains, 
lacked the emotional “drive” necessary to express 
himself. The dynamics of personality are explained 
in part by the functionings of the ductless glands; 
in part, however, they are explained by environment. 
It is to this latter explanation in relation to teachers 
that I would direct your attention. 

Every teacher feels the ebb and flow of energy 
which makes the same task at times seem arduous, 
at other times, easy. We all know the evanescent 
quality of enthusiasm which makes it impossible to 
be controlled by the will. Much of our enthusiasm 
for our work, however, lies in our relationships with 
other people. Try as hard as we will, we can not 
remain very long indifferent to our relationships 
with supervisor or colleague. For a very brief time 
only, may we feel satisfied within the cloister of 
our own mind. 

Perhaps you have witnessed among a group of 
teachers the change in quality of work that followed 
a change of supervisor. You are doubtless aware of 
the effect which a transfer of a single teacher may 
have upon the morale of a department. We have all 
seen a rather obscure teacher suddenly burst into 
prominence because someone was able to “bring her 
out.” All of these influences of personality upon per- 
sonality are not peculiar to teachers; they are pecu- 
liar to human nature itself. It is a phase of teacher- 
relationship, however, about which too little is said. 
And yet it represents a major problem. 

A. distinguished visitor from out-of-town spent 
the day at a prominent city high school. At the end 
of his visit he commented to the principal favorably 
on certain observations he had made. His words of 
praise were passed on to the members of the faculty, 
but only after they had been diluted into terms of 
general approval. No specific teacher was referred 
to; no particular teaching skill.was called attention 
to. Only words of general praise for the school as 
a whole were deemed appropriate for repetition. In 
other words the whole faculty was allowed to share 
in the praise that belonged to a few. In such a way 
was the esprit de corps of the school maintained. 

One of the most serious deterrents to teacher-en- 








Superior Teacher 

thusiasm today is this idealization of the abstract 
teacher and neglect’ of the individual teacher. Our 
professional magazines and superintendents’ bulletins 


all join in this substitution of sentimental generalities 


for specific recognition. To single out a particular 
teacher and admit either in writing or before wit- 
nesses that that individual has contributed an out- 
standing piece of work is a breach of administrative 
etiquette. Something of the attitude of the employer 
who fears to cause dissension among his workers 
seems to have produced this cautious administrative 
mind. He must praise all or none, else who knows 
what havoc jealousy may create. 

Undoubtedly much, if not most, of the blame for 
this attitude lies with the teachers themselves. There 
is something in the temper of American teachers 
today that makes them fear the superior teacher. 
Dealing constantly with minds which they can con- 
trol with ease, theré is the ever-present danger that 
they become resentful of all but inferior minds. ‘True, 
in the conventional routine of organization, teachers 
are willing enough to accept authority of principal 


or supervisor; but among themselves they admit no . 


superiors. Unhappy, indeed, is the teacher who dares 
to aspire to superior achievement outside of admin- 
istrative position. 

In what way does this sentimental blurb about «¢ 
teacher instead ot the teacher affect the rank and file 
of the profession? Doubtless many teachers are far 
better satisfied with this comforting doctrine of “us 


all.” It is possible, though, that we are erring in the. 


same way we have erred in our classrooms, protect- 
ing the weak pupil at the expense of the superior 
pupil. Some day education must reckon with the 
superior teacher who does not aspire to~ become an 
administrator. If we are not careful this intellectual 
timidity with which teachers are afflicted will devi- 
talize the whole teaching profession. Real professional 
enthusiasm will be smothered in sentimental catch- 
phrases about “‘service to the school.” To preserve 
one’s intellectual identity right now brings only the 
reputation for a bad temper. 

The influence most corroding to teacher-enthusi- 
asm is the subtle cynicism which besets: the teachet- 
mind as she watches the procession of mediocre minds 
exalted to high positions. This is not a sulky retort 
of a disappointed candidate, let me hasten to add. 
For the blame here lies, also, with the teachers them- 


selves. It takes a wise man to discover a wise man— 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER il 


William James said as much—and the intellectual: 


calibre of any teaching body may be measured by the 
quality of its leadership. When we exalt small minds 
to high places deterioration sets in. When teachers 
remark cynically at lunch time “Qualifications are 
but a handicap,” or “If he had any ideas he wouldn’t 
last two weeks,”—the situation is far more serious 
than a few disgruntled teachers. 

One of the causes of our present state of mind in 
regard to teacher-superiority is the perverted empha- 
sis upon character. Somehow or‘ other the idea has 
gotten about that intellect doesn’t count. Teachers 
trained in academic subjects think, rather absurdly 
to be sure, that the value of mathematics lies chiefly 
in the social contacts which a class in geometry pro- 
vides; or the values of history, in the opportunities 
it provides for character training. Quite a popular 
theme for convention programs is education for citi- 
zenship. Will no one organize a national convention 
to discuss the “moral obligation of being intelligent” 
—to borrow a phrase from a popular lecturer whose 
name eludes me? Will no national organ point out 
the fact that intellectual discernment must precede 
character training? How long shall we coritinue to 
apologize for the intellectual activities of a school? 

Teachers themselves, let me repeat, don’t seem 
quite sure in their minds about the value of intelli- 
gence. They distrust the I. Q. with all the suspicion 
which a Hottentot might display toward a movin;; 
picture machine. They seem to hope against hope 


that all efforts to measure intelligence will fail, or 

that in the final check-yp it will be disclosed that 

intelligence doesn’t matter very much anyway, 
And yet Terman in his book Measuring Intelli- 


. gence. places a high decree of. correlation. between 


intelligence and moral behavior. Not all social dere- 
licts are persons of low I. Q.—there are other reasons 
for moral delinquency than low intelligence—but all 
persons of low I. Q. are potentially immoral. One has 
to be capable of perceiving moral values before he 
can behave morally. Our whole educational system 
places too low an emphasis upon the grasp of moral 
distinctions: Teachers not only distrust intelligence 
in the classroom; they distrust it among themselves. 

The effect of this distrust of intelligence is a great 
deal of energy wasted—wasted in the compromises 
which timid minds demand of the thinker. How 
many subterfuges are invented in order that a pro- 
gressive teacher may pursue, unmolested, her teach- 
ing genius! 

The virility of the teaching profession is threat- 
ened by these tendencies. Only when teachers dare 
to demand of themselves the highest intellectual 
attainment; only when they can learn to respect a 
mind better than their own within their own ranks; 
only when they demand men and women of ideas 
for their leaders—only then will the teaching ranks 
be a place in which a superior mind can function 
with maximum efficiency. 

LuELLA B, Cook. 





The Child Guidance 


It is the Monday morning after the Easter vaca- 
tion, and Mrs. Turner in Room 400 of one of the 
city’s high schools is reading the notices to her ad- 
visory group and is taking the attendance. When 
she comes to Rosy Dukas’s seat and finds it vacant, 
a worried pucker appears on her brow, and conster- 
nation fills her heart. As soon as she can leave her 
group, she hastens to find the home visitor who says, 
“Why the worried look?” 

“Where’s my Rosy?” exclaimed Mrs. Turner, “she 
is absent today, and I fear some mischief during her 
vacation.” 

“Well,” replies Mrs. Jones, “your Rosy is in the 
hands of the Juvenile Court again, She was caught 
Saturday taking a ring from Smith’s department 


_ Store, and since this is her third offense, I am afraid 


Clinic of Minneapolis 


she will be sent to the girls’ reformatory. Now, why 
don’t you take her into, your home and keep her for 
the six months’ probation period if the judge will 
put her on probation?” 

Mrs. Turner asks for a few hours to deliberate, for 
what will she do with a sixteen-year-old girl with 
such kleptomaniac tendencies! 

She is almost certain that Rosy, when she appears 
before the Juvenile Court Judge, will be sent to the 
reformatory. She knows her history; the daughter 
of Russian peasants, orphaned at seven and raised in 
an asylum. At sixteen she is sent from the orphan 
asylum to the home of a married sister who lacks the 
funds to give Rosy the pretty things she desires and — 
the will-power to correct her bad tendencies. Finally 
Mrs. Turner agrees to take the girl and to do all that 
she can with the aid of- the Child Guidance Clinic 








LECT G CT I eo ee 


12 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


(an innovation at that time at the University of 
Minnesota). : 
Try DELINQUENCY CURE : 
Accordingly at ten .o’clock on Tuesday, Mrs. 
Turner and her wayward advisee appear at the Court 
room where they are met by Mrs. Jones and Miss 
White, one of the psychiatric workers of the clinic, 
who feels certain that the psychiatrist can cure her 
of her delinquent tendencies if she can be put in 
charge of an understanding woman who will: work 
with the clinic. 
The next scene is the Court room where Rose 
Dukas is called before the judge. Rosy pleads guilty, 
acknowledging that it is her third offense. Mrs. 
Turner thereapon asks the Court’s permission to take 
Rosy into her home and under. her care for six 
months during which time she will report bi-weekly 
to the court and will visit the Child Guidance Clinic. 
The Judge consents to the plan, commending the 


teacher who will do so much for one of her pupils. 


Of course Rosy is a trial, but Mrs. Turner perse- 
veres and with suggestions from the psychiatrist she 
helps the girl to feel that the adornment of the soul 
and the mind is vastly more important than the 
adornment of the body. Rosy is made one of the 
family at her teacher’s home; she is broken entirely 
‘of her bad habits, and, at the end of the following 
year is graduated from the commercial department 
of the high school and enters a business office where 
she still is working. She has become a steady, depen- 
dable member of society. 


THe Case oF Mary 

Another case of Mary comes to the attention of 
Mrs. Turner. At the Child Guidance Clinic she 
meets Mary, a senior from another high school, who 
with wild eyes is awaiting a conference with the 
psychiatrist. (Later she is told the cause of Mary’s 
visit and although the case is authentic, the names 
are not.) Mary has expected to be offered the honor 
pin at her high school and when it is awarded to 
another member of her class, she runs amuck. She 
believes that one of the teachers is her father who 
disappeared when she was a baby, she believes she 
should have been awarded the honor badge, she be- 
lieves that every one in school is against her. With 
tact the home visitor has her accompany her to the 
Child Guidance Clinic where’ she is given a four-fold 


examination: physical, psychological, psychiatric and 


social. If the case had been referred to specialists 
ten years previously, certainly she would have been 
adjudged insane and in a psychopathic hospital would 


certainly have lost her reason. Today the physician, the 
psychologist and the psychiatrist decide that the de- 
lusions can be cleared away. She is excused from 
school six weeks before graduation to take a job, 
Mary is very punctual in reporting to the Clinic and 
finally is discharged from the Clinic cured. She re- 
ceived her diploma with her class, is a self-supporting 
member of society, is contented at her job, and has 
a certain degree of poise; whereas if she had not been 
fortunate enough to have been treated by a psychia- 
trist, she would probably have been a state charge for 
the rest of her life. - 


“UNASSIMILATED” PARENTS | 

Edward is a chap about whom Mrs. Turner learned 
in her many visits to the Clinic. Edward was the 
son of foreign immigrants who preserved the home 
life and habits of their native country. They just 
would not assimilate American ways at all. His 
father, suspicious of American ways, was sullen and 
morose; the mother was delicate and sickly; their 
home was a dilapidated house of two rooms. This 
home life was almost unbearable to Edward. At 
school Edward was bright and happy. Now it is 
time to graduate,:and he suddenly fails in all of his 
work. The school authorities can not understand his 
case. Finally the psychiatrist is visited, and he learns 
that Edward imagines that he is so ugly that people 
avoid him on the street, that they regurgitate their 


‘food at sight of him. He goes out only at night, 


avoiding all contact with people. He finds a night 
job and works like a Trojan to expiate some imagin- 
ary wrong, and his school work fails as a result. 
When the psychiatrist diagnoses his case, he finds that 
Edward was once initiated by some men in a railroad 
shop where he worked one summer. They rubbed 
his face full of grease, then rubbed into that some 
cinders, Later he saw his mother lying ill in the 
hospital on a fine white bed, such as he had never 
before seen. Then, too, he was leaving school, and 
the teachers, always good to him, had been his 
best friends. He just could not stand this separa- 
tion and loss and the result was his mental break. 
He imagined himself ugly since his initiation into 
the group of workmen, for some cinders remain in 
his skin today. He imagined that his mother must 
expiate some evil for which he was responsible by 


suffering in a hospital (to him the white bed became ~ 


a bier), and he could not stand the shock of his 
break with his beloved teachers. By the help of the 
Clinic he is now graduated, has a good job with an 
electrical concern where he has in one year ear 





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three promotions, is happy and contented, and as 
often as possible goes back as an alumnus to his high 
school to visit the principal and his teachers. 

