NOVEMBER, 1931 


‘@he J OURNAL of the 
NATIONAL EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION 


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Business Is Good in the Schools—Editorial . 
Will the Teachers Hold the Line? 
Adjusting College Education to the Individual—J. B. Johnston 
Democratic Spirit in the One-Room School—Bernice Elliott 
NEA Department Presidents 1931-32—Photograph Feature 
Children’s Joy in Design—Carmen F. Heath 
The Problem of General Method—Leo J. Brueckner . , 
New ‘Russia’s Primer é 
Senator Borah on Russia ; 
National Committee on Education by Radio > 
The American High School—A. T. Allen 
Tht Teacher and His Salary—Richard R. Foster ; 
Personality Development in the Classroom—Caroline B. Zachry 
Putting the Children’s Charter into Effect ; ; 
Nationwide Cartoon Project—Classroom Poster 
Liberal Education for Teachers—W. A. Lewis ; 
Schools That Are Prophecies—An Index of Educational Progress , 
Growth of Summer School Attendance—Statistics 

« A Neglected Educational Frontier—Harry S. Ganders 
Vitalized Group Study and Faculty Meetings 
Looking Forward to Atlantic City for 1932 ; 
A College Experiment in Adult Education—Arland D. W reeks 
Evaluating Your Own Teaching—Selfanalysis Chart 
The United States Office of Education ‘ ; 
The Law of Sportsmanship—Morality Code Poster ; 
The Selection of Classroom Motion Pictures—Edgar Dale 
The Challenge of a Great Ideal—A merican Education Week Poster 
Teachers Will Give Children a iviini Year—Clara re Brewer 
Cartoons on Education 
Builders of Our Profession 
Notes and Announcements 


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Pustisuep MONTHLY, EXCEPT JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER, BY THE 
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CLASS MATTER OCTOBER 28, 1920, AT THE POSTOFFICE AT WASHINGTON, 
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ERE e Na SS NE write Educational partment 

















American Education Week Editorial for November 1931 


Business Is Good in the Schools 


USINESS IS GOOD when there is a steady demand for products which serve genuine and 
important needs and when that demand is being fairly met. Measured by this standard the 
business of education has never been so good as in the United States at this moment. 

There are more young people in school than ever before. They are in charge of the most alert 
and best trained teachers that have ever blessed the nation. These teachers are presenting the 
strongest curriculum so far perfected and are seeking to make it better. They are working in the 
best buildings that ever housed the nation’s millions of young students. They are supported to 
a remarkable degree by an intelligent, informed, and sympathetic public. 

These teachers are working at their problems. During the summer of 1931 more than 270,000 
of them took special courses to improve their service. Over 700,000 in the state education 
associations and 200,000 in the National Education Association are cooperating to improve 
education. More than 5000 are life members of their great professional body. Tens of thousands 
of school faculties are holding regular meetings to study their problems. 

These facts are of the utmost significance for men and women in every other line of business. 
They mean that better times lie ahead. The first wealth is human wealth. Upon that all other 
wealth is built. These thirty million students are getting the best education ever given to the 
masses of the people. They are learning to live on a higher plane of life. They are building up 
health and vitality. They are being taught to value a fine home life and to plan for it. They are 
learning how to learn and to keep on learning as a life-long enterprise. They are learning 
citizenship by practising it in the schools. They are being trained in essential vocational skills. 
The higher uses of leisure are opened up to them in the fine arts and in the recreational and 
social life of the school. Above all, they are seeking to develop fine character—to quicken 
ambition, aspiration, courage? to cultivate industry and thrift; to establish all the virtues that 
underlie excellence and happiness of life. 

These products of the schools are the pride of America. They are the basis of all other pro- 
duction and the promise of a quality of consumption such as the world has not yet seen. The 
business man who is prepared to serve this improved product of the schools will reap a rich re- 
ward. Dishonest business must grow less and less. The saloon is gone. Gambling has few de- 
fenders. Speculation has had a hard blow. Poverty can be wiped out. Graft can be abolished. 
Efficiency can take the place of weakness. Honest, intelligent, courageous industry and business 
can lift America. They can achieve the only goal worthy of an intelligent system—economic 
security for all from the cradle to the grave. Today business is good in the schools. Tomorrow 
business will be good in the factories, the shops, the stores. By living up to the motto Children 
First, America is laying the foundation for a new revival.—J. E. M. 

[ 273] 


N TIME OF WAR there comes the crisis 
] when everyone wonders: Will the line 
hold? In the summer of 1918 the 
civilized world stood almost breathless, 
waiting the outcome of the struggle on 
the Western Front. In peace as well as 
war this same question comes. Today the 
large enterprises upon which the happi- 
ness of nations depends require the same 
courage, the same sacrifice, the same con- 
centration and vision that we have ordi- 
narily associated with war. 

Teachers today are on the firing line. 
They are in a position better than any 
other group to help America lift itself 
from present conditions to a higher and 
finer kind of life. Anyone who visits the 
schools soon realizes that teachers feel 
this responsibility. They are working 
harder than ever before. They are con- 
tributing generously from their salaries. 
They are helping on relief committees. 
They are advising with young people and 
parents on important family problems. 
They know that better times are ahead, 
but they are not blind to the serious ele- 
ments in the present situation. 

The crucial thing for teachers just now 
is to hold the line of professional ad- 
vance so that when the depression is 
over effort may be concentrated on mak- 
ing new gains. Will this line hold? Do 
teachers appreciate the significance of 
their local associations? Are they sup- 
porting generously the constructive ef- 
forts of their great state associations? 
Are they throwing their combined efforts 
back of their National Education Asso- 
ciat' sn? Will they enrol early? Will the 
number of 100 percent schools increase? 
Will the growing life membership list 
give assurance of renewed dedication 
and leadership? 

These questions concern everyone who 
is responsible for holding the remarkable 
gains which have. been made by the 
teaching profession during the past de- 
cade. The final answer cannot be known 


Will the Teachers Hold 





until it may be too late to save the situa- 
tion. The individual teacher needs the 
supporting strength of cooperative effort 


Teacher Participation 


HAT PUPIL ACTIVITY is in the 
school, teacher activity is 
| in the profession. It is the basis | 
_ of personal growth. By working 
| at their problems teachers come | 
to appreciate the larger signifi- 
_ cance of the school. They de- 
_ velop personality. They estab- | 
lish professional contacts. They | 
| develop leadership. They com- 
mand the respect of other citi- | 
zens. They help to improve the | 
comraunity. They help to pay | 
the debt which everyone owes | 
to the profession by which he 
makes his living. America is | 
under great obligation to the 
pioneer teachers who have laid 
_ the foundations of our marvel- | 
| ous system of schools. Shall not | 
| the teachers of this generation 
_ thru their cooperative efforts | 
| build upon the foundations 
| which have been laid? 











today more than at any time since the 
critical years of 1919 and 1920, when the 
efforts of the National Education Asso- 
ciation literally saved the schools from 
threatened breakdown and helped to 
awaken the public to the importance of 
teaching in postwar reconstruction. The 
associations need their members today. 
They need an increased membership 
more than at any time in their history. 
Pressing problems are demanding the at- 
tention of these associations. There is 
need for research, for publication, for 
the interpretation of education, for con- 
ference, for leadership, for the most care- 
ful planning. Practically every state in 





HE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATIONS—Over seven hundred thousand teachers belong to 

our state education associations. This is a most inspiring evidence of teacher participation on a large 
scale. These associations are a mighty power in our American states. They develop educational leadership. 
They arouse aspiration and ambition. They define educational ideals. They sponsor legislative programs. 
They interpret education to the public. They serve as clearinghouses of information. Their journals nour- 
ish the professional and civic life of teachers. They encourage the beginning teacher. These great asso- 
ciations serve as a bond of unity. They give every teacher the satisfaction of bearing his share in a great 
common enterprise which has as its objective a fair start in life for every boy and girl. 


the Line? 


the Union has some kind of program of 
tax revision. The efficiency of the schools 
is threatened by overcrowding on the 
one hand and by reduced financial sup- 
port on the other. Shall the children suf- 
fer or will the schools hold their own? 
Who will answer these questions? Shall 
they be answered from a selfish view- 
point or shall full consideration be given 
to the principle of Children First and to 
the importance of human values? Shall 
teachers and teachers’ associations be 
represented at the council tables? Shall 
the spokesmen of the children make their 
influence count? 

These questions can be answered only 
thru organization. This is an age of or- 
ganization. Problems have grown too 
large for solution by one individual or 
even one community or one nation. The 
money and time that are poured into 
larger cooperative enterprises probably 
yield larger returns than any other ex- 
penditure. Do teachers appreciate this? 
Because they work with children they 
have a special interest in the character 
of tomorrow’s world. They can do much 
to influence the life of tomorrow by the 
truths that they teach to the children and 
by the aspirations and ambitions which 
they are able to arouse. They can also 
do much by pooling their resources as 
generously as their circumstances will 
permit in the imperative and pressing 
work of the great organizations which are 
charged with carrying out the policies of 
the profession. 

Will the line hold? Can there be, dare 
there be, but one answer to that ques- 
tion?—an answer that will be expressed 
in practical terms of early enlistment, 
more 100 percent schools, increasing life 
membership, increased committee activi- 
ties, and careful consideration by each 
teacher and each school faculty of the 
things that can be done to mobilize the 
power of every teacher in this time of 
emergency and need.—J. E. M. 





















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Higher Education 


Adjusting College Education to the Individual 


J. B. JoHNsTON 


Dean, College of Science, Literature, and the Arts, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 


HE KNOWLEDGE of individual dif- 
[erences is older than history. Ac- 

tion upon that knowledge is under- 
going significant change. In primitive 
times the individual who was markedly 
different from his fellows was compelled 
to conform to the ways of the tribe. In 
recent times the power of the medicine 
man, priest, despot, or king’s minister 
to interpret the folkways and dictate the 
behavior of a nation’s people has waned. 
The effort of people to govern themselves 
has gradually made them conscious of 
the fact that they must find among them- 
selves the genius for leadership and the 
necessary inspiration to loyalty, devo- 
tion, and cooperation in the common 
welfare. The duties of social and indus- 
trial organization have become manifold 
and onerous. New paths are to be ex- 
plored, new ways of doing things in- 
vented, new problems solved. The quali- 
ties of the discoverer, inventor, and 
leader are to be found not in one man 
but in many. In a democracy universal 
education is necessary to serve two pur- 
poses: to insure widespread intelligence 
regarding what befits the general wel- 
fare and to discover and set free the 
genius for leadership wherever found. 

Outstanding ability is often found far 
removed from the abodes of former 
leadership. Whatever be the explanation 
of the intricate processes of heredity, 
some of the most brilliant students in 
college and some of the leaders in indus- 
try and politics come from the poorest, 
lowliest, and least cultivated families, 
while the stupidest dolts, the cleverest 
cheats, and the most abject servants of 
things as they are may come from fami- 
lies of wealth or cultivation. In a na- 
tion of would-be free men, the duty of 
the educational system is to discover 
those who have the qualities needed for 
work in the public interest and give them 
training. 

Public education, then, has changed. 
Conceived at first as the means by which 
the divergent and depraved elements 
were to be led to conform to the models 
preserved in the higher and cultivated 
classes in whom leadership resided of 
natural right, it has come to serve the 
purposes of anyone, whether he aspired 
to leadership or sought to direct the 
fruits of common effort into private pock- 
ets. Thus education may serve anti- 





social and selfish ends as well as social 
and public interests. Where, then, lies 
the way to public safety? In still greater 





Library, University of Minnesota 


The heart of the university, its library. 





freedom and equality of opportunity. We 
have no recourse but to trust in the pre- 
ponderance of the “good” among men. 
Denial of that hope thru appeal to dicta- 
torships is only a temporary emergency 
measure or else a counsel of despair. 
Higher education for the common 
weal must provide two things: for the 
larger number, in that degree of which 
they are capable, knowledge and an ap- 
preciation of social ways of securing hu- 
man satisfaction and happiness; for the 
outstanding individuals, the largest pos- 
sible facilities and the most complete 
freedom to develop their intellectual 
powers. It is in relation to the second 
group that the college finds its chief 
problem of adjusting its procedures to 
the needs of individuals. The value of 
these outstanding students lies in their 
individuality, in their originality, in their 
zeal for discovery, in their inventiveness, 
in their power of initiative, in their urge 
to turn the new to practical account, in 
their executive skill, in their leadership 
among men in all manner of ways. This 
is the leadership of genius as distin- 
guished from the old leadership of fetish, 
family, or force. The people advantage 


[275] 


themselves by setting free these leaders 
for the public service. They are set free 
when college faculties place all the facili- 
ties of the colleges at their disposal. 

What this means will appear from a 
clearer sense of what is implied in equal- 
ity of opportunity. To offer the same 
time, direction, and equipment to a slow 
dull boy and to a brilliant, curious, and 
energetic boy is not equality of oppor- 
tunity. To require the same formal 
studies of these two boys is not equality 
of treatment. Opportunity must be de- 
fined in terms of the capacity of the in- 
dividual, not measured by a standard 
ration prescribed for all. Opportunity 
means both freedom and ehgouragément 
to each one to achieve all that he can. 

By shaping their offerings.and facili- 
ties in the light of the differing interests 
and abilities of their students, higher in- 
stitutions are providing the facilities for 
forming new ideals to meet future needs 
of society. Let us notice briefly some of 
the efforts being made in this direction. 

First is the rapidly growing effort to 
get adequate information on which to 
base the Tostmces of students accord- 
ing to their needs, interests, and capaci- 
ties. It is necessary to know that the in- 
dividual can do something in the intel- 
lectual field above the secondary school 
and to give each student a tentative 
classification. He may become a learner 
of welldefined and generally accepted 
knowledge, or a seeker and critic, his 
limits to be discovered only as he pro- 
gresses. Since the two types of students 
are to be offered very different facilities 
during their college years, the classifica- 
tion made at entrance is held open to re- 
vision at any time when the performance 
of an individual shows that he has been 
placed to his disadvantage. This change 
of classification should work in both di- 
rections. 

This duty of classifying and reclassi- 
fying is the ground for frequent counsel- 
ing with the students on the part of the 
faculty. Classification is nothing more or 
less than the conscious effort of the fac- 
ulty to fit the college opportunities to the 
needs of individual students. Faculty 
counselors are engaged with a thousand 
details in the removal of handicaps, the 
correction of mistakes, the disclosing of 
unsuspected interests and abilities, and 
the shaping of the student’s choices and 


em 


276 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





efforts in ways that conform to his in- 
herent abilities and to the kind of oc- 
cupation that will bring him the greatest 
satisfaction. In all this the supreme serv- 
ice of the counselor is the discovery and 
encouragement of superior ability. 

The whole function of classification 
and guidance is greatly facilitated by 
the provision of survey courses at the 
freshman level. These courses enable the 
student to get a view of the country be- 
fore him, to orient himself, and to pick 
out the trail which he will endeavor to 
follow. Survey courses may furnish all 
or most of the knowledge that is needed 
by many students who stay in college 
only one or two years. Those persons 
serve an important function in society 
as the intermediaries between the scholar 
and the general public. They secure to 
society that very necessary quality, gen- 
eral intelligence. Of the survey courses, 
however, some must be pitched to the 
needs of those of higher intellectual 
power, to stimulate and guide them to- 
ward the higher passes whither the diffi- 
cult trails lead for them alone. 

Ideals and practises regarding ex- 
aminations are undergoing change. Sub- 
ject and course examinations, which too 
long have been used as the basis for 
credit toward a degree, are coming to be 
regarded as a means of advising the stu- 
dent as to his progress in the mastery of 
the subject and as the ground for place- 
ment or classification where he can work 
to the greatest advantage. 

The procedures thus far noted furnish 
the grounds for guidance with respect to 
the greatest privilege the college can offer 
the student, that oi independent study. 
In a sense all reference reading may 
offer the occasion for the exercise of in- 
dependence and initiative. In fact, how- 
ever, we know that the spirit of the in- 
dependent student appears in only a few 
cases. Most persons regard the reference 
readings as only a routine requirement. 
Larger assignments dealing with more 
general topics, with conferences at inter- 
vals to raise problems and stimulate in- 
quiry and thought, followed by examina- 
tions of a comprehensive character serv- 
ing as summations of periods of the 
student’s development, would make of 
college study a vital experience thru 
which the student comes to a conscious 
realization of his powers and his obliga- 


November, 1931 





tion to society. A few students are ready 
for independent study in the freshman 
year. All who are capable should be in- 
troduced to it as early as possible. 















































Ten College ‘‘Don’ts’’ 


HE following “don’ts” re- 

garding college were issued 
for the benefit of parents. But 
school principals and all who 
take part in counseling young 
people and their parents about 
the choice of a college or the 
question of attending or not at- 
tending one of these institu- 
tions, may profit by the warn- 
ings of Dean Milton E. Loomis, 
of New York University: 





[1] Don’t encourage or insist upon a | 
college education for your children | 
merely as a matter of social prestige or 
as a result of social pressure. 

[2] Don’t encourage attendance upon 
a particular college merely because it 

is a choice of your children’s chums. 
[3] Don’t insist upon or take blindly 
for granted your own college as logical 
choice. 

[4] Don’t insist upon college educa- 
tion merely because you had it. 

[5] Don’t insist upon a college edu- 
cation merely because you did not have 
it. 








[6] Don’t insist upon a college near 
at hand merely to maintain contact and 
supervision. 

[7] Don’t encourage [if possible pre- 
vent] a college merely to promote ath- 
letic interests. 

[8] Don’t encourage college merely 
as an avenue to membership in a fra- 
ternity or a sorority. 

[9] Don’t treat your son or daughter 
as a total loss merely because he or 
she did not go to college. 

[10] Don’t discourage college merely | 
for financial reasons. 








In this day the justifiable divisions 
of the field of knowledge do not all ap- 
pear in the “subjects” or departments 
which have resulted from the splitting up 
of earlier larger units. The proper field 
of concentration for a given student may 
consist precisely in the bridge between 
two such subjects or parts of subjects 
treated by independent departments. 
Moreover, prospective fields of activity 
often serve as more rational guides in 
the election of the field of major interest. 
Indeed, the only ultimately sound defini- 





tion of a “major” emerges from the inter- 
play between the minds of a free and un- 
trammeled teacher and a student who 
has had reasonable opportunity for ac- 
quaintance with the world of action and 
thought. The introduction of the stu- 
dent to his world is the function of the 
secondary school and the early college 
years. As soon as the student gives evi- 
dence of being alive and oriented to his 
intellectual interests his curriculum 
should become an individual matter. An 
unlimited number and variety of majors 
should be possible and the curriculum 
should be the record of the individual’s 
process of selfdevelopment and _ self- 
realization, not a mold into which the 
individual is to be poured and lost. 

The student pursues his inquiries and 
occasionally seeks counsel and guidance 
from those of greater experience in in- 
tellectual affairs. This is the tutorial sys- 
tem in education. It should be open to 
all who have the imagination to plan 
for themselves and are really capable of 
independent study. 

The just and true measure of the re- 
sults of the cooperation of student and 
teacher must take account of personal 
power and effectiveness together with 
evidence of continued growth. The 
traditional course examinations are at 
most only a slight beginning toward such 
a measure. More can be learned thru 
general examinations covering longer pe- 
riods and wider ranges of the student’s 
activities. These comprehensive exam- 
inations should test the power of per- 
formance, the mastery of relationships 
within the fields of study, and the abil- 
ity to analyze situations or solve signifi- 
cant problems. 

Present movements mark a process of 
thorough reconstruction in higher edu- 
cation. The reconstruction is coming 
about thru the substitution in all the 
functions of the college of new ideals 
and improved procedures. Selfrealiza- 
tion takes the place of tutelage and 
modeling after traditional patterns. Criti- 
cal thinking and the pursuit of curiosity 
are encouraged instead of learning les- 
sons. ‘Active, independent effort toward 
the achievement of clearly conceived ob- 
jectives is preferred to serving time for 
credits and a bit of skin from the back 
of some poor sheep sacrificed in an un- 
worthy cause. 





Ries ALL PROBLEMS of the aniinte eursiclhian the development of character and personality have to be taken 


into account. The public hopes that our youth will graduate from college with increased information, to 


be sure, but particularly with enriched personalities. 


Kent, editor, one of the Sixty Educational Books of 1930. 





—From Higher Education in America, Raymond A. 












not a new theory of education but, 

like most theories of progressive edu- 
cation, it has been slow in reaching the 
rural schools. 

For the past ten years the Michigan 
State Normal College at Ypsilanti has 
been at work attempting to improve the 
teaching in a group of affiliated rural 
schools under its supervision. For the 
most part this work has been confined to 
supplying educational leadership in the 
form of expert advisers, but during the 
past two years experiments have been 
made in the application of individualized 
instruction. A definite attempt has been 
made to fit the erstwhile inflexible rou- 
tine of the one-room school to the needs 
of the individual child. To do this, in- 
dividualized materials have been intro- 
duced. 

When one considers the obligations 
shouldered by the average rural teacher 
under the traditional organization, one 
cannot be surprised that children are not 
given a situation in which they may live 
up to the highest possibilities of their 
endowment. When one teacher is ex- 
pected to teach ten subjects to children 
of varying age and ability in some eight 
or nine grades, be her own janitor, and 
act as final arbiter in all cases—discip- 
line or otherwise—the wonder is, not that 
her teaching is of inferior quality, but 
that she does any real teaching at all. 

The ninth grade is a result of the 
school law which gives five years as the 
school age. Since it has been found diffi- 
cult for five-year-olds to carry the nor- 
mal work of the first grade, they have 
been retained as a beginner or kindergar- 
ten class, thus adding a ninth grade to 
the average rural school. This additional 
grade, moreover, is important. If its 
members do not obtain the amount of 
attention due them, they may acquire 
perverted notions of school life which 
may carry thru their school careers. 

According to most state courses of 
study, approximately ten subjects are 
required: language [composition, gram- 
mar], history, arithmetic, reading [word 
study, phonetics], writing, physiology, 
geography, civics, agriculture, and art. 

A teacher following suggested daily 
schedules must hold ordinarily more 
than 30 recitations daily. This means 


[ vet a new thor of instruction is 





Democratic Spirit in the One-Room School 


BERNICE ELLIOTT 
Michigan State Normal College, Y psilanti 


short periods for recitation and long pe- 
riods for study. Members of the rural 
education faculty of the Normal Col- 
lege at Ypsilanti have found that the 
number of daily recitations actually 
ranges from 25 to 44. One example may 
be cited: In an eight-grade, one-teacher 
school in southern Michigan, with an en- 
rolment of 23 pupils, 44 daily recitations 
were held. 

Fully as significant a problem as the 
number of classes is found in the hetero- 
geneity of the grade groups. Besides the 
natural differences due to race, inter- 
ests, experience, and age, there are dif- 
ferences in intelligence and achievement. 
In a third grade in one rural school of 
southern Michigan the range in reading 
ability was found to be 4.1 years. Under 
such conditions what can a poor teacher 
be expected to do? 

The experiment at Ypsilanti in in- 
dividualized instruction was an attempt 
to answer some of these questions. Dur- 
ing the first year, three schools were 
included in the new method of instruc- 
tion; the second year, six. The plan 
seemed to be working satisfactorily. 

Individualized instruction was found 
to be relatively easy of application in the 


child works from lesson to lesson, or exercise 
to exercise, and receives assistance in accord- 
ance with his individual needs. A portion of a 
child’s period may be spent in selfdirected re- 
medial drill, a portion given to advanced drill 
in a new process, and a portion to drill in 
speed. Each child is working on material suited 
to his ability ; each child is allowed to proceed 
at his own rate. Not only is efficiency of learn- 
ing increased but time is saved for teacher and 
pupil. Pupils no longer have the excuse for 
idling because they “have their lessons.” 

The work in geography, history, civics, 
health, and hygiene remains chiefly 
group activity. As far as possible chil- 
dren are grouped according to ability. 
In the case of health and hygiene sev- 
eral grades may be included in informal 
discussions. 

Under this plan the child realizes that 
he is working for his own good and not 
to please his teacher. He sees that he 
will get on exactly as fast as his own ef- 
fort permits. He has no time to “catch 
flies’ while other classes are reciting. He 
is constructively occupied during every 
hour of the day. 

Under the new regime, when 16 to 19 
classes take the place of a possible 44, 
time remains at the close of each day 
for a special subject—handcraft, art, or 
dramatization. A traveling teacher of 


skill subjects—reading, writing, spell- «music makes the rounds of these rural 


ing, arithmetic, and the formal side of 
grammar.-The best published materials 
are\ available in these fields. The mate- 
rials are, for the most part, entirely self- 
instructive. Learning guidance for the 
child is included in the books. In most 
cases the materials are also selfcorrective, 
enabling the child to correct his own 
work and profit by his mistakes. Teacher 
tests are administered at regular inter- 
vals to determine the efficiency of the 
child’s progress and the necessity for 
further guidance and reteaching. The 
child proceeds at his own rate and in his 
own way. To illustrate with arithmetic: 

The traditional school has seven or eight 
recitations in arithmetic. In each recitation 
group there is a great range in abilities, as great 
as in reading. To deal with each group sepa- 
rately requires, on the average, about 90 min- 
utes. This allows ten minutes for the first six 
grades and fifteen minutes each for the two 
upper grades. . 

With the individualized procedure the entire 
room of eight grades has arithmetic at one 
time. A period of 30 minutes is sufficient for the 
individual drill, teacher testing, and supervision 
of study. Each child is supplied with selfin- 
structive and selfcorrective material. Each 


[277] 


schools each week. 

It was not found difficult to convince 
the school boards and parents concerned 
that the experiment would be worth a 
trial. The original three schools were 
glad to have been selected as pioneers. 
The second three were convinced by hav- 
ing school-board members go into the in- 
dividualized schools, watch the pupils, 
and ask questions. Groups of parents 
were taken to hear lectures on measure- 
ments, were given materials to read, 
and invited to observe the work. Simple 
changes in the schoolroom came gradu- 
ally. They were not too conspicuous. No 
complaints were made. Today one of 
these schools in session, with seats in 
more or less informal arrangement and 
the children busily occupied by them- 
selves, in groups, or with the teacher, 
gives an agreeable picture of the school 
which has the child for its center. Here 
the child is given the opportunity of 
realizing his possibilities, the dull child 
is happy in his accomplishment relieved 
of the strain of competitive learning, and 
the spirit of democracy is rife. 






1931-32 









—_m Oo oOo” 








tan 


Harris & Ewing 


rn 0 <@ 6 


W. C. Bagley, President C. S. Marsh, President Sam H. Whitley, President Albert E. Bullock, President Sara H. Fahey, President 

National Council of Education Dept of Adult Education Am Assn of Teachers Colleges Dept of Business Education Dept of Classroom Teachers I 
Professor of Education Dean, Sch of Bus Adminis Pres East Tex St Tchrs College Director Div of Commercial Ed Tchr Girls Commercial H. S. 

Teachers Col., Columbia Univ. University of Buffalo Commerce, Texas Public Schs, Los Angeles New York, N. Y. 





ee ae | 


nm 


oi Mich, 













Bachrach Bachrach 
Florence K. Root, President J. L. Stenquist, President Earl R. Laing, President — Lucy A. Lord, President Marion Spring Clark, Pres 
Dept of Deans of Women Dept of Educational Research Dept of Elementary Sch Prins Dept of Kindergarten-Prim Ed Dept of Lip Reading 
Dean of Women, Cleveland Col Director Bureau of Research Principal, Burt School Knd Tchr, Mass Ave Bldg Tchr of Lip Reading Classes 
Cleveland, Ohio Public Schs, Baltimore, Md. Detroit, Michigan Atlantic City, N. J. Cambridge, Massachusetts 












i 





Underwood & Underwood Harris & Ewing 


Kate V. Wofford, President Jay B. Nash, President Charles Lincoln Edwards, Pres C. H. Threlkeld, President Cornelia S. Adair, President 
Dept of Rural Education Dept of Sch Health & Phy Ed Dept of Science Instruction Dept of Secondary Sch Prins Dept of Special Education 
Columbia University Professor of Physical Ed Supervisor of Nature Study Prin Columbia High School Prin Franklin Elementary Sch 
New York, N. Y. New York University Public Schs, Los Angeles South Orange, N. J. South Richmond, Virginia 

















Edwin Cc. Broome, President J. Cayce Morrison, President Helen C. Goodspeed, President W. W. Whittinghill, President R. W. Heim, President 


| Dept of Superintendence Dept Spvsrs & Dirs of Instr Dept Spvsrs & Tchrs of Hm Ec Dept of Visual Instruction Dept of Vocational Education 
| Superintendent of Schools Asst Commissioner for El Ed Spec Asst to Dir of Home Ec Asst Dir, Visual Ed Dept State Dir of Vocational Ed 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Albany, N. Y. Public Schs, Philadelphia Detroit, Michigan Newark, Delaware 

















[ 278 ] 





Better Teaching of Art 


Children’s Joy in Design 


Art Teacher, Barratt Junior High School, Philadelphia, 


E WERE forty-two strong, plus 
\ x / the teacher, and we started our 
adventure in the gayest possi- 
ble spirits. Not even the restrictions of a 
crowded sixth-grade curriculum in the 
formal public school could dampen our 
ardor. We would make a frieze. So the 
work began. It moved happily forward 
and ended on the same high joyous note. 
Surely there was a bit of creation in that 
happiness of effort and attainment. 
The idea germinates—Now to be more 
concrete. The children in this particular 
class were Italian. Their history work 
with the Greeks had so thrilled and in- 
spired them that, with true Latin buoy- 
ancy, they hailed the suggestion of mak- 
ing a frieze. It would show that wealth 
of stirring history and epic legend which 
is old Hellas. It would be great fun and 
the finished product would find a place in 
the decorative scheme of our schoolroom. 
The teacher’s objectives—The unseen 
hand of the teacher was present, of 
course. Her reasons for such a unit of 
work were many. It would vitalize the 
history work. It would break down bar- 
riers and make pleasant social situations 
where the children would give and take 
in a friendly way. It would teach them 
the use of a new medium, chalk, which 
would necessitate their working boldly 
in big masses. But first and foremost, the 
work was to have fine art value. That is, 
thru this pleasant journeying the _chil- 
dren would master some definite art prin- 
ciples. Certainly the most important of 
these principles is design of composition 
and of color. Paralleling this primary aim 
was the vital objective of increasing the 
children’s artistic sensitiveness to con- 
trasts and amounts and repetitions of 
light and dark values of color. Thus they 
would very positively enter the field of 
appreciation. 
Launching the unit of work—“What 
could we represent?” asked the teacher. 
The suggestions were quickly listed as 


CARMEN F. HEATH 


separate episodes: the capture of Helen, 
the victory of Salamis, the runner of 
Marathon, Hector’s touching farewell to 
his wife, Andromache, and so forth. Next 
came the logical separation into histor- 
ical fact and legendary lore. So the idea 
of one frieze grew into the necessity for 
two. 

