The AMERICAN » TEACHER National Action For Health by Josephine Roche Published by the AMERICAN FEDERATION of TEACHERS a Inside the Cover After reading and re-reading pages 17-24 of this month’s AMERICAN TEACHER»we’ve caught this suggested reading bug too.... Before you read the books suggested in any of the articles get yourself a copy of Consumers’ Guide (September, 1938, which was reissued for December 19, 1938). This presents in pictorial chart form the material issued earlier by the National Resources Committee in Consumer Incomes in the United States. ... Orchids to Mary Taylor, editor, and D. E. Montgomery, consumers’ counsel, for publishing such a deliciously “subversive” document in a format that any five-year-old child will find understand- able. It’s free from the Consumers’ Counsel Division, A.A.A., Washington, D. C. We'd like to give the call to three other books (besides Grapes of Wrath)—Death of a Yale Man (F. & R., $2.50) by Maleolm Ross, who is with the N.L.R.B. . It’s a swell story of one man’s attempt to fight through the educational hogwash to the world in which most people live . . . sort of Steffinish in our opinion ... then G. E. R. Gedye’s Betrayal in Central Europe (Harp ers, $3.50) ... and for a ten-dollar bill you can invest in The Letters of Lincoln Steffins (Hareourt) ...a good idea for the teachers’ reading room. * * * Good news from the Southland comes in Maury Maverick’s election as Mayor of San Antonio. ... Coming events were fore- cast when C. K. Quin, Garner follower, lost to Maverick by 3,500 votes. Lawyer for the C.1.0. Automobile Workers Union is Charles P. Taft who might try a little of his progressive thinking on his senator brother who is opposing Federal Aid... . At the Kansas City meetings Methodist Minister Tittle from Evanston, Ill., urged, “Let the church go so far as to lift the standards of employee-employer relation ships. Let the church pronounce the right of its employees to organize.” * * * A. W. Robertson, chairman of the board of the Westinghouse Electric and Man ufacturing Company, in a speech before the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce seored “minority rule” in America. He held that disfranchisement of citizens now on relief rolls would furnish them with an incentive to “regain the right of citizenship.” “At present, a person on relief has little to get off. He is both the judge and advocate. As a citizen he decides the case in favor,” said Robertson. incentive his own * * * The kids in Oslo, Norway, are entitled to a free breakfast at school... and we have our troubles providing the free schools. The D.A.R. will probably collapse, but a mural of Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial will be placed in the Department of the Interior (thanks to Mr. Ickes). President Roosevelt in a recent letter to Haywood Broun said that he was in favor of main- taining the Federal Arts Projects. The state legislature of Missouri found it necessary to cut child-aid funds but is considering a bill which would raise legis- lators’ pay. ... A locked out miner in Pennsylvania is spending his time digging his own grave. National Maritime Union members in New Orleans find it hard to get used to riding in the new truck former police wagon. union which is a patrol Freedom of the Press: Tom Stokes, Scripps-Howard reporter who won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for the best job of reporting, got it for an anti-New Deal, smear-W.P.A. series. In 1936 Stokes did a series low-wage southern em ployers, how on runaway shops fled to the protection of southern chambers of com meree, and methods used by southern from employers keep their workers to organizing. . given a Pulitzer prize.... ; Although New York .. This series was not have accepted employers’ advertisements that eriticize of them the Cafeteria Employees Union’s ads because new sSpapers name and unions, none would accept the company, “Automats,” was named in the ads. The Journal-American and the World-Telegram refused any ad apply ing to the union’s organizational eam paign. . . It took six phone calls to the New York Times to get them to accept the ad. News of the Times N.L.R.B. ease, which has been going on for two months, is hard to find in any oO Oo ° ° hewspaper. The trial thus far indi cates that the Times maintains a_ spy system, that althongh fifty other papers in the U, S. the “guild shop, such a contract would ruin the “im have a cepted partiality” of the Times, and Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger said that he would sell the paper if forced to sign a guild-shop contract Under a guild- shop contract a publisher is free to hire anyone he chooses, but the new worker must join the Newspaper Guild. At the recent A. F. of A. meeting, which was presided over by President Sophie Tucker, Rudy Vallee, Sally Rand, Jed Dooley, and Walter Diggs were elected to the executive committee for four-year terms The greatest tech- nological advance of the past decade is the stripmill in the steel industry, accord- ing to H. J. Ruttenberg of the S. W. O. ©, The Milwaukee Leader became the only labor-owned daily newspaper in the country when the Federated Trades Coun- of Milwaukee, Wis., took the paper over and renamed it the Milwaukee Eve- ning Post ... The World’s largest depart- ment store, R. H. Macy Company, signed a closed shop contract with the Depart- ment Store Employees Organizing Com- mittee of the C. I. O. . .. The contract calls for wage increases totalling $175,- 000 annually, shorter hours, time-and-a- cil half overtime pay, paid vacations, and legal holidays off with pay. * Lawrence Tibbett, A. F. of L. union presi- $25 to a book Conn. which was held dent, sent check for auction at Norwalk, benefit for the Newspaper Guild strike in Chicago ... An “Annotated List of Motion Pictures for Workers’ Groups” has been prepared Udell for the Southern Summer School for Workers, us a by Sophie 302 E. 35th Street, New York City It lists more than 100 movies, most of them available free According to reports by the Social Security Board, the average annual of men during 1937 was $1,027 and for women $525... The Duteh government has had a housing income act since 1901 and has built more than 220,000 homes for working class families under it the cooperative housing societies built 75 per cent of the homes and eut rents 20 per cent, * * * Hollywood Shorts: the film industry has lost about 65 per cent of its foreign revenue ... William Holden who will play the lead in Golden Boy will get $50 a week and, if he makes good, at the end of seven years he will be making $400 a week... An anti-Nazi movie Boycott will use news- reel 3und meeting in Madison Square Garden, which have been shots of the famous shown in England but not in the U. Theodore Dreiser is in Hollywood working on Sister Carrie. . Back Door to Heaven is highly recommended by Associated Film “The of a lad who chance with rare and Tess Slesinger, We. eee record told Audiences had a compelling honesty” short story writer, is working with Director never Biberman on Erika Mann’s School for Barbarians Producer Grainger has bought Spivak’s Secret Armies Gone Wind is now a best seller in . Grapes of Wrath which Darryl never con- With the Germany .. Zanuck bought for the movies may made Chase National Bank trols 20th Fox is said to be involved in the vigilante Associated Farmers Movie have been threatened for praising Confessions of 4@ Nazi Spy. —G. T. G. be Century films and reviewers THE AMERICAN TEACHER “w wa wu Va rid ted en iER l '* AMERICAN TEACHER Published by The American Federation of Teachers VOLUME Xxill MAY, 1939 NUMBER 8 IN THIS ISSUE ER oP es ee ee Farm Security Administration Photograph by Lee Children in a Democracy.............. Katharine F. Lenroot 6 National Action for Health................0 Josephine Roche 9% Mr. Jones Warns the Edueators........... Lawrence Martin 12 The Mexican Teachers’ Union........ .....Dorothy Douglas 14 A Summer’s Reading Program Study with Social Significance........... Goodwin Watson 17 Problems in Elementary Education......... Paul R. Hanna 20 What’s New in Secondary Eduecation....... John J. DeBoer 21 3rowsing Through General Education. . Malcolm S. MacLean 23 Tenure Problems in Goose Creek, Texas....... John Woodruff 25 Workers’ Education Threatened in Wisconsin............... ep ee ee Sey eek ee _E. E. Schwarztrauber 25 The Next Step for the Progressives........ Charles A. Beard, Robert H. Jackson, Frank Murphy 27 DEPARTMENTS NO PE re eer ee ER eee ee ee ee The President’s Page, Two Conventions........+ Jerome Davis 5 Among the New Books: High Sehool and Life, Education for Work, Adult Educa tion, Edueation for Citizenship, State Aid and School Costs RA a Ie aay Se hee a ge RE .. Alonzo F. Myers 29 ert! - Erika Mann 32 ....Haven Perkins 32 .. Matthew Josephson 33 ... Hilden R. Gibson 33 The Tree of Liberty......... The Pursuit of Happiness. . die i TRS ng eh seeds battens wes .Nancy Lea Smith The New Inquisition.............. ......d0hn J. DeBoer : The Negro, Too, in American History.....John Lovell, Jr. : The Teachers Union in Action..... es iran ws iy BE Rik ee OW a aw ale ane The Contributors .......... a st ie bat ce a ars rae a Drawings by Chandler Montgomery THE EDITORS of the American TEACHER request that no material he reprinted from this magazine without an accompanying credit line stating the source and the issue in which such material appeared mee at THE AMERICAN TEACHER Georce T. GUERNSEY, Editor ENTERED as second class matter January 1939, at the post office at Chicago, Illinois, under the act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of February 28, 1925, authorized November 3, 1926 SUBSCRIPTION: $2.50 for the year—Foreign $2.60—Single copies, 35c Published monthly except June, July and August, at 506 S. Wabash Ave.. Chicago, Ill. Subscribers are requested to give prompt notice of changes of address. Remittances should be made in postal or express money orders, draft, stamps, or check —- LOCALS of the American Federation of Teach- ers in the Chicago area have had their ‘‘accounts closed’’ with the Chicago Federation of Labor. These are Local 460, North Shore Teachers’ Union; Loeal 259, the Chicago College Teachers’ Union; and Loeal 464, the Private School Teachers’ Loeal. The accounts were closed because the locals refused to ‘‘expell’’ or ‘‘re- pudiate’’ George E. Axtelle, Dean Ralph Tyler, and James P. Mitchell, respectively, for allowing their names to be used on the ‘‘A. F. of L. Committee to Aid the Guild Strike.’’ MAY, 1939 Members of the Chicago Typographical Union, No. 16, have also been working on this Committee, but thus far the Chicago Federation of Labor has not expelled this local nor other large locals whose members are working with this committee. Through its president, Ralph E. Fischer, the Typographical Union has offered its offices to the Guild and the Hearst management. Charlotte Carr, director of Hull House, has joined with the Typo- graphical Union in urging the Guild and the Hearst representatives to meet and settle the strike. In the meantime cases of ‘‘treason’’ are bound to occur until unity in the labor movement is established. 2 2 — EIGHT PAGES IN THIS ISSUE ENTITLED ‘‘A Sum- mer’s Reading Program’’ by Goodwin Watson, Paul R. Hanna, John J. DeBoer, and Maleolm 8. Mae- Lean will be reprinted and distributed free of charge to non-Union teachers through the summer schools. We would appreciate letters from all Union members who are going to attend schools this summer, stating how many copies of the reprint they can use and where the reprints should be sent. It is important that we get these orders early so that we can print the necessary quantity. x *k * A" A TIME WHEN reactionary forces in American life are using every conceivable method to split farm- ers and workers, it is encouraging to find the author of the National Labor Relations Act, Senator Wagner (N. Y.) introducing the National Health Bill, a bill which will be extremely beneficial to our rural popula- tion, according to the testimony of John Vesecky, presi- dent of the Farmers’ Union, and Edward A. O’Neal, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation. In his testimony before the Senate Edueation and Labor Committee, Vesecky said that the measure would be of especial benefit to the farmers. Rural com- munities, he pointed out, are almost entirely without adequate hos- pital and elinie facili- ties. O’Neal told the Com- mittee that the health of rural youth is of concern to the urban as well as the rural communities because of the of young people from farms to cities. S. Chamber of Com- x kk — NEW PRESIDENT of the U. merce is W. Gibson Carey, Jr., head of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company. He was a director of the National Association of Manufacturers in 1935-37. He served on the National Industrial Information Com- mittee of the N. A. M. which raised a fund of $750,000 to be used in influencing public opinion. He is a mem- ber of the National Metal Trades Association which has been exposed by the La Follette Civil Liberties Com- mittee as one of the major employers of spies and strike- breakers. His corporation had two Metal-Trades spies working in its plants in 1935-36. One of these managed to be- come vice president of Local 1557 of the International Association of Machinists (A. F. of L.). During his term of office the local’s membership dropped from 243 to 21. While President Carey was using the labor espionage service he obtained contracts from the U. S Government for almost a million dollars’ work. All in all, we should say that the new president of the Chamber of Commerce has been well schooled in the ‘*experience curriculum’’ and should go far in carrying on the work of his organization. x T ITS RECENT MEETINGS in Washington, D. C., the U. S. Chamber of Commerce came out for repeal of the Wages-Hours Law, for ‘‘structural amendments’’ to the National Labor Relations Act, hamstringing of social security, and the abandonment of the best fea- tures of the present relief setup. It also urged the increased migration tried d CHAS. A. BEARD SMEG WAS ERIS Sy nly MINE Ward ata 2p ps 4 CHAS. E.MERRIAM 4, tonite ye oe . “pas WM. ALLEN WHITE ERNEST O. MELBY qj ROBT. R.R. BROOKS GEO. SELDES aif tM *" 4 x AOS - SEN. ELBERT D. THOMAS: “FRANK MURPHY y On Pry A Vilas 2 tie SEE Nhs WOlan ot fe JOSEPHINE ROCHE MANDEL SHERMAN VPC ROK Ay ‘ELMER A. ‘BENSON piah datiashpge a ERIKA MANN DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATION_ EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY. ee ia abandonment of ‘‘the phil- osophy underlying the wrek Among the fifty honored guests at the annual dinner of the U. 8S. Chamber of Commerce were Supreme Court Justices Pierce M. Butler and James C. Me- Reynolds. It was the first time, apparently, that members of the Supreme Court have openly appeared as honor guests at a dinner of such a group. Recently Chief Justice Hughes returned an honorary membership upon the protests of an oppos- ing group in order to avoid that semblance of partiality. x * * E MEANT TO WRITE a long editorial pointing out the number of prominent writers and educators who are not members of the A. F. of T. but who have seen fit to contribute to the AMERICAN TEACHER during the past year. However, our artist, Chandler Montgom- ery, on whom we can always count for help and ideas. has done the job for us. (The art work which so many Union members have commented upon has all been done by Mr. Montgomery, who is an art teacher in the Win- netka Public Schools and of Local 460, A. F. of T.) The fact that these people contributed to the maga- zine during the past year would seem to indicate that they feel that the American Federation of Teachers is a member one of the most significant educational organizations in the country. and we are grateful that they could find the time to make the AMERICAN TEACHER what it has been during 1938-39 Many of them are extremely busy, AD RD CARA BF SEN. ‘ROBT. F. WAGNER JOSEPHINE JOHNSON THOS. MANN PORTER SARGENT “PHILIP FE. LAFOLLETE iti, ey, NER ESE Fae yak phen e THE AMERICAN TEACHER ROBT. JACKSON a SK LENROOT MATTHEW JOSEPHSON ase JOHN W. STUDEBAKER F.P GRAHAM at nN wd The President's Page TWO CONVENTIONS of the National Union of Teachers at Llandudno, Wales. This is the most powerful educational or- ganization in Great Britain. It has a membership of 155,000 and a surplus in its treasury of $7,500,000. The delegates discussed much the same educational problems as confront our own convention, but in addi- tion those precipitated by war crisis. I could not help but recall that it has been the fate of most of the empires of history to go tottering to their graves because the rulers placed their class interests ahead of the welfare of the people. Not that England is necessarily doing this, but only that as in the case of every empire, it stands in danger. The teachers of England and Wales have had to spend considerable time on the war issue because it means airplane raids, the bombing of London, and possible destruction of schools. All England has been divided into evacuation areas, reception areas where those evacuated are sent, and neutral areas. It sounds easy to evacuate children, but in London alone over one million three hundred thousand children have to be evacuated. This means complete arrange- ments for transportation, for food and shelter. Each child must carry not only clothing, but his own gas mask as well. In their new homes the government pays only $2.50 per week for both room and board. The English teachers have had to prepare everything for such eventualities. Much of the past year, therefore, has had to be concentrated on the problem of the safety of the children in time of war. The National Union of Teachers has had to discuss with the government just how much responsibility they are to assume for the care of the children in evacuated areas. Shall those who have a full teaching load during the day be required to shoulder the responsibilities of caring for the children during the remaining hours of the day and night? It was finally settled that while the teachers might volunteer to do extra tasks they would not be compelled to do so. It was also arranged that those who were drafted for war service would retain seniority and pension rights in the schools. Besides these added responsibilities, the teachers of England have faced the problem of refugee teachers. For instance, some German teachers hostile to the Nazi system had fled into what they thought was the safe haven of Czechoslovakia. After England consented to its dismemberment they were ordered deported back to I HAVE JUST RETURNED from the Annual Conference MAY, 1939 Germany. The English teachers felt sure that this would mean their imprisonment or death. Money was provided so that they could be rescued by airplane only a few hours before the deportation order would have been carried out. One of the airplanes crashed and even now the teachers in that plane are in the hospital. They are reported to feel that they would rather be resting in a free hospital than in the tyranny of a concentration camp. All this work has cost money, and the English teachers have generously given thou- sands of dollars to help the refugees. We are somewhat more remote