~« ° —a ‘ THIS ISSUE EE |B ALDERMAN ALICE BARROWS MARGARET BATJER LLOYD E. BLAUCH DOAK CAMPBELL "| WILLIAM H. CARY “7 MM. CHAMBERS ‘| EDWARD CHAPMAN VIRGINIA COCALIS | GEORGE $. COUNTS DONALD DuSHANE NEWTON EDWARDS MILTON C. FORSTER WILLARD GIVENS REIGN $. HADSELL FLORENCE KERR GRACE LANGDON APRIL, 1940 THE AMERICAN TEACHER SA PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATIO™ OF TEACHER : a | a“ = int iM - Sarre CONVENTION CALL AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL CONVENTION Hotel Statler, Buffalo, N. Y. The Twenty-Fourth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Teachers is hereby called to convene at the Statler Hotel, Buffalo, New York, Monday, August 19, 1940, at the hour of 10 a.m., and will remain in session five days or until such time as it has given full consideration to such matters as may be legally brought before it. REPRESENTATION One delegate may be selected by each affiliated local hav- ing a membership of 25 or less. For each additional 25 members up to 500, one additional delegate may be elected. Beyond 500 members and up to 1000 members, for each additional 50 members, one addi- tional delegate may be elected. Beyond 1000 members, for each additional 100 members, an additional delegate may be elected. No local in arrears for two months (June and July) or more shall be entitled to representation. Locals chartered after July 15, 1940, will not be entitled to representation. Locals chartered on or before July 15, 1940, must have paid at least two months per capita (June and July, or July and August) ar“ have no arrearages to be entitled to representation. It should be noted that fractions of 25 are not to be counted in determining the number of delegates or conven- tion votes. Locals of 1 to 49 members will have one vote. Locals of 50 to 74 members will have two votes, etc. At the 1937 convention, the credentials committee ruled that a delegate carrying proxy votes for locals (as provided in Section 3, Article 7) must be a member of one of the locals represented. According to the amended constitution, representation is based upon the average number of members on which per capita has been paid for the twelve months preceding (but not including) June, 1940. Locals chartered more than twelve months before the annual convention must have paid per capita through the month of June in order to be entitled to representation. All pre-convention per capita payments should be paid before August 10 as the books will be closed on that date. According to the rules ef our International Union, no per capita payments are accepted during the convention. To avoid any difficulty in the seating of delegates, creden- tials must bear not only the signature of the President and Secretary of the local but also the seal of the local. If the names of delegates are to appear on the original roll call, the duplicate credential forms must be returned to the National Office before July 15. RESOLUTIONS and REPORTS In order to give intelligent consideration to all of them, not more than approximately 100 resolutions can be con- sidered during the five days of the convention. Since this is an average of less than one resolution per local repre- sented at the convention, it is important that only resolu- tions of vital importance to all locals be submitted to the convention. Resolutions and other material which locals desire to have placed in the hands of delegates should be sent to the National Office as soon as possible and will not be accepted for mimeographing after July 15, 1940. RATES: Hotel Statler. EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Room for one per day American Federation of Teachers cocenecee sereseseseree $3.00-$7.00 Irvin R. Kuenzli, Secretary- oom Treasurer wey? yA George S, Counts, President Twin Beds....$6.00-$10.00 CONVENTION COMMITTEE Room for three per day Robenia Anthony, airman Double bed and daybed C. J. Hendley Arthur Elder R. E. Abercrombie George Counts, Ex-Officio Irvin R. Kuenzli, Ex-Officio Each room has private bath — shower, or tub and shower. This Summer, it’s ‘‘South of the Border, Down Mexico Way 12-DAY ALL-EXPENSE TOURS MEXICO CITY [°119% Round trip from St. Louis Offered by the World Federation of Education As sociations Travel Bureau Inc. in the interest of the GOOD NEIGHBOR MOVEMENT ; This Summer, interest points to the peaceful, color- ful land of our neighbor, Mexico—a friendly yet totally foreign country within easy reach. These W.F.E. A. Travel Bureau tours, at rates so modest that no one need deny himself this thrilling and educational visit, are an outstanding travel buy. Your choice of eight departure dates during the Summer. Tours leave St. Louis each Satur- day from June 2° to August 17 inclusive. 8 DAYS = Y IN AND AROUND MEXICO CITY covering the in- terest centers in- dicated at right, J/—_— each day crowd- §i[ ed with adven- ture. English- speaking guide lecturer, certified by the Mexican government, for each group of 15 =~’ PYRAMIDS OF TEOTIHUACAN = < “re. sf © Sa GUADALUPE SHRINE Fy MEXICO City 3 XOCHIMILCO SAN MARTIN TEXMELUCAN — FLOATING GARDENS ft tourists. High Spots on Excursions Included in tour at no extra expense University of Mexico National Museum Municipal Palace Educational Palace Mexico City Cathedral Pyramid of Tenayuca Cuernavaca Ancient Palace of Cortez Ruins of Teopanzolco Mexican Government Museum Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe Home of Emperor Maximilian Taxco Visit to Mexican Rural School Xochimilco (Floating Gardens) Desert of the Lions Old Convent Catacombs Cholula Puebla Colonial Museum Chapel of the Rosary Secret Ccnvent Toltee Pyramid FOR COAST-TO- COAST TRAVELERS co COOL WEATHER Summer in Mexico’s high alti- —an Ideal Stop-over Side Trip Join these tours at San Antonio or at other points listed below. Minimum round trip all-expense- tude is so cool that we suggest you wear Spring clothing and bring a light top coat. Almost as soon as you enter Mexico inclusive Coach fares are: San Antonio $95 Ft. Werth $108 New Orleans $116 Free Information from your own travel agent— or send, right now, for further particulars, yours without the slightest obligation. The cou- pon at the right is for your convenience. —_ UEL W. LAMKIN, Secretary General 1201 Sixteenth $t., N. W. Washiagton, D. C. Memphis $118 Kansas City $123 St. Louis $19 Pullman accommodations also available you start to climb to the 7350 World Federation of Education Associations Travel Bureau Inc. 1201 Sixteenth St., N. W. Washington, D. C. You may send me further information regard- ing the Vacation Tours to Mexico City. NAME STREET THE AMERICAN TEACHER foot altitude of Mexico City. All points on the map above are 5000 feet high or more. APRIL, 1940 Cover Woodcut by Lynd Ward Design by Chandler Montgomery Federal Aid—1940 3 The President's Page: The National Income Must Be Increased George S. Counts 5 The Problem of Federal Aid 6 Floyd W. Reeves 6 Willard E. Givens 6 Charles H. Thompson 57 Max Lerner 57 Doak S. Campbell! 58 Carleton Washburne 58 John Dale Russell 59 Spencer Miller, Jr. 60 Donald DuShane 61 Contributions of the WPA to Education 7 Foreword Florence Kerr 7 Investing in Adult Education L.R. Alderman 7 Workers Want to Know Hilda W. Smith 8 Schools for the Youngest G-ace Langdon 10 Rediscovering Recreation G. Ott Romney |! Art as Social Growth Russell C. Parr 12 Music for America Earl Vincent Moore 14 Feeding Undernourished Children Margaret Batjer 15 Nine Statements on this issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER 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. Members 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. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Published by The American Federation of Teachers AFFILIATED WITH THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR GEORGE T. GUERNSEY, Editor Vol. XXIV, No. 8 Margaret W. Stephenson 16 Lawrence W. Morris 17 Edward A. Chapman |9 - Milton C. Forster 20 Educating for Health Displays That Teach Books for Uncle Sam's Children Finding the Facts New School Buildings for Old The Joads’ Kids Get a Break Implementing Consumer Education Teachers Ask About Housing Jobs for Unemployed Youth The CCC Program for Youth Population and Financial Trends Expanding the Office of Education History of Federal Aid to Education The Advisory Committee Recommends Education and Economic Well-being John K, Norton and W. W. Wattenberg 55 Among The New Books: Teachers for Democracy Federal Activities in Education Government Support of Workers’ Education Alice Shoemaker 63 The Contributors 63 Alice Barrows 22 Virginia Cocalis 24 Reign S. Hadsell 28 William H. Cary, Jr. 31! Aubrey Williams 35 James J. McEntee 39 Newton Edwards 44 John H. Lloyd 46 Lloyd E. Blauch 51 M. M. Chambers 53 Roma Gans 62 Ross Thalheimer 62 ENTERED as second class matter January 3, 1939, at the post office at Chicago, Illinois, under the act of March 3, 1879. Accept- ance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of February 28, 1925, authorized November 3, 1926. SUBSCRIPTION: $2.50 for the year—Foreign $2.60—Single copies, 35c. Published monthly except June, July and August, at 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, Ill. Subscribers are requested to give prompt notice of changes of address. Remittances should be made in postal or express money orders, draft, stamps or check. Federal Aid—1940 THE PURPOSE of this issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER is to acquaint teachers with the various types of federal aid to education, direct and indirect, which now exist in the hope that there will develop a general interest in the problem of federal aid. We have stressed the newer aids to education, such as those given by the WPA, the CCC and the NYA and, more indirectly, those given by the Consumers’ Counsel, the U. S. Housing Authority and the Farm Security Administration. Also included in this issue are articles on the population and financial trends, the expansion in the Office of Education in recent years, the history of federal aid to education, a summary of the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Education with an annotated list of its publication, and a summary of Education and Economic Well-Being, a new study issued by the Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association. Finally we have included nine statements commenting on the material pre- sented in this issue. APRIL, 1949 Teachers who read and digest these sixty-four pages will have a rather complete background on the subject. It is apparent, however, that the problem of federal aid must be placed in the context of the national political, social and economic trends as they are reflected in our present Congress. Since September, 1939, we have seen a definite drive against many of the agencies described and against public education itself. In the House hear- ings on the Office of Education budget, both the radio and film projects were deleted because a majority of the committee felt that the Office of Education was not empowered under the law to engage in this sort of work. Since then, a drive in the Senate to save the U. S. Film Service, headed by Arch Mercy, failed. So far as we know now, the services to schools provided by U. S. Films will have to be discontinued. We have also seen drastic and unwarranted cuts in the WPA and PWA. We have seen an experimental rural hospital plan substituted for an ade- quate federal health bill. We have seen the failure to Lynn Wa D extend the housing act to more adequately meet the needs of the one-third who are ill-housed. In the educational field, we have seen cuts in school budgets and in state aid to a point where the whole con- cept of free public schools is being challenged. In the words of one protesting taxpayer at the hearing in Albany, N. Y., “we are through bowing down before the sacred cow of education.” Liberal textbooks, written by Harold Rugg and others, heretofore praised for their realistic presentation of American history, have already been banned from several school systems and are being chal- lenged in several others. The Dies Committee has an- nounced that it is appointing a special investigator to examine textbooks being used in the American schools. Threats to academic freedom and civil liberties are indi- cated by the dismissal of forty teachers in Jacksonville, Florida, the Bertrand Russell case and many others. Never has the need for federal aid to education been more important. In 1938, the average salary of teach- ers, principals and supervisors was $1,374. In Mississippi, the average salary of white teachers was $630, and the state salary for Negro teachers was $215. Although from 1926 to 1936 state aid to education increased from 15 per cent to 29.4 per cent, there was an increase of only .4 per cent between 1936 and 1938. The Detroit public schools report that the No. 1 cause of absence from school last year was poverty. For this reason, 76,- 967 children were absent from schools; less than half this number were absent because of illness. PWA funds which have been extremely important in helping to maintain better schools will not be allocated for school buildings during the coming year, in spite of the fact that since September, 1938, applications were made from every state in the Union for PWA grants and loans for approximately 5,000 buildings to a total cost of $346,000,000. These applications were turned down because of lack of funds. During the last war school-building construction came to a standstill. We are now just beginning to catch up. Increases in the national budget this year have come 7% a a 5 Courtesy of the Educational Policies Commission, NEA mainly in the field of armaments. This year we will spend four times as much on armaments as we did in 1933 and two times as much as we did in 1937. Where is the money coming from? Senator Adams of Colorado answers the question this way: “$400 million from agri- culture; $562 million from relief; $15 million from the NYA; $64 million from the CCC; $45 million from road funds; $20 million from public buildings; $98 million from flood control and river and harbor work.” Senator Adams also suggests: “Better spend our money for the farmer; better for relief; better for soil conservation; better for CCC camps; better for rural electrification than for building machinery to destroy human life when we shall have no occasion to use it.” In the meantime, S. 1305, the Harrison-Thomas bill, has been on the Senate calendar since April, 1939. It has been enthusiastically endorsed by all branches of or- ganized labor. In the House, Representative Larrabee has refused to hold hearings on the companion bill which he introduced. In analyzing the immediate problem of getting federal aid bills moving, the Legislative Commission of the National Education Association made this state- ment: The President in his recent White House Conference address rightly pointed out that adequate national defense calls for educated, healthy, and happy citizens no less than for adequate munitions and implements of war; that no American child, merely because he happens to be born where property values are low and local taxes do not support good schools, should be placed at a disadvantage in his preparation for citizenship; that our future is en- dangered when nearly a million children of elementary school age are not in school. The President’s inaction, how- ever, in behalf of public education in face of the known need and the facts established by every recent study is a matter of disappointment to everyone interested in the work of the public schools in our democracy. His failure to act in support of public education seems out of accord with his social liberalism in other fields that prior to his day had not even been considered the prerogatives of government. We are strongly of the opinion that action on the proposed legislation should no longer be delayed. We urge the Presi- dent to lend this measure his active support, to grant to public education an open and democratic consideration, and to secure as soon as possible the enactment of legislation in substantial agreement with the pending Senate Bill. Such action will strengthen the fortresses of economic security, reinforce the bulwark of good government, give vitality to the national defense, and show abiding faith in the long future of American democracy. In the face of an unencouraging legislative situation, there are only two courses which lie open to us. We can give up the fight or we can carry on. No victory has yet been won by the former; we must, therefore, pursue the latter. It may be that we shall have to alter, to some extent, our plan of attack. It may even be that we shall have to deploy our forces along a new battle-front. But we must not lay down our arms. Equality of opportunity, including equality of educational opportunity, is of the very essence of democracy. And in the battle for democ- racy there can be no surrender and no retreat. THE AMERICAN TEACHER The President's Page While no calculation can give a precise figure for the depression loss in income due to the idleness of men and machines (during the eight years from 1930 to 1937 inclusive), the figures do suggest that this loss through nonproduction was in the magnitude of 200 billion dollars worth of goods and services. Most of this repre- sents sheer waste, though to some extent it reflects a smaller depletion of natural resources. —THE NATIONAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE. The National Income Must Be Increased In these days when the public school is being compelled to fight for its life, when all of the social services are being put on starvation rations, and when the American people are being told that they must reconcile themselves permanently to a lower standard of living, the facts con- tained in the above statement should be kept constantly before our eyes. “If all the idle men and machines could have been employed in making houses,” concludes the National Resources Committee, “the extra income would have been enough to provide a new $6,000 house for every family in the country. If, instead, the lost income had been used to build railroads, the entire rail- road system of the country could have been scrapped and rebuilt at least five times over.” And if the income lost during the first eight years of the depression could be applied to education, it would be sufficient to main- tain the entire public school system at its present level of expenditure for approximately a century. In arriving at the quoted figure the Committee applied no ideal standard of productivity. It made no assump- tions about America’s technical capacity to produce if only suitable social arrangements could be devised and adopted. On the contrary, it merely estimated “what the real income would have been in the years after 1929 if there had been no depression following that year and economic activity had expanded to absorb the increased labor force which became available.” If the estimate is continued to the current year, the loss rises to more than 250 billion dollars worth of goods and services! Clearly any program for the defense of American democracy that ignores such basic consideration can scarcely be regarded as competent and far-sighted. The danger in the present situation resides in the fact that the American people seem to be adjusting them- selves psychologically to a condition of chronic economic depression. In the early thirties a number of studies were made by thoroughly competent engineers and econ- omists which revealed the economy of 1929 producing far below its technical capacity and which opened up the glorious vision of an economy of relative security and abundance for all. Today we seem not only to have lost that vision but even to be accepting as permanent a APRIL, 1940 level of production far below that of 1929—a level of poverty, privation and frustration for the great masses of our population. Whether we are the victims of our own mental sloth or of a carefully prepared and conducted campaign of propaganda, the result remains much the same. In either case men and machines remain idle and the promise of technology assumes the form of a hideous nightmare. It would seem that the teachers of the nation and particularly the members of our Union should assume special responsibility to keep the facts before the Ameri- can people and to combat every tendency toward ac- quiescence and submission. In its Monthly Survey of Business, released for publication on March 16, our parent body, the American Federation of Labor, recognizes the problem and proposes a ten-billion-dollar increase in in- come. The bearing of all of this on the defense of public edu- cation should be fairly obvious. While we must resist every attempt on the part of reactionary forces or mis- guided apostles of economy to reduce the quantity or impair the quality of our educational services and while we must stoutly oppose all efforts to lower the status or qualify the rights and privileges of teachers, we must at the same time realize that we are facing not a special condition in the domain of education but rather a gen- Lynp Warp 5 eral condition in the economy. If mines and railroads, shops and factories are idle on a vast scale, if managers of business enterprise deliberately restrict the processes of production, if farmers under the tutelage of government place a curb on their own industry and on the fertility of nature, if millions of trained men and women waste away in the ranks of the unemployed, if the demand for relief presses evermore sharply on the public budget, if the advance of science and technology is marked by sterility, in a word, if the total income of the country stands between sixty and seventy billions when it might be one hundred and ten or twenty billions, the task of defend- ing public education becomes all but impossible. On this point we must not deceive ourselves. However devotedly and courageously we may conduct the struggle, if the material basis is lacking, we are practically certain to lose. The total national income must be increased. The ten millions of unemployed must go back to work. This means that we must take advantage of every occa- sion to enlighten the American people regarding the pro- ductive capacity of our economy and to encourage them to demand the readjustments in our institutions neces- sary to release that capacity. Above all must we strive to keep them from falling into a condition of lethargy and accepting as inevitable the present poverty level of production. In addition, whenever those who occupy positions of leadership and responsibility in economy and government launch an attack upon public education and or qualify the rights and privileges of teachers, we must be prepared to press them to a consideration of the more fundamental question of the release of our productive ener- gies. This is the only course which, in the long run, can serve to defend effectively the cause of public education. Grorce S. Counts The Problem of Federal Aid Nine statements on this issue of the American Teacher CARLETON WASHBURNE President, Progressive Education Association SPENCER: MILLER, JR. Director, Workers Education Bureau CHARLES H. THOMPSON Dean, Liberal Arts, Howard University Floyd W. Reeves THIS ISSUE of the AmericaN TEACHER is an achievement that should have a decided impact upon the thinking of all who read it. Every one of the numerous federal educational activities described in the various articles meets a real need and deserves continued support. Some of them are of the highest importance from every standpoint. The fact remains that our No. 1 Educational Problem is that of unequal local financial resources for the support of education in the various parts of the country. Our greatest educational need is for an adequate program of federal financial support on an equalization basis for education in the public schools. As the Advisory Committee on Education said in its Report: “. . . no sound plan of local or State taxation can be devised and instituted that will support in every local com- munity a school system which meets minimum acceptable standards. Unless the Federal Government participates in the financial support of the schools and related services, several millions of the children in the United States will continue to be largely denied the educational opportunities that should be regarded as their birthright.” The pending Harrison-Thomas-Larrabee Bill does not pro- vide an adequate program of federal aid but it does provide a financially and administratively feasible beginning along the lines recommended by the President’s Committee. I be- lieve that the need for this legislation is steadily receiving 6 JOHN DALE RUSSELL Professor of Education, University of Chicago WILLARD E. GIVENS Executive Secretary, National Education Association DOAK S. CAMPBELL Dean, Graduate School, George Peabody College DONALD DuSHANE Superintendent, Public Schools, Columbus, Indiana FLOYD W. REEVES Professor of Education, University of Chicago MAX LERNER Professor of Political Science, Williams College more general recognition. Every practical friend of democracy who wishes to see established the conditions that are neces- sary if democracy is to continue should press earnestly for the enactment of this legislation. Willard E. Givens | EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY in the United States does not at present exemplify the ideal of democracy. Annually there are four million young people who have no schools to go to and millions of other children whose learning oppor- tunities are inadequate solely because they were not born in communities where there is sufficient wealth to provide fully equipped and properly staffed schools. Every study made of the opportunities available to American children for becoming personally successful and_ socially constructive citizens through sound education has disclosed gross inequalities which can be removed only by widening the basis of financial support for schools. A long series of such studies was recently climaxed by the investigation of the Advisory Committee on Education appointed by the Presi- dent of the United States to make such a survey. The Committee reported to the President a condition wholly out of accord with the social liberalism which marks the trend of American government today and unanimously recom- mended a program of federal aid to schools. (Continued on page 57) THE AMERICAN TEACHER Contributions of the WPA to Education Foreword IN A GENERAL sense the Work Projects Administra- tion touches all phases of American life. Particularly do many professional and service projects favorably affect education. The broad program of adult education, which is sponsored by state boards of public instruction, has made a valua- ble contribution to education in this country. So, too, have the art and music projects and the PWA library and museum services. While education is not their chief ob- jective, such projects as historical records survey, science and research, and engineering surveys all have come to be recognized as providing services which schools and col- leges would find it a hardship to do without. WPA workers on the writers’ project have collected, written and prepared for publication a vast amount of material of unique value to education. The “State Guides” contain introductory essays on history, music, art, folklore and special chapters on the most important cities of the state presented. Carefully prepared maps accompany each “Guide.” Significant of new source material are chap- ters and data interspersed through chapters concerning the American Negro and other racial groups. Washington, D. C., New York City and Alaska are treated as states in the twenty-eight “State Guides” already published. Vastly important in the functioning of public schools is the extensive WPA health program with its active allies— the housekeeping aide and the school-lunch project. What is more important to the forwarding of school work than regular attendance and healthy student body? The WPA school-lunch program promotes both. The assur- ance of a hot, nourishing meal in the middle of a cold day is a clarion call to school children throughout the land and one of the best preventives of maladjustment to classroom work. More than 1,100,000 underprivileged American children are now receiving the WPA school lunch. Statistics show that approximately 4,000,000 more equally needy children should have a like privilege every school day. Another recognized factor in the improvement of school attendance is the WPA sewing project, in operation in every state. Children often stay away from school—are even, in some instances, kept at home by their parents— for lack of decent clothing. Project workers in WPA sewing rooms are doing much to remedy this condition. At the beginning of the present scholastic year one hundred and forty thousand pupils in New York City alone were outfitted for school in the WPA sewing shops of the five boroughs. Most activities of the WPA recreation project are de- cidedly educational. Garden and canning projects help to educate not only the project workers but the people of WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION CONTRIBUTORS L. R. ALDERMAN Director, Education Program HILDA W. SMITH Director, Wo:kers’ Service Program GRACE LANGDON Specialist, Family Life Education G. OTT ROMNEY Director, Recreation Projects RUSSELL C. PARR Educational Adviser, Art Program EARL VINCENT MOORE National Director, Music Program MARGARET BATJER Consultant in Home Economics MARGARET W. STEPHENSON Director, Welfare Projects LAWRENCE W. MORRIS Consultant, Museum Extension Projects EDWARD A. CHAPMAN Director, Library Section MILTON C. FORSTER Consultant, Professional and Service Division the community in better ways of producing, caring for and preserving foodstuffs. Handicraft projects are reviving old arts and skills and creating new ones. WPA toy-makers are specializing on educational toys. Through toy loan projects children are learning to respect community rights and privileges, to take care of property entrusted to them, and to keep their obligations. On household workers train- ing projects women, and sometimes men, are being taught all the intricacies of housekeeping. Certain special projects are of great assistance to edu- cators and students. The Tennessee State Department of Education sponsors a project for an educational directory which is enabling the Department to make many needed studies and surveys of much value to school administrators, students and laymen. State-wide surveys of blind and deaf persons in Georgia and other states make it possible to enroll these handicapped persons in classes where special teachers are provided for them. Many types of projects have special training schools for project workers. The primary purpose of the Work Projects Administration is to provide work for the needy, able-bodied unemployed on projects desired by and use- ful to the community in which they operate. After that comes the aim to conserve and develop the skills of the unemployed. To carry out this aim, all work is carefully supervised, and all supervisors are specially trained for their work. More than half a million persons are employed on WPA professional and service projects, of whom more than three hundred thousand are women. The essence of the WPA is co-operation. All over the country the WPA is ready, with the local workers, to help public-spirited citizens make their communities better places in which to live. When a community has gone as far as its available resources will let it and has unemployed men and women in need of work, the WPA stands ready to step in and lend a helping hand. FLORENCE KERR Assistant Commissioner, Professional and Service Projects, WPA. APRIL, 1940 Investing in Adult Education L. R. Alderman THOSE WHO have seen the eagerness with which adults learn and the immediate use they make of their learning become firm believers in adult education as a method by which real advances _ in standards of living can be made. The edu- cation of adults is important in times of prosperity as well as in times of depression. It is one of the best investments for security that can be found. Also, since there is a marked decrease in the school-age population generally and a large increase in the adult population, the education of adults has new significance for the teaching profession and for society as a whole. Those who are close to the education program of the Work Projects Administration feel that it has filled two very great needs—first, of the teacher, and second, of the adult student. Not only has it employed thousands of teachers, but it has opened up new fields of teaching. A brief summary of the purposes of the program will serve to make these points clear. Those purposes are: (1) to provide work for unemployed teachers in the field of their experience and training; (2) to assist these teachers to find their way back into permanent employment; (3) to use the services of these teachers to bring educational opportunities to men and women who stand in greatest need of them, either because they have been denied these opportunities in the past or because new needs for education have grown out of conditions of employment and economic change; (4) to give to small children in low-income families a better chance for a fair start in life through pre- school education; and (5) wherever possible, to co-operate with other agencies in the task of national economic and social recovery through expansion of educational opportunities. In 1933 there were large numbers of persons on the relief rolls who were handicapped because of insufficient training, lack of skills or lack of even the first rudiments of education. At the same time on the relief rolls were thousands of qualified teachers. What was more logical than that these teachers should be given jobs teaching the people so sorely needing and wanting instruction? Thoroughly discussed at the outset by leading educators, it was agreed that the thing that could be done was to provide class work for those above school age, for those who for some reason were out of school, and for those below school age, and that the thing that should not be done was for the Federal Government to take over the financial and educational responsibility of the local schools. Recognizing the principle that education is a function of the states rather than of the Federal Government, the educa- tion program operates chiefly under the sponsorship of the state departments of education and the local school districts. The education program in each state thus is adapted to the needs and conditions of each state and supplements the educa- tional programs of established agencies. Between forty and fifty thousand teachers a year have been employed on the program. About 2 per cent of our teachers a month have found employment either in schools or in other suitable work. The education program has been an important influence in the development of new positions for teachers, especially those in recently created programs of adult education and nursery schools under state and local auspices. There can be no doubt that the extension of state and local adult educa- tion services has proceeded largely from the experience gained with WPA classes. From the beginning, much emphasis was placed on the importance of literacy instruction. According to the 1930 Census, there were four and a quarter million people in the United States who could neither read nor write, and it is very probable that there were two or three times that number who were functionally illiterate. WPA teachers have taught 1,300,000 persons to read and write. The average adult student requires about one hundred lessons of forty-five minutes each which gives him about a third-grade efficiency in reading. Large numbers of foreign-born who desire to become citizens are among those who attend classes for adults. As a result of European unrest, the demand for teachers of foreign-born is greater now even than it was five years ago, because probably three or four million aliens desire to become citizens. Unemployment and economic maladjustment have shown the need for retraining vast numbers of workers who have lost their jobs and are not likely to be employed again in the work for which they were qualified by experience. Vocational classes have been set up to meet this constantly growing demand. The requests of parents in greatly increased numbers for opportunities to learn how to become better parents have resulted in classes in parent education and homemaking. The demand for classes by adults all over the country has dispelled the common illusion that adults do not like class work or group work. On an average there have been two million men and women in classes at a given time. The demand for teachers has been greater than could be filled. The WPA education program has shown clearly that adults can learn, as Dr. Thorndike so adequately demonstrated. Our observation has been, however, that each individual must find for himself that he can learn, and when he has discovered that fact his enthusiasm and his desire for knowledge are amazing. We know that adults want to learn because they come in large numbers to our classes. We have no prizes to offer in the way of credits and degrees, and there are no laws to compel their attendance. Workers Want to Know Hilda W. Smith IT WAS A hot night in the summer of 1939, and the small room in the union headquarters was crowded with young men and women, members of the educa- tional committees of the local unions. Out- side, the whine and creak of trolleys and the snuffing and puffing of a locomotive drowned out at in- tervals the voices of the group but did nothing to suppress the cheerful enthusiasm of the meeting. Some of the young men were in overalls, the young women in gay printed silks or cotton dresses. The room was filled with smoke. Until midnight or later the discussion went on—all in terms of education and what it might mean to these rubber workers, machinists, carpenters, steel workers and to their wives and children. “Can we get more teachers from the WPA?” asked one young man. “We've got a couple now, busy in our local, but they can’t begin to teach all the people that want to learn.” Nothing up in the air—that was their plea. Their educa- tional needs were practical and immediate. They wanted to gain understanding of social security legislation, unemploy- ment compensation, the wages and hours law—all the recent legislation affecting wage earners, individually and in groups. For, as these workers frankly stated, they didn’t know enough about these laws to get the benefits they offered or to take an intelligent part in securing their enforcement. Forums, moving pictures, talks on current events were men- tioned in rapid succession. There was no apparent limit to the THE AMERICAN TEACHER WPA classes in adult education. Left, graduation class of Household Training Center in Cleveland, Ohio; center, millionth student taught to read by WPA teachers, in Or- lando, W. Va.; right, literacy and citizenship class in Philadelphia, Pa. opportunities for education in this town where industries of various kinds employed thousands of men, where wives and daughters also wanted to learn what they could of community problems and how they were related to the needs of their homes and their children. Could there be instruction in home hygiene, they asked, in child training, some discussion of hous- ing, of what might be done to bring about better housing con- ditions for the town? “And don’t send us a teacher who uses these fifty-dollar words, and we have to chase him around the block with a dic- tionary,” pleaded one young man, a tall, straight fellow in clean blue overalls. “We want somethin’ we can understand— you know, in our own language.” Hundreds of discussions like these have given a solid basis of expressed needs for the new Workers’ Service Program of the Work Projects Administration. As a foundation for the new program there has been the experience gained in seven years of workers’ education provided through federal co-opera- tion with local and state boards of education. Until last summer workers’ education in the WPA had been part of the Adult Education Program, designed to give work to needy unemployed teachers and at the same time to open opportunities for education to adults who had had little chance to learn. At its peak period in March, 1937, approximately nine hundred teachers were employed for workers’ education, and about seventy-five thousand industrial and rural workers were enrolled in classes, mostly in the field of the social sci- ences—labor problems, labor legislation, parliamentary law, public speaking, consumers’ problems and other phases of eco- nomic and social questions of special interest to wage earners. Seventeen hundred teachers from the WPA had been given special six-week courses of training in resident centers, and hundreds of others had benefited by in-service training con- ducted in connection with the teachers’ scheduled assignments. Classes were held in the places most convenient for the work- ers enrolled—in school buildings, union headquarters, settle- ments, YWCA club rooms, in rooms lent by churches or by other community groups. To give more flexibility in meeting the needs of workers’ groups this program was reorganized and expanded in July, 1939. The services of various WPA projects which could be made especially useful to these same groups were also co- ordinated. Under its new name, the Workers’ Service Program will arrange for a variety of educational and leisure-time serv- ices wherever qualified WPA personnel is available. Not only teachers but recreation leaders, librarians, consultants on labor APRIL, 1940 law, artists, writers, musicians, nurses, and other professional workers from the WPA may be assigned to these new state- wide projects for full-time work or borrowed for part-time services. The official sponsor for these services may be any State public agency—a department of education, of labor, of agriculture or a state university. Local groups of workers, or indeed any community agency, may act as co-operating sponsor, sharing responsibility with the WPA and the official sponsor as well as helping to finance it. During the seven years of development of workers’ education with government co-operation, the departments of education in thirty-six states have acted as official sponsors of the program. This procedure accords with the principle followed by the Adult Education Program of the WPA which recognizes that education is a function of the states and should be administered by estab- lished state agencies. Continued strong support, it is believed, will be given by state school officials under the new Workers’ Service Program. The implications of this program have a special significance. Many teachers in public or private schools or in colleges and universities are aware that for masses of adult wage earners in the United States some program of education based on a study of community needs should supplement what public schools or university extension classes are doing to teach adults. The fact that many industrial workers hesitate to join adult classes in a formal school building but welcome a study pro- gram in their own familiar meeting places suggests that the flexibility of the WPA Workers’ Service Program, with its teachers and leaders going out to the people wherever they may be gathered, is at least one solution to a national problem. The use of the social science workshop, where workers gather to show by means of charts and graphs the everyday problems of their own industries; the informal drama work- shops, where spontaneous dialogue reflecting daily experience takes the place of learning stereotyped “parts” and where, as one textile worker expressed it, “We set our own sayin’s and speak what is in our own minds”; the close co-ordination of study of economic and labor problems with workers’ rec- reation groups, holiday camps, music and art activities—these and other methods, worked out under difficult conditions, con- stitute a valuable laboratory of teaching experience. The wider social purposes of this program cannot fail to interest teachers who are aware that education beyond chil- dren‘s classrooms must become a matter of daily living for adults if they are to begin to solve the pressing problems of their own communities and of the wider community of the nation. And in this larger community, the masses of industrial and rural workers are turning to education in overwhelming numbers. Their objectives are definite—not individual ad- vancement but a clear understanding, as one worker put it, “of what is happening, why it is happening, and what we can do about it.” Their need to understand is becoming increas- ingly urgent as more and more representatives of organized 9 labor are asked to play a responsible part as citizens of the community on mediation boards, unemployment compensation committees, school boards and joint committees with employ- ers and government officials to deal with labor relations. “And we don’t know enough to do it,” these men and