VOL. V, NO. 2 JANUARY, 1926 BULLETIN OF THE Department of Elementary School Principals The Elementary School Assembly—Krauss................. 67 America’s “ Satety First °—Winelp. «....,..5..66 006000 s0cccns 70 Teacher Participation from the Viewpoint of the Principal— IN aici r ase wiaavciere cia hia ridie ats aR ous Sonne ce ES 71 The Project Method in Supervision—Rich.................... 76 Principals as Interpreters—Dorsey..................- 0c cece go Some New Viewpoints in Education—Hutchings............. 04 Some Qualifications Required of the Principal of a Modern BNET: SEO —O UN UNNI ids. 6550 calc’ «: Onecare waisted svete td agraeonte IOI Pupil Administration and Character Training—Gillet........ 104 Report of the Indianapolis Meeting of the Department of Ele- mentary School Principals—Longshore.................. 110 World Conference at Edinburgh—Pyrtle..................... 116 | PURE IIIS ooo vo. ccisiccds Kadinesd cde vee nd cakewans ened 118 Why Join the Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Association?................. 120 ROG DALG LOCAL WOON—ATGORTE oa ie ccc asics eiccie Se eweaeetieisys 123 era rrr re eRe er 125 Why a Midyear Meeting ?—Sargeant................-.5-44: 127 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS of the National Education Association of the United States 1201 SIXTEENTH STREET NORTHWEST, WASHINGTON, D. C. Entered as second-class matter November 20, 1922, at the post-office at Washington, D. C., under act of August 24, 1912. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized December 18, 1922. BULLETIN of the DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Published quarterly in October, January, April, and July by the Depart- ment of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Asso- ciation of the United States. The payment of $2.00 active membership dues entitles a member to attend all meetings of the Department, to hold office, and to receive the Bulletin quarterly. One dollar of each membership fee is for a year’s subscription to the Bulletin. Subscription to non-members is $2.00 per year; single copies, 50 cents; Yearbook, $1.50. Members are requested to report at once any change of address, giving old as well as new vemnnnealll Entered as second-class matter November 20, 1922, at - the onititiins at Washington, D. C., under act of August 24, 1912. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, suthasiont December 18, apne. Executive and Editorial ‘Offices, 1201 Sixteenth Street Northwest, Washington, D. C. OFFICERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 1925-26 President, Ip—E G. SARGEANT School No. 10, Paterson, New Jersey First Vice-President, HELEN V. SHOVE Longfellow School, Minneapolis, Minnesota Second Vice-President, J. S. NANTS Bates School, St. Louis, Missouri Third Vice-President, }. D. WILLIAMS Woodlawn School, Birmingham, Alabama Secretary and Editor, Department Bulletins, E. RuTH PyrtLe McKinley School, Liacoln, Nebraska Treasurer, COURTLAND V. Davis J. E. B. Stuart School, Norfolk, Virginia Executive Committee W. T. Loncsriore Greenwood School, Kansas City, Missouri Jessie M. Fink Palmer School, Grand Rapids, Michigan ANNA LaurRA FORCE Broadway Junior High School, Denver, Colorado Luise H. Krauss Grattan School, San Francisco, California Editor Fifth Yearbook, ArTHUR S. GT B. F. Day School, Seattle, Washington Mi tru int inc to bec all ent ind uni to cor to cat lea sur life his hig be anc get an to are its oft gor act dis THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSEMBLY LuisE H. Krauss Principal, Grattan School, San Francisco, California N FOLLOWING the growth of the modern school system, we cannot fail to recognize the important place that social activities are playing. More and more is it an acknowledged fact that in these activities lies the true path to the development of a democracy within the school itself. When the individual pupil feels that the school is “ his school ” and its interests are identical with his own, an attitude of cooperation has been inculcated which is invaluable. With such a “ school spirit ” there is no limit to the possibility of developing our national growth. “Where there is unity of spirit, the individual grows more effective because he becomes more than an individual; because he is one of a group, all members of which are inspired by a common purpose; he gains new enthusiasm and confidence.” Dr. Bagley says, “Social stability demands a certain likemindedness, or, better, a rather complete resemblance among individuals in respect of dominant conduct-controls.” In the upper elementary grades, pupils evince an eagerness to serve unitedly in a common cause. Here comes in the opportunity of the school to provide a real issue so that pupils may get training in initiative and the consequent joy that follows accomplishment. At the entrance to a certain school building I read these words: “ Enter to learn, go forth to serve.” Is this not the responsibility that we as edu- cators must fulfil? Is it not our duty to make it possible for the pupil to so learn that he may go forth to serve? How better can this be done than by surrounding him with these opportunities of self-expression and so in early life adjusting him to the idea of active participation in the affairs of life— his school. Insofar as a school is able to do this, does it not fulfil its highest obligation to youth? Sisson says in his Education for Freedom that the “ ruling idea should be that of the child as a human being, with his own hopes and ambitions and his own destiny to work out; as an embryo citizen already possessing, in germ, the powers and capacities which are later to fit him to enjoy the rights and discharge the obligations of freedom. He is to be ceaselessly encouraged to think for himself, and hence his ideas, even though mistaken, sometimes are to be received with respect and sympathy.” Through the assembly we have our finest avenue of approach. Through its organization every student is reached. In no other way can this be done. The student learns the value of working with others for a common cause, often sacrificing his individual wishes when it is necessary for the common good. What better way is there of learning this lesson of life! Thus by active participation he becomes a contributing member of his community, discovering that the good citizen has duties as well as privileges. [67] ‘ 68 NATIONAL EpucATION ASSOCIATION a One of the great objectives of education today is the teaching of civic responsibility. In the assembly we have our ideal situation for that develop- ment. Another objective is the growth of moral consciousness. “Through heart- to-heart talks the principal can so mold the group thought of his students that ideals of human attitudes may be consciously impressed. Still another objective is preparation for leisure time. Here again the assembly is an important agency. Its programs in their variety will embrace all phases of interest—music, art, dramatics, athletics, etc. Social growth is another objective to be attained. We readily under- stand how the assembly contributes to this. All meet on a common ground of helpfulness. How does the assembly help in bringing about a feeling of “ world consciousness ”’ ? Its programs may show through pageants just how inter- dependent all nations are. In schools where the foreigner is present, there is a marvelous opportunity to show how his civilization has contributed toward the growth of the world. Think for a moment what a wealth of material could be utilized in appreciation of what America owes the foreigner, and, on the other hand, what America has done for the foreigner within her gates. The program of school assembly should make an appeal to all types of pupils if it is to function satisfactorily. It must be interesting, instructive, and inspirational. It must grow out of the general classroom work—must have for its purpose educational development through socialization. What an impetus is given to the attainment of those subjects which contribute to these programs. The students work untiringly in preparing for them. At the opening of school it is best to plan the series of assemblies to be held during the term. Vhis should be done by a committee of pupils, with one faculty member as adviser. Special days should be set aside for programs appropriate to the occasion. Other days should be assigned to the various classes, giving them a choice of what they may deem worthy of presenting to the school as a whole. The meetings should not exceed twenty or thirty minutes, and should be held once a week. The first assembly should be very carefully planned. It will give the keynote of what the pupils may expect at subsequent meetings. The best program would certainly be an inspirational talk by the principal. This will be his great opportunity of meeting the new pupils, enlisting their sympathies, and gaining their confidence and respect. His attitude will do much toward adjusting the newcomers to the different situation, and this personal interest on his part will do more than anything else in arousing a feeling of loyalty toward their new school. Following are some of the programs that have been presented in our school : To develop the idea of world-consciousness the teacher of geography in the seventh and eighth grades helped the pupils work out a most interesting pageant. America was represented as receiving what other nations had contributed toward her civilization. This entailed much research work on th co its da Ww Ww th pi m wi Sl his ph we In da gi: th th ad na he ur te; th oO d ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 69 the part of the pupils in ascertaining what they must do to best portray the country they represented. The history of that country, its resources, its art, its literature, and the costumes of its people were all studied. The folk dances of many of them were taught by the physical education teacher, and, where possible, the songs of the nations were sung. Everyone was imbued with the idea that we belong to one people, and that permanent peace of the world can be brought about only by mutual respect and understanding. The literature classes in the eighth grades developed the project of ‘ The Open Book.” The chapters of this book were Ancient Literature, Medieval, and those of modern time. The year’s reading was thus presented by dif- ferent groups of pupils. Characterizations were given from Julius Cesar, Merchant of Venice, Vision of Sir Launfal, Ulysses, Snowbound, Rip Van Winkle, Evangeline, Robin Hood, and Pied Piper. Much ingenuity was displayed by the pupils. The characters had to be entirely their own interpretation. The sixth grades in their study of Greek and Roman history chose those characters that particularly interested them. Among those given were Diogenes, Cornelia and her Jewels, Julius Caesar, Cincinnatus, Pheddip- pides, the Marathon Runner, and Socrates. These were portrayed in panto- mime, a speaker from each group telling the story of the act. The costumes were all made by the pupils. As a part of our regular program, two reels of motion pictures are given in the assembly hall. These reels are chosen by a committee, in consultation with the supervisor of visual education. In this way the work of the upper grades is supplemented by visual aids. Sometimes the subjects chosen are historical, sometimes literary, but more often they portray places of interest. The school balopticon also affords the means of many an assembly. Slides can be made by the pupils, illustrating geography talks, or visits to historical places. Sometimes a visitor may give an illustrated talk. For an out-of-door assembly, we had a circus. This brought in all the physical education work of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. There were about twenty-eight squads all doing different “ acts” at the same time. In one corner of the yard were the girls of one class with the victrola, dancing one of their many folk dances. Just opposite were the mats with girls turning somersaults and handsprings. Then there were boys doing the wheelbarrow run—others at the handball courts showing their skill— the basket ball courts umpired by boy captains, playing their game with the added zest of a large audience. Girls too were busy at their own courts. In no better way can the work of physical education be motivated. Written and oral compositions will make fine material for an assembly— here is the best audience idea possible. Work of any type may furnish a program. It is our experience that nothing in the school has done so much for the unifying of ideas, teaching pupils to evaluate material for group gatherings, teaching them to cooperate with their leaders, and to extend courtesy toward their fellow pupils at all times. AMERICA’S “SAFETY FIRST ” A. E. WINSHIP Editor, Journal of Education, Boston, Massachusetts HEN AUTOMOBILES became universally used, and the tempta- tion to test the speed of the motor was tingling in the veins of everyone at the wheels, all traffic rules and regulations began to be changed and every year some new rules, signals, and laws have been enforced, always to promote safety and every one walking and driving has had to learn and obey many traffic laws unheard of ten years ago. It is equally true that the schools have been creating Safety First plans and purposes not the least of which has been the creation of a new signal service through the elementary school principal. The elementary schools, notably the grades above the fourth, are character making school years. Subject methods were all right as the traditional work of the schools when elementary school graduates were accepted as educated because their fathers and mothers had started life on the three R’s. Ox-teams and draft horses did not endanger the traveling public in traditional explanations of why we “ inverted the divisor ” in fractions, and understood why “ the verb to-be ” was an exception to the rules of grammar. Anything that made it difficult to understand what you did and why you did it was “ progressive ” in elementary education until one had to learn all sorts of new things in order to play safe in health, in thrift, in conduct, and in order to get a job, to be promoted in a job or to enter a dental school, a normal school, a commercial school or do anything in a modern way. In the olden time all a “ promoter” had to do to attain fame was to induce a teacher to adopt his subject-method, but all that is fast becoming a thing of the past. The elementary school principal is signaling all the teachers in the school what to do and what not to do to make the life of all the children fit into the traffic rules of the day. Conduct and not cleverness, appreciation of the fact that character and not reputation has market value, is the standard of the elementary school of today. The elementary school principal must make it impossible for boys to market wormy apples or put good fruit only on the top. There is honesty in a hundred ways today that were inconsequential twenty-five years ago. It is infinitely more important that the elementary school principal send a child home who has a contagious disease than that he keep him after school because he hasn’t learned something of a popular new method. Safety First in health, in conduct, in good manners, in square dealing, in truth telling, are achievements for which the elementary school principal is responsible. No teacher can go his own pace in his own way any more than he can cross the street when and where he pleases. He must heed the principal’s signals and must heed the red, the blue, and the amber lights of the prin- cipal as carefully as he does when waiting to cross the street. [70] ar lit TEACHER PARTICIPATION FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF THE PRINCIPAL Mary McSkiMMon Principal, Pierce School, Brookline, Massachusetts, President of the National Education Association F YOU WILL travel with me toward the rising sun for a night and a day and another night, I will take you to a little town you probably never saw, but from the spool factory that gives the town’s reason for existence, the product comes to every home in the land, for most of the cotton thread used in America is wound upon spools. The big forests of birch that determined the factory’s location have long been used up, and even the crown lands in Canada sell stumpage to the hunger of American industry fed with busy needles. It is a strange spot for a big factory. A river, lake-born and mountain-fed, turns the factory’s wheels at times. Sometimes steam generated in boilers, fed with sawdust from the spool machines, does the work, while the king- fisher rattles from bank to bank outside and the wild iris embroiders the surrounding meadows. Once, simple hand-machines made the spools, one at a time. Now, complicated machines, each a product of a hundred inven- tions, turn spools out in streams, but the hour strikes often for the biggest and best of these machines, and all shining and important as they are, they are sent into exile, exile without an end. Before tomorrow’s sun sets, some little invention may be made by one of the machine’s operators that will put an end to the service the present machines render. Newer and faster, forever faster, machines will send to the scrap heap the fastest one of today. It is the operator of the machine who must tend it with patience and under- standing. It is through that understanding that the best work the machine is capable of giving is led forth. No matter who planned, who built, who installed the machine, it is the operator who is responsible for the perfect product, and a conserved machine. He is a participator in every policy that concerns the machine. Now no matter who directs, who equips the school, the teacher is the operator. I have seen school systems where the teacher seemed to be thought of as the machine instead of the operator. To expect her to manipulate so costly and delicate a machine as a class of children, without participation in the educational policies that determine its power and direction, is like putting a workman before his machine with his eyes blindfolded, and his ears, like those of Ulysses’ crew, filled with wax. Since every complicated part of the machine goes to the making of a valuable product, it follows that success depends entirely upon the knowledge of all delicate adjustments, and no skill, nor resources, nor experimentations can be so important to any kind of directing individual as they are to the operator of the school—the teacher. If you look at the Fourth Yearbook of the Department of Elementary School Principals, you will find listed thirty-two of the principal activities with which he should be concerned. Take each one in turn and see if the machine could be run with its operator ignorant of anyone of these. Most of the adjustments of machines in the spool factory are suggested by the operators themselves. [71] 72 NATIONAL EpucATION ASSOCIATION The teaching world knows that the curriculum must be made entirely over to meet the needs of the life of today, to free the school from the useless cogs fastened there by the honest need or vain caprice of earlier days. There are chapters in many textbooks retained for fear of offend- ing someone in authority, who is ready to die like the British soldiers at Concord bridge—‘‘ To keep the past upon its throne.”’ There are outlived textbooks, beautiful in make-up, once useful enough, but whose sweet and tender juices, if such they ever had, have long since been hardened into wood. There are textbooks that are hated on sight by those who live near enough to childhood to know its needs. How can anyone but the teacher herself bestow the insight born of intimate understanding to the selection of text- books? Surely the curriculum with all its needs, of being razed to the ground and rebuilt in the light of the new knowledge of interest and primi- tive instincts, and the variations between chronological and mental age, and play and self direction, and sunshine and sleep, need to be built out of the work of every teacher concerned, under the guidance of the wise superin- tendent and with the keenest discerning wisdom of the principal who knows that his best service will be but to clear the path of all obstructions. Then the teacher is aware of the next great problem looming in the offing. He knows that being born on the same date does not make children alike. There is the problem of the gifted child, he who needs the wisest care that his gifts may be turned into the great assets for our land that they may become. The adapting of school work to individual difference of pupils is a new demand that is clamoring to be heard. The teacher is the center and circumference of this task. Segregation alone will not accomplish this end. First of all she wants her pupils to have some means of self-checking up on their own achievement on every subject. Perhaps the new kind of text- book will be made by the group participating in its making. It may lead to some kind of loose-leaf textbook with provision for inserting material pro- vided by the child’s own research, made to aid in his reacting growth. It will recognize his individual need on the one hand and the demands of the educational expert on the other. It will not be the publisher who shall stumble accidentally on this new kind of textbook, but who of us will not hail its coming? These books will conserve the blessed gifts of interest and curiosity that children bear from their first contact with this world, so wondrous fair, and which when they lose, they themselves are lost indeed. In the Twenty-third Yearbook for the National Society for the Study of Education is a significant sentence for all principals and teachers partici- pating in this study of gifted children. (Bagley and DeVoss)—“ In the main our subjects have educated themselves. They have made rapid progress in learning because of intellectual initiative and insatiable curiosity.” Perhaps we shall together work out .a textbook containing minimum essentials to be mastered by all, and supplementary projects for those whose development demands a great enrichment of voluntary problems substituted for routine requirement. When we come to the improvement of the teacher in service, can that be done right except as the teacher is a participant in the effort for improvement? Does educational psychology, or principles of he ge hi uy wi to ch bu ac te: m: th: de we Bi alc wl wl up It bre fra inf to tha po' mu tha tha any cru not our mo! ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 73 education, or methods of instruction, or the psychology of elementary school subjects mean less to the teacher than to the principal? When we need both exactly the same help and incentive, why do we keep the caste lines drawn in our profession? It is a false and mischievous distinction, and one that should not be allowed to tie up the wheels of progress, and defeat our best hope of achieving our high aims for America, that the schools exist to realize. At Mt. Auburn, in Cambridge, sleeps Harvard’s greatest scientist of his generation—Professor Louis Agassiz. The great quartz boulder that marks his grave holds the title he bore proudly before all other honors heaped upon him by a grateful world, an accolade for any one of us, the noble word “ Teacher ’—the title the great Master loved when His people called Him Rabbi. I cannot find one topic in the Fourth Yearbook not of professional value to every teacher. We owe a great debt of gratitude to psychiatrist and psy- chologist for teaching us how to measure the child’s native ability to learn, but they are at a loss to know what to do about their findings. Shall we accelerate, or enrich, or retard, or segregate, or eliminate? It will be the teacher, not the scientific genius who will let the fire fall, perhaps. We know the thrill that comes with the hope that the rare child of genius may be discovered and developed for the uplift of his generation. We know that if one ear of wheat could be developed, capable of enduring one extra degree of frost, soon thousands of acres of wheat would be added to the world’s harvest, and millions of loaves of bread for the hunger of the world. But what if the discovery of the gifted teacher is as important to the world as that of the gifted child or the frost-proof wheat? Does not education cry aloud for the discovery and conserving of the teaching genius—the teacher who can chart this unknown world of low mental endowment through which all our searchlights cannot find a path. What about the development of the school morale? No order from higher up can accomplish that curious solidarity of purpose either for good or evil. It is to the teacher what the oxygen or lack of oxygen is to the air she breathes.