Orner Cities MIGHT PROFIT 

Mrs. Turner, feeling that others in the United 
States might be interested in the history of the Child 
Guidance Clinic of Minneapolis has told me this 
story. Scores of children, parents and teachers have 
received such intelligent aid that the story is here 
related of the inception and development of the 
clinic with the idea that similar mental hygiene 
clinics may be established in other cities. 

In 1922 the directors of the Commonwealth Fund 
of New York sent a representative to Minneapolis 
at the invitation of the attendance department of 
the Board of Education with a view of establishing 
there a demonstration child guidance clinic for one 
year, at the end of which time the city social agencies 
and the Board of Education were to continue the 
clinic. The research workers of the Board of Edu- 
cation had been studying for years the cause of juve- 
nile delinquency and welcomed the opportunity to do 
scientific research with a psychiatrist. The demon- 
stration clinic under Dr. Lawson Lowry and _ his 
workers was established at the University of Min- 
nesota where it could be accessible to research work- 
ers of both St. Paul and Minneapolis. 

The Council of Social Agencies, the Board of Pub- 
lic Welfare, and the Juvenile Court as well as the 
Board of Education welcomed such an opportunity 
to study mental hygiene, behavior problems and 
causes of juvenile delinquency. The year was a very 
successful and hélpful one. The directors of the 
Wilder Charities of St. Paul then established a clinic 
in their city. In Minneapolis it was at first thought 
advisable to establish a similar clinic under the aus- 
pices of two members from each of the four inter- 


"ested groups. Finally the City Council decided to 


place the administration entirely in the hands of the 
Board of Education paying for it from the funds of 
that group. It was open to all children regardless of 
which social agency in the city should recommend 
the child. In 1924 Dr. Smiley Blanton and a corps 
of assistants including a psychologist established a 
clinic at Lymanhurst Hospital. Smith College from 
the very outset has ised this clinic as a training 
center for its psychiatric studies and has sent two 
students each year to the clinic. In 1927 Dr. Blan- 
ton was called to Vassar College: Dr. Herbert E. 
Chamberlain of New York City is his successor and 
Present psychiatrist at the clinic. ; 


a ey i QR ee 




















































THE AMERICAN TEACHER BS) 


Minneapolis is the first city in the United States 
to establish a Child Guidance Clinic administered 
and paid for by the Board of Education. Newark, 
N. J., has a similar clinic but with certain restric- 
tions as to whom it may treat. The clinic at Min- 
neapolis has no restrictions whatever, serving chil- 
dren, parents, teachers and principals. The children 
in special classes, regardless of their I. Q., may be 
brought for treatment. to the Child Guidance Clinic 
at Minneapolis. 

Now a word as to the objectives. One psychia- 
trist has said: “Mental hygiene teaches how to help 
the child to adjust psychologically to his environ- 
ment; it teaches how to help him to understand 
those emotional forces which make for success or 
failure. After physical hygiene has secured for the 
child a healthy physical routine, it is the function of 
mental hygiene to secure for him a healthy emotional 
life—to see that he is able to adjust to people and to 
develop in such a way as to make the most of his 
psychological and emotional possibilities. The sensi- 
tive child, the anxious, moody, timid, egocentric, 
morbidly suggestive, seclusive, sullen, “bumptious” 
child is suffering from several handicaps. Many 


‘children fail in school because, through inhibitions, 


their intellectual and emotional possibilities are not 
brought out to the fullest or because they are try- 
ing to do something they are not fitted for. Mental 
hygiene holds out’ a helping hand to these cases. 
Hence mental hygiene teaches emotional poise and 
that understanding which is necessary if children 
are to make the most of their intellectual possibilities. 
The Child Guidance Clinic is not a clinic where a 
few children suffering from serious difficulties are 
brought for examination and treatment. Its aim is 
to held all children gain an emotional poise.” * 


The results of the treatments of the Child Guid- 
ance Clinic cannot be measured so remarkable and 
marvelous are the results. Many a parent and many 
a teacher feels that it is eminently worth while if 
in a year but a single child is saved from a psycho- 
pathic hospital. People from all over the world who 
recognize the importance of this undertaking have 
come to Minneapolis to observe the work of the 
clinic. The Child Guidance Clinic which started as 
an experiment has now become a recognized part of 
the Minneapolis educational system. 

Auice Fitz GeraLp DrecusLer. 


(*Smiley Blaton, M. D., in the Parent-Teacher Broadcaster 
for May, 1925.) 










Salaries 
Not long ago there appeared in a national maga- 


zine, an article by a California professor in: which he: 


- bewailed the low salaries paid teachers, called atten- 
tion to what he considered high returns for labor 
and business people, and pleaded with these two 
groups to give the teachers more money. The pro- 
fessor overlooked two things: human nature and 
business methods. It is too much to expect of human 
nature that people will spend their spare time trying 
to raise teachers’ salaries without effort on the part 
of teachers. Or to turn it-round, who ever heard 
of teachers using their leisure hours to raise the 
income, say, of lawyers or grocers?- Also, business 
and labor men are aware that if they are to earn 
more, they must spend more. + 

During the past year St. Paul teachers seem to 
have proved that they have learned these important 
facts some time in the past.’ Considerably over a 
year ago a Joint Salary Committee of the two Fed- 
erations and the Principals’ Club was formed. A col- 
lection from all teachers was.taken up-later to defray 
the expenses of a salary campaign. The usual studies 
of the local situation, surveys of other cities, and 
collection of statistics, were made. The services of 
an authority on city hall money matters were en- 
gaged. Co-operation of the parent-teacher associa- 
tions, the labor groups, and newspapers was sought 
and obtained. Without the help of each of these fac- 
tors success would have been doubtful. The Joint 
Salary Committee worked day and night, but mostly 
nights, as the members had their daily work to do. 
The hardest part of the job was to find the money 
for an increase; asking for it was easy enough. The 
committee’s efforts met with success when late in 
August the City Council voted the necessary sum 
into the budget upon the formal request of the Com- 
missioner of Education and with the approval of the 
City Comptroller. 

The raise became effective as of January 1, 1929. 
It is small but it was all there was to be had. It will 
be helpful in many ways, not the least of these being 
that it has again shown teachers how much more 
profitable it is for them to take the lead in their 
affairs than it is to wait upon the efforts of others. 


The School Program 
The Federation of Women Teachers has been mak- 
ing a little study of the time spent by teachers, in 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Out St. Paul Way ~ 


a five-hour school day, in caring for matters which 
laymen, and many teachers, do not take into account 
in summing up what-actually makes a day’s program. 

During the spring of 1928, blanks were prepared 
for the recording of special activities and twenty 
carefully selected teachers asked to do the- work, 
Not quite all responded. Yet in twenty school: days, 
they totaled five hours, equivalent to oné school day, 
in time given'to more than twenty unscheduled mat- 
ters, including such things as clerical work; health 
supervision, weighing, nurses’ Visits, inspections of 
various kinds; the borrowing and loaning of school 
material between rooms; banking; book sales; and 
ticket sales for school affairs and benefits. 

The study is being repeated at the present time 
as a check on last year’s report. No attempt has been 
made by the Federation’ to evaluate these additions 
to a day’s program. It believes that many of them 
are probably a part of it. It believes, also, that 
through it, ground work may be laid for some revi- 
sions of the program to the undoubted benefit of the 
children, and an opportunity for teachers to devote 
more time to what might be considered their real 
work. 

The Federations Broadcast 

An interesting program was broadcast over KSTP, 
St. Paul, in December, by the two Federations. 

The introduction to the hour was given by Miss 
Florence Rood, vice president of the American: Fed- 
eration of Teachers. Among other things she briefly 
outlined to the radio audience the aims of the national 
organization and some of the recent achievements 
of the two locals. 

The musical numbers included a group of songs 
by Miss Irma Meili, of Central High School, selected 
from a book of Kindergarten songs composed by 
Miss Meta Siebold, a St. Paul teacher. An adult stu- 
dent at the Vocational School, Frank Schiltz, offered 
a number of folk dances on the accordion. . Mr. Schiltz 
had the experience of speaking German at home, 
Bulgarian in school before the World War, and Ser- 
bian. after, and English after his arrival in this coun- 
try. His musical numbers reflected his acquaintance 


with the folk music of three European nations. The _ 


final musical numbers were given by F. C. Brensike 
and C. G. McMann, members of the Men’s Federation. 
A. C. Anderson, also of the Men’s Federation, im- 


personating the chairman of the Parent-Teacher 


= 
ra 



















THE AMERICAN TEACHER 15 


Association of “Chilly Prairie, Minnesota,” conducted 
the meeting with pleasure to His radio audience. The 
performers of the evening failing to appear, he was 
obliged to furnish the entertainment also, which he 
did by reciting poems from a little book, The Norsk 
Nightingale, an effort to preserve quaint lumber- 
jack dialect of the woods of northern Minnesota and 
Wisconsin, — 

The program was well received and members and 
friends of the Federations are urging another broad- 
cast. 


Two Years’ Experience Wi ith Tenure 


For many years in St. Paul women teachers who 
married accepted without question loss of position as 
a consequence. So far as is known there existed no 

‘ rule of the Department of Education or other legal 
provision covering the point. 

The Federation of Women Teachers has an early 
record of opposition to the practice on the ground 
that it was a discrimination, and of greater import- 
ance, that it deprived the schools of many excellent 
teachers. No teacher so affected, however, could ‘be 
found to make a stand against such dismissal and 
the Federation could only let ‘it3“Httion be a matter 
of record. 


Whether or not the committee which secured the 
vpassage of the Tenure Law was aware that the 
removal of this matrimonial bar would be a conse- 
quence of the law is not known. The committee has 
made no statement. As a matter of fact, a number 
of women teachers Kave married within the past year 
and are continuing in the schools without comment. 

Lest there should be those who question the im- 
portance of this result of tenure, attention should be 
drawn to the enormous amounts of tax money tied 
up in normal school buildings and their equipment, 
the cost ef educating and training teachers, and, in 
the removal of teachers from the schools into other 
lines of activities, a loss on its investment to the state. 

Qualification, training, and successful experience, 
should be the determining factors in the retention of 
teachers in the schools, not such artificial limitations 
as marriage. 

Personals 

Antoinette Ford, teacher in Mechanic Arts High 
School, is the author of a new book, My Minnesota. 
Some years ago Miss Ford prepared and presented to 
the Grade Teachers’ Federation of this city an out- 
line for the teaching of the geography of Minnesota 
as required in the grades. This was published by the 


Federation and sold for a small sum. So valuable was 
it found to be and so extensively was it used through- 
out the state that demands for it were made long 
after the supply was exhausted. It became evident 
that there was a need for a book wider in scope than 
the pamphlet had been, so Miss Ford, urged by the 
school librarian and a representative of the State 
Department of Education, undertook the work which 
resulted in the publication of My Minnesota. 


While the desire to arouse interest in Minnesota 
and an appreciation of the state was the underlying 
motive, it has been carefully combined with the 
effort to supply absolutely reliable information. The 
book has a double purpose, It may be used as a text 
and also to furnish general information of a recrea- 
tional nature, not only to teachers and children bur 
to all who are interested in Minnesota. 


Frederick C. Miller, long known to students and 
citizens of St. Paul as a geologist, lecturer, and 
writer, has recently published a book, St. Paul, Loca- 
tion, Development, Opportunities, primarily for use 
in the schools. The purpose of the book is to interest 
and inform students first, in the geologic background 
of ‘the city, then its historical development, and to 
create in them a desire, as future citizens, to assist 
in bringing into realization, the promise for true 
greatness which lies in the city. Mr. Miller is now at 
work on a similar book for the city of Omaha. 


