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THE 
AMERICAN | 
T EAC H E R ~~ March, 1940 


PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 








The Teachers Union in Action 


e Milwaukee Wins Court Tenure Case 
e Detroit Edits Labor Paper on Schools 
¢ Kenosha Labor Reduces Salary Cuts 
e N. Y. C. Wins Credit for WPA Teaching 
e Cincinnati Condemns Relief Standards 


e Gary Teachers Win $150 Salary Raises 


Pages 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 




















Creed for a School Board Member........ EDGAR MENDENHALL 
Crises in Jacksonville and Toledo ........... . IRVIN R. KUENZLI 
Teaching Reading Effectively .... PAUL WITTY and JOHN DE BOER 
Resources and Education... . PAUL HANNA and HAROLD HAND 
Ideas Are Weapons (A Review)............ GEORGE E. AXTELLE 








— - — 2 —s~ — — 








uside the Cover 








LEE GEYER, FORMER PRESIDENT 
ef AFT Local 430 and now Congress- 
man from Los Angeles, Calif., has intro- 
duced a bill (H.R. 7534) into Congress 
which would make the poll tax illegal in 
elections in which federal representatives 
are to be chosen. Speaking before the 
House Judiciary subcommittee, Mayor 
Maury Maverick declared that, “For 
every additional Negro who would be 
enfranchised by the repeal of poll taxes, 
there would be eight white men.” He 
also pointed out that for the nation as a 
whole an average of 67 per cent of the 
qualified voters participate in national 
elections. For the southern states where 
poll taxes prevail, only 31 per cent vote 
in Florida, 27 per cent in Texas, 16.2 
per cent in Georgia, 14.5 per cent in 
Mississippi, and only 10 per cent of the 
qualified voters in South Carolina vote. 

Martin Dies of Texas was elected by 
12,000 voters in a district that has ap- 
proximately 361,000 people and Eugene 
Cox of Georgia received less than 6,000 
votes. Both the AFL and the CIO are 
supperting the Geyer Bill. 


* 

PROFESSOR HUDSON B. HAST- 
ings, Yale economist, is worried because 
he thinks that organized labor’s demand 
for standardized high wage scales will 
lead to a lower standard of living for 
everyone. In Trenton, N. J., “high 
wages” won a real victory when a state 
law providing that women and girls may 
not work more than a 10-hour day and a 
54-hour six-day week was held consti- 
tutional by the state supreme court. 
The case involved a woman department 
store worker who had been forced to 
work a seven-day week. 


* 

IF IT’S GAMES YOUR STUDENTS 
want to play, have them try this one 
called “Higher Wages and Shorter 
Hours.” The game can be played by two 
to six persons. It consists of a seven- 
colored board, a number of pegs labeled 
“labor spies,” a small spinning arrow to 
determine the precedence of the plays, 
and six key pegs, three for those taking 
the workers’ side and three for those 
taking the employer’s side. 

The wooden pegs are moved from the 
front entrance of the plant around the 
runway to the main office, according to 
directions on cards, blue and white for 
the workmen, orange and red for the 
employer, which are turned up one at a 
time. Each move earns a certain num- 
ber of points. 


ry 


Directions n the werkmen’s cards 
follow the tested theories of organiza- 
tion used by practical labor unions. 
Three points, for instance, are gained 
by the workman-player drawing the card 
that advises him to “realize workers 
should have decent places to change 
clothes; that company does not lose 
money on cafeteria.” Four points fall 
to the workman-player who draws the 
card saying: “Legislation forbids em- 
ployer bringing strikebreakers across 
state lines.” 

On the employer’s side of the game 
one point is gained if the card saying: 
“Put on radio programs to influence 
public opinion” is drawn. Seven moves 
ahead are given the employer-player 
drawing the card that advises him to 
“subscribe money to campaign funds of 
friendly politicians.” 

These moves and counter-moves, fami- 
liar to each party in labor disputes, are 
based on actual study of reports of the 
NLRB and of the testimony given be- 
fore the LaFollette civil liberties com- 
mittee. The game was invented by 
William Stafford, an active member of 
the Chemical Workers Federal Union. 
Orders for the game at $1.00 per set may 
be sent to Stafford, Box 144, East St. 
Louis, Ill. 

Another unionist, Robert Evans of 
Chicago is manufacturing a red glass 
reflector for automobiles which says, 
“Demand union labels and buttons!” 
Around the steel plate on which it is 
mounted is another slogan, ‘““Make our 
state 100 per cent union.” 


* 
TWO PUBLICATIONS ISSUED BY 
Survey Associates will be of interest to 
AFT members: the February issue of 
Survey Graphic (40c) is devoted to the 
subject of Housing. By using the ad 
on the back page of the February issue 
of the AMERICAN TEACHER you can get 
three issues for $1.00. The Survey Mid- 
monthly of February carries a complete 
report on the White House Conference 
on Children in a Democracy. Please 
mention our journal if you order these. 
* 
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT 
must enter the fields of production as 
well as extend its activities in distribu- 
tion, Wallace Campbell, assistant secre- 
tary of the Cooperative League of the 
United States told one hundred students 
and cooperative leaders at a New York 
conference. Campbell also pointed out 
that the cooperative movement must 


enter into the establishment of a coopet- 
ative financial institution, and also the 
extension of cooperatives into rural 
areas. 


: 


DESPITE A 54-DAY STRIKE OF ITS 
55,000 workers, the Chrysler Corp. 
doubled its net profits in 1939. The 
annual report issued by President K. T 
Keller showed that the firm’s net profit 
for 1939 was $36,879,829 as compared 
with $18,798,294 in 1938. 


* 


“TIME MARCHES ON” AS DOES 
the organized labor movement with the 
announcement that the Eastern edition 
of Time magazine will be printed in a 
union shop. However, the boycott is 
being continued until the western edition 
is printed in a union shop. If you want 
to know, Newsweek is printed in a union 
shop. So is the United States News. 
And for those of literary tastes, the 
Book and Magazine Guild (CIO) just 
signed a contract with the Saturday 
Review of Literature. 





Labor and Education in 1939, a 
supplement to Labor and Educa- 
tion, has been published by the 
Permanent Committee on Educa- 
tion of the AFL. These are avail- 
able through the national office of 
the AFT, 506 S. Wabash Ave., 
Chicago, at the rate of 10 cents a 
copy, or 5 cents a copy in lots of 
ten or more. It contains the 
report of the AFL executive coun- 
cil to the 1939 convention, the 
report of the Permanent Commit- 
tee on Education to the same 
convention, and speeches made by 
President Counts, Spencer Miller, 
Jr., and Dean William F. Russell, 
Teachers College, Columbia, at 
the Cincinnati meetings. 











CONNECTICUT LABOR  INSPEC- 
tors bagged big game in an intensive 
drive on state labor law violators. They 
arrested C. C. Boydston, treasurer of 
the Columbia Recording Corporation 
(phonograph records) on 144 charges of 
working women overtime and on Sun- 
days. It was charged that some women 
worked 92 hours a week. Office girls 
told of working until they fainted on 
the job. 

The warrant charges the company with 
100 instances of working women over 
nine hours a day, 20 counts of working 
women more than 48 hours a week, 20 
counts of working women after 10 P.M. 
and four counts of working women on 
Sundays. —G. T. G. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





a ee 














MARCH, 1940 Vol. XXIV, No. 7 


CREED FOR A SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER Edgar Mendenhall 6 
CRISES IN JACKSONVILLE AND TOLEDO Irvin R. Kuenzli 8 
TEACHING READING EFFECTIVELY Paul Witty and John DeBoer 10 
RESOURCES AND EDUCATION Paul Hanna and Harold Hand 14 


DEPARTMENTS 
INSIDE THE COVER 2 
EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS 3 
THE PRESIDENT’S PAGE: HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE UNITY ? 

George S. Counts 


nm 


AMONG THE NEW BOOKS: 
IDEAS ARE WEAPONS 
MOMENT IN PEKING and RESTLESS WAVE 


George E. Axtelle 19 
Kermit Eby 20 


THE TEACHERS UNION IN ACTION 21 
ON THE LABOR FRONT 27 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 29 

WE CAN’T TEACH DEMOCRACY J. Lantham Winslow 29 


THE CONTRIBUTORS 31 


Member of Educational Press Association 
Drawings by Chandler Montgomery 
THE EDITORS of the American 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 


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State Labor Fights for Schools 


Recent actions of state federations of labor speak well 
for those who have maintained that labor is interested in 
protecting the public schools. At the annual convention 
of the Minnesota State Federation of Labor, resolutions 
were passed favoring sound tenure laws and urging labor 
bodies to make every effort to prevent unjust dismissals 
of teachers. Other measures advocated were: (1) pros- 
pective teachers should be given advantage of a thorough 
and objective treatment of the labor movement in America 
in the course of their training; (2) a program of action 
to place more labor representatives on school boards; 
(3) active interest in academic, as well as vocational, 
education and closer contact with teachers in order to 
promote knowledge and understanding of labor and labor 
organizations; and (4) opposition to the establishment 
and continuance of compulsory military training in pub- 
licly supported educational institutions. 

In Illinois the State Federation of Labor warned against 
the growing school curtailment drive and urged the Execu- 
tive Board to keep watch on this tendency and to recom- 
mend “appropriate action calculated to prevent such cur- 
tailment.” 

In Wisconsin the State Federation issued a special 
bulletin urging its membership to vote “no” on the repeal 
of the Wisconsin tenure law. In commenting the bulletin 
said: “The teachers’ tenure law throughout the state is 
rather weak, yet it is better than no law at all.” 


MARCH, 1940 





THE 
AMERICAN 


TEACHER 


Published by 
The American Federation of Teachers 


AFFILIATED WITH THE 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR 











At Battle Creek, Michigan, the State Federation 
adopted the following resolutions concerning education: 


(1) pledging support for strengthened tenure law; (2) urging 
restoration of not less less than original appropriation of 
$350,000 for Teachers’ Retirement Fund; (3) urging adop- 
tion of State Aid program that would take into account fac- 
tors such as: teachers’ salaries, class size, class load, length 
of school term and uniform tax assessment practices; (4) sup- 
porting federal aid; (5) opposing discrimination against 
women teachers because of sex or marital status; (6) support- 
ing extension of franchise in school elections; and (7) man- 
datory use of school buildings for civil and educational 
purposes. 

A resolution calling for Michigan Federation of Labor sup- 
port for a program for elimination of the fifteen-mill property 
tax limitation amendment was introduced by the Pontiac 
Central Labor Body and received unanimous support of the 
delegates. 


Children in a Democracy 


How to give the children of the United States an equal 
chance for health and education during these next ten 
years was the concern of the 500 delegates to the White 
House Conference on Children in a Democracy, January 
18-20, the fourth national children’s conference to be 
held during the past thirty years. 

Representing a wide cross-section of organizations and 
individuals the Conference was confronted with the fact 
that far too many children are in families who are on the 
bottom rung of the wage ladder. Many educators have 
come to realize that the health and well-being of children 
is interwoven with the economic security and well-being 
of the family, and that the welfare of the family—its 
ability to survive—is built upon the earning capacity of 
its wage earners. Wage earning and farm families con- 
stitute nearly 63 per cent of all our families in America. 
The income figures so well assembled throughout the 
eleven topical reports at the Conference dramatized strik- 
ingly the discrepancy between income received and what 








is necessary for even a minimum standard of living. In 
1933-36 one-half of the 29,000,000 families in our coun- 
try had annual incomes of less than $1,200, and more 
than one million families received less than $250 a year 
in money. These amounts include relief payments of all 
kinds. More than a quarter of all the Nation’s families 
have yearly incomes under $750; 125,000 families of inter- 
state migrants have yearly earnings of from $400 to $500. 
Too large a proportion of our low income families are 
almost wholly dependent upon relief for their livelihood, 
so that the providing of any kind of a wage becomes the 
most imperative problem. Only to the extent that we can 
raise wage levels in families above this relief group can 
we hope to pull up the whole economy to a level which 
permits the children to have a “break.” Concentration 
on providing needed services for these groups is certainly 
our responsibility, but providing work and adequate wages 
for that work is of even greater importance. Families 
in these low income groups can offer their children abso- 
lutely nothing. 

It is encouraging to note that the Conference realized 
that although great strides have been made in the last 
few years toward reducing child labor, it is still important 
to pass the Child Labor Amendment. The Conference 
voted for the immediate ratification of the Child Labor 
Amendment. 

Of interest to teachers is the fact that delegates to the 
Conference pointed out that one-third of the unemployed 
workers in the United States today are young people be- 
tween the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Unemploy- 
ment of youth in this group is higher than that in any 
other group of our unemployed population. The con- 
tinuing load of unemployed workers in this age group is 
one of the real factors making for insecurity now and in 
the future. 

A National Citizens Committee and a Federal Inter- 
Agency Committee were appointed to enlist the co-opera- 
tion of national organizations in furthering the objectives 
of the Conference. 


AFT Contributes to Yearbook 


Eight of the thirteen authors of the recently published 
yearbook of the John Dewey Society are members of the 
American Federation of Teachers. The yearbook, the 
fourth issued by the Society, is entitled Teachers for 
Democracy. The chairman of the yearbook committee, 
Dr. George E. Axtelle, is Vice-President (College Section) 
of the AFT. The other union authors are Walter Ander- 
son, Frank Baker, Neal Billings, Whit Brogan, John J. 
DeBoer, E. T. McSwain, and William W. Wattenberg, 
co-editor of the volume. 

In a statement on teachers’ organizations, Dr. Frank E. 
Baker, who is president of the Milwaukee State Teachers 
College, makes the following comment: 

It is the majority opinion of the membership of the 
committee preparing this yearbook that connection 


with purely professional organizations is not enough. 
Even if all the teachers of America were united in a 


single professional organization, they would not have the 
power to preserve their spiritual freedom in the crisis 
that has already destroyed several European democra- 
cies and that may threaten ours at any time. They 
must be able to tap wider streams of democratic power. 
They must be affiliated with the greatest reservoir of 
potential democracy in America, productive labor. 
The teacher earns his living by his labor. His inter- 
ests, his ideals, his hopes, are the same as those of the 
forty-five million other productive laborers of America, 
all of whom earn their living primarily by their work 
and only slightly by rent and interest. 
Roma Gans, Teachers College, Columbia, is preparing 
a review of the yearbook for the April issue of the AMERI- 


CAN TEACHER. 


Buffalo Gets AFT Convention 


The National Convention of the American Federation 
of Teachers will be held on August 19-23 at the Hotel 
Buffalo in Buffalo, New York. The following Convention 
Committee has been appointed by the Executive Council: 
Robenia Anthony, chairman, Ray E. Abercrombie, C. J. 
Hendley, Arthur Elder, Irvin Kuenzli and George S. 
Counts. At a recent meeting, the Committee adopted as 
the theme for the Convention, “The School: Its Responsi- 
bility in the World of Today.” The panels suggested 
were: a discussion of educational achievements and educa- 
tional weaknesses; a discussion of the relationships be- 
tween school and society; and, finally, an analysis of 
forces impeding educational progress with a discussion 
of the effects of retrenchment on education and a thor- 
ough analysis of propaganda against the schools. All sug- 
gestions for the Convention program should be forwarded 
to Robenia Anthony, 312 Union Street, Springfield, Mass. 


The National Budget, 1940-41 


Now going through Congress is the national budget 
for 1940-41 which calls for a total reduction of $350,000,- 
000 in appropriations directly or indirectly affecting edu- 
cation. The cuts in the budget will be felt by almost all 
federal agencies engaged in education or in the promotion 
of education. Sharp curtailments are levied against the 
National Youth Administration, Civilian Conservation 
Corps, and outlays for vocational education. Absent 
from the budget is any appropriation for PWA construc- 
tion projects; during the 1939-40 fiscal year, school and 
library construction and repairs to the extent of $140,- 
000,000 were financed by the federal government. An- 
other major ‘slash for educational activities is the reduc- 
tion of $400,000,000 in WPA, which spends approxi- 
mately 30 per cent on projects which may be classified 
as either directly or indirectly educational. 

In its analysis of the President’s budget, the Edpress 
News Letter, publication of the Educational Press Asso- 
ciation of America, states: ‘This is undoubtedly the big- 
gest single reduction in America’s educational history.” 

The budget has not yet been enacted by Congress, 
which may increase the proposed expenditures. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


























The President's Page 








How Can We Achieve Unity? 


During the past five months I have visited approxi- 
mately sixty locals of the American Federation of Teach- 
ers. These locals enroll the great majority of our mem- 
bers and embrace the most populous parts of the country, 
reaching from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Wash- 
ington in the East to St. Louis, Galesburg, St. Paul and 
Minneapolis in the West; and from Savannah, Augusta, 
Atlanta and Chattanooga in the South to Chicago, Flint, 
Detroit and Lowell in the North. In the light of this 
experience I wish to direct the attention of the readers of 
the AMERICAN TEACHER to a basic feature of the Federa- 
tion which must impress itself upon the most superficial 
observer and which has large consequences for our policy. 

The locals of the American Federation of Teachers 
represent an enormous diversity of economic, political 
and religious affiliation and outlook. In economics the 
locals’ membership majority ranges from firm supporters 
of capitalistic institutions and the profits system to ad- 
vocates of profound changes in the economy in the direc- 
tion of socialization and general planning; in politics, 
from moderately progressive Republicans and New Deal 
Democrats to adherents of the various parties of the Left. 
From the standpoint of religious connections and beliefs 
the Union reflects the differences of the American people. 
Many of the locals are preponderantly Protestant, some 
are Catholic and some are Jewish, while most of them 
include members from every faith and from no faith at 
all. In some locals visited the meeting was opened by the 
members standing and repeating the Lord’s Prayer in 
unison, while in others, I am convinced, the membership 
would experience great difficulty in recalling the words 
of the first sentence of this ancient petition. In addition 
we have locals for Negroes and whites, jocals in metro- 
politan, urban, suburban, small-town and rural communi- 
ties, and locals north, south, east and west. 

On what basis can such diversity achieve unity? Some 
might say that the present situation is intolerable, that 
some self-chosen minority, or even majority, shonld 
proceed to drive all dissident groups out of the Federation 
and impose its special brand of economic, political or 
theological orthodoxy upon the Union. Others might 
see a way out of the difficulty in the suggestion that every 
individual, on entering the Union, sever all connections 
with the world of affairs, drop his political affiliations and 
activities, and devote himself single-mindedly to the 
narrower problems of trade-unionism. For neither of 
these proposals, fortunately, do I find any appreciable 
support in the ranks of the Federation. The first, if acted 
upon, would destroy the organization; the second would 


MARCH, 1940 


unfit our members to teach in a democracy. We must 
expect therefore that the Federation will continue to show 
the differences now existing and that our members as 
individuals will continue to participate actively, accord- 
ing to their own lights and convictions, in the political 
and cultural life of community, state and nation. 

