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THEN ATIONAL ELEMENTARY 


RINCIPAL | 


BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 













HE 
INCOLN 
EMORIAL 





CEMBER 1933 
ol. XIII, No. 2 


Cc. 0. Buckingham 








THE NATIONAL ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL 


BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Published in October, December, February, April, and June by the Department of Elementary 
Schoo! Principals of the National Education Association of the United States. 


The payment of $3 active membership dues entitles a member to attend all meetings of the De- 
partment, to hold office, and to receive the Bulletin. Two dollars of each membership fee is for 


a year’s subscription to the Bulletin. 
25 cents; and Yearbook, $2. 


Subscription to nonmembers is $3 per year; single copies, 





Entered as second-class matter November 20, 1922, at the postoffice 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. 





Executive and Editorial Offices, 1201 Sixteenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C., 
Eva G. Pinkston, Editor. 





OFFICERS OF THE DEPARTMENT 


1933-34 


President, Aaron Kline, Pullman Public 
School, Chicago, Illinois 

First Vicepresident, Elizabeth McCormick, 
Timothy Howe School, Superior, Wis- 
consin 

Second Vicepresident, Mason A. Stratton, 
Brighton Avenue School, Atlantic City, 
New Jersey 

Third Vicepresident, M. Emma Brookes, 
Miles School, Cleveland, Ohio 

Fourth Vicepresident, Ernest L. Markley, 
Webster Platoon School, Wheeling, West 
Virginia 


Fifth Vicepresident, Margaret C. Mackin- 
tosh, Public School 140, Brooklyn, New 
York 


Executive Committee 
A. B. Heacock, Los Feliz School, Los 
Angeles, California 
Herbert C. Hansen, 1045 Lockwood Ave., 
Chicago, Illinois 


Cassie F. Roys, 2609 Bristol Street, 
Omaha, Nebraska 

Earl R. Laing, Burt School, Detroit, 
Michigan 


Executive Secretary, Eva G. Pinkston, 
1201 Sixteenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. 





The contents of this Bulletin are listed in the Education Index. 





CONTENTS IN BRIEF 


“It Is No Time to Falter,” p. 30 

N. E. A. Headquarters, p. 31 

“Schools or Prisons,” p. 32 

Office of Education, p. 34 

“Truly Practical Education,” p. 35-37 

“It Is the Principle of the Thing,” p. 
40-43 


Parents Study School Problems, p. 43 

“Education as a National Asset,” p. 
44-47. 

Necrology, p. 49 

Yearbooks, p. 50-53 


Local and State Associations, p. 54-55 


The series of pictures appearing on the cover of your bulletin is of the most interesting buildings in the nation’s 
capital. 


They should be of interest to you and of great value for bulletin boards. 


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SINCE our last Bulletin we have 
celebrated the day which the early 
Pilgrims set aside as a time to give 
thanks to the One who had brought 
them through a successful year. Those 
pioneers endured many hardships of 
which we today can scarcely conceive, 
and yet because they had reaped a rich 
harvest they saw fit to pause and give 
thanks to God. Undoubtedly there are 
many this year who feel that they have 
nothing to be thankful for and yet when 
they stop and really take stock, they can 
count many, many blessings. 


For many this Christmas season will 
not be one of gladness because in va- 
rious sections of the country schools are 
reporting that they will have to close 
at the beginning of the new year. This 
will mean children out of school and 
teachers and principals without posi- 
tions, adding their numbers to the un- 
employed. It is hard to ask these peo- 
ple to be loyal when they know that 
false economies have caused them to be 
without employment. 


The approaching winter brings with 
it another hard test besides cold weather. 
In the radio address of John K. Norton, 
November 5, 1933, he revealed that 
education is being placed more and 
more in the balance. He said the situa- 
tion is rapidly becoming worse. In No- 
vember 1932, just one year ago, only 
forty schools in the whole nation were 
actually closed. By April 1933, just 


Sense | 


after the bank moratorium, 5825 schools 
were closed. It is now estimated on the 
basis of figures just received from coun- 
ty superintendents in all parts of the 
nation, that by April 1, 1934, there will 
be 20,300 closed schools, enrolling 
1,025,000 children. 


These facts are appalling. We stand 
aghast, but we must not stand in that 
position long. If education is to be 
pulled out of the red, educators must 
swing into action. The government did 
not drop three billions into the laps of 
railroads without their asking. If we 
are to keep the schools open every one 
of us must tell his congressman about 
the needs of education. He must in- 
form the officials at Washington of the 
dire distress in his own community, his 
county, and his state. 








Federal aid must be forthcoming 
just as soon as Congress assembles if 
schools are to be kept open. And why 
not? Industry, banks, and agriculture 
have been helped. It is just as impor- 
tant that education receive aid. If Rep- 
resentatives and Senators are bombarded 
with letters and telegrams, perhaps they 
will give the matter attention. They 
probably will do nothing unless there is 
united action. It is the nation’s future 
which is in the balance and the elemen- 
tary principals can set the pace. It is 
our duty to direct a drive to secure help 
from the government in this emergency 


in education.—E. G. P. 


29 





IT IS NO TIME 
TO FALTER 


Sherwood D. Shankland 


HE Joint Commission on the 

Emergency in Education is vig- 
orously carrying on its fight for the 
schools. —The Commission has no ma- 
chinery and no salaries of any sort of its 
own. It works through existing agen- 
cies. Its group of over seven hundred 
ex-officio consultants keeps the Commis- 
sion in touch with every important edu- 
cational group in the United States. 
Regional conferences of consultants 
have been continued this fall with meet- 
ings at Detroit, Mich.; Hartford, 
Conn.; and Birmingham, Ala. A con- 
ference of national scope is to take place 
at National Education Association 
Headquarters at Washington, Friday, 
December 20. After the holidays a 
series of regional conferences will be 
scheduled in states west of the Missis- 
sippi River. 

Public attention is being aroused by 
the Joint Emergency Commission’s 
studies of school conditions. A recent 
report, Data on Closed Schools, Short 
Terms, and Sub-Code Teachers, 1933- 
34, summarizes conditions in rurai 
areas. It shows that at least 2000 rural 
schools will not open at all during 1933- 
34, leaving 110,000 children without 
a school this year. School terms of less 
than six months will be the fate of 914,- 
000 children, 36,000 of whom will have 
less than three months of school. 

There are, according to the report, 
approximately 860,000 teachers, prin- 
cipals, and supervisors in the public 
schools of the United States, of whom 
some 450,000 are in rural areas. Ap- 
proximately half of these rural teachers 
are receiving an annual salary of less 





than $750 and one in every five is re- 
ceiving less than $450. Many city 
teachers are also below these levels, but 
the number of such is not known at 
present. However, it may safely be 
said that of the entire public school 
teaching force of the nation at least one 
in four is receiving annual wages be- 
low the minimum provided for factory 
hands under the “Blanket Code” of the 
President’s Reemployment Agreement. 

A sound foundation for educational 
recovery is laid in the Report of the 
National Conference on Financing Edu- 
cation. This Conference was held in 
August 1933 under the auspices of the 
Joint Emergency Commission. Lay- 
men and educators are finding in this 
statement a set of basic principles for 
the financial structure of school systems. 
Parent-teacher associations are studying 
the report with the aid of a study out- 
line, 4 Modern Program of Financing 
Public Schools. 

Public-spirited citizens are cooperat- 
ing with the Commission in its activities 
in behalf of the schools. For example, 
in a radio address delivered during 
American Education Week, Mrs. Rus- 
sell William Magna, president-general 
of the Daughters of the American 
Revolution, said: “The education of 
our youth is America’s main industry. 
We curtail it to the nation’s peril; nor 
can school days be postponed... . To 
imperil our educational system is court- 
ing disaster, if this country is to en- 
dure. Youth is ever eager, ever hope- 
ful. Keep them so. The maintenance 
of highest standards in education is a 
patriotic duty.” 








30 


THE BULLETIN 








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ADIO COMES TO OUR AID. 
How often it happens that just 
as we are almost at the point of dis- 
couragement and are wondering how 
we can possibly avert disaster, almost 
providentially help comes which enables 
us to go on with renewed courage and 
vigor! What would we have done if 
this wonderful medium of radio had not 
been discovered just on the eve of the 
greatest emergency which education has 
ever known? In few other ways could 
the National Education Association 
have hoped to reach so many taxpayers. 
In the last few years we school people 
have unconsciously been getting away 
from our public. Our methods have 
been changing so rapidly that it is small 
wonder that the public look with sus- 
picion on methods so very different from 
those with which they were familiar. 
President Roosevelt, in bringing his mes- 
sages directly to the public, shows how 
necessary it is to educate public senti- 
ment to keep pace with new ideas and 
new procedures. 

The two large national broadcasting 
companies, the Columbia, and the Na- 
tional Broadcasting Company, have 
been generous in the matter of giving 
time on the air for American Educa- 
tion Week and other special occasions. 
It is only fair to speak especially of the 
very remarkable assistance given by the 
NBC in making possible our Sunday 
night broadcasts over a national net- 
work. All this has come about through 


EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


TEAJQUANTENO 





the splendid interest and cooperation 
of Merlin H. Aylesworth, president of 
the National Broadcasting Company, 
John W. Elwood, former vicepresi- 
dent, Franklin Dunham, educational 
director of NBC, and Kenneth Berk- 
eley in charge of educational broadcast- 
ing at WRC. When the emergency in 
education was presented to these gentle- 
men, they were eager to know what 
they could do specifically to help. They 
consented at once to give the time on 
the air which we thought would be most 
likely to achieve the best results in 
reaching the largest number of people. 
I happen to know that they have had 
several opportunities to sell this strategic 
hour at an enormous price. Not once 
have they even wavered in their loyalty 
to the cause of education. 

The NBC cannot interfere with local 
stations which do not choose to give 
this hour to education. If you are not 
receiving the series, “Our American 
Schools,” every Sunday night at 6:30 
p. m., Eastern Standard Time, ask your 
local station to arrange it so that the 
people in your section can have the 
pleasure of hearing splendid speakers 
like Harold L. Ickes, William Trufant 
Foster, and George F. Zook. The pur- 
pose of these broadcasts is to help save 
our educational systems from disaster. 
This can be accomplished through the 
education and persuasion of those who, 
in large numbers, pay the bills——Flor- 
ence Hale. 





DECEMBER 1933 


3t 








‘SCHOOLS OR PRISONS 
Ray L. Huff 


HE most potent force to control 

crime is not the police, or the court, 
or the prison—it is public opinion. Pub- 
lic opinion, representing the morality 
of a people and representing the heritage 
won by the costs of advancing a civili- 
zation, is protected in the first instance 
by the work of the schools. To have an 
intelligent public opinion, the work of 
education is essential. It is the mind and 
body of the future of the country which 
is being preserved and ennobled in the 
public schools today. This opportunity 
for education is more than an oppor- 
tunity. It has become a right of every 
citizen and is essential to the perpetuitv 
of a democratic government. “ 


The Elementary School in particular 
makes contact with each child and par- 
ent citizen. What that school does rep- 
resents the educative control by the 
state. Whatever is good, in that school 
may be taught to be good, and what is 
bad may be condemned. No other pub- 
lic institution is so close to the heart 
and mind and soul of the American peo- 
ple. No other institution can be in such 
close contact with the ideals, character, 
and civic consciousness of the nation. 


