Mik 
ee ACTER ROOM 


We In Two Parts ‘Part I 


AM ERICAN 
TEACHER 
democracy in education: education for democracy 


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4 i>” ; REFERENCE 
Ee DO NOT LOAN 


{ 


IN THIS ISSUE 


— 


For Vacation Thought 
Balancing the Budget 
The Game of Ballyhoo 


Felix Sper 


College Teacher Views Our High Schools 
John C. Granbery 


Education for the Future 


Norman C. Thorne 

The President’s Page 

Editorials 

A Basis for Appraising Teachers Unions 
Henry R. Linville 

A. F. T. Convention Program 





JOFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
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Iywe, 1932 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Editorial Office: 506 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, IIlinois. 


Published monthly except August and September by the American Federation of Teachers, 506 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, 
flinois. Entered as second class matter October 27, 1926, at the post office at Chicago, Ill., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Ac- 
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o XVI 


June, 1932 


No. 9 








For Vacation Thought 


HE CLOSE Of a school year always brings mingled 
feelings of relief and regret to the teacher; relief 
because the unusually arduous work of the closing 
eeks is over for a time at least, regret because many 
jleasant associations are ended. 
In past years the great majority of teachers 
poked forward to a pleasant vacation of rest, travel 
br an Opportunity to advance themselves professionally 
m summer work, after which was to come a pleasurable 
d profitable year’s work with an advancement in posi- 
ion, standing and, perhaps, salary. This year, we fear a 
preat majority are looking forward to actual or possible 
salary cuts, demotion in position or rank and in too many 
ses, actual loss of position. A feeling of insecurity 
pnd uncertainty is abroad in the land from which no one 
lan escape. 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER feels moved to give its 
eaders who are for the most part the organized teach- 
sof America its brief survey of conditions confront- 
ng the schools and the teachers and, of course, the 
whole public. 
We are sorry that we can not add to the volumes of 
printed advice ours that the thing to do is to wait pa- 
iently for the return of the prosperity that is just around 
ecorner. If better times are around the corner, we 
must go around after them. They will not be brought 
0 us. 
The American public school system is not a perfect 
institution. Conditions for the teachers employed in 
hem have not been entirely satisfactory. The existence 
bf this organization proves these two things. A glance 
backward for a year and a fearful peep into the im- 
‘Prediate future convince us, however, that they can be- 
lome worse. We have become so accustomed to slow 
bit rather steady improvement in both schools and the 
taching profession that we are somewhat bewildered 
en a situation of potential disaster to both face us. 
The depression which threatens the very structure 
ff American business is causing untold suffering to mil- 
tons of persons and, what is socially just as bad, is tend- 
mg to cause great injury if not destruction to useful 
public institutions. Among the most valuable and at the 
ame time the most vulnerable of these institutions is 
me public school, vulnerable because, of necessity and 
git, a large portion of public expenditures are for 
lucation, also vulnerable for the reason that the public 
thools are not buttressed by political influences and the 
avor Of special interests. The schools belong peculiarly 
Vall the people. They are of less direct importance 
the rich and powerful, who have come forward so 









me 


magnanimously in most of our communities to form 
super-governments to rescue the constitutional govern- 
ments from insolvency, than to the citizens of more 
humble means who cannot afford even in prosperous 
times the luxuries of private schools, 

In many communities the schools have been selected 
by these self-appointed saviors of the governments as 
special targets for attack. In Chicago, the teachers were 
the first public servants to enjoy payless paydays. In 
many localities school years have been shortened and in 
some entirely eliminated, while other governmental func- 
tions were continued as usual, Cuts in school cur- 
riculums have been proposed and in some places put into 
effect more drastic than the reductions in the adminis- 
tration of other governmental departments. 

Without going into further detail concerning the dan- 
gers threatening education and all those connected with 
it, our problem is what can be done about it by the 
teachers. ‘ 

The organized teachers have a special responsibility. 
They should make every effort to organize the: others 
in order that any influence of the teachers be made more 
effective. ; ; 

The problem must not be approached in a narrow 
way. The welfare of the schools is inextricably bound 
up with the welfare of society as a whole. Widespread 
unemployment affects the schools in the most harmful 
manner, Anything that teachers can do to help the un- 
employed get employment through private or public 
means should be done. In some communities the un- 
employed have organized for these purposes. Teachers 
generally should study these organizations sympathet- 
ically and give help where needed. The immediate cause 
of the distress felt by the public schools is the break- 
down of local taxation systems, New methods of taxa- 
tion are being advocated and will be adopted. Teachers 
should be active in all taxation changes.. In the de- 
pression the owners of small homes and the farmers, who 
are bearing the brunt of local taxation from which most 
school support is drawn, have broken under the strain. 
Shifts in taxation must be made to those better able to 
assume greater burdens and not merely changed in meth- 
od of collection from the same people, as proposed in 
the inequitable sales tax. There will be changes made 
in the economic and political structures which will tend 
to give the wealthy interests either more or less influence 
in government. Teachers should be active in formulat- 
ing such alterations. ; 

Examples of things that are going to be done before 
prosperity returns to us could be multiplied indefinitely. 











4 


The fact of the whole matter is that the teachers of 
this country, presumably as intelligent and better edu- 
cated than the average, must become honest-to-goodness 
citizens bearing the full responsibilities incumbent upon 
such citizens, Teachers have too often shirked their 
public responsibilities. These responsibilities have too 
often been assumed by interests unfriendly to the de- 
velopment of public education and those engaged in it. 
It is time for the teachers to snap out of it and assume 
their rightful places as leaders, or at least among the 
leaders, in public affairs. They should determine who 
their natural allies are and work with them in an attempt 
to bring order out of chaos. 


Balancing 


OTHING in public affairs is at present so much dis- 
N cussed as how to balance the budget. Each of 


the thousands of governments, national, state and 
local, is facing a condition where expenditures far ex- 
ceed income, Almost every business concern is wrestling 
with the problem. In fact, all the families of the na- 
tion are concerned with the problem of balancing in- 
come with expenditures except a few million whose 
problem has been unhappily solved by having no income 
except that derived from charity or direct relief. 

Every thinking citizen should be interested in the 
solvency of our governments and should lend all possible 
aid in securing it. Yet there is a much larger prob- 
lem than merely saving the credit of our various gov- 
ernmental units, The solvency of our whole industrial 
system, if not civilization itself, is in an unbalanced 
state. 

A temporary putting in order of our fiscal affairs will 
not end the terrible economic depression which is en- 
gulfing the whole world. Nor will the contraction of 
public expenditures by cutting the salaries of public em- 
ployees or discharging them increase public buying 
power, the lack of which is justly blamed for our present 
economic condition. Such a balancing of the budget, by 
increasing the evils of the depression, would be worse 
than leaving it unbalanced. 

If we are interested in balancing our whole economic 
structure—and without a balanced economic foundation 
no permanent government or civilization is possible— 
we must face facts and in a broad way. 

One of these facts and in our opinion the controlling 
one is that mechanical and organizational improvements 
in industry have run away from our distributive proc- 
esses. As ridiculous as it seems we have been for sev- 
eral years producing and distributing less and less wealth 
at a time when we have improved our productive proc- 
esses until we could produce more and more, 

In some instances one man’s labor will create more 
wealth than that of fifty men would have done a genera- 
tion ago. And the trouble is that it is doing just that, 
and only the wage of one man or perhaps a little more 
is paid for the labor. The other forty-nine are unem- 
ployed and do not have the buying power to purchase 
the product so even the one man has to quit work. 

Another fact that we must face is that the owner of 
an improved machine or method cannot appropriate to 
himself all or nearly all the advantages of this machine 
or method without throwing the whole economic sys- 


the Budget 





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THE AMERICAN TEACH? 
crit 
Naturally, we believe that the best friends of the pybfireal, 
lic schools are the workers of the United States. Thedlemo 
workers are organized and the American Federation ggof th 
Teachers is affiliated with their great national organi, from 
tion, The American Federation of Labor, than whole ¥ 
the public schools of America and the teachers hag¥"!d 
had no better and more consistent friend. It is time § of th 
the teachers of America to wake up, survey the situatig vt 
see who their friends are, unite with them and get bug on 
If this is not done, we fear that the closing weeks ; on 
1933 and 1934 will make those of 1932 seem pleasa 
indeed. 





distributed buying power is destroyed. 

We cannot have permanent prosperity even for thd the p 
wealthy owners of industries until a larger proportiog to ge 
of the social income is distributed to the masses of thd These 
people. The concentration of wealth in the hands of d hectic 
few owners may constitute a social problem, but it cerf emylz 
tainly creates economic disaster when the only way this duce 
concentrated wealth can become profitable to its owner effect 
is for it to be invested in further production for whic} Aq, 
there can be no buying power. in the 

Improved mechanical methods tend only to unbalance tyrp 
economic conditions unless their benefits are universallf sade 
distributed. Otherwise they create unemployment an goybt 
so-called over-production which is not more than can 4 ghoo 
used but more than can be sold because of lack of buying ing 
power. free | 

This is the budget that should be balanced. Ong we a; 
distributive system should and must be arranged so tha sable 
all the wealth created except an amount sufficient f0§ tion | 
the upkeep and normal expansion of industry goes inl teach 
the hands of the people who can and will consume it. } from 

Whenever an improvement is made in productive prog Fir 
esses, a corresponding improvement must be made if teach, 
distributive processes, All should benefit either by it} force 
creased wages or lowered prices or both. Unless th pect, 
economic system is to be seriously disturbed no patel quest 
holder or other monopolist can receive more than If ee 
needs for his consumption and, as was stated, enougy ship ; 
for normal expansion, [like ; 

Shorter hours, days or weeks will have no beneficial for , 
effect as long as the distribution is disproportionate. ] tion, 

No recommendation is made as to the method of | Se, 
curing a more equitable distribution of the products % (sg , 
industry. Many ways are possible, governmental wag proo}, 
and price fixing, progressive taxation, public ownershif pains 
extended social insurance. Some way is necessary a listen 
will be adopted if an equitable economic system 1s t0 4 Ham, 
established and maintainéd. now ; 

The temporary problem of balancing the governmemla in, 
budgets is a worry and an inconvenience to our PUM proce 
officials many of whom, while wrestling with it, cal™] sont 
see the terrible dangers of unemployment and stat hitter 
tion. The unbalanced state of our whole economic 99 gay p 
tem is a tragedy to millions, The hunger and phys@ 7h, 
distress is the most conspicuous aspect of our Clap tesy}; 
and more is being done to alleviate that phase. exam 
thousands of suicides and broken homes, and increas 


tem out of balance. Unless the benefits are generalh E 












; Jc NE, 1932 
CHE 
criminality are less visible as a result but none the less 
. The mental suffering because of lost positions, 
waemoval of a fancied security and hopeless uncertainty 
of the future are even less visible but more widespread. 
‘from a teacher’s viewpoint, the lack of opportunity for 
the young people entering what should be the working 
world for the first time is not the least of the horrors 
of the present situation. These young people, full of 
hope, energy, ability and in many cases genius are re- 
ceiving rebuffs and discouragement from which many 
will never recover. The effect of this will last for gen- 
erations. 


