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AMERICAN TEACHER 











THE ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 





























KA) REFERENCE 
DO NOf LOAN 


THE NEW ECONOMIC 
ORGANISM 


The machine, and the civiliza- 
tion it has created, has made of 
the world an economic unit where 
we are all indispensable members 
one of another. The world has 
in fact become one organism. 
And one of the chief problems of 
the twentieth century is so to de- 
velop and perfect the world eco- 
nomic machinery that has already 
come into existence as to secure 
a larger measure of harmony, 
of justice, of honesty and fair 
dealing among all the various 
members of the new world com- 
munity, be they large or small, 
| strong or weak. 


| —John Herman Randall in 
| December World Unity Magazine. 


















































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DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATION 


EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 















JANUARY, .1930 





hy 








PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, CHICAGO 


PASIAN 






VOL. XIV. No. 5 


















































“For Romance. for Culture, for Commerce —the Pacific— 
Asia—there is the field for Americans today.” 


The Fourth Cultural 


EXPEDITION to the ORIENT 


Under the Leadership of 


UPTON CLOSE 


Author: Revolt of Asia, Eminent Asians, etc.; greatest Author 
ity on Modern Asia. 


Will visit Japan, Korea, Manchuria, and 
China. Late Junetoearly September! 930 


Special Art, Political International, Social Science, Student 
and Drama Groups (The last organized by 
Church and Drama League). 

FIRST CLASS STUDENT CLASS STUDENT CLASS 

China Inland Route China Coast Route 


$1050 $525 $470 
Baggage —tips —everything—included. 


The Greatest Travel Opportunity Offered Americans Today 
Ask details from 


PACIFIC ERA TRAVELS, INC. 
25 West 43rd Street, New York City 


(The number of teachers taken on the Expedition is limited, 
so those wishing to apply should do so at once.) 














DO YOU BELIEVE 


THAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO 


1. A voice and a vote in the management of your 
school ; 

2. Independence of thot, freedom of expression and ex- 
ercise of initiative; 

3. Working conditions that are sanitary, cheerful and 
inspiring. 

4. A promotion in rank based on merit only; 


5. A salary commensurate with the dignity and im- 
portance of your office? 


IF SO 


JOIN THE HOST 


OF READERS OF 


The American Teacher 
Published by teachers for principle; not for profit 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER is the only teachers’ 
magazine whose sole excuse for existence is the desire 
to improve the working conditions of the teachers, and 
to raise teaching to the dignity of a profession. 


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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 
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CONTENTS 


Page 
RN aS a ea 1 
Kobert M. lTiutchins. 
Workers’ Education in Britain............ 4 
Mark Starr. 
REED ei err ncn any Nae ner Pe RE 6 


What Could an Educator of Vision Do 
for Education in Large Cities........... 
Abraham Lefkowitz. 


Summary of A. F. of L. Convention....... 13 

An Open Letter to Every Human Being... 15 
Wilham Green. 

NN ooo oa wane @ireuinielew Aro swine 16 
Michael B. Scheler. 

NN eel a re clara aiaihinia aioe oid we 26 

I co 5 cacaris inte eke wales avksdm.ooeralla Stabe 32 














PROGRESSIVES ARE READING 


LABOR’S NEWS 


The factual news weekly of the labor 
movement. Trained correspondents and 
staff writers of The Federated Press 
report and interpret week by week the 
significant events and trends in eco- 
nomics, finance, politics and _ social 
change as they bear upon the labor and 
progressive movement. 


Labor's News is an expansion and improvement 
of the Federated Press Labor Letter and 
its predecessor the Federated Press Bulletin 


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The Federated Press 


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Entere 
ceptant 


Volur 


—=—— 


Mr. S 


In 
revieV 
alread 
those 

Mr. 
impre 
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lished 
to cor 
stone 
of fa 
grour 
littles 
reasol 
him t 
was 1 
street 
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he ve 
sane 
be, be 
becau 
Midd 
cut. 
went 
applie 
warde 
stand 
conse 
happe 
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tainly 
Every 
utes, 
at the 
lot s 
what 
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ers’ 
sire 
and 


I We 











The American Teacher 


entered as second class matter Oct. 20, 1926, at the post office at Chicago, Ill., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Ac- 


ce 


Volume XIV, No. 5 


—— 

















ptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Sec. 1103, Act of Feb. 28, 1925, authorized Nov. 3, 1926. 


JANUARY, 1930 


Two Dollars a Year 


° 


An Address 
Before the Teachers Union of Chicago, December 2, 1929 


By Robert M. Hutchins, President, University of Chicago 


\r. Superintendent, Ladies and Gentlemen: 


In default of any speech of my own, I shall 
review briefly the speeches that have been made 
dready and shall explain to you what it was that 
those who gave them were talking about. 

Mr. Caldwell was endeavoring to give you the 
impression that he is a person of great antiquity. 
He referred to the playground that was estab- 
lished in Chicago in the year 1901, and endeavored 
toconvey to you the idea that he laid the corner- 
stone of that playground in person. As a matter 
of fact, when Miss Krauel first went into play- 
ground work fifteen years ago, her first and 
littlest little boy was Mr. Caldwell. The only 
reason that his parents were willing to entrust 
him to a person of her inexperience was that he 
was too small to be allowed to run about the 
treets. That eminent Scandinavian, Mr. Sul- 
ivan, had a good deal to say about insanity, and 
te ventured to assert that people who were in- 
same were not good organizers. They may not 
ke, but they are good critics of oratory. I know, 
tecause I once addressed a body of them in the 
Middletown Asylum for the Insane in Connecti- 
cut. It was about the Yale Law School that I 
went to talk to them about. Several of them later 
applied for admission and were accepted. The 
warden said to me, “Mr. Hutchins, you under- 
‘and that these people here are all crazy, and 
‘sequently you won’t be surprised if anything 
‘tappens. If anything does happen, just go on as 
though it had not happened.” I said, “Why, cer- 
ainly, I understand that,” and began to speak. 
tverything went all right for the first ten min- 
tes. At the end of that time a woman got up 
tthe end of the room and said, “My God, I can- 
‘ot stand it a moment longer.” I remembered 
that the warden had said and paid no attention. 
When I had finished the warden said to me, 


“Dean Hutchins, I want to thank you for the way 
you behaved when that woman screamed.” I said,- 
“Don’t mention it.” He continued, “I want to 
thank you, and we are all very happy about it, 
and we are very happy on that woman’s account 
also. I said, “What do you mean by that?” He 
said, “Do you know, that is the first sane mo- 
ment she has bad in twenty years?” 

Miss Clohesy was endeavoring to make clear 
to you my attitude towards members of faculties 
who marry for money and teach for love, and 
she suggested I had no patience with those people. 
On the contrary, I admire and congratulate them. 
My difficulty is that those opportunities for self- 
support are so limited, and it has therefore seemed 
to me that it might be necessary to give those 
of us who were not so able in the selective proc- 
ess of matrimony some other opportunities to 
keep alive. 

Mr. Walker was congratulating you—and I 
hardly understand why it was—that with the de- 
velopment of modern machinery shortly the 
teachers would be the only people in this coun- 
try who had to work. 

The superintendent, with that learning for 
which he is famous, devoted considerable atten- 
tion to the Scotch monks who had learning for 
sale. You bet they had it for sale! The answer 
to the conundrum “When is a Scotchman not a 
Scotchman,” is “When he gives himself away.” 
You all recall the case of the Scotch boy whose 
father took him into the kitchen and gave him 
a quarter once a week, and only when he was 
fifteen years old did he discover that the bank 
was the gas meter. 

Now, this is for me a most unusual experience, 
in the first place because of the preponderating 
coeducational factor. For six or seven years I 
did nothing but address that low group of males, 
the Yale Alumnus, and I would always begin my 








2 THE AMERICAN 


speeches with stories which would be quite im- 
proper on this occasion. For instance, I would 
recount my first experience on going to New 
Haven from the untutored and unsophisticated 
confines of Ohio. I followed the group from the 
railroad station to Chapel Street toward the close 
of a bleak September day. Everything went in 
a: satisfactory fashion until we reached the de- 
partment store on the corner. There I received 
a shock that has colored all my later life. There 
was a large window full of lacy, frilled garments. 
They were not outer-garments; they were not 
‘masculine garments; they were garments of which 
I do not know the names. There in the center 
of it all was a huge sign saying, “Welcome, Men 
of Yale!” Of course, to tell such a story as that 
on this occasion would be absolutely out of the 
question. 

In the second place, I have spent all my life 
telling about education and trying to persuade 
those who did not think it was important that 
there might be something in it, after all, and here 
is a group of people who know a great deal more 
about it than I do. I have argued, and constantly 
argued, for higher salaries, and here if I want to 
start an argument I judge I shall have to change 
the subject. 

Finally, the most unusual thing about this ex- 
perience for me is that I see for the first time 
in my life the representatives of organized labor 
and the representatives of education assembled 
together in what at least in public looks like ab- 
solute amity and comradeship. 

Now, of course, after all there is very little 
unusual about that relationship except to a per- 
son whose inexperience is as colossal as mine. 

A hundred years ago this month the working 
men’s organizations of New York met in the larg- 
est hall they could find and demanded free edu- 
cation for the public. The National Labor Union 
in 1866 advocated free education. The Knights 
of Labor in the preamble of their original con- 
stitution demanded not only compulsory education 
between the ages of seven and eighteen, but also 
demanded even in that era free text books for 
all students in public schools. 

The original platform of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor adopted in 1881 called for com- 
pulsory education, and in Chicago away back 
before Mr. Caldwell was born, in 1904, the Laun- 
dry Workers Union of this City held a series of 


TEACHER 


public lectures and, symbolical of the future, helgff pons 
a great many of them in the public schools, [ie p 

More recently the American Federation gifts, 
Labor has led the way in recommending the dayfdangi 
and night vocational schools and_ continuatigg§eptic 
schools, and I think one of the best statemen§ No 
I know as to the place and function of educatiggfility 
in democracy is that contained in the reconstruc { bli 
tion program of the American Federation oj te l 








Labor of 1919. They say: ond St 
“It is impossible to estimate the influence }x ar 
of education upon the world’s civilization, ],§ ed 


Education must not stifle thought and in- } Tp 
quiry, but must awaken the mind concerning 
the application of natural laws and to a con- 
ception of independence and prograss. Edu- 
cation must not be for the few but for all of 
the people. The welfare of the republic de- 
mands that public education shall be elevated 
to the highest degree possible.” 
I think that is one of the best things that any 
; ‘ . poolleg 
American group has ever said about education, oii 
“And as a result,” the expert on the history off . 
organized labor concludes, “the concept of uni- ” 
versal education as a powerful economic and] 
social engine did not rise to a prominent place 
in the social consciousness until organized labor 
became a powerful factor in our industrial life.” 
And so I suppose, after all, it is quite logical} 
that the representatives of organized labor shoulif' 
be with you tonight, for since organized labor} wa 
became organized it has been the most active and 
the most persistent advocate of free compulsory 


loud | 
There 
to the 
choo 
State 
the 0 
the Ii 












secondary, and in the universities, still come from] ji, ' 
the homes of wage earners. Anything that if|nay 
proves the conditions from which those children{ ;, 
come improves our own work. sdmi 

Now, the teachers, then, are unionized. na vay 
do they want? They want, I suppose, too, Ar 
all unions, better wages, better hours and bette]. 
homes. 

But they, it seem to me, have another ft 











ure, he gonsibility, and that is the responsibility that in 
hools, [ie past has devolved upon these clanging cym- 
ation gifids, to use Superintendent Bogan’s term, these 
the daffdanging cymbals and bass drums, with the ex- 
Hinuatiogf eption of President Scott, the college presidents. 
atemensy Now, that responsibility has been the responsi- 
ducati tility of constantly calling the attention of the 
Onstrucf gublic to the needs of the educational system of 
se United States. Somebody has had to do it, 
and so these peripatetic individuals have wandered 
and down the country proclaiming the needs 
of education. 
The time has passed when any such group of 
ind speakers can accomplish the task before us. 
There must be constant, persistent effort to bring 
» the attention of our people the needs of the 
ghools and colleges and universities of the United 
States. That task, it seem to me, devolves upon 
the organized teachers of the country. You are 
the lineal if not the logical successors of those 
wllege presidents who have been trying to per- 
wade the American public that, after all, educa- 
tion might have something important about it. 
te ani That task is great; it calls for persistent effort. 
at place Now, in the development of education the thing 
d labor| tat constantly has to be borne in mind is that 
11 life” "do not really know very much about it. Even 
logical] 0" do not. We have been too busy spreading 
should} ducation in this country really to find out what 
1 labor|t was that we were administering and where it 
ive andj vas that we were going with it, and it is only 
pulsoryj tely, since our territorial expansion came to an 
in thejend, that we have had a chance to examine what 
itwas that we were accomplishing. The whole 
aturalffed of education needs constantly to be sub- 
or. lifjeted to re-study and careful scrutiny. 
wages} Not only is that true, but there are developing 
orking m either side of our present activities new ideas 
) 1S MI that have to be experimented with. Here is the 
greallfeld of adult education about which Mr. Walker 
=ntary;jtas spoken and in which Mr. Meade’s union has 
> from lis year taken a very active part. What does it 
- bes mean ? What is it for? What are we going to 
‘owith it? I submit that experiments of the type 
idministered by Mr. Meade’s union are the only 
"ay in which we shall see the answer. 
And, on the other side, we have pre-school 
‘iucation, again something about which we are 
dmost entirely ignorant and which has been in 





ation of 


[uence 
ation, 
id in- 
ning 
1 con- 
Edu- 
all of 
ic de- 
vated 


hat any 
ucation. 
tory of 
of uni- 





What 
0, like 
better 


y ft 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


3 


the hands in many cases of people who are simply 
equipped to provide a place where mothers of 
limited means can park their children in the 
morning. 

Now, as that movement develops, organizations 
of teachers who are willing to enter upon experi- 
mentation for its own sake, without regard to 
the development of vested rights which will pro- 
tect them, are organizations which will have a 
powerful influence upon the development of edu- 
cation for the pre-school child. 

In the same way we are now going into the 
question of the education of backward children, 
one of the darkest fields in the whole area of 
child guidance. Here again the active interest 
of a group of teachers who are interested not only 
in better wages, better hours and better homes, 
but in better education, is likely to produce the 
most far-reaching results. 

Now, in all these fields of experimentation, of 
course the universities must assist. I know of 
no university, certainly none in Chicago, that 
wishes to dictate to the teachers of Chicago what 
they should do. Quite the opposite. The uni- 
versity and its department of education—my uni- 
versity or any other university in Chicago—re- 
gards itself simply as the research laboratory of 
the educational system of this city. It occupies 
exactly the same relation to the public educational 
system as the research laboratory of any large 
industry. You do not have to take the results, 
but they are there and available for you to use 
if you wish to use them. 

I repeat, therefore, that what the universities 
in the City of Chicago hope to do is to become 
in their departments of education the laboratories 
for the public school system of the city. We do 
not wish to control you; we do not wish to tell 
you what to do. We do wish to be as useful 
as you want us to be. We realize our dependence 
on you. On your work our own is built. Our 
success depends upon yours. What you do we - 
will take the credit for; our mistakes we shall at- 
tribute to you. But in return we offer you our 
facilities, our interest, our collaboration and our 

co-operation in the advance of education in Chi- 
cago, for the future of education in Chicago and 
the future of the city are quite likely to be the 
same. 











Workers’ Education in Britain : 


By Mark Starr of the British Natl. Council of Labor Colleges, Now Visiting Lecturer at § leg 


Brockwood and Member of Local 189 A. F. T. ity 


When the workers strike they say to their em- 
ployers: “We will not work at your command.” 
When they build up their political organizations 
they say to their masters: “We will not vote 
at your command.” 

When they develop workers’ education, they 
say to their one time rulers: “We will not think 
at your command.” The last, writes Henri de 
Man, is the most fundamental challenge of all 
No explanation of the progress of labor in 
Britain and its challenge to the old order could 
be complete without a recognition of the part 
played therein by workers’ education. American 
journalists in their recent discovery of the Labor 
Party still tend to exaggerate the part played by 
brilliant individuals. They feature the “wise 
cracks” by Bernard Shaw scattered amongst 
London intellectuals at a Fabian lecture and for- 
get about the unknown soldiers responsible for 
the advance of labor. The teacher risking loss 
of promotion and dismissal because in a rural 
area, where MacDonald and Lenin are still 
linked together as dangerous Bolsheviks, he ex- 
presses support of trade unions or of labor ideas. 
The little groups of studious workers meeting 
weekly to get such knowledge of social problems 
as will enable them to use well their industrial 
and political power. 