- Her peace of mind by day and her sleep by night take their color from the school morale. To win this requires the closest cooperation from influence in the school that touches its life. A gifted leader may win loyalty to himself, but the great thing—to win that loyal response to the things that measure the uplift to the community—is to win an immeasurable power. The earnest participation in helping to determine the policies that they must execute ultimately in that classroom, if these measures are to be more than empty words, seems such a self evident truth in view of the nearness that they all come to in effecting the teacher’s service, that we wonder how any other condition of things could have been tolerated. Even prisons, these crucibles of crime as Thomas Mott Osborne calls them, have responded so notably to the plan of government participation that we are dumb before our own slowness to realize its great significance. Mr. Osborne said last month in his Boston address that this participation in self-government which 74 NATIONAL EpucATION ASSOCIATION has been carried on at Sing Sing has had this startling result—only 5 per cent return to prison instead of the 65 to 85 per cent which returned before this plan was started. We have considered very briefly the teacher’s participation in determining policies in the educational issues alone. These are the opportunities for the best and noblest service that can be rendered. They are embodied in the needs of the school that must be met by a concerted interest and response from the entire teaching force. When these educational policies are earnestly promoted by the various groups making up the entire teaching force, there is no longer any reluctance to welcome supervision, for the keenest minds feel their need for fortifying help from every possible source the soonest. It is the gifted teacher who seeks for supervising help as for hidden treasure, for the mastery of all the problems to give light, on the task of teaching every child the complex demands of today so as to meet the challenge of life with steadfast courage born of faith in his own resources, which is one that demands a whole life time’s devotion. ‘‘Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one!” But the policies of administration belong to another sphere of service. Our school systems are committed to the assignment of responsibility for legislation to a school board elected by the people and responsible to the people for administration. Inasmuch as the working world to which our children enter when school is done is not made up by teachers, it is well that our school boards are made up of many lines of work belonging to that world. In the best school boards frequent consultation with the teaching force illumines many a problem; but we, the teachers, cannot, however praiseworthy our motive, usurp the prerogative of those to whom the responsibility has been delegated. We have seen educational associa- tions of communities try to coerce school boards in the name of cooperation, but, in truth, their ends would better have been called usurpation. Let us get out of our participation of the educational policies all the joy of that achievement that is possible for us to attain, Without haste without rest, Lifting better up to best. Herein shall be found the great rewards of the teacher’s life. And after all, the figure of the operator of a machine is a limited one. It belongs only to the mechanical side of our work. The participation in determining policies gives greater freedom from friction and obstruction, but no machine ever invented could hold our heads and hands, if our hearts were not freed for the bigger thing in education, and that is what feeds the soul within us. We know in the moments when we are worthy of ourselves that we are discoverers. No schoolroom is so narrow that we may not sail forth to the discovery of the unsuspected leader of men among our children. When the heat and worry of discussion are over, and the stars come out, and the healing coolness brings peace, we begin to be uneasy for our quest again and we say with John Masefield— oOo mo Vw Dp 0 e n “J wm ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And the gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gipsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over. A CALL TO ACTION HE NEW EDUCATION BILL is now before both houses of Congress. It is sponsored in the Senate by Charles Curtis, of Kansas, and in the House by Daniel A. Reed, of New York, two leaders of unusual strength. It unites existing educational activities in the Federal government into a Department of Educa- tion with a secretary in the President’s Cabinet. It provides for the research needed to guide wisely the expenditure of the two billion dollars spent annually for education in the United States. It does not deal with the problem of Federal aid. It has the support of national, state, and local organizations, whose total membership numbers millions. These organizations do not believe in Federal control of Education, but they do believe in research and the dis- tribution of information relating to education as we now have for agriculture, commerce and labor. They believe that education is entitled to the respect and leadership suggested by representation in the President’s Cabinet. The New Education Bill, S$. 291 or H. R. 5000, is one of the measures sponsored by the National Edu- cation Association. Every school principal is urged to write at once to his or her representative and senators in Congress, urging their support of the Bill. It is time to act. Will you not write today ? Address your Congressman personally in care of the United States Senate or House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. Tell him what you think of the Bill and suggest that he consider it carefully. THE PROJECT METHOD IN SUPERVISION Frank M. RIcH Principal of School No. 2, Paterson, New Jersey ROFESSOR DAVID SNEDDEN has offered an interesting explana- tion of the reason why any speech or article making claim to real thoroughness and scholarship naturally opens with a long historical intro- duction. Our common ancestor, prehistoric man, it seems, in the course of his early migrations, came to the banks of a roaring torrent a quarter of a mile wide. He felt an irresistible urge to cross; yet the current was too swift to swim ; canoes and bridges had not been invented. There was nothing to do but jump. Ordinarily a quarter of a mile would have been an arduous leap, even for our nimble progenitor, but so strong was he in his determination to cross that he turned round and went twelve miles back into the country. With this excellent running start, he came on, gathering speed all the way, and so was able with one stupendous bound to clear his obstacle successfully. Since then, everybody who has felt the impulse to make an unusually ambitious jump, instinctively repeats the methods of his ancient forbear, and goes back as far as possible for an ample preparatory run. Far be it from us to depart from this long-hallowed precedent. How far back we can go for an historical introduction to supervision will depend, per- haps, upon our definition of the term. If we mean supervision, the systematic employment of a superior insight, higher ideals, and loftier vision for the betterment of teaching, we shall find it an art of rather recent development as a recognized part of the educator’s equipment. If we mean supervision— the employment of an exalted watchman, an eagle eye to detect and punish negligence and inefficiency in the teaching corps—that is a device that is very old. Supervision, in the sense of crude oversight and inspection of teachers’ work, is definitely mentioned in 1765, when Frederick the Great, of Prussia, issued an edict concerning the public schools of his realm, “ to see that all defects are remedied, all obstacles removed, all incorrigible teachers expelled and good ones put in their places.” With commendable vigor and directness he turned this job over to his Council of War. Perhaps some would regard this a worthy undertaking for the military machinery of our own day. In Massachusetts, supervisory methods were somewhat milder. Until 1789, the regular examination of schools fell upon the ministers, who visited occasionally, questioned the pupils upon the catechism and the Bible, and tested general intelligence by reviewing the contents and meaning of the preceding Sunday sermon. In 1789, school committees of laymen were authorized, and in 1826 made obligatory, to direct local education. The visits of these worthies, we are told, were usually highly formal. They questioned pupils on the height of this mountain, or the length of tiat river, more for the purpose of impressing teachers and pupils with the superior [76] knc cus’ plat wit C call and case that and thro prot publ othe Ir in la inR the s the c the t was | lishe ever No s they movi: a cay outco high i that t the ef Creat compe extenc freeze it is t that r In same | detern their r Five topic s ed SS til ed nd he re he ey er, ior ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 77 knowledge of the committee than to judge the efficiency of instruction. The customary program then included set speeches, surcharging pupils with platitudes and advice they could not understand, and flattering the teacher with the assurance that excellent progress had been made. George H. Martin, in his Evolution of the Massachusetts School System, called the local school district “ the high-water mark of modern democracy, and the low-water mark of the Massachusetts school system.”’ Perhaps the case against democracy does not appear so bad, however, when we reflect that right here the soil was made fallow for the ideas of Horace Mann, and right here the first demand for professional supervision arose. Laymen, through their own clumsy participation, were in a position to sense the problem and the needs, and to welcome expert assistance. Are advanced public school policies ever likely to be deeply or permanently successful otherwise? In 1838, Thomas Wilson Dorr, son of a successful manufacturer and in later life leader in the famous Dorr’s rebellion for popular representation in Rhode Island, conceived the idea of applying to the schools of Providence the same system of management that had proved efficient in the factories of the city, namely, the employment of a superintendent having authority under the board of directors, and responsible to them for results. Nathan Bishop was hired for this position. The first permanent superintendency was estab- lished in Boston in 1851. ‘This idea undoubtedly marks the greatest step ever taken toward a business-like administration and supervision of schools. No small share of present day waste, delay and general inefficiency, where they exist, is due to faulty application of Dorr’s simple expedient, of re- moving executive duties from committee members, and placing them upon a capable administrator who is held to undivided accountability for the outcome. The task of early superintendents can be judged from an address by D. B. Hagar before the American Institute of Instruction in 1851. Ina talk on “ Supervision of Schools’ he outlines the chief duties as urging better grounds and buildings, issuing certificates only to those standing high in examinations, selecting textbooks, upholding moral standards, seeing that teachers are faithful and pointing the pathway to success. He admits the efficacy of the rod applied to the spot provided by a wise and beneficent Creator, but mildly suggests that perhaps teachers should be urged not to compel pupils to stand for hours with a finger on a nail in the floor, or extend a heavy weight in the hand, nor banish them to a cold entry to freeze, nor place them before a sweltering fire to roast. In general, however, it is the. supervisor’s duty to sustain and encourage the teachers, whatever that may mean. In 1878, Dickinson, in an address on “ School Supervision ” before the same Institute, is able to define a supervisor’s duties more particularly as determining the number of schools needed, securing good teachers, directing their method, writing courses and grading the children. Five years later, E. E. White speaking before the same society on the same topic said, “ Supervision is of doubtful worth when it exhausts itself on the 78 NATIONAL EpucaTIon AssociATION mere mechanism of a school system. . . . The superintendent must be quali- fied, I repeat, to instruct, inspire and lead teachers.” He urges what he calls “ vital or professional school supervision ” and recognizes that many superintendents have grown gray in the service doing this very thing, but fails to point out in much detail what constitutes such supervision or how one could.expect to master and use it. One of the earliest books that treats of supervision is John T. Prince’s School Administration, published in 1906. In the chapter on “ The Super- intendent as Supervisor” we get the picture of a capable man inspecting buildings, equipment, and attendance; he informs himself as to the per- sonality and methods of his teachers, examines the pupils and gives advice and direction as needed. He uses judgment in dealing with his teachers, emphasizing good points as well as faults, not becoming too minute in his criticisms, nor forcing too much introspection. He tries to keep cheerful; enters rooms quietly without elaborate ceremonies, and perhaps keeps a joint notebook for both himself and teacher in which to enter questions, comments and memoranda, so that each can call the other’s attention to important considerations. ‘The superintendent teaches model lessons and holds meetings on occasion. In his chapter on “The Principal as Organizer and Supervisor,” he depicts a much humbler person, who manages refractory pupils, controls the playgrounds, tests textbooks, and carries on certain experiments in child study. He is not to attempt much supervision, however. “ If the system of schools is not large,’ says the author, “and the superintendent is able to visit the schools frequently, there should be little supervision of any other kind.” It was not until about 1914 that educational colleges began to offer courses in supervision as distinguished from general school administration. A pioneer in this field was Professor Frank M. McMurry, of ‘Teachers College, Columbia University, who probably did more than any other person to develop a scientific technic of supervision based upon the idea that the chief function of supervision is to continue the professional education of teachers in service ; that supervisory visits, therefore, and the conferences following should be memorable lessons,. planned as carefully and conducted as skilfully as personal insight and sound principles of teaching can make them. In respect to good pedagogy the supervisor should practice with the teachers what he preaches for the pupils. McMurry pointed out that here was one of the weak links in the educational system. The supervisor’s visit was commonly too short and conference too superficial to do more than test the outward appearance of order and industry and perhaps point out some stray mistake or merit, with little or no expectation of developing from within the broad knowledge, interest, and skill which make for continual professional advancement. To this end, he stressed the need for visits at least a full recitation period in length, followed by a later conference, for which the supervisor had made definite, thoughtful preparation, with a view to helping the teacher, and encouraging the teacher to help both herself and him think through fundamental questions to a logical, helpful conclusion. Vs ‘e ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 79 The supervisor who cannot take time to develop new ideas and attitudes with his teachers, personally and inductively, McMurry thinks, cannot take time to make his work effective. In 1919, several voices were heard from the ranks of the grade teachers calling attention to defects in the garden variety of supervision, and regis- tering their votes in favor of painless oversight and control. Miss Sallie Hill, before the Chicago meeting of the Department of Superintendence, National Education Association, criticized supervision as lacking in democ- racy, aS giving supervisors too much power, as employing persons who lack training, personality and experience, as ignoring psychological laws, as per- mitting such practices as open discussions before the class, or the marking of pupils with a running fire of criticism intermingled, as allowing personal mental and physical condition of the day to influence rating, as demanding too much of teachers, and as leaving too much to be desired in prevailing methods of rating. Miss Carrie E. Koons, before the Pennsylvania State Education Association, brought “ super-men and women” to account for a lack of time sense, for making meetings a clearing house for fault-finding, for unwillingness to receive suggestions about courses, for unpedagogical procedure, for fluttering notes left on desks, for wide variations in judg- ment, and for hasty, perfunctory work generally. The St. Paul Grade Teachers’ Association devoted an issue of their little magazine to super- vision. The twelve small pages began: “We, the teachers of this broad land, who are the mute recipients of so much wisdom from the mighty, find, now and then rising ‘in our American trained hearts, a desire to advise our advisers; therefore we have devoted this issue of the Bulletin to the gentle art of supervising.” It ends “and just so far as any supervisor fails to give true help to any teacher under his charge—just so far may be the measure of his failure.” Since then numerous articles and addresses and several books have been published giving excellent presentations of scientific supervision, notably Nutt’s “ Supervision of Instruction’ (Houghton Mifflin Co.) and Burton’s “ Supervision and the Improvement of Teaching” (Appleton). One of the best short expositions of modern supervisory technic is found in a master’s thesis, ‘ Evaluation of Agencies Used in Elementary Supervision,” by G. A. Day (Teachers’ College Library, 1920). The writer, an assistant of Dr. McMurry’s, defines supervision as “expert service rendered to teachers along lines of professional improvement or growth in response to teachers’ felt need.”” As means which the modern supervisor uses to this end, she lists meetings, visits, individual conferences, criticism of units of work, visits between teachers, observational excursions, demonstrations, model lessons, experimental teaching, outlines, suggestive bulletins, courses of study, study programs, community contacts through outside organiza- tions, teachers’ committees and organizations, leave of absence for definite purposes, exchange of teachers, professional libraries, office hours, coaching, plan books, inspected tests and measurements, rating, special drives, utiliza- tion of special abilities, exhibits, supervisory programs, and special agencies 80 NATIONAL EpUCATION ASSOCIATION ae for the supervisor’s own growth. This ample array of supervisory tools js matched by a handsome skill in using them. ‘The supervisor is not carried away by his own hobbies, but renders aid when and where the teacher feels the need. He works always to enlarge the teacher’s vision, and creates needs for further professional growth. He studiously creates an atmosphere conducive to growth. He recognizes that teachers, like other learners, ad- vance only through their own self-activity, and acquire sound views through scientific, rational, and not merely authoritative, or personal appeal. The latest departures in supervision, then, seem to be mainly a consistent application of advanced principles of teaching that now mark up-to-date instruction in any field. The supervisor, as instructor, takes into account original tendencies of the learner, mind set and response, conditions of im- provement, individual differences and the rest, and with the frail, variable human material given him to work upon, shapes the course most reasonably certain of success. If it is fair to say, therefore, that better supervision is largely a matter of better teaching, we can suggest several corollaries that are worth consideration. If pupils work more heartily and more effectively when summoned by their own instinct for recognition, possession, exploration, and success, why not turn about and motivate learning for teachers ? If pupils enjoy sharing responsibilities of conducting lessons, of selecting and presenting subject matter, and of assisting their mates in the learning process, why not reap the same benefits for teachers by socializing super- vision ? If pupils are stimulated by contact and acquaintance with others in distant places, to sense their difficulties and appreciate their contributions, why not humanize teaching by wider outlooks and contacts ? If pupils do best when engaged on a definite piece of constructive work, whose purpose and utility they understand and appreciate (and here we come to the leap for which we have made such a liberal preparatory run) why not employ the project method with teachers? Why not let teachers extend their professional knowledge and interest, and improve their skill in the teaching art, by going to work with their own equipment and their own pupils, under wise, but modest and tactful management, to solve some of the urgent educational problems of method and device that are everywhere pressing for solution? Beginnings that have already been made with the project method in supervision would seem to mark it as one of the most promising devices within reach of educational leaders, not only to better the vocational equip- ment of their teachers, but to further the supervisor’s own growth and to produce finer classroom results in the one process. The public school system of Paterson, New Jersey, has been doing pioneer work along these lines for several years with encouraging success. A lively interest in original study and experiment in the classroom was created by General Supervisor Lewis A. Bennert, when he conceived the plan, adopted unanimously by the board of education in 1921, whereby teachers were given credit toward advanced ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 81 rating in professional preparation for serious pieces of research, and other contributions to the school system, the same as for professional training taken in college. Twenty-six teachers have been granted special certificates of credit for work on schoolroom problems directly applied to local needs, and more than half as many more have completed a term’s work preliminary to the written report or thesis, which entitles them to this certificate. Every one of these theses, including as they do a very attractive assort- ment of samples and exhibits in the library of the general supervisor, is worthy of extended study, both for its own sake, as a contribution to method, and for the demonstration it gives of what vital, efficient forces for study, invention, and improvement are available in every direction, when the con- ditions are made right to discover and enlist them. We can dip into a few, almost at random, and glimpse what teachers have accomplished under their own power, with a minimum of outside direction or suggestion. The first project launched was that of Miss Helen R. Gibb, of School 12, who wished to make a contribution to methods of managing classes, com- bining subjects, saving time, furthering cooperation between departments and furnishing better individual and small group activity, through a study centered