Ralph E. Smalley, stage director and teacher of 
architectural drawing at Mechanic Arts High School, 
is doing unusual and very interesting work. Mr. 
Smalley’s vocation ahd avocation dovetail to a nicety 
so that one can scarcely be mentioned without the 
other. Besides classes in architectural drawing Mr. 
Smalley conducts a class in stage craft for a full 
period each day. This class builds, according to plan, 
the settings for all. school. plays, operas, assemblies, 
pageants, and special programs, and has entire charge 
of the staging .of the same, together with the _ 


ing and stage management. 


The settings made in the school are rented out 
from time to time and the boys receive remunera- 
tion for their services. The rental for the sets, 
cyclorama, and lights brings to the school a revenue 
for this department. 

Mr. Smalley also conducts a. business called The 
Smalley Staging. His equipment, his services, and 
the service of the boys are in demand for the staging 
of plays, operas, and pageants by private schools and 
colleges of Minnesota cities. 













Mr. Smalley is a member of the dramatic council 
for Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, and is 
chairman of the production committee of the Play 
House, the little theatre movement in St. Paul. He 
has written articles for The Theatre Arts Magazine 
and The Theatre Magazine, both of which have pub- 
lished pictures of settings of plays from Mechanic 
Arts High School Department. 

Jennie Rosenholtz, kindergarten teacher in the St. 
Paul schools, has been producing some interesting 
stories of Jewish life which have been published in 
The Outlook. A number of her children’s stories have 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


been published in other periodicals, also. 


Caroline Gilbert, teacher of Art in Mechanic Arts — 


High School has attained a name through her art 
work. Her water color portraits have taken prizes 
at the Twin City Art Exhibits, and her lithographs 
and etchings have been awarded prizes at the State 
Fair. Miss Gilbert was the presiding genius in the 
furnishing and decorating of the Federation club 
rooms. . 

IsaBEL WILLIAMS, 

S. S. TrNGLE, 
FLORENCE Roop. 





Evolution and Legislation 


About two years ago it was my privilege to lead 
the forces of intellectual and spiritual freedom of the 
State of Minnesota to an overwhelming victory over 
the allied forces of suppression ‘and fanaticism. The 
climax of this arduous fight came on Wednesday 
evening, March 9, 1927, at our state capitol. The 
allied forces of suppression of freedom of thought 
and inquiry were led by Reverend Dr. William B. 
Riley, President of the World’s Christian Funda- 
mental Association and Editor of Ghristian Funda- 
mentals In School and Church. 

On this memorable occasion men and women from 
all parts of the state began to assemble as early as 
six o’clock. The audience chamber became filled with 
a solid mass of spectators, even to the aisles, hun- 
dreds being turned away at the door. 

The subject of contention was the Anti-Evolu- 
tion Bill which had previously been introduced into 
the State Legislature by Dr. W. B. Riley. 

In brief the Riley Anti-Evolution Bill was an in- 
strument of legal force aimed to prevent the teaching 
of any form of evolution which supported the theory. 
that man was linked biologically and physiologically 
to a lower order of animals. The intent of the pro- 
posed law appears to have been to prevent, through 
intimidation, the free use of their reasoning faculties 
by men and women engaged in the work of teaching. 

THe six THESES OF RILEYISM. 

1. “That the proposed anti-evolution law does 
not involve a combination of Church and State.” 

2. “That the logical product of evolution is irre- 
ligion and even atheism.” 

3. “That evolution is in the text-books taught 
in the schools and University of Minnesota.” 

4. “That evolution blasts away. the foundations 
of civilization.” 


5. “That legislation against the theory is not 
contrary to the principles of the Constitution.” 


6. “That it is the duty of every patriotic citizen 
to do all he can to make it unlawful to teach evolu- 
tion in the tax-supported schools of our great state.” 

Undoubtedly, Dr. ‘Riley still adheres to these con- 
tentions. By innuendo he affirms that every form 
of the theory of evolution is false and dangerous to 
religion and civilization. He and his followers pro- 
pose to prevent ‘all fOPther ifivestigation and discus- 
sion of this problem by employing the suppressive 
arm of legislative force. This, in brief, is “Riley- 
ism”’—a term which I coined in order to distinguish 
the aggressive and intolerant Fundamentalism of 
Riley from the passive and tolerant form advocated 
by more moderate Fundamentalists. Moreover, this 
term permits us to discuss certain views without 
introducing the objectionable element of personality. 


THe Faiacites or RILEYIsM 
(Refutations of the Six Theses) 


1. Rileyism involves a combination of Church 
and State. This movement rests upon a particular 
interpretation of the Bible. The real reason for anti- 
evolution legislation consists in a divergent opinion 
concerning the status of the Genesis record of the 
Creation and the conclusions: of science. Rileyism 


. proposes to settle, this intellectual question by the 


use of legal force. A-problem of reason is to be 
solved by an outburst of sectarian emotionalism. A 
belief of a particular church group is to be forced 


upon our entire nation by using barbarous methods ~ 


of coercion, camouflaged by modern terminology. 
Certain church groups intend to impose their partic- 


ular emotional reactions to a question of fact and — 
reason upon all other citizens by invoking the aid — 




















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of the State. Therefore.this first contention of 
Rileyism is. a gross misrepresentation. The fallacy 
consists in the primitive notion that reason can be 
conquered by force. ¢ 

2. It is mot true that irreligion and atheism are 
inevitable products of evolution, The religious fa- 
natic often transforms, to his own satisfaction, the 
true into the false and vice versa. That which con- 
forms with the fanatic’s beliefs and desires is always 
regarded as true and may. readily assume the status 
of a divine revelation. Rileyism, in order to substan- 
tiate the second thesis, places its own biased defini- 
tions upon religion and atheism. Any ideas which 
conflict with these definitions are considered false, 
irreligious, and atheistic. 

3. The third thesis of Rileyism is true. Evolu- 
tion is taught in the schools, and in the University 
of Minnesota. 

4. The fourth thesis is utterly false. Civiliza- 
tion, instead of being blasted away by evolution, 
owes its origin and growth to the intellectual and 
spiritual development of mankind, which is merely 
one phase of the uplifting power of evolution. 

5. Rileyism contends that legislation against the 
teaching of evolution in tax-supported schools is con- 
stitutional. 

Some competent legal authorities have affirmed that 
the bill as worded by the Rileyists is constitutional 
and that it “will stand any kind of a legal test to 
which it may be subjected, even though it be car- 


ried to the Supreme Court of the United States.” It’ 


has happened before and it may happen again that 
“competent legal authorities” have had their opin- 
ions set aside as fallacious by the Supreme Court of 
the United States.’ . ; 

Article V of the original Constitution deals with 
the enactment of amendments. In conformity with 
this Article, amendments to our Constitution have 
been adopted from time to time. The First Amend- 
ment, so adopted, is known as “Article I” and states 
that: ; 

“Congress shall make no law ‘respecting an estab- 
lishment of religion, or probibiting the free exercise 
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of 
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the government for a re- 
dress of grievances.” 

The Rileyists have labored. zealously to frame their 
bills so that they shall not be subject to the intent 
of this First Amendment. With ample funds at their 
disposal they have engaged legal counsel to bring 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 17 


about this result. The first evasion consists in the 
omission of all references to religion. Therefore they 
pose, temporarily, as champions of the cause of truth 
in science. Hence they send forth the smoke screen 
that the theory of evolution is false from the scien- 
tific standpoint, pretending that their religious con- 
victions have not influenced and brought about this 
new-born, purely intellectual interest in matters 
scientific, Is it not strange,,that the Rileyists and 
their allies have not challenged the correctness of 
other doctrines taught. in tax-supported schools? 
Here and there protesting voices may have been 
heard, but no concerted action, involving the use of 
legal force, has been attempted. But when science 
apparently conflicts with a certain group’s interpre- 
tation of the Bible, then the battle cry is raised and 
anti-evolution bills are introduced into legislative 
bodies, Since this particular interpretation of the 
Bible is an essential and “Fundamental” part of the 
group’s religious equipment, it follows that the al- 
leged purely rational interest in the question of evo- 
lution is merely a blind intended to cover the real 
source, which is religious emotionalism. 

Therefore, it is evident that a proper interpreta- 
tion of all anti-evelution bills must take cognizance 
of the motive involved which has its inception in ‘a 
specific religious attitude toward a problem which is 
purely a quéstion of fact. Thus stripped of their 
intellectual camouflage, anti-evolution bills stand 
forth as attempts to make laws for the exclusive pro- 
tection of a specific religious doctrine. Such exclu- 
sive protection is equivalent to the permanent 
establishment of a particular religion which is a vio- 
lation of the First Constitutional Amendment. 

Rileyism affirms that anti-evolution bills “do not 
interfere with the teacher’s freedom of speech. A 
teacher may shout evolution from the housetops and 
yet not be allowed to teach it in the classroom to 
the children of tax-payers who know it is false.” 

What a gross pervasion of truth! Can an inter- 
ference with the freedom of exercising the basic pre- 
rogative of a teacher, which is the-teaching of scien- 
tific truth as closely as known, be other than an in- 
terference with the teacher’s right to freedom of 
speech? The astuteness of the is clearly evident. 

By preventing the - teaching that which is 
deemed dangerous to the stability of a~particular 
credal doctrine, the future generations become per- 
manently chained to this type of religious belief. The 
“tax-payers who know it is false,” according to this 
medieval plan, are put into contfol in direct oppo- 








‘ 





18 


sition to those tax-payers who believe that, in prin- 
ciple, evolution is true. The tax-payers who know 
that evolution is false are, for the most part, in- 
debted to Rileyism for this knowledge, whose precise 
status as knowledge is open to serious doubt. 

On the housetop and street corner a teacher may 
speak the truth as perceived, but in the classroom the 
doctrine taught must conform with the biased man- 
dates of religious emotionalists whose interest in edu- 
cation tends far more to its prevention than advance- 
ment. 

Dr. Riley, however, tells us that “Such a law does 
not interfere with freedom of conscience.” The 
transformation of the teaching profession into a 
corps of paid hypocrites may mean little to an eccle- 
siastical conscience, but every self-respecting teacher 
will rebel against such mandatory perversion of the 
meaning of the term conscience. 

6. The sixth thesis of Rileyism cannot be taken 
seriously. It merely marks the climax of the grow- 
ing lust for power on the part of a group of religious 
fanatics. The “duty” of a patriotic citizen—note the 
word “patriotic”—shall consist in obeying the man- 
dates of a fanatic clique:~- Incidentally, Rileyism 
poses as the final court of decision concerning the 
exact characteristics of a patriotic citizen. The in- 
ference is that those who differ with the Rileyistic 
definition are not loyal to our country. 

In the last thesis the monstrousness and danger of 
Rileyism stands plainly revealed. Fanaticism there 
reaches its inevitable goal and freedom is swept aside 
by a blind and ruthless bigotry that knows no 
bounds. 

It is hoped that our nation may be thoroughly 
aroused against this iniquity before it is too late to 
conquering and devastating onward 

Dr. ARVID REUTERDAHL. 


prevent its 
march. 





MINNEAPOLIS TEACHERS WIN TWO YEAR 
SALARY FIGHT 

The campaign for better salaries for better teach- 
ers had been in progress in Minneapolis for more 
than two years. 

In the spring of 1926, Minneapolis began to real- 
ize that its teachers’ salary schedule was too low to 
secure the type of teaching desired. Wishing to make 
a scientific study of the matter, it followed the exam- 
ple of other progressive cities of the country and 
formed a large committee, the majority of whom 
were representative citizens of Minnesota. This com- 
mittee, with Mrs. Decker of the Board of Education 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


as chairman, did some excellent work but disbanded 


with the feeling general that the matter should be 












decided by the Board of Education elected by Minne- 
apolis citizens to care for the interests of the schools, 

During the summer of 1926, the Teachers’ Central 
Committee assisted by the Board of Education em- 
ployed a well-known economist, an expert in surveys, 
to make a survey of the “costs and standards of liy- 
ing of Minneapolis teachers in relation to their salar- 
ies.” Dr. Royal Meeker, now associated with Irving 
Fisher of New Haven in economic research, on the 
last page of his printed survey, reports his conclu- 
sions as follows: 

“If the teaching force is to be maintained in a 
state of reasonable permanence and efficiency, how- 
ever, it is imperatively necessary that maximum sal- 
aries be provided which will make it possible for the 
regular day school teacher to rear a normal, average 
family on something better than a minimum scale of 
living. It is not sufficient that the salaries of princi- 
pals and higher school officials shall be established 
at or above the cost of the minimum budget. It is 
not sufficient that theoretical maxima be established 
on paper to which. only a favored few ever attain. 
The regular maxima, attainable by every rank-and- 
file teacher who remains in the service long enough 
to earn the regular annual salary increases, should be 


fixed well above the cost of the minimum quantity | 


family budget herein set forth.” 