Just as the A. F. L. in the U. S. A., so the 
trade unionists in Britain played a prominent 
part in opening the school door and shutting the 
factory gate for the worker’s child. Not but 
that men like Cobbett and Hodgskin saw the 
possible dangers of a state education which might 
only “indoctrinate the poor with the vice of sub- 
mission” and be “a training for the yoke.” In 
the middle of the 19th century, however, some 
farsighted employers supported Mechanics’ In- 
stitutes for adult workers and in the eighties 
education was made free and compulsory for all 
children. In “Lies and Hate in Education”’* | 
have tried to show how the lies of nationalist 
and class bias still endanger the youth of Britain 
and other countries. Here, however, education 





*Hogarth Press, $1.25 postpaid from Brookwood, 
Katonah, N. Y. 





for adults and extra to the ordinary school ; 
the topic. 

The first most notable institution in worker: 
education was Ruskin College founded in 18 
at Oxford by two Americans, Mr. W. Vroom 
and Prof, C. Beard. Its aim was to give youth 
of promise such knowledge as would enable then 

















not to rise out of their class but to raise it. |; 
1903 Dr. A. Mansbridge tried to bring the orth W. 
dox and ancient universities into contact wit R. 
the workers by forming the Workers Educ Th 
tion Association (W. E. A.). This body organg 
ized and stimulated classes for adults in whic dif 
education “above the battle’ was to be impar ca 
tially given. For the year 1928 it claims a tot = 
individual membership of 26,300 members an’ ” 
2,359 affiliations of Trade Unions, Co-operativ se 
Societies, Workingmen’s Clubs and Educationa in 
bodies. The W. E. A. championed the exten | 
sion of the school-leaving age which the Labo 
Government has now raised to 15 years to oper i 
ate next spring. ati 

Another incident of importance in workers§ 4), 





education was the Plebs League which began ig , , 
1908 to advocate independent workers’ educa 
tion. Originating among dissatisfied students 4 
Ruskin College, this body by its journal, “Th the 
Plebs,” maintained that in the study of social ,,, 
science the workers must be as independent 2 ing 
experience had forced them to be in their m ay 
dustrial and political organization. Finally 3 
majority of the students left Ruskin to foung  , 
the rival Central Labor College (later the Labog ;. 
College, London) to which they tried to tum part 
the allegiance of labor organizations. In 19): 
the National Union of Railwaymen and thé to 
South Wales Miners’ Federation took over th «.,; 
college and maintained it until 1928 when, largelif 
owing to the financial plight of the Minen§ 4 
Union, the Labor College was closed. For thé 
last two ‘years the Trades Union Congress i™] pp, 
partially sent three students to both Ruskin at by 
the Labor College and now maintains six at th] 44 
former. The N. C. L. C. hopes to replace th@ 5... 
Labor College by a training center for prospeC@ ¢4, 
tive tutors. 


er at 





exten 
; Labor 
0 oper; 


yorkers 
egan 1! 
educa 
lents 4 
, “Th 
* socia 
dent a 
eir in 
rally 3 
foun 
- Labor 
o tur 
n 1913 


nd thd 
ver thé 


largely 
Miners 


‘or thé 


ss im 
in an 


at the 


ice thé 
rospec 








THE AMERICAN 


The students in each of the residential col- 
leges seldom exceeded forty and the main activ- 
ity of workers’ education is to be found in the 
local classes and the non-residential labor col- 
leges. All the latter were federated together in 
1921 to form the National Council of Labor Col- 
leges (N. C. L. C.). This organization, like the 
Ww. E. A., works now on a nation-wide scale 
and the growth and strength of the movement 
can be seen from the following figures for the 
cass students: 


Year 1922-3 1926-7 1927-8 
2 & Sarees 22,748 30,730 35,780 
oe ar 11,993 31,635 27,147 


The fall in 1927-8 the N. C. L. C. explains is ac- 
counted for by the longer courses run and the 
difficulties of students in depressed areas to pay 
dass fees. Some 45,000 students are also cov- 
ered by the Co-operative Movement, but these 
are in part included in the above figures and are 
not exclusively studying social science. 

A short explanation of the main differences 
between the W. E. A. and the N. C. L. C. is 
perhaps necessary. The W. E. A. believes that 
education should be impartial and that students 
should be free to choose any subject which they 
wish. The N. C. L. C. asserts that even in a 
slection of facts in social history and economics 
abias comes into play. Further it specializes 
in social science and advocates study in this de- 
partment with the confessed purpose of making 
the workers more competent members of their 
kbor organizations. Instead of education be- 
ing above the struggle of classes it is a weapon 
init and must be based on a recognition of that 
struggle. 

Another point of difference is in the source of 
its teachers. The W. E. A. uses, for the most 
part, teachers with academic degrees from the 
orthodox universities. The N. C. L. C. hopes 
0 provide its own teachers by its residential 
raining centers and classes. 

For about four-fifths of its finance the W. E. 
A. and its classes depend upon the state. It 
cures aid from private and public endowments. 
The N. C. L. C. on the contrary is run solely 
ty money secured from trade unions and labor 
indies. Thirty-two trade unions, with a mem- 
‘ership of over 2,000,000, have Education 
‘hemes based on a per capita tax varying usu- 

(Continued on page 18) 


TEACHER 5 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 


7. What has Dr. John Dewey said about the 


educational program of the A. F. of L.? 
“A few years ago I went over a good many of 


the documents in that field and I say without any 
fear of contradiction that there is no organiza- 
tion in the United States—I do not care what 
its nature is—that has such a fine record in the 
program of liberal progressive public education 
as will be found in the printed records of the 
American Federatiun of Labor.” 


8. What is the chief objective of the A. F. of T. 
To professionalize teaching through organiza- 
tion of teachers in such strength that they may 
be in a position to determine their own status 
questions of professional conduct and terms of 
contract, and exercise fully their rights as citizens 
as well as teachers, thereby attaining the place 
of leadership to which they are entitled in order 
that the best and strongest may be attracted to 
the teaching calling and as free men and women 
may be fit builders of the citizens of tomorrow in‘ 
a free republic. 
9. Is it professional to belong to a union? 

In affiliation with the American Federation of 
Labor we find 1200 of the leading scientists of 
the country in the employment of various govern- 
ment bureaus, physicians in the health depart- 
ments of some of our large cities, technical engi- 
neers, musicians, actors, and teachers in public 
schools, normal schools and universities. 

The Actors’ Equity, the Musicians’ Union, the 
Federal Employees, the Civil Engineers, the phy- 
sicians in health departments have not found that 
affiliation with the American Federation of La- 
bor has brought a loss of professional standing. 
Walter Damrosch, Ethel Barrymore, John Philip 
Sousa, Dr. Franklin Meyer, Professor John 
Dewey, Professor Harry A. Overstreet, Dr. Jo- 
seph K. Hart, Professor Paul Douglass, Profes- 
sor Robert Morss Lovett, Professor John A. 
Lapp, Professor George Coe, Robert Bruere have 
not lost their professional standing by belonging 
to labor unions. 

10. What professional groups have affiliated 
with the American Federation of Labor? 

Scientists in the employment of various gov- 
ernment bureaus, physicians in the health de- 
partments of some of our large cities, technical 
engineers, musicians, actors, nurses, professors 
in colleges and universities. 








6 THE AMERICAN 


The American Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published Monthly, except July and August 
Official Organ 
THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
OrGANIZED Apri 15, 1916 
Affiliated With the American Federation of Labor 
Editorial Office : 

506 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois 
Fiorence Curtis Hanson, Secretary-Treas. and Editor 





At the time of expiration, a bill will be found in the 
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EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


President 
‘Mary C. Barker, Atlanta No. 89; 685 Myrtle Street, 
N. E., Atlanta, Georgia. 

Legislative Representative and Vice-President 
Setma M. Borcuarpt, Washington No. 8; 1741 Park 
Road, N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Vice-Presidents 
FLorence Fisu, Minneapolis No. 59; 3301 First Ave., S., 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

ABRAHAM LeFrxkowiTz, New York No. 5; 10414 27th 
Avenue, East Elmhurst, Corona, New York, N. Y. 
Henry R. Linvitte, New York No. 5; 70 Fifth Ave., 
New York, N. Y. 

A. J. Muste, Brookwood gl 189; Brookwood, Katonah, 


CarLoTta PitrmMan, Memphis No. 52; 151 Clark Place, 
Memphis, Tenn. 
W. B. Satrertuwaite, Local No. 200; 1837 12th Ave., 
West, Seattle, Washington. 
Lucie H. Scuacut, Chicago Women No. 3; 6714 S. 
Union Ave., Chicago, Illinois. 
E. E. Scowarztrauser, Portland No. 111, R. F. D. 5, 
Box 68, Portland, Oregon. 
W. J. Scorr, Atlanta No. 89; 212 Kings Highway, 
Decatur, Georgia. 

Cuartes B. Stitman, Chicago No. 2; 827 Ridge 
Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. 
Secretary-Treasurer 
FLorence Curtis Hanson, Chicago Women No. 3; 506 
South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois, 

Telephone Harrison 2950. 





THE LOVE THAT IS LOST 


Every year I live I am more convinced that the 
waste of life lies in the love we have not given, 
the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence 
that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, 
misses happiness as well. 


Mary CHOLMONDELEY. 


TEACHER 


Salaries 
It is frequently stated in terms of reproach 


that the American Federation of Teachers is in. 
terested in teachers’ salaries. We have repeated 
again and again that we are interested, keenly 
interested, in increasing salaries, but again some 
would-be critic asserts that he has discovered our 
nefarious and secret principle of adequate com- 
pensation for teachers. 

We think the time is ripe for a general cam- 
paign for increased salaries and increased rey- 
enues for the support of the public schools. In 
order that our position in this matter may be 
perfectly clear, we repeat here the statement on 
salaries adopted at our last annual convention. 
It is hoped that those who profess to believe that 
we regard or should regard this position as dis- 
creditable will read this statement. We reiterate 
that the American Federation of Teachers is seek- 
ing to make teaching a profession in fact, and 
that the foundation on which a teaching pro- 
fession must be built is adequate compensation 
for service rendered, tenure during efficiency and 
participation in administration. 

Salaries—from Convention Report 

National wealth, according to the National Bu- 
reau of Economic Research, has increased from 
$63,000,000,000 to $90,000,000,000 within the 
past six years. Since 1910 the total net annual 
income of America has increased over 80 per 
cent, while our capital accumulations and power 
to create wealth have multiplied enormously. 
This was shown by the output per man-hour in 
basic industries, such as the steel and automobile 
production; by the increase of 43 per cent in the 
production of electrical energy obtained by the 
use of fuel and by the increased productivity of 
labor itself. In view of America’s prosperity 
and her unprecedented growth in wealth since the 
World War, the failure of states and localities to 
pay adequate salaries to teachers seems !ncom- 
prehensible. 

Teachers have never been paid salaries com- 
mensurate with the social service they render. 
Wage reductions which have been suggested by 
some boards-of education, are not only without 
justification but suicidal. They tend to drive out 
of the teaching profession those courageous ideal- 
ists who inspire youth to those achievements 
which make for progress. Attempts at salary 
reduction should be resisted not only because they 





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THE AMERICAN 


entail hardships upon teachers and their depend- 
ents, but particularly because they are anti-social 
as well as destructive of the best interests of the 
country, since they transform teaching either into 
a part-time job or drive out of the profession 
those who can least be spared. 

A study of the salaries paid to teachers of 
normal schools and teachers’ colleges, recently 
made by one of our locals, revealed the deplor- 
able fact that the general salary level in these in- 
stitutions is not such as to guarantee that the stu- 
dents in them will continue to come under the 
influence of the most capable and socially minded 
teachers obtainable. Many of these schools still 
have salary schedules ranging from $1,000 to 
$3,300 and some from $1,700 to $4,000—-salaries 
less than those received by teachers in first grade 
cities. Moreover, even these schedules are not 
automatic in operation and hence the underpay- 
ment of our normal teachers is even greater than 
indicated. As the future of America rests to a 
considerable degree upon the fitness of the 
teachers for their task and, as the fitness of the 
teacher is largely determined by the type of 
normal and training school teacher, we earnestly 
call upon the public to give these teachers a salary 
commensurate with the service they render. 

America’s unprecedented growth in wealth 
since the World War, the improved status of 
the organized workers, the failure of boards of 
education to follow the recommendations of Citi- 
zens Committee for salary increases, explains, in 
large part, the great annual teacher turn-over of 
100,000 and the inevitable lowering of standards. 
The niggardly policy pursued by boards of edu- 
cation toward the question of teachers’ salaries 
cannot be continued without paying heavily 
through an inadequately trained citizenry or 
through poor economic adjustments. To prevent 
the catastrophe which must inevitably follow if 
teaching becomes a part-time job or if it fails to 
hold the best teachers or to attract others equally 
able, teachers and public spirited citizens should 
be persuaded to inaugurate salary campaigns in 
their respective localities, which should provide 
for the following: 

1. The embodiment of the principle of equal 
pay for equal professional qualifications and ex- 
perience regardless of sex or of grade or class 
taught (as in the Minneapolis schedules). 


TEACHER 7 


2. A $2,000 minimum, as every child is worth 
at least a $2,000 teacher. 

3. A maximum which will provide a cultural 
real wage enabling teachers to live according to 
the requirements of their position, to provide 
for the hazards of life, of leisure, for recreation, 
for travel, and for professional improvement. 

4. A maximum to be reached in not more 
than ten definite annual automatic increments, re- 
gardless of ratings. 

5. An index system to maintain the purchas- 
ing power of the cultural wage, to be periodically 
modified to meet ever-increasing living costs. 

When one realizes the many tremendous re- 
sponsibilities now being placed upon the teachers 
by the complexities of modern life and the con- 
ditions which place teachers in “loco parentis” ; 
when one realizes the intensive and extensive 
preparations now required of teachers and the 
growing number of administrative and executive 
duties performed by them, is it too much to ask 
that the financial returns be somewhat commen- 
surate with the increased requirements of the 
position, the services rendered by them and the 
generally rising standards of living for all 
groups? 
Increased School Costs—Increased Revenues 

Attacks upon the mounting cost of education 


have recently received considerable attention. To 
those familiar with growing educational expend- 
itures, this unjustifiable criticism seems to show 
a misconception of educational values as well as 
an anti-social point of view which augurs ill for 
educational advance. As champions of the cause 
of education and progress, we must insist that 
it is not what is spent for education that should 
excite alarm—though that is not to be ignored— 
but rather the kind of education for which it is 
spent and the comparatively small sum which have 
been spent by a nation whose income in 1926 was 
about $90,000,000,000. Despite America’s un- 
precedented wealth accumulations since the Werld 
War our national government spent but two and 
one-half per cent of its income in 1926 for educa- 
tion, while it spent eight and one-half per cent 
for combating crime and twenty-two and one- 
half per cent for luxuries. An increase in edu- 
cational expenditures would decrease the expend- 
itures for combating crime. 

Education must cost more because we are now 
giving children a more comprehensive education 











8 





to fit them for a more complex and varied life. 
Moreover, we are fitting our education more and 
more to the type of children and not, as hereto- 
fore, the children to a uniform educational 
scheme. Hence the special classes or schools 
for the crippled, the blind, the cardiac, the 
anemic; hence, the grading of pupils according 
to intelligence; hence the various types of in- 
dividual instruction which characterize our edu- 
cational experiments, such as the Dalton and the 
Winnetka plans ; the various types of high schools 
—manual-training, textile, commercial or cultural 
and last, but not least, the establishment of Child 
Guidance Bureaus to prevent or to decrease prob- 
lems of pupil maladjustment which may lead to 
crime. 

And the only great body of organized citizenry 
on record for increased revenues to develop and 
maintain the public schools is the American Fed- 
eration of Labor. Visit any legislative body and 
there you will find the labor group standing four 
square and alone for increased revenues for bet- 
ter educational opportunities. 





Organizing the South 
The American Federation of Labor has started 


its aggressive campaign to organize the workers 
of the South. It has but one objective, namely, 
to raise the standard of living of the poor, op- 
pressed, exploited workers of the Southland. It 
seeks to bring them higher wages, better work- 
ing conditions, better homes, better schools, bet- 
ter lives. It seeks to protect the children and 
to bring better educational advantages to them 
and to adults also. 

The American Federation of Labor is again 
demonstrating that it is a great constructive social 
movement working for human betterment, fight- 
ing the enemies of mankind, poverty, ignorance, 
disease, waste and inhumanity and striving vali- 
antly to establish the brotherhood of man. 