The children made their choice of the 
episode which interested them particu- 
larly and promised to get busy at home. 
The first problem came here. Their liter- 
ary background was limited and of books 
at home there were few. The nearby li- 
brary did not prove as much of a help as 
was hoped, for the children knew very 
little of research. But we had a history 
textbook, a few supplementary books, 
and a reader with a translation of some 
of the Trojan legends, blessedly illumi- 
nated with pictures. Then there was al- 
ways the vivid imagination of the Italian, 
plus the eager response of the child, to 
cover a multitude of omissions. Almost 
everyone left that afternoon with a piece 
of 9 by 12 manilla drawing paper and 
the light of a great purpose in his eye! 

Procedure—The following impatiently 
awaited art lesson rolled around in due 
time and a flurry of papers greeted us 
whereon was a motley collection of ar- 
tistic ideas, copied and original. Nothing 
was said about copying then. That situa- 
tion would be attended to later. Our 
method of working took shape at this 
point, to continue without any great 
modification thruout the entire develop- 
ment of the problem, namely, self, group, 
or teacher criticism, judgment, and cor- 
rection. 

We planned to use charcoal, chalk, 
and wrapping paper, all conducive to big 
effects. The first thing done was to tack 
five yards of cheap white paper on the 
top frame of the blackboards. The chil- 
dren took the work done at home and 
lined up before this paper. Just here it 
became necessary definitely and con- 


Pennsylvania 


cretely to separate the episodes into his- 
tory and legend, so that another strip 
equally long was suspended from an- 
other stretch of board. The class then de- 
cided just what should be used. The 
legendary frieze was to depict the cap- 
ture of Helen, the launching of the Greek 
ships, a battle between Persian and Greek 
soldiers, the farewell of Hector and An- 
dromache, the duel between Hector and 
Achilles, and the celebrated Wooden 
Horse. The history panel was to repre- 
sent the three battles we had studied 
about — Marathon, Thermopylae, and 
Salamis. The children changed their posi- 
tions accordingly and began their char- 
coal sketches. There were about fifteen 
who made this initial attack. The rest of 
the class remained at their desks busily 
engaged with their own efforts. Some of 
these seemed useless, so we suggested that 
those people could help the others by 
learning how to draw spears, shields, 
ships, and costumes. The end of the pe- 
riod found everyone a bit breathless. In- 
teresting things had been done at the 
desks and the first snag, a lack of unity, 
had been struck at the boards. A fifteen- 
minute criticism followed. These periods 
proved to be the most interesting and 
illuminating experiences of all for both 
children and teacher. It is profoundly 
moving to realize what wealth children 
have to give when their imagination is 
touched and their interest aroused. 

We stopped work and asked for judg- 
ment on what had been done. Almost 
everyone saw what was needed. The 
panels, at this stage, looked like a suc- 
cession of decorated oblongs, for each 
child had drawn his little picture on a 
9 by 12 paper and had copied his 
thoughts almost exactly on the big sheets. 
Interesting suggestions were offered for 
correcting the fault. Of course their ideas 
were taken and we built up the one 
needed concept, namely, the necessity 
for unity. We left the problem for then. 





[279 ] 





280 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





Solving some of the problems—The 
following art period began at that point 
with a discussion as to just how we could 
tie up the whole thing. Valuable sugges- 
tions came, the most timely being one 
which the teacher developed into this 
thought, that the artist works in scale. 
That was a new word and it needed much 
explaining to clarify. We did it con- 
cretely, of course, by changing and cor- 
recting what had already been done. 
Take the soldiers, for instance. Those in 
front of the history panel were made 
larger because they were in the fore- 
ground of the picture. Those marching 
directly across were in mass formation 
in the distance and necessarily must be 
drawn smaller. The ones just approach- 
ing the single figure of Leonidas were to 
grow just perceptibly bigger as they ap- 
proached. On the legendary panel the 
dueling Hector and Achilles would have 
to be larger than the massed soldiers if 
they were to stand out. Lastly the differ- 
ence in size of the three ships, one bearing 
Helen and Paris, would suggest the per- 
spective of the approaching vessels. It 
made not the slightest difference that the 
smallest of those ships grew into the one 
closest to the walls of Troy. We were de- 
signing, always, and the largest one best 
filled the empty space to the left. The 
work of correction began in earnest. By 
this time the lessons were happily social- 
ized, the children working singly and in 
groups in a delightful camaraderie. 

Those developing the historical epi- 
sodes needed help. A more clearly defined 
foreground and background must be 
shown. One girl finally offered to swing 
in the horizon line across the whole paper. 
She did it, indeed, with a surety of line 
and a variety of hill alignment that was 
surprising. Of course this accomplish- 
ment did not pass unheralded. It was the 
point at which the teacher emphasized 
unity and variety as essential to design. 

A call for help came from the young 
artist drawing Helen and Paris. She 
couldn’t get the two figures and wanted 
assistance in copying. The work was 
stopped and the teacher spoke very defi- 
nitely, now that the need had arrived, 
about that problem. It was explained 


that copying is never the highest form of 
art, but that if used with judgment and 
properly handled it might have its legiti- 
mate place. This is how the class was 
guided thru Anna. She was sent to her 
seat and was set to copying the picture 
from the book she was using. Of course 
she could do very little. Then she was told 
to draw just what she could remember 
of the figures. Naturally she forgot much 
detail and that was what was desired. 
Keeping at it, her imagination filled in 
where her memory failed and the result 
was her own. At the next lesson she re- 
turned to complete her space in the 


panel. This eliminating, selecting, and ° 


adapting made her efforts an art prob- 
lem and so her contribution belonged in 
a creative piece of work. That lesson did 
for all time and the emphasis from that 
point on was always on the original thing. 

Transferring the work—So far the 
work was all on the long, white practise 
sheets and all done in charcoal. Both 
friezes had more or less taken form and 
were moving along in harmonious unity. 
Now we were about ready for the grand 
attack. We had chosen brown wrapping 
paper because the color was more pleas- 
ing. Fortunately it was rougher and 
heavier in quality, which produced a 
nicer texture in the finished work. The 
next period was devoted entirely to trans- 
ferring the drawings. We had many 
troubles even then, because often the 
second drawing lacked the freshness and 
vitality of the original. That was par- 
ticularly noticeable in the group of sol- 
diers in the foreground of the historical 
panel. Michael did them, Michael who 
hated drawing! He wasn’t pleased at all 
and was quite warm and disheveled when 
he finished. There is “agony in creation’’! 
Someone rushed to him to explain that in 
his first attempt the soldiers were much 
more interestingly arranged. Together 
they did their best to correct the fault. 

Planning the color—When we came 
to organizing the color what a riotous 
time we had! We planned two sets of 
harmonies, a dominant and a subordi- 
nate one. We thought black, dark brown, 
and terra-cotta would be very rich on 
that tone of paper. The rest would be 





November, 1931 





handled with yellow, blue-green, and 
violet, not exactly according to formula, 
but answering beautifully. Here it proved 
a most fascinating experience to discover 
just how the artist organizes his design 
by swinging his color values thru his pic- 
ture. The historical frieze shows that 
most interestingly in its gradation from 
light to dark masses. 

The art value of the unit—Just what 
art qualities the children learned in a 
work of this kind is illuminating indeed. 
Primarily it was design or the organiza- 
tion of space. We could not say too often, 
“Fill the space. Fill it interestingly,” or 
again, “How can we draw this figure into 
the picture?” or, “It is crowded here. 
What can we take out?” What they 
learned of color was equally surprising. 
They discovered the rudiments of aerial 
perspective. They learned that beauty 
of color depended on the use of many 
values of the hues with which they were 
working. They noted the difference be- 
tween a realistic and a decorative use 
of color and experienced real joy in that 
discovery. Their limitations as to figure- 
drawing speak for themselves. There was 
not the time in the formal type of school 
to enter into this as deeply as should 
have been done. However, they labored 
over the figures with keen interest and 
that weakness of technic can be used as 
motivation for a later series of lessons 
in that phase of the drawing work. 

These friezes were done in the Eliza B. 
Kirkbride School, Philadelphia, Penn- 
sylvania. It took three weeks of six work- 
ing periods of forty-five minutes each and 
six criticism periods of fifteen minutes 
each. The finished panels were about 
three by fourteen feet each. Thirty-two 
children worked on the friezes. 

A piece of work such as this does won- 
ders in building up an “entente cordiale” 
in a schoolroom. When children give and 
take in this constructive way it does 
something to them that is enduring. It is 
a very happy and worthwhile situation 
indeed when pupils and teacher are to- 
gether on an equal plane of endeavor. 
That was the spirit in which this work 
began. It ended for us all on that high 
note of accomplishment—joy. 





Better Teaching of Arithmetic 


The Problem of General Method 


Leo J. BRUECKNER 


College of Education, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 


TRULY EDUCATIVE ACTIVITY is one 
A which adds to “the meaning of 
experience” and results in in- 
creased ability of the individual “to di- 
rect the course of subsequent experi- 
ence.” As a result of his study of arith- 
metic the pupil should have an under- 
standing of the functions of numbers in 
human progress and the disposition and 
ability to apply quantitative technic to 
the problems of life. 

In genuine learning activities the 
learner takes part in experiences that are 
inherently worthwhile or that are under- 
taken on their own account; further- 
more, the learner perceives the relation 
between the means and the conse- 
quences. When the pupil has had an ex- 
perience which shows the function and 
meaning of certain technical skills and 
processes, there develops in him an ap- 
preciation of the need of increased con- 
trol over them. Usually as a matter of 
course the learner will participate in ac- 
tivities which will enable him to acquire 
this control. For example, a girl in a 
fifth-grade class who was in charge of 
the records in a “banking day” found 
considerable difficulty in checking her 
results because of her inaccuracy in ad- 
dition. It was observed on the following 
days that she was hard at work prac- 
tising on examples in that process. The 
school has the obligation of providing 
for such a pupil as effective tools and 
devices for learning as it is possible to 
secure. 

Dewey distinguishes between what he 
calls “genuinely educative experiences” 
and “capricious” and “routine’’ activi- 
ties. In capricious activities the pupil 
“does not care what happens”; he just 
lets himself go and “avoids connecting 
the consequence”’ of his acts with the acts 
themselves. Pupils act capriciously when 
they act under dictation or “without 
having a purpose of their own or per- 
ceiving the bearing of the deed upon 
other acts.” Whenever we set up rules 
for the pupils to follow and they follow 
the rules blindly we have capricious 
learning. When we make an assignment 
to the pupils that is in no way connected 
with their experiences they are likely to 
carry it out blindly and without any con- 
ception of its relation to what they are 
studying. Many pupils can state a for- 
mula glibly and perform the necessary 


computation which it involves, such as 
finding the area of a triangle with the 
dimensions given. Yet they may not 
know how to proceed when a situation 
arises in which the area of a triangle 
must actually be found and the individ- 
ual must secure the data himself by mak- 
ing the necessary measurements. Such 
learning has little significance and value. 

By routine learning is meant the ac- 
quisition of skill to do a particular thing, 
such as how to add fractions or to solve 
a formula for a letter, without consider- 
ing the bearing the skill may have on 
new experiences. Much of our current 
experimental work on methods of teach- 
ing arithmetic has had for its purpose 
the discovery of “dynamics of learning”’ 
which will increase the effectiveness of 
routine drill. Progress charts, graphs, and 
other kinds of artificial stimuli have 
made it possible to raise the efficiency of 
computation of a class to much higher 
levels than are achieved where such in- 
centives are lacking. Routine learning, 
however, does not identify the end to be 
achieved with the process, nor does it 
bring to light connections with experi- 
ence. Hence the learner who has appar- 
ently achieved a high degree of skill in 
a particular process may not be able to 
apply it -successfully in some critical 
situation in which its use is different 
from that in which the skill was prac- 
tised. Valuable as this outcome of experi- 
mental work has been, the result has 
been an increased stress on the computa- 
tional function and a consequent sub- 
ordination of attention to the informa- 
tional, sociological, and psychological 
outcomes of instruction in arithmetic, 
analyzed in the October JOURNAL. 

The question now arises, “How can 
the school provide genuinely educative 
experiences that will contribute richly to 
the development of significant meanings 
and the power of the learner to direct 
subsequent experiences more intelligently 
and effectively?” Many answers to this 
question have been proposed. In some 
schools the traditional curriculum of 
separate subjects has been eliminated 
and a project curriculum substituted. 
This form of organization is believed by 
its proponents to capitalize the vital re- 
lationships between the social fields of 
learning much more effectively than 
when they are taught as separate sub- 


[ 281 ] 


jects. In some of these schools arithmetic 
is taught only incidentally, the belief 
being that number thus learned will func- 
tion because it has been learned in natu- 
ral situations in which it arises as an 
essential element. In other schools there 
has been a complete reconstruction of 
the work in arithmetic, especially in the 
first three or four grades. Instead of 
spending the greater proportion of the 
time on routine drill to secure mastery of 
number facts, the pupils in these grades 
engage in a wide variety of activities 
selected because of the ways in which 
the need for number arises in them. As 
a result of these experiences the pupils 
acquire a broad understanding of the 
ways in which number functions in the 
many activities in which they participate. 
Wilson has shown that the practise on 
number processes based on such a back- 
ground results in a much higher level of 
performance, both as to skill and ac- 
curacy, than is found in schools in which 
the traditional subjectmatter of the pri- 
mary grades constitutes the curriculum. 

Curriculum investigations have made 
a valuable contribution to the improve- 
ment of instruction in arithmetic. In in- 
creasing numbers these studies have 
dealt with the analysis of social usages 
of number, chiefly computations, in oc- 
cupations, in reading, and in other activ- 
ities of life. The application of the theory 
of social utility has resulted in the elim- 
ination of much of the useless subject- 
matter and many of the difficult proc- 
esses that have encumbered the arith- 
metic curriculum. Some authorities be- 
lieve that this process of subtraction has 
proceeded too far and that we should 
now think more of what might profitably 
be added to the curriculum. Altho most 
of the studies of social values have dealt 
with the uses of number in adult life, 
several recent investigations have con- 
sidered the question of the ways in which 
number is used in the life activities of 
children and the amount of knowledge 
concerning number which pupils in the 
first two years of school acquire inciden- 
tally before formal instruction is begun. 

The results of these studies are re- 
flected in the content of arithmetic text- 
books. The tendency is clearly in the di- 
rection of presenting number processes 
to pupils in social situations similar to 
those in which number functions in the 


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282 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


other subjects of the curriculum and in 
their lives outside the school. The belief 
is that such an approach insures a com- 
prehension of the social value of the 
process because the pupil can see its 
utility. It is within his range of expe- 
riences. 

The difficulty with this approach lies 
in the fact that often stress is placed on 
the application of computation alone, 
rather than on the other values present. 
A topic is commonly selected not because 
of its contribution to the development 
of meanings but because of the practise 
it affords on the processes that have been 
taught to that point. Any topic that does 
not contribute to development of power 
of computation is usually rejected. In 
the problems that are presented all the 
data needed in their solution are usually 
given. The pupil need merely decide what 
process to use in the solution of the 
problem and then perform the necessary 
computations. In other words the basis 
of the activities of the arithmetic curric- 
ulum is the sequence of the step-by-step 
development of the processes the pupil 
must master. The informational, socio- 
logical, and psychological functions are 
wholly subordinated to the computa- 
tional function. Such an artificial limita- 
tion obviously must result in a relatively 
meager body of subjectmatter and in a 
rigidity of approach that greatly reduces 
the richness of the subject. The result is 
largely capricious or routine activity on 
the part of the pupils. Investigations 
which show a large loss of skill in com- 
putation during the summer vacation are 
one proof of this. 

It seems quite evident that instruction 
in arithmetic need neither be submerged 
in a project or activity curriculum nor be 
limited wholly to the textbook nor par- 
allel the step-by-step development of 
number processes. The weaknesses of the 
former approach and the inadequacies of 
the latter can be overcome by a sane 
program in which the advantages of each 
plan are combined. It should be recog- 
nized that the uses of number arise in 
almost all activities of pupils both in and 
out of the school. The teacher who is 
wideawake to the possibilities will grasp 
many of the opportunities that arise on 
the playground, in the community, in 
geography, nature study, history, read- 
ing, art, music, and other school subjects 
to show the pupil how number functions. 
Local illustrations judiciously selected by 
the teacher and voluntary contributions 
given by pupils should be freely used. It 


should be pointed out that in this way- 





the pupil’s background of understanding 
of the functions of number in the affairs 
of life will be greatly enriched. He should 
be taught to view the quantitative aspect 
of things systematically and critically. 
For example, the subject of taxation 
should be studied from the point of view 
of its social significance and functions 
and the difficulties which the problem of 
taxation raises for the government and 
its citizens. He should learn to realize the 
value of definite, exact information as a 
basis for solving the problems of daily 
life. He should learn to evaluate the facts 
that he reads, “to think while reading.” 
The systematic consideration and mas- 
tery of various technical aspects of arith- 
metic may be considered to be a part of 
a core curriculum. The presentation of 
new processes, the practise needed to de- 
velop skill in manipulation, the diag- 
nostic and remedial instruction needed 
to eliminate difficulties the pupils en- 
counter should be done in time set aside 
for these purposes. [ However, this phase 
of learning should be raised above the 
routine or capricious level. ] Experiments 
have clearly revealed that skill in com- 
putation cannot be acquired incidentally, 
but that wellplanned, purposeful drill 
must be engaged in. Because of differ- 
ences in the rates at which pupils learn 
and the points which cause them diffi- 
culty, steps must be taken to individual- 
ize instruction in arithmetic skills in so 
far as is possible. For this purpose stand- 
ardized drill materials which make it pos- 
sible to adapt instruction to individual 
differences may be used. Diagnostic tests 
to assist the pupil and teacher to locate 
specific difficulties, supplemented by re- 
medial exercises designed to overcome 
these faults, are essential elements of in- 
structional materials in arithmetic. If the 
pupil can discover by diagnostic and in- 
ventory tests what his difficulties are and 
how his performance compares with 
those of average children, he can attack 
the problem of overcoming his faults and 
weaknesses purposefully and with definite 
knowledge of what his objectives are. 
The teacher is faced with the problem 
of integrating the consideration of the 
applications and functions of number 
and the individualized practise needed to 
develop skill in computation. It seems 
likely that ideally new processes should 
be taught as their need arises in carry- 
ing out the activities engaged in by the 
class. Such a plan subordinates the drill 
work on number operations to the sys- 
tematic consideration of the functions of 
number. However, in the practical situa- 


tion it may be quite difficult to organize 
the arithmetic work in such a way that 
the need for all socially useful number 
processes and applications will arise in 
connection with the natural experiences 
of children. The logical organization of 
the number system and the hierarchy of 
skills that constitute number processes 
make it almost imperative that a system- 
atic treatment of the computational as- 
pects of the subject be prepared by the 
curriculum maker. 

It must be borne in mind that if the 
practise to develop skill in computation 
is carried on in a systematic manner but 
without any definite relation to the con- 
sideration that the pupils are giving to 
the other functions of arithmetic, the or- 
ganization of the work, in theory at least, 
is faulty, since there is grave danger that 
the learning will not transfer. The skills 
may be mastered by the pupil as some- 
thing apart from life as a “routine” ac- 
tivity instead of as a “genuine educa- 
tive experience.” 

A balanced instructional program in 
arithmetic might well consist of: 


1. The presentation of each process or unit 
of subjectmatter in some carefully seleeted, so- 
cially significant situation in which the pupils 
can see how the skill or topic functions. A good 
textbook will be helpful here. 

2. The use of additional rich illustrative ap- 
plications within the experiences of the pupils 
suggested by the teacher or pupils, so as to 
vitalize the topic and to make its meaning and 
utility definite, since no curriculum or textbook 
can include the many valuable uses of number 
that arise from day to day in the activities of 
pupils in particular schools. 

3. The enrichment of the work in arithmetic 
thru the systematic consideration by the pupils 
of the informational, sociological, and psy- 
chological functions of the subject, so that the 
pupils may gain a true appreciation of the im- 
portant contribution number has made ‘and is 
making to the progress of humanity. In these 
units there need be little consideration of com- 
putation as such. . 

4. Provision for differences in the interests 
and abilities of pupils thru such devices as re- 
ports on special topics by groups of pupils or 
individuals, excursions, projects, preparation 
of notebooks containing illustrations of spe- 
cial uses of number, contract units, and other 
methods by which teachers have enriched the 
work in all subjects. These activities need not 
stress the computational aspects of arithmetic 
but can deal with the informational and social 
functions of number. 

5. Provision for individual differences in 
rates of learning thru the use of wellorganized 
instructional materials which enable the teacher 
to adapt instruction to these variations in speed 
of progress and which also give the pupil some 
means of determining the progress he is mak- 
ing in mastering the various skills. 

6. Careful diagnostic and remedial work to 
remove as far as possible the difficulties which 
in the past have caused such a large percent of 
pupil failures in arithmetic. 





November, 1931 


Go hth wa Be BF 


— = i _- in Ee Oe ~— —_ rr 





New Russia’s Primer 


FTER YOU READ this you will get a 
A copy of New Russia’s Primer! and 
read the entire story for yourself. 
Such a book is more than significant. It 
is epochal. This little volume was writ- 
ten for children from 12 to 14 in the 
schools of Russia. What is taught to the 
children of any nation is important to 
teachers everywhere. What is taught to 
the children of a vast heroic revolution- 
ary system like the Soviet Union is espe- 
cially important. In a foreword to the 
English translation Dr. George S. Counts 
says: 

“A great and difficult theme is pre- 
sented in language that is entirely in- 
telligible to children. But this is a gross 
understatement of the facts: It is not 
merely intelligible; it is literally fascinat- 
ing. Even more important than the form 
is the content of the book. The American 
teacher will be forced to put to himself 
the question: Can we not in some way 
harness the school to the task of building 
a better, a more just, a more beautiful 
society? Can we not broaden the senti- 
ment of patriotism to embrace the strug- 
gles which men must ever wage with 
ignorance, disease, poverty, ugliness, in- 
justice? This means that we shall have 
to turn our attention increasingly from 
the mechanics of school procedure to the 
fundamental problems of American life 
and culture.” 

Here is the Russian child’s introduc- 
tion to America, entitled “Two Coun- 
tries”: 

The project of our country—The 
Five-Year Plan is a project, not of one 
factory, but of two thousand four hun- 
dred factories. And not only of factories 
but also of cities, of electric stations, of 
bridges, of ships, of railroads, of mines, 
of state farms, of rural communes, of 





1 Copyright, 1931, George S. Counts and Nucia 
Lodge. All rights reserved, including the right to re- 
produce the book or parts thereof in any form. 


schools, of libraries. It is a project for 
the rebuilding of our whole country and 
was prepared, not by one man or by two 





NLESS DRASTIC measures 
are taken to save it, the | 
capitalistic system  thruout | 
the civilized world will be 
wrecked WITHIN A YEAR. 
I should like this prediction 
to be filed for future refer- 





ence.” So wrote no less an 
authority than Governor Mon- 
tague Collet Norman of the 
Bank of England to Governor 
Clement Moret of the Bank of 
France several months ago.— 
From the Christian Advo- 
cate, September 3, 1931. 





men, but by thousands of trained per- 
sons. To the work of building came not 
tens, but millions of workers. All of us 
will help to build the Five-Year Plan. 

The plan was first discussed in De- 
cember, 1927, at the Fifteenth Congress 
of the Communist Party. 

On the Ist of October, 1928, its fulfill- 
ment was begun. 

And before the end of 1929 it became 
clear that the plan will be achieved, not 
in five years, but much more quickly. 

Such a project has never been under- 
taken before. America has many large 
factories, many more than we have. 
There factories turn out four automo- 
biles a minute; there some buildings are 
sixty stories high; there a huge steel 
bridge was recently constructed in one 
day; there a million tractors work in 
the fields. The Americans are proud of 
their machines, of their factories. 

But how do these factories work? 
According to some general plan, do you 




















HE OTHER SIDE of the picture is just as much an inescapa 

enough to arouse the most complacent. To quote from a current issue of Labor: {\“In 1929, according 
to the United States Treasury, 273 persons in this country had NET incomes of $1,500,000 or more, each. 
The total NET income of these 273 persons was $907,479,577. “In other words, 273 millionaires came within 
2.7 percent of collecting as much in NET income as 573,697 persons were paid in wages—which is GROSS 
income—during the same year. ‘Each of these superrich men, after paying all the expenses of his business, 
collected the wages of more than 2000 workers as his NET personal income.” ‘Was the editor of Labor 
putting it too strongly when he suggested that “any man claiming 2000 men’s wages certainly has no just com- 
plaint to make if the nation takes half or more of his income to be spent for the common good”?—From the 
Christian Advocate, September 3, 1931. 





[ 283] 


ble result of the system. The contrast should be 


suppose? No, they work without a gen- 
eral plan. 

What happens when they work 
without a plan — Mr. Fox acquires 
money—one million dollars. But money 
must not remain idle. Mr. Fox looks thru 
newspapers, he consults friends, he em- 
ploys agents. From morning till night the 
agents comb the city, look about, and 
make inquiries. What is to be done with 
the money of Mr. Fox? 

At last a business is found. Hats! 
That is what one should make. Hats 
sell; men get rich. 

There is nothing to hesitate about. 
Mr. Fox builds a hat factory. 

The same idea occurs at the same 
time to Mr. Box, and Mr. Crox, and 
Mr. Nox. And they all begin to build 
hat factories simultaneously. 

Within half a year there are several 
new hat factories in the country. Shops 
are filled to the ceiling with hat-boxes. 
Storerooms are bursting with them. 
Everywhere there are posters, signs, 
advertisements: Hats! Hats! Hats! A 
great many more hats are made than 
are needed—twice as many. And the 
factories continue to work at full speed. 

And here something happens that 
neither Mr. Fox, nor Mr. Box, nor Mr. 
Nox, nor Mr. Crox anticipated. The 
public stops buying hats. Mr. Nox low- 
ers his price twenty cents; Mr. Crox, 
forty cents; Mr. Fox sells hats at a loss 
in order to get rid of them. But busi- 
ness grows worse and worse. 

In all of the papers advertisements 
appear: 


YOU MAY HAVE ONLY ONE HEAD, 

BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN AT ALL 

THAT YOU SHOULD WEAR ONLY 

ONE HAT. EVERY AMERICAN 

SHOULD HAVE THREE HATS. BUY 
THE HATS OF MR. FOX! 


Mr. Box offers to sell hats on a three- 
year installment plan. 











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284 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





Mr. Nox announces a Sale: 

FOR ONE DAY ONLY! TAKE AD- 

VANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY! 

But this does not help. Mr. Fox low- 
ers the wages of his workers one dollar 
a week. Mr. Crox lowers the wages two 
dollars a week. Again business grows 
worse and worse. 

All at once—Stop! Mr. Fox closes his 
factory. Two thousand workers are dis- 
charged and permitted to go wherever 
they please. The following day the fac- 
tory of Mr. Nox stops. In a week prac- 
tically all hat factories are standing idle. 
Thousands of workers are without work. 
New machines grow rusty. Buildings are 
sold for wreckage. 