In the fall of 1926, there was presented to the 
Board of Education a salary schedule based on Dr. 
Meeker’s findings. The Board was petitioned to change 
the present schedule of minimum $1,200 to maxi- 
mum $2,500, to a new scale of minimum $1,300 t 
maximum $3,200 for teachers who are college grad- 
uates. 

Since in the spring of 1927, no action had been 
taken by the Board of Education, the teachers em- 
ployed me to gather additional information and 
secure publicity for the same. 

In July, 1927, the Board of Education adopted 2 
new schedule cutting down materially that originally 
proposed. The present schedule of $1,200 to $2,500 
was changed to $1,200 to $2,800, instead of ® 
$1,300 to $3,200. According to that action the new 


maximum was to be reached by an increase of $100 


each year. 

In the fall of 1927, the Board of Education sub 
mitted a budget to the Board of Estimate which pre 
vided for the new salary schedule. This new schedule 
had been adopted by the Board of Education by # 


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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 19 


yote of six to one. This action was vetoed by the 
Board of Estimate by a vote of four to three. They 
by this vote refused to allow the tax rate to be 
increased by four- tenths of a mill. Such an increase 
would mean. an increase of eighty cents on a five 
thousand dollar property. 

We were not discouraged because we knew that 
the public was with us and so our problem became 
to devise some means by which the citizens could 
let their wishes be known to the Board of Estimate. 


In the spring of 1928 the Teachers Central Com- 
mittee voted to ask me to prepare a leaflet of infor- 
mation to be used by the teachers in appealing to 
their friends this fall. 

At the first Central Committee meeting of this 
year, it was decided to hold a mass meeting to insti- 
tute a short, intensive campaign to interest the 
friends of the public schools in our cause. This meet- 
ing was held, information leaflets and interview cards 
were distributed and the campaign was on. A com- 
mittee of teachers, representing every school in the 
city was called together, and right loyally did they 
respond and work in their respective buildings. Sev- 
eral meetings of this committee of one hundred were 
held, and the enthusiasm mounted as we realized 
more and more what a good friend the public is. 

The steering committee attended three meetings 
of the Board of Estimate, the final one on October 
10. At that time, the Board of Estimate members 
were apparently convinced that the new schedule 
was right and should be put into effect. The only 
question left was whether it should go into effect 
January 1, 1929, or September 1, 1929. Some of the 
members held that the teachers had signed contracts 
at the old salary for the current year. I was very 
happy to have the opportunity to say a few words 
about the assignments which we signed last year. We 
had been advised that under permanent tenure, there 
ws no such thing as a yearly contract, and that we 
were hoping for the increase January 1. 

Mayor Leach, our boldest advocate on the Board of 
Estimate, hesitated to put the motion calling for an 
amount large enough to put the schedule into effect 
January 1, for fear that we might lose it altogether. 
He, however, at the request of the steering com- 
mittee, did so in a most sincere and effective state- 
ment, and we received four votes of the seven. 

Controller Dan Brown, in changing from his nega- 
tive vote of last year, spoke to this effect: 

“I have been convinced that Minneapolis is not 


7 


paying her teachers what comparable cities are. I 
am also convinced by the letters that I have received 
that the public wishes this increase, I therefore vote 
aye.” 

It was an anxious and dramatic moment for your 
steering committee. 

The roll call proceeded as follows: 


. Brown—Aye. 
Chadbourn—No. 
Gould—Aye. 
Keyes—No. 
Leach—Aye. 

. Turner—Aye. 

. Yale—No. 

It seems to me that Minneapolis by this vote has 
made its teachers full partners in the city’s growth. 
We should be and are deeply appreciative of this 
action. It is significant to us in more. ways than the 
money help. It is a recognition by the city of the 
importance of teaching as an occupation and an 
especial recognition of the value of experienced teach- 
ing. 

It is my hope and conviction and the hope and 
conviction of every, teacher that has been interested 
in this campaign that Minneapolis teachers will jus- 
tify their statement that the better paid the teachers 
are, the better will be the schools. 

FLORENCE FisH. 


PRR REE 5 





SOCIAL WORK CONFERENCE MEETS IN SAN 
FRANCISCO 

The fifty-sixth meeting of the National Confer- 
ence of Social Work will take place in San Fran- 
cisco, California, June 26 to July 3, under the leader- 
ship of Porter R. Lee, the president, who is director 
of the New York School of Social Work. 

The ‘Conference is ‘open to any one who wishes to 
attend. It brings tegether at one time the most 
important group of experts in the field of social 
work in the country. Its program deals with child 
welfare, community life, delinquency, health, immi- 
gration, mental hygiene, and similar social problems. 
Thirty kindred organizations will hold meetings in 
connection .with the Conference. 

All railroads offer tourist rates, with . special 
arrangements for vacation trips. Adequate hotel 
space has been assured. Additional information about 
the Conference can be secured from Howard R. 


Knight, General Secretary, 277 East Long Street, 


Columbus, Ohio. 








I. BACKGROUND AND SETTINGS 


The union teachers of France are one of the most 
powerful and influential groups in and out of the 


labor movement. In part this condition is traceable 
to the organized efforts of the teachers themselves, 
but to a greater extent it is the influential position 
of the general labor movement, and the general fav- 
orable attitude towards intellectuals and government 
workers that accounts for this situation. In France, 
as throughout Europe, the labor movement, func- 
tioning through unions, independent political parties, 
and consumers co-operatives, is an extraordinary 
social force that is not lightly dismissed even in reac- 
tionary circles. Similarly, the intellectual plays an 
important and outstanding role in the political and 
social life of the various European countries. And 
in the labor movement he has invariably been a fac- 
tor of great significance. Of the ‘intellectuals in 
France, the educator has always enjoyed prestige and 
standing in the political field. Thus Herriot, the 
leader of the Radical Socialists and former Premier, 
is a university professor of literature. Likewise, in 
the Socialist Party the educators have constantly 
been conspicuous and effective leaders. One need 
only mention the martyred Jean Jaures, who was a 
professor of philosophy and at the same time a great 
political leader who is still worshiped by the masses. 
At present some of the outstanding leaders of the 
Socialist Party are university high school and graded 
school teachers. The same situation prevails in the 
powerful French Communist Party, whose leader 


Marchel Cachan is a professor of philosophy. With 


such a favorable attitude towards intellectuals in the 
labor movement the teachers naturally felt at home 
and have been an influential element in it since its 
early beginnings. 

Furthermore, because of the influential position 
of the labor movement in public affairs, government 
workers were doubly encouraged to organize. Hence, 
in France the government workers are the strongest 
organized group. Their total membership approxi- 
mates close to half of the union membership in 
France. The largest union numerically is that of the 
Federation of Functionaries, (the equivalent to our 

* Federal Employes Union). The third largest union 


is that of the graded school teachers with a member- _ 


’ ship of 77,000. Historically the workers of France 
were a vital factor among the republican forces in 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The Union Teachers of France 


the struggles against royalists intrigues. And since 
the democratic elements needed the aid of the work- 
ers they encouraged them to organize whether in 
private or public employment. Moreover, in a coun- 


try where the workers exercise unusual political in- 


fluence and have their own political parties, it is to 
be expected that government workers will encounter 
fewer obstacles in their efforts to combine into 
unions. 

However, the early organizations of teachers, in 
common with those of other workers, were really 
fraternal and benefit societies. In this form of organi- 
zation the, teachers were naturally a rather incon- 
sequential factor in the determination of their eco- 
nomic and professional: conditions.. Nor did they 
exercise an appreciable influence in the conduct of 
the educational system of which they are such an 
important part. But as the labor movement assumed 
importahce they too reflected the same determina- 
tion and in 1895 the various fraternal and benefit 
societies formed themselves into a full fledged union. 
Since 1895 marks the modern phase of the labor 
movement organized on an effective national basis, 
we find that the teachers were right in line with 
general labor organization developments. 


Following the war, the French labor movement | 


found itself, in common with the movements of most 
belligerent countries, engulfed in ideological strife, 
finally resulting in a split into several unequal parts. 
At this time, in order to maintain itself intact, the 
teachers union withdrew from the federated trade 
union movement and pursued an independent course 
for a few years. When the situation cleared up it 
returned to the General Confederation of Labor 
(C..G. T.), the outstanding national federation of 
trade unions, which in the meantime as a result of 
the ideological conflict discarded its pre-war Syndi- 
calist philosophy for a mildly revolutionary phil- 
osophy analagous to that of the Socialist unions of 
Germany and England. In addition to the graded 
school teachers union with its 77,000 members, an- 
other union came into being and affiliated with the 


C. G. T., consisting of secondary schools and unk | 


versity teachers with a membership of some 9,000. 
There are also in existence several groups of technical 
school teachers most of which are affiliated with the 
Federation of Functionaries,. which in turn is affili- 
ated with the C: G. T. Then there is a union of 
mixed teachers of some 4,000 members affiliated wi 





















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the Communist federation of unions known as the 
Cc. G. T. U. In the aggregate the teachers unions 
of France count considerably more than 100,000 
members out of 150,000 teachers employed by the 
government educational system, thereby being one 
of the best organized groups of workers in France. 


II. IpEaxs, IssuES AND ACTIVITIES 

Naturally, as a powerful group in an influential 
labor movement the teachers are in the vanguard of 
the struggles for social progress and justice. Func- 
tioning as an integral part of the movement they are 
active in advancing the general interests of the work- 
ing class in its most fundamental and vital aspira- 
tions and demands. The leaders of the teachers stand 
high in the councils of the movement, and as an 
academically trained group their aid is anxiously 
sought for and effectively utilized by the movement. 

Then too there are certain fundamental problems 
that fall within the peculiar province of the teachers 
unions. It is in these spheres that the teachers have 
particularly asserted themselyes with an astounding 
enthusiasm and efféctiveness, and always with the 
wholehearted support of the labor movement. Con- 
scious of their power and the assistance of the labor 
movement and its allies, they have heroically and 
intelligently waged battle against the enemies of 
unionism, democratic education and social progress. 
The more important ideals and issues around which 
the activities of the teachers unions center may be 
classified under four divisions as follows: 

1. The.right to affiliate with the trade union 
The teachers have invariably aligned 
themselves with the forces that stood for democracy 
and social progress. The same attitude has always 
characterized the unions of other government work- 
ers. Constantly the reactionary forces in France 
have persistently regarded with: disapproval the 
unions of teachers and other government workers. 
And especially have they frowned upon their intimate 
alliance with the labor movement. In this controversy 
the courts sided against the unions of government 
workers by ruling that organizations of government 
workers holding responsible positions are not author- 
ized by the law to function as bona fide unions and 
to affiliate with the trade union movement. This 
decision affects the teachers, a very large percentage 
of functionaries, post office, telephone and telegraph 
workers and so on. Encouraged by the labor move- 
ment and its allies these unions of government work- 
ers have refused to accept the court interpretation 


movement, 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 21 


and are defiantly retaining their affiliation with the 
movement. Poincare recently sided with the reac- 
tionary ferces. The political influence of the labor 
movement is illustrated by the fact that this procla- 
mation by Poincare was one of three issues that 
brought on the recent cabinet crisis leading to thé 
resignation of the left members of the former coali- 
tion cabinet. The teachers unions are found in the 
forefront of the fight, justifying their position as 
follows: The mission of the working class is not 
only to protect its immediate interests, but to usher 
in a new social order based on service rather than 
profit. In the pursuance and attainment of this ideal 
the role of the teacher is unmistakable. Not only 
must he aid in the achievement of this objective, but 
he must prepare himself for his new role as the edu- 
cator of the children of the new society. Both chese 
aims can best be accomplished by being associated 
with his fellow teachers in a virile union, which in 
turn functions as an integral part of the labor move- 
ment. And in the light of this ideal the teachers 
unions refuse to sever their connection with the 
labor movement. 