It is impossible to believe that there is any 
teacher in all America who is not in sympathy 
with this special and tremendously important 
work. It is urged that all teachers inform them- 
selves on the details of the southern situation 
and that they give the fullest possible support, 
moral and financial. 





—Daughters of the American Revolution are 
“sacred cows of American patriotism,” said Rev. Dr. 
William L. Stidger. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 












TEACHERS, PROPAGANDA, AND LIBERTY 

Replies from nearly 3,000 American educators to 
Professor Manly H. Harper’s questions designed to 
show what teachers think about make depressing 
reading. Overwhelmingly our teachers are de. 
termined to make religion safe for the young 
Fifty-one per cent believe that “for the im»rovement 
of patriotism our laws should forbid much of the 
radical criticism that we often hear and read con- 
cerning the injustice of our country and government,” 
Fifty-four per cent believe that “histories written 
for elementary or high school use should omit any 
facts likely to cause students radically to question 
or doubt the justice of our social order and govern- 
ment.” Fifty-six per cent are sure that if every other 
nation was as good as the United States there would 
be no more wars. Eighty-one per cent are for un- 
limited support of the flag “for whatsoever cause it 
may be unfurled.” 

It is against this background that we must judge 
the effects of the recent demand that propaganda be 
kept out of the schools. That is a sound principle if 
rightly understood. But teachers who would falsify 
history to protect patriotism are bound to believe 
that propaganda is the expression of opinion of 
minority groups only and they will simply go on 
with more zeal than ever to turn out little Babbitts. 
More conscientious teachers who think that any dis- 
cussion of controversial issues is propaganda will 
simply exclude from the educational process any in- 
telligent treatment of issues that are vital to any 
education for citizenship. Ideally it is the business 
of schools to teach children to think rather than 
what to think, but you cannot teach them to think 
in a vacuum from which vital issues are excluded. 

Evidently we have an enormous job on hand to 
educate the educators. One. step in the process is 
removal of fear. The best immediate way to remove 
fear is for teachers to join their own union and stand 
together. They would gain more self-respect, be 
less afraid to open their eyes to ideas and be able 
to protect their own tenure of office at the same 
time. When, as recently happened in Boston Uni- 
versity, a professor loses his job because he dis- 
agreed with a Dean on the wisdom of a certain 
money-making scheme, a strongly organized body of 
teachers would not have to content itself merely 
with a dignified report such as the Association of 
University Professors has recently drawn up. 





ESTIMATED EXPENDITURES FOR CURRENT 
MILITARY EXPENSES FOR 1929-1930 


United States of America..............:: $741,000,000 
a  coaenees 547,000,000 
NE diac cane te web emaknn 523,000,000 
EE Ee a a ee ee 235,000,000 


And we are not members of the League of Nations. 
Is it any wonder that the League’s disarmament 
pros:am moves slowly! 
League of Nations News. 





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What Could an Educator of Vision Do for 
Education in Large Cities? 


By Abraham Lefkowitz, Vice-President A. F. T.., New York Teachers Union, Local 5 


No educational system is perfect. Never- 
theless our large school systems, which ex- 
pend sums that seem startling to European 
educators, do not give the taxpayers full 
yalue for their money. Why? Because the 
educational and business leaders of our school 
systems are chosen by political machines for 
reasons of political expediency and not be- 
cause they possess outstanding educational 
leadership or social vision. These political 
machines are not interested in a progressive 
social order nor are they animated by a desire 
to serve their fellow-men except in the limited 
sense necessary in order to maintain their 
dominance. They are, however, animated by a 
desire to maintain the dominance of their ma- 
chine through patronage and secondarily to 
serve the economic interests of those who 
finance their campaigns. Hence they often 
select personally, estimable men and women 
who have generally attained a measure of 
business success and machine recognition but 
who, with rare exceptions, lack the social out- 
look, the broad educational vision of cultural 
background so necessary for the guidance of 
a great school system. 

Such politically selected boards of educa- 
tion too often oppose progressive steps and 
measures or give them but superficial consid- 
eration when overwhelming public sentiment 
demands action. Such boards are too often 
engaged in distributing contracts to the fav- 
ored few or in building a compliant educa- 
tional machine. This naturally precludes the 
advancement of outstanding educators unless 
they are part of or have the support of that 
machine and are ready to do its bidding. 
Hence the low teaching morale of so many 
large school systems. Hence such ridiculous 
campaigns as the war against George the third 
and British school histories. 

Ideal Board of Education 

The first task of an educator of vision would 
be to secure a board of education composed 
of the ablest persons who represent the domi- 
hant business, industrial, educational and pro- 
fessional groups in the community. These 
Boards of Education are to manage the busi- 


ness side of education and to determine upon 
the adoption of educational policies recom- 
mended by the superintendent of schools and 
his democratically chosen Advisory Council. 


Second, as the Hanus Committee suggested 
in 1912, the educator of vision would wipe out 
Boards of Superintendents and repose the 
power they now exercise, in the hands of the 
superintendent of schools aided by an advisory 
council selected by the various groups in the 
system—district superintendents, directors, 
principals, teachers. This group would be the 
professional policy fixing group and would reflect 
the best educational thought of the schools. 


Third, in place of the present method of 
preferment on the basis of influence—political, 
religious or social—a method of preferment 
that inevitably lowers teacher morale and un- 
dermines the educational system because it 
results in the selection of persons close to the 
political machine and animated by its ethical. 
concepts rather than by educational ability 
and social idealism, an educator would extend 
the merit system to include everybody, even 
the superintendent of schools. The superin- 
tendent of schools should be chosen by a com- 
mittee of renowned educators and educational 
administrators of the calibre of John Dewey, 
Professors Bonser, Kilpatrick, Bagley, Cody, 
Charters, or administrators like President 
Glenn Frank, Angell, Neilson and the like. 
All other exempt positions in the system 
should be filled by the Board of Education 
from an eligible list prepared by the Board of 
Examiners on the basis of non-assembled 
tests in which demonstrated admiristrative 
ability, leadership, educational and _ social 
vision will be the deciding factors. 


What could teachers and the public expect 
from these three basic reforms? 
First, an intelligent evaluation of educa- 
tional procedures and reforms. 
Second, a progressive outlook and an ex- 
perimental attitude. 


Third, a greater teacher-participation in ed- 
ucational affairs with its resultant educational 
renaissance. 








10 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Fourth, emphasis first, upon educational 


needs, second, upon costs. 


Fifth, the placing of general social needs 


above political, industrial and religious obli- 
gations or affiliations. 


What Would This Mean in the Form of 


1, 


Educational Reconstruction? 
Based upon a careful study of movements 


of population, schools would be erected 
in needed neighborhoods with a seating 
capacity varying from 1,500 to 2,500 or 
at most 3,000 in place of the educational 
factories now being erected to house 6,000 
or more students, necessitating over em- 
phasis upon problems of administration 
and routine to the neglect of the neces- 
sary educational and human elements. 
These schools would be equipped for ed- 
ucational activity and not for listening. 
Hence they must have workshops, as well 
as social natural science laboratories. 
While rooms are to be large and airy, 
they should have seats for no more than 
35 pupils in place of 40 to 60 pupils now 
found. This reduction may be achieved 
by smaller pupils loads, or by program- 
ming students for subjects they can carry 
and not by the traditional number of 
major subjects. Where such equipment 
is lacking, or even with it, co-operative 
education—that is joining work 1n factor- 
ies or mercantile establishments with 
schooling during alternate weeks—should 
be adopted. 

The establishment of schools with the 
child and not the curriculum, as the 
center. The curriculum must be so flex- 
ible that it can be fitted to the individual 
needs of every child. Alongside of this 
adjustment should be established schools 
for those with special aptitudes such as 
academic schools for college preparation, 
artistic, commercial, manual, or technical 
schools, etc. Experience and the best 
educational evidence show that but 30% 
to 40% of the children now in our public 
high schools are capable of doing the 
work of our traditional high schools 
which are based on the former concept 
of secondary education as a preparation 
for college. To attempt to fit the other 


70% to that outworn and now untenable 
base, is to breed failure where success 
can be achieved ; to develop an inferiority 
complex with its resultant anti or asocial 
tendencies in place of feeling of power 
and success which ensure success in the 
industrial and business world. While this 
is perhaps the strongest indictment of our 
school system—as it is now constituted— 
it is only fair to state that some steps 
have been taken in that direction by, the 
introduction of the grading of pupils, by 
slight modifications in courses of study, 
by the introduction of the Dalton Plan 
and by various types of special classes. 


The establishment of schools for the 
training of teachers, such schools to be 
located in each borough and manned by 
a specially selected group of expert 
teachers. To these schools are to be sent 
those teachers who need more practical 
training than the regular or training 
schools are capable of giving them. Thus 
inexperienced teachers would be trained 
by experts to meet practical problems in 
their natural environment. 


The establishment of experimental school 
centers in each borough not only to eval- 
uate new methods and content but also 
to train teachers in such new techniques 
as the new creative schools demand. 
Creative education tried under typical 
school conditions instead of by selected 
groups in private schools, will make pos- 
sible a comparative evaluation of the old 
and the new methods and release untold 
educational possibilities now crushed by 
our formal education. 


The elimination of the Regent’s Examin- 
ations for non-academic schools though 
not of prognosis or achievement tests. 
The grant to principals of the right to 
modify courses of study to meet the par- 
ticular needs of their schools and further 
the granting of two types of diplomas: 
one for graduates and one, a mere certifi- 
cate, indicating that the holder has com- 
pleted certain work. Thus the idea of 
failure, so characteristic of modern edu- 
cation, would recede to the background. 





“J 





6. 


- 


/. 


10. 


THE AMERICAN 


A full recognition of the possibilities of 
the Mental Hygiene movement by the 
establishment of: 

1. Child Guidance Bureaus to handle 
cases of maladjusted pupils or 
teachers. 

2. The appointment of Deans of boys 
and girls in each school, trained in 
child psychology, capable of han- 
dling minor causes of adjustment, 
the more difficult cases to be sent 
to the Child Guidance Bureau. 

3. Visiting teachers and psychiatric 
social workers to aid deans. 
Teachers are to be organized into profes- 
sional and experimental groups covering 
every field of education constantly sub- 
jecting content and procedures to test- 
ing, discarding them when found wanting 
and keeping the schools abreast of the 

scientific and industrial advance. 

A system characterized by elasticity in 
assignment so that teachers can be shifted 
at will where they can do the most effi- 
cient work and be happiest instead of 
confining them to. specified grades 
whether they function efficiently or not, 
or whether they are happy or miserable 
in their new work. Instead of drawing 
our best teachers out of the lower grades 
where they are most needed, we shall pay 
teachers according to their qualifications 
and training and not according to grade 
taught. Thus good teaching will be done 
throughout the school system, each 
teacher occupying the place where she 
can function best. 


The establishment of pre-school centers 
or Nursery Schools, just as we have es- 
tablished kindergartens, so that the at- 
titudes of children which so largely de- 
termine the direction of their future edu- 
cation, thinking and conduct, may be 
directed into social channels. 


A complete reorganization of adult edu- 
cation with adequate appropriations so 
that classes may be small, housing ade- 
quate and their education continuous. 
The housing of our evening schools and 
the inadequate handling of the problem 


11. 


12. 


13. 


14. 


TEACHER 11 


of illiteracy are hardly commensurate 
with the sacrifices these adults make in 
order to fit themselves into their new in- 
dustrial and cultural environmient. 


The complete reorganization and unifica- 
tion of our system of industrial education 
and its supervision by a qualified sympa- 
thetic persons. Instead of outworn 
school buildings which often contain fire 
hazards, and instead of antiquated ma- 
chine equipment, we should have schools 
especially erected for the purpose con- 
taining the most up-to-date machinery, 
and manned by teachers fully trained and 
possessing an adequate industrial back- 
ground. The continuation schools offer 
our educators an unusual opportunity to 
experiment with creative education with- 
out endangering the regular system. 


Health Hygiene to become a basic part 
of education and not a ridiculous side- 
show where a physician exe mines forty 
children in ten minutes about three times 
in eight years and where one nurse tries 
to follow-up 11,000 children. Under a 
real health program pupils will be ex- 
amined twice a year, with a nurse to 
follow-up on the basis of at least one 
nurse to each school, aided by district 
medical and dental clinics not only to aid 
in preventive work, but in eliminating 
small or incipient ills where parents are 
too poor or too ignorant to do so. The 
child must not be made to suffer for the 
ignorance or poverty of his parents. 


Stress upon character education, not by 
devising courses in ethics or by futile 
preaching, but by providing opportunities 
for whoiesale ethical living such as is 
furnished by a democratically run school 
and by what is improperly called extra- 
curricular activities. Group ideals and 
group conduct are the most dominant 
determinants of character. 


A system where teachers are encouraged 
to do their best not because of a rating 
club, but rather through a system of self- 
rating based upon democratically devel- 
oped standards and through the satis- 
faction which comes through success and 








12 THE AMERICAN 


the attainment of greater mastery of self, 
and not greater mastery than one’s fellow 
teacher. 





What Will Be the Result of These 
Educational Changes? 


1. Instead of regarding education as a proc- 
ess of settling opinions so that pupils be- 
come docile acceptors of prevailing cus- 
tom ideas, it will seek to widen their hori- 
zon, to make them historical-minded, crit- 
ical, social and tolerant. This will give 
“change” a fighting chance with “stabil- 
ity” which is but a sand-bar in the stream 
of progress destined ultimately to be 
washed away. | 

2. Instead of developing a sentimental out- 
look upon life it will develop a scientific 
attitude or what Glenn Frank calls a “rad- 
ical attitude” which goes to the roots of 
things seeking the truth wherever it may 
lead. 


AMALGAMATED HONORS HILLMAN 
BY SCHOLARSHIP 


The Chicago joint board of the Amalgamated 
Clothing Workers of America has honored its presi- 
dent, Sidney Hillman, by establishing a fellowship 
in economic and industrial relations at the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. An editorial in The Advance, of- 
ficial organ of the Amalgamated commends the 
union for its action and describes the fellowship. 

“So the decision was made, under great acclaim 
of the membership, to establish a fellowship in eco- 
nomics and industrial research at the University of 
Chicago in the name of Sidney Hillman. Every year 
an able and promising student, properly recom- 
mended, will receive the sum of $1,000, which may 
enable him to carry on his studies and perhaps due 
to this assistance, prepare him for service in this 
particular field of investigation of human and social 
relations. 

“Of course, there are no strings to the Hillman 
fellowship. It is offered in the broad, generous spirit 
of the Amalgamated and attempts to exact nothing 
but interest in the subject-matter of the study.” 





WASHINGTON—(FP)—The White House Confer- 
ence on Child Health and Protection met December 6 
in committee on recreation and physical education. 
Scores of experts from all over the country discussed 
plans for giving more and better play to children. 

This debate did not touch upon providing sufficient 
wages or other income for families to insure that the 
children may have play-equipment and adequate cloth- 
ing, as well as time to play. 


TEACHER 


3. It will make education vital and real, 
Schools will tend to become democratic 
centers pulsating with life and with actiy. 
ity. The teachers will be social guides 
seeking to develop to the fullest extent the 
power and the character of the children 
entrusted to their care. Citizens of a 
world subjected to this kind of system 
would in time tend to revolutionize our 
economic, political, religious and social life, 

4. It would tend to transform our competitive 
warring world made up of individuals or 
nations seeking personal or national agzrand- 
dizement at the expense of their fellow men, 
into a society of cooperators working for 
peace and for the welfare of mankind. Ina 
word, the future citizen trained in our cre- 
ative schools controlled and democratically 
managed by business men and educators of 
vision should bring us nearer and nearer to 
the realization of the dreams of the prophets 
of all ages—the brotherhood of man. 


SOLDIERS TRAINING TO FIGHT 
WORKERS 
By McAlister Coleman 

A group of officers, gathered around their 
Commander at an encampment of the Reserve 
Officers Training Corps, were discussing the pos- 
sible enemy of this country in the next war. 

One of them thought it would be Japan; an- 
other England; a third a coalition of the Central 
European Powers against the United States. 

When they had finished, the General, smiling 
benevolently, said: “All you boys are wrong. It 
will be no foreign country that we will fight. 
The next war will be waged inside our own 
borders.” 

There was considerable surprise expressed at 
this, and a young officer said, “Whom will we 
fight, General ?” 