With only a moment’s time in the 
life of a child (less than 7 percent of 
the first 16 years) the elementary school 
has worked at its task of preparing chil- 
dren for citizenship. It has been the 
protector, and often the only protector, 
of the child and his family from the ag- 
gressions of the stree¥ corner, poolroom 
and brothel, gangs,’and other nefarious 
influences which educate and prepare 
those whom they contact to oppose the 





welfare of the state. ‘These gangs are 
“educators” but they educate for vice 
and for criminality. Their methods are 
nefarious beyond words. They use pecu- 
liarly clever and crafty ways. They are 
no respecter of person or persons. It is 
education which has saved our citizens 
and made them realize the need of get- 
ting rid of this real pest. 

Where a community acts to close a 
school, or acts to replace the well- 
trained teacher, it should, in its own 
protection, anticipate the need to open 
a prison and hire more police to pro- 
tect itself from the results which will 
inevitably follow the relinquishing of 
its children to be educated by the mal- 
content, the lascivious, and the criminal. 

For the adults of the nation wilfully 
or negligently to surrender their chil- 
dren to public enemies would be for 
them to sell a birthright not their own 
for a mess of poisoned pottage. With 
what purpose do they act who cry for 
protection against crime, and yet fail 
to support the preparation for public 
defense against crime—the public 
school? The drama of the crime, the 
arrest, the trial—these attract the pub- 
lic eye and arouse the public fear! These 





show the active battle. The police and 


the courts need support. That sup- 
port must be rooted into the deepest 
convictions of the citizens. Such con- 
victions can be so rooted only by long 
and well-directed education in the ways 
of right living in support of law and 
order—without which material gains, 
or security, or leisure will be swept aside. 

If you must close a school, prepare to 
build a prison. 





32 


THE BULLETIN 





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N EACH Sunday evening for the 
past two years, the National Edu- 
cation Association has been attempting 
to give to the public, through a series 
of radio programs, the very best 
thoughts and latest trends about edu- 
cation as well as the dire calamities 
which have taken place. These pro- 
grams are broadcast by the National 
Broadcasting Company from the Head- 
quarters building of the National Edu- 
cation Association, 1201 16th Street, 
N. W., Washington, D. C., from 6:30 
to 7, Eastern Standard Time. 
This fall the radio chairman, Flor- 
ence Hale, has chosen for her theme—- 
Education under the New Deal. 


RADIO PROGRAMS 


The following programs are listed 
for December: 


December 3—“Public Responsibility for 
Education,’ Thomas N. McCarter, presi- 
dent, Public Service Corporation of New 
Jersey, Newark, N. J.; and Paul R. Mort, 
director, School of Education, Teachers Col- 
lege, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. 


December 10—“What Are We Doing To 
Mrs. Cora Wilson 
Stewart, chairman, National Committee on 
Illiteracy, Washington, D. C. 


Remove Illiteracy?” 


December 17—Christmas Greetings from 
the National Education Association, J. W. 
Crabtree, secretary, N. E. A., Washington, 
a 


SO MANY HEARTS ARE BRAVE 


by 


Grace Noll Crowell 


So many hearts are brave. 


Each day I see 


The lifted banners of their courage shine 
Out of the myriad eyes that look in mine. 


The banners mankind carry as they march 

To prove that they are undefeated still, 

Though tired feet must often drag behind: 

Though there be scarcely strength to climb the hill. 
Brave women and brave men, who go their way 
Without the blare of music down the street; 
Without the cheers, or the encouragement 

Of words that would be heartening and sweet. 


So many have the courage to go on 

Undaunted by their loss, or pain, or fear; 

Beaten perhaps, yet holding in their souls 

The beautiful bright quality of cheer. 

So many hearts are brave—though well they know 
How rough the road is that their feet must go. 


—Reprinted with the permission of the author, Mrs. Grace Noll Crowell, 
and the publisher of GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, Mr. William F. 


Bigelow. 





DECEMBER 1933 


33 

















ANY of the questions that fre- 

quently come in our mail are con- 
cerned with marks and reports of pupil 
progress. As one answer to these ques- 
tions a study has been made of the re- 
port cards now being sent to the chil- 
dren’s parents by 628 city school sys- 
tems. An analysis of these cards shows 
the achievements and behaviors on which 
pupils are being rated, the nomenclature 
used, the methods of rating in use, the 
frequency with which the reports are 
issued, and the types of appeal for co- 
operation between home and school. 
The study also shows the grade groups 
for which report cards are customarily 
prepared. To supplement this informa- 
tion, the Office of Education loans sam- 
ple books of report cards. The cards 
in these books have been contributed 
by about fifty superintendents of schools 
in whose school systems some particular 
effort has been made to place before the 
parents the newer teaching objectives 
being demonstrated. The constant cir- 
culation of these books indicates the con- 
tinued interest in this question, rating 
pupil achievement, particularly among 
the elementary-school principals who 
have given so much attention to it. 

A survey of nursery-school education 
was made in 1932-33 to summarize the 
development of this type of work at the 
end of its first twelve years. About half 
of the nursery schools are connected in 





DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR 


Uc” EUUGATIUN 


some way with colleges and universities, 
and nearly a third are sponsored by state 
or municipally controlled universities, 
colleges, school systems, and welfare 
agencies. Only a few are as yet in the 
city public schools but these serve a va- 
riety of purposes—as a part of the kind- 
dergarten-primary department, as a 
laboratory for high-school classes in 
child development, as a part of a school 
guidance program, as a unit in a re- 
search department, and as an experi- 
mental unit in a program of child de- 
velopment, parent, and _pre-parental 
education. The interest of the public in 
nursery-school education will be shown 
in its response to a recent release from 
the Federal Emergency Relief Admin- 
istration which authorizes the use of 
moneys under its Civil Works Program 
for the organization of emergency 
nursery schools. Professional organiza- 
tions representing the field of nursery- 
school education have offered to give 
advisory and 





supervisory services to 
safeguard the educational program. An 
elementary-school principal was one of 
the first to inquire about the possibility 
of taking advantage of this opportunity 
to provide an educational program for 
these children of nursery-school age who 
are suffering from the effects of cur- 
rent economic conditions.—Mary Dab- 
ney Davis. 





34 


THE BULLETIN 





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HE NEED of the hour, we are 

told, is for an education that is 
practical. The cry is not new—it voices 
the typical American urge. Just now, 
however, it comes with peculiar power 
and is interpreted by many persons as 
a plea to return to the education of the 
backwoods school. We ought to leave 
modern education, so some people argue, 
and return to the education of the old 
oaken bucket and the long-handled 
dipper! 

But for my part, let me urge the 
practicability of an aspect of the modern 
educational program which too often 
has been considered impractical, name- 
ly, character education. This is not to 
belittle other aspects of an up-to-the- 
minute program—far from it. I mere- 
ly wish to emphasize the view that, no 
matter how much new times may call 
for new content, new methods, and new 
products in education, there will never 
come a time when America can afford 
to be indifferent as to whether its boys 
and girls are growing into men and 
women of strong and sturdy character. 
Character, after all, is the most prac- 
tical asset one can possess. 

Let me not seem to imply that char- 
acter education is something which can 
be cared for entirely within the con- 
fines of the classroom. Much can be 
done there, of course; but much can 
also be done in places which are more 
peculiarly the province of the principal. 
Both because character is continually in 
the making—for better or for worse— 
whether the child is on the street, on the 
playground, in the halls, or in the class- 
room, and because the development of 





TRULY PRACTICAL 
EDUCATION 


Frank Cody 


good character is so important and so 
ever-present a problem, it may well con- 
stitute one of the major objectives of 
every principal’s day-to-day work about 
his school. 

What, then, are the steps which the 
principal, as such, may take to promote 
a well-rounded program for character 
education ? 

First, the principal who recognizes 
how intimately a character education 
program is tied up with the out-of- 
school life of the pupil will strive to 
keep his school in close touch with local 
community life. This means that he 
will reinterpret the general program for 
wholesome community relations which 
is planned for the entire school system 
and make it vital in his particular local- 
ity. He will keep the channels of con- 
tact between the school and the home 
always open and working. He will lend 
his support to every movement which 
aims to improve the pattern of leisure 
time activity for the youth of the neigh- 
borhood. In short, he will acknowledge 
the identity of interest which exists be- 
tween the school and every character- 
forming agency which touches the lives 
of the pupils of his school and realize 
that success for any one agency depends 
upon the cooperative action of all. 

Next, the principal who is concerned 
that fine ethical instruction become a 
moral force affecting purposes and 
action, will see to it that recreational 
opportunities for the children of his 
school are varied and available for all. 
He will recognize that the playground 
is a character-forming agency in one of 
the most practical senses of the word. 





DECEMBER 1933 


35 








He will cultivate conditions there which 
are wholesome. He will encourage a 
leadership which visions the character 
implications of play. He will perfect an 
organization which not only will utilize 
available space and equipment to the 
limit but will provide every child some 
opportunity to benefit from this whole- 
some influence. 

Again, the principal who attempts to 
promote a well-rounded program of 
character education will be conscious of 
the intimate relationship which exists 
between the development of the esthetic 
sense and the development of moral 
character. He will use every means at 
his disposal to surround the pupil with 
the beautiful. The care and attention 
given to the beautification of the school 
grounds as well as the effort put into 
providing works of art for the corridors 
of the school will be seen to have a 
definite bearing upon the program as a 
whole. Where ugliness exists, the prin- 
cipal will seek to replace it with beauty. 
Where the community is slow to recog- 
nize the importance of these elements 
in the pupil’s environment, he will en- 
deavor to quicken community interest 
in these matters. He will not rest until 
everything possible has been done to 
surround the pupil with inspiring 
esthetic influences. 

But the use of school corridors as 
a character-forming influence will not 
stop with mere decoration of the walls. 
Corridors are after all places in which 
pupils are free to move and act with 
the self-accepted responsibility which 
characterizes true life situations. Cer- 
tainly no other part of the school build- 
ing offers richer possibilities for training 
in the type of reasoned self-control which 
every good citizen displays in such nat- 
ural life activities as going to a theater, 





moving about in a department store, or 
finding one’s way to and from a seat 
at a football game. The principal who 
is concerned that character education is 
something more than the mere acquisi- | 
tion of an acceptable and highly worth- | 
while body of precept—in other words, | 
is concerned that character education 
express itself actively in the conduct of 
the good citizen—will recognize that in 
the management of many such ordinary 
matters as pupils’ passing from room | 
to room within the building, there are 
implicit valuable contributions to char- | 
acter education. 





re 


Of course the principal’s concern with | 
his program for character development 
ought not to limit itself to the influences 
brought to bear upon the child outside 
of school, on the school playground, and 
in the corridors of the school building; 
it ought to extend as well to instruc- 
tion within the classroom and the im- | 
plications there for character education. 
He will help his teachers interpret the 
process of character formation in the 
light of the evidence which describes it | 
as the development of power in choosing 
wholesome solutions to the problems} 
which arise from living with others. | 
He will assist them in providing their| 
pupils with rich and varied experiences | 
of this sort. Further, he will seek al-| 
ways to keep abreast of the findings as| 
to preferred methods and content for| 
character instruction. In short, he willl 
be a leader among his teachers both in} 
the application of technics which have 
been proved good and in the evolution 
of refinements beyond the present pro-/ 
gram. 