women from the labor movement say frankly. “We must learn all the facts before we can take part.” The Workers’ Service Program, in its attempt to co-ordinate the resources of the WPA and of the community and to use them in response to the eager requests of industrial and rural wage earners, may well serve as a bridge, built on strong democratic foundations, between an acute need, too long neglected, and new opportunities in education. “Send us more teachers,” plead these workers. “We've got a lot of people here with that cravin’ to learn.” Schools for the Youngest Grace Langdon NURSERY SCHOOLS have been available for some time to children in upper income families, and the excellent results achieved more than justify their increased use. But to children in families of low or moderate incomes the valuable pre-school train- ing provided by nursery schools is not generally available. However, for many families in the lowest income groups or on relief, nursery schools have been made available by local agencies through the use of WPA funds and personnel during the past five years. About 300,000 children between the ages of two and four have attended nursery schools and some 4,700 persons have found socially useful employment through the government’s work program during the past six years. And their parents have learned facts about child care which many of them never knew before. In every State in the United States and the Virgin Islands there are now about fifteen hundred nursery schools operating under the WPA. In densely populated urban centers, in small cities, in tiny villages, in almost rural areas, they enroll two to four-year-old children from families on security wage or from even lower income groups. Staffed entirely by persons certified for WPA work, they operate on the same professional standards as private nursery schools. As a relief measure in October, 1933, they were first author- ized because of the realization that the economic depression was taking a heavy toll in the health and morale of young children living in low-income families. When economic want forced readjustments in family living, parents too needed guidance as never before in providing the proper care for their young children. Many unemployed persons were fitted by training and experience to give the care needed by the children and the guidance needed by the parents. The nursery schools were therefore established with a threefold purpose—(1) to provide employment for unemployed teachers and workers in allied professional fields, (2) to safeguard the health and pro- tect the morale of young children in needy families and (3) to provide guidance for parents in the care and training of their young children. Teachers and other staff members have made many visits to the homes of the nursery school chlidren to become acquainted with the members of the family and with home conditions. They have arranged for the parents to visit the nursery school to see how children can learn to be independent, to get along peaceably with other people, to use equipment for harmonious group play. Besides talking with parents indi- vidually, they have arranged for group meetings in which 10 various phases of child care could be discussed, parents could talk over common interests and could find out things many of them never knew about services of local community agencies available for helping them in their own family living. From the time of the initial organization of the nursery schools as an emergency relief measure, it has been urged that they be looked upon not as an isolated institution but as a community agency supplementing—never duplicating or re- placing—the work of other agencies concerned with family welfare. Staff members have been urged to work closely with social workers from the welfare organizations, with public school teachers and with all groups in the community trying to provide better living for young children. Nursery schools have been identified with other community activities by the organization of local advisory committees made up of repre- sentatives of the various community agencies, clubs, service groups, etc. They have served to keep the public informed about the nursery school—its services and needs; to keep the nursery school staff members and officials informed about developments in community needs; and to stimulate and organize community co-operation for the protection of its youngest citizens. From the beginning of the Nursery School Program, rent, heat, light, medium for cooking and raw materials for the making of equipment have been provided through local support. Salaries of staff members, food costs and costs for the labor involved in making equipment were provided through federal aid. As the nursery schools have demonstrated their social value local communities have assumed a steadily increasing share of the costs of the projects. In seven states all food costs are now borne locally. Usually at least 50 per cent of the food costs are locally provided, and every effort is being made in the various States to assume the full responsibility as soon as possible. All equipment except a small amount which can be considered as “teaching supplies” is provided through local contribution. Salaries of staff members continue to be pro- vided through federal aid. A constant change in personnel as staff members have found private employment or have become ineligible for WPA employment has presented a problem in training for which the colleges, universities and training schools interested in nursery education have assumed heavy responsibility. With their aid in providing consultants, physical facilities, etc., training insti- tute programs from one to six weeks in length have been pro- vided for nursery school teachers. These periods of training, careful selection of teachers and continuous in-service training provided through highly qualified supervision have maintained professional standards that meet the approval of specialists in the nursery school field. The maintenance of acceptable standards has been further advanced through the advice and counsel of a National Advisory Committee on WPA Nursery Schools which was organized at the time the program was first authorized and still continues. This committee is made up of representatives from various national organizations interested in nursery school and family life education. The Nursery School Program, like all other phases of the WPA education program, operates under the official sponsor- ship of the state department of education in each state and under the direct supervision of the local superintendent of schools in each community. Acceptable educational standards are thus assured. The question is frequently raised as to whether or not the nursery schools are likely to be taken over in their entirety by the public schools in any of the communities in which their services have been demonstrated. In a few communities steps have already been taken in that direction. Whether local adoption is immediately accomplished or not, the WPA Nursery School Program has served as a demonstration of what can THE AMERICAN TEACHER be accomplished in the field, and it has contributed to a heightened feeling of community responsibility for the welfare of its youngest citizens. If this leads to greater care for young children and increased attention to the education of parents for giving that care, the nursery schools will have made a significant social contribution. They already have protected thousands of young children, helped their parents through a time of dire need, and have provided socially useful employ- ment for teachers and other professional workers. Rediscovering Recreation G. Ott Romney THE PHILOSOPHERS and statesmen of ancient Greece were very much inter- ested in how people spent their leisure time, for during the Golden Age the prin- ciple of a sound mind in a sound body E was accepted and realistically carried out. But our ancestors allowed themselves to forget that principle while they devoted their energies to the building of an industrial civilization, and it has remained for our own generation to rediscover the importance of recreation in the wise use of leisure time. The very machines which industrialism built have been a major force in leading men’s minds back to a consideration of the truths discovered in the Golden Age, for these machines have now made possible a much greater degree of leisure among our people. Yet they have often hindered the very movement they have made possible and have helped to prevent the distribution of recreational facilities to all the people. Our cities have been built for the most efficient functioning of industry and business. Room to work in has been the first considera- tion; room to live in the second; but room to play in, room to enjoy relaxation from work, has only recently been adequately provided for in the designs of the engineers who plan our cities. The problem of providing recreational opportunities, as well as training for their fullest use, has been too great for any single group of agencies. Statesmen, public service and welfare directors and educators, among many other inter- ested groups, have all needed to work together to find ways of providing for the eventual solution of the problem. One of the agencies of federal-state co-operation which has done effective work in this field is the recreation section of the Work Projects Administration. It is no accident that recreation projects were established under the Profes- sional Service Division of the WPA in 1935. At that time representatives of interested groups in Federal, state and local government were seeking a type of socially useful work which would employ teachers, artists, craftsmen and other professional workers as well as trained young people looking for their first jobs. Some thirty-eight thousand of these workers, 95 per cent of whom were taken from the relief rolls, are now employed on recreation projects. They lead recreational activities of all kinds—sports, game room activi- ties, dancing art classes, handcraft, dramatic and music groups, camping, hiking, and many other types of activities. Recreation projects offered in any community depend primarily on what the people want. Last winter a survey disclosed that 12 per cent of the participants in these activi- ties are over twenty-five years of age, 28 per cent between sixteen and twenty-five, and 60 per cent under sixteen. All of them together spend a total of sixteen million hours in one week. The most popular activities among adults are arts and crafts, among youth sports and social activities, and among the children playground games and special events. Most of the participants in these activities would not other- APRIL, 1940 wise have an opportunity to spend their leisure hours profit- ably At the present time the program is operating in more than seven thousand incorporated cities and towns as well as in many unincorporated towns and rural areas throughout the forty-eight states, the District of Columbia and Hawaii. In 85 per cent of the communities, most of them rural, in which the WPA Recreation Program operates, no other public recreation service is provided. This program has been of great- est benefit in rural towns and areas where the people are hun- griest for something to do or some place to go. Public recrea- tion directors in urban centers, however, have been quick to admit that without the recreation leadership provided by the WPA, their programs would either have been forced to close or they would have been much smaller in scope. Schools have co-operated generously in supplying recrea- tional facilities for WPA recreation leaders; indeed almost half of the places where the program operates are school properties. Moreover, teachers and officials take an active part in the planning and direction of the program, sometimes as individuals, more often through membership in advisory committees. The organization of such committees in every community where the program operates is urged by the WPA to help organize, plan, direct and interpret the pro- gram so that the maximum benefits will result. Such ad- visory committees often become permanent recreation com- missions to organize and administer local public recreation programs. In Northern California, for example, fourteen advisory committees were made permanent last year. This trend toward increased local responsibility for pro- viding public recreational service is evident throughout the country. A report from Wyoming indicates that until the summer of 1939 only four communities in the State hired their own playground supervisor, but during that summer seven additional communities hired a playground director at their own expense. In Colorado, during September and October, 1939, five new year-round programs were begun. The establishment of many of these local programs was brought about by the withdrawal of WPA recreation leaders because of eighteen months of continuous employment or a reduction in employment. The Work Projects Administration, of course, does not stand the entire expense of providing this recreation service Sponsors are required to furnish 25 per cent of the funds, usually in the form of facilities, equipment and materials. Kentucky public school children examine dio- ramas constructed by WPA project. Recreation projects are conducted upon a state-wide basis and are therefore ordinarily sponsored by the state board of education, the public welfare board or the state university. Of local co-sponsors 23 per cent are district and city school boards showing the extent of the interest by school officials in the WPA Recreation Program. Although it is important to check on the quality of service which WPA recreation projects have been rendering, it must be remembered that the primary purpose of establishing these projects was to provide employment for professional and technical workers so that their skills could be preserved and their place in society maintained. But much more than that primary purpose has been accomplished. WPA ad- ministrators and recreation supervisors, with the help of professional recreation leaders and college professors, have carried on an in-service training program for these workers which has enabled them to advance in their profession. It is estimated than four thousand of these recreation leaders have left the rolls to continue in recreation work, while other thousands have entered allied fields as a result of the training they have received. The WPA has provided recreational services on still another front. Through its Operations Division it has constructed and repaired many recreational facilities which will be used by the public for years to come. As of January 1, 1940, a total of 6,400 new recreational buildings—auditoriums, stadiums, gymnasiums—had been constructed, and another 4,500 improved and enlarged; 2,500 new athletic fields had been constructed, 2,000 others improved and enlarged; 2,270 new playgrounds had been constructed, 7,900 improved; 7,750 new tennis courts built, and 2,400 improved. Art as Social Growth Russell C. Parr ART, LIKE speech, is an experience shared in common but based upon personal expression. Until recent years, however, there has been a tendency to mask the language of art in abstract, aesthetic terms and thus to make it seem remote from the life of the average American. This approach, founded on intellectual snobbery, is fundamentally alien to the simple honesty of our earlier traditions of handicraft and natural good taste. It is a condition which can be corrected only by an active participation in art experience which is not limited solely to the genius in large cities with museums and art schools but made general among millions of typical Americans in all sections of the country. Restoration of art experience to its true and healthy state, which has been so widely neglected both in our museums and in otherwise excellent cultural programs, is offered by the educational program of the WPA Community Art Centers. The first of many art centers was established in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1935 and was based on a concept of com- munity service integrating exhibitions of contemporary, historical and local interest with demonstration lectures and workshop instruction by artist-teachers. Since Raleigh, over seventy of these art centers have been established throughout the country in cities and towns such as Key West, Phoenix, Sioux City and Minneapolis, with widely contrasting social and economic backgrounds. Under the spon- sorship of the Work Projects Administration, these centers work under a co-operative plan of local contributions and sup- port which link them to other vital civic enterprises. The extent of such support in many communities may be exempli- fied by Sioux City, Iowa, where the citizens raised $18,600 to sponsor an art center for the first year, and by Salt Lake 12 City which received $12,700 from State appropriations to carry on its center. Art should be as available to the community as the public library. The directors of the art centers strive in every way to make art experience a part of the daily life of the people they serve. The approach to art is made primarily through the stimulation of imagination and the interpretation of our era in ways relating contemporary trends and techniques to everyday life. The directors and artist-teachers endeavor to make people realize that the art movements and designs of today are part of a continuous tradition in which not only the purely creative artist but also the artist-craftsman ex- presses the cultural history of his epoch. This philosophy applied concretely to community art problems, ranging from home decoration to public architecture and monuments, has been leading to an adjustment and harmonizing of taste and to a correction of many mistaken cultural standards. And so the community art center staff considers that its teaching is but part of a larger program designed to make vital a new visual experience and a sincere and pragmatic approach to art through understanding of its language and general use of its materials. Offered in informal and friendly fashion by practicing artists, all the instruction endeavors to impart, but not to dictate, an understanding and a use of art. Programs are sufficiently elastic and broad in scope to offer interest and stimulation to all classes and age groups. The artist-teacher knows that the experience of life and the use of the creative imagination have contributed quite as much to his development as actual training in techniques. His guidance in WPA art classes reflects this attitude in a sincere and direct manner. The artist-teacher strives first to free the imagination by means of sheer pleasure in the handling of art materials. In accordance with the “here and now” philosophy of John Dewey, the pupil is encouraged to find interest in environmental material rather than to seek themes in situations which are beyond his experience. Such work often serves as the basis of a new social adjustment in which the individual makes his first true identification with rich but hitherto obscured values in his own environment. As a result of the programs being carried on, Holger Cahill, Director of the WPA Art Program, feels that “art is renew- ing itself again through contact with life. Once more man has become the most interesting study of the artist.” The understanding and support of leaders in the art edu- cation field have been given to the art center work with increasing enthusiasm. A typical statement comes from a supervisor of art in the public schools of a Midwest city of about a hundred thousand people: “To one whose chief art interest has been public school work, the importance of the art center is at once apparent. . . . We need the art center as a place where children with special art interests may have a chance for further development. . . . We also need it for teachers and for any adult who wishes to develop his talents. .. . We need it for the opportunity to see exhibits which come to us from the larger centers, in order that we may keep in touch with what is going on in the world of art... .” An important phase of art center activity is the teaching of children of many age groups and varied racial strains. These youngsters, fresh and unspoiled in their tastes and with natural instincts for form and color, will, as the coming gen- eration, help to determine the quality of America’s cultural future. In connection with this work it is interesting to find that as early as 1870 the Massachusetts State Legislature rec- ognized the importance of art by passing a law stipulating that “in the future, every child in schools supported by pub- lic taxes shall be taught to draw.” The point of view of the art center is not that children should be forced to learn to draw but that they should find a channel for their imagina- tion in free creation; in this way a maximum of expressive- ness is attained, rather than the discouragement and waste THE AMERICAN TEACHER of old “perfectionist” methods, in- volving set rules and rejection of work failing to attain prescribed standards. The essential contribu- tion of the child is preserved, instead of stifled, for the delight of a public that, paradoxically, values originality but clings to old methods of formal- ized instruction. The child’s experi- ence in art will enrich his adult life even though he may abandon active participation in art work. The work in children’s classes in WPA art centers has shown (as have similar experiments in progressive education) that up to the age of ten or twelve, children are experimental- ists, painting whatever comes within their range of interest or imagination. In most children this urge for spon- taneous creation diminishes, and the instructor finds that he must intro- duce more serious observation and study in order to give direction to the child’s endowment of creative skills. Children are always encouraged to make their paint- ing and drawings from their own point of view. In this way originality of interpretation is fostered, and the chil- dren’s natural feeling for color and form given true outlet. Thus removed from any injunctions to learn adult techniques, which often inhibit imaginative expression, children in art classes frequently produce work that amazes grown people by its composition, harmony of tone, atmospheric feeling and interpretation of subject. A nine-year old child in one of the classes at Big Stone Gap, Virginia, shows the children’s love of these classes. “When I come into the gallery and pick up a brush, I know that I am going to enjoy myself very much.” Youngsters learn to discuss their work with others in the group who often give frank and unbiased suggestions. Thus the classes are brought into the child’s growing sphere of social co-operation. Both the social and artistic life of the child are developed by helping him to see that material for painting and sculpture lies in his own immediate environment and may be found in backyards, houses across the way, filling stations and play- grounds. This is never done at the expense of phantasy, how- ever, for many children are amazingly able to express them- selves in terms of their own fairy tales and natural spirit of wonder. It has also been found that the child’s freshness of percep- tion is easily directed into the sphere of appreciation. One instructor discovered that a group of youngsters understood and enjoyed a group of abstractions by the French artist, Georges Braque, when the forms and colors were presented as “visual music” and compared with analogous forms in music. Community interest has been enthusiastically expressed from the very beginning of this work with children. Typical is this expression from a parent: “I am a grocery clerk .. . but whether I sell or buy bread I firmly believe that we do not live by bread alone and when I look at the stuff that the kids are doing at the art center, I wish I had had such opportunities when I was a kid.” Cogent sociological reasons for maintaining a “free” art program for children in community centers exist. The most fundamental of these is the necessity of correcting the “cul- tural erosion” which has appeared in so many American com- munities, in regions isolated from any significant art influences or opportunities. As Katherine Lenroot, Chief of the Chil- dren’s Bureau, has said: “A good environment must provide for the mental health of the child, as well as for his physical APRIL, 1940 typing machine. health.” We must also realize in training children for a happy and useful life that hours devoted to labor are constantly being decreased. This means that more time will inevitably be free for cultural and recreational activities, and that art, which may be enjoyed in workshops, in groups or alone, may become an activity of the greatest social value. Although it is impossible within the scope of this article to cover other aspects of art center work in detail, I wish to mention a few of the ways in which the artist-teachers are giving valuable service to adult members of the com- munity. Among the most popular of these are lectures and demonstrations in fresco painting, sculpture, ceramics and various other media, which have within a few years done much to encourage a true understanding of these techniques and to awaken popular appreciation of these contemporary forms in relation to art history. Such demonstration lectures were so popular in North Carolina that they brought a request for special courses for public school teachers. In Montana they were used as a part of the cultural training for a nurses’ group and in Arizona and Oregon they have been much in demand by business and professional men’s groups. Craft workers have benefited by the opportunity to work out new designs in the art center library and workshop. The private art teach- ers, working with students having a career interest in art, find that they are reaching new pupils through an increased demand for specialized training initiated through the stimulation of art center classes. These varied activities have shown their genu- ine practicality and adaptability to community service. They have attracted an audience of more than six and a half million people of all ages during a four-year period of community art center development. I think that William Alexander Percy, poet-lawyer-planta- tion owner, has graphically expressed the essential objectives of WPA Community Art Center work in all sections of the country in the following words, which were part of an address made at the opening of the Center in Greenville, Mississippi: “We believe that if we can get people to take it easy, to learn all over again that it is fun to create with your hands, that beauty is quite simple and within the reach and appre- ciation of everyone, that the distinction between arts and crafts is mostly bunk, and that whatever gives pleasure is worth creating, we can discover not only a great deal of talent but can open the way to a good life and a happy one, which 13 Hands of WPA teacher instruct blind student on use of Braille 2S ee has been almost forgotten. With such simple principles in mind, we hope to make this art center of ours a place where the whole population will enjoy itself; where they can have meetings and classes and exhibits and plays and music.” Music for America Earl Vincent Moore THE FIRST chapter of the Federal Music Project was closed on August 31, 1939. Its pages contain a four-year record of the rehabilitation of more than seventeen thousand musicians on the relief rolls and of the retraining and conserving of their pro- fessional skills. Inherent in this record is a second story that parallels in interest and significance the steps taken by this relief agency. This tells of a deep hunger for music in the Nation. It points to cultural patterns full of promise for the future, and it has brought to light an unsuspected creative talent which is reflected in more than six thousand compositions written by American musicians and given public performance under the Project program. Moth-ridden old myths went by the boards during these four years. Evidence that a desire for good music exists in every stratum of our society is given by the audiences of more than 148,000,000 persons who heard the WPA musicians in programs, performances or recitals. It is now abundantly clear that “ordinary Americans want music, but they do not want ordinary music.” Another familiar legend was that the American youngster had to be coaxed, cajoled or coerced into the study of music Opposing this oblique yarn is a record of barefoot children hiking the summer roads for lessons at six o’clock in the morn- ing before starting work on sharecropper farms, of mountain boys and girls walking four and five miles for the chance to study in the Project classes, or unemployed adults in con- gested cities receiving enjoyment as well as training in the music class centers. In four years of the Federal Music Project there had been 224,698 concert performances—symphony and choral concerts, operas, operettas and band programs, while dance orchestras and bands, in schools and settlements, parks and playgrounds, played before 23,393,313 persons. In the education division, Project teachers held 1,285,783 classes with an aggregate pupil attendance of 14,477,125 for the most part in remote rural regions and crowded towns where the need for music education was greatest. September 1, 1939, marked the beginning of the second WPA music class in Valencia County, New Mexico. chapter of this program for unemployed musicians. On that day, according to the provisions of the Emergency Relief Act of 1939, the Project that was known as the Federal Music Project ceased to exist as such and its successor is the WPA Music Program. Congressional provisions for a change in the source of sponsorship may give to the Arts Projects a new type of community support. One-fourth of the total cost of all non- federal projects must be borne by the State in which they are set up, and already there is evidence of a closer co-operation with local musical interests. A second change is the shift of responsibility for administra- tion and operation from a national to a state basis as the Music Project is now under the general operation of the state WPA administrations. The people of the various areas now have a voice in the determination of the policies and the objectives of the Music Project. On February 28, 1940, there were approximately ten thousand individuals on the Music Project rolls. More than fifteen hundred Project musicians have returned to private employment. Eleven have had contracts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and others are in preferred jobs with the great subscription symphony organizations. School districts in Florida, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Mississippi have em- ployed Project teachers, and others have reopened private studios. Growing out of the Project are the symphony orches- tras of Hartford and Buffalo, now financed by private groups. Thousands of appreciation and demonstration programs have been given in the schools, and new texts and continuities for these programs have been created. Many other programs have been given in hospitals, orphanages and other tax-supported institutions. The Music Project early recognized the need for providing opportunities for the teachers on its rolls to advance them- selves in their profession. In some instances retraining for vocations in music instruction or leadership was desirable. All instruction under the Project was in groups to prevent competition with self-sustaining teachers, and this called for a special technique of class handling. Courses of teacher training were established in New York City, and institute and rormal courses have been carried on in New Hampshire, Massachu- setts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Florida and Cali- fornia. Many well-known educators contributed their services to this work. A report from the Education Division in New York City indicates certain identifiable values developing from this teacher training: “The teachers, who were afraid of giving up their old ways, are now seeing the light. They are convinced more than ever before that the student wishes to become a member of a group, for he has a social motive and wishes to measure up to group requirements, where before he had only the desire to make music for himself . . . a desire, moreover, which frequently is weak or transient exactly at the time when musical technique must be acquired.” Class instruction developed under the WPA Music Project affords a new technique for the training of large groups of individuals heretofore untouched by the musical agencies in the field and is expanding the base of music participation and knowledge. Class instruction also emphasizes the desirability of training for participation in music and remedies a weakness which has long been recognized in American musical life—the decline of the amateur. Group instruction also helps to make music a social and communal art—a life experience instead of a specialized skill Such teaching emphasizes music as a natural part of life rather than a technique for the few to be performed only on particular occasions. Class instruction, many teachers believe, has come to stay, not to supplant individual instruction but to go hand in hand with it 14 THE AMERICAN TEACHER Feeding Undernourished Children Margaret Batjer NO UNDERNOURISHED child can be healthy. No habitually underfed child can be mentally alert. From _ kindergarten through junior college, the success of any education program depends to a great degree upon the health and mental alertness of the pupil. One of the most practical and help- ful contributions to public education is the hot, appetizing mid- day lunch made possible by the Work Projects Administra- tion and served—free of charge to needy children—in public schools throughout the country. Under the federal administration of Mrs. Florence Kerr, assistant commissioner in charge of WPA professional and service projects, the school-lunch program is in operation in forty-five states, the District of Columbia, and New York City. It provides employment for more than thirty- three thousand workers, virtually all of whom are economic heads of families. The food served under this program is provided by interested local agencies, teachers’ associations, WPA canning projects, the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation and other sources. Fourtee ya, Kansas, Minnesota, Mis- sissippi, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming —have made the project state-wide. This means that it may be established in any public school in the state where there is a demand for it, a room in which it may be operated and certified local personnel qualified to do the work. Assurance of a good hot meal in the middle of the day acts as a powerful magnet to draw lagging feet to school on a cold morning. Tennessee, one of the first states to put the WPA project into operation, has found that schools which formerly had to close for several weeks during the winter because of non-attendance now keep open nine months of the year. Having to miss a day at school now is a real deprivation. It means missing also a good hot dish of some sort, a fresh vegetable, a glass of milk, and perhaps a good piece of pie or a cooky. An average of seventy-five thousand young Tennesseans are daily building up their resistance to physical ills and their interest in an education, with the help of the WPA midday meal. Kansas school authorities report that many children of that State would be unable to attend school at all if it were not for the nourishing food served them at noon by WPA workers. The State Department of Education sponsors the Kansas project. The health, general attitude and class progress of the children are all enormously improved after a few weeks of the school lunches. This fact has been noted in Colorado, where the project is sponsored by local school officials and county commissioners and co-sponsored by interested civic organizations. Children show much more resistance to epi- demics of colds and other maladies than in former years, and tuberculosis is decreasing. Garden and canning projects, a part of the North Carolina school-lunch program, operate in ninety-three of the one hundred counties. The majority of the schools have a WPA school matron, who co-operates splendidly with the lunch-room workers. Everywhere the local health depart- ment co-operates 100 per cent, as do local school officials. The State Superintendent of Education sponsors the school- lunch project, which this year provides work for fifteen APRIL, 1940 15 hundred persons, an increase of fully one-third over the per- sonnel for 1939. The number of children served has in- creased in even greater proportion. The problem growing out of school consolidation, which has caused thousands of children to have to travel long distances to their school center, is met in many states by the school-lunch project. Many rural children travel from fifty to one hundred miles daily by bus. This means that they must leave home early, after a scanty breakfast, or none at all. Their lunches, when they have any, are hastily packed and most unappetizing. A hot, nourishing midday lunch for such children is a neces- sity. In Minnesota, one of the states where the child and his school are often separated by as much as fifty miles, teachers have reported a higher scholastic standing, better discipline, better health, fewer absences, and a gain in weight wherever the midday meal is served. Teachers themselves are less fatigued at the end of the school term because their disciplinary problems are lessened. WPA cooks in Minnesota are serving an average of eighteen thousand children daily, most of them victims of the depression. This service has changed listlessness into bouyant par- ticipation in work and playground activities according to a schoolmaster in Texas where the project is state-wide, who says that he speaks for many of his fellow teachers. Mon- tana school superintendents have been so much impressed by the general scholastic improvement since the inauguration of the school lunch that they have asked for a canning pro- gram to supplement the food supply to be used by the WPA cooks in preparing the daily menu. Meat, or a meat substitute, potatoes or rice, a green vegetable, milk, bread and some sort of dessert give a varied and nutritious diet. In the State of Washington an average of more than fifty- eight thousand children are daily benefited by these WPA school menus. Well-balanced meals are served in the eighty-four schools of the District of Columbia, to a daily average of 7,500 children—an increase of 2,200 over the number of children served in 1939. Menus vary from day to day. A meatless luncheon was made up of whole wheat sandwiches filled with raisins, shredded carrots, and peanut butter; banana custard; an apple for each child, and a glass of milk. Surplus com- modities delivered in November included apples, butter, sweet potatoes, canned peaches, grapefruit juice, evaporated milk, squash, raisins, white flour, rice, oatmeal, corn meal and whole wheat cereal. The scholastic standing of previously undernourished chil- dren has improved in all schools in Virginia having this project in operation. In the State more than 234,500 children were served by this midday lunch program throughout 1939. Children enjoy free lunches through WPA. : ’ : | School lunch units canned 95,597 pounds of foodstuffs from school gardens. All through the cold, stormy weather in New York City the Child Nutrition Project, operated by the WPA, did not fail in its daily service to 110,000 undernourished school children in 816 different locations. Packed in thermostatic containers, the food is transported from central kitchens to the schools. The lunches are available to every needy child whose parents are financially unable to provide the proper nourishment for their families. Within a month after beginning the school lunch, reports a Nevada teacher, listless, underweight children begin to pep up and do better work. This State has opened up a number of new school-lunch projects for the present school year. National co-sponsorship of this program has been assumed by the Parent-Teachers Association, which in itself is a high endorsement of results obtained wherever the project has been given a thorough trial. Many thin, half-starved children begin to show physical improvement within a week or two. In a short while thin, scrawny necks and arms be- gin to round out, lack-luster hair starts taking on a sheen, dull eyes begin to sparkle. Keeping pace with these outward and visible signs, the child’s interest in his work increases, he takes part in playground activities without any urging from teachers, and his attitude toward school, playmates, home and life in general takes a happier, healthier turn. Educating for Health pogeow W. Stephenson THE PRINCIPLE of federal-state co- operation in public health work is thor- oughly established in this country. The mechanism of such co-operation, as Sur- geon-General Parran pointed out in an ad- dress before the American Public Health Association in 1936, has been worked out during the past fifty-six years. “The federal-states relationship in public health,” he said, “functions smoothly because we merely are extending a well-established procedure. We may have confidence in the objectives of today’s national health pro- gram, but also in its method.” Under the brilliant direction of Dr. Parran, the United States Public Health Service has continued to follow the principle of federal-state co-operation and has broadened and extended its work until today modern sanitary living conditions are accepted as a matter of course in all but the most backward communities. But local inertia, which is due essentially to lack of education, still handicaps health officers and sanitary engineers in making all communities in the nation safe from preventable disease. The National Health Survey,’ the most exhaustive inven- tory of the nation’s health ever prepared, revealed the extent of disabling illness in this country which goes without medical care in a typical year. In the survey year (1935-36) some two million cases of illness disabling for a week or longer went entirely without medical treatment. Hospital facilities were shown to be inadequate in a large percentage of counties. Maternal and infant deaths among the low- income groups were shown to be as high as among the whole population twenty-four years ago. Facilities for the control of malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, pneumonia, venereal dis- eases, industrial diseases and particularly the chronic dis- eases of old age were shown to be far below an adequate standard. 1Administered by the U. S. Public Health Service and financed and staffed by the WPA. 16 Child receiving WPA sponsored health examin- ation at East Side Neighborhood Clinic in New York City. A National Health Program, providing for a system of grants-in-aid to the states, was prepared as a tentative plan for overcoming many of the inadequacies in the present health situation. That program, however, has been waiting for submission to Congress since January, 1939, and until public opinion has been educated to a recognition of the need, it will undoubtedly continue to wait. Yet many agencies, public and private, have done their best to co-operate, according to traditional principles, in bridging the gap in our health services. Particularly use- ful among these agencies has been the WPA in making available to the U. S. Public Health Service, state health departments, city hospitals, and other agencies large numbers of trained personnel to carry on work that could not other- wise be done. WPA assistance may be said to permeate our whole public health organization. Thus in one hospital WPA funds and personnel make possible a tuberculosis clinic, in another a laboratory research study, in another a venereal disease clinic, and so on. Construction programs under the WPA have of course built many hospitals and health centers (in the first three years of the program, the WPA built over one hundred new hospitals and improved 1,422). But its professional and service division has organized and carried on a broad program of health work that has gone far beyond hospital service itself. It has provided technical and clerical workers wherever health agencies could use them. It has organized and helped to conduct maternal and child-health clinics in hundreds of communities. It has provided nurses at immunizations for pre-school children. It has sent nurses into the homes of the poor on nearly five million visits. Further, it has made a beginning in one of the most sadly neglected of all fields—that of providing housekeeping aides in poor homes where illness or childbirth has disabled the mother. Up to June 30, 1938, over seven million such visits had been made. But this is only a small part of the program. Thousands of research and clerical projects in universities, medical schools, and health agencies have been carried out with WPA assistance. Innumerable scientific investigations have been made possible by the provision of personnel by WPA. And equally as important as the work of “white-collar” men and women has been the work of unskilled laborers in carry- ing on disease-control and community sanitation programs. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Young Negro boys awaiting turn for examina- tion at WPA health center in Birmingham, Ala. The malaria control program, administered by the U. S. Public Health Service, has been especially successful in carrying on a sustained and methodical campaign against the disease. Some ten thousand miles of drainage ditches have been dug or cleared and, according to Surgeon General Parran, this WPA program alone has advanced national con- trol of the disease by twenty years. Sanitation has been materially advanced in small cities and towns through WPA construction of facilities for pure water supply and sewage disposal. In rural communities, particularly in the South, where typhoid, hookworm and dystentery control needed specific measures, over one and a quarter million sanitary privies of the concrete slab type specified by the U. S. Public Health Service have been built. Great success—a reduction of 50 per cent or greater in typhoid morbidity and mortality—has been reported by several state health officers. Emergency work in time of flood, hurricane and other disasters has also been greatly aided by WPA funds and personnel. Rescue work, the moving of families from danger, care of the homeless, the distribution of food, cloth- ing and medical supplies, the repair of public utilities, and the removal of debris—all these tasks have fallen largely on WPA workers. Over one hundred thousand such workers were mobilized for the emergency after the New England hurricane of 1938. In schools the provision of health services has gone on wherever the need and the opportunity existed together. Nursery schools, parent education and homemaking classes and the provision of hot school lunches for under-nourished children are only a small part of the program. Perhaps the best way to give an idea of the tremendous extent and variety of WPA health work is to cite a few among many thousands of projects. The Carrie Tingley Memorial Hospital, built by the WPA in New Mexico for crippled children, has excellent facilities for educating the minds and bodies of the young patients. The WPA-built Morris Memorial Hospital at Milton, West Virginia, has a hospital school In Jersey City the WPA has completed a three-story addition to the city’s school for handicapped children, including therapeutic pools, manipulation equip- ment and a recreation solarium. In Dayton, Ohio, a similar addition to the Gorman School for Crippled Children has APRIL, 1940 been built by WPA workers, and in Indianapolis the WPA built a new wing to the James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Crippled Children with one of the best-equipped pools in the country for the after-treatment of poliomyelitis patients. When infantile paralysis was epidemic in Alabama in the summer of 1936, sixty additional WPA nurses assisted county health officers with preventive measures. In each of ten counties where there was no public health officer, two WPA nurses took charge of the immunization of all people, old and young. The epidemic was promptly checked. In 1938 WPA nurses assisted county health officers in taking cultures, keeping quarantines, and fumigating after cases of smallpox, epidemic in several Kansas counties. They vac- cinated more than two thousand persons. They visited homes, schools, and various group meetings, instructing par- ents, teachers and others on ways of recognizing early symp- tims, how to isolate suspicious cases, methods for preventing the spread of smallpox, and the importance of adequate and intelligent convalescent care. Traveling out of Shreveport, Louisiana, to all public schools in Caddo Parish is an automobile dental clinic for school children. Sight and hearing tests are administred by WPA workers to the children in Chicago schools. WPA teachers hold classes in the Scottish Rite Hospital for crippled children in Atlanta, Georgia. During one average week—that ending April 1, 1939— WPA nurses made 22,500 immunizations against diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox and other communicable diseases. These nursing assistants also made a total of 41,716 tests—Dick, Mantoux, Schick, Wassermann, Kahn, and others. They as- sisted at 1,520 sessions of dental clinics serving 15,000 children, and 533 medical clinics serving 52,000 children. In that same week WPA nurses made 17,716 home visits to children, and inspected 90,851 school children. Displays that Teach Lawrence W. Morris VISUAL EDUCATION is coming into its own. Textbooks still hold a high place in all academic teaching, but from nursery schools to post-graduate courses visual aids, often accompanied by descriptive notes, are put- ting life and reality into teaching and learning. The Work Projects Administration is making a consider- able contribution to this type of educational assistance. Admin- istered by Mrs. Florence Kerr, assistant commissioner in charge of the WPA professional and service program, the museum extension projects, now in operation in thirty of the forty-eight states, are producing for public schools and junior colleges visual aids that are of great curricular value. Some of these aids give city children their first real concept of country life, but schools having no access to a public museum are perhaps the greatest beneficiaries. Where proper sponsorship can be had, no such school is too remote to be reached by a WPA museum project’s visual aids. Teachers do not need to be told that throughout the United States, its territories and possessions, there is a great wealth of geologic, faunal, botanical and historical material which should be collected and preserved. Workers for museums, libraries and historical societies have done much, often at their own expense, toward collecting this material and putting it into shape for preservation. Public funds have been insuffi- cient to do justice to this work. Until a few years ago little had been done to make these findings readily accessible to the 17 Boys making toys at Baltimore, Maryland. general public, and even less had been done toward getting specimens, objects and models into the public schools. That is where WPA museum extension projects come in. Where public funds and private industry leave off, WPA picks up and carries on. WPA museum extension workers do not confine themselves exclusively to Americana. All the world’s their oyster. Whether it pertains to this hemisphere or the other half of the globe, to this age or time’s beginnings, if the subject is one taught in the public schools, there is a project worker ready to try his hand at a visual aid that will help students to know what it is all about. Employees on a New York City project devised a workable planetarium. It is about four feet across and has an electrical attachment that plugs into the wall. A small child can turn the crank that lights the sun, lets dark- ness fall, moves planets on their courses and shows the sea- sons’ changes. Old skills are put to new uses by the makers of visual aids. A dental mechanic assigned to a project on which three hun- dred various types of workers were employed developed the idea of using dental stone which can be melted and poured into a mold to make the little figures that represent members of a family in habitat groups. These groups are produced to show children how people live in other lands. Researchers find the right dress, designers do the drawings and dressmakers cut out and make the miniature national costumes. Architects design, and woodworkers make the true-to-type little homes. Although planned to fit exactly into the schools’ immediate needs, many WPA visual aids are calculated to start students on research into other fields which may or may not be part of their regular school course. To cite one possible instance out of many, Baltimore children find their study of civiliza- tion, costuming, and architecture made easier by nationality dolls, exquisitely designed and costumed, and miniature build- ings, perfectly proportioned and accurate in every detail. As a by-product, both dolls and buildings help in the study of his- tory and geography. At the same time one of the architectural models, the Ishtar Gate, opens up the realm of mythology, as does also the throne room of King Minos. And the beau- tiful Court Nunnery at Uxmal arouses interest in the vanished Mayan civilization of Central America, a vast study in itself. The model of the Arch of Titus, made by an ex-ship’s car- penter, stands as a symbolic gateway to a road that may lead to the Acts of the Apostles, or to a general study of the man Titus who knew shorthand, and who for two brief, magnificent years—79 to 81 A.D.—was Emperor of Rome. One of our oldest museum extension projects, in Pennsyl- vania, is now state-wide, with seventeen units in active opera- tion. Educators from far and wide—some from South Ameri- can countries—have visited project headquarters at Pitts- burgh to study the products, their many uses in education, and the methods of production. Samples of these education aids were sent to a WPA museum extension project exhibition held at the National Mu- seum in Washington last summer where they overran three alcoves of the exhibition hall. A model town, complete with public buildings, shops, residences and an industrial section occupied quite a bit of space in the centre aisle. Its chief purpose in the schools which it adequately fulfills is to teach children the meaning and use of traffic lights and signals, which it does by the operation of an electric switch. Products of this state-wide project lay emphasis on Penn- sylvania but also give considerable attention to data con- cerned with other countries and to general science. There are strata models showing Pennsylvania oil and coal deposits, with strings leading up to points on a map giving the location of these deposits. Life-size models of fish found in Pennsylvania streams and ponds include a carp which opens up to show its inside anatomy. Accurate models of early American furniture —used in teaching cabinet-making, United States history, and the story of American-made furniture—show the Dutch influ- ence on Pennsylvania pieces. There are also models of several of Pennsylvania’s historical buildings, a pictorial map showing early settlements in the State, and a Braille map on which a blind person can get the location of every county in the State and the name of its county seat. Objects visualizing facts: not necessarily connected with Pennsylvania include dioramas of tribal Indian life from Florida to Alaska; colored plates showing brightly dressed Indian figures in action; beautifully colored costume plates of peoples all over the world; models of locomotives, used to make real the story of land travel; open models showing primitive methods of irrigation on the Nile and in China; and other models showing men and women at work with primitive agricultural tools in the field of Asia, the Malaysia and South America. Perhaps the most widely discussed of any one type of Penn- sylvania’s visual aids is a series of miniature houses, eighty- five in all, illustrative of man’s shelter from the cave dwelling to the modern apartment house. Carefully prepared questionnaires were submitted to the teachers in New Jersey before WPA museum extension projects in that State began making visual aids for the schools. Items listed by teachers as needed in the schools were grouped, and they have served as a guide for the production of visual aids up to the present time. Because of WPA museum extension projects, Kansas school children have the background, early history and later develop- ment of the Sunflower State made real for them through a variety of visual media. Prehistoric animals that once roamed the terrain now given over to waving wheatfields are shown in their Mesozoic habitat. Dioramas show Indians at their tribal tasks and recreations. Another diorama, recreating Coronado and his followers in quest of his “Quivira,” marks the coming of the first white man to Kansas. Models of a covered wagon, the pony express, a trapper, hunter, trader, miner, of frontier days, and of the first rude homes of fron- tiersmen depict the gradual opening of the region to per- manent white settlement nearly three centuries after Coro- nado’s visit. Through models, maps, paintings and dioramas, the State’s development is traced from the operation of the first railroad—the Union Pacific in 1860—down to this modern age of streamlined power. Missouri, as well as Kansas and other states, use models of the covered wagon to visualize the history of transporta- THE AMERICAN TEACHER tion and the development of the West. For WPA purposes California is divided into a northern and southern section. Visual aids for Northern California schools are featured by models of the China Clipper, a miniature airship perfect in every detail, and of Golden Gate Bridge—built to exact scale, one inch to two hundred feet— fiinished in aluminum, and shown against a typical San Fran- cisco landscape. Each in its own glass case, neither of these aids can be handled by the children of the Oakland schools in which they are circulated But they are beautiful to behold and help to visualize studies in transportation, air- plane construction and bridge-building. Recognizing the fact that words have no meaning in them- selves but are merely symbols for the image of an idea al- ready in the mind as a result of sensory experience, Southern California has gone in heavily for visual aids. Use of these aids gives meaning to word-symbols. Study prints prepared by project workers accompany models. Their use, however, is justifiable only when the transition is made immediately from the concrete concept to the printed word-symbol. While the construction of an original model is occasionally an expensive process because of the intricacy of the research and labor involved, materials for most models are usually simple and inexpensive. For a diorama made on a Minnesota project to visualize old steamboat days only wood, sponge, plaster, paint and cotton are used. The diorama shows a race between two fast sidewheelers on the Mississippi, the Grey Eagle and the Tacoma. The Grey Eagle, winning by half a length, is kicking up a fury of yellow sponge waves Both boats are made of wood and modeled exactly to scale. On their decks stand wildly cheering men and women made of plaster. Smoke—blackened strands of cotton—pours from the steamers’ funnels. One can almost smell the burning side-meat, shoulders and hams added to the fuel by excited stokers who have bet all they possess on the vessel they are stoking. Project workers are making it possible to open up new museums and are materially extending the service of estab- lished museums, New Mexico has rotating exhibits that re- main in each branch museum for about eight weeks and move on a regular circuit throughout the State. WPA workers are restoring period furniture for recon- structed houses in New Salem, the Illinois village in which Lincoln lived from 1831 to 1837, which is now a State park. A sample of this New Salem educative work, a miniature of the Dr. Regnier log cabin, was on exhibit last summer at the National Museum in Washington. Built to scale and furnished in the manner of the 1830's, this miniature is com- plete in every detail. A single room serves comfortably as living room, bedroom, dining room and kitchen. When Dr. Regnier lived in the original cabin, the one room served also as his office. A study of this visual aid furnishes enough material for a thick book on Lincoln’s six years in New Salem. These projects, taken at random, represent only a few of the many visual aids that have been produced in five years of the WPA Museum Extension Program. They have helped to make possible a great expansion in the education services extended to schools, museums and other public in- stitutions and have made the most modern methods of direct, concrete instruction available to the greatest possible number of people. Books for Uncle Sam’s Children Edward A. Chapman THE POSSIBLE scope of library services in this country is practically unlimited. The best efforts of all public, institu- tional and private philanthropical agen- cies must be exerted if available services are not to fall far behind the constant- ly growing demand for them. Even in large urban centers the field of activity is steadily broadening, while in smaller com- munities, rural areas, and isolated villages the need is still relatively unmet. Add to this the fact that funds available to most institutions have been sharply cut during the past decade, and it will be seen how acute has been the need for supplementing library services throughout the country by every available method. With this fact in mind, a brief discussion of the activities of WPA library service projects will be of interest. These projects are essentially a method of providing trained assist- ants, clerical workers, and other personnel to library staffs in order that they may continue to carry on their work and pro- vide for other activities which may have been planned for years but would not otherwise have been possible. The following statement in regard to WPA library projects was made in the report of the American Library Association, Library Extension Board, for the year ending July 31, 1939: “It is difficult to generalize about the effect of so far-flung and varied a service. State aid appropriations have undoubt- edly been stimulated in some states, however, regularly estab- lished county libraries in charge of trained librarians have suc- ceeded WPA demonstrations in a number of instances; and newly established regional libraries, as in Vermont and Louisi- ana, have given a larger service than their appropriations alone would have made possible by using relief workers as aides to the regular staff.” Library service projects are officially described as “projects Portable traveling libraries sponsored by WPA. Left, modern truck brings books to residents of Clark County, Ohio; center, child in Athens County, Ohio, with picture book supplied by federal project; right, Pack Horse Li- brarian in Leslie County, Kentucky. to assist in organizing, operating and expanding library serv- ices in public libraries and public schools; or, to extend existing public library services, by opening and maintaining branches and book stations and by circulating books, maga- zines and other library materials to people in isolated com- munities; or, to extend public library services to new areas.” Satisfying the governing requirement of WPA of employ- ing needy people, the library service projects have the objec- tive of supplying supplementary aid to library agencies in their multiplicity of function, of helping to create new and integrated approaches to library materials through biblio- graphical compilations and finally the professional objective of demonstrating accepted state plans for the logical develop- ment of local library service on an area-wide basis. What does this mean in terms of service to the school and to the teacher-librarian? To those schools having no librarian a measure of service is being maintained by project workers under trained supervision. Hundreds of rural schools are tak- ing advantage of this opportunity. Teacher-librarians with the dual responsibility of teaching classes and of administer- ing school library service are receiving the much-needed aid of project “library clerks.” Relieved of handling the great volume of mechanical detail in library service, the teacher- librarian can plan and administer a more complete library service to pupils. In many schools service available only a few hours each day is available the full school day because of WPA. A life-giving service, that of supplementing the meagre book collections of small rural schools, often is supplied through the many county-wide library service “demonstrations” oper- ated by state-wide projects whereby collections are rotated among the participating schools. Usually books so deposited include reading for parents as well. This method of rotating books provides library service with relatively few volumes. Extensive duplication in buying is avoided, thus conserving book funds for the purchase of basically important reference and special-subject collections. Project bibliographical activity in creating “tools” for re- vealing the resources of libraries and for supplying a stand- ardized approach to those resources is exemplified by the union cataloging project which combines the catalogs of libraries in a given area; by the newspaper indexing project which analyzes local newspapers for economically, socially, politically and genealogically significant materials; and by the miscel- laneous bibliographical projects for various fields of knowl- edge. Of the three categories of WPA library project activity the greatest emphasis is placed upon the “state-wide library serv- ice project.” Organized on a state-wide basis, such a project may include all library activities permitted by WPA eligibility requirements. As implied previously, it serves also the pro- fessional objective of supplying a tool by which public and school library authorities may provide a professionally con- ceived and economical system of area-wide library service. This objective resolves itself into Library Service Problem Number One, that of reaching the unserved portion of a given state’s population which is largely composed of rural school children and adults. Stating this objective in another manner, the state-wide project may be viewed as a laboratory for dem- onstrating service theories. At this time forty such state-wide projects are in operation. The term “area-wide” usually refers to county-wide or- ganization, but as co-operative conceptions develop and as library laws allow, the service area may be composed of two or more counties. Area-wide library service effects economy in administrative expense and more adequate and equalized service. The success of the state-wide library service project depends solely upon the supplement of all existing library facilities 20 and upon the corporate action of all agencies and citizens interested in attempting the establishment of economical and permanent library service. Citizens’ library associations and committees are organized to support project efforts in realizing the objective of locally supported service—a unified service, generally administered for all residents, both children and adults, in the area of operation. It is not uncommon that the county school superin- tendent, the leader in many community activities, supplies the impetus for the organization and action of such groups. Such groups primarily interested in equalized library service serve the following purposes: (1) to recognize and publicize the need for library service; (2) to be temporarily responsible for the financial support of the project service program and make a concentrated effort to secure the recognition of library service as a necessary and legal function of local government; and (3) to assist in establishing a permanent library program by expressing particular community needs and by securing com- munity participation. This necessarily brief description of the WPA state-wide library service project omits many salient operating points. The sustaining feature of every properly organized state-wide project, however, is professional supervision. Supervisors trained in library technique and administration direct workers, stabilize project operation and guide it toward the professional objective sought. Although primarily designed to employ needy people, the library projects have given material aid to the country-wide movement for equalized library service to some forty million children and adults in the United States who have been with- out direct access to library service. Finding the Facts Milton C. Forster CURRICULUM REVISION, improve- ments in teaching methods, the consoli- dation of rural schools and a hundred and one other necessary administrative developments in American schools can- not proceed upon a sound basis without thorough investigation and evaluation of the factors involved in each situation. At the elementary, secondary and college levels schools have need of sound research procedures and of investigations which during the past decade have been postponed because of lack of funds and available personnel. Distinctly useful in bringing educational research in the American school system up to date was the research, clerical and professional personnel provided by the WPA’s Profes- sional and Service Division, beginning in 1935. For the past four and a half years institutions have been taking advan- tage of the opportunities thus provided by WPA personnel working under the direction of their own professional staffs. In eighteen states the problem of effective rural school organization has been studied. Investigations were made in co-operation with the United States Office of Education and plans were recommended for a more rounded educational program for rural youth. In Idaho, for instance, the State Department of Education found that a substantial propor- tion of the seven hundred one-teacher schools had a per- pupil cost double that of the graded system. The Wisconsin State Department of Public Instruction, in a study of pupil transportation, estimated that about ninety thousand pupils of high school age in 1937-38 were not receiving high school opportunities. About 60 per cent of the youth, fourteen to seventeen years of age, living in rural areas were not enrolled in high school as compared with less than 10 per cent in urban areas. School housing in rural elementary school dis- THE AMERICAN TEACHER tricts of California was investigated in 1935-36 by a project sponsored by the California State Department of Education. A large number of small and obsolete buildings, small and unsatisfactory sites, and sub-standard provisions in lighting, heating, sanitation, and water supply were revealed. These conditions did not meet the high standards of educational and structural usefulness established by the State Depart- ment for new buildings, but in over six hundred school dis- tricts they could not be remedied under the existing system of districting and plant financing. The St. Paul, Minnesota, Board of Education with WPA project workers in 1937 made an objective rating of ele- mentary school plants, using the Engelhardt procedure. Based upon these standards, one elementary school was rated as excellent, seven were rated as good, forty-one as fair, and thirteen as inferior. These data are valuable in designing future buildings and in planning future classroom use and teaching procedures. These are illustrations of the many WPA studies that have assisted local and state educational agencies to improve their planning of buildings and building improvements. Other studies have been useful in revising book and equipment expenditures and in reorganizing administrative systems to provide increased educational opportunities in both rural and urban areas. New services, too, have been inaugurated, records in- dexed and restored, and new record systems installed to provide more effective and economical school services. This work, which could not otherwise be financed, is having an excellent influence upon educational activities. Problems on our educational frontiers have been inves- tigated by educators using professional and clerical white- collar WPA personnel. One of the most important problems of the last decade has been the plight of out-of-school youth. What are they doing, why are they unemployed, what benefits did they receive from their educational training, and how might the curricula be changed in order to help them in their social and economic adjustments and in their assump- tion of the duties of citizenship? Vocational as well as educational guidance has assumed tremendous importance, and in many places WPA projects to investigate the problems of youth have been undertaken. The University of North Carolina is now completing a study in sample areas of the State. The Boards of Education in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Atlanta, Georgia, are conducting similar studies. In Denver, Colorado, a study conducted by Dr. F. L. Carmichael of the University of Denver indi- cated that 44 per cent of youth between sixteen and twenty- one years of age in 1938 were working or seeking work, while nearly 24 per cent were unemployed or working only part time. About one-third of the unemployed or part- time employed had not gone beyond the eighth grade while about two-thirds had dropped out of high school before graduating. Under Dr. Malcolm S. MacLean, Director of the University of Minnesota General College, an intensive study of the college’s students and graduates has been made of the problems, activities and attitudes of students now in college and students five and ten years after leaving college. Their experiences and reactions will furnish guides to improve- ment in the college curriculum. Effective guidance work cannot be done without adequate services, information and records. At the University of Minnesota the advisability of testing services for guidance work was demonstrated by a project and the Board of Regents has now made this service a permanent part of the University student personnel program. A project has been approved for the Cass County, North Dakota, schools to provide, on a demonstration basis, clerical assistance for a APRIL, 1940 youth guidance center. In Texas and Kentucky, under state- wide projects sponsored by the State Department of Educa- tion, cumulative student personnel records for guidance purposes are being installed. In Akron, Chicago, and many other urban school systems such records are being installed to facilitate the educational and vocational guidance program. In studies of promotion policies numerous age-grade progress studies have been made. In Detroit, for instance, the Board of Education found that a very much improved job of adjusting to the diverse needs of the pupils had been accomplished since 1928 since the proportion of pupils of normal age for their grade had increased significantly. Numerous projects are under way for the purpose of modernizing existing school records; these projects are similar to those in Chicago, where a master index of elementary class record books is being prepared. This index will show the schools and the grades attended by all pupils from 1871 to 1935—a prodigious undertaking which, when completed, will give a ready central reference to all past attendance records and will greatly facilitate handling requests concerning school attendance. Floor plan drawings have been prepared on other projects so that modernization and changes in build- ing use may be efficiently planned. Perpetual inventories of equipment are being installed by WPA workers in order that the school property may be best utilized and purchases more effectively planned. Significant work has been contributed to the fields of cur- riculum and teaching methods. WPA projects have prepared graded lesson units for reading materials and curriculum en- richment. Sound educational psychology cautions against overloading the learner with material that is non-essential; concepts or meanings of words should be graded for im- portance in order that they may be introduced to the pupil in accordance with the same general order. Word and word meaning frequencies are also important to the writer or editor when preparing materials for school children. Following the work of Dr. E. L. Thorndike in 1921 and 1931 on word frequency, Dr. Irving Lorge of Columbia University has been directing WPA workers in a frequency analysis of multimeaning words found in a representative sample of English and American authors. Dr. Henry D. Rinsland of the University of Oklahoma has made with WPA personnel an analysis of words actually used by school children in all kinds of writings, counting over six million words and show- ing the frequency of use, ratio of running words to different words, and the number of running words that are accounted for by the one hundred and five hundred most frequently used words. In order that text books might be selected and introduced more wisely in bridging the gap between infancy and maturity, Dr. John H. Hacket of the University of California directed project workers in an analysis of the vocabulary burden and difficulty of a large number of commonly used primary readers. Further work in the same field has been directed by Dr. Willis W. Clark, Director of Administrative Research of the Los Angeles County Schools, in analyzing the grade placement of text books and instructional materials. These analyses facilitate the introduction of reading materials according to mental maturity level, educational attainments and lines of interest, and they are invaluable to administrators and text book committees in their consideration and recom- mendation of purchases. These few activities and studies mentioned illustrate the variety of ways in which WPA white collar workers have assisted in solving problems arising from the needs and interests of the schools. Local institutions have made use of our large human resources in activities which could not otherwise have been undertaken and upon which depend the progress and the efficiency of the American school system. 21 Lyxp Warp Courtesy of the Educational Policies Commission, NEA TO WHAT extent has the Federal Government assisted the schools in the construction of school buildings through PWA and WPA? What are the school building needs? What is the relation of the teacher to the school build- ing problem? PWA Aid for School Building Construction. Since September, 1933, the Federal Government through the PWA has made available to the states $452,444,344 in grants and loans for school buildings. This amount, to- gether with funds raised by the applicants, has made possible an expenditure of $958,467,191 for school build- ing construction. These funds provided for the erection of 11,274 new buildings and additions, containing 59,207 classrooms and accommodating 2,368,280 pupils. A study of 1,965 completed school buildings conducted by the Office of Education in 1939 reveals a number of facts. That school buildings constructed with PWA aid were not confined to cities is shown by the fact that nearly two-thirds of them were erected in school districts out- side of cities. Furthermore, 47 per cent of the buildings erected in cities were in communities under 25,000 in population. This is important because the communities outside of the larger cities are the ones which have been severely handicapped for years due to lack of funds in their school-building programs. One of the most pressing problems in the moderniza- tion of our school system is the elimination of small school districts and reorganization into larger centralized schools so as to provide modern educational programs for children in both elementary and high schools. For years one of the chief stumbling blocks in the way of such reorganization has been the existence of too many small buildings and lack of funds: for the construction of the larger centralized schools. The PWA has materially advanced the reorganization of schools into larger centralized schools by making pos- sible the erection of the larger units which are essential for such reorganization. For example, each of one hun- dred and fifty buildings erected with PWA aid eliminated two to three existing buildings; each of twenty-nine buildings eliminated four buildings; each of twenty build- 22 New School Buildings For Old Alice Barrows ings eliminated five existing buildings; each of twenty- eight buildings eliminated six to nine buildings; and each of seventeen buildings eliminated ten buildings or more. Furthermore, 47 per cent of the 1,965 new buildings and additions eliminated fire-hazard buildings. PWA aid for the construction of school buildings not only made possible the elimination of fire-hazard build- ings and the reorganization of schools into larger ad- ministrative units but it also made possible the erection of school buildings with the educational facilities now considered essential in a modern educational program. Because of the complex conditions of modern life it is necessary to give children a much richer and more varied educational program than formerly in order that they may develop the intelligence and resourcefulness to meet the conditions of a changing civilization. This means that elementary schools as well as high schools must pro- vide opportunities for work in science, art, music, nature study, shop work, and facilities for play and recreation, dramatics and motion pictures. The erection of school buildings with PWA aid greatly increased the number of buildings with these modern educational facilities. For example, 72 per cent of the 1,965 new buildings and additions had auditoriums, and 76 per cent had either gymnasiums or combined auditorium-gymnasiums. Furthermore, in addition to 13,273 classrooms in these new buildings and additions, there were 1,122 libraries, 1,625 science laboratories, 860 social science rooms, 593 art rooms, 834 music rooms, 1,425 home economics laboratories, 1,054 industrial art rooms, 373 agricultural laboratories, and 2,825 other special activity rooms. The fact that since 1933 hundreds of school buildings containing art and music rooms, science laboratories, auditoriums and gymnasiums have been erected all over the country cannot help but have a lasting effect in en- couraging the type of school building which makes pos- sible a modern school program. One-third of the 1,965 school buildings erected with PWA aid were elementary school buildings. This is im- portant since it is often assumed that because of the THE AMERICAN TEACHER decline in the birth rate new buildings for elementary schools are not needed. This assumption is not correct. Most of the elementary school plants need moderniza- tions. Many elementary school children are still housed in one-room schools which need to be eliminated and supplanted by centralized school plants with modern equipment. Many elementary schools, even of eight or twelve rooms, do not.come up to modern standards of heating, ventilating, lighting, and sanitation. Further- more, a recent study by the Office of Education shows that 39 per cent of all school buildings in 506 cities of 10,200 population and over are more than thirty years old. The majority of these buildings are elementary school buildings, and they are as appropriate for children of 1939 as would be the log cabin for adults of 1939. WPA Aid for School Buildings. The WPA from its inception in July, 1935, to December, 1939 (4% years) has expended $227,500,000 for educational building proj- ects, including new school buildings, reconstruction, re- pairs, and additions to school buildings, and other build- ings directly connected with educational institutions, such as libraries and dormitories. This program included the construction of 3,985 new school buildings which range from small two-room struciures in rural sections to large city high schools and college buildings. It also includes the reconstruction and improvement of 27,664 school buildings and the construction of 1,480 additions. One hundred and ten new libraries were built and 752 were improved. Since the WPA does not break down its expenditure figures to show how much of the funds were expended for new school buildings and how much for repairs and remodeling, it is impossible to give a total figure showing the funds made available by both PWA and WPA for new school-building construction, exclusive of repairs. However, it is clear from the foregoing figures that with the $452,444,344 made available for public-school-build- ing construction through grants and loans by the PWA, plus the $227,500,000 given by the WPA for school- building construction and repairs, the Federal Govern- ment has allocated to the public schools $679,944,344 in grants and loans from 1934 to 1939. If there is added to this the amount supplied by the applicant for school- building projects we find that there was made available for the public schools through PWA and WPA a total of $1,185,967,191 for school-building construction, repairs and improvements. School-Building Needs. In spite of the aid made pos- sible by the Federal Government since 1934, statistics indicate that the schools have not yet caught up with the lag in school-building construction due to the first World War.’ In a report given at a conference of the National Advisory Council on School Building Problems in St. Louis, Mo., February 24, 1940, it was stated that ‘“$5,000,000,000 is required to bring the present school plant up to a defensible standard of physical and instructional efficiency. This would mean an average Alice Barrows: “The School Building Situation and Needs,” U. S. Office of Education Bulletin. 35:1-2. 