EDUCATION ROOM UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LIBRA THE AMERICAN T EAC Hi E R January, 1940 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS Not like the brazen giant of Greek ay GP aes ay le ag ERR RB YVith conquering limbs astride from land to land rere at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with g torch, whose flame ils the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles, From her-beacon-hanc ase scatectaggy . Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes comma th silent | ‘Give me your be oe tl ener — ay: mas Tdaliale MioM +)c-te sad + a eg . etched fetuses Saou lena nO shore d-these, the hom less, the fempx st-tost to me, Inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE JOHN STUDEBAKER FAY-COOPER COLE FRANZ BOAS MARTIN JENKINS JENNY MAYER JAMES YARD ANNETTE SMITH l. KEITH TYLER ALICE KELIHER CLARA ROE ABRAHAM TAUBER W. A. HUNTON DOXEY WILKERSON EVELYN SHOLUND LILLIAN HERSTEIN FREDERICK REDEFER NEWTON EDWARDS Inside the Cover THE FOLLOWING MATERIALS will be helpful to those teachers who would like more sources on the subject of racial equality and tolerance. (Also note the various ads in this issue.) A post card to the publishers of these materials will bring you a fuller descrip- tion of them and, in some cases, sample copies. Other valuable materials are mentioned elsewhere in this issue. Members of the Los Angeles City Col- lege: Propaganda!—The War for Men’s Minds. Los Angeles: Los Angeles City College Press. 103 pages. 1939. 50 cents. National Conference of Christian and Jews: Citizenship and Religion. Vir- ginia: Religion—A Digest. 96 pages. (November) 1939. Equality. New York: Equality Pub- lishers, Inc. 1939. $1.50 per year. New York Chapter of American Com- mittee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom: Manifesto on Freedom of Science and Manifesto of Educators. New York: American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom. 8 pages. 1939. National Association for the Advance- ment of Colored People: Racial In- equalities in Education. New York: Na- tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 24 pages. 1938. Conference on Education and Race Relations: Education for Southern Citi- RACE and Other Kindred Delusions By Dr. M. F. Ashley-Montagu He is foolish who supposes That one can argue about noses. The scientific facts for teachers in a 16-page illustrated pamphlet SEND FOR SAMPLE COPY TEN OR MORE, 3c EACH Write to EQUALITY Magazine 220 Fifth Ave. New York City zenship. 8 pages. 1939; America’s Tenth Man. 16 pages. 1939. 100 copies, $1.50; Songs of the South. 18 pages. 10 cents per copy. $1.00 per dozen; Population Problems in the South. 18 pages. 1938. 30 cents per dozen. $2.00 per hundred; Singers in the Dawn. 26 pages. 1939. 10 cents per copy. $1.00 per dozen; College Courses in Race Relations. 8 pages. 1939. Atlanta: Conference on Education and Race Relations. American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom: The Genetic Basis for Democracy. New York: American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom. 16 pages. 1939. We Americans. Boston: The Atlantic Monthly. 1939. 25 cents. National Youth Administration of Illi- nois: Books by or about the Negro. Tennessee: State Department of Educa- tion. 20 pages. 1935. Calling America, A Special Number of Survey Graphic. New York: Survey Associates. 28: 54-192. (February) 1939. 50 cents. Ralph J. Bunche: A World View of Race. Washington: Associates in Negro Folk Education. 25 cents per copy. M. F. Ashley-Montagu: Race. York: Equality Publishers, Inc. Herbert J. Seligmann: Race Against Man. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 248 pages. $2.75. American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom: Name Them? New York: American Committee for Democracy and Intel- lectual Freedom. 10 cents. Service Bureau for Intercultural Edu- cation: Intercultural Education News. New York: Service Bureau for Inter- cultural Education, 300 Fourth Avenue. Bureau of Educational Research in Science: Suggestions for Teaching Se- lected Material from the Field of Genet- ics. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. 66 pages. 1939. 50 cents per copy. American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom: Races in a Democracy. Thirty-minute radio script. New York: American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom. 15 cents per copy. Office of Education: Americans All— Immigrants All. Twenty-four radio scripts adapted for classroom use. Wash- ington: Office of Education. Montagu and Hooton: Should We Ignore Racial Differences? New York: New Can You ° The Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St. 10 cents per copy. Teaching Biologist. Anthropology is- sue. (November) 1939. Louis Adamic: America and the Refu- gees. New York: Public Affairs Com- mittee. 10 cents per copy. * TEACHERS INTERESTED IN MA- terials on consumer education will find the proceedings of the Conference on Consumer Education held recently at Stephens College helpful. I think it costs $1.00. Other cheaper materials are as follows: U. S. Department of Agriculture: The Farmer’s Share of the Consumer’s Food Dollar. Washington: U. S. Gov- ernment Printing Office. 6 pages. 1939. 5 cents. Consumers’ Counsel Division: Mate- rials for Consumer Education. Washing- ton: Agricultural Adjustment Adminis- tration. 22 pages. 1939. Institute for Consumer Education: The Consumer Problems Course. Colum- bia: Institute for Consumer Education. (November) 1939. 30 cents. * IF YOU DON’T ORDER ANYTHING else recommended in the column send 10 cents to the U. S. Government print- ing office for a copy of “The Consumer Spends His Money.” This pamphlet, published by the National Resources Committee, is a summary of two of its studies, “Consumers’ Incomes in the United States,’ and “Consumers’ Ex- penditures in the United States,” both dealing with the period 1935-36. The report shows that the 13,000,000 families and individuals with incomes under $780 had $6,000,000,000 of income but spent $7,000,000,000, yoing into hock for the other $1,000,000,000. Each extra dollar these families get goes into consumption at once. In the case of the next one-third of the nation incomes barely meet outgo. The “middle class” with incomes of from $780 to $1,450 received $14,000,000,000 and spent aver $14,000,000,000. Many of these families had deficits in their budgets. The lower two-thirds thus spend every cent they receive and some that they haven’t got. But the upper third shows a slightly different story. Though they spend $29,000,000,000, this upper third saves $10,000,000,000. Families with incomes of more than $15,000 spend less than 40 per cent of their incomes in consumer channels. -Other pamphlets summarizing the work of the Resources Committee are as follows: National Resources Committee: The Northern Lakes States Region. 38 pages. 1939; National Resources Planning (Continued on page 38) THE AMERICAN TEACHER Vol. XXIV, No. 5 John W. Studebaker 5 Julius Bloch 6 Fay-Ceoper Cole 8 Franz Boas 11 Martin D. Jenkins 12 Annette Smith 13 Jenny L. Mayer 16 James M. Yard 18 Carl Sandburg 20 I. Keith Tyler 22 Alice V. Keliher 25 Clara G. Roe 28 JANUARY, 1940 AMERICANS ALL LITHOGRAPH AN ANTHROPOLOGIST’S VIEW OF RACE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOLS RACIAL DIFFERENCES AND INTELLIGENCE LET’S TACKLE THE RACE QUESTION DEVELOPING ATTITUDES OF TOLERANCE TEACHING GOOD WILL SELECTIONS FROM “THE PEOPLE, YES” INTOLERANCE BY RADIO MOVIES AND TOLERANCE SHOULD MARRIED WOMEN WORK ? EXECUTIVE COUNCIL RESOLUTION ON DIES COMMITTEE 35 DEPARTMENTS INSIDE THE COVER G.T.G. 2 EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS 3 THE PRESIDENT’S PAGE: PERPETUAL EXCLUSION OF NEGROES FROM DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS George S. Counts 7 AMONG THE NEW BOOKS: AN AMERICAN ANSWER TO INTOLERANCE Abraham Tauber 30 FIVE NORTH CAROLINA NEGRO EDUCATORS Doxey A. Wilkerson 30 Evelyn Sholund 31 W. A. Hunton 31 YOU AND HEREDITY AMERICAN CASTE AND THE NEGRO COLLEGE DICTATORSHIP IN THE MODERN WORLD JUGGERNAUT: THE PATH OF DICTATORSHIP Lillian Herstein 32 A CHARTER FOR PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION Frederick L. Redefer 33 PEOPLE: THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF POPULATION Newton Edwards 33 THE TEACHERS UNION IN ACTION 34 THE CONTRIBUTORS 39 Member of Educational Press Association Drawings by Chandler Montgomery THE EDITORS of the AMericaAn TEACHER request that no mate- rial be reprinted from this magazine without an accompanying credit line stating the source and the issue in which such material appeared. GEORGE T. GUERNSEY, Editor ENTERED as second class matter January 3, 1939, at the post office at Chicago, Illinois, under the act of March 3, 1879. Accept- ance 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 AEB. 43, “Tabor and Education” Available Copies of Labor and Education which was prepared by the Permanent Committee on Education of the American Federation of Labor are now available for the AFT membership. Single copies will sell for twenty-five cents. In lots of ten or more the price is fifteen cents. Orders for the booklet should be sent to the national office. A few free copies are yet available. These will be sent to libraries and teachers’ clubs. Members wishing to have copies sent to special libraries or groups of teachers for organizational purposes may do so by writing to Secre- tary-Treasurer Kuenzli. Executive Council Meets The February issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER will carry a complete report of the meeting of the Executive Council in Chicago, December 28-30. Several amend- ments to the AFT constitution were adopted and are or express money orders, draft, stamps, or check. JANUARY, 1940 THE AMERICAN TEACHER Published by The American Federation of Teachers AFFILIATED WITH THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR being submitted to the Locals for ratification. These are printed on page 34 of this issue. On page 35 of this issue appears the resolution adopted without a dissenting vote by the Executive Council which urges that the Dies Com- mittee be given no more funds. Printed copies of this resolution may be secured from the national office. The Council urged that AFT Locals present this resolution to their state federations and central labor unions for adop- tion. The national convention of the AFT will be held at the Hotel Statler, Buffalo, N. Y., from August 19 to August 24. Kenosha Fights Salary Cuts In spite of the fact that we may seem to be crying “Wolf, Wolf,” our lead editorial is again devoted to pro- posed salary cuts, this time in Kenosha, Wis. Union rep- resentatives state that there is some question as to whether the city budget needed to be cut but that, nevertheless, the City Council has voted a salary reduction for all city employees ranging from 5 per cent on $1,500 to 24.2 per cent on $7,280, the city manager’s salary. While the school board of Kenosha has accepted, over the protests of its labor representatives, a budget cut of $86,000, it has not as yet voted the salary cuts suggested by the City Council. For the first time in the city’s history, the Police and Fire Commission has voted to cut the salaries of its employees —4 per cent on $1,700 to 11 per cent on $4,000. The Library Board and the Vocational School Board have taken no action as yet but probaby will cut salaries. The struggle to cut the wages of the city employees began last May at the insistence of the local Chamber of Com- merce, the real estate groups and the large industrialists. Workers in Kenosha, a strong labor town with a unified labor movement, opposed these cuts, well understanding that their salaries would be next. Leading in the fight against the cut is the Joint Board of City Workers which is made up of representatives from the following unions: the AFT, city-hall employees, fire fighters, the police, the school janitors and the truck drivers. Apparently the Chamber of Commerce forces in Kenosha do not feel that the fight is as yet won as an ad from a group calling itself the Kenosha Taxpayers recently appeared in the Kenosha Evening News, urging taxpayers to delay payment of their taxes until July, 1940. According to the ad, this was made possible by the State Legislature in 1939. The Kenosha Taxpayers also pointed out that they were organized ‘“‘to combat what we believe to be the influence of a minority group of city employees in their efforts to maintain in many cases 1929 salary schedules. This taxpayers group has as its sole aim and object the restoration of the city of Kenosha to a sound financial basis.” A secret caucus of various town officials and Chamber of Commerce members was held recently. In the mean- time George Anderson, school commissioner, has revised the City Council’s plan for wage cuts so that salaries under $1,425, exempted under the council’s plan, would be cut, thereby allowing savings for those in the top brackets whose cut would be lessened. A few comparisons between the two plans show the following: Salary Council Plan Anderson Plan NS A tle doin te None....... $ 25.50 De so wd ol $ 147.00..... 99.00 ia Ee ie 432.00..... 416.00 ae 1,766.86..... 1,004.80 No plan has been adopted by the School Board. Toledo Opens Its Schools In Toledo the schools have been reopened, and the administration has submitted four tentative plans for consideration of employees, only one of which does not contemplate pay cuts or the elimination of school services which would ultimately mean the reduction of personnel. Those tentatively suggested have been kindergartens, su- pervision, health service, revision of sick leave, cutting down on pay for substitutes (already in effect), art, home economics, industrial arts, and music. The worst plan presented calls for 63 per cent of the basic pay and the best calls for 80 per cent of the basic pay with the proviso, however, that $360,000 of educa- tional services be eliminated beginning September, 1941. In the meantime, the Teachers Union and the organ- ized workers of Toledo have been active. The Toledo Central Labor Union on December 21, 1939, passed a resolution informing the Board of Education and the public that it stood for no reduction in pay to the edu- cational and non-educational workers and for no curtail- ment of school curriculum. Committees of five delegates from the Teachers Union, the school custodians’ union, the school engineers’ union, and the school firemen’s union, headed and sponsored by the Executive Board of the Toledo Central Labor Union, met to reaffirm the stand against salary reductions and the curtailment of services. As a result the Toledo Cen- tral Labor Union has worked with the Board of Education in an attempt to solve the present problem which con- fronts education in Toledo and in the entire country. The Board of Education has been cooperating with la- bor and has promised to do nothing without deliberating with the union organizations which represent all groups of employees. At present the C.L.U. is working on a plan for submit- ting a school levy at a special election and expects to enlist all the forces in the city which believe in the proper education of the boys and girls of Toledo. Labor realizes that if the educational workers are cut, this reduction of wages ultimately means a cut in the pay of other public servants and of the toilers in private industry. It realizes that reduced wages mean a loss in purchasing power, a re- duction in business and further unemployment in America. The Citizens Tax League of Ohio is auditing the books of the Board of Education and will soon make its report public. While this is perfectly right and proper and the privilege of any citizen or group, the Toledo Federation of Teachers insists that they shoud contemplate no sur- vey of the curriculum or personnel since that is the work of another profession of specialists—namely, teachers. Four plans for wiping out the deficit of $600,353 as of the end of the year have been proposed by the Board of Education, but the Toledo Central Labor Union feels that the debt should be funded so that there are no reduc- tions in pay and no scuttling of the program or services. Can You Spare a Dime? The national office of the AFT is mailing “dime greet- ing” cards for President Roosevelt’s Birthday Party to all AFT Locals. This is being done in cooperation with the Labor Division of the Committee for the Celebra- tion of the President’s Birthday in this year’s campaign against infantile paralysis. Both Secretary-Treasurer I. R. Kuenzli and President George S. Counts are members of the AFL Committee. In Atlanta, Ga., Ira Jarrell, president of Local 89, is heading the drive for the central labor body. Plan Drive for School Funds Cleveland teachers have been assured by Clerk-Treasurer Karl K. Morris of the Cleveland Board of Education that if the $1,000,000 1939 deficit is financed, the Board can balance its 1940 budget without resorting to pay reductions for any of its employees. Mr. Morris recommended that this deficit be financed in one of the following ways: (1) an operating levy of one mill for one year, or a one-half mill levy for two years, and (2) the issuance of delinquent tax bonds for the amount of the deficit. The Board, however, has taken no definite action on either of these proposals. However, it is the recom- mendation of Mr. Morris that delinquent tax bonds be issued. While these bonds require a 65 per cent majority, they will not raise the local tax rates. (Continued on page 39) THE AMERICAN TEACHER Americans ALL John W. Studebaker UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION THIS COUNTRY accepted from the start the conviction that men could come from the four corners of the earth and if they lived here and believed in law and freedom, they could actually become Americans. We did not say that any man was barred from full citizenship or the full enjoyment of being an American by reason of his race, religion or land of birth. We believed that men of diverse inheri- tances could become Americans, and that belief has been justified. By that faith America was made . by giving to every man the right to share fully in American life . . . by giving to each the privilege of sharing in the genius of all. ‘The whole process of making America was a cooperative effort in which all were needed. “Send more men . . . send families . . . send settlers . . . send pioneers . . . send laborers!”” These cries were definite and constant during more than a century of our history, and those who answered—your ancestors and mine—came because the country asked them to come. For generations the United States was the proving-ground of the democratic form of govern- ment. So to this country came those who loved liberty, those who had suffered oppression. As they came to our Eastern shore, those who had come before moved inland toward the West. Presently the newcomers went directly to take up homesteads in the Mississippi Valley, and the two streams of migration and immigration finally met on the Pacific Coast. The great significance of these unprecedented migrations is that these millions struggled to reach America, lived in hardship before they established themselves and raised their children to a freer life than they had ever known. And by their lives they helped to make America. Their labor built our highways and railroads and cities: they raised our cattle and wheat and produce; and, at the same time, they went to school, became citizens, voted, learned the essentials of democratic government. Without their contributions, American democracy would have been impossible. With them, it was inevitable that we have a democratic way of life. JANUARY, 1940 Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Survey Graphic. Lithograph by JuLrus BLocu The President's Page Perpetual Exclusion of Negroes from Democratic Rights This great contrast has often afforded me subjects of the most afflicting meditation. On the one side, behold a people enjoying all that life affords most bewitching and pleasur- able, without labour, without fatigue, hardly subjected to the trouble of wishing. With gold, dug from Peruvian mountains, they order vessels to the coasts of Guinea; by virtue of the gold, wars, murders and devastations are committed in some harmless, peaceable African neighbour- hood, where dwelt innocent people, who even knew not but that all men were black. The daughter torn from her weeping mother, the child from the wretched parents, the wife from the loving husband; whole families swept away and brought through storms and tempests to this rich metropolis! There, arranged like horses at a fair, they are branded like cattle, and then driven to toil, to starve, and to languish for a few years on the different planta- tions of these citizens. And for whom must they work? For persons they know not, and who have no other power over them than that of violence; no other right than what this accursed metal has given them! Strange order of things! Oh, Nature, where art thou?—Are not these blacks thy children as well as we? On the other side, nothing is to be seen but the most diffusive misery and wretchedness, unrelieved even in thought or wish! Day after day they drudge on without any prospect of ever reaping for them- selves; they are obliged to devote their lives, their limbs, their will and every vital exertion to swell the wealth of masters. . . . Kindness and affection are not the portion of those who till the earth, who carry the burdens, who convert the logs into useful boards.—J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, French traveller and settler. 1764-1776. To a person who has not been an eye-witness to such scenes (brutal treatment of Negroes), it may appear incredible that transactions of so atrocious nature could occur under a form of government like that of the United States—Robert Sutcliff, English merchant and traveller. 1804-1811. Oppression has, at one stroke, deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the privileges of humanity. The Negro of the United States has lost even the remem- brance of his country; the language which his forefathers spoke is never heard around him; he abjured their religion and forgot their customs when he ceased to belong to Africa, without acquiring any claim to European privi- leges. But he remains half -way between the two communi- JANUARY, 1940 ties, isolated between two races; sold by the one, repulsed by the other; finding not a spot in the universe to call by the name of country, except the faint image of a home which the shelter of his master’s roof affords—Alexis de Tocqueville, author of most profound study of Ameri- can democracy. 1831. Nothing in the United States has surprised me so much as the general tone of the public mind and the press on the subject of slavery. The institutions of America profess to be based on justice, and certainly an all-pervading justice is indispensable to their permanence and success; yet the most cruel injustice is perpetrated on the Negro race, and defended, as if it were justice, by persons whose character and intelligence render them in every other respect amiable and estimable. This is a canker in the moral constitution of the country, that must produce evil continually until it is removed.—George Combe, noted Scotch scholar and lecturer. 1838-1840. I do not suggest that there is any present political danger to the Republic, or even to any particular Southern State, from the phenomena here described. But the evil of these things is to be measured not merely by any such menace to political stability as they may involve, but also by the diminution of happiness which they cause, by the passions hurtful to moral progress they perpetuate, by the spirit of lawlessness they evoke, by the contempt for the rights of man as man which they engender. In a world already so full of strife and sorrow it is grievous to see added to the other fountains of bitterness a scorn of the strong for the weak, and a dread by the weak of the strong, grounded on no antagonism of interests, for each needs the other, but solely on a difference in race and colour.—James Bryce, distinguished student of American institutions. 1888. Against such oppression, which at times amounts to persecution, the black man is helpless. He has no political representation and has no way of airing his grievances. Also it is difficult for him to obtain justice, for the two races are by no means on an equal footing in the courts. The statements of the whites are always accepted until they are proved to be false, but a coloured man must pro- duce ten times as much evidence. Where the colour question is concerned, the white race has lost all sense of justice. Everything is permissible, even crime. Religion has no restraining influence, for the churches are divided into black and white. No matter which way we turn in the North or the South, there seems to be no solution. The colour problem is an 7 abyss into which we can look only with terror.—André Siegfried, noted French scholar and traveller. 1927. ——- * What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprison- ment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and, the next moment, be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.—Thomas Jefferson. 