A year or two pass. The hats bought 
from Nox, Fox, Box, and Crox wear out. 
The public once more begins to buy hats. 
Hat stores become empty. From the top 
shelves dusty cartons are taken down. 
There are not enough hats. Prices on 
hats go up. 

And now, not Mr. Fox, but a certain 
Mr. Doodle thinks of a profitable busi- 
ness—the building of a hat factory. The 
same idea also enters the heads of 
other wise and business-like people—Mr. 
Boodle, Mr. Foodle, and Mr. Noodle. 
And the old story begins over again. 

The spirit and aspiration of the move- 
ment in Russia are suggested: After all 
man is not just muscles with which to 
work. He is not a machine. He has a 
mind that wants to know, eyes that want 
to see, ears that want to hear, a voice 
that wants to sing, feet that want to 
run and jump and dance, hands that 
want to row and swim and throw and 
catch. And we must organize life so that 
not merely certain lucky ones but all 
may be able to feel the joy of living. 

After socialism is built there will 
no Jonger be dwarfs—people with ex- 
hausted, pale faces; people reared in 





basements without sunshine or air. 
Healthy, strong giants, red-cheeked and 
happy—such will be the new people. 

But to accomplish this we must have 
new cities and new houses, our whole 
life, even to the last kitchen pot, must 
be changed. 

Here is how the children learn to be 
citizens by starting young: You thus see 
how children can help achieve the Five- 
Year Plan. Fulfil your own little plan 
and then the big plan will be fulfilled 
before the assigned time. Whether it 
will be a task which requires a few days 
or a few weeks matters not. It will be 
your contribution. 

Here it is—your Five-Year Plan: 

1. To discover beds of lime and phos- 
phorus. 

2. To gather useful junk: rags, ropes, 
wool, bones, scraps of metal, and so on. 
All of these things will come in handy 
in our factories. Every Pioneer should 
collect not less than twenty kilograms 
a year. 

3. To build radios and loud-speakers. 
Within the next few years seventy-five 
thousand radios should be installed in 
villages. Not one school should be with- 
out a loud-speaker. 

4. To sort and treat with insecticide 
one hundred percent of all grain used in 
kolkhozes and on the farms of your 
parents. 

5. To gather ashes for fertilizing fields. 
Each troop of Pioneers should gather 
two tons of ashes a year. 

6. To destroy ten marmots a year in 
the regions infested by these animals; 
to clear one tenth of a hectare of land of 
parasites; to destroy all injurers on one 
fruit tree and on ten vegetables; to catch 
or destroy five rats and ten mice. 

7. To build one starling house and 
two feeding houses a year; to raise the 
number of starling houses to a million 





November, 1931 





and a half and of feeding houses to two 
millions. Birds are our allies. They will 
help us destroy parasites. 

8. To organize in five years five thou- 
sand children’s bird brotherhoods; to 
found five thousand collective poultry 
yards; to build five thousand chicken 
houses. 

9. To add two good laying hens to the 
possessions of every peasant household. 

10. To plant ten trees each in five 
years; to create Pioneer forests of 
seventy-five million trees. 

11. To destroy bedbugs, roaches, and 
flies in five hundred thousand houses. 
Each troop should clean up ten houses. 

12. To teach the illiterate to read and 
write. Each troop should endeavor to 
wipe out illiteracy in its region. 

These are only some of your chief 
tasks. If you wish to learn the details, 
read The Report of the Pioneer Meet. 

Grownups will build large electric 
stations; you can build small ones. 
Grownups will build large houses; you 
can build starling houses and bird feed- 
ing houses. 

And do not imagine that these are 
trifles. 

If you fulfil your Five-Year Plan you 
will save from parasites grain worth 
2,621,800 rubles. 

If you add two good laying hens to 
the possessions of each household you 
will make a present to the state of five 
billion eggs, 150 million rubles. 

From kopecks, millions are composed: 
weak hands, if they be many, can move 
mountains and plant forests of trees. 

Herein lies your power. 

Not since democracy burst upon the 
world with its rising tide of eagerness 
and its opposing tide of opposition has 
the human race been so stirred as by 
the Russian enterprise. It cannot be 
ignored. 





I IS A SIGHT ever to be remembered to watch a crowd of proletarians scrutinize a newly received piece of 
mechanism‘from a foreign land, or a crowd of muzhiks gather about the first tractor that has arrived in 
their village. They thrill with ecstasy to the sight and sound of wheels, belts, pistons, rods. No wonder that 
the machine plays so heroic a part in Russian motion pictures, in the graphic arts, and in dramatic pieces. 





The Russians have endowed it with a triumphant personality, not like the Someone in Grey in Andreyev’s. 
Life of Man, who is a reminder of the terror of life and the futility of death, but like some fairy godmother 
always ready to brush away all evil and all torment. With such fervour for thé machine it is only natural 
that they should look with longing to America. America to them is the symbol of the triumph of the ma- 
chine. A Ford factory, a Brooklyn Bridge, a Woolworth Building, a Mississippi dam, a Hudson River 
tunnel, automobiles, cameras, typewriters, engines, mowing machines, boots, coats, in fabulous quantities 
—these are all fruits of the American machine, of American technika. America may be reactionary, capi- 
talistic, imperialistic. She may be executing a Sacco and a Vanzetti. But she can produce as no nation in 
the world. She is mistress of the machine. She has much, therefore, very much to teach Russia—more than 


any other nation ; and Russia, insists the revolutionary, shall and must learn from America if she is to 
realize her social and economic destiny!—From Humanity Uprooted by Maurice Hindus. 


$$ SS eesti ntananearernassmmmemmmmmmstmmamcal 











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na a elUremelUelC OlUCUlC A. CS. OD 


Senator Borah on Russia 


HE THREE GREAT and, I believe, 
"| itmperishabe instincts of the hu- 

man race are religion, family, and 
property—something to believe, some- 
thing to love, something to possess. Let 
us admit that those who now govern and 
dominate Russia, not the people of Rus- 
sia, stand against them all. We stand for 
them all. Let us admit that it is an ir- 
reconcilable conflict. Let us concede that 
those who govern Russia, not the people 
of Russia, would uproot and destroy 
them all. Let us admit that they would 
summon them all to the bar of public 
opinion and would exile them from hu- 
man affairs, if they had the power. We 
would foster and strengthen them all. 
Our whole civilization is built around 
them. But how deep and strong is our 
faith? Do we fear that capitalism will 
fall, will cave in, if brought in contact 
with communism? Are we afraid of the 
contest? My belief is that the closer the 
contact, the more certainly will com- 
munism be modified and ultimately dis- 
appear. In such a contest we have not 
only the experience of all time behind 
us, but we have the support of one of 
the most dominant and irresistible of 
human passions—the desire for property. 
Do we believe in our institutions? Do 
we doubt the intelligence and character 
of our own people? Are we fearful lest 
the family as an institution, around 
which our whole fabric of society has 
been constructed, will break in pieces if 
brought to the test by that cruel ab- 
surdity which would make the family 
hearthstone the casual meeting place of 
social derelicts? Is our religion of that 
feeble sort that we dare not meet face- 
to-face those who have said in their 
hearts there is no God? For my part, I 
have no fear. During the French Revolu- 
tion there was a time when religion was 
disowned, property confiscated, and the 
great fundamental principles of ordered 
society rejected. But the French people 
came back. And the Russian people will 
come back. The vast majority of the 
Russian people are a deeply religious, 
law-abiding, home-loving people. It 
seems to me that our conduct is a sorry 
manifestation of an utter lack of faith 
in our own people, in our own institu- 
tions, in our own professions. If you 
should empty all the communistic propa- 
ganda possible into the very lap of the 
American people, if you should preach 
against property until tongues were para- 


lyzed with weariness, if you should in- 
veigh against parliamentary government 
and free institutions, it would not move 
the American people from their moor- 
ings or affect one half of one percent 
of our population. The safest security 
against all these things is the American 
people. The whole scheme as proposed in 
Russia would go to wreck upon the rock 
of American citizenship. 

But let me assume I am in error in 
the belief that our government and our 
people are secure against communism. 
What are we going to do about it? The 
American people are neither blind nor 
deaf nor dumb. They read, they see, they 
hear, they know what is going on. They 
know all about the communistic creed. 
Our newspapers and magazines tell of 
the teachings and the preachings of the 
Russian leaders. You cannot put an em- 
bargo upon news or ideas in these days. 
The people do their own reading and 
their own thinking. I am glad it is so. 
The restlessness and the discontent in 
this country spring not at all from Rus- 
sian literature or Russian teachings. We 
stand or fall not by what Russia does 
but by what we do right here in our own 
country. We are slow about cleaning up 
our cities and making property safe and 
human life secure. We have failed to give 
work to those who are hungry and who 
would like to work. We have been un- 
able to cleanse our system of corruption. 
We have tolerated a system which com- 
pels honest and clean business men to 
pay tribute to crooks and criminals for 
the protection which their government 
fails to give. These are the things which 
cause restlessness and discontent and 
discouragement among our own people. 
It is not Russian literature which is dis- 
turbing our people or which we need fear. 
It is not that which is happening in 
Russia or what Russia is proposing that 
is bringing doubt and worry to our own 
people. It is the conditions here in our 
own land. These are the things which 
challenge the attention and arouse the 
anxiety of the American people. 

Capitalism should turn its eyes in- 
ward and take an account of its own 
internal affairs. Capitalism must turn its 
eyes inward and take into consideration 
and solve its own internal problems. If we 
do not solve them God only knows what 
will happen. If we do solve them, com- 
munism and all antagonistic “isms’’ will 
prove impotent in their tasks. We have 


[ 285 ] 


in this country from five to seven million 
men and women unemployed, seeking 
something to do. What has communism 
to do with that and what is our solu- 
tion? There are in the capitalistic na- 
tions of the world some fifteen to sixteen 
million men and women unemployed. 
What has communism to do with that? 
The mechanization of modern industries 
has left millions of men and women in 
middle life, or later, to readjust their 
whole lives to wholly new conditions, to 
adapt themselves to wholly new environ- 
ments. They want to know how. Capi- 
talism has not answered. Communism 
has had nothing to do with that. Mass 
production, our boasted achievement, 
continues to pile up goods in the sight 
of those whose purchasing power is 
daily diminishing. What is capitalism’s 
answer to that? And what had com- 
munism to do with bringing on that con- 
dition? We cannot answer such questions 
by assailing communism. We hear about 
a surplus of food, a surplus of clothing, 
a surplus of fuel, and yet we know there 
are millions who are unable to secure 
enough of this surplus to keep them from 
hunger and cold. What is capitalism’s 
answer to that? Can we meet the prob- 
lem by assailing communism? I am not 
in the least disturbed about communism 
of itself. I am, I confess, disturbed about 
the unsolved problems of capitalism. And 
I am almost equally disturbed over the 
fact that the time which we ought to 
devote to solving these questions and to 
bringing about conditions which would 
help to solve them, is devoted to at- 
tacking some other theory and agitat- 
ing against some other government. 

If I had my way about it I would es- 
tablish normal relations with the Rus- 
sian government. In doing so I would 
not assume I was indorsing the com- 
munistic theory; in doing so I would not 
indorse their method of carrying on 
their government; in doing so I would 
have no fear of their teachings or their 
propaganda undermining American citi- 
zenship. I would believe that as Russia 
is there, with her 150,000,000 people 
occupying one sixth of the earth’s sur- 
face, and as we have got to deal with 
her, it is better to deal with her in that 
way than in the abnormal and extraor- 
dinary way which leads to abnormal 
and extraordinary policies—Hon. Wil- 
liam E. Borah of Idaho in the United 
States Senate, March 3, 1931. 





ofa 


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National Committee on Education by Radio 


VER THE ENTRANCE of that most 
C) beautiful of all capitols at Lin- 

coln, Nebraska, is this signifi- 
cant sentence: “The safety of the state 
is watchfulness in the citizen.” The truth 
»f these prophetic words has never been 
better illustrated than in the American 
radio field where the most powerful of 
all tools of human intercourse has fallen 
largely into the hands of persons who 
have not thought of the safety of the 
state but of the possibilities of huge 
profits and of powerful monopolies. 

The National Committee on Education 
by Radio is an organized effort to con- 
serve and develop radio broadcasting for 
the most important of all uses to which it 
could be put—the lifting of the level of 
our American culture. 

This Committee grew out of an 
emergency meeting held in Chicago 
under the chairmanship of William John 
Cooper, U. S. Commissioner of Educa- 
tion. The purposes of the Committee as 
stated in the bylaws are: 


To secure to the people of the United States 
the use of radio for educational purposes by 
protecting the rights of educational broadcast- 
ing, by promoting and coordinating experi- 
ments in the use of radio in school and adult 
education, by maintaining a service bureau to 
assist educational stations in securing licenses 
and in other technical procedures, by exchange 
of information thru a weekly bulletin, and 
by serving as a clearinghouse for the encour- 
agement of research in education by radio. 


The members of the Committee as of 
October 1, 1931, are: 


James N. Rule, state superintendent of pub- 
lic instruction, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Na- 
tional Council of State Superintendents. 

Arthur G. Crane, president, University of 
Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, National Asso- 
ciation of State Universities 

R. C. Higgy, director, radio station WEAO, 
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, As- 
sociation of College and University Broadcast- 
ing Stations . 

J. O. Keller, head of Engineering Extension, 
Pennsylvania State College, State College, 
Pennsylvania, National University. Extension 
Association 

Charles N. Lischka, 1312 Massachusetts 
Avenue, Washington, D. C., National Catholic 
Education Association 





John Henry MacCracken, 744 Jackson 
Place, Washington, D. C., American Council on 
Education 






































ADIO represents great power 

in education if we learn 
to use it effectively, and there 
seems no doubt that we shall 
profit from this power. At the 
outset radio is likely to suffer 
at the hands of the novice and 
the exploiter under the guise of 
experimentation. The scientist 
has so far explored and devel- 
oped the field of radio that we 
know that one person can con- 
vey his impressions to an infi- 
nite number of persons. Class 
instruction may be conducted 
easily; all that is needed is 
proper organization and man- 
agement. The major job is to 
plan educational instruction 
which will be effective. The 
scientist will carry out his part 
because he has the tools and the 
craftsmanship to reach his des- 
tination—truth. The exploiter 
is the hazard in the case; he 
may be both untutored and un- 
skilled and his end is selfish.— 
R. G. Jones, superintendent of 
schools, Cleveland, Ohio. 





Reverend Thurber M. Smith. S. J., director, 
radio station WEW, St. Louis University, Jesuit 
Educational Association 

H. Umberger, Kansas State Agricultural Col- 
lege, Manhattan, Kansas, Association of Land 
Grant Colleges and Universities 

Joy Elmer Morgan, chairman, 1201 Six- 
teenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C., Na- 
tional Education Association 


The Committee is publishing a weekly 
bulletin of information. It is sponsoring 
legislation in Congress to set aside fifteen 
percent of all available radio channels 
for education just as a fraction of the 
public lands was set aside for the en- 
couragement of schools. It is developing 


a program of research in education by 
radio. 














I’ RADIO is to share with the classroom teacher and the textbook the responsibility for the dissemination 
of knowledge, then there must be developed means whereby certain of the available air channels may 
become unconditionally the property of the state or of the municipality for the purposes of education. 
Perhaps the greatest danger that confronts our nation today as a result of the development of radio is that 
of propagandizing thru every conceivable subtlety, in the interests of private gain or of political or social 
ee Monsen, secretary, Board of Educat 


[ 286 ] 


The work of the Committee has been 
financed for a period of five years by the 
Payne Fund—a private fund entirely 
free from monopolistic or commercial 
associations. 

The Committee maintains two offices 
in Washington, D. C.: one at 1201 Six- 
teenth Street, N. W., in the headquarters 
building of the National Education Asso- 
ciation, which is a general office for ad- 
ministration, publication, and research; 
the other a temporary office in the Na- 
tional Press Building near the Federal 
Radio Commission which is a service 
bureau to aid educational stations in 
their dealings with the Commission. 

Education by radio is here. It is now 
an established fact that radio may be 
used effectively as a supplementary 
method of teaching children the com- 
mon branches even as low as the third 
grade; that it can be used to enrich and 
vitalize many school subjects; that it 
can be made the means of bringing chil- 
dren in the classroom into closer con- 
tact with the actual processes of :citizen- 
ship and government; that it has large 
possibilities in training for music appre- 
ciation; and that it is the most powerful 
tool so far devised for reaching large 
numbers of adults. 

Much remains to be done. Education 
by radio calls for men and women who 
have the pioneer spirit, who are wellen- 
dowed with imagination, initiative, and 
courage. This is no field for men or 
women who are unwilling or unable to 
lay aside tradition and to try new and 
difficult things, but it is a promising 
field. The struggle for radio frequencies 
is merely a passing phase. It is only 
common sense that the schools should 
have their independent facilities. The 
next step will be the constructive devel- 
opment of educational service of such 
high quality that programs will reach 
larger and larger audiences. The class- 
room of the future will be so organized 
that the teacher will be freed for the 
wider service of guidance and inspiration 
of individual pupils. Radio will help to 
bring about this freedom. 





ion, Pasadena, California. 

















The American High School 


A. T. ALLEN 


State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Raleigh, N. C. 


HAT ARE SOME of the differen- 
\X / tiating characteristics of the 
American high school? How 


does it differ from the high schools in the 
rest of the world? Are its supporting 
principles peculiar to it? Does it enlarge 
liberty or restrict it? Does it promise 
a wide and effective dissemination of 
knowledge? There are three things which 
seem to mark it as our very own: 

The American high school is wholly 
free—lIt is supported entirely by public 
taxation. There are no tuition charges or 
rate bills of any kind which the parent 
is expected to pay. In a large part of the 
country even the books are free. Paper, 
pencils, and other necessary materials are 
furnished by tax money. When these 
things are not furnished it is a matter of 
money entirely and not one of principle. 
All of this is in contravention of the idea 
of a limited personnel in the high school 
which prevails in many countries. 

The American high school is wholly 
democratic—There is no selection except 
the selection of merit. The institution is 
open for all, irrespective of birth or social 
station. Provision is made for all grades 
of intellectuality. Wealth brings no spe- 
cial privilege and poverty does not ex- 
clude. The son of the prince and the son 
of the pauper sit down together. There 
is no selection from the outside. The only 
selection comes from the inside, from 
the heart of the pupil himself. The high- 
school door is open wide for all who have 
the ability, courage, and determination 
to take advantage of it. 

The American high school, in theory 
at least, is free from sectarian control— 
If all the conflicts of diverse religious 
creeds were set loose in the schoolroom, 
the institution could not long survive the 
shock. Sectarian control was eliminated 
as the result of a long and a ferocious 
struggle. At the outset determined efforts 
were made to divide the school money up 
among private and church schools. The 
board of education in the city of New 
York which had been charged with wide 
discretionary power in the handling of 
public school money, passed a resolution 
prior to 1850, which declared that no 
public school money should be thereafter 
given to a school in which “any religious 
sectarian doctrine or tenet should be 
taught, inculcated, or practised.”” Every 
state that has come into the Union since 


1858, with the single exception of West 
Virginia, has inserted this provision in 
its constitution. This was the position 


HE STRUGGLE for democracy is 
yn won. It must be made again 
| by each individual in his own life and 
by each generation in the life of the 
state and the nation. It took a half 
century of painstaking struggle to es- 
tablish in the United States the prin- 
ciple of high-school education sup- 
ported by taxation and the fight is not 
yet fully won. There are still those 
who wish to close the doors of oppor- 
tunity to young people who need it 
most rather than to enrich the high 
school to meet the diverse needs of 
today’s life. This article is a careful 
discussion of the whole problem by a 
recognized leader of wide experience. 











taken by Horace Mann, which brought 
down upon the public schools of Massa- 
chusetts the severe condemnation of be- 
ing “Godless schools.” Within the last 
year, the state superintendent of public 
instruction in Nebraska withheld all 
state aid from a school district which 
insisted on giving sectarian instruction. 
The courts sustained his action. 

These are the three great underlying 
principles upon which the American high 
school rests. Each one of them was set 
up at the end of a long fight. Dr. Cub- 
berly says that no question, outside of 
the question of African slavery, in the 
course of our whole history, has aroused 
such fierce conflict of opinion among our 
people as the debates that have hinged 
around these three principles. They are 
now accepted in all parts of the country 
as sound principles of political procedure 
but they have not yet met with universal 
acceptance. 

What are some of the doctrines that 
deny the principle that the American 
high school should be wholly free? When, 
as a result of political conflict, any prin- 
ciple of governmental procedure is fi- 
nally accepted as sound in practise, there 
often remain strong residual negative ar- 
guments which persist and reappear in 
different forms for many years there- 
after. We find, therefore, the same ar- 
guments presented against the various 
phases of public education that were 


{ 287 ] 


presented one hundred years ago when 
the whole question was being fought out. 
Some of these are easily distinguished 
even in modern times. Four of these doc- 
trines seem to controvert the principle 
of a free public high school: 

The doctrine of limitation—This doc- 
trine takes on many forms. Some of its 
advocates would limit the kind of high- 
school opportunity which is offered and 
limit it in such a way that only a special 
or selected class could benefit from the 
operation of the high school. Another 
group of objectors would differentiate 
the high-school course of study and make 
those courses on the higher level avail- 
able only to selected groups of children. 
All of the limitation doctrinaires have 
in mind to narrow the kind of high- 
school opportunity which is offered, 
whereas the American principle of a free 
high school has been to offer the widest 
opportunity that was within the means 
of the people. 

The doctrine of selection—There seem 
to be some people who would follow the 
ancient European doctrine of offering 
high-school advantages only to a selected 
few. By certain processes of selection 
these people would pick from the multi- 
tude certain chosen ones who would be 
educated at public expense. Even Thomas 
Jefferson, the great patron saint of de- 
mocracy, devised a selective process. The 
doctrinaires of selection raise the ques- 
tion of whether America or Germany is 
following the wiser political procedure. 
The only question I am trying to raise 
is whether or not a selective process of 
this kind would fit in with the doctrine 
of a wholly free American high school 
or with the democratic doctrine upon 
which all American institutions rest. 

The doctrine of parental responsibility 
—Henry Barnard, the first commissioner 
of education in Connecticut, the first 
commissioner of education in Rhode 
Island, and the first United States com- 
missioner of education, believed to his 
dying day that the parent should pay 
a part of the cost of high-school instruc- 
tion, not with tax money but by tuition 
charges. This doctrine of parental re- 
sponsibility would make each parent who 
sends his child to high school responsible 
for a certain part of the tuition charges. 
It is the old charity school idea in an- 
other form. 





—— — ~- 


288 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


The doctrine of overtaxation—There 
are many people who contend that the 
public high school is projected on a plane 
which is far and away beyond the social 
and economic needs of the people. Some 
go so far as to say that it is projected 
on a plane of extravagant expenditures 
and that the business enterprises of this 
country can no longer sustain the tre- 
mendous burden of taxation necessary 
for the support of the American high 
school as now organized and operated. 
The economic questions involved in this 
doctrine involve the whole principle of 
public education. 

What doctrines controvert the prin- 
ciple that the American high school 
should be wholly democratic? We in 
America who so ardently worship at the 
shrine of democracy, out of our conflict- 
ing desires to be practical, are sometimes 
guilty of promulgating principles and 
procedures which are in direct conflict 
with the basic ideals of democracy. 
Three of these seem to controvert the 
idea of a democratic high school: 

The doctrine of education for leader- 
ship—This doctrine advocates selecting 
prospective leaders in advance and giv- 
ing them, at public expense, superior 
advantages. You see that this at once 
takes you back to an aristocracy of birth 
and wealth. The American idea of “an 
equal chance for all” goes down and the 
ancient notion of “a superior chance for 
a few” goes up. Would it be fitting or 
proper for the high school, which was 
instituted in part at least for the purpose 
of perpetuating democratic principles and 
institutions, to assume that its mission 
is to minister to leadership rather than 
to serve all the people? Some of Amer- 
ica’s finest leadership was not even re- 
motely the-product of the schools. It 
came from outside of and beyond them. 
Witness Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jack- 
son, or Abraham Lincoln. Conscious ef- 
fort on the part of the schools for such 
an outcome would take us back to the 
divine right of the few to rule and control 
the many. Leadership in process is often 
inexplicable. The world has not yet 
ceased to wonder that America, in the 
hour of her greatest danger, should have 
selected to preside over her eternal des- 
tinies, a rail splitter and a tailor. 

The doctrine of right of direction— 
One of thoSe arguments used against the 
















institution of public education by the 
ruling classes was that an educated popu- 
lace would be harder to control. The doc- 
trine of the right of direction is a new 
statement of those ancient dogmas and 
would undertake to limit the kind and 
scope of training offered to certain 
classes of people in order that these 
people might be held to a particular kind 
of work and be more or less in bondage. 
If a large class of people can be forced 
into a limited field of training, it is very 
evident that their services can be com- 
manded all thru life at a very low price. 
Such people, it is believed, would be con- 
tent and happy while living on a low 
level of physical comfort. This has been 
the argument of kings and czars thru all 
the years. 

We hear a great deal about the medi- 
ocrity of democracy and its lack of capa- 
city to direct its own affairs. If we as 
educators accept this belief, the whole 
structure of American institutions, cen- 
tered about democratic ideals, collapses 
and we go back to a stratified society with 
one class resting upon the backs of a lower 
class controlled and directed by it. 

The doctrine of occupational distinc- 
tion—It was argued for many years that 
children living on a farm did not need a 
high-school opportunity because things 
taught in the high school would not be 
of service to them in occupations such 
as this. The farmers themselves, in many 
instances, have accepted that doctrine. 
This same belief applies also to other 
occupations. 

This modern machine age has made 
work with the hands less and less valu- 
able. A vocation to be of value must now 
carry the ability to operate complicated 
machinery. This is something that can- 
not be taught in the high schools and 
perhaps not fully in technical institutions 
of higher learning, but with a broad 
basis of training the technical part of a 
vocation of that kind can be easily and 
readily learned on the job. 

In America we do not believe that a 
son must necessarily follow the occupa- 
tion of his father. Therefore, we have 
said thru the institution of public edu- 
cation that the sons and daughters of 
all types and classes shall receive an 
educational opportunity without distinc- 
tion or discrimination in order that they 
may be able, if they have the courage, 





November, 1931 





ability, and energy, to hold in a dignified, 
selfrespecting manner any position to 
which they may be called in this great 
republic of ours. 

What doctrine controverts the prin- 
ciple of secular control? 

The doctrine of religious instruction— 
The same arguments are used today, 
both pro and con, that were used in the 
days of Horace Mann. The principles 
involved are the same as those compre- 
hended in the separation of the church 
and the state. It is not considered equal 
justice to tax all the people to pay the 
clergy in an established church. If reli- 
gious training were given, it would be 
colored as Baptist, Methodist, or Presby- 
terian doctrine, or as that of some other 
denomination. In any event, all the 
people would be taxed to teach the 
tenets of some particular denomination. 

I hope it does not appear that I have 
approached these questions as a prophet 
of ill omen. The evidence, however, 
seems to sustain the belief that the whole 
body of supporting principles is under 
attack today as it has not been for many 
years. These attacks are coming from 
both schoolmen and taxpayers. 

Sometimes we become so interested in 
some particular phase of work that we 
cannot see it in relation to the whole or 
as a part of a more important whole. 
We lose our perspective. Our theory car- 
ries us by the sober judgments formed 
in saner moments. We should not lose 
sight of the essential unity of the sys- 
tem. The activities of vocational guid- 
ance should be tested by the principle of 
democracy. Narrow vocational educa- 
tion should be tested by the principle 
of freedom. Enthusiasms should be sub- 
jected to careful consideration and de- 
liberate judgment before accepted. 

The public high school has a distinc- 
tive place in the life of America. It has 
won this badge of confidence by a serv- 
ice so effective that the American people 
have poured out their treasured wealth 
in unstinted millions to sustain and per- 
petuate it. If we are to continue in the 
justification of this faith, the lines of 
development must be laid by wise hands. 

The American high school, as the 
agency of democracy, thru its efforts to 
enlarge liberty and to enlighten the mind 
will, we hope, win a victory over intel- 
lectual tyranny and political oppression. 





NROLMENT in the secondary schools of the United States has, in round figures, doubled every decade | 
| since 1890. Today there are close to 5,000,000 pupils in the high schools of the country. 








The Teacher and His 


HERE ARE SEVEN broad principles 
“| which the economic security 

of any worker or group of workers 
rests: [1] adequate salaries and salary 
schedules, [2] continuous employment 
during efficiency, [3] wise budgeting of 
income, [4] systematic saving and sound 
investment, [5] insurance against illness, 
accident, old age, and death, [6] insur- 
ance against damage or loss of property, 
and [7] facilities for borrowing money at 
reasonable cost.’ In general these princi- 
ples are as applicable to teachers as to 
members of other occupational groups. 
The first mentioned principle is in a sense 
the most important, because an adequate 
salary is the foundation of the individ- 
ual’s whole economic life. This article 
discusses the problem of adequate sal- 
aries for teachers. 