1937. APRIL, 1940 expenditure of $250,000,000 a year for twenty years. This is less by $100,000,000 than the $372,000,000 for capital outlay during the period 1922-28 when the schools were endeavoring to catch up with the effects of the first World War on school-building construction.” The basis for the estimate of $5,000,000,000 for school building needs was reported as follows: According to a building survey prepared by Walter N. Polakov, industrial engineer, in consultation with a com- mittee of the National Advisory Council, in 1936, the ac- cumulated school building deficiency developed between 1911 and 1934 amounts to $1,340,000,000. The elimination of unsanitary, unsafe and educationally inadequate build- ings will require another $1,373,000,000. The structural reorganization of the present inadequate district system that still obtains in twenty-six States will require at least $2,000,000,000 more. To this total of 4.7 billions should be added $300,000,000 for equipment and $200,000,000 for land and landscaping, or a grand total of $5,213,000,000. The superintendents and school building directors present at the conference stated that the reasons for the need of such a large sum for construction are: First, the schools have not yet caught up with the lag in construction during the first World War. Second, 39 per cent of the school buildings of the country are obsolescent from both a construction and educational standpoint. Third, there are still 122,157 one-teacher schools in the country. This means that the larger part of the rural school system needs a complete reorganization, which in turn requires the erection of new centralized school plants. Fourth, educational standards have changed radically in the past twenty years. The majority of buildings were erected when the educational curriculum was largely aca- demic, and children received most of their education from books. Today it is recognized that elementary and high- school children need a much broader, more flexible program involving opportunities for work in science, art, music, CAPITAL OUTLAY FOR SCHOOL BUILDING DWINDLES ANNUAL AVERAGE 99999008 9909 1934 1934= NT P.W.A, RAISED BY APPLICA Each symbol represents 50 million dollors PCTOMAL STATISTICS, INC 23 HOMAS BENTON shops, domestic science, dramatics, play and physical education. New modern buildings or thoroughly remodeled buildings are needed in order to make possible such a program. The next ten years will see an even greater de- mand for this type of building because of the pressure for educational and recreational opportunities for out-of-school youth and for adults in the public schools.” What Is the Relation of the Teacher to the School- Building Problem? One of the unfortunate situations in regard to the solution of the school-building problem is that, as a general rule, teachers have not been consulted about the planning of school buildings. The result is three-fold. In the first place, school-building planning has suffered from the fact that the people who know most about school-building needs in terms of adequate room layouts and equipment for teaching the different subjects do not have a voice in the planning of the build- ings. In the second place, since the teachers are not con- sulted they do not become familiar with the technical problems involved in planning the total building within a given budget, and therefore are likely to see only one phase of the problem. In the third place, because the teachers are not given an opportunity to help in solving Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox THE ADJUSTMENT to a new place was hard for the people who had lived for generations in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Isolated from the world at large, they farmed their barren acres until the government retired the land, and the families were relocated on the Shenandoah Homesteads. There were some complaints. One homesteader missed the cold spring water. Another said he wasn’t used to farming this kind of land. But there was one constant refrain in their talk. It was simply, “It’s better for the chillun this-a-way. They wouldn’t ’a got no schoolin’ up on thet mountain.” Or, “The chillun’ll git more larnin’ than I’ll eveh heve.” The Farm Security Administration has made “school- in’” possible for thousands of rural farm youth, not so much through an organized program of education—the 24 administrative problems there is often an unconscious resistance to school-building expenditures when it is obvious that there is not sufficient money for teachers’ salaries or for adequate equipment and supplies. For these reasons, teachers have not been as interested in school-building problems as in other phases of educa- tion; yet it is clear that when funds are made available through state aid for school-building construction in a given district, as is the case in a number of states, money is released for salaries and running expenses of the school which would otherwise have to be spent on capital outlay. In addition it is clear that from a profes- sional standpoint the teachers’ problem is greatly as- sisted by adequate housing and equipment. In many places school-building planning is now the joint concern of the school administrator, the architect, the heads of departments and the teachers. This is ob- viously the only arrangement that gives satisfactory re- sults. When the teacher is given joint responsibility with the administrative group in the planning of buildings there will be less waste in planning, better functional planning and more unified support for funds for school- building programs. The Joads’ Kids Get a Break Virginia Cocalis local school districts and the added teachers and libraries supplied by the Work Projects Administration have provided this—but by making possible the physical facilities to house a school. The Farm Security Adminis- tration in the educational field might be described as a clearing house through which other agencies act. It has certified the rural youth on its homestead projects to NYA, CCC camps, and has taken advantage of all educa- tional opportunities offered. Yet, in the very nature of its work on its 162 homestead projects, the Farm Security Administration has also had an influence in adapting rural education to meet the needs of particular groups. The lack of rural schools in many areas was recognized long before the Farm Security Administration estab- lished its rural homesteads. Educational facilities for rural youth are meager. Paradoxically, the best and THE AMERICAN TEACHER most adequate educational facilities are concentrated in areas which have the fewest children in relation to the total population. For instance, the Southeastern states, predominantly agricultural, support more than 13 per cent of the na- tion’s childrea from five to seventeen years of age, but receive only 2 per cent of the national income. With more than twenty times this income or 42 per cent, the Northeastern states support only twice as many children. In Mississippi, it would take 99 per cent of the state’s total tax income to put its educational expenditure per child on a par with the national average. Illiteracy is especially prevalent in the states with large reservoirs of surplus youth. The South has the highest birth rate in the nation, yet it ranks lower in educational opportunities than any other area in the nation, except Arizona and New Mexico. According to a 1932 report, one urban child in four was attending high school, as contrasted with one rural child in seven of the school population. About one in twenty rural farm youth from fifteen to twenty-four years old was illiterate in 1930; less than one in one hundred urban youth in the same age group was illiterate. Added to the specific problem of limited educational opportunity, there is a pressing economic problem among the farm families helped by the Farm Security Admin- istration. Most of these families had touched bottom. Drought and flood followed on the heels of the depres- sion. Farm prices collapsed and foreclosures mounted. Farmers who had no security but their farming ability were refused credit by harassed bankers. By 1933, there were a million farm families on relief. The Farm Security Administration has extended credit and guidance in farm and home management to more than 800,000 farm families who once were on or near relief. As a result, more than 186,000 children of school age in these families have been enabled to attend school. It was impossible, however, to rehabilitate many needy farm people through credit alone. Many families had become stranded in wornout farming areas, cut-over forests or exhausted mining communities. They could never make a decent living where they were; yet with- out assistance, they could not make a new start on better land. Consequently, FSA is helping about 14,000 of these rural families to establish new homes on produc- tive land on 162 homestead projects scattered throughout every state. Better living standards for these farm families involved education, not only for the children but for the grown- ups as well. A new house, a new barn and enough acre- age to support the family was only the first step in a long process of material and social rehabilitation. The old system of the single cash crop, the insufficient diet Children in federal migratory workers’ camps in Cali- fornia, Second from top and bottom photos are scenes from nursery schools in camps. (All pictures courtesy of Farm Security Administration.) APRIL, 1940 25 Mother and child in federal migratory workers camp at Farmersville, Tulane County, Cali- fornia. (Photo by Lange for Farm Security Administration.) of pork, meal and molasses, the unsanitary living condi- tions had been ingrained into the habits of many of these people. Education in the larger sense as a training for actual living was necessary. Before such a program could be put into effect, how- ever, schools had to be provided. The location of many projects cut across school district lines; in other areas, the local district could not provide schools. To meet this need, the Farm Security Administration built thirty- two school-community buildings, twenty-six community buildings, nine school buildings, fourteen health buildings and twelve teacherages. These are leased or deeded to state and county school authorities with the provision that they be used only for educational and community purposes by the families of the area. The concept behind the planning of these buildings was that they should be a vital part of the community. They are not so much schools as they are community buildings, where persons of all ages may meet for socials, business meetings, classes, fairs and the like. Most of the school and community buildings are functionally de- signed and have large auditoriums, kitchens, nursery- rooms, libraries, health clinics, vocational shops and classrooms. Recreational facilities are also provided in the school grounds. They are centrally located so that transportation wi' not be a handicap to education. There have been numerous ways in which the Farm Security Administration has co-operated with local, county 26 and state officials to encourage rural education, besides building school structures. It has helped to consolidate some of the rural schools, so that better equipment and a higher standard of teaching may be obtained by the rural youth. In one county the FSA persuaded two ad- jacent school districts to agree that one district was to build a school and the other district was to send all its students to the new building. Many of the youths on the homestead projects would get no chance at education if it were not for other gov- ernment agencies. The reports from various projects testify to this co-operation. Even Farm Security Administration employees are fired by the idea of giving an education to some rural child. In one area FSA employees have started a Student Loan Fund which already has enabled ten children from proj- ects to attend college. To some degree, the Farm Security Administration has influenced the trend of rural education. This trend has been away from the formalized courses of study outlined by the state departments of education to a more func- tional type of education. The reason for this is that many rural families are handicapped even in their every- day living by habits left over from the old ways of life. In many rural schools, for example, text-book hygiene is taught year after year to children who are suffering from bad teeth, hookworm, and malnutrition. Teachers are finding out for themselves that a purely academic program does little to relieve the distress of such children or further their education. The Farm Security administration’s belief that the schools on its projects should provide a practical ap- proach to everyday problems—such as health, earning a living, getting on with others, and contributing to the general welfare—is influencing many local school authori- ties to carry on a program of functional education. In one school, the children raised their own garden to pro- vide themselves with hot school lunches, and _ their mothers co-operated by canning the beans, tomatoes, corn and peas which the children raised. One teacher, investigating the cause of an absence due to typhoid, learned that families previously living in the same house had been similarly infected. The school studied this disease, examined the house and grounds and found that the family’s open well was in low ground. The father located another well properly and dug it. The children then filled the old well and screened the doors and win- dows of the house. Typhoid was permanently eliminated from that particular home and the children gained a practical knowledge which would stand them in good stead. Most rural schools use text-books couched in terms familiar to the city dweller but which have little relation to rural life. Most universities and normal schools train their teachers to adjust themselves to urban teaching where there are more opportunities and higher salaries. As a result, there is little or no shaping of the school system to fit the needs of farm people. In Coffee County, Alabama, where a fully-rounded THE AMERICAN TEACHER experiment is going on to raise the standards of five hundred farm families located on poor land, a new ap- proach is also being made to education. Instead of the old type of text-book, with its problems having little bearing upon the daily life of the student, teachers have substituted actual problems brought to them by agri- cultural workers on the farms and in the homes of the students. For instance, a problem reads, “Cured pork sells for thirty cents a pound, but it can be raised on a farm for seventeen and one-half cents per pound. Find the saving in a year’s food supply, assuming that it requires 328 pounds of meat a year.” Or, “There were 229 deaths and 417 births in Coffee County during 1937. The population is 34,069. What is the birth and death rate per thousand population for the county?” Instead of the teacher pushing the pupils as is done in most schools, the pupils of Coffee County are pushing the teachers. Adult programs have proved just as important on homestead projects as the training of the younger people. They are pathetically eager to learn. As one woman expressed it, ““We’ve been nothin’ but cotton patch folks without sense enough to know we didn’t know nothin’. We know now, and we’re goin’ to change.” That is the attitude that has given rise to “Neighbor- hood Training Days” which are really short courses given over a period of three or four days on such different topics as “co-operative buying and selling,” “hay produc- tion and storage,” “woodwork,” “care of floors” and “first aid.” Neighboring farm families are invited to the project during such training periods. There are many other activities in training too numerous to be classified, ranging from Child Health Week programs to the co- operative association that sent five of its members to Purdue University Extension School for a short course. One of the most valuable functions that informal education on the homestead projects has performed is its demonstration value to the many families living outside the projects. Many devices besides “training days” are used to overcome a typical situation reported by one teacher, who said, “There was at first a feeling of appre- hension and some jealousy on the part of the old resi- dents toward the homesteaders and a rather aloof attitude on the part of some of the new community residents. The walls are gradually being broken down and the homesteaders have been making steady efforts to win the confidence of their neighbors.” The relation between this particular project com- munity and the surrounding area was cemented by many ties. Children from outside areas attended the schools in the homestead communities, and the Parent- Teacher Associations had equal representation from both groups. Homestead residents joined the neighbor- hood churches, and the outside church groups used the school auditorium for their suppers. No one is excluded from membership in such groups as the Boy or Girl Scouts, home demonstration clubs, drama clubs, study APRIL, 1940 Son of Mississippi sharecropper in federal mi- gratory workers camp. (Photo by Lange for Farm Security Administration.) groups and nursery school. Athletic teams for older boys are made up of boys living both inside and outside the project. They use the gymnasium and are supervised by project leaders. Health provisions, such as school ex- aminations, summer round-ups, immunization and vac- cination, hot school lunches, books, and adequate cloth- ing are extended to all children, especially the disad- vantaged from the surrounding area. It is common on most of the projects, to have at- tendance at meetings swelled by the outside group. In Burlington, North Dakota, recently an adult education program was initiated on a community rather than a project basis. The idea for the program came from the homesteaders, but the whole community is developing it with the Superintendent of Schools as the chairman of a committee of five. Two of the committee members are from the project, the rest from the outlying district. Closely related to the general program of rehabilitation and resettlement is the migrant situation in California and Arizona. The plight of the migrants is really an acute mani- festation of what would have happened to thousands of ad- ditional farmers in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas if the Farm Security Administration had not aided them to become self-supporting in their home communities through a program of “supervised credit.” Such aid, however, could not keep up with the rapid increase in farm mechanization and the displacement of many tenants and sharecroppers from the land. 27 Ree ee lam There are now at least 350,000 American families who are migrants, following the crops in rickety auto- mobiles from state to state. Usually their only homes are temporary roadside camps which seldom have any kind of sanitary facilities. Malnutrition and disease are common among both adults and children. The children of migrants have little chance for adequate medical care or normal community life, much less education. A recent survey in California conducted by the State Department of Education and the Bureau of Agricul- tural Economics of the Department of Agriculture re- vealed that more than 186,000 migrant children, repre- senting 116,000 families, had moved into California dur- ing the last nine years. Some educational opportunities for these children are provided by the State Department of Education. In some communities, migrant children are segregated from the community schools; in others, they join the regular classes. The handicaps under which migrant children must get their schooling makes it difficult for the school authorities to prescribe a definite school plan. The at- tendance of migrant children is irregular and strongly conditioned by the economic necessity for work. When work in the field declines, attendance is heavy; when more work is available, the attendance of migratory children at the schools drops in spite of all the truant officers’ efforts. One father remarked that he took his family to Arizona for the cotton-picking because the whole family could work there. “Same school law,” he said, “but not so strict.” The constant movement of migrants from one crop to another, sometimes a thousand miles away, has made a normal school year impossible for their children. Backwardness has resulted. The average migrant child is one year behind the average school child although he is on a par with the average student in the class. A preliminary study made by E. J. Rowell shows in- creasing retardation of migrant children from the eighth grade on. This may have some relation to the increased economic worth of the youth as a day-laborer. Up to the eighth grade, children showed an average retarda- tion of one year. From nine years old and up, an in- creasing number failed to keep pace with normal advance- ment. About 27 per cent of the children were retarded one grade at the age of nine; 41 per cent were retarded one or more grades at the age of ten; 66 per cent, one or more grades at the age of eleven; about 69 per cent at age twelve, and 84 per cent at age fourteen. The greater age and poorer dress of the migrant children has raised a social barrier that removes the children and their parents one step farther from the contacts of normal community life. As one migrant mother explained, “They said of my child on the school ground, ‘He’s from the county camp.’ That makes it hard. Pretty soon the children begin to think they’re not equal. That’s a draw-back to this education.” So far the Farm Security Administration has been able to do little toward education of migrant children beyond making available community buildings for school purposes in some of its seventeen camps located in California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington. Emer- gency teachers and books are supplied by the local school authorities. Hot school lunches, medical care and sanitary facili- ties are also provided for the children in the FSA camps. The little aid toward education which the FSA has given these children is summed up in the remark of a school superintendent, “I used to be able to spot a migrant child in the class-room right away. Now, it’s getting harder to do.” Implementing Consumer Education Reign S. Hadsell CONSUMER EDUCATION is one of the most rapidly expanding fields of study in our schools. A limited sur- vey made recently by the Consumers’ Counsel Division of the U. S. Department of Agriculture reveals that since 1935 over 210 school systems of varying size have in- augurated new courses dealing exclusively with consumer problems. Since the early 1930’s there has also been developing a consumer movement, enlisting the support of thousands of individual consumers and many organiza- tions. It is natural that activities of the Federal Govern- ment should reflect this increased interest in consumer affairs. There are many fields of activity of the Federal Gov- ernment which relate to consumer education, such as: (1) studies of methods in consumer education; (2) dis- tribution of price information; (3) counsel on the opera- tion of consumers’ co-operatives; (4) research on consumer goods and services and problems of their selection by consumers; and (5) dissemination of general informa- tion as to wise purchasing procedures and proper man- agement of family income. Methods in consumer education and materials used are being studied by the Consumers’ Counsel Division in co-operation with the U. S. Office of Education. This THE AMERICAN TEACHER survey covers elementary and secondary schools, col- leges and universities, and adult-discussion groups. It is expected that the published report of the survey will be available within the next half year.’ To anyone interested in consumer education, the Con- sumers’ Counsel Division, Agricultural Adjustment Ad- ministration, Washington, D. C., upon receipt of a postal card, will send a packet of materials and will refer the request to several other government agencies supplying similar information. Prepared especially for teachers wishing to give consumer instruction, this packet con- tains a 21-page bibliography entitled Materials for Consumer Education. Listed are courses of study devel- oped by states and cities, materials for adult discussion groups, publications on co-operative education, visual materials, and recent high-school and college textbooks. The Consumers’ Bookshelf, published by this Division, may be secured for 15 cents a copy from the Superintend- ent of Documents, Washington, D. C. This is an annotated bibliography of free and low-cost publications on com- modity buying and other related subjects and will be useful in building up a pamphlet file. The Home Economics Education Service of the U. S. Office of Education has prepared a publication especially useful to beginning teachers, entitled Consumer-Buying in the Educational Program for Homemaking. This bul- letin is available from the Superintendent of Documents for 20 cents a copy. It outlines fourteen major objectives of consumer-buying education and contains illustrations of teaching procedures. This same agency is starting a new set of bulletins entitled Social-Economic Research Abstract Series. Publications already available without charge, are Social and Economic Information Needs in Home Economics Education, Family Income Distribution as a Guide in Planning Home Economics Teaching Pro- gram, and Family Adjustments to Changes in Income. Information on food prices represents a useful type of educational material. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U. S. Department of Labor issues a monthly re- lease giving the general trend of food prices throughout the country and specific prices for some 80 foods in 55 of the important cities. This release is sent free to persons requesting it. The Consumers’ Guide regularly includes some of the more general facts about changes in food prices based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. The U. S. Department of Agriculture issues a mimeographed bulletin, Price Spreads Between the Farmer and the Consumer, which is also distributed free of charge. Teachers will find this bulletin useful in studying the prices of farm products in relation to retail food costs. Another type of educational service which touches adult consumers particularly has to do with consumers’ co- operatives. The Farm Credit Administration carries on an extensive educational program for farm purchasing co-operatives. The Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers and publishes statistical information on the operation of 1Teachers desiring to receive notice of publication may do so by writing to the Division. Other Federal Government service publications relating to methods are mentioned elsewhere in this article. APRIL, 1940 consumers’ co-operative societies and has published three bulletins on how to organize and manage different types of co-operative enterprise. An important part of the loans made by the Rural Electrification Administration is to consumers’ co-operatives, organized for extending the use of electricity in rural areas. This agency pub- lishes a number of educational bulletins on co-operative activities for members of such groups. Uncle Sam is one of the world’s largest housekeepers and carries on much original research and investigation as to the quality of the products he buys. When the Government buys it doesn’t buy by guess but on the basis of a carefully-drawn Federal specification. These specifications are issued by the Federal Specifications Executive Committee which gathers information on de- sirable properties for a commodity with the help of com- mittees of government scientists. Over a thousand speci- fications are available from the Superintendent of Docu- ments, most of them at a cost of 5 cents.” The service agencies of the Federal Government, the Department of Agriculture, the state agricultural experi- ment stations for the farmer and farm family, and the National Bureau of Standards for manufacturers conduct investigations into the qualities of products. Many of these investigations produce information useful to the consumer. The bulletins, Consumer Service of the De- partment of Agriculture Agencies, issued by the Con- sumers’ Counsel Division, and Services of the National Bureau of Standards to the Consumer, are available free of charge from the issuing agencies. The preparation of standards for certain types of con- sumer goods requires much research. The Agricultural Marketing Service of the U. S. Department of Agricul- ture has defined quality standards for eggs, poultry, but- ter, certain kinds of meat and meat products, and fresh and canned fruits and vegetables. This agency will be glad to supply general information on its standardiza- tion work, copies of some of the standards used, and charts and posters relating to its work. The Food and Drug Administration also conducts investigations in setting minimum standards of quality and fill of container and standards of identity for certain food products. The 2A list of the commodities covered may be secured without charge by writing the U. S. Government Printing Office. 29 1 : ih ; i Consumer Standards Project, sponsored by the Consum- ers’ Counsel Division is collating all available material on standards for consumers’ goods. Two publications, A Chart Analysis of the Federal Food, Drug and Cos- metic Act and.a Study of Informative Labeling, based on a survey made by the National Consumer-Retailer Coun- cil, are available without cost. Much information on consumer goods comes as a result of the regulatory work of Federal Government agencies. The Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Agriculture carries on many investigations relating to food, drug and cosmetic products in the course of its regulation of the industries producing them. This agency issues Notices of Judgment summarizing the results of court cases against violators of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The Federal Trade Commission, through its regulation of advertising practices under the Wheeler-Lea Act, is an important consumer protective agency. Teachers may secure free its Monthly Statement of Work, summarizing important regulatory actions. If a teacher, in looking over the list of products and business firms against which actions have been taken, sees one which is of particular interest, he may write the Com- mission and receive a copy of the stipulation, complaint or order covering the particular case in question. These materials are also sent without charge. The Consumers’ Counsel Division, Office of the Solicitor, U. S. Department of the Interior (formerly the Consum- ers’ Counsel Division of the National Bituminous Coal Commission) publishes several bulletins to help consum- ers buy their winter’s coal supply intelligently. Units of work on the purchasing of coal, prepared specifically for teachers of consumer education, are available on request. The Bureau of Home Economics in the U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture is notable not only for research on commodities used in the home but also in preparing bulletins giving definite suggestions for the wise pur- chasing of these commodities in the market. This agency has prepared illustrated consumer buying guides on the following subjects: women’s coats, cot- ton fabrics, sheets, blankets, bath towels, children’s clothes, cotton shirts, ready-made dresses and hosiery. In some cases film strips, portfolios of pictures and charts illustrating buying pointers for these prc ducts are available for loan or purchase. Information on how to secure the bulletins and other materials will be sent on request by the Bureau. Studies relating to the financial management of the home are also carried on by this agency. Its Farm Family Account Book is widely used and its Diets to Fit the Family Income is a governmental best-seller. Both the Extension Service and the Farm Security Administration of the Department of Agriculture carry on extensive educational programs to educate farm con- sumers on the wise selection and proper use of goods and %Anyone may have his name placed on the mailing list to receive these bulletins without cost by writing the Food and Drug Administration, Wash ington, . 30 services. The former agency has over sixteen hundred home demonstration agents who act as consumer coun- selors to the farm housewife. The most important investigation of consumer incomes and expenditures ever made is being carried on through the co-operation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Home Economics, and National Resources Board. A number of bulletins reporting the results of this survey have been issued, and any of these agencies will supply a list of them. By far the most widely distributed Governmental source of general buying information is the Consumers’ Guide. This clearing house for consumer information draws on all the resources of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Copies of the Guide go out every two weeks during the school year and every month during the sum- mer to some 150,000 consumers. Subscriptions are en- tered upon individual request, without charge, until the maximum circulation allowed by the present appropriation is reached. A wide range of subject matter is covered in the Guide; current prices from the reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, standards for consumer goods, new laws for consumer protection, consumer credit, co- operatives, marketing problems and a bookshelf column listing Department of Agriculture bulletins are repre- sentative subjects. Every Friday at 1:30 p.m., EST, a fifteen-minute “Consumer Time” broadcast goes out over the Red Net- work of the National Broadcasting Company as a joint presentation of the Consumers’ Counsel Division of the - Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. The content of these broad- casts is similar in subject matter to the Consumer’s Guide. Exhibits of publications and some weights and measures posters are available for loan to consumer groups by the Consumers’ Counsel Division. Of the hundreds of letters received each week by far the largest number of re- quests come from teachers and students of consumer education. At the first of the year teachers want help on planning courses and later on they want source materials for use by students in investigations they are making. Cosmetics, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, furs, vitamins, budgets, home heating and radios are among the subjects most frequently mentioned in requests for information. All kinds of consumer inquiries pour into the offices of the Consumers’ Counsel. To many of them there is no answer from government sources. The fact that they keep on coming points to the insistance of consumers on help in their buying problems. Probably no Governmental agencies come so close to the daily life of the whole people as those which render a consumer service. Teachers and school administrators who feel a responsibility for providing education in wise consumption are using these services increasingly. The present materials prepared by Federal Government agen- cies form an important part of the rapidly-growing volume of information which makes possible a realistic attack upon this problem. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Teachers Ask About Housing William H. Cary, Jr. “PLEASE SEND me all the information possible on your houses as soon as possible. I need this information for my General Science class in high school.” Letters pour in from people who have all kinds of questions. They write to the United States Housing Authority in Washington, to other federal agencies con- cerned with housing, to local housing authorities all over the country, and to other local agencies, public and private. Many of these people are teachers and students. From schools and colleges, from the PTA, NEA, PEA, AFT, a welfare council here, a consumer education group there, from church and civic groups, come a rising tide of requests for information. Operating on a limited informational budget, the USHA sends them general and specific information and refers them to additional literature, courses, organizations and people. Local housing authorities, with limited funds and staff, and beset with urgent problems of construction, or- ganization and management, would welcome the co-oper- ation of teachers who know the essentials of housing, and who, by encouraging the study of these essentials, would thus share with them this task of answering at least the more basic and frequently recurring questions. Until a fundamental understanding of the program is sufficiently widespread and at the present time when the demand for it is growing rapidly, the USHA and the local housing authorities must be teachers. A few busy staff members must find time to talk before busi- ness groups, service organizations, religious groups and schools with movies, slides and charts. They must tell what has been happening to their own communities, and why—and what is being done about it. The Housing Problem. Bad housing, which has long been with us, has been quietly extending its areas and its sinister effects for many years. But only within the past few years have people generally begun to realize it. From early pioneer days, we Americans have used our natural and human resources recklessly, without plan. Often, in- deed, we have gambled with them. Now our generation, and the generation which we are teaching, must pay the heavy cost of this waste. APRIL, 1940 As towns became congested at their centers, well-to-do families moved out into “better districts,” taking their purchasing power with them. The dwellings they left behind them were soon divided into small, inadequate quar- ters for low-income families. More houses, often jerry- built, badly planned, intended for quick profits to builder and owner rather than for decent living, added to the con- gestion and produced “blighted areas.” The blighted areas of yesterday are the slums of today. Our rugged individualism, carried over from old frontier days, has not assumed, and could not assume, the task of checking this erosion of homes and of lives. The task of resuscitating our substandard areas is gigantic and is essentially a public function. Only recently have we made extensive surveys of urban and rural nousing. Through such surveys we have been forced at last to look at the pattern and structure of our communities with critical eyes. Over a million city homes are dangerously unsafe or unfit for people to live in according to a survey covering more than half the city families in the United States. Over one and one-half million dwellings lacked private bathing facilities and nearly one and one-quarter mil- lion had no private indoor toilet. In the rural areas, ac- cording to an earlier study by the Department of Agricul- ture, only one out of twenty houses came up to a decent American standard. What the USHA Program Is. Under the U. S. Housing Act of 1937 the USHA makes loans to local housing au- thorities up to 90 per cent of the total development cost. The local authorities themselves plan, build and operate the housing projects. The USHA also makes certain an- nual payments to help bring down the rents to a level that families from substandard housing can afford. The net cost to the Federal Government for these rent subsidies is about $1.50 per month per person rehoused. Only families who live in substandard housing—that is, housing injurious to health, safety and morals—may move into the projects. And their income must be less than five times the rent which they will pay in the new homes (six times the rent for large families). Aerial view of Julia Lathrop Housing Project in Chicago. oe BE cena i The USHA itself does not build houses. It does set certain minimum requirements for construction, for rents, for tenant-selection and for management to insure that the money it lends is used for a sound investment. But, un- like the PWA housing projects, the USHA-aided projects are built not by the Federal but by the local government. The program is decentralized. If a local community doesn’t urgently need a project and doesn’t raise at least 10 per cent of the funds, no project develops there. Today all the loans that can be made under the present program have been made or earmarked, and there is a waiting list for loans totaling over a billion dollars. There is a bill now pending in the House of Representatives which would authorize the USHA to lend eight hundred million dollars more to local housing authorities to rehouse families of low income and to make additional annual contributions of forty-five million dollars. Two hundred million dollars of the loans and a proper proportion of annual contribu- tions would be earmarked for rural housing. Four hundred projects are under loan contract, which means they are being constructed or soon will be. One hundred and ninety of these are under construction. Twenty-two projects are partly or wholly occupied. (These are in addition, of course, to the forty-nine PWA housing projects which are now leased to local authorities or operated by the USHA.)? Housing Study in the Schools. Many colleges are in- cluding some material on housing in one form or another in a variety of courses. We do not know how many secondary schools are giving some attention to the study of housing; apparently hundreds of them include it in the curriculum, some competently, some inadequately. Much of the best housing work done in schools is still in the early experimental stages, and has not yet been sum- marized in published form. A few housing courses, which have been or are about to be published, are listed below. Other courses may be as good, or better, but in any case these offer a wide variety in scope, approach and emphasis. In them you may find practical suggestions for organiz- ing your own work on housing. Although a teacher in the social studies field can not generally take over a course ready made, still there are short cuts to finding the essential material. Some of these are indicated below. Housing is not just another subject to be added to an already crowded curriculum. Housing can be an inte- grating subject through which many other subjects may be brought into meaningful relationship. Boys and girls of various ages, whether they are interested. principally in architecture, public relations, health, community re- sources, writing, social work, crafts, home economics, mathematics, geography or local and national history, will find in the subject of housing some aspect which can hold their interest and contribute to their broader edu- cation. Many existing courses could be enriched by including some fresh material on housing, for housing cuts across not only the social studies, but many other fields as well. 1S8ee Edith Elmer Wood's Introduction to Housing: Facts and Princi- ples (30 cents) and What the Housing Act Can Do for Your City (20 cents). Washington: Government Printing Office. 