OURNAL 


he of the 


| EDUCATION 
“ ASSOCIATION 


tees lhe Most Important 
{Question of All 


Harold L. Ickes 
* 

; Evaluating the Pub- 

lic School Program 

John K. Norton 
* 

The Future Comes 


-- Charles A.Beard 
and George H. E. 
Smith 


LING, 


sues 


, The Government 
Takes Steps to Aid 
Schools 





| See page A-25 for 
_complete Table of 
| Contents 

O ° 


MARCH - 1934 


VOLUME 23 NUMBER 3 





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The JOURNAL of the NATIONAL 


Vol. 23, No. 3 


EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION 





In This Issue 


The Teacher and the People 
Editorial 


Evaluating the Public-School Program 
John K. Norton 


The Most Important Question of All 
Harold L. Ickes 


Reading and Literature 
Eugene T. Lies 


“A Whistling Girl—” 
Anne Norton 
An Evening with the Magazines 
Types of Taxes: The Income Tax 
Harley L. Lutz and William G. Carr 


Life Insurance Is Safe 
Frank N. Freeman 


Using the Rural Community in Teaching 
_ C. M. Wieting and M. L. McCoy 


Going Places .. 
William Dow Boutwell 


Home Visiting: More Results 
Elwood V. Hess 


Letter of an Old-Timer 

Group Study and Faculty Meetings 
Membership in Education Associations 
Making Friends for the School 


The Seven Objectives of Education 


The Legion and the Schools aay 
' Russell Cook 


A Dental Clinic on Wheels 1S Pel 
Helen Hall 


The Washington Convention 
Jessie Gray 


Government Takes Steps to Aid Schools 


The Future Comes : 
Charles A. Beard and George H. E. Smith 


Master Builders of Our Profession 
Builders of Our Profession 
Notes and Announcements 





of address, giving old as well as new 





WE DO OUR Pant 


authorized January 26, 1921. 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





A-28 


JOy ELMER MORGAN 
Editor 


H. A. ALLAN 


Business Manager 
Published by the Naticnal Education Association 
JESSIE GRAY J. W. CRABTREE 


President Secretary 





Between Editor and Reader 


Tue officers of the Association, who are 
working as never before to safeguard and improve the 
schools, greatly appreciate the fine spirit which is revealed 
in the thousands of letters that stream into Association 
headquarters from every branch of the profession. 


Tie JOURNAL staff—constantly search- 
ing books, studies, periodicals, and reports for the latest 
information and ideas—is greatly aided by being in the 
national capital, which is very much the center both of 
information and action, and by the helpful cooperation of 
readers in every part of the country who write about their 
own experiences and needs. 


"Teacuer and Public—a Handbook of 
Interpretation for Teachers is just off the press as the 
Eighth Yearbook of the Department of Classroom Teach- 
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L is amazing to how great an extent 
some human minds can resist information. Even some 
young minds lock the door against truth, not only declin- 
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enjoy and possess knowledge and riches. The highest and 
most brilliant act of any mind is to look-at, listen-to, and 
consider a NEW idea. Integrity to your own soul demands 
that you be open-minded.—W oodrow Wilson. 





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The Journal of the National Education Association 


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tion 





Fditorial for March 1934 


The Teacher and the People 


EAN J. B. EpMonsoN of the School 
D of Education, University of 
Michigan, a most resourceful and 

valued member of the Joint Commission 
on the Emergency in Education, has is- 
sued a small sheet giving ““The Dark and 


Bright Sides of Recent Developments in 
Public Education.” 


The dark side—[1] The marked and rapid 
decrease in teachers’ salaries thruout the 
country. 

[2] The decrease in funds and in the number 
of teachers employed regardless of increased 
enrolments. 

[3] The tendency to blame schools for local 
indebtedness and for the breakdown of local 
systems of taxation. 

[4] The evidence that many persons are 
jealous of the salaries paid to teachers. 

[5] The evidence of the opposition of some 
private and parochial schools and colleges to 
appropriations for the maintenance of public 
educational institutions. 

[6] The reactionary tendency in many com- 
munities to curtail or eliminate the newer, 
more social parts of the school program. 

[7] The overcrowding of the profession due 
in part to the decrease in the number of posi- 
tions, the overproduction of new teachers, the 
return of former teachers, and the edging into 
teaching of the unemployed from other pro- 
fessions. 

[8] The reluctance of some teacher-training 
institutions to recognize the obligation to re- 
strict the production of new teachers in terms 
of the demand. 

[9] The fact that employing authorities in 
some localities have discriminated against well 
qualified teachers and in favor of poorly pre- 
pared candidates who were available at star- 
vation wages. 

[10] The inability of schools to provide an 
adequate supply of usable instructional ma- 
terials. 

[11] The hostile attitude assumed by cer- 
tain influential newspapers and _ periodicals. 

[12] The evident lack of authoritative direc- 
tion and leadership in our profession. 

[13] The fact that the general public was 
slow in showing real concern about the plight 
of the schools. 

[14] The evidence that considerable numbers 
of citizens question our American policy of 
free secondary education for all boys and 
girls. 

[15] The inability of many of our profes- 
sional organizations to be effective in meeting 
the problems of the depression. 


The bright side—[1] The aggressive and 
enthusiastic activities of local, state, and na- 
tional parent-teacher associations. 

[2] The real concern about the welfare of 
schools exhibited by such national groups as 
the American Legion, the American Federa- 
tion of Labor, the American Association of 
University Women, and other organizations. 

[3] The increasing interest in professional 
problems taken by the classroom teachers, 
especially those in the larger towns and cities. 

[4] The sympathetic support given to pub- 
lic education by the editors of many news- 
papers and by other leaders of public opinion. 

[5] The admission by some lay leaders that 
the schools are entitled to much credit for 
maintaining the morale of the people during 
the depression. 

[6] The possibility that professional organi- 
zations may be operated on a more effective 
basis. 

[7] The interest shown in plans to improve 
the quality of the training of prospective 
teachers. 

[8] The growing recognition of the need 
for coordinating educational agencies within 
states and on a national basis. 

[9] The provision of the opportunity for a 
longer period of schooling for many children 
thru the elimination of child labor. 

[10] The recognition by government officials 
of the importance of supporting programs of 
adult education, and of preschool training, as 
well as educational programs for the Civilian 
Conservation Camps. 

[11] The reorganization of the federal Office 
of Education to unite general and vocational 
education. 

[12] The possibility of efforts to translate 
into practise many significant recommenda- 
tions of national committees and commissions. 

[13] The possibility that a national plan- 
ning agency for American education may be 
developed on a cooperative basis. 

[14] The interest in developing greatly im- 
proved taxation systems in many states. 

[15] The possibility that federal aid for the 
relief of public education within the states 
may be secured. 

[16] The splendid work of many profes- 
sional organizations and of the professional 
fraternities. 

[17] The constructive activities of the Joint 
Commission on the Emergency in Education 
and the strong support given the Commission 
by the profession. 


Dean Edmonson’s points furnish a 
good beginning for faculty study of con- 
ditions in the community. Each school 








Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





faculty will think of other questions 
which might receive consideration. Much 
will depend on general conditions. If 
there is marked improvement, the pres- 
sure on the schools will tend to lessen. 
If conditions remain bad or grow worse, 
attacks on the schools may increase. 

How will the fact that large numbers 
of highschool and college graduates can- 
not secure employment affect sentiment 
toward the school? Will these young 
people conclude that education is not 
worthwhile and even resent the time and 
money spent on their schooling? 

How will the large demands which 
public works and growing public debts 
make upon the taxpayers tend to affect 
public education? How will the school 
be affected by the concentration of in- 
dustry and business in supercorporations 
which tends to concentrate tax payments 
and industrial policy in the hands of 
absentee managers who do not see first- 
hand the needs of the children in the 
community? 

How is wealth produced in your com- 
munity? Is the community growing 
richer or poorer? Thru what channels 
does money come into the community? 
Thru what channels does money go out 
of the community? Is there a proper 
balance between the money that goes 
out and the money which returns to 
the community? Has enough money 
been kept in the community to finance 
new activities for the young people? 
What can the school do to encourage a 
study of local economic conditions? Can 
courses in local economics be added to 
the school? Can adult study groups be 
formed? 

This is a good time for every teacher 
to become a visiting teacher. One good 
way to spend a part of the coming sum- 
mer vacation would be to go among the 
people to study conditions and needs in 
an effort to find ways of making the 
school more helpful. How can present 
and prospective vocational needs be sur- 
veyed and estimated? 


_— DRIVE against public education was nationwide. It was definitely and completely put over in seventeen states. In California 
this drive was powerful enough to put its program over completely in the State Senate. Fortunately for the public schools of 
California it was stopped in the Assembly. What organization engineered this drive and led this attack? The program was planned 
by the California Taxpayers Association. They used the State Chamber of Commerce as a shield. Investigations and the preparation 


of the reports and bills that furnished the basis of the attack came from the California Taxpayers Association. The California Taxpayers 
Association is an organization made up primarily of the great public utilities of California. It is largely financed by these utilities. 
Its dominating directors are prominent utility officials —State Senator Herbert C. Jones, San Jose, California. 
















HE TEACHING PROFESSION is learn- 


ing many things from the trying 

period thru which the schools are 
passing. One of the most important of 
these lessons is that the American pub- 
lic is the court of last resort in decid- 
ing what the American school system 
should attempt to do, how it should do 
it, and.how it should be financed. School 
people have learned that the American 
public cannot be expected to support an 
educational program which it does not 
understand. 

Educational interpretation is impor- 
tant. But the experience of the last 
three years has proved that something 
more is needed. It is not enough merely 
to explain to the people what the schools 
are trying to do. In the period of educa- 
tional reconstruction which lies just 
ahead, opportunities should be created 
whereby the people will actually partici- 
pate in the formulation of educational 
policy. The sound pedagogical doctrine 
that we learn best by doing is pertinent 
in this situation. If we want the people 
really to know what modern education 
is all about, then we must not only be 
willing that large numbers of intelli- 
gent citizens shall actively participate 
in the formulation of broad policies 
affecting the purposes and scope of pub- 
lic education, but must also take the 
lead in developing opportunities for such 
participation. We need educational in- 
terpretation, but even more we need lay 
participation. 

In a democracy the people ultimately 
decide important questions of social and 
economic policy. This is particularly 
true with respect to the public school, 
partly because this institution touches 
the everyday lives of the people so 
closely, and partly because the current 
rapid changes in social organization re- 
quire corresponding developments and 
adjustments in education. Since the 
people must decide, they should decide 
wisely. In all communities questions con- 
cerning the scope and nature of public 
education are now being persistently 
raised. Decisions, sound or unsound, are 
being rendered daily. In such circum- 
stances the duty of those who are pro- 
fessionally responsible for conducting 
the schools is clear. They must place 
educational policies squarely before the 
public, welcoming and encouraging com- 
plete, frank, and impartial discussion of 


66 





Evaluating the Public-School Program 


them by individuals and _ organized 
groups. They must provide the technical 
advice and the educational vision and 
leadership needed by the people in de- 
veloping educational programs appro- 
priate to the demands of twentieth cen- 
tury civilization. 

Because of these considerations, the 
Joint Commission on the Emergency in 
Education is issuing a pamphlet entitled 
Evaluating the Public School Program, 
which is designed to assist superintend- 
ents of schools, principals, and officers 
of teachers associations in organizing and 
conducting public discussions of current 
educational problems. At what point 
should education at public expense be- 
gin? Where should education at public 
expense stop? What are the points of 
strength and weakness in the public 
schools? Is universal education at public 
expense financially practical? The pam- 
phlet defines and brietly explores these 
and other important questions. 

The Joint Commission clearly recog- 
nizes the possible dangers of this pro- 
posal. There exists today, and has existed 
since the beginning of the public school, 
a small minority that because of igno- 
rance or selfish interest has opposed the 
idea of public education. Fair and open 
discussion will offer this minority an 
opportunity to do its worst. But what 
will that worst be? Nothing which any 
courageous, honest teacher need fear. 
Horace Mann in the teeth of the depres- 
sion of 1837 carried the most critical 
educational issues directly to the people 
and won the victories for equality of 
educational opportunity which have been 
the foundation stones upon which our 
systems of free public schools have been 
built. Similar victories can be won in 
the teeth of the current depression, if 
we have the courage to carry the crucial 
issues affecting educational development 
directly to the people. 

Full and frank discussion of impor- 
tant educational issues will be impossible 
unless we who work in education are 
more tolerant toward honest criticism 
than we have sometimes been in the past. 
Education, particularly since 1929, has 
been the victim of many vicious and un- 
fair attacks. It is not surprising that 
teachers should be somewhat sensitive 
towards criticism, even when it is in- 
tended to be constructive. It is of the 
greatest importance that we shall over- 


come our sensitiveness and develop the 
ability to distinguish between attacks 
which aim to destroy the schools and 
constructive criticism designed to im- 
prove educational purposes and prac- 
tises. For every destructive critic there 
are ten citizens who wish better schools 
than we have ever had. 

The publication of Evaluating The 
Public School Program has been made 
possible by the financial support of Phi 
Delta Kappa, a professional fraternity 
in education. Not only has this frater- 
nity assisted in a financial way on this 
and other phases of the Commission’s 
program, but its chapters thruout the 
nation have, for the past few months, 
been intensively studying material to be 
used in this publication. 

The Joint Commission is issuing the 
pamphlet in the belief that if the case 
for public education is strong, its 
strength is increased every time it is 
tested. The general program of public 
education is undoubtedly defensible. If 
it contains elements that are indefensi- 
ble, the profession should take the lead 
in making the needed changes. This at- 
titude on the part of educational lead- 
ers is an excellent defense against un- 
fair attacks on public schools made by 
selfish interests or seekers after publicity. 
Moreover, this attitude on the part of 
school people inspires the confidence of 
the ordinary citizen when he raises hon- 
est questions about the schools. In rais- 
ing them he is doing exactly what he 
should do, and his questions should not 
be ignored. Educational leaders are obli- 
gated to help him find the answers to 
them. 