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ciety on certain brash qualities that go with suc- 
cess, aS high-pressure salesmanship, hurry-scurry, 
Or th the push and plunge of modern competition in the race 
ortiog to get ahead as each man seeks to outrun his rival. 
of thd These are considered unfortunate manifestations of a 
$ Of A hectic civilization. But when teachers in the class-room 
it Ctr} emulate these very qualities and even strive to repro- 
ry thi duce the setting that will produce loud, time-serving 
WHF effects, what are we to say? 
whic] Admitting that strenuous movement serves a purpose 
in the passing order of things, should the high-school 
alan turn into a bull-market or preserve the calm of the 
ersallf ademy? Are bark and ballyhoo to be admitted for 
it a@ doubtful purposes of pupil-adjustment or should the 
can @ school run counter to practices which prevent the matur- 
buying ing of the desirable, well-rounded, whole personality 
free from the harum-scarum of the street-vendor? If 
Ud we are not to breed a race of high-strung neurotics, un- 
0 Mia stable without temperament, assertive without convic- 
nt f0§ tion, who bark instead of talk in rational tones, the wise 
~S IMG teacher had best avoid the rumble-bumble that booms 
It. | from three horns. 
> proy First, athletic teaching: the kind that drives the 
ade # teacher to boom out, dance around, push the button, 
by 4 force the instantaneous response, talk at high pitch, 
SS Tl gesticulate, exhibit impatience, click mechanically from 
patel question to answer to give a show of specious logic, etc., 
an “etc. To pursue this course is to be guilty of salesman- 
‘NOUR ship at its worst, of sparking like a dynamo, of rattling 
like a riveting machine. The only admissible defense 


Bey may deplore the constant harping of so- 


refici 


ate, | tion, But there are limits. 

of 1 Second, super-dogmatism: the too-positive attitude 
cts Y (so easily acquired after years of teaching) that will 
| wa k no negation. This stiff-necked manner not only 
ershif mains the ear and shocks the nervous system of the 
ry #1 listener but rebounds with deadly effect upon the teacher. 
} to mering out trifles with over-emphasis may impress 
now and then, but perpetual shocks will leave a trail of 
€ associations scarcely congenial to the learning 
pub'] Ptocess. When facts do not come across with ease and 


met 


cam] Pontaneity and good-nature, learning becomes indeed a 
star bitterness of the flesh. Psychic trauma which no scale 
ic 7] ‘M1 measure may ensue. 

‘~ Third, “result” teaching: that is, teaching for paper 


tesults made imperative by outside pressure as Regents 
j‘xaminations, rigid course of study, supervisor’s man- 


for strenuous pedagogy is pepping up a sleepy recita- © 





5 


Yes, let’s balance the budget, but let’s da it by doing 
the bigger and fundamental job first. Let’s balance our 
economic system. Let’s balance production and distribu- 
tion. We have the resources and methods and labor 
power to create wealth enough to have better govern- 
ments, better schools, and better homes for all the people 
than we have ever dreamed of. We can have these 
things or we can lose what we have as we are losing 
them. Civilization is not static. It will continue to 
move downward unless we have enough intelligence to 
turn its course upward. 


The Game of Ballyhoo 


Felix Sper 


‘ 

dates, principal’s rating-sheet and other factitious com- 
pulsions, Of course this evil has long been recognized. 
But again we cannot fail to note the effects in high-pres- 
sure teaching that screws the thumbs to the text, The 
urgent need of covering the field of facts, of problems, 
oi experiments, means perpetual speeding up of the nor- 
mal rate of presentation and of thinking to a point of un- 
healthy overstimulation, Facts must be swallowed, un- 
derstood or not understood, tested or not tested. By 
violating the natural laws of learning, the natural acqui- 
sition of knowledge is seriously impaired. Again the 
logical result is bark and ballyhoo. 

These three evils suggest their own remedies. For 
athletic teaching, let us substitute quiet, unobtrusive 
pedagogy; the softly-spoken word, the easy manner of 
the instructor free from affectation, bias, monkey- 
gyrations, ballyhoo staged for supervisors. Incidentally, 
the notion that a teacher may not sit while at work 
should be annihilated. 

For super-dogmatism, I propose free discussion after 
the dictates of the first amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States; a give and take in discussion under 
control, the voicing of opinions in open forum as now 
done in the socialized recitation. When the temptation 
to over-assert comes upon the teacher, let him or her 
consciously relax the hard‘ tones in the voice and lose 
the decisive gesture made by finger or pencil or ruler 
(execrable aids!). 

To overcome the practical compulsion of purpose-drill 
is more difficult. There remains but the obvious remedy 
of revising the course of study, liberalizing or abolishing 
the Regents examination, and above all—let me stress 
the point—revising the quixotic notion of supervisors 
wedded to the idea that acceptable teaching must impress 
visitors—as if teaching were a form of sleight-of-hand, 
a bag of tricks, a series of spectacular hits at a game! 

More silent gaps, more quiet intervals, occasional 
thrusts of stimulating questions, directed hunting of in- 
formation, close following of directions on board or 
paper, time for slow assimilation of selected units, think- 
ing through a problem—these devices will do much to 
counteract the scrimble-scramble of this jazz age and 
provide a matrix for balanced, sober thinking. 

The facts are undeniable. There is little repose in 
our living. We are impatient of dreaming and meditat- 
ing. The age taboos these habits as antiquated, and 
scoffs at academic calm. Perhaps there is little value 

(Turn to page 15) 








College Teacher Views Our High Schools 


Professor John C. Granbery 


cluded work in the high schools, and I have been 

amazed in recent years to find out what the situation is 
at least in many of our high schools regarding the free- 
dom of the teacher. I have not set out definitely to ascer- 
tain the facts, but incidentally there has come to me over- 
whelming evidence that in many of our high schools, 
especially in smaller places, the position of the teacher is 
far from being enviable. I have in my classes both for 
graduate and under-graduate work a large number of 
high school teachers, principals and superintendents. 
Information comes to me also from college students 
recently out of the high school. 

It seems that local communities often bring a pressure 
to bear upon their teachers both in the elementary and 
secondary schools that forces them to walk a very 
straight and narrow way. Extremely important is the 
matter of church affiliation. It is not necessary simply 
that the teacher be a member of one of the large ortho- 
dox evangelical denominations, but it is often demanded 
that one should be active in church work. Not infre- 
quently the teacher should be affiliated with a certain 
church which is largely represented on the board of 
trustees, Anything like liberalism in religious thinking 
will wot be tolerated. In many instances one must state 
definitely that he does not believe in the doctrine of 
evolution. 

More serious than this perhaps is the fact that the 
public schools are in some places being used as centers 
for religious propaganda of what is known as funda- 
mentalism. In its most extreme form little children are 
being taught in the public schools the doctrine of pre- 
millenialism. 

In the political field the teacher is equally circum- 
scribed. Aside from the act of voting he is deprived of 
ordinary rights of citizenship. He is not expected to 
take any part in political activity or to express himself 
even outside the classroom in any pronounced way on a 
controversial question. Thus the state is deprived of 
the counsel of one of the most intelligent elements of 
its citizenship. Teachers naturally tend more toward 
independence of judgment than do some other groups, 
and accordingly this important factor in our public life 
is greatly weakened by the ban put on political activity. 
For example .even the suspicion of any so-called social- 
istic tendencies or pronounced progressiveness or liberal- 
ism would endanger the tenure of office of our public 
school teachers in many of our villages and towns. 

The regimentation with respect to small details of con- 
duct under which public school teachers suffer is well 
known. In this respect they are exceptional only in the 
fact that the discipline to which they are subjected is 
severer than js the case in some other groups. It may 
be that they are not permitted to dance, to play cards, 
to go out at night for social occasions but once or twice 
in the week; and the minutest details of the way in 
which they shall dress and deport themselves is pre- 
scribed. I know an instance in which a very capable 
young lady, a college graduate with a Master’s degree, 


I: HAPPENS that my teaching experience has not in- 







THE AMERICAN TEACH, 


was suspected of having smoked a cigarette. She denie( 
the charge but lost her job. 
The effect of all this upon the personal character oj 


individuals in the teaching profession is serious. ‘I 


thoughtful high school teacher tells me that he sits at the 
table with four or five colleagues three times a day and 
that it is considered bad form to bring up for discus. 
sion any real intellectual problem or controvertible issue, 
For example, both before and following a national elec. 
tion the subject was not discussed. Any intellectual in- 
terest on the part of teachers would be discountenanced 
by the trustees. For example, if the teachers should 
form a small group for the discussion of scientific, 
literary, social, economic, and political questions they 
would at once be under suspicion and it would endanger 
their positions. For some time I have been making an 
effort to arouse interest in high school teachers in the 
formation of such groups, but there has been no favor- 
able response. Mere attendance upon public meetings 
that are supposed to have a somewhat radical character 
will endanger a man’s position, and if he becomes closely 
identified with such a meeting, for example, by partici- 
pating in the discussion, his situation will indeed be 
pitiable. 

To me one of the most amazing revelations has been 
the exaggerated emphasis on athletics at the expense of 
scholarship. A student has just taken a Master’s degree 
with us. He had difficulty with his thesis on account 
of his poor English, and he was asked how he ever got 
through college with such wretched English. His re 
ply was, “I played football.” It is to be hoped that in 
our colleges such a situation is exceptional and rare, but 
youths just out of high school report that it is there 
very common, and in a class in sociology a student de- 
clared that in a certain high school one was graded on 
his mathematics by the interest that he manifested in 
athletic contests. If he supported the team he got 
through, and if he failed to do so he could not pass. 
The instructor said frankly that he did not believe that 
such could be the case, but other students said that tt 
was exactly that way in their home towns. A teacher ts 
employed for the dual task of teaching mathematics and 
coaching and often little attention is paid to his pro 
ficiency in teaching mathematics, for he is employed on 
the basis of his ability as a coach. 

It may be that the reader will think that I have exag- 
gerated, and I do not affirm that these conditions obtain 
in our larger cities. Several years ago I asked a high 
school teacher in a city of about 200,000 persons how 
many teachers there were in the public schools of that 
city who had a broad ‘interest in public questions and 
who could freely discuss such questions in a small group. 
He replied that there were about six. I was myself 
very skeptical about the allegations of high school teach- 
ers regarding these matters, but now I am convinced that 
the state of affairs herein described is by no means ex- 
ceptional. A good test would be an attempt in these 
parts to organize a local of the American Federation 
of Teachers. 





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June, 1932 





Education for the Future 


Norman C. Thorne 


How he acquired his wealth is not the point of 

the discussion. He had lived in a modest little 
home. Like the rich ‘man in the parable, “He thought 
within himself, saying, “What shall I do because I have 
no room where to bestow my fruits? This will I do: 
] will pull down my barns and build a greater and there 
will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.’” (Luke 
12:17, 18.) He employed an architect and proceeded 
to erect a building somewhat in keeping with his wealth. 
In this house the architect had planned a beautiful room 
to be used as a library. The building was completed, 
the house furnished, but there were no books in the 
library. The owner then sent to a book store and told 
the proprietor that he wanted the library filled with 
books. “What books do you want?” he was asked. “I 
don’t know,” he replied; “I don’t know anything about 
books. You put in the books I should have.” 

“A fanciful tale,” you say; “But not at all improb- 
able,’ I reply. There was something lacking in that 
man’s education. He had not anticipated that he might 
some day be wealthy and have the means by which he 
could do more than get a bare living. 

We hear a great deal about education for life. That 
is a fine idea if someone will only tell us what “life” we 
shall have in mind. Shall we educate for the life of 
today, of ten years from today, or twenty years, thirty 
years from today? Shall we educate a person just 
enough to be a laborer, or to be a clerk, or to be a busi- 
ness man, to be a banker, a lawyer, a professional man, 
or to be a man of wealth like the one I mentioned a few 
minutes ago? Shall we assume that he will always work 
ten hours a day, or eight hours, or six, or four? Shall 
we assume that he will always have to work or that 
he will have acquired a competence at the age of fifty 
or sixty and then retire from active, gainful occupation? 