from the European crisis. But just as the teachers of England could not ignore the problems of the teachers of Czechoslovakia so we cannot remain indifferent to the problems of teach- ers and students anywhere who are working for democ- racy. In these critical days the teacher who remains aloof from contemporary life, secluded in the halls of learning, is apt to lose not only his seclusion but his position. Fortunately our own convention does not have to grapple with the problem of evacuating children. We should concentrate attention on educational problems. We must avoid wasting time on irrelevant issues. We are engaged in the task of building the schools of to- morrow. If democracy is to endure, it depends on the educational foundation which we are building now. Are the schools, not alone in the major cities, but in the rural districts, training for democratic citizenship? Should there not be increased opportunity for civic, social, and economic courses. Should we not have schol- arships provided by the state? Are we doing all that should be done in the field of adult education? How are we meeting the devastating drive for retrenchment in education which is threatening in so many states? How are we making sure that every teacher is free? Are we doing our part for academic freedom? Have we done all we can to insure tenure, adequate salaries, and above all for democracy within the administrative structure of our schools and in all phases of the educational sys- tem itself? What does our own National Educational Policies Committee recommend and have we given this adequate consideration ? These are some of the problems which will confront our convention in August at Buffalo. Every convention of the American Federation of Teachers is an educa- tional opportunity. Indeed, unless it is educational, it is not worth the time, the effort, and the money which it requires. The average member of the American Fed- eration of Teachers does not realize perhaps that a con- vention of the A. F. of T. costs our membership (in ex- penses, railroad fare, hotel, etc.) somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars. This money would go a long way toward organizing new locals. It could wage an effective campaign for Federal Aid to Education. It might be used in getting out a weekly news sheet, free to all our members. In the light of so great an expenditure, is the conven- tion worth the cost? Not unless it can act as a great. positive, constructive, stimulating force to all the dele- gates, and through them in turn to the minds of the rank and file. This year the convention is going to be one of the most important in our entire history. Basic changes in society are taking place; the schools must keep pace. If the schools are to produce free, unafraid citizens of the highest type, the Federation must move forward. Let us promote the welfare of the childhood of the nation by providing progressively better educational opportunity for all. JEROME Davis. Children in a Democracy @ KATHARINE F. LENROOT conference on children met under the aus- pices of a President of the United States when the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy assembled in the Kast Room of the White House on the morning of Wednesday, April 26, with about 500 members in attendance from practically every state, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, in whose department the Children’s Bureau is located, is chairman of this Conference and presided at the various sessions held on April 26. President Roosevelt, as honorary chairman, delivered the keynote address, in which he pointed out that this fourth Conference marks a new and somewhat changed era as compared with its three predeces- sors which, he said, discussed the conditions sur- rounding child life more in terms of child life than in terms of the national community. It is stiil our task to bring to bear upon the major problems of child life all the wisdom and understanding that can be distilled from compila- tions of facts, from the intuitions of common sense, and from professional skill. But we have now gone one step further. Said President Roose- velt: ‘‘ Definitely we are here with a principal ob- jective of considering the relationship between a successful democracy and the children who form an integral part of that democracy. We no longer set them apart from democracy as if they were a segregated group. They are at one with democ- racy because they are dependent upon a democ- racy and democracy is dependent on them.”’ F's: THE FOURTH TIME in our history a national As the President pointed out, the work of the Conference has only begun. During the greater part of the coming year the Conference members, representing every state in the Union and many fields of endeavor, will be at work. ‘‘We shall be testing our institutions, and our own convictions and attitudes of mind as they affect our actions as parents and as citizens, in terms of their sig- nificance to the childhood of our Nation.’’ President Roosevelt and other speakers not only at the White House session but at the section meetings in the afternoon expressed concern about the future of democracy if the children of today cannot be given a greater measure of se- curity and opportunity. All agreed that much has been done, especially in recent years, to ad- vance the interests of children but that, as Pres- ident Roosevelt indicated, ‘‘only a beginning has been made in affording security to children,’’ and that this Conference and the activities which it initiates furnish an opportunity for us to test our- selves and our institutions by the extent to which they serve the future generation. Homer Folks, director of the State Charities Aid Association of New York, as chairman of the Report Committee and a vice-chairman of the Conference, was one of the speakers on the morn- ing program. He listed as follows what he con- sidered to be the special task of this White House Conference of 1939: (1) to determine and define the minimum needs for the suitable rearing of children to be adequate citizens of the American Democracy; (2) to measure the extent to which these services are now being actually rendered THE AMERICAN TEACHER and where they fall short in volume, quality, or distribution; (3) to find out the causes for such shortcomings as may be found; and (4) to ascer- tain and recommend how such causes can be re- moved, and how suitable provision for child health, training, and development may be adapt- ed to every type of condition and circumstance, and be effective for every child in the United States. Recent studies and reports indicate clearly the child’s needs for health and education, Mr. Folks said, but when we ask how far these well thought out plans are now actually carried into effect, we find some surprising shortcomings as in, for instance, the recent studies of the nation’s health. ‘‘In particular,’’ he said, ‘‘there seems to be unanimity of opinion that the schools have done least well that task which is the most vitally impor- tant—preparation for citizenship. ”’ This same thought was endorsed by the Right Reverend Monsignor Robert F’. Keegan, exec- utive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdio- eese of New York, an- other speaker on_ the White House program. ‘‘Educators must get over to our children a fuller appreciation of de- mocracy, what it means to be born in America, the priceless heritage to which they are the heirs, the responsibility that will soon be theirs for aa ake | > Wray v >) ow i y yee Pratl . “ isd “ ade Sari?” “Ny: oes, ¥ ‘ wPalhe eset | aay ee Pay a ill Pins ¥ Seat == ag re xi Wear HR i { des Minee Tian sttosass MAY, 1939 vs (jane “4 ‘a ren nara one Fat . ss ‘ Pe ye ae : a if 6 vxie= , ee Plies’ nad CORT 457 Nix haere i? RY y hacwe ee a ae 1 a ; x, s from Lal ‘ 4 RH Sn Siege Bion ar Pie a ig Bo th Pet ; SFOs, x, AE be Oe ia) | } j | g alt ae and before you go to any —, \ World’s Fair, John Stein- — beck’s Grapes of Wrath.® ®John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath. New York: The Viking Press. 619 pages. 1939. Problems in Elementary Education @ PAUL R. HANNA teaching a group of live youngsters is hard running. As a consequence many teachers have to postpone much of the professional read- ing they would like to do until the summer months when there is more energy to devote to the ab- sorption of new stimulation and new practices as contained in books and periodicals. This paper is one teacher’s attempt to list the more signifi- eant publications which have appeared within the past eighteen months. Probably the most logicai and most exciting start on one’s summer reading will be in the area of the purposes of elementary schools. What are these schools established for? What unique role should they play in the present period of transi- tion in American Democracy? The recent publi- cation of the Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association presents the purposes of education in American democracy.’ This report, together with the splendid formu- lation of the prospects for democracy in the period ahead? by George Counts and the design of a curriculum to achieve the democratic goals,* will raise for teachers the major issues and shed considerable light on solutions deemed possible and desirable. For those who are ready for a little heavier reading and for excursions into writings not writ- ten especially for the educational profession, several volumes will prove exceedingly challeng- ing. Mumford’s new book on the place of city life in our past culture and the new trend in population distribution* presents many educa- tional problems for the more alert reader. The [ IS DIFFICULT to read while you run. And 1National Education Association, Educational Policies Commission : Purposes of Education in American Democracy. Washington: National Education Association. 157 pages. 1938. 2George 8. Counts: The Prospects of American Democracy. New York: The John Day Company. 360 pages. 1938. 8The John Dewey Society, Yearbook III: Democracy and the Cur- riculum. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 530 pages. 1939. 4Lewis Mumford: The Culture of Cities. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. 586 pages. 1938. 20 many documents by the National Resources Com- mittee and particularly the one dealing with the possible effect of new inventions on our national life’ will make any thoughtful reader consider again how inadequate the traditional elementary curriculum was in meeting the demand of new social conditions resulting from scientific ad- vances. Another volume by the National Re- sources Committee deals with the problems of a changing population and is decidedly worth- while.° A second area in which a teacher will want to explore is that of psychology and growth and development of pupils. A most interesting report by Blatz on the growth and development of the five Dionne ‘‘Quins’” will demonstrate the type of evidence accumulating in many centers pointing to a more significant role played by the environ- ment and by education. The book by Prescott on the place of emotions in the education of the in- dividual® is likely to be only a beginning in a hitherto neglected area of our profession. And no teacher can afford to miss the challenge and warning to certain extreme exponents of ‘‘child- centered’’ education in two small volumes by Dewey * and Bode’ which deal with both psy- chology and philosophy. In social psychology a new volume by Reinhardt™ presents much valu- able material. An old favorite on psychology is just off the press in a new edition’ and those who are not familiar with it should get acquainted. Having built a foundation in the social pur- poses of the elementary school and in the psy- chological principles by which we can best guide good pupil growth, the reader now turns to the more concrete suggestions of designing new ele- mentary curriculum and handling the everyday problems of normal boys and girls. For those who are teachers of very young children a new volume by Updegraff and associates details the practices in the preschool years.’* For teachers in rural schools a new book by Wofford reports many actual plans and achievements of small 5National Resources Committee: Technological Trends and National Policy. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. 388 pages. June, 1937. ‘National Resources Committee: The Problems of a Changing Popu- lation. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. 306 pages. May, 1938. TWilliam E. Blatz: The Five Sisters. New York: William Morrow and Company. 209 pages. 1938. 8D. A. Prescott: Emotion and the Educative Process. Washington: American Council on Education. 323 pages. 1938. 8John Dewey: Experience and Education. New York: The Macmillan Company. 116 pages. 1938. 10Boyd H. Bode: Progressive Education at the Crossroads. New York: Newson & Company. 128 pages. 1938. 11J, M. Reinhardt: Social Psychology. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 467 pages. 1938. 12William James: Talks to Teachers on Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc. 238 pages. 1939. 18Ruth Updegraff and others: Practice in Preschool Education. Chicago: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. 408 pages. 1938. THE AMERICAN TEACHER eens ee 2 — schools.** For an introductory picture of what one modern elementary school is doing in cur- riculum revision the illustrated volume by Hor- rall and associates is about as good a volume as one could read.** For more general treatment of modern elementary classroom procedure and principles, two new books—one by Lane” and one by Hockett and Jacobsen"Y—adequately pre- sent the case. Where a curriculum laboratory is accessible the teacher will find help in looking through some of the new suggestions to teachers which attempt to organize within broad guide lines those learning experiences which give most promise of achieving the goals of education in our day. The ‘‘course of study’’ bulletins from San Diego, Los Angeles County, Santa Barbara, Kansas State, and similar cities, counties, and states represent a great stride forward. In the areas of special subjects many new volumes add theory and practice. Outstanding are the yearbook on community resources for social studies,** the yearbook on reading,’® Mor- ton’s two volumes on arithmetic,” the California State publication on music,” and Noll’s book on science.*? Many teachers will be interested in a careful appraisal of modern elementary education. Wrightstone’s research* shows how pupils of modern classrooms rate in comparison with pu- pils in traditional classrooms. The periodical literature on elementary edu- cation improves with the years. Especially help- ful will be the past dozen or so issues of Childhood Education,* Progressive Education,” The Ele- mentary School Journal, and Educational _ 14Kate V. Wofford: Modern Education in the Small Rural School. New York: Macmillan and Company. 582 pages. 1938. 15Albion H. Horrall and others: Let’s Go To School. Chicago: McGraw- Hill Publishing Company. 434 pages. 1938. 16Robert Hill Lane: The Progressive Elementary School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 197 pages. 1938. 17J. A. Hockett and E. W. Jacobsen: Modern Practices in the Ele- mentary School. Boston: Ginn and Company. 346 pages. 1938. 18National Council for the Social Studies, Ninth Yearbook: Utilization of Community Resources in the Social Studies. Cambridge: Howard F Wilson, Harvard University School of Education. 229 pages. 1938. 19Department of Elementary School Principals, Seventeenth Yearbook : Newer Practises in Reading in the Elementary School. Washington: National Education Association. 704 pages. July, 1938. , 20Robert Lee Morton: Teaching Arithmetic in the Elementary School. Volume I, Primary Grades, 410 pages. 1937. Volume II, Intermediate Grades, 538 pages. 1938. Chicago: Silver Burdett Company. : 1California State Department of Education: Music Education in the Elementary School. Sacramento: State of California. 152 pages. 1939. 22Victor H. Noll: The Teaching of Science in Elementary and Second- ary Schools. New York: Longmans, Green & Company. 238 pages. 1939. . 235. Wayne Wrightstone: Appraisal of Newer Elementary School Prac- tices. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University. 221 pages. 1938. _ 24Association for Childhood Education: Childhood Education. Wash- ington: Association for Childhood Education with cooperation of the National Association for Nursery Education. _25The Progressive Fducation Association: Progressive Education. New York: The Progressive Education Association. 26Newton Edwards with the cooperation of the Department of Educa- ton of The University of Chicago: The Elementary School Journal. thicago: published in conjunction with the School Review and the Supplementary EJuca*ional Monographs. MAY, 1939 Method.*" One could not cap his summer’s reading any more appropriately than by reading a small bit of biting satire on educa- tion in which traditionalists and progressives bear equally the devastating attack.** It is not improbable that this volume may someday be considered one of the two most important educa- tional books of this year. 27The Department of Supervisors and Directors of Instruction: EHdu- cational Method. Washington: National Education Association. 28J. Abner Peddiwell: The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, Chicago: Mc- Graw-Hill Book Company. 139 pages. 1989. What's New in Secondary Education @ JOHN J. DeBOER pear to possess more vitality and more pertinence than the shelf upon shelf of ponderous volumes which appeared in this field five and more years ago. The change is probably due in part to the sense of futility which the traditional secondary-school curriculum has finally induced in the rank and file of educational workers and, in part, to the tardy and startling realization that a new generation is getting ready to live without being able really to have their lives. Teachers who look beyond the curriculum to the young people for whom it is intended will find interesting the report of an American Council of Education study of youth’s attitudes toward mar- riage and the home, the church, work, play, and education.! BOOKS ABOUT SECONDARY EDUCATION ap- 1H. M. Bell: Youth Tell Their Story. New York: American Council on Education. 273 pages. 1938. 2Betty Lindley and E. K. Linkley: A New Deal for Youth. New York: Viking Press. 315 pages. 1938. 316th yearbook of American Association of School Administrators: Youth Education Today. Washington: American Association of School Administrators. 509 pages. 1938. 21 FG ) the attempts of some of I the schools to fashion an educational program out of the vital experiences and endless questionings of the young people themselves. Perhaps the most remarkable of these is the document produced, without any di- rect aid from teachers, by the class of 1938 of the Ohio State University High School.* The story is at once a persuasive account of the recent history of a progressive high school and an ex- ample of the results of its instruction. The new emphasis upon the community as a center for the educational experiences of young people is illus- trated in a highly practical and readable volume on the Community School.’ The emphasis upon democracy as an aim of secondary education is reflected also in a new yearbook of the Depart- ment of Supervisors and Directors of Instruc- tion,® in which revolutionary implications of the ideal of cooperation for the school organization and curriculum are set forth. Teachers who are looking for more general surveys and descrip- tions of typical practices in more conservative schools should consult an extensive revision of Professor Douglass’ volume on secondary educa- tion,’ or the more traditional publication of Frank Butler. Wrightstone’s volume on the appraisal! of the newer practices in secondary schools, on the whole, still tends to favor the activity schoo! from the standpoint of all around achievement.* Perhaps the most vigorous new movement in the field of secondary education is the trend in the direction of systematic programs of guidance. One volume, edited by Professor Witty and just off the press,'® presents a group of essays on the various phases of guidance that will make sense to the classical schoolroom teacher. Dr. Part- ridge’s study of the social psychology of adoles- cence’ and Carson Ryan’s recent volume on mental health in education’? afford opportunity for more intensive study of this field. 4Class of 1938, Ohio State University High School: Were W« Guinea Pigs? New York: Henry Holt and Company. 303 pages. 1938. ‘Samuel Everett, editor for the Committee on the Community Schoo! of the Society for Curriculum Study: The Community School. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 487 pages. 1938. 611th Yearbook of Supervisors and Directors of Instruction of the National Education Association, Co-operation: Principles and Prac- tices. Washington: Nationa] Education Association. 244 pages. 1938. TAubrey A. Douglass: Modern Secondary Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 782 pages. 1938. 8Frank A. Butler: Improvement of Teaching in Secondary Schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 389 pages. 1939. 9J. Wayne Wrightstone: Appraisal of Newer Experimental High School Practices. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers Col- lege, Columbia University. 194 pages. 10Paul A. Witty, Charles E. Skinner and others: Mental Hygiene in Modern Education. New York: Farrar and Rinehart. 539 pages. 1939, 11E. D. Partridge: Social Psychology of Adolescence. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 361 pages. 1938. 122W. C. Ryan: Mental Health and Education. New York: Com- monwealth Fund. 1938. 22 Every teacher should probably have a general knowledge of two extensive surveys recently com- pleted. The first of these is the report of the statewide study of high-school and college educa- tion in Pennsylvania,'* which constitutes an appalling indictment of secondary and higher education, if one accepts the retention of informa- tion as the chief criterion of educational progress —as most institutions do. The second of these reports is that of the New York Regents’ In- quiry,'* at this moment the subject of bitter controversy as the result of charges by Dr. Alonzo S. Myers. Among the many new books in the special fields, the most significant are those which are addressed directly to the genuine personal need of high- school students. In the field of literature the appearance of Elbert Lenrow’s Pibliography of Prose Fiction*® and Louise Rosenblatt’s Liter- ature as Exploration’® may be regarded as educational events of first importance. The for- mer classifies and annotates English and Ameri- can novels according to their treatment of a wide range of life problems that have personal mean- ing to adolescents. Dealing with literature from the same point of view, Miss Rosenblatt shows how literature may be taught, not as something to be worshipped or analyzed, but something to be experienced and used as a guide to living. A publication of the Progressive Education Asso- ciation’s Commission on Human Relations"? mar- shals impressively those elements in the field of science which may contribute to the enrichment of students’ personal lives. Even high-school mathematics is shown in a publication of the National Council of Mathematics Teachers'* to have pertinence to the life of youth. In the same vein are several small books, which, while addressed to high-school students, make fascinating reading for high-school teach- ers. One of the early publications of the Pro- gressive Education Association’s Commission on Human Relations,'® for example, presents a frank discussion of personal problems, including those 13W. S. Learned and D. E. K. Wood: The Student and His Knowledge New York: Carnegie Foundation. 1938. 14New York State University, Editor: Education for American Life. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1939 15Elbert Lenrow: Bibliography of Prose Fiction. New York: Com- mission on the Secondary School Curriculum, Progressive Education Association. l6Louise M. Rosenblatt: Literature as Exploration. 1). Appleton-Century Company. 340 pages. 1938. 17Committee on the Function of Science in General Education of the Commission on the Secondary Schoo] Curriculum: Science iv General Education. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 591 pages. 1938. i18Harold Pascoe Sussex: The Nature of Proof. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University. 146 pages. 1938. 19Alice Keliher: Life and Growth. New York: D. Century Company. 245 pages. 1938. New York: Appleton- THE AMERICAN TEACHER of sex, which frequently disturb boys and girls struggling to attain maturity. A volume by Harold Hand” meets a broad range of situations both inside and outside school. On the special problem of the movies, a volume printed by committee of the National Council of Teachers of English*' represents a triumph in stimulating exposition and delightful illustrations. No high-school teacher today has escaped the eurrent emphasis on the improvement of pupils’ reading ability. Books containing materials for remedial instruction are too numerous to men tion here, but Strang’s** and Center’s and Per- sons’** may be recommended as helpful manuals on the technical problems of corrective instruc. tion in reading. Richards’ Jnterpretation in Teaching™ is not a book for light summer read- ing, but is the most authoritative source for the understanding of the semantic approach to the study of language, whether in reading or writing. Everyone, whether as teacher or citizen, should secure without delay the publications of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. The January issue, dealing with the attack upon democracy, is in itself worth the cost of an annual subscrip- tion. The first volume of the Propaganda Analysis report®® should stand on the school library side by side with the report of a Senate Committee on the Violation of Free Speech anid the Rights of Labor (Seventy-sixth Congress, first session, Senate Report No. 6). 20M. E. Bennett and H. C. Hand: Beyond High School. McGraw- Hill Book Company. 185 pages. 1938. 2l1Helen Rand and Richard Lewis: Film and School. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 182 pages. 1937. 22Ruth Strang: Problems in Improvement of Reading in High School and College. Lancaster: Science Press. 390 pages. 1938. 25Stella S. Center and Gladys L. Persons: Teaching High School Students to Read. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 167 pages. 1937. 241, A. Richards: Interpretation in Teaching. court, Brace and Company. 442 pages. 1938. 25Institute for Propaganda Analysis: Propaganda York: Institute for Propaganda Analysis. New York: Har- Analysis. New Browsing through General Education @ MALCOLM S. MacLEAN HY BROWSE THROUGH the books about gen- eral education? Many reasons clamor an answer. Some watchers of trends predict that general education will dominate American schools for another quarter-century. Others say it is the normal reaction from two forces that have jostled and shoved us teachers for many MAY, 1939 RIA years. First of these is i} the tenacity of the schol- ar-tradition that kept us teaching nothing but ancient, medieval, and modern history to 1900 while guns thundered, men died, and dictators made history by slapping the moppet nations about; nothing but Latin as well as English gram- mar and Aristotelian rules of rhetoric while the youngsters we taught were building a hundred different little foreign languages of their own in sports, music, dancing (jitterbugs and their jam sessions), crime, science, mechanics; nothing but elaborate arithmetic, algebra, and geometry to children who would not ever have to add up even checkbook stubs. Second is the force that has so driven us to specialize that there is a growing eagerness to return to unity by means of surveys, composites, overviews, and integrations. This reaction against the dead weight of luxury-culture tradition and against flying apart into microscopic bits, either for scholarship or job training, is the essence of general education. To understand it and to watch where it is carrying us is not difficult if we browse through the sig nificant books. There are still few because the reaction is just in its beginnings. To set the pattern clearly we want to start where Mr. Hanna!’ left off with Dean Harold Benjamin’s editing (?) of the hilarious, shocking satire? on all education, where, in an unforgettable fable, we trace the forces and reactions breeding gen- eral education. We see, too, why in the short period of a decade general education has split into two different lines of march towards the same goal. The first of these is the attempt to attain a newly unified and single-purpose education for American children and youth by manipulation of subject matter, by taking the fragments of squads of Humpty-Dumpties and putting them back together again into giant orientation courses. Chief proponents of this method of achieving general education are the president and faculty of the University of Chicago, who subdivide into the staff of The College on the one hand and Mr. Hutchins and his offshoot college of St. John’s on 1 the other. The latter states its case* in two 1Paul R. Hanna: “A Summer's Reading in Elementary Education.” lhe American Teacher, May, 1939. “J. Abner Pediwell: The Saber-Touth Hiill Book Company. 139 pages. 1939. 3R. M. Hutchins: No Friendly Voice. Press. 1936. R. M. Hutchins: Higher Learning in University Press. 1936. Scott Buchanan: “A Crisis in Liberal Education, uates Quarterly, February, 1938. Curriculum, Chicago: MeGraw- Chicago: University of Chicago America, New Haven: Yale Amherst Grad- 23 (CN slim books and miscellaneous articles, the former its in one fat and one thin volume.* The second centers principally or wholly on the students to be taught and on society’s need for them and theirs for society. It is in Homer P. Rainey’s phrase ‘‘education for the common life.’? Subject matter is chosen first in the light of the needs of children and youth; second, in view of society’s need to have her growing mem- bership trained in certain habits and ways of thinking and feeling. Early and striking dec- larations of this general position were made by President Wilkins of Oberlin® and Duffus* who talks about ‘‘The Old Order Changeth,’’ ‘‘Edu- cational New Deals,’’ and ‘‘Thunder on the Left’’ in a series of crackling premonitory chap- ters. To these critics and prophets, Dean J. B. Johnston twice added his voice,’ and President H. M. Wriston once.*® Aside from these general discussions of chang- ing theory and practice towards general educa- tion, three descriptions of special experiments in transition, incomplete but significant, are worth our reading time. Heaton and Koopman worked on and outlined a program for training teachers ;° 4C. 8S. Boucher: The Chicago College Plan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 344 pages. 1935. Harry D. Gideonse: The Higher Learning in a Democracy. New York: Farrar and Rinehart. 34 pages. 1937 5Earnest Hatch Wilkins: The College and Society. New York: The ay og | Company. 173 pages. 1932. L. Duffus: Democracy Enters the College. New York: Charles Scribner s Sons. 244 pages. 1936. B. Johnston: Scholarship and pemnoorany. New York: D. Apple- ton: AT Company. 113 pages. 1937 J. B. Johnston: The Liberal College in a we Society. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 326 pages. 193 8H. M. Wriston: Nature of a Liberal College. eR Wis. : Press, 1937. 9K. L. Heaton and G. on Functional Needs of Students. Press. 157 pages. 1936. SS College A College Curriculum Based R. Koopman: The University of Chicago Chicago: ¢ / VS LZ C ns ey. the entire faculty of a college wrote and published its problems and practices ;!° and Eurich, Palmer Johnson, and other experts did a scientific survey of Minnesota’s General College.'! In the Alex- ander Inglis Memorial lecture at Harvard in 1938, the writer’? attempted to summarize and de- lineate sharply the trends in American education and to set expanding general education in its proper relationship to the traditional liberal as well as the vocational-professional patterns in schooling. In late February last, so great had grown the groundswell in general education, the National Society for the Study of Education devoted Part II of its annual Yearbook'* to a summary of the assumptions, objectives, experiments, issues, and evaluation projects over the whole field. The book was issued under the masterly editorship of Professor Alvin C. Eurich. If there is time in your reading to do but a single book and you want to get the fullest, latest, and best, then this is the volume to choose. Moreover, do not be misled by the title into assuming that it is for college teachers only, because if the Yearbook does any one thing well, it is to show that the problem of general education is a universal one, common to all schools and teachers, operating at all so-called ‘‘levels’’ of education. 10Muskingum College Faculty. A College Looks at Its Program. New Concord, Ohio. 326 pages. 1937. 11A. C. Eurich, P. O. Johnson and others: The Effective General College Curriculum as Revealed by Examinations. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press. 427 pages. 1937. 12Malcolm S. MacLean: Scholars, Workers, and Gentlemen. bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 92 pages. 1938 138A. C. Eurich and others: General Education in the American College. Thirty-eighth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Educa- tion: Part II. Bloomington, Ill.: Public School Publishing Company. 382 pages. 1939. Cam- BZ THE AMERICAN TEACHER OC ble tem ~ Tenure Problems in Goose Creek, Texas @ JOHN WOODRUFF agreements have to be defended constantly in the same way ‘hat state tenure legislation has been defended in Pennsylvania and other states. Local tenure was established more than a year ago when the school board adopted a tenure agreement pro- posed by the teachers. Under this agreement dismissal could be based on two fundamental causes : incompetent teaching and objectionable social conduct (termed ‘‘im- morality’’ in the agreement). There have been many objections raised to the grant- ing of this freedom to teachers, the objections coming from the adherents to the creed that teachers are not entitled to any viewpoint except complete neutrality in vital social and economic issues in the community; in other words, the extreme reactionaries have rebelled. A majority of the members of our school board have shown their support for teacher tenure by voting for its adoption. Two board members just elected to the body took their stand for tenure during the election cam- paign. Nevertheless, the board has abrogated the tenure agreement which was adopted last year and has an- nounced that a new form of contraet will be substituted for it next year. No indication has been given as to the provisions which will be written into the new agreement. It will, apparently, be a unilateral agreement, since the bar- gaining representatives of the teachers’ choice have already been notified that they will not be recognized. To represent the teachers in bargaining there will be individuals appointed by the superintendent. The chairman of the committee which drafted and presented the tenure agreement last year for the teach- ers has been notified informally by the superintendent that he will be dismissed at the end of the school term. It remains to be seen whether this will be confirmed by official action and whether it will be supported by the school board. By the time this is in print arrangements will have been completed to carry the defense of our existing con- tracts under the tenure agreement to the state superin- tendent and to the courts if necessary. Securing the adoption of local tenure agreements, judging from our experience in Goosé Creek, should be but the beginning of the campaign for teachers’ free- dom. The idea needs to be sold and resold to the com- munity until it has a chance to become a part of the community mores and secures itself from reaction with the shield of tradition. The fight here will be intensified by the fact that we live in a typical company town. Our company is a sub- [ HAS BEEN SHOWN in Goose Creek that local tenure MAY, 1939 sidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey, and its local executives include the Goose Creek local of the A. F. of T. along with all other unions of all kinds as proper subjects for summary beheading. If our local is killed by a ‘‘yellow dog’’ tenure agree- ment, it is supposed that our salary schedule, which was adopted three years ago, will also be scrapped. Our position at present is that we are employed under a tenure agreement which will be defended to the highest court, since that agreement represents all the gains which have been made against traditional administrative autocracy in Texas to date. Workers’ Education Threatened in Wisconsin @ E. E. SCHWARZTRAUBER ORKERS’ EDUCATION CHALLENGES the conven- W tional notions of education. The proposition that workers ought to be given opportunities for education would meet little opposition. However, the question of the kind of education appropriate for the workingman thrusts the dilemma into the proposition and raises questions which demand an examination of the premises of education. In Wisconsin the growth of workers’ education is now a matter of at least twenty years. During these two decades workers’ education developed from a scattered few classes organized in some of the larger cities, to a state-wide and centrally coordinated program. The latter stage coincided with a legislative enactment in 1937 which allotted state funds for the support of a School for Workers in Industry and entrusted its administra- tion to the University of Wisconsin. It appeared in 1937 that workers’ education had achieved a status of permanency and of public recog- nition. However, within the past five months its con- tinued existence has become a question of doubt. The doubt has been occasioned by the irruption in Wiscon- sin of a legislature dominated by a 1910 business men- tality apparently finding it necessary to destroy most of the legislation favorable to collective bargaining, and including on its grim list the 1937 law which established the School for Workers in Industry. Should the School for Workers fail to survive the onslaught, and there is little prospect that it can sur- vive it, it is to be hoped that the consequent setback will be temporary. The deplorable waste of resources of personnel and experience, and the retardation of the development of workers’ education will have to be re- garded with infinite patience. These are the perqui- sites society extracts from its pioneers. But the move- ment of workers’ education will rise again inevitably 26 and again seek recognition from society. Wisconsin’s experience provides this conclusion : that the growth of workers’ education has reached the level where the question of its recognition as a legitimate form of education will be the salient ‘‘front’’ of its struggle. And Wisconsin’s experience adds this con- viction: that workers’ education is an enterprise loaded with public interest, and the public must be informed of its values. Both of these conclusions are even more significant for people who are in the field of education. Those with ‘‘frozen’’ notions of education have ap- plied to workers’ education the epithets ‘‘ propaganda,’’ ‘‘¢lass education,’’ ‘‘agitation,’’ and, ‘‘merely another form of labor organizing.’’ There will be no attempt to answer these charges, name by name. We feel instead that a briefly stated rationale of workers’ education can clear away much of the prejudicial debris in the way of its unquestioned acceptance; and that public support and particularly the support of people in other fields of education will rally to workers’ education when the latter is clearly depicted. Workers’ education is an ‘‘unlettered’’ form of edu- cation. There is little recourse to the ‘‘humanities’’ or to the glittering tradition of the arts. It is a form of education which dons the garb of the workingman and resounds with his idiom. Its arena is the little explored jungle of industrial relations. Its task is that of abet- ting the application of the human ingredient in this arena which has been long disorganized by so-called ‘*economic laws.”’ The setting for workers’ education is created by the organization of labor into trade unions. These trade unions seek to establish themselves as an accepted insti- tution with the prerogative of sharing in the control and administration of the ‘‘job territory’’ in our industrial society—or, to use a well-known term, the right to establish ‘‘industrial government,’’ which has been de- 26 fined as ‘‘a highly integrated government of unionized workers and of associated employer-managers, jointly conducting the government with ‘laws’ mandatory upon the individual employer and employee.’’ This aim of trade unionism, the establishment of ‘‘in- dustrial government,’’ imposes tremendous responsibil- ities upon labor. It necessarily involves intelligent col- lective bargaining; it calls for skills in the admiuistra- tive function of ‘‘job control’’; and it demands an in sight into the economic implications of such ** industrial! government.’’ Assuming that management possesses the facilities to meet the demands of this mode of govern- ment, it follows that labor must be implemented at these points of its highest need. That is the job of workers’ education : meeting the requirements of ‘‘ industrial goy- ernment’’ at these points of vital need. This is nothing more and nothing less than education in applied democracy—demoeracy of the American tex- ture. The pragmatic character of this type of education is best refiected in the curriculum it has developed. The curriculum has been described as a ‘‘tool’’ curriculum and consists of subjects such as parliamentary law and public speaking, collective bargaining procedures, labor problems, economies, consumer problems, consumer ¢o- operation, labor history, labor legislation, trade union- ism, social psychology, current events, and economies of individual industries. Occasionally some ‘‘culture’’ courses creep in like labor drama, ete. But generally the courses are of the type which provides materials capable of being immediately utilized. There are two fundamental premises upon which workers’ education is predicated. The first is that a trade union is a legitimate institution. The second is that industrial peace through trade-union action is a social desideratum. The acceptance or the rejection of these premises is the fulcrum upon which the fate of workers’ education is balanced. Should these be ac- cepted, workers’ education is accepted. Should they be rejected, workers’ education suffers the same fate. While these premises are at least partially accepted today, the public must be shown their value and the value of workers’ education. This virile form of educa- tion must not be lost because of the lack of public sup- ‘‘dressed up’’ in cloistered port or because it is not habiliments. It is a type of education which is attuned to the pragmatic demands of democratic process. Its whole- some aim is democratic industrial peace. It serves the workingman and helps provide him with the status of a democratic participant in the social order. To observe that these conditions serve the public interest is almost redundant. Workers’ education rests its case with this final ob- servation: if it does not conform with the conventional notions of education, it may not be that it falls short, but rather that the accepted notions of edueation need revision to include this emerging instrument of demoe- racy. THE AMERICAN TEACHER The Charles A. Beard CHARLES A. BEARD Author of “The Rise of American Civilization” i NEXT STEP FOR PROGRESSIVES, as I see things, is to consider and support measures designed to raise our national production 30 or 40 per cent at least, thus adding from twenty-five to thirty billions a year to our output of goods and services. This will require intelli- gent and whole-hearted co-operation among capitalists. managers, organized labor, and government. William Green has more than once ealled for such concerted action. John L. Lewis has gone on record in favor of it. Enlightened capitalists see the need for great collective effort. If this is not done, if unemployment continues on the present level, if debts keep piling up, we are in for the kind of discouragement, conflicts, and bitterness which furnish the soil for arbitrary action. At the moment no well-finished plan for accomplish- ing this end is before us. But the Industrial Expansion Bill, sponsored by Representatives Allen, Maverick, Voorhis, and Amlie, in 1937, furnishes a beginning eroundwork. Another program, conceived in the same spirit, is in process of formulation in Washington and will doubtless be presented to Congress and the public soon for discussion and consideration. Unless our unemployed ean find honest work, and public revenues for public services can be put on a sound basis, the outlook for progressivism and conservatism alike will be dark, no matter how much exhorting we engage in, no matter what high-sounding professions we make. Recovery of the glorious boom before the burst of 1929 is out of the question. New times demand new measures. ROBERT H. JACKSON Solicitor General of the United States [" IS A CHARACTERISTIC of political thought that reforms come to be accepted by everybody only after liberals have risked their political lives and for- tunes to obtain them against the most bitter opposition of the smug elements of society. Then the once drastic measures are no longer thought of as liberalism, but as Americanism. And the reactionaries adopt the names and slogans of deceased liberals in order to discredit living ones. Meanwhile the liberals have to face new fronts because the dangers come from another quarter. The frontier disappeared by 1932. The public lands are gone, and only the scandals of their administration remain. Our way of living has changed. Men can no longer walk into the wilderness and wring a living from MAY, 1939 Robert H. Jackson ext Step for the Progressives Frank Murphy @ This is the conclusion of the symposium on “The Next Step for the Progressives.” Attorney General Murphy’s contribution is an excerpt from his Jefferson Day dinner speech delivered in Philadelphia and that of Solicitor General Jackson is part of a talk which he gave before the Liberal Voters League of Montgomery County, Maryland. Both talks are reprinted with permission. nature. To get a living they must be accepted at an employment office, and the employment offices are in the hands of very impersonal and very cold-blooded corporations. It has become much less important to the average man under what mayor he lives than under what kind of a boss he works. When he leaves the fac- tory premises, the Government respects his rights pretty generally. His chosen representatives cannot interfere with his free speech or free press or right of assembly. But spies sent out by his employer are bound by no such restrictions and if his free speech takes the direc- tion of trying to improve his lot through organization, he is likely to find himself in a sort of industrial Siberia. Therefore, it comes about that the liberal movement of our time is cast largely in the mold of economic liberalism which makes its parallelism to the Jacksonian era more obvious, although none the less real, than its parallel to the Jeffersonian liberalism. The liberalism of our day is concerned with the right of men in indus- try to be free from unfair labor practices, to enjoy the privacy of their individual lives without the invasion of labor spies, the right collectively to bargain, the right to have some security of tenure in their jobs as against arbitrary dismissal, and the right to a place in our economy where they can apply their labor in return for the commodities which labor produces. And we are also concerned with the right to see that the surplus of pro- duction, above what labor consumes while producing, is in a proper proportion applied to protection against unemployment and against dependent old age, against industrial accident, and against illness. The modern problem is to make the economic system serve the social system, instead of master it; to bring about such a distribution of the products of industry as will protect an American way of life in the homes of the workers. Incidental to this are many problems, in the detail of which men may disagree, but, by and large, the liberal looks first to the effect of a given measure on the social svstem and on the lives and welfare of 27 the people. The organs of publicity are almost entirely in the hands of the opposition, and a favorite method of discrediting the liberal is to luridly overstate his true purposes. The hope and usefulness of progressives rest in their loyalty to the liberal tradition which is an inheritance that enriches not only all liberals but all Americans. FRANK MURPHY Attorney General of the United States HE AVERAGE AMERICAN is not willing any longer to depend on fate to bring him the chance to work. If natural economic forces fail to bring him that chance, he looks to his government, that alone speaks for all of us, to do something about it. He believes, with Abraham Lincoln, that ‘‘the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capac- ities.’ He believes, with President Roosevelt, that ‘four economic and social system cannot deny the para- mount right of millions who wish to toil to have it function smoothly and efficiently.’’ Until recently, the delay in achieving social reform has not been seriously harmful. Its ill effects have been largely absorbed by the constant expansion and growth of the economic order. But we cannot be sure any longer that our economy will continue to survive this delay. We have never before this decade had 15 million employables without jobs. We have never be- fore seen one-third of the nation without adequate food, adequate clothing, and adequate shelter. Now more than ever, nine-tenths of the wisdom of action is that it be taken on time. If we act too late, if we tarry too long and quarrel! too much about using the affirmative powers of govern- ment to keep our system of private enterprise working smoothly, we will assuredly seal our own fate. We will betray democracy into the hands of its enemies—either those who want to put all enterprise in the hands of an all-powerful state or those who would return to a socially irresponsible system of laissez-faire. This is why I am so deeply concerned with the con- tinuance of the progressive program of President Roose- velt. This is why I believe so strongly that we must not take a backward step. We are so close to the scene that sometimes we do not realize just how heavily the future of democracy, not only in America but in the whole world, depends upon the success of the progressive program in the United States. And I am not now referring to any specific blueprints but to its general policies and ob- jectives, its general methods of approach. Thomas Jefferson knew that democracy would petrify unless the people had something more than the right which people under dictatorship have, to vote ‘‘yes.’’ He saw the need of a political opposition—of competing 28 parties which would see to it that the people under- stood the vital political issues of the day—so that the people might have an effective right to choose not blindly but intelligently between competing principles of political action. Before Jefferson there were no such things as party platforms or party principles between which voters might choose. Jefferson created the party system in this country when he founded the Democratic Party as a liberal opposition party to the conservative Fed- eralist Party which up to then had enjoyed a one- party monopoly. But the entire purpose of the party system is lost if the voters of the country do not have a chance to say *“*ves’’ or ‘‘no’’ on the real political issues before the country. Now you know and I know that as the people of the United States see it, the President and his policies— the general principles and social objectives of the New Deal—constitute the overshadowing political issue in America today. And the democratic process insists that the people have the right to vote upon that issue— to choose whether or not the New Deal shall go on. We know that the Republican Party, with the sup- port of every reactionary influence in the United States, will fight the New Deal. And if the Democratie Party does not stand firmly behind the President’s program, there is danger that the people will be deprived of the right to voice their own convictions at the polls in 1940. There may have been times in our history when it made little difference to the people who was President —times when it would have made little difference if there had been no one in the White House. But our times are not and will not be such times. We must have a President who has the strength and moral stature to guide the American people in the way they want to go. In a moving world, it is dangerous to stand still. The times demand a national leader who can act as well as say no. Modern government, as well as modern business, requires an executive who knows when to act as well as when not to act. And of course a liberal and progressive leadership which accepts an affirmative responsibility for action must be strong and vigorous enough to throw off all the corroding influences which seek to attach them- selves to its power. A liberal government must be alert to throw off the selfish and corrupt who would barter offices, jobs, privileges, and even justice. The best protection of our Constitution against dic- tatorship is not a weak but a strong constitutional executive. All dictatorships in the world today have risen because of weak constitutional leadership. Dic- tators do not grow to power from within constitutional government, but strike swiftly from the outside when constitutional government has become too weak to handle the problems which the mass of the people de- mand shall be handled. That is Twentieth Century Lesson Number One. THE AMERICAN TEACHER mong the New Books *HIGH SCHOOL AND LIFE: Report of the Regents’ Inquiry, by Francis T. Spauutpinc. New York: McGraw-Hill. 377 pages. $3.00. EDUCATION FOR WORK: Report of the Regents’ Inquiry, by Tuomas L. Norton. New York: McGraw- Hill. 263 pages. $2.75. ADULT EDUCATION: Report of the Regents’ In- quiry, by F. W. Reeves, T. Fansuer and C. O. Hove. New York: McGraw-Hill. 171 pages. $2.00. EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP: Report of the Regents’ Inquiry, by Howarp E. Witson. New York: McGraw-Hill. 272 pages. $2.75. STATE AID AND SCHOOL COSTS: Report of the Regents’ Inquiry, by A. G. Grace and G. A. Mog. New York: McGraw-Hill. 400 pages. $3.50. HIGH SCHOOL AND LIFE NDOUBTEDLY THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT, and one U of the best, of the eleven volumes of the Regents’ Inquiry. The following quotation summarizes very well the conditions found to prevail in a majority of New York high schools: “The schools now emphasize, in their curricular and extra-curricular programs, the mastery of academic information, the development of certain clerical skills, participation in large-group athletics, performance in music and art, conformity with routine regulations as to group behavior. “The majority of high schools give little or no place to the development of other types of competence, in which leaving pupils are notably deficient. They do not teach pupils directly and systematically about their local communities, or encourage them in any penetrating thinking about fundamental social problems, or get them to participate, by reading or listening to the radio, in out-of-school] discussions of controversial matters. They seldom concern themselves systematically with such funda- mental skills as reading, correct speech, and ability to deal with simple numerical problems. . . . They devote much less attention to the kind of literature with which pupils will be surrounded outside of school than to the academic classics. They usually give no consideration at all to the radio and the movies. . “Tt seems fair to conclude, in the light of what the schools do not teach, that a major reason for young people’s lack of success in meeting out-of-school problems is that the secondary schools give them insufficient chance to master important abilities which the out-of-school world will require of them.” The following are the major recommendations for the redirec- tion of secondary education in New York State: 1. Begin the secondary-school program with the seventh grade in all school districts. 2. Make general education the central objective of the secondary- school program by devoting the greater part of the time up to the end of the twelfth grade to the study of general science, human relations, community life, world history, general mathematics, and the arts—subjects which touch many now divided academic *Continuation of Professor Alonzo F. Myers’ review, reprinted with permission from the New York Teacher, the official journal of the Teachers’ Union, Local 5, American Federation of Teachers. The con- cluding reviews of the Regent’s Inquiry books will appear in the June issue of the New York Teacher and can be secured by sending 10¢ for the magazine at 114 E. 16th St., New York City. MAY, 1939 topies, and which cover matters of direct value and interest to the average American citizen. Present these broad fields of knowledge in the ways in which they are generally encountered in life and work, and not as semester hours for college entrance Introduce more “review” in basis skills, such as reading and writ- ing, particularly for those whose elementary-school work is deficient. 