Every teacher should be paid at least 
as much as it will cost him to live at the 
minimum standard necessary to maintain 
and improve his efficiency. This state- 
ment applies even to the teacher with the 
minimum qualifications required by law. 
No teacher who is not worth such a salary 
should be employed in any school sys- 
tem. On the other hand, no teacher 
should accept employment at a salary 
which will not provide a suitable stand- 
ard of living. The teacher’s duty, partic- 
ularly in times of economic depression, 
is to resist strongly any effort to lower 
his standard of living. 

Both teachers and public must realize 
that the minimum desirable standard of 
living for teachers includes more than 
the bare necessities of food, clothing, and 
lodging. To maintain and improve his 
efficiency the teacher must provide for 
savings, professional study, recreation, 
and cultural development. The cost of 

1 For detailed information on these topics, see “The 
Economic Welfare of Teachers.” Sixth Yearbook, 1931. 


Washington, D. C.: Department of Classroom Teach- 
ers, National Education Association. 1931. 244 p. 











living at any given standard will vary 
from community to community. The cost 
of the desired minimum standard should 
be determined by careful study in each 





| - TIMES of business depression there | 
| is a strong tendency to curtail ex- 
penditures for public services, including 
education. The largest single item in 
school expenditures is that of teachers’ 
salaries. The demand for retrenchment 
in education, therefore, is directed pri- 
marily toward this item. There is need 
for real economy in school expenditures 
but there is grave danger in the false 
economy which calls for reductions in 
teaching efficiency. An adequate salary 
is the very foundation of good teaching. 
But what is an adequate salary? What 
standard of living should teachers main- 
tain? How do teachers’ salaries com- 
pare with the incomes of other large 
occupational groups? What effect will 
the oversupply of teachers have upon 
their salaries? What can the individual 
teacher do to improve the salary situa- 
tion for himself and his profession? 
This timely article suggests answers to 
these questions. It will help every 
teacher to see the salary problem more 
clearly and to contribute directly to his 
own economic security and the welfare 
of children in the schools. 


| 








local community and used as the basis of 
the salary scale. 

Having decided upon an amount which 
will purchase a standard of living per- 
mitting the teacher with minimum ac- 
ceptable qualifications to maintain and 
increase his efficiency, it is essential to 
provide adequately for the many teach- 
ers whose qualifications are far above 
the acceptable minimum. Additional 
training and experience have fitted these 
teachers to render an increasingly valu- 
able service to the community. This in- 
creased value must be recognized in the 
salary schedule. It is not sufficient that 


Salary 


capable young people be attracted to the 
profession of teaching. It is essential that 
competent teachers be retained over long 
periods of years and that they be en- 
abled and stimulated to develop to the 
limit of their capacity. This is not pos- 
sible unless the upper levels of the salary 
scale offer the opportunity for genuinely 
cultural living. 

A fundamental principle of social wel- 
fare is that the incomes of various occu- 
pational groups should correspond more 
or less closely to the relative value to 
society of the services which these groups 
are expected to perform. There is, of 
course, no way of determining accurately 
whether the services of teachers are more 
or less valuable to society than the serv- 
ices of many other occnpational groups. 
Nevertheless, our philosophy gives edu- 
cation a relatively high value in a de- 
mocracy. Few will question that the 
services of teachers are, or should be, at 
least as valuable as those of the average 
gainfully occupied person. Most people 
will agree that teaching should be rated 
on a level with other professions like law, 
medicine, and engineering. Yet teachers’ 
salaries suffer by comparison with the in- 
comes of other large economic groups. 

In 1928 all gainfully occupied persons 
in the United States received an average 
income of $1920. All salaried employees 
in the country received an average of 
$2075, federal government employees 
$1863, and all teachers, principals, and 
supervisors only $1364. Moreover, the 
average earnings of teachers in rural 
areas were very much lower than the 
national average for all teachers. Thus, 
even in times of prosperity, members of 
the teaching profession were not as well 
off, economically, on the average as were 
other large occupational groups in this 
country. In 1928 the average salary of 








| me FIRST GREAT BENEFIT of financial independence is its contribution to the individual’s selfrespect, per- 
sonal morale, or whatever one wishes to call this factor which is so important in making life worth- 
while to the individual. The person who through incompetence, unforeseen emergencies, an inadequate | 
basic income, or lack of education, is unable to maintain a reasonable standard of living for himself and | 
his dependents is also likely to lack the zest and inspiration which life is capable of affording. 

The second benefit of financial independence, closely related to the first, is its effect upon vocational 
efficiency. The person whose present needs are cared for and who is free from worry as to what hard- 
ships the future may bring, is usually in the proper mental state for hard and effective work. On the | 
other hand, the individual with a burden of financial worries on his mind cannot be expected to give | 
his best to his daily tasks —From “The Economic Welfare of Teachers,” Sixth Yearbook of the De- | 

| partment of Classroom Teachers of the National Education Association. p. 13. | 






















[ 289 ] 





et 





ORE GE UNE EE, SORE CPT RNP Oe RR, RR CRE GENIE re 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





teachers, principals, and supervisors was 
only 71 percent of the average earnings 
of all gainfully occupied persons. Yet, 
now that a widespread business depres- 
sion is upon us, teachers are threatened 
with an even lower relative economic 
position. Every effort to reduce teachers’ 
financial security should be met by in- 
telligent but firm opposition on the part 
of teachers and public alike. The schools 
serve a large social function which can- 
not be safely neglected or delayed. The 
schools will play a major part in prevent- 
ing another severe business depression. 
To accomplish this, however, they must 
be maintained at full efficiency. In times 
of crisis the need for efficient teachers 
is especially emphatic, and any lowering 
of efficiency by decreasing 
financial security is short-sighted and 
dangerous. 

Another economic factor which will 
probably have far greater effect upon 
teachers’ salaries than the present busi- 
ness depression is the relation between 
the demand for teachers and the supply 
of them available. The familiar law of 
supply and demand operates just as 
surely in educational service as it does 
elsewhere. An oversupply of teachers is 
particularly dangerous to the economic 
welfare of the profession. At present 
there is ample evidence that a consider- 
able surplus of persons with teaching cer- 
tificates exists in the nation as a whole. 
This does not mean that there is an over- 


The Oakland Plan of Enrolment — 


AKLAND, CALIFORNIA, has taken pride in her large NEA membership. More than 95 percent of her teach- 
O ers enrol each year. The following letter from Superintendent Givens outlines the plan by which they 
have maintained this record: “In answer to your request I am outlining below the plan which we follow 
in Oakland. {The superintendent of schools carries an article in the Superintendent’s Bulletin each week on 
some vital subject. In early issues each school year one or more of these articles stress the value of the 
various professional associations and what they are doing for the teachers of our city, state, and nation, and 
urging membership in them. {In August each year we send out membership blanks with a space provided 
for pledges and ask for returns as soon as possible, the blank to be returned when a majority have paid their 
pledges. We suggest the budget plan and most schools budget all collections—professional associations, local 
school social funds, parent-teacher association, dads’ club, etc., and pay part each month over a period of 
three or four months. The Oakland Teachers Association councilor, or some other person appointed by the 
principal, collects for all associations and turns in lists and money to the person concerned, the Oakland 
Teachers Association to the secretary of that organization and the National Education Association, the 
California Teachers Association, and the Alameda County Educational Association to the superintendent’s 
secretary, and the money is forwarded from the superintendent’s office to the association. {/The secretary 
checks off a list showing who belongs to each association and sends in a list of one hundred percent schools 
for publication. This one hundred percent list is also published in our own Superintendent’s Bulletin. Some 
principals are surprised when the list comes out without their schools listed, and usually the one or two 
teacher’ who have held the school off the list come in within the next day or two after the publication of the 
lists to pay their dues, thus saving the honor of their school. {We have prepared our membership blanks with 
a pledge column which seems to be very acceptable. This is being very much used. The hundred percent 
memberships in the various special organizations in our city are due to the professional esprit de corps which 
has been built up over a period of many years. It is also due to a keen realization of the value of professional 





teachers’ 





supply of capable and welltrained teach- 
ers. On the contrary, if the supply were 
restricted to persons with two or more 
years of professional training, a shortage 
would exist in many states. However, 
since teachers with only the minimum 
qualifications for certification are ac- 
cepted by school boards in many sections 
of the country, the oversupply of such 
persons will be used increasingly as an 
excuse for reducing teachers’ salaries un- 
less remedial measures are taken soon. 

What, specifically, can the teacher do 
to improve the salary situation for him- 
self and his fellows? He can increase 
his own salary by improving his teaching 
ability. He can add to his training by at- 
tending summer schools. He can take ex- 
tension courses during the regular school 
year. He can read widely in the best edu- 
cational books and magazines. He can 
cooperate wholeheartedly in such pro- 
grams of in-service training as his super- 
intendent and supervisory officers may 
undertake. The more efficient he be- 
comes, the larger will be his salary, gen- 
erally speaking. 

The teacher can help to raise the sal- 
ary level in his profession by interpret- 
ing the schools to the public. He can dis- 
cuss with parents and others the ever- 
increasing responsibilities and problems 
of the school in the task of making chil- 
dren good citizens. He can tell what the 
school is doing to meet these responsibili- 
ties and to solve these problems. He can 





November, 1931 


point out that the task will be accom- 
plished not by crippling the schools 
thru unwise reductions in expenditures, 
but by spending more money to obtain 
better teaching. 

Thru his membership in local, state, 
and national teachers’ organizations, the 
teacher can influence the thinking of ad- 
ministrators, board members, and the 
general public in favor of larger salaries 
for better teachers. These organizations ~ 
can do and are doing much to further 
the economic welfare of their members. 
They are collecting important informa- 
tion on teachers’ salaries thruout the 
country. They are making constructive 
recommendations to legislatures and to 
boards of education concerning salary 
policies. They represent a united teach- 
ing profession at work upon the fore- 
most problems of school efficiency. 

Finally, the teacher thru his profes- 
sional organizations can help to inform 
his fellow-workers of the unfavorable 
economic effect of an oversupply of 
teachers and can urge them to support 
all legitimate measures for its control. 
One such measure undoubtedly is to in- 
crease minimum qualifications for certi- 
fication. This would not only tend to 
reduce the available supply of teachers, 
but would also effect a general improve- 
ment in the quality of teaching, a factor 
which in itself is a strong argument for 
adequate salaries——Richard R. Foster, 
Ass’t Director, Research Division, NEA. 





organizations—local, state, and national.” 




















Mental Health in the Classroom 


Personality Development in the Classroom 


CAROLINE B. ZACHRY 


Director, Mental Hygiene Institute, State Teachers College, Upper Montclair, N. J. 


find the same symptomatic behavior 

occurring again and again in the 
same child. Joe usually blames someone 
else or some inanimate object for his 
failures, Mary cries when she does not 
succeed, while John feels ill and asks to 
go home if he is confronted with failure. 
Jenny daydreams and withdraws from 
the group when reality seems hard. 
Charles is noisy and loud and constantly 
brags about his ability to fight and the 
strength of his father or brothers. 

Mental hygiene emphasizes the fact 
that behavior is symptomatic and that it 
is necessary to find out the causes of 
behavior before it is possible to treat it 
intelligently. Behavior patterns such as 
those just described are learned by the 
child in his effort to adjust his biological 
inheritance, his physical makeup, and 
his intelligence, to his environment. Even 
under the most ideal conditions this ad- 
justment is not easy. When a child meets 
a difficulty in his adjustment he tries 
out various ways of behaving and adopts 
that pattern of behaviqr which becomes 
most satisfying to him. We here see the 
laws of learning in regard to behavior 
operating in just the same way that we 
find them operating in the learning oi 
arithmetic, spelling, and history. His per- 
sonality is the total of his behavior pat- 
terns.) This places a new responsibility 
0 school. We realize now that thru 
his environment his personality is grow- 
ing every minute and that that personal- 
ity is our educational responsibility. We 
cannot project the blame for a child’s 
behavior on to hereditary factors alone. 
We accept the hereditary facts for what 
they are worth, realizing that they play 
an enormously important part in the 
total picture, that they are the basis for 
the learned patterns, but that the envi- 
ronment has a karge part to play in ceter- 
mining which patterns will be satisfying 
and therefore will be learned. 

These symptoms that constantly re- 
cur are sometimes spoken of as mechan- 
isms of adjustment. Psychologists have 
given these mechanisms definite names 
which are not important except that they 


ie THE CLASSROOM the teacher will 


this mechanism as an hereditary trait 
and fail to recognize that they have ac- 
tually taught their child to project. A 





Twin bits of personality. 





babyfalls over and bumps his head. It 
is not unusual for the mother to slap the 
floor or, the chair on which he has 
bumped his head saying, “Naughty 
floor” or “Naughty chair” to divert his 
attention. This practise of projecting the 
blame may be continued thruout his 
childhood and his parents will be sur- 
prised and unwilling to accept any re- 
sponsibility for the fact that as a man 
he may blame his stenographer for all 
that goes wrong in the office and his wife 
for all that goés wrong at home. In the 
classroom the teacher has the opportu- 
nity to detect this mechanism and to 
help the youngster to accept the blame 
himself. In doing this he may elicit the 
parents’ cooperation. He may keep in 
mind that the mentally sick adult is the 
one who cannot face his own responsibil- 
ities, tho he need not point out this ex- 
treme to the parents. It is sufficient for 
them to have pointed out the disagree- 
able and unreasonable behavior that this 
mechanism may lead to in adult life. 


simplify our discussion somewhat. Joe’s—— Mary’s tendency to cry over her fail- 
ten me outside of ures and John’s to feel ill when he fails 


imself for his own failures is known as 


projection. Parents too often think of 


= 


are two examples of the same mechan- 
ism, known as regression, or the ten- 


[291] 


dency to turn back to baby ways when 
life is too hard to face. Psychologists who 
disagree as decidedly as the behaviorists 
and the introspectionists seem, on the 
whole, to agree on this one point, that 
these-regressive tendencies that are part 
and parcel of overdependency are respon- 
sible for more nervous invalidism than 
any other one factor. In childhood some 
symptoms of ghis regressive behavior are 
thumb-sucking when the child is tired, 
food fads, enuresis, a sick stomach when 
he is unwilling to face his arithmetic ex- 
amination. This mechanism as seen in 
individuals who are physically adult may 
show itself in the tendency to develop a 
headache or other symptom of illness 
rather than accept the contingencies of 
life on a more mature basis. The general 
medical practitioner knows only too well 
the nervous invalid who produces new 
symptoms each time that the doctor sees 
her. We usually speak of the nervous 
invalid as “her,” tho we know that the 
masculine pronoun also applies. Mental 
illness may provide a totdl flight from 
reality for these physically grownup in- 
fants. 

What is the teacher’s role in this con- 
nection? In the classroom environment 
he must attach satisfaction to growing 
up and annoyance to the tendency to re- 
main a baby. As in all other educational 
matters the positive approach should 
outweigh the negative and as always his 
treatment must be based on a thoro 
understanding of the problems of the in- 
dividual child. Teachers have been try- 
ing to develop maturity in children in 
this way for many years. Mental hygiene 
is pointing out to them a greater variety 
of emotional factors that contribute to 
this maturing process. The teacher must 
realize that his treatment plan of help- 
ing each child to grow up must be dif- 
ferent with each child and must be based 
on former handling at home and in 
school. This again necessitates working 
with the family so that the home and 
school treatment of the problem may be 
consistent. Here again he may point out 
how undesirable regressive behavior is 
in adult life, without discussing at all 
its actual dangers to mental health. 

Jennie daydreams and withdraws from 
the group. Daydreaming, like regression, 
is on the whole an escape mechanism. 


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292 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


[t is extremely important and interest- 
ing because its potentialities and its dan- 
gers are both so great. All individuals, 
young and old, daydream to some ex- 
tent. It is usually considered true that 
with the normal individual the adolescent 
period is the one that is most prolific of 
daydreams, altho daydreaming may con- 
tinue thruout adult life. Daydreams are 
responsible for all the creative work of 
the world—the poetry, music, art, sci- 
ence, engineering, architecture, and all 
that contributes to man’s comfort and 
enjoyment are the results of daydreams. 
As long as the daydream stays in the 
realm of the possible and leads to ulti- 
mate accomplishment it is of enormous 
value; but when the daydream becomes 
satisfying in itself and provides a mere 
escape from the realities of life, the dan- 
gers are great. The child who is physi- 
cally unfit to compete with his com- 
rades, or the child who is intellectually 
inferior to his classmates and never has 
a chance to feel success or the child who 
is rejected at home or has been unable 
to make a place for himself in the group, 
may retire from unpleasant realities into 
a world of his own where he can fashion 
life as he would like to have it. The 
harder reality seems to him, the more 
completely he will withdraw from it and 
the more difficult it is to reach him. The 
constructive daydreamer uses all the 
realities of life to fashion those possibil- 
ities that his imagination conceives and 
that he plans to accomplish. The de- 
structive daydreamer loses contact with 
life’s realities and constructs in his imagi- 
nation a picture of things as he would 
like to have them. The constructive day- 
dreamer becomes the poet, the artist, the 
musician, the physician, the engineer, or 
the scientist, while the destructive day- 
dreamer becomes a quiet, shy, oversen- 
sitive, retiring individual, too frightened 
to face life. All too often he becomes 
a mentally sick individual who has be- 
come so convinced that his daydreams 
are true that he behaves accordingly. 

Another form of destructive day- 
dream common in childhood is the suf- 
fering hero type of dream in which the 
individual feels very sorry for himself 
and phantasies himself as being the reci- 
pient of sympathy or pity. 

The way in which the individual uses 
his daydreams is a matter of education. 
If he has used them destructively too 
long, re-education is difficult. Where does 
the teacher’s responsibility lie in regard 
to this mechanism? 

His first responsibility is to see that 


the child has an opportunity to succeed . 


November, 1931 





in reality and that definite satisfaction 
is attached to his achievement. His sec- 
ond responsibility includes the first but 
is more comprehensive. He must provide 
the child with the opportunity for crea- 
tive endeavor. Thus the child will not 
only be given the opportunity to express 
in a concrete form what he is feeling but 
thru his expression the teacher will be 
given a better opportunity to know the 
child. 

A twelve-year-old girl handed the fol- 
lowing poem to her teacher. [Quoted 
from “Illustrations of English Work in 
the Junior High School,” by Caroline B. 
Zachry, published by Teachers College, 
Columbia University and “Creative 
Youth,” by Hughes Mearns, published 
by Doubleday, Doran & Co.]}: 


TIRED WATER 


I hear it 

Playing on the roof 

In April, 

With a soft, sweet sound. 


I hear it 

Jumping down the rocks 
Like silver, 

With a long, glad bound. 


I hear it, 

The swelling, tossing ocean 

In March, 

Showing its fangs with a roar. 


Rearing 

In a high blue ridge, 
White-capped, 

And beating on the shore. 


The brook, 

So wise and so silly, 

So musical, 

Like cold crystal—at home. 


Tired water, 

Enslaved by man to work 

In mills, 

Struggling for freedom, cannot roam. 


Achieving the poem in itself was satis- 
fying to the child and thus it shifted the 
emphasis from the satisfaction of mere 
dreaming to the satisfaction of achieve- 
ment. The poem is also of importance to 
the teacher because of the further in- 
sight into the girl’s emotional life that it 
gives him. 

Teachers must remember that differ- 
ent levels of creation are satisfying to 
children at different levels of intelligence 
and emotional maturity. A mud pie is as 
satisfying a creative endeavor at one 
level as is the poem just quoted at an- 
other. 

Charles is using the mechanism of 
compensation. He has less intelligence 
than the rest of the group, has never felt 


himself successful in academic work, and 
tries to compensate in physical strength 
for his lack of achievement on the intel- 
lectual level. Compensation is a mechan- 
ism that many people have to use and 
that may be used constructively. There 
are reality situations both biological and 
environmental that make compensation 
a necessity. 

One of life’s realities, the lack of suffi- 
cient intelligence to cope with the group, 
has made it necessary for Charles to 
compensate. Altho he is not conscious of 
his purpose he is trying to get his satis- 
factions in some field in which he hopes 
to succeed. His teacher’s responsibility 
in regard to him is to help him to find 
some of the constructive things in which 
he can achieve. This achievement should 
be accompanied by satisfaction and the 
realization of the worthwhileness of what 
he is doing. 

Often we find puny, physically un- 
developed children with good intelli- 
gences compensating on the intellectual 
level for all of their physical shortcom- 
ings. One of the dangers here is that the 
compensation may become so satisfying 
and absorbing and the desire to excel 
intellectually be developed to such an ex- 
tent that it is difficult to get the child 
to develop his physical body as fully 
as possible. The tendency to overcom- 
pensate often leads to very onesided per- 
sonalities. It is a danger of which the 
teacher should be aware. He must know 
the cause of the child’s overcompensation 
and be able to help him to want to make 
a more all round adjustment. 

Only a few of the mechanisms of ad- 
justment that the teacher meets daily 
have been discussed. We all use mechan- 
isms for coping with our environment 
and the same mechanism may be used 
by us constructively or destructively de- 
pending upon the degree of the mechan- 
ism and the purpose for which we are 
using it. Guidance of these mechanisms 
along constructive rather than destruc- 
tive lines is a definite role of the teacher 
in the development of the child’s per- 
sonality. To fulfill his obligations to chil- 
dren along these lines, he needs a clear 
understanding of the causes lying back 
of the child’s behavior. The social his- 
tory prepared by child guidance clinics 
sets forth these causal elements and its 
value for the teacher will be discussed in 
the December JourNAL. 

With the facts of his past experiences 
in mind the fundamental principle in 
the development of the child’s personal- 
ity is this: Help him to form the habit of 
facing reality squarely. 








Putting the Children’s Charter into Effect 


HE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE has 

already accomplished a great work. 

Its findings are of untold value to 
the nation. In the form of reports of the 
many committees they are now coming 
from the press. But the greater task of 
putting these findings into practise lies 
ahead. In the words of President Hoover 
in his address to the November, 1930, 
Conference: 


Greater than facts and judgments, more fun- 
damental than all, we need the vision and in- 
spired understanding to interpret these facts 
and put them into practise. . . 

One of the biggest of all problems is to drive 
in this idea of the necessity of properly born, 
trained, educated, healthy, moral children to 
the voters and officials of America. This Con- 
ference on Child Health and Protection was a 
start—but only that. We must keep it alive and 
burning. This Conference was the aftermath 
of years of investigation and experience of the 
best and most devoted of Americans. It evolved 
a Children’s Charter of nineteen points that 
needs to be in every household and every gov- 
ernment office. We must follow this national 
Conference with a series of state conferences, 
then group, and finally individual town and 
city conferences, and the Children’s Charter 
must be drawn into the activities of govern- 
ment and of social institutions. 


The best ways of putting the findings 
into practise are now being sought in the 
states. The governors of many states 
have expressed a sincere wish to build a 
constructive child health program. Each 
state should examine its own activities 
in behalf of its children and compare 
them with the ideals expressed in the 
Children’s Charter. The work already 
done in a few states may be briefly sum- 
marized here: 


Indiana was the first state to have a 
White House Conference. Governor Leslie as- 
sumed the leadership. A conference was held 
January 15, 16, and 17. Plans were begun for 
county conferences to follow up the work of 
the state conference and carry the findings of 
the White House Conference into the rural dis- 
tricts and towns and to the people of the state. 
Several county conferences have been held. 

Utah—Governor George H. Dern appointed 
a planning committee of about 25 men and 
women who represented Utah’s public and 
private educational, health, and welfare agen- 
cies. Then committees which conformed to the 
organization of the Conference in Washington 
undertook one or more specific studies that fell 
within the work of their respective agencies. 
The results of their studies were presented at 
the Utah White House Conference on Child 





Health and Protection held in Salt Lake City 
April 6 and 7. At the close of this conference 
a continuation committee was appointed to 





T pure George H. Dern of Utah was a 
speaker at the Los Angeles Convention of 
the NEA. He is a leader in the White House 
Conference followup in Utah. 


act as a consulting body and to assist the exist- 
ing organizations of the state with their fol- 
lowup work. 

Louisiana—The state teachers association 
has agreed to accept, in lieu of its usual con- 
vention, the general and departmental programs 
of the Louisiana White House Conference. The 
joint meeting will be held November 12-14. 

Georgia considered the White House Con- 
ference findings on March 4, 5, and 6. The 
Georgia Child Health and Protection Council 
met with the Georgia Conference on Social 
Work for this purpose. Between eight hundred 
and one thousand people attended the con- 
ference and the group represented practically 
every type of organization in the state. 

New Jersey—Governor Larson asked the 
New Jersey Conference on Social Work to ar- 
range the White House Conference for the state 
which was held April 16-18 in New Brunswick. 
Forty or fifty of the most important civic and 
social organizations cooperated. New Jersey’s 
present program was evaluated in light of the 
White House Conference recommendations. A 
continuation committee was formed to deter- 
mine how weaknesses in the state program 
could be remedied. A report of the New Jersey 
conference has been published. 

New Hampshire—A Conference on Child 
Health and Protection was held on April 30 
and May 1. It was arranged under the direc- 


tion of executives of the state departments of 
Health, Education, and Welfare. Every city 
and county was represented. 

Florida’s White House Conference was ar- 
ranged by the Florida Health Council [now 
called the Florida Health, Welfare, and Edu- 
cation Council] which has undertaken the fol- 
lowup work in that state. 

Mississippi held its White House Confer- 
ence June 26-27 at Jackson. There were three 
conference sessions: education and training, the 
handicapped child, and medical service. 


For those wishing to know the plans 
of these states in greater detail, a booklet 
called The Followup Program in States 
and Counties is available. 

Future conferences—Dates for 
state and community conferences plan- 
ned for the fall and winter are: 


Maine September 18 
Michigan November 9 
Louisiana November 12-14 
Kentucky November 18 
Virginia November 23-24 
Ohio Jan. 26-28, 1932 
Montgomery Co., Dayton, Ohio Sept. 24 
Chicago Citywide Conference Oct. 30-31 


What has your state done P—Other 
states whose plans have not yet been 
formulated are just as keenly interested 
and planning to hold conferences as soon 
as they can complete their organization. 
Teachers and school officials will wish to 
inform themselves as to the status of this 
work in their states. They will wish to 
find out what steps have been taken and 
to assist in every way possible. Only by 
the cooperation of every person and 
agency interested in the welfare of chil- 
dren, can the findings of the Conference 
be most effectively put into practise. 


Help from Washington—The staff 
of the White House Conference on Child 
Health and Protection will be available 
for consultation and help in building pro- 
grams. It will supply without charge 
folder copies of the Children’s Charter 
for the use of states and counties and for 
distribution at conferences. It will, so far 
as possible, cooperate in securing speak- 
ers and discussion leaders. Write the 
Central Administrative Office, White 
House Conference on Child Health and 
Protection, Interior Bldg., Wash., D. C. 


White House Conference publications 


now available are listed in the “Notes and 
Announcements” of this issue. 





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i WE COULD have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand 
other problems of government would vanish. Moreover, one good community nurse will save a 


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dozen policemen.—President Hoover at the White House Conference in Washington, November, 1930. 








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bbw CARTOON was drawn by Eric Bratt of the Mission High School, San Francisco, California. It is one of the outstanding cartoons 
| drawn in 1931 for the school cartoon project sponsored annually by the NEA. Enrolments are now being received for the 1932 project. 








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This poster for your classroom is from thé JouRNAL of the National Education Association. Copies on art paper; 20 for $1; $4 per 100; $30 per 1000. No. 20294] 


} [294] 
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The Education of Teachers 


Liberal Education for Teachers 


HE LAST THIRTY YEARS represent a 
a period of uncertainty and conten- 

tion regarding the preparation of 
teachers. The old normal school in 
its preparation of teachers maintained 
courses in astronomy, advanced mathe- 
matics, logic, the dead languages, philos- 
ophy, and other subjects which attracted 
men of fine intellect but without system- 
atic preparation. Many men are to be 
found today who tell with great delight 
of their experiences as students in classes 
of advanced subjects taken without pre- 
requisites or sequence of courses. These 
men became leaders in the educational 
field and have left a reputation for spe- 
cialized scholarship even superior to their 
reputation as public men. The outstand- 
ing characteristic of this period was the 
detached interests of the various instruc- 
tors and their subjects taught. The chief 
purpose of the teaching was that one 
might have the opportunity of individual 
determination and have the excitement 
of projection into fields that were new 
and, to the student, nearly unknown. 

As I look back over my personal ac- 
quaintance with these outstanding char- 
acters I find that my memory recalls very 
definite and colorful traits. Much time 
was not needed in conversation with an 
individual to discover his particular bent. 
If he were interested in literature, reams 
of poetry and striking prose were at his 
tongue’s end. If he were a student of 
sacred writing, he quoted from the sacred 
Book. If he were interested in mathe- 
matics or logic, formulas were the basis 
of his conversation. 

During this 30-year period there has 
been a constant struggle within the ranks 
of institutions preparing the teaching 
force of the country, over the essential 
elements in what might be termed an edu- 
cation. There are those who persist that 
devices and skills are the earmarks or the 
necessary requirements as a basis for suc- 
cessful leadership as teachers. There is 
another group which holds to the belief 
that richness of scholarship is the found- 
ation and basis for teaching, for which 
all the skills and devices in the world 
cannot be substitutes. 