“Why, the workers, of course,” came the at- 
swer. “Don’t you realize that as soon as our 
present prosperity begins to peter out, the work- 
ing people, who are accustomed to high stand- 
ards of living, will want to continue those stand: 
ards and when they find they cannot, will rise up 
against the government? Our principal job is 
preparing to supress armed insurrection right 
here at home, rather than attacks from aay for- 
eign country.” 


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THE AMERICAN 


SUMMARY OF A. F. of L. CONVENTION 

Following is a summary of the action taken by 
je American Federation of Labor at its 49th 
snnual convention in Toronto, beginning October 
sand ending October 18, as prepared by Sec- 
etary Frank Morrison: 


All organizations, “whether or not directly inter- 
sted,” take an active part in the work of organizing 
te South the coming year and co-operate with 
AF. of L. to that end. 

“Organization of workers is the first step toward 
heir betterment.” 

Efforts to organize aircraft industry be continued. 

Executive Council to consider request to assign 
netal trades organizer in Chicago district. Same 
oficials to circularize affiliates in favor of laundry 
yorkers’ and jewelry workers’ organization. Con- 
ined support to Garment Workers’ Union pledged. 
4 F. of L. officials will call attention to retail 
derks’ need for support in organizing campaign. 
An educational and organization program be con- 
tinued that sleeping car porters may be organized. 
Sales tax opposed. Officials instructed to aid coal 
miners to secure remedial legislation for that in- 
dustry. 

Recommend mandatory registration of aliens upon 
gtival, and voluntary registration of aliens already 
here, 

Favor Brookhart bill (Senate) that would end 
wage inequalities in government service. 

Women’s so-called “equal rights” amendment to 
the Federal Constitution declared a “fallacy and ab- 
surdity,” used for propaganda purposes by a minor- 
ity political group of women. 

Approved President Green’s effort to secure reme- 
dial legislation for farmers. 

State Federations of Labor urged to favor passage 
of legislation to make effective the Hawes-Cooper 
convict labor bill. 

Indorsed pending Dale-Lehlbach retirement legis- 
lation, and also pending short Saturday work-day 
bill for government employees. 

Pensions for Spanish War veterans approved. 
Repairs on navy ships in port be done by civilians, 
4% provided in naval appropriation bill of 1912. 
Preference to veterans in government employment 
terred to Executive Council because of complica- 
tions. Same procedure for Saturday half holiday 
for Canal Zone government employees. 

Retirement for Canal Zone federal employees fav- 
ored. 

Higher wage scale for post-office laborers ap- 
proved, as was a proposed civil service court of 
appeals, 

Officers instructed to aid in combatting occupa- 
tional disease in the painting industry known as 
dermatitis.” 

Legislation to protect union labels in the District 
of Columbia. 





TEACHER 13 


Congress called upon to enforce, by proper regu- 
lations, merchant marine act which provides that 
vessels carrying mail under a subsidy shall have a 
crew of at least 50 per cent American citizens, ex- 
clusive of licensed officers. 

Abolition of Sea Service Bureau, United States 
Shipping Board. 

Officials to co-operate with affiliates of govern- 
ment employees that these workers “may secure a 
genuine advance in pay.” Same policy to improve 
these employees’ work conditions and correct harm- 
ful practices. 

Reaffirmed previous declarations that post office 
system be operated for service and not for profit, 
and that social service activities not be charged 
against postal revenues. 

Officers to aid higher wage movement of Canal 
Zone pilots. 

Affiliates to continue close attention to development 
among workers of new types of skill and crafts- 
manship which are replacing old types. 

Conference between workers and employers prior 
to introduction of machines urged to provide against 
avoidable hardships. 

Official to draw model state old age pension bill of 
not less than $300 annually. State Federations of 
Labor urged to consider passage of same of first 
importance. Old-age retirement for employees in 
private industry will be studied by officials in co- 
operation with sympathetic citizens and groups out- 
side the trade union movement. 

Officials to call conference of representatives of 
national and international affiliates to arrange organ- 
izing campaign among southern workers “regardless 
of craft or calling.” 

Organizing of automobile and vehicle workers re- 
ferred to officials. 

Conscripted labor in war time opposed. 

State Federations of Labor urged to use Wiscunsin 
law as model to regulate private employment 
agencies. 

Discrimination against older workers will be stud- 
ied by officials. Executive Council declared these 
workers must be given employment or be cared for 
at public expense. “One course or the other is 
inevitable,” the Council stated. 

Convention approved Council’s warning that be- 
fore unions adopt old-age benefit plans “they should 
use care that they are proceeding upon a thoroughly 
sound actuarial basis.” 

Denial of labor to the air challenged, and efforts of 
labor’s radio station WCFL, Chicago, to secure nec- 
essary time, wave length and power rights again 
indorsed. 

Attempt to repeal anti-trust section of Federal 
Radio Law opposed. Competition in radio industry 
favored, and the government called upon to dissolve 
radio trust that is now attempting to monopolize 
the air and control that system of communication. 

Reduction of immigration from Eastern Hemi- 
sphere by at least one-half favored, as was a 2 per 








14 


cent quota, based on the census of 1890, of all 
countries below the Rio Grande and adjacent islands. 

Filipino immigration opposed and Welch bill (H. 
R. 13900) pending in Congress indorsed. 

Stricter enforcement of laws relating to persons 
living in Canada and who work in the United States 
favored. 

Labor’s educational platform reaffirmed. This in- 
cludes better enforcement of educational laws, wider 
use of school plants, upward revision of teachers’ 
salary schedules, tenure of position for teachers dur- 
ing efficiency, sound pension laws, protection of 
schools from propaganda, and all forms of exploita- 
tion. Labor representation on school boards fav- 
ored. 

Approved Executive Council’s declaration: “The 
child amendment to the (Federal) Constitution is 
still a live issue.” Committee reported: “Recent 
disclosures have made more evident the horrors of 
child slavery which exist in our country as a stain 
upon our national honor.” 

Child Health Day, May 1, indorsed. State, city 
and local affiliates called on to urge public officials 
to recognize this day by display of American flag. 
This action, the convention declared, is in line with 
the tradition of the A. F. of L., and with its con- 
stant recognition “that the first duty of mankind is 
to care for its children.” 

Continued support and co-operation with 
Workers Education Bureau recommended. 

Establishment of a national labor college for 
workers education referred to Executive Council. 

Bill to limit use of equity power in labor disputes 
approved. The bill would outlaw “yellow dog” and 
annual Supreme Court decisions that have taken 
fundamental rights from labor. 

Abolition of capital punishment referred to Exec- 
utive Council. 

Educational campaigns for fire prevention favored. 

Study of social and economic conditions in Porto 
Rico by representatives of labor and other citizens 
favored. President Green instructed to use his 
judgment in making this declaration effective. Same 
general action taken on Virgin Islands. 

Employment of citizens on government work in- 
dorsed and question referred to Executive Council. 

Convention called on every member of organized 
labor to make every effort the coming year “to fully 
utilize the valuable service rendered by the bona 
fide labor press in the education and the upbuilding 
of the American labor movement.” Resolution de- 
clared that the labor press can extend the power and 
influence of trade unionism. 

Government control over proposed Boulder Can- 
yon dam called for. 

Convention reiterated request that organized 
workers and sympathizers purchase “Pequot” sheets 
and pillow cases made by members of United Textile 
Workers, employed by the Naumkeag Steam Cotton 
Company of Salem, Mass., a 100 per cent union 
cotton mill. 


the 


THE AMERICAN 


TEACHER 


Convention opposed any treaty relation with fy. 
eign countries which would affect right of Unity 
States to enact legislation regulating governmey 
operation of all merchant vessels sailing out 
American ports. 

Rejected proposal that our government have y. 
official observers stationed at International Laby 
Office, Geneva. Same action on resolution thy 
A. F. of L. urge affiliates to favor League of Natio 
and International Labor Office. 

Complete independence for 
favored. 

Scranton convention declaration in favor of craf 
autonomy reaffirmed as substitute for resolution fgy. 
oring merging of international unions to elimina 
jurisdictional disputes. 

Refused A. F. of L. affiliation with the Interns. 
tional Labor Office, which is a division of the Leagu 
of Nations. 

Mooney-Billings pardons favored. Affiliates urged 
to be guided by Federation official in effort to secur 
release of the two men. 

Indorsed Senate investigation of charge that life 
liberty and property are unsafe in Cuba. 

Urged campaign to secure representation of or- 
ganized labor on text books commissions. 

Resolutions favoring protective tariff on logs, lun- 
ber and shingles referred to Executive Council. 

Conservation of natural resources and extension 
of opportunities for outdoor recreation indorsed. 

Sunday closing law for barber shops in the District 
of Columbia approved. 

Convention recommended all affiliates adopt asa 
policy “no overtime work.” 

Convention declared as a principle that all naval 
vessels, aircraft and ordnance, and all non-com- 
mercial munitions, be manufactured in government 
establishments. 

Sympathy expressed for Jews in Palestine who 
have been murdered by Arabs. 

Convention sustained Executive Council in grant- 
ing separate charter to sleeping car porters. 

Anti-“yellow dog” bill introduced by Ohio Feder- 
ation of Labor in the Legislature of that State in- 
dorsed as a model bill to end this un-Americat 
practice of forcing workers to agree not to join 4 
trade union as the price of employment. 

Convention again refused to charter acetylene 
workers as such. Acetylene welding was declared to 
be a “tool,” used by all metal workers and can not 
come under the jurisdiction of any one trade of 
calling. 

Jones-Gibson bill, pending in Congress, indorsed. 
The object is to establish the 44-hour week in the 
principal jndustrial establishments of the Federal 
Government. 

Convention declared that “the development of 
automatic machinery and scientific processes, with 
consequent lessening of opportunities of employ- 
ment, makes it imperative that the five-day week be 
universally installed.” 


Philippine Islands 


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THE AMERICAN 


Vacations with pay was declared to be inter- 
wined with general movement for more leisure, 
‘hich is so urgently urged by organized labor for 
«ery moral, social and economic reason.” 

Protests by affiliates against the anti-union attitude 
{ these concerns were indorsed: Hatters against 
saranoff-Irving Hat Company; iron and steel work- 
«s against American Rolling Mill Company of 
\iddletown, Ohio; tobacco workers against R. J. 
Reynolds Tobacco Company, manufacturers of 
Camel cigarettes and Prince Albert smoking to- 
saeco; cigar makers against General Cigar Company; 
gructural iron workers against Shell Oil Company 
of California. The convention instructed officials 
19 investigate differences between metal polishers 
and the Super-Maid Cooking Ware Company of 
Chicago and “report their findings to the different 
entral bodies throughout the country.” 

American Federation of Labor delegates to the 
Havana convention of Pan-American Federation of 
labor were instructed to favor permanent co-opera- 
tion with the International Federation of Trade 
Unions on a basis of hemisphere equality. Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor Executive Council author- 
ied to formulate general principles for such action, 
to be based on the principle of trade union auton- 
omy. 

Possible interchange of fraternal delegates with 
continental Europe referred to Executive Council. 
Pan-American Federation of Labor, of which the 
A. F. of L: is an affiliate, declared to be eminently 
successful in dissipating ill feeling and misunder- 
sanding “and in establishing peace and friendly 
relations, economic and political, between our coun- 
try and the republics in the immediate south.” 

All officers unanimously re-elected. John J. Man- 
ning and Thomas L. Maloy chosen fraternal dele- 
gates to British Trades Union Congress, and Adolph 
Kumer will serve in same capacity at Canadian 
Trades and Labor Congress. Boston selected as 
next convention city. 





AN OPEN LETTER TO EVERY HUMAN 
BEING 
Washington, D. C., November 25, 1929. 
To tHE OrFIcers OF STATE AND CENTRAL Bopies 
Directly AFFILIATED Loca Unions, Or- 
GANIZERS AND THE LABOR PRESS. 
Greetings : 

The Toronto Convention of the American Fed- 
tration of Labor directed that special considera- 
tion be given to ways and means of organizing 
southern workers and in order to facilitate this 
work it directed that a Conference of representa- 
tives of National and International Unions, affi- 
lated with the American Federation of Labor 
beheld “for the purpose of devising a policy that 
will be acceptable to all interested parties in the 


TEACHER 15 


proposed campaign or organization among south- 
ern workers, regardless of craft or calling.” 

Pursuant to this decision such a Conference 
was held at the Headquarters of the American 
Federation of Labor, on Thursday, November 
14th. This Conference decided to comply with 
the instructions of the Toronto Convention and 
“that the Officers of the American Federation 
of Labor issue an appeal to the membership of 
organized labor for financial contributions to 
assist the United Textile Workers’ organization 
in its organizing campaign in the South and 
that the United Textile Workers’ organization 
render a detailed and itemized report of moneys 
received and expended in this campaign to the 
Secretary of the American Federation of Labor 
who, in turn, is to furnish every affiliated Na- 
tional and International Union with a copy of 
such an accounting.” 

In conformity with this action and with the 
approval and direction of the Executive Council 
of the American Federation of Labor we here- 
with appeal to the officers and members of or- 
ganized labor for financial contributions and fin- 
ancial help. 

The working people of the South have ap- 
pealed to the membership of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor for sympathy, counsel and as- 
sistance. They believe, as they have been taught 
to believe, that the great heart and hand of Labor 
have always responded to the appeal of dis- 
tressed working men and women who may be 
suffering from industrial exploitation and op- 
pression. The records of the American Labor 
Movement show that we have never failed in a 
single instance to respond to appeals of this kind. 
We cannot fail now when the cry of the south- 
ern worker reaches us, coming as it does out of 
the tragic and deplorable conditions existing in 
many sections of the South. 

The southern textile workers are the victims 
of low wages, long hours and indefensible con- 
ditions of employment. They are being ex- 
ploited and oppressed in a most ruthless and 
vicious way. They need our help and our serv- 
ice and it will be only through the extension of 
our help and service that they will be saved from 
a most cruel industrial fate. 

Let us respond to their cry in a most gen- 
erous and noble way. Let us show once again 
that Labor can be relied upon to respond to the 








16 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


call of helpless men and unprotected women and 
children in their hour of greatest distress and 
deepest need. 

A small contribution from the millions of 
working men and women who cgmpose the 
American Federation of Labor and from their 
friends who may be in sympathy with our prin- 
ciples and ideals will constitute a sum of money 
which, if wisely employed, and economically ex- 
pended, will serve to organize the southern textile 
workers and secure for them decent living con- 
ditions and guarantee to them the protection 
they so greatly need. 

With enthusiasm and determination let us 
engage in this great battle for human freedom 
for the right to belong to a Trade-Union, for 
decent wages for working men and women and 


for the protection of women and children in the 
Southland. 


Let us make this campaign for funds and for 
money a matter of special interest and su- 
preme concern. Give generously. Give all 
you can. The need for funds is very great 
and the work the United Textile Workers’ 
organization will be able to do will be deter- 
mined by the amount of money placed at its 
disposal. We appeal to you, in the name of 
Trade-Unionism, of humanity and in behalf 
of the oppressed and exploited working people 
of the South for a large and generous financial 
contribution. 


We do not prescribe any financial plan for 
the raising of funds. Formulate and execute 
your own plans for raising money and send it 
in quickly. We appeal to National and Interna- 
tional Unions, State Federations of Labor, 
City Central Bodies, Local Unions and indi- 
vidual members for the full amount of money 
which each and all can give. We must have 
money if the workers of the South are to be 
organized and it must come from you if the 
work is to be carried on to a successful 
conclusion. 


Send all money to Frank Morrison, Secretary 
of the American Federation of Labor, A. F. of 
L. Building, Washington, D. C. 


A full accounting of all financial contribu- 
‘ons will be made, as ordered and directed by 
ihe Conference of National and International 
representatives held at the headquarters of the 


American Federation of Labor on Novemb. 
14th, 1929. 
Fraternally yours, 
Wm. Green, 
President, American Federation of Labor. 
FRANK Morrison, 
Secretary, American Federation of Labor, 





UNEMPLOYMENT 
‘ By Michael B. Scheler 

It is unfortunate that the American nation has 
not progressed sufficiently socially to take an 
active and effective interest in its unemploye/ 
unfortunates. It is well-known that neither our 
Government nor our employers’ associations— 
with very rare exceptions—recognize the prob- 
lem of unemployment. That it exists nobody 
denies, but that it is serious enough of a prob 
lem to be coped with by governmental and 
private social agencies, few admit. The worker 
is only a recognizable entity in American s- 
ciety when he works; as soon, however, as he 
happens to lose his position, he is entirely for- 
gotten, he is seemingly non-existent. What be. 
comes of him then? What suffering he endures? 
What privation and embarrassment he and his 
family are subjected to during his “involuntary 
vacation” ? 
those workers who went through those miser- 
able periods in their lives know fully the hor- 
rors of unemployment. 