Seek Santen 


In the end, however, the principal[ 
who is concerned that the character edu- 
cation program in his school be prac 
tical and effective will recognize that} 





36 


THE BULLETIN) 





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| have 
lution 
t pro- 


ncipal 
r edu: 

prac: 
e that 


the major portion of the program must 
function through the efforts of the class- 
room teacher. He will realize that no 
teacher who leads a strained unnatural 
life can hope to guide children in whole- 
some character development. He will 
therefore take it for granted that his 
assistance to his teachers should not be 
restricted to questions of the improve- 
ment of instruction but that it should 
include stimulation to a rich and satis- 
fying life outside of school. Exercising 
greatest discretion and thoughtfulness, 
he will strive, both within the school 
and without, to shield his teachers from 
worry and distressing care and to sur- 
round them with every possible con- 
venience and comfort. 

To the degree that the ultimate pur- 
pose of the school is the development 
of substantial citizens in a democracy a 
principal is justified in all measures 
which promote wholesome character de- 
velopment in the boys and girls in his 
school. Than this there can be no more 
truly practical education. 


*e D 
PRESIDENT’S COMMITTEES 


President Aaron Kline has ap- 
pointed the following committees: 
Committee on International Rela- 
tions, A. B. Heacock, Los Angeles, 
California, chairman; Committee on 
Necrology, Elizabeth McCormick, 
Superior, Wisconsin, chairman, Er- 
nest L. Markley, Wheeling, West Vir- 

inia, Margaret C. Mockinneal New 
York, New York, and Mason A. Strat- 
ton, Atlantic City, New Jersey: Com- 
mittee on Mice Herbert C. 
Hansen, Chicago, Illinois, chairman, 
Cassie F. Roys, Omaha, Nebraska, 
Earl R. Laing, Detroit, Michigan, and 
M. Emma oskes, Cleveland, Ohio. 

The new member of the Editorial 
Committee will be announced in the 
February issue of the Bulletin. 


CLEVELAND 
CONVENTION 


HE DEPARTMENT of Elemen- 

tary School Principals holds two 
meetings a year. Its winter meeting is 
always held at the same time as that 
of the Department of Superintendence 
and in the same city. This year the 
meeting will be held at Cleveland, 
Ohio, February 24-March 1. 


President Aaron Kline is preparing 
a splendid program. He has chosen for 
Monday afternoon the theme, ‘The 
Elementary School and the Recovery 
Program.” ‘The Wednesday program 
will be based on “The Elementary 
School for the New Age.” 


President Paul C. Stetson of the Depart- 
ment of Superintendence has reorganized 
convention procedure in order to make de- 
mands upon every member. The new con- 
vention plan is not a set-up for meeting 
purposes only; it comprehends a new ma- 
chinery of the organization itself, expecting 
to keep every member at work throughout 
the year on vital professional problems. 


This reorganization provides for seven 
general subject committees of twenty-five 
or more members each. The chairman of 
each general subject committee will in turn 
select from the twenty-five members of his 
committee the officers of approximately fif- 
teen sub-committees which will study some 
phase of the subject assigned to the general 
committee. Each of these sub-committees 
will consist of forty or more members. In 
this way 4000 members of the Department 
will be continuously at work throughout 
the year. 


Carrie C. Bruhn, principal of the 
Rutherford B. Hayes School, Cleveland, 
and president of the Cleveland Princi- 
pals Club is in charge of local arrange- 
ments for the breakfast on Monday and 
the semi-annual dinner on Tuesday eve- 
ning. She reports that the breakfast 
will be seventy-five cents and the din- 
ner, $1.50. Both affairs will be held 
at the Hotel Statler. 





-ETIN 








DECEMBER 1933 


37 








MEMBERSHIP CHATTER 


Eva G. Pinkston 
NTERESTING and inspiring has 


been the work of the membership 
campaign this year. Friends have writ- 
ten on the margins of the broadcast let- 
ter, others have sent clippings of condi- 
tions, while still others have written 
notes and encouraging words. Especial- 
ly appreciated was a note which came 
this morning from Granite City, IIl.: 
“Gladly would I continue in the ranks 
of the principals, but I felt it was my 
time to retire from active service and 
I did so last January, age 76 years. 
Wishing you well in these trying times, 
I am, Very truly yours.’”’ Others have 
written “Success to you, 1933-34.” 
“Your last Bulletin is worth the price 
of a membership.” “I’ve lost my posi- 
tion and have not been able to locate 
another, but here’s my three dollars.” 
How can we help but work early and 
late here at Headquarters to give such 
faithful friends the very best which we 
can gather for their use? Who can fail 
to be inspired when principals believe 
enough in their national organization 
to give three of their few remaining dol- 
lars because of their professional re- 
sponsibility? With such faith as this we 
must ot fail, but it means united effort. 
All must feel the great heartbeat of 
humanity. These individual problems 
cannot be solved alone, but it is the tiny 
pushes from people like you and me 
that can accomplish much. 

Our president, Aaron Kline, strikes 
the keynote of the situation in his letter 
to state, county, and city enrolment 
chairmen. He says: 

Principals everywhere must be aroused to 


feel that they can do their part in this great 
struggle. If they do nothing more than 





support our Department and the N. E. A. by 
a personal membership, they have done 
much. They can do more. They can arouse 
their fellow principals to the importance 
of a membership in the Department of Ele- 
mentary School Principals. 

When our country was in danger in 1917, 
we were proud to enlist in whatever service 
we could to bring success. That was a time 
of war. This is a time of peace, but our 
country is in as great danger as in 1917. 
Equal educational opportunity for every 
child is the basis of democracy and it is 
fighting with its back to the wall. We must 
see that this foundation is not destroyed. 
You can do your part if you will—write 
every principal in your state; write them 
today; write often; write until you get a 
response; write until the response is favor- 
able! 


Your enthusiasm for the cause will be 
reflected in memberships in our Depart- 
ment. Ask for the help of other members 
in your state and city. We can increase 
cur membership at least 50 percent over 
the highest we have ever had. Will we do 
it? WE WILL! Thanks! ! 


Cumberland, Maryland, Glens Falls, 
New York, Evanston, Illinois, Kansas 
City, Kansas, and Meridian, Missis- 
sippi, are the only cities which have 
reported 100 percent in membership. 
We understand that several of our 
large cities lack the names of just one 
or two principals and are hoping to send 
them in before many days. I expect to 
hear soon that they have reached their 
goal and placed their flag on the top- 
most pinnacle of the fort of education, 
defying any enemy to say that they are 
not enthusiastic for the cause. 

Many of the enrolment chairmen 
have sent to Headquarters a copy of the 
splendid letters they have been sending 
to principals everywhere. A clever one 





38 


THE BULLETIN 


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on “membership benefits” has been re- ° 


ceived: 


MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPALS 

Invest three dollars in your own Depart- 
ment. It will afford you no small pride. 
It will pay dividends all through the year 
It will secure for you the Bulletins. It will 
class you with progressive principals. It 
will make you conscious of a larger educa- 
tion unit. It will give to you prestige 
and power. It will provide a way of in- 
formation for you. It will create within 
you a higher value of yourself. It will 
cause you to be interested in membership 
growth. It will help you solve your difficult 
problems. It will place you on the mailing 
list of the executive secretary. It will bring 
to you the 1934 yearbook. It will “brighten 
up the corner where you are.” 

The National Department of Ele- 
mentary School Principals is asking the 
elementary principals to organize. To 
organize not for purposes of selfish ag- 
grandizement but to help mold the en- 
tire teaching body into an intelligent, 
workable, disciplined, effective force. 

I have been told that the trouble in 
Chicago could have been averted if 
elementary principals fifteen years ago 
had taken the interest in affairs which 


they do today. 

There is no remedy for the glaring 
injustices done to teachers and execu- 
tives except a strong organization which 
is strong enough to fight, with spunk 
enough to fight, a disposition to fight 
when the call comes, and to fight hard. 
Elementary principals must feel their 
responsibility to their professional or- 
ganization. They must also become citi- 
zens in every sense of the word. Some 
feel that education is a matter of such 
general concern and knowledge that or- 
ganization and publicity are unneces- 
sary. Gasoline has become a subject of 
general concern and knowledge, yet the 
Standard Oil Company has one of the 
most effective organizations known to 


man. Its trucks are seen on every street, 
its pumps at short intervals apart. Yet 
this company spends thousands of dol- 
lars buying up whole pages of adver- 
tisements in the most expensive maga- 
zines. ‘he same policy is pursued by the 
motion picture companies, despite the 
fact that the theaters today have long 
lines waiting to enter. Have the great 
oil and motion picture companies more 
at stake than the elementary principals 
(or educational forces) of the country? 
If it is worth their while to give more 
complete information to the people, 
isn’t it likewise worth ours? 

The elementary principal is today on 
the firing line. He must be an idealist 
of the finest type, never doubting the 
final triumph of law and of all good. 
He must use the art of the politician 
to enhance the public welfare without 
resorting to dishonorable methods. Be- 
cause of his relation to his community, 
to his students, to those in authority— 
in fact, the whole range of public serv- 
ice—the elementary-school principalship 
requires all the qualities of an efficient 
business executive ; yet it is here that the 
ax has fallen the heaviest. 

It is with great pleasure that we an- 
nounce the additional list of state en- 
rolment chairmen: 


California—Robert B. 
School, Fresno 

Idaho—J. Ellis Black, Route 2, Boise 

Iowa—Earl E. Bovee, 4315 Orleans Ave., 
Sioux City 

Minnesota—Anne Brezler, Garfield School, 
Minneapolis 

Mississippi—Laurie Doolittle, 44 Victoria 
Ave., Cleveland 

South Carolina—C. A. Weinheimer, James 
Simmons School, Charleston 

Tennessee—R. H. Underwood, 720 Park- 
way Ave., Fountain City 

Vermont—William H. Clossey, Elementary 
School, Montpelier 

Alaska—A. E. Karnes, 
Education, Juneau 


Abbott, Heaton 


Commissioner of 





DECEMBER 1933 


39 








IT IS THE PRINCIPLE 
OF THE THING* 


William Trufant Foster 


T ATLANTIC CITY I insisted 
that when the federal government 
did adopt its huge program of public 
works, it should declare the public 
schools to be the most important of all 
public works—and act accordingly. 
The government has not yet done that. 
Under the NRA, education is the for-- 
gotten cause. The teacher is the for- 
gotten man. 