32 Until public housing education develops to a point where it occupies a position such as public health now holds— with a considerable background of experience, literature and teaching personnel—wouldn’t it be desirable to make existing courses flexible enough to include some material on housing? “Those who are engaged in public education,” said Dr. Floyd McMurray, Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction of Indiana, recently, “always have a real responsibility in public affairs. It is our duty to help young people to understand their communities, to know how they are run, what are their needs, and how these needs can be met.” A New Social Life. You may walk through almost any of the PWA housing projects, or of the new USHA projects, and you will find much more than structures. You will find handicraft clubs, project newspaper edi- torial offices, credit union offices, social clubs, game rooms, meeting halls, libraries, parent-teachers headquarters. Here the boys and girls have games, dances, parties, hob- bies; the adults have their own educational and recrea- tional interests. These activities take place in the social rooms, on the playgrounds or in the families’ homes. The Federal Government does not direct these educa- tional and social programs. Neither does the local hous- ing authority, nor even the management of the project. But when and if the residents decide they want to set up a woodworking club, credit union, or newspaper office, for example, the management stands ready to help them. Where from one hundred to twenty-five hundred families are brought together at one time into a new and favoring environment, there are sure to be people who like sports, dramatics, manual arts, journalism, etc. Activities, in- cluding educational programs, just naturally grow because of enthusiasms and talents which at last find an environ- ment in which they can flourish. The tenants share many of their new advantages and interests with residents in the neighborhood. Wisely planned programs result in bringing together the project and the community. When I say that the tenants themselves initiate most of their own activities, I do not mean that important facili- ties which the local authorities know will be in demand are not built into the project. We are gathering much experience in these matters; we are learning in advance what the families will need. Local recreation depart- ments, boards of education, library boards, settlement houses, welfare and health departments, family welfare societies and other agencies should increasingly take part in planning the projects with the local authorities. Out- side agencies are also needed for supplying specially trained personnel and equipment for certain project activi- ties. A project can and should be designed to act as a regenerative force in its community. A project newspaper in Detroit, the Brewster Homes Journal, announces classes in pottery-making and in- terior decorating, the opening of the project library with fourteen hundred books, “a children’s story hour for chil- THE AMERICAN TEACHER ss — a? 3 » a "SF dren from six to eleven years old,” a meeting of The Young Mothers’ Club. There are “personals” about who came to visit whom, who went away on a visit, who has a new idea or a new baby. There is practical advice in home economics, discussion of community and national problems. There is news of hobby clubs, first aid classes. discussion forums, camera clubs, boy scout meetings, con- sumer co-operatives, adult education classes. Many of these have been made possible through teaching and other services from public and private organizations outside the project. The Lockfield News, of the Lockfield Gardens Project, Indianapolis, tells us of tenant-maintenance arrange- ments to keep rents down, even to make lower rents pos- sible. “As soon as additional shelves can be installed another five hundred children’s books will be placed in the library.” Announcements are made of a band concert and movie, bridge club party, Health Club meeting, flag- raising ceremony, welcome for the staff of adult-education instructors. The tenants’ recreation department is or- ganizing softball teams, ping-pong and badminton clubs. The project is 100 per cent occupied, and there is a long waiting list of certified applicants. So it goes. One must not be misled, however, into assuming that all the problems of low-income families are to be solved through public housing. This new social life provides one important step toward health and toward meeting the many family and community needs with which teach- ers become so familiar. Children Preferred. Many private landlords seek ten- ants without children. Some frankly advertise: “No children.” Public housing is designed for families with children. There are about fifty-four pre-school-age children for every one hundred families in housing projects. Hence the need for supervised programs for these pre-school chil- dren. Hence, also, the tremendous importance of parent- education programs. Of the twelve nursery schools already operating in PWA housing projects, eight are being con- ducted by the WPA and four by private local agencies. The Mothers’ Training Center at the University of Cin- cinnati loaned money for two nursery schools in the Laurel Homes Project accommodating fifty children. This was necessary to supplement WPA funds which could be used only for food and first-aid. The mothers interested in the nursery school paid back the loan by fund-raising parties and obtaining contributions. The mothers’ club in the project and parents interested in the nursery school co-op- erate in arranging lectures, discussions on child care, health, nutrition and behavior problems with the assistance of the University of Cincinnati. The nursery school at Lakeview Terrace, Cleveland, on the other hand, has been organized as a teacher-demon- stration center by the Cleveland Child Health Asso- ciation with the co-operation of various local agencies. The project supplies an attractive, well-designed nursery school unit and a pre-school play yard near the large play- ground. Through funds granted by the Cleveland Founda- tion, the Child Health Association supplies the staff, health and nutrition services. A pediatrician is made available by the University Hospital and a nurse by the Visiting Nurses Association. Most of the indoor and outdoor equipment was made by the NYA which also supplies assistants who receive training in nursery school educa- tion along with their work. Toys were donated by the WPA toy shop. Friends of the school gave a piano, vic- trola and scales. Students from Western Reserve Uni- versity School of Medicine attend bi-weekly clinics held by the Association’s physician at the center. Student nurses from St. Luke’s Hospital come in for observation purposes as do many mothers and student groups from out- side the project. The tenants at Cedar Springs Place, Dallas, Texas, have for many months operated a “toy loan library,” sponsored by the Junior League and the Neighborhood Council. Two afternoons a week, some three hundred children flock to the social room with dolls, games, fire engines, skates, etc., to exchange them for trains, baby buggies, and books. Over five hundred toys have been catalogued and made available to any child whose parents will sign an appli- cation blank. When toys are returned each week, they are disinfected and renovated before being loaned to an- other child. A study in contrasts: left, a Washington, D. C., slum; right, a St. Louis, Mo., slum; center, a family in a gov- ernment housing unit in Cleveland, Ohio, at the dinner table. (Photographs by Farm Security Administration and United States Housing Authority.) : } i : it nae ge One way to help a community is to see that its projects are designed with adequate recognition of educational and recreational needs. Who should know better than teachers what the parents and children will require? The job of the housing authority is to provide adequate housing for families of low income. It cannot finance, build, or operate schools, libraries, parks, community centers or health clinics in connection with the housing projects. All these services are essential for adequate community life, but for them the community must rely upon the local agencies responsible for them. The local board of educa- tion has long had the responsibility of providing educa- tional services for all the school population in its area. It is only proper that it continue to do this. People in a housing project are entitled to receive the services they had before they moved into the project. The local housing authority is, however, obligated to plan, construct, and operate housing projects in such a way as to allow adequate provision of educational, recre- ational and health services by the board of education and the other agencies chiefly concerned. At the earliest practical moment, therefore, the housing authority cus- tomarily consults with the board of education and such other agencies. Methods of financing educational work in the projects present a real problem because, obviously, low-income families cannot afford to pay for all these services them- selves. Community resources have been pooled in many cases to bring the cost per family to the lowest possible figure. Public agencies such as the WPA, NYA, city recre- ation departments and boards of education have helped. We must look to the private organizations to supple- ment the work of the public agencies. Consumer Interests. Economic security for these low- income families is, of course, still precarious. But fami- lies in many projects have learned that their standards of living can be improved at no added cost through buying clubs, co-operatives and credit unions. One of the early enterprises of the Parklawn Tenants’ Association, Milwaukee, was to organize a committee to solicit group memberships for the Milwaukee Medical Center. After three years, some eighty of the 518 fami- lies in the project belong to the center, paying three dollars per family per month for examination, hospitalization and office calls. In Techwood Homes, Atlanta, thirty-eight families have been ordering food through their buying club from pro- ducers at Pine Mountain Valley, a project operated by the Farm Security Administration. One annual dividend amounted to over 23 per cent. The Parkside Consumers’ Co-operative Society, Detroit, now owns and operates a successful co-operative gasoline station. It sponsors a credit union, consumer education discussion groups and more recently has set up a Housing Committee to promote co-operative housing for low-income families. Comparatively small but active credit unions, chartered under state or federal regulations, have been organized 34 in almost two-thirds of the housing projects. In less than eight months, 250 members of the Credit Union at Jane Addams Houses, Chicago, accumulated two thousand dollars and loaned out half that amount to its members. What About Textbooks on Housing? Textbooks as well as many other publications should present accurate and up-to-date distillations of experience on modern problems. Housing is an urgent modern problem. An examination of some current social-studies textbooks for elementary, high school and college students suggests that teachers have a job to do here. A teacher can demand for his use in the social studies textbooks which are up-to-date. The publishers are not chiefly to blame. They have to meet the existing demand; they cannot by themselves create the demand. Teachers, school boards, and citizens generally, will get what they want—if and when they want it enough to do something effective about it. Most peo- ple are for public housing or become so when they know what it means. The minority who oppose the housing program either through lack of information or because they derive profits from substandard housing make a noise disproportionate to their numbers. Reverberations reach the educational publishers. For example, in a social-studies textbook for high school students published this spring, there is some admirable discussion of good and bad housing in a chapter on “The Houses We Live In.” Yet there is no discussion at all of the principal agencies which are working to clear slums and to secure adequate housing—the USHA and the local hous- ing authorities! A hint of the reason behind this omission may perhaps be seen in a comment in that chapter: “Gov- ernment housing has been a source of great conflict, for many real-estate men and builders feel that the Govern- ment should not interfere in private business.” Jobs Ahead. When public housing finally goes into high gear and when both public and private agencies work side by side to solve the vast housing problem—as has hap- pened in Great Britain and other European countries— hundreds of thousands more men and women than at present are going to be required, directly and indirectly, in this field. Those teachers who are concerned with vocational guidance and vocational training will realize that many skilled workers will be needed in the building trades. There is already a shortage here. Planning, building and operating public housing projects in this country have not developed yet to the point where many thousands of people are required in full-time paid jobs. But as the movement grows, more and more people will be needed, people with special talents and training. Their equipment should include more than technical train- ing alone. Jobs which contribute to the well-being of society as a whole will require also insight, tact, imagination such qualities, in short, as are found in the best teachers. ADDITIONAL STUDY MATERIALS I. MATERIAL OBTAINABLE FROM U. S. HOUSING AU- THORITY, WASHINGTON, D. C. Film: Housing in Our Time. 20-minute, 16 mm. sound film. May be borrowed from local housing authority or from the USHA. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Leaflets: Housing and Juvenile Delinquency, Labor and Hous- mg, Housing and Your Community, Low Rents for Low Incomes, Public Housing and the Negro, Rehousing Relief Families, Tax Exemption of Public Housing, and others. Map: Showing local housing authorities with USHA-aided proj- ects under loan contract, location of PWA projects, and the three FSA “Greenbelt” Communities. 814”x11". (February) 1940. Poster: Social and financial aspects of public housing. In color. 15’x3’2”. Suitable for classrooms. Free. Il. PUBLICATIONS OBTAINABLE FROM SUPERINTEND- ENT OF DOCUMENTS, WASHINGTON, D. C. Edith Elmer Wood: Introduction to Housing: Facts and Prin- ciples. Illustrated. 161 pages. 1940. 30 cents. What the Housing Act Can Do for Your City. Illustrated. 88 pages. 20 cents. Annual Report of the U. S. Housing Authority for 1939. Includes information on location, size, types of USHA and PWA projects, rents, costs, family incomes, organization and scope of USHA, rural housing, legal developments. 59 pages. 20 cents. Periodical: Public Housing Weekly News. Illustrated. 4-8 pages. $1.00 per year; 5 cents per copy. III. HOUSING STUDY OUTLINES.* National Council for the Social Studies: Housing America: A Source Unit for Teachers. Chiefly for high school use. 13 Law- rence Hall, Cambridge, Mass. (May) 1940. 50 cents. Welfare Council of New York City: Amn Outline for a Housing Study Course. High school and adult level. (April) 1940. 50 cents. Foreign Policy Association: Better Housing. 8 W. 40th St., N. Y. City. Study packet for use in connection with Headline Book, New Homes for Old. (February) 1940. 25 cents. Public Schools, Evansville, Indiana: An Integrated Course of Study in Housing. Grades 8-12. Based upon Lincoln Gardens, PWA housing project for Negroes, adjoining the Lincoln High School. Los Angeles City School District, Elementary Curriculum Sec- tion: Homes. For Grades 3 and 4. 14 pages. 1938. Also, A Study of Housing, for Grades 5 and 6. Illustrated. 92 pages. 1938. Board of Education, Cleveland, Ohio: Unit Guides for *he Study of Housing and Civic Beautification. For high school use. 114 pages. 1938. $1.00. Colorado Housing Committee: Housing in Colorado. Annual! Report for 1938. Not intended as a study guide, but it summar- izes the Nation’s and Colorado's housing problems and activities, including housing education, in a way that could be helpful to educators both in Colorado and elsewhere. Senior high school and adult level. Denver: Office of the Governor. 55 pages. University School, Ohio State University, Columbus: Eighth Grade Play on Housing. Includes a 12-page introduction by the teachers on “Eighth Grade Housing Study and Play.” 1938-39. IV. THREE RECENT PAMPHLETS ON HOUSING.* Miles L. Colean: Can America Build Houses? Analysis of the nature and extent of the housing problem, followed by a discus- sion of various national and local solutions. Public Affairs Com- mittee, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, N. Y. (March) 1940. 10 cents. Edith Elmer Wood and Elizabeth Ogg: The Homes the Public Builds. A short story or novelette about two families through which the reader learns much about how projects are planned, built, tenanted, and managed. Public Affairs Committee. (March) 1940. 10 cents. William V. Reed and Elizabeth Ogg: New Homes for Old: Public Housing in Europe and America. Foreign Policy Associa- tion, 8 W. 40th St., N. Y. (February) 1940. 25 cents. V. MAGAZINES.* Architectural Forum. Includes 22-page illustrated summary of financial and administrative aspects of public housing. Rockefeller Center, N. Y. (January) 1940. $1.00. Building America. Community Planning number. Society for Curriculum Study, 425 W. 123rd St., N. Y. (November) 1939. 30 cents. Fortune. Excellent photos and a survey which reveals that 88 per cent of those polled regard slum-clearance as of almost equal importance with old-age pensions in reducing poverty and unem- ployment. 330 E. 22nd St., Chicago. (April) 1940. $1.00. Scholastic. Housing number. 430 Kinnard Ave., Dayton, Ohio. (January 15) 1940. 10 cents. Survey Graphic. Special number on housing. 112 E. 19th St., N. Y. City. (February) 1940. 40 cents. *Almost all the items in III, IV and V contain reading lists. Jobs for Unemployed Youth Aubrey Williams FOUR AND one-half years of experience in the field of youth service have resulted in many new developments in the National Youth Administration’s program. It was started in June of 1935 with a comparatively small ap- propriation for the stated purpose of doing “something for the nation’s unemployed youth.” It was assigned the job of employing youth, both in and out of school, in order that they might earn a very much needed income and at the same time receive a sound education and work experience. Viewing the situation broadly, this assign- ment did not seem too difficult; but when it came down to specific instances—to John and Mary Murphy in Saugus, Massachusetts, and to Frank and Alice Jones in Boise, Idaho—then the problem became infinitely more complicated. Each of the five hundred thousand young people emerged from the generality, “youth,” and ap- APRIL, 1940 peared as an individual with a special set of needs. Particularly was this true of the out-of-school youth. For it is this group that the National Youth Administra- tion has had to deal with directly since the responsibility for the actual operation of the Student Work Program has been very wisely placed in the hands of the educa- tors themselves. Among the out-of-school youth there were naturally a number who wished to continue their education. But, by and large, these young people wanted three main things—work experience, a job and a wage. But what sort of work experience should these young people receive? That depended partly upon the aptitudes and interests of the thousands of individual youth. It also depended upon what sort of jobs were available, or might become available, in their local communities or states. As for the wage the youth should receive, that 35 Girls receiving instruction in comptometry through NYA project. presented questions as to the amount and necessary varia- tions according to type of work and region. It is trite but nonetheless true to point out that youth is caught in a vicious circle; they can’t get work experience without a job, and they can’t get a job without work ex- perience. Yet it is not enough to provide youth with any old job. A young person with a ninth grade education— which is the average educational status of the youth coming on NYA projects—should not be placed on a research project. Nor should a young man who has no mechanical ability be placed on a project where he has to repair automobiles. And, obviously, it would be fruitless to set up a project giving work experience in carpentry if there were hundreds of carpenters already unemployed. More than half the youth coming on NYA projects, as a recent survey showed, had never before held a job. Most of the others had only had jobs of an unskilled nature; 20 per cent had been farm laborers and another 20 per cent had held such jobs as messengers, delivery boys and gasoline attendants. In other words, about 90 per cent of the youth who are accepted for NYA employment have had either no work experience whatsoever or merely the slight experience provided by jobs demanding little or no skill. Untested and untried, these young people need, above all, some practical vocational guidance. Lacking the funds to provide for all projects an ade- quate vocational guidance service, the NYA hit upon a procedure that could be used as either a supplement or substitute for vocational tests. When a young person showed no interest or aptitude for the job to which he or she was first assigned, then the young person was tried out on another job which seemed to be more suitable. This proved to be most practical as each young person became aware of the requirements of the various occupations and his ability or lack of ability to meet these requirements. On such a large resident project as that operated at Quoddy Village, Maine, job rotation is carried out systematically every six or seven weeks. At the end of their five months’ terms, each Quoddy boy has thus obtained a try-out ex- 36 perience in three different occupations and is ready to return to his home community and concentrate in the occu- pation for which he is best suited by reason of interest and aptitude. Job rotation has also enabled NYA workers to get a well-rounded work experience. This is important at a time when the opportunities in most occupational fields are so uncertain. What young people need most today are the basic skills and work habits that will serve them in good stead no matter what type of job they finally en- ter. For if a young person specializes he is suited for but one type of work, and if there happen to be no open- ings in that field, then he is out of luck. On the other hand, if a young person receives some practical expe- rience in a general occupational field and acquires basic skills, he will be prepared to accept almost any specific job within this field. It is pertinent to recall at this point the statement made by Luther Gulick in the summarizing volume of the Re- gent’s Inquiry report. “To make his way, as a practical matter, under this American system,” Mr. Gulick points out, “what a boy needs vocationally when he leaves school at the age of sixteen, seventeen or eighteen is not so much a ‘trade’ as a sound general knowledge under- girding a family of occupations, an understanding of the scientific facts and the economics lying back of these trades, the ability and the character to work effectively with others, and an appreciation of the way changes come and the way an individual may best adjust him- self to them. To cap this, at the very end, just before he has a real chance of getting a job, he needs an immedi- ately marketable skill. When a boy, so trained, gets a job he will acquire the necessary particular knowl- edge and dexterity on the job as a ‘learner.’ In some fields he may be expected to come back to school for special courses, organized in co-operation with labor and industry. The National Youth Administration’s experience in the field of youth service amply confirms the soundness of Mr. Gulick’s recommendations. It is just this sug- gested plan or philosophy under which the NYA has been operating for the last few years. In providing youth with a rounded work experience as well as information related to the assigned job, we have been building up “a sound general knowledge undergirding a family of occupations.” We did this because it became obvious that that was what youth most needed since they had not acquired such a knowledge, as Mr. Gulick suggests they should have, in school. The NYA doesn’t simply employ youth on a given job on the assumption that this alone will be enough. It is true that through such employment a youth may pick up certain abilities which all workers need, involving the use of both head and hand in addition to the knack of working with and under other people. A clumsy and careless youth can be taught to be dexterous and care- ful. A lazy and uninspired youth can be made industrious and creative if the right approach to his interests and THE AMERICAN TEACHER abilities is found. But, in addition to learning by doing, NYA workers are also given instruction in subjects related to their field of work. Many young people leave school with much theoretical knowledge that is quickly forgotten when it is not put to practical use. The NYA has therefore established in con- nection with its projects what are termed “related in- formation classes” which the youth attend during their off-project hours. These classes help to brush up the youth in various subjects and to impress upon them the knowledge thus learned through its immediate application on some phase of their work. Arithmetic no longer re- mains simply a matter of eight apples minus three apples equals five apples but assumes a practical significance in connection with their carpentry or auto mechanics work. Similarly, in English NYA workers aren’t asked to write themes on “My Vacation” but rather on “My Occupation,” a subject that requires a clear knowledge of their work and the accurate spelling of the various technical terms involved. ~ The resident center, an example of which I have already mentioned, is another interesting development in the NYA’s program for giving youth work experience. It was first instituted in rural areas where it was found that the establishment of projects for young people who were widely scattered over farm areas was a comparatively expensive and inefficient proposition. One central project unit, staffed by competent supervisors, turned out to be better than twenty or more units of only five or ten youth where the supervision and the amount of work accomplished tended to be of an irregular nature. Trans- portation expenses were also saved, over the long run, by gathering one or two hundred youth together in a single resident project for a six months’ term. But what made these projects particularly advantageous was the fact that it was generally possible to set them up in co-opera- tion with agricultural colleges, State teachers’ colleges, hospitals and similar institutions. Not only have mem- bers of the staffs of these institutions been assigned to teach the NYA youth in their related information classes but in many cases buildings and large areas of land have been set aside for NYA use. The availability of such com- petent instruction and excellent facilities has greatly in- creased the value of these projects. There are now over six hundred of these resident projects, operating in urban as well as rural areas, which are employing nearly twenty- eight thousand young people, or some 10 per cent of the youth on the Out-of-School Work Program. Along with the development of these new methods of providing young people with sound work experience, the National Youth Administration has been concerned with the problem of getting youth into occupations which have some future for them. Far too many young people, it has been found, want to enter white collar jobs. For example, a survey of high-school students in Cleveland a few years ago revealed that 90 per cent of these youth intended to enter white collar jobs, while at that time only 10 per cent of the city’s population had jobs in that APRIL, 1940 37 field. Obviously, many of these youth had to adjust their occupational aims in order to get private employment. Ner is this an exceptional case. High school enroll- ments have increased rapidly in the last ten years while openings in the white collar field have either stood still or have not increased significantly. In 1937, for the first time in our history, the number of high school gradu- ates passed the million mark, thus practically doubling the 1929 figure. As a result there are hundreds of thou- sands more young people who are leaving or graduating from school with the idea that they are going to become clerks, stenographers, bookkeepers, salespeople or some such working person who does not have to perform manual labor. The National Youth Administration has laid great stress upon the necessity for its workers to learn how to use their hands. Such a knowledge will greatly increase their chances of getting a job. They are taught to realize that there is nothing menial or demeaning about manual labor, that, on the contrary, it is impossible to say who does the more honorable work—the doctor who performs an emergency operation to save a patient’s life or the mechanic who fixes the doctor’s car so that he can reach the operating room in time. Without the capable services of both doctor and mechanic the patient will die. And so it goes. Our farmers, truckmen, railroad employees, textile and shoe workers, carpenters, electricians—all of them perform just as important services as the white collar worker. About three-quarters of the NYA workers are employed on so-called “manual labor” projects. Nearly 30 per cent of the youth are working on the improvement of roads and public grounds or the construction of public buildings and recreational facilities. Another 12 per cent are employed in workshops, and about 15 per cent are working on sewing, home-making, nursery school or school lunch projects. In addition the National Youth Admin- istration has prepared and published over one hundred occupational and industrial studies only a very small pro- Boy learning art of masonry from NYA instructor. Pad: aie” aoe: portion of which are related to white collar work. These studies present a description of such industries as aircraft manufacturing, steel-making, diesel engineering and radio. For each of these industries, the studies outline the train- ing requirements, the duties, the pay and the possibili- ties of obtaining employment. Special job information classes have been organized in a number of states where these studies are used as textbooks and sources of infor- mation. As part of this program of getting young people into suitable jobs, the NYA has also been instrumental in placing junior placement counselors in public employ- ment offices operated by the state employment services of some forty-one states. These counselors concentrate on interviewing, testing and advising inexperienced young people who do not know what types of work they should enter. After registering the young people, the counselors try to find jobs for them in private employment through contacts with employers. Working over a period varying from two months to four years, the counselors have regis- tered over 620,000 youth and have found private jobs for 260,000 of this number. The third great need of youth is that of a wage. Whether in school or out of school, needy youth should have an income, however small. For out-of-school youth, volunteer labor, which has been suggested as a solution to the unemployed youth problem, serves the purpose of giving youth the requisite work experience, but it does little or nothing towards providing them with a wage that will enable them to pay their share of the family’s living expenses. Every unemployed young person is a dependent upon his or her family who must somehow or other be fed and clothed and housed for an indefinite period of time. For families trying to exist on $471 a year—which was the average annual income of one-third of our families in 1936—each non-wage-earning depend- ent is a tremendous burden. And the youth on NYA work projects come from families of this type. The NYA wage for out-of-school youth working on a part-time basis varies from $12 to $21 a month accord- ing to region and type of work. The purpose of this wage is not to make the youth completely independent but rather to supplement meagre family incomes and to 38 NYA projects which enable students to carry on studies. Left, boy in Kansas college spraying vase with glaze; center, Washington, D. C., high school student checking sewing machines in home economics classes; right, student conducting experiments in physics laboratory in Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. enable the youth to pull their own oars. Not all of the wage goes directly to the family, of course; out of it, the youth can pay for their own lunches, carfares, clothes and such incidentals as an occasional package of cigar- ettes. The NYA wage is thus almost as important psychologically as economically, for there are few things more demoralizing than being wholly dependent upon some one else for periods of as long as four or five years. The NYA wage restores self-respect and helps to develop a much-needed sense of responsibility. Such psychological factors play a much less important part in the wage which NYA students earn. The pur- pose of the wage earned under the Student Work Pro- gram is to enable the students to meet the expenses in- volved in continuing their education. School students can earn a maximum of $6.00 and a minimum of $3.00 a month; for college students, the maximum is $20 and the minimum is $10; and for graduate students, $30 is the maximum and $20 is the miaimum. These wages do not cover all the expenses of the students; but in most instances, they do make a world of difference in the students’ ability to continue their education as tabula- tions of the family incomes of NYA students clearly indicate. Among the school students, the average family income was less than $560 a year; 44 per cent came from fami- lies with incomes below $500 a year. In many instances, therefore, the four or five dollar monthly NYA wage has amounted to as much as 10 per cent of the total family income and enabled the school students to meet such expenses as school supplies, bus fares and noon lunches. The annual incomes of families of college and graduate students are higher, naturally, than those of school stu- dents. The average income is less than $1,200 with ap- proximately one-quarter coming from families with less than $800 a year. On the whole, their wage for NYA THE AMERICAN TEACHER work covered at least half, if not more, of their educa- tional expenses including tuition, board and room, and necessary supplies. In November, 1939, the National Youth Administra- tion’s Student Work Program was employing 423,122 students of whom 302,380 were school students, 117,885 college students, and 2,887 graduate students. In the peak month of the present academic year, the total num- ber of students receiving NYA employment will be con- siderably higher than this, since the program usually doesn’t reach its employment peak until March or April. Beyond the setting of a definite minimum for student wages, this year’s Student Work Program does not differ in its regulations from previous years. Responsibility for selecting the youth, assigning them to projects, and super- vising their work still rests in the hands of the educa- tional officials. To be eligible, students must, as heretofore, not only be in need but must be able to perform their scholastic work satisfactorily while carrying three-fourths of a normal curriculum. With 295,000 youth now being employed on the Out- of-School Work Program and a probable peak of 500,000 youth to be employed on the Student Work Program, the National Youth Administration will employ as many as 800,000 young people by June 30, 1940. Through the work of these youth much will be accomplished. Schools and libraries will be built or repaired. Athletic fields, parks, and playgrounds will be laid out or im- proved. Thousands of pieces of furniture, playground equipment and toys will be constructed or repaired in NYA workshops. Several million lunches will be served to school children. Innumerable young people will bene- fit from the expanded recreational facilities made pos- sible by NYA personnel. The country’s educational The CCC Program James J. McEntee “MORE IMPORTANT, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.” That was President Roosevelt’s evaluation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in his message to Congress of March 21, 1933, proposing that the CCC be established to provide employment and training for unemployed young men and to advance vitally needed conservation projects in our forests and fields. Since the first CCC camp was established in George Washington National Forest in Virginia on April 17, 1933, more than 2,500,000 men have seen service in the Corps. Seldom has an organization had the opportunity to influ- ence the lives and development of so many young men in APRIL, 1940 plant will be improved and enabled to function more efficiently through the landscaping of school and college grounds, the repairing and painting of classrooms, their furniture and other equipment, and the construction and maintenance of laboratory equipment. And the tremen- dous amount of research assistance granted to professors and instructors will be of inestimable value. Such accomplishments must not be forgotten when the NYA’s program is evaluated. They represent con- crete assets and an addition to the country’s available resources. The youth workers have received a better education or sound work habits and basic skills. Edu- cated and experienced young people are much more of an asset to the nation than young people who are illiterate or who have never worked before unless at jobs requiring the simplest forms of manual labor. Such an expenditure may be considered an investment. To a large extent, therefore, the funds expended by the National Youth Administration must not be considered as lost and gone forever. They must be chalked up on the credit rather than the debit side of the government ledger. A better educational plant will some day pro- duce dividends in a better educated youth. An expanded recreational plant will produce dividends in a healthier youth. Young people who gain a greater knowledge in general and vocational fields will some day be more productive workers and more intelligent citizens. Much of the $335,000,000 which the Federal Government has allocated or spent to assist needy youth in the last four and one-half years is, in this sense, a real investment in both our natural and human resources. And there is no doubt that, as President Roosevelt said in setting up the National Youth Administration, “The yield on this investment should be high.” for Youth so short atime. The Corps has become one of the nation’s outstanding man-building agencies. On the tangible side, the CCC is rebuilding our forests and our lands. Those results are plain to see. But the intangibles of restoring morale to jobless, embittered, discouraged youths, of train- ing these youths for honest employment after leaving the Corps—these are results we cannot measure in material terms which are of vital importance to the welfare of the nation. The camps of the CCC have supplied a new and whole- some environment for hundreds of thousands of undevel- oped and jobless American youth. The hard work in the open air, the rugged life close to nature, the abundance 39 of nourishing food, the association with enrollees, super- visors and officers, the pride of doing an honest day’s work, the acquiring of regular habits and the recreational and educational opportunities have contributed to chang- ing them physically, mentally and morally. It is not too much to say that the young men who spend six months or more in the CCC leave for their homes with increased earning capacity, a determination to make good, greater self-reliance and increased respect for the nation’s basic institutions. Development of Camp Education. The first few camps hardly had been set up before enrollees began inquiring about educational and vocational opportunities to pre- pare themselves for employment. They saw a chance to acquire work skills and practical training in connection with the projects (coaservation work) which would fit them for a job. Thus, in its first few months of existence, the CCC began to develop the widespread and varied practical and academic training program now in operation. And as it grew, it evolved into a new and effective teaching tech- nique which is bound to leave its stamp on the educational processes of this country. The CCC educational program developed slowly. Dur- ing the first weeks some camp commanders arranged night classes where enrollees could receive instruction in ele- mentary subjects. Mathematics was a popular subject. The courses taught in every camp depended largely upon the teaching abilities, the training and the initiative of the individual company commander and other camp offi- cers. Some camps had no classes. Others had as many as twenty or thirty a week. In all camps enrollees learned to work by doing work. They learned orderliness, disci- pline and sanitation. They learned to obey orders, to respect their country. Without an organized educational program, the CCC quickly demonstrated its inherent educational and training value. The original impetus for an organized educa- tional program in the camps came from Robert Fechner, the first director who served for six and a half years. While visiting the CCC camps, Fechner noticed that in some instances camp commanders were devoting considerable time to the education and training of enrollees. He learned that the young men sent to the CCC camps were inter- ested in improving themselves so that they could make their own living. He invited the Commissioner of Edu- cation to visit the CCC camps with him. Later, the Di- rector, the Commissioner of Education and War Depart- ment officials discussed the formal organization of an edu- cational program and the matter was taken to the Presi- dent. The President approved the idea and placed an edu- cational program in operation on December 7, 1933. The CCC Division of the Adjutant General’s Office of the Army, under the general supervision of the Office of the Director, CCC, administers the educational program, technical details of which are formulated and recommended to the War Department by the Office of Education of the Federal Security Agency. The professional details of the program are handled by a CCC-paid Director of CCC 40 Camp Education and staff in the Office of Education. The Commissioner of Education is advised and assisted in the formulation of educational policies to be recommended to the War Department by an Educational Advisory Com- mittee, composed of a representative of the Director’s Office and of each of the Departments of War, Interior and Agriculture. These three major departments of the Federal Govern- ment have co-operated in the educational program. In addition, other federal, state, local and private educational organizations and other agencies have assisted. Hundreds of schools and colleges have placed their facilities at the service of enrollees during the school year. Likewise, non- government agencies such as the Chamber of Commerce, Junior Chamber of Commerce, Y.M.C.A., Kiwanis and Rotarians have aided in training the men and placing them in employment. Being based upon the needs of the individual enrollee and the facilities available in the camps, the educational program is fundamentally practical in nature, and varies at different camps. Its basic underlying principle is to return the enrollees to their communities as better citi- zens and with a better knowledge of their government. In attaining this objective, formal classes in vocational, avocational, and general subjects are used. The Advisory Committee on Education, composed of the Commissioner of Education as Chairman, and a repre- sentative each of the Director’s Office and the Depart- ments of War, Interior and Agriculture, considers all edu- cational problems and assures that all interested CCC agencies are duly represented in the formulation of edu- cational policies. The Army Corps area, district and com- pany commanders are responsible for the execution of the educational program within their respective spheres of authority. On the staff of each of these officers is an educational adviser, appointed by the Commissioner of Education, charged with the professional and technical educational duties of their offices. As part of the CCC educational program, a series of workbooks has been developed by the Office of Education to assist in teaching enrollees who have not reached the eighth-grade school level. The series consists of six reader workbooks and six arithmetic workbooks,’ designed to ful- fill the needs of enrollees who are illiterate or who have not finished the elementary grades. Two of these, one for illiterates, have been completed. l1Workbook 1 in the language-usage group teaches a vocabulary of 350 words most useful to an average CCC enroliee. It teaches six principles of grammar. Used with Workbook 1 in arithmetic, it carries an enrollee from the level of a functional illiterate approximately through the third grade. Workbook 2 in language usage brings the vocabulary of an enrollee to at least 750 words and the total of grammar items learned to fifteen. Used with Workbook 2 in arithmetic, it brings an enrollee through ap- proximately the fourth grade. Workbook 3 in language uses brings the vocabulary to at least 1,250 words and the total of grammar items learned to twenty-eight. Used with Workbook 3 in arithmetic, it brings an enrollee through approxi- mately the fifth grade. Workbook 4 in language usage brings the vocabulary to 1,850 words and the total items of grammar to forty-three. Used with Workbook 4 in meee it brings an enrollee through approximately the sixth grade. Workbook 5 in language usage brings the vocabulary to 2,750 words and the items of grammar to sixty. Used with Workbook 5 in arith- metic, it brings an enrollee through approximately the seventh grade. Workbook 6 in language usage brings the vocabulary to 4,000 words and teaches seventy-eight items of grammar. Used with Workbook 6 in arithmetic, it brings an enrollee through approximately the eighth grade. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Each workbook contains material for approximately three months instruction. The reader workbooks, which teach a vocabulary of 4,000 words and 78 items of grammar, are made up of stories concerning CCC camp life, home and family life, social studies, community life, government, biographies, job information, safety, recreation and health. Besides teaching the student basic courses in reading and writing, the textual matter itself is designed to give him useful information. Each camp has a Camp Educational Committee, com- posed of the company commander (chairman), the project superintendent and the educational adviser. It formulates the specific camp educational program and determines the courses to be offered, the time to be alloted each, how the various courses will fit together, the special provisions to be made for unusual cases—the integration into one unified program of all the details incident to meeting the educational needs of two hundred young men in connec- tion with the successful operation of the work projects. The elimination of illiteracy, the removal of deficiencies in elementary school subjects, special instruction on camp work jobs, vocational training, recreational training, cul- tural and general education, training in health, first aid, safety and life saving, character-building and citizenship- training activities, and specific training in how to get a job are some of the educational activities which have grown up as a result of efforts to prepare the enrollees for em- ployment and citizenship. The aims and objectives are the result of counselling with hundreds of thousands of men concerning their personal problems and ambitions. Nearly seven years of experience with thousands of young men have revealed the merit of these objectives. A study of the background of enrollees reveals the extent of their needs. These men come from all types of communities, educational levels, and work experience. In the average camp of junior enrollees (excluding those of war veterans) the age range is from seventeen to twenty-three years, the educational range from illiterates to college graduates, and previous work experience ranges from none whatsoever to a background of skilled labor. About half of the enrollees are from farms and villages, half from towns and cities. It is up to the educational adviser and the other camp offi- cials to classify these men according to their capabilities, aptitudes and desires and to plan their camp educational program accordingly. Because all camp class attendance is voluntary, it is essential that the classes be as inter- esting and entertaining as possible. The fact that more than 90 per cent of the enrollees are regularly participating in organized educational work is impressive evidence of the interest enrollees have in their own educational devel- opment. A compilation of the findings of the camp educational advisers shows that 3 per cent of the men who arrive in camp are illiterate. The first—and probably the most important—step is to get these men into a class and teach them the “three R’s.” Thirty-eight per cent of the enrollees have not graduated from elementary school; 48 per cent have not graduated from high school; 11 per cent have APRIL, 1940 Geography class at CCC Camp Dayton in Utah. graduated from high school and a few of these have taken some college work or received degrees. Academic courses are held on all these levels to enable enrollees to make up deficiencies and many receive graduation certificates and degrees in recognition of this work from accredited educational institutions. As the work project determines the training facilities and equipment available in the camp itself, and the location of the camp limits the outside facilities which may be used, it is evident that the individual camp programs will vary with these factors. For example, a camp in New Mexico, composed largely of Mexican boys, employed in a national park, will have a different program from a soil conservation camp composed of Iowa farm boys, most of whom have attended high schools. State and local school systems have been extremely co- operative in recognizing class credits received in CCC camp schools. In addition many of them, from grade schools to universities, have offered the use of their facilities to neighboring camps for night and Saturday classes and have sent instructors into the camps to augment the regular teaching personnel. Other colleges and universities have made available scholarships and other types of student aid to enrollees. Since a primary objective of all training in the CCC camps is to prepare the boy for private employment, we are definitely interested in whether his studies will prove of specific value to him in the future. A boy who is inter- ested in civil engineering or flood control, for instance, doesn’t necessarily have to know Latin or Greek mythology, but he does need a working knowledge of mathematics. The CCC tries to give him mathematics, although it does not propose to turn out a young engineer equipped to build the Panama Canal. In other words, vocational training is emphasized. The average enrollee remains in the Corps about nine months and during this time it is not possible, usually, to change an unskilled youth into a skilled crafts- man. But it is possible to lay the groundwork, so that when he gets a job in private industry he can use the talents he developed in the CCC to better himself and his condition. 