3. Recognize that the school has a distinct responsibility for character education, not by multiplying rules and discipline, but by establishing student activities, developing a knowledge of the great ethical literature and standards of mankind, and above all, by furnishing inspiring leadership in school. Make understanding and enthusiasm for the democratic system part of character education. 4. Make all high schools large enough, but not too large (300 to 1,200 pupil capacity if possible), so that there can be electives without too small classes, and so that pupils may really experience student government, intramural sports, group music, and club- activities which should be greatly expanded as part of the schoo) program. Make possible easier cooperation among school systems to handle the more specialized subjects economically. 5. Establish a guidance service in each school system equipped to give educational and vocational help to boys and girls in high school and to those who have finished but have not found a satis- factory job. 6. Permit a pupil to leave school at sixteen years of age if he has a real job. If he is unemployed and is not attending an edu- cational institution, require him to continue under the supervision of the school and to pursue the kind of educational program thus worked out until he is eighteen, unless he gets a job in the meantime. This program may be in school or not, as the boy and his advisers may determine. Discontinue continuation schools. 7. Include general vocational education in the program of every comprehensive high school. In high-school vocational courses lay chief emphasis on broad vocational training and not on the development of specialized skills. 8. Gradually add to the secondary-school program beyond the twelfth grade new cultural courses and new subprofessional courses which will prepare boys and girls to enter the technical and semi-professional occupations—surveying, laboratory work, junior engineering occupations and the like—wherever such courses are not now available. These new high-school courses beyond the twelfth grade should qualify for state aid only on the approval of the local expanded educational plan by the state. 9. Base high-school graduation on readiness to leave school, as judged by local school officers in accordance with rules and regulations to be approved by the State Education Department, and discontinue the Regents’ Diploma. The local diploma should specify the work done and the competence achieved. 10. End the Regents’ examinations as graduation tests, and transform them into examinations designed to discover the weak spots in curriculum or teaching. Make available to the schools a variety of examinations through which the schools themselves can measure pupils’ achievement. 11, Emphasize in the school-health and physical-education pro- gram mental, emotional, as well as physical health. Protect pupils and teachers against persons within the school exercising a destructive emotional influence. Expand sports and activities in which all can join which have adult carry-over values; abandon the perfunctory but expensive annual “physical examination” now required by law and have in its place one examination on 29 school entrance, one on entering seventh grade, one on entering ninth grade, and one at the end of twelfth grade. 12. Give more attention specifically to gifted youth and to handicapped youth, not only for their sake and the future of society, but also as a means of improving instruction for the average group of students. 13. Improve libraries and increase reference, research, field work, and report-writing assignments; increase emphasis on English expression and broad reading. 14. The school authorities cannot undertake the whole responsi- bility within each community for the development of an intelligent handling of the problems of youth, but the school authorities should join with other interested groups in seeing that the work of all local agencies which deal with youth in the area is coor- dinated and is in some way meeting each of the basie problems of youth. EDUCATION FOR WORK The recommendations presented in this volume cover the follow- ing items: the pupils to be served; the objectives of the program designed to meet the needs of these pupils together with some suggestions as to the content of the program itself; the teacher preparation needed to carry out the program; and the responsi- bility of the State Education Department in the furtherance of the program. Vocational education in this discussion com- prises vocational agriculture, vocational industry, home making, ineluding domestic and personal service, and business occupations. The recommendations are based upon the premise that vocational preparation is an imperative upon the secondary school. This concept is interpreted to include such pre-vocational information as is essential to the intelligent choice of vocation by all pupils regardless of whether or not they expect to cease formal schooling when they leave high school. This study points out definitely certain areas in which vocational education has not succeeded in meeting the needs of all the pupils in the secondary schools for such education. The offerings in general have been made with little regard to the occupational community into which the pupil must go. Practically all the vocational industrial education in the state, for example, is con- centrated in New York City and Buffalo, Thus important large portions of the school population desiring this type of education eannot secure it. On the other hand, business education courses are so generally offered that the field of preparation for the clerical occupations is seriously overerowded—and crowded, furthermore, with a relatively unselected group. Many of the pupils studying for business occupations, it is pointed out, are doing so because no other occupational training is provided for them. A second great weakness of the present program of voca- tional education is emphasized—the need for an adequate program of guidance, which term is specifically interpreted to include all the functions of guidance and includes assistance in the selection of an occupation, appropriate training for it, placement in the occupation, follow-up to assure adjustment to the occupation, provision for improvement training and for the development of new abilities when needed. ADULT EDUCATION For purposes of the study, adult education is defined as “any purposeful effort toward self-development carried on by an indi- vidual without direct legal compulsion and without such effort beeoming his major field of activity.” While giving passing notice to random activities and agencies of an educational nature such as concerts and exhibitions and to agencies such as the press and the theatre, the committee is primarily concerned with the better defined activities of established agencies with which the Board of Regents must deal. The main emphasis of the study is upon “those educational activities controlled by publie agencies and supported, at least in part, by taxation.” 30 The committee approached the problem of evaluating the uncoordinated adult-education agencies and activities in New York State by (1) a study of the organization, administration, personnel, and program of existing agencies; (2) a study of selected areas in which the functioning of agencies within a total community picture could be examined; (3) conferring with and interviewing educators and laymen known to be actively inter- ested in the field. This study discloses the fact that there are many opportunities for the general and vocational education of adults provided by both publie and private agencies; that these opportunities are not distributed throughout the State, but are concentrated in the larger cities, particularly New York; and that the lack of coordination among adult-education programs, both local and state, results in much duplication of effort and inefficient use of available resources. Some of the more specific weaknesses in the present program of adult education in New York State are: 1. Training adults for citizenship has been largely neglected by publie agencies. . Consumer edueation for adults has been “general, ineffective, and sporadic.” 3. Adult vocational education has been too narrowly specialized, has neglected the field of distributive occupations, and has been handicapped by a lack of information on occupational opportunities. 4. Neither the highest nor the lowest economic group is greatly affected by present adult programs. 5. Satisfactory facilities for educational and vocational guid- ance of adults are almost completely lacking. 6. Facilities and equipment for adult education are inadequate in the State as a whole. 7. Adult education has been the “fifth wheel” of the publie educational system and a part-time activity for teachers and administrators. 8. Few attempts have been made to evaluate adult education in any geographical area or field of study. 9. There is no consistent plan for financing adult education from publie funds. 10. Adult-education agencies are uncoordinated. The program which the committee proposes to overcome these weaknesses rests upon the general principle that adult education is an integral part of public education and is of equal importance with education at other levels. Taking into consideration the financial status of the state at the present time, the committee concludes that the cause of adult education can better be ad- vaneed by spending relatively small amounts “for stimulation, coordination, experimentation and research, and for initiating or expanding certain programs operating primarily at the state level” than by furnishing state aid to expand local adult-edueation programs. The coordination should begin by a reorganization of the State Education Department to place adult education on a parity with elementary, secondary, and higher education. The State Department should abandon certification requirements for teach- ers in adult education except in the Regents’ evening high schools and should concentrate on the supervision of adult-education institutions as a whole, For the stimulation, experimentation, and research related to adult education, the committee recommends the expenditure of $1,275,000 over a five-year period to establish and maintain: 1, Educational and vocational guidance demonstration centers. . Community program demonstrations. University extension correspondence instruction. . Radio. In recognition of the fact that adults comprise an increasingly large proportion of our population and in the belief that the incidental and commercialized education of adults is not sufficient * oo to THE AMERICAN TEACHER to meet the complex individual and social problems of our day, one ean readily accept the recommendation of the committee that adult education be recognized as a state responsibility. The policy of state stimulation and experimentation rather than direct state aid to local communities follows the familiar pattern set by the Federal Office of Education in maintaining demonstration forum centers in various states. In view of the fact that one such demonstration forum has been established in Schenectady and in the light of the committee’s finding that adult civic educa- tion is inadequate, one wonders why the committee does not include among its recommendations a proposal for financing similar public forums in other cities and rural areas of the state as demonstration centers in the field of education for citizenship in a changing world. The reviewer is not wholly convinced that money spent for such a purpose would not be more advantageous than a subsidy for university correspondence courses. Admitting the fact that many adults in New York State are geographically isolated from opportunities for class instruction, the usual lack of guidance and high mortality in correspondence instruction suggests that it is one of the least desirable forms of adult education. EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP This volume reports a rather searching inquiry into the pro- gram of social-studies instruction in New York State secondary schools. It presents valuable data relative to evidences of civic competence displayed by the pupils in the secondary schools, the social-studies curriculum, methods and materials, and the prepara- tion, experience, and activities of the teacher of the social studies. The following are among the major recommendations: 1. School authorities should not depend upon instruction in social studies alone (even less upon instruction in other subjects) to develop the kinds of social competence in pupils that society seeks and needs. 2. All responsible agencies within the school should set about systematically to build the school of a wide range of sociological groups, each as homogeneous as possible, and each having prestige in the light of its own function. Included in these school groupings should be an active agency for pupils’ participation on a responsi- ble level in selected phases of school administration. 3. Social-studies teachers, because of the nature of their train ing, should accept considerable responsibility for the development of an active group life for pupils, especially in matters affecting pupil government and pupils’ voluntary study of social-science materials. 4. There should be included in the social-studies curriculum careful and thoughtful and realistic analysis of the school life which pupils themselves are living. 5. Teachers of social studies should make much greater efforts to participate freely in the normal adult life of their communities, especially in connection with economic and political matters wherever possible. 6. So far as state syllabi are concerned, it is reeommended that the present syllabi be supplanted as soon as possible by a series of eurriculum bulletins in social studies. Each bulletin should be a pamphlet suggesting means and materials for teaching a single topic. A topic is to be regarded as a well-knit unit of content together with pertinent pupil activities; a topie may nor- mally represent about a single month’s work. 7. The State Department should substitute for the present Regents’ examinations a variety of tests continuously to be de- veloped which will measure all desired outcomes of social-studies instruction, From time to time (but probably not each January and June) these tests should be given in selected schools as a basis for supervisory stimulation and guidance of whole school systems. 8. There should be appointed to the State Education Depart ment an outstandingly capable director of social studies—one able to provide the leadership which is needed to release the potentialities of social-studies teachers. MAY, 1939 STATE AID AND SCHOOL COSTS This book makes a valuable contribution to the considerable body of literature dealing with school finance in the State of New York. This reviewer does not profess to be competent to make an adequate appraisal of all the criticisms of the present plan in operation in the state or to judge of the effects of some of the proposed changes. He will endeavor to confine his com- ments to those aspects of the book in which he does feel competent. The authors undoubtedly were on safe ground in advocating large units of control and management in local school-district organization. Unqualified approval should be given to the fol- lowing statement: “The efficient and effective management of the affairs of the school district is impossible at present. The size and number of cistricts, the diffusion of responsibility, and the lack of educational leadership in small districts contribute to the general situation. . “The larger unit makes possible the selection of component boards of education as policy determining bodies. It would provide for the delegation of administrative responsibility to a superintendent of schools.” In the several criticisms of the present plan for the apportion- ment of state aid, the following appear to this reviewer to be especially justifiable: “The use of average daily attendance as the basic factor in determining the number of teacher units has led to practices that jeopardize the health of the individual pupils and of all children attending the school. State aid should not be used as a means of stimulating attendance. The computa- tion of teacher units should be based on the number of pupils belonging in a district. “Many districts are receiving full state aid on the basis of the number of teacher units specified in the formula, but fewer teachers actually are in service.” If this is true, it represents a condition which should be corrected. There can be general approval of the following conclusion: “No formula automatically apportioning financial aid to local school districts can function effectively in the midst of the weak- nesses in organization and administration that exist in the New York public-school system. Equalization of educational opportunity cannot be attained and state aid cannot be effec- tively apportioned to 8,412 independent and autonomous school districts,” This significant statement is made at the beginning of Part LI of the book, dealing with school costs: “Per pupii cost of education in New York State is high in comparison with the school costs of other states. However, because the state has far greater wealth, a smaller proportion of state income goes to schoo] support in New York than in comparable states.” This statement should be remembered and quoted by those who hear and see this volume quoted in justification of reduced state aid and of lower school] costs. Regardless of what the authors of a book dealing with school costs might say, opponents of adequate school support would inevitably use some of their statements in justification of reduced school expenditures. There can be no question but that economies can and should be effected by the consolidation of one-room schools. There has been some progress in this matter but the progress has been too slow. It must be admitted, however, that there are serious diffi- culties in the way of consolidation in many sections of up-state New York. Some of the economies recommended undoubtedly are justifiable and practicable. Others such as the one relating to the state-wide insurance fund, are open to question. It should be borne in mind, also, that the recommended economies are offset by recommended expansion and improvement in the educational system of the state. Unfortunately, the New York State Economic Council and other tax-reduction groups will concentrate on the economies and forget about the proposed improvements. ALOoNzO F. MYERS and members of his New York University Seminar 31 NORTH OF THE DANUBE, by Erskine CaLpwE.i. with photographs by Maraaret BourKE-WHITE. New York: Viking. 