1786. GeorcE S. Counts An Anthropologist’s View of Race Fay-Cooper Cole PROBABLY NO word in the English language is of greater importance, yet none is used more loosely than the word race. Following the World War a noted society published “A New Racial Map of Europe,” yet it had nothing to do with race. It was a new national map of Europe. Some time ago a leading magazine contained an article in which the writer spoke of a French race, an Aryan race and a Jewish race. Yet in each case he was wrong. There is no French race. France is a nationality made up primarily of three races—Mediterranean, Alpine and Nordic. There is no Aryan race. The term Aryan is purely linguistic and refers to all people speaking Aryan or Indo-European languages. It thus includes Russians, Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Hindus and some of the least advanced of the hill tribes of India. There is no Jewish race. The Jews once formed a nationality and now constitute a religious caste, but they are not a race. Apparently the early Jewish people were predominantly of Mediterranean type. Following the dispersal, some spread across North Africa where they succeeded in converting many of the Berber tribesmen to their faith. These became known as Jews, but there was no change in physical type since most of the converts were also of Mediterranean race. Others spread north- ward to the region of the Aral and Caspian seas where they made many converts. Today, in that area, the “Jews” are primarily of the physical type called Armenoid. Still others carried their proselyting campaign into the region between the Baltic and Caspian seas where the Kazars—a people of Alpine race—had developed a powerful state which controlled the commerce of the area. Many converts were made and finally in the year 740 A. D. the Kazars officially accepted the Jewish faith. A century later their power was broken by the incoming Slavic-speaking peoples and they were scattered over Europe as Jews, despite the fact that they were of Alpine race and that few of them had any relationship to the early Jewish peoples. It is, of course, a matter of history that there were until recently Chinese Jews, and despite statements to the contrary, there are today many Nordic Jews. I think it is clear that if we can use the term race to mean, at one moment, a physical type, next a nationality, next a language division and at another time a religious grouping, we can prove anything good or bad about any people. When the anthropologist uses the term race, he means “a group of people who have in common certain physical characteristics which mark them off from all other group- ings of mankind. This implies that they, at one time, lived in the same or adjacent territory, and that they have a common ancestry.” When we define race in this way, it is as if we had spread all mankind out before us. We set one group aside and call it “A” because its members are very much like each other and because they differ from all others. Another group is set aside and called “B” for the same reasons, and so we go on until we have placed all the people of the world into large groupings. This is all that is meant by race. It is purely a biological grouping. The term has its origin in biology and never should be used in any other sense. Racial characters are carried by the germ plasm, but language, religion and nationality are individually acquired. But the moment we define race in this manner special pleaders appear and say, “Certainly there are races and some races are superior to others in physical type, in mental characters, in their ability to achieve and carry on civilization.” Others argue for the necessity of keeping the races pure. They tell us that race mixture is equivalent to race suicide, that mixed races become sterile after the fifth generation. They assure us that children of mixed marriages inherit all of the worst characters of both parental groups and they warn that the intermarriage of diverse races may produce monsters. As an example of the latter, they argue that the offspring of a tiny Laplander with a huge Swede might result in an individual with the stature of the Swede but with the small heart, liver and lungs of a Lapp. In direct opposition to these claims we have eminent THE AMERICAN TEACHER biologists, like Castle, who have shown that such organs as liver and lungs are never inherited independently of bodily size. They have proved by carefully controlled experiments that race mixture does not result in sterility, but that on the contrary, hybrid groups may be even more fertile than pure strains. Despite their argument for the inheritance of the worst characters, we find our special pleaders claiming that the mulatto excels the pure Negro becauses he possesses White blood. But the special pleading is not all on the part of those who believe in superior and inferior races. There are those who claim that race mixture results in hybrid vigor and that this means not only greater fertility, but is followed by cultural advance. Let us examine this claim for a moment. I believe that you will search history and archaeology in vain for a people anywhere, anytime, which advanced far toward civilization in isolation. Isolated people are always static. You must have contacts to break through the barriers of custom, or advance will be slow or lacking. Change and advance come as the result of contacts made through trade, intermarriage, even war. But contacts mean the meeting and mating of diverse peoples. Apparently, then, advance is, not dependent solely on the melting pot, or on racial purity. Still other claims are made for innate characters of race, that certain races are more fit to develop and carry on civilization, that present leadership proves superior fitness. We shall note these claims later. Now I wish to take a few moments to discuss the physical aspects of race. At the outset I call your attention to the fact that the similarities between all existing human beings are much greater than the differences. We magnify the differences. When we compare the tiny, black pygmy of the Congo with the big blond Swede, they seem very different; yet bone for bone, organ for organ they are very similar. Indeed they are so much alike that a surgeon who never before had seen a pygmy might operate with the full assurance that each organ would lie in approximately the same place as in northern Europeans. By every test all existing human beings are of the same species—Homo sapiens. Such differences as do exist are of degree only; all existing races freely interbreed and their offspring are fertile. Let us come back to our original theme. Is race a fact? Without hesitation I answer yes. You need not be an anthropologist to realize that there are differences between people. Stand on a busy corner in any city in America and watch the crowd go by. One man passes and by the size of his frame, by the shape of his head and nose, by the color of his hair, skin and eyes you say, “He is a Caucasian—a northern European, probably a Nordic.” Another passes. He is shorter of stature, lighter of build, of darker complexion. Without hesitation you say, “He is also a Caucasian but he is probably a sduthern Euro- pean, probably a Mediterranean.” Still another appears and by the shape of his head, the color of his skin, the character of his hair, the flatness of his nose and the JANUARY, 1940 thickness of his lips you class him as Negroid. Finally, a man goes by who differs from the others in head form, in color of skin, in width of face and type of eye, and you say he is a Mongoloid. Such distinctions are obvious and you need not be a specialist to note them; but if you were a specialist you would make more exact observations. By an intricate system of measurements and by detailed observations you would be able to determine with considerable accuracy the race or race mixture represented by most of the passers-by. Race is even more indelibly stamped on the skeleton. I have not time to go into details, but let me call your attention to a few of the tests by which race can be determined from the skull. If we leave out of consideration for the moment the bones of the face, we find that the balance of the cranium is made up primarily of seven bones which serve as a covering for the brain. These bones meet along certain lines—or sutures—and they grow and develop as does the brain. It is a matter of observation that in that portion where the brain growth is most rapid and most marked, there the sutures or lines of union are most complex. Thus among the Caucasoids we find the frontal portion greatly developed and along with this the anterior or crown suture is most complex. In the Mongoloids we find great development in the area above the ears and with it corresponding complexity of the mid-line suture. In the Negroids, on the other hand, the posterior portion of the skull is most developed and we find the suture in that region of greater complexity. The shape of the head is also important. Most Caucasoid races have long, narrow and high heads; most Negroids have long, narrow and low heads; while most Mongoloids and the Alpine race of the Caucasoids have short, broad and high heads. Since we cannot go into detail for all the races, let us contrast a few traits of a typical northern European—that is a Nordic—with traits of a typical Guinea Coast Negro. We would expect the skull of the Nordic to be long, narrow and high with the crown suture most complex. We would expect the Negro to have a long, narrow, low head with the posterior suture most complex. The fore- head of the Nordic would be vaulted or dome-shaped, that of the Negro retreating. The root of the nose of the Nordic would be high and the nasal bones large and straight; in the Negro the root would be low and the nasal bones small and flattened or even concave. The nasal opening of the Nordic would be long and narrow, of the Negro short and wide. The nasal spine—to which the septum of the nose attaches—would be large and sharp in the Nordic but small and rounded in the Negro. On each side of the spine are the lower nasal margins. These in the Negro are rounded or trough-like but in the Nordic are definite and sharp. The face of the Negro would show considerable forward projection and the chin would be weak, but in the Nordic there would be little or no forward projection of the face and the chin would be strong. We might continue indefinitely in contrasting Negro and White, or in defining the characteristics of the Mon- goloid. Enough has been said to indicate that it is possible to show contrasting clusters of traits by which we separate mankind first into major divisions or stocks—Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid. Within these stocks are the races. Thus in the Caucasoid stock we find the Nordic, Mediter- ranean, Hindu and Alpine races. These races can at once be broken up into sub-races such as the Armenoid, Dinaric, East Baltic, and so on. There is much over- lapping of traits between the sub-races, between races, and even between stocks, but if we use a large number of traits it is possible to determine race or race mixture with a high degree of certainty. Here we should note that race mixture is very old and in some regions very thorough. This raises the question of what happens when diverse races mate. Do all the traits go together or does the offspring inherit a part from one parent and a part from another? We have already said that race is defined by a cluster of traits which tend to hold together in a relatively pure grouping. When race mixture occurs part of these traits appear to blend in the first generation, but in succeeding generations they begin to segregate out and not always in their original associations. Thus in a Negro-White cross of the second generation you may get a mulatto with wavy hair, long thin nose and thin lips; or a mulatto with curly hair, broad flat nose and medium lips. But continued mating of mixed bloods will result ultimately in a part of the traits appearing in their pure form, while others may appear as blends for several generations. A mixture of Nordic with Mediterranean may produce a person with fair complexion but with dark hair and eyes, or he may have the dark skin color of a southern Italian combined with the blue eyes of a Scandinavian. A second question arises: “Why, if we are all of one species, are the races so different?” We are all aware that variations are constantly occurring in all forms of life. These are usually slight but sometimes are considerable. If these variations are purely individual they are of no significance in race change, bui if they are inherited from one generation to another, they are of great importance. These inheritable variations are called mutations, and are known as dominants or recessives according to the per- centage of offspring in which they occur. The exact cause of mutations is not fully understood but it is a matter of observation that when the environment is changed these inheritable variations are often accelerated. If the new characters are favorable they may help their possessors to survive in times of stress; if they are unfavorable they may lead to extinction. Archaeology tells us that toward the end of the last glaciation mankind was thinly spread across Eurasia, in small hunting and seed-gathering groups. In these small bands mutations, or inheritable variations, had a much greater chance of becoming established than they would in our large and mobile population. The rigors of this early life also tended to weed out the less fit, and thus 10 physical types could and evidently did become estab- lished. We can answer our question by saying that the chief causes for racial differences are “mutations, isolation so that inbreeding occurs, and the effects of natural selection in removing the less fit.” A hypothetical case may help to explain. Apparently man must have a considerable amount of pigmentation in order to survive under conditions of tropical light. During the summer months many of us, with white skin, go in swimming. At first we tend to burn but our systems attempt to remedy this by providing coloring matter between the layers of the skin, and we take on a coat of tan. The same thing occurs when we go to the tropics; either we acquire a protective coating of tan or we are forced to leave. However, this protective coloring is furnished at consider- able strain on the system and if long continued may lead to unfavorable results. It is this lack of color which makes the White man unfit for a long-continued residence in the tropics. Now let us suppose that a relatively small Caucasian group of Mediterranean race starts to move southward toward tropical conditions. Individually its members will take on color, but at some strain on the organism. In the offspring of this group many mutations of all kinds will occur and among these will be some organs which allow for the easy delivery of color to the skin. Individuals having such mutations will be under less strain and, as others are slowly eliminated, they will more frequently mate. Thus in time the whole group will possess darker skin color through the appearance of inheritable variations within a small group and the working of natural selection. I have offered a hypothetical case, but we probably have an actual example in the Hindu of northern India, who in all but color is a typical Caucasian. If we speak of superior races in the purely physical sense, we must agree that the superior race is the one best adapted to survive under the conditions in which it is placed. Under such a definition the Negroes or Malays are superior to the Whites in tropical regions. But what of superior races and peoples so far as mental ability and civilization are concerned? I should like to turn to America and the Indian, for few if any of us here possess Indian blood and we can talk more objectively. The anthropologist tells us that the American Indian belongs to the Mongoloid stock and that he evidently entered America by way of Bering Straits and the Northwest. He did not come in a mass migration but filtered across in small bands through long periods of time. At the time of his entry he was in a low stage of cultural development, known as the early Neolithic. It appears that whatever advances he made toward civilization were accomplished by the Indian on American soil. Doubtless some race mixture had occurred before the Indians entered this continent, while under varying condi- tions and through inbreeding distinguishable types have become established. Nevertheless they are sufficiently alike to be classed together as the “American race.” THE AMERICAN TEACHER AT THE PRESENT time large groups of people are being persecuted under the pretense that by descent they are predetermined to socially noxious behavior, that they form a physically, mentally and socially inferior group. More than ever it becomes the duty of the schools in our country which believes in the tenet that all men are born with equal rights to make our youth understand the sources of racial prejudice and the error of the thesis that knowledge of the descent of a person is sufficient to judge of his individual qualities. Our American constitution is based on the con- cept that it is the individual who counts, that the state exists for the protection of his rights. The habit of identifying the individual with the class to which The Responsibility of the Schools he is supposed to belong is the fountain-head of prejudice, and it must be combatted in our schools. It has been proved again and again that the biological composition of so-called races is so varied that personalities of many distinct types are found among them, and that the expression of personality depends upon the cultural and social background in which the individual lives. It is the duty of the school to develop personality and to impress the student with the fact that racial descent does not determine behavior but that behavior depends only partly upon the biological character of the individual but much more on the culture in which he lives. FRANZ Boas As the Indian bands moved southward and inland they encountered diverse physical conditions and the adapta- tions they made to their environments led to the develop- ment of quite different cultures. Thus the Eskimo led a nomadic life based on the hunting of seal animals, but the Indians of California were more settled because of the great groves of acorn trees which grew wild and furnished an ample food supply. In the southwest the first inhabi- tants were hunters and seed gatherers but when the knowledge of domestic plants reached them from the south, they developed Pueblo community life based on agricul- ture. In Middle America the discovery of agriculture, coupled with a concentration of population and greater contacts, led to a rapid development of what may justly be called the civilizations of the Aztec, Toltec and Maya. Now let us apply all this to our problem. In the Plateau region, south of the Snake River, lived the Paiutes, a people speaking the Uto-Aztecan language. They were very low in culture, having no settled homes, few posses- sions, no agriculture and a very simple social organization. Their environment offered them little opportunity for more than a bare existence and they remained primitive hunters and seed gatherers. Some time in the past, certain of their kinsmen, people speaking the same language, moved southward and in the semi-arid regions of Arizona either participated in develop- ing or borrowed the advanced culture of the Pueblo Dwellers. Today six of the seven cities of the Hopi Indians still speak Uto-Aztecan. Still other members of this linguistic family moved into the Valley of Mexico where they met the civilized Toltec. From them they borrowed liberally and by the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, they had become the leaders in Mexico. Here we have people of one physical grouping and belonging to the same linguistic family ranging all the way from primitive Paiutes to the civilized Aztec. Let us transfer our attention for a moment to the Near JANUARY, 1940 East and to Europe. Had anyone asked the Pharaoh of 2500 B. C. if there were a superior people I have no doubt he would have answered, “Certainly, and we are it. On the basis of present accomplishment, on the basis of our art, architecture, religion and government we lead the world. The only people who can vie with us are those in the City State of the Euphrates.” But by 1500 B. C. Egypt had passed her zenith and Crete was leading the world. Had you then asked the Great Minoan ruler in Knossos, “Is there a superior people?” I am sure he would have replied, “Certainly and we are it.” And in terms of world leadership he would have been justified. By 500 B. C. Greece led the civilized world, but by the beginning of our era Rome was in the ascendancy. It is interesting and instructive to note that in the days of Cicero and Caesar the people of Central and Northern Europe were in a stage of cultural advancement not much if any superior to that of the Iroquois Indians at the time the Whites invaded their land. Indeed the Romans had very uncomplimentary things to say about our ancestors. “Poor, uncivilized, brutal savages who practice human sacrifice. No religion, no law. We must rule them for their own good and for our material gain.” If you don’t think they looked with pity and contempt upon the northerners, read again your Caesar. For fifteen hundred years our ancestors borrowed from the higher civilizations to the south; then suddenly they burst all bonds and became world leaders. If space permitted we could cite other cases—such as China and Japan—but these instances must suffice. A survey of the past shows us-that civilization is the product of many races and peoples through long periods of time. But we are apt to forget our debt to the past and claim all advances as our own, and 4ll virtues as belonging to our race. A noted writer has said, “Each race thinks itself superior. Each race is mistaken.” Racial Differences and Intelligence Martin D. Jenkins THE VERY FACT that the editorial board of the AMERICAN TEACHER has thought it desirable to devote an issue to the topic of race and the teaching of tolerance is a reflection of one of the major current problems with which American education is confronted. In spite of the fact that we give lip-service to democratic principles, it is true that there exists in the United States a great deal of racial prejudice and intolerance, and that the school is doing little to alleviate this condition. Indeed, it might be said that the school typically does more to promote than to prevent undemocratic procedures in racial relationships. This is unfortunate, but not espe- cially surprising, since the school does reflect in large measure the attitudes of its milieu, and, in some commu- nities, attitudes are such that the most wholesome (fron: the democratic point of view) types of racial relation- ships constitute prima facie evidence of “un-American- ism.” Analysis of the historical, sociological and psycholog- ical factors which underlie the prejudice which members of one racial group hold toward members of another racial group is outside the scope of this article. Rather, the writer proposes to summarize, in a very brief fashion, the evidence concerning the relative mental ability of one racial group—the American Negro. To what extent belief relative to the intelligence of a given racial group enters into the development of prejudice and discriminatory treatment against that group, the writer does not know. It is probable that this is a relatively minor factor, that such a belief is more often a rationalization of an already established attitude than a contributory cause in the development of an attitude. Nevertheless, it does appear that any in- structional program designed to modify the prevailing stereotype concerning the American Negro must include consideration of the hypothesis of racial difference in intelligence. Presumably, most of the persons who will read this article know something of the attempts which have been made to ascertain the relative intelligence of racial groups, especially whites and Negroes. Typically the procedure has been to administer standardized intelli- gence tests to contiguous groups of whites and Negroes and to generalize concerning the difference (if any) in the average scores made by the two groups. A varia- tion of this*approach consists in studying factors—such as variability, effect of changed environment, etc.