4| A string band in CCC camp in Darrington, Wash. This vocational training falls into two categories. There are some sixty major types of project on which the CCC is working and these, in turn, may be broken down into more than three hundred jobs for training purposes. Most of these jobs are in fields that relate to forestry, soil con- servation and park construction. Other jobs, such as cooking, clerical work, radio, and mechanics are connected with the administration and maintenance of each CCC camp. The fact that the enrollees are engaged in this work for forty hours a week provides an unusual opportunity for vocational training. Instruction in related subjects during the hours not spent on the work project is co-or- dinated with the instruction on the job during working hours. Other vocational courses not related to the project are provided in the camp or in nearby trade schools for those enrollees who are interested. The keynote of the job training program of the CCC is to produce efficient and intelligent workers. Coming into the CCC, the untrained enrollees, many of whom have never before had a full-time job, find themselves in a busy community of workers. It is through their life and work as members of this community that CCC enrollees be- come Corps workers. The work of the technical agencies co-operating in the CCC program offers many opportunities for practical train- ing. It is the policy of these agencies to train enrollees not merely for production of work but to supplement such training both on the job and in leisure time to enable enrollees to accept and to hold employment outside the Corps. The technical staff in each camp, consisting of the project superintendent, his foremen and facilitating personnel com- prise the greater proportion of CCC instructors, and they are equipped with previov.s training and experience for their work. They instruct the crews in all the details of the work as it goes along during the day and in addition give them planned instruction after work hours in the back- ground or foundation information which enrollees need to become really intelligent workers. Based upon the opportunities inherent in the project and facilitating work, the training program develops the characteristics of good workers—proper work habits and attitudes. CCC work ranges from manual labor to jobs requiring a high degree of skill. A partial list of the fields in which enrollees receive training follows: Auto mechanics Mapping ormap _— Drainage Blacksmithing making Equipment mainte- Blueprint reading Masonry nance Bridge construction Nursery work Explosives Foreman and leader training Building construc- Office practice tion Quarrying Bulldozer operation Saw filing Stonecutting Care of tools Sign making Surveying Carpentry Steel structure Telephone line work Clerking, office Concrete construc- Tractor operation Compressor oper- tion Trail maintenance ation Crusher operation Truck driving Grader operation Dam construction Typing Jackhammer oper- (small dams) Use of Tools ation Diesel engines Welding Landscaping Drafting Woodworking Over a period of six years the technicians and fore- men responsible for the training of enrollees in the camps have developed training techniques particularly adapted to the CCC situation. The older, more experienced mem- bers of the supervisory personnel give the enrollee the informal type of training and guidance, both personal and vocational, through which he can make his CCC expe- rience pay dividends of increased employability and bet- ter citizenship. Since the work of the CCC foreman involves much more than work supervision, it has been necessary to establish in-service training to develop the characteristics and abilities demanded by a program of work and youth development. Small training conferences and regular per- sonnel meetings, as well as field inspections and instruc- tions, have served to equip the camp men for the CCC job. A recent training publication, CCC Foremanship, prepared by the CCC Division of the Department of Agriculture, has been made available to the personnel of all camps. The Department of the Interior is publishing the “Project Training Series” of which there are now eleven num- bers devoted to specific kinds of CCC work. These book- lets are made available to all camps. Among those now in preparation is one on leadership which will complement the CCC Foremanship booklet. The Department of Agri- culture also publishes suitable training books from time to time, such as CCC Forestry and CCC Auto Mechanics, on different kinds of work, and these also go to all camps. The camp superintendent and his staff, however, must prepare their own training analyses and outlines based on the work project to meet the training needs of the enrollees. Through such preparation they are better able to organize and conduct their work to yield the utmost in training for the crews. Co-operation with the Army has marked all the devel- opment of training programs, and the technical agencies operate within the framework of an agreement reached with the Army in May, 1937, and approved by Director Fechner, wherein the functions and responsibilities of the 42 THE AMERICAN TEACHER Army and the technical services are specifically outlined and defined. Great progress has been made in the past year in stim- ulating the work of the camp educational committees, which carry on a variety of educational activities in the camps. All camps provide instruction in health, first aid and safety. In many camps, the officers, foremen, enrollees and others who act as instructors attend training courses in teaching foremanship and leadership to assist them in developing appropriate techniques for teaching the enrollees. Every camp has a library averaging more than a thou- sand books. About 7,000 educational films are shown and 8,500 lectures are given in the camps in an average month. One of the most popular educational activities is the publication of a camp newspaper: about 78 per cent of the companies publish a weekly or monthly paper, and the value of this activity is enhanced by the fact that enrollees are encouraged to assume the responsibility for this work. Arts and crafts have proved popular off-time activities for enrollees. Types of work undertaken include leather tooling, metal turning, wood carving, bead work, weaving, modeling, block printing, furniture making, sketching, wood inlay and pottery. Many young men find a deep interest in such hobbies as photography, amateur radio, gardening, stamp col- lecting and taxidermy. Camp social affairs develop the young men in such amenities as dancing, indoor games, etiquette and social entertainments. The roster of CCC sports includes practically all types of games played by American youth. Baseball, football, soft-ball and boxing seem to be the most popular. Camp sports are organized, however, with the purpose of getting every enrollee to participate in some body-building and mind-refreshing activity. In the camp, the enrollees have citizenship courses, dis- cussion groups, talks by public officials and leadership courses. They can keep abreast of current events through the six or seven daily newspapers received in each camp. Enrollees’ councils have been formed in a number of places to advise with company officials on welfare, educa- tional and recreational matters. Oratorical and debating competitions among enrollees have been of great interest, and nearby civic organizations frequently have put up prizes for the winners. Business men’s clubs, women’s clubs, the YMCA, edu- cational organizations, community libraries, and other local agencies have contributed to the development of CCC training. Books, schoolroom equipment, musical instru- ments, shop tools, and mechanical equipment have been donated to hundreds of camps. Public schools in several states have made available their classes, shops, libraries and gymnasiums to the enrollees. There are approximately 10,000 enrollees studying in public schools near the camps. On a monthly average, about 4,500 teachers from neigh- boring communities offer regular instruction in the camps. The departments of education of many states offer ele- mentary school examinations to enrollees free of charge, APRIL, 1940 and the educational departments of three states offer high school examinations free. Hundreds of enrollees during the past two years have received elementary and high school diplomas through this arrangement. Several state departments of education have assigned vocational in- structors to the camps, while other states have established special correspondence services for CCC men. Practically every state department of education has assisted in some measure with the development of camp courses and in- structional plans. College and university authorities have also extended splendid co-operation to CCC education. During the past school year, more than two hundred institutions granted special scholarships or other financial aid to enrollees. Other types of college co-operation include correspondence and extension courses at reduced tuition rates, extension of physical facilities and instruction to groups of enrollees ‘transported from the camp to the college, assignment of student instructors to camps, donation of books and use of libraries. Institutions in practically every state have assisted CCC educational officials with training confer- ences for camp advisers. CCC officials are endeavoring to assist the enrollees in finding employment and adjusting themselves to their home communities when they leave camp. The methods for doing this vary throughout the Corps. Courses in job-getting methods are provided in many camps. In others, the enrollees and supervisory personnel contact employers. In certain areas, the enrollees are registered with the state employment service or are referred to other govern- ment agencies. In co-operating with other agencies, the CCC officials have assisted in organizing state guidance and placement councils in fourteen states. These coun- cils in turn have fostered the development of community councils. That these efforts have borne fruit is attested to by the fact that approximately 545,000 enrollees have been discharged from the Corps before the expiration of their enrollment period to accept outside employment. Planning for the Future. The CCC is an integral part of America’s educational and training program. There will always be, whatever the condition of industry, a large group of young men, untrained, jobless, often without ambition or any definite program of their own as to how to obtain jobs or hold them. For these boys, the CCC is the “chance of a lifetime.” The Corps has a unique oppor- tunity to develop those men who come to the camps to give them a healthier outlook for the future, a keener sense both of their capabilities and responsibilities, an oppor- tunity to learn to do a job and keep it, and to take their place as self supporting, responsible citizens when they leave camp. Beyond the formal educational program, it should be remembered that the day-to-day experience of living and working together, under trained leadership, gives to the enrollees valuable traits of character, traits which fit them not alone for the ranks of industry but also for the responsi- bilities of adult citizenship. 43 Population and Financial Trends Newton Edwards THE AMERICAN people have provided facilities for the education of their children and youth with a liberality unparalleled in any other nation in the world, and yet, in spite of all that we are doing and have done, perhaps the most devastating criticism that can be leveled against our educational system today is its widespread failure to provide in reasonable degree equality of educational opportunity. In a country of such vast extent as ours and with such a diversity of cultural patterns, absolute equality of educational opportunity is not to be expected. But the differences that exist are not slight. Within states, between states, and among regions wide differences exist in the quality of schooling—in the amount spent on schools, in the length of the school year, in the prepara- tion of teachers, and in the value of the instructional program. These differences in educational opportunity are such as to affect profoundly the quality of individual living, and, if permitted to persist, they may well consti- tute « threat to the very fabric of our democratic insti- tutions. Differentials in Reproduction and the Imbalance in the Educational Load. Inequalities in educational oppor- tunity in this country are due primarily to the unequal distribution of the child population in relation to economic resources and to the long-established custom of supporting education primarily from local and state revenue. Although the small family system is being adopted to a greater or less degree by all elements in the popula- tion, striking differentials in fertility still exist among the various states and regions and in communities of dif- ferent size. In approximately one-fourth of the states, among them such populous states as Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, the birth rate is not now sufficient for family replacement.’ In contrast, in the Southeast, the Southwest, and the Rocky Mountain states the birth rate is markedly higher than necessary to maintain a stable population. Still more striking dif- ferences appear when the rural and the urban populations are compared. In 1930, white urban women were failing by as much as 13 per cent to have enough children for family replacement; fertility among white farm women was approximately 62 per cent greater than required to keep the population at its existing level. But it is the farm population of the South in which natural increase is taking place at the highest rate. For the five-year period, 1930-34, natural increase in the farm population of North Carolina exceeded that of the farm population of all New England, the Middle Atlantic states, Indiana, 1For the sources of the factual data in this article see the writer’s Equal Educational Cfoonaaty for Youth: A National Responsibility. Washington, D. C.: American Council on Education. 189 pages. 1939. 44 Illinois and Michigan combined. The wide differentials in the fertility among women in the various states and regions and in communities of different size result in a striking imbalance in the distribu- tion of the burden of child care and education with respect to the supporting adult population. Productive workers of the South, those in the age group of twenty to sixty-four, carry a burden of child support and educa- tion at the elementary level 80 per cent greater than that carried by the productive workers of the Far West and about 44 per cent greater than that carried by the same group in the Northeast and Middle Western states. Differences in the ratio of children to adults are much greater, of course, when the individual states are consid- ered. For example, the number of children of school age per thousand adults in South Carolina is 739 as com- pared with 389 in the state of Illinois. It is, however, the rural-farm population that is carrying an educational load out of all proportions to that carried by other elements in the population. Everywhere the burden of child care and education rests relatively light on the urban dweller and correspondingly heavy on the farmer. Differentials in Cultural Resources and Economic Capacity. The unequal distribution of the educational load takes on special significance when considered in rela- tion to differences in planes of living, economic capacity, and cultural resources. A county-by-county analysis of planes of living in all of the counties in the United States and of the number of children per thousand adults in each county reveals that with few exceptions areas character- ized by low planes of living are also characterized by high birth rates and by high ratios of children of school age to adults in the economically productive age group. It is also generally true that areas having relatively the most children to educate are the ones that share least in the national income. For example, in 1930 the Northeastern states had the responsibility for the care and education of 30 per cent of the nation’s children of school age but in dividing up the national income they received 43 per cent of the total. In contrast, the Southern states had 24 per cent of the nation’s children but their share of the national income was only 10 per cent. In the same year the burden of educating 31 per cent of the nation’s chil- dren fell on the farm population but farmers received only 9 per cent of the estimated national income. For every dollar of income behind the education of the farm child there was $4.44 behind the education of the non- farm child. It is, however, in the farm population of the Southeast that the disparity between the educational load and income is most striking. In 1930, 13 per cent of the THE AMERICAN TEACHER nation’s children of school age were living on Southeastern farms. But farmers in this region received only 2 per cent of the total estimated national income. Other indexes of planes of living and of educational and cultural status tell a similar story of geographical differ- ences and distinctions. In general, in those areas where fertility is the highest and where the educational load is the heaviest, educational opportunity is the most restricted, the ratios of physicians, nurses, and dentists to each ten thousand of the population are relatively low, library facilities are more limited than in other parts of the coun- try, and the circulation of newspapers and nationally- known magazines falls far below the national average. Differentials in reproduction and disparities in income account only in part for inequality of educational oppor- tunity. Another and perhaps more fundamental cause is the local and state character of school support. So long as schools are supported primarily from local and state revenue we may expect striking differences in educational opportunity. In most states having unsatisfactory schools the difficulty lies not in lack of interest or effort but in the lack of taxable resources. States ranking lowest in adequacy of financial support of education are, in general, the ones that put forth the most effort. Many American states, try hard as they may, find it entirely impossible to offer their youth educational opportunities at all com- parable to those provided in states of average wealth. Unequal Educational Opportunity—A Rural Problem. The problem of unequal educational opportunity in Amer- ica is essentially a rural problem. Areas where the birth rate is high and the educational load disproportionately heavy, where planes of living are the lowest, where popula- tion pressure on the resource structure is the most intense, and where educational facilities are the poorest, are, by and large, rural areas. It is a fact of no slight signifi- cance that one-fourth of the nation’s children are growing up in the six major rural problem areas of the nation. Education along with the other agencies faces the immense task of re-integrating rural life with our national culture. Results of Educational Inequality. It has long been fundamental in the American tradition that the quality of both individual and social living is profoundly affected by trained intelligence. If this be true, it is a significant fact that at some doors the ladders of educational oppor- tunity rise much higher than at others. It is generally supposed, and the facts seem to prove it, that the doors of employment opportunity open wider and more easily to those who have had a rich educational experience. In our industrial, competitive, technological economy in- equality of educational opportunity spells inequality in economic and social opportunity. As our educational system operates, the place where a child is born may and usually does become an important factor in determining his chances to get work, the kind of work he will do, the income he will receive, the kind of home he can maintain, the place of social esteem he will occupy, as well as his opportunity for cultural growth and for civic leadership. It is true, of course, that all cannot reach the top, else APRIL, 1940 there would be no middle or bottom, but social mobility is the essence of American democracy. All should be given a chance through free and fair competition to realize their capacity to the fullest. Education can be a force to equal- ize the condition of men. It is no less true that it can so operate as to create class, race, and regional distinctions. If the problems which American youth face can best be solved by trained intelligence, if formal educational attain- ments condition one’s opportunity for economic and social advance, and if in some settings educational opportunities are rich and in others extremely meager, the schools may function as instruments of social stratification. Close association of high fertility, low planes of living, restricted income, and low cultural intellectual status with poor educational facilities point unmistakably towards a reshaping of our national educational policy. If the American educational system is to be truly democratic, if it is to prove adequate in serving the national interest, some way must be found to enable those states and com- munities in which the burden of child care is the greatest and in which economic resources are most restricted to provide for their children a fuller and richer educational experience. The only agency through which the necessary financial arrangements can be made for more nearly equal- izing educational opportunity is the Federal Government. THE RELATION OF ABILITY TO EFFORT IN THE SUPPORT OF EDUCATION, 1930 Tos Ravens br hs Tos R Soon tos Edcot » ” Pe cont ~~ a “Source: Paul R. Mort, Federal Support for Public Education (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1936), p. 169. “Source: Lyle Walter Ashby, The Efforts of the States to Support Education as Related to the Adequacy of Financial Support Provided and the Ability of the States to Support Education, p. 29. Two other studies published by the American Youth Commission which readers may find inter- esting are Youth Tell Their Story by Howard M. Bell and How Fare American Youth?, edited by Homer P. Rainey. 45 Expanding the Office of Education John H. Lloyd WHILE ALL of us engaged in helping others to learn in the democratic way may have directly or indirectly bene- fited from Office of Education service in a general way, there are those teachers and school officials who are inter- ested or sharing in a specific educational activity of serv- ice that can be traced back to Office of Education stimu- lation or sponsorship. The U. S. Office of Education was established by man- date of Congress in 1867 to collect statistics and facts showing the condition and progress of education, to aid the people of the nation in establishing and maintaining efficient school systems by disseminating information on school organization and management, and otherwise to “promote the cause of education throughout the country.” Federal Government specialists in the major fields of education through the years have continued the tradi- tional educational research activity and service of the U. S. Office of Education. They have carried on this work in co-operation with national, state and local or- ganizations of various kinds, state departments of educa- tion, city and county school systems, superintendents of schools, college presidents, high school and elementary school principals and teachers. They have made their Office of Education research reports available to those who could use them to the best advantage in helping to solve educational problems. During the past several years this Office has expanded its service both to and for American education in many ways. These newer developments have resulted from presidential and congressional action assigning added re- sponsibilities to the U. S. Office of Education. They are due also to the vigorous efforts of John W. Studebaker, U. S. Commissioner of Education, to focus federal atten- tion upon educational programs designed to help our peo- ple facing crucial social and economic problems. Conferences of leaders in education and in other fields have been called by the U. S. Office of Education during the past few years to discuss such important problems as the out-of-school, out-of-work youth, conservation edu- cation, vocational guidance of Negroes, crime prevention through education, CCC Camp education, school records and reports, elementary and secondary education. There have been group meetings to consider the education of physically handicapped children, education for the blind, consumer education, school-building problems, school statistics, vocational education and vocational rehabili- tation. Since 1933, American teachers have witnessed such newer developments in U. S. Office of Education service as education by radio, adult civic education through pub- 46 lic forums, demonstrations in home and family life edu- cation, promotion of library development, vocational edu- cation, radio script and recording exchange, vocational rehabilitation, occupational information and guidance, edu- cational motion pictures, CCC Camp education, youth guidance, and an expanded program of educational re- search. Vocational Education. Aithough the federal program of financial aid to the states for vocational education dates back to the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, this program has been promoted by the U. S. Office of Education only since 1933. . Under the direction of Commissioner Stude- baker, the promotion of vocational education is the responsibility of one of the divisions in the U. S. Office of Education. Enrollment in federally-aided schools and classes in vocational education stood at its highest in vocational edu- cation history—2,085,000—in 1939. This represents an increase of 275,000 over the 1938 enrollment, and an in- crease of 1,034,000 over that of 1934, the first year in which the Office of Education administered the vocational education funds authorized by Congress. In 1934 the amount of federal money expended for vocational educa- tion was $6,951,000. Congress had increased this amount to $19,433,000 in 1939. That congressional action in providing federal assistance to the states for vocational education in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in 1917 and in increasing the authoriza- tion to its present amount has been justified is borne out by the facts. For every dollar made available for voca- tional education to the states through the Office of Educa- tion in 1939, the states reported an expenditure of $1.71 of state and local money. The federal money was dis- tributed as follows: Agricultural Education ........ $6,638,000 Trade and Industrial Education. 6,301,000 Home Economics Education ... 4,124,825 Distributive Education ........ 487,000 Teacher Traiming ............. 101,000 Enrollments by fields in federally-aided vocational edu- cation classes in 1939 were as follows: Agricultural Education ......... 538,586 Trade and Industrial Education.. 715,239 Home Economics Education..... 741,503 Distributive Education ......... 90,099 Federal funds for the reimbursement of the vocational education programs carried on in the forty-eight states, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico dur- ing the past seven years were appropriated under four Federal acts: (1) The Smith-Hughes Act, passed in 1917, under which the federally-aided program in vocational education was THE AMERICAN TEACHER established. It provided for permanent, annual appro- priations for vocational education in agriculture, in the trades and industries, home economics and for the prepar- ation of teachers of vocational subjects. The George-Reed Act passed in 1929, which authorized for the years 1930-34 additional appropriations for voca- tional agriculture and vocational home economics edu- cation. (3) The George-Ellzey Act, which superseded the George- Reed Act and which provided for the years 1935-37 addi- tional grants for vocational education in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics. (4) The George-Deen Act, which superseded the George- Ellzey Act and became effective July 1, 1937. It author- ized equal annual appropriations for vocational educa- tion in agriculture, in trades and industries, and home economics, as well as appropriations for training teach- ers of vocational subjects and reimbursement of voca- tional training in the distributive occupations—retailing, wholesaling, jobbing, commission buying and selling and other merchandising occupations. (2 Vocational education courses are not carried on as separate units of school work. Designed to meet the needs of persons fourteen years of age or over, they are a part of the state public school system in all-day, part-time and evening schools. The vocational education program appeals also to those who are interested in trade and industrial education. Day trade schools are designed for persons who desire to pre- pare themselves for employment in a trade or a particular phase of a trade or to learn the fundamentals of several closely-related trades or industries. Part-time training is provided in three types of schools or classes: (1) the trade extension class which offers instruction to supple- ment the job experience of learners; (2) trade prepara- tory classes which attempt to give work experience and training in a trade or industrial pursuit other than that in which the person is engaged; and (3) general continua- tion classes which are designed to broaden the general education of working youth rather than to train them for specific trades. Evening schools are designed primarily for journeymen workers interested in improving their efficiency and in advancing themselves in their chosen work. There is special emphasis in vocational education upon training programs which meet the needs of employed wage earners in the trades and industries. Training of foremen is receiving much attention. Through the pro- gram of training for public-service occupations, which is specifically provided for under the provisions of the George- Deen Act, policemen, firemen, tax assessors, public-health nurses, food inspectors, water-plant operators and many other public-service groups are now receiving special training. Home economics classes which receive federal aid have been designed to meet the needs of girls and boys enrolled in full-time day schools and who desire to obtain prepara- tion for homemaking pursuits, to serve adults who are engaged in homemaking activities and who need instruc- tion in subjects which are supplementary to their daily employment and to instruct out-of-school girls who have entered upon homemaking pursuits and who need instruc- APRIL, 1940 tion to help them be more intelligent homemakers. In- creasing attention is being given in the part-time program to out-of-school youth. Federally-aided vocational education in the distributive occupations, provided for the first time under the provi- sions of the George-Deen Act, is offered only in part- time and evening schools to those who are already em- ployed in the distributive occupations. Under this pro- gram store owners, managers and executives receive in- struction in subjects dealing with the managerial phase of distribution. Sales people and assistant buyers study merchandising and other problems. Through more effective vocational education programs, and with the help of its recently-established Occupational Information and Guidance Service, the U. S. Office of Education is doing much toward helping young people and adults become better adjusted to our rapidly chang- ing social and economic life. Vocational Rehabilitation. Each year 800,000 persons in the United States become permanently disabled through accident or disease. Serious results frequently follow in the wake of these misfortunes. The federally-aided vocational rehabilitation program carried on in the states was launched with federal legis- lation in 1920. This program is designed to restore to remunerative employment and self-support persons who have lost their earning capacity through permanent physi- cal disability. More than 9,800 persons disabled through sickness or injury found jobs last year under this pro- gram which is administered by the vocational rehabilita- tion division of the U. S. Office of Education. In addi- tion, 47,000 persons were in process of rehabilitation at the end of the year. Vocational rehabilitation is conducted on an individual or case basis and complete rehabilitation of an individual may take from three days to three years. In the seven-year period, 1933-1940, funds for a com- prehensive nation-wide vocational rehabilitation program have been made available from both regularly appropriated and emergency relief funds. In 1932, Congress amended the Vocational Rehabilita- tion Act of 1920 and appropriations were authorized for another four years. From October, 1933, to July, 1937, relief funds amounting to more than $1,800,000 were used for vocational rehabilitation service. The Social Security Act of 1935 authorized additional appropriations of $841,- 000 for the fiscal years 1936 and 1937 and provided for an increase to $1,938,000 for each succeeding fiscal year. Under the Randolph-Sheppard Act of 1936, the Office of Education was authorized to introduce an additional service. The Act provides for licensing blind persons to operate vending stands in federal and other buildings under the supervision of state commissions for the blind or other public agencies appointed by the U. S. Com- missioner of Education. About $23,000 has been made available to the Office of Education for this purpose. One hundred and two blind persons were established in vending stands in federal buildings during the 1939 fiscal year 47 and about two hundred in other buildings. The Office of Education co-operates with the Social Security Board and state employment services in occu- pational research and in the placement of physically-han- dicapped persons. The task of restoring physically-disabled persons to gainful employment is accomplished through one or more of the following services: (1) vocational guidance in the selection of a suitable type of employment; (2) physical restoration, that is, surgical or medical treatment when the disability can be reduced or removed or an artificial appliance provided to restore the impaired functions; (3) vocational training in the occupation at which it has been determined the person can work despite his handicap; and (4) assistance in securing employment in the occupation for which the person has been fitted. Land-Grant Colleges. Sixty-nine land-grant colleges and universities with a total enrollment of about 576,000 students received $167,711,000 from the Federal Gov- ernment in the last seven years. These funds, which provide salaries and facilities for instruction in agriculture, home economics, forestry, veter- inary medicine, education, commerce and business, are ad- ministered by the U. S. Office of Education. The Office of Education does not supervise the expenditures by the college. It is required by Congress to review an annual statement from the college treasurer and to prepare an annual report for the Federal Security Administrator. Funds for land-grant colleges and universities have been available since 1862 when the first Morrill Act was passed. Since then nine additional sources of appropriation have stimulated a steady expansion of the program. Additional appropriations were made by the second Morrill Act of 1890, Nelson Amendment of 1908, the Hatch Act of 1887, the Adams Act of 1906, Smith-Lever Act of 1915, Purnell Act of 1925, Clarke-McNary Act of 1924, Capper- Ketcham Act of 1928 and the Bankhead-Jones Act of 1935. The latter act is the major legislation affecting land-grant colleges since 1933. It provides “for research into basic laws and principles relating to agriculture and to provide for the further development of co-operative 48 * A . 'ertrtstttstittititistetesebtbtinpisiaa gli Four scenes from the motion picture, “The Fight for Life,” written and directed by Pare Lorentz for the United States Film Service. The story is based on Paul de Kruif’s book of the same name. agricultural extension work and the more complete endow- ment and support of land-grant colleges.’’ For resident instruction the Act provided, in addition to appropriations previously authorized, the sums of $980,000 for the fiscal year 1936, $1,460,000 for 1937, $1,980,000 for 1938, $2,480,000 for 1939 and $2,480,000 for 1940. The Pres- ident’s Advisory Committee on Education in its report, “The Land-Grant Colleges,” points out that “if appro- priations are made in accordance with authorizations, Fed- eral Grants to the States and Territories for resident in- struction (in land-grant colleges) under the various stat- utes will continue at approximately $6,000,000 annually.” In accordance with federal legislation, land-grant col- leges and universities are concerned with three major tasks: (1) Instruction of students. In earlier legislation, instruc- tion was restricted to agriculture, mechanic arts, and mili- tary tactics. The educational program has since been broadened to include a wide range of subjects, includ- ing English 1iterature, mathematical sciences, physical and economic sciences. Research in experiment stations. Originally, the purpose of such research was to determine principles and applica- tions of agricultural science and to transmit useful infor- mation derived from such experiments to the people. Later legislation has broadened the scope of experiments to include the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of agricultural products and economic and sociological investigations on rural life. (3) Co-operative extension work carried on among rural peo- ple on a county basis. This work is intended to aid the farmer by making available to him expert advice and the assistance of county agricultural agents. The farmer’s wife and family are helped through home demonstra- tions dealing with the problem of the farm home and through recreation-education activities carried on in club work by young people. Nm — Public Forums. As a demonstration of one way to in- crease understanding of social, political and economic prob- lems the Federal Forum Project, sponsored by the U. S. Office of Education and financed by relief funds, has proved very successful. During the first three years of its existence, from 1936 to 1939, the Forum Project sponsored demonstration forums in 580 communities in thirty-eight states before an estimated audience of 2,000,000 people. To assist in these demonstrations, federal emergency funds totalling more than $1,000,000 were made available through the Office of Education. In these demonstrations local school districts were as- sisted in the employment of forum leaders and clerical workers from emergency relief rolls in the interest of devel- THE AMERICAN TEACHER “Shy Scenes from the U. S. documentary film, “The River,” a motion picture dramatizing the Mississippi. This is one of a series of government-produced cinemas available to schools without cost. oping a locally-determined program of public discussion. Forum leaders, selected by local school officials and citi- zens’ committees, were usually brought into the com-. munity for periods of several weeks or months. These leaders met with audiences, averaging about one hundred people, in five or six different places each week. Programs included the use of radio, organization of reading and dis- cussion groups, forums for young people in the high schools and colleges, library co-operation, and similar activities. Allocation of funds to demonstration centers have been discontinued since 1939. Instead, the services of WPA workers have been made available to some thirty communi ties where the provision of leadership was locally arranged. During the last fiscal year fourteen states have been co-operating in this counseling program. Scores of local communities have reported that they plan to adapt the techniques demonstrated in various forum demonstration centers to their local educational programs next fall. Education By Radio. A new and challenging tool that is enriching the programs of many teachers and broadening the interests of students has been provided by the Radio Division of the United States Office of Education. The Radio Division was founded in 1935 when President Roosevelt allocated $75,000 of the emergency relief funds to the Office of Education to demonstrate new tech- niques of radio for educational purposes. A total of $768,- 900 had been spent on all activities of the Radio Division as of February 29, 1940. The purpose of the Radio Division of the Office of Edu- cation is two-fold, to demonstrate techniques of creating educational radio programs in co-operation with com- munity, state or national cultural forces that can attract and hold mass audiences and to serve the growing number of local school and community groups which desire to enrich their programs by use of radio education. To carry out this purpose, the Office of Education en- gages in co-operative broadcasting over national radio networks, stimulates the development of local broad- casting groups, demonstrates the use of supplementary radio-reading material in schools, and makes available educational scripts, recordings and other aids through its Radio Script Exchange. On the air at present are the following Office of Educa- tion broadcasts: (1) The World Is a Smith- sonian Institution series dealing with science, history, in- dustry and the arts, broadcast at 3:30 p.m. EST every Sunday over NBC Red Network stations: (2) Democracy in Action, which describes in dramatic form the Federal Yours, APRIL, 1940 Government at work, heard at 12:30 p.m. EST every Sun- day over CBS stations; and (3) Gallant American Women, dedicated to the famous and unsung women heroines of past and present, heard at 9:00 p.m. EST every Mon- day over NBC Blue Network stations. To supplement Office of Education radio programs, listener aids are usually provided. These consist of bulle- tins containing information on the subjects of the broad- casts. The World is Yours, listener-aid magazine based on the broadcasts, gives excerpts from scripts and pertinent articles by authorities. Radio programs of the U. S. Office of Education are presented in co-operation with national broadcasting chains, local radio stations, government agencies such as Smith- sonian Institution and national associations such as the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. During 1935-1940, twelve coast-to-coast co-operative educational radio series were presented. Those completed (scripts of which are available to teachers and others through the Script Exchange) are: Have You Heard? natural science, (NBC); Answer Me This, current events, (NBC) ; Education In The News, current events, (NBC); Safety Musketeers, safety education, (CBS); Treasures Next Door, classical literature, (CBS); Let Freedom Ring! civil liberties, (CBS); Brave New World, South American history, (CLS); Wings For The Martins, home education, (NBC Blue); and Americans All—Immigrants All, racial contributions to the building of America, (CBS). The latter program received two of the highest awards made in the United States last year—the first award of the Women’s National Radio Committee and the first award of the American Legion Auxiliary. Among the major results of the activities of the Radio Division are the following: 1) Employment. In seventeen states and the District of Co- lumbia the Project has given employment to an average of 245 WPA workers per month. Training and Placement. Training and experience se- cured on the Project have enabled more than seventy- five WPA workers in Washington and New York alone to move into regular jobs. Promoted Local Productions. The Office of Education has stimulated the development of local school and col- (2 < — (3 49 lege radio producing groups