In 1894-96, when I was in preparatory school, labor- 
ers were working eleven hours a day for one dollar. I 
quit a job of that kind in 1896 to teach school for $8.50 
a week. There were no automobiles, electric washers, 
phonographs, and numerous other inventions of the last 
twenty-five years, to say nothing of airplanes, radias, 
wireless telegraphy. Well do I remember hearing a man 
say in regard to autos, “I’d like to see anyone catch me 
riding around sitting on a five-gallon can of gasoline.” 
In those days crude oil was distilled to obtain kerosene 
for illuminating purposes. Now kerosene is a by- 
product. How many boys and girls today know what a 
Welsbach mantle is? 

What I am trying to bring out is the fact that educa- 
tion for life in 1896 was not education for life in 1931— 
thirty-five years later, nor even life in 1921—twenty-five 
years later. How shall we educate in 1931 for life in 
1950 or 1960 or 1970? A very large number of those 
now in the elementary school should be living in 1950, 
1960 and 1970. Who of us can prophesy what will be 
considered as fundamentals in those years? 


What Are Fundamentals? 


We have been told recently that we must eliminate 
the frostings in education and train pupils only in the 


Di the war a certain man became very wealthy. 


fundamentals. But what are the fundamentals? Arith- 
metic, of course. But how much arithmetic? When I 
went to school square root, cube root and compound in- 
terest were considered fundamentals. Now we do not 
teach them at all. In 1896 Greek and Latin were funda- 
mentals for entrance to college. Now one can enter 
many colleges without either of them. English, of 
course, grammar and composition are fundamentals. 
But some people do not believe in diagramming and 
parsing as we did thirty-five and forty years ago. Were 
they right or are we right? Who can tell? We don’t 
know. We do know that the leaders that we have been 
following for the last five or ten years have led us into 
the worst depression that the world has known. If their 
thinking, or the lack of it, is due to the fundamentals 
they were taught, then is it not high time that we in- 
vestigate this whole matter of fundamentals carefully 
with a view to changing the fundamentals as to number, 
kind, quantity and quality? Life today is much more 
complex than life twenty or thirty years ago. Boys and 
girls, men and women have to adjust themselves to many 
situations more difficult and more complex than those 
of a generation ago. Many of our friends believe that 
training does not carry over from one subject to an- 
other. Thus a man is not necessarily a good chess 
player because he is able to solve problems in mathe- 
matics, and vice versa. Ability to memorize music does 
not carry with it ability to learn history. A man may 
be a star at third base and a failure in the pitcher’s box 
or the outfield. Such being the case, we should train 
the boys and girls of today in many more subjects than 
the boys and girls of a generation ago, and in subjects 
widely different from those of a generation ago. 


Spiritual Values 


As I said a few minutes ago. we used to work eleven 
hours a day, then ten hours and now eight—in some 
places six. We have an eight-hour day, eight for work, 
eight for sleep, eight for leisure. If our work day de- 
creases to six hours, our leisure day increases to ten 
hours. How shall we spend this eight hour leisure day 
or ten hour leisure day? People seem surprised when 
we say we must educate for leisure. Does it require 
any hard thinking for a person to become conscious of 
the fact that boys and girls must be trained so they may 
spend that eight or ten hours of leisure profitably? A 
great many men and women lately have been forced 
to a ten or twelve or fourteen hour leisure,day. How 
many have been able to spend it profitably? I don’t 
mean in the sense of making money, but in the sense 
of appreciation of the finer things of life. 

An eminent Britisher has defined civilization as “a 
condition of social life in which men have leisure for 
noble ends.” How many have devoted any part of their 
leisure to the pursuit of noble ends? We can see only 
the things we are trained to see. You are driving an 
automobile. It does not “pull.” You wonder what is 
the matter. You take it to a garage and tell your 
troubles as best you can. The expert mechanic listens 
to your story, lifts the hood, takes the cap off the 
distributor, and in a few minutes tells you your “breaker 








points” are “pitted” or too close. He does a little work. 
makes an adjustment and you drive off in a happy frame 
of mind. He could see because he was trained to see. 
As to the untrained, “Eyes they have but they see not.” 
You can hear what you are trained to hear. A musician 
was conducting a high school orchestra. Suddenly he 
stopped the music and said to a clarinet player: “You 
didn’t play that part correctly.” A little later he cor- 
rected another player in the same way. He was trained 
to hear. Of the untrained we say: “They have ears, 
but they hear not.” 

L. P. Jacks, editor of the Hibbert Journal, says: 
“Leisure is that part of a man’s life where the struggle 
between the white angels and black for the possession 
of a man’s soul goes on with the greatest intensity.” If 
this is a valid definition, then the problem for education 
is to find ways and means for training the boys and 
girls so that the white angels will not be hampered in 
their efforts to gain possession of men’s souls. Or, to 
state the matter another way, education must ‘place 
emphasis upon those subjects which have spiritual values 
rather than upon those which are studied because of 
their utilitarian values. We would not be so rash as to 
outline any definite course of study. There are, how- 
ever, some guide posts, as it were, that may be erected 
which will call our attention to some things along the 
road that we should observe carefully if we are to 
enjoy and appreciate our journey. 


Health Education 


Dr. Frank Sladen, head of the Ford Hospital, writing 
in 1927, said: “I must admit to you that I am thinking 
and talking health these days. I have a full realization 
that health after forty years is the greatest gift on earth 
and to an enormous extent reflects the life before forty. 

“Why were we not taught these facts? Why were 
we allowed to build up a dream of the future in the rela- 
tion to acquiring worldly goods and the wherewithal, 
benignly,—not even that, unconsciously,—empty in plan 
and purpose as far as acquiring health is concerned. [ 
say ‘acquiring health’ to emphasize that after forty, 
health must be sought. We have reached the point 
where our returns in enjoying good health will be meas- 
ured by our conscious effort to obtain it. It must be 
planned for and worked for. The pursuit of wealth 
must be supplanted by the pursuit of health.” 

This problem of health becomes of major importance 
in any discussion of one’s activities during leisure time. 
There is plenty of evidence to show that many people so 
spend their week-ends that they are partly or wholly 
incapacitated for work on Monday. In our high schools 
there are more pupils absent on Mondays than on any 
other day ir the week. The remark of a prominent busi- 
ness man that “the man most in need of a vacation is 
the man who has just had one,” is a rather terse state- 
ment of the fact that we are lacking in training in re- 
gard to the best methods for spending our vacations. 


Industrial Arts 


What are some of the other things that increase in 
importance in this longer leisure day? Surely manual 
training and home economics—sewing and cooking—will 
again have a revival of interest. We do not need to 
say will, because in our high schools today there is al- 
ready an increased enrollment in these subjects. The 
leisure enforced upon a great number of people has 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


caused both old and young alike to see a new value in 
the technical work taught by these schools. 

If leisure is that part of a man’s life in which the 
white and black angels are contending for the possession 
of a man’s soul, the condition in a man’s life when he 
has time for noble ends, we shall have to direct our in- 
vestigation to the studies in which ideals are emphasized 
rather than utilities—placing emphasis upon the ideals 
and appreciations rather than on facts and skills. The 
drama, art, music, literature, and religion are fields in 
which the aim is pre-eminently that of appreciation, 
Many of us are prone to decry the low tone of many 
of the movies. The producers claim they are furnishing 
the kind of pictures that the public demands. If this 
is true, it is of the utmost importance that we educate 
our boys and girls by means of operettas, pageants, 
dramatizations. By work of this kind we can create and 
develop a desire for pictures, dramas, and the like which 
will stir and stimulate their nobler sentiments. The 
Protestant church is beginning to realize that it can do 
some very effective religious teaching by means of pag- 
eants and operettas. This work is valuable, not only 
because of the larger number of people who always at- 
tend these pageants but especially because of the inter- 
est of those who participate in them. 


Music 


Another subject in this same category is music. 
Music is considered by many people as a frill or a fad. 
It may be of interest to know that there are approxi- 
mately 900 members in the Musicians’ Union in Port- 
land, and that the Musicians’ Union stands third in the 
list in membership, being exceeded only by those of the 
Carpenters and Street Carmen in the order named. In 
addition to these, there is also a large number of people 
not affiliated with the union who earn all or part of their 
living by teaching music. Has not a boy or a girl just 
as good a right to ask to be trained in music in order to 
earn a living as to be trained in typing, or printing, or 
plumbing, or sewing? I am not so much interested, 
however, in this discussion in music taught for the pur- 
pose of earning a living. I am merely suggesting that 
many more people follow music as a vocation than many 
of us have believed. 

What I am interested in, in this discussion, is the rela- 
tion of music to our leisure time. Of all the subjects to 
which we might give consideration there is nothing 
which touches more people in all walks of life and at 
all times of life than does music. Its cradle songs lull 
us to sleep in infancy, its hymns and dirges help us to 
bury our dead. In between these two occurrences it 
ministers to all events in all phases of life. One may. 
be satisfied with jazz, another is carried into ecstacy by 
the symphony or oratorio, for each as are his apprecia- 
tions and ideals. 

Appreciation has no set form—no standards. You 
cannot say to a person, ‘Your appreciation of that piece 
of poetry, or of music, or of that picture, was 40 per 
cent, or 60 per cent, or 80 per cent, or 100 per cent.” 
You may not be able verbally to distinguish between the 
best and the next best, but the distinction is very ap- 
parent. Appreciation is not something that can be put 
on like a new coat and dropped as quickly. It depends 
upon frequent association. Thus it is that these subjects 
that I mentioned—drama, art, music, literature and re 

(Turn to page 15) 


Jun 





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The President’s Page 


What About Personality in Teachers? 


Examination boards in school systems 
have done some worrying about the con- 
tent of Personality as applied to teachers, 
and how that quality may be measured. 

Three years ago the Commonwealth 
Teacher-Training Study was published. 
That comprehensive study carried out by 
Professors Charters and Waples of Chi- 
ago University dealt largely with the 
gnalysis of the traits of teachers which 
for the most part fall within the category 
of what is usually considered as person- 
gdity. The object of the Commonwealth 
Study was to obtain a consensus of opin- 
jon on the traits of teachers that might 
“provide the necessary basis for determin- 
ing systematically what.teachers should be 
taught.” In effect, this means that teach- 
ers either should have, or should be taught 
to possess, certain traits assumed to be 
necessary to being good teachers. 


There Are Eighty-three of Them. 


Charters and Waples’s list of “Teachers’ 
Traits and Trait-Actions,” assembled from 
other ‘studies, numbers eighty-three from 
Accuracy to Wéittiness. From four to 
twenty examples are given under each 
trait. The traits are evaluated for each 
grade level and are scored in various tech- 
nical ways in the research. By examining 
the entire list and the examples, one learns 
the estimate most school experts and school 
oficials place on the specifications of a 
Good Teacher. Some examples are illum- 
inating : 

AvarTABILiTy ; likes to be wherever he is. 

ATTRACTIVE PERSONAL APPEARANCE; combs 
hair attractively. 

CHEERFULNESS; laughs a lot. 

CLEANLINESS; washes faces when they 
need washing. 

DePENDABILITY; pays bills promptly. 

Dicnity ; does not sit on desk and swirlg 
feet. 

DiscRETION ; does not associate with per- 
sons of questionable character. 

FiveNcy; carries @n a dinner conversa- 
tion of value. 

Goon Taste; does not apply rouge and 
powder before pupils. 