2. Academic Freedom: The French teachers are 
also plagued with the issue of academic freedom. 
They are, however, militantly asserting themselves 
through their unions in exercising the right to teach 
the truth, The outstanding argument in defense of 
academic freedom runs as follows: The reactionaries 
who oppose academic freedom would expect the 
teachers to pass on unconcernedly to the pupils 
notions of jingoistic patriotism, as well as to instill 
in them a blind loyalty to the present economic 
order by disregarding the fact that large elements in 
society have other views,on these important matters. 
Thus with reference to war the teachers would want 
also to point out that large groups in society sponsor 
ideals of peace and even tolerance towards non-con- 
formists. Hence, the fight of the teachers unions 
for academic freedom becomes a right of teachers to 
present all points of view on important public and 
social issues. Since this means presenting the progres- 
sive and radical point of view side by side with that 
of the reactionary, the special privilege groups are 
fighting the teachers bitterly on the issue of academic 
freedom. But the labor movement and its allies are 
equally strenuous in support of the teachers. 

3. Proper educational facilities for the children 
of the masses. As a group dedicated to social prog- 
ress and the service of the working class, the teachers . 























































unions feel that the present educational facilities 
provided for the children of the common people are 
not adequate. At present free public education is 
available only through the graded schools. Secondary 
and higher education is comparatively costly so.that 
the ordinary worker is not only unable to pay the 
tuition as well as the charge for books and laboratory 
fees, but the burden becomes entirely unbearable 
when the worker must support his children while 
they are attending high school and college. The 
French teachers unions, therefore, demand a unified 
school system conducted in such a manner that it 
would be possible for the children of workers to 
receive the highest education at the expense of the 
state, even including lodging. In this demand too 
the teachers have the unequivocal support of the 
labor movement and its sympathizers. 

4. Voice in conduct of school system and in 
determining conditions of employment. In order to 
realize their ideals, as well as to safeguard their imme- 
diate economic and professional interests, the teachers 
have through their unions and with the wholehearted 
and active support of the entire labor movement, 
demanded a voice in the management of the educa- 
tional system. In the matter of tenure, wages, pen- 
sions, qualifications and other working conditions 
affecting the economic and professional welfare of 
teachers, the unions have been very successful so 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


that teachers are as well off as those with a similar 
training and responsibility in other walks of life, 
In so far as a voice in the conduct of the schools 
is concerned the teachers have so far been only par- 
tially successful... Since the educational system of 
France is highly centralized and directed from Paris 
a national educational council has been created. All 
elements. having a vital interest in education are 
given representation on this council, Naturally the 
teachers have representation and are permitted to 


select their delegates by secret ballot in a general na-, 


tion-wide election. Of course, invariably the union 
leaders are elected. Thus it is really through their 
unions that the teachers exercise their function on 
the national educational council. However, with ref- 
erence to general educational policies this council has 
only advisory powers, so that the teachers unions 
have still a great task before them. 

Thus we see that a virile labor movement, active 
and influential“on the political, industrial and co- 
operative fields and accepting the intellectual within 
its fold as an integral part, makes possible a fearless, 
constructive and effective teachers union that fur- 
thers not only the immediate interests of its members, 
but is a vital factor in the advancement of general 
sociak progress. 

Davi J. Saposs. 





Report of Education Committee 
American Federation of Labor Convention, New Orleans, La., November 19-28, 1928. 


The American Federation of Labor reasserts its 
vital interest in the public school system: and in edu- 
cation for all grades from the nursery school to the 
university, and for all groups, children to adults. 
As organized labor was the.,.major instrumentality 
in establishing the free, tax-supported public school, 
it continues to be the protector and defender of our 
public school system from all forms of exploitation, 
that it may continue to be the ground for the seeds 
of democracy and for education that shall not be 
used subversively by special interests, but shall be 
in the interest of the citizenship as a whole. 

THE AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST 

Your Committee is exceedingly gratified at the 
especially good showing made by our official maga- 
zine The American Federationist, for the past year. 
This is certainly a deserved result, for The American 
Federationist is an invaluable magazine and a leading 


educational agency. It ranks among the first of all 
monthly publications of whatever character, in at- 
tractiveness of form, in character and_ editorial 
policy. Its value to organizers and trade union of- 
ficials is very great. It is recommended that every 
officer of national and local organizations who has 
not already subscribed, subscribe to and read The 
American Federationist and urge their membership 


to subscribe and read this magazine. It is especially 


recommended that editors of labor papers make full 
use of the current articles for publication in their 
papers and for suitable comment. It is also recom- 
mended that all local bodies endeavor to see that Th 
American Federationist is placed in the public and 
school libraries of their localities where it will serve 
an important purpose in educating students and the 





general public in our trade union movement. 

















Baeawrre BSS FB AQ 


» 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 23 


Text Book REVIEW 

Your Committee commends most highly the work 
that has been done in the examination of social science 
text books used in the public schdols and believes that 
there never was a time when this work was so im- 
portant. It.urges the continuance of this work by 
the permanent’ Committee on Education with the 
special recommendation that particular attention be 
given to the books or propaganda said to have been 
prepared under the direction of special interests. It 
is also recommended that the permanent Committee 
on Education investigate to what extent the history 
of the labor movement and the movement for indus- 
trial and political equality of women is included in 
American history texts. 


CompuLsory SCHOOL ATTENDANCE Laws 

Your Committee commends very highly the work 
done by the permanent Committee on Education 
looking to the enactment of good compulsory school 
attendance laws and their efficient administration in 
every state and recommends the continuance of the 
necessary research work to attain this end along the 
lines already followed. 
FreE TExtT Books cas 

Your Committee on Education is gratified that 
there has been so much call for information on the 
subject of free text books and regards this as an 
indication of progress. It recommends that work be 
continued in this field and that all constituent bodies 
wherever free text book laws are not in effect, seek 
the enactment of legislation providing for free text 
books for all children of the public schools; and 
wherever an optional law now exists, urge that the 
franchise be used for the establishment of such free 
text book laws, since it is an anomaly in a democ- 
racy to provide free compulsory education and still 
force school children to buy their text books, thus 
making equalization of educational opportunity more 
difficult, 


CONTINUATION SCHOOLS 

The table given us in the report of the Executive 
Council indicates an increase in all types of schools 
except the trade extension school. It shows that the 
continuation school is the branch of industrial edu- 
cation which serves the greatest number of workers. 
Your Committee is exceedingly gratified that such 
satisfactory progress has been made. It is being rec- 
ognized that education is not a finished process in 
youth when school is left for active life, but is a 
Continual process which the complications of mod- 


ern life make more necessary every day. Continua- 

tion schools are established to meet the educational 
and industrial needs of boys and girls forced by 
adverse economic conditions or ill-advised curricula 
to terminate their school careers and to make pos- 


sible social adjustments for these under-privileged 


boys ‘and girls. We call attention to the recommen- 
dation of your committee of last year and repeat: 
this recommendation: 

“We suggest that attendance should be required 
from four to eight hours weekly, that the curri- 
cula be broadened to meet the varying needs of the 
pupils—cultural as well as industrial; that better 
specialized equipment and buildings be provided by 
boards of education; that’ ‘trained trade teachers be 
attracted to teaching by improving their status; that 
more liberal state and national aid be furnished to 
make these reforms possible; and that the work of 
the continuation schools be strengthened wherever 
possible. We further suggest that vocational guid- 
ance be especially emphasized, along with health 
education and medical inspection, using the resources 
of the physician, the dentist, the visiting teacher and 
the psychiatrist. =) 

“The continuation schools, in their experimental 
state, with their small classes, their factual approach 
and their contact with life, offer boards of education 
a challenge as well as a rare opportunity of testing 
the validity of our traditional educational policies.” 
CO-OPERATIVE PART-TIME EDUCATION 

Your Committee recommends a careful study of 
the new development known as the co-operative, 
part-time education, which has been largely intro- 
duced in Pennsylvania, California, Ohio, Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island, Texas, Michigan, Delaware, and 
to a smaller extent in eleven more states and Hawaii, 
in order that we may be sure of the facts and in 
order that the highest type of educational opportu- 
nities under best conditions be provided workers. 
The protests which have been made against certain 
features of this development should receive careful 
attention. But as the report of the Executive Coun- 
cil says: “The cause for the protest is probably due 
in part at least to the failure of labor to make its 
proper contributions to their development. Three 
groups are concerned with all vocational courses and 
if any one fails to function the undertaking lacks 
balance and understanding.” 

Your Committee urges very special attention to 
the recommendations of the Executive Council that 





¢ 


24 : THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


central labor unions and state federations of labor 
be very alert and vigilant to the importance to the 
interests of labor that they be adequately repre- 
sented on school boards and especially on agencies 
directing vocational education, and strongly endorses 
the Council’s statement that labor’s representative on 
the Federal Board for Vocational Education should 
be a recognized representative and not a political 
appointee. 
ADULT EDUCATION 

Recent years have witnessed great advances in the 
field of education for adults, including on the one 
hand formal vocational, professional or graduate 


training: and or the other hand informal: cultural. 


education for the mass of the people. The old no- 
tion that education ends at some point in the child- 
hood or youth of the individual when he receives a 
diploma, that his education is then- completed once 
and for all, is rapidly passing away. 

This is a wholesome development. This earlier 
- conception of education was narrow, one-sided and 
scholastic. Furthermore, as industry requires larger 
numbers of technically-trained people, opportunities 
for adult workers, whose early educational advan- 
tages may have been limited, to, fit themselves for 
such positions, must be opened up. Then too, as life 
becomes increasingly complex and the problems upon 
which citizens in our democracy are called upon to 
act become more’ difficult and profound, avenues 
must be provided through which our people may 
keep pace with world development and may study 
in a scientific spirit the many problems, social, po- 
litical and economic, with which they are called 
upon to deal. Labor’s efforts to reduce the hours of 
. toil furnish another reason for extending the facili- 
ties for adult education, for if the masses are to have 
more leisure it is important that this leisure should 
not be wastefully dissipated but used to develop 
richer, happier, and more creative personalities. 

For these and other reasons we urge that our 
various educational institutions, especially those sup- 
ported by the taxes of the people, develop and ex- 
tend educational opportunities of all kinds for adults, 
adapting their facilities to the vocational, profes- 
sional, and general cultural needs of all groups in 
the community. 

In order that this growing adult educational 
movement may not fall under the control of special 
interests nor be used as a tool for their propaganda, 
but may be responsive to the history and aims of 
labor and the important social role played by Organ- 


ized Labor in modern life, we advocate that labor 
should be represented on boards of education, and 
the governing bodies of schools, colleges and univer- 
sities, and we urge that all unions affiliated with the 
American Federation of Labor give special attention 
to this matter. 
Workers’ EDUCATION 

The Executive Council report reminds us that 
it is exactly ten years ago that our labor movement 
undertook a study of the emerging workers’ educa- 
tion movement, as a result of which certain experi- 
ments in this field were recommended by the 1919 
convention of the American Federation of Labor. It 


is further pointed out in the report of the Execu-— 


tive Council that a good deal of experimentation in 
the field of workers’ education has taken place in the 
intervening years and that further experimentation 
together with appraisal of existing projects is desira- 
ble. 

We heartily concur in this suggestion. In the very 
nature of the case, education, to be sound, myst not 
only continue to utilize the most up-to-date meth- 
ods that have been developed, but must continue 
experimentation in every field tha: holds a promise 
of improvement or betterments. 