to study broadcasting and to co-operate with local stations. These groups have grown from fewer than three hundred in 1936 to more than eight hundred at present. (4) First to Preserve Network Series for Schools. This is the first agency to preserve network educational pro- grams for future use through recordings. (5) Largest Network. By stressing quality, the Radio Divi- sion has secured the largest voluntary networks ever as- sembled for sustained educational programs. Radio re- ports show that Democracy in Action is carried by 107 CBS stations and the World Is Yours is carried by 79 NBC stations. (6) Every U. S. Region Served. Because of the wide ac- ceptance of Office of Education programs by stations and wide local use of scripts, every section of the United States has been able to receive the benefits of this edu- caional activity. Educational Radio Script Exchange. A new national depository and library of scientific aids to education— the Educational Radio Script Exchange, serving a rapidly growing development of local school and civic groups actively interested in educational radio—recently pub- lished its first complete catalogue of services for further- ing the cause of education. The Script Exchange, created by the Federal Radio Edu- cation Committee in October, 1936, to serve as a clear- ing house for educational radio scripts and other informa- tion, lists in its new catalogue the four major services of the exchange: Radio Scripts, Production Aids, Informa- tion and Idea Exchange, and Recordings. Since its establishment three years ago, the Script Ex- change has filled requests for more than 250,000 copies of scripts received from about 12,000 groups in all parts of the country. The steadily expanding service of the Exchange has been made possible through the co-opera- tion of several hundred local educational and civic organiza- tions, government agencies and radio stations. These sources have contributed approximately 3,000 educational scripts to the files of the Exchange during the past three years. More than 500 programs, selected by a special script- reviewing committee on the basis of quality and on the requests for certain kinds of program material that are constantly pouring into the Exchange, are listed in the new catalogue. Through the Exchange’s circulating library these scripts are now available to qualified groups actively interested in educational radio. Scripts may be borrowed for a period not exceeding four weeks. There is no charge for this service. The Script Exchange also makes avail- able upon request production aids, some of which are free. Others may be borrowed for a period of three weeks. The Script Exchange reports that to date 4,304 or- ganizations have used series of scripts from the Exchange. This figure does not include thousands of additional groups that have requested individual scripts, production aids and general information. Only those organizations which have received at least one complete series of scripts are inc]uded. Data compiled during the survey show that scripts have been used for productions on the air, over sound systems, for mock-broadcasts, in radio work-shops and as aids to 50 social studies. U. S. Film Service. In his second plan on government reorganization President Roosevelt said, “I propose to transfer. to the Federal Security Agency, for administra- tion in the Office of Education, the film and radio func- tions of the National Emergency Council. These are clearly a part of the educational activity of the Govern- ment and should be consolidated with similar activities already carried on in the Office of Education.” Con- gress approved of the President’s proposal. The U. S. Film Service is now a division of the U. S. Office of Educa- tion, under the direction of Commissioner Studebaker. Doubtless you have seen one, two or all three of the major films produced by the staff of the U. S. Film Service—The Plow that Broke the Plains, released in 1936 by the Resettlement Administration, The River, re- leased in 1939 by the Farm Security Administration and The Fight for Life, very recently released. Educators and the public acclaimed The River shown in more than 5,000 theaters. It has had more than 16,000 educa- tional play-dates throughout the country. The River won the 1939 international documentary film prize. The President established the U. S. Film Service in the National Emergency Council in 1938, transferring to it the personnel, property and films of the Farm Security Administration, which had produced The Plow and The River. The Fight for Life, a feature production based on the maternal welfare chapters of Paul de Kruif’s book of the same name, is the most recent release of the Film Service and it has won extraordinary praise from New York theater critics. Many educational groups have endorsed the film highly. Distribution plans are being completed. Power and the Land will show the need and the results of electricity on the American farm. It will be com- pleted early this summer. A feature length film on in- dustrial employment tentatively titled Ecce Homo (Be- hold the Man) is in preparation. The educational distribution and publications program of the Film Service is an extensive one and has elicited comments from educators throughout the country. In addition to The River, the Film Service distributes Good Neighbors, a U. S. Maritime Commission film, and Housing In Our Time, a U. S. Housing Authority produc- tion. The Film Service also operates an extensive relay service in co-operation with all government departments. Thus, a teacher wanting any government film, regardless of subject or department, can write to the Film Service and the request, even though it may contain a list of a dozen films from as many different departments, will be promptly dispatched to the proper agency. A Directory of U. S. Government films, issued three or four times a year by the Film Service, lists all pictures together with a brief descriptive note on subject matter. This directory, like all publications of the Film Service, is available to schools without cost. Study aids, lecture reprints, study guides and other material are also available to teachers interested in visual aids to education. THE AMERICAN TEACHER History of Federal Aid to Education Lloyd E. Blauch IN THE SCHEME of governmental organization de- veloped in the United States education has been left very largely to state control. The public school systems and pub- lic institutions of higher learning have been established un- der state law, and they are supported by the states and their political subdivisions. However, the Federal Government has also developed certain significant relations to educa- tion. In some instances it has granted aid to education maintained under state control and established co-opera- tive relations with the states in carrying on certain educa- tional activities, while in other instances it has conducted educational activities of its own without reference to state authorities. This article deals primarily with federal aid to education conducted under state authority. The origin of the policy of federal aid to education is found in the early provisions for disposing of western lands in the possession of the national government. Even before the Constitution of the United States was adopted, the Congress of the Confederation adopted the policy of reserving from sale a certain part of the land in each township to aid in the support of schools and of setting aside additional lands for the support of higher education. After the Constitution was adopted, the Congress of the Federal Government confirmed this policy, and later ex- panded it. Only the states formed from the public domain participated in these grants which played a significant role in the development of public school systems and state institutions of higher learning in the region west of the Appalachian Mountains. Some money derived from the sale of public lands was also given to the states. These grants of land and money were for education in general. Congress did not specify the kind of educational service to be provided. With the passage of the Morrill Act of 1862 several new principles were introduced in making grants for education for through it Congress be- gan to stimulate specialized types of education and to favor them with assistance. The Morrill Act granted to each state an area of federal lands equal to thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative to which the state was entitled in Con- gress. The proceeds of the sales of the land were to serve as perpetual endowments the earnings of which were to be used for the support of at least one college where the leading object would be to teach agriculture and the mechanic arts (engineering) and military tactics. The purpose of the institutions was “to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.” Through the Second Morrill Act (1890), the Nelson Amendment (1907), and the Bankhead-Jones Act (1935) Congress APRIL, 1940 has provided for annual appropriations, the annual total of which now exceeds five million dollars, to these institu- tions known collectively as land-grant colleges and uni- versities, or as land-grant colleges. The federal adminis- tration of the appropriations is a responsibility of the Federal Security Agency, and it is carried out by the Office of Education. The Federal Government aids in the support of two specialized activities of the land-grant colleges. In 1887, with the passage of the Hatch Act, Congress initiated aid for agricultural experiment stations in these colleges. Through subsequent legislation the grants for these re- search stations have been increased, and they now amount to about seven million dollars annually. With the pass- age of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 the Federal Govern- ment began to aid agricultural and home economics ex- tension work conducted in the counties under the direc- tion of the land-grant colleges. The total annual federal appropriations for extension work amount to somewhat more than eighteen million dollars. The federal adminis- tration of the funds for the agricultural experiment sta- tions and the agricultural and home economics extension service is a responsibility of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture. While this development was occurring in higher and technical education the Federal Government undertook to aid in the support of vocational training below college grade. As early as 1874 Congress authorized the Sec- retary of the Navy to furnish suitable vessels of the Navy, with all their equipment, to be used by nautical schools in six designated ports, and in 1911 it authorized annual appropriations of not more than twenty-five thousand dol- lars for each of ten such schools in ten ports named by law. These schools are established and operated under state auspices. Four are now maintained. The adminis- tration of the federal funds is carried out by the Navy Department. Federal aid to the states for vocational education on a large scale was undertaken in 1917 with the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act which made permanent annual ap- propriations for distribution to the states. Through the enactment of further legislation, notably the George-Deen Act (1936), the program of federal aid for vocational education has been greatly enlarged. Aid is provided for education in agriculture, home economics, trades and industries including public service occupations and dis- tributive occupations, and for training vocational teachers. Vocational rehabilitation of physically disabled persons soon claimed the attention of the Federal Government, largely because of the development during the World War of methods of rehabilitating disabled persons and placing them in employment. The Vocational Rehabilitation Act was passed by Congress in 1920. It is the foundation upon which an extensive program has been developed in the states. By the Randolph-Sheppard Act, passed in 1936, the Federal Government undertook a special service to provide employment for blind persons, enlarge their economic opportunities, and stimulate them to greater efforts toward self-support. The act does not authorize federal appropriations. For years the War Department has co-operated with various schools and colleges in their military training by way of providing military equipment for use in the insti- tutions and detailing officers to carry on the training. A new policy was introduced in 1920 when the National Defense Act was amended and the President was author- ized to establish in civil educational institutions a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps consisting of units organized in various schools, colleges and universities. The institu- tions co-operating in this program receive no federal funds for it, but they do receive aid in the form of personnel, equipment and supplies for the military training. In 1925 the President was authorized to establish a Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps with a set-up and regulations sim- ilar to those of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps of the Army. In the depression of the 1930’s there were developed several new federal policies with respect to education. Several federal agencies established primarily for relief purposes engaged in educational activities on a nation- wide scale. In this category belong the educational work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the educational pro- gram of the Work Projects Administration, and the service for youth provided through the National Youth Adminis- tration. These are federal enterprises although they have some relations to education conducted under state auspices. The Public Works Administration, established in 1933 to administer federal appropriations for the construction of federal works and for grants and loans to states and municipalities for the construction of public works, has made numerous grants and loans for school and college buildings. By far the greater part of the construction of public school buildings during the depression was financed from this source. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, established in 1932, has also made loans for educational purposes. The Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, held at Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1936, adopted the Convention for the Promotion of Inter-American Cul- tural Relations which provides for the exchange of pro- fessors and graduate students or teachers among the American republics. Thirteen Latin-American countries and the United States have ratified the Convention, and the first exchanges were made in 1940. The administra- tion of this activity in the United States is a function of the Department of State in co-operation with the Office of Education. There are a few other forms of federal aid to education 52 that have some importance. In the fiscal year 1907 the Federal Government began to pay 10 per cent of all money received from each national forest to the state or territory in which the forest was located, this money to be expended for the benefit of public schools and public roads of the county or counties where the forest was located. Con- tributions are aiso made for similar purposes from money derived from mining privileges on public lands, since 1920; wildlife refuges, since 1935; certain land utilization projects, since 1937; and certain grazing districts, since 1934. The Federal Government makes annual contribu- tions to three private educational institutions, the Columbia Institution for the Deaf, since 1858; the American Printing House for the Blind, since 1879; and Howard University, since 1879. After a number of requests from educators that Con- gress provide a federal office for educational service, it created a “Department of Education” in 1867, under a commissioner. The “department” ceased in 1869, and there was established an “Office of Education” in the De- partment of the Interior. From 1870 to 1929 this agency was known as the “Bureau of Education,” but since the latter date the title “Office of Education” has been used. In 1933 the functions of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, established in 1917 to administer the Smith- Hughes Act, were transferred to the Department of the Interior and assigned to the Office of Education. In July, 1939, the Office was transferred to the newly established Federal Security Agency. The original purpose of the Office of Education was to collect and disseminate information on education and in other ways promote the cause of education throughout the nation. From time to time additional responsibilities have been placed on it, and its principal activities can now be classified under nine categories: (1) research; (2) educational surveys; (3) statistical reporting on educa- tion; (4) administration of federal grants in aid for land- grant colleges and universities, vocational education, and vocational rehabilitation of physically disabled persons; (5) library reference and loan service; (6) services to other governmental agencies in relation to education; (7) pub- lication of bulletins and a periodical; (8) certain projects supported from emergency relief funds; and (9) an edu- cational film service. The relationship of the Federal Government to edu- cation has been considered in recent years by two national committees, the National Advisory Committee on Edu- cation (1929-31) appointed by President Hoover and the Advisory Committee on Education (1936-40) ap- pointed by President Roosevelt. The Advisory Commit- tee on Education, of which Floyd W. Reeves was chair- man, considered all important phases of federal relation- ship to education and recommended an extensive pro- gram of federal aid to education and library service. Its report and nineteen staff studies constitute the most ex- tensive discussion of the problem which has been pub- lished. Congress has not yet acted on the recommenda- tions of the Committee. THE AMERICAN TEACHER The Advisory Committee Recommends M. M. Chambers NO MORE significant national investigation has been made in a busy decade than the one recently completed by the President’s Advisory Committee on Education. By cogently showing the American people that the beginning of annual federal appropriations to the states in aid of general educa- tion is now overdue, the Advisory Committee has rendered a public service of landmark proportions. So great are the differences among the states in wealth, income and taxpaying ability, that the educational oppor- tunity accessible to the child or youth of today depends in large degree upon the wholly fortuitous circumstance of whether he lives in one state or another. For example, twelve of our states have, on the average, per capita wealth and income at least twice as great as those of twelve other states. At the same time, these twelve poorer states have nearly twice as many children of school age in proportion to productive adults as the twelve richer states. Moreover, the states having the least ability to support education are for the most part at present putting forth the greatest relative effort in that respect. Even if some of the poorest states had taxing systems conforming fully to every modern fiscal principle and then devoted the entire revenue thus derived to the support of schools, leaving nothing for other governmental functions, their schools would still be far less adequately maintained than those of the more fortu- nate states now. The great differences among the states are net due to lack of effort. The Advisory Committee has laid the facts on the line. Schools have hitherto been regarded as the bulwark of democracy. If the Federal Government does not promptly step into the breach to aid in the lessening of inequalities in school support, there is danger that the American school system, viewed nationally, will in fact become an engine for creating and perpetuating the inequalities in individual op- portunity which it was designed to minimize. It has become crystal clear that at present educational services for large sections of the population are at a level of inadequacy which must speedily be improved. This is especially true of education for Negroes, of schools and library services in rural areas in many states, and of the whole picture of educational facilities in certain whole regions embracing several states and parts of states. The primary cause of these inadequacies is lack of financial resources, which in many cases simply cannot be remedied on the basis of local and state effort alone. The Federal Government can and should aid in relieving the situation financially, leav- ing the administration of schools exclusively in the hands of state and local agencies. The time is ripe to outgrow the myth that federal aid can- not come without federal control and to lay forever the ancient ghost which groans that it is unjust to tax the people APRIL, 1940 \ : = => =— 7 = 4 > - jal Be of one state to support schools in another. The mobility of the population has already amply demonstrated that the wealthier states stand to suffer from the educational short- comings of the less fortunate states and likewise to gain directly from the improvement of education therein. The progress of the wealthier states and of the nation as a whole is retarded as long as inadequate educational facilities are tolerated in any state. State boundaries cannot be hermeti- cally sealed to prevent the passage of persons and ideas. Reasonable equality of educational opportunity is a national responsibility, intimately connected with the national welfare. In pointing out this fact and in proposing a well-considered and eminently workable plan for annual federal appropria- tions to the states for an initial period of six years, the Advisory Committee on Education discharged its function most commendably. The tremendous importance of its cen- tral recommendation should not, however, obscure the fact that the main Report of the Committee contains other recom- mendations related to the improvement of educational service, and that the Committee has subsequently published nineteen separate studies prepared by various members of its profes- sional staff. The staff studies constitute an array of compact and readable data on education in the United States viewed from the nation-wide standpoint. They show clearly its major strengths and weaknesses. They are replete with authentic descriptions and statistics which afford a panoramic snap- shot of American education today. Without neglecting the essential historical background, they are stamped throughout with the forward look. They carry specific recommendations relevant to their respective subjects. They collate modern principles of educational organization and administration. They go thoroughly into the problems of public finance connected with the collection and appor- tionment of public funds for the equalization of educational opportunity within and among the states. They explore and appraise the activities of the Federal Government in voca- tional education and rehabilitation and in higher education. They present the national picture in library service and in Negro education. They evaluate the federal contribution to education through the agencies set up primarily for the relief of unemployment and destitution. They look into the ad- ministration of education in the District of Columbia and in the territories and possessions as well as education for the Indians and for children living on federal reservations. One staff study by a distinguished scholar and administrator envisions the development of the United States Office of Education as an agency of research and charts the desirable steps in the expansion of its fiscal support and personnel. All the studies are obtainable from the United States Gov- ernment Printing Office at nominal prices. A complete set Lyxnp Warp 53 Courtesy of the Educational Policies Commission, NEA of all publications of the Committee, including the central report and a pamphlet condensation of it, and the nineteen staff studies, can be had for $4.80. The whole comprises an “eight-inch shelf” of 3,161 pages, indispensable to students of education and of great interest to many others. The facts and principles reported in these volumes belong to American teachers and the American public. Progress in a democratic society requires that each of us as a citizen should lay hold of them, use them, discuss them, test them, apply them. For the convenience of readers of the AMERICAN TEACHER, a complete list of the Advisory Committee publi- cations follows. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. 243 pages. 35 cents. The findings and recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Education, based on its comprehensive studies of the entire field of educational service in the United States. Presents the plan for federal aid for general education in the states, embracing proposed annual appropriations to the states over a six-year period, for (1) general elementary and secondary education, (2) preparation of teachers, (3) school buildings, (4) administration of State educa- tion department, (5) educational services for adults, (6) rural library service, and (7) co-operative educational research. Also makes recommendations concerning student aid, an occupational outlook service, vocational guidance and placement, work camps, and higher education and associated activities. EDUCATION IN THE FORTY-EIGHT STATES by Payson SmitH, Frank W. Wricut, and associates. 199 pages. 30 cents. The panorama of American education at all levels from kinder- garten to the graduate school and adult education. Historical sketch of the century 1830-1930 and a look at the future. Statistics of enrollments and institutions at all levels. The curriculum, health education, teaching service, and the school plant. Education for children in rural areas, for Negroes, and for handicapped children. ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION by Watter D. Cocxinc and CHartes H. Gr- MORE. 183 pages. 20 cents. The legal boundaries of public education in America, and the place of education in the structure of government. State and local administration of education, and the interrelationships of the lo- cal, state, and Federal governments. Lists 14 fundamentals of edu- cational erganization and administration and concludes with con- crete suggestions for making the fundamentals operative. STATE PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION by KATHERINE A. FREDERIC. 271 pages. 35 cents. The first extensive study of personnel administration for key units in the educational system, the 48 state departments of education. An up-to-date summary of general provisions for state government personnel administration. New data on the qualifications, experi- ence, salaries, selection, and tenure of chief state school officers and their staffs. Suggestions for improving the adequacy of personnel. FEDERAL AID AND THE TAX PROBLEM by Crarence HEEr. 101 pages. 15 cents). PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF DISTRIBUTING FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION by Paut R. Mort, Evcene S. LAwLer, and associates. 99 pages. 20 cents. THE EXTENT OF EQUALIZATION SECURED THROUGH STATE SCHOOL FUNDS by Newron Epwarps and Herman G. Ricuey. 55 pages. 15 cents. SELECTED LEGAL PROBLEMS IN PROVIDING FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION by Rosert R. Hamitton. 71 pages. 15 cents. Four studies relating to finance. From the viewpoints of fiscal adequacy, administrative efficiency, equity, and economic effects, federal aid is a better way to raise new money for schools than state and local taxation. Measures of the ability and the need of each state are practicable. Apportionment within states can be improved. There are no insuperable constitutional or other legal barriers to federal aid to the states for general education. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION by Joun Date Russetr and as- sociates. 325 pages. 40 cents. A thorough critique and evaluation of the federally reimbursed program of vocational education. The place of vocational educa- tion in modern society and the place of the Federal Government in vocational education in America. An appendix deals with the 54 experience of organized labor with trade and industrial education. Includes text of the principal federal statutes in force regarding vocational education grants to states. VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION OF THE PHYSICALLY DISABLED by Lioyp E. Braucu. 101 pages. 15 cents. The evolution of Federal-State co-operation to enable physically disabled persons to resume positions as useful and adjusted mem- bers of society. The extent of the program; the methods and procedures; economic, social, and fiscal aspects; special service for the blind; the need for expansion. THE LAND-GRANT COLLEGES by Georce A. Works and Barton Morcan. 141 pages. 25 cents. How the Federal Government subsidizes the 69 universities and colleges founded by the states in pursuance of the epochal Morrill Act of 1862. History and critique of Federal aid (1) for resident instruction, under the two Morrill Acts, the Nelson Amendment, and the Bankhead-Jones Act; (2) for experiment stations, under the Hatch, Adams, Purnell, and Bankhead-Jones Acts; (3) for agricultural extension work, under the Smith-Lever, Capper- Ketcham, Bankhead-Jones, and other Acts. Includes full text of the statutes. LIBRARY SERVICE by Cartton B. Jorecxer. 107 pages. 15 cents. Public library service is accessible to 92 per cent of our urban people, but to only 26 per cent of rural residents. The Northeast and the Far West have more than their share of our 15,000 libraries and their quarter of a billion volumes, while the South is very much undersupplied. Ten specific recommendations are made as to what the Federal Government might properly do to improve this important educational service throughout the nation. SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF NEGRO EDUCATION by Doxey A. WILKERSON. 171 pages. 25 cents. Extensive data on the education of Negroes at all levels in the 18 States which require schools for the two races to be completely segregated. Here only 69 per cent of the nearly 3 million Negro children of school age (5 to 17) attend any school, and the Negro schools, doing their best under incredible handicaps, merit equitable public support. THE NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION by Parmer O. Jounson and Oswatp L. Harvey. 121 pages. 15 cents. The current situation of American youth and the organization and scope of the National Youth Administration. Its student-aid program, its work-projects program, and its other efforts related to apprentice-training, vocational guidance, and placement. The educational camps for unemployed women operated from 1934 to 1937 and the newer resident training centers. Tentative evalua- tions of the whole program, with some recommendations. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION by Doak S. Campsett, FrepericK H. Barr, and Oswap L. Harvey. 185 pages. 25 cents. How the education division of the WPA has expanded the field of adult and nursery school education, made possible a diversity of experimentation in techniques and programs, and furnished work for unemployed educational and recreational workers. A critical survey of its purposes, scope, and accomplishments, showing some weaknesses in its administration. PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA by Lioyp E. Braucn and J. Orin Powers. 99 pages. 20 cents. PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE TERRITORIES AND OUT LYING POSSESSIONS by Lioyp E. Braucu. 243 pages. 35 cents. EDUCATION OF CHILDREN ON FEDERAL RES- ERVATIONS by Lioyp E. Biaucu and Wit11AM L. Iverson. 145 pages. 25 cents). EDUCATIONAL SERVICE FOR IN DIANS by Lioyp E. Biaucnu. 137 pages. 25 cents. Four reports on education in special federal jurisdictions. A statesmanlike review of the school system in the Nation’s capital, with trenchant recommendations. Education in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. A suggested program for the provision of free public schools for children residing on Federal reservations at home and in foreign stations. How education adapted to their social needs is brought to American Indians. RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES OFFICE OF EDUCA- TION by Cuartes H. Jupp. 133 pages. 20 cents. The distinguished former head of the department of education at the University of Chicago points out many new studies which THE AMERICAN TEACHER the United States Office of Education should undertake and recom- mends enlarged support and additional personnel for it. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. 31 pages. 10 cents. A condensation of the findings and proposals of the Advisory Education and Economic Well-Being W.W. Wattenberg and J. K. Norton Committee on Education, with especial attention to those parts of the report which relate particularly to the situation in the schools, inequalities of educational opportunity, the national in- terest in education, and the proposed federal grants for educational purposes. Courtesy of the Educational Policies Commission, NEA Lynp Warp SECURING MAXIMUM economic returns from education for our society is the subject of the fourth major publication of the Educational Policies Commission of the National Edu- cation Association and the American Association of School Administrators. Education and Economic Well-Being In American Democracy presents an integrated summary of expert opinion on the relationship between education and economic advance. It advances a program for education to secure the maximum well-being for all members of our present social structure. Basic to the program is the concept of an “effectively free education,” by which is meant the estab- lishment of conditions which would enable all young people to obtain an economic optimum of education, regardless of race, place of residence or social and economic status of their parents. First is traced the interdependence of education and pro- duction. Technological advance is so founded on the edu- cational level that education may be regarded as one of the basic elements in production. The intelligence and eff- ciency of labor, products of education, vitally affect economic production. By promoting occupational mobility, enabling workers to transfer from crowded and low-paid occupations to those less crowded and higher-paid, schooling sets the con- ditions for a general leveling-up of earned income. This principle is fundamental to the program advanced in the report. Education serves directly to foster economic efficiency by conserving human resources through health training, pre- serving the continuity of scientific knowledge, helping to con- serve natural resources, and rendering management more effective. Equal in importance to training of individuals in skill is the development of broad social intelligence on economic problems. Realistic instruction in the problems of organized labor and organized capital is an essential in modern society Effective citizenship demands an understanding of the part played in national life by the many organizations which in- fluence our economy. Consumer education is another vital frontier. Because our economy is so largely based on the choice of goods by *This article is a summary of the report, Education and Economic Well-Being in American Democracy, prepared by the Educational Poli- cies Commission of the National Education Association. Chief respon- sibility for the writing of the report was entrusted by the Commission to one of its members, Dr. John K. Norton, co-author of this article. (50 cents per copy.) APRIL, 1940 consumers, the well-being of all is dependent upon the general level of intelligence shown in the selection of products and services. The increasing importance of advertising as an adjunct to mass-production places new difficulties before the average buyer. Yet, quantity production and advertising permit a higher standard of living, if consumers base their choices upon high standards of value and taste. It is there- fore essential that schools give specific training in the major areas of expenditure—food, clothing, shelter, health, and recreation. An area of consumer education often neglected, but of great significance, is the collective buying of services represented by public agencies. Nor is it sufficient that con- sumers be wise in obtaining the technically best products for their own use. They must realize that each purchase is an economic vote; by exercising this “ballot” with a sense of social responsibility the consumer can affect the working con- ditions under which goods are produced and distributed. Young people must be given opportunities for intelligent choice of occupation and for preparing for occupational life. Such occupational education should be based on economic and vocational trends, among which is the growing demand for semiskilled and skilled rather than unskilled workers. Be- cause many industrial jobs require little formal vocational training, many workers need adaptability rather than highly specific skill. The proportion of all workers who need skill and technical knowledge is increasing, and there is a real shortage for certain types of skilled workers. The trends of our economic life require more and better education for suc- cess. Important problems of educational statesmanship are posed by such trends. Vocational and general education should be considered phases of a unified process; without either education would be stultifying. Not only must schools and colleges assume responsibility for initial occupational training, but they must share the work of retraining workers who have been displaced by technological change or must seek new work because of age, accidents or health disabilities. If education is to fulfill its obligation to promote the maxi- mum economic well-being, how much schooling is necessary? One guiding principle laid down by the report is that there should be sufficient education so that differences in the income of workers should be due to differences in capacity and dili- gence rather than differences in educational opportunity. Un- til this point is reached, increases in education are accom- panied by even greater increments to the productivity of society : “The part of this argument that is misunderstood by many people is that the total income of the country goes up and reaches a maximum, so far as schooling affects it, only when differences in income which are due to artificial barriers and which can be eliminated by schooling are eliminated. Addi- tional amounts of schooling should be provided until their cost equals the increased value of extra goods produced through greater efficiency of workers. The point which must be clearly recognized is that with more education a greater total amount of goods and services can be produced.” Since our economy promises to increase in both scope and complexity, greater extension of educational opportunity is required. Although there are some young people who are being given more opportunities than they are capable of utiliz- ing, the opposite is true for the majority. An insufficient number are being trained for occupations where wages are high and for which greater education is a requisite. The average amount of education now being received by young people is ten years; this should be made a minimum. The average should be increased to fourteen years. Although there has been a rapid rise in the number of young people who receive high school and college education, a majority do not graduate from high school and a minor fraction complete college. A very important cause of this situation is financial inability to continue in school. Many of those barred in this way are of superior ability. “In general, children born into large families with low incomes have small chance of receiving a college education or profes- sional training even when they outrank the average college student in ability.” This represents a vast economic waste for society. Many private and public agencies are taking steps to rectify the situation somewhat. The result has been aid to superior students; a study of 270 colleges in 31 states as to the scholastic standing of NYA students revealed that in 186 they made higher grades than the rest of the student body, and in only 31 did they get lower grades. Factors other than economic circumstance deprive society of the greater productive capacity which could be obtained if all young folks received the optimum of education. These factors might be classified as “accidents of birth.” Cer- tain geographic sections can not support adequate schools. Disparities in educational provision in metropolitan areas are large. The working classes live inside the city which is faced by a number of children disproportionate to taxpaying ability, and the well-to-do families move to suburbs which provide comparatively finer opportunities for children. Farm youth is penalized, as compared with city boys and girls. Negro young people suffer from marked lack of educational oppor- tunity, especially in rural areas. “The distribution of educational opportunity in the nation today is such that the potential economic effects of education are far from being fully realized. Tens of thousands of youths each year are foolishly being thrown into the over- crowded ranks of casual and unskilled labor who could have qualified for callings which demand more and pay more. They have both the capacity and the ambition so to qualify. But we permit fortuitous forces beyond their control to sentence them to thirty or forty years of low-grade and low- paid service. The youths thus condemned by an uneconomic social policy will earn less than they could have earned, and the nation’s income will be less than it might have been. Wise public policy urges that this undemocratic and uneconomic situation be corrected as rapidly as possible through the right kind of effectively free education.” What is meant by “effectively free education”? It means more than provision of tuition-free schools. Even when schooling is without charge, the economic circumstances of families may prevent young people from taking advantage 56 Therefore, the cost of books, educa- tional supplies and maintenance must be met through a pro- of the opportunities. gram of student aid for qualified youth. This program should be so administered as to imply honor for those aided and to develop in them a sense of sober responsibility to society. This will necessitate the development of appropriate selection procedures. Present forms of student aid need appraisal and extension. Forms of grants which involve work which interferes with the student’s taking full advantage of educational opportunities are questionable. The grants should be viewed and administered as the means whereby society maintains and increases its economic productivity. Such a program should result in an improvement in college education and a general raising of standards. It should also result in a better occupational distribution throughout society. The total cost of this program in all its aspects—(1) a ten-year minimum of schooling; (2) a median education of fourteen years; (3) free textbooks, school supplies, school fees, and other “educational necessities”; (4) maintenance grants; and (5) lifting the poorest schools to a reasonable minimum of efficiency—is calculated at slightly less than four billion dollars. This is one billion more than was spent on all education in 1938. This cost is small as compared with the two hundred billion dollars estimated to have been lost in the eight-year period, 1929 to 1937, by the gap between actual production and capacity to produce. A program for providing effectively free education should be inaugurated at once. The gains for society would more than compensate for the additional cost. Financing would involve a feasible revision of tax structures, an adequate program of federal aid, and reorganization of school administration units. The task immediately before us is to secure public under- standing of the program in order to obtain appropriate action. The public must be helped to gain an appreciation of the social and individual significance of effectively free education. “In 1938 the nation expended $1,622,000,000 for national defense. This was believed necessary in order that our lives and democratic institutions might be safeguarded from foreign aggression. It is probably true, however, that the threat to our democracy which resides in existing nullifications of equal opportunity is both greater and more immediate than that of foreign invasion.” The public must receive a new vision of education as the method by which democracy progresses. The money-minded gentry whose reaction to governmental expenditures is an unthinking, “Cut them!” should be made to see that taxation and public expenditure are really co-operative methods of purchasing valuable goods and services. There should be dis- crimination in appraising each public service