Fortunately the labor movement is slowly ris- 
ing to the occasion. Many unions have already 
adopted measures, some of which are quite ef- 
fective and others still inadequate to meet the 
burning need—seeking the relief of the suffering 
of their unemployed members. Commendable as 
these steps are, they nevertheless still form 4 
mere drop in the ocean. The problem is too wide 
in scope and too serious and demands action and 
measures of national proportions. The trade- 
union measures merely benefit a handful of 
workers, an insignificant fraction of the work- 
ers of the nation. Organized labor comprises 
hardly 3,000,000 men and women. There are 
over thirty million men and women employed in 
gainful oecupations. Consequently the trade- 
union relief does not benefit the vast masses 01 
the organized, of the unskilled, of the colored 
races, and even a considerable proportion of the 
organized workers. All these elements are left 


None knows and none cares. But. 





i. 


eve 
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left 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 17 


‘to the grimaces and vicissitudes of fate when- 


ever they are unfortunate to lose employment. 
And only those who have experienced the effects 
of unemployment can understand what fate has 
in store for them. 

The trade unions, individually, and the organ- 
ized labor movement, collectively, must awaken 
to the needs of the hour and must organize 
proper agencies and take adequate measures in 
order to prevent the outbreak of unemployment, 
remove the causes and to effectively give relief to 
the afflicted. Palliation may do some good but 
it would not radically change the situation. 

It would be interesting to the readers to learn 
what are some of the steps and measures some 
of the American labor organizations have already 
taken in combatting and overcoming this social 
menace. 

The Labor Review, official organ of the De- 
partment of Labor, Washington, D. C., recently 
contained an unusually interesting and inform- 
ative article concerning the efforts of American 
trade unions to combat unemployment, an 
analysis of which we are pleased to present to 
the readers: 

“At the present time there are only three in- 
ternational unions in America which are known 
to be paying their members unemployment bene- 
fit. It is true that unemployed are given financial 
aid by many unions and local branches, but both 
in amount and form such assistance takes on 
more or less the character of alms. Measures 
providing for direct unemployment insurance, to 
which the employers also have to contribute, are 
actually in existence only in the clothing trades, 
but the plans of these unions have for the most 
part not yet been put actually into effect, the 
delay being due to communist machinations, 
which have within recent years brought these 
unions, once so splendidly organized, to the very 
brink of ruin.” 

Other measures taken by the American unions 
against unemployment are the following: 

RESTRICTION OF MEMBERSHIP: This method, 
which is fairly widespread, starts from the 
theory that the work available in the industry 
should be secured to the workers already in 
membership. Certain unions go so far in this 
direction as to declare that no applications for 
new members will be accepted while members 
of the union are out of work. And cases have 


even been known when workers already in mem- 
bership have been given inducements to leave an 
industry which was overmanned. Some organ- 
izations have succeeded in arranging for the 
workers discharged to obtain a non-recurrent 
indemnity from the employer. 

REGULATION OF NUMBER OF APPRENTICES: 
Many unions have strict rules regarding the pro- 
portion of apprentices to journeymen, and the 
age and period of apprenticeship. 

DisTRIBUTION OF WorK AVAILABLE: The 
working of overtime is either limited, prohibited 
altogether, or penalized by requiring compensa- 
tion at increased rates. Some unions allow no 
overtime unless permission is given by union 
officials. The laws of the International Typo- 
graphical Union, for instance, provide that any 
man who has accumulated overtime amounting 
to a full day must take a day off and thus make 
room for a substitute. 

FinpING Joss FoR Memsers: Most local 
unions regard it as an accepted duty to find 
work for their members. There are, however, 
very few direct Labor Exchanges, such as those 
of Europe. 

OpPpENING NEW MarKETS AND INCREASING 
3USINEss: Unions often try to secure larger 
sales for firms which employ trade unionists and 
produce goods under trade union conditions. 
We have recently received a letter from the 
United Textile Workers of America, of which 
the direct purpose is to “assist” the manufac- 
turers of a given product. The whole letter is 
a zealous advertisement for the product of a 
concern which employs 3,000 workers under 
100% trade union conditions. 

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS: At present un- 
employment benefit is paid only by the Interna- 
tional Pocketbook Workers’ Union, the Diamond 
Workers’ Protective Union and the International 
Association of Siderographers, consisting of 80 
members. The reasons given to explain why 
the practice of paying unemployment benefit is 
not more general are: first, the unwillingness of 
members to pay the increased dues which would 
be necessary ; and, secondly, the apparent inade- 
quacy of the administrative agencies of the 
union to secure a just distribution of the benefit. 

EXEMPTION From Dues: Unemployed mem- 
bers are often excused from the payment of 
trade union dues while they are out of work. 








18 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Loans To Members: Owing to difficulties in 
getting these loans repaid, most of such plans 
have been abandoned. 

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE PLANS: One of 
the systems adopted by the unions of the cloth- 
ing industry provides for. contributions both 
from employers and the workers. Another form 
introduced by the Cleveland Clothing Workers 
compels every employer to guarantee work for 
41 weeks in the year to all those of his em- 
ployes who are trade unionists. Such employers 
do not pay direct contributions, but give a surety 
bond for an amount equal to 714% of their 
direct labor pay roll. Those of their workers 
who are unemployed for over 11 weeks in a 
year can claim from this amount two-thirds of 
the weekly minimum rate. 

Lapor’s UNEMPLOYMENT CONFERENCES: A 
conference to discuss the unemployment question 
was held in Philadelphia last year and attended 
by delegates from 150 trade unions. It empha- 
sized the need of statistics showing the extent of 
unemployment, and pointed out that trade unions 
could assist materially in gathering such data. 
No doubt this is the first step. If, however, un- 
employment, which is apparently becoming a 
permanent phenomenon in the United States, is 
to be systematically combatted, the American 
workers will probably be forced to make the 
same demands as those which are so general in 
Europe, and some of which have already been 
attained in Europe, to wit: the creation of a 
comprehensive national system of labor ex- 
change, and the introduction of state unemploy- 
ment insurance. 





Workers’ Education in Britain 
(Continued from page 5) 

ally from 6 to 12 cents per annum. These 
schemes provide free attendance at all classes 
and day schools, free correspondence courses for 
all members of the unions and branch lectures 
when required. In order to form an alliance 
with the unions, the W. E. A. set up a special 
section called the W. E. T. U. C. through which 
unions provide free scholarships at week end, 
day and summer schools. 

Correspondence courses are provided by the 
N. C. L. C. in the following subjects: Economic 
Geography and Imperialism, Economics, Eng- 
lish Grammar, Journalism, Esperanto, History 


of British Working-Class Movement, Local 
Government, Orthodox and Marxian Economics, 
Public Speaking, and the Social History of 
Britain. These are also the chief subjects taught 
in the oral classes. In the year 1927-28 there 
were 2,385 students in the Correspondence 
Course department. One hundred and forty day 
and week end schools were run by the N. C. L.C. 
and 1,018 branch lectures given. 

A library for the use of tutors and a lantern 
department with sets of slides and films for still 
pictures are maintained. The monthly journal, 
“The Plebs,” with a circulation of 6,000 furnishes 
students and teachers with lesson material on 
current happenings and during the last ten years 
well over 200,000 special text books have been 
sold for the use of worker-students. The W. 
E. A. also has its monthly, “The Highway,” and 
has also of late issued special text books. 

Although workers’ education has made con- 
siderable headway in Britain, much remains to 
be done before the organized workers will at- 
tain a wider power and use it more effectively. 
In the realm of politics labor at the last election 
secured eight and a quarter million supporting 
votes but the Tory and Liberal parties still re- 
tained about fourteen million votes between 
them. The British trade unions still need a 
greater body of active capable members to shoul- 
der the responsibilities and opportunities which 
face them. 

Until a Labor Government holds complete and 
permanent power the ordinary schools will not 
reveal to the children of the workers the history 
of their own class. Despite outstanding indi- 
vidual examples, the British universities are 
proven by the character of their representatives 
in Parliament to be conservative and reaction- 
ary. The advance of technical education may 
further create the modern marvels of productiv- 
ity and yet turn human beings into robots. 
Workers’ education saves the worker from be- 
ing mentally fordised. It will assist the workers 
to understand society and control social forces. 
It will enable the workers to state their case for 
a better standard of living, fortify them for the 
struggle to win ahd prepare them to make work- 
ers’ control a reality. 





The ship that has no stearn cannot pass the one that 
has. Neither can an organization forge ahead without 
a strong membership. 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 19 


A. F. OF L. PLANS ITS SOUTHERN 
CAMPAIGN 

Representatives of 105 national and inter- 
national unions met in the American Federa- 
tion of Labor Building November 14, 1929, 
and adopted a plan of campaign for organiz- 
ing the unorganized wage earners of the 
South. Representatives of state federations 
in the South also attended. There was great 
enthusiasm. After everyone had explained 
conditions in the South the following declara- 
tion was adopted by the conference: Presi- 
dent William Green presided and Frank Mor- 
rison acted as Secretary. 

The social and industrial unrest manifested 
by the workers in the unorganized industries 
of the South can only be interpreted as an 
expression of a deep-seated desire to secure 
and enjoy higher wages, proper and humane 
conditions of employment and the exercise of 
economic, industrial and social freedom. The 
southern worker has .long been regarded by 
employers of labor as docile and submissive, 
satisfied if he received small compensation 
and susceptible to exploitation. This appraise- 
ment of southern working people was very 
largely created through the invitations ex- 
tended by so-called business and employers’ 
organizations in the South to capital and in- 
dustrialists outside the South to locate their 
mills and factories there. Many of the invita- 
tions thus extended emphasized the docility 
of southern workers, the opportunity to em- 
ploy children, lack of legislation regulating 
the hours of employment of women in in- 
dustry and the low wages which prevailed. 
These invitations could only be construed as 
a bid for outside capital to come South and 
exploit southern labor. 

It is most extraordinary when groups of 
people residing in a section of our country 
invite capitalists to come into their respective 
communities and engage in the exploitation of 
their neighbors, their fellow-citizens and their 
unprotected labor. The natural and logical 
outcome of such representation is reflected in 
the construction of mill and industrial vil- 
lages, employment of women and children at 
night, long hours of exacting service, the in- 
auguration of cruel and inhuman “stretch out” 
systems and the domination, by the employ- 


ers, of the religious, social and civic life of 
mill communities. 

Evidently the mill and industrial owners 
and those who invited them to come South 
did not take into account the sociological and 
psychological change which was bound to fol- 
low the industrialization of the South, the 
erection of the mill and industrial villages and 
the mass association of the southern work- 
ers. Brought in touch with a new social and 
industrial order, the desire of southern work- 
ers for the enjoyment of higher living stand- 
ards and for the possession of those attributes 
which are inseparably associated with a higher 
standard of living became quickened and in- 
tensified. They had been transferred from 
their isolated homes in the mountains and 
small communities into a new environment 
where mass association and collective interest 
had been substituted for individualism. 

Discontent and dissatisfaction, aggravated 
by the imposition of the “stretch out” sys- 
tem in many places, caused strikes and dis- 
order in a number of mills and factories. The 
area affected by industrial disturbances 
reached from Tennessee to South Carolina. 
State troops were ordered out at Elizabethton, 
Tennessee, in several communities in North 
Carolina and in some places in South Caro- 
lina. Tragedy and loss of life occurred at 
Marion, North Carolina, and other places. It 
can all be regarded as a phase of the age-long 
struggle between exploiters and the exploited, 
between oppressors and the oppressed, be- 
tween owners of mills and factories and their 
employes. 

The American Federation of Labor very 
quickly realized the seriousness of the situa- 
tion and immediately appealed to the Senate 
of the United States to institute an investiga- 
tion of the textile industry in the South and 
to make the result of such investigation pub- 
lic. By request of the American Federation 
of Labor a Resolution was introduced in the 
United States Senate on April 29, 1929, pro- 
viding for such investigation. Because of 
strong opposition from southern mill owners 
and some southern senators no action has, 
thus far, been taken. Since the introduction 
of the Resolution men and women have been 
killed at Marion, North Carolina, and else- 








20 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


where. If the United States Senate had acted 
promptly and had undertaken the investiga- 
tion requested by the American Federation of 
Labor the tragedies at Marion and elsewhere 
might have been averted and constructive 
steps might have been taken to allay the un- 
rest and discontent which prevailed. 


Organized labor has been eager to be help- 
ful in the distressing situation 
veloped in the South. We have been ready to 
do constructive work and to assist in the 
establishment of collective bargaining, co- 
cperation and a collective relationship between 
employers and employes. ; 


which de- 


Naturally the southern workers, oppressed 
and exploited, have appealed to the American 
Federation of Labor and to national and in- 
ternational unions affiliated with the American 
Federation of Labor for sympathy, assistance 
and support. They asked the organization 
having jurisdiction to organize them and to 
assist them in their hour of distress. The 
trade union movement would have been false 
to its ideals and to the humane principles upon 
which it has been built if it had failed to re- 
spond to their appeal. 


We have answered their call. We have 
helped them materially and morally. We are 
interested in their welfare and their happi- 
ness. We are striving for human betterment. 
We are ready to assist them further in their 
struggle for the establishment of better homes, 
better living conditions, for the exercise of the 
right to organize into trade unions affiliated 
with the American Federation of Labor and 
for a full and complete exercise of all their 
industrial, economic and political rights. 

Organizations affiliated with the American 
Federation of Labor have most generously 
contributed many millions of dollars to assist 
southern working men and women to organ- 
ize and to carry on strikes which were in- 
augurated for the purpose of securing higher 
wages and improved conditions of employ- 
ment, and to resist encroachments upon the 
right of wage earners to organize and to en- 
gage in the normal activities of trade union- 
ism. In continuation of this policy this con- 
ference of national and international officers 
called by authority and direction of the 


Toronto Convention of the American Feder. 
tion of Labor, pledges its support, moral and 
material, to the southern workers in their 
efforts to organize into trade unions affiliated 
with the American Federation of Labor, and 
to secure higher wages, reasonable hours of 
work and proper conditions of employment, 
In conformity with this policy we recommend: 

1. That we call upon the Senate of the 
United States to adopt the Wheeler Resolu- 
tion providing for an investigation of the 
textile industry in the South. We believe 
that through an investigation such as pro- 
vided for by the Wheeler Resolution the 
causes of industrial unrest and social discon- 
tent can be ascertained and all the facts re- 
garding working conditions, wages and 
hours of employment in the textile industry 
can be made public. With this information 
available and widely circulated public opin- 
ion will demand that justice be accorded 
southern working men and women. 

2. That all national and international 
unions pledge themselves to assign at least 
one organizer and as many additional or- 
ganizers as possible to southern states for 
the purpose of organizing those who come 
under their respective jurisdictions and for 
the purpose of giving special service to the 
United Textile Workers’ organization. It 
is urged that national and _ international 
unions advise the President of the Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor of organizers as- 
signed to this campaign within thirty days 
and that the President of the American 
Federation of Labor arrange for a confer- 
ence of such organizers at the earliest date 
thereafter. 

Under the autonomous authority con- 
ferred upon national and internations un- 
ions affiliated with the American Federa- 
tion of Labor each organization may de- 
termine its own policy regarding the as- 
signment of organizers. However, because 
of the unusual interest in organization dis- 
played by the workers of the South we 
recommend that a plan of co-operation be 
developed by the President of the American 
Federation of Labor so that organizers as- 
signed by respective national and interna- 
tional unions may co-ordinate their efforts 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 21 


ynder the supervision of the President of 
the American Federation of Labor. To 
carry out this campaign efficiently and ef- 
fectively it is further recommended that the 
President of the American Federation of 
Labor appoint a committee to consist of not 
more than three persons to assist him in 
the direction of this campaign and that he 
be further authorized to develop an ade- 
quate educational and publicity campaign 
and consider the establishing of headquar- 
ters in some southern city, place to be 
named by him later, and this work be car- 
ried on within the financial means avail- 
able. 

3. We cali upon the State Federations 
of Labor and City Central Bodies of South- 
ern States to organize their forces, to put 
forth special efforts in co-operation with 
national and international unions under the 
supervision of the President of the Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor and to render all 
help possible in carrying forward the south- 
ern organizing campaign. 

4. That the officers of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor issue an appeal to the mem- 
bership of organized labor for financial con- 
tributions to assist the United Textile 
Workers’ organization in its organizing 
campaign in the South and that the United 
Textile Workers’ organization render a de- 
tailed and itemized report of moneys re- 
ceived and expended in this campaign to 
the Secretary of the American Federation 
of Labor, who in turn is to furnish every 
affiliated national and international union 
with copy of such an accounting. 