Chicago is exceptional in its disgrace 
of scuttling its schools, but not in its 
suffering. All over the country the 
schools are being scuttled. Pinched 
taxpayers are crying loudly for economy ; 
and harassed officials are striking out 
blindly, in any direction, to save money. 
The schools are the easiest place to do 
the scuttling. 

The great state of Ohio, to be sure, 
has not completely lost its courage. It 
has merely cut expenditures for school 
construction 99 percent. At the same 
time the usual forty-one millions a year 
have been available for construction of 
hard-surfaced highways. Hardening of 
the arteries of commerce is a good dis- 
ease to contract, but in Ohio it is hard 
on the schools. Only last week, when 
I visited Grove City, Ohio, I found 
every school closed, and all the children 
turned out into the streets. The schools 
were scuttled because the city had no 
money for schools, and the state refused 
to take any responsibility. The silly 
films from Hollywood were running as 
usual. There was no falling off in sales 
of beer, or cigarettes, or cosmetics. Do 
the people of Ohio care more for high- 








ways and cigarettes than they do for 





their children? Not at all. In this case, | 
an obsolete and vicious system of taxa- | 
tion is the chief trouble. Whenever the | 
people of this country have a clear-cut | 
issue to vote on, their answer is always | 


“Children First.”” They know that the 
nine million dollars which the federal 
government has just provided for clean- 
ing out the Chicago River could better 
have been used for Chicago school chil- 
dren. Some day the people will demand 
a national plan for financing a minimum 
of education. They will demand a de- 
pression-proof plan. 
that the education of youth shall not 


go up and down with the stock market. | 


They will insist | 


Many persons say the teachers are | 


lucky in these times, to have any jobs 


at all. But I am not pleading the cause | 


of teachers. I am pleading for children. 
Certainly there is a causal connection 


between poor pay of teachers and poor [| 


quality of teaching, as any business man 
ought to know. We get about what we 
pay for. What kind of worker can be 
hired today for $7.70 a week? Not a 
mill hand, or an office boy, or a dish- 
washer, or even a plumber’s helper. 
Not if General Johnson catches the em- 
ployer. It is the forgotten man, the 


teacher, who now gets $7.70 a week. | 


That is the average wage of more than 
half the teachers in a number of states. 
President Roosevelt is right ; the quality 
of the teaching can be distinctly raised—- 
as soon, he might have added, as we 
decide to pay the price. As a matter 
of fact, teachers have never received as 


*Radio address given on ‘‘Our American Schools’’ program, Sunday, October 15, 1933. 





40 


THE BULLETIN 


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high salaries as workers in other pro- 
fessions, with comparable demands for 
training. Teachers, like the monks of 
the Middle Ages, have been pledged to 
celibacy, poverty, and obedience. I hap- 
pen tu know the facts, for the Pollak 
Foundation, with which I am connected, 
helped finance a six years’ study of wages 
in all vocations. We published the re- 
sults in a book, called Real Wages, by 
Paul H. Douglas. This book shows 
that the pay of teachers, in relation to 
the pay of other trained workers, has 
always been too low. I am aware that, 
now and then, a teacher realizes a small 
fortune. I once knew such a man in 
Spokane. He accumulated $50,000. 
When we asked him how in the world 
he did it, since he had always been a 
teacher, he answered: “I have been 
thrifty and prudent. I have never 
smoked. I have had no expensive habits. 
I have worked summers at odd jobs. I 
have put my savings in safe banks, and 
last year my Aunt Hannah died and 


left me $49,000.” 


The teachers are eager to do their 
part, but the Blue Eagle has not yet 
done its part for the teachers. The Blue 
Eagle demands for other workers 
shorter hours and more pay. The teach- 
ers are getting longer hours and less 
pay. The teachers belong to the great 
body of consumers upon whose buying 
the success of NRA depends. The 
highway to prosperity is still the buy- 
way ; but consumers cannot buy without 
money. They cannot cash in free time. 
Leisure is not legal tender. 


The present plight of the consumer 
under the NRA is like the weather. 
Everybody talks about it, but nobody 
does anything about it. Organized labor 
has effective spokesmen at Washington. 
It should have. So has organized in- 


dustry. It should have. But consumers, 
as such, are unorganized, and their in- 
terests are feebly voiced. 


Under the NRA, to be sure, there 
is a Consumers’ Advisory Board. But, 
so far, it has been about as influential as 
the helpless lady who shouted at the 
waves. Prices of consumers’ goods are 
still going up faster than consumers’ 
income. The volume of manufactured 
goods has gone up about twice as fast 
as the volume of factory pay-rolls. 


This would not matter, if the con- 
sumer were merely an accessory to the 
industrial machine. But the consumer 
is something more than a cigar-lighter. 
He is the driving force. The business 
machine cannot run without purchasing 
power, any more than the engine can 
run without fuel power. 


It is easy enough to “fix prices,” but 
fixing prices does not sell goods. Neither 
does a “Buy Now” campaign, nor any 
other kind of ballyhoo. Neither does a 
shorter working day. Consumers as a 
whole will buy more if they have more 
money. Otherwise, they will not. The 
New Deal will succeed, if it provides the 
98 percent of the people who already 
want to buy with enough buying power. 
Otherwise, the whole complicated struc- 
ture of codes and price-fixing and per- 
centage mark-ups will be as academic as 
a professor’s lecture, and the New Deal 
will be a mis-deal. 


The Retail Code, for example, which 
now awaits the approval of President 
Roosevelt, is a seller’s code. It is writ- 
ten by sellers in the supposed interest of 
sellers. It has good points, but it is not 
a New Deal for consumers. It does not 
even require sellers to tell the truth 
about interest rates on instalment sales, 
or other loans to consumers. 





DECEMBER 1933 


4l 








The least that honesty requires is that 
every consumer who buys goods on de- 
ferred payments should be told exactly 
what rate of interest he pays per month, 
on the actual unpaid balance, with no 
extra fees tacked on. But to date the 
makers of the Retail Code have refused 
to embody this requirement. So it ap- 
pears that constimers will go on paying 
several hundred million dollars a year 
for consumer loans, without even know- 
ing what rate of interest they are pay- 
ing. At present, it is next to impossible 
for them to find out, for in most cases 
the rate of interest is intentionally mis- 
stated or concealed. Even among repu- 
table firms, the so-called “easy pay- 
ments” sometimes bring the interest rate 
above 60 percent. Even when the rate 
is stated as 6 percent, it is often three 
times as high. . 

This is merely one indication of the 
fact that we do not yet realize that the 
whole prosperity drive will fail, unless 
the consumer is enabled to do his part. 
He cannot do it, no matter how pa- 
triotic he feels, by sticking a Blue Eagle 
on his window. 

We cannot provide the necessary con- 
suming power by asking each individual 
bank kindly to expand credit. To do 
that is to rely on the very policy of 
laissez faire, which has all but ruined 
us. The lazy fairies refuse to work 
precisely when we most need them. The 
beginnings of sharp business recovery 
came only when, last March, we dis- 
charged the loafers and collectively at- 
tacked the depression. 

But the battle is only half won. We 
must follow through on the announced 
Roosevelt plan of restoring the dollar 
values of our real wealth. We must 
continue to thaw out our frozen assets, 
and make them flow into pay-rolls. We 





must not flinch or hesitate—because of 
war in Europe, or any other cause—as 
long as eight million, or even four mil- 
lion, of our own willing workers can 
find no work to do. We must expand 
bank credit by government initiative. 
We must realize that the so-called Fed- 
eral Reserve System is no system at all; 
it is 49 banking groups, incapable of 
collective action. Some day all our 
banks will be under one federal system. 
That will deny each state the inalienable 
right of having as many bank failures 
as it pleases. But perhaps consumers 
can stand that. 

We must restore the circulation of 
credit by government action, and we 
must use the funds, as General Johnson 


and Secretary Ickes rightly say, where : 


they will go most quickly into pay-rolls 
and be spent. The quickest way to do 
that, and reach every town and village 
in the country, is to restore public 
school budgets, for over 90 percent of 
school budgets go quickly into pay-rolls. 

We must not be scared by the cry of 
“inflation.” No policy is bad—no mat- 
ter what bad name you call it by— 
which enables consumer-buying to keep 
pace with production. 


There is danger in any policy. But 
there is far graver danger in having no 
policy at all. Did you ever hear of a 
doctor who refused to allow a patient, 
dying of malnutrition, to have any food 
at all, for fear that if he had enough 
food he might have too much? 

For three long years the United 
States suffered from monetary malnu- 
trition, while every proposed method of 
supplying the deficiency was condemned 
by the banker-doctors with one terri- 
ble word, “inflation.” 

Comparing the United States today 
with inflation days in Russia, Germany, 





and 
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42 


THE BULLETIN 


Sa a ee 





DECE 





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iil- 


nd 


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no 
fa 
nt, 
od 





SEE 


WTS 








é 


and Austria is a false analogy—false in 
at least five essentials. 


Every government which has run the 
printing presses wildly has been on the 
verge of collapse, lacking popular sup- 
port. It has exhausted its taxing capac- 
ity. It has had little or no gold. It has 
been deeply in debt to other countries 
It has not had the definite objective of 
returning to a price level, recently aban- 
doned. Now, in all five of these essen- 
tials, the United States is totally unlike 
every country which has suffered from 
paper money inflation. 


Moreover, we do not need much 
money. Even if we put it out, it would 
flow right back into the banks. What 
we need is the use of more bank credit, 
forced by government initiative, on the 
basis of a definitely limited volume of 
assets. That is controlled expansion. It 
is totally unlike the riotous printing 
press debauches which are held up to us 
as horrid examples. Our inability to go 
ahead, throughout this depression, has 
been not so much frozen assets as cold 
feet. 


I am not sure we have learned from 
this depression. One of the largest banks 
in New York, in a recent bulletin, is 
singing the same old song, “Leave 
things alone.” Our recovery to date, 
this bank says, is merely the result of 
natural law. “Give the natural forces 
time,” says the bank. ‘‘What is needed 
now above everything else is confidence 
in the natural forces, which have made 
so splendid a beginning.”” When I read 
that, I thought of the church notice 
which I saw in the Memphis daily 4 p- 
peal. ““The Rev. Mr. Holcombe preach- 
ed on the subject, ‘What Are We Learn- 
ing from This Depression? and the 
choir sang, ‘Search Me, O, Lord.’ ” 


PARENTS STUDY 
SCHOOL PROBLEMS 


Charl Williams 


T ITS Washington, D. C., meeting, 
the Board of Managers of the Na- 
tional Congress of Parents and Teach- 
ers enthusiastically endorsed a study out- 
line on A Modern Program of Finance- 
ing Public Schools. 