and in deciding whether it is worth the expenditure involved. The costs of the right kind of economic education will yield dividends in the form of greater economic well-being and, with it, further exten- sion of democracy. The schools have a grave responsibility in implementing the program of the report. The press, the radio, and the numerous occupational, civic, fraternal, patriotic and religious organizations should participate. “It will require vision and courage to continue our great educational experiment along the lines projected in this report. It appears, as far as fact, logic, and man’s poor prescience can prophesy, that such a course of public action will be a wise one on several bases—including the economic —with which this document is primarily concerned. The Educational Policies Commission urges careful thought and positive action on the program here proposed. It believes that such action can be the product of dynamic citizenship, in which statesmanlike leadership and intelligent rank and file response are complementary elements. There is no other way in a democracy.” THE AMERICAN TEACHER The Problem of Federal Aid (Continued from page 6) The average school term is three months longer in some states than in others, and in seven states with large rural populations it is less than six months in length. Expenditures per pupil for current operation of schools range from $134.13 in the highest state down to $24.55 in the lowest state. The average annual salary per teacher in the highest state is $2,414 and in the lowest state $504. These differences in educational opportunity are almost entirely due to economic conditions arising from variations in taxpaying ability and in the relative number of children to be educated. The richest state has a per capita taxpaying ability to support schools twelve times as great as the poorest state. One of the less wealthy states has two and one-half times as many educable children per adult as has another state well able to provide its children with good schools. The National Education Association early recognized the need for federal financial support to lessen the inequalities in American education. Its first nation-wide objective study of the ability of states to pay for schools was published in 1926. This report intensified efforts begun by the Asso- ciation long before to secure federal aid to schools. The crisis in education brought about by the economic depression made still further efforts necessary. Since 1934 there has been an Association-sponsored bill before the United States Congress. In 1937 the Senate bill was reported favorably by the unanimous vote of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor and placed on the Senate calendar. The Harrison- Thomas bill is before the present Senate for consideration. Its passage is imperative. The United States must educate adequately all its citizens. The continued existence of our democracy depends upon the capacity and sincerity of those who are devotetd to self- government. Survival of democracy depends upon whether or not we can create and maintain a social and political intelli- gence commensurate with the social and political problems we have to solve. Charles H. Thompson DESPITE THE fact that all of the emergency programs described in this issue—the CCC, NYA, and WPA projects— were instituted and developed primarily because of their relief possibilities and only secondarily for their educational value, there is one conclusion which reflection upon the papers in this symposium makes clear. Extension of federal aid to education is not only necessary and desirable in theory but can be made to work in practice. We have gained invalu- able experience in the co-operation of federal and _ state agencies in hitherto untried areas. These programs have performed a sort of residual educational function by sup- plying those needs which our regular school agencies have either neglected or touched not at all. New types of educa- tional enterprises have been exploited on a scale which not only removes them from the visionary or even debatabie stage but also markedly extends the range and character of public education. For, as the Advisory Committee on Edu- cation points out relative to the WPA program alone: “It has tremendously expanded the fields of adult and nursery school education. . . . It has made possible a marked diversity of experimentation in techniques and programs. .. . It has sought and found its principal application in the ranks of APRIL, 1940 the underprivileged. . . .” Moreover, it might be added that public education which has tended in the past to become more and more formalized and therefore less and less vital has received a “shot in the arm.” But it should be recognized that it is only a “shot” and its effects temporary. Whether this tendency toward revivification is to become permanent depends upon “where we go from here.” There seems to be an assumption on the part of the “economizers” that the economic emergency which gave rise to these programs has eased sufficiently to permit a reduc- tion of our efforts in this regard. Apparently no account has been or is being taken of the question whether such obvious educational needs as have been so dramatically exploited still exist. That they do still obtain one can infer from most of the papers in this symposium, if he did not already know it. However, there has been a persistent and successful attempt to cut the financial appropriations for these agencies. What is more significant, there has been little success in trans- ferring the activities so curtailed to the regular educational agencies either because state educational authorities do not have the money or the power so to do or because many have been slow to realize their value. The writer is particularly disappointed that none of the papers in this symposium at- tempts any explicit suggestion in this regard. Finally, it should be observed that the transfer of the fruits of these emergency programs to regular school agencies is going to require educational statesmanship of the highest type. The main job of those who would attempt such a task will be that of changing the psychological attitude that has developed in connection with these programs. We have been led to think of them almost exclusively as emergency relief measures and therefore fit only for the “forgotten” children or adults of the nation. The recent reorganization of the social, educational and welfare agencies and activities of the Federal Government under the Federal Security Agency ap- pears to be an excellent avenue of approach to this problem. In any event, it is the hope that we shall not lose the bene- fits of these programs, either through apathy, lack of fore- sight, or even politics. Max Lerner I CAN BEST state my reactions to the material in this issue of the AMERICAN TEACHER in the form of a series of propo- sitions: (1) That whether we like it or not, we are in the midst of a revolution in education. This revolution seems to turn upon the shift from the axis of state and local control to that of federal subvention, but actually the real shift is one of perspectives from a local and parochial to a national vision of the functions and possibilities of education. We must recognize that thus far we are only at the beginning of a change that will and must go farther. (2) That for the first time we are coming to realize the integral tie-up between education and the realities of mass life in a depression economy. We owe this realization not so much to our wis- dom and planning as to the incidence of emergency measures to meet the depression. (3) That the time has now come for wisdom and planning. The federal agencies have done a fairly good job but they must turn now to education not as a by-product of relief but as the thing that gives all eco- nomic life its meaning—not apologetically as a supplement to local efforts but affirmatively as an attempt to replace the local vision by a national vision. 57 Doak S. Campbell MOST OF THE educational work developed through agencies of the Federal Government in recent years was immediately stimulated by the general economic crisis. Although many leaders had been aware for some time of the need for the extension of education in many areas, a great majority, both within and outside the teaching profession, seemed content to remain within the customary limits of educational practice. Although the question of federal aid for education has been raised and agitated periodically for many years, it has never received favorable action except in the form of grants for special types of education. Even today, in the face of great pressure backed by convincing factual evidence, there are many who believe that any general measure providing appropriations to the states for education will fail passage by the Congress. One significant fact remains, however. In recent years, while the agitation and the debate regarding federal support have been increasing, the Federal Government has been par- ticipating more largely than ever before in the direction and support of education. To be sure, it has done so under the broad programs of agencies whose principal functions were to provide relief. Some of the educational work thus far accom- plished by these agencies has been of such significance that the public has given strong evidence of its approval. Con- gress has responded by continuing and strengthening the sup- port of some of the agencies. It may be, therefore, that federal aid to education, instead of following the recommendation that grants be made directly to the states, will continue to be provided through one or another of the federal agencies. It does not seem likely that these special types of educational efforts will be abandoned by the Federal Government. Thus, it may appear that those who fear the control by the Federal Government that might attend the proposed general grants to the states may find that the only alternative is the support and control of an in- creasingly large proportion of the educational program through separate federal agencies. Carleton Washburne FEDERAL AID in education is a necessity if we are to pro- vide anything like equal opportunities for the children of vari- ous parts of the nation. Irrefutable facts have been presented over and over again to show that the amount of taxable wealth per child is vastly greater in some states than in others, yet all states are equally represented in the Senate of the United States and population does not remain static. The welfare of the whole country depends upon the welfare of each por- tion of it. The argument that federal aid is liable to lead to federal control is a specious one. The front on which to fight is the front against federal control, not the front against federal aid. Certainly no one wants a centralized federal system of educa- tion in the United States, and certainly all forces of the country can be brought to bear against any such encroachment, but certainly, too, everyone wants reasonable equality of educa- tional opportunity for all parts of the United States. There- fore all educators should unite in an attempt to bring about a greater amount of federal aid. As a result of the depression, federal aid has come to the schools through the back door. The very division within the ranks of educators in backing a straight federal aid program for all schools has resulted in a kind of federal aid which has 58 brought with it an undesirable form of federal control and an educational dualism which is likewise undesirable. Had we had a united front to get federal aid and an agreement that under such federal aid states and smaller subdivisions would attack all the problems of education, much of this dualism could have been avoided. In the confusion and haste of the last decade, however, this opportunity was not seized and we now have federal agencies handling the education of nursery school children, the education of boys in the CCC camps, the education in the NYA camps, and adult education, as well as helping to build schoolhouses, repair and maintain school grounds, furnish art, music, and theatre (the last unfortu- nately cut off this year) to the people, and so on. These contributions by the Federal Government, while inaugurated as a form of work relief, have been a great influ- ence toward educational progress. Our problem now is to see how, without loss of federal support, these can gradually be brought under local control and at the same time to get federal aid without federal control for the regular school system. Educators and citizens interested in education should work out, possibly through the American Youth Council, possibly through one of our educational organizations, such as the National Education Association, the Progressive Education Association, the Nursery School Association, the American Federation of Teachers, or even the Office of Education of the Federal Government itself, a comprehensive, far-seeing program for the continuance and extension of federal aid and for simultaneous action toward bringing the various federal educational agencies of all sorts under increasing local control. This program should be so organized that the tremendous momentum given to an all-inclusive education by the federal activities shall be maintained and increased, not lost. Federal emergency nursery schools, for example, have hastened by decades the inclusion of nursery education in the school pro- gram. That they should be operated relatively independently of the public school system is a travesty. The transition from purely federal control to local control would doubtless have to be made through the stage of federal grants to schools that will conduct nursery schools, subject to a few broad, federally- imposed standards as to minimum teacher training, maximum pupil-teacher ratio, minimum sanitary, safety, and equipment standards, etc. As the nursery schools become absorbed in the public school system, these remaining aspects of federal con- trol can and should be removed. Similarly, the CCC should be recognized as a definite educa- tional agency and the educational conduct of these camps should be made a responsibility of state or county educational systems, with adequate support from the Federal Government and with a diminishing amount of federal control as to the way in which that support is being used. Because of the lack of preparation on the part of many public school systems to undertake responsibility for some of the adult educational programs such as the federal theatre (if it can be resuscitated), art and music projects, these will perhaps be among the last organizations to come under the state or local educational systems, but even they can be decentralized as to management and an increasing amount of responsibility and freedom given to localities and states. Much of the opposition to the WPA, which has been such a boon to schools as well as other governmental agencies, would be removed were the control less centralized and the red tape accordingly cut. The federal aid that the schools have received through the back door has been vast, in spite of the federal control. Let us work out a thorough-going, far-seeing, systematic plan for taking full advantage of the impetus that this aid has given us and for gradually but effectively making the control and responsibility less centralized without loss of the broad base of national tax support. THE AMERICAN TEACHER i John Dale Russell IN ORDER TO use most effectively the limited space assigned, I will spend no time in extending deserved praise to the Editor of the AMERICAN TEACHER for the happy idea of bs 2 book that tells bringing together in a single issue so much valuable material on federal activities in education, nor will space be devoted the whole story here to comments on or summary of the carefully written of what the New Deal has aimed articles. Instead, a plunge will be made directly into two or three issues which are raised by these reviews of some of the newer educational programs of the Federal Government. To one who has not kept closely in touch with developments, the revelation of the scope of the present federal activities in education, as indicated in the series of articles, will doubtless come as somewhat of a shock. The emphasis in this issue of to do for Young America. the AMERICAN TEACHER is quite appropriately on the newer programs, and the old established activities, such as the aid to the land-grant colleges and to vocational education, have not been treated extensively. Even though the extent of the newer programs may seem surprisingly large, the list of those reviewed is by no means exhaustive; space has apparently been lacking for a description of some programs, the most The Story of N. Y. A. important of which is perhaps that of the Tennessee Valley by Betty and Ernest K. Lindley Authority. The extraordinarily rapid expansion of federal : ; activities in education during the past six or seven years raises The record of a great social and educational a question as to the ultimate scope such programs will attain, experiment—student aid, vocational train- and there also arises the question of the desirable locus of the ing, school building projects, teacher train- control over such activities. ing. 90 pages of tables and charts, 32 pages It must be remembered that many or most of these new of photographs. $3.00. The Viking Press. educational programs of the Federal Government were initi- ated with unprecedented haste. Relief was the primary objec- tive in most of these new ventures, and one cannot stop long to consider details of organization and niceties of jurisdiction when people are starving. The first flurry of excitement under which these new activities were initiated, however, has now passed, and it is time to take careful stock to see which pro- grams have become something more than emergency measures ARACTER and to assign the permanent services their appropriate places. C H The fact must frankly be faced that in these newer educa- tional programs a federal system of education has been devel- - DU CAT i Oo i oped that is parallel to and in large measure independent of a the long existing educational organization of the states. ina DEMOCRACY Despite the state and local sponsorship which is referred to in the articles on the WPA program, and despite the instances by S. R. Slavson of effective co-operation with local schools and colleges in the educational program of the CCC, the fact remains that all An important, practical, highly recommended plan for integrative education and the practical proced- these newer educational programs are supported and, with the ures for carrying it out. “Should inspire all exception of the NYA program of aid to students, to a consid- teachers and social leaders to make their agencies erable extent controlled by agencies outside the regular school real bulwarks against undemocratic ideologies. . — 7 > system. In this respect these newer programs depart from w. 5. Soe — previous policies of the Federal Government with respect to education. The question may be put bluntly: Are there to yO U TH — be two educational systems or only one? The question implies no criticism of the initiation of these li T BA | programs by federal agencies. Indeed, if any criticism is £ ions oo any: implied, it should rest on the authorities who are responsible by Dr. Bruce Melvin for the regular system of education, who were neglecting to provide these important educational services that have been A forthright, ——. angen + facts a —~ developed so effectively under the new federal programs. Too -—_ Regge wees = — “This book te « ch oy generally in the past the thinking of educators has been in to all American citizens . . . I think it will serve terms of a school system rather than an educational system. to clarify the problems before us and will point the way to sound solutions.”—Eleanor Roosevelt. But having developed these new programs, is the Federal $2.00 Government to continue to operate and control them inde- pendently of the existing state and local educational systems, or will the day come when these newer services will be incor- ASSOCIATION PRESS porated as a part of the regular educational system? 347 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y. In the opinion of the writer, endless confusion is certain At your bookseller, or from APRIL, 1940 59 to result if the Federal Government attempts permanently to maintain educational services apart from the regular system of public education. Before steps can be taken to incorporate these newer services into the regular system, however, two assurances will be necessary. First, there must be developed a generation of educators, especially in positions of adminis- trative authority, who are sympathetic with the kinds of service rendered in these newer programs, who are competent to direct such services, and who have a broad social outlook and an unhampered vision of the way in which education may serve social needs. Second, there must be assurance of con- tinued federal support of these projects. The idea of federal support immediately raises a question as to the degree of federal control that will follow the provi- sion of funds for education. This is a critical issue, not only with respect to the newer educational programs, but especially with respect to a possible appropriation of federal funds for general educational purposes. Fear is widespread among educators that federal funds may be followed by bureaucratic domination of the educational sys- tem from some office in Washington. The writer is inclined to believe that this fear has its foundation in the observation by school people of the manner in which the federal program for vocational education has been operated during the past twenty-three years. In the Smith-Hughes program, it cannot be denied, there has been an extensive dictation of policy and operating procedures by federal authorities. The program of vocational education, however, has been a most unfortunate example from which to draw conclusions with reference to the operation of the federal end of state-federal co-operative projects. A report of the National Resources Committee, in which all the federal programs of grants-in-aid to the states were reviewed, concluded that the two instances in which the largest amount of federal control has followed grants were the program of vocational education and the National Guard. A study of other federal grants-in-aid indicates clearly that the central government can and does make liberal appropria- tions for projects carried on by states, without following the grants by any objectionable form of control. In the modern complicated social and economic situation there are certain educational problems which can be solved effectively only by some activity on the part of the Federal Government. The function of the Federal Government in education seems tc lie peculiarly along two lines: (1) stimula- tion of new types of educational service, and (2) provision of financial support of both old and new types of service for which the necessary funds cannot be provided by states and local communities. Spencer Miller, Jr. THE ELIMINATION of educational inequality was one of the first goals that American labor unions set for themselves a hundred years ago. To repair this inequality labor first urged the establishment of a system of free public schools. For a century now it has stood uncompromisingly in support of the extension of educational opportunities for all, first at the ele- mentary level, then at the secondary, and finally at the college and adult levels. “There is no single field which is more the concern of organized labor than education. We are proud of our continuous activity and constructive influence in connec- tion with educational policies and institutions,” states the Executive Council’s Report to the recent Cincinnati conven- tion of the American Federation of Labor. Equalization of educational opportunity continues to be one of the first articles of labor’s faith. To achieve this goal work- ing men have consistently urged the expenditure of public moneys. Labor supports federal aid to education in further- 60 It considers federal aid no new policy but one which has a long and honorable tradition in our land. From the Morrill Act for land-grant colleges at the time of the Civil War to the Smith-Hughes Act of the World War days, labor has supported grants-in-aid as consistent with our deter- mined policy to make educational opportunity the universal ance of this aim. privilege of citizenship. The Federation’s endorsement of recent legislation for federal grants to equalize educational opportunities among and within the states has carried with it the proviso that there should be no federal control or dicta- tion of local educational plans. This clear declaration of policy it has consistently supported, a policy which probably states the position of every responsible section of the labor movement. When the Emergency Educational Program of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was set up in 1932 it had the support of labor. It considered the efforts of this program in the field of adult education, illiteracy, nursery schools, rural education, vocational education and vocational rehabilitation as a sound form of work relief. To the Civilian Conservation Corps, perhaps the most successful of all the emergency activi- ties, it gave unqualified support, in part because its standards had been set by its director, an experienced trade union official. No one can read the record of these various activities as set forth in this symposium without becoming impressed with the social imagination which has been shown in the attempts to experiment along a wide range of new educational frontiers. It is a distinct service for the American Federation of Teachers to bring ali these reports together in one collection. Quite aside from the merit or demerit of any of these programs one cannot fail to be struck with the vast social surplus in our land which makes it possible for us to embark upon such a varied program with such lavish expenditures. We do waste in America, but we can build! For so varied a series of activities perhaps no one person is competent to pass judgment. In the field of adult educa- tion, and especially workers’ education, some of the work under the direction of Miss Hilda Smith has been good, other THE AMERICAN TEACHER work has been indifferent or ineffective. Shifting personnel, lack of genuine co-operation, actual prejudice about this field of educational effort, and the essentially emergency character of both policy and teaching personnel have all made difficult an already complicated problem. The same story can be told, no doubt, with variations about all the other projects. What the residue of all of this will be it is difficult to say. That there will be something of significance left from these various experiments and the expenditure of a vast amount of public funds no person can doubt. Three things appear clear. First, there are vast hinterlands of untouched educational oppor- tunity that need to be cultivated if we are in truth to become an educated democracy. The second is that so long as educa- tional inequality exists in our land it represents a threat to the stability of our American way. The third is that we shall need more rather than less in the way of federal aid if we are to equalize educational opportunity. One other conclusion seems clear to labor. Many of these efforts are in the nature of emergency activities and by virtue of that very definition must come to an end. Some have un- doubtedly already run their course. Much of the work that is now being carried on will be discontinued as we return to a more normal condition in our economy. Certainly it would be a mistake from an administrative standpoint to con- tinue these new agencies beyond the emergency as functionally unrelated to the Office of Education as many of these now are. It has been labor’s steadfast belief that educational agencies should be under the direction of the Office of Education of the United States Government, and that educational and not emergency standards should govern these activities. Donald DuShane AS A RESULT of the breakdown of public education in numerous localities during the depression and of the failure of the conventional educational program to meet the needs of the vast number of youths out of school and seeking jobs, APRIL, 1940 Left, daughter of a migratory worker in Harlingen, Texas; right, boy in slums, Baltimore, Md. (Farm Security Ad- ministration photographs ) Four million young people in the United States between the ages of 16 and 24 are out of school and unemployed, recent studies show. Another million of this same age group are working only part time. Only 35 per cent of those who secure employment will be required to do skilled or semi-skilled work. the amount and kind of federal aid to public education has been vastly increased in recent years. It is becoming more and more apparent that several of the newer types of federal aid activities, such as NYA and CCC, will have to be continued indefinitely and that federal financial aid for state education is now necessary and will continue to be for an indefinite number of years in the future. Those who are acquainted with the inadequate financing and the low standards of public education in a number of states and the meager provisions for rural education in most states will welcome federal financial support and will continue to approve several of the varied federal activities now in operation in the field of local education. It is to be hoped, however, that all members of the teaching profession will be alert to prevent federal aid from following unwise courses or programs. It is conceivable that federal aid, if not wisely planned, may have injurious effects upon public education. I shall enumerate a few of the undesirable possibilities of federal aid. (1) It is conceivable that the Federal Government might set up a duplicate school system with separately operated buildings and teaching forces for the purpose of vocational or trade training. Such a procedure might weaken public schools and would certainly result in duplication and waste. (2) Federal aid might be granted under such conditions that a part or all of the present local financial support of schools might disappear. It is conceivable that federal financial aid might be so administered as merely to provide a new source of school funds rather than additional funds. Several states have learned to their sorrow that the increase of state support of local schools can be so planned that it will result in the total abolishment of local school support and thus become a source of injury to the schools because of reductions in the salaries of teachers and injurious decreases in expenditures for operation. (3) With federal financial support for local schools will come inevitably certain federal determinations of how local school funds must be spent. Irrespective of the safeguards that are written in the original appropriation bill, in the course of time attempts will be made to establish definite controls of certain phases of local school management and programs and of academic and political freedom of teachers. The “Red rider” law was possible in the District of Columbia be- cause of the financial support of the District of Columbia schools by Congress. If state schools were now receiving federal aid the passage of the present Hatch bill would impose very definite restrictions upon the citizenship rights of all public school teachers. In spite of possible dangers to the schools, certain new types of federal aid are desirable, necessary and inevitable. It is therefore the first duty of the teaching profession to attempt to guide federal aid along those lines which will be construc- tive and beneficial and will make possible a better nation-wide education of the masses of our people. To do this it will be necessary for all teachers’ organizations to seek a mutual understanding and a common program for the wise develop- ment of federal aid. Failing such co-operation, let us not forget that there is the probability that federal aid will tend to decrease the total support of public education and will tend to subject teaching to pressures and controls destructive of local initiative and teacher freedom. If we are to have federal aid, let us have it so planned and administered that it will give us the maximum of benefits and the minimum of danger and injury to education. mong the New Books TEACHERS FOR DEMOCRACY, edited by Grorce E. AXTELLE and Witt1aM W. WATTENBERG. The Fourth Year- book of the John Dewey Society. New York: D. Appleton Century. 412 pages. $2.50. The John Dewey Society in its short history as an organiza- tion has presented some of the most forth-right, scholarly volumes on the problems of education in a democracy now available to readers. The latest volume, Teachers For Democracy, edited by Axtelle and Wattenberg, is an appro- priate addition to this series. The authors, preliminary to presenting some fundamental aspects of a program of education for teachers of a de- mocracy, sketch briefly the influences which limit the scope of the present programs. Among these influences are the lack of respectability of professional education resulting from the opposition of a group with an academic outlook and the sterility of the professional program due to an emphasis on theory abstracted from reality and to a lack of direction of the program as a whole. The subsequent chapters present goals and suggestions for creating a directed, realistic plan of teacher education for both aspiring and in-service teachers. The major phases of this program include the selection and guidance of teachers, the abilities essential to meet the teaching needs in schools which are being altered to fit the democratic ideal, the basic tenets of a psychology of learn- ing in harmony with a social outlook of education, the con- tent of the general and professional curriculum of teachers, the many-sided facets and the organization of the entire program and, very appropriately, the administration of the whole enterprise. The last two chapters presenting “The Social Context of the Teaching Profession” and “Social Implementation of Democracy and Education,” both by Axtelle, are exceedingly lucid and bold and add a post-reflective significance to all the previous ideas in the volume. The brief analysis of the present American scene is penetrating and disturbing— COOPERATIVE BOOKS Norman, Oklahoma, Dept. A. T. 50 cents each $2 for Series of 12 .. What Is Democracy? by Dewey, Bode, Smith -— ——¥ to Paul ¥. Anderson, by Kirchwey, Villard, ° Poetry Least Popular of Arts, by Immel and O .-Movies: War Propaganda 1914-1 . by Winifred Johnston Continuing a dynamic social-studies program TEN COMMUNITIES Paul R. Hanna = * = |. James Quillen * Gladys L. Potter For middle grades A stimulus to realistic community study, these life stories of ten actual towns and cities show America changing from pioneer days to technology. | For primary level | PETER’S FAMILY (Primer) SUSAN'S NEIGHBORS AT WORK (Book Two) DAVID'S FRIENDS AT SCHOOL (Book One) CENTERVILLE (Book Three) WITHOUT MACHINERY (Also for Third Grade) SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY Chicago Atfanta Dallas New York 62 disturbing because Axtelle dares refer to the present American slump as a “chronic crisis” and even more disturbing because he includes “public-school teachers, superintendents, college faculties and presidents” in the “muddled” middle class. However, it is the suggested social implementation which follows this analysis which will evoke criticism. Many analyses of the current American picture have been made since the grand social awakening of the educational profession about ten years ago. Although these analyses, in general, are vigor- ous and show broad insight into the complexities of society, their writers stop short of recommendations couched in specifics which are sufficiently tangible to form the basis for direct action. Frequent references are found to “groups need to work together,” “the uniting of the masses including those in and out of professions” and “beginning those steps that lead to collectivism” with the oft-stated reminder that “the educational profession alone cannot redirect these un- desirable social trends.’ True, these ideas have not been received cordially by many readers; however, many who did accept these general statements will not accept Axtelle’s specific suggestion that education unionize and work co- operatively with unionized skilled and unskilled workers. Those who reject this proposal, in order to be logical should also reject the analysis which forms its context, for Axtelle makes a real contribution, not only in presenting an under- standable searching analysis, but also in following it with concise Jogical implementation. These two chapters might very advantageously have been used at the beginning of the volume to sharpen the direction of the suggested program. Many aspects of teacher education are not dealt with in this volume, such as examples of present best practices and the improvement of teacher-placement policies; and some readers may regret the small amount of space devoted to the place and description of the laboratory school in the sug- gested program. This reader regrets one omission—the omis- sion of the co-operation of elementary and secondary school teachers in the preparation of this volume. Teachers, in the undemocratic tradition common to much practice, have had their educational programs prescribed, their certification leg- islated, their salaries decided, their social and personal living habits supervised, and, finally, their retirement dictated. In a democratic outlook, the teachers should participate in all affairs which concern them personally. Roma GANS x*wk FEDERAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION, by Luioyp E. BLaucH. Washington: The National Education Association. 151 pages. $.50. Not a little of the latent opposition to the Thomas-Harri- son and Larrabee bills (S. 1305 and H.R. 3517) now pending in Congress rests upon the premise, I think, that their enact- ment would embark the federal government upon a radically new educational venture. Dr. Blauch’s study serves to remind us that this is very far from being the case, that the educa- tional activities of the federal government, however much they may need to be expanded, have been both varied and multitudinous. It is not Dr. Blauch’s purpose, however, to argue either for increased federal aid to education or for any other cause. His is the more unexciting task of pure analysis, of describ- ing, within the spatial limits set for himself, the purpose, scope, administration and organization of the major educa- THE AMERICAN TEACHER ne aaa gt an IS RII, 2 Sates: , a ee woo earns seta nleett iss DEEP EIR, 2 ee ea bob TA TET, tional activities of the federal government. In undertaking this task, Dr. Blauch has been able to draw upon an extended experience in several federal agencies. In addition, he has been able to secure the active co-operation and assistance of numerous federal officials. The result is a singularly useful guide to the educational work of our national government. Ross THALHEIMER x kk GOVERN MENT SUPPORT OF WORKERS’ EDUCATION by Ereanor G. Corr. New York: American Labor Educa- tion Service, Inc. 72 pages. 50 cents. Miss Coit has packed the results of months of intensive research and years of study and experience into the forty- eight pages of her inquiry into the validity and advisability on government support for workers’ education. Her book is scholarly, well-documented, and remarkably comprehensive for its brief span. It will be eagerly read by those increasing numbers in the labor movement and in forward-looking ranks outside who are concerned with the future of workers’ educa- tion in this country. It will be enjoyed also by those who seek to understand the influences which have enabled the Scandinavian countries, until now, to develop a culture which includes all economic groups in its various phases. Such advantages in government aid as stability and long-time plan- ning, such occasional disadvantages as dilution of curriculum, rigidity of procedure, unfriendly inspection and unsympathetic control are analyzed in the light of the cultural backgrounds of Denmark, Sweden and England. There is also a chapter on the brief United States experience of federal aid on a relief basis. A fine bit of color is the quotation from Harold Jensen’ on impartial teaching. The conclusion is foreshadowed throughout—that a strengthened labor movement, active both politically and industrially, must assume responsibility for a workers’ education program in this country for the best use and control of public assistance for a permanent and effective program. ALICE SHOEMAKER CONTRIBUTORS ALICE BARROWS is Senior Specialist in School-Building Problems in the U. S. Office of Education. . . . VIRGINIA COCALIS is a staff member of the Farm Security Adminis- tration. . . . REIGN S. HADSELL is in the Consumers’ Counsel Division of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. . WILLIAM H. CARY, JR., is a member of the Informa- tional Service Division of the U. S. Housing Authority. . AUBREY WILLIAMS is Administrator of the National Youth Administration. ... JAMES J. McENTEE is Director of the CCC. ... NEWTON EDWARDS is Professor of Education at the University of Chicago. ... JOHN H. LLOYD is a staff mem- ber of the U. S. Office of Education . . . as is LLOYD E. BLAUCH, Consultant in Inter-American Educational Rela- tions. . . . M. M. CHAMBERS is a staff member of the American Youth Commission. . . . W. W. WATTENBERG teaches at the Chicago Teachers College. . . . JOHN K. NORTON is Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University . . . where ROMA GANS also teaches. ROSS THALHEIMER is National Legislative Representa- tive of the AFT. . . . ALICE SHOEMAKER is a member of the Teachers Union at Madison, Wisconsin, and is in the Worker’s Education Division at the University of Wisconsin. . All other contributors are identified elsewhere in this issue. RESEARCH FOR WRITERS AND PROFESSIONALS Thesis work, research pagers, oy articles, speeches, developed for busy professionals by experienced re- search and editorial staff. STANDARD RESEARCH ASSOCIATES. 140 West 42nd St., N. Y. C., Tel. Wis- consin 7-5477. APRIL, 1940 SPECIAL SUMMER OVERSEAS VACATIONS OVERLAND Independent or conducted trips to CALIFORNIA + ALASKA «+ HAWAII+ MEXICO - GUATEMALA+ FLORIDA+ HAVANA+ BERMUDA - * SOUTH AMERICA - For as low as 00 and up Send for our special Tour BOOKLET! per day OVERSEAS Travel Service 55 West 42nd St. New York, N. Y. LOngacre 5-6135 Sublease, July-August, spacious, coo] 3 room furnished apartment, convenient uni- versities, $60. Hayett, 230 W. 15th Street, New York City. Union Made Papers MIMEOGRAPH BOND A 100% Union Paper House McGREGOR PAPER CO. 515 S. Wells St. CHICAGO, ILL. BOOK SPECIAL ARTICLES, RESEARCH PAPERS, SPEECHES, treatises, on educational, literary, sociological, economic, etc., topics. Outlines, excerpts, footnotes, bibliographies. Definite requirements of patrons fulfilled in over twenty years’ service. Moderate charges. AvuTHors Reszarcn Bureau, 516 Fifth Avenue, New York. Savings + Service — Many Satisfied Customers JOSEPH P. DORNICH INC, 205 E. 42 ST. New York,N. ¥. - MURRAY HILL 6-2343 DISTRIBUTORS of GENERAL MERCHANDISE for all TEACHERS - —STANDARD PRODUCTS “priced to sell” — WE SAVE OUR CUSTOMERS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS EVERY DAY. JUST TELL US WHAT YOU NEED— IF IT IS NATIONALLY ADVERTISED WE CAN BUY IT FOR YOU AT A SAVING. All Merchandise is Sold in the Manufacturers’ Original Cartons—And Carries the Mfg. Warranty. AIR CONDITIONING ELECTRIC RAZORS OUTBOARD MOTORS ELEC, APPLIANCES PHONOGRAPHS AUTO HEATERS FANS RADIOS AUTOMOBILES FILMS REFRIGERATORS AUTO TIRES FURNITURE RUGS BICYCLES GOLF EQUIPMENT SUNLAMPS BABY SCALES HOU oe SEWING MACHINES BABY COACHES IRO SILVERWARE CAMERAS. raat RANGES SPORTING GOODS CARP’ AMPS TYPEWRITERS ETING 444 Ee CARPET SWEEPERS iI LEATHER GOODS VACUUM CLEANERS ‘LOCKS MATTRESSES WASHERS DIAMONDS | MIXERS WATCHES Phone—Call—or Write for Prices S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G your Dollar is Our Business— J. Dornich, Inc. T a MAIL COUPON ~~~~~~ SPECIAL ; 205 EB. 42d St. Ne. 8 |i fro" } Dateen Daten I am interested in saving on leather field the following items. (Check case. ; items on the list.) Regular list $7.95 ‘ Name.... sheet ee eeeeee YOUR COST : $4.77 Same Camera Address . re w as h a -7 lens for ' an addition- 6 EF. cccccccee BOBO. coccccves al $2.00. ; 63 THIS ISSUE MAX LERNER JOHN H. LLOYD JAMES J. McENTEE SPENCER MILLER EARL V. MOORE LAWRENCE MORRIS JOHN. K. NORTON “RUSSELL C. PARR FLOYD REEVES G. OTT ROMNEY [7 JOHN DALE RUSSELL HILDA W. SMITH M. W. STEPHENSON CHARLES THOMPSON -C. W. WASHBURNE W. W. WATTENBERG _ AUBREY WILLIAMS dd) ee FEDERAL AID ISSUE-35 EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY—DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATIO: ¢ i