in the prevailing local industry, silk; mainly composition, but branching widely into other subjects. Among the striking results accomplished, the possibilities of enlisting help from many sources was demonstrated. “It is almost inconceivable,” says Miss Gibb, ‘‘ the amount of cooperation that can be secured in an under- taking of this kind; cooperation between individual pupils and between groups of pupils; on the part of parents, friends, and business houses, both in and out of town; and last but not least, cooperation of the different departments of the school, such as the manual training and art depart- ments.” The school nurse helped the class obtain a ribbon loom. The school janitor set it up and the pupils wove their graduation ribbon. The manual training teacher helped the boys construct a miniature working model of a broad silk loom and they wove a four shaft job. Useful measurements and statistics connected with the industry furnished interesting arithmetic prac- tice. Collecting samples, pictures, and descriptions for notebooks and ex- hibits led to wide reading and correspondence. Requests, invitations, letters of thanks and the like motivated a large amount of correspondence. Silk designs collected and others originated and applied to book covers, dresses, etc., lent point and purpose to the lessons in art. At the close of the term’s work, Miss Gibb gave an interesting talk before the teachers of the city. “ Contrary to the opinion of many people on this subject,” Miss Gibb reported, “I have found that instead of being retarded in their general classroom work, my pupils are farther ahead in arithmetic, composition, spelling, and geography, than they would have been without the interest aroused by the project, and their other subjects, I feel sure, have not suffered in the least.” Miss Fannie C. Sickles, of School No. 2, opens her thesis on “‘ Commu- nity civics and related problems of home and neighborhood” with the 82 NATIONAL EpucaATION ASSOCIATION thought, “It is thrilling to see a self-impelled person in action—a scientist in his laboratory, a business man at his desk, a child at free play in his kindergarten. Out of one of these vital desires, I evoked a line of work pro- ductive of all sorts of good results.” We can believe what she says, for the class borrowed a piece of land and studied gardening. Fresh from living contact with soil, tools, and plants, each pupil selected an agricultural coun- try, selected books, wrote for informational literature, and compiled a booklet on ‘Agriculture in Russia,” etc., for the assistance of the class. There was a comparative study of their own community. In correlation with the art department there was modelling, dramatization, a pageant, an exhibition, and a demonstration for supervisors and teachers, with man, clever ideas of a very practical kind. Since this term’s work was com- pleted, two or three years ago, Miss Sickles’ interest in educational pioneer- ing has not abated. She has recently taken charge of a newly organized “ promotion ” class, where the object is to enable selected pupils to make an extra grade without losing valuable subject matter of the classes skipped. She is at work on a library project with these pupils, and is looking forward to a special project in English as soon as this one is finished. Miss Margie Maxwell, a second grade teacher of School 17, took up with her class a special study of hygiene, calling it “A Visit to Healthland.” Her problem was to make a program of work centered in the child’s real interests, to establish the standards that a vigorous young second grade citizen should follow, and work out valuable correlations with most of the other subjects of the course, through making menus, health rhymes, songs, exhibits, posters, creed, slogans, etc. Some of the jingles made by these little people are very good indeed. Come out with your hoe And be glad to know What it can show you How to grow. —Evelyn Tulk When I’ve a cold I do as I’m told And over my mouth My handkerchief hold. —Julia Gilone Do you eat Too much sweet? —James Crawford Miss Maxwell did not stop with speeches, however pretty. “A product is not really sold,” she says, “ till the ultimate consumer buys it.”’ She there- fore stressed home cooperation, garden work, early-to-bed drives, and so on. ‘“‘ The enthusiastic teacher never feels that she is working alone,”’ says Miss Maxwell, “ she is rewarded by a surprising response from the children and parents and friends.’’ At the children’s invitation the city home demonstrator came in and gave a health talk to pupils and their parents. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 83 The work of the term was nicely summarized in a clever original chart called “ Trip to Healthland.” Miss Rose L. Jones, in charge of a first grade in School No. 8, called her problem ‘‘ Making a reader more valuable in the hands of the pupils.” It included the selection of a new reader for basal use and of seat work and other supplementary work to accompany it. Miss Jones brought together everything she could find that gave promise of making the regular reading more stimulating and profitable, going out of the city for special demon- strations, and the like, and the work based upon these new ideas soon began to attract attention. The class was visited by three or four other teachers in the same building. Pupils enjoyed these visits and made a special effort to outdo all former attainments. ‘Toward the close of the term three or four principals and about thirty teachers visited the class and the letters of hearty appreciation, returned by supervisor, principals, and teachers afterward, speak of the deep impression made. Several of the principals present sent teachers to observe, and the methods and busy-work devices they saw are now used in these schools. A colleague in the same building, Miss Loretta McInerney, also a first grade teacher, emulating Miss Jones’ suc- cess, took up a supplementary project, called “An interesting approach to beginners in reading,” and also made a valuable contribution to the reading methods of the city. Another reading project which culminated in a valuable demonstration before the primary teachers and principals of the city was carried on by Miss May Belle McBrier, a teacher of a sub-primary grade in School 2. This was called “ Teaching of reading to beginners without the use of books.” In effect, it was the development of a silent reading method almost identical with what has since been brought out with great success by several publishers. The seat work accompanying the reading was an interesting phase of the experiment for, ‘‘ Busy work, to be successful,” says Miss McBrier, “ must be purposeful, and must secure something that the child considers a satisfactory result.” This important, but neglected feature of primary work was developed experimentally under the head of “ The Educational Side of Busy Work,” by Miss Alice G. Campbell, teacher of first grade in School No. 19. Miss Campbell purchased and made a great variety of promising forms of busy work, tried them out with all the pupils of a class for a half year, and then ranked them in order of merit, beginning with those most attractive and educational for the children, and least costly of time and work on the part of the teacher. A short write-up of her idea won for Miss Campbell a fifteen dollar prize for the book, ‘ Pedagogical Pep,” published by the F. A. Owen Co., Dansville, N. Y. Mrs. Cathryn C. Anglum, a fourth grade teacher of School No. 2, took up the problem of how to use a school grocery store and how to correlate this work with other classroom subjects. “ Let the school fit for life by exempli- fying life,” was Mrs. Anglum’s motto. “ Let us turn to conscientious teaching of some course that appeals to pupils as attacking the problem 84 NATIONAL EpucaTION ASSOCIATION without preaching, and, with sincerity and directness, gives promise of arriving at the goal.” Among the profitable and interesting activities brought in were advertising for clerks, applying for the position, filling out orders on practical bill heads furnished by the father of one of the pupils, the spelling of the articles in a store, the making of a toy phone, the proper procedure in getting a connection and ordering by telephone, the borrow- ing of a practical cash register from the agents, learning to operate it and thanking the company for its use, the designing of labels for the cartons, and the studying of corn and other products gave the teacher an opportunity to cover much of the old subject matter of the course from the new angle. Miss Mary L. Loughlin, grade 2, School No. 8, also worked out a project which socialized and motivated the course in arithmetic. Certain laggards in the class took up the work with new energy. An original number game, based upon the common game of base ball was invented. Other teachers copied and adopted this and other devices they liked. Finally, the supervisor printed and distributed a booklet summarizing clever ideas for all second grades. If space allowed, it would be a pleasure to describe Miss Handbidge’s, Miss Randall’s, Miss DePaolera’s, Miss Veith’s, Miss O’Byrne’s, Miss Schneider’s and Miss Gould’s novel geography projects; Miss Doherty’s language work and correlations leading up to a jolly and helpful enter- tainment; Mr. Gould’s dramatics; Miss Kuyl’s treatment of art in educa- tion; Miss Grady’s plant studies; Miss Walsh’s and Miss Walker’s health contests ; Miss Wood’s work for improvement of the quality of voice; Miss McBrier’s new approach to the work of the kindergarten and Miss Hewitt’s to the sub-primary grade. Different as they are in scope and treatment, they bear similar evidences of new enthusiasm, parents interested, other teachers helped, inspiring books read and listed, correlations effected, new successes gained by both teachers and pupils. Of the projects sponsored by the school system, the most extensive, both as to number of teachers participating, and time, money, and work involved, has been the one described at some length in recent issues of the Bulletin of the Department of Elementary School Principals—‘An Experimental Study of Children’s Reading.” In this experiment a corps of fifteen members— Principal Mombert and Misses Helen Sampson, Sayre, Campbell, O’Byrne, Fitzpatrick, Claxton, Venables, Elizabeth Sampson, Dean, Kort, Brind, Robinson, and Sickles, with Principal Rich as chairman, undertook an elaborate survey of the whole field of juvenile literature suitable for elemen- tary pupils, with the purpose of ranking the titles in order of interest and merit, and compiling an ideal classroom library of forty books for each grade. This rather ambitious proposition grew out of a more limited study made by Miss Fitzpatrick to test the relative popularity of one hundred books proposed for a third grade library—one fourth chosen by the city librarian, one fourth by Miss Harriet Salt, of Wanamaker’s book depart- ment, one fourth taken from the leading method readers, and one fourth from the best supplementary readers. The method used here was simple. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 85 Pupils took a few minutes a day to look over the books and get some idea as to which ones they wished to borrow for use over night. At the end of the day they took out one of those they liked best, signed the cards that accompanied the books, and left them with the child librarian as a receipt. In the morning all books were returned and cards replaced. Pupils who wanted to borrow the same books again for another night or more had the preference and signed the same card again. No advice was given as to what books to borrow. Each book was left to make its own appeal. At the end of the term the relative popularity was judged by the number of names signed. The books from Wanamaker’s, as a class, proved most attractive; the supplementary readers, next ; the method readers, next; and the library selections, far in the rear; largely because the list followed by the librarian, while excellent from a literary standpoint, was not carefully graded to the interest and ability of the middle and lower sections of this primary grade. By the use of two standard reading tests given at the beginning, and again at the close of the experiment, the children’s gain in speed and comprehen- sion was measured for comparison with a similar grade not supplied with outside reading. The interest and usefulness of this experiment led Miss Fitzpatrick and a large group of other teachers and principals to undertake a more extensive and complicated measurement of the relative interest of all books making special claim to distinction as good reading for grades one to seven. The committee looked over most of the books recommended by the Ameri- can Library Association, by various state departments of education, by chil- dren’s librarians in New York, Newark, and Paterson, by the children’s departments in the big New York bookstores—Baker and Taylor’s, Bren- tano’s, the Children’s Bookshop, John Martin’s, Putnam’s, Dutton’s, Scribner’s and Wanamaker’s—and by most of the publishers having sales- rooms in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Out of the many examined and sent on approval, the teachers purchased over a thousand of the most promising, graded them carefully, put 150 to 200 into the classes for an extensive try-out. This meant considerable expense, which was met by entertainments, picture shows, candy sales, and so on. One teacher in each grade kept the books several months, and used them as Miss Fitzpatrick had done, passing them out for seat work, lending them at night, discussing them in class, reading marked passages, writing reviews, and keeping careful track of their appeal to various types of pupils. After a reasonable time the books were passed along to another class and another teacher of the same grade, as a check upon the findings of the first. For six weeks during the succeeding summer vacation, the committee worked over the results, comparing notes, compiling lists of the best forty books for each grade from among the winning titles, and selecting repre- sentative short passages, so that it would be easy for a teacher to create an immediate interest in the books by giving an attractive sample of each author represented. Eventually, it is hoped, these samples can be published, 86 NATIONAL EpUCATION ASSOCIATION and used as reading lessons to accompany the libraries, wherever these form part of the regular reading equipment of the schools. The reading lessons can then be brought into conformity with the principles of the educational theorists, when they insist that school tasks, while strongly motivated and immediately purposeful, should, at the same time, open up constantly widening avenues of future interest and growth. It is not hard to see how the various ramifications of the library idea—reading in the family circle, the new impulse given to other studies, interest in games to play, articles to make, pieces to speak, plays to stage, and so on—should have aroused in the committee the highest enthusiasm for the value of their task. It seems to be a unanimous opinion among teachers who have undertaken any of the projects for special study, that they led to broader study, deeper interest and greater satisfaction, by far, than any college course they had ever taken. Without doubt the premium placed on original study by the board of education, in granting certificates which count as a unit of college work toward higher rating on the salary schedule, was the first inducement to many to undertake a project for investigation. Yet it is obvious that this was not the sole motive, for many of the teachers mentioned already had their professional certificates, hence got no extra compensation for this work. Others who have since got the necessary points for the professional certifi- cate, plan to continue their experimental studies, purely for their own pro- fessional satisfaction. The motive for this unusual interest and industry, while not mercenary, is not wholly unselfish. A celebrated writer on salesmanship says, “ If, for any reason, I wished to impress a customer with the true grandeur of Niagara Falls, I would arrange to have a photograph of the falls taken with the man himself in the immediate foreground, and then give him a copy of the picture to study and admire.” This may sound rather cynical, but it contains an important truth. We are all so constituted that we need to see ourselves somewhere in the picture. If the project method of helping teachers in service is successful in maintaining more than usual effort and enthusiasm for professional growth and development, it is probably because it enables teachers to find themselves now and then among the prominent figures in the foreground, and not always obscured by some other luminary whose light they are only supposed to reflect. This list of undertakings does not quite conclude all the Paterson projects that have stimulated teachers to work out something for themselves, and for the benefit of their pupils and colleagues. The satisfaction of being able to contribute some useful pioneer work for courses of study, for educational magazines and for new books has furnished a motive of considerable service in broadening the outlook and increasing the skill of several grade teachers. Misses Sampson, Campbell, Fitzpatrick, and Claxton, primary teachers of School 19, a few years ago compiled a variety of number games and other activities, and tested their appeal to small children. Some of the best ideas were published in the Normal Instructor, under the head of “ Live Projects in Primary Arithmetic.” This aroused some local interest and led to profit- able correspondence with teachers in other parts of the country. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 87 The committee in charge of revising the English course in the city sent out a general invitation for assistance in collecting good ideas for language work. With some suggestions and assistance from the principal, Mrs. Burchill, of School 19, showed how the making of plays, stories, poems and songs for the holiday program could be used to motivate striking original work in composition. ‘Though the local committee did not find it advisable to incorporate these ideas in the course of study, the lessons were put to use in a way quite as satisfactory. A part of these were published in the Normal Instructor and a part in the Popular Educator under the title, ‘ Write Your Own Holiday Program.” Rewritten, and with several chapters added, it was republished as “ Projects for All the Holidays,” by A. Flanagan, Chicago. To be the means of stimulating wide interest in so attractive and helpful a school activity has naturally been a source of satisfaction to Mrs. Burchill, and has brought a new sense of leadership in educational matters. This little book was followed in the same school with a much more exten- sive volume, “ Projects for All the Grades,” also published by A. Flanagan Co., in which the principal, assisted by Misses Sampson, Sayre, Campbell, Fitzpatrick, Claxton, Venables, Van Voorhies, and Brind, describe the one biggest, most attractive project for each grade in aquaria, arithmetic, bird study, domestic animals, excursions, geography, grammar, history, and so on through each subject of the elementary school, illustrated with pictures of their own pupils at work upon them. The resulting volume forms a manual of interesting devices that any teacher would appreciate, but its most sug- gestive mission is as a sample of what can be done by very ordinary folks, under mediocre conditions, when they have caught the ambition to produce something useful and constructive of their own, as well as to appropriate the good ideas of others. Interest in useful educational projects, once established, carries with it a perennial fascination, for the more problems one has solved, the better one can see alluring problems beckoning ahead. What has been accomplished in Paterson is but a spoonful, compared with the ocean of things that are still waiting consideration. There is a pressing need for a manual of suggestive devices for ungraded classes—one that would be useful in rural schools, where children of all ages are assembled under one teacher, but especially for mixed groups in the city, where crippled children, anemic children, blind, deaf, retarded, foreign and other ungraded classes have the same pedagogical difficulty as the country teacher who can give only a few minutes attention to a pupil here and a small group there, and then must pass on to the next, leaving the last ones to work an hour by themselves before their turn comes for attention again. There are many effective methods and devices for self-help in such classes, but they have not been assembled, tested, rated and made available to others, except in a small, unsatisfactory way. There is an admirable opportunity for some one to organize local geography and history, so that the average teacher with limited time for any one subject, can easily give her pupils an appreciation of the most significant things in their own surroundings—local heroes who have made sacrifices, 88 NATIONAL EpucATION ASSOCIATION fought oppression, mitigated greed and corruption, and taken a worthy part in great movements and events. There are local contacts with famous men through streets named in their honor. Why not assemble talks and pictures to furnish an interesting approach to history from this angle? There are in every town, if not in every home, coins, stamps, weapons, specimens, utensils, and other souvenirs whose connections reach the ends of the earth and the beginnings of time. A course of lessons based upon these curios as a point of departure, and worked out with the assistance of pupils, patriotic organizations, and others interested, would not only make for efficient teaching in the future; it would furnish the best and livest kind of lessons during the process. There is a whole field of ethical instruction, which remains practically untouched, except for a little training in orderly school behavior, a few pretty stories and here and there same code, or other vague generalization, which, by all the rules of pedagogy, should be discovered by the pupils them- selves at the conclusion of a wealth of concrete matter for inductive study, not advanced as a rare abstraction wholly divorced from meaningful reality and experience. There are endless openings for exploration, development, and refinement in subject matter and methods of teaching, for with all our progress, we are still in the stone age in respect to the building of mind and character. From scattered successes with small beginnings it is easy to picture a new era in supervision, when educational tools and methods are more perfect because more people are at work perfecting them; teachers, more alert and interested in their profession, because they have more proprietary interest in progress; when years of service in the classrooms will not imply depleted energy, fossilized methods, and cynical attitudes, so much as wider con- tacts, deeper satisfaction and renewed enthusiasms. Experience, in spite of the natural changes of age, will mean endless vistas, wherein the satisfaction of attaining is blended with attractive visions of new possibilities beyond. Let us grant, then, that it would be most profitable and interesting for supervisors to assist teachers to undertake a more or less extensive study of sume important educational problem, and to use the results for the mutual benefit of the system; will not lack of time be a serious obstacle to any early use of the project method of supervision by the average principal? With all the clerical work that is necessary, and little if any secretarial assistance provided ; with a thousand details to watch, and nobody but the principal to accept the responsibility; with endless drives, meetings, chores, examinations, supplies, visitors, complaints, inspections, interruptions, and what not, where can he get time to help teachers of ordinary talent conduct experiments, write books, stage exhibits and the rest, except as he steals it from more immediate and pressing