We have had great controversies over 
the Ph.D. degree. The trouble has not 
been with the Ph.D. degree but with 
many of the samples who presented 


W. A. Lewis 


President, Fort Hays Kansas State College 


themselves as possessed of the degree. 
Twenty years ago the demand for out- 
standing personality was so great that 





Aw professional school 
for the education of teach- 
ers is an institution 


Whose students do not expect to be 
graduated until they have demonstrated 
that they know how to cooperate with 
one another and that they are as willing 
to cooperate with children as with 





teacher associates and official superiors ; 

Whose faculty members are as will- 
ing to learn as they are to teach and | 
who are effective counsellors because | 


they are agreeable companions; 


Whose administrative officers are 
young enough in spirit to find fellow- 
ship with children and youth and who 
are as much concerned to understand | 
them as to instruct them; 

Whose entire membership, including 
students, faculty, and administrative 
officers, are all practised and willing 
participants in the great game of hu- 
man cooperation.—Ambrose L. Suhrie, | 
president, Eastern States Association 
of Professional Schools for Teachers. 














individuals were enticed away from col- 
lege to accept responsible and lucrative 
positions. The individual who was color- 
less and‘lacked the driving personality 
was likely to continue on in college until 
the attainment of the doctorate because 
there was no particular demand for his 
services outside. This situation developed 
a bad taste in the mouths of the admin- 
istrative officers of the educational insti- 
tutions of the country and, as a result, 
there was much discussion as to whether 
it was not prima facie evidence that the 
possession of a doctor’s degree marked 
the individual as not being of first qual- 
ity. Many executives ranted against the 
possession of the doctor’s degree, taking 
it for granted it was because of study that 
the possessors were second raters and not 
realizing the Lord had neglected to en- 
dow some of them prior to birth. 

Now the demand for service is not so 
keen and men have time to devote to 
scholarship. The fact that men in great 
numbers are possessed with the ambi- 
tion to acquire this depth of scholarship 
makes it about as easy to find a man with 
a doctor’s degree who has fine personal- 
ity, initiative, and broad scholarship, as 


[ 295 } 


it used to be difficult. I think most execu- 
tives are coming to the decision that the 
documentary evidence of scholarship 
sufficient for a standard university to 
confer the doctor’s degree bears no rela- 
tion to the personality, but does have a 
very definite relation to the standards of 
scholarship the individual is likely to 
represent and require later on the cam- 
pus of the college. 

All the foregoing leads me to the ker- 
nel of my subject, which is, that the 
basic requirement for undergraduate 
scholarship is the graduate scholarship 
of the faculty, that experience is a fine 
resource upon which people may call in 
time of emergency, but sound scholar- 
ship is the storehouse whose supplies have 
been garnered by systematic and thoro 
application. Scholarship should be pre- 
ferred, first and foremost, to all the re- 
sults of institutional training. 

It seems to me we have been short- 
sighted in the profession of teaching. 
The teachers colleges and the men in 
schools of education have discovered 
devices by which the personal equation 
of the student may be determined some- 
what, as well as his ability to accept a 
thoro scholarly development. Yet in the 
field of teaching we have not used these 
devices. We have left it to the American 
Medical Association, the engineering 
profession, and the law to adopt what 
we have discovered. These professions 
demand that a student demonstrate his 
aptitude for accepting their exacting 
training by showing a high type of 
scholarship in at least two years of 
preparation in college. This preparation 
is for the definite purpose of giving gen- 
eral scholarship and permitting the in- 
dividual to determine whether he pos- 
sesses the ability to go into more exact- 
ing fields where differentiation enters. 
Our trouble in the teaching profession is 
that we plunge into differentiations the 
first semester of the freshman enrolment 
without first establishing a basis of sound 
scholarship. I have a very definite con- 
viction in my own mind that the day 
has come when the genuine teachers col- 
lege is going to require a basis of two 
years of collegiate preparation which 
must precede all differentiated courses 
which are designed to professionalize the 
individual. 





Rae ae ek a ee 


296 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





In consultation with three university 
deans of Class A schools of medicine, 
law, and engineering, I found there was 
very little, if any, difference in their re- 
quirements as to what the students do 
the first two years in college. Now if these 
professions, differing so widely, can reach 
and use such a common basis, it seems to 
me commonsense ought to dictate to the 
institutions that educate teachers that 
we have been exaggerating beyond all 
bounds the importance of what we are 
pleased to call our specialized courses 
leading to different certificates the first 
two years. We presented the foregoing 
case to the legislature of Kansas and 
asked them to take the word “teachers” 
out of our title, in order that we might 
build on this campus an atmosphere that 
would require first of all a foundation of 
general scholarship. To emphasize schol- 
arship still further we added one year of 
graduate work. The results have been 
most satisfactory. 

Usually the liberal arts college played 
up the importance of substance and be- 
littled the idea that there might be a 
method of presentation employed. The 
old normal schools emphasized, and some 
of the presentday teachers colleges still 
emphasize, the importance of methods 
and devices and concern themselves little 
with substance. The modern state col- 
lege must be scientific and experimental. 
Since the basis for successful laboratory 
achievement is always understanding, it 
naturally follows that the modern college 
must emphasize and must _ require 
scholarship. 

The personal element in teaching is 
the important factor. The constant ad- 
monition to the graduate of this College 
is that they shall immediately upon 
graduation ‘forget the specific things 
taught them in college, and when they 
go into the schoolroom become an indi- 
viduality of their own building, and out 
of their own life and their own knowl- 
edge and their own ideas construct their 
method of procedure. It is invariably 
true that the teacher with background 
who depends upon herself for the pro- 
gram of the schoolroom succeeds far more 
than the teacher who depends upon the 
college classroom and her notebooks of 
devices and skills. To illustrate: prob- 
ably one of the poorest taught subjects 
in the curriculum of the public school is 
geography. The reason is that geography 
has been accepted as a matter of data 
and if studied at all it has had no human 
relationship. The history, the sociology, 
and the economics which should be the 


foundation of all studies in geography, 
have never been touched. Scholarship 
has not been a factor. Memory has been 
the only requirement. The result is a 
product of indifference, inaccuracies, 
and misunderstandings. Until we get a 
profound conviction abroad in the land 
that the basis of doing anything well is 
founded on the expanding and under- 
standing mind, we will continue to have 
samples of public school disappointments 
which we now have. The surgeon, before 
he performs a major operation, deter- 
mines and checks all factors involved in 
the operation. He uses the microscope, 
the test tube, and his years of experience 
and study to lead him in the operation. 
When these instrumentalities are not 
used, or indifferently used, serious con- 
sequences usually result. Teaching, un- 
fortunately, is not checked up in so 
thoro a manner. 

I am profoundly convinced that on the 
state college campus, where teachers are 
developed, there must be research for 
the purpose of stimulating individual 
scholarship and not necessarily to com- 
pete with the state university. There must 
be some exacting subjects offered and 
there must be a breadth of study under 
men of scholarship so that richness of 
life may be so constantly exemplified 
that selfpride will drive the student on 
to greater accomplishment. 

The graduate degree is the hallmark 
of the individual for purposes of employ- 
ment but the exemplified evidence of his 
scholarship, of course, must substantiate 
the meaning of the degree. 

The stalking, haunting trouble-maker 
on the campus of the modern college is 
the individual “credit hour.” How many 
credit hours have I in this and how many 
credit hours must I get in that, before 
the institution will grant me a certificate 
or a diploma? Not the rewards of per- 
sonal scholarship but technical equip- 
ment and time-service are the criteria 
that enable teachers to draw public 
money. In the presentday world, with its 
swiftly traveling life, the college must 
produce scholarship because the individ- 
ual has neither the leisure nor the oppor- 
tunity of acquiring it after leaving col- 
lege. 

I am willing to admit I do not agree 
with the major portion of people engaged 
in the training of teachers. I have reached 
the conclusion expressed in this article 
after a period of 30 years, 12 years asa 
professor responsible for a division in a 
college and university and 18 years as 


the president of a college, watching the 





November, 1931 


boys and girls who caught the mean- 
ing and significance of scholarship and 
watching those who never became aware 
of its importance. No one needs scholar- 
ship more than does the teacher. No one 
has more opportunity for stimulation 
than the teacher. Stimulation comes 
thru exemplification of richness of mind 
and tongue and awakening of possibili- 
ties and desires. 

The teachers college should have as its 
major concern the scholarship of the 
prospective teacher. I do not believe it is 
possible that one may get his scholarship 
on one campus and then go to another 
campus for his skills and devices. The 
atmosphere and attitude of mind of the 
campus are as much a part of the found- 
ation of the teacher and his preparation 
as are the classes. The whole program, in 
my judgment, should be found on one 
campus. The atmosphere of scholarship 
with the ambition to succeed, the de- 
velopment of the understanding of life, 
and the acquiring of the capacity for do- 
ing things—all these are of contemporary 
growth and cannot be added to, one after 
another, as the placing of brick upon 
brick in a wall. It seems to me whenever 
we attempt to build an individual as we 
build a brick wall the individual will rep- 
resent the type of his construction. Schol- 
arship should be the foundation. Scholar- 
ship should be the aim and determination 
of the institution in establishing this 
sound preparation of the individual. The 
many fields of differentiation follow. Only 
thus is to be found an understanding of 
“what it is all about.” Having once ac- 
quired such understanding, the future is 
a period of refinement and productive 
accomplishment. 

We have been putting the accomplish- 
ments of the human race into textbooks 
and gathering these books together and 
calling them a curriculum. It is my 
thought that the first two years of col- 
lege should not be clouded with anything 
which would detract from the possibilities 
of the student’s rounded development as 
a whole-bodied and whole-souled human 
being, eager to grasp and use the riches 
of human life and record. 

The individuality and differentiations 
of the human race should be put in the 
junior-senior years. Then having set up 
the program, having definitely estab- 
lished a basis for scholarship, our next 
step is unswervingly to require it. It 
seems to me in this day and age we have 
reached the place where we should take 
our stand and say that hereafter we are 
going to deal in truth. 





superintendent of schools in any 

county or city, large or small, I 
should set up an experiment and keep it 
set up as long as I stayed there, dealing 
with one of the essential and important 
aspects of education in that county or 
city. I should keep myself and my staff 
working with that experiment and en- 
deavoring to achieve something of my 
own of an original sort in which I should 
appiy the most accurate methods of our 
times to the measurement and study of 
the procedure to discover whether we 
could not do it better. I should get other 
discovered knowledge and apply it to that 
situation. I should like for the children’s 
parents to feel that my staff and I were 
capable of working out something for our- 
selves.”—Bruce R. Payne, president, 
George Peabody College for Teachers. 

This page of pioneering projects en- 
courages schools to try new things, to use 
their resources and initiative. Write to 
the superintendents of city, county, or 
state departments of education, to presi- 
dents of colleges, and to principals of 
schools mentioned on this page for addi- 
tional information. Readers are invited 
to send material for this page. 

Elementary schools—Seattle now 
has a three-year plan for the extension of 
kindergarten opportunities to every five- 
year-old child in the city. 

Child study groups of the Tower Hill 
School, Wilmington, Delaware, include a 
discussion group for fathers and one on 
personality adjustment and family rela- 
tionships. 

The purchase of library books by the 
elementary schools of Louisiana for the 
last half of the school year 1930-31 has 
shown more than 100 percent increase 
over corresponding purchases of last year. 

High schools—The Marion C. Early 
High School, District No. 5, Morrisville, 
Missouri, for several years has been ex- 
perimenting with an essay contest as a 
means of getting high-school pupils in- 
terested in college. The theme for the 
contest is “Why I should select some cer- 
tain college or university for some par- 
ticular course.” The essays are judged 
by college faculty members. About 75 
percent of graduates from this school have 
continued their studies thru college. 

Highland Springs High School, Hen- 
rico County, Virginia, has an experi- 
mental building for boys in home build- 
ing, including landscaping the home 


I I WERE starting to be any sort of 


An Index of Educational Progress 


Schools That Are Prophecies 


grounds, accounting and budgeting per- 
sonal accounts, furnishing a boy’s room, 
making conveniences for the home, mar- 
keting, etiquette, and the like. 


AMES N. RULE, recently appointed superin- 
J tendent of public instruction in Pennsyl- 
vania. Soon after taking office Superintendent 
Rule named a commission of educators to de- 


velop a ten-year program for public education 
in Pennsylvania. 





Colleges and universities — Yale 
University’s first summer conference for 
advanced students of education has been 
undertaken as a three-year experiment. 
Each student is expected to contribute to 
the success of the conference by making 
available the results of his reading, think- 
ing, and general experience. Time is re- 
served for reading, group discussions, and 
personal meetings with faculty members. 

Parker People’s College was organized 
in December, 1929, to give people of 
Parker District, South Carolina, a com- 
prehensive adult education program. En- 
rolment in the second session was nearly 
three times that in the first one. 

Teachers colleges and normal 
schools—Beginning this fall all state 
teachers colleges in Oklahoma will make 
physical and medical examinations of all 
students. Since the colleges do not have 
infirmary buildings, arrangements have 
been made with local hospitals to provide 
this service. 

The Fort Wayne, Indiana, State 
School has organized a summer school 


[ 297] 





for the training of teachers of subnor- 
mal and problem children. 

City departments of education-— 
The U.S. Bureau of Standards announces 
that within the past two years 95 new 
planning commissions have been ap- 
pointed in the United States, bringing the 
total to 786. Many of these new com- 
missions were appointed in small towns 
and villages where greater opportunity 
for community planning is possible than 
in great cities. 

Miami, Oklahoma, schools offered free 
instrumental music instruction during 
the past vacation. This is the second year 
this plan has been offered. 

County departments of education 
—As the result of a five-year campaign, 
every rural town and consolidated school 
in Polk County, Iowa, now has a parent- 
teacher association. 

Rockland County, New York, has an 
itinerant vocational counselor who di- 
vides his services among schools that con- 
tribute to his salary. 

State departments of education— 
Higher qualifications for new candidates 
for the office of county school commis- 
sioner [superintendent |] have been set up 
by the Michigan legislature as follows: 
twenty-seven months experience as a 
teacher in the public schools of the state; 
a Michigan teacher’s life certificate; and 
in counties with one hundred or more 
schoolrooms, a graduate of a college, uni- 
versity, or state normal school ‘with a 
bachelor of arts or a science degree. 

The state board of education of Con- 
necticut voted that for a period of five 
years from July 1, 1931, character edu- 
cation research should be maintained as 
a regularly organized office activity. 

Education associations—Five coun- 
ties in South Carolina in 1930-31 were 
Class A counties because they met these 
requirements: 100 percent membership 
in county and state education associa- 
tions, 25 percent in NEA, six meetings 
of the county association during the 
school year with 75 percent of the teach- 
ers in average attendance. These achieve- 
ments were reached because of profes- 
sional standards set by South Carolina 
teachers for county education ass’ns. 

A new teachers’ retirement fund law 
passed the Minnesota legislature in April, 
1931. The Minnesota Education Ass’n, 
thru its legislative committee and other 
workers, has been working for this law 
for ten years. 








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Growth of Summer School Attendance 
[Prepared by the Research Division of the National Education Association] 





















































Summer school enrolment: | | Summer school Percent | 
| Pe bean til enrolment in 1931 thaten- | 
| Estimated Total | Number of |__ ‘ —________| rolmentin | Rank 
States and other oomper 1929 | 1930 | number of | po vere courses in of 
units ° ' a — | summer schools , education column 
teachers’ | schools | reporting a... Copeane -y in 1931 is of 11 
All | Courses in | All Courses in | 1931? | 1931 “ number of | 
courses | education courses education | teichers | 
1 2 3 4 5 2 | 8 9 10 ll | 12 
4 ‘ —— onitiniaiiatiidia es . ene Se pecie } - . ietbangrinninnenncil setndesaniia ] ” 
United States 956 , 600 414,824 270,237 421,435 273,494 654 | 623 425,100 | 273,148 28.6 
} | 
Alabama 17,500 10,192 | 7,796 | 10,697 8,679 14 13 10,078 7,174 41.0 
Arizona 3,300 990 962 1,192 719 2 2 1,211 919 | 27.8 
Arkansas 13,700 3,629 | 3,288 3,638 2,966 11 | 9 | 4,369 3,189 23.3 
California 43,500 23,094 | 11,167 20,225 10, 268 20 | 20 19,114 6,616 | 15.2 
| Colorado 11,000 8,953 5,804 8,621 5,948 10 } 10 9,512 6,557 | 59.6 
j i | | 
Connecticut 12,000 993 882 1,149 1,060 | 2 2 1,202 1,202 | 10.0 
| Delaware 1,600 332 257 338 231 1 1 440 365 22.8 
| District of Columbia 3,100 2,39] 1,054 3,174 1,265 | 5 4 3,455 908 | 29.3 
Florida 12,000 2,604 1,804 2,551 1,809 3 | 3 2,790 2,275 19.0 
| Georgia 19,500 8.305 5,107 7,979 4,163 16 16 7, 884 4,259 21.8 
' 
Idaho 5,000 896 791 794 702 6 6 847 | 739 14.8 
Illinois 48 ,000 24,690 13,499 25,585 16,426 34 31 24,951 13,762 | 28.7 
Indiana 26.000 12,645 9,093 13,433 10,154 | 20 19 11,820 8,605 | 33.1 
eS 27 ,000 11,930 6,695 10,071 6,286 20 16 10,025 6,783 | 25.1 
Kansas 20,500 10,907 7,452 10, : 7,232 “e 
Kentucky 17.000 9,061 6,559 | 9,239 | 6,824 19 18 9,591 6,482 38.1 9 
Louisiana 12,500 6,915 4,358 | 7,296 2,988 11 11 7,736 3,833 | 30.7 21 
Maine 6,800 1,632 1,496 | 1,474 | 1,308 8 8 1,631 1,406 | 20.7 | 36 
Maryland 9,000 2,405 1,590 | 2,28 | 1,590 5 5 2,907 1,999 | 22.2 | 34 
Massachusetts 27,000 8,711 3,649 8,550 | 3,269 18 18 8, 806 3,894 | 14.4 44 
Michigan 35,000 14,328 7,876 | 15,938 9,547 21 19 18 ,047 11,696 33.4 16 
Minnesota 23,000 9,122 4,833 | 9,438 4,402 10 | 10 8,931 | G,2Z231 | 27.0 | 27 
Mississippi 21,000 3,382 2,590 | 3,589 | 2,577 9 9 a,408) 4 2,262 | 10.8 | 47 
Missouri 25,500 14,659 11,200 13,849 | 9,070 23 22 14,677 | 10,979 | 43.1 7 
Montana 6,700 789 521 1,377 1,011 5 4 1,419 1,107 16.5 41 
Nebraska 16,000 8,212 6,440 | 7,628 6,495 | a 1s | = 7,890 6,044 | 37.8 
Nevada 950 132 111 | 149 116 | 1 1 118 73 hat 
New Hampshire 3,250 515 356 483 332 | 2 } 2 566 400 12.3 
New Jersey 29,000 962 1,536 | 3,488 2,260 | 10 } 10 | 4,316 | 2,560 | 8.8 
New Mexico 3,600 1,850 1,579 | 1,906 1,624 4 3 2,359 | 1,963 | 54.5 
New York. 76,000 41,079 21,403 | 42,463 | 22,678 34 34 43 ,663 22,776 30.0 
North Carolina 25,000 9,960 8,100 10,580 8,011 19 19 8,614 6,601 26.4 
North Dakota 10,000 3,880 3,232 4,263 3,567 8 8 4,752 3,752 37.5 
Ohio . 46, 500 19,119 13,092 21,223 14,214 | 32 31 19,564 11,808 | 25.4 
Oklahoma 20,500 16,500 12,607 17 ,089 10,790 | 14 12 16,871 10,023 | 48.9 
} | | 
Oregon. . 9,000 3,833 2,816 | 3,884 2,602 10 10 4,442 | 2.768 30.8 
Pennsylvania 64 ,000 22,394 15,694 23,894 15,643 44 43 23,278 | 18,016 28.2 
Rhode Island 5,000 224 215 225 210 | 1 1 217 44 9 
| South Carolina 13,500 3,429 2,737 3,299 2,510 7 7 3,087 2,423 | 17.9 
South Dakota... 9,500 2,612 2 ,066 2,333 1,734 11 10 2,716 | 1,958 | 20.6 
| | | 
Tennessee. . 18,500 12,519 11,326 | 12,241 10,473 oe 19 | 11,336 | 10,037 54.3 
Texas. . 44,000 32,857 21,575 29,475 19,290 40 | 40 30,266 | 21,307 48.4 
i See 5,000 1,572 1,014 1,691 1,109 4 4 | 1,649 588 11.8 
Vermont. } 3,300 1,536 700 1,482 716 2 2 | 1,523 } 814 24.7 
Virginia... } 17,500 7,706 | 6,036 7,988 5,760 15 14 | 8,128 | 6,107 | 34.9 
| 
Washington | 13,000 6,476 | 4,049 6,740 4,774 9 9 10,046 5,957 45.8 
| West Virginia. 16, 300 7,220 | 5,513 7,409 § 253 16 16 8,046 5,822 35.7 
| Wisconsin. . 21,500 $2,272 | 5,967 12,148 7,433 14 14 12,232 6,881 32.0 
Wyoming..... a 1 PS 
Hawaii... .. ' | 2,500 1,193 839 1,313 995 2 2 1,324 928 37.1 12 
Philippine Islands | 28,000 2,991 2,716 | 2 1 1,096 1,096 3.9 51 
Porto Rico 5,000 22 943 850 1 1 1,250 957 19.1 38 


















EAD TABLE as follows: In Ala- 
bama there are 17,500 teachers, 


























principals, superyisors, and adminis- 
trative officers in public elementary 
and secondary schools. In this state 
14 institutions conduct summer 
schools. A report was obtained from 
13 of these institutions as to summer 
school enrolment in 1931. These 13 
institutions reported a total summer 
school enrolment of 10,078. Of this 
total, 7,174 were enroled in teacher- 
training or education courses. In 
Alabama the ratio of summer sthool 
enrolment in education courses to 
the number of teachers in the 
state is 41.0 percent. This percent 
gives Alabama a rank of 8 in this 
regard. 

In interpreting the figures of this 
table it should be kept in mind that 





some states offer fewer and less attrac- 
tive opportunities for summer school 
work than others. Consequently, 
many teachers attend summer school 
outside the states of their service. 
For this reason columns 11 and 12 
should not be interpreted as a meas- 
ure of the number of teachers serving 
in any state who attended summer 
school. Furthermore, many teachers 
now gain their professional advance 
in extension courses during the regu- 
lar years This table takes no account 
of such work. 

Considered as a whole the table in- 
dicates a strong desire on the part of 
teachers thruout the nation to im- 
prove their professional preparation. 


1 The figures as to number of teach- 
ers are estimates based upon the 





[ 298 ] 










latest and most reliable data avail- 
able. They include teachers, princi- 
pals, supervisors, and administrative 
officers. 

? The number of institutions in this 
column is that reported in the Educa- 
tional Directory for 1931, United 
States Office of Education, Bulletin, 
1931, No. 1. All institutions listed in 
this Directory were given three oppor- 
tunities toreport. Of the 654 institu- 
tions conducting summer sessions, 
623, or 95 percent, reported. A com- 
plete report was received from all 
institutions in 33 states and terri- 
tories. The rank of a few is consider- 
ably lowered because one or more of 
their institutions failed to report. 
Such states may be identified by com- 
paring columns 7 and 8. 

















A Neglected Educational Frontier 


rapid gains in selfrespect and lay 

esteem. Such results have come from 
the profession’s insistence upon higher 
standards and the increases in salary 
which have followed. But the work done 
by more than one hundred thousand jan- 
itor-engineers employed in the schools 
has such a direct bearing upon the work 
of the profession itself that the lack of 
improvement in personnel of this supple- 
mentary division seems strangely incon- 
sistent. The fact that janitor-engineers 
work in school buildings and that the ef- 
ficiency of their service directly or indi- 
rectly affects all the work of the school, 
requires that these educational employees 
be dominated by the same fundamental 
ideals as motivate superintendents, prin- 
cipals, and teachers themselves. They 
should also be given adequate training 
for the service they perform. 

The responsibility of the educational 
profession for guaranteeing the domi- 
nance of high educgtional ideals among 
the members of this allied group can be 
realized best by placing the services of 
the latter upon as high a level as possible. 
This goal likewise can be achieved by the 
establishment of higher standards. In the 
absence of leadership from the profession 
itself these employees are turning to trade 
unionism and politics for their standards 
and leadership. They are resorting to 
strikes to close schools and to political 
wire-pulling and log-rolling in order to 
hold their jobs or control the conditions 
of their service. 

Not a few school administrators have 
actually lost their positions as a result of 
the influence of janitors working thru 
questionable political channels. Every in- 
experienced teacher should be informed 
of the undue power exercised by janitors 
in determining her reputation in the com- 


Precis sxins EDUCATION is making 


Harry S. GANDERS 


Dean, Teachers College, Syracuse University 


munity, both as an individual and as a 


the janitor may be less restrained than 


teacher. Teachers of experience know /the average professional worker from re- 


how janitors and engineers can facilitate, 





HE PROPER ATTITUDE of all 

has much to do with the 
degree of pride which the jani- 
tor maintains toward his work 
and toward the school. Many 
cities have definite regulations 
regarding the duties of the 
school janitor. Printed rules 
indicate the frequency of 
sweeping, dusting, mopping, 
oiling, window-washing, set- | 
ting the clocks, and the like. | 
These regulations are doubt- | 
less desirable and even neces- 
sary, yet nothing can supplant 
a fine working spirit, a sense of 
pride, and a feeling of respon- 
sibility toward the success of 
the school—From The Ad- 
ministration of an Elementary 
School, by Arthur S. Gist, one 
of the Sixty Educational Books 
of 1928. 











their work or make teaching in the build- 
ing intolerable. Thousands of teachers 
have félt impotent in the face of jani- 
torial influence. 

This unwarranted importance of jani- 
tors is partly-due to a relatively long 
residence in the community, to the fact 
that they are taxpayers and members of 
long standing in local churches, lodges, 
and clubs. In smaller cities and villages it 
is not unusual to find the janitor an older 
man whose home is one of the best and 
whose relatives hold important positions 
in the community. Not infrequently, this 
power to array public opinion against 
the teacher emanates from the fact that 


peating malicious gossip. The fact that 
there are good janitors whose influence 
is exactly in the opposite direction sup- 
ports rather than detracts from the argu- 
ment that there should be marked im- 
provement in this division of the school 
personnel. 

It would be an error to place all the 
responsibility for maladjustment on one 
side. Thoughtless superintendents or 
principals have been supercilious or dic- 
tatorial. The reaction of the typical 
teacher to the term janitor is a meaning- 
ful shrug of the shoulder and too often 
a scornful glance. There is a hint that 
“the janitor is overpaid in comparison 
with the salaries of teachers.” Even 
though in some instances justified, this 
attitude is unintelligent and will never 
lead to improvement. Nor will an atti- 
tude that the whole case is hopeless ever 
better the situation. 

If school people feel that janitorial- 
engineering service is undignified, cer- 
tainly that attitude cannot be based upon 
the unworthiness or unimportance of this 
service to education. The years of train- 
ing required of men who qualify as 
school janitor-engineers in such cities as 
Minneapolis and Los Angeles, the train- 
ing being given these employees in a half 
dozen leading institutions of higher learn- 
ing, the amount of technical knowledge 
that necessarily must be possessed by the 
more able men in charge of modern 
school plants, and the high ideals of serv- 
ice to school children and to the profes- 
sion of education which is witnessed in 
hundreds of school systems, all are char- 
acteristics which justify a rating of this 
service on the highest possible scale of 
skilled labor, if not on an actual semi- 
professional plane. 












| 
men. The time has passed, with the passing of the little frame schoolhouse, when any unfortunate | 
cripple, moron, or aged man whom industry cannot use can be expected adequately to fill the responsible | 
position of janitor, or engineer, or even assistant to school officials. Involved in the janitor’s responsibility | 
are the health and safety of the children of the school. “The sanitary condition of the classrooms, toilet rooms, | 
and grounds; the maintenance of even temperatures at the best degrees in classrooms, gymnasiums, and | 
dressingrooms; the supply of pure, tempered, and humidified air—all bear a definite relationship to the 
| health of school children. Cubberley maintains that “Outside of the principal, no one has more influence 
over the physical wellbeing of the children in the school than has the janitor.”"—-From School Building Man- 
| agement, by C. E. Reeves and H. S. Ganders, one of the Sixty Educational Books of 1928. 