Honesty; pays bills promptly. 

INITIATIVE; carries out experimental work 
for the whole school. 

INTELLIGENCE; asks intelligent questions. 

Iyterest IN CoMMUNITY; stays in town 
over week-end. 

lyterEst IN PROFESSION ; works constantly 
for the school. 

SHIP; sets an example in attitude 
toward drinking, smoking, and ques- 
tionable amusements. 

Movesty ; does not overwork the first 

Personal pronoun. 


Dr. Henry R. Linville 


PATIENCE; bears with pupils in their ec- 
centricities. 


PotsE; controls facial expression. 
REsERvVE; does not wrestle with the pupils. 


There are sixty-four other traits or trait- 
actions and hundreds of examples that in- 
dicate the accepted connotation of these 
traits as named. The Commonwealth Fund 
provided a grant of $42,000 for the Study, 
and three years were required to carry it 
out. A large number of educators through- 
out the country assisted in making, the 
inquiry. Perhaps there are educators who 
regard this study, much of which is seri- 
ous and highly technical, as important and 
constructive. And yet, I cannot forbear to 
say that I regard its influence as conform- 
ist and uninspiring in character, where it is 
not actually trivial. 


How Do We Get That Way? 


There may be no doubt that many teach- 
ers are made up in character and person- 
ality as faces are made up. Evidently many 
educators think the training schools can 
see to it that teachers by being taught can 
be given the specifications the experts list. 
If so, the result is more like a plaster of 
Paris model than it is like a flesh and 
blood, mind-inhabited being. The more 
carefully one compares the proposed 
plaster casts of persons suitable for teach- 
ing with the personalities who stand out in 
our recollection as real, the more we should 
be convinced that the best human beings 
we know are those who become so by cre- 
ative endeavor. I see no lines that stand 
for creative power in the specifications of 
our experts, 


Have We the Environment in Which 
Creative Power May Operate? 

The answer is, “We have!” In the first 
place, the opportunity lies practically un- 
touched in the so-called progressive or ex- 
perimental or creative activity schools 
themselves. Most of these schools have 
been founded by one individual; they usu- 
ally come by neglect to be owned or dom- 
inated by one person. Too often the per- 
sons who teach in these schools accept as 
a condition of tenure the second trait of 
Charters and Waples’s list—Adaptability. 
Practically from the beginning progressive 
schools carry on an enterprise in which no 
thought is given to providing the teacher 
himself with the opportunity to do creative 
work in the social work of building up a 
school. 

Some leaders of progressive schools 
either fear to include the teachers in the 
responsibility for formulating the policy of 
the school, or do not understand the tech- 
nic of developing cooperation through 
leadership. It may be easier for a school 
director to go it alone, since most teachers 


prefer anyway not to be asked to assume 
even a little bit of responsibility. How- 
ever, those progressive school directors 
who have the mind to see their schools as 
social experiments as well as educational 
experiments realize that the social objec- 
tives of the enterprise cannot be attained 
without the cooperation of all persons en- 
gaged on the job. 


There Are Loyalties to Be Counted On. 


A great many directors and principals 
stress loyalty as an element in cooperation. 
Until we have grown away from the trait- 
actions of childhood, we are inclined to 
see in loyalty chiefly fealty to the chief. A 
progressive school, either private or public, 
has something more than a person to which 
to be loyal. That something is a body of 
ideas on which the school is founded. We 
have hardly begun to formulate these 
ideas except in the most superficial fashion. 
It requires thinking to do it, and no single 
personality can begin to cope with the re- 
sponsibility for giving the problem ade- 
quate thought, while with a part of his 
mind he is attending to the lower brain 
functions of ordering people about. 


Every Teacher a Creative Thinker. 


There are alibis in plenty to be offered 
by teachers in private progressive schools 
as well as by teachers in public progressive 
schools. For the poor, the slow-witted and 
the feeble of purpose among us, the alibis 
are good, but for the intelligent and alert, 
but indolent, there is no excuse but the 
excuse of fear. 


Things Are Happening. 

Even for the fearful among us there is 
encouragement in the fact that the starv- 
ing unemployed are organizing for political 
and economic action. Teachers in their 
comparatively safe cloister may seem not 
to have stimulus enough to think. But the 
time may come soon when the stress on 
school district budgets and the pressure on 
municipal officers will cause hands to be 
extended into those cloisters, with the re- 
sult that teachers will receive a thorough 
shaking up. Ideas will then have to come 
through to justify the schools and their 


expenditures. 


As a By-Product of Distress. 

As a by-product of the common experi- 
ence of us all, the social purpose of the 
schools should float uppermost in our 
minds. The way to go about our com- 
mon cooperative enterprise must be learned 
outside the training school. 

And as we learn from experience, the 
“teacher-traits and trait-actions” may take 
on a reality we never could have learned 
when we ourselves were going to school. 








10 


Democracy 








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

Labor 
506 South Wabash Ave., 
President 


Henry R. Linvitte, New York Local 5; 
70 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. 


Chicago, II. 





Secretary-Treasurer 
Fiorence Curtis Hanson, Chicago Local 3; 
506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, IIl. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 
Official Organ 
Apvisory EprtTor1aL Boarp 


Lucie W. ALLEN’ RutTH GILLETTE HArRDy 
Chicago Local 3 New York Local 6 


Mary C. Barker Henry R. LInvIL_e 
Atlanta Local 89 New York Local 5 


Setma M. Borcuarpt A. D. SHEFFIELD 
Washington Local 8 Wellesley College 


Joun M.Graysier CuHarces B. STILLMAN 
San Francisco Local 61 Chicago Local 2 


FLorENcE Curtis HANSON 
Executive Editor 
Publisher 
H. G. Apa Printinc Co. 

107 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IIl. 
eae 


Now! All Together! 














Failure is caused not so much 
by what we CAN’T do, but 
rather by what we CAN do 
and don’t. 




















If the teachers of America had 
been organized in militant trade 
unions in every community in the 
country, or even in 50% of them, 
would the “economy” programs which 
have been so generally put into effect 
have met with the success which they 
have? 

The answer is positively, No. 

These salary cuts, curriculum 
abridgments, size of class increases, 
school year reductions, etc., have been 
valiantly resisted by teachers where 
organized. They have in every case 
saved something if not all. 

And whose is the responsibility that 
they have not saved more? Can these 
groups, small arks in the midst of the 
flood, not be swept away when all the 
others unanchored are giving way 
around them? The unorganized have 


helped, not consciously or wilfully 
but none the less actually, to further 
these drastic curtailments of school 
effectiveness. 

These teachers outside the Union 
are looking and longing for help. 
They need to be told about our prin- 
ciples and what sound organization 
on a trade union basis will do for 
them. Many of them, alas, will be 
timid and distrustful. Their courage 
and self-respect will not be increased, 
but on the contrary decreased, by the 
attacks upon them. They must be 
shown that safety for their positions 
does not lie in timid submission but 
in brave, intelligent resistance. 

It will take courage and persistence 
on our part—keeping everlastingly at 
it—to achieve our objective, that is to 
inform the uninformed, to overcome 
the prejudiced, to hearten the timid, 
to win the teachers of America to 
membership in the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers to better themselves 
and to save the public schools from 
the attacks now being made upon not 
only their efficiency but their very 
existence. 


Now is the time to organize! — 
You are the one to do it! 








It is nothing for a man to hold 
up his head in a calm; but to 
maintain his post when all 
others have quitted their 
ground, and there to stand up- 
right, where all other men are 
beaten down—this is divine 
and praiseworthy. 


—SENECA. 




















Labor Membership—Class 
Alliance 


Again we hear the argument that 
teachers should not affiliate with La- 
bor because teachers serve all classes 
and should not therefore espouse the 
cause of any class. 

In the first place the premise is 
wrong. Teachers do not serve all 
classes, How many bankers’ sons and 
merchants’ daughters do we find in 
our public schools? How many 
Rockefellers, Morgans, _ Insulls, 
Fields? 90% of the children in our 
public schools are the children of 
workers, 

But disregarding this false premise, 


THE AMERICAN TEAC HE 


in Educatior 


consider the erroneous nature of th 
main proposition, namely, that tead 
ers by affiliating with Labor are all 
ing themselves with a class. 

The answer to this is, that a 
group joining a movement for soci 
betterment is not taking sides with 
special class. Are the general go 
and class disparity synonymous? 

Read what Professor Harry 
Overstreet says on this subject, 


“If one stands for the public one stand 
inevitably for the ideas and activities ¢ 
only a portion of the public. And ¢ 
what portion? Surely of that portig 
which has most deeply at heart the fun 
mental public good. . . And whe 
do we find more effectively an intent fe 
the bettering of human conditions than i 
the labor movement? It has foug 
for human emancipation—for yours 4 
mine and all the rest of us.” 


and what W. A. Bouldin says in thé 
April AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST un 
der the caption “The Greater Good" 


“Organized Labor can be said to repre 
sent the summum bonum of human force 
now operating for the advancement o 
mankind. Its aims and purposes are t 
benefit humanity, not a special class; t 
obtain for them better wages, fewer hour 
of labor, and sanitary working conditions 
This accomplished, all will be advantage 
—more money for support of dependents, 
more for philanthropy and more money 
for conveniences of life. In lifting the 
masses to a higher plane of thought and 
action, attention must be given the work 
ers, for on them depends the prosperity of 
all. The better they are fed, clothed, 
housed and schooled, the greater the civil 
ization and happiness. It is the shibboleth 
of progress and development. . The 
dignity of labor consists not alone in her 
pride of production, but in brotherhood. 

he civilization of this era is a 
product of organized labor, and wherever 
it lifts its head there is progress and im 
proved conditions.” 





These Educational Surveys 

Are these educational surveys 
which have become go common in out 
educational life real, honest, intelli- 
gent efforts to find out how public 
education can be promoted or are they 
becoming a sort of “educational 
racket” as is charged by Dr. Abra- 
ham_ Flexner? 

Do the administrators and control- 
ling boards call in the surveyors when 
they want to know how to increase 
the amount of service their schools 
can give the people? Or is it possible 
that these experts by their efficient, 
high pressure salesmanship are offer: 
ing their customers what they want? 

Any growing institution is better 















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June, 1932 


11 


Education for Democracy 


for occasionally taking stock of its © 


accomplishments, methods and plans. 
It may even be advisable to call in 
educational experts from outside the 
school system who can appraise more 
impartially than those within who are 
too much surrounded by it to see the 
whole project. 

It should be realized however that 
the recommendations of a group of 
experts are at the best only the opin- 
ions Of human beings subject to the 
influences and prejudices of their past 
and present educational environments, 

The most important thing to. con- 
sider in any survey is the surveyors. 
Educational surveys are usually made 
by college professors from endowed 


™@ schools or by men working for some 


foundation established and controlled 
even after death by the will of some 
multi-millionaire. Such surveyors 
cannot be expected to have democratic 
educational ideals. 

When a survey of any public school 
is thought necessary, why should it 
not be made by institutions that are 
a part of the public school system 
and by men whose background and 
educational environment will be 
favorable to the growth of public 
education? Something more than ab- 
stract, detached efficiency is needed. 
There must be an attitude favorable 
to democratic public education. 

There is a growing feeling that sur- 
veys are conducted by departments of 
foundations or universities that have 
been built up for the purpose of cur- 
tailing the growth of public education 
in America and removing public edu- 
cation from public control. 