matters? The only answer we can make is that most of the projects described here were produced under conditions as unfavorable as they are anywhere. Office chores and petty routine were as cumbersome, and clerical assistance as sca tie: an ma wl as loz bu ho ca les lig no m: se. sa of ti at ci st p n a a <=, a 2« *®& @& @ # S&@ FE —_ se ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 89 scarce; there were school lunches, banking, special tests, community activi- ties, playground work, drives for Christmas seals, Red Cross, music festival, and all kinds of special weeks, there was an elaborate card system which made it as much work to discharge a pupil as to transfer a piece of property ; in fact, a formidable array of petty reports and red tape. But somehow, when there are also big, worthwhile things afoot, that impress everybody as eminently desirable, the little things chink in between and ride along. The load is a little heavier, but the exhilaration more than compensates for the burden. Those who are willing to work under reasonable pressure for eight hours a day, three hundred days a year, need not despair about what they can accomplish. The only desperate situation is where the system is so hope- lessly mechanized that any variation from standard is forbidden, and all light and life legislated out of existence. No matter how short the time, nor what concerns are pressing for attention, no supervisor can afford to miss the mutual inspiration and satisfaction that comes from placing him- self side by side with his teachers, and laying his gift with theirs upon the same altar. Supervision began as pure inspection. It was born of the need for an officer in authority to locate waste, and remove laziness, viciousness, and incompetence by amputation. Now in addition to these primitive obliga- tions it is beginning to assume some responsibility for the original motives and conditions of good work and to increase energy, cooperation and effi- ciency by propagation. Which side of supervision is more important— inspection, measurement, and war on the unprofitable servants, or leader- ship, appeal to natural sources of pride and satisfaction and consequent promotion of enterprise, originality and self-improvement—is hard to say. The question, perhaps, is like asking whether one prefers bread or butter. We would choose both; would prefer the whole menu, in fact. There is as much need as ever for close scrutiny of personnel, methods, and results. We hold no brief for pussycoddle inspection. Our daughter, Guinevere, may be quite disturbed when an examiner appears, to find out, if possible, what she has to show for the time the city is paying for. If the truth was known, perhaps her brother in the bank, might prefer to omit the periodical visits of the bank examiners, who snoop about and ask embarrassing ques- tions. But in spite of embarrassment and annoyance, it is a very good thing to have a thorough accounting occasionally. The remedy for Miss Guine- vere’s upset is to add to her scholastic accomplishments somewhat of the outlook of the commonsense, business woman, preferably through a summer’s work under average conditions in some industry where part of the money for her salary is produced. She will soon realize that one with services to sell cannot complain because patrons examine their purchase somewhat care- fully. The only legitimate grounds for objection to investigation is when it is biased, superficial, or incompetent. Inspection, in the sense of bare estima- tion and measurement of production, to show both teachers and patrons what the schools seem to be accomplishing, is a highly important element in supervision, whether Guinnie likes it or not, and worth many times the 90 NATIONAL EpucATION ASSOCIATION thought, time, and money now spent upon it, be it a state survey or the prin- cipal’s visit. Let us encourage everybody who will to help perfect the machinery for measuring schools and rating instruction. It is pretty crude and unscientific at present. But that is another story. What we are concerned with here is the leavening element, the need for something to mix with our standardized procedure, rigid surveys and in- exorable merit systems, namely, enlistment of the highest instincts, especially the creative instinct, of the workers. The creative instinct, the desire to produce something tangible and personal—a hut, a family, a pyramid, a wreck, a rumpus—-is fundamental in human nature and irrepressible. Any scheme of management that depends upon keeping workers in a prescribed groove, following a routine process that others have devised and perfected, can only be operated with even temporary speed and interest through severe penalties or elaborate rewards. The privilege of creation, however, is its own reward. The sense of failing to create something striking and com- mendable is its own penalty. The project method of supervision, instead of harping upon uniformity and subordination, turns to account individual differences in interest and talent, making them an asset, not an annoyance. It capitalizes the natural ambition for personal recognition and success, giving everybody a chance to contribute something noteworthy and unique. It makes it easier to judge work by objective and practical as opposed to abstract, theoretical stand ards. It appeals to an independent, inner motive, which carries on in the absence of much pressure and oversight from above. It gives pupils, and even the community, a new interest in teaching devices and a new respect for iocal teachers as leaders in the profession. It deepens local pride in school improvement and leads to comparison and exchange of ideas with other places. The project method of supervision is based upon the con- ception that teachers, like other learners, learn best by doing, and that they do best by having something highly useful and tangible to show for their labor. And the theory must be a rather good one, because it works. PRINCIPALS AS INTERPRETERS SusaAN M. Dorsey Superintendent of Schools, Los Angeles, California ERHAPS the principal who notes the title of this article has never thought of himself as an interpreter, yet this is one of his most important functions. The many-sided relations with community, board of education, superintendent, teachers, and children create situations where it is possible for the principal to so interpret the board of education to the community and the school ; to so interpret the superintendent to the community and the school ; and finally to so interpret the teachers and education, itself, to the community as to create an atmosphere of understanding or dissatisfaction. The principal who has the ability and disposition to interpret to the teachers in his school and to the community the policies and desires of ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 91 the board of education in such manner as to secure acceptance and even approval has rendered a great service. Especially is this true when the con- trolling board is forward-looking and advocates advanced movements that call for more funds from the public and increased service from teachers; then the principal has his great opportunity to interpret the needs so as to win the approval and support of both teachers and community for the proposed forward movement. It is a great mistake to conclude that boards of education are at liberty to act at all times with perfect independence. They are the representatives of the people and bound to regard somewhat the opinion of the public whom they serve. ‘They are also circumscribed by the necessities of finance, hindered at every turn by precedents and legal restrictions. Each locality is naturally ambitious to secure the best and the most for its own school, while it may be quite impossible for the board of education to furnish the things desired ; as a new school building, a change in the bounds of the district, an addition to school grounds, a much coveted improvement, a segregation of undesirable elements, a change in the course of study. If under circumstances where a board of education is unable to meet the desires or even needs of a school community the principal can, by his interpretation of conditions, bring the community to see the justice of board decisions, the bonds of good feeling are thereby strengthened. Sometimes principals, in their anxiety to improve their own schools, make the mistake of encouraging their patrons to importune the board of education for desired betterments through correspondence, petitions, and delegations. On first thought, this may seem to be an effective and expeditious measure, but in the end it will be found a wiser plan for the principal to act himself as the medium between his community and the board of education and to keep in such sympathetic relations with both that he may be trusted by his community to secure its due from the board of education without its own importunities. Communities once aroused by a principal to a clamorous mood are not easily checked; their demands at some time in the future are quite as likely to be in opposition to the principal’s plans as in the original instance they were in line with his projects. In a word, while it must always be remembered that public schools belong to the people and that, if the people of any district desire to address the board of education, they are entirely within their rights; it must also be admitted that insofar as a principal can himself successfully represent the patrons of his school and interpret their needs and views, he has strengthened his own position and lessened the possibilities for misunderstanding and recrimination. Principals may consider themselves almost divinely appointed interpreters to make instructions and requests from the superintendent’s office clear, reasonable, and consequently not hateful to their teachers. ‘There are man) ways of passing on instructions; they may be posted or passed fram room to room, very good arrangements for merely routine reminders: other notices really call for explanation; these last may be coldly read from the school bulletins, may be transmitted perfunctorily merely as something to be done 92 NATIONAL EpucaATION ASSOCIATION and gotten through with. When given in that manner, without appreciative understanding of what is meant and desired, and of the reasons back of the announcement or request, they are received in the same indifferent perfunc- tory or even rebellious spirit. Important notices should be given with sym- pathetic imagination on the part of the principal that will reveal the reasons back of the instruction, and read into the lines what is omitted or not clearly expressed. It is of the utmost importance that there should be perfect understanding between the superintendent’s office and the teachers: the one who more than any other must be depended upon to interpret instructions and foster this good understanding is the principal. Without doubt, the requests made of teachers for help, for information, for their time, are numerous, too numerous for the perfect comfort and serenity of cither the petitioner or the petitioned. As systems grow, the perplexities of administration increase and the superintendent’s office is farther and farther removed from the real sources of information. This necessarily increases the number of calls for help and imposes upon principals an ever increasing obligation to hunt for the sincere, just, and kindly interpretation of each instruction and in so doing lessen the irritation on the part of teachers at what seems to them perpetual hectoring, for happy suggestion always goes far towards securing results in effort with the least consciousness of strain. Invaluable are the interpretive services of a principal in cases of mis- understanding between the patrons of a school and the teacher. A parent reaches the principal’s office in a disturbed, irritated, or fault-finding mood. The cause of dissatisfaction may be an unhappy relationship between teacher and child; possibly an opinion or sentiment unwisely expressed by the teacher or wrongly understood by the children, to which exceptions have been taken. If the principal, on such occasions, is able to so interpret the attitude, temperament, and ideals of the teacher to the patron of the school, to so interpret the opinions and conditions of life of the parent to the teacher as to remove objections and bring about a mutual understanding, then he has performed a real and important service, both to the school and the community. It is the peculiar responsibility of principals—and here I must add the teachers, also—constantly to interpret the function of public education. In no surer way can there be established in the minds of the people a conviction of the necessity of the American public school and the peril of any abatement of its activities. Such interpretation should aim to do more than establish in a general way the value of public education. It should secure to the citizens a very specific understanding of what the schools are actually doing. Hostile objectors are not so numerous and may be endured, but an immobile, indifferent, unsensing public is an intolerable incubus under which no public institution, and certainly not the schools, can hope to prosper. Every plan and undertaking, every proposed expenditure, should be matter of common knowledge and, what is more important, matter of perfect understanding, in order to secure the sympathetic cooperation of the ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 93 public, or make sure that objections are reasonable. An attitude on the part of school people that theirs is the business of managing the schools; that it is hopeless to expect people in general to comprehend the aims and proposed outcomes of education, is a trifle presumptious, for a part of the business of educators is to make what they are doing comprehensible to all whose support is needed for the enterprise. Many times the public expect too much of the schools. They quite forget the days of their own untrained youth; many times they expect the wrong sort of thing. To illustrate very specifically: “There was a period when, in the teaching of spelling, results were evaluated in terms of the number of unusual and difficult words the student could spell, most of which he would never have occasion to use. The schools have ceased to perpetuate this folly; there is too much to be done along too many lines; spelling must serve real needs. Consequently, students are drilled in the spelling of the common and necessary words and are taught to develop the dictionary habit and an attitude of aversion to misspelled words. With such training, it is expected that the student will be able to make his way successfully through the orthographical mazes of life. This single illustration points to a general fact too little understood by a non-reflecting public, that the schools cannot be expected to turn out a finished product, factory fashion; that education is not a product at all, but a lifelong process, and that the principal part to be undertaken by the schools is that of guiding and hurrying up the process when guidance is most necessary and when the restless, boundless energy of youth makes the hurrying up process most possible. The people must be set right and helped to see what the schools can and should accomplish in the training of the young. The principal should especially lose no opportunity to interpret to the public the greatest function of the schools, the training of loyal citizens for this Republic. One of the best opportunities for this sort of interpretative effort is the observance, with the patrons of the schools as guests, of special occasions, such as the centenaries of great men and great events. At these times, the character of the patriotic instruction given to the children may be demonstrated. This will often prove of great advantage to the adults whose own enthusiasms need reanimating. It sometimes happens that prin- cipals are inclined to regard such occasions as interferences with the regular program. However, in these days of vast expenditure for public education, it will be found that the use of every opportunity to reveal to the people the high aims and real accomplishments of education and to enlist their sympathy in those aims is a good investment of time and effort and will ultimately benefit the schools. SOME NEW VIEWPOINTS IN EDUCATION MABEL HUTCHINGS Principal of Kensington School, Grand Rapids, Michigan FEW YEARS AGO we were just beginning to think of actual class- room procedure as something different from the learning of definite lesson assignments. Now we read Bobbitt or Charters or Bonser on what the objectives of elementary education should be. We organize it into something we can use as a working basis. ‘The seven cardinal elements of health, citizenship, leisure, etc., come along to cheer us and make us feel sure of our procedure. We think we have some basis for judging the value of school work, when we happen to attend a convention, say at Cincinnati last year. We listen to Dr. Washburne tell in his sincere, convincing man- ner about all the things Mary learns under the individual instruction method, and all the dangers with which Johnny is encompassed when he is being educated by the lock-step method. We listen and agree. It all sounds so simple when Dr. Washburne tells us how easy it is to determine what the common essentials are and then to provide for the utmost adaptation to individual differences in the children’s learning of these essentials. We are just getting comfortably complacent when we hear Dr. Kilpatrick say: “The aim of the school should be: the bettering of the present child life of the pupils, not the conventional knowledge or skills.” Who can determine the common essentials? And once they are determined, can they be learned isolated from the setting of their use ? ’ We get confused, decide to carry home our notes and try to come to some definite conclusions when we are less tired. Because we are principals and must know what’s going on in the so-called special work as well as in the academic subjects, we visit an art exhibit. We add to our confusion by listening to an argument between a supervisor of industrial arts and one of fine arts, who are trying to establish a working basis for what the relation between these two subjects shall be. Incidentally we run across an old friend who is a music supervisor. He tells us the modern tendency to encourage grade teachers to teach their own music is disastrous. No one but a specialist can really teach music, etc. We return to our own home towns determined to visit some schools in nearby cities just as soon as we have recovered from the convention. Perhaps seeing the work of other schools will help us to straighten out our confused theories. So, a little later we visit a city, which is enthusiastic for the platoon system. We hear the platoon schools called the /atest in modern educational practices. The other schools, not platoonized, are called “ tra ditional ” just as those not on an individual instruction basis in Winnetka are “traditional” and those in New York which are not on the Dalton plan are called traditional and we come home wondering whether our own school is “ progressive’ or “ traditional,” after all. Such wonderings are healthy and they result in a plan to take a half year off and go back to Teachers College and see what they’re doing there [94] ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 95 (as it was my privilege to do last year). In our first few days we are astounded by the immense piece of work done by the Elementary Curriculum Research Bureau on time allotments. But we remember that Dr. Kilpatrick doesn’t advocate teaching by subjects anyway and we hurry on into class. It may be that our class is with Dr. McCall. He tells us the results of a control experiment in which the reading scores of a group of children were remarkably increased by an organized system of frequent testing. But in the next class our instructor says that reading comprehension is closely correlated with intelligence, and no amount of teaching, however good or poor, can increase a child’s ability to comprehend what he reads. We live through that day; on the next we thrill with Dr. McMurry as he tells us how important is visualization in the teaching of geography. We visualize with him a trip over the Andes and then come down with a thud in our class in the Psychology of the Elementary School Subjects when the professor tells us: “A child cannot visualize anything he has never seen.” And so at last we come back home. We know what we do not know. We know that there ave no recipes for doing anything. We are faced with the necessity of working out a philosophy of education of our own, since it is impossible for us to find a ready made one which will satisfy all the theories and convictions, developed in us by our vicarious experience. Of course, we are constantly at this point of reorganization and as we work and study we find that the essential parts of the best work of every great educational thinker may really be worked into one plan of action. We become inspired to refuse to accept.any one method of teaching as the right method. We don’t want to be principal of a school which is called a Platoon or a Winnetka or a Dalton plan school. We want to be principal of a school in which every new tendency is being studied by all the teachers. We want to encourage them to adopt and reject according to their own ideals of good teaching—our work as principals being to see to it that they do develop these desirable ideals. Out of the maze of conflicting and bewildering ideas and methods em- braced by some of the new viewpoints in education, I have found that I can accept the philosophy of the project method without reservations. An understanding of this philosophy suggests and outlines one’s attitude toward everything he does. I find I am selecting my school furniture, conducting my teachers’ meetings, dealing with my janitor all by the project method. And perhaps some of you will say: Is not the project idea one of these special methods leading te single-track conclusions? One hesitates to use the term “ project ” because so many erroneous conceptions have grown up as a result of calling the project method a method of teaching. If we think of it as a method of learning, it helps us better to understand what it is. The definition that Dr. Kilpatrick gives to the project places the emphasis upon the child, the learner. It directs attention toward his attitude, and emphasizes the necessity of considering all the things the child is thinking and feeling as well as what he is doing. 