128 pages. $3.00. HE SPLENDID BOOK North of the Danube brings about my acquaintance with Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke- White; they are already well-known to the American publie and have many friends. First of all I was fascinated by the subject they have chosen this time—Czechoslovakia. The country and people of that wrecked, violated state are so close to us, they are so much a part of our own past, that each page brings us the touching experi- ence of recognition. Beyond that, we feel that Erskine Caldwell is a poet. His language has epic power, lyrical winged rhythm and dramatic tension all in one. The great simplicity of his style is entirely natural, devoid of all tricks and calculated effects. In political matters, too, it does not seem to be his intention to impress or influence his readers. That he convinces is a matter of course. Every reader of the book will be convinced: Czecho- slovakia is a beautiful fertile country, favored with charm, a multi- colored, lovable country. New and oldest culture met here in a common faith in the progress of the future, and a people that combine the traits of occidental civilization with those original oriental, mysterious Asiatic ones, there led a life devoted to peace- ful work, a life that was beautified by the people’s pride in the free, independent state that it served. Of course, Erskine Caldwell’s book speaks more of the wild and poor districts of the Carpathian-Ukraine, of the coal district of Bohemia, and of the High Tatra than of the ambitious urbanity, with a will to live, that we knew and loved in Prague, Bruenn, and even Moravian-Ostrau. Wilderness is more picturesque than urbanity, and its picturesqueness is this book’s great charm. One might wish to learn a little more about how this state was built up and how it was governed, what merits must be awarded it and whieh denied, how much reason the “Sudeten Germans” had to be “liberated” by Hitler and whether they wanted to be at all. North of the Danube has not set itself the task of answering these questions. Its effect is altogether an impressionistic one. The picture is developed by clever intimations, delicately and know- ingly placed color effects, shadows and lights. Poverty is great in the village of Uzok; the people there have not seen bread for nine years; the big Hungarian landowners will it thus— and will continue to will it thus “as long as the country remains Czech.” That is not wise of the Hungarian gentlemen. The coun try will not remain “Czech,” but neither will Hungary be able to dispose of it freely. We see a German making “history” with a wet pencil, on a map which he holds against the wall of the compartment where we are travelling with him; he massacres Czechoslovakia in such a manner that no one but the “Fuehrer” will be Master there. “The Czechs are stupid chaps,” the German says; “they have no culture”! He demonstrates his own “culture” shortly thereafter when he strikes a travelling companion who has not harmed him in the least. He pounces upon the woman, slaps her face, and then asks his wife to spit at her. “Jewish swine,” he shouts, but he doesn’t even know whether his victim is of Jewish descent or not—it only seems so to him. Not all the trips we take in Erskine Caldwell’s and Margaret Bourke-White’s company are as repulsive and as sad as the one just mentioned. In sunny and abundantly fertile Slovakia the finest asparagus may be found, freshly cut, and the most friendly tipsy hospitality. But even here there are shadows; the future is replete with dark clouds, and behind all these clouds Hitler’s unloved face hides. Bruenn, too, is peaceful—only that there are already so many emigrants from Austria. Some of them must live in prison. They are set free, however, as soon as our Ameri- ean friends put in an appearance. There is shame before the Americans. “I am glad Americans come to our country... , ” a man somewhere in Moravia says. “If Americans come to our country and see how much we love it, they will help us, when 32 we need somebody to give us help. .. . It will be a good thing to have a great country like America helping us, because some day our enemies will try to take our country from us.” Poor man in Moravia—how prophetic you were in your fears and how deceived you are in your hopes. No one helped you, not even the French, upon whose assistance you believed you had a claim. Finally, together with the authors of North of the Danube, we visit the office of a Nazi agent in Prague; and here too, as every- where in the book, there is to us a scene of recognition, excepting that this one fills us with disgust. How we know it all: the military drill with the claim of the redeemer; the gentlemanly airs that quickly change to fawning when there is a question of taking in the foreign press representatives; that stupidly proud, bumptious, ill-bred behaviour! The text part of the book would end on a discordant note if the “Heil” that the Nazi fellow “breathed into our faces” were not followed by a few beautiful and resolute words by the greatest contemporary Czech poet, Carl Capec, who has died meanwhile. He did not care to live under Hitler. The photographs of Margaret Bourke-White are works of art, individually and as a persuasive entity: the charming Czech girls with their large laughing mouths, and the others over whose Slavic cheekbones the narrow eyes look at one in threatening serious- ness; the young soldier of the Republic (how determined he is to fight and how gay with it all!); the Saints from the Karls- bruecke (Bridge of Charles) in Prague (so luxuriant and so pious!) ; the meadows and forests; the animals; Gothic and mod- ern architecture; and in the faces of the people that harshness that comes with poverty and is not wicked but degrading. Two of the last pictures show a small Czech schoolgirl and a tinsmith, a Czech workingman who looks like a deity of nature. The little girl laughs—all of the broad and strong little face smiles at us— but the serene brow with blonde and loose hair tumbling over it is obstinate; this merry and stubborn child would not be easy to manage. The tinsmith, too, laughs. His arms are folded peaceably across his breast; the eyes in the laughing face are not entirely cheerful, not completely harmless. The head is thrown back, lending an air of challenge to his bearing. “Just dare,” the bearded tinsmith seems to say, “just take the risk of offending me! You'll get the worst of it—in the long run.” ERIKA MANN xk WHO WAS SOCRATES? by ALBan D. WINSPEAR and Tom SruverBere. New York: Cordon. 96 pages. $1.25. OCRATES IS THE SYMBOL of a courage teachers would like to emu- . J) late—courage in criticising established beliefs. According to l'rofessor Winspear this is a myth. Plato is our usual source for Socrates, and Plato’s dialogues were written long after Socrates was dead. Moreover, Plato himself was opposed to democracy, and the reason he found Soerates a useful subject to idealize is that Socrates also had been a reactionary. Winspear presents con- vineing evidence to show that Socrates was condemned by the Athenian democracy for taking an active part in a conservative faction. This group had proscribed and murdered some 1500 Athenian citizens between 404 B. C. and 399, and while Socrates seems to have been shocked by these excesses, he had been the leader, and when the progressives returned to power in 399 they decided to “hew the head off and not hack the limbs.” We were brought up to believe (through Plato’s influence) that Socrates was charged vaguely with corrupting the youth. But modern research points to the conclusion that the concrete charge was inspiring aristocrats to think that only experts (i. e., aristo- crats) were fit to rule. We have only to turn the pages of Plato’s Republic to see that Socrates inspired his pupils with a raging fury against democracy. For Plato any large group of people is a mob. The masses are incapable of correct judgment in political affairs. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Socrates is represented as engaged in a quest for justice. One thing we can distinguish through the fog of metaphysical refine- ments is that justice is not achieved by the popular leaders. “The politicians” are humbugs. How modern (and fascist) this sounds! If we try to translate Socratic “justice” into familiar speech, we should say “Americanism.” This is a good word; it can have a genuine and a progressive meaning. But when we listen to some reactionary mouthing platitudes about “Americanism,” and by implication eondemning the things which seem to us most promis- ing in American life, we probably get the flavor of Socratic “justice.” To teachers throughout the ages Socrates has appeared as the ideal teacher, asking questions instead of indoctrinating. There is so much of value in this idealization that it seems tactless and heartless to mention the real Socrates. Yet there is much to be learned in the actual development of Greek metaphysical idealism. Life in Athens was still on a scale so simple that the relation of economics to politics and politics to intellectual trends can be made very clear. Professor Winspear has given us a very illu- minating book. In modern life an intellectual’s political influence, although intensely real, may be veiled to the nth degree, whereas Socrates in one important crisis was the outstanding conservative leader in the public eye, as the proponent of a decisive measure in the assembly. He earlier had close associations with Pericles, a middle-of-the-road progressive. At this stage Socrates was not a metaphysical idealist, and he was primarily interested in science. This is the Socrates of the Clouds. As the Periclean group broke up and a large section of it drifted to the right, Socrates began looking for an abstract ideal which would condemn the pro- gressives, and he became explicitly contemptuous of scientific inquiry. In his case the connection between class politics and intellectual developments becomes extraordinarily clear. Such a turning toward reaction will be quite comprehensible to progressive educators, who have seen the same thing happen to men who had been among their most respected leaders. University of Chicago HAVEN PERKINS xk * THE TREE OF LIBERTY, by Euizaneta Pace. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. 985 pages. $3.00. OR THIS NEW VENTURE in American historical fiction, large- | pug Mrs. Elizabeth Page has had the fine idea of taking as her major theme the age-old conflict throughout our history be- tween the Jeffersonian and the Hamilton-Marshall ideology, be- tween the Frontier, with its “plain people” and producers, and the Tidewater, with its aristocratic, ruling class. An ambitious subject, certainly treated far more thoughtfully than the subjects of other currently fashionable historical novels, I fear nevertheless (as the author herself suspected) that it all comes down to “a thin story dangling precariously around the edges of a history.” The “Tree of Liberty” at any rate is something that taker growth, beginning toward 1754, in the struggles that preceded the American Revolution, and assuming full symmetry with the second term of that old Jacobin, “Tom” Jefferson, in his phase of concili- ation. Now the organic reality of the historical “tree” is depicted by the life and fortunes of three generations of the Peyton and Howard families, dialectically opposed in their polities but united by marriage. Or now it is the long career of “Tom” Jefferson that gives us the essence of the “tree” and the real hero of this novel. As fiction, strung upon the frame of history, it is barely second- rate; but in its historical thinking The Tree of Liberty is unusu- ally enlightened. The significant parallelism between the class con- flicts of the early Republic and those of today lends high interest to Mrs. Page’s work. She has used material which I have longed to see given literary treatment; the struggles over President Adams’ Alien and Sedition Act, and the trial and martyrdom of protestants, such as Matthew Lyons and Cooper, against these laws. The reading of such a work by students at an early phase MAY, 1939 of their education, let us say junior high school, can only do good. Yet my doubts as to the merit of this form of historicofictional literature persist. In the essence, these things seem juvenile books aimed at adults who, for all we know, may be growing progres- sively infantile in their tastes. On the other hand, the wide appeal of such fictional history nowadays suggests a failure of our professional historians to take, for instance, such dramatic themes as the Jefferson-Hamilton epoch and write of them with the vigor, the bold color, and pertinacity with which men as different as Gibbon, Macaulay, and John Green once reached vast audi- ences of millions. MATTHEW JOSEPHSON x* * THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, by Herperr Aqar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 368 pages. $3.00. T HIS IS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN, not a laborious chronicle of events, but a record of the struggle of a people for the achievement of its most profound aspirations. Specifically it is a history of the Democratic Party, but around this theme is woven a drama of much greater importance, the story of American Democracy itself. It is a story which should be read by every American who dares in these days to put meaning into the time- worn clichés of democracy. For Mr. Agar is a Jeffersonian, a fighting Jeffersonian, and to him democracy means far more than its customary political connotation of the ballot box and perhaps the direct election of Senators. There are three parts to the democratic ideal, he says: the spiritual affirmation on which it rests, the economic order which it demands, and the political machinery which puts it into effect. Of these the least important is the third. The problem is how to organize the economic aspect of democracy so that the spiritual affirmation can come true. The spiritual affirmation means that all men have certain minimum rights and requirements which must not be denied—among these the right not to be forced into a slave relationship toward master or state in order to earn a livelihood. Obviously, this is impossible on the basis of an auto- eratic economic order whatever the political paraphernalia in which that order clothes itself. In all this we may agree, but what to do about it? Unfortu- nately, Agar does not say. He intimates that we might look at cooperation as it functions in Nova Scotia and Sweden. His plea for labor is impassioned and just. But on the question of public ownership he pronounces no more than the customary plague on both your houses—communism and fascism breed slavery alike. Mr. Agar’s viewpoint is largely agrarian, and for that we do not blame him, for it is a viewpoint which should be more frequently expressed. Yet surely Mr. Agar must realize that the economic egalitarianism of Jefferson, based as it was on individual private property, has small chance of realization within the modern technology, and that the spiritual affirmation of Jefferson must in our day find realization in new techniques of control. University of Kansas Hitpen R. GrBson se Ff 2 GOD’S VALLEY: People and Power along the Ten- nessee River, by Witson Wuitman. New York: Viking. 320 pages. $3.00. URING THE LATE UNPLEASANTNESS in the directorate of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Wilson Whitman’s article, “Morgan, Morgan and Lilienthal,” appeared in Harpers. Not only did Miss Whitman’s analysis prove to be essentially true, the article was delightfully written. The same can be said of God’s Valley. The book is a survey of the Tennessee Valley and its people. One of the most interesting parts is about the historical back- ground and its psychological effect on the people. The well- known Southern problems of poverty, soil erosion, flood control, 33 absentee ownership, one-crop farming, freight differentials, low wages, and voting restrictions are presented in a sprightly manner rarely achieved by serious writers. Even as the Tennessee Valley Authority has woven itself into the fabric of life in the valley, so Miss Whitman has woven the T.V.A. into her story. She presents the most complete picture of the Authority, its purposes, methods, and achievements, which has come my way. The reader, unfamiliar with the southern scene, will feel that Miss Whitman’s picture of the Valley people is contradictory and that she fails to resolve these contradictions. The reader will also feel that she is inconclusive in her analysis of the southern attitudes toward such things as T.V.A. and Roosevelt; that her examples point in two directions. These feelings will be correct precisely because we in the South are a bundle of contradictions. Witness Congressman Rankin from Tupelo, Miss., who is very progressive in his attitude toward the T.V.A. and publie power but sounds much like Mayor Hague when expressing himself about the C.I.O. To cite another example, Ed Crump of Tennessee “voted” Memphis about 17 to ] for publie power; he has led a magnificent state-wide fight for a pro-T.V.A. Publie Utilities Commission and has participated in a number of other progressive movements—yet C.I.0. organizers are not “welcome” in Memphis and the Teachers’ Union is forbidden. There are some minor mistakes of fact which catch the local eye. For instance, there is no property qualification for city voters in Chattanooga as mentioned by Miss Whitman. These small defects do not detract from the truth of the whole. Miss Whitman proves herself a better discoverer than Jonathan Daniels, whose recent book, A Southerner Discovers the South, attracted wide attention. Nancy Lea Smits. x kk THE NEW INQUISITION, by Konrap Hewen. New York: Modern Age. 188 pages. Paper cover, $0.50; cloth cover, $2.00. HEN Mopern Ace Books, INc., published John L. Spivak’s W secre Armies, which described the activities of Nazi secret agents in the United States and their dealings with pseudo- patriotic organizations, it told only half the story. What the American public still needed to know was the essential nature and spirit of the government which these conspirators sought to bring to power. In The New Inquisition the rest of the story is told. It is told with restraint and painstaking documentation. It is the picture of madness and homicide dominating the councils of a great nation; of the leaders of a nation plotting arson, pillage, and murder with picked gangsters in the dead of night; of officially deputized thugs making relentless war upon the helpless and the innocent. That is the regime which the Silver Shirts and the vigilantes and the Black Legionnaires and the Gerald P. Winrods and the Fritz Kuhns are proposing for us. The New Inquisition relates a few of the incidents of the fearful German pogrom of November 10, 1938, of which President Roose- velt said, “I myself could searcely believe that such things could oecur in a Twentieth Century civilization.” It tells of the arrest of a man and a woman who pleaded that they might take their ten-month-old baby with them—unsuccessfully, for the baby’s eries were heard in the neighborhood for two days until finally there was silence in the house which no neighbor dared enter. It tells of the sick who were pulled from their beds in the hos- pitals, one of them bleeding to death on the floor; of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country whose arms and legs were fractured; of orphans driven into the street at night: of hunted men wandering in the forests like beasts; of tens of thousands who were dragged off into concentration camps where hundreds of them died from beatings, cold, exposure, and in their last extremity from the bullets of their guards. 