An educational system or movement ceases to be 
worthy of that name the moment it ceases to experi- 
ment or efforts are made to hamper freedom of 
thought, to produce stereotyped results, or to impose 
any kind of dogmatism. Against such evils as these 
the American Labor Movement has fought ‘when 
they have cropped up in our public school system, 
and it is in accord with this sound tradition that 
we should assume the same attitude in the develop- 
ment of our workers’ education movement. Doubt- 
less as the Executive Council points out, mistakes 


have been made as well as promising achievements, — 


but this was to be expected, and constitutes no rea- 
son for repudiating these experiments, but rather 
a summons to remedy the mistakes and to add to 
the notable achievements already attained by our 
various experiments in labor education. 

. We heartily concur in the Executive Council’s 
warning that a clear line be drawn between the edu- 
cational work and the field of trade union policy. 
The trade union, which is itself a great agency of 
democratic education, must be left absolutely unre- 
stricted in determining what it is to do and how 
and when it is to do it. Just as there can be no 


education where any sort of dictatorship is imposed, 





tal 





= & 5 


so there can be no toleration of dictatorship of any 
sort, under any guise, over our trade union move- 
ment. This does not mean, however, that workers’ 
education must not concern itself with trade union 
problems. On the contrary, as the Executive Coun- 
cil points out, the more closely the “educational 
work is connected with union activities and union 
meetings, the more effective it will be.” 
CALIFORNIA PLAN 

Among the successful é¢xperiments in the field of 
workers’ education, the plan of co-operation devel- 
oped in California between the State Federation and 
the State University is pointed out by the Executive 
Council. Under this plan, a joint committee is pro- 
vided for, composed of five representatives of the 
State Federation and four of the Extension Division 
of the University. We rejoice at the record made by 
the classes conducted under this plan and also at the 
successful California Summer School. We agree that 
wherever possible the university extension program 
should be related to the needs of the workers as sug- 


- gested by the American Federation of Labor Conven- 


tion of 1912, We recommend that the Workers’ 
Education Bureau should consider the possibilities 
offered for further development along this line. We 
also believe that here and elsewhere we should pro- 
ceed with due caution and an eye to the fundamen- 
tal interests of our trade union movement. 

Your Committee wishes to further emphasize the 
wisdom of the Executive Council’s recommendation 
that the president of the American Federation of 
Labor be authorized to appoint a commission on 
workers’ education to be charged with a critical anal- 
ysis and appraisal of the work that has been done, 
the methods followed, aims asserted, policies pursued 
and the net results. Its composition should be such 
as to command the full respect and confidence of 
our trade union movement and ,of educational 
authorities. It should, as the Executive Council sug- 
gests, approach its task with a constructive spirit 
and aim so that this report might furnish the basis 
for our work for a period of years and help us to 


advance the cause of workers’ education with the 


union label on it—to which we are so thoroughly 
and earnestly committed. The. Workers’ Education 
Bureau has done splendid work this year and should 
receive the continued support of the ‘entre labor 


movement, 


WEEK-END CONFERENCES 
Notable among the commendable activities of is 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





25 


Workers’ Education Bureau-are the Week End Con- 
ferences discussing unemployment, the injunction, 
wage policy of the American Federation of Labor, 
industrial relations, five-day week. Your Committee 
trusts that the Workers’ Education Bureau will con- 
tinue these very profitable conferences in different 
parts of the country and will present other import- 
ant labor problems to the rank and file of our mem- 
bership. It is recommended that all national and 
international unions, state federations, central labor 
bodies and local unions lend all possible assistance to 
the success of these conferences, thereby helping to 
make them of the greatest service to the membership 
of the American Federation of Labor. 


SUMMER SCHOOLS FOR WORKERS 

The extension of the summer school and labor 
institutes is very gratifying. The results are such 
that trade unionists-have every reason to congratu- 
late themselves. These present the most healthful 
and hopeful signs. Your Committee recommends to 
this convention that it record its approval of the 
general purpose of such summer schools and labor 


institutes for wage earners and urges the utiliza- 


tion to an even wider extent of college campuses 


‘for such summer schools under representative work- 


ers’ educational committees. 
PUBLICATIONS 

The list of publications of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor for the year of 1927-28, available in 
the permanent records of the Convention, is one of 
which we may well be proud. In addition to the 
Convention proceedings, the A. F. of L. Encyclo- 
pedia and Reference Book, and the periodical publi- 
cations, The American Federationist, A. F. of L. 
Weekly News Service and Legal Information Bul- 
letin, we desire to call attention to the long list of 
pamphlets and reprints under the sub-titles: Trade 
Unionism and Ideals of Labor; Picture Prints; Wages; 
Hours; Unemployment; Waste in Industry; Union- 
Management Co-operation; Union Benefits; Com- 
pany Unions; Education; Union Activities; Injunc- 
tions; Legislation; The Primary Election; Organiz- 
ing Methods; Organizing Leaflets; Labor Banks; _ 
Manufacturers Commend Union Labor; Textiles; 
Women; Miscellaneous; Reports; Charts. 
The pamphlets on Education and the Injunction 
are especially commended to your attention. We 
recommend that trade unions, trade unionists, and 
all friends of labor add to their labor libraries from 
this list. 
































































26 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


LEGAL INFORMATION BUREAU 

Your Committee desires to mention with especial 
emphasis the report of the Legal Information Bureau. 
This report indicates a wide field of activity in its 
research work of especial value in efforts to secure 
the enactment of labor’s anti-injunction proposal. 
The hearings before the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States were especially effec- 
tive. The widespread publicity given to this matter 
by the American Federation of Labor is no doubt 
responsible for the very substantial reduction in the 
number of injunctions issued in the year past and the 
moderation of those isssued. No well-informed trade 
unionist can afford to be without the bulletins issued 
regularly by the Legal Information Bureau. They 
contain all important decisions of our courts, both 
state and federal, affecting trade unions and ‘the 
labor movement in general. Your Committee urges 
that the. men and women of our movement make 
more general use of this information. Complete rec- 
ords of the decisions that have been rendered are 
available at American Federation of Labor head- 
quarters. Trade unionists or their organizations hav- 
ing legal difficulties should make this information 
known to their attorneys in preparation of their 
cases. 

To show the wide scope of the activities of the 
Legal Information Bureau, it is necessary only to 
enumerate the subjects of the decisions appearing 
in the Legal Information Bulletins which have been 
issued during the past year: Arbitration; Boycott; 
Contracts; Damages; Death Benefits; Employment 
Agencies; Free Press; Injunctions; Prison Labor; 
Strikes; Wages; Women in Industry; Workmen’s 
Compensation; “Yellow Dog” Contract. 


On Lasor’s THREE SpecIAL Days 

Labor’s Memorial Sunday, the fourth Sunday in 
May; Labor Sunday, the day preceding the first 
Monday in September; and Labor Day, the first 
Monday in September, are labor’s special days. -We 
concur completely in the statements of the Execu- 
tive Council, 

“While Labor’s three special days were suitably 
remembered in many sections of the country, yet 
Labor’s Memorial Sunday, Labor Sunday, and Labor 
Day have not so far assumed that permanent place 
of honor, recognition and observance in the organ- 
ized labor movement to which their relationship to 
the workers would seem to entitle them. But yet 
we are glad to record that one of these. special days, 


’ is fundamentally an effort to realize spiritual pur- 


EY 


Labor Day, was more generally celebrated this year 
than for several years past. 

“We believe that Labor’s Memorial Sunday and 
Labor Sunday are gradually growing more and more 
into the fabric of the organized labor movement, 
It is fitting. and proper that labor should recognize 
one special day on which to pay the tribute of 
memory to its honored dead.” 












Fitting observance of these days is urged, so that 
the power of the labor movement may be contin- 
ually increased and revered. “These are the days on 
which we turn from material things to their mean- 
ing or their spiritual purposes. The labor movement 













poses— to enable men and women to free them- 
selves from situations and hardships that restrict 
their development.” 









Cuitp HEALTH Day 





Hereafter, the president will issue a proclamation 
calling upon the people of the United States to ob- 
serve May ] as Child Health Day. This is the result 
of the action of the 1927 Convention of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor, which directed the Execu- 
tive Council to present a joint resolution to Con- 
gress to make May 1 Child Health Day. The Execu- 
tive Council and the entire labor movement is to be 
congratulated on the success of this worthy purpose. 
The observance of this day will create a sentiment | 
for year-round protection of the health of children 
and emphasize that the first duty of mankind is to 
care for its children. 
















CuiLp LABOR 





Your Committee realizes that it would not be 
possible to over-emphasize at this time the question 
of Child Labor and the Child Labor Amendment, 
It wishes to make as emphatic as possible this whole 
matter. We wish to repeat what was said last yeat 
in the report of this Committee, for we feel that it 
can not be said too often: 











“It is hardly conceivable that in America whert 
we pride ourselves on a sense of fair play and de- 
cency that a campaign marked by mis-statements 
and vituperation could have been conducted success 
fully even temporarily by the opponents of the child 
labor amendment. In most cases the opponents of 
the amendment masqueraded as patriots. Yet i 
spite of the funds at their disposal, in spite of theit 
insiduous propaganda and elaborate machinery fot 
spreading their misrepresentations, they: must ult 





























tion 
ent. 


year 
t it 


mately fail in their efforts to keep the childhood 
of the nation in economic bondage. 


“Notwithstanding the fact that some states have. 


amended their statutes raising the standards for 
school attendance and work protection, child labor 
has increased the past year. The opponents of the 
child labor amendment have failed to make good 
on their statement that progress would be made. 
It has been found that governors and other public 
officials who had demanded the right of the states 
to legislate on child labor just as actively opposed 
amendments to state labor laws as they did the pro- 
posed constitutional amendment. Most pernicious 
propaganda was sent to the various states against ‘the 
amendment. Child labor has increased in twenty- 
four out of twenty-nine large industrial cities. Eight 
out of twelve states reported increases. This increase 
is a stain upon America’s national honor.” 

We wish also to quote with all possible force and 
commendation the statement of the Executive Coun- 
cil in its report: “All the powers ‘of big corporations 
and greedy employers are. ranged against. us, but we 
believe that if the labor movement does its duty it 
will not be long before the proposed child labor 


amendment will be a part of the constitution, as the 


Executive Council does not intend to give up the . 


struggle until victory is won.” Remember that 38 
legislatures will assemble in 1929. The Executive 
Council will conduct persistent agitation for ratifi- 
cation of the. child labor amendment to the consti- 
tution of the United States by those legislatures 
that have not yet acted and to urge those who have 
rejected the amendment to rescind their action. It 
is urged that every national and international union, 
state federation of labor, city central body and local 
union give the fullest co-operation and moral and 
financial support to this effort to rouse the conscience 
of America against the evil of child slavery and to 
obtain justice for the nation’s children for the pro- 
tection not only of the children, but of the nation 
itself, 


CuiLp Lasor In District of CoLUMBIA 

Your Committee is extremely gratified at the en- 
actment of a new law governing child labor in the 
District of Columbia. This law is a distinct advance 
over the former law and is a hopeful -sign for the 
accomplishment of our major object, the protection 
of ALL children. 
Punic HEALTH 

Since there is ‘no greater problem confronting the 


‘ 


-” 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER ? es 






American peeople than that: of health,” it is a mat- 
ter of deep regret that the bill to co-ordinate the 
public’ health activities of the government, which 
was supported by the American Federation of Labor 
acting under instruction of the 1927 convention, 
failed to become a law because of the refusal of the 
president to sign the bill. We recommend that the 
Executive Council be instructed to continue its ef- 
forts to secure the enactment of this bill into a law. 


CuHicaco WorLp’s Fair 

Your Committee recommends concurrence and ap- 
proval of the action of the Executive Council in the 
arrangements which it has made to participate in the 
Chicago World’s Fair, thus giving a great opportu- 
nity for an impressive exhibition of Labor’s progress, 
achievements, aims and purposes. 


SAMUEL GOMPERS MEMORIAL 

It is the desire of your Committee to close this 
report on a high note that will appeal to the heart 
and mind of every member of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor. For this reason, we are concluding 
with the report on the Samuel Gompers Memorial. 
The Labor movement has every right to congratulate 
itself that the necessary legislation has been enacted 
by the Congress of the United States authorizing 
the erection of the memorial in the city of Washing- 
ton, D. C. We commend unreservedly the Execu- 
tive Council for its successful activity. We approve 
the postponement of the formal appeal for funds and 
concur in the recomniendation that this formal ap- 
peal shall be made in January, 1929, the month of 
our distinguished and revered leader’s birth. We 
urge that the response to this appeal shall be liberal 


and a true expression of the appreciation of all true 
trade unionists of the invaluable service to the cause 
of labor and all humanity rendered by this great 


man. 





COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, 
James P. Noonan, Chairman 
FLORENCE Curtis Hanson, Secretary. 


Joun H. WALKER Won. R. Trotrer 


J. L. Wines R. A. HENNING 
Harry O. LINGEMAN JOHN B. HaccERty 
H. C. Grierin Ep. H. FirzGEraLp 


Henry F. SCHMAL JoHN WATSON 


Tuomas E.. BuRKE GeorcE L. Gooce 


RoBERT McCoy 















































28 - "THE AMERICAN TEACHER : 


CLEVELAND MEETINGS ON VOCATIONAL 
GUIDANCE AND PLACEMENT 
February 20 to 23, 1929 

The ‘annual meetings of organizations interested 
in vocational guidance, placement, employment man- 
agement and educational personnel practice will 
bring a large number of educators, executives and 
research workers to Cleveland, February 20 to 23, 
just preceding the sessions of the Department of 
‘ Superintendence of the National Education Asso- 
ciation. Included in this group are the National 
Vocational Guidance Association, National Associa- 
tion of Appointment Secretaries, National Commit- 
tee of Bureaus of Occupation, National Association 
of Deans of Women, College Personnel Officers, 
Personnel Research Federation, and individual rep- 
resentatives from the American Management Asso- 
ciation, Deans of Men, American Association of 
Collegiate Registrars, American Council on Educa- 
tion and other interested societies. 


These groups are co-operating to avoid duplica- 
tion in programs and alsoto make it possible to 
share the unique features of each organization by 
holding open meetings and some joint sessions. The 
programs will be attractive to vocational counselors, 
specialists in occupational information, placement 
officers, employers and employment managers, deans, 
registrars, teachers, psychologists and _ personnel 
workers. The common points in the separate pro- 
grams show a growing realization both of the diverse 
responsibility for counseling, and of the fact that 
problems of adjustment in and out of school con- 
cern a great many administrative officers as well as 
specialists. The following extracts from the pro- 
grams strike a common note: 

The National Vocational Guidance Association, 
whose headquarters are at the Hotel Cleveland, will 
discuss, under the general heading “Phases of the 
Vocational Guidance Problem,” the following three 
papers: “Some Problems in Placement,” by Clara 
Lewis, in charge of Employment Department, Voca- 
tional Service for Juniors, New York City; ‘The 
Use of Occupational Material in the Classroom and 
in the Personal Interview,” by Florence E. Clark, 
Vocational Guidance Department, Chicago Public 
Schools; “Scholarships and Relief Funds,” by M. 
Edith Campbell, Director, Vocation Bureau, Cincin- 
nati Public Schools. Another general meeting has 
“Research in Guidance” for its topic, at which Dr. 
Herbert A. Toops, of Ohio State University will 
speak on “What Principles Shall Guide Our Re- 
search and Our Practice in Guidance?” and Dr. Ben 
D. Wood of Columbia University, will report on the 
“Preliminary Results of the Pennsylvania Study.” 
There will also be section meetings on Counseling, 
Scholarships, Occupational Studies, Placement, and 
Psychological Studies. 

The National Association of Appointment Secre- 
taries, with its headquarters at the Allerton Club 


Hotel, is presenting a number of papers dealing with — 


problems of placement and personnel from the points 
of view of both education and business. Amo 
these are “Vocational Information and Placement as 
a Factor in Personnel Procedure,” presented by Miss 
Grace Harrison, Vocational Secretary, Smith Col- 
lege; “What the College President Asks of a Per- 
sonnel Officer” by President Ernest H. Wilkins, 
Oberlin College; “The Personnel Department: Its 
Contribution to the Personnel Work of Deans and 
Administrative Officers,’ by Dr. D. T. Howard, 
Director of Personnel, Northwestern University. The 
general topic for the Thursday afternoon meeting of 
this organization, is “The Integration of College 
Personnel Work.” There will also be a series of short 
papers which discuss techniques of placement and 
employment systems. 

The National Association of Deans of Women, 
which is using the Hotel Statler as its headquarters, 
is discussing ‘‘Problems Created by Present Day Indi- 
vidualism” at its first general meeting, with Presi- 
dent Meta B. Glass, of Sweet Briar College, Dr. W. 
W. Charters, of Ohio State University, and Dr. 
Eleanor Rowland Wembridge, Referee of the Juve- 
nile Court of Cleveland, leading the discussion. 
Their Section’ Meetings, which are made up for four 
groups—University, College, Teachers College and 
Normal School, and High School—will consider 
many administrative problems involving the per- 
sonnel point of view. 

The College Personnel Officers, membership of 
which is made up of personnel administrators from 
the mid-western colleges, and the National Commit- 


tee of Bureaus of Occupation are both planning short | 


programs at Cleveland, and are uniting with the 
other groups in their open and joint meetings. The 
Allerton Club Hotel is the headquarters for these 
two groups. : 

The Personnel Research Federation has its head- 
quarters at the Cleveland Hotel. One open session 
on February 22 will be devoted to the presentation 
of a wide variety of brief, informal reports of re- 
search projects at the college level. These reports are 
grouped under four main headings: 1. Studies of 
Students in Course; 2. Vocational Information and 
Guidance; 3. Motivation of Superior Students; and 


4. Mativation of Inferior Students. This meeting, © 


of which Dr. David A. Robertson will be Chairman, 
will give a survey of a variety of studies now under 
way in many colleges and universities. 

A joint meeting of all of the organizations will be 
held on Saturday morning, February 23, under the 


auspices of the Personnel Research Federation. A 


report of the study, “Careers of 15,000 Business and 


Professional Women,” now being made at the Uni-_ 


versity of Michigan will be given. Dr. Margaret 
Elliott, Assistant Professor of Personnel Manage- 
ment, will report the part dealing with “Problems 


of Occupational Classification,” and Dr. Grace E. 
Manson, Research ~ Associate, School of Busines 


~ 





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Administration, will present “Educational Back- 
ground and Occupation Progress” which deals with 
the relationship between education and earnings 
within this large and representataive group of 
women. Dr. Harold A. Edgerton, of Ohio State 
University, is to repoft on “A Follow-up Study 
Through College of 2,000 Freshmen.” Dr. Edward 
K. Strong, Jr., of Stanford University, will speak 
on the “Measurement of Vocational Interests.” As 
a final summing up of these co-operative meetings, 
Dean Francis F, Bradshaw of the University of 
North Carolina, is to lead a discussion of the possi- 
bility of co-ordination of efforts of all groups inter- 
ested in personnel, placement and vocational guid- 
ance. 

A folder containing detailed programs and sched- 
ules of all meetings of these six organizations, is 
being issued by the Personnel Research Federation, 
and may be secured either from the secretaries of 
these several organizations or from the offices of the 
Federation by February 10th. 

Acnes B. Leany, 

Personnel Research Federation, 

29 West Thirty-nhinth Street, 

New York. 





NORRIS ON POWER TRUST 

The following brief extracts are from a great 
speech delivered by Senator George B. Norris of 
Nebraska towards the close of the recent campaign. 

“The most important question for solution now 
before the American people is the preservation of 
our God-given natural resources, and this brings us 
at once to the consideration of the power question. 
Recent developments in this country have clearly 
shown that the Power Trust is the greatest monopo- 
listic organization that has ever been put together 
by human ingenuity. 

“The property controlled by this great combi- 
nation is greater than the total value of all the rail- 
roads in the United States. 

“With its slimy fingers it reaches into every com- 
munity and levies its tribute upon every fireside. 
There is no avenue of human activity that it has 
not undertaken to control. It has invaded the Com- 
mercial Clubs, Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs. It has 
undertaken to poison the minds of our boys in the 
Boy Scout organization. It has sent its secret emis- 
saries to influence and control women’s clubs and 
organizations. It has undertaken to bribe the min- 
ister in the pulpit, and, with its sinister, stealthy 
tread, it has even entered our public schools and 
tried to poison the minds of our children. It has 
secretly controlled college professors and high school 


mere ae 


. » 


"THE AMERICAN TEACHER Por 29 


teachers, and has systematically and deliberately un- 
dertaken to build up sentiment in its favor by the 
control of the press. 

‘“The working of this Trust has been secret and 


, underhanded. And where did it get the money to 


carry on ‘this wonderful campaign of deception? 
The Power Trust has but one source of income, and 
that is the contributions made from one end of the 
country to the other by those who use electricity. 


“The Electric Trust is in politics clear up to its 
neck. Moreover, in dirty politics, unfair politics, 
wicked politics, contaminated with corruption and. 
deceit. This Trust is in politics from the White 
House down to the school district. It forgets noth- 
ing. It overlooks nothing. 

“Our Public School System is dear and sacred to 
the heart of every patriotic citizen, and the man or 
woman who undertakes to undermine that system of 
public education by secret and false propaganda and 
misrepresentation is an enemy to our country. He is 
striking at the very foundation stone of democratic 
government, and such conduct cannot be upheld 
or overlooked by any real patriot. 


“I have given you thus only a few samples of the 
work of this gigantic octopus which is secretly un- 
dermining our society, our civilization and our Gov- 
ernment, because if the activities thus disclosed are 
carried to their logical conclusion it seems that this 
Trust is greater than the Government and that it 
will eventually control the Government. I, myself, 
cannot understand how any man who loves human 
liberty, who loves his country, can stand idly by 
and remain silent while this attempt to overthrow 
our Government and destroy our liberties is going 
on.” —T he People’s Business. 





THE GOD OF SCIENCE. By Arvid Reuterdahl, 
M. A., D. Sc. The Arya Company, Publishers, 203-4 
Besse Building, Minneapolis, Minn. $3.00. Postpaid. 
Postage 15c. 

Dr. Arvid Reuterdahl, of ‘St. Paul, internationally 
known mathematician, engineer, physicist, and direc- 
tor general of the International Theistic Society, was 
a leader in the successful fight against the passage of 


the anti-evolution bill in the 1927 session of the Min- 
nesota legislature. Those interested in a scientific 


‘and judicial discussion of the relation between science 


and religion will find Dr. Reuterdahl’s recently pub- 
lished book, The God of Science, profitable reading. 




























































































Local News 


Cuicaco Locals 2, 3, AND 199 


Owing to the new. government regulations the 
programs broadcast over WCFL have had to be re- 
arranged. The educational talks coming on between 
seven and eight at night have been discontinued and 
in their place has been substituted a three-quarter of 
an hour program every afternoon. Mr. Bogan, Super- 
intendent of Schools, met Mr. Meade, President of 
Local 2; Mrs. Schacht, President of Local 3; Miss 
Clohesy, President of Local 199, and Mr. Lindquist, 
Director of the WCFL Station, to discuss 
ways and means of co-operation between the educa- 
tional and labor groups. It is hoped to make the 
afternoon hour of interest to children and one in 
which the public may come to know what is actually 
being done in the schools. 

After the Christmas holidays committee work in 
Local 3 is beginning in eafnest. Two committees 
have recently been formed. Mrs. Catherine Williams 
has been made chairman of a committee on Work- 
ing Conditions, to make an early study of the 
amount of extra time required of teachers in attend- 
ing special conferences outside of school hours. Miss 
Lenore Leins is heading the Legislative Committee 
to watch the educational and welfare bills about to 
be presented to the Illinois State Legislature -and to 
make recommendations on those to be supported. 

FLORENCE E, CLarK. 











New Yorx, Loca 5 
Letter Calling Conference of School Representatives 
on a Plan to Increase the Power of the Union. 
Dear Fellow Members: 


One of our good friends in the Janitors’ Union 
made a significant comment the other day when he 
was told of the Teachers Union drive for one thou- 
sand new members. “What’s a thousand?” he said. 
“Don’t stop at that.” One of our own members who 
is young enough to have a full quota of enthusiasm 
is impatient at the modesty of the objective named 
for the present membership drive. She wants us to 
_ undertake to organize the teachers, all of them. So, 
here we are being pressed into action by our friends. 