In spite of the great diversity of outlook and affilia- 
tion, however, there is a broad and solid basis for the 
work and growth of our Union. While it is unquestionably 
possible, as experience has shown, to divide us into a 
dozen or more mutually suspicious and even bitterly 
warring factions by injecting into our deliberations and 
activities in a partisan manner various issues which are 
agitating the minds of the American people today, it is 
also possible, I am sure, to bring us together in the 
defense of three things in which we all believe and to 
which we can devote all the resources at our command. 

First, we are all committed to the defense of the 
integrity of teaching. We believe that in a democracy 
teaching is a noble calling, appropriately attracting into 
its ranks the finest spirits of each generation. In achiev- 
ing such a status we believe that teachers should enjoy 
security of tenure, a just share of the national income, 
protection against the disabilities of sickness and age, 
opportunity to participate in the formulation of educa- 
tional policy, freedom to take full and active part in the 
life of the time, and conditions of life and work generally 
which will encourage their continuous growth both as 
persons and as professional workers entrusted with the 
responsible task of rearing children and youth in the ways 
and outlooks of democracy. We believe, moreover, that 
our struggle for these things has only begun. And, in 
view of the uncertainties of the epoch and the general 
heightening of social tensions, this task alone would be 
a heavy one for the Federation to assume. 

Second, we are all committed to the defense of public 
education. We believe that the public school is the corner 
stone of our democracy. We believe that this institution 
serves to equalize opportunities among men, to increase 
the moral and intellectual stature of each generation, to 
raise the productive level of the economy, and to im- 
prove the competence, understanding, and moral quality 
of the citizen. We believe that a free school, conducted 
by a free teacher, is the surest guarantee of the achievement 
and perdurance of a free society. We believe not only 
that all gains of the past should be maintained but also 
that the present program should be extended and enriched 
and that all existing educational inequalities should and 
must be erased. We believe further that we have only 
begun to develop an appropriate philosophy and program 
for the public school in the current age of profound social 


5 








transition. And in view of the continuing economic crisis, 
the increasing pressure on the public budget, and the 
growing attack of conservative and reactionary interests 
upon public education, this task alone would also be a 
heavy one for the Federation to assume. 

Third, we are all committed to the defense of democracy. 
We believe that democracy as a form of government, as 
a way of life, and as a social faith is man’s greatest 
political and moral achievement. We believe in the grand 
conceptions of human liberty, equality and brotherhood 
expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Federal 
Constitution, and the great state papers of Washington, 
Jefferson, Lincoln and other leaders and spokesmen of 
American democracy. In particular we believe that the 
earth and its resources, the cultural heritage and its riches 
should be the possession of us all and that ordinary men 
and women—farmers, mechanics, housewives, and even 


teachers—-can and should rule themselves. We believe 
without qualification or reservation in the Bill of Rights 
and regard this great constitutional provision as an in- 
dispensable support of our democracy. We believe further 
that, with the rise of industrial civilization, the right to 
work and the right of laboring people to organize should 
be added to the great charter bequeathed to us from the 
Eighteenth Century. As members of the trade-union 
movement we also believe in the unity and close co-opera- 
tion of labor and all popular forces. And, in view of the 
growing fears and anxieties among the American people, 
the widespread attack on democracy throughout the 
world, and the ever-present threat of war, this task alone 
would also be a heavy one for the Federation to assume. 

In the defense of these three things—integrity of teach- 
ing, public education, and democracy—we can find unity. 

Greorce S. Counts 


Creed for A School Board Member 


Edgar Mendenhall 


I. I BELIEVE, as did the “Founding Fathers,” in these 
principles: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty 
and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, 
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just 
rights from the consent of the governed. 

Declaration of Independence 


We the People of the United States, in Order to form a 
more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tran- 
quility, provide for the common defence, promote the general 
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves 
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution 
for the United States of America. 

Preamble of the Constitution 

I believe that the objectives enunciated in these prin- 
ciples have not been attained and that the public schools 
in every phase of their administration should, with other 
organizations and institutions, set as their goal the attain- 
ment of these objectives. 

II. I believe in the public schools of America. I be- 
lieve that as the children of our country are properly and 
adequately educated, their own well-being, their fullness 
of life, the fullness of life for adults and the perpetuity 
of the entire country will be assured. The greatest re- 
sources of America are not in its broad rich fields, its 
minerals, nor in its industrial and commercial centers. 
Its greatest resources are the sort of human beings within 
its confines. I believe that the public school, when rightly 
administered, offers the best opportunity for “tapping” 


6 


these “greatest resources” and developing them. 

III. I believe that only through general public educa- 
tion of the right type within the reach of every child 
within my community, and in every community of the 
nation, will our country maintain its place economically, 
socially and culturally among the nations of the world. 
In this day of intercommunication and interdependence, 
we are knit, as it were by threads, as one people. No 
wall can be built around ignorance and neglect. We 
cannot escape the fact that “We are members one of 
another.” 

IV. I believe it my duty with all the intelligence, 
energy and courage I have to oppose vigorously any 
selfish interests of individuals or groups, political, re- 
ligious or economic, that seek to throttle or dominate 
the public schools, to profit thereby, or promote their 
own “isms,” or to increase the power and influence of 
any special groups or vested interests. The guiding 
principle for my actions as a board member shall be 
“Loyalty to Humanity,” not loyalty to a particular group. 

V. I believe I have my limitations as a school board 
member. I believe that my philosophy of life—that which 
largely determines what I think and d has been so 
determined by my contacts with people, organizations and 
institutions from childhood until now. Because of this fact, 
I believe I should take into account such limitations lest 
they prejudice too much my actions as a school board 
member. Therefore, I believe I should listen considerately 
to suggestions from others concerning school policies, espe- 
cially from those trained in the art of teaching and the 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 































administration of schools. Nevertheless, I reserve the 
right after such consideration to act in accordance with 
my best judgment. 

VI. I believe that no selfish or personal reasons should 
determine my actions as a school board member. I shall 
therefore not approve a teacher, any member of the school 
staff, any school purchase or contract, because of party 
politics, religious connections, kinship, friendship or per- 
sonal profit. As a school board member, I shall be 
guided in my duties by what I believe to be best for all 
the children of my community. 

VII. I believe in progress and in intelligently di- 
rected change. I believe that change is inevitable. It is 
a fact of existence. It must come in the affairs of men, 
in their relations with each other and in their relations 
with a changing universe. So far as possible, I believe 
that our schools shoud keep pace with and help direct 
in an orderly manner this change for human good, with 
all the intelligence and information they can command. 
This necessitates the changing and modification of text- 
books, ample and growing libraries, much supplementary 
current reading material, changing courses of study, 
methods of teaching, administrative procedures, equip- 
ment and buildings. There may be need for revisions 
of creeds and philosophies. This does not imply that the 
past has little value for present-day life. It does mean 
that much asserted value of the past must be constantly 
scrutinized, and, as our best intelligence directs, the good 
retained and the bad and useless discarded. It means 
the constant search for truth and its spread in every 
field of human life. 

VIII. I believe in freedom of teaching and freedom 
of discussion, that controversial questions of every char- 
acter have some place in the schoolroom. It is my belief 
that no person or group has the absolute possession of 
truth in any field, that practically all questions are meas- 
urably controversial, truth being approximated only by 
a free interchange of thought. I believe that freedom 
of teaching and discussion should be of such a character 
that no set doctrine, religious, political or economic, 
should be imposed upon those who are taught, that 
minds should be constantly stimulated to seek facts and 
truths and weigh their bearing upon their affairs and 
the affairs of men. I believe that only thus can the 
growing generation be prepared to meet well life’s prob- 
lems, that only thus can good citizens in a democracy 
be made. Dogmatism is dangerous to democracy. 

IX. I believe with the English philosopher, Bertrand 
Russell, that teachers too often and perhaps unwittingly 
become “jailors of the mind,” instead of being what they 
should be, “liberators of the mind.” They become thus 
because of too dictatorial methods in the classroom, a 
lack of sympathetic understanding of each child’s per- 
sonality, or it may be because of some dictatorial ad- 
ministrators or school boards. I believe that pressure 
groups, “pseudo-patriots,” and biased writers of text- 
books must share the responsibility of “jailing” the minds 
of boys and girls. Timid and cautious teachers fear 


MARCH, 1940 


losing their jobs. Emotionalists, dogmatists and distorted 
information cramp and warp the minds of both teachers 


and pupils. School board members have an important 
part to play in aiding the liberation of the minds of the 
boys and girls of their communities. 

X. I believe that too many school board members 
feel that the taxpayers support the schools. They fail to 
consider that it is just as near the truth to say, “The 
schools support the taxpayers.” I believe that taxpayers 
and schools are mutually interdependent. Neither could 
exist without the other. Without the producers of ma- 
terial wealth—the owners of property, manufacturers, 
business concerns—there could be no schools. Without 
the education which schools provide, property rights, 
manufacturers and business would likely vanish. Such 
a point of view would do much to balance incomes more 
fairly, would lend more dignity to the profession of teach- 
ing and contribute much to its efficiency. 

XI. I believe that the need for education for every 
individual is present throughout life. This need begins at 
birth and only ends at death. Failure to meet this need 
is a public disservice. The public, represented by the 
school board members, should realize this fact and should 
utilize their schools to the full for the continuous educa- 
tion of all the people of the community, irrespective of 
age. Nursery schools, schools for adults, public forums 
should be an integral part of public education. 

XII. I believe there exists in every community other 
educational agencies besides the school—the home, the 
church, civic clubs, recreational centers, business and 
labor groups. I believe that proper integration of the 
educational efforts of all these agencies and groups is 
essential for clarification and effectiveness of ideals and 
the educational processes desirable in a democratic so- 
ciety. To further such integration, I believe so far as 
possible, the board of education should be made up of 
representatives from several groups—professional, labor, 
business, industrial—which constitute the community. | 
believe the school board should encourage their school 


7 








staff to plan their educational programs in terms not only 
of the special needs of individuals and groups, but also 
in terms of fused interests and needs. Such educational 
programs should be checked on the part of the staff by 
direct contacts with the working conditions and life of 
the community. In planning such programs, national and 
world needs and interests should be taken into account. 

XIII. I believe that there are certain fundamental 
principles of action which will aid a serious-minded school 
board member better to perform his duties, but that no 
definite way can be pointed out as to just what to do in 
a given situation. In other words, there cannot be made 
a “road map” or a “blue-print” to guide a school board 
member in every situation. How well he will be able to 
meet and solve the problems he faces must depend upon 
his own insight, his willingness to read widely and in- 
form himself and upon his ability to predict the ultimate 
results of what he does. High ideals, intelligence and 
courage are essentials for his task. 

XIV. I believe that every school board member should 
feel deeply the responsibility which is his because he is 
a school board member. He should think through much 
for himself just what education means and its bear- 
ing upon his community and the life of the nation. 
Perhaps he should feel that education constantly is in 
“a race with catastrophe.” Whether he knows it or not, 
he is a participant in the fate of the country. 


XV. I believe in the most thorough democratization 
of the schools possible. I believe this because I feel 
that such democratization in action in our schools is essen- 
tial training for the preservation and furtherance of the 
democratic principles in which Americans believe. 1 be- 
lieve that such democratization should be so worked out 
as to enable every participant in the school system— 
pupils, parents, teachers, as well as the superintendent and 
school board—to contribute his ability in attaining the 
true objective of education in a democracy—a higher level 
of living for all. I therefore believe in democracy in 
the schoolroom, in teacher participation in school ad- 
ministration, in teachers organizations, and in every means 
which may be utilized in a community to render our 
schools more democratic. 

XVI. Finally, I believe that the ideals set forth in 
this creed will be of worth only to those school board 
members who will think them through and will discuss 
with other board members and educators their meaning, 
and the methods of carrying out such ideals. If such 
a dream could be realized, I believe that public educa- 
tion and the civilization of our country would move con- 
stantly to higher levels. 

William Allan Neilson has written, “Education Can’t 
Be Better Than the Teachers.” I believe it is as near 
the truth to say, “Education Can’t Be Better Than the 
School Board Members and Administrators.” 


Crises in Jacksonville and Toledo 


Irvin R. Kuenzli 


THE RECENT action of the Board of Education in 
Toledo, Ohio, in granting, through collective bargaining, 
the best possible salary schedule to teachers and other 
school employees is a wholesome demonstration of Amer- 
ican democracy as contrasted with the action of the Board 
of Education in Jacksonville, Florida, which has persist- 
ently denied reinstatement to forty teachers who were 
arbitrarily dismissed without a statement of cause or 
charges. The situations existing in both these progressive 
American cities afford excellent exemplification of the 
struggle for adequate educational facilities for the chil- 
dren of the nation and the battle against dictatorship in 
the schools of the nation. 

The mass dismissal of teachers in Jacksonville consti- 
tutes one of the most flagrant cases of violation of the 
basic principles of democracy in the history of American 
education. Hardly does it seem possible that, in the 
United States of America in the year 1939, some forty 
teachers, most of whom had long records of successful 
achievement, could be dismissed without any statement 


whatever of the reasons for dismissal. Labor leaders who 
met to discuss the case, in connection with the Southern 
AFL Conference, at Atlanta, Georgia, on March 3, 1940, 
could hardly believe the story told by attorneys repre- 
senting dismissed teachers in Jacksonville. It seemed that 
representatives of some foreign state had crossed the 
seas to tell of conditions existing under totalitarian dic- 
tatorship. 

It was reported that the teachers of Jacksonville have 
secretly contributed considerable sums toward the sup- 
port of the teachers who were dismissed, but that em- 
ployed teachers were terrorized by rumors of reprisal 
if contributions were made to the sustenance fund. It 
was also reported that some teachers had sent funds to 
out of town friends and had them mailed back in order 
to avoid evidence of the contribution. All of this—in 
an institution which is training children for citizenship 
in a democracy! (All persons desiring to contribute to 
the support of the teachers may safely do so by mailing 
the funds to the national office of the American Federa- 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 































tion of Teachers. Receipts will be sent in plain envelopes.) 
A number of locals in the South are making substantial 
contributions to the support of the teachers. 

Organized labor is carrying out its traditional policy in 
defense of democracy in the schools by aggressively fight- 
ing the battle of the Jacksonville teachers. The 1939 
convention of the American Federation of Labor, after 
listening to the story of the delegates from Jacksonville, 
considered the case of national importance to labor, and 
emphatically condemned the action of the Board of Edu- 
cation in Jacksonville.' The importance of the case is 
emphasized by the fact that only matters of national 
importance are brought before the AFL conventions 
and grievance cases are usually left to international unions 
for action. 

William Green, president of the AFL, has sent a com- 
munication to affiliated labor bodies in Florida urging 
their fullest co-operation in securing the reinstatement of 
the teachers. The Florida Federation of Labor will con- 
sider the case at its annual convention at Daytona Beach 
beginning April 8. The local labor council of Jackson- 
ville is devising a program of action and, though impover- 
ished by recent demands on its treasury, is giving finan- 
cial support to the teachers. The National Academic 
Freedom Committee of the AFT is giving full support to 
the local defense committee. 

It is clearly recognized that, unless the board relents 
from its present adamant attitude, the campaign must be 
carried into the school board election in May, 1940. It 
is also clearly recognized that the forces responsible for 
the dismissal of the teachers will pour thousands of dollars 
into the campaign. It will be a significant battle of dollars 
against the principles of American democracy and the 
elementary rights of public school teachers. There is evi- 
dence that the citizens of Jacksonville are thoroughly 
aroused over the situation and that no highly financed 
campaign or flood of false rumors and propaganda can 
dissuade the public-spirited citizens from erasing the blot 
on the good name of the city. The city of Jacksonville 
has a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the whole 
nation and to the world that the principles of democracy 
still exist in the hearts of the American people. 

As indicated above, the outcome of the crisis in the 
public schools of Toledo, Ohio, was a wholesome contrast 
to the deplorable situation in Jacksonville. After the 
failure of a necessary school levy had caused the closing 
of the schools, “taxpayers” groups and other pressure 
groups demanded that the schools be opened and the 
budget balanced by cutting salaries and operating on the 
meager income available. The public had been deceived 
by false and misleading propaganda into believing that 
no additional funds were necessary and that financial aid 
could be secured from the treasury of the state of Ohio 
through the Foundation Program. Under these condi- 
tions, even a substantial part of the labor vote was swung 
over to the idea that revenues could be secured from 


1See AmerIcAN TEACHER, November (1939) Part II, Page 7. 


MARCH, 1940 


sources other than a levy on real estate. 

Once the levy had been defeated and the schools closed, 
the very groups which had opposed the levy began to 
appreciate the damaging effect on the city when the 
schools are closed. Real estate values were threatened 
because some of the semi-permanent population began 
to move to cities which could afford public schools. Retail 
business was affected and the credit of the teachers was 
threatened. The salaries of 2,000 employees were sub- 
tracted from business in Toledo. Hence, came a cry 
from these groups to open the schools at any cost, to bal- 
ance the budget, to cut salaries. Specifically it was 
proposed that teachers’ salaries be reduced from 88 per 
cent of their basic salary schedule to 80 per cent—thus 
increasing the salary cut from 12 per cent to 20 per cent. 
This cut was in addition to the time lost while the schools 
were closed. Strong pressure was brought upon the Board 
of Education and the Superintendent of Schools to place 
the salary reduction in effect for the remainder of the 
present school year and all of the next school year. A 
resolution had actually been presented to the Board to 
bring about the reduced schedule. The Teachers Union, 
backed by the Central Labor Council, swung into action 
and requested postponement of the vote on the matter 
until time should be afforded for further study. 

On the evening of January 26, 1940, the Board held 
a conference with representatives of the teachers’ organ- 
izations, the Toledo Federation of Labor, and the writer, 
representing the AFT and the Education Committee of 
the AFL. No action was taken at this meeting as the 
meeting was called only for discussion purposes. A meet- 
ing of the Board at which final action was to be taken 
was set up for January 29. Meanwhile Union officials 
conferred with officials of the Department of Education, 
Columbus, Ohio, and received an unofficial opinion that 
the Attorney-General would probably rule that it was 
illegal under the laws of Ohio to reduce salaries below the 
amount paid during the first three months of the school 
year. Armed with this iraportant information, the Union 


9 








requested a conference with the Board of Education pre- 
vious to the regular meeting on January 29. The presi- 
dent of the Board agreed to a conference between the 
Board and representatives of the Central Labor Council 
and the International Union immediately preceding the 
School Board meeting. 