This subject is one that is engaging 
the attention of educators and laymen 
all over the country, and this outline 
will furnish a guide for members of 
parent-teacher associations who need to 
become more familiar with this impor- 
tant question. It is based on the report 
of the National Conference on the Fi- 
nancing of Education which was held 
in New York, July 31-August 11, 1933, 
under the auspices of the Joint Com- 
mission on the Emergency in Educa- 
tion of the National Education Asso- 
ciation and the Department of Super- 
intendence. This conference was at- 
tended by educators from all over the 
country who have made special studies 
and surveys of the whole field of school 
finance. 

The outline suggests the study of such 
topics as the responsibility of the state 
for the support of a minimum founda- 
tion program, the scope of public edu- 
cation and the urgent need to enlarge 
that scope, the need for revising our 
whole taxing system and for developing 
new tax sources, a reorganization of 
school units, and further federal par- 
ticipation in education. These topics 
are not new to parent-teacher members, 
for school education committees all over 
the country have been studying them in 
whole or in part for the past eleven 
years. It is a new approach to more 
or less familiar questions. 





DECEMBER 1933 


43 





EDUCATION AS A 
NATIONAL ASSET* 


Harold L. Ickes 


OW many of us have stopped to 

consider what would be the result 
if all the schools of America were to 
be closed tomorrow and kept closed for 
one full generation? One could not un- 
dertake to describe the conditions that 
would exist at the end of that compara- 
tively short period, but there can be no 
doubt that the effect would be startling. 
We would have a country made up al- 
most entirely of illiterates. Culture 
would have disappeared. Science would 
be merely a word of Latin origin. In 
the course of a generation we would 
have gone back literally hundreds of 
years as to all the essentials that dis- 
tinguish this period from that of the 
dark ages. 


It goes without saying that the higher 
the civilization of a country and the 
more complex its life, the broader and 
the higher and the more universal must 
be the education of the people in order 
to maintain that civilization. In a low 
stage of civilization education as we have 
developed it today was not necessary. 
All that the youth just emerging from 
savagery into barbarism needed to know 
to prepare him to be a good member of 
his tribe was a knowledge of how to 
hunt and fish. Later, in a higher state 
of civilization, it was essential for him 
to be trained to till the soil and to 
take care of his flocks. Thence, on up 
through advancing stages, more and 
more education was needed to fit him 
for the life that he was called upon 
to live. 


Gradually more and more people be- 
gan to acquire the rudiments of learn- 
ing but they were indeed rudiments. 
The United States of America is a com- 
paratively young country, and even as 
late as our pioneer days the people got 
along with little formal schooling. 
When finally the value of an education 
came to be realized by the people, schools 
were established to teach boys and girls 
to read and write. What scattered 
schools there were were kept open for 
only three or four months a year and 
few indeed were the children who 
studied more than the three R’s. It 





was still considered that the most valua- | 


ble part of the education of the youth 
of the land was to be gained through 
experience on the farm, in the appren- 
tice shop, or on board ship, because we 
were a nation of farmers and artisans 
and sailors. The three R’s were con- 
sidered merely as finishing touches to 
the practical education received outside 
of the school. The masses of the people 
had to be content with this smattering 
of an education, although there were 
colleges here and there to educate the 
few for the learned professions. It is 





probably safe to say that the college edu- | 


cation of those early times was not the 
equal in depth and extent to the edu- 
cation that the modern child can re- 
ceive in an up-to-date high school. 


But life never stands still. It either 
goes backward or forward, and _ the 
course was an upward one following 
these early pioneer days. Life became 
more complex as commerce and indus- 


*Radio address given on ‘Our American Schools’’ program, Sunday, October 29, 1933. 





THE BULLETIN 


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try developed rapidly and contested 
with agriculture for supremacy. As a 
result of our industrial and commercial 
development, social, political, and 
economic problems became more nu- 
merous and difficult of solution, so that 
in course of time it became manifest that 
all the children of all the people should 
receive at least a common school educa- 
tion. Our well-being as a people and 
the relative position of our country in 
the family of nations required us to turn 
our attention more and more to educa- 
tion. So a noncompulsory school system 
gradually gave way to a compulsory one, 
until now school attendance for a cer- 
tain number of years is required in every 
state in the Union. The mere statement 
of this fact is all that is necessary to 
demonstrate the universal belief in this 
country that we must educate our youths 
broadly and generally in order to assure 
the best possible citizenship and the 
well-being and security of the state it- 


self. 


There never was a time in the his- 
tory of America when education was so 
vital to us as a nation and so essential 
to us as citizens. Yet strangely enough 
the friends of education are finding it 
necessary to go through the land in or- 
der to educate the people on the impor- 
tance of education. Perhaps we have 
taken our education too much for 
granted. Like air and light and water, 
we have come to assume that it is a 
natural element; that it will always be 
with us; that it was ours when we were 
children for the taking, and that it will 
be theirs for our children in their turn 
for their taking. 


It is unhappily true that friends of 
education and believers in democracy 
must be on the alert as they have never 
had to be in the past in order to pre- 


serve unimpaired this essential tool of 
democracy. There is an enemy within 
the gate. Apparently there are those in 
the land who are taking advantage of 
the economic strain and stress under 
which we have been suffering to dim the 
light that has guided our course since 
pioneer days. It is being urged that we 
have spent too much money on educa- 
tion; that we are over-educated; that 
the schools are full of frills and fads 
and fancies that do our youth more 
harm than good; that all the education 
that is necessary for our children is a 
grounding in the three R’s. 


Those who thus counsel us would 
turn back the clock for more than a 
hundred years. They do not seem to 
realize that civilization and education 
go hand in hand; that in fact education 
is the foundation rock upon which our 
civilization has been built. Weaken or 
destroy the foundation and the building 
erected thereon will totter or fall. It 
stands to reason that if the universal 
education that supports and justifies our 
civilization is undermined, our civiliza- 
tion itself will suffer to a corresponding 
degree. 


In moments of reverie we may ideal- 
ize the simple bucolic state in which our 
ancestors lived. With the edges of our 
imagination we may play with the idea 
of reverting to a condition of society of 
a hundred or two hundred or three hun- 
dred years ago. We may longingly won- 
der how it would seem to substitute the 
kerosene lamp for the electric bulb or 
even the tallow dip or the rush light for 
the kerosene lamp. We may roman- 
ticize about dressing again in homespun, 
raising all our own food, and producing 
all our own clothing on our own little 
farm. To give up the automobile for 
the plodding cart, to discard the tractor 





DECEMBER 1933 


45 








for the horse-drawn plow, to throw 
away our ice-making machines, our bath- 
tubs, and all our modern comforts and 
conveniences may be an idea to play with 
in an idle moment, but I am certain that 
no man, woman, or child would in real- 
ity want to revert to the dull, drudging, 
unimaginative existence of our great- 
grandfathers. 


Yet some such retrogression will fol- 
low if we allow our educational system 
to slip back to what some people ap- 
parently are willing it should revert to. 
Such a highly complex civilization as 
we have built up requires highly trained 
intelligences for its maintenance and 
further development. No one would 
thrust an intricate and highly sensitized 
machine into the hands of a man just 
emerging from the jungle and expect 
him to operate it. If anyone thinks that 
I am drawing a strained and out-ot- 
focus picture, let him try this experi- 
ment: Take any finely built, well-de- 
veloped, and strong youth from the 
jungle. Put him into a factory contain- 
ing complicated and delicate machinery, 
turn on the power, lock the doors, and 
leave him free to run that machinery. 
Can anyone doubt that the result in a 
short time would be the utter ruin of 
that machinery because the savage hand 
with all the willingness in the world 
lacked a trained and educated mind to 
direct it as to which levers to pull, and 
which wheels to turn? 


So intimately is the general educa- 
tion of the people related not only to 
their own happiness and well-being but 
to the prosperity and security of the 
country that the importance of main- 
taining and developing our educational 
system ought not to require argument. 
It is by means of an educated people 
that material wealth is increased. The 





natural resources of our country are no 
greater today than they were a hundred 
years ago. As a matter of fact, they 
are much less. Quantities of the gold, 
silver, coal, and iron have been mined, 
and to a considerable extent our oil has 
been exploited and our forests cut down. 
Probably our native ability as a people 
is little, if any, greater than it was 2 
hundred years ago. Yet none will deny 
that the value of the people to the nation 
is vastly greater than it was a century 
ago. This increased value is due to the 
fact that they have become more uni- 
versally intelligent as the result of edu- 
cation. Of the three factors in the pro- 
duction of material wealth, namely, nat- 
ural resources, native ability of the peo- 
ple, and education, education is the only 
one that varies to any considerable ex- 
tent. And it should be borne in mind 
that education can vary in either direc- 
tion. If our production and accumula- 
tion of material wealth is greater in the 
degree that our education is more uni- 
versal and of higher quality it goes 
without saying that with a falling off in 
education our material prosperity would 
diminish correspondingly. 


We accumulate wealth; we can pass 
on to each succeeding generation tangi- 
ble property in any form. We can even 
to some extent transmit native ability. 
But we cannot bequeath an education 
to our children. The most we can do is 
to provide them with the means for an 
education. Every babe that is born into 
the world is as ignorant as its most re- 
mote ancestor. It can neither write nor 
read. It has only rudimentary mental 
processes. It merely has reactions and 
responses to external stimuli. If aban- 
doned to its own fate on an uninhabited 
island, if it survived at all, it would 
group up to be a totally illiterate man 


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46 


THE BULLETIN 





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and an ignorant one, except as it might 
learn certain facts of life from its en- 
vironmentand fromitsexperience. Since 
it is necessary to recreate in each gene- 
ration those processes of education 
which the preceding generation enjoyed, 
we must continue to provide schools and 
teachers and all the essential tools that 
go to furnish and equip the mind. 


We have been made sadly aware dur- 
ing these last few years of the necessity 
of economy. With our private incomes 
sharply diminished, with our means of 
livelihood cut off, with less pay forth- 
coming from the same amount of work, 
we have had to pinch and scrimp to 
make both ends meet. If this condition 
has been true in our private affairs, it 
has also been true as to those common 
enterprises which we maintain by the 
taxes that we pay to the government. 
Our schools have suffered along with 
everything else. Hundreds of thousands 
of children are either being denied edu- 
cational opportunities entirely or they 
are able to attend school only on a part- 
time basis. Thousands of schools have 
been closed. Equipment has been de- 
teriorating and replacements of essen- 
tial tools for education have been lack- 
ing. 


I do not deny that of necessity some 
economies must be made in our schools. 
But we are going too far in that direc- 
tion. Our schools ought to be the last 
to feel the pinch of economy, just as 
they ought to be first to experience the 
return of prosperity. Undoubtedly the 
educational tree needs some pruning. 
There may be some dead and decayed 
branches that ought to be cut off. But 
if such pruning is necessary it should 
be done scientifically, by experts. It 
serves no good purpose of economy and 
it is immensely damaging to our educa- 


tional system to slash into a budget re- 
gardless of whether we are cutting into 
a vital spot or not. 