96 NATIONAL EpucaATION ASSOCIATION I like to think of the project method as a philosophy of life or a method of living. An understanding of the democratic principles underlying the project idea affects one’s daily living. A person who appreciates the value of this method of learning for children recognizes how it may change the attitudes of principals or supervisors toward the teachers with whom they associate. There is no place for the domineering, masterful teacher in the modern school, nor is there a real place for the principal or supervisor who organizes, and plans, and demands, to such an extent that the teachers have no opportunity to grow in their own ability to work independently. Let us ask ourselves then—what is the role of the teacher in the modern school. Let us think what adjectives best describe the kind of a teacher of whom we thoroughly approve. Is sympathetic the most important? Perhaps so, if we qualify the kind of sympathy by adding the word intelligent to it. The teacher who is intelligently sympathetic thoroughly understands the psychology of the childhood represented in her room. A child’s mis- chievous act which, to the ignorant person, is simply willful disobedience may be recognized by this teacher as something all children are likely to do at some particular age. The intelligent sympathetic teacher knows what her boys and girls are doing outside of school. One time I had the opportunity of rather closely studying the home activities of a seventh grade boy who disliked going to school quite as much as any boy you have ever seen. Do you think these activities were without value from the standpoint of educative content? Some of his home activities were constructing a small steam engine and making it turn the wheels of other tiny machines, making a stamp collection, going on a hike to observe the eclipse, learning to repair his bicycle, figuring interest on his bank account, making his own Christmas cards. I observed this boy in school and out. You would never have known the listless, inattentive, careless boy of the inside school to be the same as the real boy outside of school. I became interested in seeing how his natural activities might lead on to rich pursuits. Through his steam engine I found he had a genuine interest in who discovered the way to make steam do work and what influence this discovery had upon industry. He did not recognize the stories connected with this romance, as coming under the same classification as the loathsome history he was forced to study in school. When he wanted to know how much money he would be able to save toward college if he saved 50 cents a week, he had no notion of what interest he would get. A half hour’s work with him gave him sufficient ability so that he could solve any simple interest problem. He said he thought he had “ had ” interest in school but he hadn’t understood at all what it meant. Is this boy different from the many boys and girls who do half hearted work in school, at the same time that they are living full, rich lives outside of school? Must the teacher not shift her starting point from the book and the course of study to the child and his instinctive activity? A teacher who was trying to be this kind of teacher once said to me: “ But my boys aren’t interested in anything but baseball.”’ Can you imagine how horrified she looked when I said, ‘ Fine, begin with that!” ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 97 Do we often emphasize the necessity of the teacher being humble? The modern teacher must be willing to come down from her place of distinction, marked by her location in the front of the room, become one of the social group in which she is working, preserve her place as silent leader and guide, judging her own success only by the growth of the children in their ability to work independently of her. For several years here in Grand Rapids we have been trying to encourage teachers of this type to understand and apply the philosophy underlying the project method. Two years ago, a group of us spent some time discussing ways of overcoming the difficulties standing in the way of ideal conditions for this kind of work. One of the main difficulties seemed to be the necessity of following a definite daily program, based on school subjects. A group of especially interested teachers worked with me to formulate a daily program, based on child activities, rather than school subjects. This program consists of six periods: the planning period, the research or “ finding out” period, the activity period, the recreation period, the free or unassigned period, the drill period. The Planning or Conference Period is devoted to a general discussion of the units of work, under way or to be undertaken, checking up on what has been accomplished, and general planning for the different periods of the day. A result of this period will be a set of questions or problems for individual or group study, demanded by the children. Each child will have for himself a list of things to do for the day, his part in each one of the periods. The Research or “ Finding Out” Period is the child’s study period. It is the time when the informational content of the various school subjects is used in answering child questions or problems. For instance—arithmetic would come into this period only as it helps in the furthering of the child’s immediate problems. The teacher helps the children to understand the application of the arithmetical process. Needs for drill on the process through similar problems are discovered here and left for the drill period. The Activity Period is devoted to handwork (processes and experiments illustrating subject matter), art work, construction work, the making of booklets, clay models, sand tables, charts, etc., and excursions into the community for first hand information on a problem. The Recreation Period is the period of preparation for leisure time. It is thought that the best plan for the content of this period is enriching and adding to the activities already enjoyed by the children outside of regular school hours. This period includes story telling, dramatization, lantern slide lectures, reports on outside amusements, such as “ movies,”’ events of current interest, sports and games, music and art appreciation, nature study, reading for enjoyment. The Free or Unassigned Period is the time which individual children use as they wish. Its chief purpose is to give opportunity for the initiation of individual projects and the obtaining of school materials and the teacher’s help in carrying on these activities. The work of this period is not usually isolated from the activities of the other periods. Very often the individual child uses the time to make something which he may contribute to the group. 98 NATIONAL EpucaATION ASSOCIATION The Drill Period is the time for each child to bring himself up to standard in the drill subjects. All drill is the natural outgrowth of the projects under way in other periods. Once the need for drill is established, the recognized technique of conducting a drill period should be employed. Sometimes different children will be drilling on different processes according to individual needs. ‘This necessitates the formation of plans by which children may help themselves (such as the Winnetka plans for individual instruction ). With some applications to the particular situation, I tried out this program in the fifth and sixth grades in a practice school, summer before last. Upon my return to Grand Rapids in the fall, I found a group of teachers eager to experiment with this plan for a daily program. I interviewed our super- intendent who, after some serious consideration of the difficulties involved, gave these teachers, a group of thirteen as it happened, permission to tr) out this program. Moreover, he encouraged us to take a step beyond, and allowed these teachers freedom in the choice of curriculum materials. Last year, an attempt was made to give the children in these experimental rooms only that subject matter demanded by their activities. A part of these activities may have been teacher planned if they were whole-heartedl) accepted by the children from the first. The present formal curriculum was used only as a guide in determining the age levels at which the experience of the past shows children most easily learn a process or are most likely to be interested in specific types of subject matter. We tried to omit all methods of encouraging the children to “ master” any bit of subject matter or any skill, outside of its intrinsic value in furthering an immediate purpose of theirs. Drill periods were used only in repetition of those processes for which the children had immediate needs, the value of which they appreciated from the standpoint of their own activities. Our aim was twofold—to find out whether or not the children in these rooms would fail to get the things which standardized tests set us as objectives in the so-called fundamentals, and, if the results were favorable to the methods being used, to use this information in obtaining freedom to work for the better things in education and in encouraging other teachers in the school system to study and apply the philosophy of the project. The children were measured with a battery of standardized educational and intelligence tests twice last year. When the results are compiled we are going to study the children’s improvement or their failure to improve, and compare their scores at the beginning of the year with those at the end of the year. ‘The same thing is being done this year, and Kensington School has been established as a project school to be organized on this basis for experimental purposes. I have chosen to tell two stories of activities carried on in these rooms as representative of the work we are doing: Near the holidays, a little girl returned to school from an orphan asylum where she had been living for a year or more. She was placed in a fifth grade group in one of these experimental rooms and in the conversation ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 99 periods, she told the children pathetic stories of the treatment of children in such institutions as the one she had been in. Naturally she obtained the sympathy of the group at once. The Children’s Golden Rule hospital is near their school. They decided to make what they called a sunshine quilt for the hospital. When it materialized it was made of blocks of unbleached muslin, with a strip of yellow dyed material around the edge, which they themselves dyed. Each child designed a block, describing some Mother Goose episode. They worked out the designs in black using an outline stitch and small bits of harmonizing colors (the boys didn’t even realize that they were sewing). One day I was watching a little boy of this group working with great care and precision on his sewing. I asked him if he liked to do it. He looked up with a bright smile and said, “‘ Oh! yes! but it’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life!” Every idea was worked out with the same care. They planned the quilt so that the figures and words would read right side up to the little unfor- tunate child in bed on Christmas day, and explained this to the directing nurse in the hospital. The quilting was a big undertaking for them. One day, a child suggested that they might invite their mothers some day and have a “ quilting bee.”” They had been studying the history of Colonial Days and the idea was popular. The mothers came and worked and were served refreshments which the children prepared in true Colonial style. Finally when the quilt was completed, they wrapped it attractively and took it to the hospital, where they were allowed to sing Christmas Carols to the children and tell them Christmas stories. The children do not think of such a problem as work, but the teacher’s written record tells such things as: Industrial Arts: Study of cotton cloth and its comparative cost; a study of dyes and how to dye cotton materials. Arithmetic: Figuring how much material we needed and collecting the money for it; planning the blocks (square measure). History: Review of what Colonial people had to eat and how they prepared it. English: Writing letters of invitation to mothers, etc. Another fifth grade group became interested in musical instruments, through the purchase of orchestra instruments by several children in the room. The teacher, at first, saw few rich possibilities in this interest of the group. When she did get into it, the children were encouraged to make a study of the different kinds of instruments; wind, string, and percussion. They did many physics experiments showing how the instruments “ worked.” They constructed a stage, with a miniature orchestra of dolls, a conductor with the proper foreign makeup and figured out how to have some real electric foot lights for it. The Museum Curator of Education made a splendid collection of historic instruments showing their evolution from primitive times, prepared a lecture for the children, and sent the instruments to their own school room. The children studied them and finally delivered most interesting “ lectures ” on them to the other children in their school. They made instruments of their own from cigar boxes, paste-board cartons, etc. A music company sent a collection of modern instruments and pictures. The library sent books and 100 NATIONAL EpucaTION ASSOCIATION pictures and some posters, advertising the value of music to children. Finally, the children had a “ Learn to Appreciate Good Music” campaign and became enthusiastic supporters of all the efforts of the music teacher in this building. A school in a nearby city, working on this plan, has stated their greatest handicap to be the lack of a basis for determining the value of their work, but there are quite as definite ways of determining success by this method as by any other. Criteria for judging success must be gradually developed in both the children and the teachers, who are working on this basis. The children’s interest determines the extent to which the activity is a gripping one. With the teacher they can decide whether or not they have time and equipment and available material for completing their plans. The children may be partial judges of their own ability and the adequacy of their plans for achieving success. They should never be allowed to undertake an activity for which they are incapable of making adequate plans. Finally the teacher must ask herself such questions as: (1) Is every child working up to his maximum capacity, finding within the group project a challenge to his individual ability and interest? (2) Is each child growing in his ability to control situations and the processes involved ? (3) Are all the opportunities for purposeful drill being utilized ? (4) Are all the possible opportunities for first hand experience, such as trips into the community and the handling of actual materials, being used? (5) Is each child growing in his ability to see the next thing to be done and his power to do it without the teacher’s help? A recent newspaper has caught the spirit of modern educational theory stating the aim of modern education to be developing the child into “a pro- ductive piece of human mechanism, rather than a well-filled filing cabinet.” I once heard of a Grand Rapids elementary school principal who asked a junior high school principal to outline what she would like boys and girls to have when sent into her school from the elementary school. She said, “ Oh! I don’t care so much what they have, if they know how to take care of themselves and if they still have a great eagerness for knowledge.” If there were more junior high school principals like this one, the work of the elementary school principal, who is trying to emphasize some of the new viewpoints in education, would be much easier and happier. HE dinner of the Department of Elementary School Prin- cipals will be held at the Raleigh Hotel, Tuesday evening, | February 23, at 6 o'clock. Tickets may be had by communicating | with Miss Mary Lackey, Dennison School, Washington, D. C. Plates $2.75. ‘SOME QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED OF THE PRINCIPAL OF A MODERN HIGH SCHOOL HAROLD E. WARNER Principal, Hine Junior High School, Washington, D. C. SIDE FROM a large city school superintendency, there is probably no position of public trust in the world demanding a wider range of qualifications, or higher qualifications, than those required of the principal of a modern high school, that is, if the principal is to realize even remotely the high possibilities of his office. Let us see what some of these qualifica- tions are. 1. The principal of a modern high school, senior or junior, must have a natural aptitude for organization work. In other words the size of his school must bear no relation to the smooth and efficient operation thereof. Enrolment is the easiest and quickest requirement of a public school. In fact, the city school has not reached its natural condition until it is overcrowded. But the efficient principal has the knack of dividing and sub-dividing the responsibilities of management as they multiply so that the school moves on serenely. The question is sometimes asked: “ How large should the modern high school be?” In the writer’s judgment the effective size of a high school is limited only by the physical plant and the organizing ability of the principal assuming, of course, adequate assistance. If a school superintendent can with adequate assistance direct the education of 70,000 children, for example, what is to prevent a high school principal from doing the same thing, if ever a high school should grow that large? 2. Yet, with his broader grasp of affairs, the high school principal must combine an infinite capacity for detail. No “arm chair philosopher ” can control discipline in a modern high school. It is possible for a man to be a really great educator and yet be totally unable to manage a high school. There are a thousand little, infinitesimal “ don’ts ” that have to be eternally followed up, all the high-flown theories against “ don’ts”’ notwithstanding. Just one illustration: The first snowfall of every year brings with it the almost irresistible temptation to the boys to throw snowballs about the school grounds. It is a shame to have to stop it! I like to throw snowballs myself ! But the negative side of discipline is today, of course, the smallest part of it. Says Professor W. R. Smith in his recent treatise on school discipline : In the “ good old days” of the pedagogical autocrat, discipline was a fairly simple matter. The teacher was a man; his pupils were children and youth. It was his business to command, theirs to obey. If difficulties arose, the appeal to might was instant. No fine-spun theories of moral suasion or the child’s right to the expression of his personality intervened. Treatment of misdemeanors was direct, emphatic, and generally physical. Pupils were individualized. Group spirit and cooperation were discountenanced. Silence, rigidity of posture, and uniformity of response were sought. The moral law consisted of obedience, study, memoriter recitation. Discipline was a servant of learning, rather than of character building. Consequently there were no principles to bother with. [101] 102 NATIONAL EpUCATION ASSOCIATION On the contrary, in today’s positive and constructive methods—to borrow from the words of Robert Louis Stevenson’s beautiful little Christmas Creed—“ Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.” 3. The principal must have a clear conception of the general meanings of education and the ability to work them into practice. The principal should understand the most modern educational theories right down to their practical working-out through the curriculum. I think he should go even a step further than the familiar “ questionnaire” type of graduate information which knows what a lot of schools are doing; he should know why the school is doing it. The selection and development of good teachers is not the least of a principal’s capacities, even though, in the larger school, he has to turn a larger part of this vital work over to the first or second assistant. 4. The principal should have some knowledge of modern research methods. His school should be an educational research laboratory. He should be systematically studying the actual operation of many of the phases of school work with a constant resultant of readjustment and improvement. For example, in the matter of discipline cases, which are the principal’s daily joy, he will be making a sociological study of misbehavior types and causes. Such a study may some day lead to some form of social service work like that of the large industrial corporations, as for example, the Ford Motor Company. Not long ago on a certain morning, three boys happened to be sent to my office for discipline simultaneously from three different classes. The small card which each student sent to the office for discipline is required to fill out (partly for the impression this action makes upon the student) revealed the fact that each of these three boys comes from a home where one or both of the parents are permanently absent from the home. The principal will be studying the problem of moral education. The use of the latest mental tests and measurements is now a matter of course. 5. It will be helpful if the principal shall have had personal experience with the work of some of the various departments under his supervision, such as the manual training shops, domestic art and science laboratories, business practice, or the fine arts. “Take the fine arts, for example. Here is a large school equipped with a $20,000 pipe organ. You would think that the music department would have initiative enough to make use of this asset, that there would be periodic recitals, bringing before students and public the best organists of the city and state. Alas, not so. But some das there will come to the executive helm an artistic soul, with enough actual experience to bring his soul to earth, and then there will be “ music in the air, when the twilight’s gentle sigh—etc.” You ask me why it is that executive impulse must so often be given to departmental activities whose necessity should be self-evident. I answer that I know only that this is too frequently the case. In fact, it is but platitude to say that if you approach any large organization and find wheels of its several departments all running busily and creatively, you may depend upon it that back somewhere in the inner sanctum is “ the old man” quietly sending forth vitalizing impulses, just like the dynamo in a large power plant. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 103 6. The principal can well use all the actual experience he may possess in the management of the major extra-curricula activities of the school, such as cadets, athletics, publications, and various student clubs. The supervision of many of these student activities requires a degree of skill in business and personnel management equal to that required in the experienced direction of many a commercial enterprise. How can the principal, for example, insist that school publications shall stand upon their own financial feet without subsidy from the general school funds unless he has had some degree of experience in bringing this about? At least there is a certain added force in the direction of that principal who urges his faculty to the accomplishment of dificult tasks which he himself, in bygone years as a teacher, has been able to accomplish. There is no larger problem in the secondary schools today than the problem of athletics. It is a field of dynamite charged with power for infinite good or tremendous harm. ‘The ultimate control of school athletics is no problem for the novice. It rather demands the very best of the qualities of sympathy, tact, and vision which are the outgrowth of actual experience in the field. 7. The principal must have considerable ability in methods of financial control, school fund raising, and general accounting and business methods. Consider the problem of the raising of funds within the school itself. The principal at the outset of the school year, knows there will be required several hundred dollars to operate the several student activities, as well as need for a considerable amount of money to meet miscellaneous building expenses not provided for in the usual equipment and repair appropriations of the school board. He must not only initiate the raising of these funds, but insist upon systematic accounting methods and sound business procedure in their raising and disbursement. Of course, the supervision of student activity finances is but a small part of the principal’s financial duty. There is the physical plant, with a valuation running into the thousands of dollars, for the proper operation and upkeep of which he is responsible. And there are the annual purchases of hundreds of dollars’ worth of equipment all over the principal’s recommendation, if indeed he does not do most of the actual purchasing work. In short, in the principal’s aptitude for financial management alone rests the possibility of saving or losing to the community many dollars’ worth of actual value. 8. The principal should have aptitude in methods of winning public support of educational projects. We have often heard it said that the teacher ought to be leader in the community. The successful principal has to be. If he is not daily enlarging the “sale” of the latest educational ideals in his community, he is falling down. I once heard a school official say in a public address, that in the matter of educational innovations the school should follow, rather than lead the public desire. I must have misunderstood him! The educational administrator should be a veritable “ beacon light ” of current history in his community. To this end he should be able to speak forcefully, if not eloquently, in public, and if he should happen to know something about press publicity methods—since we assume honesty—no harm can result. 