Following this session the Board went into executive 
session, and upon emerging into open session a few mo- 
ments later withdrew a previous motion to reduce salaries 
and voted to continue the present salaries for the re- 
mainder of the school year. The program adopted was 
essentially the one requested by the Central Labor Coun- 
cil of Toledo. 

The Board of Education in Toledo is to be commended 


highly: first, for its willingness to meet around the con- 
ference table with representatives of the teachers and 
other school employees and the Central Labor Council; 
second, for its willingness to listen to the arguments of 
workers who represent the great masses of the people, 
rather than the well-organized minority groups which 
would crush or curtail the public schools. The teachers 
of Toledo owe a debt of gratitude to the Central Labor 
Council, without the support of which victory would have 
been impossible in negotiating the wage scale with the 
Board of Education. Labor is now taking the lead in 
the next step which is necessary—that of securing the 
necessary revenue to make possible the maintenance of 
wage scales for the next school year. 


Teaching Reading Effectively 


Paul Witty and John DeBoer 


The following article was first presented as an interview over 
station WCFL under the auspices of the Chicago Teachers 
Union. The participants were Dr. John DeBoer of the Chi- 
cago Teachers College and Dr. Paul Witty of Northwestern 
University. 


DEBOER: For some years there has been a growing 
interest among the teachers of the United States in the 
subject of teaching children how to read. In recent weeks 
the newspapers have published many letters from parents 
who are interested in their children’s progress in reading. 
Many of these parents seem to think that children today 
do not read as well as children of a generation ago. 
Dr. Witty, you have studied hundreds of children over a 
period of many years with particular attention to their 
reading problems. Do you think that the schools are less 
efficient today in the teaching of reading than they were 
twenty years ago? 

WITTY: I think there are several reasons for believing 
that the reading ability of children today is in general 
superior to that of children of a generation ago. The 
types of reading materials provided in the schools of 
twenty and twenty-five years ago were extremely formal 
and limited in range, form and content. Today a vast 
quantity of reading materials of many types and varieties 
is pouring from the presses, and children are called upon 
to read pamphlets and books on subjects which in earlier 
days were unknown in the schoolroom. Librarians report 
that the circulation of books has steadily increased over 
a period of many years, and the demand for reading 
matter has resulted in an unprecedented increase in the 
quantity of free and inexpensive but worthy publications. 


10 


An examination of the yearly best sellers from 1900 to the 
present reveals a steady improvement in the type of books 
which the general public has learned to enjoy. Judging 
by the place that reading now occupies in the life of our 
adult population, the schools have been successful in 
raising the general level of reading ability. 

DEBOER: But if this is true, how do you account for 
the fact that so many parents feel that their children are 
less efficient readers than were those of years ago? 
WITTY: The schools themselves are in part responsible 
for this belief, since they have become so acutely con- 
scious of the importance of the reading problem. The 
more precise measuring instruments in use today have 
made teachers, parents and the children themselves aware 
of reading deficiencies which were unnoticed or unsus- 
pected in the days when we were in school. When the 
school was unaware of the extent of reading disability 
among the children, it naturally did little or nothing 
about the problem. Today thousands of children are 
receiving aid in overcoming their reading difficulties as a 
result of our greater knowledge of the extent and the 
cause of reading retardation. 


DEBOER: Are there other factors responsible for the 
common misunderstanding with respect to children’s 
reading? 

WITTY: Yes, I think it is often forgotten that the 


children of today are confronted with a much greater 
variety of reading materials than formerly, and they must 
therefore be armed with a greater diversity of reading 
skills and interests. We can no longer judge the reading 
ability of children on the basis of their performance on 
some routine, perfunctory reading test or exercise. More- 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


over, many parents judge children’s reading ability by 
their oral rendition of the printed page. Today the 
schools are rightly stressing the ability to get meaning 
from the printed page in silent reading, because the 
average person devotes so much more time to silent than 
to oral reading. Yet, oral reading is a natural and much 
needed aid which should receive secondary although 
appropriate attention in a sound reading program. 
DEBOER: Is it possible that the greatly increased school 
enrollments have intensified the reading problem? 
WITTY: Most assuredly, the presence in schools of 
practically all the children of the community of school age 
has presented problems which did not exist in days when 
the school population was more select. And I might add 
that the general public usually knows little or nothing 
about those cases in which the school has been remark- 
ably successful, but it often does discover those cases in 
which the school is less successful. 

DEBOER: Dr. Witty, could you decribe briefly a few 
of the most common causes for some children’s slow 
progress in reading? 

WITTY: There are so many alleged causes of poor 
reading that it is impossible to do more than suggest a 
few of the more important items. Among the frequently 
cited causes are: poor physical condition, limited mental 
ability and faulty eye movements. It has been found, 
however, that no single factor is a dependable indicator 
of the needs of poor readers. Many items at one time 
believed to be causes are now regarded as symptoms, or 
as correlates of poor reading. Hence, the majority of 
boys and girls who have difficulty in reading do not need 
the treatment of experts; nor do they require the service 
provided by elaborate machines, apparatus, or “drills.” 
Their difficulties may be traced in most cases to improper 
habits and attitudes occasioned by lack of interest and 
to a dearth of appropriate reading materials. These con- 
ditions can be improved only by a systematic attempt to 
understand each child and to provide a series of new 
reading experiences which can be recognized as related 
to the child’s own problems or needs. This implies also 
that the teacher will have a wide acquaintance with many 
types of printed matter, and that she will be well versed 
in current literature, for children’s problems often result 
from recently created obstacles to adjustment and re- 
orientation. 

It is apparent then that a new responsibility rests upon 

the teacher who must become a student of the growth 
and development of children; she must also develop a 
sensitivity to and an understanding of social conditions; 
and, she must become thoroughly familiar with children’s 
literature—old and new. Finally, she must provide many 
books and periodicals to care adequately for children’s 
varied interests and abilities. 
DEBOER: It is clear that the teacher needs to know 
reading materials. But how can the teacher obtain the 
knowledge about books that she requires? Can teachers 
in typical schools obtain this information and provide the 
books that children need? 


MARCH, 1940 


WITTY: Yes, many teachers, realizing that their pri- 
mary problem in improving reading ability centers in 
securing abundant, easy, interesting and informative 
reading materials are making a determined effort to obtain 
appropriate printed matter. So successful are their efforts 
that it is a joy to go into a happy classroom in a modern 
elementary or secondary school. There one will find much 
free or cheap reading matter, attractively displayed or 
assembled in association with other materials which reflect 
the many expanding interests of youth. Among these 
materials one will be likely to discover a large number 
of attractively illustrated books whose cost is only ten or 
twenty-five cents per volume. This classroom will contain 
also a wealth of reading material which can be obtained 
at no cost beyond that spent for postage. In addition, 
the library is constantly being enriched in the modern 
classroom by new books and by appropriate selections 
contributed in many schools by a central co-operating 
library. Such an assembly of books, including attractive 
stories and valuable information on diverse topics, offers 
the possibility of providing children with varied reading 
experiences on different levels of difficulty. Lists of such 
materials have been prepared by the American Childhood 
Education Association, the American Library Association 
and other organizations. Similarly, the National Council 
of Teachers of English, The Progressive Education Asso- 
ciation and many other agencies are experimenting with 
the selection or creation of literature which secondary 
school students find useful. It is of considerable signifi- 
cance that the American Library Association publishes in 
The Booklist a semimonthly evaluation of new books and 
of inexpensive and free materials. Literary sources are 
here presented as avenues for obtaining information con- 
cerning pressing personal and social problems, for explor- 
ing the world of letters, and for building worthy leisure 
habits." 

DEBOER: You have spoken of secondary school pupils. 
Do children in high school also have difficulties in reading? 
WITTY: Yes, many studies have recently revealed an 
overwhelming amount of reading retardation in secondary 
schools. In fact, the variability in reading rate and com- 
prehension within every class is really astonishing. In 
general, these studies show that approximately 15 to 25 per 
cent of secondary school pupils are greatly retarded in 
reading ability. From whatever school group we choose, 
research confirms the general observation that large num- 
bers of secondary school pupils have not developed 
effective reading skills; as a result impossible reading 
demands are made upon children whose understanding, 
interests and general mental hygiene become increasingly 
impaired as they are forced to adapt themselves to learn- 
ing more and more unintelligible materials. 

DEBOER: Do you think anything can be done to 
improve the reading of these high school students, or is 
it too late to help a boy or girl in this matter by the time 


1A list of these types of materials for the elementary and for the sec- 
ondary school may be obtained free by writing to Kermit Expy, Chicago 
Teachers Union, 509 S. Wabash, Chicago, III. 








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he enters high school? 

WITTY: Fortunately a great deal can be done for 
these pupils. Systematic programs for the improvement 
of reading in the high school have been carried on in 
many cities throughout the United States. The method 
of coping with this problem is essentially the same in high 
school as in the elementary school. What is needed most 
is a sufficient variety and range of interesting books, 
pamphiets, and magazines to meet the needs of even 
the poorest reader. Boys and girls who have difficulty in 
reading become discouraged when their text books and 
other reading matter are too hard for them. Here again it 
becomes necessary to relate reading to other experiences 
of young people and to provide happy play and work 
which will promote a keen interest in and wholesome 
attitudes toward reading. It cannot be emphasized too 
strongly that the reading problem involves a responsibility 
of all teachers, not merely the teacher of English. It calls 
for helpful guidance, sympathetic understanding and 
broad stimulation of interests in many areas. The high 
school teacher merely continues the work of the elemen- 
tary school. 

DEBOER: I should like to ask you some questions about 
the methods commonly used in the public schools for 
assisting poor readers. On other occasions I have heard 
you say that you think of education not merely as a 
concern for mastery of certain skills in reading or writing 
or arithmetic, but as the process for helping children and 
young people to grow in general competence as social 
beings and as well-rounded personalities. Does this con- 
cept of education have any bearing upon the problem of 
methods in reading instruction? 


12 





WITTY: Yes, it does. It has exercised a most important 
influence upon instruction in reading and several new 
emphases have developed from it. First, reading is now 
conceived as a continuous functional process, important 
in education only in so far as it contributes to the 
expanding understandings of children, their appreciations, 
wholesome satisfactions and adjustment. Second, there is 
increased awareness of the fact that growth in reading 
skill and in favorable reading attitudes depends funda- 
mentally upon the provisions of diversified, interesting 
reading materials in which children may find information 
in keeping with their abilities and related to their varied 
interests and problems. And third, it has led teachers to 
view reading as one experience only in the total life 
activity of the individual; they insist that meaning and 
worth of reading depend upon its relationship to the 
total life pattern of the reader. 

DEBOER: I think that many people are interested in 
the value of certain well-known procedures employed in the 
improvement of reading. For example, what do you think 
of the approach through “phonic analysis,” that is, 
through the study of sounds of various combinations 
of letters and of other methods emphasizing mechanical 
skills in reading? 

WITTY: Phonic training has persisted through the cen- 
turies. As late as 1935, it was recommended by makers 
of several basic texts in reading. Many sharp criticisms 
of these practices have appeared since 1920, and authors 
realizing the limitations of extreme phonetic methods have 
recommended a variety of modified approaches. At the 
present time, teachers are inclined to be confused by 
the conflicting points of view. Behind all the confusion 
is the specter of our language, a changing miscellany of 
phonetic and unphonetic words, colloquialisms and slang. 
American-English is essentially an unphonetic language. 
Despite the rather decisive investigations disproving the 
value of extreme approaches, advocates still maintain that 
phonetic training confers the ability to unlock new words 
and to pronounce and spell words correctly. In fact, 
several educators believe that extreme phonetic analysis 
is essential in the re-education of the poor reader. 

This emphasis has had most unfortunate results. It has 
caused remedial reading to become highly formalized, con- 
centrated largely upon the development of specific skills. 
Since we have seen that serious reading retardation is 
associated with numerous and complex forms of behavior, 
it is clear that such an approach neglects or diverts atten- 
tion from many really significant factors associated with 
maladjustment. Another somewhat similar remedial ap- 
proach is advanced frequently. It has been observed that 
children need a basic stock of sight words in order to read 
fluently; remedial efforts consequently have been di- 
rected upon the mastery of specific lists of words. Work- 
ers in the field of remedial reading have sometimes 
assumed that the stock of sight words should be the same 
for all children and have devised drills upon particular 
lists of words which are said to constitute “standards” 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 















































for various groups of poor readers. Such acquisitions 
could in no way promote development and progress in 
language as a means of improving and facilitating com- 
munication. For a set vocabulary violates the basic 
premise that word knowledge should be acquired because 
it grows out of a child’s direct experience, serves his needs, 
extends his interests and thus promotes his sturdy growth. 
A vocabulary can not, if it fulfills these high purposes, 
be the same for all children. Slavish devotion to drills 
of these types blocks growth since it offers little that is 
really helpful in meeting the individual needs of the poor 
reader. 

DEBOER: In recent years many of our schools have 
employed a method known as the normal method of 
introducing children to reading. As I understand this 
method, it aims at the recognition of meaning symbols 
on the printed page without the intervention of auditory, 
or sound images. Will you comment on the possible 
advantages or disadvantages of this plan? 

WITTY: I shall be glad to do so, but first it will be 
necessary to say a few words about the development of 
language. The rapidity of this development in the young 
child is really remarkable. By the time the child is 
two years old he has employed two hundred different 
words. In a normally stimulating environment he then 
adds about six hundred words a year to his vocabulary 
until he enters school. At this time he has employed 
every form of symbol and every type of speech in using 
some twenty-five hundred different words. He has learned 
these words because they are demanded in predominantly 
social relationships: in obtaining food, putting on cloth- 
ing, going to various places, and gaining other desired 
ends. These words are, moreover, a part of larger activi- 
ties having immediate meanings and values; their acquisi- 
tion has been logical and continuous in terms of devel- 
opmental needs. 

This development has been facilitated through oral 
communication. The child should continue to develop 
his vocabulary through this natural medium, and he should 
be permitted and encouraged to use oral reading to assist 
in his recognition of printed symbols. As proficiency in 
oral and silent reading increases, oral reading should 
gradually come to assume a role secondary to silent 
reading. 

But it seems unnecessary, unnatural and psychologi- 
cally indefensible to curtail abruptly or prohibit oral 
reading which for the young child is a wholesome, worth- 
while and pleasant form of learning. 

DEBOER: There is a common belief that a child of 
limited intelligence can never become an efficient reader. 
and conversely, that most poor readers are mentally in- 
ferior. What is the best recent evidence with respect to 
the role of intelligence in learning in general and reading 
in particular? 

WITTY: It is generally conceded that the significance 
of mental ability has been overemphasized in connection 
with reading proficiency. In various studies of large num- 


MARCH, 1940 




























bers of poor readers in the elementary and high schools 
we find that about 90 per cent have 1.Q.’s between 80 
and 110, a range which includes the majority of school 
children. Most poor readers, it appears, are sufficiently 
bright to read satisfactorily if appropriate and attainable 
goals are provided and if there is sound motivation. There 
are, however, some remedial programs which overlook 
these facts. In one approach, the child’s mental and 
reading ages on standardized tests are ascertained and 
compared. Satisfactory reading status is said to be dis- 
played by the child whose mental age and reading age 
correspond closely. A reading age lower than a mental 
age is considered indicative of reading disability or need. 
This simple formula is alleged to be a scientific means 
of estimating the degree of reading retardation and the 
extent of reading proficiency to be attained through reme- 
dial endeavor. 

The fallacies involved in these expectancies should be 
readily apparent. In the first place, the procedure is 
based upon the unestablished assumption that intelligence 
tests can be employed to predict reading attainment 
precisely. As a matter of fact, it has been found that a 
typical statistical measure of relationship between tests 
of intelligence and of reading is too low for prediction 
much better than chance. At best, standardized tests 
of intelligence as well as of reading are but crude instru- 
ments unsuited and ill-adapted for such purposes. 

The more important criticism of the formula, however, 
is its neglect of the child as an adapting, changing organ- 
ism in a changing world, whose reading should be so 
directed as to enable him to attain wholesome personality 
orientation, not simply the mastery of reading matter 
according to a formula. 

DEBOER: All that you have said thus far suggests the 




























to 











close relation between reading and the broader problems 
of learning. How would you characterize a school environ- 
ment that is most favorable to progress in reading? 
WITTY: Children and young people learn to read best 
when they have a strong purpose or motive in approach- 
ing reading matter. They should seek reading experiences 
because the printed page offers information they need or 
the pleasure they have come to find in this leisure pursuit. 
Such attitudes are usually the product of an environment 
which is stimulating and rich in suggestions for worth- 
while, purposeful activities. In such an atmosphere, 
children are encouraged to plan their work together and 
to share the results of their reading or investigation with 
an interested group. A schoolroom characterized by 
domination, restraint, and hushed anxiety, with activities 
organized according to the set assignments of a rigid 
course of study is a schoolroom which deliberately pro- 
duces reading casualties. 

DEBOER: Much of the reading in some schools is done 
in textbooks used in connection with the various subjects 
of study. Does the work based on textbook study in any 
way affect the pupil’s progress in reading? 

WITTY: If teachers of the various school subjects would 
set as their major aim the development of strong and 
diversified reading interests in their respective fields, in- 
stead of the retention of certain blocks of subject matter, 
many of our reading problems would disappear. In some 
schools principals and teachers are replacing uniform, 
standard texts with collections of reading materials 
pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, and books—ranging 
from the simplest to the most advanced levels and deal- 


ing with numerous aspects of the same problem. In so 
doing they are eliminating the sense of failure and frus- 
tration which a large percentage of children experience 
when they are compelled to read textbooks which are too 
difficult or which are unsuited to their needs. No text- 
book, however well-written, can possibly meet the needs 
of any large percentage of children in a typical schoolroom. 
DEBOER: In summary, then, the process of learning 
to read is complex and calls for a variety of approaches. 
Effective reading implies the expression of keen interests 
in a variety of fields, the cultivation of wholesome atti- 
tudes, and the enrichment of human relations in school 
and life. Thus reading is viewed as desirable when it 
forms a part of a wholesome design for living. When 
our schools become schools of living they will be ade- 
quately supplied with suitable reading material, and the 
majority of our reading problems will then be solved. 
There are many schools in which excellent work has 
already been accomplished along these lines. There 
are schools, particularly in some underprivileged areas 
where the needs are greatest, which are lacking in the 
essential provisions for reading progress. In some schools 
even the number of textbooks, inadequate as they are, 
is insufficient for minimum needs, and rich, colorful and 
varied reading experiences are unknown. Classes are so 
large that the necessary individual study of pupils is im- 
possible. If the schools were to make a vigorous attack 
upon the problem of drastically reducing class size and 
of increasing the supply of suitable reading materials, 
they would greatly increase the effectiveness of their read- 
ing instruction. 