34 All the world wept when the news services flashed the incredible story to the largest cities and the smallest hamlets. The American publie, according to a reliable nation-wide poll, overwhelmingly approved the action of the government in increasing the tax upon imports from Germany. Konrad Heiden reports that in Germany itself muititudes deplored the unbridled fury and bestiality of the persecutions. Yet in this lust for violence there are disturbing portents for us. If economic crises and crafty, though hysterical, propaganda ean bring mad men to power in so highly civilized a country as Germany, they can do so here. Unless the pulpit, the press, the radio, the motion-picture, and particularly the schools under- take a determined program of education for tolerance, American society may face the degradation that has been visited upon Central Europe in these tragic days. There is no hope for us except in a united defense by Catholic, Protestant, Jew, white, and Negro against the rising tide of suspicion, fear, and hate. Chicago Teachers College Joun J. DeBoer xk THE NEGRO, TOO, IN AMERICAN HISTORY, by Mert R. Eppse. Chicago: National Educational Pub- lishing Company. 544 pages. N THAT GREAT “GITTIN’ UP MAWNIN’,” American historians will I certainly have to defend their cavalier treatment of Negroes. They will have to breathlessly explain their deliberate excision of important Negro figures and their shameful interpretations of Negroes in such eras as the Reconstruction. Professor Eppse deserves credit for pushing them toward the uncomfortable corner which they are bound to oecupy eventually. He has strug- gled to get the Negro properly “introduced.” But he has not integrated the Negro into the story of American history. Suppose you are being introduced to people who have never seen you in your proper light or have merely neglected noticing you. Your introducer says: Throughout the life of America, Mr. N (who is you) has been a stalwart flunky. Once he was America’s slave, virtuous and sweet. Without thinking of himself, he assisted manfully in America’s revolutionary and civil conflicts. He was freed. He was beguiled by carpetbaggers and scalawags. But he returned to the America he loved best—to the Southerner, who knew his heart; to the industrialist, who had graciously given him little jobs and furthered his education with philanthropy; and to the big-hearted public, who praised him for his exploits in track and field, in song and dance, in church and school, and on the shareboss’ books. In such a way has the American Negro been introduced by Professor Eppse, chairman of the Social Science Division of Tennessee State College (for Negroes). I, for one, am not willing to subscribe to this impression. | agree with Professor Eppse that the Negro has been sold very cheaply in American histories, but I do not see how a parade of singular exploits can help that case. How are we to know whether these great deeds were the deeds of Negroes or just of powerful men? How does it help the Negro race that these powerful men just happened to be Negroes? At this stage of the game, we need an entirely different kind of history about Negroes. We need some student to look into the past for the makings of a plan which Negroes can follow. They are caught between the two necessities of being general Americans and members of a minority group, with distressing restrictions, at one and the same time. How much of their segregated limits shall they fight to destroy? How much shall they keep and guard? How shall they define the term “American democracy,” since Ameriea refuses to define it for them? The answer to these ques- tions is in their past, if it is amywhere. Thompson, Harris, Frazier, Wilkerson, Bunche, and Woodson are hacking away at that answer. Howard University Joun Lovet, JR. THE AMERICAN TEACHER The Teachers Union in Action HE NATIONAL CONVENTION COMMITTEE which is composed of Vice Presi- dents C. J. Hendley, John Connors, and Michael J. Eck has submitted a ientative program for the National Convention of the A. F. of T. to the Executive Council. If the program is adopted the theme of the Convention will be *‘ Equality of Educational Opportunity for All the Children.’’ The National Convention Committee suggested the following subdivisions under this theme: 1, Financing of schools locally and by state and national government ot ye ge fe Tenure and economic security of teachers Freedom of teaching as an essential in democratic education Educational policies of the American Federation of Teachers Organization of teachers in affiliation with labor Recognition of the fine work done by the National Academic Freedom Committee of the A. F. of T. comes this month from Ruth Reardon, State Superintendent of Publie Instruction, Montana. Miss Reardon writes to Chair- man Arnold Shukotoff: “Thank you for the report on the Philip O. Keeney Case. The American Federation of Teachers is doing a splendid piece of work and the teachers of our nation should appre- ciate the efforts of your organization in making academic freedom a reality.” + The Midwest Conference of College Locals of the A. F. of T. was held at the Great Northern Hotel, Chicago, on April 29-30. The following locals were represented at the Conference: Milwaukee State Teachers College, No. 79. University of Union, No. 223. University of Wisconsin Extension Division, No. 253. Colleges and Universities in Chicago Area, No. 259. University of Michigan and Ann Arbor Chapter, No. 284. Oxford Teachers’ Union, No. 375 (Miami University). St. Louis and St. Louis County Teach- ers Union, No. 420, Ohio State University Federation of Teachers, No. 438. Minnesota Federation of College Teacli- ers, No. 444. North Shore Teachers Union, No. 460 (Northwestern University). New York College Teachers Union, No. 537. Lawrence, Kansas, No. 555. Fisk Teachers Association, No. 611. Ingham County Federation of Teachers, No. 624 (Michigan State College). Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, No. 479. In addition, two fraternal delegates were present from the University of Illi- nois, Arnold Shukotoff, chairman of the National Academic Freedom Commit- tee and secretary of the New York Col- lege Teachers Union (No. 537), led the discussion on academic freedom. A Wisconsin ‘Teachers MAY, 1939 mimeographed report of the Conference may be had by writing to John Eberhart, Northwestern University, Evanston, III. * ST. LOUIS, MO. (No. 420)—National Vice President Paul Preisler received 24,083 votes in his campaign for member of the Board of Education but found the united opposition of the regular political groups too strong to overcome. He was supported by the C.1.0., A. F. of L., Labor’s Non Partisan League, church, and Negro groups in his campaign. He more than doubled the number of votes he re- ceived in his 1937 bid for the same posi- tion. * SEATTLE, WASH. (No. 401)—Harold J. Laski’s membership in the Federation has been announced by the University of Washington Teachers’ Union. Profes- sor Laski, of the London School of Economies, joined the A. F. of T. during his incumbeney of the Walker-Ames Fel- lowship at the University of Washington this spring. * LOS ANGELES, CALIF. (No. 430)—The college section of the Union and the local chapter of the Lawyers Guild were the joint sponsors of a dinner in honor of Professor Harold J. Laski recently. More than four hundred guests attended the banquet including Charles Chaplin, Ella Winter, and Donald Ogden Stewart. More than four hundred were turned away because of lack of space. Professor Laski spoke on “The Role of the Uni- versity and the Professional Worker in the Defense of Democracy.” Professor Franklin Fearing, chairman of the col- lege section of Local 430, was chairman of the meeting. * PALO ALTO, CALIF. (No. 442)——At the request of the Palo Alto Labor Advisory Board the Union is putting on a series of educational discussions. Professor Elie] discussed the proposed amendments to the Wagner Act, Professor Hopkins discussed the A. F. of L.-C.1.0. contro- versy, Professor Kreps talked on the re- lation of monopoly to labor problems, and on June 2 Mr. DiMaria is to speak on labor laws in California. The Northern Branch Educational Policies Committee of the A. F. of T. recently adopted a thirteen-point program which ineluded the request that the University of Cali- fornia establish an all-year Workers’ School, that labor be represented on the Board of Regents of the University, and that a course in Labor Problems be in- cluded in the California State courses of study. * MILWAUKEE, WIS. (No. 252)—Teacher organizations, educational institutions, and civie organizations sponsored a din- ner recently in honor of Mrs. Meta Ber- ger, who is retiring as a member of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors after thirty years of continuous service. Both locals in Milwaukee were active in planning the dinner. Mrs. Eva Filtzer, member of 252, was in charge of ticket distribution. 7 ATLANTA, GA. (No. 89)—Ira Jarrell has been elected president of the local for her fourth term. The following dele- gates have been elected to the A, F. of T. convention: Allie Mann, Ira Jarrell, and Vice President G. Y. Smith. With the new organizational drive, they hope to have five A. F. of T. locals, which is the minimum number required to start a state federation. Under present conditions the Atlanta schools will not have funds for operating next December unless the state meets its full obligations, according to Schoo! Business Manager T. W. Clift. The shortage will amount to one month’s salary for all board employees. Because of the shortage of funds, there will be no summer schools in the elementary and junior high schools, but a senior high school will be kept open. * ROCKFORD, ILL. (No. 540) — John Nufer, editor of the Rockford Teacher, reported his trip to Springfield in the May 10 issue. He was active in lobbying for the state tenure bill (S.B. 177). Presi dent Ekeberg has been made chairman of the Illinois Federal Aid Committee. The Rockford Teacher carries a list of new books added to the public library in each issue. * KENOSHA, ILL. (No.557)—Edward Wes- ton, former president of the Trades and Labor Council, was elected to the Board of Education of this city in a recent election in which the Teachers’ Union ‘ook an active part. President Le Roy Wolfe of the Union spoke to more than 35 3,000 Union members during the cam- paign. George Anderson, president of the local chamber of commerce and member of the Board for twenty years, objected to President Wolfe’s activities in the election and openly said so at the Board meeting. Chairman Blair of the Board pointed out to Lumber Dealer Anderson that “we cannot deprive teachers of the right of free speech.” The school budget for Kenosha has been cut $92,000 for the coming year. Salary slashes appear to be in store and contracts may be held up until teachers are home for the summer, making an organized fight against salary cuts much more difficult, * TRENTON, N. J. (No. 437)—Working through Labor’s Non Partisan League, members of 437 helped to win a smash- ing victory for the progressive forces of this area when the city manager plan was voted out and replaced by the city commission form. Counselor Louis Josephson, attorney for the Union, showed how the present city-council set- up has been allowing millionaires to be almost exempt from personal property taxation. Teachers in this community are being asked to accept another voluntary “waiver.” * NEW JERSEY STATE FEDERATION— The Supreme Court of New Jersey has ruled that the Tenure Act clearly pro- tects teachers against attacks on their salary and position in a recent decision handed down on the Cole-Kriser case which the A. F. of T. has been fighting since April 1, 1937, when the Trenton Board cut salaries for 1937-38 and later attempted to have the Tenure Act de- elared unconstitutional. The Court also ruled that those janitors who had failed to protest their salary cuts were not entitled to redress. Because the Court decided that Cole was only en- titled to the salary he was receiving when he went on tenure, the case is being taken to the Court of Errors and Appeals. Many teachers in the state re- ceived their tenure during the years when salaries were reduced by legislative act. If the present decision is permitted to stand, teachers will lose credit for the several years they worked for higher salaries before the emergency cut. * CINCINNATI, OHIO (No. 479)—A col- lege section of the Union has been or- ganized at the University of Cincinnati as a part of the public-school local. The following officers were elected: H. M. Goettsch, chairman; D. F. Radcliff, vice chairman; R. H. Riley, correspending sec- retary; and H, G. Schrickel, recording secretary. The new section has already drawn up a program which recommends an improvement of salary and promotional policies of the University and a demoecra- tization of the administrative proceduree. George Axtelle, national college vice president, spoke at a recent meeting of the new section. The local sponsored a showing of “The 36 People of the Cumberland” recently. The A. F. of T. has been placed in charge of all work among educational groups by the Ohio Public Improvement Association in an effort to amend the state constitution 80 as to reduce the 65-per-cent law neces- sary to pass bond issues to a majority. The local voted a 50-dollar appropriation for this work. * CHICAGO, ILL. (No. 1)—John M. Fewkes has been returned to the presidency of the Chicago Teachers Union without op- position. The Union Study Class had a Panel on Teacher Tenure on May 10 and a discussion eonducted by Kermit Eby on “What the Union Contributes to Edu- cation” on May 23. Mr. Fewkes, Miss Taggart, and Mrs. Raymoth are representing the Union in Springfield where Senate Bill 325, which would restore the salary cuts of teachers, was passed in the Senate 28 to 3, and Senate Bill 177, giving tenure to down- state teachers, was also passed in the Senate, 28 to 11. House Bill 599, to increase the state distributive fund and benefit all Illinois high schools by a flat grant to high schools, passed the House 129 to 13 and is now in the Senate. * NEWARK, N. J. (No. 481)—The Union chalked up a victory when the Board of Education passed a resolution on March 29 granting teachers the right to hold meetings in the schools, post notices on the bulletin boards, and deposit notices of meetings in the teachers’ mailboxes. The resolution, however, takes the power of refusal away from the principals and gives it to the superintendent of schools. Samuel Roessler, president of the Board, and Dr. Rolfe said that the Union was free to circularize any teachers they wished to contact. * CHATTANOOGA, TENN. (No. 246)— Three new Union committees have been appointed: one which will expand the work of teachers in aiding needy stu- dents, another which will eontact teach- ers who let contracts for sthool products in an attempt to persuade them to use union services, and a final committee which will work out a revision of the Union’s constitution. The local prepared a history of its work for the Spring Edition of the Labor World and also prepared a short summary of the Federal Aid Bill for a recent issue of the labor paper. * DETROIT, MICH. (No. 231)—The Union has succeeded in getting the $783,000 proposed school-budget cut defeated by the Common Council. More than 30,000 leaflets were distributed, labor support was enlisted, every Council member was interviewed personally, and wide news- paper publicity was used. In the state the loyalty-oath laws will probably be modified and the tenure law saved, but state aid will be reduced by from 5 to 7 million dollars. The Michigan Federation of Teachers wil] meet in Detroit, May 19-20. A town-hall meet- ing on “The Schools—Whose Responsibil- ity?” will be the feature of the conven- tion. P * FPLOODWOOD, MINN. (No. 506)—The Union recently made a collective agree- ment with the Floodwood Board of Educa- tion in which the Board agreed to follow the salary schedule proposed by the Union for 1939-40. The members of the Union agreed to take a salary cut of no more than 10 per cent if the reduction was made necessary by a reduction in state- aid funds. Since the bill for state aid has been passed, teachers in Floodwood will receive full salaries for 1939-40. * WASHINGTON, D. C. (No. 440)—Rep- resentatives of the Howard Teacher's Union participated in a District of Colum- bia conference to defend the Wagner Act. A forum on “The Stakes of Higher Education in Democracy” is being planned by the Educational Policies Committee. A number of members of Local 440 have signed the recent “Manifesto of Educa- tors.” * BERKELEY, CALIP. (No. 349)—A reso- lution has been passed by the East Bay Teachers’ Union asking that the City of New York and the City College of New York be urged to grant a hearing to A. J. Kraus, a professor at City College who was dismissed by questionable meth- ods and has never been granted a hearing in which to vindicate himself. * COLUMBUS, OHIO (No. 438)—Local 438 is pushing subscriptions to the Labor Tribune, local labor paper, and also asking all members to save sales-tax coupons to be redeemed for the benefit of the news- paper. Officers of the local elected in April are: David C. Williams, president; Edward Borden, secretary, Edgar Dale, first vice president; Margaret Willis, treasurer; F. N. Maxfield, second vice president; and Merriss Cornell, associate secretary-treasurer. President Williams attended the Midwest College Conference held in Chicago. * BROOKSTON, MINN. (No. 508)—Defeat of the suggested salary cut and a new ten-day sick-leave plan, retroactive for this year, were victories attained at a meeting of the St. Louis County Teachers’ Federation with Superintendent of Schools Arthur Lampe. Salaries may even be raised if the Federal Aid to Education Bill is passed. A banquet was held the evening of the day of the meeting with delegations present from Minneapolis, Duluth, Floodwood, Cloquet, Chisholm, and Gilbert. * MADISON, WIS. (No. 223)—The Wis- consin School for Workers in Industry will be ended with the summer quarter if the present legislative plans are car- ried through. C.1.0. and A. F. of L. unions have protested to their legislative representatives but thus far have been THE AMERICAN TEACHER unable to change their minds. The School wag started in 1925. The Union is fighting the “compromise” tenure bill which has been offered by the School Boards’ Association after the James repealer of tenure was passed. The Union is opposing the increase of $20.00 a semester in tuition proposed by the Board of Regents of the University of Wiscon sin. According to the Union this inerease would cause many of the students who are not wholly self-supporting (29 per eent of total enrollment) to leave school. * MISSOULA, MONT. (No. 497)—Secre tary E. A. Atkinson has recently been reelected for another year as president of the Missoula Central Trades and Labor Council. With splendid cooperation from the labor forces in the state, headed by James W. Graham, president of the Montana State Federation of Labor, the University Teachers’ Union was active in securing the passage of a retirement plan in the past legislature. Due to lack of an appropr'ition for the next biennium, the plan will not be effective for two years however. On April 10 the Montana Board of Education approved President Simmons’ proposal to assess the salaries of faculty members of Montana State University to pay the amount due Philip O. Keeney if the Montana Supreme Court upholds Judge Padbury’s decision ordering his reinstatement. In an open letter to the people of the state Professor Keeney (1) The amount due, up to June 1, 1939, is about $6000, not $10,000. To what purpose is the additional $4000 to be devoted? (2) Why was a reserve for sums that may be due as a result of court action not carried in the accounts of the University as is points out three discrepancies: the established practice in every reputable business office? (3) Since no librarian was appointed to replace Professor Keeney and therefore no salary has been paid, to what purpose has this money heen devoted? * SPRINGFIELD, ILL. (No. 601)—The Springfield Federation opened its mem hership drive on May 4 with a large meeting to which all teachers, P. T. A. associations, labor and civie organiza- tions, churches, and the general publis NEW LOCALS CHARTERED Blue Island Federation of Teachers, Blue Island, Ill., No. 633. Peru Teachers’ Union, Peru, Ind., No. 634. North Shore College Teachers’ Union, Evanston, Ill., No. 635. St. Lawrence University Teachers’ Union, Canton, N. Y., No. 636. Seymour Classroom Teachers’ Federation, Seymour, Ind., No. 637. Gillespie Teachers’ Union, Gillespie, Il., No. 638. Metropolitan Denver Teachers’ Union, Denver, Colo., No. 639. Reinstated: Superior Teachers’ College Federation, Superior, Wis., No. 101. MAY, 1939 NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE E URGE YOU TO REDOUBLE EFFORTS for the passage of legislation in W snica we are interested. The foliowing are of prime concern: S-1305 (Thomas) Committee). 