5. That we call upon the responsible and 
legal authorities of North Carolina to bring 
to justice those who are responsible for the 
loss of human life in different towns and 
places throughout the state. 

UNION CONFERENCE HELD JAN. 6 

A conference of trade union representatives 
0 arrange the Southern organizing campaign 
was held in Charlotte, N. C., January 6. The 
call was issued by President Green. 

Southern State Federations of Labor offi- 
tials had compiled data and other information 
%n conditions in various localities, as an aid 
to this movement. 


In a letter to executives of A. F. of L. na- 
tional and international affiliates, President 
Green said: 

“We hope to make a preliminary survey of 
the situation at this time to consider plans and 
policies, to appraise the situation as fully and 
completely as possible, to take into consider- 
ation all the problems with which we will be 
called upon to deal and to formulate our plans 
and policies to be followed in the campaign.” 

President Green presided at the Charlotte 
conference and then proceeded to St. Peters- 
burg, Fla., where the A. F. of L. Executive 
Council convened January 8. Following this 
meeting Mr. Green will visit many Southern 
cities, where he will address mass meetings 
of wage earners and other citizens on the pur- 
poses of trade unionism. 





CHILD LABOR DAY 
(January 25th, Synagogues; January 26th, Sunday 
Schools and Churches; January 27th, Clubs 
and Other Organizations.) 


Child Labor Day, 1930, follows a season in which 44 
state Legislatures were in session. Although two dozen 
or more bills of some significance for child labor were 
passed, only two of these were of first-class importance 
—and scores of progressive child labor bills were re- 
jected. 

In the years since Child Labor Day was first ob- 
served in 1907, the working children for whom the 
National Child Labor Committee was then seeking pro- 
tection have become adults, many with children of their 
own. How much better chance will this new genera- 
tion of children have than did their parents? 

There are no longer any states entirely lacking a 
compulsory school attendance law, as did 12 states then; 
the maximum age for compulsory attendance now varies 
from 14 to 18 years instead of from 12 to 16 years “if 
unemployed”; and the. minimum school term averages 
somewhat longer now. But there are still 18 states 
where exemption from school attendance may be se- 
cured by children under 14 years, for various reasons, 
such as poverty or family need. 

Mining is no longer considered an occupation for 
children under 16 in this country. A generation ago 
only 3 states made the minimum age for work in mines 
as high as 16 years. There are still 3 states where there 
is no minimum age for work in factories except in- 
directly through the school laws; and 5 more where 
children may work in factories at 12 years or even 
younger, outside of school hours. But in 1907 only 29 
states kept children under 14 out of the factory—and 
many of these granted liberal exemptions from the law. 

For children who go to work there has been a com- 
parable improvement in working conditions through 
restriction of working hours and prohibition of night 








22 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


work. But in 11 states children under 16 may still work 
in factories after 7 p. m.; and in 12 states they may 
work more than 8 hours a day. 

The federal census of 1930 will, we hope, light up 
numerically the gains made in the last 10 years—and 
the weak spots remaining. It will show in what states 
and in what occupations child labor is still prevalent. 

And what of the future outlook? Shall another gen- 
eration of burdened children struggle to maturity under 
the double handicap of curtailed schooling and prema- 
ture industrialization? The White House Conference 
on Child Health and Protection called by President 
Hoover to meet in 1930, gives rise to the hope that a 
new approach may be found. The wide scope of the 
conference offers the possibility of combining for the 
first time the various aspects of child welfare such as 
health, education, delinquency and child labor in a 
unified program acceptable to all the states. 

Churches, Sunday Schools, Synagogues, young people’s 
societies and study groups wishing to present a timely 
program on Child Labor Day are invited to write for 
speakers, information, literature, posters, plays and 
photographs to the National Child Labor Committee, 
215 Fourth Avenue, New York City. An analysis of 
the child labor law in any state can be supplied. 





BRIAND AGAINST TEACHING YOUTH 
MILITARY SPIRIT 


Geneva.—Bitterly condemning those poisoning the 
minds of youths with military propaganda, M. Briand 
called down the greatest ovation accorded any 
speaker before the Tenth Assembly. This was in his 
notable address delivered September 5. That which 
called for the wildest approval was when he said: 

“But I do not think we ought to overlook also 
certain poisonous influences which are being brought 
to bear. All men are indeed at the present moment 
not convinced of the permanence of peace. There 
are those who do not seem to believe in the perpetual 
pacification of the nations, and a League of Nations 
which exercises supervision over the traffic in opium 
and other dangerous drugs should also keep an eye 
upon those attempts to poison the uprising genera- 
tions; should keep an eye upon those who system- 
atically instill these ideas into the minds of smali 
children, and thus sow the germs of future war, 
preparing the way for orgies of slaughter in 
the future. I must describe these men as abominable 
criminals who should be pursued and should have the 
poison torn out of their hands. Here again is work 
which the League ought to do. 


Appeals to Women 

“In this connection I appeal to the women. It is 
they who have to defend their homes against this 
poison, because it is they who are the first victims 
of war and who water the battlefields with their tears. 
It is they who must fight against this evil, because 
peace is only to be had on that condition. When 
children are taught peace in school, when they are 
taught to respect other nations, when that which 


unites rather than that which divides the peoples , 
the world is pointed out to them, it will not be nee. 
sary for us to measure the various proportional dog. 
of security and to consider the carrying into for 
of the articles of the Covenant, because peace yjj 
then reign among the nations of the world.” 





WHY I AM A MEMBER OF THE 
TEACHERS’ UNION 

Leroy IE. Bowman, Instructor in Sociology, 
Columbia University 
The college teacher is often keenly cop. 

scious of his abstraction from the actu 
affairs of the world and of his inabilit 
personally to assist in the attack on socid 
problems. I find great satisfaction in mem- 
bership in the Teachers Union because i 
gives real participation in a sound effor 
toward greater social justice for teachers 

WitiiaM H. Brince, Instructor in Speech ani 
Dramatics, Hunter College 
Not until teaching is recognized as a vo- 

cation and the teacher respected in the class 
room as a priest in the Temple, will great 
teachers be developed. For me the Teach- 
ers Union stands for a recognition of that 
sacredness, first among teachers, and then, 
on the part of officials and executives of the 
school system. 

GeorcE A. Cor, Professor of Education, Teach- 
ers College (retired) 

I am a member of the Teachers Union 
because, 
(1) It openly discusses educational interests 
that, by reason of official connections and 
habits of self-repression, come to full ut 
terance in no other organization. 
(2) It puts the public interest—that of the 
children—ahead of self-interest and ahead 
of administrative machinery. 
(3) It gives a hearing to new ideas before 
they are popular and before they are cor 
sidered by public school officers. 

Joseru JaBLoNoweER, Head of Department oi 
Mathematics, Ethical Culture High School 
New York 
The Teachers Union has always been t0 

me an instrument through which the teachet 
can achieve significance as a social agent, 
both in his direct function as a teacher 0! 
children and in the less direct function 4 
one who informs the community life. But 


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THE AMERICAN 


in addition, it has just been fun to work in 
the Union with fellow teachers who delight 
in shop talk of the more fundamental type 
and who are ready to do something about it 
when things are short of what they deem to 


be right. 





HOME ECONOMICS TEACHERS MEET 

The third National Conference of Supervis- 
ys and Teachers of Home Economics will be 
yd Monday and Tuesday, February 24 and 25, 
in conjunction with the Department of Superin- 
tendents of the National Education Association 
which convenes in Atlantic City, N. J., Febru- 
ary 23. 

The Chelsea Hotel is the headquarters for this 
conference. The meetings of which will be held 
in the Lake Como Room of that hotel. 

Monday afternoon will be devoted to Research. 
The conference has been most fortunate in secur- 
ing Dr. Elizabeth L. Woods, Director of the De- 
partment of Educational Research of Los An- 
gees, Calif., to discuss “Research and Service in 
Nursery Schools”; and Dr. L. Thomas Hopkins, 
formerly professor of education of the Univer- 
sity of Colorado, and who is now at the Lincoln 
School, Teachers College, Columbia University, 
will discuss ““The Function of Research in Cur- 
riculum Reorganization.” Dr. Anne R. Dyer will 
report researches in present practices and Eme- 
line S. Whitcomb, specialist in Home Economics, 
Office of Education, Department of the Interior, 
Washington, D. C., will report researches con- 
cerning Criteria for Building Home Economics 
Curricula. 

The banquet Monday evening in Westminister 
Hall of the Hotel Chelsea will be addressed by 
Dean William F. Russell of Teachers College, 
Columbia University. 

Tuesday afternoon the theme is “The Role of 
the School in the Health Education of the Child.” 
The main speaker is Dr. H. E. Barnard, Director 
of the White House Conference on Child Health 
and Protection. The subject will be discussed 
by Superintendent of Schools Carleton Wash- 
burne of Winnetka, II]. Classroom teachers, in- 
cluding Miss Moore of the Lucy Flower High 
School, Chicago, Ill.; Miss Daly of Paterson, N. 
).; Miss Bullard, Buffalo, N. Y.; Miss Fish, of 
the William Penn High School, Philadelphia, 


TEACHER 23 
Pa.; Miss Keene of Detroit, Mich.; and by a 
State Director of Child Welfare, Dr. Ruth An- 
drus of Albany, N. Y. 

Monday afternoon the program will be pre- 
sided over by Helen Goodspeed, special assistant 
to the Director of Home Making of Philadelphia, 
Pa., and Tuesday afternoon Alice R. Wallin, 
head of the Department of Child Care, Highland 
Park High School, Highland Park, Mich. 


On Wednesday afternoon there will be an op- 
portunity for round table discussions for super- 
visors and classroom teachers. The organization 
of these round tables is under the direction of 
Sadie Swenson, Springfield, Mass. 





72 CENTS OUT OF EVERY DOLLAR IS USED 
FOR MILITARY PURPOSES 


Washington, Dec. 14.—National defense and the 
cost of past wars will use 72 per cent of the Fed- 
eral government’s budget for 1931 and but 13 per 
cent will be used for social services, research, public 
works and similar functions, according to a tabula- 
tion issued from the White House. 

The budget totals $3,830,000,000, of which $2,733,- 
213,283—or 72 per cent—will go to national defense 
and the fiscal burdens of previous wars. The 13 per 
cent, totaling but $511,193,000, is for every social 
service. Only 8 per cent of the budget—$300,307,000 
—will be required for the normal departmental gov- 
ernment functions, including $50,000,000 for the post 


office deficit. 





NATION IS INJURED BY WORKING 
KIDDIES 

New York, Dec. 14.—“America has. not even had 
the intellectual curiosity to try to find out what in- 
dustry does to her children,” declared Miss Anne 
S. Davis, director of vocational guidance, Chicago 
Board of Education, in a conference on child pro- 
tection. 

“We do not know how scientifically bad industry 
is for children nor the effects of different kinds of 
work upon their development,” said Miss Davis. 

“All intelligent people know that child labor is 
not economical; that it is fatal to labor because it 
lowers wages; that it is not in harmony with effi- 
ciency for the manufacturer; that it is not con- 
ducive to the education or to the physical health and 
vigor of the nation. Yet child labor goes on and 
children are permitted to enter industry at 14 with 
relatively few exceptions. 

“We have in the past worked for an eight-hour 
day for children in industry. But an eight-hour day 
has been set for adults in many lines of work and 
if eight hours is a long enough working day for an 
adult it is too long for a growing child.” 








24 


THE TENTH ANNUAL OHIO STATE 
EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE 

“Reaching the Individual” will be the key- 
note of the Tenth Annual Ohio State Educa- 
tional Conference to be held in Columbus, 
April 3, 4, 5, 1930. Mr. Robert M. Hutchins, 
president of the University of Chicago, will 
speak at the Thursday night general session. 
Mr. E. H. Sothern, well-known actor and 
dramatic reader, will give a series of readings 
from Shakespeare Friday night. One addi- 
tional speaker for the Thursday night gen- 
eral session is yet to be secured. 

More than one hundred speakers, including 
some thirty-five from out of the state, will 
participate in the Tenth Annual Ohio State 
Educational Conference in which a registra- 
tion of over five thousand is expected. Last 
year 5,100 were registered. 

Visual education will be a new topic for 
which sectional meetings will be held. This 
brings the total number of sections to thirty- 
five. Three sessions of conference (Friday 
morning and afternoon and Saturday morn- 
ing) will be given over to these sectional con- 
ferences. 

One or more meetings will be held by 
groups interested in each of the following 
fields of education: adult education, attendance 
supervisors, school nurses and visiting teach- 
ers, biological science, city superintendents, 
clinical psychology, commercial education, 
county superintendents, educational and intel- 
ligence tests, elementary principals, elemen- 
tary teachers, English, geography, higher ed- 
ucation, high school principals, history, home 
economics, industrial and vocational education, 
journalism, junior high school principals, 
kindergarten and primary teachers, Latin, 
mathematics, modern language, music, non- 
biological science, parent-teacher association, 
physical education, religious education, school 
business officials, school librarians, special 
education, teacher training, village and consol- 
idated school superintendents, and visual edu- 
cation. 





A society which permits child labor is one which 
thus feeds the future ranks of asocial and anti-social 
individuals.—C. Floyd Haviland, M. D. 





The voice of the majority is no proof of justice. 
—Schiller. 


THE AMERICAN 


TEACHER 


POINTS ON THE TEACHERS’ UNION 
NEW YORK, LOCAL 5 
November 20, 1929 

1. Many teachers before they join the Union 
admire it for its “courage”; later, they real- 
ize that back of the activity of the Union js 
not so much courage as intelligence based on 
knowledge of the facts of injustice or in- 
efficiency, together with a sense of social and 
professional responsibility “for doing some- 
thing about it.” This is why the Union, 
without risk to its members, can question the 
policy and the acts of school officials in medi- 
cal board cases, in pension controversies 
and on mixing politics with education. 

2. At the last meeting of the Executive Board, 
November 9, the Union’s standing committee 
on Legislation and Teachers’ Interests was 
directed to undertake a thorough study of 
the conditions under which teachers work, 
in order to prepare a public statement re- 
garding them, and to strive to have unfav- 
orable conditions removed. This work has 
already been started. The Union has the 
reputation of seeing things through. 

3. The Union has had a good deal to say about 
the coming appointments of five high school 
principals. We have no candidates but we 
believe that the standing and the influence 
of the school system depends to a large ex- 
tent on the standards of qualification be- 
lieved in and followed by its officials. This 
week the Union communicated with a num- 
ber of the most important civic organizations 
inviting them to stand with us in a demand 
for the elimination of political and ecclesi- 
astical influences in appointments to the 
higher positions in the school system. 


IT IS NOT A BOAST—IT IS A FACT 
UNION TEACHERS 
ARE AMONG THE MOST INTELLIGENT 
IN ANY SCHOOL 





José Vasconcelos, the defeated candidate for presi- 
dent of Mexico, appears to have had a very unusual 
platform. Imagine, as a political campaign utter- 
ance, this: “The first thing we must change '8 
our outlook on life. Love alone understands—love 
alone corrects. He who is not moved by love will 
find that his very sense af justice turns into ven- 
geance.” 








— rt ae as 


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THE AMERICAN 


NEW ORLEANS TEACHERS LOOK 
TO A. F. OF L. 

New Orleans, La.—The teachers of New Or- 
wns feeling that they have been unjustly treated 
w the Orleans parish school board are turning 
oward the American Federation of Labor for 
id, They contemplate asking for an organizer to 
ip sent to the city to assist in forming a teachers’ 
union. 

The situation was brought about by the board’s 
refusal to consider the request of the New Or- 
ans Public School Teachers’ Association for 
immediate action in the matter of back pay. Dur- 
ing the years 1924, 1925 and 1926 part of the 
glaries was withheld. Sixty per cent of this 
back pay was paid in 1927 and 1928. The imme- 
diate payment of the remaining 40 per cent was 
the request made by New Orleans Public School 
Teachers’ Association. This request the school 
bard decided to ignore, saying that they had 
agreed to pay as much as they could of the back 
py depending upon whether a surplus existed. 
At the end of the school year the board declared 
there would be no surplus. 





DISCUSSION 

Durham, N. C.—(FP)—“Controversial,” said 
the dean. “You must not discuss it!” 

The Duke University Liberal Club had sought 
to discuss the entombment of the Gastonia 
wionists and the slaying of Ella May Wiggins, 
and had invited Nell Battle Lewis, Raleigh jour- 
alist, as speaker. Denied university permission, 
they sought W. T. Bost, conservative news man 
of the Greensboro Daily News, who had mildly 
protested tactics used in convicting the Gastonia 
unionists to terms of 5 to 20 years in prison. 