— within groups of Negro subjects. Among the more important generalizations which may 12 be derived from these studies relative to the mental abil- ity of the American Negro are the following: When groups of Negroes and whites are selected from the same locality and from within comparable age and grade ranges, the Negro group makes a lower average test score than the white group with which it is compared. The degree of difference in average test scores appears to depend upon environmental conditions; the greatest disparity is found where the differences are greatest in educational facilities available, and in opportunity to par- ticipate in the cultural and economic life of the commu- nity. There are certain important exceptions to the gen- eralizations stated above, and it is significant that a Negro group in a locality which affords fairly adequate educa- tional facilities may score higher than a white group in a subcultural environment. These differences are to be expected, of course, since intelligence tests are highly charged with environmental content and do not consti- tute a valid measure of the ability of individuals whose experimental background is subnormal. Individual differences persist within the two groups; differences within the groups are greater than differences between the two groups. A composite of all the studies concerned with Negro-white comparisons reveals that there is a large amount of overlapping, i.e., in an appreciable proportion of the cases, the scores of Negro subjects exceed the score of the average white subject, and that the lower and upper I.Q. limits are approximately the same for white and Negro children, i.e., some Negro children are a$ dull as the dullest white children, and some Negro children are as intelligent as the most intelligent white children. An improvement in environment effects an improvement in the psychometric intelligence of Negro children. Studies have been reported which indicate that Negro children who move from a poor environment to a better one thereby significantly increase in I.Q. Further, the higher average I.Q.’s among Negro groups are found in those localities in which Negroes participate most adequately in the social environment. Negroes of superior intelligence, both in their incidence and in the extent of their deviation, occur normally in some populations. Gifted Negroes are to be found wherever the environment is propitious for their development. The writer has identified a child of Stanford-Binet I.Q. 200 and knows of perhaps a dozen other Negro children who test above I.Q. 160. These extreme deviates are of the greatest significance, since they indicate that Negroes are as variable as other racial groups and that Negro ancestry is not a limiting factor in psychometric intelligence. THE AMERICAN TEACHER The hypothesis of racial difference in intelligence has not been demonstrated; i appears probable that such a difference does not exist. Review of the recent literature reveals that it is difficult to find an American psychol- ogist, sociologist, or anthropologist who deems tenable the hypothesis of racial difference in intelligence. It is the con- sensus that racial difference in psychometric intelligence may be attributed to environmental rather than to innate factors. In view of the fact that the prevailing attitudes toward minority groups in the United States are inconsistent with democratic principles, it would appear that the school, if it is to attain its professed objectives, must attempt to modify these attitudes. If pupils and teachers in Ameri- can schools are to develop a really democratic point of view with respect to racial relationships, they must first rid themselves of the racial stereotypes which they tend to absorb from their culture. It is at this point that the school must function. In spite of the fact that racial attitudes are highly emotionalized, it is probable that a rational approach will have some effect in modifying them. The present discussion constitutes one phase of that rational approach. There is space here to mention only two of the several important practical implications for educational practice which may be derived from the generalizations stated above: There is no justification for school practices based on the assumption that there are racial differences in intelli- gence. The psychologist finds that racial differences in intelligence have not been demonstrated, that in all prob- ability such differences do not exist. The evidence is that Negro children are not inherently different from children of other racial groups. There is little doubt that the aver- age American includes in his racial stereotypes the idea of racial differences in intelligence and it is certain that many educators do not differ from the average American at this point. There is a well-marked tendency in educa- tional circles to set up a dichotomy based on assumed Negro-white differences in intelligence. School people must recognize that school practices, such as separate educa- tional facilities, special curricula and differentiated voca- tional and educational guidance, based on the assumption that there are racial differences in inherent ability, have no justification, because the assumption on which these practices are based has no scientific validity. Children are to be judged as individuals rather than as members of a racial group. One of the most impor- tant of the findings cited in this paper is that a wide range of individual differences exists within each racial group. Teachers must recognize that the popular stereo- type, which pictures the Negro child as an individual of inferior inherent capacity, arises out of historical and sociological factors and has no basis of scientific fact. Genius may and does emerge from any racial group. It is the duty and privilege of education in a democratic society to afford opportunity for the optimum development of the widely distributed abilities to be found in each racial group." 1Note: The writer has developed at greater length some of the aspects of this discussion in the following places: Journal of Negro Education 8:511-520. (July) 1939; Educational Method 19:106-112. (November) 1939. For the best extended treatment cf Otto Klineberg, Race Differences. New York: Harper, 1935. Let’s Tackle the Race Question Annette Smith NEARLY ALL of us are guilty of carelessness in thinking or talking about “race.” It has only been in recent years that the anthropologists have shown up the race myth so that the ordinary mortal can understand its fallacies. Now, however, it’s easy enough to get the facts and, for- tunately, to present them to high-school students. Pro- fessor Fay-Cooper Cole’s article in this issue of the AMERI- CAN TEACHER is an excellent presentation of the scientific facts about “race” so I am certainly not going to dwell upon them when he has done it so capably. Disproving the race myth is one of the most vital jobs we have to accomplish today. It is upon the Aryan race myth that Hitler has built his whole dastardly program. It is upon race superiority that all of America’s little Hitlers are corralling their followers. And it is the young people JANUARY, 1940 just out of high school who are falling for these inflam- matory arguments. So I am going to make some suggestions on how the question of “race” can be presented to high-school students. In no sense do I mean to list these suggestions in the order in which you may want to use them. Maybe one could be a starting point, maybe another. It depends upon your classroom situation and upon their appropriateness to the subject already under discussion. Since “anthropologist” is a word that will come into any discussion of the “race” question, that word might be written on the board with the explanation that it means “a scientist who makes a study of mankind.” And it might be pointed out that anthropologists are our authority for what we know on the subject. These men do not all agree 13 on all phases of a study of race; they do agree to a man on the fact that there is no such thing as a pure race. And they are unani- mous in declaring that no nation can be called a race. Physical differences are the only characteristics upon which man can be classi- fied, based upon his racial inheritance. Differences in custom, religion or lan- guage are due to environment, not to “race.” Man is a restless creature and has migrated from one part of the world to another throughout history. In fact he has been on the go from the time his existence was first known. And, to coin a phrase, “boy meets girl” on his travels. You can bring this discussion close to home by recalling that American settlers married Indians; sailors married girls native to the country where they took shore leave; Swedish girls in Minnesota married boys whose grandparents came from Germany; Chinese students mar- ried “native” Americans. Ask students to give examples of such intermarriage that they may know about. English classes might think of stories in literature where inter- marriage has taken place. If your students are of mixed nationalities and if you may do so tactfully, ask them to find where their four grandparents came from. Point out what a divergence there is even among their own classmates. Have each student make a family tree going back as far as he can. If this chart were carried back into the beginnings of humanity they would find millions of people intermarrying who have different nationalistic backgrounds. Incidentally this procedure may not be advisable if your students are all so-called native-Americans of English, Scotch or Irish descent since they might say, “See, we’re all the same stock and have been for generations.” Have them draw or study a map of early Europe show- ing where different peoples lived (see any good ancient history). Then have them draw or note a map of Mediaeval Europe showing the migrations of the original groups. Then try to find these peoples on a map of modern Europe. It will be a hard job, if not an impossible one, to trace the migrations of the peoples on the first map. But students may say, “So what, we believe that people have moved around the globe considerably. What has that got to do with the ‘Aryan’ argument?” Bring out that “Aryan” can refer only to language, that a nation, such as Germany, is a political boundary and because of the ease of migration can never be composed of people of any one race. Think of the Germans that you know. Are they all tall, blond and blue-eyed? Of course not, although the movies usually show that type when depicting a German. (A study of movie stereotypes in representing men and women of other countries might logically be included in 14 this discussion.) Because this is the prevalent type in Ger- many and regardless of the fact that there are many Germans who are short, dark-haired and round-headed, Hitler has chosen this as his Aryan ideal. Mussolini, on the other hand, has selected the dark, short, round-headed type because the majority of Italians are of that appear- ance. So, presto, you have an Italian Aryan. Primitive tribes suspected members of all other tribes. Even the ancient Greeks called all outsiders “barbarians.” The modern demagogue stirs up race hatred because he knows that all of us mistrust the person who is different from ourselves. Ask your students how they treat a new boy or girl in the neighborhood if he doesn’t use the same slang, wear the same kind of clothes, or like the same movie stars that the “gang” prefers. If by some fantastic cir- cumstance Germany could build a high fence around its boundaries, prohibit a soul from entering or leav- ing the country for many generations a “pure” race conceivably might be bred. But even then it wouldn’t be an Aryan race because that word refers to language and to nothing else. The American Committee for Democracy and Intellec- tual Freedom, 519 West 121st Street, New York City, publishes a folder called “Can You Name Them?” which sells for ten cents (seven cents in quantity lots). It shows pictures of men of different nationalities and asks you to name their nationalities. It is fun to try to guess their nationalities and when the answer in the back is read you'll find that almost always you have made the wrong guess. This brings up the argument that students will undoubt- edly present, “You can tell a Chinaman the moment you look at one”; “Jews look different”; “Indians have high cheekbones,” and so on. Of course that’s true to some extent although a look at the aforementioned “Can You Name Them?” somewhat disproves even this argument. But of course it is a fact that there are physical differences among people. But remember that we admitted that p/ysi- cal characteristics do differ among the three racial stocks. A person whose religion has always been Jewish is almost always of Caucasian stock although there are Chinese and Negroes who practice the Jewish religion. And here may come a discussion of the effect of environ- ment on appearance. A Chinese child born in this country looks different from one born in China. An Indian college student looks different from one who has never been off the reservation. Dress plays an important part. The Jewish custom of wearing a beard and a peculiar haircut in certain countries tends to identify the Jewish immigrant, but when he comes to America, shaves the beard and gets THE AMERICAN TEACHER a “regulation” haircut, his appearance is much the same as that of the rest of the population. Europeans say, “You can tell an American anywhere you see him,” and while they mean that in no flattering sense they will say it whether the American’s name be Smith or Cohen, Mac- Donald or George Washington Brown. General, loose, thoughtless statements lead to misunder- standings if not actual antagonism toward “races.” Men- tion some to your students such as, “All Mexicans are lazy”; “Italians are quarrelsome.” Have them think of others that they have heard or that they use themselves. I have a friend who during a space of ten years or so has known two men who have stomach trouble and who, therefore, are fussy about their food. They both happen to be Jewish. So she said, “Isn’t it funny that all Jewish boys seem to be hypochondriacs?” Some people in every nationality have unfortunate characteristics, you might point out to your students. But these traits should not be fastened on any people exclusively. For example, just because some boys in X high school make disturbances on the street car, you would resent anyone saying, ““X boys are certainly street-car pests.” It all boils down to the question of “racial” superiority. It is, of course, absurd to say that any nationalistic stock is superior to ancther. Some groups of people have had better opportunities to develop superior abilities because of economic or geographical or political conditions. But every group has potential abilities that, given the opportunity, it can develop. The Negroes, from 1876 to 1936 decreased their illiter- acy rate from 82 per cent to 16.5 per cent and under conditions that were far from ideal. Every group has ~ highly superior members. Every group has members who are mentally and physi- cally inferior. And all peo- ples under decent living con- ditions can make valuable contributions to society. An interesting exercise and an enlightening one is an examination of textbooks. Watch for such terms as “back- ward races,” “superior races” and “the supremacy of the white race.” Alas, many textbooks used in American schools do contain such statements. Students might also note the treatment of the “race” question in the news- papers. Are they fair to all groups? Do they recognize the fact that race difference is a myth? At Weequahic High School in Newark, N. J., the ques- tion of race has been studied extensively. I am going to quote a discussion of the subject by Charlotte D. Col- lins, a teacher, and one by a student, Robert Kirkwood. They both, it seems to me, make good contributions to the subject. JANUARY, 1940 Miss Collins writes: “Teaching genetics merely to disseminate certain bio- logical facts and principles, foregoing the broad, social aspects of the subject, is to fail in our duty of guiding American youth along the path of racial tolerance. “Most high-school pupils desire to study genetics from the standpoint of human beings. Their interest covers a wide range: starting with the origin of an individual, then tracing back his heritage from his ancestors, and naturally leading up to that which each person in turn may transmit to his offspring. “To what race do you belong? “What is your nationality? “How many races are there? “Are you confusing race with nationality, or with reli- gious culture? “Is there such a thing as a pure race? “The discussion that follows the introduction of any, or all of these questions will be definitely stimulating. During this time the task of guiding the pupils, while they are reaching correct conclusions and differentiations, falls to the teacher. As a result the students will know that race and nationality are entirely different. The former is dependent on the biological inheritance, the latter on the group environment. Both, in turn, must be segregated from the family traditions, or one’s natural inclinations towards certain religious groups. “From this point on it is wise to encourage students to carry research work on such problems as: (1) The racial aspects of immigration from the view- point of the geneticist. (2) Why is there no pure race to-day? (3) Are the undesirable effects of racial intermarriage chiefly social, or chiefly hereditary? “Research on these problems broadens the pupil’s back- ground. The class discussion that follows the presentation of these reports performs, in varying degrees, the same service for the group as a whole. ‘‘As the climax of the unit their knowledge of genetics is utilized to disprove some of the following far-flung fallacies of our day: “The so-called superior- ity of the Aryan race. This will be proven to be Hitler’s misconception of what con- stitutes a race. LINE “One race may be supe- rior to another. That racial superiority based on hered- ity does not exist, the en- vironment being the con- ditioning factor in any case as has been proven by the apparent increase in intelligence of Negroes who migrated from Southern to Northern cities where better educational facilities exist. “That a group of people may constitute a pure race. Scientists know this is a myth. For example the so-called Jewish race is a grouping of people around a religious culture. “With these points in mind we believe the student will carry home to his family and friends concrete knowledge and sound opinions, that will help to breed tolerance and peace among people on a sound foundation.” Robert Kirkwood writes: “Tn our international relations classes we have had many interesting and enlightening discussions of modern prob- lems. Among these problems was one on racial and reli- gious differences. The discussion of this subject was based on the outline, An American Answer to Intolerance.’ “As we talked over this topic it became clear to us that races are not determined by national boundaries. We began to realize that he who preaches ‘racial purity’ is ignorant of both history and anthropology, and is dispens- ing political propaganda, not science. In the course of our study we have discovered that there is really ‘no race but the human race.’ We began to see through the fallacy which exists in many parts of the world that there is a great distinction between two men who have unlike religious ideas and ideals, 1A review of An American Answer to Intolerance appears on page 30 of this issue. “Thanks to our study of the subject we have become able to analyze and understand many of the racial and religious prejudices which thrust a dark shadow over the world. We have likewise learned that color of the skin does not make any difference in the individual personality. Many of us are of the opinion that a person should be judged as an individual and not in terms of race. After our study of race and religion we have become imbued with a new ideal. That ideal is to make America a new and better land by first understanding and then abolishing our racial and religious prejudices. We hope to see the great ideals of the Bill of Rights put into wider effect. Our purpose shall be to try to build our land into an example of tolerance and freedom. It is our determination that people shall be judged as individuals and not by racial, religious or physical conditions. By our observations of other lands where persecution of racial and religious groups occurs, we have come to see that such practices are inhuman and degrading to a nation. We have discovered that they are based on faulty reasoning and infamous lies. With these facts in mind, we: have become more grimly intent on overcoming these evils. “I think that more and more high-school students are beginning to think along these lines. With intelligent dis- cussions based on sound information, we have been able to clarify and understand our differences. Prejudice and intolerances will give way to well-informed youth who have seen the light of mutual good will, tolerance and under- standing.” Developing Attitudes of Tolerance Jenny L. Mayer IMPRESSED WITH the great importance of developing attitudes of tolerance in children, I first made an effort to meet the problem in my high school English classes last term. However, my first attempt at teaching “toler- ance” was not as successful as my more recent efforts for I must confess that my continued emphasis throughout last term on “tolerance” in written and in oral work met with a very limited success because it awakened in the students some boredom, considerable impatience and a strong concern lest we neglect the regular work of the term. This term I was more careful to incorporate the teaching of tolerance into the required work for the term. Because I believe that my efforts have evoked a desirable response from the students, I am giving a brief account of the work we are doing. In my sixth term English classes, the first book read was Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag. While we were waiting for the date on which books were to be distributed 16 I chose for the required work in précis writing the open- ing passage of Book 2 of Vernon Parrington’s The Colonial Mind. After emphasizing the economic motive underlying early immigration and describing the “rude influx of the dis- possessed and disinherited” who came from all parts of Europe, Parrington concludes, “yet their blood runs in the veins of most Americans today of the older stock, and their contribution to our common heritage was great and lasting.” When the books were distributed, I opened the lesson by writing on the board the verse by Emma Lazarus which is engraved on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! Not one student in three classes of New York City chil- THE AMERICAN TEACHER dren recognized the quotation or its source. However, all the students were emotionally touched by the verse and proud to think of their country as symbolized in the verse. They pointed out the twofold reason for welcoming the scorned of other lands: the democratic ideal on which our country is built and the actual need this country had for eager willing workers of other lands. They enlarged on the theme from their knowledge of history and turned eagerly to the story of immigrants in Giants in the Earth. With few exceptions, students are deeply moved by the story of the Norwegian fisherfolk who found their way to Dakota Territory and, in the face of seemingly insur- mountable obstacles, made a home and way of life for themselves and, in so doing, laid the foundation for the development of the West. Many of the students are read- ing the two sequels to the book and are following up the growth of settlement into community and community into state. They are particularly interested in the process of Americanization described in the later volumes. A very important step in my program for the teaching of tolerance is the understanding of the section of the novel dealing with the coming of the Irish to the settlement and the terrific fight that arises between the two national groups. The students can easily be made to see that the fear and hatred the Norwegians feel for the Irish are the result of their never having met any Irish before or, for that matter, any group of people other than Norwegians. Before the story ends, the two groups have settled peace- fully near each other, are trading with each other and are glad to be neighbors. There are two points I stress here. First, out of this mingling and intermarrying of various European stocks have resulted the American type of man and American civilization. From the mixture of these and other groups and from their joint culture and backgrounds and contribu- tions have come all our leaders, our writers, our scientists and all the men who have worked to make America. In short, all American life, civilization, culture are based on this firm belief in the value of using and combining all the different qualities and abilities of the many European stocks that make up America. The second point brought out in connection with the early antagonism between the Norwegians and the Irish is that it is ignorance of another group and its ways that makes for suspicion and hostility. This second conclusion led to a realization of the importance of knowing all we can about the many groups in our country. I asked several questions about the groups most represented in our school, the Jews, Italians, Irish, Scandinavians—questions about their numbers, places where they lived, types of work they did. When the students became aware of their own ignor- ance, they were appalled. Almost all of them wanted to borrow the book from which I got my facts, Our Racial and National Minorities by Francis James Brown and Joseph Slabey Roucek. The next step in our search for more knowledge and better understanding of the people who make up our coun- JANUARY, 1940 try was to choose a particular group on which each student would do further reading and report back to the class. I was pleased when a large number of the students in each class wanted to report on their own groups. As a result there have been a number of reports on Jews, Irish, Italians and Scandinavians with a scattering covering prac- tically every national group that migrated to America. There was also a special interest shown in oppressed minority groups, the Indian, the Chinese and particularly the Negro. One class opened its series of talks with an effective presentation of the first radio program given on the “Ameri- cans All, Immigrants All” series which was broadcast last year. The talks themselves have covered the history of a particular group in America; its present way of life; its contributions to industry, art, literature; outstanding mem- bers of the group; and, in some cases, special problems of the group. To meet the difficulty of getting material I have bought a copy of the book on Our Racial and National Minorities mentioned above and I lend it to stu- dents for two or three days. Also a large number of the students have bought the new 118-page pamphlet, Ameri- cans All, Immigrants All, which may be obtained from the Educational Radio Script Exchange, Office of Education, Washington, D. C., for twenty-five cents per copy. A book which I have found particularly valuable for my own use is the syllabus entitled An American Answer to Intolerance which any teacher may obtain without cost by writing to the Council against Intolerance in America, Lincoln Building, New York City. In addition to some valuable suggestions, it contains a very usable bibliography é i é f : ¢ for the students. A particularly fine list of books on the subject is the Bibliography of Readings on Tolerance and Democratic Ideals for Teachers and Students issued by the New York Association of Teachers of English. It is difficult to estimate the concrete value of this work, especially since the special reports are still in an early stage. However, these results are obvious: first, an interest in obtaining more information; second, a simple pride on the part of the student in his own background; and third, a sympathetic desire to understand and value the contri- butions of other groups in the making of America. Teaching Good Will James M. Yard SINCE THE beginning of our history, America has been proud to be known as the country of good will. All Americans are still proud that our government and our citizens prize good will, justice and freedom. There is no more important group in the teaching of good will and the overcoming of prejudice than the teachers in our schools and colleges. They are dealing with the young minds which are pliable. The fact is that children are naturally well disposed toward others. They have to learn to hate. Prejudice is not something that they inherit. Fortunately, man is teachable. He can adapt himself to conditions. He can manage equally easily to drive oxen or an automobile. He can learn to love and to hate. It is the task of teachers and parents to teach children not prejudice but good will. It has been said that religious liberty was made in America. The Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created free and equal.’’ Even so our record for tolerance has not been very good, until the past few years. There is still much racial and religious hatred but it is a fact that Americans, a fairly large proportion of them, at least, are becoming more tolerant. It may be worth while to recall some of the obstacles which tolerance has had to overcome in this land of liberty, in order to realize how far we have come. History, except for a few glowing pages, is unknown to most of us. We have had to overcome prejudices against Congre- gationalists, Unitarians, Methodists, Catholics, Jews, Ne- groes, Orientals, etc. There has often been deep antipathy between groups of this sort. The Native American party was organized in 1834 with two planks in its platform: to discourage immigration and curb the influence of aliens in politics, and “to abridge the rapidly increasing influence of the papal power in the United States.” Samuel F. B. Morse was this party’s candidate for Mayor of New York City. For a year or two there was an Anti Masonic party. About 1845 there arose the American Republican party. This was the period of the great “public school controversy” which had to do with freeing the public schools from (not Catholic, but) Protestant church control. In 1849 the Know-Nothing party was organized. It was secret, but it was against foreigners and Roman Catholics. In the Nineties, there was another flurry and the A.P.A. (American Protective Association) was formed. This was another secret society. It carried on propaganda con- sisting for the most part of lies and forged documents about Catholics. This was an, especially vicious organiza- tion. It maligned Catholics as ruthlessly as the Nazis in Germany revile Jews (albeit by words and not concentra- tion camps). It does not seem possible but Dr. Washing- ton Gladden, one of the truly great Protestants of his day, reported that Protestant ministers in Columbus, Ohio, became hysterically fearful of Catholics, and that one even bought a gun to protect himself against the priests! The activities and evils of the Ku Klux Klan are more familiar to present-day Americans. The Klansmen be- lieved that true Americanism consisted in the political, social and religious ideals of individualistic, democratic, \nglo-Saxon Protestants. Its growth in the years after the World War was due to the work of publicity experts and the profits which flowed in to the promoters. Sad to say, it was strongest in those sections which are dominated by orthodox Protestants. Klansmen asked, “How can you tell a Klansman?” The answer: “He is a white man. He is a gentile. He is a native born. He is a loyal American.” Its main drive was against Roman Catholics, but it was hard on Negroes also and did not neglect to spread anti-semitism. America has been the country of refuge for all sorts of people. Our citizens who have come from all lands and all races profess many different religious faiths. Our country will flourish only so long as we grant full rights to non-conformists. Intergroup friction and misunder- standing is a grave peril in the American democracy. If disagreements are caused by groups which operate for profit they will disappear when the thing no longer pays. If the prejudices are inherited, they may, in time, be overcome by education and the creation of a new culture pattern. Americans may take real satisfaction in knowing that various groups are checking up and that tolerance is progressing in this land. We have still a long way to go but the following examples will bring good cheer to all who are deeply interested in making human brother- hood a greater reality and in making real democracy more effective in the United States. State Senator Thomas C. Desmond of New York, speak- ing before the D.A.R. at Newburgh in August, 1938, said, “People of early American and Protestant Anglo- Saxon stock, the largest group in the country, have the strongest obligation, and can, with more propriety, em- phasize the fact that minority racial and religious groups have all contributed their important parts in the growth of our great country. We have no more important patriotic duties and can preserve American ideals in no better way than by watching out for any attempts at racial and religious discrimination of the Hitler pattern, and oppos- THE AMERICAN TEACHER ing vigorously their increase. Intolerance must be stopped in its early stages, lest it spread like a communicable disease.” At a meeting of the Catholic Interracial Forum held last year in Philadelphia it was said that anti-semitism constituted a menace to the Catholic faith and that race prejudice is foreign to the concept of Catholicism. In this connection I should like to call to your attention a very interesting pamphlet, “Why Jews Are Persecuted,” written by Father Joseph N. Moody and published by The Queen’s Work, St. Louis, Missouri. Nothing better has been done to combat anti-semitism. ‘At the General Conference of the Seventh Day Baptists held in 1938 the report of the Committee on Christian Social problems declared: “We deplore the state of mind of any nation which seeks self-aggrandizement by oppres sion and inhumanities accorded any race, class or adher ents of any creed. We ask our people to seek by study, thought and prayer to understand the principles of the Sermon on the Mount revealing Christ’s love and ministry to His enemies as well as His friends.” Endorsement of interfaith councils of Catholics, Jews and Protestants, an end to persecution of Jews in other countries, non-discrimination against races in political primaries, and immigration quotas, were among the major policies recommended to the National Methodist Student Conference by a report of the Commission of Christian Personality and Social Activity. Delegates from eleven New England colleges attending the Interfaith Confer- ence at Brown University unanimously adopted a resolu- tion pledging their support in efforts to combat any form of anti-religious and anti-democratic propaganda which has developed and which may develop on the college campus. There are several organizations whose main purpose is to promote active good will and cooperation, notably the Interracial Commission in the South, which has been and is doing magnificent work, and the National Confer- ence of Jews and Christians. The latter works through Seminars in colleges, summer institutes, good will teams and through its rapidly growing Religious News Service which acquaints the various religious groups with what is being done by all groups and so promotes understanding, sympathy and appreciation. It also makes much use of the radio. Of course, there are scores of local and national organiza- tions that in one way or another, directly or indirectly, are promoting better human relations by providing means whereby Catholic, Protestant and Jew come to know and appreciate each other by working together on common community tasks. What can be done? In the field of social relations certain techniques have already been worked out and each person can do something in his community by making use of these techniques. May I suggest two things that anyone can do? (1) Each person can make a friend of one or more families of another race or religion. It seems to me that JANUARY, 1940 members of Parent-Teacher Associations have here a very fine opportunity. They can do more than meet once a month. A Protestant family could invite a Catholic family to spend the evening, or a Christian family could invite a Jewish family. (2) Teachers can invite speakers of other races and religions to talk to their classes, thus giving the children an opportunity to see and hear a person of another group. Parents who are club members could invite rabbis, priests, Negro leaders, and members of other minority groups to speak before their clubs. The fact is that the outlook for freedom and tolerance is very dark in all the world—and grows darker every day. Some very eminent men foresee the collapse of civilization in Europe for at least a generation. In America, there is still hope that we can keep civilization alive. That means that every man and woman in the United States who believes in good will and justice and freedom must do his or her part. We must destroy prej- udice against racial and religious groups, and we must, in our homes and in our schools promote good will toward those who differ from us. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Negroes, Mexicans, Orientals—all have contributed to make this a developing civilization. Let us hope that Americans of all groups will learn to appreciate each other and to work together. AFL Resolution The following resolution was adopted by the Fifty-Ninth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor which was held at Cincinnati, Ohio, beginning October 2, 1939: RESOLVED, That this 59th Annual Conven- tion, assembled in Cincinnati, Ohio, in harmony with past declarations, go on record calling upon ail national and international unions and depart- ments to eliminate the color bar and all forms of discrimination which serve to exclude workers from membership on account of race or color; and, be it further RESOLVED, That the President and Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor again call upon the convention of national and inter- national unions whose constitutions have color clauses and that practice discrimination against Negro workers, to create a committee to report on the question of the color bar and various forms of race discrimination to their next convention for discussion and abolition. The Convention concurred in the intent of the resolution and referred it to the Executive Council for consideration. This resolution and the action of the Convention is being brought to the attention of ail national and international unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor by President William Green, with the request that the intent and purpose of the resolution and the recommendation of the Convention be carried out. ee 8 ee © rrr rrr rrr nr errr ~ — —— - me vi, end . apv he peorle; \9% a Intolerance by Radio I, Keith Tyler THE INFLUENCE which the radio has upon the de- velopment of racial and national prejudices is naturally of interest to the teacher who desires to promote more democratic attitudes among boys and girls. Recognizing the important place which radio listening has in the lives of youngsters, he is immediately concerned with the nature of radio programs. Are they entirely neutral so far as their effects upon racial attitudes are concerned or do they encourage or hinder better understanding among racial and national groups? This is no idle or merely academic question. We know only too well that our work in the classroom takes on significance only when it is closely related to the realities of life in our communities. We cannot teach one kind of life in school when children are living a totally different kind of life in their homes, on the playgrounds and in the streets. We can be successful in affecting the culture of our community only when we are familiar with the nature of this culture, when we realize the nature of the variety of forces which are playing upon boys and girls. The fifteen hours weekly which children enthusiastically and voluntarily devote to radio programs represents an important contact with Americana. What can we expect them to derive from this experience so far as racial atti- tudes and understandings are concerned? To begin with, the radio in this country is more nearly a universal medium of entertainment and culture than the stage, the screen, the lecture hall or the concert plat- form. Potentially, then, it is available to all races and groups without discrimination. Actually it comes close to realizing this possibility. Approximately 90 per cent of American homes have radios, the exceptions being largely in rural sections and among the most depressed economic groups. While this has affected most largely the Negro in the South, even among the members of this race the radio is more wide-spread than other media. It is possible, then, for all groups to hear the best that radio has to offer with no racial bar, and with only a slight economic handicap. But it is the content of programs with which we are really concerned. I should like to suggest five types of radio material which seem to have a direct effect upon racial understanding and which, only too frequently, are promoting actual intolerance. In some cases it is likely that this is a deliberate effort to promote intolerance by those who would profit from an increase in prejudice and bias. In most cases, however, the material is a reflection of our entire culture and carries with it as unexpressed assumptions the continuance of whatever injustices, in- equalities of opportunity or prejudices already exist. 22 The first type is the radio talk which boldly appeals to racial hatreds by all the skillful tricks of the clever propagandist. Father Coughlin’s attacks upon Jews and the talks by various representatives of fascist or semi- fascist organizations are representative of this frontal at- tempt to promote intolerance. Most of us, are, I think, aware of the nature of such programs so that little needs to be said here. If we believe in the democratic right of freedom of speech, we must concede a place for such material on the air. On the other hand, of course, we must insist that such propaganda be presented fairly with- out advantage to those with the greatest financial re- sources. This means that we shall insist on equal oppor- tunities for rebuttal and for opposing points of view, and that time for such presentations shall not be sold, but rather given without charge by radio stations to all significant groups. The classroom approach to such programs will, of course, vary with the age of the pupils, the type of com- munity and the freedom which the teacher has to handle controversial material. In general, however, it is possible to teach the various techniques used by propagandists, the so-called “devices,” and to give actual laboratory practice in analyzing a variety of materials, pamphlets, editorials, public addresses, advertisements and, of course, such radio speeches as the pupils have heard. If Father Coughlin is being heard by the youngsters they will naturally in- clude his material among that which they analyze. The Institute for Propaganda Analysis publishes a monthly bulletin which is very helpful to teachers. In addition the organization has prepared study helps and bulletins, including a description of the common propaganda de- vices. Such aids should certainly be available in the class- room or school library. But even more important, from a long-time point of view, are types of radio programs which do not directly preach racial intolerance. It is the more subtle condi- tioning of race attitudes from the whole framework and background of a radio program that is most difficult to recognize and to combat. It is difficult because one must be sensitive to the possibilities to recognize them at all. It is the things that are taken for granted by the speaker, or by the script-writer, or by the planner of programs, which can intensify or foster the ways we look at or feel about other groups. An assumption of the superiority of the white race can, for example, flavor the whole of a discussion of labor problems in the textile industry, with- out race ever being mentioned. Or an assumption of the servile position of the Negro can be expressed through the constant casting of Negroes in such parts even though the THE AMERICAN TEACHER radio plays have no direct bearing upon interracial rela- tions. Indeed, frequently it is ommission rather than commission which is responsible. Discussions of democ- racy take place without any recognition of the denial of civil, political and social rights to Negroes in our culture. Or Americanism is discussed as though it consisted purely of those peculiar contributions which happen to have been made by the Nordic portion of our population. If we are to detect such elements in radio programs we have first to examine our own assumptions and recognize the nature of some of the things which we, ourselves, “take for granted.” As a second type of program which may promote intol- erance let us consider the news broadcast. In the first place this type-of program has a huge listening audience and it rates high in interest with children as well as adults. It is, therefore, of real importance insofar as its possible effect upon listeners is concerned. Since it is prepared for a mass audience, such a program will not crudely and blatantly offend any minority groups. It will, however, reflect the culture of the dominant group in the South, on the Pacific Coast, in the agricultural Middle West and in the industrial East. It will, then, reflect certain assump- tions about the role of the Negro in our culture, about the role of the Oriental, about the place of the immigrant from South Europe or about “foreigners” in general. It will do this both through the selection of items to be broadcast and the “slant” given to a story. Negroes will be more likely to make the news for some humorous act growing out of naive ignorance than for educational or scientific contributions to culture. “Queerness” of alien cultures will be more likely to be stressed than accomplishments for the betterment of mankind. Crimes committed by citizens with foreign-sounding names will be more likely to make the broadcast than those executed by persons of English descent. It is not that there is a conscious distortion of the news so much as it is that news is gathered, selected and “proc- essed” by middle-class Americans who are themselves a product of our culture with its prejudices and biases. Something, of course, can be done to sensitize news broad- casters to these possibilities. No newspaper today and certainly no radio station would use the word “nigger,” even though it is only too commonly used in conversa- tion, because news men have been sensitized to the fact that this is an expression of prejudice much disliked by Negroes. But the teacher can do much to sensitize boys and girls to other evidences of prejudice and thus help to innoculate them against some of the effects. A class can, for example, keep a record of the items dealt with by several newscasters over a week’s period and note differences between local and national selections. To what extent do those local items selected reflect the cultural biases of the region? Or a group can record every item dealing with the Negro or the Oriental or the Southern European over a period of several days. What sorts of items are represented and what picture do they give of this JANUARY, 1940 23 race? Is it a realistic picture? Such surveys, if well done, should be reported to the local radio station or local news broadcaster. Perhaps one of the newscasters from a nearby station could be invited to meet with the class to indicate the sources of his news and the extent to which local biases enter into the selection. Mention has already been made of the serious talk or discussion program which is the third type to be consid- ered. While such programs have much smaller audiences, they do have a considerable effect because the speakers are usually outstanding persons whose words have weight and prestige. Unless such presentations bear directly upon interracial and intergroup problems, the task is that of determining how the speaker feels about other groups from the whole context of his remarks, or from the slant that he takes. What we must do, if we are not to be led along to the acceptance of concepts and attitudes which are intolerant, is to look for the speaker’s basic assumptions to see if they include certain notions about races and nationalities. Frequently we can gather these from what is not included as well as what is dealt with, for it is fair to say that things which are not important enough to be covered probably do not rate high in his scheme of things. We must be cautious about concluding too much. It is not that we want to characterize the speaker as being “tolerant” or “intolerant.” His thinking may be com- partmentalized so that we may be quite wrong in our conclusions about his views. But we do want to be critical about the assumptions underlying his discussion for our own protection, so that we may not fall into “easy” preju- dices. Probably the most we can do with a group of boys and girls is to put them on their guard so that they will not be blindly credulous. From the standpoint of the number of persons reached and the probable effect upon both concepts and attitudes, I would consider the fourth type, the radio drama, the most significant for study. It is one of the most popular of all types of radio programs for young and old alike, and because it involves such a high degree of identifica- tion and vicarious participation on the part of the listener, it is potentially, in my opinion, the most dangerous. I am including in this classification not only radio plays com- plete in one program but serials also. What are the chil- dren’s thrillers doing to youngsters’ notions about races and nationalities? And what about all the soap serials that clutter the air all day long? Even the dramatic inci- dents in so-called educational programs may be having their effects upon attitudes and concepts. One of the most serious offenses of much of the radio drama is characteristic of all cheap fiction. It is the over- use of stereotypes. This gives warped conceptions about the role which all the various kinds of people play in real life, but it is particularly serious with regard to racial and national traits. The British are cast either as pompous and insufferable asses totally lacking in a sense of humor or as cockney laborers, servile and stupid. Orientals are invariably cunning and crafty, speaking either in pigeon- English or in over-precise, stilted accents. New York, Chicago and Hollywood tend to type Southern girls as sweet but dumb and addicted to the most casual use of endearing names. Negroes, whether the locale is North or South, speak with the traditional racial accent and are cast as servants, porters or other menials. It is obvious that the effect of this continual bombard- ment of stereotyped roles produces among uncritical listen- ers, an acceptance of such roles as the norm. Particularly among children and young people is the effect likely to be bad, for they do not have a background of real expe- rience of these various groups against which to measure their radio impressions. High-school students frequently assert that they depend upon the radio to give them a picture of what life is like. Recognizing their own limited experience, they depend upon radio drama and movies to provide them with an understanding of people and situations. When the picture which is given them is dis- torted, we can expect their concepts to be similarly skewed. 