8-1630 (Wagner) S-1970 (La Follette)—Prohibiting unfair practices. Federal aid to education (reported favorably by Senate President’s health program. HR-236 (Celler)—Making permanent W. P. A. educational services. S. Res. 126 (Schwellenbach)—Appropriation of $100,000 to continue the work of the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee. MATERIAL ISSUED BY LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Your local has received and should have on file for the use of its members the following material: 1. An Analysis of Tenure—This contains much valuable material inelud- ing points a good tenure bill should have; comments of various prominent people, educators, labor leaders, ete., on the value of teachers’ tenure; mar- ried women and tenure; arguments for and against tenure; court’s decisions in Pennsylvania. 2. Model Tenure Bill—This includes an explanation of the various points of the bill. 3. A Summary of State Legislative Programs of the American Federation of Teachers—The bills supported and those opposed, with their numbers, are arranged by states. It would be most valuable if each local were to obtain copies of the bills from the various state legislatures. These could be used for comparison and reference. 4. The following issues of the Washington Relay have been sent to each local: February 6, February 25, and April 20, 1939, 5. Each local has also received an analysis of the Federal Aid Bill, copies of the speech of Senator Thomas on the introduction of the Federal Aid Bill, S-1305, copies of the Bill itself, copies of the speech of Representative Joseph B. Shannon on the Dies Committee, as well as a petition for the Anti Lynching Bill. In addition, each vice president has received ten copies of Oppressive Labor Practices (La Follette and Thomas, Congressional Record, March 28) and one copy of a study on malnutrition made by the Philadelphia loeal. If your local has not received this material, please write to: MARY FOLEY GROSSMAN, Chairman National Legislative Committee 2302 Delancey Street Philadelphia, Pa were invited, and at which Lillian Her- stein spoke on new educational and social developments. The goal is 100 per cent of the teachers in Springfield. Two outstanding Illinois women, Mary Todd Lincoln and Mrs. Lottie H. O’Neill, were honored recently by the Education Committee of the House of Representa- tives with delegations present from the schools and from Local 601. A vigorous drive on legislation is being conducted hy the Union, with some members at the Legislature every day, and the member- ship kept informed of the progress of bills on education. The membership has flooded the State House with letters, ecards, and telegrams. * PENNSYLVANIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS—The 3,000 teachers who crowded the Educational Building in Har- risburg on April 5 in the finest and most solid demonstration of teachers in Penn- sylvania were articulate testimony that the Pennsylvania teachers want to keep th Tenure Law intact. Of the 23 opponenté of 8-45, the bill to kill the Tenure Law, not one deviated by the slightest margin from the greatest united front of teachers in the history of Pennsylvania. * WASHINGTON, D. C. (No. 27)—The colored schools of Washington, D. c. are celebrating their seventy-fifth anni- versary. Local 27 is now twenty-three years old. The Union led in voicing the protest to the school board against the barring of Marian Anderson, Negro singer, from appearing in the Central High School Auditorium. The local has also been working strenuously toward the suffrage movement and for civil rights for the District of Columbia. Significant is the development in the past few years of a great difference in the teacher load of the dual system, the white being 30.7 and the colored 37. There is pending legislation threatening to destroy the autonomy of the school board, reduce the personnel, and to cripple the educational opportunities. 37 ’ Cee EET ——— On the Labor Front Edited from the Labor Press and the Federated Press THE A. F. OF L. IN ITS MONTHLY survey of business for March-April urged the establishment of a National Planning Board to coordinate the nation’s economic activities. ... Three organizers of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union were brutally beaten in the mayor’s office in Crawfordsville, Ark. ... The Sight seeing Guides and Lecturers Union (A. F. of L.) won a one-day strike in New York City the day before the World’s Fair opened. The Air Lines Mechanics Association called off its three-week strike against the Eastern Air Lines... . Reason for the failure of the strike was the fail ure of the Air Line Pilots Association to take action in support of the mechanics. ... The International Fur Workers Union and the National Leather Workers Asso- ciation (both C. I. O.) have merged... . The Wisconsin Telephone Company (A. T. & T. subsidiary) was ordered by the N. L. R. B. to cease interference with the rights of its workers to organize. , The Atlantic Coast Line may be held for $300,000 in back wages for 4,400 workers by Federal Wage-Hour Administrator Elmer F. Andrews. * ALTHOUGH WALL STREET HAS just closed one of the most unsatisfac- tory periods in its his- My tory, E. T. Wier’s Na tional Steel Corporation has just floated a $70,- 000,000 bond issue. The ability of National Steel to stand out so remarkably against the field is proof that Wier’s labor- and price- cutting policies pay. When the steel in- dustry as a whole had recovered to 58 per cent of capacity, Na tional Steel was run ning at about 70 per eent. Its Detroit plant where National Steel has a monopoly of sheet. and strip-making facilities operated at about 90 per cent of capacity. The funds which Wier is raising are undoubtedly going to be used against U. S. Steel in the Chicago area. Wier’s attack on wages makes it only a question of time before the rest of the steel industry be gins to cry for “relief” from their labor burdens. * IN A LETTER IN THE CURRENT issue of the American Pressman, George L. Berry, president of the Printing Press- men’s Union (A. F. of L.), urges that N. L. R. B. should be given a chance to function under normal conditions and that “there can be no real logie in sup- 38 port of amending the National Labor Re lations Act at this time”. ... The Hotel and Restaurant Employes and Bartend- ers’ Alliance, third largest A. F. of L. union reminded the House Labor com mittee through Vice President James MeNamara that it was opposed to all changes in the Wagner Act. ... An article by First Vice President F. G. Barrett of the International Typograph- ical Union in the official I. T. U. journal pointed out the dangers of any amend ment to the Wagner Act at this time.... And Vice President Barrows of the Gen- eral Electric Co. has stated: “We have had no trouble with the Wagner law. It was designed to take the part of the employe who can’t take care of himself. My suggestion would be to let the Wag ner law ride and let some of the em- ployers who haven’t tried it, give it a try.” * A. F. LOCKHART, EDITOR OF THE St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly’s Minnesota Union Advocate, pointed out in the May 4 issue that the decision in favor of the Apex Hosiery Company of Phila delphia is a threat to all labor unions. The A. F. of L. editor indicates that the company could have used the state courts to collect for damages during the sit-down strike but “deliberately invoked the Sher- man Act to set a precedent.” The Apex decision set the calendar back 36 years, the editor states. Sinee the Apex decision, numerous unions have been sued, all under the Sherman anti-trust law. Senator Wagner pointed out in his testi mony recently that he was unable to recall “any treble damage judgment against any industry in recent years comparable to the Apex hosiery judgment.” * THE EIGHT-AND-ONE-HALF MONTH strike of the Retail Department Store Employees Union (A. F. of L.) against the Kress and Newberry stores—the long est strike in San Franciseo’s history has been settled with a complete victory for the union. The 190 strikers won five-and-one-half-day week, two 15-min ute rest periods daily, vacation, and a 21-dollar weekly minimum. Tom Mooney gave $5.00 to the strike upon his releas from prison, - A NEW KIND OF COOPERATION BE- tween manufacturers and an interna tional labor union has been launched by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and various men’s clothing manufacturers in- eluding Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Eagle Clothes of New York, and S. Makransky & Company of Philadelphia. President Sidney Hillman has invited the clothing industry, which is 95-per-eent unionized, to send its technical and production ex- perts to the A. C. W. offices in New York City where they will work with union experts in determining labor costs. The union has already surveyed labor costs in all sections of the country. FOUR THOUSAND FURNITURE workers and sympathizers picketed the Spring Products Corporation in New York City in protest over the company’s refusal to negotiate with 376 Negro members of the United Furniture Workers (C. I. O.), who have been on strike eight months. Workers in 250 shops throughout the city reported an hour late to work in order to attend the demonstration at 7 A. M. Among those on the picket line were Secretary James B. Carey of the C. I. O., President A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (A. F. of L.), President Morris Muster of the U. F. W., and Business Agent Pierce H. Dieman of Local 108, Furniture Work ers Union (A, F. of L.). The company, which has refused to re new its contract on a closed-shop basis on the grounds that the Negro employees would loaf if they enjoyed closed shop security, has hired 300 Negro seabs to re place the strikers. o THE TOBACCO WORKERS INTERNA- tional Union (A. F. of L.) won a “99.99-per cent” closed shop in an eight- day strike against the Liggett & Meyers Company at Richmond, Va. The strike was the first called in 39 years by the T. W. I. U. and more than 1,050 mem bers took part in it. Increases of two, three, and four cents an hour were won by many workers. * SENATORS LA FOLLETTE OF WIS- econsin and Thomas of Utah, who to gether have formed the Civil Liberties Committee, have introduced jointly a bill to eliminate “oppressive labor practices,” meaning the spying, bribing, slugging and maintaining private armies and arsenals which the committee hearings have shown. Their joint statement on behalf of the bill begins: “This bill is several decades overdue. On complaints made, and on the finding of past Governmental investigations in the last 40 years, such a bill should have been introduced long ago. Similar recom mendations have been made, but nothing has been done.’ THE AMERICAN TEACHER THE CONTRIBUTORS CHARLES A. BEARD is an historian and well-known author. Most recent of his books, written with Mary R. Beard, is America in Midpassage. JouN J. DEBOER is assistant editor of the English Journal and teaches at Chieago Teachers College. DoroTHY DOUGLAS, a member of Local 230 of the American Federation of Teachers, teaches at Smith College. Pau R. HANNA is in the School of Education at Stanford Uni versity and is a member of Local 442. Ropert H. JACKSON is solicitor general of the United States. MATTHEW JOSEPHSON is author of The Robber Barons and other books. KATHARINE F. Department of Labor at Washington. LENROOT is chief of the Children’s Bureau in the JoHN LOVELL, JR. is a member of the English Department at Howard University and of Local 440. MaLcoLM 8. MacLean is director of General College at the University of Minnesota and an honorary member of the Teachers’ Union. His latest book is Workers, Scholars, and Gentlemen. ERIKA MANN, daughter of Thomas Mann, has just written Escape to Life in collaboration with her brother. LAWRENCE MARTIN, who has done a good deal of free-lance writ- ing, teaches at Northwestern University and is a member of Local 460. FRANK MurpPHy is the newly appointed attorney general of the United States. \LonNzo F. Myers is in the Department of Education at New York University and is a member of Loeal 537. LAVEN PERKINS teaches at the University of Chicago and belongs to Loeal 259. JOSEPHINE ROCHE is chairman of the Interdepartmental Committes to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities in Washington. E. E. SCHWARZTRAUBER is direetor of the School for Workers at the University of Wisconsin and a member of Loeal 228. Nancy Lea Smiru is a former vice president of the American Federation of Teachers and is now a member of Loeal 246. GoopwIN Watson is at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a member of Local 537. JOHN Wooprvurr is secretary-treasurer of Local 579 and teaches in the public schools of Goose Creek, Texas. Cw The AMERICAN TEACHER Official Organ of THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 506 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois Organized April 15, 1916 Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor Editor, GrorGe T. GUERNSEY Consulting Editor, Kermit Esy Editorial Board Mercepes L. NELSON InvIN R. KUENZLI Mary J. HERRICK GrorGE E. AXTELLE Secretary-Treasurer Irvin R. KUENZLI President JEROME Davis A Request from the Editor Dear Fellow Members: Before we make plans for the AMERICAN TEACHER for next year, we are anxious to know how you like the magazine. Is it the sort of reading that you want? Does it fill your needs? Won’t you sit down right now while you are thinking about it and write us your comments and criti- cisms—so that we can give you exactly the kind of a magazine that you want next year. Some of the things you might tell us are: Do you like the newspaper? Want more newspapers? Are there any people in your Union who could and would write articles or book re- views for us? Have you specific suggestions for articles that you would like to see written? Par- ticular problems you would like discussed? We are grateful for the coopera-— tion that our correspondents in each local have shown and the help they have given us. But we also want to hear from all of you who are interested in trying to make the AMERICAN TEACHER the outstand— ing magazine in its field. Fraternally yours, George T. Guernsey, Editor In order that the AMERICAN TEACHER may serve as @ medium for the discussion of the educational problems of today, the contributors are not necessarily expressing the policies of the American Federation of Teachers. MAY, 1939 39 A. L. A. Books for Teachers @ EXPERIMENTING TOGETHER—THE LIBRARIAN AND THE TEACHER OF ENGLISH by Frieda M. Heller and Lou L. LaBrant Describes teacher-librarian-pupil participation in progressive Ohio University high school. 84p. 75c. @ Activity Book FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIES by Lucile F. Fargo ‘...a galaxy of ideas for assembly programs, for the stimulation of reading, for games, contests, drills, for publicity .. .”” 219p. Cloth, $2.50. @ SuByect INDEX TO HIGH SCHOOL FICTION by Jeanne Van Nostrand or Answers question: ‘‘What’s a good book on... Describes 500 novels under 270 subjects for junior and senior high school age. 67p. 75c. @ VOCATIONS IN FICTION by Mary R. Lingenfelter Provides counselors with descriptions of 463 novels representing 102 occupations of interest to students. 100p. Cloth, $1.25. @ VOCATIONS IN SHORT STORIES by Vera E. Morgan Brief notes indicate vocational significance of short stories in 144 collections, indexed under 133 occu- pations. 47p. 50c. Write for School Activities and the Library, 8-page list of A.L.A. publications, sent free upon request. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 520 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois WITHOUT MACHINERY PAUL HANNA GLADYS POTTER WM. S. GRAY By presenting five contemporary communities where primitive adjustment technics still pre- vail and machines play almost no part, this new book opens the eyes of boys and girls to the place of machines in our own technological world. WITHOUT MACHINERY is planned for third- or fourth-grade pupils and is a com- panion volume to Centerville, which received such wide acclaim as a “‘Child’s Middletown” last fall. Other books in this program for helping the child interpret his own social scene are: PETER'S FAMILY, PRIMER DAVID'S FRIENDS AT SCHOOL, BOOK | SUSAN'S NEIGHBORS AT WORK, BOOK II CENTERVILLE, BOOK III Send for Sample Pages. Scott. Foresman and Company Chicago Atlanta Dallas New York | A. SUMMER'S READING PROGRAM Reprinted from the American TeacHer, May, 1939 — Goodwin Watson — Paul R. Hanna John J. DeBoer Malcolm S. MacLean | _ Study with Social Significance by GooDWIN WatTSON of Teachers College, Columbia University | Problems in Elementary Education by Paut R. Hanna of the School of Edu cation at Stanford University Please send me copies of ‘‘ A Summer’s Reading Program’’ for distribution at | School. | Please mail immediately to the Name American Teacher, 506 South Address Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois. City State et W hat’s New in Secondary Education by Joun J. DeBoer, assistant editor of the | English Journal Browsing through General Education by Matcotm 8S. MacLean, director of Gen- eral College at the University of Minnesota Ba