Even in these days of tremendously 


pressing problems, to my mind the most 


important question of all is, What are 
we going to do about our schools? ‘That 
education should be universal goes with- 
out saying. By education I mean more 
than the three R’s. I believe that every 
child should be given all the education 
that he can reasonably absorb. This 
does not mean that all children should 
spend an equal number of years in 
school or that all should take the same 
courses. It means that everyone in or- 
der to have the best chance possible 
for a happy and full life should have 
every bit of education that he is capable 
of receiving and of using to advantage. 


The intelligence of a nation is the 
sum of the intelligences of all of its 
citizens. Intelligence is the product of 
education and education is the greatest 
national asset that we have. No nation 
in these times can hope to survive, to say 
nothing of progressing in the arts and 
the sciences, in commerce, in trade, or 
in industry, unless it is composed of a 
well-educated citizenry. Least of all can 
a democracy, depending, as it must de- 
pend, upon an informed public opinion 
for the selection of its leaders and the 
framing of its laws hope long to en- 
dure unless it consists of a highly and 
universally educated electorate. The 
individual American must be educated 
not only that he may be able to enjoy 
a happier and fuller life; he must be 
educated in order that, in cooperation 
with other educated Americans, he may 
do his part toward sustaining and up- 
building an intelligent and beneficent 
and capable government. 





DECEMBER 1933 


47 











ELEMENTARY PRINCIPALS 
AT THE SERVICE OF THE N. E. A. 


HE following elementary princi- 
pals have been appointed on N. 


E. A. committees by President Jessie’ 


Gray. While the list may not be en- 
tirely complete, it does indicate that the 
N. E. A. has honored a goodly num- 
ber of our group by committee appoint- 
ments. 


Necrology 
Viola P. Howard, Birmingham, Ala. 
Mrs. Eva G. T. McClurken, Cato, Ark. 
Mrs. Pearl L. McCormick, Missoula, Mont. 
Rulon T. Sheperd, Overton, Nev. 
Lyle W. Ewing, Claremont, N. H. 
Nena DeBerry, Salisbury, N. C. 


Credentials Committee 
H. B. Norton (chairman) Birmingham, 
Ala. 
Mrs. Thomas Lewis, Hapeville, Ga. 
J. E. Fitzgerald, Sioux City, Iowa 
L. S. Rugg, Alexandria, La. 
Arthur C. Cotton, Westfield, Mass. 
Mrs. Zella K. Flores, Lewiston, Mont. 
Bertha I. Atkinson, Pitman, N. J. 
R. C. Jennings, Waynesboro, Va. 


Rural Education 
A. L. Jones, Phoenix, Ariz. 
Carlyle W. Wilcox, Pioche, Nev. 


Retirement Allowances 

J. R. Croad, Sacramento, Calif. 

Mrs. Gertrude B. Hammond, Los Angeles, 
Calif. 

Elmer A. Brown, Honolulu, Hawaii 

Edythe J. Brown, South Bend, Ind. 

I. A. Nauman, Davenport, Iowa. 

Mrs. Carolina N. Porter, Parson, Kans. 

Mrs. Winnie Thornburg, Wichita, Kans. 

Amy Hinricks, New Orleans, La. 

Arthur C. Cotton, Westfield, Mass. 

E. Ruth Pyrtle, Lincoln, Nebr. 

Guy B. Rose, Montclair, N. J. 

Mrs. Rhoda Councilman, Binghamton, 
N. Y. 

M. Emma Brookes, Cleveland, Ohio 

Bertha C. McEntee, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

W. L. Darnell, Austin, Texas 

Lillian Johnson, Norfolk, Va. 

Elizabeth McCormick, Superior, Wis. 


Civil Service for Teachers 
Mrs. Alice R. Norton, San Francisco, 
Calif. 
Stanley Gibbs, Newark, Del. 
Arthur O. Rape, Oak Park, III. 


Flora E. Drake, Indianapolis, Ind. 
Warren E. Roe, Newark, N. J. 


Roland T. MacLaran, Williamsport, Pa | 


S. M. Lloyd, Dallas, Texas. 
Cornelia Adair, Richmond, Va. 


Committee on International Relations 
H. B. Norton, Birmingham, Ala. 


Mrs. Margaret Mendenhall Smith, Den- 


ver, Colo. 
Maude A. Rhodes, Atlanta, Ga. 
Mary M. Roach, Decatur, III. 
Earl R. Laing, Detroit, Mich. 
Virginia Brown, Meridian, Miss. 
W. T. Longshore, Kansas City, Mo. 
Annie M. T. Cogil, Lincoln, Nebr. 
E. Ruth Pyrtle, Lincoln, Nebr. 
Mrs. Martha Gleason, Carson City, Nev 
Margarette E. Howard, Summit, N. J. 
Mason A. Stratton, Atlantic City, N. J 


William Hendrie, Queens Village, N. Y. 


Mrs. Katharine M. Mansfield, Canton, 
Ohio 

Samuel Berman, Philadelphia, Pa. 

George A. Walton, George School, Pa. 

Cornelia Adair, Richmond, Va. 

Mrs. Edith B. Joynes, Norfolk, Va. 

Elizabeth McCormick, Superior, Wis. 


Joint Committee of National Education As- 
sociation and National Congress of Parent 
and Teachers 

Elizabeth O’Hare, Washington, D. C. 

Zada White, Minneapolis, Minn. 

Cassie F. Roys, Omaha, Nebr. 

L. Daisy Hammond, Dayton, Ohio 

Frank D. Austin, Port Arthur, Texas 


Legislative Commission 

Mrs. Margaret S. Upham, Cumberland, 
Md. 

Effie MacGregor, Minneapolis, Minn. 
W. T. Longshore, Kansas City, Mo. 
Walter Jacob, Jr., Plainfield, N. J. 
Charles E. Lewis, Portland, Ore. 
Mrs. Edith B. Joynes, Norfolk, Va. 
Thomas W. Boyce, Milwaukee, Wis. 


Joint Committee on Health Problems in 
Education 


A. Earle Hemstreet, Buffalo, N. Y. 


Resolutions Committee 
Seymour P. Fish, Bunkerville, Nev. 
Lyle W. Ewing, Claremont, N. H. 
Lawrence Chase, Montclair, N. J. 
W. I. Ford, Portland, Ore. 
Elizabeth McCormick, Superior, Wis. 





os | Sana 


National Commission on the Enrichment of © 


Adult Life 
E. Ruth Pyrtle, Lincoln, Nebr. 





48 


THE BULLETIN 





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REPORT OF THE SURVEY 


T the Chicago meeting, the De- 

partment of Elementary School 
Principals passed a resolution asking the 
United States Office of Education to 
make a survey on elementary education 
and offered the offices of our Depart- 
ment in support thereof. 


All state education associations, state 
and local principals associations, the As- 
sociation for Childhood Education, and 
interested and affiliated departments of 
the National Education Association 
were invited to join in this request. 
Each organization was asked to send us 
a copy of the letter which their club or 
group sent to Dr. George F. Zook, 
United States Commissioner of Edu- 
cation. 


We have received many letters to 
date; each mail brings more. Mary 
Leeper, executive secretary for the As- 
sociation for Childhood Education re- 
ports that she, too, is receiving copies of 
many letters. We have not replied to 
those cooperating in this great enterprise, 
and wish to take this medium of thank- 
ing them. 


TAKE SPECIAL NOTICE 


Please remind your friends that 


they do not receive this issue of the 
Bulletin unless their dues for 1933-34 
have been paid. It is very important 
that these members, who - Bae forgot- 
ten, send their renewals to Head- 
quarters immediately. We need the 
support and help of all. Start a 
chain by asking five of your fellow 
principals to send in dues now, and 
ask them to ask others. We accept 
checks, money orders, money, or 
stamps. Your help will be greatly 
appreciated by the officers. 


NECROLOGY 


HE Department has lost many 

friends and members this last year. 
We shall miss their wise counsel, valua- 
ble assistance, and words of encourage- 
ment. Of the names reported to us at 
Headquarters, many we knew person- 
ally and many had become friends 
through correspondence. We are sorry 
that we didn’t have the opportunity to 
know all, for those sending the reports 
told us of the sterling character and 
fine citizen which their community had 
lost. The names reported are: 


Alsterlund, Mabel, Moline, III. 

Ball, Lew A., San Francisco, Calif. 

Condit, Philip M., Tulsa, Okla. 

Dyer, Henrietta K., Washington, D. C. 

Edgington, Myrtle, Ames, Iowa. 

Fayette, William C., Buffalo, N. Y. 

Foster, Charlotte F., Washington, lowa 

Gohmert, Emilie G., San Antonio, Tex. 

Graham, J. W., Seattle, Wash. 

Greene, Walter J., Newark, N. J. 

Hadley, E. L., Portland, Ore. 

Levy, Matilda A., San Francisco, Calif. 

McVean, Etta, Akron, Ohio 

Miles, M. I., Dallas, Tex. 

Murphy, Lawrence W., Dorchester, 
Mass. 

Murphy, Lenore, Erie, Pa. 

Parker, William, Portland, Ore. 

Phillips, Hannah, San Francisco, Calif. 

Putnam, Grace, Moline, III. 

Quine, Bessie Huntoon, Pontiac, Mich. 

Rhodes, Eli A., Buffalo, N. Y. 

Riordan, Catherine F., San Francisco, 
Calif. 

Shaw, Sallie Reed, Wilmington, Del. 

Shean, Nellie Cecelia, Perth Amboy, 
N. J. 

Walizer, Mildred Obarr, San Pedro, 
Calif. 

Walters, Florence E., Wayne, Pa. 

Wolf, Lily A., Rutherford, N. J. 





DECEMBER 1933 








YEARBOOKS 




















Mailing the Twelfth Yearbook 


It may be interesting to you to know who manages the editing of the yearbooks here at 


Headquarters. 


Reading from left to right: 


Frank W. Hubbard, associate director of 


research, is responsible for the compilation of the yearbooks after they reach us; Harold 
A. Allan, business manager of the National Education Association, has charge of our’ 
financial affairs; and Eva G. Pinkston is executive secretary. ' 





LONG-WINDED speaker, who 
was somewhat renowned for his 
statistical abilities, had dazzled his 
audience with many numerical com- 
parisons. He compared, contrasted, di- 
vided, and multiplied his illustrations 
until the audience was weary. Finally; 
he rose to new heights with the state- 
ment: “If all of the bricks were 
weighed at one time they would exceed 
the mass of six locomotives, and if these 
bricks were piled into a single pile ten 
feet square they would be taller than a 
ten-story building—and—and—” As 
the speaker struggled a voice from the 
rear of the hall boomed: “And if all 
of the statisticians were laid end to end, 
it would be a darn good thing. Good 
night!” 
At the risk of being laid end to end 








we shall report some facts on the 1933 
yearbook. This volume was completed 
late last spring, published during the 
summer, and distributed to the members 
of the Department early this fall. 