But the dean knew his mill owners and power 
barons of the Duke Foundation. He said “No.” 
Finally he permitted an economics professor to 
speak. “But remember, no publicity!” Thus do 
students at the university endowed by the Duke 
tobacco, power and cotton mill millions learn of 
the exploitation of the workers whose toil makes 
possible their college courses. 

Despite their censoring dean, Duke students 
ae inquisitive. “Why don’t you favor a fed- 
tral investigation of the textile industry,” the Lib- 
tral Club students asked Senators Lee S. Over- 
man and Furnifold M, Simmons. Fussed, the 


TEACHER 25 


aged senators replied that they favored an in- 
vestigation by the federal trade commission, but 
not by the senate, and wanted it deferred “until 
peace and quiet reigns.” 

Harry M. Douty, president of the Liberal 
Club, carries a card in the Brotherhood of Rail- 
way Clerks. Several other members know labor 
problems from the inside. 





STUDENT DROPS SUIT FOR REINSTATE- 
MENT AT PITT. “U” 


Because he feels that his suit for reinstatement as 
a student at Pittsburgh University has already served 
its purpose of “exposing the autocratic, dictatorial 
policy of the university’s administration,” Arthur G. 
McDowell has dropped the litigation. He was ex- 
pelled last May following an off-campus meeting of 
the liberal club at which Harry Elmer Barnes spoke 
on the Mooney-Billings case. McDowell had been 
active in forming the club. 

In announcing that the suit has been dropped, 
Forrest Bailey, director of the Civil Liberties Union, 
which has been handling the case for McDowell, 
said, “It was hoped that court action would serve to 
establish a spirit of liberalism in the administration’s 
interpretation of student rights. It has failed to do so. 
What has been established is simply an exposure of 
fascist psychology.” 





JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS HAVE SHAM 
EDUCATION 


New York, Dec. 14.—Pre-vocational education that 
is offered children in junior high schools was listed 
with other “educational quackeries” by Dr. David 
Snedden, professor of education at Columbia Uni- 
versity in an address to a parent-teacher conference. 

The junior high school is the modern system of 
speed up in education. Giving students a prelim- 
inary vocational training was declared “pretense and 
sham by well-meaning ignorance or at least fright- 
fully uncritical thinking.” 

Protests of organized craftsmen against teaching 
a smattering of every trade was upheld by Dr. Sned- 
den, who said that in this age of specialization junior 
high schools are “too specialized,” and that youth 
should acquire a general education up to the age of 
18 before beginning vocational training. 





The next annual meeting of the National Council of 
Teachers’ Retirement Systems is to be held in Atlantic 
City, New Jersey, February 24-27, 1930, at the Hotel 
Strand. 

Anyone interested in this comparatively new and all 
important project may attend the sessions. Those work- 
ing for the passage or improvement of teachers’ retire- 
ment laws have derived much assistance from their 
attendance at these meetings. 

A splendid program is now being perfected. Any 
newcomers to the group are welcomed. 








26 





BOOKS 


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








—Emily, Dickinson. 





“THE NEW EDUCATION IN THE 
SOVIET REPUBLIC” 

By Apert P. Pinkevitcu, translated from the 
Russian by Nucia Perlmutter and edited by 
George S. Counts. Published by The John 
Day Company, New York. pp. 398. Price, 
$4.00. 

The educational world is indebted to the /n- 
ternational Institute of Teachers College, Colum- 
bia University, for this very thorough exposition 
of the position on Education taken by the Soviet 
Union. The book was written originally for use 
in the training of teachers in the Soviet Union. 
It is, therefore, not popular in style but is very 
readable because of the interesting topics dis- 
cussed, the new points of view presented, and 
the new interpretations of many familiar terms. 
For instance, in the introduction, the author 
defines the term “teacher” not as an individaul 
only but also as an institution. That is some- 
thing to think about! 

The educative process is divided into two 
phases: nurture, which deals primarily with the 
physical and character development of the pupil, 
and instruction, which concerns itself with the 
acquisition of knowledge that will enable the 
pupil to determine his life work. 

The author seems to favor faculty psychology 
although in explaining the foundations of method 
the activity school is stressed. 

Throughout the book one is impressed with 
the constant comparison between the schools un- 
der capitalistic control and those under the 
Soviet Union. One statement that seems star- 
tling when seen in print is “ schools 
‘ never were and never will be free of 
politics as long as the state exists.” If the ulti- 
mate goal of education is “the development of an 
outlook upon life,” as this author states, then the 
life in which the schools find themselves will 
determine the aim of those schools. 

The Russian Soviet schools follow the same 
organization into pre-school, elementary, sec- 
ondary, technicums (a new departure), and uni- 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


versities, for children and youth. 
education program is complete and comprehen. 
sive. This is due to the necessity of educating 
the masses who remained uneducated under th 
Czarist regime. The census of 1920 classes & 
per cent of the inhabitants of the Soviet Unio 
as illiterate. 

The system of artificial rewards is repudiated 
under Soviet regime. “Marks of distinction, ip- 
cluding grades, testimonials, and degrees, pro- 
mote unwholesome vanity and cause the pupil 
to work for the sake of the reward and not 
because of natural enthusiasm for the work it- 
self.” The idea is that the moral satisfaction 
that comes from work well done should be the 
chief reward to children and youth. Corporal 
punishment is decried but a system of natural 
punishments such as those advocated by Rouws- 
seau and Spencer, is encouraged. Fairy tales 
are not permitted because “they foster super- 
stition and tend to obscure class conflicts.” 

There is provision in the program of educa- 
tion for the latest ideas such as the nursery 
schools, the kindergarten, and the hearths. There 
is also a program for aesthetic education and 
provision for children’s collectives. The out- 
standing features of the program are those that 
mark the most progressive schools in the rest of 
the world. The school is looked upon as an in- 
strument for developing a rounded and balanced 
personality instead of as a medium through 
which to cram children’s heads full of informa- 
tion. 

An interesting feature is the discussion con- 
cerning the differing abilities of the sexes. The 
conclusions reached by the author are that the 
two sexes differ no more from each other than 
do members of the same sex. The entire ques- 


The adu 


| 





came 
differ 
thing 
state ; 
goal s 
The 
expou 


| his ec 


tion of sex is interestingly discussed. The aim | 


of the Soviet Union seems to be the real equality 


of the sexes—regardless of what opponents may | 


say, of the internationalizing of women. “In 
Soviet Russia we are endeavoring to bring about 
a condition of genuine equality between the 
sexes, and we regard co-education as merely one 
expression of this equality.” 

As one reads he is impressed by the earnest: 
ness and sincerity of the leaders in this move 
ment. What is being done in the Soviet Union 
might just as well be taking place in any other 
part of the civilized world. In fact, the very 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


| ame things are being done but with an entirely 


different outlook. In the Soviet Union every- 
hing is expressed in terms of benefit to the labor 
gate; in capitalistic society there is a different 
goal set. 

The philosophy of John Dewey is carefully 
expounded. But, since Dewey attempts to fit 
his educational plans and theories into the pre- 
vailing capitalistic organization he fats to 
achieve the ultimate—he remains a representa- 
tive of the bourgeoise—he is not a true Socialist. 
Marxian principles of education and the policies 
advocated by the well-known and admired 
Krupskaia have as their goal the enlightenment 
of the masses, not for any philanthropic mo- 
tives but because it is realized that knowledge 
isone of the most powerful of weapons and that 
to be victorious the masses must possess knowl- 
edge in abundance. 

Anyone interested in Education, especially in 
Vocational and Adult education, will profit from 
reading the carefully prepared outlines of the 
Curriculum. When one realizes that 68% of 
the Soviet Union inhabitants were classed as 
illiterate in 1920 he must be eager to know how 
these almost inspired leaders of the masses are 
working out their tremendous problem of educa- 
tion. If the schools can never be free of politics 
as long as the state exists, it behooves those of 
us engaged in education to familiarize ourselves 
with politics and with the people who represent 
the state. The reader of this excellent book will 
ask himself many more questions, too, as he 
learns of what is being done in so-called “back- 
ward Russia.” 


M. L. G. 





RED STAR IN SAMARKAND 
(Federated Press) 

Down into the reaches of central Asia, where 
agirl had been brought back to her town chopped 
to pieces because she preached the unveiling of 
women in a neighboring village, went the far- 
traveling Federated Press correspondent Anise 
(Anna Louise Strong). Readers of Labor’s 
News remember the amazing stories she unearth- 
‘. Now appears her book.* 

It is the most stirring and worthwhile travel 
‘ory written in years. In its vivid pages you do 
tot merely pass through a museum of native cus- 
ms, picturesque, barbarous, revolting or en- 


27 


dearing. You see the cradle of civilization creak- 
ing and straining, almost breaking at times, in the 
throes of rebirth. Immortal parasites like land- 
lords and clergy are retreating before peasants 
and city workers intent on a new deal along the 
lines of Asiatic modifications of the Soviet sys- 
tem. You see the tomb of Tamerlane, ancient 
war lord, and you witness in a construction work- 
ers’ club the still bleeding American tragedy of 
Sacco and Vanzetti enacted on the stage. Camels 
carry cement for the irrigation dams while the 
airplane bears engineers from Moscow. 

Into the villages that had never owned the 
rudest sort of clock the flashkent radio now 
flashes the exact time of day. Farmers still plow 
with crooked sticks while a hundred miles away 
the most perfect cotton research institute in the 
world blends hardier and richer varieties of cot- 
ton, devises war on plant pests and adapts the 
most modern cotton machinery invented anywhere 
on earth. Uzbek babies smother to death in the 
torrid summer under heavy quilts that muffle 
their cries and stifle their stench. Nearby a grow- 
ing line of mothers take their infants to the baby 
clinic. 

In her keen discussion of underlying issues 
Anise sketches the “impassable gulf between the 
social system of the Soviet Union and the rest of 
the world.” It is plain terms, the class war; pro- 
ducers and useful workers of all sorts against the 
parasites and profiteers of all sorts. “It is per- 
haps clearer here,” she writes in Central Asia, 
“and more ruthlessly determined. It is war be- 
tween the old village gentry and their allies the 
mullahs (preachers) on the one side, and the 
landless ones, the modernists, the unveilers of 
women, on the other.” 

Discussing whether Bolshevik policy in Asia 
is any different from British imperialism in India 
or that of the United States in Latin America, 
Anise writes: 

“The attempt to rule a country not by the old 
easy method of accepting its customs and dealing 
with its princes, but by the venturesome tactics 
of invading its farthest villages with organization 
and propaganda, exalting the low and bringing 
down the high, cannot be accounted the most 
peaceful path to power. It disposes once for all 
of the claim sometimes made that the Bolshevik 
policy in Asia is the same as that of the czar, a 
mere extension of Russian imperialism. The Bol- 








28 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


sheviks are committed to social revolution; be- 
cause of it they have forfeited one Asiatic alliance 
after another ; because of it they have chosen the 
difficult and stormy path of upheaval, even within 
their own boundaries.” 

The Federated Press unhesitatingly recom- 
mends this book by its star foreign correspondent. 
A holiday offer at a great reduction in price is 
made in this issue of Labor’s News.—Carl Haes- 


sler. 
*Red Star in Samarkand, by Anna Louise Strong; 
Coward-McCann, New York, 1929, $3.50. 





ANTI-RED NOVEL 
(Federated Press) 

“Sinister Shadows,” a cross between a penny- 
dreadful and a report to William J. Burns by one 
of his illiterate operatives, is the spooky title of 
the latest contribution of the Tower Press of Chi- 
cago to red-baiting literature. It comes off the 
press at a time when numerous detective agencies 
throughout the country are preparing for a new 
red scare to pump the shekels out of terrorized 
Babbitts. The Tower Press, Chicago, is the pub- 
lishing house for the Citizens’ Committee for Mil- 
itary Training, the Navy League and the Ameri- 
can Legion. 

The sponsor of the present book, written by 
Edwin Marshall Hadley, is Advertising Post No. 
38 of the American Legion. It has had excellent 
reviews by the National Defense Magazine, the 
director of Armour Institute, sundry officers of 
the American Legion, the Daughters of the 
American Revolution and numerous trade jour- 
nals, notably the Manufacturers’ Record, organ 
of the southern textile interests. A book issued 
at the same time by the National Patriots’ League, 
“The Red Fog,” is receiving similar notices. 

“Sinister Shadows” is a novel. It’s the story 
of an old grad who for the sake of an under- 
graduate son is reimbued with the old varsity 
spirit and sets out to clean up a nest of bolshevik 
plotters gnawing at the roots of our educational 
system. With the help of the football team, he 
exposes the ring-leader, a Russian professor in 
the pay of Moscow. Leon Trotsky and Nicolai 
Bucharin were the initiators of the movement, the 
ramifications of which extend to almost every 
school in the country. 

Woven into the badly written story are ex- 
cerpts from the Lusk Committee 1920 report and 


the “Reds in America” by R. M. Whitney, pub. 
lished in 1924 To this old stuff is added som 
new material to show that almost every professor 
in the country who has shown anything but th 
most dyed-in-the-wool conservatism is in the pay 
of Stalin. This includes the numerous professor; 
who sent greetings to the dinner founding the 
League for Industrial Democracy in 1921 and al 
the teachers on the committee of the American 
Civil Liberties Union. John Dewey, John R. 
Commons, Harry Elmer Barnes, Chas. A. Beard, 
in fact almost every important educator in the 
country, are touched on at some time or another 
in the course of the thrilling narrative, and ac. 
cused of treason. Jane Addams and Zona Gale 
are female shadows. 

Particular exception is taken to the appearance 
of Carl Haessler, former instructor at the Uni- 
versity of Illinois and managing editor of Fed- 
erated Press, before a class at the University of 
Chicago. “Why, thought Conover, should an ex- 
inmate of a penitentiary, advocating such doc- 
trines, be allowed to speak before a group of 
university students on a university campus?” The 
hero is speaking. Haessler, who was an objector 
during the war, spoke on Dissenting Youth in 
Wartime. 

“The facts it contains about the working of 
radicalism is the United States will stir every 
patriotic American’s blood to the boiling point. 
It illustrates the cunning of the radical and his 
attempt to poison the minds of the youth of the 
land,” said the editor of Manufacturers’ Record, 
who demanded the hanging of the Gastonia and 
Marion textile strikers in every issue.—T. P. 
Lewis. 





THE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN READER 
By A. A. Milne 


A. A. Milne, himself, has selected stories and 
poems for it from his other books, When We 
Were Very Young, Winnie-The-Pooh, Now We 
Are Six and The House At Pooh Corner. The 
selections he has chosen are those which, accord- 
ing to syllabuses prepared by various Boards of 
Education .for ‘the teaching of literature in ele- 
mentary grades, are considered best for class usé. 

Mr. Milne introduces this school reader to his 
young friends with a most charming account of 
how the books came to be written for Christo- 
pher Robin, of what the stories are about, and 





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THE AMERICAN 


of the qualities which distinguish good poetry 
from the other kind. This Introduction is Mr. 
Milne, himself, talking to a room full of school 
children as he talks to Christopher Robin. Chris- 
topher Robin is not a fictitious character but Mr. 
Milne’s own son and in writing the stories ot 
Pooh Bear, Piglet, Tigger and the other delight- 
ful characters of field, wood and jungle, and 
also in writing the dancing, lilting, musical 
thythm of his verse, Mr. Milne has been very 
definitely before the most critical audience, the 
child himself. 

Ernest H. Shepard's enchanting drawings il- 
justrate the text. In every way the same de- 
lightful details of book making that distinguish 
the regular editions so highly treasured by :ol- 
lectors are evident in The Christopher Robin 
Reader except that the type is large and clear 
for the eyes of little people to read, the paper is 
better adapted to a textbook, and the binding 
is practical and strong. The price of the reader 
has been fixed at $1.25. 

This is a book that school supervisors, instruc- 
tors in normal and teacher training schools, and 
county and local superintendents will wish to 
place before their elementary teachers and stu- 
dent-teachers. It is a book that may be used as 
aclass reader in the second, third or fourth grade 
according to the mental capacity of the children 
and the teacher's ideas of the progress that 
should be made. It is a book that may be used 
with most fortunate results in classes of un- 
graded or backward children as the stories are 
so fascinating that the child will master the 
difficulties of reading for the pleasure of getting 
on with the text. 