[ 299 ] 





TS hilt 


ane Te 


I 








300 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


The major claim to excellence of 
school housing in thousands of school 
communities rests ultimately upon a 
school plant operated by efficient school 
janitor-engineers. Whether interiors of 
school structures are things of beauty as 
are the exteriors, depends upon the jani- 
tor. The operation of modern school 
plants requires a knowledge of the scien- 
tific principles involved in heating and 
ventilation, electricity, gas and steam en- 
gines, air pressure and vacuums, bat- 
teries, motors, and practical knowledge 
of certain phases of chemistry and phys- 
ics. The health of school children is de- 
pendent upon sanitary conditions, even 
temperature, pure and humidified air. It 
is the janitor-engineer who in large meas- 
ure prevents sickness, nervous disorders, 
colds, and fatigue which militate against 
successful school work. 

In most six-year elementary schools 
the janitor-engineer is the only repre- 
sentative of American manhood with 
whom the children come in contact dur- 
ing the entire school day. He has much 
to do with their conduct in corridors, 
basements, and lavatories. He may 
share generously in their supervision on 
the playgrounds. By his example and 
functions he, more than anyone else, 
may teach ideals of cleanliness. The con- 
dition of his building has an important 
bearing upon school morale. Teaching 
and learning are directly affected by 
temperature, ventilation, amount of light 
admitted thru windows, and clean, cheer- 
ful, and inviting classrooms. In short, 
janitorial-engineering service is so much 
a part of the educational process, contri- 
buting directly to the learning and char- 
acter development of the children, that 
only intelligent, specially educated, and 











moral men and women of the highest 
ideals and competence should be tol- 
erated inside a school. 


Helpful References 


apes N. L., Reeves, C. E., 
AND WomraTH, G. F. Standards 
for Public School Janitorial-Engineer- 
ing Service. Bureau of Publications, 
Teachers College, Columbia Univer- 
sity, 1926. 

Garser, G. A. The School Janitor. 
U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 
1922, No. 24.Washington, D.C. 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., BoARD oF Epvu- 
CATION. Rules and Regulations for Jani- 
torial-Engineering Service. {Available 
in pamphlet form. ] 

Reeves, C. E. An Analysis of Janitor 
Service in Elementary Schools. Teach- 
ers College, Columbia University, 1925. 

Reeves, C. E., AaNp GANpers, H. S. 
School Building Management. Strayer, 
G. D., and Engelhardt, N. L., School 
Administration Series. Teachers Col- 
lege, Columbia University, 1928. 

Smitn, K. G. Short Course for Jani- 
tor-Engineers. Bruce Publishing Co., 
Milwaukee, Wisc., 1919. 





The evolution of the profession of 
nursing may be suggestive of what can 
be done. There was not always a profes- 
sion of nursing. Time was when any 
woman acquaintance or friend performed 
as best she could, the functions incident 
to bedside care. The profession of medi- 
cine at last saw that this untrained and 
relatively inefficient help was inadequate 
to the modern demands of medicine it- 
self. Today schools for nurses are as com- 
mon as schools for doctors. Candidates 
are carefully selected, prerequisite edu- 
cational levels are established, and strict 


November, 1931 


certification under state supervision is 
the rule. Nursing has become a real sub- 
sidiary profession because of the import- 
ance and character of the service it rend- 
ers to medicine. In like manner, jani- 
torial-engineering personnel, because of 
the character and importance of its serv- 
ice to education, might well be placed on 
a much higher occupational level than it 
now enjoys. Citizens whose homes are 
kept sanitary, models of cleanliness and 
order, will support a movement to better 
janitorial-engineering service in the 
schools. 

To accomplish the desired elevation of 
this service which now numbers many 
uneducated, unintelligent, untrained, and 
incompetent persons, an organization 
must be effected within the local school 
system to make possible intelligent selec- 
tion and subsequent training of this 
group of educational workers. Only indi- 
viduals of unimpeachable character 
should be employed. They should have 
had a high-school education, be well- 
mannered, of good disposition, and will- 
ing to work. They should be given a 
special education to fit them for the serv- 
ice, preferably thru formal training as 
well as thru wellplanned apprenticeship. 
Physical, mental, moral, and educational 
fitness must be made prerequisites for 
entrance upon such a regime. This group 
of school employees must be imbued with 
educational ideals as well as skill in tech- 
nic. 

The final result might well be the de- 
velopment of a semiprofession of school 
janitorial-engineering service whose 
members would be carefully selected, 
trained, and controled by school authori- 
ties with certification being granted 
under state supervision. 


a 


A FINE a school building as this one—and there are thousands of them in the country—deserves the best of janitorial-engineering 
service. Such service protects and beautifies the building and grounds and makes the work of teachers and pupils doubly effective. 





Vitalized Group Study and Faculty Meetings 


TEACHER may be ever so intel- 
A lectual and ingenious but his one 
brain will not be able to produce 
the progressive thoughts and experi- 
ments to which educational publications 
give space. He needs the reaction of 
others to pedagogical theories. There- 
fore he cannot afford to become selfsuffi- 
cient in his methods. He should read 
professional magazines and books deal- 
ing with educational problems in general 
and give particular time to articles re- 
lating to his own field. You do not care 
to leave some personal physical disorder 
in the hands of a doctor who fails to 
keep abreast of the times in the field of 
medicine. The thinking parent does not 
desire that his child be taught by a 
teacher who fails to read professional lit- 
erature. The professional-minded teacher 
is constantly seeking selfimprovement— 
striving for a greater understanding of 
the human mind, searching for new 
methods of procedure, contributing to 
the general atmosphere of the school. 
The growth of the teacher means growth 
for the school and its pupils.”—D. L. 
McCormac in SouthCarolina Education. 
In this month of November, when so 
many schools have completed enrolment 
in state and national education associa- 
tions and many others are about to do 
the same thing, it is helpful to review 
the services of the National Education 
Association: 


It works for the youth of the nation. 

It advocates better salaries for better teachers. 

It stands for improved tenure regulations and 
retirement allowances; for fuller recognition of 
the work of teachers. 

It brings to the spotlight worthy school ac- 
tivities. 

It broadcasts progress and worthy achieve- 
ments. 

It is a clearinghouse for local and state asso- 
ciations. 

It is the voice of tiose in service. 

It shapes the ideals of the profession. 

It is the power plant of educational progress. 

It holds annually two inspiring conventions 
which stimulate thought on educational prob- 
lems. 

It has twenty departments studying problems 
in their special fields. It has a number of com- 
mittees conducting important investigations. 

It issues a JOURNAL that carries to all mem- 
bers reports of its activities, accounts of edu- 
cational progress, and material which every 
teacher needs for professional growth. 

It maintains headquarters in the national 
capital where a carefully selected staff collects, 
organizes, and disseminates information which 
furnishes a background for public support of 
education and for improved educational con- 
ditions. 


It is focusing the attention of millions of 
citizens upon the basic needs of public educa- 
tion thru American Education Week. 

It binds the teachers of the nation into one 
great professional organization with a common 
purpose, a common understanding, and com- 
mon ideals. 


The services of your state education 
association are indispensable. Your state 
journal of education is the only medium 
thru which you can keep in complete 
touch with the profession in your state. 
In the September, 1931, issue of the 
Minnesota Journal of Education is this 
statement: ‘““Teachers—your state asso- 
ciation saved you this year from $2.50 
to $20 in refunds on the old retirement 
fund. The Minnesota Education Ass’n 
was your friend, spokesman, and pro- 
tector. Result—the new retirement fund 
law.” An editorial in Midland Schools, 
the journal of the Iowa State Teachers 
Association, says: 


Nearly every good school law upon the stat- 
ute books of the state, nearly every important 
movement in education, nearly everything that 
is being done for the improvement of teachers 
and teaching has been accomplished either 
thru the initiation or the cooperation of your 
organization. 

It is in the midst of such adverse situations 
as we now confront that we come to realize 
the importance of cooperation on the part of 
the school forces of the state. No one is wise 
enough to prophesy what is to happen in edu- 
cational matters, what is to happen to schools 
in the next year. Therefore, no one can proph- 
esy just what activities and attitudes teachers 
must assume. We must be prepared for any- 
thing and everything. The executive committee 
of your Association urges the importance of 
every teacher in Iowa being so closely related 
to the organization that he can keep in con- 
stant and active touch with what is going on 
over the state. Services such as these are per- 


haps the most important the Association ren- 
ders. 


As teachers and administrators use the 
publications of their state and national 
education associations for group study 
and faculty meetings, their professional 
growth is noticeable. Children benefit 
from improved instruction, fellow work- 
ers are influenced to professional growth, 
and the community attitude toward its 
schools is friendly when alert, wellin- 
formed teachers are giving service. 

Page 261 of the October JouURNAL 
gives suggestions for planning and con- 
ducting group study; also a list of recent 
NEA publications. 

Dr. A. E. Winship, nestor of American 
education, says that educational maga- 
zines should work for children, not for 


[ 301 ] 


teachers. Let’s examine this issue of the 
JOURNAL to see what articles would be 
of direct help to teachers in their work 
with young people. 


Adjusting College Education to the Indi- 
vidual. Is the author considering students or 
institutions? Would this article guide you in 
advising students as to their selection of a 
college ? 

Democratic Spirit in the One-Room School. 
Here is a definite attempt by a state normal 
college to adapt individual instruction to rural 
children. 

Children’s Joy in Design. Freedom and re- 
sponsibility were given to children in this art 
project with happy results. Could you plan 
projects for children based on the ideas in 
this story? 

The Problem of General Method. Does Leo 
J. Brueckner discuss the teaching of arithmetic 
for the sake of children or for the sake of 
the subject? 

New Russia’s Primer. Here is a story of a 
nation that enlists the cooperation of all chil- 
dren in its nationwide planning. Are not Amer- 
ican children capable of helping to build a finer 
society in our land? Can you use this article 
with your classes? 

Personality Development in the Classroom. 
Does this article increase your understanding 
of children? 

The Law of Sportsmanship. This is the 
fourth in a series of posters from the Chil- 
dren’s Prize Morality Code. They are pub- 
lished in the JourNAL for classroom use. 


Other articles than the ones noted 
above may be selected as the basis of 
constructive discussions about the teach- 
ing of young people. Such group study 
will vitalize the work of the schools. 

A few comments from readers as to 
the practical help found in the JouRNAL: 


We are following the topics discussed in the 
JourNAL in our faculty meetings, except that 
we do a bit of branching off into related 
fields—J. A. Howard, Jr., prin., Clarkdale, 
Ariz. 

Never before have we derived so much real 
benefit from our JouRNAL as now, because we 
are reading with a definite purpose as well as 
interest.—Nellie V. Lind, Stedman School, 
Denver, Colo. 

The NEA Journat has not only given valu- 
able suggestions for all phases of school life 
but it has provoked much thinking; teachers 
are thinking problems thru better than ever 
before. The Journat is exceedingly helpful 
and gets better every year.—Olive Ferris, 
prin., Salt Lake City, Utah. 

In doing graduate work this summer in the 
field of education, I have come to realize more 
than ever before the importance and useful- 
ness of the Journat.—Harold F» Wherley, 
prin., Colebrook, Ohio. 

I open my JourNaL each month with great 
anticipation; I have yet to close it without a 
sense of widened educational horizon and 
greater inspiration—C. Francis Alter, High 
School, Oberlin, Ohio. 


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Looking Forward to Atlantic City for 1932 


TLANTIC City began with a ship- 
A wreck. When in 1854 the angry 
Atlantic waves cast a wooden- 
hulled sailing vessel on the barren sands 
of Absecon Island, Joshua Note cut a 
door in its side and converted it into a 
bathhouse. Eating places followed this 
construction and “beach parties,” which 
since the *40’s had danced on the hard 
sands at low tide to the soul-stirring 
strains of ‘‘Fisher’s Hornpipe,’ began to 
find their sea food already cooked for 
them upon their arrival. From a humble 
beginning in which accident played a 
large part, Atlantic. City has become a 
great playground as wellknown as that 
of Southern California in which the na- 
tion’s teachers broke all-time attendance 
records at their 69th annual convention 
at Los Angeles last June. 

In choosing Atlantic City for the con- 
vention which will be held June 26-July 
1, 1932, the National Education Associa- 
tion follows its policy of varying its an- 
nual meeting places with consideration 
for the convenience of its entire member- 
ship. Many of those who could not attend 
at Los Angeles will go to Atlantic City 
next summer. 

This popular eastern resort is easily 
accessible by rail, highway, and air. One 
hour by rail from Philadelphia, three 
from New York, four and one half from 
Washington, nineteen from Chicago, and 
twenty-four from St. Louis, Atlantic City 
is especially convenient for the 140,000 


members of the Association who live 
east of the Mississippi. 

As a place for both work and play At- 
lantic City is unexcelled. It boasts the 
world’s largest auditorium and conven- 
tion hall, built by the municipal govern- 
ment at a cost of $15,000,000, occupying 
an entire block of seven acres fronting 
directly on the famous boardwalk. 

In the main auditorium of this meet- 
ing place 41,000 persons can be comfort- 
ably seated. More than 5000 persons can 
be accommodated in the spacious ball- 
room when it is desired to use it for as- 
sembly purposes. There is an exhibit 
arena two and one half acres in extent 
beneath an arched ceiling 135 feet high. 
The convention hall contains scores of 
auxiliary meeting places affording ample 
room for departmental sessions. It offers 
every convenience for a great body of 
teachers assembled to participate in the 
notable convention programs being ar- 
ranged by President Florence Hale. 

Every NEA convention city is chosen 
with some regard for its opportunities 
for play, not only because of the need 
for relaxation from the strain and pres- 
sure of exacting work, but because teach- 
ers appreciate the value of play itself. 

Atlantic City is wellequipped for rec- 
reation as well as for the work of a great 
meeting. Essentially a city of entertain- 
ment, it attracts 12,000,000 visitors a 
year. The assembly of teachers will pre- 
cede the great vacation crowds by just 


hm AIO se 


enough time to take advantage of the 
preparations which have been made to 
care for the summer throngs. 

The equipment and service of the 17 
great hotels on the boardwalk will be 
at their best as the season opens. Archi- 
tecturally beautiful, these hotels rise 
massively from the very ocean’s edge, 
providing a setting for a great marine 
panorama. Their verandas and sundecks 
are points of vantage from which to 
watch the kaleidoscopic procession of 
promenaders, roller-chair riders, and 
bathers on beach and boardwalk. Be- 
yond is the open Atlantic with ever a 
sail or funnel outlined against the hori- 
zon where blue sky and blue sea meet. 

The boardwalk runs for eight miles, 
following the ocean around three sides 
of Absecon Island. It does not leave the 
beach for a foot of the way and nothing 
is allowed to interfere with the view of 
the ocean from the esplanade. Its vast 
extent of smooth-surfaced floor affords 
an ideal stroll or tempts one to enjoy the 
tang of salt air and the warmth of ocean- 
side sun in a roller-chair, a pleasure ve- 
hicle originating in this coast resort. 

Deep sea and pier fishing, yachting, 
and beach parties are on the list of enter- 
tainments which the teachers of Atlantic 
City and New Jersey are planning as 
part of the local hospitality program 
which has done so much at NEA conven- 
tions to strengthen the bond of comrade- 
ship among the nation’s teachers. 





_o SUMMER CONVENTION will be held in this auditorium, the largest building of its kind in the world. From its ballroom balcony 


convention visitors overlook the boardwalk, the surf, and the open sea for many miles. 


[ 302] 








A College Experiment in Adult Education 


ARLAND D. WEEKS 


Dean, School of Education, North Dakota Agricultural College, Fargo 


PHYSICIAN leaves his office an 
A hour every day for a week to 
attend college lectures on the 
atom and the electron; a clergyman 
joins a one-week radio class; a county 
superintendent of schools registers for a 
short course in salads; a superintendent 
of a children’s home attends two periods 
a day for three days a course of lectures 
on mental hygiene; a proprietor of a 
chicken hatchery comes for a week of 
instruction on poultry production; a 
school principal attends four lectures on 
children’s literature; a club woman hears 
several lectures on the League of Nations; 
bird observers trail for a week behind 
a bird study man; a one-week course is 
held for school janitors—who give a 
rising vote of thanks to the instructor; 
a score of “hard-boiled” insurance men 
come in from the field to become sum- 
mer school students for a few days in 
a Class in the mathematics of insurance. 
These cases illustrate the response 
made to “unit” or layman’s courses 
offered by the North Dakota State Col- 
lege in its 1930 summer school, which 
courses were an innovation and in some 
respects possibly unique. 

The controlling idea of the manage- 
ment was that adults might wish to con- 
sult a college summer school as a sort 
of reference book by attending classes 
for a while, but without being expected 
to spend a full term. 

Now when you consult an encyclo- 
pedia on a certain topic you close the 
book upon satisfying your need for such 
information; you are not committed to 
read on thru succeeding pages. And 
when one consults the unabridged, the 
massive encyclopedias, or the World 
Almanac, one asks questions, but the 
reference book itself does not spring into 
life and pin one with queries. If the 
books did anything like that we would 
leave them alone. The “unit course” 
teachers assumed that adult students, 
coming in from office and home, farm and 
fireside, might like to ask questions, but 
fear embarrassment from being ques- 
tioned by the instructor. So in the lay- 
man’s section of the summer school it 
was understood that even a tired house- 
wife might register and relax. 

As chapters in a living work of refer- 
ence some ninety unit courses were 
organized and announced, the summer 


school being divided into basic or full- 
time courses and special short courses 
for adult education. You see, regular 


F  ipree EDUCATION is a su- 
preme and pressing need. 
Yesterday’s education will not 
meet tomorrow’s demands. 
The experiment here de- 
scribed suggests something 
which any college or high 
school, or even elementary 
school, can do. Why not use 
the educational resources we 
have in every school and 
libraryP There is no surer 
way to the hearts of the people 
than this immediate personal 


service in the enrichment of 
adult life. 





college students are not “adults,” which 
may be news to them. 

It became evident that there was an 
interest in consulting the chapters of 
academic and scientific learning repre- 
sented by the unit courses. By the 
close of the summer term the registra- 
tion had exceeded by over 93 percent 
the total registration of the summer of 
1929; the increase was largely if not 
wholly due to the presence of groups of 
registrants in unit courses. 

The following is the offering of unit 
courses for one week: 


Identification of Birds 

Evening School Programs 

Farm Shop Methods 

Tool Sharpening and Handling 
Insects 

Farm Meats 

Advanced Live Stock Judging 
Judging Dairy Products 

Poultry Exhibition 

Applications of Chemistry to Domestic Science 
U. S. Internal Economic Problems 
Methods in Related Science 

Flour Mixtures 

Camp Fire Guardian Training 
Smith-Hughes Program in Home Economics 
Creative Problems in Art 

Football Coaching 

Spring Sports 

Principles of the Radio 

The American Constitution 

Social Origins 


Among the tentative conclusions from 
the venture of converting a college sum- 
mer school, to the extent of about fifty 


{ 303 ] 


percent of its program, to adult educa- 
tion is this, that the effects upon the 
college are vitalizing. 

The reaction of the unit courses upon 
the instructors themselves is positive; 
they judge their lectures more critically 
and with a keener sense of practical 
standards; they have the experience of 
carving out short units of subjectmatter 
from conventional courses of quarter or 
semester length; thus an instructor in 
mental tests selects topics to constitute 
a course of lectures for one week on 
mental tests for the layman. To give 
his listeners an understanding of the 
principal developments in the field of 
mental testing is a stimulus to the in- 
structor. In cases where the unit course 
is developed wholly apart from any 
covering course and represents an out- 
and-out addition to existing subjectmat- 
ter, the instructor meets a real challenge. 

Accentuating the idea of college con- 
tact with the layman is the allowance 
of college credit to all on all work taken 
regardless of whether the adult student 
is a high-school graduate or not, such 
credit to stand on the college books. 
And if ever the individual enters a de- 
gree course, he will find this credit 
awaiting him. 

Curiously, the brief courses for lay- 
men were seized upon by the regular 
college students. Right here one might 
suspect a discovery. Not only did the 
regulars willingly chink in their credit 
totals with single and fractional credit 
increments but seemed positively to 
regale themselves with subjectmatter 
unconventionally relevant and concise. 
From. such: outcome one might deduce 
that college and university programs of 
study would profit by deviating within 
the regular academic year from the 
rigidity of quarters and semesters and 
from even the traditional four years. 

If the experience *of the North Da- 
kota State College summer school in 
1930 is dependable, there exists in these 
United States an undeveloped market 
for portions and excerpts of higher edu- 
cation on the part of laymen and a 
quite unsuspected appreciation of unit 
subjectmatter on the part of regular col- 
lege students. To those asking for bread, 
colleges have never given a stone; but 
they have often given a loaf to satisfy 
an appetite for a slice. 


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Evaluating Your Own Teaching 


OME OF THE BEST and most helpful material for teachers appears in the bulletins of local associa- 
S tions. These bulletins are close to the daily experience and needs of teachers. This chart by Roland | 
Eberhart is from El Padre, official bulletin for the Santa Clara [California] County Teachers 
Association. Many teachers will wish to use it in making a personal inventory and in planning for 
further growth. This is a good time to take stock and set new goals. 


Personal Qualities 
[A] Characteristics: 
Cooperation—working with a friendly spirit. 
Enthusiastic—not half-hearted. 
Good humored—not subject to temper under an- 
noying conditions. 
tolerant toward all children. 


Sympathetic—understanding the problems of stu- 
dents. 


Tact. 

[1] Working smoothly with others. 

[2] Having a quick appreciation of the proper 
thing to say and do. 

[3] Putting people at their ease. 

|4| Adapting oneself to various situations. 

[5] Being persuasive and convincing. 


Fair-minded 





Vigorous—neither weak nor uncertain. 
Resourceful—having independent ideas. 
Progressive—using new ways of presenting the 
subject. 

Systematic—not disorderly or careless. 

Just—not too quick in judgments. 

Ability to keep order. 

[1] Are my students wellcontrolled? 

[2] Is my control impelling and democratic? 

[3] Are my students working through interest? 


{B| More personal qualities: 
Do I dress in neat and not extreme style? 
Is my posture correct? 
What is my moral fitness and dependability? 
Do I use good diction? 
The voice: 
[a] Is my teaching voice clear and pleasant? 
[b] Am I eliminating complaining or nagging 
tones? 


Social Qualities 


[A] Am I loyal to my superiors and to my co-workers? 

[B] Do I set up high ideals of conduct? 

{[C] Am I aiding the community, outside of my school 
duties? 

[D] Am I getting acquainted with home conditions of 
students? 

[E] Do I train students in courtesy? 

[F] Am I a leader instead of a “boss”? 





|G] Do I take criticism from my superiors in the right 
spirit? ; 


[H] Do I promptly send in complete and accurate reports 
to my superiors when they request them? 


The Recitation 


| A] Do I have the attention of the class before presenting 
the lessons? 


[B] Are physical conditions in the room favorable for 
good attention? 
[C] Questions: 
Are my questions definite, or vague and irrelevant? 
Do my questions arouse interest and alertness? 
Are they definite, clear, and to the point? 


[D] Do my students answer fluently and in good sen- | 


tences? 
|E] Do I use praise as well as criticism? 


[F] Do I arouse interest, independence, energy, and co- 
operation? 


Professional Growth 


[A] Do I take summer school or extension work? 
Am i doing this because I wish to do so, or because 
I am required to do this? 

[B] Am I doing professional reading? 

[C] Am I trying new methods of teaching? 


[D] Do I cooperate with other teachers or schools in in- 
vestigational work? 


[E] In what ways am I a better teacher than I was last 
year? 


Health 


[A] Am I trying to keep up or improve my health? 

[B] Do I encourage students to take care of their teeth, 
eyes, hands, etc.? 

[C] Do I suggest improvements concerning their posture? 


[D] Do I look after the ventilation and lighting of my 
room? 


[E] Do I try to remedy physical defects of my students? 


In the Schoolroom 


[A] Do I see that blackboards and floors are kept clean? 
[B] Do I try to make the room attractive? 
[C] Do I guard against the waste of school materials? 


[D] Do I arouse in the children a sense of responsibility 
for the care of the room and the building? 





[ 304 ] 


















HAT DO leading men of the 
\ x / United States really think about 
our schools? 

Opportunity to answer this question 
came last month when 17 outstanding 
men drew their chairs up to the big oval 
mahogany council table in the office of 
the Secretary of the Interior—school 
men, tax men, a banker, experts on gov- 
ernment, a prominent railroad president. 
They gathered for the initial meeting of 
the advisory board of the National Sur- 
vey of School Finance. 

“Education in the United States is 
guilty of wasting money.” 

Who said that, do you suppose? You 
are wrong. The school men said it. 

“T know a school that paid $4000 for a 
gold ball on top of its flagpole.” 

A school man said that, too. 

“To compare expenditures for educa- 
tion with expenditures for tobacco or 
candy is spurious economics.”’ 

An educator also said that. 

“I’m bullish on America. We must 
conduct this survey of school finance in 
terms of prosperous America.” 

An expert on government said that. 

This meeting was electric with startling 
opinions. The school men led the criti- 
cism of education’s extravagances. Some 
of those present questioned the wis- 
dom of compulsory education up to 16 
years. They agreed unanimously to seek 
a definition of the principles governing 
public education in the United States and 
that a survey of school finance could only 
be made in the light of such principles. 
They insisted on extending widely that 
section of the survey which calls for study 
of the elusive question: Do we get what 
we pay for in public education? 

It is clear that the finance survey has 
been launched at a time when the ques- 
tions it faces are “front page news.” 

Art and physical education gain 
ground—Changes in the emphasis which 
the junior high school has placed on 10 
major subject fields are revealed in a 
1920-30 contrast by Dr. E. S. Lide. Art 
and physical education have made sharp 
gains; commerce, foreign languages, and 
science show losses, according to prelimi- 
nary findings of Doctor Lide’s National 
Survey of Secondary Education study 
which are printed in October School Life. 

Too many small rural high schools 
—Does the small rural high school trail 
behind the big city sister high school in its 
contribution to education? Recent studies 


The United States Office of Education 


by the Office of Education of more than 
14,000 rural high schools with 250 enrol- 
ment or less, indicate that the spread of 





Byes M. KOON, recently appointed spe- 
cialist in education by radio, U. S. Office 


of Education. 








weak secondary schools in country re- 
gions may have delayed progress toward 
better educational advantages in the 
United States. 

Since the World War the idea of a 
high-school training for all of the coun- 
try’s children has been so thoroughly 
“sold” to rural taxpayers that a multitude 
of small high schools have sprung up in 
sparsely settled regions—many with 30 
to 50 pupils and with as few as two 
teachers. Many of these institutions, 
lacking any intelligent idea of what a 
rural high school should be, are very 
poor imitations of the great city schools 
with a hundred times as many students 
and with elaborate equipment. 

With a small teaching staff no teacher 
can be a specialist in his subject, the 
Office of Education study, The Smaliness 
of America’s Rural High Schools, by 
Walter H. Gaumnitz, rural school spe- 
cialist, points out. 

Remedies for the serious situation 
which have been suggested are mentioned 
by the study: first, the careful study by 
each state of its rural school situation; 
second, cooperation among all govern- 
ment and social agencies with a view to 
school consolidation and the conversion 
of some small senior high schools into 


[ 305 ] 


junior high schools; and third, the em- 
ployment at good salaries of teachers who 
are experts in special subjects, to cover 
several schools in a district, or the wide 
use of correspondence courses under com- 
petent supervision. 

New publications—Demand for a 
definite school health program by parent- 
teacher associations, women’s clubs, and 
other organizations interested in the 
school child’s health has prompted the 
revision and republishing by the Office 
of Education of School Health Program, 
Health Education No. 5, price 5¢. This 
publication also contains a bibliography 
of inexpensive publications bearing on 
school health work, as well as books on 
the subject. 

Just what Uncle Sam is doing educa- 
tionally for the Negro, the native of 
Alaska, the American Indian, and various 
other racial groups in the United States 
and territories of Hawaii, Porto Rico, and 
the Philippine Islands, is related in Office 
of Education Bulletin 1931, No. 20, Bien- 
nial Survey, Chapter XVII, price 10¢. 

It is estimated that 1,000,000 adults 
in the United States are now engaged in 
educational work. Each one is concerned 
with at least one particular phase of edu- 
cation. Each teacher and administrator 
desires, as a point of professional pride, to 
keep abreast of the literature in his par- 
ticular field. To meet this personal need 
the Office of Education has published the 
Record of Current Educational Publica- 
tions for the last 19 years. The selection 
of outstanding articles in educational 
periodicals and important new books in 
the field of education for the period April- 
June, 1931, chosen by 13 education spe- 
cialists, is now available, Bulletin 1931, 
No. 16, price 15¢. Every phase of learn- 
ing, from the nursery thru the graduate 
school, is touched in the contents of this 
quarterly publication. 

Three more Career leaflets, useful in 
guidance work, are ready: Mechanical 
Engineering, Leaflet No. 13, Electrical 
Engineering, Leaflet No. 12, and Medi- 
cine, Leaflet No. 6, 5¢ each. 

For rural school administrators the 
Office of Education has compiled Good 
References on status and preparation of 
rural school teachers, price 5¢. 

All publications mentioned on this 
page may be ordered from the Superin- 
tendent of Documents, Government 
Printing Office, Washington, D. C. Send 
check or money order. 