Resources and Education 


Paul Hanna and Harold Hand 


ALL THAT goes to make up the good life in a material 
sense as we know or desire it is derived from, and the 
possible abundance thereof is determined by, basic physi- 
cal and biotic resources. This is true of houses, furniture, 
clothing, food, fuel, automobiles, airplanes, schools, 
churches, theatres, books, hospitals, surgical instruments, 
radios, telephones, factories, paved roads, power plants, 
electric lights, vacuum cleaners and so on ad infinitum. 
Deplete or destroy the basic biotic and physical re- 
sources out of which these objects are fashioned or de- 
rived and, regardless of the beauty, logic and persuasive- 
ness of whatever the ideology, you in time have men 
without houses, furniture, clothing, food, fuel, automo- 
biles, airplanes, schools, churches and so on. Nor could 
any society, given the depletion of these basic resources, 
secure either these raw resource materials or their de- 


14 


rivatives in manufactured products by foreign trade, for 
they would have nothing to exchange. And even ersatz 
products require similar basic source materials. 

Why has such a seemingly obvious relationship been so 
commonly overlooked in this country? Probably because 
of the fact that the application of the world’s most ad- 
vanced technology to the richest natural resources to be 
found anywhere on earth has resulted in such a flood 
of economic goods that we have been able to see only 
the results of this unparalleled exploitation (and waste, 
be it noted) of natural resources. This has made us blind 
with reference to the ultimate source of, and the ultimate 
determinate of the measure of, our potential material 
well-being. Indeed, the very richness of our basic re- 
sources made them appear inexhaustible to our fron- 
tier-carving ancestors and we have quite unconsciously 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








inherited this outlook from them. 
There is also at least one other major reason for our 
myopia. As Renner has observed: 


Most Americans, including many educators, have at- 
tributed this (the fact that we in the United States possess 
the highest standard of living, use more luxury goods 
than all other nations put together, transact one-half 
of the world’s business, etc.) to the profitableness of 
democracy and to the superiority of the “American way.” 
They have assured us that all we have to do is to hold 
fast to the “American way,” and we will continue to en- 
joy these things. . . . Iceland is a wonderful country with 
unusually able people living under a democracy better 
than our own. It can never be rich, populous, nor im- 
portant; its resources are too slim. This is true for the 
same reason that if one has wood, iron, copper, gypsum. 
and cement materials he can build a house; but if one 
does not have these, he cannot. If one once had re- 
sources, but has used them up, in building a house, he 
cannot build another, nor can he sell products and buy 
the materials for one. If a people have resources they 
can build an opulent social order; if they waste their 
substance they cannot maintain or replace that social 
order.! 


It is also more than likely that we have tended to over- 
look this obvious determined relationship between re- 
sources and human well-being because we have found it 
to be a distasteful thing to admit to consciousness. We 
have been too prone to view the forces operative in 
society as being wholly moral, to believe that our prob- 
lems should be viewed almost wholly within the context 
of moral conduct, and that all problems could be solved 
if only the requisite great men to provide the proper 
leadership could be chosen—and this without any special 
consideration being given to the limitations inexorably 
imposed by the nature and extent of our basic resources 
or to the conditions under which the mass of our popu- 
lation may claim title to them or to their derivatives. 
To admit that, regardless of the quality of its leader- 
ship or the nature of its ideology, no nation could be a 
great power without coal and iron ran against the grain, 


psychologically speaking, for it admitted of a materialistic — 


limitation and thus injected a consideration not of a pat- 
tern with our moralistic outlook. Parenthetically, nothing 
here written is in any way intended to deny the power of 
great leaders, of ideas, of ethics, etc.; rather, our con- 
cern has been only to assert that these can enable us 
to achieve in a material sense only within the limitations 
imposed by physical and biotic resources. 

This brings us to a brief consideration of our resource 
situation. The picture revealed by the scientists who are 
variously studying our soil, forests, water, mineral, wild- 
life, population, etc., problems, while not black, is none 
too re-assuring in many of its aspects. As Renner has 
put it, we have been living “far beyond our geographical 
income; we have been eating into our principal.” It 
is estimated that nearly a third of our topsoil has been 
lost through water and wind erosion, largely as a con- 


'George T. Renner: “Education and the Conservation of Re 
sources.” The Social Frontier. 5:203-206. (April) 1939 


MARCH, 1940 


sequence of the depleting of our forests (only about one- 
eighth of the original stand still remains), the destroying 
of the native grass cover, and the employing of faulty 
agricultural methods. This has also augumented the 
flood hazard to a very considerable extent. Further, our 
water resources are wasted to a serious degree, and our 
streams are grievously polluted. Our wildlife has been 
poisoned and wantonly slaughtered; many species are 
either threatened with extinction or are already repre- 
sented only by museum specimens. Our grasslands have 
been overgrazed and many areas which should have 
been left in their natural state have been drained, irrigated 
or cleared and put under the plow. Witness the human 
misery in the dust bowl and slashed-over forest areas, 
for example. Irreplaceable minerals are wasted. There 
is a serious wastage of human and cultural resources. 
We have widespread unemployment, though the unmet 
needs of our population for goods and services (particu- 
larly the latter) are sufficiently great to require the em- 
ployment of the full number of our total potential work- 
ers. We have poverty in the presence of a potential 
material abundance. A million children and youth are 
unable to attend school. A major fraction of the popu- 
lation is ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and without access 
to adequate medical, dental or hospital care. Youth in 
staggering proportions are unable to secure employment, 
to establish a home, to rear a family. A large fraction 
of both children and adults are obliged to endure the 
frustrations associated with living on relief. These gen- 
eral observations but highlight the more important of 
the many serious trends toward the depletion, wasteful 
exploitation, or deterioration of our natural and human 
resources which recent research has brought to light. If 
these trends are not checked or reversed, they can eventu- 
ally lead only to serious economic decline and consequent 
social ruin. 

But they can be checked or reversed. We still have 
time to do so if we will at once realistically come to grips 
with the task. As Coyle has said: 


Our country is a great social organization . . . which 
has to have its strategic material resources carefully con- 
served; a country that has to have its people regarded as 
the source of our future citizens who must be conserved, 
who must be brought to a state of health, who must be 
properly educated, and be given such opportunities that 
the genius which springs up spontaneously in all classes of 
our people will not be wasted. . . . With all our waste we 
have not destroyed the country yet. . . . We still have a 
generation in which either to turn the tide of history 
toward a permanent country or else to turn it toward 
that same development that occurred in Babylon, or in 
the Mayan civilization of Yucatan, that came, grew, 
flourished and were glorious and failed to conserve their 
soil, failed to conserve their natural resources, failed 
to conserve their people, and passed out of history. 
Which it is to be depends largely on our generation 
and on the generation which is immediately to succeed us.? 


sociation’s American Planning and Civic Annual. 1937. pp. 9-10. 








“To turn the tide of history toward a permanent coun- 
try,” that is the challenge. Most students of social 
strategy are convinced that the secret lies in establishing 
and maintaining a balance between all the factors— 
natural and human. If there exist one hundred and 
thirty millions of us in this land we can estimate roughly 
how much material goods—food, clothing, shelter, tools 
and utensils, and luxury goods we need. It is also pos- 
sible to say approximately how much of the various 
services—medical, educational, recreational, etc.—we as a 
people need to assure a minimum good life for each. 
Knowing these needs in grand totals we can set a budget 
showing the amount of ore or coal or oil that needs 
to be extracted, the acreage of land that must be farmed, 
the acreage of forest that must be cut, the tonnage of 
clay that must be converted into brick or tile, or the 
quantity of falling water that must be harnessed to hydro- 
electric generators and the like. Further, knowing what 
the total reserve of exhaustible resources is and know- 
ing the extent of replacement of inexhaustible resources 
we can say how much of the budget of needs can be filled 
without serious impairment of the earth’s storehouse 
reserve. And still further, knowing the human reserve 
of labor, management, and creative vision, a design for 
the co-ordination of men, of technical equipment, of capi- 
tal and of earth resources can be achieved. From this 
design would ensue a more balanced, a more equitable 
and smoothly functioning co-operative mechanism of pro- 
duction and distribution of the materials and services 
upon which a society depends for its existence—a demo- 
cratically conceived and administered plan of production 
and distribution which could nurture our system of free 
enterprise. 

We have come to think of the social instrument by 
which we create and execute such a social budget as 
that of planning. Planning is far from being a new or 
untested instrument. Such private economic empires as 
those of Ford or of the DuPonts have prospered to the 
extent that they have been carefully planned for the 
smooth and continuous flow of material from mine to 
forest to factory, to retailer, to consumer. Education 
is an outstanding example of social planning. 
Knowing the number of children to be edu- 
cated, we, through governmental channels, 
budget our social income to provide the 
buildings, teachers, and supplies needed. Oy 
All this is clearly within our democratic 
tradition. _— 

The challenge before us is to ex- , 
tend the use of planning to wider 
circles of materials and men. We 
must see that the same concern 
and intelligence we have ex- 
hibited in small scale enter- 
prises is extended to include 
more and more of our com- 
mon activities. And basic to 






me 3 


ee Ee ee : 
re ea FF é 


: a ¥ we oe 





the whole planning movement is the sane, safe and con- 
servative use of natural and human resources. 

But what has all of this discussion to do with educa- 
tion? Has education a role to carry in achieving such a 
balanced culture and, if so, what is that role? In a 
democracy we proceed on the theory that decisions which 
affect the citizens shall be made by the common con- 
sent of those to be so affected. Such a theory of demo- 
cratic social dynamics rests firmly on the assumption that 
those who are to decide in their own behalf must be in- 
formed on the facts, issues, and alternatives involved— 
that an enlightened public is a sine cua non of the demo- 
cratic process of decision and action. 

What are the instruments which a democratic peo- 
ple may use to develop an enlightened public mind? 
The press, radio, discussion forum, cinema, pulpit, and 
many others exist with more or less of a consciousness 
of their obligation to provide the opportunity for enlight- 
enment; but the major institutions are the free public 
school, the college, and university. In schools and col- 
leges all points of view are welcomed and herein the 
charter of freedom is more surely guaranteed for an 
unbiased consideration of the facts, the principles and the 
solutions. 

But as yet the faculties of these educational institu- 
tions are not sufficiently aware of the problem of plan- 
ning for the wise use of our resources. Especially is 
this true of the lower schools. There is little realization 
of the limitations set fora civilization by the 
kind and amount of the physical and 
biotic reserves; there is little 
sensitivity to the de- 
gree to which we 
are eating 
into our 



















































- 
































storehouse faster than we can afford to do so; there 
is little vision of how we could use intelligence to bal- 
ance our needs against these resources and assure our- 
selves the material substance out of which we can fashion 
ever better conditions for a prolonged American civiliza- 
tion. 

How can the teaching profession gain such knowledge, 
vision, and will to action? First by sitting down with 
those scientific research workers who know the inven- 
tory of our resources to learn the true state of affairs. 
Can you picture on one side of a conference table the 
experts in soil, in agriculture, in forests, in minerals, in 
water, in economic welfare levels, in health, in recreation, 
and in each of the other large areas of natural resources 
and human activities? And on the other side of this 
conference table the teachers who are experts in child 
growth and the guidance of youth? Imagine the con- 
ference so directed that the teachers could get from the 
resource experts the basic essentials and the great prob- 
lems that face us in conservation of soil, water, minerals, 
forests, etc., and get from the experts in human activities 
the fundamentals concerning employment and unemploy- 
ment, welfare levels, health and medical care, social 
health, crime, etc. Then add to that conference table 
those who are experts in designing plans to achieve a 
better co-ordination and balance among all the various 
factors—those who see the important whole pattern and 
can fit the numerous parts together into a well-articulated 

and comprehensive unity. 
Could these teachers leave such a con- 
ference lacking the will so to 
direct the learning ex- 
periences of child- 
hood and 
youth 






































that the next adult generation would be able to use our 
democratic machinery to protect the earth’s storehouse 
of resources from being wasted? It is the conviction of 
increasing numbers in our educational profession that 
there is no other social action as promising in the long 
run as that of creating within teachers greater knowl- 
edge and vision of the problems and promises of intel- 
ligent utilization of our resources. 

Obviously, sensitizing the teachers is only a first step 
toward the ultimate goal. One of the urgent next tasks 
after sensitization is carefully to think through the cur- 
ricular pattern in order to discover where in the sequence 
of learning experiences children and youth might most 
profitably be oriented to these earth resources, human 
activities, and their wise co-ordination and utilization. 
How intcnsively should elementary pupils study the ma- 
terial aspects? How and when might secondary pupils 
and college students most profitably examine the facts 
and proposals? 

Once a tentative agreement has been reached with 
reference to these considerations in the curriculum design, 
teachers must tackle the task of translating the knowledge 
and proposals of the experts into appropriate learning 
experiences for pupils and students—things to see, mate- 
rials to read, experiments to conduct, objects to con- 
struct, activities to dramatize, etc. The instructional 
materials appropriate to the maturity and interests of 
the learners must be prepared out of the wealth of re- 
search available from the experts in resources and plan- 
ning. 

The challenge is not as simple as here described. To 
awaken a vast army of professional workers in schools 
and colleges to the imperatives of contemporary Ameri- 
can well-being and the role of education in improving 
the common lot—this is a task of staggering proportions 
notwithstanding the dynamic challenge of the task. As 
yet we do not know exactly what needs to be done or 
how we can best do it. But we are convinced that the 

leadership of the educational profession must move 
against inertia and tradition to awaken its members. 
The cruciality of this task has been recognized by the 
major educational agencies and organizations 
of this country. For some years authors of 
textbooks have been giving more space to 
the problems of conservation and wise utili- 

zation of resources. Universities and 
































colleges have courses for teachers on 
these problems. State and regional 
groups have set up training oppor- 
tunities for teachers. All in all 
many significant but scattered be- 
ginnings have already been 
eft made. 
Within this past year a more 
comprehensive and unified ef- 
fort has been initiated. The 
National Education Associa- 







i, 











iia aa 









a 


tek! SS 








tion and the Progressive Education Association have co- 
operated to create a Commission on Resources and 
Education. The United States Office of Education has 
accepted the invitation of these two Associations to 
join the Commission, and members of the National Re- 
sources Planning Board are co-operating unofficially. The 
present membership of the Commission includes Willard 
Givens, Executive Secretary of the National Education 
Association; Frederick Redefer, Executive Secretary of 
the Progressive Education Association; Howard Odum of 
the University of North Carolina; Ray Lyman Wilbur 
of Stanford University; Ruth West of the Spokane Pub- 
lic Schools; Lewis Mumford, author; C. L. Cushman 
of the Teacher Education Commission; Harold Hand of 
Stanford University; John Studebaker of the United 
States Office of Education; and Paul R. Hanna of Stan- 
ford University, serving as chairman of the Commission. 

This Commission has as part of its working equipment 
a 429-page preliminary report entitled “The Role of 
Education in Utilizing Regional Resources.” Within the 
year it plans to prepare and issue a statement of the 
purposes toward which the Commission hopes to con- 
tribute and a plan of action. 

The General Education Board has granted the Com- 
mission a sum of money to defray the expenses of or- 
ganizing and initiating its work. The Commission has 
held its first meeting in Washington, D. C., and agreed 
upon certain matters. During the coming summer the 
Commission is assisting two regions to organize work- 
shops at which teachers may work with resource experts 
and educational leaders along the lines suggested earlier 
in this paper. For the Southeast region the Commis- 
sion on Resources and Education is co-operating with 
the Commission of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Com- 
mittee on Curriculum, to provide such workshop oppor- 
tunities as seem appropriate to the needs of southern 
schools. For the Pacific Northwest region the Commis- 
sion on Resources and Education is co-operating with 
the Northwest Regional Council in establishing a five- 
week workshop on “resources and education” at Reed 
College and at the University of Washington. In addi- 
tion to the workshop in these two centers, shorter insti- 
tutes will be held on seven summer school campuses in 
the Pacific Northwest for the purpose of arousing more 


concern over the problem of education for better utiliza- 
tion of the natural and human resources within that 
region. Out of the workshops and institutes in these two 
regions the Commission on Resources and Education will 
glean experience which will be basic to the formulation 
of its longer term program of purpose and action. 

There are many activities in which our profession can 
immediately engage in pursuit of the goal suggested by 
this paper. The Progressive Education Association is 
holding regional conferences to which resource experts 
and educators are invited to pool their contributions. 
Already such a regional conference has been held with 
marked success in the Middle States, Minneapolis being 
the host community to the conference. Other conferences 
are planned for the Rocky Mountain region, and the 
Central States, while other regions are considering the 
possible desirability of such activity. The national con- 
ference of the Progressive Education Association in Chi- 
cago in February organized its program around the theme 
of “Resources and Education.” 

The National Education Association is likewise giv- 
ing attention to the problem in its long-term program. 
At the national meeting in Milwaukee next July, several 
sessions will deal with the problem. The publications 
of the Association give space to a discussion of natural 
and human resources. There are many possibilities for 
focusing on this theme afforded by the publications and 
meetings of the various State Teachers Associations and 
Departments of the National Education Association. 

Similar tentative plans are being formulated by other 
organizations and institutions. It is yet too early to say 
just how the movement will be directed, organized, and 
financed. However, the beginnings stir the imagination. 
We envisage a profession of 1,000,000 workers sensitive 
to the central role of the school in a democracy, aware 
of the inventory of our earth’s storehouse and the human 
resources for shaping and utilizing our physical and biotic 
resources, cognizant of the part that balance through 
planning would play in achieving cultural improvement 
and stability, and determined that the learning expe- 
riences for school children and college youth shall ex- 
pose the oncoming generation to the facts and create in 
them the skills, concepts and attitude essential to the 


task ahead. 





A free copy of a list of publications of the National 
Resources Committee may be had by writing to Lloyd 
George, National Resources Committee, North Interior 
Building, Washington, D. C. This list is published in 
the March issue of Frontiers of Democracy. The 
article by Dr. Charles Merriam of the University of 
Chicago which appeared in the February, 1939, issue of 
the AMERICAN TEACHER contains a good description 
of the plans and work of the Committee. 

The following pamphlets which summarize some of 
the more technical studies of the Committee are avail- 
able at the Government Printing Office for 10 cents 





Additional Study Materials on America’s Resources 


apiece. These pamphlets make a good starting point 
for teachers interested in this subject: The Northern 
Lakes States Region. 38 pages. 1939; National Re- 


sources Planning Facts. 14 pages. 1939; Our Energy 
Resources. 42 pages. 1939; Population Problems. 
30 pages. 1939; Our Cities. 38 pages. 1937; Tech- 


nology 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; Federal Relations to Re- 
search. 32 pages. 1939. 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 











Among the New Books 








IDEAS ARE WEAPONS, by Max Lerner. New York: 

The Viking Press. 567 pages. $3.50. 