24 One of the most needed tasks, then, is for teachers to develop in pupils an awareness of stereotypes. Once youngsters become conscious of them they begin to be immune to their effect. Indeed they recognize stereotypes for what they are, an insult to their intelligence. They realize that such concepts are developed in radio drama because the script-writer was either too lazy or too stupid to create an original piece of characterization. When serials are turned out by quantity methods one cannot expect originality. Stereotypes, they see, are escapes from thinking, both on the part of the writer and the listener. There are, too, other kinds of implicit assumptions which are made in radio drama. For example students can, by sampling a series of radio plays, determine whether the heroes typically have Anglo-Saxon names and the villains have foreign names. They can determine whether “inter- national spies” in children’s thrillers speak with a German or Japanese accent, or whether they are simply Americans in the pay of an unnamed country. They can watch for situations involving relations between races to see whether they conform to more ideal standards or simply accept the Status quo. An interesting commentary on the unconscious atti- tudes of the broadcasters themselves is the frequency with which announcers with non-Nordic names appear on the air with “simplified” names. Apparently Smith or Green or Taylor is more likely to succeed than Polesky or Schmidt or Stein! The fifth type of program which has some bearing upon the development of tolerance is the presentation of music. While war hysteria may later lead us to play only music by American composers, for the present at least, music is accepted as being international and interracial. Our culture has gone farthest in accepting the notion that all groups can contribute to the arts. Paul Robeson, Tos- canini and Lawrence Tibbett are equally accepted. While this may provide a starting point for the concept of racial contributions to a common culture, we must not be too optimistic about the extension of such notions to other fields. Prejudices tend to be keenest where there is economic competition, and a recognition of the beauty of Negro spirituals will not prevent the development of prejudice in white groups which feel themselves to be in competition with Negroes for jobs. Only through a better understanding of the common plight of white and black workers alike and their interdependence in the economic scheme can we hope to overcome such prejudice. One of the things which teachers can do is to see that radio programs do not prevent the development of such funda- mental understandings. There are a few programs on the air which aim directly at better understanding among racial and national groups. Outstanding among such programs at the present time is “The Pursuit of Happiness” on the Columbia network each Sunday afternoon at 4:30 Eastern Standard Time. This program, dedicated to the common American heritage of freedom, presents in drama and song the tradition of American tolerance and understanding. Other series on THE AMERICAN TEACHER networks and local stations have similar objectives and often present valuable material which can be utilized in class discussion. Schools should purchase and make use of the recorded programs of the series, “Americans All—Immigrants All,” which was produced by the United States Office of Educa- tion a year ago. In dramatic form the contributions of the various races and nationalities which make up our America are presented. For information about the record- ings and the accompanying study manual write to the Educational Script Exchange, Office of Education, Fed- eral Security Agency, Washington, D. C. One difficulty with all of these programs intended to promote tolerance is that they are relatively “high-brow” in nature. They reach only a minor part of the audience which listens to daytime serials or to the popular radio theaters. Students may be encouraged to listen to these programs and they may be discussed in class, but the essential task remains of reaching the rank and file of the boys and girls in our schools who do listen to the popular radio programs and are affected in their concepts and attitudes. We have the obligation to help them to become discriminating. If we are really interested in the development by boys and girls of tolerant attitudes toward other groups based upon a better understanding of them, we must be con- scious of the media which are providing them with ideas and feelings about these groups. Among these the radio is of paramount importance. Consciously and unconsciously it is being used to continue and to intensify prejudices and biases. Our task is to become aware of how this is taking place and then to help our pupils to develop immunity. - This seems to me to be an important responsibility which teachers in a democracy dare not shirk. Movies and Tolerance Alice V. Keliher “EACH RACE thinks itself superior. Each race is mis- taken.” Racial intolerance is only one of the many insidi- ous influences operating to tear us apart as a people. As we travel around the country we not only find regions where the Oriental, the Indian, the Mexican, the Jew, the Negro, the Pole, the Scandinavian is hated, but also we find hatreds arising, suspicions growing and intolerances expressed towards those who live on the wrong side of the tracks, those who dress differently, those who live on a different economic level, those whose speech is different, those who have a different education. We even find, in these days of consolidated schools, splits arising between the town children and the bus children. We know that this situation exists and we deplore it, but wringing our hands and saying, “Too bad, too bad,” won’t change the situation. We must work to find the causes of these conflicts and to find the ways of reducing and, as nearly as possible, eradi- cating them. This article is to deal with the relation of motion pic- tures to tolerance and, therefore, we can write only briefly on the first point. Intolerance has one basic cause— fear. We are intolerant of those people and experiences which threaten our security. For this reason the thing that is new, strange, different and unknown to us may seem to be a threat to our safety—to our security. The fact that much of this reaction is unconscious complicates the problem. We must often analyze through devious paths of past experiences to find why a certain group of experiences does seem to be a threat to us. We can easily see this reaction at work among those who are resisting the admission of refugees to this country. Doctors fear JANUARY, 1940 that incoming doctors will take some of their practice. Shoemakers fear that Czechoslovakian shoemakers will reduce the number of jobs for “Americans.” In these cases the economic background of the specific intolerance is frankly stated. But in many other cases we unconsciously seek to justify our intolerance by rationalizing it. We find ways to discredit the feared person or situation. We see dangers to our homes, our families, our children. We find differences in intelligence (so-called). We point out disease rates, and in such ways we make ourselves feel comfortable about the hideous inequalities that arise from our intolerances. We are like children in the dark. We fear the unknown but don’t want to say so. I wonder if Dr. Carrell knows how well he named his book, Man the Unknown. Our fear of each other is in so many ways a small child’s fear of the unknown. We are concerned not only with the fact that we fear each other and, therefore, fail to maintain a just society, but also that we actively hate each other. Here too we should make a courageous attempt to study and know the causes of this hatred. The fact that one can travel around the country and find different groups being the object of strong venom is clear indication that we are not choosey about the particular group we hate as long as we have one to hate. Hatred is most venomous in those com- munities and among those people who are the least secure. The number of lynchings rises and falls with the price of cotton. People who are frustrated bear deep unconscious resentment, but today it is difficult to attack openly the sources of frustration. One cannot readily express his resentment against the economic system; to the man on 25 the street it is an abstraction. He can’t punch it in the nose. And though the maladjustment of our economic system may be basically the cause of a man’s unemploy- ment, the drop in the price of his cotton, his baby’s death from lack of medical care, his years of stalling as a youth before getting a job, his frustration and resentment are directed towards a substitute—man.' These economic frustrations out of which insecurity, fear and intolerance spring ought to be easy to analyze. Quite obviously, to reduce hatred and intolerance economic frustrations ought to be removed as rapidly as we know how. But there are other frustrations that are more diffi- cult to analyze because they have been a part of the individual’s unique experience. For example, we often find people who have a specific intolerance that is not a part of the general attitudes of the group in which they . live. They may hate certain foods, certain colors, certain people because early in their lives they have had some kind of traumatic emotional experiences in which these may have played a part. In thinking about the relation of the motion picture to tolerance we have to bear in mind that different individuals will carry away from a movie different feelings because of these unique differences in their personalities and their emotional histories. We can now begin to look at the relationship of the motion picture to the building of tolerance. In the first place no single movie will evoke a universally similar re- sponse. To those who already disapprove of lynching and to those who are ignorant of its horrors, the film “Fury” is a powerful anti-lynching plea, but to those who approve of lynching or to those who hate some per- son or group furiously, the lynching in “Fury” may be met with approval. To those who dislike violence and brutality, “Black Legion” strengthens the convictions that vigilante organizations are an expression of rank intoler- ance and un-American procedures. But we have known poverty-stricken people and children in impoverished com- munities who thought that running out the “foreigners” in the picture was a good thing to do. “Pasteur” is a powerful plea for tolerance towards change and progress, but there have been many who identified themselves with the Academy of Medicine and felt that their resistance to “Pasteur” was entirely justified. In other words, we must not assume naively that the person looking at a movie is a blank slate upon which the movie experience will write a universal reaction. This does not mean that there are no effects that might be called “majority attitudes” that arise from seeing a given picture. In the long run a picture like “Zola” will inspire many people with a new passion for justice. “Juarez” has made thousands of people think more deeply about the meaning of “that one word, democracy.” The treatment of the Indian question in “Juarez” has had a profound influence on many who were ignorant of or had a story book conception of the Indian, but to those who exclude Indians from their hotels and treat them like 1Cf. Alice V. Keliher: “What Can We Do About Hatred?” Progressive Education Magazine. 16: 485-487. (November) 1939. 26 outcasts, I doubt that the movie alone would have a very deep effect in increasing tolerance. Something more than seeing the situation in the movie must be done, especially for those whose intolerances have the deepest emotional roots in insecurity and unconscious fears. There is an almost majority-minority problem in con- nection with the reactions to movies which deal with issues connected with our intolerances. For the majority whose attitudes about a specific situation are not too deeply rooted or arise largely out of ignorance, movies do have a great effect in swaying their feelings about the situation. Not all of this is for the good either. At the time that the Payne studies were made, there had been a number of movies which cast Chinese in cruel, sly and underhanded roles. Professor Blumer reported that these characteriza- tions had made a profound influence on children in the direction of building fear of and dislike for the Chinese. No doubt the fear and dislike were augmented by atti- tudes towards Orientals to be found in many communities in our country. Blumer and Thrasher found evidence too that the numbers of movies showing Indians as cruel scalp- hunters had the effect of producing fear and dislike of Indians among children. On the other hand, these same studies reported situations in which films portraying other races in favorable light seemed to have the effect of increas- ing liking for and tolerance of those people. The League of Nations found that the cumulative effect of showing several war films to children was that of increasing their desire for peace. There is another effect of movies on the majority which is an indirect way of increasing tolerance. This is the escape and release provided by movie-going to people who have few, if any, avenues for release of their tensions and aggressions. We make strong identification with charac- ters in movies and the stronger the identification the more we tend really to experience the events, relationships and feelings involved. In the darkness of the movie thea- tre oftentimes our emotional safety valves are opened and pent-up feelings escape harmlessly into the conditioned air. How many family fights have been averted by a good laugh or an equally good cry at the movies we'll never know, but we can guess that the number would be impressive. Since the expression of intolerance is often the expression of pent-up feeling, movies in this way serve to reduce intolerant behavior. The most important contribution of the movies to tol- erance is a general one that comes of the cumulative residue of movie-going. We said before that people are intolerant of the unknown. If they have lived a narrow and re- stricted life and know only a few limited ways to solve the problems of life, those few limited ways become the only right ways. But the movies are showing us that there are a number of different ways people may react to and solve the same situation. We are learning from the movies a great many things about people we do not know. Doc- umentaries, travelogues and short subjects broaden our range of experience and remove the strangeness from large areas of the world. And this, the Commission has found, THE AMERICAN TEACHER is one of the most important positive ways of building tol- erance. The fact that man is not committed at birth to a given way of life but that he participates in its creation has given many of our students more tolerance for people. But the guidance of those who have deep-seated, stub- born intolerance still remains a problem. The solution to this problem seems to me to be one that increases the value of the movie for others as well. That solution is to use movies with expert guidance and follow the show- ings of films with discussions and studies that will help bring to light persistent attitudes that remain hidden and imbedded when the total experience with the film is only passive looking at it. The Commission on Human Rela- tions has had rich and challenging experience in using excerpts of photoplays in just this way. Through the dis- cussions issues are raised, attitudes are expressed and the sensitive teacher has before him the diagnostic material from which he may discover what the crucial attitudes of his students are. For, in discussing Zola and Dreyfuss, Pasteur and the Academy, Florence Nightingale and the Army, the student who has identified himself with the film is often discussing his own attitudes. Indeed the expert leader helps the students to generalize from the screen experience to those situations in which they could and should effect changes. In discussing the difficulties of the new boy coming into a new school in “Devil is a Sissy,” students almost always make application of the film situation to attitudes towards new-comers in their own school and community and many students have made definite proposals for what their schools could do to reduce some of these difficulties. Guidance is the key to the most significant use of the motion picture. Because this medium deals realistically with life, the teacher’s guidance in the use of it must be based on sensitivity to the needs of the students and the needs of the larger community of which they are a part. Here is an excerpt from a high school discussion that re- veals a bit of the type of insight students reveal as well as the attitudes they present in film discussions. This one follows the showing of the film “Bordertown.’” MARY: I just said that he was a foreigner. He was not of a high class like the other man in the court, the other attorney. LEADER: Is that a true situation? happen? MARY: Sure. Americans are against the foreigners. LEADER: What are some of the results? What attitudes can we take about the question? SAM: The judge justified himself by saying, “This court makes no difference between any race or creed.” JOE: You don’t think that was true, do you? SAM: No, it wasn’t. Perhaps the fact that he was a foreigner was a great hindrance to him in his court. His English wasn’t as good. It might have hindered him a lot but I still believe—well, the girl called him a savage and he Was in a sense a savage. PEGGY: Had he had on a good-looking suit and been cleaned up like the rich man he would have been better off. Do those things really * Fifty-seven short films excerpted from photoplays including the ones mentioned above are available from the Commission on Human Relations, 45 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City. Rental only. Catalog, twenty-five cents. JANUARY, 1940 BILL: I think we have entirely disregarded why Johnny reverted to violence. He came from a neighborhood where to survive, you had to be violent and you had to grab and when he graduated from law school, the man who was giving the speech said he had been the toughest and the roughest in that particular neighbor- hood. He tried to be successful in the society that hadn’t given him a chance from the start and when he wasn’t successful, the only natural thing he knew, the only thing he really could understand or refer to, was this violence which he had existed by before he tried to be a lawyer. BETTY: They were prejudiced to him because he was a foreigner, because he wasn’t well dressed, because he didn’t have polished English and he just didn’t state it just like the other attorney did. He wasn’t as smooth. The movies can be and have been a force for creating tolerance. When they are taken into the school and used intelligently and when the school becomes aware of the great possibilities for discussion of current films, this force will be markedly increased. In the words of one of our cooperating students: “After I have seen the movie and decided for myself what it means and then have the class discuss it, it stays with me a very long time. The analyza- tion of the pictures makes one more tolerant and under- standing of events which are occurring every day. I can feel that when I hear of a lynching or crime I don’t jump at conclusions as rapidly as I used to, but try to understand the events behind it. I am not so quick, to my way of thinking, to condemn a mistake or action for I immediately think there is some reason which caused the action.” 27 Clara G. Roe “AND AARON shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.” Thus did the ancient Hebrew lawgiver pro- vide for man’s desire to find someone or something on which to blame his shortcomings and so escape the neces- sity for overcoming them. The persecution of all minorities is evidence of this human tendency to find a scapegoat on which to load the sins or difficulties of the majority. This was never more apparent than at the present time. In Germany an authoritarian regime has used it as a method of escape from the difficulty inherent in accepting individual responsibility for things gone wrong in the body politic. The Versailles Treaty, minority groups, such as the Jews, the liberals and the communists, are blamed for all the troubles of post-war Germany. Unfortunately the tendency is present and has always been present in the United States. Examples are easy to find. It was the Oriental on the Pacific Coast in the middle and late Nineteenth Century. There were the Irish and the Germans in the 1840’s and 1850’s, the Negro in the South since the Civil War. Immigrants, aliens, secret societies, communists, women in industry, especially married women who seek and hold jobs, have at various times and places been blamed for all the social and economic problems that are difficult to solve. Today the great problem of American democracy is unemployment. Its solution would solve or lead to the solution of practically every public problem. To refuse employment to any particular group does not solve it but merely shifts employment from one group to another and still leaves the unemployed to be supported by the em- ployed. Germany is said to have solved it, but the United States does not wish to solve it by making munitions, lowering standards of living through lowered wages and forced labor. Nor do we like the Russian solution where also there is compulsion and where, if many have benefited, some have suffered greatly. The proper solution must be found in the expansion of industry until there is a job for everyone who wants and needs it, and a job that pays a living wage for every worker with differentials above that living wage that reward special ability and special effort. To refuse employment to any particular group does not contribute to such a fundamental solution of the problem. If there is a fixed amount of employment, as certain Nine- teenth Century economists believed, then by reducing the 28 Should Married Women Work? number of employed, each one of the fortunate people who retains a job gets a large share. He is, however, handicapped by the fact that he must assume his share of the burden of supporting the unemployed, unless they are to be killed either outright or by slow starvation. The theory of a fixed amount of employment, or in other words production, is not commonly accepted by economists today. The unsatisfied desires that could become economic demand are an indication that production and conse- quently employment could be greatly expanded. But in a time when such an expansion is not taking place there is discrimination against various groups who wish to obtain work. Such groups today are single men, young people, older people, aliens and married women. Only in the latter two groups has there been an attempt to enact the dis- crimination into law. Such legal discrimination, or proposed legal discrimina- tion, against married women took the forms of bills intro- duced in 1939 into the legislatures of nineteen of the forty- eight states. Twelve states considered bills prohibiting the employment of both husband and wife by the state. In practice this would mean that the wife was dropped. In two states bills were introduced prohibiting the employment of a married woman by the state if her husband were employed anywhere at a salary over a certain figure. sills were introduced in three states prohibiting the em- ployment of women in private industry if their husbands were employed anywhere at a salary over a certain figure.’ There is evidence that there will be additional bills intro- duced in future legislatures and added pressure upon legis- lators to vote in favor of such bills. An organization, with headquarters in Chicago, has launched a “Wage-Security Plan.” Its slogan is “Put the Married Women Back in the Home.” It intends to seek municipal, state and federal legislation to bring this about; it proposes to maintain a lobby in Washington and in the various state capitals; and it will endorse candidates for public office who will pledge to support such legislation.’ Why should married women thus be singled out for discrimination? First, because they are the most recent group of women to obtain employment in any consider- able numbers except in those occupations that no man would take, such as cleaning women, and those who took in or went out to do laundry. A second reason undoubtedly is that we still hold to the Victorian ideal of a married woman as an ornament to society, whose economic use- ~ IHelen Robbins Bitterman: “It Has Happened Here!” Equal Rights, May 1, 1939. “Byron G. McWest: “You Can't Do This to Women,” Equal Rights, August, 1939 THE AMERICAN TEACHER lessness was in direct proportion to her husband’s economic usefulness. Like many other Nineteenth Century ideals and ideas this one is due to the coming of the machine age and to the subsequent movement of population to the city and town. In a frontier community, or in any self- sufficient economic order, the wives and daughters were as economically necessary as the husbands and sons. There was a division of labor in which the men performed one type of economic work, the women another kind. There was no lack of contribution by the women. In the cen- turies before the machine age, and still in frontier and most agricultural communities, women in their homes have made essential contributions to the economic system. Sewing, baking, cooking, and so on, all had to be done in the home. Woman has merely followed those occupa- tions from the home to the factory. Women have always helped their husbands in their business by serving as clerks and bookkeepers. They must now work for other employers than their husbands because fewer men own their own businesses. It is to the interest of every woman, married or single, to do all in her power to check this attempt to discriminate, either by law or custom, against married women. Effi- ciency and merit should be the determining factors in getting and holding a job. The efficiency of the married woman is determined neither by matrimony nor mother- hood, nor is the absence of either or both an evidence of inefficiency. If marriage can be made a cause for refusing employment to the woman who wants or needs it, the next question asked of the woman seeking employment may well be: Can your brother or brother-in-law support you? Can your father support you? (Then you must marry before he dies.) Have you an independent in- come? No attempt is made to discriminate against married men; indeed, marriage is supposed to make a man a more desirable employee. The assumption, therefore, is that marriage has a disastrous effect on woman’s efficiency but a desirable effect on a man’s. Women cannot logically argue against a differential in salaries between men and women if marriage makes a woman ineligible for gainful employment. The whole case for equal salaries rests on the assumption that the work done by men and women is equal and should therefore receive equal compensation. Men also should be anxious to stop this movement to interfere with the employment of married women. The man whose wife must work certainly has a personal stake in the issue, but so have many other men. The unmarried man may wish to marry at some future date and be able to do so only if his wife can continue to hold her job. At any time unexpected burdens, such as the necessity for supporting his parents or his wife’s parents, illness or the loss of his job, may make it necessary for any man’s wife to need a job. However, for both men and women the problem of discrimination against married women who seek to obtain or hold jobs has much broader aspects than the directly personal ones that have been discussed. The fundamental JANUARY, 1940 The Right to Work The right of women, especially of married women, to work is being challenged all over the country. Last year, legislation to limit the employment of married women was introduced in twenty-two state legislatures. Some 75 per cent of the nation’s school boards favor non-married women teachers. Only a month ago, a New York City official proposed that married women teachers be encouraged to resign. We believe that all women have the right to work for the following reasons: (1) The right to work is the constitutional right of all citizens. (2) The right to hold a job should be based on merit alone. (3) Unem- ployment is not a sex problem. The exclusion of married women from jobs would not solve the problem of em- ployment. (4) In the vast majority of cases, married women work because they must. Women’s Bureau studies have shown that nine out of ten married women who are employed are employed from necessity rather than from choice. Modern economic and social developments have changed the conditions of women’s work so that women, both married and single, are forced to find work outside the home. Certainly a great deal of the work in mod- ern offices, institutions and even factories is much better suited to women than the old-fashioned jobs of wash- ing, cooking and scrubbing in the home. For these reasons we defend the right of both married and unmarried women to hold jobs through merit and hard work. We oppose attempts of public officials and of private employers to limit employment on the basis of sex or marital status. New York TEACHERS UNION. question is whether in determining who shall work any- thing should be considered except the ability of the indi- vidual to perform the tasks demanded. If a married woman whose husband works cannot hold a job, why should a man work while his father can support him, or while he has an independent income? If his wife cannot work, the married man must be paid more so that he can support her, and then he must be paid more for each child born to them. The logical result would be more pay for more children with perhaps less work. Unemployment must be solved by creating a greater and greater effective demand for more and more goods and services. There should be a demand for services as well as goods, and the distribution of the jobs needed to pro- duce both should be on the basis of merit and efficiency, not on any outside objective test of fitness like matrimony. Men and women alike in the 1830’s and 1840’s worked for women’s rights as they worked for other great humani- tarian reforms like the abolition of slavery, temperance, prison reform, education for the blind and deaf, and peace. Some of these great reforms were brought about; for some we must still work. To work for the right of everyone, man or woman, to obtain a job and be secure in his pos- session of it is to work for one of those fundamental human rights for the protection of which “Governments are insti- tuted among Men.” 29 Among the New Backs AN AMERICAN ANSWER TO INTOLERANCE, Teacher’s Manual No. 1, 1939. New York: Council Against Intoler- ance in America, Lincoln Building. 130 pages. Free. One hundred and fifty years after the adoption of the Con- stitution the Bill of Rights is being challenged as never before in our history. The defense and development of our demo- cratic institutions is surely a problem in whose solution we in the schools can play a decisive role. A teacher’s manual to coordinate our efforts and render them more effective has been published by the Council against In- tolerance in America. Quoting from the introduction to the pamphlet: “The Council Against Intolerance in America was organized by a group of distinguished citizens to combat the alarming increase of intolerance due to the world situation. Non-sectarian and non-political in character, the Council in- cludes representatives of all faiths and is drawn from all sec- tions of the United States. It recognized the need for factual analysis of, and vigorous resistance to all those forces, within and without our country, which foment intolerance here. It reaffirms the American tradition of religious equality and human brotherhood. It summons the American people to safe- guard that tradition, and thereby to preserve and strengthen our common liberties.” The names represented on the Council are indeed both dis- tinguished and representative of every political and religious point of view, including, for example, such persons as John Dewey, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Frank E. Gannett, Carter Glass, William Green, John Haynes Holmes, Harold L. Ickes, Hugh S. Johnson, John L. Lewis, Jeremiah T. Mahoney, Kirt- ley F. Mather, William A. Neilson, Bishop G. Ashton Oldham, Monsignor John A. Ryan, Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, Grover Whalen, Walter White, Michael Williams and Stephen S. Wise. The roster of the Educational Advisory Committee of the Council is quite as distinguished and representative, including Dr. Alice Keliher, Dr. William H. Kilpatrick and Professor Goodwin Watson. The point of view of the pamphlet can perhaps be best sum- marized in this quotation, from page 104 of the brochure: “Whenever such freedoms and rights are taken away from Catholics because they are Catholics, or from Jews because they are Jews, or from radical thinkers because they are liberals or Socialists or Communists, these same rights and freedoms become thereby less secure for every American citi- zen living in the nation. “It is a patent fact then that defense of these rights granted equally for all is the privilege and responsibility of every true American. In any period, like the present, when groups work to take them away from certain citizens and to whip up an old prejudice that would serve this purpose, all citizens, whatever their party creed or circumstance, must for their own self- protection join together in their defense.” (Italics in the original. ) In advocating the stressing of attitudes of tolerance in all our teaching, the authors are careful to point out that they seek to impose no new course or courses in the curriculum. Rather, they hope that every teacher will make use of what opportunities present themselves to stress the Great Tradition of America. The book is divided into four sections based on what the authors believe to be four basic approaches to the problem: 30 (a) Recognition of Prejudice; (b) Study of Propaganda De- vices; (c) Reaffirmation of American Ideals; and (d) Accurate Knowledge of Propaganda Domains. In each of these sections there is a detailed discussion, replete with numerous excellent practical suggestions for application to teaching situations, assembly and club programs and the like, in addition to a splendid concise summary of the pertinent factual material. The writing and arrangement are lively; the examples selected are current, vital and provocative. The bibliography is the best this writer has ever found in the field. This booklet might well serve as a basis for faculty and department conferences. The Council against Intolerance in America distributes the volumes free of charge (address above). It is engaging in a fund-raising campaign for this purpose by distributing seals with the caption, “Tolerance and Equality—Long May Our Land Be Bright with Freedom’s Holy Light.” Our Federation has long been supporting “Education for Democracy,” so that these matters are not new to us. It is a source of pride to see AFT members, Dr. Robert K. Speer, Dr. Beryl Parker and Dr. Goodwin Watson, on the Educa- tional Advisory Committee. The Council calls this its “experimental” edition and invites us all to share with them our ideas and experiences, to be incorporated in future manuals in educating for American ideals of tolerance. ABRAHAM TAUBER ~ *§ * FIVE NORTH CAROLINA NEGRO EDUCATORS, by N. C. Newson et al. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 142 pages. $1.00. The real significance of this group of simple, somewhat amateurish, biographical sketches lies in the philosophy and program of race relations which they more-or-less subtly espouse. The program is exemplified by the cooperative interracial approach to the preparation of this volume. The philosophy is symbolized by the five “humble,” “patient,” “religious,” “faithful,” “honest,” “self-effacing,” “serene,” “diplomatic”—in short, “GOOD”—Negro educational leaders whose lives are here portrayed. This project was sponsored by the Division of Cooperation in Education and Race Relations, comprising the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction, the Uni- versity of North Carolina and Duke University. The several biographical sketches were prepared from source materials by joint committees of students and faculty advisers from five Negro and four white colleges and universities. Solely as a technique, ie., getting white and Negro students and teachers to work together toward a common end, there is much to commend this enterprise. One may question, however, the ultimate validity of applying this technique to the par- ticular biographical materials here used. The subjects of this volume are a state supervisor of negro elementary schools and the presidents of a state land-grant college and three state normal schools. Their race-relations behavior patterns are strikingly similar. They so lived that they were “always able to obtain a sympathetic hearing from leading [white] lawyers, bankers, and businessmen”; “in interracial matters . . . acted with patience and understanding” ’; and were unvarying advocates of “harmony between the races.” Never did they challenge the social proscriptions THE AMERICAN TEACHER imposed upon the Negro people; for, whether consciously or not, they were the tools of the castelike status quo. The thoroughly accommodating social outlooks of the four college presidents warrant illustration. One said he “always regretted that universal suffrage- was given to the Negroes just after the war.” Another referred to the 1900 state consti- tutional amendment disfranchising Negroes as a “blessing in disguise,” saying that “it will not affect the leaders . . . but will . . . enable them to cooperate more actively with the better elements of the white race.” Two were active sponsors of schemes to colonize Negroes in Africa. One remained a staunch Democrat in the heyday of the Populist Movement, in gratitude for which “the legislature favored him and voted increased appropriations for the school.” Except for the briefer and more recent period of the woman supervisor, the professional careers of these subjects covered, roughly, the last two decades of the Nineteenth Century and the first three decades of the Twentieth Century. They must be interpreted in terms of their historical setting. Then—and, to a lesser degree, even now—only “good” and “safe” Negroes could aspire to positions of leadership in the field of public education. Even so, it is a bit disturbing to note from the “Introduction” that the completely laudatory biographies of these subjects are to be distributed widely as “useful, encourag- ing, and highly informing material for use as supplementary readers in the . . . public schools of the state.” The pattern of Negro leadership which pupils will find here eulogized is far from adequate for the tasks of the present day. Doxey A. WILKERSON ~ *§ * YOU AND HEREDITY, by Amram ScHeInretp. New York: Frederick A. Stokes. 421 pages. $3.00. In this book, Amram Scheinfeld gives a non-technical pres- entation of facts and theories concerning the heredity of human beings. He was assisted by Dr. Morton B. Schweitzer of the Cornell University Medical College in the genetic sec- tions, and by other recognized authorities in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, natural history, pedia- trics, education, and medicine. The material presented is interesting, easily read, and clarified by many illustrations and diagrams. Care has been taken to distinguish between fact and theory, leaving the reader free to draw his own con- clusions. At the outset a distinction is made between characteristics that are inherited and those that are acquired. Genes are defined as the factors that determine an individual’s potentiali- ties for development under a given environment. The inheritance of physical traits such as eye, skin and hair color, features, body form and structure has been sum- marized in “Child-Forecast” tables. Although the reader is warned against the fallacy of assuming that one child will fulfill expectations determined by formulating averages from a large number of matings, speculations derived from a con- sideration of these charts is most interesting. Throughout the book the interrelationship between the physical, emotional and educational development is em- phasized. The studies of identical and fraternal twins, trip- lets, quadruplets and quintuplets have particular significance for teachers of children. It is believed that the Dionne quintuplets were produced from a single cell and that the process of redivision is held responsible for important dif- ferences among them. This theory holds that relatively late in the embryonic development one of the four Dionnes re- divided to make a fifth child. Emilie and Marie have thus been identified as the last of the quintuplets to form and develop and have been observed to be the most retarded in all phases of development. It has also been pointed out that although the quintuplets have identical heredity and have had as uniform an environment as possible, the development of JANUARY, 1940 each child appears to be unique. The differences in physical, mental and emotional behavior seem to increase as they be- come older. With regard to the development of talent, Mr. Scheinfeld has made an original study of the personal and family history of thirty-six instrumental artists, thirty-six operatic singers, and fifty students of the Juilliard Graduate School of Music, and concludes that musical talent is probably inherited through a number of interacting genes. Although the reviewer felt that this hypothesis had insufficient scientific basis, the in- formation concerning the environment, attitudes and the relatively early appearance of musical aptitude and interest was noted as having particular significance for those of us engaged in the education of children. In considering “The Battle of the 1.Q.’s” data and problems have been selected from the studies of Terman, Holling- worth, Wellman, Newman, and others. Theories pertaining to the variability of the I.Q. refer to environmental factors such as nutrition, disease, physical defects, accidents anc socio-economic status and are presented for the reader’s consideration. A study of “Black Genes” producing disease, defect or abnormality has also been summarized into forecast tables which indicate the conditions under which such defects are likely to be inherited. Genetic factors in delinquency are discussed but dismissed as relatively insignificant. Racial differences are considered with emphasis upon culture versus heredity as the determining factor. Certain myths concern- ing the importance of specific ancestors in the life of an individual are dispelled. In the concluding chapters, the positive as well as negative aspects of eugenics have been presented as a challenge to all intelligent, social-minded adults. Among the positive measures proposed to encourage those adults best fitted for parenthood are housing projects, maternity leaves, lower maternity costs and educational grants. The author’s selection of factual and illustrative material, as well as the simplicity and directness of his presentation, makes this book a significant and interesting contribution to the subject of heredity. It offers much to parents and teachers. EVELYN SHOLUND ~x~ *§ * AMERICAN CASTE AND THE NEGRO COLLEGE, by Bue.tt G. GALLAGHER. New York: Columbia University Press. 463 pages. $2.50. Dr. Gallagher is the relatively youthful white president of Talladega College in Alabama, one of the institutions estab- lished by the American Missionary Association for the higher education of Negroes in the South. His book, a doctoral dis- sertation, was written under the supervision of Dr. William H. Kilpatrick, who has a foreword to the volume. The work falls into two parts. The first part, practically half of the book, is an exposition of the origins and develop- ment of the caste system by which the American Negro, what- ever his class or condition, finds himself circumscribed. The second part is an exposition of the author’s thesis that since the caste system instills in Negro youth attitudes of inferiority and dependency (and in white youth attitudes of superiority), “the functional college must therefore provide optimum oppor- tunities for members of divergent classes and castes to dis- cover their mutual enthusiasms for a more just, more fair, more abundant life.” The “functional college” may become a lever to assist in overthrowing the barrier of class and caste, the author holds, by cultivating “independent, critical thinking in the effort to promote the common good,” by in- cluding “the community as an integral part of its curricular overview” and by providing experience in democratic and cooperative activity in which students have a share. 31 Dr. Gallagher’s analysis of the problem of caste and his proof of the need for a reorientation, in terms of this problem, of our system of higher education—and of our public school educatiun as well, one infers—are admirably well-done, true though it is that these are well-tilled fields of investigation. The conclusions drawn as to the direction and method of re- orientation are in the main, however, in the opinion of this reviewer, far from satisfying. The central weakness of this book is the failure of the author to relate the second half of his study to the first half: that is, the failure to give due and proper attention to the conclusions reached in the first section, namely, that class- caste inequalities have basically an economic origin and that “the focal point of race antagonism is likely to be some threat to existing status,” in dealing, in the second section, with the question of the higher education of the Negro. Dr. Gal- lagher elaborately sets the table for a full-course dinner and then serves up only the soup; those who would go on with the rest of the meal he scorns as too materialistic. Mere “propagation of dogma”—‘‘Communist” dogma, of course— is his description of the conscious and deliberate effort to em- ploy the educational process toward an understanding of and grappling with the basic conditions which make for social inequality and conflict. Dr. Gallagher has the usual idealist’s misunderstanding and abhorrence of a militant labor movement and of social agita- tion and class struggle. He believes in education for changing the status quo, but his concept of social change is that of the Nineteenth Century liberal: a slow, gradual and orderly process directed by “critical intelligence and humane under- standing.” It is increasingly evident, as Dr. Gallagher ably points out, that “no better educational device than the collegiate pattern which lies at hand” could be devised for perpetuating class- caste inequalities. But the author does not see, or at least does not say, that there is any cause-effect relationship between the collegiate pattern and the economic pattern of our society. Granted that the concept of the “functional college” in which students acquire training in true democratic attitudes (but not “dogmas”’) is admirable in itself, the question remains: To what extent can such a collegiate pattern be realized and what practical social values can it have under our existing capitalistic social system? This reviewer does not wish to convey the impression that Dr. Gallagher’s study is without merit. On the contrary, the democratic view of education presented here, even with its shortcomings, is one which one wishes many more college presidents—white as well as Negro—shared. And there is much of value here for al/ teachers of ali students, provided the reader is wary of certain idealistic predilections and anti- Marxist prejudices. W. A. Hunton ~x~ *§ * DICTATORSHIP IN THE MODERN WORLD, edited by Guy STANTON Forp. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. 326 pages. Regular edition, $3.50; text, $2.75. JUGGERNAUT: THE PATH OF DICTATORSHIP, by ALBERT Carr. New York: Viking. 531 pages. $3.00. The student of the contemporary world scene and more particularly the citizen living in one of the remaining democ- racies but haunted by the spectre of dictatorship will be amply repaid by a careful reading of two recent books which deal competently with this political phenomenon, Dictatorship in the Modern World and Juggernaut, The Path of Dictatorship. The first, consisting of fourteen essays written by different authors, carefully analyzes the origins, procedures and tech- niques of the present-day dictatorships in Europe, in the Far East and in Latin America. The second, written by one author, Albert Carr, is a history of modern dictatorships presented 32 through the biographies of the dictators from Richelieu and Cromwell to Mussolini and Hitler. The two books supplement each other admirably, and wherever there is duplication it seems to reenforce some of the basic ideas, upon which, incidentally, there is considerable agreement among the various writers who have contributed to the two volumes. With due allowances made for differences in geographic position and in historical background, all the writers conclude that given a certain set of circumstances, a dictatorship will emerge in any country. Fascism and communism have their roots in the industrial complications of a machine age coupled with the “nation-state” political structure. ‘Wherever in the future,” says Max Lerner, one of the contributors, “proletarian movements or economic collapse threatens the two basic institutions of capitalism and nationalism, and wherever the democratic state is unable or unwilling to defend them, we may expect that the struggle for power will center around the fascist dictatorship.” Mr. Carr gives this concept greater con- creteness and discusses the specific conditions which give rise to this Twentieth Century type of despotism. He lists them as follows: (1) A sharp dislocation of the national finances, expressing itself in a big public debt and high taxes; (2) A pro- gressive weakening of the financial and political power of state and municipal bureaucracies; (3) A marked increase in the powers of the national executive; (4) A growing sentiment for paternalism in government among workers and the unem- ployed; (5) The rapid growth of middle-class organizations seeking to break the ranks of labor with racial and religious agitation. These parallel conditions in America so closely that they should give us pause. Although none of the writers underestimates the human factor in the dictatorship, the notion that it springs fullgrown from the brain of the leader is exploded. Says Max Lerner, “The most important symbol . . . is the leader himself. But to say this is nothing more than could be said of any outstand- ing Hollywood star . . . a glamour-starved populace, both in his own country and abroad, create the myth of a superman who focuses all the energies of his time and dares put an end to inaction. By enlarging his stature they succeed in com- pensating for their own dwarfed and stunted stature in an industrial age.” Mr. Carr writes, “Dictatorship, so often regarded as a manifestation of individual personality, is rather a phenomenon with roots deep in the economic, sociological, and psychological subsoil of history, springing up when condi- tions are favorable, enduring and passing away in accordance with apparently universal principles.” How permanent are these dictatorships, and what are the chances of the democracies for survival, particularly in America? One writer gives the slim assurance of a reasonable chance of checking the currents in American political life which are working against democracy. Denis W. Brogan, an English contributor, takes comfort in the fact that fascism and revolutionary communism have lost for us their first glamour and “are not giving such palpably superior results that free conversion necessarily follows.” The least hopeful prophet in the group warns us against our deep-rooted con- viction that democracy is bound to survive because it is on the side of nature. Nature, he fears, may be on the side of dictatorship. “It is possible that responsible constitutional government under the conditions of industrialism demands too much of both the human brain and the human will.” Democ- racy he feels may have proved operative only in a period of expanding capitalism. Perhaps it is only a dictatorship that can provide security in an age of contracting capitalism. As suggested above, all the conditions which make for the con- temporary type of absolutism are alarmingly present in American society. Only by wresting from our great resources, natural and technological, a high and dignified standard of living can we combat the forces which are militating against THE AMERICAN TEACHER our democracy. And a thorough exposition of these forces and of the dilemma of our era can be found in the pages of these two excellent and highly readable volumes. LILLIAN HERSTEIN ~ * * A CHARTER FOR PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION, by Les- TER Dix. New York: Columbia University Press. 