For the past year or more it has been getting easier 
and easier for us to gain our points with the school 
authorities. Everyone knows how we made the Medi- 
cal Board behave. We have learned from experience 
that it doesn’t pay to temporize when we want con- 
cessions from the school authorities. In fact, when 
we asked for, and won, the December 24th holiday, 
we were at the same time pointing out the errors of 
school officials in taking pension legislation out of 
the hands of the teachers. Just now we are co- 
operating with peace organizations in opposing the 
plan of school officials to establish an R. O. T. C. 











THE AMERICAN TEACHER 3 * 


ee 


unit in one of the high schools, which will be under 
the direction of the War Department. 
The reason we often succeed in our efforts is be- 


cause- we have learned how to use our resources in — 


pressing our points, and because we have obtained a 
standing in the affairs of the educational system in- 
comparably more influential than is customary among 
teachers’ organizations. 

This letter is going primarily to school representa- 
tives, but others will receive it and all will be wel- 
come to the social meeting which we are holding at 
the Civic Club, 18 East Tenth Street, on Friday, 
January 11, at 4 o'clock. 

We want you all to come and take part in the 
working out of plans to start the membership drive 
for ONE THOUSAND NEW MEMBERS. 

Tea will be served at the meeting. If you cannot 
be present, ask some other member to come in your 
place to represent your school. 

Fraternally yours, 
Henry R. LINVILLE, 
President. 

And this is part of what Local 5 is doing. Returns 

are already coming in. , 


ATLANTA LocaL 89 
All the influence of the Atlanta Federation of 





Trades is to be brought to bear in an effort to secure | 


more adequate financial support for Atlanta’s public 
school system during the year 1929. This was made 
clear at the December 10 meeting of the central la- 
bor body, when resolutions were adopted on recom- 
mendation by the executive board, placing the Fed- 
eration on record as urging the city council to appro- 
priate more money for school purposes in 1929. 

The resolutions point out that greatly increased 
enrollment of children in the public schools has not 
only resulted in an overcrowded condition, but has 
overtaxed the teaching staff and caused injury 
Atlanta’s educational system. The children are the 
chief sufferers, it is shown, and unless additional 
funds are appropriated in the 1929 budget by the 
city council, the situation will be even more aggta- 
vated. 

The public schools now receive 26 per cent of the 
city’s revenue annually for maintenance, but this 
sum iis declared to be too small to meet the needs of 
the situation, due to Atlanta’s rapid growth and the 
need for increased educational facilities. The Atlanta 
Journal of Labor is carrying on this campaign with 
great vigor. The issue of January 11 contains an an- 
alysis of the careful study made by Mr. D. M 
Therrell. 

There is much gratification at the re-election of 
Mr. George W. Powell as President of the Board of 
Education. 





; tay 
PORTLAND, Loca 111 


Charles A. Rice, superintendent of schools, has 
written to Ben T. Osborne, executive secretary 



























FRESE g. 


a3 


REE SERESERR F 


BE 


pe: BRE 


at 


the Oregon State Federation of Labor, expressing the 
gratification of the school authorities on the action 
taken by the federation in approving the proposal 
to eliminate the tax limitation which compels the 
voting of a special levy for school purposes each year. 

The Teachers union introduced a resolution in thé 
State Federation convention favoring a constitutional 
amendment which will remove the disability from 
the Portland school district. The resolution also 
pledged the federation to assist Portland school 
authorities and other groups that might be support- 
ing such an amendment. The convention adopted 
the resolution by unanimous vote. ; 

In writing to Mr. Osborne, Superintendent Rice 
said that the school administration recognizes that 
it can depend upon labor always to assist in any 
measure for the benefit of the schools. 





Brooxwoop LocaL~189 


Mark Starr, organizer and lecturer for the Na- 
tional Council of Labor Colleges in England, is to 
lecture at Brookwood College this year on the British 
Labor Movement. The state department’s refusal a 
few weeks ago to grant a visa brought forth a veri- 
table flood of protests from all quarters, including a 
letter from H. G: Wells, the British novelist. It is 
now stated that the refusal was due to the fact that 
Brookwood had not been recognized by the state de- 
partment as an institution to whith foreign profes- 
sors could go for lecturing, and that the formalities 
of obtaining such recognition had now been com- 
plied with. 





PHILADELPHIA LABOR COLLEGE CONFERENCE 


Taking the slogan of the American Federation of 
Labor of “Double the membership in 1929,” as its 
watchword the Labor College of Philadelphia with 
the endorsement of the Central Labor Union held a 
conference on Saturday’ and Sunday, February 
2 and 3 for the purpose of focusing the attention 
of both members of organized labor and of the gen- 
eral public that no headway can be made in advanc- 
ing the interests of labor or of society, regardless of 
the mechanism advocated for relationship between 
men and management in industry, unless labor is 
strongly and universally organized in unions of its 
free choosing. Though the Conference was called 
to discuss the subject of “New Relationships between 
Labor and Capital” the program had been so arranged 
as to bring out the fundamental need for organiza- 
tion. Among the speakers appearing on the program 
were Gustave Geiges, President American Federation 
of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers; Mark’ Starr of 
the London Labor College, London, England; Percy 
Tetlow of the United Mine Workers of America; 
Josephine Roche, Vice-president of the Rocky Moun- 
tain Fuel Company; Morris L, Cooke, Past President, 
Taylor Society; Otto S. Beyer, Consulting Engineer 
of the International Association of Machinists; Wil- 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER. 31 


liam Jett Lauck, Economist, and J. M. Budish, Edi- 
tor The Headgear Worker. 

Starting at the very opening of the Conference on 
Saturday afternoon, 3:30 o’clock, Gustave Geiges 
discussed “Universal Organization Essential in Newer 
Relations.” Mark Starr followed with an analysis of 
“The Mond Plan and British Labor.” 

That same evening at a dinner session at. which 
John J. Casey, President of Pennsylvania Federation 
of Labor, was toastmaster, Percy Tetlow, United 
Mine Workers of America, advanced “A Construc- 
tive Program for the Coal Industry,” while Miss 
Josephine Roche, First Vice-president of the Rocky 
Mountain Fuel Company, who stepped in last year 
during the chaos in the Colorado coal fields and 
brought order in the industry by recognizing the 
United Mine Workers, talked on “Opportunities for 
Harmony in the Coal Industry.” 

The Conference continued on Sunday, February 3, 
with a morning session at 10 o’clock with Jacob 
Billikopf, Executive Director, Federation of Jewish 
Charities, presiding; Morris L. Cooke, Past President 
of the Taylor Society and an engineer with a broad 
social viewpoint, discussed “Engineering Approach to 
Labor Minds,” while Otto $. Beyer, Consulting Engi- 
neer of the International Association of Machinists, 
presented “The Results of Five Years of Co-opera- 
tion.” 

The last session of the Conference was held on 
Sunday afternoon, February 3, at 2:30 o’clock when 
the Mitten-Mahon Agreement was analyzed. Wil- 
liam Jett Lauck, economist, and J. M. Budish, editor 
of The Headgear Worker, official publication of 
the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers’ Union, 
presented the subject from different angles. Adolph 
Hirschberg, President, Central Labor Union of Phil- 
adelphia, presided. 
IsraEL Murson, Secretary. 





SEATTLE, LocaL 200 

Heartening progress is being made in the pro- 
gram of the Seattle Teachers Union. The outlook 
for a sound state-wide tenure law is good. Three 
members of the School Board will be elected this 
spring. The teachers are planning their campaign 
to secure the election of high grade, intelligent, pro- 
gressive men and women to these vacancies. 

Power interests in the northwest were given a slap 
in the defeat of Josephine Corliss Preston for Wash- 
ington state superintendent of schools in the recent 
primary. N. D. Schowalter, formerly president of 
the state normal school at Cheney, secured the repub- 
lican nomination and election. 

A few months ago a paper disclosed that Mrs. 
Preston had been receiving money for editing mono- 
graphs written by the publicity bureau of the Puget 
Sound Power and Light Company boosting private 
ownership and development of electric power. These 
pamphlets were used as supplementary texts in the 
Washington public schools. 


" 




































32 





In 1924 when the power trust used the public 
schools to fight the Bone bill, which would have let 
municipal plants sell their surplus power outside 
their city limits, Mrs. Preston assisted in promoting 
an essay contest. The power trust awarded fat cash 
prizes for essays that ridiculed municipal ownership 
and lauded private operation. 


Superintendent Showalter is on record as opposed 
to the use of the schools for private propaganda. He 
also stands for the right of teachers to organize and 
for tenure. : 





A. F. OF T. EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEETS 

The Executive Council of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers met in Washington, D. C., January 
12 and 13. A conference with President Green of 
the American Federation of Labor was very encour- 
aging. His advice as always was helpful and inspir- 
ing and his assurance of interest and co-operation 
heartening. ‘The program outlined by President 
Green gives us confidence that the coming year will 
be a successful one for A. F. of T. and A. F. of L. 


Plans for organization arid promotion of our pro- 


gram, especially Tenure and Increased: Revenues to . 


Maintain and Develop the Public Schools were put 
under way. 

On Saturday the Council was delightfully enter- 
tained at dinner by the present and past officers of 
the Washington Teachers Union, Local 8. 





David J. Saposs, who has contributed to this issue 
of THE AMERICAN TEACHER the article. on “The 
Union Teachers of France” is professor of Social 
Economics at Brookwood College and a member of 
the Council for Research in the Social Sciences, Col- 
umbia University. 

Professor Saposs spent a year and a half during 
the last two years in France studying the French 
labor movement and this article is a by-product of 
that study. He was sent with a group of other edu- 
cators, nearly all of them professors at Columbia 
University, under‘ the general direction of Professor 
Carlton J. H.. Hayes to make a study of post-war 
social conditions of France. The study is sponsored 
and financed by the Columbia University Council 
for Research in the Social Sciences. Professor Saposs 
is head of the Labor Division of this study and has 
a small staff under his direction. 

The results of this study of the Council will be 
published in eight volumes, one of which will be 
Professor Saposs’ book entitled, The French Labor 
Movement Since the War. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





OUR TWIN CITY CONTRIBUTORS 

Philip Carlson is Principal of Roosevelt High 
School, and Director of the Minneapolis. Teachers’ 
Retirement Fund Association. 

Luella B. Cook is English teacher at Central High 
School, Minneapolis, and the author of several text 
books on English. 

Alice Fitz Gerald Drechsler is instructor in French 
at Central High School and Past President of the 
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. 

Florence Fish is a teacher of Latin in Central High 
School, and chairman of the Minneapolis Salary 
Committee. 

Dr. Dorothy P. Gary is an assistant professor of 
sociology in an eastern college. 

R. E. McKenny, author of the cover design, is a 
member of the Art Department of Humboldt High 
School, St. Paul, and of the Commercial Art Depart- 
ment of the St. Paul School of Art. 

William Mahoney is the editor of The Minnesota 
Union Advocate, founder of the Farmer-Labor 
Party, past president of the St. Paul Trades and La- 
bor Assembly, civic. leader, and a member of the 
Pressmen’s Union. 

Dr. Arvid Reuterdahl, D. Sc., Ph. D., was for- 
merly Dean of the Department of Architecture and 
Engineering, St. Thomas College, St. Paul, is now 
President of Ramsey Institute of Technology, and 
author of The God of Science. 

Florence Rood is a vice-president of the American 
Federation of Teachers and a member of the St. Paul 
Fedefation of Women Teachers. 

S. S. Tingle is a member of the St. Paul Federa- 
tion of Men Teachers and a past president of that 
organization. 

Isabel Williams is a-member of the St. Paul Fed- 
eration of Women Teachers and a former field sec- 
retary of the American Federation of Teachers. 





RESOLUTION SEEKS FUNDS TO JOIN CHILD 
ORGANIZATION 


Authorization for the appropriation of $2,000 per 
year to enable the United States to become a member 
of the American International Office of Protection 
for Childhood at Montevideo, Uruguay, would & 
given in a Joint Resolution (House Joint Resolution 
No. 331) just introduced in the House by Represet 
tative Porter (Rep.), of Pittsburgh; Pa. 

This is a serious news item,