104 NATIONAL EpucaTIon ASSOCIATION g. The principal should have a motivating appreciation of the possibilities of his school for bettering the community. Abraham Lincoln in the closing sentence of his first Inaugural Address suggests a key thought, when he speaks of “the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land.” 10. The standards of professional preparation required for the principal- ship are being constantly raised. Today the B. A. degree, at least in our larger cities, is scarcely a good start. The old days, when it was said “ those who can, do; those who cannot, teach,” are gone. The one-legged veteran no longer takes up teaching solely upon the basis of the one leg. He needs a much broader foundation. In fact, school administration has become so much a science that systematic study of its principles are being required in some places, in addition to the usual well known course in the theory of education. 11. However, no amount of exposure to courses can take the place of the next quality which I shall mention. We must include personality, of course, and hasten to define it. Let us say: a natural desire for sociability, coupled with a keen sense of justice and of clearly logical type of mind. The result will be, no doubt, artfulness in maintaining pleasant working relations with faculty, students, and the general public. 12. Finally, let us list general good health and vigor. Why should not this be placed first? It should, but it is so manifest that it would at once make a magazine article uninteresting! PUPIL ADMINISTRATION AND CHARACTER TRAINING Harry O. GILLET Principal of the University of Chicago Elementary School, Chicago, Illinois HAT A CHANGE a few years have brought in our conception of the elementary school principal. Yesterday he was the eighth grade teacher who for the dignity of the title and a few extra dollars did the routine office work of the school. Today in the progressive school system he is the professional expert of the building and the local representative of the superintendent. As the person in active responsibility for the efficiency of a large and complicated organization, he has been relieved of all or most of his teaching and has been given a clerk to carry the burden of petty details. He has had his job analyzed for him by efficiency experts. He has received specialized training. He is intimately acquainted with the course of study as a means of education. He has studied the psychology of learning and teaching the common branches. He knows the elements of effective classroom management. He has learned to test and measure, to group his children economically for instruction, and to organize his class time- table intelligently. He can recognize and diagnose inefficiency in any school activity and he knows how to eradicate it. He is a specialist. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 105 His is a busy day. He has to plan carefully to give a due proportion of his time to supervision of classroom activities and the improvement of instruction, the study of test and measurement data, the organization of classes, pupil accounting and school bookkeeping, conferences with parents, and community activities. He has insufficient time to do anything as well as he would like to do it. But, busy as he is, there is another major ac- tivity which he must develop and organize. It is pupil personnel work. He is conscious of the problem and is giving it some attention, but the re- sults are meager and ineffective because he has not organized the work on a sufficiently broad basis. We Americans seem to have a genius for organization. We like to analyze a task and plan it so that we can perform it with a minimum expenditure of time and energy. In industry we standardize and mecha- nize and organize so that we may produce more at cheaper unit cost. We realize this is what makes it possible for all of us to have automobiles and many other articles which yesterday were luxuries, with the leisure to enjoy them. We are proud of the improvements we have made in our schools through analyzing and organizing their activities. Through our study of the com- munity and its problems we have made over our courses of study as means of education for citizenship. We have eliminated obsolete prac- tices from our arithmetics and rarely used words from our spelling books. We train children to read silently for understanding rather than orally for expression. We teach hygiene and health conservation instead of anatomy. We have organized teaching methods to harmonize with what we have found about how children learn. We employ trained people to interpret the course to teachers and to guide them in using it. We have greatly improved our textbooks. We have begun to devise means of testing intelligence and the products of teaching. We promote ability grouping, platoon schools, junior high schools, individualized instruction in the fundamental school arts, and departmental teaching to give the pupil the utmost in education in return for his time and the community’s money. Only pupil personnei work has been left on the old unorganized basis. In fact, it is deteriorating, because we have become so engrossed in operating the units of our system that we are not taking time to become acquainted with our individual pupils. We are organizing, teaching, and testing groups with economy and dispatch, but while our expressed purpose is to give each child as great a measure of intellectual, moral, physical, manual, and esthetic training as his capacity and limitations and our time and strength will permit, we realize we do not know enough about him to work very intelligently. Our old means of becoming personally acquainted with him are breaking down, and we are not organizing new ways of meeting the changed conditions. In some way we must make teachers keenly conscious again of the pupil as an individual, a personality, whom they can understand only as they know and appreciate the conditions which affect him. 106 NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Greatly improved as our schools undoubtedly are, the output does not please us altogether. We cannot quiet our doubts by repeating that we have to work with very refractory material, that some children are born dull, that our percent of failures is becoming smaller. We are becom- ing conscious of the fact that so far in our organizing for efiiciency we have failed to take some important factors into account. We know that many bright pupils fail to meet our hopes. ‘The pupils in the lowest quartile in intelligence quotients or mental ages may advance into any of the other quartiles in accomplishment. The overlapping in achieve- ment in ability groups is large. Pupils encounter many individual diffi- culties. “The quick child in arithmetic may be slow in learning to spell. The mechanics of reading may be the one high hurdle. It is rather rare to find a bright person who learned in the elementary school how to use his school time to advantage. We give our children good books to read in school, but many turn to cheap and unworthy books outside. We teach them to read fast and with understanding, but we do not always arouse lasting intellectual interests. Unsocial conduct and personality and moral defects persist to discouraging degrees. Even in the school subjects our present organization does not seem to provide adequately for the welfare of the individual in the group if he varies much from the so-called norm, by which we vaguely mean average. Periodically we conscientiously give standardized tests in the school arts, and we compute the class medians and make our reports. We know we ought to do something about the cases of children in the upper ranges and lower ranges, but the scheme of things does not provide for doing much in a personal, individual sense. Besides, a little knowledge of in- telligence quotients and the normal distribution curve makes many an un- thinking person fatalistic in his attitude toward the deviant. He vaguely believes he is working with nature merely when he passes him with high marks or fails him and then neglects him. Our ability grouping makes the problem of the superior child or the slow child less acute, but it by no means solves the problem. In general the range is decreased, and the upper class studies a richer course while the lower class plods along without much hope, but the individual proceeds on his wasteful way, because nobody has time or facilities to study his case and show him how to make the most of his abundant or his meager talent. We still try too much to make the child fit the course. What we need to know about a problem case is only what we need to know about every child in our classes if we are to understand him and to make our teaching personal and individual. We should know the significant facts about his parentage, his home and neighborhood environ- ment, his physical condition and handicaps, his school history, his capacities, interests, inhibitions, and accomplishments, and the ways in which he uses his time—all this in addition to academic marks and test scores and in- telligence quotient and attendance record. Some of it is hard to secure if we wait until a problem has developed. A little of it public opinion i! — 7 Si ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 107 in some communities would not permit us at present to put on record in school files. Much of it is the sort of information which the teachers gathered informally before schools were so large and so well organized. But then we did not know how to use it so well. Remedial measures have been the subject of much study in laboratory schools in recent years, and we have made much progress in selecting and using data. Now that we are learning how to use such data, the problem in our larger schools lies in collecting and recording as well as using them. We need full but concise cumulative records to which parents, teachers, principal, and school physicians and nurses contribute. Marks and scores and attendance records are not enough. They do not tell the story, because when the pupil is promoted the new teacher does not know the story, and the present organization does not provide her with means of learning it, her teaching is bound to be less personal, less vital, more academic, and in terms of education for living, less effective. What we seem to need first of all is a cumulative master card for each pupil and a folder for supplementary information about him. The cards that we are using experimentally in the University of Chicago elementary and high schools probably are larger and more elaborate than we shall find we need. They provide for recording all the data we can get about a pupil’s inheritance, his pre-school training in home and neighborhood, his physical history with special reference to nutrition, illnesses, operations, vitality, and growth, his physical condition in detail as revealed by examina- tions made annually by the school physician, his home and neighborhood environment, his interests and out of school activities, and his school his- tory with regard to tests and measurements, teachers’ judgments of his work and accomplishment, attendance, and reports in the several subjects of study. When one sets about it, one does not find it difficult to get most of the data. Parents are solicitous for the welfare of their children, and if they believe the principal and the teachers are capable and honest, they will cheerfully answer questions about home and neighborhood life and pre- school physical and social history. Of course, the interrogator must use judgment in questioning and recording and must omit the doubtful and irrelevant. He must be guided by a standard questionnaire but he must be quick to follow additional significant leads. The interview with the parent may do much to cement the good will which most parents enter- tain both toward their children’s school and its teachers. The reports of the physical examiner, with interpretations of the findings, belong on the cards. Test scores and academic reports are transferred automatically, with such additional data as make the reports significant. Together with the pupil’s weight record should be noted the average weight for children of the same sex, age, and height. If, in consideration of height, the parents’ stature or nationality is significant, it should be noted. Together with the scores in the standardized tests should be noted the norms for the grade. 108 NATIONAL EpucaTIon ASSOCIATION Teachers’ reports other than scores and marks may be sent in periodically or whenever there is anything significant to report. They should be filed in the pupils’ folders. Our own practice is to use small cards, which have come to be known as “ yellow cards,” and on which the teacher sends reports of special success or failure, with explanatory comments. Such cards have a wonderfully stimulating effect when they are sent to parents, especially if the reports are commendatory. Into the pupils’ folders go also reports of remedial work, special interests, supplementary work, out- side reading, and behavior which may have special significance. Makers of filing devices have responded intelligently to the demands of schools for adequate cards and cabinets. They have devised cards and symbols for recording data in unbelievably small compass. The newer cabinets permit the filing of cards for one thousand pupils in a few shallow drawers at the principal’s elbow. The principal’s first duty in personnel administration is to organize the collection and recording of significant physical, environmental, social, men- tal, and intellectual data about each child. His second duty is equally important—to train his teachers in the use of the data and to acquire the habit of using the data. Probably the most effective way is through the study of problem cases. He must master the procedure for himself through actual performance before he tries to instruct the teachers. To read about procedure is not enough. He must actually diagnose some problem cases scientifically and thoroughly and use remedial measures successfully before he can know enough to tell others. It is the unusual teacher who will spurn the principal’s offer of help in diagnosing a problem case if he be- lieves he is qualified to give it. Problem cases in school usually attract attention through failure or partial failure in some subject, or through unsocial conduct, or manifestations of warping motives. ‘They usually can be traced to low or poor mentality, bad physical history, present physical handicaps, unfortunate home and neighborhood environment, poor or insufficient teaching, absence from school, or neglect. Most of the cases are not difficult to diagnose and many can be remedied, if not cured, by simple measures. The skillful teacher often can employ the necessary remedial measures in class if she knows specifically where the trouble lies. Sometimes, of course, the causes are obscure or obstinate, and even when discovered, cannot be modified appre- ciably. The University of Chicago Elementary School has been at work for several years on personnel procedure. The school has its due proportion of certain kinds of problem cases. We admit pupils to the kindergarten and the first grade without testing them in advance. Among these chil- dren the usual difficulties develop. But since there is an automatic selec- tion because of the tuition charge, and since the community itself is superior, we follow the policy of admitting to the second, third, fourth, and fifth grades some maladjusted pupils from other schools. We are not equipped to care properly for subnormal, blind, deaf, or tuberculous children, but we have misfits of other kinds. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 109 We test every child in the school early in his course for mentality and periodically for achievement in the school arts. We give him a rather thorough physical examination annually, which includes tests of sight and hearing. We get his pre-school physical and social history. We learn something of his parents and his home. All this we record, together with reports, from teachers about his attitudes, his power and habits of applica- tion, the amount and quality of his outside reading, his attendance, his health, his interests, any items of significant behavior, and his degree of success in doing each kind of school work. These records are accumu- lated and organized as explained above, so that they are available for in- spection by any teacher in the study of any or all of her pupils, or for the study of a problem case when it develops. From time to time such cases do develop. The teachers report them to the principal, together with tentative diagnoses and supporting evidence. It is a help in thinking to classify them as mental, intellectual, physical, psycho-physical, volitional, or psychopathic cases. The principal discusses each with the reporting teacher in the light of the evidence and the history. Usually the class teacher with the help of the departmental teachers who are concerned is able to do all that is necessary without interfering with class routine. Individual instruction may be necessary, but usually an acquain- tance with the nature of the difficulty enables the teacher to give the needed individual help while he is working with the group. Some cases do not yield to the measures which the class teacher em- ploys. “They become known as remedial cases, and for the present, while we are making a special study of means of diagnosis and treatment, they are referred to a special teacher, known as the remedial teacher. In con- ference with the reporting teacher he investigates the difficulties, and or- ganizes remedial treatment, which he himself may carry on experimentally or which the class teacher may give. The remedial teacher, however, keeps closely in touch with each of these cases for a number of months, even though the pupils may not be reporting to him for instruction. It goes without saying that a child of mentality somewhat below the average must have a modified course and must be given more time to learn. Poor nutrition, the specific infections, heart, nose, throat, mouth, and thyroid disorders, and poor sight and hearing are frequent causes of slow- ness in learning. Until these physical handicaps are removed, it is almost useless to attempt classroom remedial measures. The country over, reading is the subject in which there are most failures in the lower grades and arithmetic is the subject in which there are most failures in the middle grades. For difficulties in reading and in per- forming the fundamental operations in arithmetic there are now rather comprehensive diagnostic tests. The trouble usually is specific, not general, and when it is recognized, appropriate remedial measures can be employed successfully. While the standardized tests in problem solving in arithmetic have less diagnostic value, there is a good deal of evidence to support the view that ability to recognize the appropriate process or processes to use in solving an arithmetic problem can be cultivated in any intelligent child 110 NATIONAL EpucaATION ASSOCIATION with proper teaching and sufficient practice. In this connection, it ought to be said that intelligent reading of arithmetic problems is a specialized art which is not often cultivated in the classes of reading. Study of prob- lem cases in spelling reveals some specific difficulties which training can overcome. Inability to read intelligently and intensively is responsible for many of the failures in history and geography. Repeated academic or social failure is a prolific cause of further and more extended failure. A taste of success is a wonderful stimulus to greater endeavor. Sometimes an adjustment in grading or the removal of a specific difficulty provides the only means necessary to transform the lazy, unsocial, sensitive, disorderly failure into an active, cooperative, happ: learner. What has this study of individuals in our classes to do with training of character? The answer is obvious. The teacher can impart much of his instruction in the school arts to properly graded groups quite as well as to individuals, but to train in character, he must be conscious of each child as a personality, a complex of habits, attitudes, and desires all his own. He must know how the child came to be what he is, what influences dominate him, and the effects they are having on him. He must under- stand the child by being able to put himself in his place. Such understanding is the outcome of experience and much study. He is busy, very busy doing the next thing as it crowds upon him through the day, and unless the basic records are available for him to use in his study of an individual he is likely not to go out to get them. Along with the present greatly improved organization of our schools for the teaching of the arts, we need improved organization for the study and understanding of individuals. Only as we understand a child can we train him in the fundamentals of character. REPORT OF THE INDIANAPOLIS MEETING OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS W. T. LoncsHore Principal of Greenwood School, Kansas City, Missouri RESIDENT JESSIE M. FINK took steps decidedly in advance of any that have been taken heretofore. She appointed two important committees and told the chairman of each that she was expecting action. The first was: A Committee on Training for the Elementary School Principalship with W. T. Longshore as chairman and with as select a committee personnel as could be found in this country. (See April 1925 Bulletin of the Department for names and positions. ) The response of each of the members was most cordial, stating he was pleased to serve and that he thought the work was most important, and that it would take from three to five years for the committee to be ready to make its final report. It was suggested that the work of the committee should ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 111 be financed. Drs. Judd and Hosic were appointed the chairmen to look after the financing. ‘There was a meeting of the members of the committee who were in Indianapolis and discussions followed the general lines of the meeting in Cincinnati. The work of the committee has been conducted by the chairman through correspondence following suggestions from members along two lines: First, to get the members of the committee to tell in written form their ideas of the work of the committee, setting up ideals and goals. In this we were quite successful and some wonderful ideals and goals have been pro- posed. The curious part about it is that the highest ideals have come from elementary school principals themselves and not from doctors of education or superintendents. It is clearly a movement from within the ranks. Second: The second line was to find out what universities, colleges, and teacher colleges are offering in courses for students looking forward to the elementary school principalship. ‘These inquiries were sent out to twenty institutions, the large majority of which were state universities and the others to the leading private insti- tutions that have teachers colleges by that name or some modification of it. All the institutions except four replied at once and they said if any further information was wanted just to let them know. And in nearly every case they expressed pleasure to know that such a committee was at work and stated they wished to co6perate. Elementary education was featured in almost all the institutions, with courses especially for the elementary school principal in many. It was quite common for the institutions to be offering courses leading to the bachelor’s degree ine elementary education—several courses especially for the ele- mentary school principal. Eight are offering work leading to the master’s degree and three offer work leading to the doctorate. In only a very few catalogs did we find courses for the elementary school principal worded in such general language as to indicate that it is just for effect, i. e., make-believe. The above was made as a preliminaty report at Indianapolis together with suggestive forms of two certificates of approval suggested by Leonard Power and details worked out by the chairman. A copy of these certificates appears on the following page. These forms are only suggestive and are for study and suggestions with the idea of having something better to present to the meeting one year hence. Chairman Longshore’s report was received and filed simply as a report of progress and the committee was continued for one year with instructions to continue its work along the lines suggested in this report of progress. The committee was asked to try to have minimum standards set up for entering the elementary school principalship ready to report at the summer meeting in 1926. To have the two forms of certificates improved and ready for report at the same time, and another form for the use of state super- intendents. ‘The second committee appointed by President Fink was a salary committee with Ide G. Sargeant as chairman. It is easy to see that this committee is 112 NATIONAL EpUCATION ASSOCIATION DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CERTIFICATE OF APPROV(\! This is to certify that the Board of Education of has set a standard for its elementary school principals based upon training, experience and merit, equal to the standard set for its high school princi- pals, and where the responsibility is the same relatively, makes no distinc- tion either in salary, or clerical assistance. President Seal Secretary Date DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCI PALS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL This is to certify that Has met the standard requirements for an elementary school principal set by the Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Edu- cation Association. President Seal Secretary Date—___-— 4 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 113 complementary to the one of ‘Training for the Elementary School Principal- ship. If the standards are to be raised and the bachelor’s degree with special training for the work of the principalship is to be required of those who are to enter; and if increased scholarship and professional training are to be asked of the ones now in, then the salary attached must be attractive to people having said training. No one can do his best work when he and his family have to live under mean conditions. The principalship must be made respectable by the returns it offers if you are to expect the high qualifications and efficiency set forth in these reports. Principal Sargeant did a fine piece of work collecting data as to the best practices in this country. Four or five places have during the year made new schedules and many more realize that something must be done soon. SE iat, TE, WENN gos 5. 