The photograph at the top of the 
page indicates something of the magni- 
tude of the mailing task. Almost four 
thousand yearbooks were sent out. If 
these books were laid end to end (there 
you go!) they would extend in a single 
line for slightly over half a mile. Piled 
in a single pile they would reach 
two-thirds of the way up the Washing- 
ton Monument. If placed on a single 
gigantic scale the total weight would 
approximate two tons. 

The 1934 yearbook promises to be 
equally useful to principals and to 
teachers.—Frank W. Hubbard. 





50 


THE BULLETIN | 


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THE YEARBOOK AND COOPERATION 


EWSPAPERS and periodicals re- 

fer frequently to the new social or- 
der. Cooperation seems to be the com- 
mon element in the various descriptions 
of this new social order. They express 
the hope that cooperative activity will 
greatly widen the field of opportunities 


' for every individual member of society. 


NT 


of our? 


1933 
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SRL EL RING, ST RT Te cern 


| To be consistent, the schools must prac- 


tise cooperation and provide more op- 
portunities for children to grow. 


There are two points of view regard- 
ing the place of the school in a demo- 
cratic society. One is that the school 
shall lead in social change. This as- 
sumes that the school shall be a sort of 
social laboratory for experimentation 
and to plan for the future. The results 
of its investigations of desirable changes 
shall be imposed on future social or- 
ganization through education of vouth 
of the present. The other point of view, 
considers the school to be a reflection of 
the will of the people. Changes in or- 
ganization, materials, and method in the 
schools come at the insistence of the 
public. As public opinion crystallizes it 
finds expression in a changed education. 


At present cooperation is a keywerd 
in organized education. Whether it was 
conceived in advance of widespread pub- 
lic acclaim or accepted as a fixed result 
of a great public movement makes lit- 
tle difference. It should suffice that the 
schools are in harmony with the trend 
of the times. Cooperation in the school 
is practised among children, between 
children and the teacher, among teach- 
ers in the whole school, and between 


John S. Thomas 


the principal and all of his associates. 
Principals, as leaders in their schools, 
must set the example. 


The yearbooks of our Department 
are typical examples of a truly coopera- 
tive enterprise. In method of prepara- 
tion and in content, they show how it is 
possible to create a product by a large 
number of people working together on 
a common problem. The Editorial 
Committee plans a tentative outline. 
Many principals and others interested 
in the subject contribute practical arti- 
cles. The completed yearbook brings 
together the best available ideas. The 
integrated handbook provides for prog- 
ress in the schools of the nation. No 
other national yearbook is produced in 
quite this way. No other yearbook is 
quite so representative of the joint ef- 
forts of so many competent contributors. 


The 1934 yearbook is entitled Aids 
To Teaching in the Elementary School. 
Manuscripts received describe practical 
uses and values of innumerable objects, 
including visual and auditory aids to 
teaching. They describe the provision 
of a greater variety of methods and ma- 
terials for larger numbers of children. 
Articles are consistent with the primary 
aim of the new social order. The op- 
portunity for children to grow in school 
is greatly widened. The response of 
principals to requests for manuscripts 
on the subject of the yearbook is an in- 
dication of their awareness of needs in 
the schools. The yearbook will be a last- 
ing tribute to the leadership and co- 
operation of principals during times of 
stress and adversity. 





ETIN 


DECEMBER 1933 


5l 











INTEGRATING ACTIVITIES 
IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LIFE 


1935 Yearbook 


E ARE TOLD that the world 

is a changing place. This state- 
ment is not new, for the phenomenon of 
change has been true ever since the 
world began. The significant thing for 
us today and for the future is not that 
the world is changing, but the fact that 
change is coming so rapidly and in cer- 
tain unique ways. As these changes take 
place many of the institutions of society 
are forced to adapt themselves to the in- 
novations or cease to exist. The strain 
is visible at the present time in all of 
the group activities of American life: 
the home, the church, the school, and 
the government. If the important ele- 
ments of these institutions are to be pre- 
served it appears to many that our edu- 
cational program must be broader than 
the three R’s. 

Elementary educators have intro- 
duced into teaching many informal ac- 
tivities which call for the integration, 
as well as the memorization, of knowl- 
edge. Yet in spite of the fact that ele- 
mentary teachers have utilized various 
informal activities in their teaching, 
there is a meagerness of literature in this 
general field as far as the elementary- 
school principal is concerned. This con- 
dition does not mean that principals 
have not been interested in the topic or 
that they have not made contributions 
to the field. It does mean, however, that 
there has been no concerted effort to 
think through the many problems in- 
volved and to present them between the 
covers of a single handbook. 

It seems to the Editorial Committee 
that we should record the functions of 
the elementary-school principal in con- 


nection with the integrating school pro- 


cedures or so-called ‘‘extracurriculum” fF 
activities. The Editorial Committee in- § 


vites letters from principals who are in- 


terested in this particular field. Are you f 


interested in school assemblies? Have 
you developed particularly useful meth- 
ods in connection with dramatics and 
pageants? Are you able to integrate 
the school life with the life of the com- 
munity through celebrations and festi- 


vals? Have you been able to bring af 
constructive influence into your com-f 


munity through musical events? How 
do you manage activities so as to con- 
serve the time and energy of the pupils, 


safeguard funds, and enlist public in- 


terest and support? 
The Editorial Committee presents 
the following preliminary outline for 


consideration: 

I. Definitions and objectives. (Prepared by 

Editorial Committee ) 
A. What terms are commonly 
used? B. What is the historical 
significance of each 


What relation exists between 


terminology and objectives? D.§ 


What are the objectives of the 
program in the modern school of 
today? 
II, Assemblies. 

A. Which types of programs are 
effective in elementary schools? 
B. How can assemblies be con- 
trolled? C. Who should plan the 
programs? D. How can the pro- 
grams be integrated with the 
regular instructional activities? 
E. What evidence is_ there 


that assemblies accomplish their § 


aims? F. May assemblies serve 
to integrate otherwise isolated 


units of school and community § 


life? G. How can assemblies in- 
terpret and utilize basic learn- 
ing? 





52 


THE BULLETIN 


term? C.§ 





— 


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) [IIl. Entertainments, plays, and pageants. 


A. How can dramatics be or- 
ganized and managed in con- 
nection with the elementary 
school? B. Who should be re- 
sponsible for the program? C. 
Is it legitimate to attempt to 
make profits? D. What coopera- 
tion can be developed with the 
regular class activities? E. How 
can the effectiveness of the ac- 
tivities be determined? F. How 
can plays be an outgrowth of 
the three R’s? 

IV. Celebrations and red letter days. 
A. Which events should be gen- 
erally recognized in connection 
with the school program? B. 
What devices can be used in 
celebrations? C. What contacts 
can be established with the regu- 
lar class activities? D. What 
evidence exists to show that the 
celebrations are educationally 
worthwhile? 

V. Orchestras and music activities. 
A. What are the most useful 
types of music activities? B. 
How can the principal organize 
and direct these enterprises? C. 
In what way should these proj- 
ects contribute to the classroom 
instruction? D. How can music 
activities be evaluated? 

VI. Pupil participation in school manage- 

ment. 

A. How can the pupils be or- 
ganized for general school con- 
trol? B. What types of home- 
room government are effective? 
C. What use can be made of 
trafic patrols and similar polic- 
ing procedures? D. What influ- 
ence should these projects have 
upon the regular instruction? 
E. How can one judge the effec- 
tiveness of pupil government 
schemes? 

VII. Clubs. 
A. What kinds of clubs should 
be organized in the elementary 
school? B. How should these 
groups be supervised? C. What 
connections should be made with 
the regular class activities? D. 
How can the effectiveness of the 
club work be determined? 

VII. Athletics. 
A. Which types are suited for 
the elementary-school pupil? B. 
What provision should be made 
for inter-school competition? C. 
How can a majority of the pupils 


be interested in active play? D 
Should athletics contribute to the 
regular class activities? E. How 
can one determine whether or 
not the athletic program is edu- 
cationally worthwhile? 

IX. Publications. 
A. Should every elementary 
school have a school newspaper? 
B. Should there be a school an- 
nual? C. How can these publi- 
cations be prepared? D. How 
much faculty supervision is 
necessary? E. What evidence is 
there that these activities con- 
tribute to pupil development? 
F. What are the values of paid 
advertisements? 

X. Cooperative Community Activities. 
A. What community projects 
should the elementary school em- 
brace? B. What joint enter- 
prises should be planned and 
executed through elementary- 
school cooperation? C. What can 
be done to secure interest of P. 
T. A. and community organiza- 
tions? D. What contributions to 
citizenship should we expect in 
return? E. How are such proj- 
ects planned? 

XI. The future school. 

Editorial Committee) 

A. What is the outlook for the 
future? B. What about the criti- 
cism of “fads and frills’? C. 
How can the “extra” program 
be more completely integrated? 
D. How can we change public 
opinion as to what is “extra” 
and what is “regular”? E. How 
can we evaluate the more in- 
formal activities of the modern 
school? F. What contribution 
will the intergrating activities 
make to the use of leisure time? 


(Prepared by the 


If none of the sub-topics appeals to 
you, choose another of similar nature 
which can be classified under one of the 
main headings. 

For the present it is suggested that 
communications be sent to the chairman 
for the 1935 yearbook, Bess Clement, 
Eliza Clark School, Clarksdale, Missis- 
sippi; or to the Editorial Committee, 
Department of Elementary School 
Principals, 1201 Sixteenth St. N. W., 
Washington, D. C. 