Faith in the people, faith in free 
thought, and faith in open discussion 
as the only way to reach sound conclu- 
sions on all social issues, are fundamental 
to the further development of public edu- 
cation. Let leaders in education and rep- 
resentative citizens meet in conference 
groups to discuss freely the most incisive 
questions relating to their schools. Out 
of such discussion there should come, 
not merely a better understanding of the 
present school program, but the demo- 
cratic evolution of a school program for 
the new age-——John K. Norton, chair- 
man, Joint Commission on the Emer- 
gency in Education, professor of educa- 
tion, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- 
versity, New York City. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 






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Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C. 


ow MANY of us have stopped to 
H consider what would be the re- 
sult if all the schools of America 
were to be closed tomorrow and kept 
closed for one full generation. One could 
not undertake to describe the conditions 
that would exist at the end of that com- 
paratively short period, but there can be 
no doubt that the effect would be star- 
tling. We would have a country made up 
almost entirely of illiterates. Culture 
would have disappeared. Science would 
be merely a word of Latin origin. In the 
course of a generation we would have 
gone back literally hundreds of years as 
to all the essentials that distinguish this 
period from that of the dark ages. 

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

You all remember the boast of proud 
Douglas in one of Sir Walter Scott’s 
poems that none of his sons save the one 
who had entered the priesthood “could 
pen a line.” There was here described a 
period postdating by hundreds of years 
the emergence of man from the savage 
state. And if our anthropologists are to 
be believed, hundreds of thousands of 
years had elapsed before the distinctive 
form of man had developed in the ani- 
mal kingdom. Scott was writing of the 
days of chivalry when men had acquired 
many of the arts and graces of living. 
Yet aside from the churchmen, the states- 
men, and those few who were gradually 
building up the other learned profes- 
sions, men were still, generally speaking, 
illiterate. Every book was a closed book. 
Knights in armor who could not write 
their names rode full tilt at each other 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





The Most Important Question of All 


HAROLD L. IcKEsS 


in tournaments to win the favor of a 
lady’s smile, little caring that that same 
lady did not know her alphabet. The 
generality of the people lived dull and 
sodden lives, tending their flocks or 
eking a scanty harvest out of the soil 
with the aid of crude and clumsy in- 
struments. 

Gradually more and more people be- 
gan to acquire the rudiments of learning 
but they were indeed rudiments. The 
United States of America is a compara- 
tively young country, and even as late 
as our pioneer days the people got along 
with little formal schooling. When finally 
the value of an education came to be 
realized by the people, schools were es- 
tablished to teach boys and girls to read 
and write. What scattered schools there 
were, were kept open for only three or 
four months a year and few indeed were 
the children who studied more than the 
Three R’s. It was still considered that 
the most valuable part of the education 
of the youth of the land was to be gained 
thru experience on the farm, in the ap- 
prentice shop, or on board ship, because 
we were a nation of farmers and artisans 
and sailors. The Three R’s were con- 
sidered merely as finishing touches to 
the practical education received outside 
of the school. The masses of the people 
had to be content with this smattering 
of an education, altho there was a col- 
lege here and there to educate the few 
for the learned professions. It is prob- 
ably safe to say that the college educa- 
tion of those early times was not the 
equal in depth and extent to the educa- 
tion that the modern child can receive in 
an uptodate high school. 

But life never stands still. It either 
goes backward or forward, and the course 
was an upward one following these early 
pioneer days. Life became more complex 
as commerce and industry developed 
rapidly and contested with agriculture 
for supremacy. As a result of our indus- 
trial and commercial development, so- 
cial, political, and economic problems 
became more numerous and difficult of 
solution, so that in course of time it be- 
came manifest that all the children of all 
the people should receive at least a com- 
mon-school education. Our wellbeing as 
a people and the relative position of our 
country in the family of nations required 


us to turn our attention more and more 
to education. So a noncompulsory school 
system gradually gave way to a com- 
pulsory one, until now school attend- 
ance for a certain number of years is 
required in every state in the union. The 
mere statement of this fact is all that is 
necessary to demonstrate the universal 
belief in this country that we must edu- 
cate our youths broadly and generally in 
order to assure the best possible citizen- 
ship and the wellbeing and security of 
the state itself. 

There never was a time in the history 
of America when education was so vital 
to us as a nation and so essential to us 
as citizens. Yet strangely enough the 
friends of education are finding it neces- 
sary to go thru the land in order to edu- 
cate the people on the importance of 
education. Perhaps we have taken our 
education too much for granted. Like air 
and light and water, we have come to 
assume that it is a natural element; that 
it will always be with us; that it was 
ours for the taking when we were chil- 
dren, and that it will be our children’s 
children for their taking. 

It is unhappily true that friends of 
education and believers in democracy 
must be on the alert as they have never 
had to be in the past in order to preserve 
unimpaired this essential tool of democ- 
racy. There is an enemy within the gate. 
Apparently there are those in the land 
who are taking advantage of the eco- 
nomic strain and stress under which we 
have been suffering to dim the light that 
has guided our course since pioneer days. 
It is being urged that we have spent too 
much money on education; that we are 
over-educated; that the schools are full 
of frills and fads and fancies that do our 
youth more harm than good; that all the 
education that is necessary for our chil- 
dren is a grounding in the Three R’s. 

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


67 











tion is undermined, our civilization itself 
will suffer to a corresponding degree. 

In moments of reverie we may idealize 
the simple bucolic state in which our 
ancestors lived. With the edges of our 
imagination we may play with the idea 
of reverting to a condition of society of 
a hundred or two hundred or three hun- 
dred years ago. We may longingly won- 
der how it would seem to substitute the 
kerosene lamp for the electric bulb or 
even the tallow dip or the rush light for 
the kerosene lamp. We may romanticize 
about dressing again in homespun, rais- 
ing all our own food, and producing all 
our own clothing on our own little farm. 
To give up the automobile for the plod- 
ding cart, to discard the tractor for the 
horse-drawn plow, to throw away our 
ice-making machines, our bath tubs, and 
all our modern comforts and conven- 
iences may be an idea to play with in an 
idle moment, but I am certain that no 
man, woman, or child would in reality 
want to revert to the dull, drudging, un- 
imaginative existence of our great-grand- 
fathers. 

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

So intimately is the general education 
of the people related not only to their 
own happiness and wellbeing but to the 
prosperity and security of the country 
that the importance of maintaining and 
developing our educational system ought 
not to require argument. It is by means 
of an educated people that material 
wealth is increased. The natural re- 
sources of our country are no greater 


68 





today than they were a hundred years 
ago. As a matter of fact, they are much 
less. Quantities of the gold, silver, coal, 
and iron have been mined, and to a con- 
siderable extent our oil has been ex- 
ploited and our forests cut down. Prob- 
ably our native ability as a people is 
little, if any, greater than it was a hun- 
dred years ago. Yet none will deny that 
the value of the people to the nation is 
vastly greater than it was a century ago. 
This increased value is due to the fact 
that they have become more universally 
intelligent as the result of education. Of 
the three factors in the production of 
material wealth, namely, natural re- 
sources, native ability of the people, and 
education, education is the only one that 
varies to any considerable extent. And it 
should be borne in mind that education 
can vary in either direction. If our pro- 
duction and accumulation of material 
wealth is greater in the degree that 
our education is more universal and of 
higher quality, it goes without saying 
that with a falling off in education 
our material prosperity would diminish 
correspondingly. 

We accumulate wealth; we can pass 
on to each succeeding generation tan- 
gible property in any form. We can even 
to some extent transmit native ability. 
But we cannot bequeath an education 
to our children. The most we can do is to 
provide them with the means for an edu- 
cation. Every babe that is born into the 
world is as ignorant as its most remote 
ancestor. It can neither write nor read. 
It has only rudimentary mental proc- 
esses. It merely has reactions and re- 
sponses to external stimuli. Since it is 
necessary to recreate in each generation 
those processes of education which the 
preceding generation enjoyed, we must 
continue to provide schools and teachers 
and all the essential tools that go to 
furnish and equip the mind. 

We have been made sadly aware dur- 
ing these last few years of the necessity 
for economy. With our private incomes 
sharply diminished, with our means of 
livelihood cut off, with less pay forth- 
coming for the same amount of work, 
we have had to pinch and scrimp to make 


both ends meet. If this condition has 


been true in our private affairs, it has 
also been true as to those common enter- 
prises which we maintain by the taxes 
that we pay to government. Our schools 
have suffered along with everything else. 
Hundreds of thousands of children are 
either being denied educational opportu- 
nities entirely or they are able to attend 
school only on a parttime basis. Thou- 





sands of schools have been closed. Equip. 
ment has been deteriorating and replace. 
ments of essential tools for education 
have been lacking. 

I do not deny that of necessity some 
economies must be made in our schools, 
But we are going too far in that direc. 
tion. Our schools ought to be the last to 
feel the pinch of economy, just as they 
ought first to experience the return of 


prosperity. Undoubtedly the educational | 


tree needs some pruning. There may be 
some dead and decayed branches that 
ought to be cut off. But if such pruning 
is necessary it should be done scientif- 
cally, by experts. It serves no good pur- 
pose of economy and it is immensely 
damaging to our educational system to 
slash into a budget regardless of whether 
we are cutting into a vital spot or not. 
Even in these days of tremendously 
pressing problems, to my mind the most 
important question of all is: What are 
we going to do about our schools? That 
education should be universal goes with- 
out saying. By education I mean more 
than the Three R’s. I believe that every 
child should be given all the education 
that he can reasonably absorb. This does 
not mean that all children should spend. 
an equal number of years in school or 
that all should take the same courses. It 
means that everyone in order to have the 
best chance possible for a happy and full 
life should have every bit of education 
that he is capable of using to advantage. 
He should have this not only for his 
own sake but for the good of the whole. 
The intelligence of a nation is the sum 
of the intelligence of all of its citizens. 
Intelligence is the product of education 
and education is the greatest national 
asset that we have. No nation in these 
times can hope to survive, to say nothing 
of progressing in the arts and the 
sciences, in commerce, in trade, or in 
industry, unless it is composed of a well- 
educated citizenry. Least of all can a 
democracy, depending, as it must de- 
pend, upon an informed public opinion 
for the selection of its leaders and the 
framing of its laws hope long to endure 
unless it consists of a highly and uni- 
versally educated electorate. The indi- 
vidual American must be educated not 
only that he may be able to enjoy a 
happier and fuller life; he must be edu- 
cated in order that, in cooperation with 
other educated Americans, he may do 
his part toward sustaining and upbuild- 
ing an intelligent and beneficent and 
capable government.—An address in the 
NEA series of radio programs, “Our 
American Schools,” October 29, 1933. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 








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f ‘HIS AR- 
TICLE 
and two 

others in pre- 

ceding Jour- 

NALS are a 

small part of 

a most excel- 

lent book, 

The New 

Leisure 

Challenges 

the Schools, 

which should 
be in the 
personal library of every educator. 


Ae EXAMPLE of excellence in read- 
ing is the schools of Baltimore, 
Maryland. 


Program content—As in all good 
schools today, reading is taught before 
the alphabet. In the first six grades there 
is much storytelling by both children and 
teachers. The best graded basal reading 
texts form the core of the in-school pro- 
gram. But great emphasis is placed upon 
reading supplementary books in many 
subject fields. Much is made of the cor- 
relation principle. References to articles 
in magazines are increasingly made from 
one grade to the next. Reading material 
is related, grade by grade, to the under- 
standing and experience of the child. 
Creative story, descriptive, and narrative 
writing is stimulated in all these grades. 


In junior and senior highschool grades, both 
texts and supplementary reading materials, 
together with more magazine reading, make 
up the program content. There is increased 
emphasis upon writing; also, instruction in 
library methods and encouragement of ability 
in the boys and girls to find their way about 
among bookshelves and card catalogs. 


Time allotment—In the first six grades 
there are reading and literature periods 
scheduled daily of 60 to 100 minutes 
each. In the junior high schools reading 
and literature come five times a week 
with 45 minute periods, and in the senior 
highs three times with 45 minute periods. 

Methods—Every effort is made to 
understand and remove reading difficul- 
ties in individual pupils. For example, 
slow readers are given eye examinations 
and recommendations are made to par- 
ents for remedying defective vision wher- 
ever discovered. Children are also taught 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


The New Leisure Challenges the Schools 
Reading and Literature 


the art of taking in whole sentences at a 
time instead of laboring over words and 
syllables. They are helped to overcome 
lip and tongue movements during silent 
reading. All this effort is of the greatest 
importance, according to authorities in 
this field. It has been found that physical 
defects like those mentioned make for 
complex deterrents to reading which may 
mean that their possessors will do little 
or no reading after school days are over, 
and thus be deprived of one of the most 
delightful and profitable means of en- 
riching their leisure. 


Large emphasis is put upon silent reading 
and reading for understanding and pleasure in 
order to encourage extensive exploration of 
books and magazines. Thruout all grades, but 
especially below junior high school, much is 
made of correlation of reading with other sub- 
ject fields. Reading aloud with effect and re- 
lating what has been read, as a social accom- 
plishment, is furthered in classrooms. Much 
attention is given to individual needs from the 
point of view of home, race, and other back- 
grounds, unfavorable and favorable. In all 
grades freedom of choice in selection of books 
from school library shelves during free hours 
is given wide range. There is much memorizing 
of poetry and the children are helped to like it. 

Teachers are trained to make reading and 
the ends of reading fascinating, giving young 
people the sense of opening doors to wonder- 
ful treasure chambers. Overanalysis of struc- 
ture, paragraphs, sentences, sections, especially 
below senior high grades is avoided and stress 
laid upon genuine enjoyment, for enjoyment 
means desire created for more. 


Even in grades as low as fourth and 
fifth in some schools, book reviews, oral 
and written, are presented to fellow class 
members, thus deepening in the mind of 
the reviewer what he has read. Stress is 
put upon the value of dramatization of 
stories or parts of stories read by pupils 
and much of this is done thruout all 
grades. In senior high school an impor- 
tant project has to do with the matter of 
interesting pupils in the reading of good 
magazines. This would seem to be of 
great value in impressing the worthwhile, 
as against the trashy types of periodicals, 
upon the minds of young people. 

Conscious ob jectives—Wise use of leis- 
ure is one of the outstanding longtime 
aims of all teaching in the reading-Eng- 
lish-literature field in this school system. 