5.8 ike. hse eareras armel $5000 Me GEE, ING: TEFSGG, SCHOO 10 oi. io incase seid sade vuviewaclaaas 5500 ee EE eee ra rn een rere erry re cor 6000 ae UN IW 528 os 50-06, 4.5, 0. xjarsce sie, 915, ¥ipta cng ores oa niaiora ana earns 6500 The tendency in each cf these places is to make less variation in the salary of the elementary school, junior high school and high school principal’s salaries. In Chicago the elementary school and the junior high school principals have the same salary, and the high school principal’s salary is five hundred dollars more than the former two. That is a movement in che right direction and the next step is the single salary schedule for all principals with relatively equal training, experience, efficiency and success when they occupy places of the same relative responsi- bility. All of this was made plain by Principal Sargeant and he set the goal as $10,000, which should be reached within a few years. No principals are getting too much money but all principals are getting entirely too little compensation for the service they render to the community, state and nation. Principal Sargeant’s report was adopted by a rousing unanimous vote and he and his committee were thanked for doing such a fine piece of work. Principal J. D. Williams, chairman of the Committee on Educational Progress, was not able to attend because of serious illness in his family. He had all his plans made to attend the meeting. He sent his report to Secretary Sargeant and it appeared in the October Bulletin. All of the numbers on the program were of unusual merit and the meetings were attended by large numbers of attentive and enthusiastic listeners who remained until the program was concluded. You will have the pleasure of reading these addresses in the October and January Bulletins of the Department. You will enjoy them. The biggest and best accomplishment of the year 1924-1925 was the getting out of the Fourth Yearbook by Principal Arthur S. Gist. It is a treasure trove and was in the hands of all subscribers by May 20, 1925. The marvel is how he got together so much fine professional literature (and literature is used in its best sense) and also conducted the B. F. Day school, one of the best schools in this country. One of these days you will find that that was not all he did in the year 1924-25. 114 NATIONAL EpucaTION ASSOCIATION Every principal in the United States should have that book. I would feel that I was a slacker if I did not have my name on that honor roll of progressive principals who make the publishing of such a great professional book possible each year. The Elementary School Principals’ Dinner —This function of the Ele- mentary School Principals has developed into an institution at the semi- annual meetings of the National Education Association. It is looked forward to as the largest, most interesting and most brilliant social occasion of the meeting, not only by the principals but by many others upon attendance at these most interesting educational meetings. The dinner this year under the skilful planning of the Indianapolis prin- cipals led by Miss Nell V. Green as chairman was as nearly perfect as human skill could make it. Our president Mrs. Jessie M. Fink presided with all the grace, skill, wisdom and sparkling wit for which she is noted and even surpassed what she had done on any previous occasion. It was an event long to be remembered for its sociability, good fellowship, wit, humor, and wisdom that was dispensed; and when at the close of the dinner Mrs. Fink suggested that we join hands and sing “ Blest be the Tie that Binds,” the spiritual element was brought to the fore and much felt by each one present. It is well when we do not let our intellectuality rob us of the emotional side of life. We cannot live by intellect alone. The following were seated at the speaker’s table: President Jessie M. Fink, President Jesse H. Newlon, Dr. Fred M. Hunter, Superintendent Edwin C. Broome, Dr. George D. Strayer, Superintendent Mary C. C. Bradford, Superintendent E. U. Graff, Superintendent Leslie A. Butler, Principals Olive M. Jones, Mary McSkimmon, Arthur S. Gist, Ide G. Sargeant, W. T. Longshore, Nell V. Green, John Merrill, Anna Laura Force, E. Ruth Pyrtle. The spirit of the occasion was fine from the beginning and the group singing led by Mr. Hesser, supervisor of music, was well done as everyone entered into it with much spirit and glee. They sang to President Fink of their appreciation and love, and she arose and sang right back to the group her appreciation and love. It was an unusual and spontaneous number. We were then entertained by William Herschell, one of Indianapolis’ famous poets—and they grow them on every street corner there! If it were possible to select the climax, it might be the regular boys’ poem “Ts Zat So.” President Fink (to be known hereafter as ‘ Toast Marster”) called on President Newlon first as he had three more dinners, two meetings and five committees to attend that evening. By the way, a president of the National Education Association has not very much to do. He said we had heard that we held the key position in the school system and he said it was so and that it behooves us to line up to it. He advised us to take some time for play so we would be in better condition to do our important work. Superintendent Fred M. Hunter was in his usual good humor and said he believed in us and our work but advised us not to take ourselves too seriously. cl; ur pI sh ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 115 Dr. Strayer struck the first serious note in making his remarks on the classroom teacher, pleading that she be given a chance to do her work under proper conditions and that she be professionally assisted. Superintendent Mary C. C. Bradford said it was a distinct honor to be present. She felicitated us on the occasion and our organization but said that she would refrain from extended remarks. Mary McSkimmon, always scholarly, bright and practical, talked on the advantages of the principalship and the joy of working with the children and the community. Olive M. Jones—and there is but one Olive—is always entertaining, and throws out wisdom in great chunks. She declared that almost every speaker had stolen some of her thunder and had beat her to the story-telling of the occasion. . . . But there is no use trying to get ahead of Olive M. The ones that tell their stories first have no chance at all and so it was this time. Ide G. Sargeant, always dynamic and strong, threw out some fine chal- lenges for future work. W. T. Longshore took a serious turn and talked on the importance of the elementary school principalship; he deprecated and warned against the “skimming process” that is going on in this country to build up the pet institutions, junior high schools and high schools, at the expense of the elementary schools, making it necessary for elementary school principals and elementary school teachers to seek high school positions to get promotions because of salary. It is wrong in theory and in practice. Arthur S. Gist threw out the idea of the advantage of the elementary principal’s position to do experimental work and advised that more of it be done. He believes that we do not realize our strategic position in this regard. The suggestion was well received. . Miss Nell V. Green denied all responsibility for the perfect arrangements for the dinner and said it was all the fault of the committee. She spoke and acted just like a good principal should. That is efficient leadership. John Merrill complimented the president and all who had had a part in the department on its success as reflected on this occasion. Superintendent Butler showed his pride in his principal, President Fink, in a very fine tribute. Superintendent Graff in a most self-effacing way told of the pleasure and honor of Indianapolis in entertaining us. It was done in an artistic way, but we knew that it had cost him hours and days of work and planning and we let him know that we appreciated his efforts and those of each of his co-workers. It was an occasion full of color, wit, humor, wisdom and emotion. So on the suggestion of the Toast Master we joined hands and sang “ Blest be the Tie that Binds.” We missed during the entire meeting the presence and handclasp of our friend, Dr. A. E. Winship, and more on this great occasion than any other place. WORLD CONFERENCE AT EDINBURGH E. RUTH PYRTLE Principal, McKinley School, Lincoln, Nebraska HE WORLD CONFERENCE on Education, held in Oakland and San Francisco, June 28 to July 6, 1923, under the auspices of the National Education Association started currents of influence which, flowing out to the distant parts of the world, are destined to change the attitude of educational workers towards world problems. Perhaps the most far-reaching act of this conference was the organization of a World Federation of Education Associations, an organization to repre- sent comprehensively the forces working for universal education and so to promote international understanding, goodwill, cooperation, and justice. The first gathering of the World Federation of Education Associations was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 20-27, 1925. Ten hundred fifty delegates, representatives of fifty nations and of the five millions of teachers in the world, met for discussion in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. The interest in the meeting was not confined to educators only, but many men and women of Great Britain and the continent, prominent in the political and economic life of Europe, were quick to realize the tremendous potentiality for good of such a movement and were in attendance, taking part in the discussions. The objective of this world meeting was to secure international coopera- tion in educational enterprises, to foster the dissemination of information concerning education in all its forms among nations and people, to cul- tivate international goodwill, and to promote the interests of peace through- out the world. The program began on a bright cool Monday morning, July 20, and lasted eight days—cight full days, I assure you, beginning each day for the American delegates with an 8:30 delegate meeting, at the North British Hotel. Dr. Russell, chairman of the American delegation got a lot of business and valuable discussion in these peppy meetings, sending us off in time for the ten o'clock daily sessions. In these ten o’clock sessions, all phases of education were discussed in group meetings. The Pre-School Education had as chairman, Lady Leslie Mackenzie. Judging from the extended publicity of the daily press, these discussions must have awakened great interest. The group sessions on elementary education gave much time to this type of conference: 1. What elements in the curricula of the elementary school are calculated to develop the virtues necessary to world understanding, justice, and good- will ? [116] int fur rel ria the hel co: tic fo ar ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 117 2. What has the movement among our young people done to further international understanding, and is it desirable for the Federation to assist in furthering it? If so, how? 3. What steps may the Federation take to produce a more sympathetic relationship to the subject of geography? 4. What plan is feasible and advisable to set up for the exchange of mate- rials bearing accurate and desirable information for geography teaching? 5. In the study of geography, is it possible to select, arrange and relate the essential elements so that teachers of one country may be mutually helpful to the teachers of another? 6. At the San Francisco Conference the general idea of international correspondence among school children was endorsed. How may the Federa- tion contribute more largely to this work? If there were space I would like to tell of the splendid programs set up for the groups interested in Secondary Education, Character Education, Illiteracy, Adult Education, Teacher Training, Health and Universities. At times the discussions were so intense, each nation apparently so anxious to have its viewpoint accepted, that individual speakers seemed almost unfriendly, but in the end, goodwill predominated, and all seemed to realize the deep truth of the statement made at the San Francisco meeting two years ago: “ Of all the institutions working for the unification of man- kind and the improvement of the social welfare, the school stands first and, in consequence, the importance of a stand to be taken by those who direct public education and those who teach in the schools can hardly be over- estimated. What our civilization will be a quarter of a century hence will depend very largely on the attitude assumed toward these new questions of international relations by those who are responsible for the direction of public education in all lands and nations.” Practically all the discussions were in the English language. I believe I heard but three interpreters. This speaks well for the universal use and knowledge of the English language when we remember that more than fifty countries were represented. The Delegate Assembly sessions were presided over by our most able President, Dr. A. O. Thomas, state superintendent of Maine and a former Nebraskan. Much credit is due to Dr. Thomas for the success of this world meeting. It was no small task, to set up that fine program, no easy task to control {n business session that very much mixed, diverse group. It appeared at times that certain nationalities wanted to dominate and control the chairman, but our Dr. Thomas was equal to every emergency and kept the control, giving fair play and justice to representatives of all nations regardless of size and prestige. At the opening welcome meeting presided over by Sir John Gilmour, member of Parliament and Secretary for Scotland, addresses of welcome were given by seven titled gentlemen of Scotland and Miss Tweedie, President of Educational Institute of Scotland. Responses were made by representatives of China, Honduras, Sofia, Prague, and America repre- 118 NATIONAL EpucATION ASSOCIATION sented by Dr. A. O. Thomas and Miss Olive. M. Jones of New York. The United States was well represented by, not only its full quota of duly appointed delegates, but some four hundred in all, from all ranks of the profession of teaching from the classroom teacher in the grades to the college president. Walter Siders of Idaho, member of the National Edu- cation Association Executive Committee and Dr. N. D. Showalter of Wash- ington together with Dr. Thomas worked hard on the Constitution Com- mittee to keep American ideals to the fore. The new constitution and the resolutions adopted had been so carefully worked over and compromises agreed upon during the several days and nights upon these documents that when they came before the Plenary Session for action, they were adopted with little objection. Storm clouds: which seemed to be gathering and which looked threatening for a time soon cleared away. No doubt you have all read or will read the resolutions adopted by the Plenary Session of the World Federation. These are appearing in the educational magazines. Walter Siders and Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, state superintendent of Colorado, former National Education Association president, are the newly elected members for the United States. I would like to tell you about some of the wonderful people we met, some of the impressions the beautiful country made on us, etc., but i will quote a disabled soldier in the W. Des Moines hospital who said to me when he was describing the Argonne fight, “ Oh, I just can’t tell you, you have to see it yourself. Eye sights is lots more than hearsays.”’ You can prove this for yourselves by attending in 1927 in Honolulu, Canton, China, or Paris. These and Toronto are the places being discussed for the 1927 meeting of the World Federation of Education Associations. EDITORIAL COMMENT At the beginning of the present school work, Professor Hosic of Teachers College was relieved of extra-mural work and permitted to give all of his time to courses in elementary education with particular reference to the work of principals. So far as is known, he thus became the first full time specialist in this field in any American university. In order to make fresh observations of modern schools, and obtain first- hand information as a basis for his work, Professor Hosic spent the months of November and December in visiting schools and conferring with superin- tendents and principals. His itinerary included about twenty-five towns and cities scattered through the country from New York to San Francisco. A secondary object of this trip was to accumulate material for the report of the committee on elementary school principalships which is dealing with standards and courses for principals and of which he is secretary. In a number of places he was able to confer with members of the committee and thus assist in its work. ed we fr ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 119 Teachers College is certainly to be commended for giving Professor Hosic the opportunity to study this field. There is nothing like actual knowledge of school conditions to keep an instructor’s feet on the ground. Knowing that the Bulletin readers are interested in methods and plans of education in all parts of the world and especially in our island possessions, we are publishing the following extract from a letter to Secretary Shankland from W. W. Edel, superintendent of education in American Samoa: As you probably have heard the public school system of American Samoa consists of nineteen schools, of which three offer work to the eighth grade, four others work to the fourth grade, and the work of the remaining schools to the third grade. All of our schools except two are taught in native thatched huts by native teachers, many of whom have had only an eighth grade education themselves. Two of the schools are in concrete houses and one of these is taught entirely by native teachers. The other is a Teaching Mission of the Marist Order which has become incorporated in the public school system. Our central school, Poyer School, has a native princi- pal and six other native teachers and an enrolment of 265. We are very proud of the condition of this school, and believe it compares favorably with any elementary public school of corresponding size in the United States. The only white officials of the Department of Education other than the two Marist Brothers are the superin- tendent of education and the director of education, Mr. Francis J. Dollinger. The public school as a system has been in existence in American Samoa only since 1921, although Poyer School dates back to 1914. Our school population is 21 per cent of the total population of American Samoa. All instruction in the public schools is in English and it is our policy to adapt the regular curriculum of the American public school to the needs of the Samoan native. Our curriculum embraces Phonics, Reading, Arithmetic, Conversing in English, Formal English, Hygiene, Geography, Music, Spelling, Sewing, Carpentry, Samoan Agriculture, and Directed Recreation. We hold annual school contests in which selected teams compete in phonics, arith- metic, singing, hygiene, and reading for certain prizes. These contests excite keen competition and are festive occasions for the entire population of the villages whose schools are competing. We also hold an Annual Field and Track Meet at which all schools, public and private, are represented. This meet, held on Labor Day, is one of the most important functions of the Samoan year along with Flag Day and the Fourth of July. Each school has a cricket team. Poyer School has a baseball team and a band. The other schools have stringed orchestras or other extra curricular activities. During the summer vacation from the end of November until the first of March our teachers attend a Normal Training Course. This system is, of course, still in infancy, but progress of a very gratifying sort is being made. This very brief outline of our Department of Education has been given in an effort to show you some aspects, however vaguely, of the educational problem of American Samoa. If you can give our system any publicity in the publications of the Department we would very greatly appreciate it. So little is known of the public schools of American Samoa by the educational public that we would be glad to have some mention made of our efforts. WHY JOIN THE DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION ? E ARE continuing our editorials by distinguished educators in rela- tion to the Department of Elementary School Principals. Nowhere else can the purposes and value of our organization be found so briefly and clearly stated as by these prominent students and executives of school administration. It is a great pleasure for me to write for the membership drive which is now under way by the Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Association of the United States to enrol as many of the principals in your department as possible. I wish to express my appreciation of the wonderful professional work you are doing and the excellent educational value of the publications issued by your depart- ment, and of the administrative help brought about by your national conferences. I feel that membership in your department by the principals of our schools is an index of professional participation and advance.