This is a fascinating volume. While originally written as 
essays, articles and book reviews, it nonetheless possesses 
a remarkable unity. Lerner is interested not only in people 
and ideas but also in their cultural background, their audiences 
and the role they have played in giving redirection to the 
culture. It is this interest that gives the book its unity. The 
book is divided into four parts. The first part is entitled 
“The Uses of Ideas,” the second, “A Gallery of Americans,” 
the third, “Some European Thinkers,” and the fourth, “Ideas 
and Society.” 

In the first part he discusses the role and function of 
ideas in the culture, distinguishing between what he calls the 
instrumental and the manipulative approach to ideas. The 
former “recognizes that ideas are used in behalf of a way of 
life and in the struggles for its achievement. But it is also 
humanist. It understands that, if democracy is to mean 
anything, it must have respect for the common man and 
not use him cynically as a pawn in the political game. The 
manipulative approach sees the common people only as so 
much material to be used. It has no more respect for that 
material than it would have for the counters in any game 
If you view ideas instrumentally, your primary regard is for 
their validity, and for the social cohesion that will result. 
If you view them manipulatively, your only regard is for the 
use you can make of them. They become the instruments 
not for creativeness but for contrivance.” 

The discovery that ideas and ideologies are the expression 
of broad historic, social and class forces, he says, marks a 
profound revolution in our attitude toward and use of ideas 
This approach takes ideas not merely on their face value 
as independent entities but looks beyond to their motiva- 
tions, to the class and other cultural and social interests and 
purposes they promote. It sees the meaning of ideas in the 
role they have to perform, in the purposes they serve. But, 
he says, it must go further. It must adopt a thorough-going 
naturalistic approach. It must treat ideas not only in terms 
of their internal meaning, consistency and validity, the per- 
sonal and social motivations to which they give expression but 
also in terms of their reception, the uses to which they are 
put not only by the thinkers themselves but by popularizers, 
demagogues, power-seekers, opinion-makers, propagandists 
and the responses of the final audiences for which they may 
be fashioned and used. 

“The Copernican revolution in intellectual history will not 
have born fruit until we adopt a completely naturalistic 
approach to them. The meaning of an idea must be seen as 
the focus of four principal converging strains: the man and 
his biography; the intellectual tradition; the social context, 
or the age and its biography; the historical consequences 
of the idea, or the successive audiences that receive it. 
When we have grasped this we shall have grasped also the 
force of the irrational in the history of ideas, the role or 
propaganda as well as of individual creativeness, the role of 
insecurity and fear as well as of class and national interest, 
the role of instinctual drives as well as of logical formula- 
tions. We shall in short be viewing the idea not wishfully 
but with our eye on what happens to it.” 

The genius of the Twentieth Century seems to be its inter- 
est in the irrational in human nature and its implications for 


MARCH, 1940 


every area of life. The works of Freud in psychology, of 
Bergson and Nietzsche in philosophy, Stendahl, Dostoyevsky 
and Thomas Mann in literature, of Pareto, Sorel and Hitler 
in politics are all concerned with the depths of human life, 
the deeper inpulsions of thought and action. So far the 
practical interest in this aspect of human thought has been 
primarily manipulative and exploitive. Just as Plato trans- 
lated his social theory into psychology, assigning the various 
functions of human nature to the respective social Classes, so 
today the elite in both totalitarian and democratic states 
assign rationality to themselves and irrationality to the masses. 
Karl Mannheim in his /deology and Utopia on the other hand 
represents an instrumental approach to the problem of the 
irrational, studying the general relationships between ideas 
and the culture in an objective spirit. Generally, however, 
the science of politics has ignored this realm and has left it 
to the practical art of politics to exploit it to the advantage 
of power politicians and vested economic interests. 

The manipulative approach to ideas, however, in spite of 
its temporary successes, he believes, carries within it the 
seed of its own destruction. For basically it represents a con- 
tempt for both ideas and people. It destroys at the same 
time the only cohesiveness a culture can have, belief in the 
culture as a way of life; it destroys the basis for science 
and technology which in the long run are the underlying ele- 
ments in modern life; and its hatred for life will eventually 
destroy the culture it dominates because its policies are life 
and culture-destroying. 

“Ideas are necessarily weapons. But they will be effective 
as weapons only if the uses to which they are put are life- 
affirming. If the craftsmen in ideas have a belief in the 
possibilities in human society and a sense of the dignity of 
ordinary people, that will be the best safeguard of those 
ultimate standards of validity that we call science and truth.” 

Lerner discusses “Freedom in the Opinion Industries” in 
which he suggests something of a cross between SEC and 
TVA as a means of bringing competition and protection from 
grosser forms of propaganda into these monopolistic industries 
which play such a fundamental role in a modern society. 
It seems to me that this problem demands further study from 
the very point of view of irrationality in human thought. 
I have the feeling that Lerner does not see or at least does 
not express clearly the very direct connection between human 
irrationality and the controls of our agencies of information 
and opinion. So long as we think of irrationality as an 
essentially psychological phenomenon our efforts to under- 
stand this problem will probably be futile. Not until we 
see rationality as a cultural phenomenon and note the circum- 
stances which influence thought are we in the way of under- 
standing the problem. 

For one thing we must see rationality itself as a cultural 
growth, not an inherent psychological faculty. Men discov- 
ered and learned rationality as they have discovered and 
learned other techniques and skills. Rationality has a long 
history of development as has every art. A complex society 
such as ours in which the whole world is one unit presents 
very different problems to rationality than did an agragrian 
culture in which one’s physical horizon marked his environ- 
ment. Man can interact rationally with his immediate envir- 
onment only on the basis of a sensory nervous apparatus. 
Destroy that apparatus, or pervert it, so that what is danger- 


19 











ous seems enticing, and what is life-giving seems odious, 
and life could not long continue. So with our larger environ- 
ment. Our agencies of information and opinion are the 
cultural extensions of that nervous apparatus. As news is 
distorted and as opinions are obstructed or perverted, the 
culture lacks the necessary basis for rationality. The prob- 
lem of rationality like the problem of democracy is a problem 
of structures and procedures in the various aspects of our 
institutional life. It is not so much a psychological as an 
educational, political, economic and religious problem. Un- 
fortunately we have in the past confined this problem too 
largely to a single aspect of our culture, the scientific. But 
even here we recognized it as a social and cultural phenom- 
enon rather than merely psychological. Science became science 
when it became social and cumulative rather than a matter 
of personal idiosyncracy. 

I know of no more penetrating or just discussion of labor 
than his chapter “Democracy with a Union Card.” I wish 
this chapter might be reprinted in full in THe AMERICAN 
TEACHER. “Political life is only a glove. The hand under- 
neath, which gives social reality to it, is the daily work-life 
of each person and the habits of thought that it engenders. 
There is a chance that we shall be able to put more and more 
social substance into our formal political democracy. But 
that chance lies only in our being able to democratize the 
basic units of our economic life, which determine the condi- 
tions of our living and the patterns of our thinking. Those 
units are the corporation and the trade union. Democratize 
the corporation and the trade union, and you have laid the 
basis for genuinely democratizing the state. Of these two, 
it is less likely that the corporation will insure democracy 
in the trade union than that the trade union will bring democ- 
racy to the corporation. Only, to do that, it must first clean 
its own house and make itself democratic as it grows in 
power.” 

The growth and influence of the labor movement depends 
upon its own democratization. If it democratizes itself it 
lays the ground-work for the democratization of our whole 
institutional life, realizing for our people the “great American 
dream.” If it fails to do so, it will not only fail to grow in 
influence but it may be the difference between that dream 
becoming a reality and a nightmare. The basic challenge 
to American life, as indeed to our whole civilization, is the 
challenge of democracy and rationality. The growth of our 
technology has made the world one organic unit. This unit 
is so interknit in its relationships, that its survival depends 
upon the development of relationships of mutuality. Hence 
the interests of each element in our civilization are the inter- 
ests of all, and conversely the interests of all are the interests 
of each. Therefore, predatory and exploitive interests are 
destructive of the total good, whether these are found at the 
head of large corporations or of labor unions. 

The thing that gives his book such interest and insight is 
expressed in the first chapter in his emphasis upon the socio- 
cultural context of thought and ideas. Thinkers are portrayed 
against their historic background. We see their ideas as 
answers to problems posed by their times. They are as truly 
cultural as pérsonal. The book therefore has significance 
for teachers not only because of its splendid treatment of 
our intellectual background but even more as a case study 
in the cultural interpretation of ideas. 

Much school instruction is sterile because information and 
ideas are presented as self-sufficient, independent and isolated 
from the life that gives them birth and significance. Then 
we try to discover interests and motivations, external rewards 
and prizes, some way to get students to attend to and learn 
what in its formal and isolated character is without meaning 
or interest. Much of the problem of interest and motivation 
would disappear once we learned to deal with materials in 


20 





their natural contexts. 

History, mathematics, language, literature, the sciences 
and any other human concern springs out of a cultural soil. 
It is a function of vital human concerns. It is their relations 
to these concerns that give them meaning and value. Except 
as we learn that the materials of instruction must serve for 
students as weapons with which they cope with their life- 
problems, and as we see the materials already fashioned as 
having meaning because of that role which they have played, 
learning is but a spinal reflex—busywork without point or 
meaning. Scholarship and the arts must forsake their ivory 
towers if they are to live. Teachers and students must roll 
up their sleeves and find themselves in the significant issues 
of their time or they will be crushed both by the mind-crushing 
burden of irrelevant “knowledge” and by a world which they 
cannot understand. 

GeorceE E. AXTELLE 
* * * 
MOMENT IN PEKING, by Lin Yutanc. New York: 

John Day. 815 pages. $3.00. 

RESTLESS WAVE, by Hart Martsut. New York: Modern 

Age Books. 272 pages. $2.50. 

Moment in Peking is the story of a conflict of worlds— 
the Middle Kingdom and the West. China from 1898 to 
1940 faced revolution after revolution in morals, manners, 
politics and international relations. Revolutionary changes in 
a world which had relative stability in manners and morals 
for at least a thousand years had terrific effects on individuals 
caught in the maelstrom of transition. The old and ordered 
family pattern which gave stability to its members no longer 
was adequate to meet the impact of western imperialism. 
Consequently, family loyalty was forced to give way to 
national loyalty. During the transition, Lin Yutang portrays 
the essential vigor of the Chinese people and leaves no 
doubt of his faith in their ability to surmount the present 
test. 

Hari Matsui is the daughter of a Japanese college professor 
who insisted on asking questions. Because she was pos- 
sessed of a restless mind, she rebelled against the traditional 
role of womanhood—obedience to father and husband—and 
instead slowly but surely began to question the attitude of 
old Japan, particularly toward women and workers. After 
a period of revolutionary activity in Japan, she came to 
America. Here American intellectual freedom appealed to 
her, while in New York she met a Japanese artist, also a 
rebel. The two fell in love western style and were married. 
After the death of her child, the world crisis impelled her to 
give what she could toward a better understanding between 
peoples. Her life today serves as a bridge between east and 
west, for, while having changed worlds, she has not forgot- 
ten Japan. 

KERMIT Esy 


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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 











The Teachers Union in Action 








KENOSHA, WIS. (No. 557)—After 
more than four months of discussion, 
the City Council took final action on 
pay cuts for all city employees at its 
meeting on February 19. For all de- 
partments—schools, firemen, police, city 
hall, etc-—the cuts are approximately 
uniform, ranging from 3 per cent on 
salaries of $1,500 up to 15 per cent on 
salaries of $5,000 and more. Teachers 
will take a cut of 3 to 6 per cent. 

The pressure to cut wages came from 
manufacturers, big taxpayers, real estate 
dealers and the bank. The first at- 
tempt to cut wages in May, 1939, was 
thwarted by an appeal of all organized 
city employees to the merchants. Their 
loud protest against wage-cuts was al- 
most unanimous. Various taxpayers’ 
groups have attempted to use the small 
home-owner as a front. Paid advertise- 
ments in the local press advocating a tax 
strike may prove a boomerang. 

The bank attempted to exert pressure 
by saying during the fall of 1939 that 
it would have to refuse additional credit 
(at 3 per cent interest) unless the city 
cut expenses (meaning wages). The 
council thereupon borrowed monev in 
Chicago at 1.5 per cent. 

The organized city workers, co-operat- 
ing with all organized labor, have fought 
these moves with a measure of success. 
They have slowed up the wage-cutting 
program and have materially reduced the 
size of cuts. Kenosha Labor, the weekly 
labor paper, gave unsparingly of edi- 
torial and news space to publicize the 
fight. 

The first argument has been that such 
retrenchment was unnecessary. Several 
times the city manager has been forced 
to admit publicly in open council meet- 
ings that this is true. His statement, too, 
that no city employee is overpaid is a 
matter of record. That merchants are 
still opposed to wage reduction because 
it has begun to hurt their business was 
reported recently by Hartwick Dahl, 
president of the Trades and Labor Coun- 
cil. Other representatives from the cen- 
tral labor body spoke against reductions 
because they might serve as a precedent 
for all industry; serious attempts should 
be made to collect delinquent taxes. 
Kenosha’s financial situation, with a debt 
reduction of a half-million dollars in 
depression years, does not warrant lower 
pay. 

Incidentally, the adjusted tax rate 
puts Kenosha very near the bottom of 
the Wisconsin Tax Commission’s list of 


MARCH, 1940 


some thirty Wisconsin cities arranged 
in the order of the mill rate. 

Although modified wage cuts were 
finally put through, it is not a complete 
victory for the proponents of the plan, 
and it is far from an overwhelming de- 
feat for labor. In every way, lines of 
labor have been strengthened. The is- 
sue provides a tangible, dramatic argu- 
ment to use in the immediate campaign 
for new faces on the city council and 
school board. All labor candidates and 
organizations can be counted on to 
capitalize on this latest drive against 
workers. 

The first proposal for wage reduction 
sponsored by a manufacturer, who is 
standing for re-election, was a flat 15 
per cent cut plus reduction of person- 
nel which would have meant an arbi- 
trary firing of 10 to 12 per cent of the 
teaching force. 

There is a sharp contrast between the 
recent struggle and the cuts which were 
imposed in January, 1932. In that 
year the program was quietly adopted 
at the city hall and foisted upon the 
unsuspecting employees. In the schools, 
officers of the company union were 
called in and told to break the news to 
teachers. Those leaders lost caste with 
the teachers, were soon voted out of 
office, and have been in the background 
ever since. There was plenty of dis- 
cussion, too, but it was simply helpless 
complaining after the damage had been 
done. 

Labor representatives on school board 
and city council fought valiantly for 
what they thought was right. As the 
guardians of honesty and fair play, they 
exposed false statements, dishonest fig- 
ures, and questionable motives of the 
enemies of labor. More men like them 
are needed on governing boards, and 
there is now a better chance of electing 
them. It would seem that education can 
survive only when its benefactors con- 
trol government. Support must come 
from putting on the tax-levying and tax- 
spending boards men who have the inter- 
ests of workers and workers’ children at 
heart. How.LanpD Pappock 

* 
DETROIT, MICH. (No. 231)—The 
Detroit Federation of Teachers has been 
extremely active in efforts to retain the 
full school appropriation asked by the 
Board of Education for the coming year. 
The school budget was sharply criticized 
by the Mayor as being too high. The 
entire controversy between the Mayor 


and the Board has been thoroughly aired 
by the press and given the widest public 
attention. Frances Comfort, president 
of Local 231, has spoken with the Mayor 
and other city officials in defense of the 
educational budget, and as a representa- 
tive of the classroom teachers of Detroit, 
her statements have received serious 
consideration. In addition, the Union 
supplied every teacher in the Detroit 
system with a printed statement ex- 
plaining the issues involved in the con- 
troversy. 

Through efforts of the Local the labor 
movement in Detroit, both CIO and 
AFL, has rallied to the support of the 
school budget. A speaker’s bureau has 
been set up for the purpose of acquaint- 
ing all organizations in Detroit with the 
needs and problems of the public 
schools. A special issue of the Detroit 
Federation of Labor’s newspaper, deal- 
ing with the American Federation of 
Teachers, educational problems and 
school finance, was prepared by Local 
231 and sent to all teachers in Detroit. 

The Local also held a most successful 
luncheon meeting on February 24, when 
Dr. Roma Gans of Teachers’ College, 
Columbia, was guest speaker. Luncheon 
reservations were completely sold out, 
and 300 people attended. Roma Gans 
is a former chairman of the Teachers’ 
College Chapter of the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers. 


* 


CINCINNATI, OHIO (No. 479)—In 
a resolution which was presented to the 
Central Labor Council by President 
R. E. Abercrombie, the Union com- 
mended the Council’s attack on poor 
relief standards in Cincinnati and 
pointed out “how difficult it is to give 
proper education to children who are 
undernourished or who have been forced 
to stay home from lack of clothing 
through no fault of their own. We 
know what hardships lack of sufficient 
clothing, food and shelter has meant for 
Cincinnati school children,” the resolu- 
tion stated. 

In the February 9 issue of the Cin- 
cinnati Labor Council’s paper, the 
Chronicle, there appeared a story headed, 
“1,500 Truants Are Relief Referrals.” 
Since November, 1937, there have been 
1,531 cases of truancy which have been 
referred to the Department of Public 
Relief for some adjustment. The study 
seems to indicate that truancy began to 
soar at that time because of relief 
complications. Absences of children of 


21 











relief families, according to the records, 
involved the need of shoes, outside 
clothing, underwear and stockings. In 
many cases the records were marked, 
“None available.” 

A Citizen’s Committee recently cor- 

roborated the Central Labor Council’s 
findings on miserable relief conditions in 
Cincinnati. * 
NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 537)—The 
Board of Higher Education of New 
York City will support a tenure bill to 
be introduced into the state legislature 
by the Union Legislative Conference. 
The Conference agreed to several 
changes in the draft and both parties 
agreed not to introduce amendments to 
a tenure law without the consent of the 
other. Among other things the bill con- 
fers legal tenure on all who have been 
granted tenure by Board By-Law. 

The New York University Chapter of 
the College Teachers Union has issued a 
seven page pamphlet entitled “A Pro- 
gram for Departmental Democracy” 
which is being sent to the 2,000 mem- 
bers of the University faculty. Certain 
suggestions are made to serve as a basis 
of discussion by the membership. 