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The Law of Sportsmanship 


Peer AMERICANS try to become strong 
and useful, worthy of their nation, that 
our country may become ever greater and 
better. Therefore, they obey the laws of right 
living which the best Americans have always 
obeyed. Good Americans play fair. Strong 
play increases and trains one’s strength and 
courage. Sportsmanship helps one to be a 
gentleman, a lady. Therefore: 

[1] I will not cheat. I will keep the rules 
but I will play the game hard, for the fun of 
the game, to win by strength and skill. If I 
should not play fair the loser would lose the 
fun of the game, the winner would lose his 
selfrespect, and the game itself would become 
a mean and often cruel business. 

[2] I will treat my opponents with courtesy 
and trust them if they deserve it. I will be 
friendly. 

[3] If I play ina group game I will play, not 

or my own glory, but for the success of my 
team. 

[4] I will be a good loser or a generous 
winner. 

_ [5] In my work as well as in my play I will 
be sportsmanlike—generous, fair, honorable. 
[From the Prize Morality Code widely used in schools.] 








{This poster for your classroom is from the JOURNAL of the National Education Association. Copits on art paper; 20 for $1; $4 per 100 $30 per 1000. No. 20306.] 
[ 306 ] 

















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The Selection of Classroom Motion Pictures 


NATIONWIDE experiment, the com- 
A plete results of which have been 
published [Wood and Freeman, 
Motion Pictures in the Classroom] has 
demonstrated the effectiveness of the 
classroom film. Although this type of film 
has only recently been developed, there 
is little doubt but that it will play an im- 
portant role at all educational levels. 
The suddenness of its appearance is re- 
sponsible for the dearth of critical liter- 
ature relative to its nature and function. 
The following criteria, gleaned from 
writers in this field and derived from ex- 
perience in the production of such pic- 
tures, seem to be valid and may be used 
in judging the value of specific classroom 
films. 

The primary purpose of the classroom 
film is to instruct and not to entertain. 
The typical theatrical motion picture is 
constructed to make people feel, not to 
make people think. The purpose of the 
classroom film, however, is to present to 
the child interesting factual material 
dealing with the world about him in 
such a way as to stimulate reflective 
thinking. The typical travel films, for 
example, show the striking, the wonder- 
ful, the dramatic in our own and other 
countries. This is commendable but it is 
not sufficient for classroom instruction. 
In addition to these things, we must pre- 
sent to children information about the 
way people live their lives day-by-day 
and meet their everyday problems. This 
type of presentation should be made as 
interesting and enjoyable as possible, 
but the result should always be a height- 
ened understanding and appreciation of 
one’s environment and a keener realiza- 
tion of the unsolved problems which sur- 
round us on every hand. 

The distinctive function of the class- 
room motion picture is the portrayal of 
objects or events whose essential mean- 
ing is best understood when they are seen 
in motion. Rigid adherence to this cri- 
terion will mean that the prospective 
purchaser of a classroom film should 
have two questions foremost in his mind 
when viewing it. 

The first question is this: Is it neces- 
Sary in treating the subject in question 
to use any pictorial devices at all? Can- 
not words be satisfactorily substituted 
for the motion picture? A picture, we 
should remember, is the first stage in the 
abstraction of an object, person, or event. 
The picture is two-dimensional, lacking 
depth and frequently lacking the colors 


that were present in the original. It is a 
symbol, however, which is quite easily 
recognized as a counterpart of the thing 
itself. 

A word, on the other hand, is still more 
highly abstracted and bears no pictorial 
resemblance to the original object, per- 
son, or event. However, if we can get 
the essential meaning involved in the pic- 
ture by merely substituting a word, then 
it is clear that it is unnecessary to use the 
picture. The teller at the bank does not 
need to have our picture affixed to our 
checks in order to know that they are 
made out by us. Our signature, a verbal 
symbol, is sufficient to convey the essen- 
tial meaning to him. If a story told by 
the motion picture can be adequately 
presented in words which children under- 
stand, then the motion picture is un- 
necessary and, in such an instance, may 
be dispensed with. 

A second question closely related to 
the above criterion which might well be 
asked is this: Would not still pictures 
convey these same meanings just as effec- 
tively or even more so than the motion 
pictures? The fundamental qualities of 
still and motion pictures determine which 
one should be used in a particular in- 
stance. The still picture is static; it 
shows products or results. The motion 
picture is dynamic; it shows processes, 
development, change. It, alone, can por- 
tray action. The still picture can only 
suggest action. An illustration should 
make these points clear. A junior-high- 
school geography book which I have at 
hand contains an excellent drawing titled, 
“Vertical Section of a Blast Furnace.” 
The coke, iron ore, and limestone are 
represented by little dots and are appro- 
priately labeled. A statement below the 
drawing says, “The melted slag is lighter 
than the melted iron and floats upon it 
and runs off separately.” I have asked 
several adults to study this drawing and 
then explain how a blast furnace works. 
They are unable to do so even after con- 
siderable study. However, when we turn 
to a classroom motion picture which pre- 
sents the action of the blast furnace by 
means of animated drawings, we find that 
the action is shown so clearly that ele- 
mentary school pupils have no difficulty 
in understanding it. 

The action material presented should 
be relatively unfamiliar to the child and 
of such a nature that it cannot be taught 
more effectively by first-hand contact 
with the object or event. Although this 


[ 307 ] 


criterion is apparently a recounting of 
the obvious, nevertheless, it is frequently 
violated. For example, a group of ele- 
mentary school pupils in a geography 
class view a motion picture on the bak- 
ing of bread when a modern bakery which 
welcomes visitors is within walking dis- 
tance from the school. Again, a city in an 
agricultural region purchases a film por- 
traying typical farm activities with which 
nine tenths of the children in that city 
are familiar. On the other hand, the film 
producer may be at fault when he pro- 
duces activities in motion pictures which 
can easily be performed or recalled by 
the pupils with a minimum of time and 
effort. 

A caution should be borne in mind at 
this point. Under certain circumstances 
the viewing of a motion picture of an 
event may be more illuminating than 
first-hand observation. Several advan- 
tages may be recounted. First, it is more 
economical of time. Second, the scenario 
writer has made a careful study of the 
industry and includes only those crucial 
details necessary to understand the in- 
dustry; he has made a careful selection 
in order to present a type form. Only 
under the most expert guidance could 
this same type of selection be secured 
when a group visits an industry. As a 
consequence the children may be sur- 
feited with a vast amount of detail and 
fail to note or remember the most impor- 
tant facts. Third, distractions are at a 
maximum when visiting most factories. 
The children view the motion picture, 
however, under almost ideal conditions 
of attention. Fourth, the teacher can com- 
ment during the showing of the film to 
point out a significant fact. The noise of 
the machinery and the preoccupation of 
the children with new experiences often 
make such instruction on an excursion 
exceedingly difficult. Fifth, the motion 
picture can show by animated drawings 
certain actions that cannot be seen even 
by first-hand observation. 

Provision should be made for individ- 
ual differences by grading in respect to 
length, nature, and difficulty of material 
to be taught. It must be confessed that 
little scientific evidence has been gath- 
ered concerning provision in film educa- 
tion for individual differences. We must 
be content in the meanwhile to apply 
principles concerning individual differ- 
ences that we have gained in other fields 
of educational effort. We know, for ex- 
ample, that the older child is able to sit 


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308 





still and view a picture for a longer time 
than the younger child. We know, also, 
that the young child must be taught 
more largely in the realm of direct, con- 
crete experience while the older child is 
better able to grasp relationships and 
make generalizations. 

The typical film length for 16 milli- 
meter classroom films is 400 feet, which 
takes about sixteen minutes to show on 
the screen. The exigencies of the present 
situation have made this length one 
which best fits into the needs of the pro- 
ducers and consumers of film. However, 
it would be unfortunate if this length be- 
came standardized and all films made to 
conform to it. There is clearly a place 
for films of shorter length. Such films 
would have much the same function as 
the drawings or pictures in textbooks. 
Short films could be used to portray the 
action of some machine or piece of equip- 
ment, illustrate a principle, or provide an 
example for something that is mentioned 
in the text. A fifty-foot length, for ex- 
ample, would take about two minutes to 
show. Some producers have offered a par- 
tial solution to the need for short length 
material by dividing their 400-foot reels 
into three, four, or five units, each com- 
plete in itself, nevertheless forming a 
composite part of the longer picture. 

Skilful titling is absolutely essential in 
good classroom motion pictures. A title 
may be used to indicate a break in se- 
quence, as a transition device, as a sub- 
stitute for a picture, or to clarify scenes 
that follow. There are four common 
errors in the titling of teaching films. The 
first is the too frequent use of titles. As 
a result the finished picture is a mere 
screen essay. The second error is wordi- 
ness in titling. Too many words are used 
to convey the meaning desired. A third 
error is a lack of the proper titles. This 
is frequently due to the fact that the film 
editor was very familiar with content of 
the picture and failed to realize the diffi- 
culty that a spectator would have in 
understanding it the first time he viewed 
it. A fourth error is using words that 
children do not understand. While there 
is still a lack of scientific information 
regarding the difficulty of words for chil- 
dren of various grades, nevertheless, our 
present knowledge coupled with common- 
sense should be sufficient to solve most 
of the titling problems. 

The attempt to include all explanatory 
material in the titles is unnecessary since 
this information can be more satisfac- 
torily presented in a teacher’s guide. 

The film should present unmistakable 


evidence of exceilent photography. This 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


November, 1931 





is necessary not only from the standpoint 
of its relation to increased teaching effec- 
tiveness but also from the standpoint of 
eliminating eye strain on the part of the 
audience. The photography should be 
analyzed from the following points of 
view: 

Sharp definition is essential. This 
means that sharp focus lenses should be 
used almost exclusively in making edu- 
cational motion pictures. Devices which 
frame or soften the edges of pictures are 
useful in theatrical motion pictures to 
secure artistic effects but have little value 
in educational motion pictures. 

Most scenes should be taken in close- 
up since the purpose of educational mo- 
tion pictures is to show children what 
things look like and how they work. 
Doubt in the mind of the spectator as to 
what is occurring on the screen is evi- 
dence that the cameraman failed to get 
close enough to the action. The long shot 
should be used primarily to orient the 
spectator, the closeup to show the details 
of the action. 

The acting of characters who are in- 
troduced into the picture must be effec- 
tive. If it is an industrial picture, the 
workers should appear to be unaware of 
the camera and not look up at it. Other 
acting in the picture should be judged 
by the same standards that one judges a 
play or a theatrical motion picture by, 
namely, was it effectively done? Educa- 
tional motion pictures have been par- 
ticularly vulnerable at this point. 

The photography should be steady. 
Lack of steadiness of the picture is due 
to motion caused by hand cranking or 
because the camera has not been securely 
placed upon a tripod, thus producing 
jerkiness. Scenes obtained by panorama- 
ing [moving the camera on a pivot] are 
usually undesirable except where one 
wishes to follow the movement of a train 
or other object. 

All scenes in the picture should reflect 
good composition. This means that there 
will be a balanced grouping of the ob- 
jects in the picture, that no scene will 
contain objects unrelated to the action 
being depicted, and that the whole ar- 
rangement will tend to focus attention on 
the central idea. 

The animated drawings used in the 
classroom films should show careful 
planning and skilful rendering. An ani- 
mation is a drawing, or rather a series of 
drawings, made by an artist which when 
photographed one after the other shows 
such activities as the work of an internal 
combustion motor, the circulation of the 
blood, how knitting is done on a knitting 


: 





loom, and the like. Animations should be 
judged from the standpoint of their 
photography, the naturalness of the ac- 
tion of the machine or action, and the 
clarity of the labeled notes affixed. They 
make clear what cannot be registered in 
any other fashion and should only be 
used when this is the case. 

The general organization of the film 
should be such that it tells the essential 
story in a simple, unified, coherent man- 
ner. Various types of sequence may be 
used. The most common, of course, is 
the chronological sequence. A_ typical 
workday is shown on the farm from the 
time the farmer gets up in the morning © 
until he goes to bed at night. Again we 
may build up our sequence by going 
gradually from the familiar to the un- 
familiar. A third type of sequence is that 
of development. We trace the latex from 
the rubber tree thru its fabrication into 
rubber sheets, follow it from Sumatra to 
Akron, Ohio, and see it made into tires. 
A fourth type of sequence is causal. A 
chain of events occurs as a result of some 
action. Vibrations of air are set up by 
some ageney and an animated diagram 
illustrates the result step-by-step until at 
the end some person becomes conscious 
of a sound. 

Smooth transitions from one idea to 
another are secured by three unique de- 
vices: the title, the dissolve, and the fade. 
The use of titles has been previously re- 
ferred to. The dissolve is a device which 
makes one scene merge into the second. 
It is used to indicate that the two scenes 
are related and are both steps or stages 
in a continuous process. For example, we 
dissolve from a scene of a man’s hands 
examining a calf-skin to the same hands 
examining the finished piece of leather 
made from it. 

The fade is used to show either a lapse 
of time or a change in the subjectmatter 
being depicted. For example, a boat starts 
in Sumatra with a load of rubber for the 
United States. We do not want to show 
it on its journey so we fade it out just as 
it passes out of the harbor, then fade it 
in again as it reaches the Statue of 
Liberty. 

The fadeout is secured by gradually 
decreasing the light on the scene until it 
is black and the fadein is secured by 
gradually decreasing this darkness until 
the scene is in full light again. 

Use of these criteria—The critical use 
of the above criteria should prove of 
assistance to the teacher or administrator 
who wishes to select effective classroom 
motion pictures——Edgar Dale, College 
of Education, Ohio State University. 










































American Education Week 
The Challenge of a Great Ideal 


\@RayE CELEBRATE Christmas because 
Ky JN: it gave us a great religion. We ob- 
= serve the Fourth of July because it 
gave us a free nation. We magnify the schools 
during one week each year because through 
them we develop the finer values of our civili- 
zation. American Education Week is a per- 
manent institution. The effort to make the 
observance of such a week world-wide should 
be encouraged. Religion, politics, and com- 





_ merce may divide, but love of childhood ex- 


pressed in education is a mighty force for 
unity. What greater contribution could 
America make to the world than the ideal— 
a fair start in life for every boy and girl? In the 
name of this ideal, let every teacher make 
careful plans for American Education Week 
and aid in its full and fitting observance. 











[This classroom poster is one of a set of 15 printed on art paper for use American Education Week. Cost $1 per set. Order from Division of Publications, NEA} 


[ 309 } 





Teachers Will Give Children a Happy Year 


CLARA TAGG BREWER 


Member, Board of Education, Cleveland, Ohio 


HE FIRST AIM of the Cleveland 
"| put schools this year is to give 

to the children of the city the hap- 
piest and the most profitable year they 
have ever had. 

“Has it not always been our aim to 
make the year profitable?” you ask. 

It has, but conditions now will lay 
upon the schools an added responsi- 
bility to make the year count for the 
utmost, educationally. Many parents 
will be making the greatest struggle of 
their lives to keep their children clothed, 
fed, and in school. What marvels of 
selfsacrifice this involves we can never 
know. But every worker in the schools 
is in honor bound to see that such sac- 
rifice is not made in vain and that these 
children have the very best instruction 
we know how to give. 

Further, there will be many scholars 
whose presence in school is made pos- 
sible because the generous people of 
Cleveland, in the role of foster-parents, 
have supplied their food, clothing, and 
shelter. How much the Community 
Fund and private agencies will have to 
do this year we do not yet know but 
any such outpouring of public and pri- 
vate liberality lays upon our organization 
a responsibility to see that this year of 
schooling, so dearly bought by the com- 
munity, shall register the greatest pos- 
sible gain in education. 

What about happinessP—‘Do we 
not always try to make the children 
happy?” you ask. 

We do and beautifully, too, but this 
year there will be need of far greater 
effort on our part if children are to be 
contented and happy. 


In too many of the families father 
and mother will not be able to do much 
to give their children joy. There will 


HIS ARTICLE by a member 
of the Cleveland board of 


education is from School | 
Topics {September 24, 1931] 
which is the official magazine 
of the public schools of Cleve- 
land—one of the finest maga- 
zines of its kind. The sub- 
| head of the article was “Board 
Member Has Faith in Teach- 
ers’ Loyalty Despite Handi- 
caps.” There is no more signifi- 
cant service in the United 
States than the unselfish devo- 
tion of members of boards of 
education to the welfare of 
children. No other phase of 
government has been able to 
attract better men and women 
than those who share this heavy 
civic duty and opportunity. 











be gloom and foreboding in the home, 
if not despair. Nerves will be taut and 
tempers turbulent. Just living in crowded 
quarters makes for irritability. How can 
the children escape a participation in 
family misfortune? There was never 
before such need that the schoolroom be 
a Port of Happiness, a place where these 
children may relax from strain. 
What about discipline P—A little re- 
flection will make it clear that the 
schools cannot reasonably expect much 
assistance in matters of discipline from 








homes where fathers have been long out 
of work. At first thought one might sup- 
pose that because the father is idle he 
will have all the time in the world to 
give to such matters. On the other hand, 
when the problems of family existence 
loom so big and are so desperate, a 
child’s infractions of school rules seem 
trivial to the parent and he is likely to 
feel only annoyance that any fresh trou- 
ble is brought to him. Tact, good hu- 
mor, and generalship, always effective in 
the hands of skillful teachers to prevent 
matters of discipline getting to the acute 
stage, are needed doubly now. 

Give a thought to the teachers— 
Someone says, “Why don’t you give a 
thought to the teachers?” It is because 
I do think of them that I am writing. 

I am thinking of that omitted auto- 
matic increase, of dividends cut and 
investments gone wrong, of relatives 
who formerly stood on their own feet 
but who now need assistance. I am 
thinking of obligations assumed that 
one must see thru. I am thinking of the 
absence of a beloved superintendent. 

But not one of these things [unfortu- 
nate as they are], not all of them to- 
gether can shake my confidence in the 
stability, the loyalty, and the resource- 
fulness of our executive and teaching 
body. Long years of association with 
them under varying conditions have 
built up a reliance that is prized. 

I am not authorized to speak for the 
Board of Education but I feel justified 
in saying that at no time has confidence 
been stronger in the Cleveland teachers 
and in their determination to make this 
the best possible year for every child. 





‘pes SCHOOLS and édtints thruout the country are cooperating with the President’s Organization on 
Unemployment Relief by assisting in the movement to keep children in school this year. They are en- 
couraging children and young people to continue their education because industry cannot absorb new 
recruits at the present time. They are also helping children whose parents are without funds to remain 


Relief is indicative of what school systems are doing: “The city of Indianapolis has tried to make it possible 
for every child under 16 years of age to attend school, regardless of the economic condition of his family. 
Funds have been provided by the Indianapolis Federation of Parent-Teacher Clubs, the Indianapolis | 
Foundation, the Altrusa Club, the Exchange Club, and a number of individuals. It was possible by this | 
means to keep 346 additional students in school during the 1930-31 school year. High schools also furnished 
employment in cafeterias and other places for probably as many more students. During the last school year 

| an emergency fund was provided to furnish milk and crackers each morning to children who came to school 


in school. The following quotation from a recent bulletin of the President’s Organization on Unemployment 


| without sufficient food and for five months approximately 3000 children were fed daily.” 











————————————— Ed 
— 








SORENSON TARRY ow Te © EE 
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AGAINST CRIME 

















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CONTRIBUTIONS to the 1931 NEA cartoon project. Upper and lower left, from West Side H. S., New- 
ark, N. J. Upper right, Central H. S., Minneapolis, Minn. Lower right, Balboa H. S., San Francisco, Cal. 











[311] 








’_ ea 


Builders of Our Profession 


NYONE who has followed education in 
A the United States during recent years 
knows that it has made huge and in- 
spiring gains. These advances are the fruits 
of hard, sustained work by individual teach- 
ers and school officers. To continue these 
gains new leaders must constantly develop 
to take the places of older members who 
have earned their reward. What an oppor- 
tunity for the younger members of the pro- 
fession! 


New Life Enlistments 


ob NUMBER of life members enroled in 
the National Education Association on 
October 1 was 4547. The following life mem- 
bers have been reported since the list was 
published in the October JOURNAL. 


CALIrFoRNIA—Flora E. Baldwin. 

Ilowa—Roy F. Hannum. 

Kentucky—Tullus Chambers. 
MoNnTANA—-Hiram Fry. 

New Jersey—lIrvin E. Kline, Jennie O. Williams. 
New York—Frank Astor, Ernest R. Bryan. 
NortH Caro.ina—Sarah Elizabeth Gustam. 
NortH Daxota—M. A. Tovey. 
OxKLaHoMA—J. Hamilton Green. 
Orecon—Vera Jane Waltman. 

West Vircinita—Ronald Farnsworth. 
WISCONSIN—-W. R. Davies. 


Completed Enrolments 


HE FOLLOWING SCHOOLS have completed 
i their 100 percent enrolment in the Na- 
tional Education Association since the list 
was published in the October JOURNAL: 


Twelve Years 
Maine—Chapman, Chapman Public Schools. 


Ten Years 
MassacHusetts—Beverly, Centerville. 


Nine Years 


Onujto—Columbus, Eighth Avenue. 
PENNSYLVANIA—Berlin, Berlin Public Schools. 


Eight Years 


ARKANSAS—Fort Smith, Fort Smith Public Schools, 
Administration Building, Belle Grove, Belle Point, 
Duval, Howard, Junior High, Lincoln High, Mill 
Creek, Parker, Peabody, Albert Pike, Rogers, 
Senior High, South Fort Smith, Spradling, Trusty, 
Washington. 

CairorNia-—San Francisco, Paul Revere. 

Ipano—Boise, Garfield. 

lowa—Independence, Independence Public Schools, 
Hawthorne, High, Lincoln, Washington-Emerson. 

MICHIGAN—IJronwood, Newport. 

New HAMPSHIRE—Claremont, West Terrace. 

New Jersey—Fair Haven, Fisk Street, Willow 
Street. 

Ou1o—Warren, Roosevelt. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Mahanoy Township, Mahanoy Town- 
ship Public Schools. 

Soutx Daxotra—Frederick, Frederick Public Schools. 

West Vircinta—Clarksburg, Carlile. 

WISCONSIN—Sheboygan, Jefferson. 

WyomMinc—Sheridan, Custer Street. 





AVID STARR JORDAN, president of the Na- 
D tional Education Association 1915-16 
and chancellor emeritus of Leland Stanford 
University, whose death on September 19, at 
the age of 80, concluded a life of outstanding 
scientific, educational, and social leadership. 


Seven Years 


ARKANSAS—Texarkana, Texarkana Public Schools, 
Central, College Hill, College Hill (Colored), 
Fairview, Junior High, Orr (Colored), Senior 
High, Union, Washington High (Colored). 

IpaAHo— Boise, Central. 

MAssaAcHusETIs—Gloucester, Forbes. 

New Jersey—Fair Haven, Fair Haven Public 
Schools, Fisk Street, Knollwood, Willow Street, 

NortH Dakota—Minot, Primary. 

SoutH Carotina—Walterboro, Walterboro Public 
Schools, Grammar, High. 

SoutH DaKkota—Wilmot, High. 

Wyominc—Rock Springs, Roosevelt. 


Six Years 
> pena Wendell Phillips Junior 
igh. 
WISCONSIN—W auwatosa, Lincoln. 
WYOMING—Rock Springs, Washington. 


Five Years 


ArizonA—Holbrook, Holbrook Public. 

lowa—West Liberty, West Liberty Public Schools. 

Kansas—Girard, Girard Public Schools, Emerson, 
Junior High, Lowell, Senior High, Whittier. 

Massacnusetts—A thol, Main Street; Plymouth, Mt. 
Pleasant. 

~~ ~hipiepeeee Forest County Agricultural 

igh. 


New Jersev—Brigantine, Brigantine Public. 

New York—Rome, Thomas Street. 

OKLAHOMA—McAlester, Eugene Field. 

SoutH Caro.tina—Blaney, Blaney Public Schools, 
Grade, High. 

WYoMING—Rock Springs, Lowell. 


Four Years 


CoLtorapo—Canon City, Roosevelt Junior High. 
FLorma—Pensacola, P. K. Yonge Grammar. 
ILLinois—Charleston, Lincoln. 

MAINe—Waterville, Myrtle Street. 

MARYLAND—Western Port, Hammond Street. 

MASSACHUSETTS—Harwich, High. 

MICHIGAN—Muskegon Heights, Muskegon Heights 
Public Schools. 

Missourt—Lexington, Junior-Senior High; Mary- 
ville, Eugene Field, Washington; St. Louis, Special 
Number 14. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Chester County, Chester County 
Public Schools. 

SoutH Dakota—Pierre, Pierre Public Schools. 


Three Years 


CALIFORNIA—San Francisco, Garfield. 

ILtinois—Cerro Gordo, Township High. 

On10—Greenfield, Greenfield Public Schools, Ele- 
mentary, Junior High, McLain High; South Euclid, 
Victory Park. 

OKLAHOMA—Tulsa, John Burroughs. 

SoutH CaROLINA—Trenton, Trenton Public Schools. 

SoutnH Daxota—Hecla, Hecla Public Schools. 

Wyominc—Rock Springs, Lionkol. 


Two Years 


Georcia—Atlanta, Davis Street; New Holland, New 
Holland Public. 

INDIANA—Rensselaer, Rensselaer Public Schools, 
High, Lincoln Grammar, Primary. 

lowa—Council Bluffs, Abraham Lincoln; Des Moines, 
Brooks. 

Kansas—Paola, South. 

Maine—Waterville, Brook Street. 

Massacuusetts—Islington, Islington Public; Wal- 
tham, Thomas Hill. 

New Jersey—Gloucester, Highland Park, 

New YorK—Mechanicsville, Saratoga Avenue; One- 
onta, Chestnut Street. 

NortH Daxota—Bismarck, Bismarck Public Schools, 
High, William Moore, Richholt, Roosevelt, Wach- 
ter, Will-Junior High; Kenmare, Kenmare Public 
Schools. 

On1o—Homerville, Homer Township Schools; 
Sharon Center, Sharon Township. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Pike County, Pike County Public 
Schools. 

West VirGiIniA—Fairmont, Jayenne Junior High. 


Current Year 


Georcia—Griffin, Sam Bailey Junior High, Fourth 
Ward, High, Northside, Third Ward, West Griffin. 

lowa—Mason City, Harding; Ottumwa, Ottumwa 
Public Schools. 

Maine—Medford, Cradock; Solon, Solon Village 
Schools. 

MASSACHUSETTS—Winchendon, Woodcock. 

MINNESOTA—Wells, Wells Public Schools. 

Missourr—St. Louis, House of Detention School. 

NesRASKA—Hardy, Hardy Public Schools. 

NortH Daxota—Carrington, Lincoln High, Wash- 
ington; Kindred, Kindred Public Schools. 

OKLAHOMA—Bokchito, Bokchito Public Schools. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Montgomery County, Hatfield Con- 
solidated, West Norriton Township. 

SoutH CaroL_ina—Prosperity, Prosperity Public. 

a 3 Daxota—Hermosa, Hermosa Public Schools, 

igh. 

Vircinta—Gordonsville, High; Norfolk County, Col- 
man Place. 

Wisconsin—Colby, Graded; Kenosha, Deming Un- 
graded; Okanchee, Okanchee State Graded. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 


Published monthly, except July, August, and September, by the National Education Association of the United States 


President, FLORENCE HALE 





Secretary, J. W. CRABTREE 


SSS ————0—q0q0q>q0®$@oss00$@m9 SS SSS eee ooo eo 
The payment of $2 active membership dues entitles a member to attend all meetings of the Association and its departments, to vote for delegates 
to the Representative Assembly, to hold office, and to receive THE JOURNAL. 


The payment of $5 instead of $2 entitles an active member, in addition to the privileges of the $2 membership, to receive the Proceedings, 


committee reports, and other regular publications of the Association. 


The payment of $100 gives the privileges of the $5 active membership for life. 


Subscription to nonmembers is $2 per year; single copies, 25 cents. 
at once any change of address, giving old as well as new address. 


One dollar of each membership fee is for a year’s subscription to THE JOURNAL. 


Advertising rates on application. Members are kindly requested to report 


THE JoURNAL is a member of the Educational Press Association of America and is published in accordance with the standards of that organization. 


Entered as secondclass matter October 28, 1920, at the postoffice at Washington, D. C., under the act of August 24, 1912. 
mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized January 26, 1921. 


Offices: 1201 Sixteenth Street N. W., Washington, D. C. 





os 


Joy E_mer Morcan, Editor 








Acceptance for 





[312] 


Haroip A. ALLAN, Business Manager 





- - o_O 
ee 





Vol. 20, No. 8 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 











x * * * * * 7 * * * * 

















‘The Man that Every Child 
Should KNOW 





| 
| | 
> 7 
c | 
ic 

| Now motion pictures will unfold the inspiring drama 
th . . ° . . oi) és 
3 | of his life so that pupils. may remember it with all the vividness 
te | of actual experience 

| 7 - Neuere group of motion pic- _ and his great services to his country. engrave upon the minds of young and 
* tures is in preparation. It is the Once seen, these stirring pictures will old alike a vivid, lasting impression of 
n- story of George Washington—His Life the beauty and heroism of Washington’s 
| and Times, now being produced by life and character. 
s, 5 ‘ -_ . e . 
‘ | Eastman Teaching Films, Inc., at Four 15-minute reels, obtainable in 
a! the request and with the codperation both 16- and 35-millimeter widths, 


of the George Washington Bicentennial 
Commission. It is the only picture on 
Washington’s life to be so produced. 