The most important survey being 
made at the present time is of the 
Chicago schools, We hope the educa- 
tional efficiency of these surveyors 
equals the financial ability displayed 
by them. According to the press re- 
ports they received $75,000 of the 
$100,000 promised them before any 
teport had been made. The Chicago 
teachers have not yet received the 
salaries due them for two months 
work completed by them almost a 
year ago. 





I do the very best I know how— 
the very best I can, and I mean to 
keep doing so until the end. If the 
tnd brings me out all right, what is 
said against me won’t amount to any- 
thing —Abraham Lincoln. 


Now Is Organizing Time 

Everytime is the right time to or- 
ganize, but as never before teachers 
need the protection of trade unionism. 

The general public befuddled by tax 
strikes, economy programs, misrepre- 
sentations of basic causes, sometimes 
stricken with greed, sometimes palsied 
with fear, join in the fight to cut sal- 
aries. It accepts in its hysteria the 
statement that public education is 
costing too much. It allows itself to 
be tricked into believing that what we 
are suffering from is a government 
depression instead of seeing clearly 
that it is a business depression. It 
permits itself to believe that cutting 
costs will not injure the schools. 

Every wage cut increases the in- 
tensity of despair among the masses. 
Every wage cut of teachers lowers 
school values. Every wage cut puts 
us in deeper and deeper. 

The world has gone foolish with 
the idea that wage-cutting helps. Cut- 
ting wages of teachers and other gov- 
ernment employees helps only the al- 
ready over-full pocketbooks. 

Organize teacher unions as the one 
way to safeguard the schools. Or- 
ganize unions as the only way to 
bring order and sanity out of this so- 
cial chaos. 


The Married Teacher 
[Omaha World-Herald] 


In times like these, when many de- 
serving persons are in need of work, 
it is only natural that those who do 
not have jobs should seek the posts 
of those who are employed. That 
natural desire is at the bottom of the 
present agitation to displace married 
women teaching in the Omaha schools 
with unmarried women. 

Nevertheless the board of educa- 
tion is impressed with the necessity 
of maintaining the continued effi- 
ciency of the public schools. It feels 
keenly that with the enforced economy 
under which the schools are operat- 
ing, and with the additional loads that 
are being placed upon the teaching 
staff, the success and efficiency of our 
school system depends primarily up- 
on an alert, trained, experienced, and 
sympathetic teaching force. 

The long battle women have been 
making for equal rights, their plea for 
recognition as individuals, not as 
members of a frail and weaker sex, 





and the long struggle they have been 
engaged in to be judged upon their 
own abilities, falls when the fact of 
marriage is set up as the basis of 
judging their fitness for any position. 

Our teachers, too, have certain 
rights of privacy that should not be 
invaded. Those who are seeking the 
discharge of the married women fully 
admit that some of them need the 
work and the salary that goes with it. 
But who could set himself up as a 
judge as to the relative needs of one 
wife as compared to another? There 
are cases of dependencies, of private 
demands, of financial obligations, not 
apparent to the casual observer, that 
should be taken into consideration. 
But it would be extremely unpleasant 
to force the teachers to tear aside the 
veil of their intimate needs while an 
examining board sought to determine 
whether each of them required a sal- 
ary more than some other deserving 
person, 

The law, by established custom, 
protects the rights of property, The 
attempt to oust married teachers 
closely resembles an invasion of prop- 
erty rights. It attacks the years of 
preparation they have given in train- 
ing for their task. It attacks the 
funds they have invested in normal 
school and college work, It attacks 
the property they have purchased be- 
cause they have been given the right 
to believe their positions depended 
only upon their ability and fidelity. 

In this respect it would be as 
grossly unfair to take away from 
married women their teaching jobs in 
order to help the unemployed as it 
would be unfair to take away from 
Mr. Peter Mehrens and his fellow 
agitators their property to give to the 
unemployed. 

If public jobs are to be awarded 
according to the need, in all fairness 
it would be necessary to investigate 
the private means and incomes of the 
unmarried teachers as well as the 
married ones. The Omaha school 
board cannot embark upon such an 
adventure, The problem of unem- 
ployment cannot be solved by such 
minor and temporary measures, With 
all due respect to the sincerity of pur- 
pose of those who demand the mar- 
ried women’s discharge, it must be 
urged that they are mistaken. 


Editorial of the Day 
Chicago Tribune. 








12 


“In Union There Is Strength” 


Teachers despite their high intelli- 
gence rating do not appreciate the 
need of group organization, 

Open before us, as we write, is a 
copy of “The New Community Civ- 
ics,” and we quote the opening sen- 
tence quoted in turn from Woodrow 
Wilson, “America is not anything if 
it consists of each of us. It is some- 
thing only if it consists of all of us.” 
Let us make this sentence personal. 
The teaching body will not be any- 
thing if it consists of each of us. It 
is something only if it consists of all 
of us. 

Our National Educational Associa- 
tion is a fine body. It has done won- 
derful research work, laid open for 
our inspection the facts concerning 
problems of salary, tenure, the teach- 
ers personal rights, etc. How have 
we profited? Have you ever con- 
sidered how you may profit from 
these investigations? The State 
Teachers’ organization attempts to 
unify, at large, the state teachers. It 
arranges state meetings, plans pro- 
grams for same, cares for the teacher- 
body. Do either of these organiza- 
tions take care of you as an indi- 
vidual ? 

They are organizations directed, 
ruled, by the highest executives. They 
see through the eyes of the executive. 
They seldom reverse the glass to see 
through our eyes. Neither do we see 
school problems through their eyes. 

Besides directing these two organ- 
izations, i. e., the National and the 
various state associations, they are or- 
ganized into a Superintendents divi- 
sion, a division for Clerks of the 
School Boards, etc. 

We need a department that is of 
the class room teacher, for the class 
room teacher, and controlled by the 
class room teacher, Here is where, or 
should we say, why the American 
Federation of Teachers came into ex- 
istence. 

Do not think this purely an Ameri- 
can project. Many of the European 
countries have stronger federations 
than our own. Witness France and 
Great Britain, 

The class room teacher desires to 
be too self-sufficient and has yet to 
learn the meaning of cooperation. We 
—a body that should be altruistic and 
especially so in the affairs of our co- 
workers—are too satisfied with our 
own judgments. 

In Grand Forks we have repeatedly 
been asked, what will it do for me? 


And that question was one to be an- 
swered on a dollar and cents basis. 

Some have dropped out because a 
raise was not forthcoming in their 
particular cases, although they were 
receiving the proportionate raise their 
original contracts justified in systems 
that pay a living wage. No organiza- 
tion can drag you out of the hole you 
are condemned to by your own per- 
sonal folly, i. e., under-bidding for a 
contract and offering your services too 
cheaply. We can perhaps discourage 
others from committing like follies, 
we can use our influence backed by 
public opinion. Labor can help us 
formulate public opinion. 

Here is one example that many 
communities could duplicate out of 
their own experiences, In Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, working conditions in 
the public schools seemed unbearable 
—less than a living wage and no in- 
clination to make the salaries corres- 
pond with the advancing costs of liv- 
ing. Class rooms were crowded, poor 
housing; bad, bad, bad, all the way 
through. 

Some of the teachers in despera- 
tion united in an attempt to improve 
working conditions and a committee 
appointed by them sent out statements 
and appeals to every organization in 
that city. 

Who responded, the Commercial 
Club? The doctors? The lawyers? 
No, indeed, one organization and one 
alone responded, consulted with them, 
brought to bear the weight of its opin- 
ion, its voting power. The teachers 
then organized as Local 195 of A. F. 
T. That is less than half of their 
300 odd teachers organized in recog- 
nition of the fact that to Labor and to 
Labor alone they owed their relief. 

Can we afford to struggle along 
hugging to us the delusion that we are 
outside the need of assistance, that 
we are above the mass because of an 
imaginary professional standard? 

Let us not deceive ourselves, we 
are working people and because of 
that fact are justified in receiving a 
just competance. The laborer should 
be worthy of his hire and the price 
paid should be proportionate to the 
services rendered. 

And in the union of all ‘workers 
lies the hope of better days. 


J. Grace GREENWOOD, 
Grand Forks Local 205. 





The first rural teacher hired in 
Yamhill county, Oregon, in 1932 was 
given a $5 raise instead of a cut. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHE} 


Illinois Passes Income Tax 


The Illinois Legislature passed ap 
income tax law. The rates were low 
and the law provided but a small pro 
portion of the total revenue. We feel, 
however, even though a lower court 
has declared the law unconstitutional, 
that it was a step in the right direc. 
tion. 

The property taxes have been shown 
to be inadequate in a time of economic 
stress. New taxes must either sup 
plement or replace the traditional 
property tax. In times of depression 
much property earns no income and 
taxation frequently means confisca- 
tion. Income tax has the virtue of 
falling upon those who have incomes, 
Property taxes and the popular but 
inequitable sales taxes frequently must 
be paid by those whose incomes have 
shrunk almost to the vanishing point, 

Teachers must interest themselves 
in the problems of taxation if the 
schools are to be maintained at their 
present efficiency to say nothing of 
their needed improvement. 





Survey Gathers Facts on Six 
Urgent —— Finance 
ems 


The National Survey of School 
Finance is now working on six im- 
portant State school finance studies, 
Wm. John Cooper, U. S. Commis- 
sioner of Education, has announced. 

These studies, detailed plans for 
which have been approved by the 
Survey’s Board of Consultants, in- 
clude: 

1. The study of educational effects of 
certain major economy measures 
which promise a saving of expendi- 
ture without injury to educational 
programs. 

2. The basic facts needed for State leg- 
islatures in the distribution of State 
aid in such a way as to relieve crit- 
ical points of financial stress now er- 
dangering education. 

3. The formulation of more adequate 
standards which may be readily used 
to determine reasonable costs of 
supporting schools in various sizes of 
communities. 

4. Further study of the proper tax base 
to be used in determining the amount 
of aid to which districts of varying 
wealth are entitled. 

5. Summarization of recent findings of 
various tax commissions and tax ex- 
perts in their bearing on the problem 
of financing education. 

6. The development of the best possible 
standards for the reorganization 0 
rural school districts in such a way 
as to improve educational opportunt- 
ties and eliminate unnecessary ex- 
penditures. 





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1932 


JUNE, 


Immediate investigation of these 
six major State school finance prob- 
lems is expected to make available 
within a few months, to groups in- 
terested in bringing about adaptations 
in their financial systems next year, 
first-hand information on State school 
fmance and rural _ reorganization. 
Studies of economies made possible 
within limitations of budgets for the 
next fiscal year will also be made. 

A list of possible topics to be in- 
yestigated by students in school ad- 
ministration and finance is being pre- 
pared by the research staff of the Na- 
tional Survey of School Finance, and 
will be made available, in the near fu- 
ture, to research agencies in the vari- 
ous States. This plan to stimulate a 
large amount of research in the field 
of school finance was endorsed by the 
Board of Consultants of the Survey 
and groups of representatives of vari- 
ous universities, State departments of 
education and State teachers colleges. 


Travel-Study Vacation in 


Europe 

A new travel-study vacation plan which 
offers the opportunity of hearing lectures 
and discussions by [European liberal 
leaders with a trip through seven Euro- 
pean countries has been initiated by the 
American Peoples College in Europe. 

Directed by S. A. Mathiasen, with an 
advisory committee made up of such men 
as Dr. John Dewey, Dr. William H. Kil- 
patrick, Bruce Bliven and Dr. Harry Over- 
street, an informal college center has been 
established in Oetz, a tiny mountain town 
located high in the Austrian Tyrol. O6cetz 
was chosen both for the beauty of its 
surroundings and because its central situa- 
tion makes possible the tours through Eu- 
rope which are an indispensable feature 
of the college. 