“To cultivate taste and desire for reading; 
to develop appreciation of literary beauty, 
recognition of good literary form, and love for 
the admirable qualities which the great char- 
acters in literature reveal, thus ministering to 


hero-worship and idealism; to beget in children 
the feeling of enjoyment and ever-increasing 
enjoyment in delving into the printed page; to 
enrich the imaginative and emotional life of the 
pupil; to fix in memory selections of poetry 
and prose to serve as lifelong assets of joy; to 
get young people to love the best books and 
magazines instead of the mediocre or worse’”— 
all these are among the very definite objectives 
which teachers in this system are charged to 
keep ever in mind—charged, indeed, by them- 
selves thru their own departmental commit- 
tees. They have set up their own standards; no 
ruler on a pedestal has handed them down with 
a threat. Hence the greater likelihood of serious- 
ness of effort to achieve them. 


Personnel—Those who have to do 
with planning, directing, supervising, and 
teaching English, reading, and literature 
are the assistant superintendents, kinder- 
garten-primary supervisor, elementary- 
junior high supervisor, special expert in 
the research bureau, the principals, heads 
of departments in junior and senior high 
schools, special teachers in platoon, jun- 
ior and senior highs, and regular class- 
room teachers in non-platoon schools. 


Some of the older ones, trained in the tradi- 
tional ways, find it difficult to break their bad 
habits but the writer was told of numerous 
victories gained even among these, thru patient 
work of supervisors and principals. The guid- 
ing beacons toward effective procedures and 
great accomplishment are before all—and that 
is much. 


Facilities — Printed courses for all 
grades, with texts setting forth objectives, 
methods, program material, booklists, and 
professional bibliography, all worked out 
by teacher committees and periodically 
revised. Special descriptive and _illus- 
trated booklists for all grades prepared 
jointly by the public librarians and teach- 
ers. Use is also made of the admirable 
compilation for high schools published 
by the National Council of Teachers of 
English in 1930 and one for junior high 
schools in 1932, both of them with de- 
scriptive notes and illustrated in black 
and white and colors. The locally pre- 
pared lists can be had by pupils, free of 
charge. The National Council’s lists sell 
for 20 cents each for single copies and 15 
cents in quantities. Pupils are encour- 
aged to obtain these for permanent use in 
and out of school and to put them at the 
disposal of their families. They are great 
aids for the enrichment of leisure. 


Teachers and pupils have an excellent help 


for guidance in getting the utmost out of school 
libraries in a document entitled “Adventures 


69 





























a ga 





Oakland, California, students doing research work in the library 


in the Library,” prepared by the research de- 
partment. 

Seventy-five percent of the elementary schools 
have special libraries as have all but one of the 
junior highs and all of the senior highs. Many 
of these have been put in old buildings in re- 
cent years; others are to get them as fast as 
possible, all new buildings being provided with 
them in the planning. A large number have 
beautiful, inviting interiors, all are well-stocked 
and in nearly all cases are presided over by 
trained librarians. In addition, all classrooms 
have special book supplies on shelves and in 
nooks, many of which have been constructed 
by the pupils. Books are provided both by the 
schoolboard direct and by the public library 
which is under the control of the former, a 
situation which lends itself to the closest kind 
of team-work. 


Special comment—There can be no 
question that with the one hundred per- 
cent encouragement and help of the 
administration in this system, with the 
facilities present and with the worked 
out plans and objectives ever before 
them, and with a large grant of freedom 
for experimentation, the teachers of read- 
ing here have a glorious opportunity for 
achievement. 

The writer visited numerous reading 
and literature classrooms in all grades in 
this system and found in practically all 
of them a real effort being made on the 
part of teachers to do a fine job. There 
was informality, happy eagerness and in 
some cases, the utmost enthusiasm dis- 
played over what was going on. In a 
number of instances pupils were seated 
on chairs instead of in desk seats, ar- 
ranged in semicircles with the teacher in 


70 


an easy chair or standing, in the center of 
the arc, with lively discussion back and 
forth over some book or magazine article. 
These were no cut and dried recitations 
of the old style; they were life and living 
right then and there. Here was 
“pursuit of knowledge and 
understanding,” in a real sense 
—and victory! 


The research bureau is constantly 
making studies which are of service 
to teachers and then there is the 
year-round effort at training on 
the job, together with the stimula- 
tion given to take advantage of 
extension courses offered by local 
colleges and other institutions dur- 
ing the summer. 

Another thing that is being done 
by teachers which has a direct bear- 
ing upon the matter of education 
for leisure is to encourage children 
to take out public library cards in 
their own names, thus habituating 
them early in the use of one of the 
community’s most important leis- 
ure-time resources. It was estimated 
that close to 85 percent of all chil- 
dren above the third grade held such 
cards, an excellent showing com- 
pared to many other cities. 


A poor example in read- 
ing was found in a city with 
40 elementary, 14 junior high, 
and 2 senior high schools. 
Enrolment 30,000. 

Program content—A large 
number of teachers are still 
punishing innocent youngsters 


in the primary grades by overemphasiz. 
ing the alphabet, punctuation, parts of 
speech, spelling, and other nuisances be. 
fore they are permitted to do much read. 
ing in school. Basal texts are used thru. 
out all grades but some are not of the 
best. Very little stress is put upon supple. 
mentary reading in or out of school. Too 


little is made of storytelling by pupil | 


and teachers. 


Time allotment—60 to 100 minutes 
daily in grades thru sixth and 40 minutes 
in junior and senior highs. 

Methods—Tho the course of study 
says a little about developing love of lit- 
erature for life-time use, yet it must be 
said that the methods in vogue, with but 
few exceptions, according to all the evi- 
dence, are bound to do a lot of alienating 
of interest in reading either during school 
days or after. 


The recitation idea is too much in the minds 
of teachers. There is too much thought of tasks 
to be done, too little instilling of the spirit of 
adventure and exploration in the book world, 
too much adherence to the prescribed texts, 
Minutes are made altogether too much of. 
Small attention is given to individual difficulties 
and difference and to ability grouping. Some- 
thing is said in the course of study about cor- 
relation of reading with other subjects, yet in 
practise this is largely ignored. In a talk with 
one elementary principal on matters like cor- 


OW UP WITH BOOKS 





National Association of Book Publishers 
Book Week Poster, 1933 


The Journal of the National Education Association 





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relation, the project method, and other modern 
pedagogical devices, the writer was asked 
naively by this principal: “Is there a book on 
these things?” Much reading aloud is done in 
the lower grades; but this has too much of the 
recitation flavor rather than an intent of de- 
veloping effective interpretation and expression. 
Book reviews and study of magazines are not 
mentioned in the course of study and just 
about nothing is done along these lines. Nor is 
there much dramatization in any of the grades, 
tho plays are given at rare intervals at school 
entertainments. 

In short, the methods in use lack inspiration 
and enthusiasm and in this important field are 
deadly in respect to preparing young people 
for one wise use of 
leisure. 


Conscious ob- 
jectives—In a 
general way the 
stated objectives 
in the course of 
study for the 
lower grades are 
to be approved— 
“develop in the 
child a love for 
reading, to give 
him from the 
very beginning a 
taste for good lit- 
erature,” but the 
dull methods em- 
ployed simply 
cannot win out. 


Instructions given 
to teachers are of 
the mince-meat sort. 
For example, sugges- 
tions to intermediate 
grade teachers on 
how to achieve great 
ends — “tasks that 
will bring practical 
results in reading’”—number seventeeen, seven 
of which have to do with “word study” and ten 
with “thought-content.” Four points of the 
latter group call for copying words and sen- 
tences from thd text. Only one point emphasizes 
the big issues: “Why do you like the story? 
Compare the characters. Compare this with 
other stories as to scenes, setting, plot, and the 
like.” 

The special senior high course of study ex- 
presses conviction that the “restrictive plan of 
Study of a few great classics gives a firmer 
foundation for culture in the future life than 
does the comprehensive plan”—this as against 
the opinion of the best authorities in the field 
of reading and contrary to the conclusions 
based upon experiments conducted in other 
parts of the country. There is here, then, no 
encouragement to indulge individual tastes, no 
approval of adventure in the vast field of the 
printed page. “Here is the lesson. Do it. There 
is nothing beyond, worthy of your interest.” 
And thus has it been for years and years! 


Personnel—There is a supervisor for 
intermediate and junior high grades, none 
for primary or senior high grades. There 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


is no research bureau in this system, 
hence no testing or subject studies. There 
are no specialists in reading and litera- 
ture in grades below junior high. 


A survey of teachers which was made in 
1930 showed that of the elementary teachers 
in this system only 28.8 percent have had two 
years or more of special education beyond high 
school; 14.3 percent have had between one 
and two years; 18.2 percent have had less than 
one year; 24 percent had gone thru high school 
only and 10 percent had never completed high 
school. Of all elementary teachers only 57 per- 
cent had gone in for any sort of supplementary 





The popular “summer book wagon” of Multnomah County, Oregon 


education in the last ten years and one-third 
had not gone to school in the last twenty years. 

Up to recently when a new administration 
took charge of the schools there was little or 
no stimulation from the “higherups” to teachers 
to better equip themselves for their great task 
of developing future citizens, but not so long 
ago the new superintendent caused the new 
schoolboard to decree that henceforth at least 
a college degree would be required of all teach- 
ers entering the system. Herculean effort will 
be needed to bring the majority of the present 
staff up to anywhere near par. This task is 
being heroically faced, however, under the new 
régime. 


Facilities—Meager guidance material 
is provided for teachers in courses of 
study or other documents. Reading lists 
for pupils are not provided by the school 
system or by the public library. No 
school up to recently had a library of its 
own or contained a public library branch. 
Furthermore, the schoolboard never had 
the practise of providing classrooms with 


supplementary reading books, or with 
many other modern teaching materials, 
for that matter. Only recently has a pro- 
fessional library for teachers been begun. 


A few schools at the time of our visit to this 
city had improvised library nooks and the books 
were provided by teachers themselves. 

The public library in this city has a standing 
offer to teachers to provide them with revolv- 
ing supplies of supplementary reading material 
but few teachers, it was said, avail themselves 
of the opportunity. 


Special comment—From all that has 
been said about 
conditions in this 
system in regard 
to what is being 
done and not 
being done in 
this all-important 
realm of reading 
and literature, it 
can be concluded 
that here are be- 
ing committed 
plenty of sins of 
omission and 
commission. A 
great opportunity 
is being lost and 
one wonders 
about the present 
leisure time hab- 
its of all those 
thousands of 
young people who 
have come out of 
these schools. 
Surely they can- 
not be living as 
rich lives as 
would be the case, if they had had thru 
their school experience more alluring in- 
ducements to go on delving into the won- 
ders awaiting them in the printed page. 

School authorities agree that reading is 
the great key subject of the curriculum. 
Without reading ability and real liking 
for reading the child is handicapped in 
all his other studies and for life. Hence, 
obviously it should be handled by teach- 
ers in such ways as to develop this 
ability and this liking early. The best 
methods evolved to date are a matter of 
record, open to all. Anything less than 
the best, used by teachers, is unfair to 
the pupil. The old “coroner’s inquest”’ 
style of approach to literature will not do. 
—Eugene T. Leis. [The New Leisure 
Challenges the Schools is published by 
the National Recreation Association, 315 
Fourth Avenue, New York. Cloth, $2; 
paper, $1.50; prices postpaid. | 































A sunkissed gardener—aged six. 


O YOU THINK there’s anything in 
1) that old saying about a whistling 

girl and a crowing hen? Because 
if there really is, then I shudder to think 
what may become of me some of these 
days, for my life work has grown out 
of—just whistling!” 

It was Miss Rainwater, supervisor of 
natural science for the public schools of 
Atlanta, speaking. She is a little bit of a 
woman—Hattie Rainwater—Southern 
to her fingertips with a soft, rather low 
voice, and keen grey-blue eyes that are 
alive with interest and enthusiasm. A 
charming woman, she is possessed of 
rather more than her share of that 
elusive quality called personality and 
coupled with it is the ability to put over 
successfully whatever she undertakes. 

“Yes, just whistling—.” 

Naturally, I looked a bit surprised and 
Miss Rainwater then proceeded to ex- 
plain that about twelve years ago, while 
still a grade teacher in the Atlanta 
schools, she began, on her own initiative, 
organizing little bird clubs among the 
school children. In those days many of 
her afternoons and all of her precious 
Saturday mornings were spent tramping 
about the woods with these interested 
groups, observing with them the habits 
of the birds of the Southland, and teach- 
ing the boys to imitate their calls. 

In time, some of her whistlers became 
quite famous locally and were much in 
demand for school programs and other 
entertainments. They knew the bob- 
white’s urgent “Come-right-home; come- 
right-home!” as she called to her biddies 
along the dusty summer roads; the whip- 


“A Whistling Girl—” 


poor-will’s sorrowful “Whippoor-will- 
poor-will’; the chickadee’s notes—one 
long and one short; the black crow’s rau- 
cous cry, and many more. But best of all 
they liked to mimic the cardinal with his 
melodious ““Sweet-sweet-sweetheart,” and 
that lovable clown among birds, the 
mocker, whose repertoire includes the 


wee 


These bird houses are made of everything from gourds to tin cans. 


songs of all the others. These boys an( 
girls spent many hours taming their shy 
friends in feathers, for at about thy 
time a local newspaper offered a prize oj 


twenty-five dollars to the schoolchild whip 
could first coax a wild bird to feed fron? 


his hand. 


From these small beginnings and 





Iris time at English Avenue School, Atlanta. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 











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largely thru the efforts of Miss Rain- 
water, who was later appointed super- 
visor of natural science, has grown the 
entire elementary science program as it 
is now carried out in the Atlanta public 
schools. The complete course provides 
that each pupil from the kindergarten 
child to the grammar-school graduate— 
and there are some 35,000 of them—must 
include in his schedule so many hours per 
week of some form of nature study and 
research. 

Ten years ago there were no school 
gardens in Atlanta. Now, every school 
of the fifty-four, both white and colored, 
carries on regularly some sort of garden- 
ing activity. With “Miss Hattie” to guide 
them, they have transformed gullies and 
red clay banks, hollows and _ hillsides, 
with remarkable success. By the work of 
their own small hands the children have 
evolved rock gardens, sidewalk gardens, 
farm products plots, lily pools, and beds 
and borders of infinite variety, to beau- 
tify their school grounds. 