“Academic Freedom and Civil Liber- 
ties” will be the theme of the Third 
Annual Luncheon of the College Teach- 
ers Union to be held April 13 

* 

NEWARK, O. (No. 411)—The School 
Board unanimously agreed to the re- 
quest of the Union that two Newark 
teachers be reimbursed for deductions 
made on account of illness. A speech 
by Dr. R. W. Jones, newly elected presi- 
dent of the Newark Board of Education, 
is printed in full in the Newark Teacher. 
Local 411 has requested that teachers’ 
salaries be restored during the last half 
of the 1939-40 school year. This would 
cost $8,856 and would amount to a 
restoration of 5.3 per cent. 

* 
PHILADELPHIA, PA. (No. 474)- 
Leaders of the WPA Local report that 
the Union has been successful in getting 
“falsification charges” withdrawn. By 
writing to National Director of Employ- 
ment Fred R. Rausch, the Local was 
able to get a statement in agreement 
with its position that “falsification” not 
be used except in those instances where 
fraud was actually committed or where 
evidence had been produced to support 
the charge. The Leader reports that 
President Counts spoke at a recent Union 
meeting and that the leaders in the 
organization drive are Ben Zion and 
Estelle Thomas. 

* 
PHILADELPHIA, PA. (No. 192)— 
According to a recent bulletin of the 
Union, the recent 5 per cent salary cut 
in Philadelphia would not have been 


22 


necessary had not the Board used the 
1939 budgetary surplus of $437,072.25 
for the reduction of the bonded debt. 
The same bulletin reports that although 
enrollment in the elementary schools in 
Philadelphia declined 36,285 from 1930 
to 1940, enrollment in the secondary 
schools during the same period increased 
28,912. According to these data, the 
school budget should have been increased 
by $1,364,276, while actually it decreased 
by $2,275,000. The March issue of the 
Philadelphia Teacher will contain a let- 
ter on this matter which was sent to 
Superintendent A. J. Stoddard. The 
Union is attempting to raise funds to 
bring suit against the Board of Educa- 
tion in an effort to fight the recent pay 
cuts and insure the inviolability of 
teachers’ contracts. 

* 
PERU, IND. (No. 634)—Recently it 
was reported that a professor at the Uni- 
versity of Indiana declared in one of his 
classes that Peru teachers are inferior 
and that organized labor is guilty of 
defending poor teaching. Careful in- 
vestigation of the Peru teachers has 
shown that they have received uniformly 
high success grades, have been active 
in professional organizations and are 
respected citizens of the community. 
It is probable that the Indiana State 
Federation of Labor and the Indiana 
Council of Teachers Unions will demand 
of the University that the professor’s 
charges be substantiated or that he 
withdraw them. Indiana AFT members 
have pledged monthly support to the 
Peru teachers who are fighting one of 
the most important cases in the country. 

* 
TRENTON, N. J. (No. 437)—In its 
fight for the restoration of teachers’ sal- 
aries, the Union has sent a letter to all 
employees of the Board of Education 
urging that they support Louis Joseph- 
son’s fight to have the “$25,000,000 worth 
of tangible, personal property” which is 
now going untaxed, taxed. The Union’s 
letter points out that other city em- 
ployees’ salaries have been restored and 
urges all employees to support the legal 
assessment of personal property. 

* 
BUFFALO, N. Y. (No. 377) —“The Out- 
look for New York State Education” was 
the subject which President George S. 
Counts spoke on at the demonstration 
for full state aid sponsored by the Joint 
Council of Teachers Unions of Erie 
County at the Hotel Buffalo on March 
8. Other activities of the Local reported 
in the February Buffalo Teacher were: 
President George W. Provost’s speech 
over WEBR for full state aid, a speech 
by Assemblyman Harold B. Ehrlich 
over WEBR sponsored by the Union in 
which he urged state aid for kinder- 


gartens, a growth of 15 per cent in the 
Union’s membership during the last few 
months and reprinting of a number 
of reviews of Union-member Reuel 
Deany’s new book of poetry, Connecti- 
cut River and Other Poems. 

The requested educational budget 
for the school year 1940-41 is $600,000 
less than the amount expended in 1938- 
39 and $287,000 less than was actually 
appropriated in 1939-40. The budget 
contemplates eliminating 42 additional 
teaching positions, allows for night 
schools to be opened all year and is the 
smallest budget in thirteen years. The 
budget is based upon full state aid. If 
this is not granted, the school budget 
might have to absorb a cut of $400,000. 

* 

NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 453)—The 
WPA Teachers Union hailed the recent 
announcement by the Board of Education 
of New York City that WPA teachers 
would receive recognition and credit for 
work performed on educational projects 
as “the best reply to those who have 
either carelessly or maliciously slandered 
the efforts of thousands of WPA work- 
ers.”” The Union regretted, however, that 
other educational workers such as typ- 
ists, clerks, examiners and child nutri- 
tion workers were not extended the same 
recognition. Copies of the brief filed 
before the Board of Education by Local 
453 and other materials used in the 
campaign for credit may be obtained 
by writing to 28 West 31 Street, New 
York City. re 


BREMERTON, WASH. (No. 336)— 
Announcing a membership record well 
worth attention, the Union reveals that 
90 per cent of all eligible teachers are 
members. Of the 110 teachers in the 
school system, twenty-three are new 
to the city. Teachers are required to 
have served one semester of satisfactory 
teaching before their names may be 
submitted for membership. 

In an attempt to assure the election 
of labor school board members, the 
Union questioned six candidates on their 
attitudes. The questions were: Do you 
believe teachers should have a share 
in the administrative affairs of the 
schools? Do you favor sabbatical leave 
for teachers? Do you believe teachers 
should have public or private hearings 
before dismissal? Why do you wish to 
run for office? 


7 

TERRE HAUTE, IND. (No. 597)— 
The Federation of Adult Education 
Teachers has initiated a new program of 
workers’ education among the local 
unions and reports that the labor groups 
are co-operating. Several public forum 
groups have also been started by mem- 
bers of the Union 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








MADISON, WIS. (No. 223) — The 
“economy drive” at the University of 
Wisconsin has cost the University five 
prominent members of the faculty, it is 
charged by an editorial in the Madison 
Teacher, official organ of the University 
of Wisconsin Teachers Union: 

‘Since last spring five well-known pro- 
fessors have accepted calls to other uni- 
versities; and it is impossible to avoid 
concluding that the inability of their de- 
partments to meet their offers, or better 
them, has played a large part in their 
decisions to leave... . 

“It is impossible to believe that the 
people of the state wish to see their Uni- 
versity slide back down the long hill she 
has climbed; but the present exodus 
from the faculty is a clear indication of 
the direction in which we will continue 
to go unless some positive action is 
taken.” 

* 

MILWAUKEE, WIS. (No. 79)—A 6 
per cent salary cut has been levied 
against the faculty members of the nine 
Wisconsin teachers colleges. The cut 
is the result of a budget reduction pro- 
vided in the budget adopted by the Wis- 
consin legislature last year. The cut of 
5 per cent called for in the budget was 
not put into effect in 1939. Larger pay 
cuts became operative in 1940. 

The acuteness of the problem is re- 
vealed by statistics concerning the rise 
in enrollments at the colleges. Despite 
the fact that the number of students 
increased 30 per cent from 1937 to 1939, 
the number of teachers rose 3.2 per cent 
and the total salaries paid declined 5 per 
cent. 


+ 


GARY, IND. (No. 4)—The Board of 
Education of Gary has just announced 
that maximums on the salary schedule 
will be increased by $150. This increase 
which is the result of a recent campaign 
by the Union sets the following maxi- 
mums: two-year training, $1,800; three 
years, $2,000; four years, $2,400; and 
five years, $2,700. 

During the past year several instances 
of teachers being in the wrong place on 
the salary schedule have been corrected 
by Mike Verkuilen’s grievance commit- 
tee. It also has a ruling from the Board 
that henceforth all decisions will be 
made applicable to all teachers, elimi- 
nating special rules for special groups. 

Also regarding teacher-welfare Local 4 
is working out a plan to provide sab- 
batical leaves, a plan to provide exchange 
teachers, and is urging teachers to par- 
ticipate in discussions of school ad- 
ministration policies. A committee is 
working on a plan whereby the Board 
can reduce the school day for both 
teacher and pupil, and another group is 


MARCH, 1940 


working with Purdue university in its 
survey of the Gary School System. 

The current number of the Gary 
Teacher gives several columns to an ex- 
planation of teachers’ income tax prob- 
lems. The publications committee also 
has published a directory of all school 
employees, which it distributes free of 
charge. 

Some of the activities now being 
studied by the members follow: specific 
help for teachers whose academic free- 
dom has been jeopardized; just regula- 
tion of overtime demands on teachers; 
time allowance for educational meetings 
and for visiting other schools, and rais- 
ing the summer school salary schedule 
to the regular day school schedule. 





MILWAUKEE, WIS. (No. 212) 
—In one of the most significant 
victories ever won by a union 
teacher in Wisconsin, Dr. Alex- 
ander Hugh Clark was ordered re- 
instated as supervisor of the den- 
tal clinic at the Milwaukee Voca- 
tional School in a decision by the 
Milwaukee circuit court. The 
judge held that Dr. Clark had 
tenure as a teacher, a supervisor, 
a technical expert, and a faculty 
member. The court ordered that 
he be paid his salary in full from 
the date of his dismissal and 
awarded him $100 for the “costs 
and disbursements.” Dr. Clark’s 
dismissal followed an investiga- 
tion which the court criticized on 
the following grounds: (1) no 
specifications of charges were 
made; (2) no notice on specified 
charges was given; (3) Dr. Clark 
was not given due opportunity to 
prepare a defense; (4) the testi- 
mony was not under oath; (5) the 
prosecutor was allowed to rule on 
evidence; and (6) no record of 
what transpired at the hearing was 
preserved. 











HARRISBURG, PA.— The Pennsyl- 
vania Federation of Teachers has been 
holding conferences with the State Direc- 
tor of Teachers Education and Certifica- 
tion to secure safeguards in the adminis- 
tration of a teacher-rating plan. The 
Union asks that the safeguards be writ- 
ten into the rating card to be used 
throughout the state. The Union stated 
that teachers’ jobs should not be staked 
on the assumption that all supervisors 
will practice safeguards which are not 
written into the rating card or otherwise 
specified by state requirements. Among 
the safeguards urged are the following: 

1. Teachers should be notified imme- 
diately of any unsatisfactory rating on 
even one specific item on the rating card. 


2. Unsatisfactory ratings should be 
based on frequent observation; one or 
two observations during the year would, 
in many instances, be insufficient. 

3. Whenever an unsatisfactory rating 
might jeopardize the position of a 
teacher, more than one supervisor should 
do the rating. 

4. The meaning of items on the card 
should be clearly defined. 

5. Unrestricted use of “anecdotal rec- 
ords” is dangerous. 

6. Supervisors should have specific 
evidence to substantiate unsatisfactory 
rating. * 

SAVANNAH, GA. (No. 207)—Leaders 
of the Chatham County Teachers Asso- 
ciation (a local of the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers) have taken the initia- 
tive in sponsoring a radio program, 
“Education and Discussion,” which has 
become an important influence in sup- 
plying public information concerning 
schools. Under the leadership of John 
Varnedoe, chairman of the Local’s radio 
committee, the program includes the 
participation of pupils, both in musical 
presentations and in panel discussions. 

* 

TRENTON, N. J. (No. 437)—An ap- 
peal to the Commissioner of Education 
has been filed by Herbert Cole, president 
of the New Jersey State Federation of 
Teachers, who was dismissed from his 
position in Trenton because of alleged 
infliction of corporal punishment on a 
pupil. 

The appeal charges abuse of discretion- 
ary powers by the Board of Education 
and contends that the Board’s procedures 
were illegal. The appeal charges that 
the Board refused to take the testimony 
of expert witnesses and character wit- 
nesses. In addition, the appeal charges 
that the punishment was out of propor- 
tion to the alleged offense, and points 
out that the father of the boy concerned 
had asked the Board to drop all charges 
against Cole. 


* 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. (No. 444)— 
Everett Kirkpatrick, Local 444, is chair- 
man of a committee studying propa- 
ganda in the schools. Serving with him 
are Hedvig Ylvisaker and Dr. Brameld. 
The next issue of the Minnesota 
Teacher will carry an article on their 
findings. 


ATLANTA, GA. (No. 89)—The Feb- 
ruary issue of the Atlanta Teacher car- 
ries a report of President Counts’ visit, 
a review of Mary Ellen Chase’s A Goodly 
Fellowship, the results of the local high 
school students on the Regents’ examina- 
tions, and notes on recent books by 
Atlanta teachers. The members of Local 
89 raised $340 through the purchase of 
birthday ball tickets for the fight against 


23 














infantile paralysis. This did not include 
money raised through the dime buttons. 
The magazine also announces that the 
budget adopted by the Board of Educa- 
tion for 1940 carries salaries for twelve 
months and automatic increases and in- 
crements effective September 1. The 
1940 budget is $19,682 over the 1939 
budget. The Journal of Labor carried 
a history of Local 89 by Allie Mann, 
former president, in its February 9 
issue. 
* 


ANDERSON, IND. (No. 519)—Teach- 
ers of Anderson, Ind., have been re- 
stored to their proper places on the 
salary schedule. This fulfills the terms 
of a three-year agreement between Local 
519 of the American Federation of 
Teachers and the Anderson Board of 
Education. 


* 


ROCKFORD, ILL (No. 540)—Appeals 
against threatened salary cuts were heard 
by the Board of Education at a joint 
meeting with the Rockford Federation 
of Teachers, the Teachers’ Club, and 
representatives of the Central Labor 
Union. Representatives of the Central 
Labor Union emphasized that to cut 
salaries in the face of rising costs of 
living would be ridiculous. A commit- 
tee to study the school crisis in Rockford 
and to make recommendations was the 
proposal backed by those participating. 
Among other groups supporting this 
plan was the Federated Lutheran Broth- 
erhood. Other organizations made pub- 
lic pleas against dropping of machine 
shop or abolition of music instruction. 
* 

SEATTLE, Wash. (No. 411)—A sur- 
vey of the state revenue and general 
financial situation in Washington is be- 
ing conducted by a committee of the 
American Federation of Teachers at the 
University of Washington. The work 
is being undertaken in recognition of the 
fact that the welfare of the entire edu- 
cational system is dependent upon state 
revenues. 

Preliminary investigation and con- 
sultation with other organizations also 
concerned with school and public serv- 
ices strongly indicate that a renewed 
fight for a graduated income tax is 
necessary. 

* 

VIRGINIA, MINN. (No. 508)—Teach- 
ers in the rural schools of St. Louis 
County, reported to be the largest county 
in the United States, approximately 
3,009 square miles, are all members of 
the American Federation of Teachers, 
the St. Louis County Teachers Federa- 
tion. The principals are likewise 100 
per cent organized, being members of 
the state-wide administrators local. 


24 


St. Louis County includes several 
cities and large towns which are not 
100 per cent organized. 

* 
PALO ALTO, CALIF. (No. 442)—“Is 
Youth Being Prepared?” for jobs, 
leisure, political intelligence and social 
responsibility was the subject of a panel 
discussion sponsored by the Union on 
March 7. Participants in the panel were 
Dr. J. C. Almack, president of the Palo 
Alto Board of Education; Rev. Donald 
Baldwin, Wesley Foundation Director; 
Dr. P. E. Davidson, Stanford Univer- 
sity; Mrs. Bertrand Ehrmann, president 
of the Palo Alto PTA Council; Ivan 
Linder, principal of Palo Alto High 
School and Dr. E. R. Hilgard, presi- 
dent of the Local. 
* 

LOS ANGELES, CALIF. (No. 430)— 
The College Section of the Union, the 
Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers’ 
Guild jointly sponsored a one-day con- 
ference on civil liberties on March 2. 
More than two hundred persons attend- 
ed the conference including delegates 
from fifteen to twenty organizations. 
Among the organizations represented 
were both CIO and AFL unions, the 
League of Women Voters and the Amer- 
ican Association for Advancement of 
Colored People. Among the speakers 
were Ordean Rockey, representing the 
mayor of Los Angeles; Franz Sachse, 
who brought the greetings of Governor 
Olson; Lieutenant-Governor Ellis Pat- 
terson; A. L. Wirin, civil liberties attor- 
ney; Dr. Frank Davis, member of the 
College Section of Local 430; and Dr. 
Broadus Mitchell, member of the Balti- 
more AFT, who is teaching at Occiden- 
tal College. A continuation committee 
of twenty-five members was elected to 
carry on the work of the conference. 


* 


LOWELL, MASS. (No. 495)—Because 
of a serious attack on the school budget 
and kindergartens, the membership of 
the Union has been doubled recently and 
an aggressive membership campaign has 
been started. President George S. 
Counts spoke at the Union’s meeting on 
February 12. Other speakers were Wal- 
ter A. Sidley, president of the Massa- 
chusetts Federation of Teachers; John 
Saxton, president of the Boston AFT; 
and John H. Griffin, president of the 
Lowell Central Labor Union. 

Local 495 is conducting a series of 
programs on education over station 
WLLH of Lowell as a means of pub- 
licizing the work of the schools and 
fighting budget cuts. Speaking re- 
cently over the program was Mrs. 
Veronica S. Dodge, former member of 
the School Committee, who declared in 
her speech: “Education in modern times 


is an expensive necessity . . . not an ex- 
pensive luxury. The last institution 
where economy in city government 
should be practiced is in the school. In 
recent years the school department ex- 
penses have been cut to the bone... . 
The organization (AFT) is certain to 
serve as an ultimate benefit to the child 
and parent, as well as the teacher.” 

7 
CHATTANOOGA, TENN. (No. 246) 
During the recent months the Local has 
sponsored a successful lecture by H. V 
Kaltenborn, a meeting and dinner for 
President George S. Counts, and changed 
its official name to the Chattanooga- 
Hamilton County Teachers’ Union. The 
change in name was made when the 
Local adopted a new constitution. Wil- 
lard Millsaps, J. Steger Hunt and O. C. 
Kirkman represented the Union at the 
Southern Conference of the AFL at 
Atlanta, Ga. Labor leaders, school offi- 
cials and Union members attended the 
dinner for President Counts on Jan- 
uary 31. 


* 


ST. LOUIS, MO. (No. 420) — Paul 
Preisler, president of the AFT Local, has 
been endorsed by the St. Louis Indus- 
trial Council and the Labor Tribune, 
AFL paper, for membership on the 
Board of Education. 

* 
MISSOULA, MONT. (No. 497)—While 
no official communication has been re- 
ceived from the State Board of Educa- 
tion by the five University of Montana 
professors who were asked to resign, 
newspaper stories indicate that the Board 
rescinded its action of September 11, 
1939. Apparently the effect of the 
Board’s action at its recent meeting was 
to withdraw all charges and grant full 
reinstatement to all professors involved. 
The Board stated, however, that “All 
material and evidence will be left on 
file with the Board in case it is needed in 
the future.” 