While a whole year’s plan of travel and 
study has been worked out for American 
students, young working men and women 
and a few older people with a definite pro- 
fessional interest are accepted for three 
month periods or longer without examina- 
tion and without reference to former 
schooling. The basis of admission is evi- 
dence of character and eagerness to learn. 

Travel parties under competent liberal 
leadership will leave New York at intervals 
during the summer and fall. After a few 
days in Paris each party will spend two 
or three weeks at Oetz where the village 
inns are utilized for the informal college. 
Here European liberals will give lectures 
and lead discussions in English, and the 
beautiful mountain district will give un- 
paralleled opportunities for recreation. 
Each party will then tour Germany, Eng- 
land, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, 
Czecho-Slovakia and France. 

With the cooperation of foreign govern- 
ments and educational organizations, the 
Pocono Study Tours, the non-profit travel 
bureau organized by the college, is able to 
offer the opportunity to see the best side 
of Europe at a cost far below that of 
even the ordinary student tour. 








Washington Local 27 


This small but determined group of 


-union teachers is intact, 


It has been deeply concerned about 
the proposal of the Budget Commit- 
tee, which recommends D. C. appro- 
priations to Congress, to give less than 
20% of the total to Negro schools, 
and 80% to white schools. The local 
made a strong appeal to both House 
and Senate committees. A very fav- 
orable reply came from Senator Bing- 
ham of Connecticut, from Senator 
Capper of Kansas and Rep. Cannon 
of Mississippi. The N, A. A. C. P., 
the College Alumnae and many: civic 
groups joined the petition and as a re- 
sult, the equitable proportion of 
33-1/3% was assigned Negro schools, 


Local 27 made an earnest plea to 
the D. C. Supreme Court judges for 
the reappointment of Mrs. Mary A. 
McNeill to the Board of Education 
for the District of Columbia. It 
also secured several other organiza- 
tion endorsements of this member, be- 
cause of her impartial and independ- 
ent attitude and because of her un- 
derstanding of the teachers’ view- 
point. Strong expectation of her re- 
appointment is voiced by local papers. 


Our local has been able through a 
rummage sale held in April to secure 
a great deal of clothing for needy 
children. The proceeds of the sale 
were for our local, but we made gifts 
of outfits to penniless children of 
Washington, and then sent a large 
consignment to Croome School in 
southern Maryland where the family 
income is sometimes as near zero as it 
is possible to be. 


Mr. James D, Campbell, member of 
the Executive Board, received an 
award, the second, for the high per- 
centage of memberships secured for 
the N. A. A. C. P. whose annual con- 
ference was held in Washington, 
May 23-28, 1932. 


This year’s Spingarn medal went to 

a teacher of outstanding achievement, 

Major R. R. Moten of Tuskeegee. 

This man also received the Harmon 

award last year for brilliant achieve- 

ment along lines of interracial amity. 
Mary Mason Jones. 





ConsuMER LoANs IN WISCONSIN by Gene- 
vieve Townsend, research assistant to Pro- 
fessor John R. Commons, department of 
Economics at the University of Wisconsin, 
is to be published this spring. The book 
contains not only an analysis of credit 
unions in Wisconsin but also a survey of 
all small loan agencies in the state. 


13 
New York Local 5 


The New York Teachers Union held a 
reception for new members of the 
Teachers Union at the Washington Irving 
High School on May 13. 

Addresses on Unionism were given by 
A. J. Muste, A. Lefkowitz and Dr. H. R. 
Linville. 

The Brookwood Players presented “Mill 
Shadows” by Tom Tippett. The play, 
which dramatizes the southern textile 
strike at Marion, N. C. in 1929, gave the 
keynote of the meeting as expressed by 
Granny when she says: “Us mill folks has 
got to stick together A lot of 
people everywhere will help us. 
there'll be a labor movement 


| New Books _| 


PATHWAYS IN SCIENCE 


By Gerald S. Craig and Others 
Ginn and Company, 1932. 6 vols. 

Continuing its policy of publishing 
new books to meet new requirements 
of the schools, Ginn and Company is 
presenting this spring an important 
new series of science books for the 
elementary grades by Gerald S. Craig 
of Horace Mann Elementary School 
and Columbia University, and a num- 
ber of experienced elementary-school 
teachers. 

This series is the first to meet def- 
initely the recognized need for sys- 
tematic science training from the first 
grade through the sixth, It is in close 
harmony with the just published rec- 
ommendations of the Thirty-First 
Yearbook, Part I, of the National So- 
ciety for the Study of Education. 
The material is presented in so chal- 
lenging a manner with such a wealth 
of attractive illustrative material that 
there will be few children who will 
not respond enthusiastically to it. 























According to one of the clerks, the 
Hub, leading downtown Chicago 
men’s clothing store, is paying no 
wages to its salesmen. They get com- 
missions on what they sell. 








Who's Who in this Issue 














John C. Granbery, professor of his- 
tory at Texas Technological Col- 
lege, Lubbock, Texas; member of 
the American Federation of Teach- 
ers, 

Felix Sper, Department of Social 
Science, Thomas Jefferson High 
School, Brooklyn, New York. 

Norman C. Thorne, Assistant Super- 
intendent of Schools, Portland, 
Oregon. 





14 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


A Basis for Appraising Teachers Unions 


The following letter by President Linville, slightly 
abridged on account of space requirements, appeared 
in School and Society of April 23, 1932. 


To the Editor of School and Society: 


In the Educational Review section of your issue of February 
6th I find a long editorial by Mr. William McAndrew on “Ap- 
praising Radical Teachers’ Unions.” The editorial appears to 
have been. suggested by an editorial entitled “The Social Polic 
of the American Federation of Teachers” by the late Prof, M. 
V. O’Shea which was printed in the December, 1931, issue of 
THE NATION’S SCHOOLS. I find that Editor McAndrew 
has injected into his article the element of irritation against 
teachers’ unions which was not involved in Professor O’Shea’s 
editorial. The Report of the Fifteenth Annual Convention of 
the American Federation of Teachers which includes the resolu- 
tions on which Professor O’Shea commented also includes other 
material of importance. Apparently both editorials were written 
without full knowledge of this pe the material and of the pur- 
poses and the work of the organization. 


Professional Ideals 


_Editor McAndrew says, “What the professor (O’Shea) criti- 

cizes is the absence of professional ideals: promise of high 
grade devotion to educational and social service, not stressing 
the intention to cooperate in raising the standards of teaching. 
‘Other professions’, says Professor O’Shea, ‘put more emphasis 
on ethical and professional attainments than they do upon the 
rights of members.’” Mr. McAndrew continues with his own 
views: “The impression is often created that teachers are more 
keen for themselves than for their cause. If the public were 
convinced that teachers desire and intend to make themselves 
as necessary for the welfare of society as are physicians and 
sanitary engineers, the establishment of good salaries, tenure 
and pension would be easier.” 

The first quotation was meant to apply to the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers. A careless reader might think that the 
succeeding quotation also referred to the teachers of the same 
organization, but it is obvious that it applies to teachers in 
general. So do the additional three columns written by Mr. 
McAndrew. Thus his editorial heading, “Appraising Radical 
Teachers’ Unions,” is misleading. The editor attempts no real 
appraisal of teachers’ Unions. By indirection he adds to an 
indictment which others have drafted. 


Early Days 


It is only fair to say that whatever characterization may be 
correctly applied to teachers’ unions in this country today, it 
would not have described them at their beginning some sixteen 
years ago. In 1916 small bands of thinking teachers throughout 
the country faced a situation in which they believed that boards 
of education and municipal and state authorities were not con- 
cerning themselves seriously with the condition of public edu- 
cation, with the protection of teachers in their positions, or 
with the economic interests of teachers, or even with the mod- 
ernization of the public school as an institution. The more 
enlightened among us knew that the labor movement had been 
able to create a goodly measure of satisfactory working con- 
ditions, that it had been able to show the power of organization, 
and that it had a record of continuous support and agitation 
for improvement in public education. The possibility of great 
benefits attracted us, and we established affiliation with the 
American Federation of Labor. Conservative educators im- 
mediately attacked the movement, maintaining that it was “un- 
professional” and “dangerous.” Many still oppose it. 

Such was the beginning of a movement which without com- 
pletely conceived plan, it is true, nevertheless has developed in- 
dependently of the conception which is held by old-line educators 
that teachers should preserve the attitude of guaranteeing their 
loyalty to the standards of “educational and social service” 
that were approved by these educators. Indeed, with such a 
beginning there might have been assurance that the Pollyanna 
type of teacher would not be the one to develop as a by-product 
of the movement. Union teachers soon began to realize that 
certain social forces of economic and political origin were 
operating to press the schools into line for the maintenance 
of the status quo, and the children into the matrix of con- 


formity. Union teachers also found that when issues of free 
dom in teaching arose, the old-line educators took the side 
of the oppressors, regardless of the importance of freedom as 
an educational prerequisite, Similarly, the unions have found 
that school officers and their educational allies were against 
experimental schools in public school systems, apparently ag 
part of a consistent stand against educational radicalism. Not 
until the summer of 1931 was an experimental school estab- 
lished as part of a great public school system. This was in 
Chicago where strong teachers’ unions have grown up, and are 
favorable to the experiment. 


m Status of Teachers 


We have also found that such a reactionary influence as that 
exerted by the unnatural “Daughters” of our late Revolution 
has made headway in conventional educational circles in dic- 
tating the conduct of teachers deemed by them to be proper, 
To them we owe the movement to require public school teachers 
to take oaths of loyalty. This non-professional dictation we 
condemn unqualifiedly, as we do the petty dictation of country 
school trustees who order the length of women teachers’ skirts, 
and meddle in the smoking issue. We also condemn the New 
York State Legislature when it passes a bill that provides for 
the dismissal of teachers who for five consecutive years fail 
to register and vote, as if teachers were wards of the state, 
The teachers’ unions stand practically alone among teachers’ 
organizations in opposition to these impositions which tend to 
discredit the status of teachers in communities. 

From time to time teachers’ unions find it necessary to take 
a stand against school officials on issues involving professional 
morale. For example, the New York City school officials for 
several months have been carrying on a campaign of collecting 
funds from teachers for general unemployment relief. The 
percentage of salaries asked, starting at one per cent, has 
been increased recently to five per cent. The official attitude 
in making collections has changed from one of seeking con- 
tributions on a voluntary basis to one of outright coercion. The 
New York City Teachers Union alone came out for the cessa- 
tion of coercion, and for a social program of dealing with 
the unemployment situation. The Union maintains that “wag- 
ing a war on poverty,” by collecting a fund from teachers, such 
as school officials proclaim, is futile. The obligation of the 
schools is to carry on the business of public education which 
is now being largely neglected by those officials who seek to 
collect the required $400,000 monthly for relief. The Union 
has also denounced the sordid appeal which school officials 
have made to teachers to contribute to relief as a means to 
allaying public clamor for a ten per cent cut in teachers’ sal- 
aries. The politically-ridden New York City school system 
also stands a chance of gaining through this collection pos- 
sible protection against impending investigation by the Hof- 
stader Committee. Nevertheless, this Committee is now in- 
vestigating the very collection against which the Teachers 
Union has protested. Editor McAndrew_is familiar with the 
long and consistent fight which the New York Teachers Union 
has made against political preferment in appointments in the 
school system of his former home. Something about that 
fight might well have been included in his “Appraisal. 