The two outstanding events of the year 
for these boys and girls are the citywide 
tulip show, staged by them in one of the 
large school auditoriums each April, and 
their autumn chrysanthemum show held 
annually in late October or early Novem- 
ber, as the weather wills. 

The flowers exhibited by the children 
in both these yearly shows are grown 
by them in their own backyards. Local 
garden club members are asked to act 
as judges and, in addition to the cus- 
tomary ribbons, collections of tulips and 
small chrysanthemum plants are awarded 
as special prizes at the autumn and spring 
shows respectively. 

Of all the varied school garden activi- 
ties carried on by the youngsters, perhaps 
the farm products plot at English Avenue 
School has elicited most favorable com- 
ment from visitors. Here, youthful 
farmer and farmerette work side by side 
to produce a little patch of each of Geor- 
gia’s outstanding agricultural products, 
cotton and cane, peanuts, tobacco, and 
“yams.” Literally hundreds of souve- 
nir cotton bolls have been sent out from 
this plot to interested friends in distant 
States. 

Of considerable economic value is the 
extensive kitchen garden planted and 
maintained thruout the year by the boys 
and girls at Georgia Avenue School, for 
practically all the vegetables prepared 
and served at the school cafeteria are 
grown here by the children themselves. 
Ofttimes when crops are abundant, the 
youngsters are able to realize from out- 
side sales quite a tidy sum for the fur- 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





ther improvement of their school grounds. 

At the time of the sesquicentennial 
celebration at Yorktown in the summer 
of 1932, Miss Rainwater was selected by 
Richard B. Russell, then Governor, to 
represent the state of Georgia at the 
Virginia ceremonies. And in connection 
with Georgia’s own bicentennial in 1933, 
Miss Rainwater, at the request of the 
Governor’s Bicentennial Commission, has 
edited a most comprehensive and valu- 
able volume entitled Garden History of 
Georgia—1733-1933. She has also been 
instrumental in establishing Georgia’s 
Memorial Forest on a beautiful tract of 
natural woodland which was presented to 
the city of Atlanta for this worthy un- 
dertaking by a group of public-spirited 
citizens. 

Even now the children in the nature 
study classes at the various schools are 
enthusiastically watching, day by day, 
the development of many small seed- 


Courtesy of Girl Scouts, Inc. 


lings from Georgia’s famous oaks—the 
“Lanier,” the “Wesley,” the “Ogle- 
thorpe,” and the unique tree that owns 
itseli—all from acorns ‘Miss Hattie’ 
has had collected and distributed among 
the groups for planting. Some day these 
offsprings of the state’s historical trees 
will have a proud place in the Memorial 
Forest. 

So Miss Rainwater keeps busy about 
her many activities, always reaching out 
to find newer and better ways of cap- 
turing and sustaining the interest of her 
35,000 boys and girls in the wonders of 
the world of nature all about them, for 
she is keenly alive to the importance of 
equipping her young charges for the 
profitable and pleasurable use of their 
leisure hours long after school days are 
done. — Anne Norton. [Can anyone 
estimate the value of such a teacher in 


a community? Pass this article on to par- 
aia) - - - *- 





HAT PUPILS TEACH—“ For thirty 
Wires it has been my privilege 

to be a teacher of boys,” says 
Archibald Rutledge in the February 
Good Housekeeping, “but I have learned 
a great deal more from them than I have 
taught them... . 

“Every teacher of experience has 
learned the salutary lesson that students 
silently demand complete integrity of 
mind. They will not tolerate disillusion 
thru a loss of faith; not necessarily re- 
ligious belief, but merely the trust in in- 
tellectual honesty. Too many teachers 
lack the rugged manliness of Johnson 
who, being taken to task for a mistake 
in his massive dictionary, instead of mak- 
ing an elaborate and disingenuous de- 
fense, merely said to his friendly fair 
accuser, ‘It was ignorance, madam; pure 
ignorance.’ . . 

‘““My almost lifelong association with 
boys has wholesomely taught me that a 
teacher’s superiority over his pupils is 
purely temporary and artificial. He sees, 
almost every day, possibilities in those 
he instructs that he himself never pos- 
sessed. . 

“There are teachers of many kinds— 
inspirational, routine workers, and those 
of the martinet sort. . . . But one atti- 
tude only is of universal appeal and 
power, and that is the attitude of sym- 
pathy. This is the open sesame to the 
human heart, and it is this alone which 
makes of the profession of teaching, 
which otherwise might be the dreariest 
drudgery, a delight and a consecration. 
For what a student remembers after he 
has left the classroom is usually that 
which is imparted from the heart to the 
heart, not that which is imparted by the 
head to the head.” 

The Soviet Way with the Child— 
Schooling in Russia is essentially politi- 
cal and realistic, altho a recent ruling 
permits the return of fairy stories, 
hitherto forbidden. Even these are to be 
carefully edited to eliminate witches, 
ogres, and other suggestions of super- 
naturalism. Ella Winter, in the New 
York Times Magazine, December 3, 
1933, tells how the school children are 
kept close to the active working life of 
the community. 

“Soviet education starts in the nursery 
school. The small children learn their 
A B C’s from posters issued by Mopr, 
the Russian organization for the defense 
of political prisoners, and here is begun 


74 





An Evening with the Magazines 


the business of teaching the child the 
Communist Doctrine. A is for Atheist, 
‘whom the priests persecuted;’ M is for 
Mooney, ‘still a classwar prisoner in 
California.’ ” 





ft be worK directly for and with 
people for their mental and spiri- 
tual advantage is probably the most 
fascinating task in all the world; and 
even if its material rewards were small, 
its privileges would remain inestimable. 
. .. The teacher is compeled to asso- 
ciate with the human springtime. He 


lives in a country of April tears and 
laughter. In other walks of life, a man 
grows old with his associates, or with 
his patients, or with his customers. In 
teaching, the pathway is always lined 
with perennials in full bloom. A teacher 
has no business growing old.—Archi- 





| bald Rutledge, 


| February 1934. 


Good Housekeeping, 





One model school is conducted as part 
of a collective farm. “The school is a 
‘complex,’ designed to include all the ac- 
tivities of the collective farm and not in 
miniature or as play projects. The chil- 
dren work on the farm with the farmers, 
plant potatoes with them, reap the har- 
vest with them, feed the chickens, calcu- 
late wages. They are expected to learn 
from experience the routine, problems, 
and difficulties of the new socialist life 
on a farm. To have a hand in solving 
these problems will give them, the teach- 
ers hope, the sense of responsibility with- 
out which no member of any society can 
be a good citizen.” 

Planning for Secondary Educa- 
tion—‘The public’s investment of money 
and the pupil’s investment of time in a 
universal four years of secondary educa- 
tion are not being well spent,” says 
Cedric Fowler, in the New Outlook for 
January. “Pupils without the necessary 
mental ability to take advantage of the 
typical highschool course are being kept 
in school, wasting the time and strength 
of both these pupils and their teachers. 
Too many electives and trivial courses 
are offered; too much of the teaching is 
poor in quality. The national welfare de- 
mands that schools do more to provide 
political and social training, in terms of 
whatever intelligence the pupils possess.” 

Recent developments in America seem 
to point to a greater participation by the 
people in the government, according to 
Mr. Fowler. The quality of such partici- 
pation, which can best be assured by edu- 


cation, is a problem of national concern, 

“To save the investment already made, 
we shall have to make improvements and 
perhaps even extensions in secondary 
education. The need is critical, 

“It is conceivable that more money 
should be spent. Four million highschool 
students is a large number, yet it is only 
half the adolescents in the country. . .. 
Unless we are to retreat from the thesis 
of mass education, we must see that it 
reaches all the people, and in form they 
can assimilate to the profit of themselves 
and of society. No one wants education 
curtailed. More education is the constant 
need—and chiefly more in quality.” 

Vocabulary and Success—A knowl- 
edge of the exact meaning of a large 
number of English words accompanies 
outstanding success more often than any 
other characteristic. This is one of the 
unforeseen results of a study of business 
and industrial executives made by the 
Human Engineering Laboratories at 
Stevens Institute. The director of the 
Laboratories, Johnson O’Connor, dis- 
cusses some of the results of their find- 
ings in the February Atlantic Monthly. 
Their tests were given more than a hun- 
dred department heads and major execu- 
tives of the American Telephone and 
Telegraph Company. Size of vocabulary 
rose with the level of executive authority 
possessed, and was higher for the whole 
group than for average college graduates. 

Experiments with college students 
seemed to show that vocabulary gained 
one year resulted in a higher grade of 
school work the following year. 

Mr. O’Connor’s interpretations of his 
findings are of particular interest to 
teachers. He says ‘‘Why do large vocabu- 
laries characterize executives and pos- 
sibly outstanding men and women in 
other fields? The final answer seems to 
be that words are the instruments by 
means of which men and women grasp 
the thoughts. of others and with which 
they do much of their own thinking. They 
are the tools of thought... . 

“An exact and extensive vocabulary is 
an important concomitant of success. So 
much is known. Furthermore, such a 
vocabulary can be acquired. It increases 
as long as an individual remains in 
school or college, but without conscious 
effort does not change materially there- 
after.” 


—Prepared for THE Journat by the Educa- 
tional Research Service. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 








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t was March 1933. Mr. Howe 
| frowned, sharpened a pencil, filled a 
fountain pen, reached for a supply of 
scratch paper, and began to fill in his 
name at the top of an imposing docu- 
ment headed “Individual Income Tax 
Return.” Then he wrote his address and 
occupation and certain information about 
his family. Next he carefully listed under 
a heading marked “Income” the amounts 
that he had received during 1932. He 
set down his salary plus commissions and 
fees, the profit from his business, the 
interest on his bank deposits and invest- 
ments—in short, all his income for the 
year. The total, when he added it twice, 
checked at $5100. Next he filled in some 
information called for under ‘“Deduc- 
tions.” These items included other taxes, 
his losses, and charitable contributions. 
They amounted to only $100 in his case. 
He subtracted this amount from his total 
income and entered the sum of $5000 
after the words “Net Income for Tax 
Computation.” 

Mr. Howe was married and had one 
child twelve years old. Mrs. Howe was 
not engaged in any occupation other 
than that of homemaker. Mr. Howe 
therefore wrote $2500 after the words 
“Personal Exemption” and $400 after 
the words “Credit for Dependents.” 


Types of Taxes: The Income Tax 


This meant that he would not be required 
to pay income tax on $2900 out of his 
net income. The remaining $2100 was 
his ““Net Taxable Income.” Had he been 
a bachelor with no dependents his ex- 
emption would have been only $1000. 
If more people had been entirely de- 
pendent on him his exemption would 
have been higher. The rate of tax in 
1932 was 4 percent on the first $4000 of 
taxable income. If his taxable income 
had exceeded $4000, the part above that 
amount would have been subject to a 
tax of 8 percent. Had his net income been 
over $6000 there would have been a 
graduated surtax on the excess. 

Mr. Howe finished his work by cal- 
culating 4 percent of $2100 and mailing 
a check for $84 to the federal collector 
of internal revenue in his district. He was 
careful to tell the exact truth in report- 
ing. He knew that wilful failure to file 
a report or wilfully false returns would 
expose him to heavy penalties. He knew 
also that employers submitted their pay- 
rollstothe revenue bureau and that his re- 
port might thus be checked at any time. 

Mr. Howe felt that, on the whole, the 
income tax is fair and reasonable. It is 
levied so that the amount which the tax- 
payer pays varies with his ability to pay. 
The personal income tax is primarily a 


tax on the individual rather than on 
any thing, such as land or houses. It is 
a direct tax; that is, it is paid out of 
income, the very thing that is used to 
measure the taxpayer’s obligation. The 
citizen supports his government accord- 
ing to his capacity to support himself. 
[ The income tax is usually imposed upon 
the incomes of corporations as well as of 
individuals. | 

Operation of the income tax— 
Like any other piece of good and useful 
machinery, an income tax will not run 
itself. All authorities agree that skilful 
administration is necessary for success- 
ful income taxation. This is particularly 
important in America because we do not 
follow the English custom of assess- 
ing and collecting the income tax “at 
source’—that is, from the employer, 
banker, or broker of the taxpayer. In 
this country each taxpayer figures his 
own income tax and his self-assessment 
is checked by information collected at 
the source of the income. 

Another important aspect of the in- 
come tax is the fixing of the rates at 
which it is to be levied. Rates should 
not be so high as to encourage fraud and 
evasion. Rates are said to be proportional 
when all incomes pay the same propor- 
tion in taxes. Thus a 4 percent propor- 





[Personal and Corporation] 








TaRLE 1: STATE INCOME TAX RECEIPTS, 1931 





Percent which Income Tax 


Income Tax 
Receipts 





State Tax 
Collections 





2 





3 


State and Local 
Tax Collections 


Receipts are of: 


State Tax 


Collections 





4 


5 





State and Local 
Tax Collections 











$1, 190, 000" 
2,389,000! 
22,554,000! 
1,016,000 
4,609,000 
105 ,074, 000 
5,970,000 
433 ,000 
1,112,000 
1,726,000 
4,075,000 
17,259,000 


SRT es oe een, 
North Carolina 
\North Dakota............... 


‘South Carolina 
Virginia 
| Wisconsin 








i 





$18, 582,000 
12,441,000 
56, 269,000 
13,393 ,000 
36,757,000 

229 ,633 ,000 
29,327,000 

6,488 ,000 
20,441,000 


17,877,000 . 
33 ,690 , 000 
49,191,000 





| 


$50, 153,000 
17,980,000 
308 , 517,000 
37,396,000 
128,554,000? 
1,108,485 ,000 
94,709 ,000 
35, 809 , 000 
67,914,000 
37 ,367 ,000 
80, 347 ,000 
173,700,000 





6.40! 
19.20! 
40.08! 