* 
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (No. 61)— 
The WPA section of the Local has a 
number of members engaged in various 
civic and educational activities. Mrs. 
Berry, who teaches dressmaking to 
Negro women, is a member of the 
Negro Women’s Housing Council. Six 
Union members are alumni of the Pa- 
cific Coast School for Workers; one is a 
member of the executive board. Mrs. 
Moore is teaching consumers’ economics 
to her classes. 

Squire F. Browne, who heads the 
Union’s Statistics Committee, prepares 
a monthly bulletin, “Selected and Anno- 
tated Articles from 115 Magazines.” It 
is mimeographed and includes articles 
about social problems, labor, business, 


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MARCH, 1940 25 














foreign affairs, education and other fields 
of interest to leaders in labor and in 
adult education. It is sent free to those 
who send written requests to the state 
office of the Werks Projects Administra- 
tion, 660 Mission St., San Francisco, 
and has received international notice. 
Readers from Canada, Mexico, the Ha- 
waiian Islands, and nearly every state of 
the United States praise its unique 
service. With the listing of each article 
is a brief background of the writer of 
the article, his or her point of view, and 
an occasional pungent comment by the 
commentator. 

The Statistics Committee is prepar- 
ing studies on special needs of racial 
and foreign language minorities for adult 
education, as well as other pertinent 
data. 

* 


MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. (No. 238)— 
Fred M. Curtis was re-elected president 
of the Local at its annual meeting in 
January. Dudley Parsons, Jr., is vice- 
president, Selmer Drage, corresponding 
secretary, Carl Nelson, financial secre- 
tary and Melvin Olson, treasurer. Dele- 
gates to the Central Labor Union are 
Selmer Drage, Paul Hendrickson and 
E. Skibness. Harry Genung, Ralph 
Ahlstrom and Charles Ziering were elect- 
ed to the executive board. 

* 
FLOODWOOD, MINN. (No. 506)— 
The Union at its last meeting heard re- 
ports on the Minnesota Hospital Service 
Association and the Group Health Mu- 
tual from Carl Johnson and Arnold 
Woestchoff. A committee was also ap- 
pointed to investigate the status of sick 
leave. A changing committee of two 
or three members was appointed to visit 
each board meeting. 

* 
NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 5)—An in- 
tensive four-month campaign by New 
York teachers and parents has resulted 
in the rescinding of the four-day ban 
on substitutes. The measure, adopted 
by the Board in order to meet financial 
difficulties created by a $8,300,000 cut in 
school funds, required that a four-day 
period must elapse between the first 
absence of a teacher and the calling of 
a substitute. During the four-day pe- 
riod, the absent teacher’s classes had to 
be handled by his colleagues. All teacher 
organizations sent formal protests against 
the economy measure. The New York 
Teachers Union sent a brief on the mat- 
ter to the Mayor, and its pamphlet on 
the four-day ban was distributed by the 
United Parents Association. 

* 
BOSTON, MASS. (No. 441) — Action 
organized by the Boston local of the 
American Federation of Teachers not 
only prevented an increase in class size 


26 


but resulted in a reduction in the number 
of pupils per class in the first grade. 
The Boston School Committee an- 
nounced a plan to increase class size to 
such an extent that thirty temporary 
teachers would be eliminated and some 
permanent teachers would have had as 
many as fifty-three pupils in a class. 
The protest resulted in the committee’s 
reversing its action and securing a re- 
duction in class size of the first grade 
to thirty-five. Organized labor and 
other civic-minded groups were among 
those taking part in this effective action. 


HAMMOND, IND. (No. 394)—Carl 
Mullen, president of the Indiana State 
Federation of Labor, appeared before 
the State Board of Tax Commissioners 
to protest a $13,000 reduction which had 
been made by the tax board in the tui- 
tion fund of the Hammond school 
budget. 

Following the hearing the State Board 
of Tax Commissioners saw fit to restore 
the cut. Had the reduction been upheld, 
it would have seriously handicapped 
Hammond in maintaining its salary 
schedule. 





MILWAUKEE, WIS. (No. 252) 
—Thanks to a two-month fight by 
the Milwaukee Public School 
Teachers Union, the Milwaukee 
schools have been saved from a 
cut of several hundred thousands 
of dollars urged by realty and 
other groups. The Board of 
School Directors, while refusing 
to accede to the demands of the 
Common Council, which had 
bowed to the economy onslaught, 
compromised to the extent of re- 
ducing the budget by $19,000. 
The Common Council had de- 
manded a slash totaling $229,000. 

In fighting the cuts, the Union 
pointed out that school expendi- 
tures had been reduced $1,800,000 
since 1931, despite an increase of 
6,000 in school enrollments. 











MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. (No. 59)— 
Louis Adamic, writer and lecturer, was 
the speaker at a lecture sponsored by 
the Local. Alice Drechsler presented 
Dean Willey who introduced the speaker. 
The lecture was arranged by Mar- 
garet Thomson, assisted by Mercedes 
Nelson and Sara Neprude. At a recent 
dinner of the Union and the Building 
Service Employees, George E. Wallace, 
former member of the State Tax Com- 
mission, urged that the constitutionality 
of the law passed by the state legisla- 
ture making it impossible to collect 
Money and Credit taxes of more than 


three years delinquency be challenged. 
The law meant a loss of $4,000,000 for 
Minneapolis and $3,000,000 for Duluth, 
Wallace said. He also pointed out that 
startling evasions of the Money and 
Credit tax had been discovered by the 
Tax Commission. 


* 


ST. PAUL, MINN. (No. 28 and No. 43) 
—Twenty St. Paul teachers who retired 
after many years of efficient public serv- 
ice were honored at a reception at the 
Woman’s City club. Several hundred 
persons attended, including city officials, 
PTA officers, former pupils, and fellow 
teachers of the retiring teachers. The 
combined years of service of the retir- 
ing teachers exceeded 660 years. The 
reception was sponsored by the St. Paul 
Federation of Women Teachers and Men 
Teachers. 

* 
DULUTH, MINN. (No. 381)—Chris- 
tine Rud, former secretary of the State 
Federation of Teachers, has been elected 
local chairman of the committee on ar- 
rangements for the state convention of 
the AFT which will be held at Duluth 
on April 26-27. Other members of the 
committee on arrangements are Louis 
Travers, Miles Sutton, Mrs. Richard- 
son and Miriam Sawyer. The commit- 
tee will work under S. G. Mooney who 
was delegated as representative of the 
state executive council. Harold Riise, 
Ruth Bloomquist and Frank Grahek, 
members of Local 508, are in charge of 
arrangements for the banquet Friday, 
April 26. 

* 
ST. CLOUD, MINN. (No. 561)—The 
Education Policies Committee of the 
Minnesota State Federation of Teachers 
headed by E. M. Paulu has issued a 
statement entitled, “Rise of the Class- 
room Teacher.” Other members of the 
State Committee are Mrs. M. S. Hard- 
ing, Dudley Parsons, Jr., Abigail Quig- 
ley, and M. J. VanWagenen. The state- 
ment stresses the importance of the pro- 
motion of teacher welfare in the AFT 
program. 

* 
FULTON COUNTY, GA. (No. 188)— 
The Colored School Teachers’ Union of 
Fulton County reports the election of 
officers which was held February 16 
Mexico Shehee Hembree was re-elected 
president. Other officers re-elected were 
Ida Prather, vice-president; Marie An- 
derson, recording secretary; Evelyn 
Spain, formerly corresponding secretary, 
was elected financial secretary, succeed- 
ing Claudine Harvey. Hembree was re- 
elected as delegate to the Atlanta Fed- 
eration of Trades. In addition to the 
election of officers the meeting featured 
entertainment. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





ROCHESTER, N. Y. (No. 616)—The 
Union is devoting most of its effort to 
fighting retrenchment drives and or- 
ganizing a campaign to restore state aid 
Among the methods which the Local 
hopes to use to publicize this campaign 
are an article in the local labor paper, 
a radio program, notices to other teach- 
ers explaining the Local’s position on 
state aid and getting prominent edu- 
cators at the University of Rochester 
to wire the state legislature. 
* 
BOTHEL, WASH. (No. 619)—The 
Union has signed up five new members, 
and prospects are excellent for five more 
within a short time. Membership efforts 
are stronger, and better results are ex- 
pected after more teachers have been 
contacted. 
* 

YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO (No. 606) 
—Two reports were scheduled for Union 
meetings, according to the Local’s bul- 
letin: Mr. Geiger, chairman of the 
Tenure Committee, was to report on 
the work of his committee in February 
while Mr. Barr, chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Appointment, Salary, Promo- 
tion and Academic Rank, was scheduled 
to report at the March meeting. Items 
in the financial report worth noting 
were a $50.00 donation to the Yellow 
Springs Youth Council and an item 


called “penalty charges” for late pay- 
ment of dues. 

* 
MASSACHUSETTS STATE FEDER- 
ATION—The annual meeting of the 
Massachusetts State Federation of 
Teachers will be held at Simmons Col- 
lege, Boston, on May 4. 

* 

BUFFALO, N. Y. (No. 39)—The Feb- 
ruary meeting of the Buffalo Industrial 
Teachers Association heard a report by 
Lot Cooke on the state and city educa- 
tional budgets. The executive commit- 
tee urged that a mass meeting, jointly 
sponsored by all locals be held in Buffalo 
to present the real facts behind the gov- 
ernor’s budget which the newspapers 
“have distorted.” 

* 

COLUMBUS, OHIO (No. 438)—The 
March meeting of the University of 
Ohio Local was scheduled to consider 
the problems of assistants and graduate 
students and to hear a report on “what 
really happened at the American Youth 
Congress Citizenship Institute” which 
was held recently in Washington, D. C. 
* 
CHICAGO, ILL. (No. 1)—On March 6 
and March 13, Raymond Cook, pub- 
licity chairman of the Union, Evelyn 
Sholund, chairman of the Union Study 
Class, and Dean Ernest O. Melby, School 


of Education, Northwestern University, 
spoke over WCFL on “The Selection 
and Training of Teachers.” More than 
1,000 copies of the Witty-DeBoer radio 
programs on reading have been distrib- 
uted by the Local. The Union has been 
exhibiting in its offices drawings made 
by students from all parts of the world. 
Walter G. Hjertstedt, teacher at Lane 
High School, worked out a plan whereby 
students in his classes interested in art 
have exchanged drawings and ideas with 
students from 23 foreign countries. 
* 

NEW YORK, N. Y. (No. 5)—One thou- 
sand New York City teachers joined 
with 500 delegates from the United 
Parents Association, one hundred moth- 
ers from the United Kindergarten Asso- 
ciation and approximately 4,000 trade 
union representatives from AFL and 
CIO unions in the “Save Our Schools” 
march on the state legislature at Albany, 
N. Y. A 14-car “Save Our Schools” 
train lead the way. Highlight of the 
day’s trip was the presentation of peti- 
tions bearing 300,000 signatures gath- 
ered by the New York Federation of 
Teachers to Assemblyman Abbot Low 
Moffat. In her speech Dr. Bella Dodd, 
state legislative representative of the 
Union, declared, “The people are ready 
to defend the schools because free pub- 
lic schools are the basis of democracy.” 





WL 





Edited from the Labor Press 
and the Federated Press 








THEY TOOK THE BOSS AT HIS 
word and went into business for them- 
selves and lived happily ever after. 

The Laundry Workers International 
Union (AFL), of Spokane, Wash., which 
started a laundry of its own after calling 
a citywide strike two and one-half years 
ago, is now going to set up the city’s 
largest laundry. The new plant will be 
big enough to employ every union laun- 
dry worker in Spokane. 

“We have watched the Spokane laun- 
dry workers’ strike for a long time and 
did what we could to help,” said Meyer 
L. Lewis, AFL west coast director. 
“Now we mean to go into the laundry 
business in a big way and build and 
operate the largest laundry plant this 
city has ever seen. Instead of dribbling 
along with an expense of $50,000 a year, 
we may as well invest $500,000 at one 
time, if necessary, and bring the issue 
to a final decision.” 

* 
A SIX-YEAR PICKETING MARA- 
thon ended in victory when strikers at 
the Edgewater Beach Hotel, Chicago, 


MARCH, 1940 


won a union agreement. The unions in- 
volved were the International Brother- 
hood of Electrical Workers and the 
Hotel & Restaurant Employees Inter- 
national Alliance and Bartenders Inter- 
national League (both AFL). The 
walkout, which started in January, 1934, 
when the hotel’s six electricians struck 
for a $28 monthly wage increase, was 
the longest in Chicago history. Three 
months after the electricians walked 
out, 120 bartenders, bus boys, cooks 
and waiters struck in sympathy. 


THREE WEEKS OF INTENSIVE 
telephone picketing won a contract re- 
newal for office workers at Credit Clear- 
ing House, Inc., New York City. 

The 115 striking members of the 
United Office & Professional Workers 
(CIO) returned to work February 12 un- 
der an agreement that provided $1.25 
increases for all employees getting $16 
or less—boosting the minimum to $15.25 
—and $1 increases for all others. Union 
shop, paid vacations and sick leave, 
and arbitration were also included. Tele- 


phone picketing was so successful during 
the last days of the one-month strike 
that often every one of the company’s 
77 trunk lines was tied up by sympa- 
thizers demanding to know why the firm 
refused to renew its union agreement. 
. 

ALMOST SIX MILLION WORKERS 
have been involved in activities of the 
National Labor Relations Board since 
February, 1935, it was disclosed recently 
by that body, which also revealed that 
well over a million United States work- 
ers have voted in NLRB elections since 
that time. 

That the machinery of the NLRB 
kept up with the vast number of cases is 
indicated by the fact that elections to- 
taled about 60 per month with almost 
every state, Alaska and Hawaii repre- 
sented in about 23,000 cases. 

J. Warren Madden, NLRB chairman, 
pointed out that the co-operation of the 
AFL and CIO auto unions involved 
in the recent collective bargaining elec- 
tion of the General Motors Corporation’s 
125,000 employees in 59 plants made 


27 











possible a quick decision with least pos- 
sible loss of time. 

Fifty-two employers, the Board said, 
have thus far taken advantage of the 
Board’s ruling of last July and have 
asked for NLRB elections in their plants 
to determine which of two or more 
unions has the right of majority repre- 
sentation. 

* 

JOBS AT PREVAILING WAGES 
will be provided more than a half million 
workers as one of the major economic 
results of the present $770,000,000 na- 
tional slum clearance and low-rent pub- 
lic housing program, according to the 
United States Housing Authority. Ap- 
proximately $225,000,000 will go for 
wages of 510,000 engineers, mechanics, 
laborers, and clerical workers engaged 
on projects to rehouse approximately 
160,000 low-income families from sub- 
standard shacks and shanties in the na- 
tion’s blighted areas. An _ estimated 
$280,000,000 will be paid for construc- 
tion materials. 

* 
CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 
and the anonymous character of the own- 
ers of wealth constitute two great dangers 
facing society at present, a statement 
by the Archbishops and Bishops of the 
administrative board of the National 
Catholic Welfare Conference in Wash- 
ington, D. C., declared. 

Hailed by the Catholic press as the 
most important pronouncement of the 
American Catholic hierarchy since 1919, 
the statement consisted of a discussion 
of “The Church and Social Order.” 

Discussed were ownership, property 
and labor, security, wages, and establish- 
ment of social order. The position of the 
Catholic church on these issues was 
stated. 

The present economic order, the state- 
ment goes on, rests on the sanctity of 
private property. “If the majority of 
our citizens possess insufficient private 
property to be independent of a wage 
income for even a short period of time, 
then there is grave danger to the entire 
social fabric. 

“Social stability rests upon this basis 
of indjvidual ownership of property. 
There should be more of it and not less 
of it if our existing economic system is 
to remain secure.” 

* 

THE QUESTION OF UNION DIS- 
crimination will be one of the questions 
arbitrated in the clash between Frank E. 
Gannett, publisher of the Rochester 
Democrat Chronicle, and Republican 
presidential aspirant, and the Rochester 
Newspaper Guild (CIO) in the firing of 
Herman Lincoln, descendant of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, shortly after the veteran 
circulation man joined the Guild. 

Lincoln’s 23-year record on the paper 


28 


was suddenly marred by an improper 
attitude and lack of punctuality, accord- 
ing to the Guild, as soon as the 31-year- 
old circulation man and other members 
of the circulation staff had joined the 
union. Morgan Hull, international rep- 
resentative of the ANG, complaining to 
Gannett about the firing of Lincoln and 
the other workers, was told that the 
publisher could not be bothered with 
such “picayune matters.” The union is 
taking firm action to force reinstate- 
ment. 


. 


GOOD BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH, 
could well be the reaction of employed 
women after reading Secretary Perkin’s 
report on the first year’s operation of 
the Wages and Hours Act. For while 
wages of women went up faster than 
those of men during the first twelve 
months of the law, Madame Perkins 
said that “Many women still received 
less than an adequate living wage in 
September, 1939, if the averages re- 
ported at that time be compared with 
the minimum budgets used for min- 
imum wage purposes in nine states. The 
lowest of these requires $17.99 a week, 
but women’s average week’s earnings 
were less than this in 17 of the 24 in- 
dustries reporting.” 

Consumers’ goods industries set the 
pace with increased employment of 10 
per cent and more for both sexes, it 
was announced. Radios, phonographs, 
hardware, cotton goods, auto tires and 
tubes, glass and pottery were in this 
group. There were, however, consid- 
erable declines in hourly earnings in 
hosiery mills, coat and suit factories and 
in plants producing women’s under- 
garments. 


* 


INSTITUTION OF THE AFL’S 
“greatest organizing drive in the south” 
by which it is hoped to enroll an addi- 
tional 500,000 workers by the end of 
1940 was announced at the opening of 
the campaign of a two-day Southern 
Labor Conference in Atlanta, Ga., at- 
tended by 3,000 representatives of the 
Federation, from AFL unions, city and 
state central bodies and district councils, 
and officials of the 21 standard railroad 
labor organizations and the four depart- 
ments of the AFL. 

Purposes were: the institution of a 
united organizing drive in the south; co- 
ordination of the legislative activities 
of labor in the south; promotion of 
“union-management co-operation in 
southern industry.” 

Special efforts will be made in the tex- 
tile industry and miscellaneous manu- 
facturing while “large gains are ex- 
pected” among marine workers, white 
collar workers, retail trades, lumber 
mills, teachers and “other government 


workers.” Highlight of the conference 
was a nationally broadcast speech by 
AFL President William Green, intro- 
duced by Governor E. D. Rivers of 
Georgia, who called upon southern em- 
ployers to cooperate with the Federation 
in its campaign. 