A. F. T. Program 


The Fifteenth Annual Report of the American Federation 
of Teachers, and its earlier reports, contain a great deal of 
material which explains why our members have come to be 
occupied with other thoughts than those of conformity, or 
with reproducing such patterns of behavior as are upheld by 
those who have already lived. For example, find in our 
last report, and in earlier reports, the following ideas among 
our recommendations. They are here stated in comprehensive 
form: 

1. We protest against the establishment of large high schools 
containing three thousand to ten thousand children, because 
such institutions create lock-step methods of education, widen 
the breach between student and teacher, and stress uniformity 
and mass production. No high school should have more than 
2000 pupils. 

2. We urge the general adoption of the program of providing 
for a thorough examination of the physical health of schoo 
children, as well as their mental health. 


3. Improvements should be instituted to care adequately for the 
underprivileged child. 








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UNE, 1932 


._ The classroom must be freed from such unnatural restraints 
and exterior compulsions as are transformed into inner com- 
pulsions. 

5. Efforts must be made by public school systems to advance 
by experimentation. Experimental schools established within 
public school systems may be the means by which teachers 
and school officials may learn how to improve public education 
and make it effective. . 

6. Teachers must become better qualified for their work through 
the study of social problems, social institutions, and social 
movements. Public ucation itself in relation to other social 
institutions should be comprehended by all teachers who ex- 
pect to prepare children for intelligent citizenship. High aca- 
demic qualifications for teachers must be supplemented by an 
understanding of the forces that bear on human living. 


'7, We believe that freedom in teaching is a condition absolutely 


necessary to good teaching on the part of teachers and effective 
educational growth on the part of children. We believe social 
adjustment and progress and character training are not pos- 
sible except when learners are free to inquire into reality. 

§. We believe that those social forces which ‘represent special 
privilege in human society constitute the most serious obstacles 
to progress through public education. 


These extracts may show in brief how our thoughts have 
iawn away from the contemplation of codes of professional 
ronduct, and such, to the consideration of ideas of funda- 
tal social and educational bearing. We are not contemp- 
qous of the old-time amenities in teacher behavior, but we 
lelieve that in the large the acts of looking and hoping for 
oficial approval of conduct have the effect of continuing the 
ties to the old educational order, and in turn tend to main- 
ain the social status quo. In other words, we believe that 
teachers should be growing out of the primary and dependent 
grade of experience where close association with undeveloped 
minds in the school and outside may tend to keep them, into 
the realm of rank and file adult experience in common with 
other workers. We believe that working and thinking as 
adults about their experience in terms of the general social 
welfare will tend to develop among teachers a new leadership 
which public education sadly needs. Moreover, we may well 
expect to derive better teachers as the solid qualities of in- 
tdligence and understanding emerge. 
We think it is more than accidental that many teachers are 
iiready thinking ahead in terms of a considerable reconstruc- 
tion of public education as a major feature of a better social 


order. 
HENRY R. LINVILLE, 
President of the American Federation of Teachers. 


Mr. McAndrew lies 

As for me, not guilty! I had no notion of “adding to an 
indictment that others have drafted.” I haven’t seen it. The 
s&x bits of creed presented seem to me, all but the fifth, to 
ke the beliefs of a growing number of school superintendents. 
Such officers, having, themselves, so very little of the freedom 
here mentioned, do quite generally eulogize it in general, and 
guelch it when it leads into the approval of liberties which 
large number of school supporters regard as immoral or as 
disruptive of such organized effort as seems necessary to get 
shool work done. It looks to me as though the risk of 
dienating public opinion through unusual claims made by the 
(re polemic members of teachers organizations, disastrous as 
itsometimes is, is more than balanced by the corrective effect 

school bosses of having some considerable party watching 
tir step. I don’t know of anyone who has a heavier load of 
aditional reputation for conceit to live down than the school- 
aster. For associations objecting to his doing all the think- 
m, he may well give thanks. 





The Game of Ballyhoo 
(Continued from page 5) 

the quieter virtues. True or not, the inquiring mind 
recently brought into prominence by Dr. Tildsley) 
s now lost in a swirl of motion, a pandemonium of 
vices hardly calculated to develop the much-needed 
ise or solidity of the educated European or the better 
inds of the world. But until we can replace with some- 
ing more desirable the wholly-integrated personality 
dream about, the type incarnate in a Goethe, a da 
inci, a Walt Whitman, we can do nothing better than 
train a generation that will run counter to and fall 
t of step with the tempo of the times—transitional at 
st—and prepare to put into effect a new program that 

ay deliver us from the ills of tomorrow. 


15 


Yes, but-- 


HE ACME Of futility is the man whose total reaction 

to others’ plans and projects is the finding of ob- 

jections and weaknesses. When conferring with 

those eager to formulate new plans, he has no construc- 

tive suggestions to make; his uniform reaction is to 

search for the holes. He punctures ideas, but he has 
no alternative suggestion to contribute. 

In some cases he is a keen critic gone wrong. Useful 
in his place, he scrutinizes and probes. For those with 
faith in their ideas, he arouses deeper and more purpose- 
ful thought, but for those searching for an idea he is a 
sterile source of aid. Surrounded by a group of such 
people assembled in conference a leader is helpless— 
no ideas from the conferees and no support for his ideas; 

Sometimes’ the objector is less a wise ‘critic than 4 
timid agent. His mind may not be keen, and what he 
lacks in wit may be compensated for in caution. He 
may be afraid because he fears adventure, or his ob- 
jection may grow from preference for the comforts of 
the customary over the irritations of change. Being 
unwilling to change, he may rationalize his inertia by 
picking flaws in novel action. 

To the thinker such a person has some value for he 
may induce conflicts from which rise problems and the 
desire to search for solutions; he also may act as a con- 
stant source of discouragement to those anxious for ac- 
tion. This critic-objector destroys group morale, im- 
pedes action, acts as a four-wheel brake on the car of 
progress which, like all brakes, has its uses on occasions, 
but provides neither direction nor power. 

The difference between the man who says “But” and 
the one who says “That is a fine idea” is a difference 
in attitude toward life. The former pulls back, criticizes, 
and withdraws all of his points of contact with reality. 
He belittles in his thinking what other men advance. 
He does not listen, The latter generously grants initial 
acceptance to a new idea, listens to its exposition, ex- 
pands it, watches it grow, criticizes it, and adopts it if 
it stands the test of thought. 

The most serious impediment to concerted action lies 
in the lack of generosity and judgment to grant that the 
man who advances a new idea is ordinarily an intelligent 
man who has some reasonable basis for his idea, how- 
ever bizarre it may appear. Granting that assumption, 
one is in the way of learning much from many people 
and proceeding to wiser action than could be achieved 
by unassisted inner thought. 

‘ EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH BULLETIN, 
Ohio State University. 





Education for the Future 
(Continued from page 8) 
ligion—must be presented early in life if they are to 
have the appeal that they should have. 

As leisure time increases one of two things is sure. 
People must either be educated so that they can furnish 
their own entertainment and enjoyment, or else some 
must be educated to furnish this entertainment and 
enjoyment for them. The manner in which people spend 
this leisure time will depend upon how soon and how 
well they become trained in those subjects which have 
as their main attraction high ideals and noble sentiments 
—those which are enlisted on the side of the white 
angels in the struggle for possession of man’s soul. 








14 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


A Basis for Appraising Teachers Unions 


The following letter by President Linville, slightly 
abridged on account of space requirements, appeared 
in School and Society of April 23, 1932. 


To the Editor of School and Society: 


In the Educational Review section of your issue of February 
6th I find a long editorial by Mr. William McAndrew on “Ap- 
praising Radical Teachers’ Unions.” The editorial appears to 
have been. suggested by an editorial entitled “The Social Polic 
of the American Federation of Teachers” by the late Prof, M. 
V. O’Shea which was printed in the December, 1931, issue of 
THE NATION’S SCHOOLS. I find that Editor McAndrew 
has injected into his article the element of irritation against 
teachers’ unions which was not involved in Professor O’Shea’s 
editorial. The Report of the Fifteenth Annual Convention of 
the American Federation of Teachers which includes the resolu- 
tions on which Professor O’Shea commented also includes other 
material of importance. Apparently both editorials were written 
without full knowledge of this pr Be material and of the pur- 
poses and the work of the organization. 


Professional Ideals 


_Editor McAndrew says, “What the professor (O’Shea) criti- 
cizes is the absence of professional ideals: promise of high 
grade devotion to educational and social service, not stressing 
the intention to cooperate in raising the standards of teaching. 
‘Other professions’, says Professor O’Shea, ‘put more emphasis 
on ethical and professional attainments than they do upon the 
rights of members.’” Mr. McAndrew continues with his own 
views: “The impression is often created that teachers are more 
keen for themselves than for their cause. If the public were 
convinced that teachers desire and intend to make themselves 
as necessary for the welfare of society as are physicians and 
sanitary engineers, the establishment of good salaries, tenure 
and pension would be easier.” 

The first quotation was meant to apply to the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers. A careless reader might think that the 
succeeding quotation also referred to the teachers of the same 
organization, but it is obvious that it applies to teachers in 
general, So do the additional three columns written by Mr. 
McAndrew. Thus his editorial heading, “Appraising Radical 
Teachers’ Unions,” is misleading. The editor attempts no real 
appraisal of teachers’ Unions. By indirection he adds to an 
indictment which others have drafted. 


Early Days 


It is only fair to say that whatever characterization may be 
correctly applied to teachers’ unions in this country today, it 
would not have described them at their beginning some sixteen 
years ago. In 1916 small bands of thinking teachers throughout 
the country faced a situation in which they believed that boards 
of education and municipal and state authorities were not con- 
cerning themselves seriously with the condition of public edu- 
cation, with the protection of teachers in their positions, or 
with the economic interests of teachers, or even with the mod- 
ernization of the public school as an institution. The more 
enlightened among us knew that the labor movement had been 
able to create a goodly measure of satisfactory working con- 
ditions, that it had been able to show the power of organization, 
and that it had a record of continuous support and agitation 
for improvement in public education. The possibility of great 
benefits attracted us, and we established affiliation with the 
American Federation of Labor. Conservative educators im- 
mediately attacked the movement, maintaining that it was “un- 
professional” and “dangerous.” Many still oppose it. 

Such was the beginning of a movement which without com- 
pletely conceived plan, it is true, nevertheless has developed in- 
dependently of the conception which is held by old-line educators 
that teachers should preserve the attitude of guaranteeing their 
loyalty to the standards of “educational and social service” 
that were approved by these educators. Indeed, with such a 
beginning there might have been assurance that the Pollyanna 
type of teacher would not be the one to develop as a by-product 
of the movement. Union teachers soon began to realize that 
certain social forces of economic and political origin were 
operating to press the schools into line for the maintenance 
of the status quo, and the children into the matrix of con- 


formity. Union teachers also found that when issues of free 
dom in teaching arose, the old-line educators took the side 
of the oppressors, regardless of the importance of freedom as 
an educational prerequisite, Similarly, the unions have found 
that school officers and their educational allies were against 
experimental schools in public school systems, apparently as 
part of a consistent stand against educational radicalism. Not 
until the summer of 1931 was an experimental school estab- 
lished as part of a great public school system. This was in 
Chicago where strong teachers’ unions have grown up, and are 
favorable to the experiment. 