7.59 
12.54 
45.76 
20.36 

6.67 

5.44 
9.65 
2.10 
5.09 


1 
3 





6 


nk em HAO WD *73 WD 


o 





SaEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE L ; . 
| Sources: Columns 2 and 4 from Federal and State Tax Systems, Fourth Edition, January 1, 1933. p197-200; column 3 from U. S. 


Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 


1 Personal income tax receipts only. 





Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


2 Receipts from major taxes and licenses. 





Financial Statistics of State Governments: 1931. [Summary] p6-7. 








tional rate would call for $40 from A 
with a net income of $1000 a year and 
$400 from B with a net income of $10,- 
000 a year. Obviously, B is more able 
to pay $400 than is A to pay $40. If the 
principle of ability to pay is to be ap- 
plied in this tax, those who have the 
higher incomes must be taxed at higher 
rates than those with lower incomes. 
Rates of this kind which increase with 
the size of the income being taxed are 
called progressive. In line with this rea- 
soning practically all income tax laws 
fix progressive rates on personal incomes 
and make provision for personal exemp- 
tions. These exemptions should coincide 
roughly with minimum living costs. With 
low exemptions and progressive rates, an 
income tax will result in many taxpayers 
contributing small sums of money and 
a few wealthy taxpayers contributing 
relatively large sums. 

Advantages of the income tax— 
The principal advantage of the income 
tax is that it is a broadening of the tax 
base, and a departure from too exclusive 
reliance on some traditional type of tax- 





ation, as the property tax in the case of 
the states, or the customs in the case of 
the federal government. Altho it has been 
introduced, for both federal and state 
use, primarily to meet the demands for 
larger public expenditure, it may pos- 
sibly become, with proper management 
and control, a means of relief for over- 
burdened classes of taxpayers. A second 
advantage is that the income tax repre- 
sents the application of the principle of 
ability to pay better than any other tax, 
since each individual is required to re- 
port his entire income from all sources. 
A third advantage is that the income tax 
is not shifted. It is borne by the person 
on whom it is levied. This fact also ac- 
counts for much of the opposition often 
encountered by income taxation. 

The principal disadvantage presented 
by the income tax is its variability under 
conditions of prosperity or depression. 
This variability has been greatly ac- 
centuated in the United States by the 
practise of taxing capital gains as in- 
come and allowing capital losses as a 
deduction from other income. The yield 

















is increased during prosperous years 
when stocks and other property are sold 
in a rising market, and badly curtailed 
in depression years when property is sold 
in a falling market. Elimination of casual 
or incidental gains and losses would ma- 
terially steady the volume of taxable 
income and increase the dependability 
of the income tax as a source of revenue, 
It is sometimes said also that if a state 
imposes an income tax, wealth and in- 
dustry will be driven away from it. In 
rare instances an income tax may be the 
determining factor in the location of an 
industry. However, the income tax is 
only one of the taxes that may be im- 
posed and it is the total tax burden that 
must be considered. Furthermore, there 
are other factors than the tax burden 
which are of equal or greater importance 
in attracting business to a state or in 
discouraging its location there. It is the 
sum of all these factors upon which a 
decision will be based—Harley L. 
Lutz, Princeton University, and Wil- 
liam G. Carr, Research Division, 
National Education Association. 











— ——— — - —— _ 

Tar_e 2: HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF STATE INCOME TAXES ‘ 

| (CAPITAL letters indicate personal income taxes only; italics, corporation 

income taxes only; others, both personal and corporation income taxes.] 

1913 1918 1923 1928 1933 

1 2 3 4 5 

| MISSISSIPPI MISSISSIPPI Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi 

| OKLAHOMA OKLAHOMA OKLAHOMA OKLAHOMA Oklahoma 

| Wisconsin Wisconsin Wisconsin Wisconsin Wisconsin 
Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut 
DELAWARE DELAWARE DELAWARE DELAWARE 

MASSACHUSETTS Massachusetts Massachusetts Massachusetts 

| Missouri Missouri Missouri Missouri 

Montana Montana Montana Montana 

| New York New York New York New York 








NORTH CAROLINA 
SOUTH CAROLINA 
Virginia 


North Carolina 

South Carolina 
Virginia 

Arkansas 

NEW HAMPSHIRE} 


1 Personal income tax applies only to income derived from intangibles. 
2 Declared unconstitutional. 


North Carolina 
South Carolina 
Virginia 


NEW HAMPSHIRE! 
North Dakota 


North Carolina 
South Carolina 
Virginia 
Arkansas 
NEW HAMPSHIRE! 
North Dakota 
Alabama 
Arizona 
California 
Georgia 

Idaho 

Kansas 
Minnesota 
New Mexico 
Oregon 
Tennessee! 
Utah 

Vermont 
Washington’ 








The Journal of the National Education Association 





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character of much of the article in 

the December issue, entitled “How 
Safe Is Life Insurance?” I have taken the 
trouble to look up some of the essential 
facts from authoritative sources which 
bear on the chief contentions of the arti- 
cle referred to. This statement of the 
facts has been submitted to two uni- 
versity professors in the field of finance 
and to the actuaries of two large life in- 
surance companies and is approved by 
them, both as to correctness of fact and 
of interpretation. 

The first contention quoted from Mr. 
Schnitman’s book is that policyholders 
“have neglected to safeguard their in- 
vestment.”’ On the contrary, policyhold- 
ers have, thru their state legislators, 
safeguarded their investment with great 
care and minuteness. Some states, to be 
sure, have neglected to do this, but it is 
easy to avoid loss from such neglect by 
buying insurance from companies which 
can qualify in the states with adequate 
laws. State laws regulate, to take the ex- 
ample of New York, such matters as 
[a] the amount which may be expended 
in getting new business and on renewals, 
|b] the type of security which may be 
held as an asset, [c] the length of time 
real estate may be held other than for 
the transaction of their own business, 
{d] an annual report in detail to the 
superintendent of insurance, [e] per- 
mission of any policyholder to request an 
examination into affairs of the company, 
[f] the limitation of the contingency 
reserve [surplus] to a given percent of 
the net value of the policies [liabilities], 
|g| the approval of the superintendent 
of insurance of every contract form 
issued; and [h|] life insurance companies 
are periodically and thoroly examined 
every three years by state insurance de- 
partments. 

As a consequence of such safeguards, 
life insurance is today, relative to other 
investments, conspicuously safe; and, 
instead of “continuously mounting ad- 
ministrative and selling expenses, and 
greater and greater speculative excesses,” 
administrative expenses are actually de- 
clining and speculative excesses are, in 
general, non-existent. 

On the matter of safety, consider these 
facts. Up to the end of 1932 but 2 per- 
cent of the securities held by a group of 
larger companies which do the bulk of 
the business of the United States were 


Bow of the false and misleading 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


Lite Insurance Is Safe 


in default. [1] This was seven-tenths 
of one percent of the total assets of these 
companies. [1] With respect to mort- 
gages, concerning which we hear so 
much, a group of companies with 92 per- 
cent of the assets of all the companies of 
the country have today, according to re- 
liable estimate, but 5.8 percent of their 
assets in the form of real estate. [1] 
This includes real estate permanently 
employed in conducting business, such 
as the home office, as well as property 
acquired by foreclosure. The amount 
held by the same companies was 2.2 per- 
cent in 1929, 9.6 percent in 1899, and 
11.9 percent in 1881. [1] If fore- 
closures had taken place to an alarming 
extent, the amount of real estate now 
held would be much greater. To this 
must be added the fact that the sale of 
real estate taken over by foreclosure 
has not thus far resulted in any sub- 
stantial aggregate loss, and in some 
companies such sale has brought a profit 
over the amount of the companies’ 
investment. 

The statements concerning the in- 
come, expenses, and amount paid to 
policyholders are grossly misleading. The 
statement is as follows: ‘Our life com- 
panies have an annual income of five 
billion dollars. Their annual expendi- 
tures are somewhere near 3™% billions. 
Of this amount less than 2™% billions is 
received by policyholders each year, 
while almost one billion goes to adminis- 
trative and selling expenses such as sal- 
aries, commissions to agents, medical 
fees, and the like. The administration of 
life insurance takes almost 20 percent of 
the total annual income of all our life 
companies. And the policyholders and 
their beneficiaries receive less than 55 
percent of the total income of our life 
companies.” 

The essential facts in 1932 for the com- 
panies which are eligible to write busi- 
ness in the state of New York [having 
over 90 percent of the assets of all com- 
panies] are as follows: The total re- 
ceipts of these companies in 1932 were 
$4,111,214,000. [2, Page 29]. This, how- 
ever, included receipts from other sources 
as well as from premiums and supple- 
mentary contracts. The total of these 
latter receipts was $3,168,378,000. [2, 
Page 29]. The difference, amounting to 
nearly one billion dollars, was from in- 
terest, dividends, rents, and so on. This 
source of income, which accrues to the 


benefit of policyholders, is commonly 
overlooked. The amount paid to policy 

holders and beneficaries during this year 
was $2,782,977,000. [2, Page 8]. Since 
this is much less than the receipts, a 
superficial observer might draw the in- 
ference that the difference is represented 
by expenses and profit. This, however, 
overlooks the large item of $592,412,000 
[2, Page 7] which goes to increase the 
assets, and which is, of course, ultimately 
returned to the policyholders with inter- 
est. The amount paid to policyholders 
plus the increase in assets totals $3,375,- 
389,000, which is over $200,000,000 
greater than the receipts from premiums 
and supplementary contracts. This is a 
good fact to remember. The amount paid 
to policyholders or set aside for reserve 
in 1932 was a fifth of a billion greater 
than the amount received from policy- 
holders. 

But what about expenses? I do not 
maintain that expenses are not larger 
than they might be. What I do maintain, 
however, is that we should use reason 
and commonsense in interpreting the 
expenses, and should interpret the fig- 
ures fairly. The total expenses of this 
group of companies for 1932, including 
administration, commissions, and divi- 
dends to stockholders, were $751,898,- 
000. [2, Page 8]. This is between 18 
and 19 percent of the receipts. The 
statement that “the administration takes 
almost 20 percent of the total annual 
income” is therefore incorrect, since 
many items besides administration are 
included in this amount. The entire ex- 
pense, not only of writing new business 
but of conducting all the affairs of the 
companies, is included. It covers, for ex- 
ample, all salaries, all commissions, med- 
ical fees, rent, mailing and postage, divi- 
dends to stockholders, taxes, and all 
other expenses. 

As has been said, the amount which 
can be expended in getting new business 
and on renewals is limited by law. In 
1932 the amount spent by the companies 
doing business in New York in getting 
new business was $18,872,000 [2, Page 
51] less than the amount allowed by law, 
and the total amount spent was $79,- 
512,000 [2, Page 53] less than the 
amount allowed. Further, instead of 
“continuously mounting administrative 
and selling expenses,” the amount paid 
to all home office employees [including 
officers] was reduced from $2.31 per 


~* 


i/ 













$100.00 of income in 1922 to $2.05 in 
1932, a reduction of over 11 percent. [1]. 

The statement that “policyholders and 
their beneficiaries receive less than 55 
percent of the total income of our life 
companies” is so wild a statement that 
it is not worthwhile trying to guess what 
Mr. Schnitman may have in mind. Even 
leaving out of account the more than 
half billion which is added to reserve, the 
amount paid to policyholders and bene- 
ficiaries in 1932 was about 68 percent of 
the total receipts. [2]. 

The plain fact is that policyholders 
and their beneficiaries ultimately get 
back much more than they put in. The 
figures on this point are not at hand for 
a large block of companies, but the fig- 
ures for one of the larger companies, 
which has been in business for over 





eighty-five years, are representative. The 
balance stands as follows as of Decem- 
ber 31, 1932. [3]: 


Total receipts from 

premiums 
Paid to policyhold- 

ers and _ benefici- 

aries . $838,854,013.00 
Total assets $514,588,274.00 


$1,188,580,769.00 





$1,353,442,287.00 
Gain to policyhold- 
ers and benefici- 


~~ ae $164,861,518.00 


It is plain that, by and large, the per- 
son who puts his savings into life insur- 
ances will have it carefully guarded, and 
that he or his beneficiaries will get back 
more than he has put in. 

I was much disturbed by the article in 
the December issue for two reasons: 
First, it is a disservice to teachers to give 
them a false view of the safety of one 
of the safest institutions thru which they 





can invest their savings. Second, if edu- 
cators are to be intrusted with any share 
in the reconstruction of society, they 
must at the very least show balance and 
commonsense in appraising our present 
institutions. — Frank N. Freeman, 
University of Chicago. 


References—[1] Lincoln, Le Roy A., vice- 
president, Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- 
pany. A Colloquy on Life Insurance. Life As- 
sociation News 28: 229-232, 257-263, December 
1933. 


{2] Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the 
Superintendent of Insurance for the Year 
Ended December 31, 1932. Part II, Stock and 
Mutual Life Insurance Companies. State of 
New York Legislative Document, 1933, Num- 
ber 34. 


[3] Reports of the Penn Mutual Life In- 
surance Company of Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 
vania. 


Using the Rural Community in Teaching 


EACHERS in small rural high schools 
"| oten feel that they are handi- 

capped by their isolation from mu- 
seums, large factories, and interesting 
social conditions such as slums, market 
centers, or bread lines for the unem- 
ployed. However, if they will look around 
their own communities, many significant 
things will be found which can be used 
in classroom teaching. And even better, 
that which is found is realistic and sig- 
nificant to their pupils. 

This is the story of how Lennox high 
school, a small school of one hundred 
thirty pupils, located at Lennox, South 
Dakota, makes use of the community in 
the curriculum. Lennox is located in a 
rich agricultural district in southeastern 

‘South Dakota, where the main crops are 
corn and small grain. Hogs and cattle are 
fed extensively for market. 

Vocational agriculture and vocational 
home economics are taught in the school 
as part of the federal Smith-Hughes 
program. English, social science, com- 
mercial science, natural science, mathe- 
matics, and music are the other offer- 
ings of the school. In all of the courses 
the community is used as a_back- 
ground and laboratory for what is taught 
in class. 

Most of the graduates remain in the 
community to become farmers. Accept- 
ing the Golden Rule of Education pro- 
posed by Briggs that “it is the duty of 
the schools to teach pupils to do better 
the desirable things which they are likely 


78 





to do anyway,” Lennox high school tries 
to follow this by fitting her graduates to 
her farm life. 