DECEMBER 1933 











LOCAL AND STATE GROUPS 


HE Elementary School Principals’ 

Association, Cumberland, Mary- 
land, has selected “’Tis Thinking 
Time” as its topic of study. They have 
developed their program as follows: 


1. The Future of the Elementary School 
Principalship. 
. How Shall Education Be Financed? 
. Presentday Educational Philosophies. 
. The Elementary School as an Agent in 
Prevention of Crime. 
5. The Principal’s Responsibility 
(a) To his supervisors 
(b) To his school 
(c) To his community 
(d) To himself. 
. Education at the Crossroads. 
. Standard Tests—Values—Casualties. 
e 68 @ 


wh 


NSN 


The attractive yearbook of the Ele- 
mentary Principals’ Club in Casper, 
Wyoming, plans to use the Twelfth 
Yearbook of the Department of Ele- 
mentary School Principals—Elemen- 
tary School Libraries — and ‘Timely 
Topics Tersely Treated as the basis of 
their work during 1933-34. The offi- 
cers of this club are: Adelle Stinson, 
president; Lillian Kocher, vicepresi- 
dent; Mae I. Winter, secretary-treas- 
urer; and Minnie L. Eddleman, mem- 
ber of éxecutive committee. The Club 
meets each month. 

e e@ @ 

The Dayton, Ohio, Principals’ Club 
began its year’s work on November 7. 
William McAndrew was the speaker. 
The keynote of the entire program for 
the year is greater professional con- 
sciousness, and greater solidarity within 
the entire corps of teachers. The prin- 
cipals are to be the leaders. Nell H. 
Brown, McKinley School, is the presi- 
dent. 

e e ® 

The Elementary School Principals’ 

Association of Raleigh, North Carolina, 


under the leadership of President Sallie? 
Blackwell, has drafted a study at 
for themselves which is extremely in-f 
teresting. It includes the following sub- | 
jects: The Environment for Creative | 
Education ; Creating a Meaningful En.- | 
vironment for a Literature Unit in! 
Second Grade; The Principal Looks } 
into the New Year; Creative Education | 
and the Arts and Crafts; Literature in| 
Creative Education; The Creative Ex. | 
pression in Vacation Activities. | 
e e ® 
The Norfolk, Virginia, City Princi-} 
pals’ Club will have as the general topic : 
for professional study this year, “Closer | 
Relation between Home and School.” | 
They will direct their discussions so that 
teachers and principals can gain much | 
benefit ; they also want to find out what } 
the parent expects of the school and | 
what is the function of the P. T. A. in } 
the school. Four meetings a year are} 
dinner meetings; the others are held | 
once a month in the afternoon in the 
different buildings. 
e oe °® { 
The Principals’ Association of New | 
: é eo 
York City has organized two courses of | 
lectures for teachers which they may at- | 
tend free of charge, and for which they | 
receive credit toward increase in salary. | 
One course discusses Problems of Ju- | 
venile Delinquency, thoroughly, by 
finding out its significance, its causes, | 
the treatment of it among school chil | 
dren, and the prevention of it. In the} 
other course, Safety Education, some of | 
the topics dealt with are the traffic prob- | 
lems, source materials, causes of acci- | 
dents, safety patrols, suggestions for f 
teaching safety, visual aids in safety J 
teaching, and physical and mental 
causes of accidents. 





Pr 





54 


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The Portsmouth, Virginia, elemen- 
tary principals’ group known as the 
Schoolmasters’ Club meets once a month 
at a dinner and professional meeting. 
The program of work for this year is, 
A Study of the New State Course of 
Study and Current Educational Prob- 
lems. 

e e@ ® 

The Elementary Principals’ Club of 
Buffalo, New York, has chosen as sub- 
jects for their work this year, Closer 
Cooperation between the Schools, and 
Social Agencies and Club Activities. 

e @e@ ®@ 

The Elementary Principals’ Associa- 
tion of New Jersey held its meeting No- 
vember 11 at Atlantic City. President 
Thomas L. Barnes, East Orange, pre- 
sided. 

e @e@ ® 

A few weeks ago the Southeastern 
Division of the Oklahoma Education 
Association met at Durant. Noah Asco, 
Ardmore, was chairman. After a busi- 
ness session, the group discussed the re- 
sponsibility of the elementary school in 
preparing a child for high school, the 
principals’ responsibility in the func- 
tioning of an elementary school, and the 
relation of the superintendent to the 
elementary principal under present con- 
ditions. 

e 6|«©@ e 

The East Avenue School, Vineland, 
New Jersey, has published a booklet of 
high spots for 1933-34. A meeting will 
be held each month. Topics of interest 
to teachers, principals, and parents are 
to be discussed. 

e.6U6.e86hCU 

Henry Hamilton, Elkins, West Vir- 
ginia, was chairman of the program for 
the Elementary Principals of the West 
Virginia State Association. The sub- 


jects developed were the possibilities for 
supervision of an elementary principal, 
the place of the elementary principal un- 
der the county unit, and intra-relation 
between elementary and high schools. 


td 


CALENDAR 


Is there something in this calendar 
which you should mark? Remember 
that each state association has a Prin- 
cipals’ Department. 


December 
Florida Education Association, Tampa— 
28-29 
Hawaii Education Association, Honolulu 
Illinois State Teachers Association, 
Springfield—27-29 
Oregon State Teachers Association, Port- 
land—27-29 
Pennsylvania State Education Associa- 
tion, Philadelphia—27-29 
February 
Department of Superintendence, Cleve- 
land—24-March 1 
Oklahoma State Education Association, 
Oklahoma City—8-10 
March 
Alabama Education Association, Mont- 
gomery—30-April 1 
Michigan Education Association, Grand 
Rapids—24-25 
North Carolina Education Association, 
Raleigh—23-25 
South Carolina 
Columbia—8-10 f 
Tennessee State Teachers Association, 
Nashville—29-31 
April 
California Teachers Association, 
Francisco—2nd Saturday 
Georgia Education Association, Savan- 
nah—12-14 
Kentucky Education Association, Louis- 
ville—18-22 
Massachusetts Teachers Federation, Bos- 
ton—15 
Mississippi Education Association, Jack- 
son—26-28 
May 
District of Columbia Education Associa- 
tion, Washington—6 
June 
National Education Association, Wash- 
ington—30-July 6 
Ohio Education Association, Cedar Point 
—25-27 


Teachers Association, 


San 





DECEMBER 1933 


55 





RECENT BOOKS 


AVE YOU SEEN Clarifying 
A The Teachers Problems by 
Arthur S. Gist, president, Humboldt 
State Teachers College, Arcata, Cali- 
fornia: Charles Scribner & Sons? 
One of its splendid qualities is its 
readable, interesting style. The subject- 
matter is well organized and presented 
in a clear informal way. Beginning 
teachers, mature teachers who may want 
to modify their points of view along 
presentday lines, and every elementary 
principal who is interested in keeping 
abreast of the times should be interested 
in this book. There will be found at 
the end of each chapter a list of selected 
references which is a treasure house for 
those who wish to advance or review. 


Another storehouse of treasure is 
Modern School Administration by 
John C. Almack, professor of educa- 
tion, Stanford University, California: 
Houghton Mifflin Company. 

This book is dedicated to Ellwood P. 
Cubberley by a group of his students. 
Its uniqueness is based upon the fact that 
each chapter is written by a student of 
his class. 

One chapter has been prepared by our 
own Worth McClure, superintendent 
of schools, Seattle, Washington, and 
second president of the Department of 
Elementary School Principals. John K. 
Norton, professor of education, Teach- 
ers College, Columbia University ; Wil- 
liam G. Carr, director, Research Divi- 
sion, and Joy Elmer Morgan, editor, 
Journal of the National Education As- 
sociation, have prepared extremely in- 
teresting chapters. Be sure to read this 
book, for all eight chapters are as in- 
teresting as those mentioned above. 


HERE AND THERE 


AMES FITZGERALD, principal, 

Hopkins School, Sioux City, Lowa, 
has been elected president of the ele- 
mentary principals section of the State 
Association. 


Lillian Burns has been elected presi- 
dent of the Principals’ Club at Rome, 
New York. 


The Farragut News, Farragut 


School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is : 


edited by the students under the able 
directorship of the principal, Eva E. 
Linn. 

Mrs. A. Virginia Adams has been 
elected president of the Elementary 
Principals’ Association of New Jersey. 

The Kansas City (Mo.) Teachers 
Journal for October contained an arti- 
cle by W. T. Longshore entitled “Peace 
Stressed at World Conference.” 


The elementary principals who at- 


tended the International Conference on Ff 


Education at Dublin last summer were 
E. Ruth Pyrtle, W. T. Longshore, M. 
C. Howard, and M. Grace Madden. 
M. Emma Brookes, Cleveland, Ohio, 
third vicepresident of the Department, 
has been in Washington attending a 
meeting of the Retirement Committee. 


The Rosedale T-A-T-L-E-R, the of- J 


ficial publication of the North Rosedale 
Park Civic Association, Detroit, Mich., 
dedicated its October issue to Cooke 
School of which Earl R. Laing is dis- 


trict principal and Alice Ketcham is f 


building principal. 


Ellwood P. Cubberley paid a visit § 


to our Headquarters, November 11. 
Mildred English, assistant superin- 

tendent of schools, Raleigh, North 

Carolina, came to see us on her way 


from New York. 





56 


THE BULLETIN 





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ETIN 


WITH THE AUTHORS 


Sherwood D. Shankland (p. 30) is the executive secretary of the Depart- 
ment of Superintendence. He represents the Joint Commission on the Emergency 
in Education here at Headquarters and is in charge of the general administration 
of its work. Besides these offices, he is godfather of our Department. We go to 
him at all times for counsel and advice. 


Florence Hale (p. 31) is past president of the National Education Associa- 
tion. She is radio director of the Sunday afternoon programs, “Our American 
Schools.” Besides being editor of the popular Grade Teacher, Dr. Hale is a 
lecturer of note. 


Ray L. Huff (p. 32) is parole executive of the Department of Justice of 
the United States Bureau of Prisons. Formerly he was principal of Moorhead 
School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Before coming to Washington he was direc- 
tor of the Bureau of Restoration of Pennsylvania. 


Mary Dabney Davis (p. 34) is senior specialist in nursery-kindergarten- 
primary education of the United States Office of Education. Dr. Davis is presi- 
dent of the National Association for Nursery Education and is a consultant on 
the research committee of the Association for Childhood Education. For several 
years she was chairman of the Board of Editors of Childhood Education. 


Frank Cody (p. 35) is superintendent of schools, Detroit, Michigan. He is 
a past president of the Department of Superintendence. Well grounded in the 
philosophy of education and the principles of public finance, and with a rare 
good nature, he has succeeded in securing remarkable results with a minimum of 
friction. 


William Trufant Foster (p. 40), Newton, Massachusetts, is an expert in 
economics. He was the first president of Reed College, Portland, Oregon. For 
the past twelve years his work has been economic research. 


Charl Williams (p. 43) is director of Field Service for the N. E. A., and 
is fifth vicepresident of the National Congress of Parent and Teachers. Miss 


Williams is quite active in the legislative work which takes place here at Head- 
quarters. 


Harold L. Ickes (p. 44) is Secretary of the Interior in the President’s Cabi- 
net. It is his responsibility to administer many of our helpful recovery programs, 
yet he has time to give his splendid service to education and its needs. 


Frank W. Hubbard (p. 50) is associate director of research of the N. E. A. 
Before coming to Washington he was an elementary-school principal in Fresno, 
California. For the past seven years Dr. Hubbard has been helping to edit our 
yearbooks which have been so beneficial to the members of our Department. 


John S. Thomas (p. 51) is principal of Clippert School, Detroit, Michigan, 
and chairman of the Editorial Committee of the Department for the 1934 year- 
book. MIr. Thomas is very active among the Michigan principals. 








DUCATION is a neces- 
sity, not a luxury, since the 
growth of the child cannot be 
halted or postponed during an 
economic emergency. There- 
fore, educational service 
should be accorded a high de- 
gree of priority in determining 
the purposes and services 
which shall be supported by 
the states during a depression. 
—Citizens Conference on the Crisis in 


Education in its “Declaration of 


Policy.” 








MT. ' 


The 
Was 








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