The purpose of this series of films is 
to enable both children and adults to 
know Washington. The films will 
present, accurately and with dramatic 


power, the leading events in his life, 





On the screen: Governor Dinwiddie makes 
Washington Commander of the 
Virginia Regiment. 


tell the story. They include many inci- 
dents never before shown on the screen. 

The services of experts in every field 
have been utilized to make the story 
real and authentic. For complete in- 
formation, address: Eastman Teaching 
Films, Inc. (Subsidiary of Eastman 


Kodak Company), Rochester, N. Y. 


Produced by EASTMAN TEACHING FILMS, INC. 
Subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak (ompany, at the request of 
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION 





* * * * * * 





* * a 


Mention Tue Journat, when writing our advertisers. 











See Ene EES 


ch 


A-186 THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


November, 1931 












Combined staffs of NEA and 
Office of Education honor David 
Starr Jordan—A brief but impressive 
memorial service for one of its most dis- 
tinguished presidents was held by the 
NEA staff together with members of the 
staff of the U. S. Office of Education in 
the auditorium of the new NEA head- 
quarters on September 21. 

The service opened with a prayer by 
S. D. Shankland, executive secretary of 
the Department of Superintendence. Wil- 
liam G. Carr, director of the NEA Re- 
search Division, himself a graduate of 
Leland Stanford University, told of Dr. 
Jordan’s personal influence on the indi- 
vidual student there. Commissioner 
Cooper then gave a fitting eulogy clos- 
ing with these verses written by Dr. 
Jordan himself: 

A darkening sky and a whitening sea, 
And a wind in the palm trees tall; 
Soon or late comes the call for me, 


Down from the mountain or up from the sea, 
Then let me lie where I fall. 





And a friend may write, for friends there be, 

On a stone from the dark sea-wall, 

“Jungle and town and reef and sea, 

I have loved God’s earth, and God’s earth loved 
me, 

Take it for all in all!” 


Commissioner Cooper better — 
The many friends of William John 
Cooper, United States Commissioner of 
Education, who were concerned by the 
newspaper announcement of his illness 
while on a speaking trip in October will 
be glad to know that he is making rapid 
improvement and is expected to be again 
at his desk in a few weeks. 


True professional spirit—Where 
conditions are worst, where the fight is 
the hardest, there is where real teachers 
are showing their colors. The following is 
a paragraph from a letter sent by Secre- 
tary Crabtree to principals this fall: 

We are now passing thru a period of depres- 
sion when we need many times the funds that 


we have at our disposal. We ought to do work in 
research and we ought to promote measures 





16mm. Films 
Now Available 





Courtesy of the National College of Education, Evanston, Il. 


Motion pictures for the schoolroom are now obtain- 


and ANNOUNCEMENTS 


much more vigorously than we can do on avail- 
able funds. We are fighting now to hold what 
has been gained since the war. We are losing in 
places. Conditions sometimes force regrettable 
changes but most reductions are due to the fact 
that our forces are not yet large enough and 
efficient enough in getting information before 
boards of education. The plan is to urge 100 
percent enrolments in all cities where salary con- 
ditions are satisfactory. This is to make up for 
anticipated losses. St. Louis has just increased 
her membership to three times what it was last 
year and expects to make it a 100 percent enrol- 
ment within a few weeks. If a hundred other 
cities do this, the Association will continue its 
growth and defeat will have been turned into 
victory. 


And this is a reply from the Middle 
West: 


Never was there a country where people in 
general and schoolboards in particular would do 
more for the education of their children than 
in this Middle West. If we can keep one half of 
the schools running in 1932-33 and one fourth 
of them in 1933-34 we will be very fortunate 
and will need every penny of the tax money we 
can extract from the poor farmers. 


[Continued on page A-188] 





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Vol. 20, No. 8 








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and character. Naturally, therefore, you should 
select your printer as carefully as you would 
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OUR PLANT 


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WASHINGTON, D. C. 





YEARBOOK LIST 


Department of Superintendence 


Third Yearbook, 1925, Research in Constructing . 


the Elementary School Curriculum. 408 pp. 


Fourth Yearbook, 1926, The Nation at Work on 
the Public School Curriculum; together with a re- 
print of Research Bulletin, Keeping Pace with the 
Advancing Curriculum. Reprinted under one 
cover, November, 1929. 560 pp. 


Fifth Yearbook, 1927, The Junior High School 
Curriculum. 562 pp. 


Sixth Yearbook, 1928, The Development of the 
High School Curriculum. 584 pp. 


Seventh Yearbook, 1929, The Articulation of the 
Units of American Education. 616 pp. 


Eighth Yearbook, 1930, The Superintendent Surveys 
Supervision. 472 pp. 


Ninth Yearbook, 1931, Five Unifying Factors in 
American Education. 544 pp. 


Price $2 for each Yearbook 


Address communications and make checks payable to the 
Department of Superintendence 


NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


1201 Sixteenth Street, N. W. 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 




















































THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





A-187 








the Chec oma” 
That Cheers / 


When You Are Under the T. C. U. 
Umbrella 


One teacher out of every five loses pay some time during 
each school year on account of sickness, accident or quaran- 
tine. Not only do they lose pay, but they have staggering 
expenses to meet, such as heavy doctor bills, hospital bills 
and nurse bills, that often wipe out their savings or run 
them deeply into debt. It also means worry, which is likely 
to prolong disability. 

To those who have been thoughtful enough to provide 
themselves with adequate T. C. U. protection, sickness, ac- 
cident or quarantine means the coming of the T. C. U. check 
and the freedom from worry. It means that extra expenses 
can be met without using up savings and without sacrificing 


a vacation trip or new clothes. The T. C. U. check helps 
to make pay day certain. 


T. C. U. Check Stops Worry 


Thelma G. Dillon, Alliance, Nebr., recently wrote: “I 
certainly do appreciate the check from the T. C. U. When a 
person is sick there’s nothing like a T. C. U. check to put 
him back on his feet again.” 


Urges All to Join T. C. U. 


Louise Welch, Mt. Pleasant, Mich. 
also writes: “I received the check for my re- 
cent illness before I realized that my claim 
had had time to reach the home office. I 
cannot say too much about how prompt and 
fair you are in all your dealings. I hope 
all my friends will become T. C. U. mem- 
bers. It pays!” 


Get Under T. C. U. 
Umbrella 


You, too, can be sure of receiving “the 
check that cheers” by getting under the 
T. C. U. Umbrella (joining the T. C. U.). 
Then when sickness, accident or quarantine 
robs you of your salary, the T. C. U. check 
will come to help pay your bills. Fill out 
the coupon today and mail for complete 
information. Your inquiry places you under 
no obligation. 





Teachers Casualty Underwriters 
620 T. C. U. Bidg. Lincoln, Nebr. 
FREE INFORMATION COUPON | 
To the T. C. U., 620 T. C. U. Bldg., Lincoln, Nebr. | 
I am interested in knowing about your Protective Benefits. | 
Send me the whole story and booklet of testimonials. 


Mention THe Journat when writing our advertisers. 


; 
i 

5 
ty 
| 
i 


ee ORE ENG OIE ES 0 OS 


creer 


PAE A ee SARE TONNER 








Se ER antl 


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A-188 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





[Continued from page A-186] 

I expect we will all join or at least some will 
—anyhow I will—but it is doubtful if we get 
our salary this full year. We might as well face 
the facts of the case and not try to dodge them. 
If education is going to continue we will have 
to de something to remedy the cause and allow 
the farmers to live. 


Louisiana welcomes NEA rural 
leadership—‘“There are many reasons 
why every teacher in Louisiana should 
join the National Education Association. 
Since we are largely an agricultural state, 
however, it is not unreasonable to urge 
that every teacher in Louisiana join this 
year for two special reasons: first, be- 
cause we, with our very real advance in 
rural education in recent years, may be 
able to help Miss Hale to help the chil- 
dren of America; and second, Miss Hale, 
out of the wealth of her experience, can 
certainly, as president of the NEA, help 
us.”—Amy H. Hinrichs, New Orleans, 
Louisiana. 


Results of a JOURNAL service— 
The following is from a letter to the 
editor written by W. D Boutwell, edi- 
tor-in-chief of the U. S. Office of Educa- 
tion: 

Letters received at this office indicate that the 
U. S. Office of Education page in the JourNaL 





Lite Membership 


Opportunity is again knocking at your 
door and giving you the advantage of 
enroling as a Life Member of the Na- 
tional Education Association on the ten- 
payment plan. One thousand members 
were added to this list of distinguished 
leaders last year. Our goal is set for a 
similar number this year. 


of the National Education Association is having 
the salutary effect of interesting educators in the 
work of the federal government for education. 

See page 298—Cultivate the habit of 
reading the JOURNAL statistical tables 
regularly. They contain as much infor- 
mation as several pages of text. 


New state superintendents — In 
February, 1930, the JouRNAL published 
a centerspread of photos of all state su- 
perintendents. Beginning with this issue, 
in which the picture of Superintendent 
James N. Rule of Pennsylvania is shown 
on page 297, the JouRNAL will contain 
the photos of each of the state superin- 
tendents coming into office since Feb- 
ruary, 1930. 


Annual cartoon project—Nearly 
eighty cartoons were drawn by high- 
school students in the second annual 
cartoon project sponsored by the Divi- 
sion of Publications of the National Edu- 
cation Association. Competent judges, in- 
cluding a nationally known newspaper 
cartoonist, helped select the more meri- 
torious drawings from the large number 
submitted. The best of these cartoons will 
be widely used in educational magazines, 
newspapers, and school publications. 
Some of the drawings made last year 





An Appeal to Professional Spirit 


“T am so proud to have my name ap- 
pear in ‘Who’s who in the Profession’ ” 
has come to us many times since this 
leaflet was distributed. Life member- 
ship indicates a permanent interest in 
education. Such an interest has never 


been needed more than at the present 
time. 


MR. J. W. CRABTREE, Secretary, National Education Association, 


1201 Sixteenth Street N. W., Washington, D. C. 


Dear Mr. Crabtree: 


I wish to have a permanent part in the great work which you are doing and to become a life member, making my first payment of $10.00 December 1. 


understand the entire amount of $100.00 can be paid in equal annual installments of $10.00 each. 


PO SE SE Ee Ee Pee re ee Ue a 


ee 


ee ae i re | 


ee es 


November, 1931 


have already appeared in books. The 
original sketches will be sent for exhibit 
purposes to prominent schools and col- 
leges. Some of them will be available for 
exhibit at the annual convention of the 
Columbia Scholastic Press Association 
next spring. Cartoons of last year’s proj- 
ect were shown at the convention of the 
National Education Association at Los 
Angeles in June, 1931. 

No awards are offered for these car- 
toons other than the recognition they re- 
ceive by being printed in publications 
read by hundreds of thousands of people. 
In order to enable high-school students 
everywhere to appreciate them, the Divi- 
sion of Publications makes engravings of 
some of the best work. From these cuts, 
mats are made which may be obtained by 
any high-school publication at the cost of 
manufacture and distribution. Eight of 
them may be purchased for $1.45. 

The Division of Publications an- 
nounces the third annual cartoon project. 
Students in any high school may submit 
drawings thru the high-school teacher of 
art or the school principal. Application 
blanks and other information will be sent 
by the Division of Publications of the 
National Education Association, 1201 
Sixteenth Street N. W., Wash., D. C. 


in the N. E. A. 


Educational advantages—the founda- 
tion stones of our life—are in grave 
danger, but, with an army of loyal mem- 
bers of the profession at work, defeat 
will be turned into victory. The sacri- 
fice will not be too great and it will mean 
so much to the profession now. 


Use this blank and enlies naw soccer ene cst tatcis en ttt deecmienedisleris th an 


I 


CHOPS OHHH SERS HSE ES EEE SEES Oe EES ESEE ET ES SEeSes+ 8 


COSHH SCHT HOSES SET OSES EEE EEE eee rereseeEeseeeeseeees 


(Fill out, return at once and receive the life membership certificate, card and gold pin or button.) 


Mention Tue Journat when writing our advertisers. 





—E es ———[_$_$__$_—_—_—— 





Vol. 20, No. 8 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


A-189 





White House Conference publi- 
cations now available—The following 
are now off the press and may be secured 
from the Century Company, 353 Fourth 
Avenue, New York City: White House 
Conference, 1930. 365p. Board edition, 
50 cents; cloth edition, $2; The Home 
and the Child. 65p. Cloth bound, illus- 
trated, $2; Pediatric Education. 109p. 
Paper bound, 50 cents; Communicable 
Disease Control. 238p. Cloth bound, 
$2.25; Nursery Education. Cloth bound, 
$2. 

In the hands of the printer are two 
more volumes: Special Education—T he 
Handicapped and the Gifted; Health 
Protection for the Preschool Child, to be 
published in November. 

Other volumes will appear thru the 
fall and winter months as rapidly as pos- 
sible. The sales price of the Conference 
books is based on the cost of production 
and distribution. In every case they are 
sold at a price one third to one half of 
what a similar book in a specialized field 
would cost if commercially produced. 

In addition to the published reports of 
the Conference a series of pamphlets has 
been issued, utilizing the information of 
the committee reports to suggest solutions 
to parental problems. These leaflets, 
which will be followed by others from 
time to time, consist of three series: 


Series on growth—Responsibilities of the 
presentday family; How children grow phys- 
ically ; How children differ mentally; Learning 
to talk; The changing drama of behavior. 

Series on personality—Mental health begins 
at home; Home and school: Partners in a com- 
mon venture; How communities influence their 
children; Vacation—profit or loss?; The uses 
of leisure time. 

Series on habits—What do parents need to 
know?; Habits that make or mar; Habits of 


sleep and repose; Habits of eating; Habits of 
independence. 


Prices: Single copy, 10¢; complete set 
of 15, $1.25. Quantity price upon appli- 
cation. 

The Farmer’s Wife reprinted these 
leaflets in 3 booklets, one on each of the 
three series. The three may be purchased 
for 45 cents. Address The Farmer’s Wife 
at St. Paul, Minnesota. 


Red-letter dates on November's 
school calendar—November offers va- 
ried opportunities for enriching the cur- 
riculum thru its many special observ- 
ances: 


American Education Week: Nov. 9-15— 
There is still time to order material for your 
program from the NEA Division of Publica- 
tions. Things To Do, an outline of plans and 
programs, will help solve your particular prob- 
lems. A collection of fifteen posters, specially 
selected, will add to your school exhibit for that 
week, Children First, a four-page leaflet in three 

[Continued on page A-190] 








The microbe that causes the com- 
mon cold is a world’s champion 
“hitch-hiker.” He catches rides on 
towels and cups and pennies and 

dimes — and 
travels from 
sick to well by 
human aid. 





A soap-and-water ‘fence’ 
If the public refused to give this 


microbe unnecessary rides, the com- 
mon cold would be less common. 
We can’t build a barbed-wire fence 
around the-man-with-a-cold; but we 
can help protect ourselves with a 
“fence” that is even more effective 
—cleanliness. 


i Handwashing plays 
\,4n important part 

Handstouchdoor-knobs 
that have beentouched by 
other hands; they touch 
clothes and books and trolley straps. 
Then they touch our mouths—and 
the hitch-hiker has reached his goal. 
More frequent handwashing with 
soap and warm water would often 
prevent the completion of his jour- 
ney. Especially before meals. 


") 








Clean, individ- 
ual towels 

Clean, individual 

Il towels, too, make 

Load hitch-hiking harder. 

For when Mrs. Smith uses her own 


Mention Tur Journat when writing our advertisers. 





Vo make the 
“common cold’’ 


less common 


clean towel she’s less likely to pick 
up Mr. Smith’s microbes. Frequent 
changes of linens and bed-clothes 
are important, too. And above all, 
clean, fresh handkerchiefs to muffle 
coughs and sneezes! 


Clean dishes, 


clean food 


Avoid “com- 
munity” drinking 
glasses. And “com- 
munity” dishes are 
almost as bad. Wash them thoroughly 
in hot soapy water—for hitch-hikers 
down the drain never hurt anyone. 








Helping prevent epidemics’ 


Impress upon the public’s mind the 
importance of these precautions. Do 
your share to make the common cold 
less common. 


Send for this FREE BOOK 


The complete story of hitch-hiking 
microbes is in this interesting book. 
Free to teachers, 
health - workers, 
and other public 
leaders. Address 
all requests to 
Cleanliness Insti- 
tute, Dept. 8K, 
45 East 17th St., 
New York. 





CLEANLINESS INSTITUTE 


Established to promote public welfare by teaching the value of cleanliness 





Th ett nrg hatha anit! «3 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 





Ke — % it Aer; 
Nop: 2 oe PRE 


From the famous Houdon Statue 
By Act of Congress 


the United States will celebrate the 


200th Birthday of 
George Washington in 1932 


Co-operating with the Congressional Commission, 
the Caproni Galleries have prepared a beautifully 
filustrat.d brochure of the many famous statues, 
busts and historical reliefs of Washington and 
events in his life. Positively no charge or obliga- 
tion Fill in the coupon and mail today. Your 
copy will be promptly mailed 


P. P. CAPRONI & BRO., INC., 
1920 Washington St., Roxbury, Boston, Mass. 


(Kindly print name and address) 
Name of School_- 
Address of School 
WUD Pei wcctsctdnsececess 


Position 





Slides 


Contains listing of 44,000 Edu- 
cational slides including Science, 
Geography, Literature, Travel, 
Kindergarten, etc. 

Write for Free Copy 

Victor Animatograph Co. 

292 victor Bidg., Davenport, lowa 









Give them sunlight 
without eyestrain 


Good classroom lighting aids pupil progress. Bad lighting, 
because it strains pupils’ eyes, retards. Ordinary shades 
shut out sunlight entirely. That darkens classrooms. 
Draper ADJUSTABLE Shades leave in the sunlight. But 
they take out the glare. A cloth of selected quality modifies 
and diffuses the rays so pupils work in soft, mellow light. 


Another feature is the Draper center hung or top suspended 
roller which can be-drawn either up or down. This leaves 
in top light, recognized as the best light, through the upper 
third of the window. When con- 
cA sidering shades for your school, 
| find out how much better Draper 

Shades can serve you. Interesting 

| literature and sample of Dratex 
“J cloth sent free to educators. Ad- 


; © dress Dept. J. 
— LUTHER O. DRAPER 
+> nee CD... 


_ Makers of Better Shades for 
| Over a Quarter Century 


“ Spiceland, Dept. J., Indiana 










‘one position than the following: 





[Continued from page A-189] 
colors, is an excellent piece of material to go 
into homes with report cards. 


Armistice Day: Nov. 11—The World Peace 
Foundation, 40 Mt. Vernon St., Boston, Mass., 
will supply helpful material. A study of the 
World Court is appropriate in this connection 
and the American Foundation, 565 Fifth Ave., 
New York, N. Y., will supply without charge a | 
complete history of this undertaking. 





November, 1931 


EARN A TOUR TO EUROPE 


Foremost Student Tours to Europe desires a com- 
Ppetent organizer or representative in each city or 
college. Most liberal commissions ever offered. Also 
cash bonus for acting as hostess or courier for party. 
Ability to fill these positions desired but not essen- 
tial. 23.000 Satisfied Clients. 250 Conducted Tours 
from 24 days $235 to 93 Days $690. Lowest Cost and 
Easiest Selling Tours. State qualifications fully in 
first letter 


College Travel Club, 154 Boylston St., Boston, Mass. 





Book Week: Nov. 15-21—For information 
and help write to the National Association of 
Book Publishers, 347 Fifth Avenue, New York, 
mM. Sz 

Plan your Bicentennial program 
now—FEvery school will want to take an 
active part in the nationwide celebration 
of the George Washington Bicentennial. 
A wide selection of material, both text 
and pictorial, together with suggested 
plans, is available to every teacher, mostly 
free of charge, from the George Wash- 
ington Bicentennial Commission, Wash- 
ington Building, Washington, D. C. 


Eliminate rivalry—This is the title 
of a forceful editorial by A. E. Winship 
in the Journal of Education from which 
the following paragraphs are quoted: 


Civilization is in jeopardy. There is no con- 
tinent or country that is adequately stable. The 
United States appears to be economically, so- 
cially, and civically as safe as any country on the 
globe, but there is a restless element here. 

American education appears to have responsi- 
bility for stabilizing civilization. 

Our expectation is that civilization will be 
saved by the elimination of rivalries of various 
kinds. It is evident that there will be no civic 
stability where there is intense rivalry between 
aristocracy, autocracy, and democracy. 

It is equally hopeless to expect peace and pros- 
perity where races or creeds are at war. 

The tragedy of civilization from India and 
China thru Africa and South America, the 
islands of the southern and northern seas is the 
rivalry of ages. 


Veterans of the profession—Rec- 
ognition is here given to two remarkable 
teaching records. The JOURNAL would be 
glad to hear if there is any other teacher 
now in service who has a longer record in 


Patrick H. McQuade, eighty-seven years of 
age, who last May began his sixty-seventh year 
as a principal in Albany, N. Y., his native city. 

William H. Hall, eighty-five years of age, who 
begins, this September, his sixtieth year of con- 
tinuous teaching in West Hartford, Conn., his 
native town. 


A new magazine for schools— 
Under the sponsorship of such men as 
Charles A. Beard, Harold G. Moulton, 
David S. Muzzey, E. A. Ross, and Walter 
E. Myer a new weekly magazine—The 
American Observer—began publication 
on September 9, 1931. Teachers inter- 
ested in using this periodical for current 
events may obtain sample copies by writ- 


Mention Tue Journat when writing our advertisers. 


NATURE STUDY and HEALTH EDUCATION 
Texts and Workbooks for the Grades 
By Alice Jean Patterson 


GEOGRAPHY WORKBOOKS 
For All Grades and High School 
Also Outline Maps 
By Douglas C. Ridgley and Others 


EVERYDAY LIFE PROBLEMS IN ARITHMETIC 
For Fifth Grade 
Jordan & O'Shea 


GRADE SCHOOL MUSIC SERIES 
By F. W. Westhoff 


School Forms and Records 
Other School Publications 


McKNIGHT & McKNIGHT 


Bloomington, Tilinois 


JOHN HANCOCK SERI 


You Can Retire 
on FULL Pay 


—by pensioning yourself, 
and supplementing your 
Teachers’ Retirement Fund 
with Retirement Annuities. 


If you invest a portion of 
your active service salary 
in these Annuities, the pro- 
ceeds will increase the amount 
of your income at retire- 
ment. 


This may be done at a 
surprisingly low cost. 
For particulars, address 


Inquiry Bureau 


LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 


OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


197 Clarendon St., Boston, Mass. 


Please send booklet, “You can have an 
Income as long as you live.” 


J.N.E 
OVER SIXTY-EIGHT YEARS IN BUSINESS 








Vol. 20, No. 8 


THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


A-191 





HOLDEN 


Book Covers 


Springfield, Massachusetts 











Founded 1898 by Annie Moseley Perry 


Perry Kindergarten Normal School 


3-year course for high school graduates desiring to 
become nursery school, kindergarten, primary and play- 


ground teachers. 
attention. 


Supervised practice teaching. 
credits. 


Send for booklet ‘‘Training Children.’’ 
HARRIOT HAMBLEN JONES, Principal, 


25 Huntington Ave., Room 316, Boston, Mass. 





OF EDUCATION 


National Kindergarten and Elementary College 
Trains women as teachers of nursery schools, kinder- 
gartens and elemcntary grades. 
February 1, 1932. 
1932. Write for catalog. 

Edna D. Baker, Pres., Box D-tii, Evanston, III. 


Spring term opens 
Sutumer session begins June 17, 





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for Teachers in Rural, Primary, Grade and 
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The Economic Welfare 
of Teachers 


Sixth Yearbook 
Department of Classroom 
Teachers (1931) 

This new book for teachers and or- 
ganization leaders discusses seven 
basic principles of economic security: 


| 
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1. Adequate salaries and_ salary 
schedules. 

2. Continuous employment during 
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3. Wise budgetary procedure. 

4. Systematic saving and sound in- 
vestment. 

5. Protection against loss of capacity 
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ice. 

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7. Access to credit facilities at rea- 
sonable cost. 


244 Pages Price $1.50 
NATIONAL EDUCATION 


ASSOCIATION 


1201 Sixteenth Street N. W. 
Washington, D. C. 







































ing to 3418 Fourteenth Street, North- 
west, Washington, D. C. 


President Hoover to head liberal 
arts college broadcast—Thru the 
cooperation of the National Broadcasting 
Company and a group of educators inter- 
ested in the future of the liberal arts col- 
lege as a vital unit in our American edu- 
cational system, a national radio program 
on the general theme of The Liberal Arts 
College has been arranged for Saturday, 
November 14, 1931. One part will consist 
of a half hour given over to talks by Pres- 
ident Hoover, Dr. Robert L. Kelly, Mrs. 
Thomas J. Preston, Jr., Dr. John H. Fin- 
ley, and Dr. A. N. Ward, broadcast from 


the National Broadcasting Company stu- | 


dios, 8:30-9 PM., Eastern Standard 
Time. The other part of the program is 
being left to the initiative of the college 
presidents in each community under the 
leadership of the regional directors. A 


| local program for a half hour or longer 








immediately following or immediately 
preceding the national broadcast will be 
a very effective way of focusing attention 
and thought locally. 


Schedule of weekly broadcasts 
of the Ohio School of the Air 1931-32 
—These broadcasts are sent out every 
school day between 2 and 3 PM.., Eastern 
Standard Time, over station WLW, Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. 

Monday 

2-2:20—Current events for upper grades and 
high school 

2:20-2:40—Civil government by 
govern for upper grades 

2:40-3—Nature study for grades 4-6 

Tuesday 


those who 





2-2:30—Literature and English for high school | 


[Tentative] t 

2:30-3—Travelog for grades 6-8 [Tentative] 

Wednesday 

2-2:20—Series in physics, botany, and chem- 
istry for high schools [Tentative] 

2:20-2:40—History dramalogs for grades 5-8 

2:40-3—Art appreciation for lower grades 

Thursday 

2-2:20—Geography of our own country for 
grades 5 and 6 

2:20-2 :40—Geography of foreign countries for 
grades 7 and 8 

2:40-3—Stories for the lower grades 

Friday 

2-2:20—Know Ohio [later Kentucky and In- 
diana] for upper grades 

2:20-2 :40—Health for grades 5-8 

2:40-3—Stories, plays, and rhythmics for lower 
grades 


Superintendent of Camden, N. J., 
schools retires after long service— 


Dr. James E. Bryan, superintendent of | 


Camden City schools for the past thirty- 
two years, retired on pension October 1. 
He has always been active in educational 
affairs and has acted as president of the 
New Jersey State Teachers Association. 
Dr. Leon N. Neulen succeeds him. 


Mention Tue Journat when writing our advertisers. 


| school with copies of HYGEIA. 





HYGEIA is filled each month with live 


material for health teaching, with ideas 


that are practical. It brings you just 
the help and inspiration you need most— 
for supplementing and motivating health 
teaching and for correlating with prac- 
tically every other subject. Sponsored 
by the American Medical Association, 


HYGEIA is always authentic. 


Use HYGEIA for: 


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Every Month 


“Health and the School” 
By Dr. J. Mace Andress 


Dr. Andress, noted as the author of textbooks 
on health, each month contributes editorial 
discussions of trends in health teaching, gives 
live examples of plans used in various schools 
and sources of available health material for 
teachers’ use, and reviews books on health and 
hygiene. A department teachers find invaluable! 


each 
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AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, 
| 535 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. | 
| Enclosed is one dollar for a six months’ introduc- | 
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THE JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION November, 1931 





SC 


DEPRESSIONS ARE TEMPORARY 
SCHOOLS ARE PERMANENT 


The teaching profession must hold the gains of 
the past decade. It must press forward to new 
advances. It must not be thwarted by a passing 
disturbance. 


Loyalty to our professional organizations now 
means continued educational progress. 


Retreat now would mean that the work of the 


past decade would have to be done over. 


Stand by your local association; stand by your state 
association; stand by your national association. 


Hold the line. Keep Children first. 


Let every member enrol one new member. 


Use this application blank to enrol a friend. 


APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP 


NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, 1201 16th Street, Washington, D. C. 


I hereby inclose $2 for membership in the National Education Association for 1931-32, which includes 
a year’s subscription to THE JOURNAL. 


Name 


> bbe es wie ee © ob CO OOK ERO SOO HERB H OHH ES 


Pha Os b 264 £0.40 4 2 0 


[This application may be used for either new members or renewals. ] 


PLETUGUUCETACTUSEEUTTUAASTAETA TUTTO TATA TENET EET T TUT 


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TOA 


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