In the vocational courses the classes 
spend much of their time on judging 
trips, and visiting model farms, hos- 
pitals, and homes. Use is made of the 
materials distributed by the state agri- 
cultural college, and each year some stu- 
dents attend “short courses” during 
Christmas vacation at the state college. 
In the fall they exhibit and demonstrate 
at the state fair. 

The class in American problems gives 
major importance to farm problems such 
as production, surplus, consumption, 
farm prices, mortgages, rural social con- 
ditions, and national legislation. National 
and international problems and current 
legislation are examined in the light of 
their effect upon our community. .. . 

To discover why the Farm Act was 
passed, the history of agriculture since 
the founding of our country was needed. 
Most of the pupils had relatives who had 
been among the pioneers in South Da- 
kota. Farmers in the community could 
tell the story of what had happened to 
them since 1914. A visit to the county 
seat was made to study taxes and what 
they were as levied for each year. 

When it became evident that the solu- 
tion to the agricultural problem was in- 
ternational, study was focused upon 
tariffs, transportation, credit, supply and 
demand, unemployment, and govern- 
ment policies. A study of local market- 


ing conditions involved an investigation 
of railroad rates, trucking charges, re- 
tailing, and wholesalé marketing. Groups 
visited the local stores, the farm coopera- 
tive, the local railroad office and truck- 
ing terminals. 

While studying money and banking, 
a visit was made to the local bank where 
the officers explained the functions of 
their institution and its value to the com- 
munity. Copies of blank checks, drafts, 
notes, mortgages, and the different kinds 
of money were shown to the class. 

As a part of the study of public opin- 
ion, and the effects of advertising and 
propaganda, a trip was made to the 
printing office. There the editor showed 
the class how the paper was made up, 
where the news came from, and how ad- 
vertising was written. .. . 

Lawyers, ministers, professional men 
of all kinds have been willing to help in 
the school work. Some of them have 
come into the school and given talks, 
while others have cooperated with pupils 
in their search for facts. 

Everywhere there are problems in 
which the school is interested, and which 
the school should study. By developing a 
systematic cultivation of local conditions 
the teacher can make the community an 
important part of the curriculum.—C. 
Maurice Wieting and M. L. McCoy 
in Bulletin, NEA Department of Rural 
Education, Economical Enrichment of 
the Small Secondary-School Curriculum, 
February 1934. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 












Going Places 


Wru.u1am Dow BoutwELL 





Editor-in-chief, Office of Education, 


-e- 



















































2 Washington, D. C. 
er 
" MWrate officially recognizes the 
nd value of travel for teachers. 
of Maryland rules that her teach- 
n- ers must keep growing professionally by 
one of two methods: returning every two 
ri years to an institution of higher educa- 
tion for further training, or taking a long 
trip. A teacher can keep her certificate 
up to date either by making a tour to, 
let us say, Alaska or Europe, or by taking 
courses at a state teachers college, the 
University of Maryland, or some other 
institution of recognized standing. 
How many other states officially recog- 
om nize the broadening influence of travel I 
c- do not know. Our records at the Office of 
3S Education lack information on this point. 
ol The wisdom of Maryland’s policy was 
k- brought home to me recently when I 
served as a judge in a national contest to 
8; award prizes to units of work built on 
bei travel experiences of teachers. Reading 
of over the many manuscripts I was deeply 
- impressed with what travel meant to the 
s; teachers who wrote the units and to the 
Is children taught by these traveled teach- 
ers. They had, indeed, brought the 
- “wealth of the Indies” back with them 
d and shared their rich experiences with 
e their pupils. One had been to Finland, 
d another to Norway; another adventur- 
, ous soul had floated down the Missouri 
1- River; another had become an expert on 
the great meat packing industry of Chi- 
= cago; and a number had become quite 
. intoxicated with the beauties of our na- 
we tional parks. 
‘ One teacher had profitably concen- 
Is trated on one spot—Plymouth, Massa- 
chusetts. She had spent a few days of 
® intensive study in the home town of the 
h Pilgrims, visiting the historic buildings, 
. the graveyard where the Bradfords and 
. the Brewsters and the other worthies 
m are buried, taking notes in the museum, 
. looking down upon Plymouth Rock still 
y lying on the gravel beach. I feel sure that 
y . every time Thanksgiving rolls around, 
f “Mother, just think—teacher climbed a mountain in Rainier this teacher turns with particular pleas- 
> a National Park this summer!” ure to the story of the Pilgrims. And | 


am sure that the pupils in her class take 





Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 79 

















“Honestly, 


Miss Brown? Did you really see Whittier’s home 
in Danvers, Massachusetts P” 





part more eagerly in the Pilgrim unit because of the 
familiarity of their teacher with Plymouth. I can 
imagine many of them going home and saying, 
“Mother, do you know Miss Blanchard has really 
been to Plymouth where the Pilgrims landed. Yes, 
and she saw Plymouth Rock, too.” 

Travel at this time, is, of course, particularly dif- 
ficult for teachers. In reckoning the costs of the de- 
pression we must count the price of provincialism, 
This is a mental deficiency produced in otherwise 
normal human beings by a lack of such “vitamins” 
as travel, books, magazines, theater, and concerts. 
But the tide is turning and it is possible for teachers 
as well as other Americans to think again of growing 
instead of just existing from day to day. 

Travel may be possible even without a raise in 
salary. The person who really sets his mind on travel- 
ing can usually find some means of arriving at his 
destination. Last summer as I stood in line for 
tickets to a symphony concert at the New York City 
College stadium a young woman hailed a girl next to 
me in line and the following conversation took place: 

“T haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.” 

“Esther and I have been out of town—to 
Chicago.” 

“You have?” 

“Yeah, we hitch-hiked. The nicest pick-ups. You 
oughta been with us.” 

“Go on.” : 

“Sure, we hitch-hiked. Three thousand miles, three 
weeks, $10. And no unpleasant experiences!” 

Altho this mode of travel is not included in the 
standard textbooks and is scarcely to be recom- 
mended, it does show what can happen when two 
girls decide to go places. 

Travel should always be undertaken in the 
spirit of adventure. Adventure is a habit of 
mind. Some _ people 
can make an adventure 


out of a walk down 


town. Arnold Bennett 
found a book’s worth 
of adventure in the life 
of a single hotel. You 
may recall how his 
characters visit the 
London produce mar- 
kets early in the morn- 
ing to see how the 
meats and vegetables 
are purchased for the 
Imperial Hotel. 

There is the key to 
adventure in travel. 
Do something different. 
Get up before dawn to 
see what is going on in 
your world. Get away 
from the beaten paths. 


“T've never seen the 
ocean. I love to hear 
you tell us about your trip 
to Atlantic City.” 


The Journal of the National Education Association 








Tha 
Miss 
conc 
O 
food: 
Ant 
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the 
pude 
Hall 
Was 
and 
A 
Am 
she 
nin 
exa 
ind 
tra 
ex 











f the 
Can 


ying, § 


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Yes, 
dif- 
 de- 
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wise | 


ins” 
rts, 
hers 
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That is what the teacher did who floated down the 
Missouri. That is what the other teacher did who 
concentrated on Plymouth. 

One friend of mine always searches out unusual 
foods in unusual restaurants— shrimp creole at 
Antoine’s in New Orleans, enchiladas at the Origi- 
nal Mexican Restaurant in San Antonio, lutefisk in 
the Bergsing restaurant in Minneapolis, Indian 
pudding at Durgin and Park restaurant near Faneuil 
Hall in Boston, crab imperial at Herzog’s above 
Washington’s fish market, cheddar cheese at Morgan 
and Company in Montreal. 

Another makes travel adventure by searching out 
American handicraft potters of first rank. Recently 
she practised amateur archaeology in ruins at Ben- 
nington, Vermont, and came home with some prized 
examples of the glaze of a bygone New England 
industry. 

It is almost a rule that the more economical you 
travel, the more adventures you can have. The most 
exciting trip to Europe within my knowledge was 
that taken by a Long Beach teacher who rode to 
New York in a chicken car and scrubbed decks on 
a liner. He toured five countries on $100. However, 
he has never eaten eggs since that ride in the 
chicken car. 

To go thru France by canoe is fifty times as much 
fun as by rail. To tramp thru the high Sierras is 
more exciting and more economical than to go by bus. 

Follow the nose of a camera and it will also lead 
you on travel adventures aplenty. By following a 
camera’s nose I do not mean snapping a scrapbook 
of pictures: “Me feeding pigeons at St. Marks,” 
“Me sitting on a beach at Waikiki,” and “Gertrude 
and me in steamer chairs on S.S. Gambia.” What I 
do mean is bringing back a beautiful and living 
record of the place you visited. Before me stands 
an enlarged photograph 
of the skyline of Que- 
bec, etched against the 
misty morning sky. In 
the foreground fishing 
boats drying their sails 
reflect their images in 
the calm waters of Vic- 
toria Basin. No tour 
includes the spot from 
which this picture was 
taken. I would never 
have seen Quebec’s 
skyline from this per- 
fect viewpoint unless 
my camera had led 
me there early one 
September morn- 
ing. Searching for a 
good “composition” 
I happened on 
this scene and brought 


“Wonder if our creek 
would make as pretty 
a picture as that scene 
you found in Wisconsin.” 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





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: 
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es 





“What a strange picture, the one you took on Vancouver Island. 
Where is that, anyway?” 


ats 


~ 


81 








it home with me, a prized possession. 

If you really put yourself in the hands 
of a camera it will take you to strange 
places at strange hours and introduce 
you to people you would never otherwise 
meet. It will take you to markets in the 
morning, to backyards, to docks. It will 
command you to stop at a country 
church, to pause in front of a tree, to 
think about how light falls on objects 
and people, to consider and absorb the 
exquisite patterns that roofs, trees, side- 
walks, fields, and leaves can make. 
Cameras can be the best of companions 
when you travel for adventure. 

Travel advertisements feature the high 
lights, the Taj Mahal, Westminster, 
Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, Muir Glacier. 
Thrilling as those sights may be, the real 
lure and value of travel is to be found in 
the byproducts—the incidents and de- 
tails that make experiences personal and 
real and memorable. 

And so for 1934 I could wish the read- 
ers of THe JourNAL nothing better 
than— 


To take a nickel ferry boat ride up 
New York Harbor from Staten Island to 
the Battery where clean-lined, thin sky- 
scrapers mark the front gateway of our 
nation. 

To hear the Moonlight Sonata played 
under the stars with real moonlight 
shining between the dark trunks of great 
lofty trees in Yosemite Valley. 

To make shipboard friendships, which 
are so unlike ordinary friendships. 

To enjoy the warm camaraderie of 
a club car anywhere west of the Missis- 
sippi. 

To fly over any great city just at 
twilight. 

To sit around a campfire in the high 
Sierras listening to the conversation of 
a dozen individuals momentarily welded 
into a circle of good companions by the 
welcome warmth of the blaze. 

To experience the hospitality of that 
unique new American institution, a farm 
or small town combination home and 
roadside inn. 


To see the Great Stone Face rugged 
and implacable amid the flying wrack 
of storm clouds. 


To just stand and look at the Folger | 


Library in Washington, D. C. 

To hear a symphony concert in the 
Hollywood Bowl. 

To find an empty bench on Dufferin 
Terrace at Quebec, high above the river, 
and watch ships moving silently up and 
down the St. Lawrence during the long 
twilight. 

To spend a half hour in the Dutch 
masters room at the Metropolitan 
Museum or with the Malvina Hoffman 
bronzes in the Field Museum in Chicago, 

To attend an Atlantic City auction, 
ride in a wheel chair at night, and dive 
thru the breakers. 

To sit in a windsor chair on the ve- 
randah at Mount Vernon and look out 
upon the winding Potomac just as George 
Washington did on many a summer day, 

These are a few of the good things of 


life. What a shame it would be to miss 
them! 





“Say, wouldn’t I have liked to help my teacher explore those prehistoric ruins in southwestern Colorado” 


The Journal of the National Education Association 





f 


V 





ack 


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er, 
and 
ong 


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School Counseling 


Home Visiting: More Results 


DIFFICULT STRUGGLE — A visit 
A was planned to the home of 
Helen Lee. Her attendance and 
punctuality were unsatisfactory; she 
was nervous and irritable. Several teach- 
ers reported her classwork as average 
but said that she would neither do any 
home work nor explain her refusal to do 
so. When she was talked with, she 
usually cried or became sullen. 

The visit to the home disclosed the 
fact that the father, who had been ill 
for some time, had passed away just the 
week before. The family of mother, sis- 
ter, and brother was left with little 
money. The brother had been an excep- 
tionally bright art student but for six 
months had been showing signs of 
‘“queerness,” getting worse as time went 
on. During the short visit of the coun- 
selor, he wandered in and out of the 
room no less than fifteen times. Occasion- 
ally he would go into the kitchen and 
put his head under the faucet to cool off. 
The sister said he often went out in front 
of the house without his shoes or shirt on. 

The mother was nervous and upset. 
She greatly appreciated the interest of 
the school in making a visit. She ex- 
plained that she realized her daughter 
was dropping behind in her studies, but 
the mother was ill and Helen had to do 
most of the housework. The mother did 
not allow any school books to be brought 
home, as the sight of the girl’s studying 
seem to accentuate the son’s trouble. 

The visit cleared up many things in 
this case. Helen, striving to keep her 
courage up and not worry her mother, 
was too proud to tell her troubles to the 
teachers. She was tardy because she did 
not want to leave for school while stu- 
dents were passing by her house when 
her brother was out in front. When the 
girl’s home conditions were explained 
to her teachers, all of them seemed to 
understand her trouble and admire her 
courage. They made unusual efforts to 
assist her in her school work. No home 
study was given and satisfactory ar- 
rangements with regard to her punc- 
tuality were made. An immediate change 
was noticed in the girl. Her nervousness 
seemed to decrease and she again found 
happiness in school. 

A week later Helen stopped in the 
counselor’s office. She had been selected 
for a leading part in the school operetta, 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





but her mother did not want her to be 
“on the stage.” Would the counselor visit 
again and see what could be done? A 
second visit was made and the mother 
was told how well the music teacher 
thought her daughter could sing. The 
loveliness of the operetta was discussed 
as well as the great happiness and joy 
the girl would experience by taking part 
in it. The mother agreed to allow the 
daughter to participate. Helen made an 
excellent performance a few weeks later. 