107 pages $1.60. This publication, A Charter for Progressive Education, is a welcome statement of one interpretation of the philosophy of the progressive education movement. Those who have attempted to write a similar statement realize the difficulties of the task. To state clearly, concisely and simply all the parts of the mosaic is not an easy undertaking. Mr. Dix has suc- ceeded remarkably well. While there may be those who, from personal choice, would increase the emphasis on certain parts of the total pattern, most would admit that Mr. Dix has not neglected important areas and that this statement deserves study by creative minds. The first part of this book is devoted to the basic statement of Mr. Dix’s philosophy. It seems so convincingly developed that few could disagree with it. The principles which Mr. Dix has enumerated are those that appear in educational litera- ture, in the writings of those closely identified with progressive education and in the writings of well-known critics who place themselves in the opposition. In fact, most school people would agree with his statement. Why has there been so much opposition and why have not the practices of schools reflected more the ideas to which the profession gives its verbal sup- port? Mr. Dix hints at the difficulty when he mentions “noisy partisanship” and says: “It is necessary to be realistic about the present scene, and to recognize the existing popular ten- dency to progress by a series of pendulum swings in which a conservative swing is prone to attack everything that has emerged in a preceding reform movement, just as a reform movement attacks an earlier conservative complacency.” Is the problem one of personalities in education? On the one hand, courageous individuals have dared to pioneer and to experiment, and their satisfactions, reputations and security have been derived from these individual efforts to differ. At times personalities seem to overshadow ideas. On the other hand, a majority of educators obtain their sense of security by running along well-established lines and maintaining the status quo. In either case, the acceptance of new ideas becomes badly muddled with personal considerations and individual security. One wishes that Mr. Dix had discussed this problem more forcefully and more forthrightly. It is a crucial problem in education to increase sensitivity to ideas and to decrease the distorting personality factor. When Mr. Dix discusses what his philosophy would mean for educational practice, he is far ahead of the crowd. At times his presentation would have been considerably strength- ened if he had included more examples of what schools have done to carry out his recommendations. Generalities will not aid those weak members of the profession who must see each step in advance, one at a time. It is difficult to apply his charts and diagrams to the typical public school. Those who are timid will take comfort for their own cautious complacency in such a statement about the necessity for free schools as, “This means the removal at every point of hampering restric- tions, whether professional, administrative, or financial.” Schools cannot exist without restrictions of some kind, but why not make restrictions the inspiration for a program? Why not turn handicaps into advantages? It can be done. Too many school men await the blessed millenium when financial restrictions will be removed before they make an assault on the administrative and professional restrictions which they themselves control. Mr. Dix would agree with this, I am sure. In the discussion of practices this book gives many simple, sensible suggestions of what needs to be done in curriculum JANUARY, 1940 building and in scheduling programs in general terms. Some of the recommendations are so wise, so simple and so easy to put into effect that one wonders why they are included in a program far in advance of common practice. Is it because they are so simple and easy that we overlook them? It is just these blueprints and many more of them that are needed by school men. Why should this be so in a profession dealing with education? In one chapter Mr. Dix discusses “A School Program for Teachers Colleges.” This is a weak chapter. Perhaps he has withheld his gunfire criticism and creative, constructive sug- gestions for strategic reasons. The problem of the education of teachers and the role of a school in this task, the prob- lem of integration and relationships within a demonstration school are scantily dealt with, and yet it is in this area that schools like the Lincoln School are weakest. In a final concluding chapter Mr. Dix discusses a “strategy for progressive education.” This chapter should have faced courageously the problem of human relations that block and hinder educational progress. Why not admit the fact that until teachers, and teachers of teachers, have a better under- standing of their own motives, their own sources of security which most of us protect with rationalizations, philosophies will remain verbalizations and behavior will not reflect those principles and those practices in which we say that we believe. FREDERICK L. REDEFER * * * PEOPLE: THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF POPU- LATION, by Henry Pratt Farrcuip. New York: Henry Holt. 315 pages. $3.00. For more than a half century a declining birth rate has characterized industrial, urban, competitive civilization the world over. In northern and western Europe the birth rate is well below what is required to maintain the population at its present size. In the United States fertility in urban com- munities is markedly less than necessary for family replace- ment. If the birth rate should continue to decline at the same rate it has declined during most of the past forty years, in another forty years or so no babies would be born at all. Obviously, the adoption of the small family pattern is one of the significant social changes of our time; birth control must be regarded as one of man’s most important inventions. Apparently the time is not far distant when few children will be born unless they are wanted and definitely planned for. Man’s control over his own number raises many problems of social policy. It is with these problems that Professor Fairchild deals in his recently published volume. The book does not contain a great amount of statistical data on popula- tion change; attention is centered rather on problems of population quantity and quality. The first part of the volume deals with general tendencies and principles of population growth; the second part considers the problems of an optimum Second Edition—Revised and Reset (October, 1938) by EDWARD BYRON REUTER University of lowa This is the first revision in eleven years of the standard work on the Negro problem in America. Features of the new edition are: an increase of nearly 20% in content, modernization of numerical and statistical data and new chapters on The Background of Race Relations, The Accommodation of the Races and The Assimilation of the Negroes. 430 pages—5!/2x8!/2—$3.00 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 432 Fourth Avenue New York City 33 with the problems of quality. As Professor Fairchild points out, there is an age-old conflict between love and hunger, and this conflict is present both in the individual family and the whole society. As the economic culture improves, where birth control is employed three choices present themselves. All the improvement in the population; and the concluding chapters have to do chiefly economic culture can be utilized to increase the population, all of it may go into improving the level of living or it may be divided between the two. of population, both as to quantity and quality, to rational control raises fundamental problems of social administration and possibly social reorganization. All who are interested in these broader aspects of population will find this volume interesting, informative and challenging. In any event, the subjection NEWTON EDWARDS The Teachers Union in Action The final session of the Progressive Education Association national con- vention will be sponsored jointly by the PEA and the AFT. Speakers on the program, which is being held Saturday, February 24, at 2:00 P. M. at the Palmer House, Chicago, will be Doxey A. Wilkerson and Mary Herrick, national AFT vice presidents; Ralph Marshall, West Suburban Local; Kermit Eby, executive-secretary, Chicago Teachers Union; Congressmen Lee Geyer and Jerry Voorhis; and Alderman Paul Douglas. Cochairmen of the meet- ing are George T. Guernsey, editor of the AMERICAN TEACHER, and Russell Babcock, Winnetka public schools. On Thursday, February 22, Presi- dent George S. Counts and Secretary- Treasurer I. R. Kuenzli will speak at an AFT dinner at the Congress Hotel. Tickets for the banquet will be $1.50 and all AFT members planning to at- tend the PEA Convention are urged to note the time and place of this dinner. An AFT luncheon is being planned for the AASA meetings in St. Louis, probably Tuesday, February 27. Urge your administrative offi- cers who are planning to attend these meetings to include the AFT luncheon in their programs. President Counts and others will speak. * A complete report of the meetings of the National Executive Council will ap- pear in the February issue of the AMERI- CAN TEACHER. However, the following amendments were approved by the Coun- cil and are being submitted to all locals for a vote. The Dies resolution, which is printed on the opposite page, was passed without dissent by the Council and printed copies of the resolution may be secured by writing to the national office. Proposed Amendment No. | Amend Article III, Section 1, by in- serting, after the word “teachers,” the words “and other educational workers,” so the section amended would read: “This organization shall consist of asso- 34 ciations of public school teachers and of other educational workers organized in conformity with the provisions of this Constitution.” Proposed Amendment No. 2 Amend Article VII, Section 2, first portion, to read: “For the purpose of this article, membership shall mean the average number on which the per capita tax has been paid for the first twelve months of the fourteen-month period immediately preceding the month in which the Convention meets.” Proposed Amendment No. 3 Amend Article VIII, Section 4, to read: “The payment of the per capita tax shall entitle each member to a subscription to the official organ, the AMERICAN TEACHER.” Proposed Amendment No. 4 Amend Article VII, Section 5, subhead (1), by adding, after the words, “The votes of a local . . . shall not be frac- tioned,” the following: “In the elec- tion of officers, all voting shall be by secret ballots cast by individual dele- gates.” Proposed Amendment No. 5 Amend Article XII, Section 1, by striking out the final portion which now reads, “later than the opening date of the next regular convention,” and inserting in the place thereof the words, “between June 1 and November 1,” so that the last part would read: “Provided, however, that in no case shall a referen- dum be held whose termination date is between June 1 and November 1.” Proposed Amendment No. 6 Add an Article XIII, “Parliamentary Authority,” to read: “The rules con- tained in Roberts Rules of Order, Re- vised, shall govern this Federation in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with rules regularly adopted by the Federation.” * War preparations and economy school budgets are cut from the same pattern and fit into the vicious circle of events which are gradually breaking down many of the educational and relief standards of the nation. This is the essence of the first bulletin of the Educational Policies Committee of the AFT, which issues a call to specific action by teachers of the Union to help create, organize and stimulate public discussion of important school policies. The need to spotlight domestic and local problems is pointed out. Dis- cussion of the current war situation should be directed toward the objective of maintaining American peace. Two booklets recommended by the Commit- tee are “Schools for Tomorrow’s Citi- zens,” and the report of the NEA, “American Education and the War in Europe.” * LOS ANGELES, CALIF. (No. 430)— Restoration of pay-cuts to teachers was achieved here by the Union with the help of other unions. Pay-cuts have been stopped and a method of mounting in- crement will be put into action. J. W. Buzzell, secretary of the Central Labor Council fer Los Angeles, spoke as the official representative of the unions in support of the budget before the Board of Education. The Union is trying to learn who is hiding basic statistics in the office of the superintendent. Assistant Superintend- ent Louis D. Travers is in charge of per- sonnel in the school system. The figures, the Union says, should be available from him. Among the fundamental questions unanswered thus far are: How many students have to share the time and attention of one typical Los Angeles classroom teacher today in elementary, junior high and high schools? To what extent are pupils afforded less teacher- time and attention today than in past years? What is the relationship, in ac- THE AMERICAN TEACHER tual figures, between pupil enrollment and teacher employment today? Norman Byrne, William Fletcher and Herbert Klein, all of the Union, have contributed to the new book, The War for Men’s Minds, published by the Los Angeles City College, which deals with the use and methods of propaganda. A call for case histories of the in- stallation of democratic procedures and machinery in school administrations was sent out recently by Samuel E. Urner, president of the Union, as the first step in the campaign to democratize the Los Angeles school system. The Union is concerned primarily with teacher par- ticipation in policy-forming, curriculum- building, selection of department-heads and other administrators by the rank and file, and other devices for meeting “the tyrannies and dictatorships that characterize our American school set-up.” President Urner points out that what is needed is a specific program together with definite ways and means of achiev- ing that program. Mrs. Fay Allen, a member of the WPA section of the Union, was elected to the Board of Edu- cation in the last elections. * PATERSON, N. J. (No. 482)—The Paterson Teachers Union has requested that the Board of Education arrange for the return of adjusted increments to those teachers who have not received in- creases during the past eight years. The teachers affected have not only suffered general salary cuts but have lost at least $2,800 each because of failure of the Board to follow the increments incorpo- rated in the regular salary schedule. Suc- cessful adjustments to make up for this type of discrimination have been carried through in Elizabeth, N. J. * PRINCETON, N. J. (No. 552)—Pro- fessor George S. Counts, President of the AFT, declared that any educational system that is not democratic in its or- ganization and functioning cannot turn out democratic students in spite of the stress placed on democratic theory in the classroom. Dr. Counts spoke at an open meeting of the Princeton Uni- versity Local. * MERCER COUNTY, N. J. (No. 437)— John Kelsey, President of the Mercer Local, is on the Joint Committee which has offered four names for consideration for the three vacancies on the Trenton Board. Annie P. Hughes, a retired teacher, is among the choices presented. WASHINGTON, D. C. (No. 27)— Presentation of a new Civil Rights bill to Congress is one of the many activities of the members of the Local, who plan also to support a civic move for District JANUARY, 1940 WHEREAS, The protection of civil liberties is essential to the preserva- tion and operation of the American government and democratic ideals, and WHEREAS, The American Federa- tion of Teachers unfailingly and staunchly supports the Constitution of the United States of America and advocates the rights guaranteed in that great historic document, and WHEREAS, The American Federa- tion of Teachers unequivocally stands for democracy in education and edu- cation for democracy, and WHEREAS, The American Federa- tion of Teachers does not take issue with the stated purposes of the Con- gressional (“Dies”) Committee to In- vestigate Un-American Activities but believes that such purposes can best be served by existing governmental agencies in the enforcement of fed- eral and state laws already enacted against sedition, espionage, sabotage, and violent overthrow of government or incitement to violence, and WHEREAS, The Dies Committee has itself clearly violated democratic pro- cedures and therefore been truly un- American (1) by calling witnesses without due regard to their credibility, (2) by accepting testimony unsup- ported by trustworthy evidence, (3) by releasing to the public press testi- mony which attacks the reputation of individuals and organizations with- out affording them the semblance of a fair chance to refute irresponsible charges, (4) by condemning indi- vidual people through association, and (5) by summoning witnesses without due notice thus preventing adequate opportunity to secure data Executive Council Resolution on Dies Committee either for complete clarification or defense, and WHEREAS, The action of the Dies Committee has brought attacks upon organized labor, threatened its se- curity, and thus endangered the most important movement in the defense and advancement of our American democracy, and WHEREAS, The methods of the Dies Committee violate the civil liberties guaranteed in our Constitution by un- American treatment of dissident min- ority groups, and WHEREAS, The Dies Committee has failed to define Americanism and thus confuses the entire country, embar- rasses all liberals including teachers, students, and others who sincerely believe in democracy, and generally discredits free thought and expression, and WHEREAS, The Dies Committee has not been impartial and compre- hensive in its choice of organizations to be investigated and thereby testi- fies to its own confusion or prejudices, and WHEREAS, The methods of the Dies Committee discredit all government agencies with investigatory powers by reason of its obviously political mo- tives in contradistinction to its stated purposes, and WHEREAS, The Bill of Rights, should remain inviolate especially in view of the present international crisis ; BE IT THEREFORE Resolved: That the Council of the American Federation of Teachers declares its unequivocal opposition to any further , grant of funds by Congress to the Dies Committee for its continuance. of Columbia suffrage. The Union, whose membership this year is greater than last year’s, is working hand in hand with other community and civic organizations such as a club for the help of unwed Negro girls and a group whose aim is the employment of graduate students. Members are also active with the Na- tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the New Negro Alliance in their political programs. Mary M. Jones of the Local’s Inter- racial Committee, declares in a letter that “the Local notes with interest that the January AMERICAN TEACHER is to deal with race and tolerance. A group of organized, thinking Negro teachers notes this attempt on the part of our journal to handle an old and sore prob- lem with great interest.” NEWARK, OHIO (No. 411)—The Union here will celebrate its fifth birth- day next May. It looks back on a period of widening activity and expects to par- ticipate in more during the next year. Cooperation of labor, adjustment of salaries, new contracts and the estab- lishment of a grievance committee are among the high points of the past year. ESSEX COUNTY, N. J. (No. 481)— The Essex County Trades Council has endorsed the fight of Herbert D. Cole, president of the New Jersey Federation of Teachers, for reinstatement, terming his dismissal a clear case of union in- timidation. The Council also voted moral and financial support to the Cole Defense Committee. The Local has made recommendations 35 for the institution of a health and re- creational program for teachers, point- ing out that teachers in good physical condition are better teachers. High lights of the program are: the provision of facilities for healthful recreation and rest rooms by the Board of Education; ad- justment of class schedules with con- sideration for health; periodic health ex- aminations; leave of absence in case of illness and reinstatement upon proper health examination; and application of disability pensions to eligible persons. * BUFFALO, N. Y. (No. 39)—Discus- sion of the establishment of a Credit Union was one of the main topics on the agenda of the Union at a recent meet- ing. Several changes in the new con- stitution were also brought up. The executive committee has appointed Vice- President Strunk as president for the unexpired term of F. Keating Quirk and Anthony Barnard as_ vice-president. Press of other affairs was cited by Presi- dent Quirk as the reason for his resigna- tion. * ST. CLOUD, MINN. (561)—A dinner was sponsored by the Union. Attend- ing were many members of the St. Cloud Teachers College faculty. Dr. Mary Shaw, Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, was the prin- cipal speaker. Other speakers were Mary McGough, Lucille McQuire, Wal- ter Loban, Professor Joseph Beach and Helen Conway. All discussed dif- ferent phases of the work of the AFT. * MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. (No. 444)— Mary Shaw of the Union has been ap- pointed by Mrs. Luella B. Cook to serve as secretary of the state federation She succeeds A. R. Rathert who re- signed to accept a three-months’ assign- ment in Chicago as administrative con- sultant with the Civil Service Assem- bly of the United States and Canada. Miss Shaw has been an active Union member. She served as secretary of the University of Minnesota Local. She is a delegate to the Central Labor body and has represented her Union at the national and state conventions * BROOKSTON, MINN. (No. 508)— Harold Riise has written a song en- titled “No. 508 Song.” Union democ- racy and victory with the AFT are the theme of the short lyric to the tune of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” * MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—(No. 59)— A survey of extra-curricular activity has been suggested by the Men’s and Women’s Federation of Teachers as a 36 step toward the solution of the extra- compensation, extra-curriculum activities in the schools here. The Women’s Federation has gone on record endorsing the pension plan of $75 per month for teachers over sixty- seven years of age. The Union asserts that all other city employees have a pension system and a retirement age, and that the main objection up to this time has been the inadequacy of the pension. Under the proposed plan, the difference between the pension from the Teachers’ Retirement Fund and the $75 will be paid by the Board of Education. Director Roy Wier, one of the three labor members on the Board of Educa- ation, who was instrumental in drawing up the plan, declared that he would not think of asking any teacher to retire on a pension of less than $75 per month. The federation Health Group, a non- profit cooperative organization, now of- fers thirty-three days of hospitalization for $8.20 per year. The plan is oper- ated under the insurance laws of Min- nesota. “Denying the right of married women to work is denying the right of work- ing women to marry,” declared Mar- garet West at the Minneapolis Central Labor Union meeting when the group went on record pledging itself to sup- port the right of married women to jobs. TOLEDO, OHIO (No. 550)—Pay- less paydays and closed schools have proved the value and necessity of the Credit Union to the members of the Local. Despite the closing of the schools, the membership in the Credit Union has passed the 300 mark. The Credit Union still has funds available for teachers to borrow to meet