A NEW ORGANIZATION, COLLEC- 
tive Bargaining Associates, has been 
started as the latest effort to minimize in- 
dustrial warfare. Unlike many other or- 
ganizations that have professed similar 
aims, the agency is not trying to attain 
peace by destroying labor unions. 

The sponsors include more than 30 
well-known educators, economists and 
industrial engineers. Among the spon- 
sors are Dean Wayne L. Morse of the 
University of Oregon; Prof. George W. 
Taylor of the Wharton School, Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania; William M. 
Leiserson, NLRB member; Solicitor 
General Francis Biddle; Morris Llewel- 
lyn Cook, engineer; Harry A. Millis, 
former president of the American Eco- 
nomic Association; George Soule, editor, 
the New Republic; and Alvin S. John- 
son, director of the New School for 
Social Research. 

* 

EIGHT INSURANCE COMPANIES. 
two banks, and one huge ranchowner got 
over .5 per cent of total benefit pay- 
ments made by the Agricultural Adjust- 
ment Administration for the year 1937, 
an AAA report to Congress shows 
Eight insurance companies were paid a 
total of $1,538,217, while the Federal 
Land Bank of Omaha, the Federal Land 
Bank of St. Paul and the King Ranch 
in Texas received $360,204. 

The 11 enterprises, receiving pay- 
ments in excess of $100,000, were paid a 
total of $1,898,421 out of total benefit 
payments of $325,856,887. The aver- 
age check received by the 3,750,000 
farmers participating in the program 
was $75. Metropolitan Life Insurance 
Co. was the largest beneficiary with 
$257,095. The other beneficiaries re- 
ceiving more than $10,000 were: Pruden- 
tial Insurance, $231,158; Equitable Life, 
$206,962; Travelers Insurance, $211,- 
521; Union Central! Life, $166,280; Mu- 
tual Benefit Life, $161,110; Northwest- 
ern Mutual, $156,444; John Hancock, 
$147,647; Federal Land Bank of Omaha, 
$134,139; King Ranch of Texas, $122.,- 
140; and Federal Land Bank of St 
Paul, $103,925. 

* 


WHEN A NON-UNION MAN WEARS 
a union button to get a job he is guilty 
of using false pretenses, ruled a San 
Diego, Calif., judge who fined a non- 
union roofer who got a job by wearing 
a union button. Charges were brought 
by the local Building Trades Council. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 














Letters to the Editor 


Please Limit Your 


Letters to 500 Words 








For the best 1,000 word comment on this letter the 
Editorial Board of the AMERICAN TEACHER will give 
a copy of “Teachers for Democracy” edited by 
George E. Axtelle and William W. Wattenberg 
(D. Appleton-Century, $2.50). All manuscripts 
must be in by April 8. 


You Can’t Teach Democracy 


Baltimore, Maryland 

SIR: The debunkers have been at work on the professions. 
A few years ago, A. J. Cronin used his novel, The Citadel, 
to highlight the inadequacies of the modern medicine men. 
Once upon a time, when he was a writer, Sinclair Lewis 
added a dash of bitters to the preaching profession when he 
started out with a drunk Elmer Gantry and wound up with 
Elmer still not quite sober. More recently, Fred Rodell 
made his contribution to the art of debunking, Woe Unto 
You Lawyers, in which the law and lawyers were chopped 
up into little bits of non-fiction. There aren’t many profes- 
sions left to be debunked; but the teaching profession has 
proved, by putting its faith in gibberish, that it is ready for 
dissection. 

American teachers, from the university to the one-room 
school, have been playing a new game. It’s a kind of blind 
volleyball with the word “democracy.” Everybody on the 
team can take a slap at the ball, but the rules provide that 
you must keep your eyes closed. The game, naturally, gets a 
bit ragged. Nobody on the team knows where the ball is 
going; nobody knows where it’s coming from; and, in fact, 
nobody knows what the ball really looks like. 

Those American educators who started this education and 
democracy business no doubt realized that theirs was a hope 
for the future. Our present educational system cannot 
teach democracy because it is not and never has been 
democratic itself. Those who have seized upon the term 
education and democracy and are now bandying it back and 
forth across the country have distorted a legitimate ideal 
into an inept eulogy. The limitless flow of books, pamphlets, 
and essays describing the great democratic force of our 
schools seems to indicate that the teaching profession is now 
in the Gone With the Wind stage, where everybody jumps 
in though he dcesn’t quite know what the ruckus is all about. 
The discussion of educating for a democracy is somewhere 
over a rainbow, far, far from the clutching grasp of the 
semanticist. 

A short while ago, Elizabeth Coatsworth produced The 
Cat Who Went to Heaven, the story of an artist painting a 
picture of the death of Buddha. When commissioned to 
paint the picture by the priest of the village temple, the 
artist was poor and in need of food. The priest presented 
the artist with a sack of money before the artist had painted 
sc much as a stroke. As if in answer to the puzzled look of 
the artist, the priest said, “Only a clear pool reflects beautiful 
images. 

It is plain that the priest was both philosopher and prag- 
matist. The educators who wish to produce the image of 
children imbued with democratic ideals would do well to 
sound the depths of the pool that must bring forth that 
image. I share their hopes for the future of democracy, but 


MARCH, 1940 


I know that the pool we now have is too shallow and muddy 
to reflect the image we would like to see. It seems enigmatic 
that we should expect democracy to flow from an instru- 
mentality which exhibits few democratic elements in its own 
right. 

Freedom is certainly one of the elements of democracy. 
Can we teach it when we don’t have it? Cases of violation 
of the ideal of academic freedom have been far from rare; 
and though the outstanding cases have featured university 
professors, the unromantic, glamorless elementary school 
teacher has suffered and still suffers extensive restriction of 
freedom. The system in which I teach has as one of its criteria 
for rating its teachers the question, “Does he support the 
plans and policies of the administration?” and another, “Is 
he loyal to his superiors?” This is the freedom to agree— 
the same may be had in Germany. The list of instances 
pointing to a lack of freedom might be broadened to include 
almost every phase of the job, until each school becomes, 
with its major and petty restrictions, a miniature dictator- 
ship—and this, too, may be had in Germany. 

When we say the American’s Creed, we are, in effect, de- 
claring that equality is implicit in democracy. We must 
teach it, then—and we must have it before we try to teach 
it. There is little of equality in our educational system today. 
Economic inequality forces many teachers to use the lower 
schools as mere stepping-stones to the higher salaries of the 
secondary level, Would anyone care to support the proposi- 
tion that trained, capable teachers are more needed in high 
school than in the elementary school? Theory demands that 
the early, formative years of childhood have the utmost in 
trained guidance; in practice, a disturbing percentage of the 
best in the lower schools are constantly moving upward 
and their valuable contribution lost to the younger children. 
Furthermore, the recent case in Maryland showing salary 
discrimination against Negro teachers and the many cases 
featuring Negroes barred from schools throw light on another 
phase of inequality in the profession. When there is no 
equality among the teachers and no equality among the 
children they are permitted to teach, it is asking the impos- 
sible to expect equalitarian thinking from the products of 
our schools. 

We have often referred to our form of government as 
representative democracy. The idea of democracy carries 
with it the idea of representation, the idea, broadly speaking, 
of self-determination. This, too, it is hard to find in the 
schools. Teachers have little to do with the functioning of 
the schools—except to take attendance, teach their lessons, 
and mark their papers. The teachers in the educational system 
of 1940 are the subjects of administration policy, not the 
determiners of democracy. Faculty meetings, in most cases, 
take the form of a lecture by the principal, not discussions 
by the teachers. The fact that the teaching of controversial 
issues is still in the controversial stage itself is another in- 
dication that the teachers are not, in any sense, self-determin- 
ing. Teachers have often been drafted to work on course 
of study committees (always with plenty of administrators 
around to help), but a real rarity is a teachers’ committee to 
assist in determining policy, to discuss broad professional 
issues, and to help in school management—and by that I 
mean something far more than assigning lunch-hour duties. 

It would not be just, however, to lay the blame for the 


29 








lack of democracy in the schools entirely at the door of 
the administrators. The teachers, themselves, fall short of 
the ideal at many points. In addition to the three elements 
already discussed, we might expect to find several subordinate 
virtues in a democracy. The spirit of co-operation, the spirit 
of organizing and planning for social benefits, the application 
of vision to both means and ends are certainly closely related 
to the maintenance of democracy. Progressive educators have 
long lamented the shortcomings of the teachers as a group 
in these matters. In its poll of high-school teachers’ opinions, 
the John Dewey Society found 62 per cent of the teachers 
answering “No” to the statement that teachers should affiliate 
with some genuine labor organization of their own choosing 
As to vision, Robert Partin, reporting his difficulties in or- 
ganizing teachers, declared that “Even when teachers are 
brought together they are more concerned with their own 
classroom problems than with the problems of the nation.” 
Even if we could get controversial subjects into the class- 
room, if we could get freedom, equality, and self-determina- 
tion, it seems doubtful that the present teaching force would 
know what to do with them. 

The elementary school teachers of America are socially 
too backward, mentally too hypnotized, professionally too 
dominated, and economically too handicapped to be the 
agents for democracy. We, here in America, have had ample 
evidence from abroad that democracy is not merely a matter 
of talking democracy. The schools can no more teach democ- 
racy in their present state than can Hitler or Mussolini or 
Stalin. Democracy will come from the schools when the 
schools make democracy their fundamental principle rather 
than their slogan. 

J. LANTHAN WINSLOW 








THE FOLLOWING LETTERS ON CONTROVER- 
sial subjects are a fair sampling of those which have 
been received by the editor of the AMERICAN TEACHER. 
After discussing the problem, the Editorial Board de- 
cided to print a selection of letters with the suggestion 
that AFT Locals do not use this column for statements 
of policy, but that it be reserved for AFT members 
who would like to discuss constructively Union policy 
and the educational problems raised by the articles 
which are published in the journal. 




















Cincinnati, Ohio 


SIR: By unanimous action of its membership meeting, our 
University section instructed its secretary to send you this 
communication. Later, the regular joint meeting of the 
Executive Committee and School Representatives voted to 
add its unanimous endorsement. 

In the December issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER, the 
President’s Page, “Is Our Union Controlled by Communists?” 
is followed by articles on the educational crisis in Ohio. This 
presented an effective contrast between a wrong and a right 
way to answer attacks on our union. 

The Ohio situation is only one example of the increasingly 
ominous attacks on education, of which the Roosevelt budget 
(which slashed funds for WPA, NYA, CCC, etc., in favor 
of increased expenditures for armaments) is another example. 

And the Roosevelt budget is only part of a broad pattern 
rapidly taking form under impact of the war abroad—a 
pattern of such events as Roosevelt’s annual message to 
Congress in which the dependence of the United States on 
an Allied victory was expressed in such a manner as to lay 
the foundation for military participation; the Administra- 


30 


tion’s violation of the spirit of neutrality by loans to Finland; 
Arnold’s attacks on labor unions under the guise of anti- 
monopoly investigations; the FBI’s card catalogue of “dan- 
gerous” people, for use at an “appropriate” time; the un- 
official contributions of American journalism to hysteria 
with respect to the Russo-Finnish conflict; and the Dies 
committee “investigations,” now in a more triendly climate 
of opinion. 

Characteristic of this situation is the unification and 
strengthening of the reactionary movement, along with an 
attack upon the civil liberties of all those who represent an 
obstacle to the achievement of its objectives. Its energies 
unloosed by the war abroad, in a few short months it has 
engulfed those public officials who represent the New Deal. 
Its next effort is directed against the mainstay of the progres- 
sive forces, the trade unions. Such organizations must be 
confused, split up, dispersed for the reactionaries to achieve 
their aims. Every action and utterance on the part of labor 
must be considered with this in mind. 

The time-honored weapon in the attack on progressive 
labor is the cry of “Communism.” The AFT has not been 
immune. The Saturday Evening Post’s attack on ex-Presi- 
dent Davis is paralleled by the attacks upon President Counts 
in Liberty and the National Republic. 

The appropriate reply to the unscrupulous charge of “Com- 
munist domination” is one which focuses attention on our 
program of teacher, child and social welfare and which points 
clearly to the reactionary, anti-educational sources in which 
such attacks find their ultimate origin. This would force any 
judgment of our union to be made on the actual issues for 
which we stand. By so doing, we would not, as we believe 
Professor Counts did, play unwittingly into the hands of our 
enemies and we would succeed in bringing forward the pro- 
gram of the AFT. 

But Professor Counts apparently proceeds on the assump- 
tion that the charge of “Communist domination” is to be 
taken at its face value. Then he lashes out at “totalitarianism 
in every form,” and “foreign agents” in the union, and thus 
adds his voice to the chorus of heresy hunters threatening 
all progressive labor, including the AFT itself. 

It is most unfortunate that Professor Counts dealt as he 
did with this important issue. His position as president of 
our union lends prestige to a stand dangerous to the AFT 

Furthermore, the tone of his article would lead the reader 
to infer that political thinking in the AFT should be 
standardized. This is contradicted by his statement, “We 
believe that teachers above all others must oppose without 
ceasing every effort and every movement calculated to 
limit and crush the freedom of the human mind.” Which 
of these contradictory ideas are we to regard as more funda- 
mental to Professor Counts’ point of view? 

CINCINNATI FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 

LocaL 479 

* + * 

New York City 
SIR: That our last convention was wise in electing George 
S. Counts to the presidency of the AFT is attested to by 
the magnificent statement which appears on his page in your 
December issue. The bold, clear and unequivocating nature 
of the declaration gives us a sound, principled defense against 
the tactics that Professor Sidney Hook has aptly named 
“crypto-Stalinism,” as well as against Mr. Dies’ legislative 
version of yellow journalism. May I offer an urgent petition 
that Dr. Counts’ article be immediately reprinted as a leaflet 
to be distributed by our members throughout the country 


Jacop DRACHLER 
Local 5 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 














Washington, D. C. 
SIR: I have been instructed by my Local to inform you 
that the attitude of the AMERICAN TEACHER on matters of 
foreign policy as expressed in the letter of the legislative 
chairman does not represent the attitude of Local 8, and 
that this Local wishes to have its protest made a matter of 
record and a matter of print. 
MAarGareET STETSON, Corresponding Secretary 
* * 
New York City 
SIR: The letter from Mrs. Mary Foley Grossman, Chairman 
of the National Legislative Committee of the American 
Federation of Teachers, printed in the October issue of the 
AMERICAN TEACHER seemed to me so sound and valuable 
that I was surprised and—if there is any room left in such 
a world as ours for the verb—shocked by the letter from 
Miss Mildred Berleman in the last issue. 

Especially at a time when the whole force of the press 
and even of the government seems directed toward pushing 
America into war, it is of the greatest importance that 
American teachers do not repeat the criminal behavior of 
Social Democratic leaders and many trade unionists on 
both sides in the previous war. If England and France were 
really fighting for anything decent we would certainly have 
to give them the sympathy which Miss Berleman expresses. 
But we cannot support the governments which betrayed the 
League of Nations, China, Ethiopia, Austria, Spain, Czecho- 
slovakia, Albania, and Poland, which suppress civil liberties 
and revoke the advantages won by bitter struggle of trade 
unions, and which are now busily attempting to turn the war 
into a joint struggle of Western Europe and America against 
the USSR. And when they use the government of Finland 
as their device for pulling America into that war, relying on 
American sentiment for an imaginary democracy which paid 
its war debts (do teachers know how that money was 
really spent?) the cynicism is revolting unless we are dizzied 
with war propaganda. 

Union teachers have a special responsibility for keeping 
their colleagues and students from the lies, distortions, and 
tragic errors we made before. It seems to me that the 
only possibility for a just peace requires the defeat of both 
sides, since there is very little to choose between the English, 
French and German governments. In any case we must not, 
even unconsciously, influence our friends and colleagues and 
students toward attitudes laying the base for American par- 
ticipation in war. 

James P. Mitcuit, Local 5 

Formerly Local 464 

* * * 

New York City 
SIR: In looking through recent issues of the AMERICAN 
TEACHER (magazine section), I feel that the drawings by 
Chandler Montgomery are worthy of comment. He is really 
giving us some good specimens with a social significance. 
I like, particularly, his picture in the last issue of the educa- 
tional “ladder” and also of the impact of the radio upon a 
modern boy. Montgomery does something which is more 
difficult than cartooning because his drawings provide a 
symbolic atmosphere for the articles. I feel sure that other 
readers must enjoy these drawings and we hope that they 

will be continued as a feature in our Union Journal. 


Mark Starr, Educational Director, ILGWU 





In order that the AMERICAN TEACHER may serve as a 
medium for the discussion of the educational problems of 
today, the contributors are not necessarily expressing the 
policies of the American Federation of Teachers. 











MARCH, 1940 





CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE 


IRVIN R. KUENZLI who contrasts the situations 
in Jacksonville and Toledo is National Secretary- 
Treasurer of the AFT. . .. EDGAR MENDENHALL, 
author of The City School Board Member and His 
Task, is Professor of Education at Kansas State Teach- 
ers College. . . . Co-authors PAUL WITTY and JOHN 
DeBOER are Professors of Education, the former at 
Northwestern University (Local 635) and the latter at 
Chicago Teachers College (Local 1)... . PAUL HANNA 
and HAROLD HAND of the Commission on Resources 
and Education are members of the staff of Stanford 
University and Local 442. ... HOWLAND PADDOCK 
is Chairman of the Social Science Department at 
Kenosha Senior High School and President of Local 
557.... KERMIT EBY is Executive-Secretary of the 
Chicago Teachers Union, Local 1. . . . GEORGE E. 
AXTELLE, co-author of the John Dewey Yearbook, 
Teachers for Democracy, teaches at Northwestern 
University and is a member of Local 635. 





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SUMMER SESSION STUDENTS 


In order that the American Federation of Teachers may 
carry on an organized summer program we are asking 
all AFT members who plan to attend summer school 
to send in their names and the names of the schools 
which they plan to attend. These names will be sent to 
the national vice-president in the area and forwarded 
to the AFT committee working at each summer school. 
George T. Guernsey, editor of the AMERICAN TEACHER, 
was appointed by the Executive Council to head the 
summer program. 


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31 





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As rapidly as income and resources permit, the American In- BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
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1. VIGILANCE IN THE INVESTMENT, SAV- 
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3. REPRESENTATION FOR SECURITY Professor of Economics, Univer 

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made to secure representation on corporate JOHN T. FLYNN 

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the American Investors Union will act as your World-Telegram 

proxy, so that the privilege of voting rights may PAUL J. KERN 

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Professor of Sociology, Columbia 
University ; 
Co-author, “Middletown” and 
“Middletown in Transition” 
BERNARD J. REIS 


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