Here was a case where a girl was 
carrying a heavy mental burden not 
known in any way by the school de- 
partment. The knowledge of home con- 
ditions enabled the school to adjust its 
methods to meet the existing conditions. 

The value of a good home—Don 
Allen and his two brothers attended Mc- 
Clymonds, establishing excellent records 
for conduct, attendance, punctuality, 
and school spirit. The counselor had no 
trouble in receiving an invitation to visit 
the home. The family owned a grocery 
store in one of the poor districts in 
town and lived in the rear of the store. 
The mother, pleased that the counselor 
had called, invited him in. The father 
had been ill and was sitting in an arm 
chair near the stove. Five children, 
father, mother, and counselor formed a 
circle around the stove. A pleasant hour 
was enjoyed, during which cakes, 
cookies, nuts, and fruit were served. 
The cakes were prepared in the same 
manner as the mother used to make them 
in Syria. The mother had always taken 
an interest in the children’s school work 
and often visited the lower grade schools, 
but since their graduation to high school 
she had been afraid to visit there. Both 
parents expressed their appreciation of 
the visit and praised the work of the 
school. “We have sent three of our chil- 
dren to your school and have two more 
to send you in a year or two. We are 
thankful that America gives our children 
such opportunities.” A cordial invitation 
to return was extended as the visitor de- 
parted. 

The influence of a good home even 
tho in a poor environment was easy to 
understand. A wholesome philosophy 
prevailed. The father was delighted in 
the knowledge of machinery his son had 
obtained in the auto shop. A fine co- 


operative feeling exists between the 
home and the school. 

Finding herself — Just getting by 
seemed to satisfy Rose Sayre in all her 
school work. Her attitude and effort were 
a little below average and her school 
reputation was not the highest. She was 
rather headstrong and had a violent 
temper. If she didn’t feel in the mood 
to do anything, she didn’t do it. She 
didn’t see why she should put herself 
out for anyone. At times her attitude 
would change and she proved to be gen- 
erous, kind, and thoughtful. With all 
her faults she was well liked and was a 
recognized leader of the girls. 

A visit to the home revealed some of 
the reasons for the girl’s actions. The 
father and mother had separated, leav- 
ing the mother with two girls and a boy 
to care for. The struggle to get along 
was a hard one and the girl became 
rather embittered toward her father and 
things in general. The mother was ex- 
ceptionally good to her children and the 
thoughts of her continued worry em- 
bittered Rose still more. Her mother 
recognized Rose’s temper and disposi- 
tion, and attributed it to one of the 
girl’s inheritances from her father. The 
girl was a willing help to her mother, 
cheerfully made sacrifices, and was very 
generous. 

Following the visit to the home, con- 
tact with the girl was much easier. She 
talked freely and expressed her opinions 
of school work and activities frankly. 
A change in her attitude toward the 
efforts of the school and the teachers 
began to be noticed. Her sportsmanship 
on the field improved. The counselor got 
her interested in competing with her past 
records in conduct and in school service. 
Her improvement was rapid and her in- 
fluence for the best with the girls became 
noticeable. She is now a member of an 
athletic society and was chosen to repre- 
sent the school in an outstanding ritual. 
Her conduct record for the past two 
years has been excellent. 

While her improvement has been re- 
markable, there is still much for her to do 
to gain control of her temper. Last year 
she was injured in an accident and one 
of her teachers, with whom she had had 
trouble, visited her. Several other teach- 
ers sent her little messages of sym- 
pathy. On her return to school, she said 


83 








“to the counselor: “Gee, Miss Smith is 
a good sport. As mean as I have been to 
her, she came to visit me. And can you 
imagine it, Miss Clair sent me a card. 
I'll show ’em I appreciate it.” 

The counselor’s visit was worthwhile. 
Understanding the various influences 
affecting the girl’s nature has led to a 
change in counseling methods that has 
been justified by favorable results. 

Off to a bad start—Clyde Jones had 
been to school “in and out,” being out 
more than in. He was a likable young 
fellow, full of harmless pranks, but a 
disturbance in all his classes. Threats of 
suspension had no effect on him. The 
visit to his home, at the boy’s request, 
was arranged for 6:15 Pp. M. and his 
parting admonition was, “Be sure and 
don’t eat.” Arriving at the home, the 
counselor was greeted by Clyde and 
introduced to his mother and father. The 
home tho not expensively furnished was 
comfortable. A delicious Italian dinner 
was served. Everyone was hospitable and 
becoming acquainted was an easy task. 
There were four children in the family, 
two boys and a girl in 
high school and one 
younger girl. The boys 
entertained between 
courses by playing on the 
cornet and accordion. 
During the evening many 
interesting facts were 
learned. The mother and 
father were worried over 
the way both boys were 
getting along in school. 
The sister was as brilliant 
and ladylike as the boys 
were troublesome, and it 
was confusing to the par- 
ents. The father worked 
hard and received $2.40 
per day. From this 
amount both boys were 
given music lessons, and 
payments were made on 
their home. Clyde was 
good to his mother and 
father, never complained 
about going without things 
other boys had, but just 
couldn’t get alongin 
school. The mother and 
father were certainly 
anxious to know what 
could be done and seemed 
to look to the counselor 
to offer a solution. A 
pleasant evening ensued 
and the counselor left, 
assuring the parents 


84 


that their son would be taken care of. 

A few days later Clyde was called into 
the office. He was out for football and, 
regardless of his small stature, was mak- 
ing the first squad. The counselor com- 
mended him on his success and asked if 
such determination and courage couldn’t 
also be applied to his school work. The 
sacrifices of his parents in allowing him 
to go out for football and their efforts in 
giving him an education were discussed. 

“Won’t they be happy and proud, 
Clyde, when you make your Block M 
and start taking home better report 
cards? Don’t know of anything you could 
do that would please them more.” 

That seemed to appeal to Clyde. His 
work became better; his attendance im- 
proved; and his deportment was raised 
from F to C and B. One teacher be- 
came especially interested in him after 
hearing of his home environment, and 
thru her untiring efforts the boy was 
elected to an athletic honor society. He 
occasionally goes on a “rampage’’—not 
a bad one. That is to be expected. But 
his great improvement has more than 


For Wont- 
Of Funds , 


h 


| 


| 


} 


| 


Ween LA ae oe 


> 
! 


justified all efforts expended on him. 

One day Clyde called in the office and 
asked if he could take part in an amateur 
boxing bout. 

“Can you whip the fellow, Clyde?” 

“Don’t know, but I can get a mer- 
chandise order for a pair of football shoes 
that I need, and say, Ma wants to know 
when you're comin’ down for another 
spaghetti feed.” 

Here is a worthwhile young fellow 
whose problems were made clearer by the 
visit to his home.—Elwood V. Hess, 
teacher, McClymonds High School, Oak- 
land, California. [This concludes the 
series on school counseling by Mr. Hess. 
Actual cases are reported in the above 
article, but fictitious names have been 
used. During this period of crisis there 
is perhaps no single thing that teachers 
can do which will so directly, immedi- 
ately, and powerfully affect the attitude 
of citizens toward the schools as to make 
personal visits to the homes of children, 
and to plan with parents for a better 
opportunity for those children. Does your 
school stress home visiting? | 


SWI 
OASYS 


RASS 


————— 


It / SNS 
DFP MK QA 
NIG I~ SN 





The Journal of the National Education Association 





L 


or | 
hon 
his 

tori 
nes 
nov 
lool 
ins 
lan 
me 
the 
Wi 





rf. 
PS 


or 





EAR Epttor—A few years ago al- 
D most every “business man” speak- 
ing to a group of public officials 
or lamenting the inefficiency and dis- 
honesty of government would throw out 
his chest and ask the moss-covered rhe- 
torical question, ‘““Why isn’t public busi- 
ness run like private business?”’ Well, we 
now thank God that it wasn’t! When we 
look at the wreckage of the once strong 
institutions that clutter up the economic 
landscape, we should hold some prayer 
meetings and humbly offer up our thanks 
that we were spared in state service a 
Wiggin, Mitchell, or an Insull. 
I am not indicting all business—not by 
a long shot. Most businesses are honest, 
honorable, and safe. But by the device of 
the corporation and holding company the 
business inflationist blew up a group of 
financial balloons which burst with ter- 
rific repercussions for all of us. I doubt 
if government inflation of money and 
credit could possibly go the dizzy pace 
that bond and stock inflation did. As one 
looks back at it now one is terrified by 
the ease with which manipulation of 
credit took place. And by one of Fate’s 


Letter of an Old-Timer 


grimmest ironies, the financial genius who 
was blowing his inky bubble and mak- 
ing paper profits was also shouting lustily 
for the gold standard, for reduced taxes, 
and, Heaven save us, for “more business 
in government and less government in 
business.” 

All of which is common knowledge and 
leads me to this observation: The people 
whom we serve must understand better 
what government is doing for them and 
what it could do if they would devote a 
little more attention to our common 
problems. I know it’s a large order to 
shoot at and it will take a long time to 
sell it. Just think of the problems which 
you and I are asked to decide by our 
opinions, our influence, and our votes. 
There is the money question, the tariff, 
foreign debts, liquor control, crime, 
lynching, schools, and a dozen others 
about which we must make decisions. 
Now I ask you if I can be informed 
about all of these and make an honest 
and intelligent decision worthy of my 
citizenship. Obviously I can’t. I’ve read 
within six months a half dozen authorita- 
tive books on money, and with a lot of 


discussion I still am not clear as to what 
I should do if I had to vote today on the 
specific question of setting up a mone- 
tary policy for this country. Of course I 
would vote—I should have to make a de- 
cision, but I would vote with my fingers 
crossed. Yet we expect a whole nation to 
inform itself in a few weeks about the 
most vital problems in our modern life. 
No wonder the demagog and the charla- 
tan have the best chance of winning. 
With sophistry, slogans, and appeals to 
self-interest they can give us a terrible 
trouncing. 

But I don’t despair. We have tri- 
umphed over many a terrible situation 
before. Human nature has tremendous 
resiliency; it can bounce back from seem- 
ingly impossible sufferings and go chas- 
tened but contentedly on its way. An in- 
telligent optimism and an enlightened 
public opinion are not incompatible. De- 
mocracy is young; it hasn’t failed; the 
way out is to use it, not run away from 
it to either of its alternatives: commun- 
ism and fascism. Our job is to prove it. 
—Sincerely, John Old-timer. | From The 
Wisconsin State Employee, Dec. 1933.] 


Group Study and Faculty Meetings 


STATEMENT under the above title 
A in the February JouRNAL, page 
61, gave replies from the first 
eight questions in a questionnaire ballot, 
sent to schools having 100-percent mem- 
bership in the National Education As- 
sociation. Replies to the last two ques- 
tions are given herewith, compiled from 
returns from 972 schools in all parts of 
the country. 

What improvements have been made 
recently in your faculty meetings? [1] 
Planning faculty meetings for a semester 
or year in advance was mentioned 405 
times. [2] More teacher participation 
was mentioned 136 times, with comments 
like the following: “Discussions become 
more general each time, principal does 
less talking.” “Teachers having charge 
instead of principal.” “For some reason 
our teachers are more active. Possibly the 
times have impressed them with the need 
for group action and group conscious- 
ness.” [3] Vital topics or material used, 
mentioned 103 times, with comments like 
these: “Study of ways and means to im- 
prove teaching of subjects not so well 
taught.” “An intensive study of the crisis 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





in education and remedial measures pro- 
posed.” “Studying retrenchment and re- 
form and new proposed state legislation.” 
“Studying individual pupil problems.” 
“Current magazine articles briefly re- 
viewed at each meeting; study of indus- 
trial and economic status of community.” 
“Attacking the problem of failures.” 
“Studying the tax situation.” [4] Defi- 
nite planning, as to time, place, number 
of meetings, topics, advance announce- 
ments, mentioned 49 times. [5] Brief 
social time before meetings with light re- 
freshments “‘to freshen teachers from the 
day’s work,” or dinner meetings, or other 
social times. [6] Professional meetings 
magnified, as shown by such com- 
ments: “Refused to let administrative 
detail crowd out professional discussion.” 
“Spend less time in giving necessary 
notices and reports of extracurriculum 
and administrative matters.” [7] Group 
meetings—sometimes the meeting to- 
gether of several school faculties; more 
often, the division of one faculty into 
smaller groups of similar interests. [8] 
Outside speakers, occasionally, to sum- 
marize discussions or for new viewpoints. 


{9] Demonstration lessons. [10] Be- 
ginning and ending on time. 

List one or two things needed to make 
your teachers meetings more effective. 
All the points mentioned above were 
given in answer to this question with one 
added—that of more time. The ranking 
of the meeds follows: [1] More partizi- 
pation. [2] More time for study and dis- 
cussion, with comments like these: “The 
difficulty is to find time without too 
much interruption.” “Other activities 
and meetings sometimes interfere.” 
“More time when teachers are not tired 
out or worried because time is needed 
for other things. Elimination of some 
clerical work that eats into time and 
strength of teacher.” “We need to do 
more professional study but outside ac- 
tivities of teachers in connection with 
school work are great.” [3] Better plan- 
ning. [4] Helpful, new material—more 
books, magazines, and the like. [5] 
Greater professional interest and enthusi- 
asm. [6] More suitable hour for meet- 
ing. [7] Professional meetings, rather 
than routine business. [8] Group meet- 
ings. [9] Outside speakers for variety. 


85 
































































States and 
other units 


Number of 
teachers 










Total 930, 234 
Alabama 17,362 
Alaska 262 
Arizona ‘ 3,496 
Arkansas 12,112! 
California 41,093 















Canal Zone 226 
Colorado 9,973 
Connecticut 10, 606! 
Delaware 1,624! 
District of Columbia 2, 986 














Florida... 11,606 


Foreign. ’ 
Georgia.... 19,023! 
Hawaii..... 2,702 


Idaho..... 





, 388! 








Illinois... 