ex- penses arising during the lay-off. Many borrowers have discovered that the interest rate charged by the Credit Union (one per cent per month on the unpaid balance) is considerably lower than the rate set up by per- sonal finance companies EAST CHICAGO, IND. (No. 511) Herman Rohm was elected president of the Local at the annual election. Other officers chosen were: Herman Dickes, first vice-president ; Annette Specter, second vice-president; Charles K. Pal- mer, financial secretary; and Pear! Bell, corresponding secretary. Elected to the executive council were: Frances Over- peck, G. O. Murphy, Guy A. Pratt, Margaret Mayrose, Mrs. Bessie Daniels, J. X. Bell, Benham Williams, Cecelia Ribordy, H. B. Hutchinson, Dewey Brush, L. E. Adams and Edwin Ken- worthy. E. S, Brown and Vernon Sig- ler will be members of the new execu- tive council. Mr. Sigler has been ap- pointed chief deputy clerk to Lake County Clerk Walter Mybeck. Latest angle in the Peru case is the administrators’ charge that the Peru teachers hit by the pay reductions have not attended summer school in five years. The East Chicago Teacher, bulle- tin of the Local, declares in an editorial that the teachers placed in Class E with- out warning, hearing or trial are still li- censed for their work and are doing the same work at half-pay that they did be- fore their demotion. * COLUMBUS, OHIO (No. 438)—Aca- demic freedom, current affairs and demo- cratic organization of the university faculty were the main subjects for dis- cussion at the Ohio-Michigan College Conference at Ohio State University which was sponsored by the Midwest Committee and the Local. Professor C. C. North of Ohio State University spoke on “Academic Freedom and the Teachers Union.” “The Role of the College Teacher in Current Affairs” was discussed by Professors Norman Woelfel and Edgar Dale of Ohio State Univer- sity, “The Finance of Higher Education” by Professor J. M. Peterson of Miami University, and “The Democratic Or- ganization of the University Faculty” by Professor J. H. Coleman of Miami University. The December meeting of the Local was crowded with important discussion on topics of immediate interest. A permanent sustaining fund for dis- charged teachers was considered. Chair- man Louis Raths reported on the prog- ress of the solution of a number of prob- lems facing graduate students. Dr. Jo- seph Himes, prominent Negro leader, ad- dressed the membership on the housing project. Marvin Hoffenberg, the Union’s official observer to the Columbus Con- ference on High Food Prices, made a re- port covering the work of the Confer- ence and the plans outlined. The reso- lution on the war referendum, which was made a special order of business its importance, was dis- It was resolved that because of cussed at length the Local go on record as unalterablv opposed to the entrance of the United States into the European struggle, term- ing it “an unprincipled struggle for power.” * BOULDER, COL. (No. 562)—The Kre- chevsky case, which promises to take rank with the Keeney controversy of the University of Montana of high- handed business dictation of the choice THE AMERICAN TEACHER of professors in universities, reached a new point in its development in De- cember. Made public were summaries of the findings of the American Psy- chological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the investigation of the Local into the dismissal of Professor I. Krechev- sky. The case properly began with the ap- pointment of Professor Krechevsky, who resigned a research associateship at Swarthmore College to accept a post at the University of Colorado, supposedly a part-time assistant professorship. Three weeks before the opening of school, Pro- fessor Krechevsky learned his post was to be a half-time instructorship. That was in August, 1938. In the spring of 1939, after a success- ful record, Professor Krechevsky was recommended to the regents for a full- time assistant professorship. They re- fused but voted him a full-time in- structorship. Upon being informed of the action of the regents, Professor Krechevsky wrote to the board and asked that the decision be reconsidered. This letter was con- sidered to be a resignation by President Norlin, although Professor Krechevsky denied that it was a resignation. Twenty- six faculty members supported Professor Krechevsky and asked that whatever evidence existed against him be pro- duced. The Local published the Colorado Teacher in printed form in December and distributed it widely. * CLEVELAND, OHIO (No. 279)-—Spe- cial interests are responsible for the critical condition of the local, state and national developments along the educa- tional front, and the press is helping to smear the schools under the guise of an economy drive, it was declared by M. J. Eck, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. He made spe- cific reference to the mud-slinging cam- paign of the three daily papers in Cleve- land and to the Citizens Tax League, composed of large real estate owners and speculators, which helped defeat many school levies. “Teachers belong with the industrial class,” declared Dr. Joel Seidman, field secretary of the League of Industrial Democracy when he spoke to members at a meeting under the auspices of the Local. “Teachers can solve their problem only by concerted action with those whose economic problems are the same as their own,” he said, and pointed out that the middle class to which teachers belong is rapidly disappearing, and that teachers as a group are dependent wage earners. JANUARY, 1940 MADISON, WIS. (No. 223)—With the state administration threatening a 25 per cent budget cut, the Madison Teacher is leading the opposition un- der the slogan “Higher Education is Facing a Crisis in Wisconsin.” Dras- tic effects of a budget cut would mean according to the Local another boost in student fees, sharp curtail- ment of services, immediate salary cuts, loss of first-rate teaching talent, further upset of student-teacher ratio. Results would be, according to the Union, larger classes with a conse- quent decrease of individual atten- tion, less chance for class discussion, inadequate examinations and the “inevitable lowering of educational standards and of the value of a Wis- consin education to the student and to the community.” NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 537)—Re- trenchment is hitting all staffs in the schools the College Newsletter declares in two lead stories. Not only are teach- ers being affected, but clerical and other administrative workers are feeling the results of a steady decrease in services and in wage scales. Promotions have been severely restricted and expenditures are being held down to bare minimums. The breakdown of state aid has proved to be destructive to many advances. The Union has decided to feature retrench- ment as the leading principle of a seven- point program. The Union is distributing copies of the special issue of the New York Teacher on retrenchment. The radio and moving pictures are be- ing used by the Union in its attempt to dramatize the fight to halt the retrench- ment program. Representative John M. Coffee, who recently denounced the Dies committee, will be the main speaker at a joint rally of No. 5 and No. 537 in defense of academic freedom and civil liberties. Other speakers scheduled are Vilhjalmur Stefansson, noted explorer, Professor J. Raymond Walsh and Professor Alonzo Myers, president of Local 537. * CANTON, N. Y. (No. 636)—Extension of “the American democratic way of living” is the keynote of the program of the recently organized St. Lawrence University Teachers Union. Improve- ment of scholastic standards and protec- tion against dismissals without hearings are other points in the program. The Union, which claims a majority of the faculty, has presented a tenure plan to the university board of trustees. It has also disclosed eleven major aims, includ- ing establishment of incomes to assure the necessities of life, protection of aca- demic freedom and the right of the in- dividual to present his subject as he sees fit. * NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 453)—Con- gressman Emanuel Celler has assured the WPA Teachers Union that he would give his full support to an adequate pro- gram for the unemployed. He asserted that he was opposed to the eighteen- months clause and that he would work for its abolition. Helen Lokshin, execu- tive secretary of the Union, pointed out that chronic unemployment will force Congressmen to recognize current needs despite pressure for rearmament and that such projects as the WPA Education and Recreation Projects must be put on a more stable basis. * SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (No. 61)— A report of many progressive actions was submitted by both delegates to the State Convention. Approved by the conven- tion were a state-wide demand for recog- nition of the Federation as the official bargaining agency for teachers on WPA and systematic plans for membership drives. Favorable action was also taken on support of the national program of closer amity between AFT locals and central labor bodies, other teacher or- ganizations and all progressive groups interested in education and immediate amendment of the Woodrum Bill, to prevent lay-offs of teachers and stoppage of classes. * PHILADELPHIA, PA. (No. 192)— Breakdown of the 1940 school budget, a resolution to Walter Biddle Saul urg- ing the adoption of a budget which would relieve some of the over-crowding in the schools and which would provide better services in the evening schools, and an interesting item on the thoughts of sub- stitutes were among the articles carried in a recent issue of the Philadelphia Teacher. Nathan Shrager, chairman of the Legislative Research Committee, presented a critical analysis of the amended Pennsylvania Teacher Tenure Law. oe CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (No. 431)—Is it wise for Harvard University to dis- miss every teacher who has been on temporary appointment for eight years unless within the next “five or ten years® some identifiable full professor is “bound” to retire? The Union has raised this question in answer to the ad- ministration’s action last spring. The Union bulletin declared that the reason- ing behind the plan for such dismissals is faulty. A number of factors are cited to show that the university would stand to lose valuable teachers and that under normal circumstances the ranks of full professors become thinner. The. Local 37 also points out that the choice of asso- ciate professors at present on the basis of the university’s ability to absorb them is without point and would in fact cause a scarcity of competent young teachers. ATLANTA, GA. (No. 89)—Annie Lloyd Liggin, who did outstanding work at Co- lumbia University and is now teaching at Girls High School, has been appointed art editor of the Atlanta Teacher. She designed the striking cover for the No- vember edition. The total membership of the Atlanta Public School Teachers Association is 1,102. Indications are that membership will be even higher in the coming year. Of the fifty-nine schools represented in the Association, forty-seven have 100 per cent membership. Friends, former pupils and relatives of Kate Ann King, who was an out- standing Atlanta educator, assembled at the Forrest Avenue School for the unveiling of a memorial to Miss King. On the program were Haskell Boyter, Atlanta teacher, D. F. McClatchey, of the Board of Education, and M. E. Cole- man, assistant superintendent in charge of elementary schools. * NEW YORK FEDERATION—Publica- tion of the legislative program for the State Federation of Teachers was fol- lowed by a request by Dr. Bella V. Dodd that Governor Lehman grant a hearing to a teachers’ delegation to discuss the points in the program. Five major points of the program are: 1. Restoration of full state aid to educa- tion. 2. A deficiency appropriation restoring the funds which were lost as a result of the cut in state aid for the fiscal year 1939-1940. . State aid to kindergartens. . The extension of tenure to all teachers. 5. The establishment of a merit system of appointment and promotion for teachers and supervisors throughout the state. * OHIO FEDERATION—State-wide or- ganization reports were given by the Organization Committee of the Ohio Federation to the Executive Council meeting in Columbus. The report indi- cated that many favorable contacts have been made among central labor bodies and unorganized teacher groups. In order to facilitate and coordinate con- > w CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (No. 431)— Trained analysis and investigation to help solve labor preblems of the Cam- bridge area have been offered by the Union through its newly-formed Com- mittee on Research. In announcing the activity, the Local declared that the tasks which the Committee might undertake are gathering wage data about certain industries, securing in- formation about laws and experiences in other parts of the country, and writing up information already col- lected but not yet organized for pres- entation. mn NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 537)— More than fifty philosophers from every part of the nation attended a supper gathering of Union members and friends at Columbia University in connection with the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Asso- ciation. The affair was sponsored on behalf of the Columbia Chapter by the Union members of the Philosophy Department. Professor Horace L. Friess, chairman of the chapter, pre- sided over a spirited discussion of philosophy and unionism. Many col- lege teachers sought information about the Union and its policies. + WASHINGTON FEDERATION— The Washington State Federation of Teachers has issued a summary of the background and facts in the case of the dismissal of Professor Joseph C. Trainor from his post at Central Washington College of Education last summer. The report, written by Ralph H. Gundlach and Robert Igle- hart, Vice-President of the AFT, traces the entire incident which arose as a result of Professor Trainor’s trip to Mexico. The point at issue was whether Professor Trainor’s depar- ture from the college was authorized by President Robert E. McConnell. Evidence indicates that Professor Trainor’s discharge is a case of dis- crimination. Copies of the report may be obtained from Robert Igle- hart, 2905 A Franklin avenue, Seattle, Wash. Editorial Deadline All News from Locals must be in by February 1. Please see that two copies of all Local publications are mailed to George T. Guernsey, 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago. 38 tact work, the committee has _ redis- tricted the state into nine districts with a chairman responsible for each area. Chairmen are (in order of district): WPA, Lida Auville; College, D. C. Wil- liams and J. H. Russell; 1. Edward A. Janning; 2. J. Thomas; 3. Thane E. Hawkins; 4. A. T. Smith; 5. E. L. Fish- baugh; 6. Carl A. Benson; 7. D. C. Wil- liams; 8. Paul P. Parker; and 9. R. E. Abercrombie. . CHICAGO, ILL. (No. 1)—The Union was successful in maintaining its rep- resentation at the Illinois Education As- sociation’s annual meeting at. Spring- field. Efforts to prevent the seating of the Chicago delegation were frustrated and Chicago’s influence was successful in securing the election of Edward Stull- ken, principal of the Montefiore School, as vice-president of the Illinois Edu- cation Association. On January 16, a representative of the Department of Internal Revenue of Chicago spoke at the Union study class on the responsibility of teachers under the Federal Income Tax law. A series of discussions lead by Dr. Arnold of the Adlerian clinic on psychological problems of teachers will begin with the second semester of the school year. The House of Representatives voted unanimously in favor of adding a tenth year for elementary teachers. The single salary report submitted by the Union was adopted with only a few dissenting votes. The Union is con- ducting a weekly dancing class. Inside the Cover (Continued from page 2) Facts. 14 pages. 1939; Our En- ergy Resources. 42 pages. 1939; Population Problems. 30 pages. 1938; Our Cities. 38 pages. 1937; Technology and Planning. 33 pages. 1937; The States and Planning. 32 pages. 1938; Regional Planning. 28 pages. 1938; Planning Our Resources. 36 pages. 1938; Water Planning. 40 pages. 1938; Fed- eral Relations to Research. 32 pages. 1939. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office. Each, 10 cents per copy. PAMPHLETS AND STUDIES OF general interest received in the American Teacher Office recently included the following: Richard Welling: Student Self-Gov- ernment. Washington: National Educa- tion Association. 16 pages. United States Public Health Service: High Schools and Sex Education. Wash- ington: U. S. Government Printing Office. 110 pages. 1939. 20 cents. American Youth Commission: A Pro- gram of Action for American Youth. Washington: American Youth Commis- sion. 20 pages. 1939. Free. Elizabeth Findly: Free and Inexpen- sive Material. Mimeographed. Univer- sity of Oregon Library. 19 pages. (Octo- ber) 1939. 20 cents per copy. United States Department of Agricul- ture: Erosion Losses from a Three-Day California Storm. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office. 23 pages. 1939. 5 cents. G. T. G. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Plan Drive for School Funds . (Continued from page 4) THE CONTRIBUTORS In the meantime, until the voters of the Cleveland JOHN W. STUDEBAKER, U. S. Commissioner school district act on either of these proposals, all em- of Education, contributes his second article to ‘the ployees must wait for their back salaries. AMERICAN TEACHER. . . . FAY-COOPER COLE is Mr. Morris has devised a method for keeping the board chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His article is based on an address he gave before the University of Chicago Board of Trustees. . . . FRANZ BOAS is America’s outstanding anthropologist, a member of Local 537, and chairman of the American Committee for Democ- employees temporarily in funds by agreeing to pay them beginning January 12 and every two weeks thereafter until the deficit is financed. In addition, arrangements have been made for employees who have bills in the amount of $25 or more to assign them to the Board of Education racy and Intellectual Freedom. . . . MARTIN D. for payment. JENKINS is a member of Local 440 and on the staff The Ohio Federation of Teachers in a recent statement of Howard University . . . as are W. A. HUNTON pointed out that financial troubles of Cleveland, Dayton and DOXEY A. WILKERSON. . . . ANNETTE and Toledo were due mainly to the 10-mill limitation and SMITH is a member of Local 537 and educational urged that the 15-mill limitation be returned through a advisor of the Council Against Intolerance in America. ... JENNY L. MAYER is a teacher in the New York Schools and a member of Local 5... . JAMES YARD is executive secretary of the Chicago Round Table of Jews and Christian. ... CARL SANDBURG is the author of a new four-volume work on Lincoln In the October issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER a let- called The War Years. . . 1. KEITH TYLER is a member of Local 438, Ohio State University... . ALICE KELIHER is a member of Local 537 and chairman of the Commission on Human Relations state-wide referendum. In Cleveland the schools have reduced their operating expenditures $2,000,000 since the depression while both city and county expenses have in- creased over the same period of time. ter (page 23) by Mary Foley Grossman stated that the Executive Council of the Union was in favor of “Immedi- ately curbing the rise in the standard of living. .. .” This - : : ll, of the Progressive Education Association. ... CLARA should have read Immediately curbing the rise in the cost G. ROE is a teacher of history in Flint, Mich., and (not standard) of living. . . . a member of Local 435... . : ABRAHAM TAUBER The February issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER will is a teacher of English, Bronx High School, New ‘ York, and a member of Local 5... . EVELYN contain articles by Goodwin Watson, Ralph Tyler and a mysterious man in American Education whose book was voted the leader in educational books in the AMERICAN SHOLUND is head of the study class of Local 1, Chicago, and a teacher at the Spaulding School... . LILLIAN HERSTEIN is a member of the Executive TEACHER poll last month. Also, we have a number of let- Board of the Chicago Teachers Union. . . . FRED- ters which have come in which will be printed. ERICK REDEFER is the executive secretary of the Progressive Education Association. . . . NEWTON Extra Copies EDWARDS is editor of the Elementary School Jour- E tae of th yo nal and Professor of Education at the University of xtra copies of the January ismue of the AMERICAN Chicago. . . . Survey Graphic was kind enough to TEACHER any be ordered at the rate of five Cents furnish the cut on page 6; the cut of the inscription per copy if they are to be used for organizational on the Statue of Liberty was used through the cour- purposes. If you send us $1.00 and ten names we tesy of the Atlantic Monthly. . . . Pictures on pages shall be glad to mail them copies of the January 20 and 21 were provided by Lange, Rothstein, Lee issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER. anc Vachon of the Farm Security Administration, Sekaer of the United States Housing Authority, Prager + of the Social Security Board, and by the WPA Recrea- AMERICA AND THE REFUGEES tion Program. by Louis Adamic Revised Edition 10 cents a copy Send for list of 32 pamphlets in social and economic problems Dept. A.T., Public Affairs Committee, Inc. LR PERMA SER Ee RR “ ane or a 30 Rockefeller Plaza . . — 7 7 New York, N. Y. SCHOOL MATERIALS ON SOUTHERN INTER- + + racial situation: America’s Tenth Man, history; Popula- SPECIAL ARTICLES, RESEARCH PAPERS, SPEECHES, treatises, on educational, literary, sociological, economic, etc., ’ topics. Outlines, excerpts, footnotes, bibliographies. Definite poetry, literature; Songs of the South, spirituals, music; requirements of patrons fulfilled in over twenty years’ service. Moderate charges. AuTHorS ResearcH Bureau, 516 Fifth Avenue, New York. The five, 84 pages, postpaid, for 20c. CONFERENCE ON tion Problems in the South, civics; Singers in the Dawn, Education for Southern Citizenship, suggestions for use. EpucaTION AND Race Retations, Standard Bldg., At- TREE-RIPENED ORANGES FOR SALE. NATURAL, TREE- ripened, sweet, juicy, non-sprayed. Bushel, $3.50. Delivered ex- lanta, Ga. press prepaid. A. H. BurKET, Sebring, Florida. _ ——_—___— - ——__—____—__—. JANUARY, 1940 39 children? Democracy”? Fighting retrenchment in education? Arranging for free lunches for undernourished Digging into dusty files for information on salary schedules and tax problems so as to better inform citi- zens on how school funds may be raised? Preparing a film, a play, or radio program which will show the meaning of “Education for Keeping yourselves and others informed through active legislative committees? * Because we know that many significant educational activities are being carried on by AFT Locals, the April issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER will be organized around the theme, “What is Your Union Doing?” We want short articles of 500 to 1,200 words dealing with concrete problems facing your Local and the methods being used to solve these problems. We are asking members of all Locals for suggestions. Please fill out the attached coupon and enclose with it a brief description or outline of an article for the April issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER. Mail to George T. Guernsey, Editor, 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, IIl. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. WHAT EVERY WELL INFORMED TEACHER SHOULD KNOW The How and Why of the A. F. of T. . Six Major Purposes . Can Teachers Unions Be Called Out On Strike? (Jerome Davis) . Questions and Answers . What 17c Will Do in A. F. T. Dues i ae 2 (Goodwin Watson) (Correct as of Oct., 1939) . Information about the A. F. T. 35c per hundred 25c per hundred 25c per hundred . Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union 35c per hundred . Six Reasons for Joining the A. F. T. + 25c per hundred 35c per hundred 35c per hundred . Why I Am Glad to Be a Member of the 35c per hundred . The Constitution of the A. F. T. $2.00 per hundred A Program of Action for Classroom Teachers $2.00 per hundred A Critical Evaluation of the A. F. T. (Aileen W. Robinson) 50c¢ per copy Accomplishments of the A. F. T. Teachers Should Organize (Frank Baker) A Golden Opportunity (Irvin R. Kuenzli) Facts 60c per hundred $2.00 per hundred $2.00 per hundred $1.50 per hundred Organized Labor and the Public Schools (Irvin R. Kuenzli) 75c per hundred Labor’s Part in American Education (George L Googe ) 50c per hundred The Function of Teachers Unions in Colleges (Jerome Davis) 50c per hundred The National Union of Teachers of England (Elsie V. Parker) $1.00 per hundred Excerpts from Education Program 1938 A. F. of L. Convention Millions of Workers Legislative Report Why I Belong to A. F. T. 50c per hundred 50c per hundred A. F. T. Executive Council 1939 $1.00 per hundred Address by George S. Counts A. F. of L. Convention 1939 50c per hundred (By Counts, Voorhis, Douglas and Baker) 25c per hundred A Challenge to Class-Room Teachers 25c per hundred ORDER BY NUMBER FROM AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 506 SOUTH WABASH AVENUE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE AMERICAN TEACHER