" Status of Teachers 


We have also found that such a reactionary influence as that 
exerted by the unnatural “Daughters” of our late Revolution 
has made headway in conventional educational circles in dic- 
tating the conduct of teachers deemed by them to be proper, 
To them we owe the movement to require public school teachers 
to take oaths of loyalty. This non-professional dictation we 
condemn unqualifiedly, as we do the petty dictation of country 
school trustees who order the length of women teachers’ skirts, 
and meddle in the smoking issue. We also condemn the New 
York State Legislature when it passes a bill that provides for 
the dismissal of teachers who for five consecutive years fail 
to register and vote, as if teachers were wards of the state. 
The teachers’ unions stand practically alone among teachers’ 
organizations in opposition to these impositions which tend to 
discredit the status of teachers in communities. 

From time to time teachers’ unions find it necessary to take 
a stand against school officials on issues involving professional 
morale. For example, the New York City school officials for 
several months have been carrying on a campaign of collecting 
funds from teachers for general unemployment relief. The 
percentage of salaries asked, starting at one per cent, has 
been increased recently to five per cent. The official attitude 
in making collections has changed from one of seeking con- 
tributions on a voluntary basis to one of outright coercion. The 
New York City Teachers Union alone came out for the cessa- 
tion of coercion, and for a social program of dealing with 
the unemployment situation. The Union maintains that “wag- 
ing a war on poverty,” by collecting a fund from teachers, such 
as school officials proclaim, is futile. The obligation of the 
schools is to carry on the business of public education which 
is now being largely neglected by those officials who seek to 
collect the required $400,000 monthly for relief. The Union 
has also denounced the sordid appeal which school officials 
have made to teachers to contribute to relief as a means to 
allaying public clamor for a ten per cent cut in teachers sal- 
aries. The politically-ridden New York City school system 
also stands a chance of gaining through this collection pos- 
sible protection against impending investigation by the Hof- 
stader Committee. Nevertheless, this Committee is now in- 
vestigating the very collection against which the Teachers 
Union has protested. Editor McAndrew_is familiar with the 
long and consistent fight which the New York Teachers Union 
has made against political preferment in appointments in the 
school system of his former home. Something about that 
fight might well have been included in his “Appraisal. 


A. F. T. Program 


The Fifteenth Annual Report of the American Federation 
of Teachers, and its earlier reports, contain a great deal of 
material which explains why our members have come to be 
occupied with other thoughts than those of conformity, or 
with reproducing such patterns of behavior as are upheld by 
those who have already lived. For example, I find in our 
last report, and in earlier reports, the following ideas among 
our recommendations. They are here stated in comprehensive 
form: 

1. We protest against the establishment of large high schools 
containing three thousand to ten thousand children, because 
such institutions create lock-step methods of education, widen 
the breach between student and teacher, and stress uniformity 
and mass production. No high school should have more than 
2000 pupils. 

2. We urge the general adoption of the program of providing 
for a thorough examination of the physical health of school 
children, as well as their mental health. 


3. a th mr should be instituted to care adequately for the 
underprivileged child. 


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1932 


JUNE, 


4. The classroom must be freed from such unnatural restraints 
and exterior compulsions as are transformed into inner com- 
pulsions. 

5. Efforts must be made by public school systems to advance 
by experimentation. Experimental schools established within 
public school systems may be the means by which teachers 
and school officials may learn how to improve public education 
and make it effective. 

6. Teachers must become better qualified for their work through 
the study of social problems, social institutions, and social 
movements. Public education itself in relation to other social 
institutions should be comprehended by all teachers who ex- 
pect to prepare children for intelligent citizenship. High aca- 
demic qualifications for teachers must be supplemented by an 
understanding of the forces that bear on human living. 

7. We believe that freedom in teaching is a condition absolutely 
necessary to good teaching on the part of teachers and effective 
educational growth on the part of children. We believe social 
adjustment and progress and character training are not pos- 
sible except when learners are free to inquire into reality. 

8. We believe that those social forces which represent special 
privilege in human society constitute the most serious obstacles 
to progress through public education. 

These extracts may show in brief how our thoughts have 
drawn away from the contemplation of codes of professional 
conduct, and such, to the consideration of ideas of funda- 
mental social and educational bearing. We are not contemp- 
tuous of the old-time amenities in teacher behavior, but we 
believe that in the large the acts of looking and hoping for 
oficial approval of conduct have the effect of continuing the 
ties to the old educational order, and in turn tend to main- 
tain the social status quo. In other words, we believe that 
teachers should be growing out of the primary and dependent 
grade of experience where close association with undeveloped 
minds in the school and outside may tend to keep them, into 
the realm of rank and file adult experience in common with 
other workers. We believe that working and thinking as 
adults about their experience in terms of the general social 
welfare will tend to develop among teachers a new leadership 
which public education sadly needs. Moreover, we may well 
expect to derive better teachers as the solid qualities of in- 
telligence and understanding emerge. 

We think it is more than accidental that many teachers are 
already thinking ahead in terms of a considerable reconstruc- 
tion of public education as a major feature of a better social 


order. 
HENRY R. LINVILLE, 
President of the American Federation of Teachers. 


Mr. McAndrew lies 

As for me, not guilty! I had no notion of “adding to an 
indictment that others have drafted.” I haven’t seen it. The 
six bits of creed presented seem to me, all but the fifth, to 
be the beliefs of a growing number of school superintendents. 
Such officers, having, themselves, so very little of the freedom 
here mentioned, do quite generally eulogize it in general, and 
squelch it when it leads into the approval of liberties which 
a large number of school supporters regard as immoral or as 
disruptive of such organized effort as seems ne¢essary to get 
school work done. It looks to me as though the risk of 
alienating public opinion through unusual claims made by the 
more polemic members of teachers organizations, disastrous as 
it sometimes is, is more than balanced by the corrective effect 
on school bosses of having some considerable party watching 
their step. I don’t know of anyone who has a heavier load of 
traditional reputation for conceit to live down than the school- 
master. For associations objecting to his doing all the think- 
ing, he may well give thanks. 





The Game of Ballyhoo 
(Continued from page 5) 

in the quieter virtues. True or not, the inquiring mind 
(recently brought into prominence by Dr. Tildsley) 
seems now lost in a swirl of motion, a pandemonium of 
devices hardly calculated to develop the much-needed 
poise or solidity of the educated European or the better 
minds of the world. But until we can replace with some- 
thing more desirable the wholly-integrated personality 
we dream about, the type incarnate in a Goethe, a da 
Vinci, a Walt Whitman, we can do nothing better than 
to train a generation that will run counter to and fall 
out of step with the tempo of the times—transitional at 
best—and prepare to put into effect a new program that 
may deliver us from the ills of tomorrow. 


15 


Yes, but-- 


HE ACME Of futility is the man whose total reaction 

| to others’ plans and projects is the finding of ob- 

jections and weaknesses. When conferring with 

those eager to formulate new plans, he has no construc- 

tive suggestions to make; his uniform reaction is to 

search for the holes. He punctures ideas, but he has 
no alternative suggestion to contribute. 

In some cases he is a keen critic gone wrong, Useful 
in his place, he scrutinizes and probes. For those with 
faith in their ideas, he arouses deeper and more purpose- 
ful thought, but for those searching for an idea he is a 
sterile source of aid. Surrounded by a group of such 
people assembled in conference a leader is helpless— 
no ideas from the conferees and no support for his ideas; 

Sometimes the objector is less a wise ‘critic than 4 
timid agent. His mind may not be keen, and what he 
lacks in wit may be compensated for in caution. He 
may be afraid because he fears adventure, or his ob- 
jection may grow from preference for the comforts of 
the customary over the irritations of change. Being 
unwilling to change, he may rationalize his inertia by 
picking flaws in novel action. 

To the thinker such a person has some value for he 
may induce conflicts from which rise problems and the 
desire to search for solutions; he also may act as a con- 
stant source of discouragement to those anxious for ac- 
tion. This critic-objector destroys group morale, im- 
pedes action, acts as a four-wheel brake on the car of 
progress which, like all brakes, has its uses on occasions, 
but provides neither direction nor power. 

The difference between the man who says “But” and 
the one who says “That is a fine idea” is a difference 
in attitude toward life. The former pulls back, criticizes, 
and withdraws all of his points of contact with reality. 
He belittles in his thinking what other men advance. 
He does not listen, The latter generously grants initial 
acceptance to a new idea, listens to its exposition, ex- 
pands it, watches it grow, criticizes it, and adopts it if 
it stands the test of thought. 

The most serious impediment to concerted action lies 
in the lack of generosity and judgment to grant that the 
man who advances a new idea is ordinarily an intelligent 
man who has some reasonable basis for his idea, how- 
ever bizarre it may appear. Granting that assumption, 
one is in the way of learning much from many people 
and proceeding to wiser action than could be achieved 
by unassisted inner thought. 

‘ EpuCATIONAL RESEARCH BULLETIN, 
Ohio State University. 





Education for the Future 
(Continued from page 8) 
ligion—must be presented early in life if they are to 
have the appeal that they should have. 

As leisure time increases one of two things is sure. 
People must either be educated so that they can furnish 
their own entertainment and enjoyment, or else some 
must be educated to furnish this entertainment and 
enjoyment for them. The manner in which people spend 
this leisure time will depend upon how soon and how 
well they become trained in those subjects which have 
as their main attraction high ideals and noble sentiments 
—those which are enlisted on the side of the white 
angels in the struggle for possession of man’s soul. 





a 








American Federation of Teachers 


Sixteenth Annual Convention 


HOTEL KNICKERBOCKER, CHICAGO 
° June 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 1932 


THEME—SAVE OUR SCHOOLS 
AGENDA 


Economy Programs 
The issues and forms of salary reduction 
Increase in size of classes 
Curtailment of curriculum 
Curtailment of teacher rights 


Taxation in Relation to Resources of Wealth 
Credit Unions 
Insurance 


Group 
Unemployment 


Mass Education, Gang Rule and the Status Quo 
Character Education in Relation to Progressive Education 
Teacher Training,“Preparatory and In-Service 

Teacher Tenure 

Retirement Systems 

A Social Program in Relation to Education 


June 26, 1932 
Executive Council Meeting 


Monday, June 27, 1932 
10 a.m. 
Addresses of Welcome 


Chicago Locals 
John Fitzpatrick, President, Chicago Federation of 
Labor 


President’s Address 
Secretary’s Report 


12:45 p.m. 
Get-Together Luncheon, Silver Club, Hotel Knickerbocker 
Reports from Locals 


Tuesday, June 28, 1932 
9:30 a.m. 
The Economic Dilemma and Our Schools—James Mullen- 
Report—Finance—C, L. Vestal 
Nominations - 
Reports from Locals 


2 p.m. 
Report—Academic Freedom, Henry R. Linville 
Report—Education, Mar¥@C. Barker 
Report—International Relations, Selma M. Borchardt 
Reports from Locals 


7 p.m. 
Dinner 
Address—Ernest Fremont Little (Tentative) 


Address—Labor and Education, William Green, President 
American Federation of Labor 


Wednesday, June 29, 1932 
9:30 a.m. 
Report—Exchange of Teachers, Mary C. Dent 
Report—Positive Health, Bertha F. Ferguson 
Report—Placement Bureau, Amy A. Fox 
Report—Credit Unions, H. S. Bechtolt 
Reports from Locals 


2 p.m. 
Report—Extra-Curricular Activities, Alice F. Drechsler 
Report—Tenure, J. M. Graybiel 
Report—Committee on Officers’ Reports 
Election of Officers 
Report—Resolutions Committee 


Thursday, June 30, 1932 
9:30 a.m. 
Report—Policies Committee 
Report—School Problems Committee 
Report—Social and Economic Trends 


2 p.m. 
Report—Legislative Committee 


7 p.m. 
Executive Council Meeting