SINCLAIR LEWIS PREPARING 
A LABOR NOVEL 

Katonah, N. Y.—(FP)—“Brookwood Labor 
College is the only self-respecting, keen, alive edu- 
cational institution I have ever known,” declared 
Sinclair Lewis, America’s leading novelist, in a 
talk to Brookwood students on “How America 
Looks to Me.” 

The author of “Arrowsmith,” a novel going to 
the heart of the medical situation in this country, 
was spending several days at the college, gather- 
ing material for his next work which is to be a 
labor novell. 

Urging Brookwood students to apply their tal- 


TEACHER 29 


ents and training to the advancement of the labor 
movement when they graduate, Lewis said: “The 
United States is coming to the point where the 
workers must organize or America will fall before 
the other nations as they strengthen themselves 
by socialization. You people in Brookwood are 
helping to do the most important work to be done 
today, the conversion of capitalist into socialist 
society.” 


CAMPAIGN AGAINST BOSTON CENSORSHIP 
ORGANIZED 

The fight against censorship in Boston begun by 
the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Committee in con- 
junction with the American Civil Liberties Union, 
has just been organized, with an executive commit- 
tee, an office and a secretary, Harold Rotzell, form- 
erly active in civil liberties work in Boston. 

“Censorship in Boston,” by Zechariah Chafee, Jr., 
of the Harvard Law School, is ready for distribution 
as a basis of arousing wider interest in the issues. It 
tells the story of Boston’s censorship and points out 
the remedies. 

The committee will tackle all four forms of censor- 
ship that have marked Boston for the last ten years 
—the suppression of books and of plays, and of meet- 
ings on Boston Common and in licensed halls. 








BERNARD SHAW NOW SEES MUSSOLINI 
AS MENACE 

EAST AURORA, N. Y.—(FP)—George Bernard 
Shaw, who last year aroused bitter critcism of him- 
self from Socialists throughout the world by praising 
Mussolini when Shaw was in an Italian winter resort 
—now sees the dictator as a menace to Italy. 

Writing for Judge Henry Neil’s Centenarian Club 
Magazine, Shaw says of Mussolini’s huge borrowings 
from American bankers: 

“Mussolini is placing his people of the next genera- 
tions in bondage from which they will never be able 
to free themselves except by a taxation of big incomes 
so drastic that he could impose it only by using the full 
weight of the anti-Fascist proletariat against the capi- 
talists. The alternative is revolution and repudiation, 
with war possibly to follow. 

“It was a serious step; for if you borrow at home 
you can pay the interest with one hand and take it back 
as income tax with the other; but you cannot tax the 
foreigner, and if you do not pay he will distrain if he 
is strong enough, with the support of the other creditor 
nations and the countenance of the League of Nations. 
What will be the end of it?” 





PUBLIC SCHOOL COSTS UP 


Washington—Expenditure for public schools have 
almost doubled since 1920 and the cost of maintaining 
a pupil is more than two and one-half times as great 
as it was fifteen years ago, according to the United 
States Bureau of Education. 

Now tell us how and why. 








30 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


“WOMEN WORK FOR PIN MONEY” IS DE- 
CLARED “HOARY UNTRUTH” 

The theory that women work for “pin money” is 
challenged by Miss Mary Anderson, director United 
States Women’s Bureau, in a public statement. 

The great bulk of women wage earners, says 
Miss Anderson, are working to raise money for 
the bare essentials of life or to raise the standards 
of living of their families. 

“The theory that women work just for feminine 
fripperies would be ridiculous except for the mis- 
chief it has wrought in the past in keeping wom- 
en’s wages low and the possibility of it as a con- 
tinued menace to the wage-earning opportunities 
and progress of women until every vestige of it is 
dissipated,” says Miss Anderson, who refers to 
“cold, hard facts and statistics based on investiga- 
tions” made by her bureau. 

“Those who still cling to this theory will have 
to change the definition of ‘pin money’ when they 
face actual facts. A woman’s so-called ‘pin money’ 
is often the family coupling pin, the only means of 
holding the family together and of making ends 
meet. Very few women, if any, work just for 
money for trinkets and trifles or for a few extra 
dollars to fritter away on amusements and luxuries. 
The great bulk of women wage earners are work- 
ing in factories, mills, stores, offices, restaurants, 
laundries and other places to earn money for the 
bare essentials of life or to raise the standards of 
living for their families and give their children a 
better education and a greater opportunity to ad- 
vance in life. 

“Over 8,500,000 women are working at paid jobs 
in the United States, according to the 1920 census. 
Among this number are about 2,000,000 married 
women, although the 1930 census will doubtless show 
an increased number. 

“The married women are at present probably the 
ones most pricked and in most instances seriously 
injured by the pin-money theory. The prejudice 
against the married woman worker has been voiced 
on so many sides and a misunderstanding of the 
reasons for her gainful employment is sufficiently 
prevalent to call for special discussion of her prob- 
lems.” 





JOURNALISM JUST ANOTHER BIG 
BUSINESS 

New York—(FP)—“Nowhere,” asserted Silas 
Bent, journalist, at the Federated Press tenth an- 
niversary dinner, “are the sinister aspects of commer- 
cialization and the factory system more acutely mani- 
fest than in our daily press. Newspaper publishing 
is Big Business, and enjoys a community of interests 
with all other capitalistic enterprise. Last year it 
had a turnover of $1,500,000,000, and derived three- 
fourths of its revenue from advertisers. 

“It is preposterous to suppose that any business 
can ignore the interests and ambitions of a class 
which contributes three-fourths of its income. Our 


daily journals of general circulation are so edited 
as to inculcate in their readers a frame of mind which 
will make them the readier victims of advertising 
exploitation. ; 

“Although newspapers keep as secret as they can 
the figures of their balance sheets, it is possible to 
determine their character as big business by citing 
the sales figures for a few of the properties. The 
New York Times is capitalized at $26,000,000. The 
Kansas City Star was put on the market at $11,000,- 
000, the Chicago Daily News at $13,000,000, the Phil- 
adelphia North American at $1,700,000, the New 
York Herald and its Paris edition at $4,606,000. 

“And the Daily News asks for advertising accounts 
on the ground that it has ‘an unmatched record of 
support of the market, good will building and gen- 
eral merchandising effectiveness.’ This sort of blurb, 
as printed in trade journals, comes as a common 
thing from metropolitan dailies. They candidly of- 
fer to sell their readers to the merchants and the 
manufacturer. 

“In 937 cities and towns of the United States 
there is but one daily newspaper. What prospect is 
there in such places that an independent voice or 
an unpopular viewpoint may reach the _ public? 
Whether an opinion be expressed from the platform 
or in a letter to the editor, it is subject to the 
vagaries, the whims and the pre-occupations of a 
commercialized and capitalistic ownership. 

“The real raw material of the press is the human 
kind. Public opinion must be based, so far as the 
run of our newspapers is concerned, on facts selected, 
colored and presented from the capitalistic viewpoint. 
The manufacture of opinion is thus in the hands of 
a commercial enterprise operated solely for profit, 
with no apparent thought of the public g»od or 
social improvement. 

“The commercial newspaper publisher 
bread alone. He has sold his birthright for a mess 
of advertising. The only hope of blunting the edge 
of his activities is through such an organization as 
the Federated Press, which distributes news selected 
and presented from a standpoint not twisted by cap- 
italistic interests.” 


lives by 





WORLD ILLITERACY 

World illiteracy, the United States Bureau of Edu- 
cation concludes after much study of the situation, 
is on the decrease. 

The trend of most of the major social and political 
movements in the last half or quarter of a century 
has been in directions that stimulate and require 
greater literacy. 

Japan in 1922, for example, celebrated the semi- 
centenary of the issuance of the code of popular 
education in 1872. This was a celebration of 60,000,- 
000 of people over the development of a complete 
school system that now enrolls 99 per cent of all 
children of school age, as against 31 per cent that 
were attending school at the beginning of the half 
century. 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 31 


In 1872 the conception of popular education began 
to take hold in Siam, but grew very slowly until 
1923, when the primary education law went into ef- 
fect. Since then progress has been rapid in this 
nation of 9,000,000 inhabitants. 

The theory that education should be limited to 
the governing and privileged classes was reversed 
about 1900 for 10,000,000 of the people in the Philip- 
pines and Porto Rico, and in 20 years the illiteracy 
rates were reduced by 30 per cent or more. 

The three great empires, China, Russia, and Tur- 
key, with 590,000,000 of people, adopted democratic 
forms of government, and with them the corollary 
of free public education. The mass-education move- 
ment in China, involving as it does the abolition of 
the classical language and the adoption of Pei-hua 
for literary purposes, is the most comprehensive plan 
of deliberately changing a written language and re- 
ducing illiteracy ever undertaken. If it succeeds to 
the point of making 300,000,000 of Chinese literate, 
world illiteracy will have been reduced by something 
more than one-third. 

The readjustment of national boundaries in Europe 
and Asia subsequent to the World War and the es- 
tablishment of new national units resulted in smaller 
political divisions more nearly coincident with ethnic 
groups and more homogeneous in population. At 
the same time it gave an added dignity to lancuages 
that had heretofore been little recognized. Undoubt- 
edly this has had, and will continue to have, a 
strong influence in reducing illiteracy. Some of the 
smaller ethnic groups of Europe such as Denmark, 
Norway and Sweden that have for many years main- 
tained their own national governments are almost 
free from illiteracy. 

With the exception of Abyssinia, Egypt and Li- 
beria, Africa is almost wholly under European con- 
trol. The European population is increasing in num- 
bers; and literacy, through missionary, governmental 
and private effort, is growing with it. 

The percentage of illiteracy in the continental 
United States of America has been lowered 14 per 
cent in 50 years, that is from 20 per cent in 1870, to 
6 per cent in 1920. 


“If the press and the school can be brought to 
realize their joint responsibiiity in giving wide cur- 
rency to these new ideas, idealisms, and spiritual 
values upon which our future depends we shall have 
both a better education and a better journalism, and 
that will be an achievement far bigger than the mere 
increase in space devoted to school news.” 

Glenn Frank. 





“Busy day and night exploring the world 
which is non-human, solely for gains which 
are non-spiritual, man’s sense of the human 
reality shrinks into utter insignificance.” 


—RABINDRANATH TAGORE. 


A TIMELY PROGRAM FOR HIGH SCHOOL 
COMMENCEMENT 

Current interest in the signing by 53 nations of 
the General Pact for the Renunciation of War (Kel- 
log Treaty), the international acceptance of the Root 
formula for the entrance of the United States into 
the World Court, and the ratification by the Senate 
of the Pan-American Treaty of Conciliation makes 
the subject of peace the appropriate key-note of a 
High School Commencement Program. A list of 
Peace material suitable for graduation exercises has 
been prepared by the Education Committee of the 
Pennsylvania Branch of the Women’s International 
League for Peace and Freedom. 

The source material includes music, Scripture 
reading, poems, and subjects for essays and speeches. 
It has been selected by practical classroom teachers 
and principals. The list is now ready for distribution 
and can be obtained, without charge, by application 
to the Women’s International League, 1924 Chestnut 
Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 





WARNS AGAINST MILITARIZING SCHOOLS 


Dangers inherent in military training in colleges 
and schools, were pointed out by John Nevin Sayre 
in an address at the fourth national Conference on 
the Cause and Cure of War. He saw in it the at- 
tempted censorship of peace discussion, the com- 
pelling of students to take military drill and an at- 
tempt to identify patriotism with the men, machines 
and uniforms of war. In time of war these three 
evils, he said, grow into conscription, general censor- 
ship and propaganda, or preparedness, mind-set and 
mob emotion employed to establish military rule. 





Twenty-seven books have been added to the 
Selected List of Books for Parents and Teachers 
compiled by the Child Study Association of America, 
and issued in pamphlet form. 

This supplement may be had for $.05. It is an 
annotated list containing books on Adolescence; 
Biology and Anthropology, Heredity and Eugenics; 
Child Study, Education; Exceptional and Unadjusted 
Children; Physiology; Psychology and Sociology; 
Survey; Religion and Ethics. 





Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, who has become 
Premier of Great Britain for the second time, 
was for a short period in his youth a school- 
master. He was a “lad ’o pairts,” picked out 
by the local “dominie” in Lossiemouth, a 
town on the Moray Firth. 


Miss Margaret Londfield, the first woman 
Minister of the Crown, and first woman to be- 
come a Privy Councillor, was also at one time 
a teacher. 








32 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








Local News 








ATLANTA LOCAL 89 


The Citizenship Committee of Local 89 func- 
tioned effectively in the recent city-wide election 
on December 4 in Atlanta. As a result of the 
work of a sub-committee on registration and vot- 
ing and the cooperation of the citizenship repre- 
sentative in each school, more than 85 per cent of 
the public school teachers were registered. This 
percentage is reported to be higher than that in 
any other election. Before the day of election, in- 
formation as to the relative fitness of candidates 
was sent to all teachers by a Questionnaire Com- 
mittee who compiled the information gathered 
from answers sent to each candidate. On the day 
of election, the Office Secretary of the Associa- 
tion’ telephoned all the schools and urged again 
that all teachers vote. From the results of the 
election we have reason to believe that a large 
percentage of our teachers voted. 

The December number of “The Atlanta Teach- 
er” stresses the relationship between ethics and 
education. Besides a very beautiful Christmas 
poem, the front page holds two leading articles 
on the above subject. A new page, called School 
Notes, which contains news about school faculties 
and their works, has stimulated a great deal of 
interest among readers. 

A satisfactory adjustment was made of the 
Atlanta public school teachers’ salaries: half of 
salaries has been paid before the Christmas holi- 
days, and half promised to be paid after the holi- 
days. 

Local 89 wishes all a happy and prosperous 
New Year! 

—M. L. Situ, Office Secretary. 





PORTLAND LOCAL i11 

The Portland Union is conducting a member- 
ship campaign which has begun promisingly. At 
the last meeting six new members were voted into 
the union. More will follow. There is a keener 
interest in the union on the part of non-union 
teachers than there has been for years. Part of 
this interest seems to be due to the activities of 
the book club. 

At the December meeting the union voted to 
ask the members to pay by voluntary subscription 


the ten cents per month for the organization fund, 

About forty dollars was pledged at the meeting, 
Best wishes for the success of A. F. of T. in 

the coming year. May Dar ine, 





COMMONWEALTH COLLEGE LOCAL 194 

Commonwealth Local 194 of the American 
Federation of Teachers was represented at the 
Arkansas Federation of Labor Convention at 
Paris, Arkansas, December 2-4 by Dr. Zeuch, as 
delegate, and Raymond Koch, as alternate. Dr. 
Zeuch was appointed a member of a special com- 
mittee on organizing the South. 





RESOLUTION 

WHEREAS, Dr. Jacob Nieto has served as 
Rabbi of the Congregation Sherith Israel for 
37 years as its Rabbi and Spiritual Leader, and 

WHEREAS, The Congregation in recogni- 
tion of Dr. Nieto’s faithful service the mem- 
bers have by unanimous vote elected Dr. Nieto 
Rabbi Emeritus, and 

WHEREAS, Dr. Nieto always served the 
cause of Public School Education and fought 
for the benefit of the teachers, be it there- 
fore 

RESOLVED, That the San Francisco Fed- 
eration of Teachers Local No. 61, at its meet- 
ing held this 2nd day of December, 1929, ex- 
tend our best wishes to Dr. Jacob Nicto on 
this occasion of his election as Rabbi Emeri- 
tus, and be it further 

RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution 
be sent to Dr. Nieto, to the President of Con- 
gregation Sherith Israel, and to the Press 
as an expression of our approval of the noble 
act of the members of Congregation Sherith 
Israel and in the hope that Dr. Nieto con- 
tinues his Humane services so nobly started 
in this city 37 years ago. 

MANUEL J. JACOBS, 
PAUL J. MOHR. 





WANT NO FREEDOM IN FANEUIL HALL 


Boston—(FP)—“Faneuil Hall was a place for the 
expression of unpopular ideas. Now it is denied for 
causes which most need it.” 

So declared Prof. Zechariah Chaffee, Jr. of Har- 
vard Law School, discussing censorship at Old South 
Meeting House Forum. He denounced arbitrary 
police control of Boston Common meetings. 














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We ask all members of organized labor to pur- 
chase shoes bearing our Union Stamp on the 
sole, inner-sole or lining of the shoe. We ask 
you not to buy any shoes unless you actually 
see this Union Stamp. 


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of 
Teachers 


506 South Wabash Avenue 
CHICAGO, ILL. 


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The American Federation of Teachers desires to estab- 
lish an intimate contact and an effective co-operation be 
tween the teachers and the other workers of the community. 


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


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


Our Slogan Is: 


Democracy in Education: Education for Democracy 


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