—William J. O’Shea, Super- intendent of Schools, New York City. An association of this kind serves a valuable purpose in developing solidarity among the principals of the country, and establishing high professional standards, and in giving proper recognition to the important position of the principal.—Edzwin C. Broome, Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I have had the opportunity of attending meetings of the Department of Elementary School Principals, National Education Association. In my opinion, there is no work of the National Education Association so important as the service rendered by the Principals’ Department. It is coming to be recognized that the principal is the key to educational advancement. He is on the spot every dav; he directs the work of the plant. Your department has devoted itself to the professional advancement of supervision. Your meetings, your yearbooks and bulletins show that you are delivering the goods. Good luck to vou all._—William McAndrew, Superintendent of Schools, Chicago, Illinois. Methods of scientific study of school results have been perfected to the point where it is possible to measure with a high degree of assurance the efficiency of pupils in the subjects taught by the elementary school. Efforts to rate teachers on a definitely scientific basis have been much less fully perfected, and the rating of school officials who carry on the administration of public education, such as principals and super- intendents, has hardly been undertaken at all. If school organization is to reach the highest level of efficiency, it will be necessary to devise methods of dealing as scientifically with the rating and supervision of teachers and the problems of administration as we are now able to deal with pupils. The group of school people who can with the greatest probability of success be called upon to carry on studies of rating and supervision are principals of school buildings. Their direct contact with the teaching staff on the one hand and with all of the supervisory forces of the school system on the other, places them in a strategic position for studies of the tvpe suggested. It is hardly possible, however, for an individual principal to go far in such studies without codperation from those dealing with like professional problems. If principals will unite in organizing investigations, they can rapidly and effectively cover the field. The organization which is best equipped to carrv on this work is undoubtedly the Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Asso- [120] ciat the are whi Jud pri dui pri shi ho sel ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 121 ciation. This department now has a membership of sooo. If it can be increased to the point where it includes all of the progressive principals of the country, there are the largest possibilities before it of carrying on work of a productive type which is imperatively needed for the improvement of American schools:—Charles H. Judd, University of Chicago. The evidence at hand, at the present time, indicates that the elementary school principalship is in no sense a position of influential leadership. This condition is due to a great many contributing factors. On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that the elementary school principalship should be one of the most strategic positions for educational leader- ship in the entire school system. The gaining of such a position of leadership, however, is possible only through the united effort of the men and women who are serving as elementary school principals. The Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Association offers a rich opportunity for developing leadership. It will be a splendid thing for American education when every elementary school principal of the country is a member of the Department of Elementary School Principals.—J. Cayce Morrison, The Ohio State University. The Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Asso- ciation is doing a great work. The yearbooks and bulletins published under its direction are tangible evidence of the work being done. Perhaps the greatest contribution the Department of Elementary School Principals has made or will make is the opportunity offered for the principals to discover their own work and their own powers. The department through its meetings and its publications offers the principals a medium of self-expression and self-develop- ment. Through participating in its meetings and contributing to its publications the members are developing a consciousness of their common problems, common interests, and common experiences. A real group consciousness is being developed and already attempts to standardize the work of the principal, to encourage better preparation, and to dignify the professional opportunity offered, are noticeable. In short, this department is an agency exerting a most wholesome influence through its efforts to make the elementary school principalship a vital and fundamental part of the school organization. It is highly important that all principals of elementary schools should affiliate with the department, share its benefits and contribute in whatever way possible to the work which it is undertaking. —Clifford Woody, University of Michigan. It has been my privilege to attend two sessions of the Department of Elementary School Principals, National Education Association. Each time I was favorably impressed with the quality of the program and the earnestness of the work. In my opinion, your yearbooks and bulletins are a distinct contribution to the profession. I have encouraged the principals of our own school system to take an active interest in the Department and we have felt proud that two of their number, Mr. J. D. Williams and Mr. H. B. Norton, have been honored in an official way by your organization.—C. B. Glenn, Superintendent of Schools, Birmingham, Alabama. Last year, some time previous to the National Education Association Convention, I spoke to the principals of our schools and urged them to become active members of the Department of Elementary School Principals. I am going to do the same this year. Any principal who wishes to attend your conference has my permission to leave the school and to join with the other principals of the country in making your department a real association. The ideals of the Department of Elementary School Principals are good, and I shall do all I can to help—James A. Nugent, Superin- tendent of Schools, Jersey City. 122 NATIONAL EpucCATION ASSOCIATION It was my pleasure, as president of the Department of Superintendence, to give the Department of Elementary School Principals the opportunity of presenting one full program. When this decision was made I recognized the excellent work the Department was doing in the publication of their bulletins and yearbooks. I count on the principals of our own city for effective work in their organization. They never disappoint me. Every superintendent recognizes the value of a strong body of principals who will promote professional growth and render professional service.—John H. Beveridge, Superintendent of Schools, Omaha, Nebraska. Every effort is being made amongst all divisions of school activities to make each worker more efficient. Possibly nothing has been more gratifying than the change in attitude of all people in the instructional field toward a finer technique in their work. It certainly should be an obligation upon every principal to lead in a professional advance of the teaching corps. If he is to lead, he must be a leader with intelligence above the average, with a technique which is superior, and with the tact and force which enable him to inspire those under his leadership with a desire for finer skill. It is very fortunate that a Department of Elementary School Principals is at work, placing before the whole group the best that is being done by the superior members of the group. Every principal should be seeking all possible means of advancement in the profession, and certainly every principal should afhliate himself with this group of forward looking men and women. It would be gratifying, and an augury of a high type of education, if a majority even of the principals working in the United States should become members of this organization. I hope that you may attain this consummation.—W’. F. Webster, Superintendent of Schools, Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is my opinion that the elementary school principals have made the greatest progress during the last ten years professionally of any group of educators in the public school work. The Seattle school system has profited much by this professional growth, and we have been pleased to have recognition given to Worth McClure and Arthur S. Gist in your organization. May your good work continue.—T/omas R. Cole, Superintendent of Schools, Seattle, Washington. It has been my good fortune to know somewhat of the character of the work being done by the Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Association. The matters discussed at the national meetings of this depart- ment have been highly important and the discussions have, in many instances, proved most helpful to large numbers of principals who were searching for ways in which to improve their service to the schools of the country. Those in charge of the Bulletins and Yearbooks of this organization are to be congratulated upon the general character of their publications and upon the specific matters discussed by the contributors. There never was a time in education when the several groups of workers, including principals, were more alert, more eager for help and more intelligent as to professional problems. The Department of Elementary School Principals is to be congratulated on the service it is rendering to public school principals and through them to the schools.— Susan M. Dorsey, Superintendent of Schools, Los Angeles, California. I am very pleased to state that the Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Association has rendered an invaluable service to the work in the elementary schools through its investigation and reports and high standards of professional qualifications for its membership. The department merits the support of every elementary principal in America.—J. M. Gwinn, Superintendent of Schools, San Francisco, California. of ca th ci - wwe ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 123 I believe that the general level of school efficiency can only be raised through a fuller development of the group consciousness of those engaged in various phases of our school work. The Elementary Principals Department in attempting to render this service to a most important group of our school people is rendering a service that can be duplicated in no other way. I believe that every principal of an elementary school should be a member of the department, and I have so advised and recommended to the elementary prin- cipals of the city of Trenton. Your publications are a distinct contribution to current educational literature. May I congratulate you as president of the organization, on the real work that has been done.—Wm. J. Bickett, Superintendent of Schools, Trenton, New Jersey. The Department of Elementary School Principals has been one of the most active and rapidly growing departments in the National Education Association. In fact, the leadership in the department has seen the large field for service possible for such an organization and grasped the opportunity. The Yearbooks and Bulletins of this division of the National Education Association have been strong, professionally alive, and practically helpful. All elementary principals would profit by becoming members of this department. May I take this occasion to wish for your administra- tion a consummation of the success that has attended the work of the department all along the line —Fred M. Hunter, Superintendent of Schools, Oakland, California. THE FIFTH YEARBOOK IpE G. SARGEANT Principal, Public School, vo. 10, Paterson, New Jersey ys OF OUR Yearbooks have been received with the feeling that they were supplying material needed at the time of their issue and it has been gratifying to note the commendatory expressions coming from all ranks in school work. The Yearbook is used by the grade teacher, the special supervisor, and the superintendent as well as the principal. This is largely due to the fact that the subjects are treated by those actually in service. Theories to be worth anything must stand the acid test of actual accomplish- ment or be capable of accomplishment. Encomiums for our publications have not been confined to educational leaders of our own land but have come to us from abroad and in other languages than our own. From the beginning it has been the policy of our Executive Committee to select for the editor the one best suited for the position regardless of his geographical location. It is therefore a matter of no small gratification that we were able to induce Principal Gist to accept this heavy burden for the third time. His accumulated material, knowledge of the membership and of professional leaders everywhere could not be duplicated. Sometimes the question is asked: ‘“‘ When are we going to treat some subject exhaus- tively and devote the entire volume to its consideration?’ That time will undoubtedly come, but for the present stage of professional advancement there are too many kinds of help needed by our principals to make the treat- ment of a single phase of our work the wisest course to pursue. Below is given a partial list of the subjects to be treated in the Fifth Yearbook. Much of the material is now ready for the printer. 124 NATIONAL EpucaTIon ASSOCIATION STUDIES IN THE WORK OF THE PRINCIPAL 1. A Constructive Analysis of Current Practices in Reading Instruction in Grades 4, 5 and 6. By C. R. Stone. 2. Religious Instruction—a survey of current practices by Frank L. Eversul, Woodward School, St. Louis, Missouri. 3. The Status of the Elementary School Principal by Roy A. Crouch, of the Uni- versity of Missouri. 4. The Superintendent’s Attitude Toward the Professional Growth of His Princi- pals by Superintendent W. F. Webster, Minneapolis, or H. S. Weet, Rochester, New York. 5. Principalship Supervision in a Platoon School by John Merrill, Detroit. English, industrial work, social activities. 6. Pupil Participation by Eugene H. Bash, Henry C. Kumpf School, Kansas City. 7. Contacts Between the Public Schools and the Professional Schools—a sym- posium by Klapp of Wisconsin University; R. D. Lindquist, Oakland; Arnold Gerson, Director of Instruction or Assistant Superintendent, Philadelphia. 8. Oral Expression—English and Reading. 9. The Principal’s Teaching Load by Superintendent D. E. Wiedman, Bellingham, Washington. 10. The School Paper. 11. Play. a. Administrative features—surfacing playgrounds, ete. b. Educational and social value. 12. The Value of a Demonstration School by Roscoe L. West, Assistant State Commissioner of Education, Trenton, New Jersey. 13. Survey of Policies Regarding the Best Size for Schools by Jackson Gallup, School 18, Rochester, New York. 14. The Principal as the Inspirational Leader of his Teachers by Miss McSkimmon, Brookline, Massachusetts. 15. Determining the Efficiency of Principals—a case study by Mr. Willard. 16. Principals’ Clubs by W. T. Longshore of Kansas City. 17. Curriculum Revision and the Community by C. A. Harwell, Emerson School, Berkeley, California. REPRINT OF THE FIRST YEARBOOK The supply of the First Yearbook on Supervision is exhausted. The question of a reprint has been raised, owing to the many requests for copies. I have taken up the matter with our efficient executive secretary, Mr. Shankland, who states that a reprint will cost as much as the first edition. Owing to the rapidly changing conceptions in education and the limited number of a reprint which will be purchased it is seriously questioned whether a reprint will be wise. The query is raised: “‘ Will it not be a wiser policy to have all the articles for which there is an insistent demand revised to date and published in a later yearbook or with added’ material as a special edition?’ The matter will be taken up by the Executive Com- mittee at Washington. In the meantime it will be helpful to receive ex- pressions from the members in regard to the matter. Pi DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION President.—IpE G. SARGEANT, School No. 10, Paterson, New Jersey. Secretary.—E. RuTH PyrtLe, McKinley School, Lincoln, Nebraska. WASHINGTON PROGRAM Monday, February 22, 1:30 P. M. WASHINGTON AUDITORIUM Music. The Educational Field—Mary McSkimmov, President, National Education Asso- ciation. Publicity and Public Education—WiLu1AM H. ALLEN, Director, Institute for Public Service, New York City. The Principal, The Law and The Evidence—A.sert E. WiNsuip, Editor, Journal of Education, Boston, Mass. Standards and Training for The Elementary School Principalship—WILLIAM T. LoncsHorE, chairman, Greenwood School, Kansas City. Tuesday, February 23, 7:30 A. M. WASHINGTON HOTEL Official Breakfast. Officers, members of the Executive Committee and chairmen of committees. This is one of the most important meetings of the winter as business matters and our general policy will be discussed. No one should be absent. Tuesday, February 23, 1:30 P. M. WASHINGTON AUDITORIUM Music. The Fundamental Virtues, The Bulwark of Civilization—CLARENCE EDWARD McCartney, Princeton University. The All-Year School—WarreEN A. Rog, Principal, Belmont Avenue School, Newark, New Jersey. Possibility for Helpful Progress Through Experimentation in Each Elementary School—OrTis W. CALDWELL, Principal Lincoln School, Columbia University, New York. The Imperative Need for Organizing School Forces—Jess1e M. Fink, Principal, Palmer School, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tuesday, February 23, 6:00 P. M. RALEIGH HOTEL Department Dinner, Informal. $2.75 per plate. For reservations—apply to Miss Mary Lackey, Dennison School, Washington, D. C. Wednesday, February 24, 7:30 A. M. WASHINGTON HOTEL Committee Breakfast. Committee on Standards and Training for Principals, W. T. LoncsHore, Chairman. [125] 126 NATIONAL EpucaTION ASSOCIATION Wednesday, February 24, 1:30 P. M. WASHINGTON AUDITORIUM Music. The Possibilities of the Principalship—Cuartes H. Jupp, School of Education, Chicago University. An Educational Program of Training for Principals in Service—FRANK W. Wricut, State Director, Division of Elementary Education, Boston, Mass. Reforming the Principalship—James F. Hosic, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- versity, New York. A Constructive Study of the Principal in Action—W. P. Dyer, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. Thursday, February 25, 7:30 A. M. WASHINGTON HOTEL Breakfast. Joint meeting, Committee on Educational Progress, F. H. Durry, Chairman, and Committee on Salaries, W. A. Rog, Chairman. THE WASHINGTON BANQUET ROM OUR earliest history our dinners at the national meet- ings have been banner events. They have been informal, enter- taining and instructive. There we have always been seen at our ' best. Our members have an opportunity to get acquainted as in no other way. The guest table has always been graced by the leading educators of the nation. This year we promise to surpass ourselves at the Raleigh Hotel. Such names as Dr. Winship, President McSkimmon, President Ballou, President Sullivan, Dr. ‘Tigert and many others of prominence are sufficient assurance of the quality of our after-dinner program. We expect all of the presidents of the department since its organi- zation to be at the dinner, Power, McClure, Longshore, Fink, Sargeant, Geographically, Texas, Washington, Missouri, Michigan, and New Jersey. Tickets should be procured early of Miss Mary Lackey, Denni- son School, Washington, D. C. Price $2.75. Tickets will also be on sale at registration desk and at the convention hall, Monday and Tuesday. Let us have the biggest attendance on record. Be on time. Six o’clock sharp. i a a a WHY A MIDYEAR MEETING? IpE G. SARGEANT Principal, Public School No. 10, Paterson, New Jersey. CCASIONALLY one of our most helpful friends among superinten- dents raises the question as to the wisdom of the winter meeting. To answer this question as its importance demands, requires our turning for a moment to the reason for our organization. The principalship in our larger towns and cities has become a position demanding a thoroughly trained, professionally minded person. In addition to being a college graduate and possessing a training in the technique of supervision and administration it is vitally important that he have a vision of what is involved in his position, the function of the school and the correct attitude toward the problems of his calling. As a whole we were not pos- sessed of such ability in 1921 and we are not in possession of it today although we are making much progress. Dr. Morrison in his study of last year, showed a woful lack of profes- sional training and esprit de corps among the principals of his State. What is true of Ohio is equally true of the other states. A Jersey superintendent in one of our large cities writes only this week: “There are many good principals in the country but there are many who are not so good. The two- thirds who are not, are reaping the benefit of the one-third who are.” It is to remedy this lack among principals that we hold two great meet- ings a year. It is not merely additional book learning and lectures that prin- cipals need but a new revelation, a new hope, a new respect for themselves and their calling, a new courage and a new understanding of the whole pur- pose of education. This cannot be had unless we can free them from their conceits, provincial ways and handicaps. ‘They must rub elbows with their fellows at the great midwinter convention. They get something at this meeting not to be obtained elsewhere. The meeting of the American Department of Superintendence is the greatest gathering of the giants in supervision and administration coming together in any part of the world. There is no business, legislative, or judicial body of any nation that compares with the high average of ability and education of the members of this group. No where else can one obtain the inspiration that will come from mixing for a week with the fifteen thousand attending the Wash- ington meeting. In addition to the benefits from the splendid program of the Department of Elementary Schools Principals the principals can attend the best features offered by the superintendents and other allied departments. The midyear meeting is a different type than the summer meeting. No municipality is doing its duty by its children unless it insists that its prin- cipals attend both the midyear and summer meetings. Superintendents, if you want better principals encourage and make possi- ble their attendance at our conventions and that they have the benefit of our membership. [127] DEFINITION OF MEMBERSHIP YEAR HE membership year in the Department of Elementary School Principals corresponds with the school year. Article Eight of the By-laws states specifically that the fiscal year begins July 1 and ends June 30. Members receive Bulletins for October, January, and April, together with the Yearbook, which is published | in June. The cost of publishing the Yearbook is over one dollar a copy, hence back numbers or duplicates cannot be furnished free. | | REMITTANCE FOR MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Mr. CourTLanp V. Davis, Treasurer 1201 Sixteenth Street Northwest Washington, D.C. , My dear Mr. Davis: I am a member of the National Education Association. I inclose my fee of $2.00 for membership in the Department of Elementary School Principals during the year 1925-26. One dollar of this fee is for a year’s subscription to the Department Bulletin. Kindly send all publications, including the Fifth Yearbook, to be issued in June, 1926, to me at the address given below. " (Typewrite or print) Mailing address . (School or street) (City and State) My present position is .