: , 295 
Indiana. . | 21 


, 010! 







lowa i: | 25, 898 
Kansas } 20, 000! 
Kentucky...... | 17,727 








Louisiana... . 12,681 







Maine : 6, 488 
Maryland. . 9,096 
Massachusetts 26, 460! 
Michigan. . 34, 660! 





Minnesota 22, 167 









Mississippi 15,719 
Missouri 25,471 
Montana 5,664! 
Nebraska... 14,775! 











Nevada. . 





975! 




























New Hampshire 3,173 
New Jersey 28, 880 
New Mexico 3,922 
New York 79, 960 
| North Carolina 22, 827! 
North Dakota.... 8, 647 
Ohio..... ae | 42,5001 
Oklahoma. } 19,925 
| Oregon..... 7,605! 
Pennsylvania... 64, 023 
| Philippine Islands 28,782 
| Puerto Rico..... 4,757 
Rhode Island 3,989! 
South Carolina. . 13,415 
South Dakota 8, 7501 
Tennessee. . 19,139 
eS SAA 45,792 
OS SS ee eee 4, 8941 
Vermont.........-- 3,173 
| Virgin Islands 126 
| Virginia. ...........| 17,606 
| Washington.........} 10, 850! 
| West Virginia. 16, 4501 
Wisconsin. . 22,498 
| Wyoming 3,006 





Jan. 1, 
1933 


3 
207 , 418 


1,204 
192 
2,305 
654 

20, 416 


‘ 
4,381 
1,916 
1,035 
1,563 








Membership in Education Associations 





Membership in National Education Association 


| 


Percent of _ Relative Life membership 
Jan. 1, teachers | Se, ae ee P — 
1934 members Jan. 1, | 
1934 1934 Jan.1, | Jan.1, 
1933 | 


189,173 20 4,926 4,993 
886 | 5 47 69 69 
148 56 4 5 5 

1,929 | 55 5 49 46 
547 | 5 48 72 69 
18,361 | \. 7 
ge] 1 54 3 rer. 
3,645 | 37 11 60 62 
1, 830 17 24 52 54 
1,048 65 2 24 25 
1, 209 40 10 74 76 


1,132 10 39 53 $4 

146 ret ceuky 11 13 
1, 232 6 44 68 69 
2,371 88 1 133 130 




















5,333 25 18 126 128 
3,324 13 33 102 101 
2, 903 15 29 66 65 
1,315 7 43 49 50 
520 4 51 35 35 
1,766 27 15 39 41 
1,345 15 28 46 46 
4,793 18 23 109 114 
6, 889 20 22 113 108 
4,903 22 21 81 80 
645 4 50 26 26 
6,323 25 19 115 118 
667 12 36 30 31 
2,143 } 15 30 105 108 
559 | 57 3 4 4 
547 17 25 17 17 
9,744 34 12 180 184 
562 14 31 34 35 
12,756 16 26 307 316 
750 3 52 71 68 
748 9 41 53 56 
18, 446 43 x 448 462 
2,082 10 37 67 65 
1,939 25 17 60 60 
27,770 43 9 397 392 
98 2 55 29 32 
90 2 53 26 27 
306 8 42 12 12 
568 4 49 26 26 
908 10 38 43 43 
1,812 9 40 68 72 
2, 903 6 46 270 269 
2,231 46 6 28 29 
386 12 34 12 14 
Xs 6 45 7 7 
2,508 14 32 75 79 
3,115 29 14 45 48 
1,950 12 35 68 67 
6,531 29 13 127 130 

770 26 16 32 32 























state associations. 








territories. 








| ciations of 682,607. 







the District of Columbia. 














HIS table shows the facts regarding pro- 
fessional organizations and indicates the 
relative standing of each of the states with 

respect to membership in both national and 
The total membership in 
the National Education Association was 207,- 
418 on January 1, 1933, and 189,173 on Janu- 
ary 1, 1934. This latter figure is 20 percent of 
the 930,234 teachers in the United States and 
The life membership in the Na- 
tional Education Association was 4926 on 
January 1, 1933 and 4993 on January 1, 1934. 
| The figures for state associations for Janu- 
| ary 1, 1933 show a membership in these asso- 
This figure for January 1, 
1934 is 652,338, which is 73 percent of the 
893,379 teachers in the forty-eight states and 


In the United States in 1932, 23 percent of 
| the teachers of the country were enroled in 
the National Education Association; in 1933, 


22 percent were enroled; the corresponding 
percent for 1934, given at the head of column 
5, is 20. The percent of teachers enroled in 
state associations in 1932 was 79; in 1933, 76; 
and in 1934, 73, the percent given at the head 
of column 11. The preceding percents are 
based upon the number of teachers in each 
state in 1931-32, as reported by the U. S. De- 
partment of Interior, Office of Education. 
The figures of Column 2 include teachers, 
principals, supervisors, and administrative 
officers. The figures for state associations are 
based on signed reports from officers of those 
associations. 

e The letter ‘“e”’ indicates that the figure is 
an estimate. 

1 Figure furnished by officials of state asso- 
ciations. 

2? Less than one percent. 


3 Total for reported and estimated member- 
ships. 


Jan. 1, 
1933 


9 


682, 6078 





| 10,7758 
6,053 
3, 6254 

21, 000° 

31,024 


14, 900 
9, 6196 
24, 1365 
3,900 
11,818 


659 
2,785 
28, 000¢ 
2,540 
45,6387 


16, 6386 
4, 437 
38, 689 
18, 5004 
6, 446 








‘Figures do not include members enroled 
in statewide organizations for colored teach- 


ers. 


5 Membership in colored state teachers asso- 


ciation is an estimate. Figure inciudes enrol- 


ment in both white and colored associations 








Membership in State Associations 


Percent of 
Jan. 1, teachers | 
1934 members 
1934 


Relative 


r 
Jan. 1, 
1934 





733 
6, 4315 37 
"2,797 30 
5) 0035 41 


7, 464 7s 
10,539 99 

1,520 94 

1) 5095 51 

6, 5985 57 
“42,5008 | 0° * 





, 67 
16, 608 64 
14,689 73 
13, 5385 76 














11, 0036 89 
5, 863 90 
4, 5384 50 

21, 000¢ 79 


29,565 85 








14, 259 64 
10, 665¢ 68 
21, 9505 86 
4,012 71 
11,825 |, 80 








2,787 88 
27) 375 95 
27952 75 
46) 1657 58 
17, 3005 76 
3, 100 36 
37) 430 88 
17) 403¢ 87 
4; 880 64 
58, 966 92 
Syren oe ‘agit 
7, 1058 53 
6, 6006 75 
9) 7428 51 
20) 42% 45 
4,682 96 
2, 225¢ 70 
i5, 5686 88 
9) 455 87 
10, 0908 61 
18, 200 81 


{separate organizations]. 


® Includes enrolment in both white and 
colored associations {separate organizations]. 
7The rank of the New York State Associ- 
ation is lowered by the fact that New York 
City teachers at present work largely thru 


local organizations. There are approximately 


32,000 teachers in New York City. 


’Calculated using number of teachers in 
forty-eight states and District of Columbia. 

* The percents in excess of 100 percent are 
accounted for by the fact that members 
are enroled among laymen and teachers in 
private schools and institutions of higher 


learning. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 











































Home-School Leaflets 


Making Friends for the School 


UR present educational system 

largely unfits young people to deal 
with the actual necessities of those who 
are to earn their own living. It takes 
away selfreliance, begets conceit, and 
draws attention to what is ornamental 
rather than what is fundamental.” 

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Thomas 
Bicknell quoted it in 1884 from a news- 
paper in discussing “the matter of at- 
tacks on the common school.” 

Since the beginning of our educational 
history, criticism of the schools has been 
the inevitable result of changes which 
the people have not been prepared to 
understand. Because of financial condi- 
tions, the present movement to interpret 
schools places great emphasis upon that 
aspect. Viewed in longer perspective, 
however, the nature of the school itself 
and the character of its service to chil- 
dren and community are factors of even 
greater importance than its finances. If 
these factors are sufficiently understood 
by the entire community, financial sta- 
bility will follow. 

By helping teachers to work effectively 
on the problem of interpretation, our 


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Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


ROMOTE, then, as an object of 

primary importance, institutions 
for the general diffusion of knowl- 
edge. 
ture of a government gives force to 
public opinion, it is essential that 
public opinion should be enlight- 
ened. 


state and national associations are per- 
forming a vital service to children. For 
many years the National Education As- 
sociation has been at work to make 
friends for the schools. It has served as 
a clearinghouse by which the best ideas 
on interpreting the schools are gathered 
from all over the country and made avail- 
able to the profession as a whole. It has 
furnished leaflets, posters, articles. More 
than 850,000 home-school leaflets have 
been supplied by THE JouRNAL for dis- 
tribution during 1932-33. More than a 
million pieces of American Education 
Week material were distributed last year 
from Association headquarters. 

THE JoURNAL of the Association has 
gone to 200,000 teachers and to many 
laymen. Special contacts have been main- 
tained by the Association with various 
types of magazines and with the daily 
press of the nation. A reader comments: 
“T note that the NEA JourNAL is widely 
quoted these days by newspapers all over 
the country.”’ Many publications come 
directly to the Association to secure ma- 
terial for articles they wish to prepare. 

Important as are these contacts, they 


ee ee ee ee ee Gut on Gio Bee ence 






In proportion as the struc- 


—George Washington. 


National Education Association 
Home-School Leaflet No. 5 


— oe ee ee  —- Fold away from this line 


The public school is America's way of 
making life richer and better for all the 
people. 
school seeks to prepare your child for 
a happy and useful ff 


are the lesser phase of educational in- 
terpretation. The greatest opportunity 
lies within the school system itself when 
every teacher is alert to seize opportuni- 
ties of making friends for the schools. 
The first step in our efforts to inter- 
pret the schools is for the teachers and 
officers of each school to seek an answer 
to this question: How can our schools 
and classrooms adapt their work to be 
more definitely helpful to the people of 
the community under present conditions? 
The second step is for each teacher to 
visit the homes of his pupils to express 
interest in their welfare and establish 
closer mutual understanding and cooper- 
ation. THE JouRNAL has recently pub- 
lished the following articles on home 
visiting: November, page 231; Decem- 
ber, 260; February, 37; March, 83. 
The third step is to support the asso- 
ciations of parents and teachers which 
are now organized for the improvement 
of home, school, and community condi- 
tions. In many places these groups are 
the backbone of community life. They 
carry thru important enterprises for the 
improvement of the school, the enrich- 


A Message 


to Parents 


his message tells how the 





ment of home, the education of parents. 

The fourth step is to teach the chil- 
dren about the schools; how they have 
been built up in response to need; how 
every citizen has a part in the support 
and improvement of public schools. 

The fifth step is the sending into each 
home of simple informative leaflets like 
the one below, which give to the entire 
community a common background of 
fact and point of view built up system- 
atically over a period of years. Parents 
welcome such information when it is 
carefully chosen and timely. 

The leaflet reproduced on this page is 
the fifth of a series of home-school leaf- 
lets developed by THE JourRNAL in co- 
operation with teachers and school offi- 
cers thruout the country. The first leaflet, 
Good Schools in Bad Times, appeared 
in the January 1933 JourNAL. More 
than 685,000 copies were distributed 
during American Education Week alone. 
This Year or Never and The Child or 
the Dollar, of which about 100,000 
copies have been sold, were published in 
February and March 1933. A leaflet for 
kindergarten-primary teachers—/n the 
Garden of Growing Children—was pub- 
lished in November 1933. Already 53,000 
copies have been distributed. 

The Seven Objectives of Education 








"INTERPRETING THE SCHOOLS= 


Two Yearbooks just off the press 
will help you to make friends for the 
school: 

“Teacher and Public: A Handbook of 
Interpretation for Teachers.” Eighth 
Yearbook. Department of Classroom 

| Teachers. Washington, D. C.: National 
Education Association, 1934. 240p. $1. 


“Critical Problems in School Ad- 
ministration.” Twelfth Yearbook. De- 
partment of Superintendence. Wash- 


ington, D. C.: National Education 
Association, 1934. 384p. $2. Ch. 9, 
“Helping Citizens to Know Their 
| Schools,” p.211-56. 





was prepared with the help of teachers 
and faculty committees in thirty cities. 
It is designed to give parents and citi- 
zens a comprehensive view of what the 
schools do for American children. Car- 
mon Ross, principal, Doylestown, Penn- 
sylvania, writes: ““My view in our cam- 
paign to maintain what we have achieved 
thru years of struggle is to show What is 
right with the schools. We have been on 
the defensive too long. We need an of- 
fensive. The home-school leaflet helps to 
explain our needs to the parent.” 

The seven objectives were formulated 
in 1913 by a committee of the National 
Education Association. In 1927 these ob- 
jectives were adopted as the permanent 








platform of the National Congress of 
Parents and Teachers. 

The value to the interpreter of this 
statement lies in its simplicity. Seven 
aims of education are described in words 
and phrases of everyday use. Parents and 
citizens easily remember these points and 
thus gain a broader conception of how 
the school is guiding child development. 

Since the first home-school leaflet was 
published in January 1933, the Associa- 
tion has received orders from every state 
in the union. Pennsylvania has distrib- 
uted more than 50,000 copies. The 
Fhree Rivers, Michigan, Teachers Club 
has distributed over 6000 copies in the 
homes of the city. A Cleveland, Ohio, 
principal distributed This Year or Never 
at his commencement program. Birm- 
ingham, Alabama, teachers have placed 
copies in the library and have asked the 
local editor to publish them. 

The Miami Beach, Florida, parent- 
teacher association distributed 1500 
copies by giving one to each child to 
take home. Ontario, Wisconsin, gave 
copies of each leaflet to members of the 
schoolboard. Many schools send the leaf- 
let into the home every month along 
with the report cards. Others send them, 
inclosed with special school arinounce- 
ments, to parents. 


The Seven Objectives of Education 


DUCATION IS guided growth. 
acquire simple habits of daily living. 
habits and attitudes into the fine character of worthy manhood and woman- 
hood. The ideal of the American public school—working hand in hand 
with home, church, and all other positive forces of the community—is to 
guide human growth into the following sevenfold way of life. 
school seeks to prepare every child, regardless of race or condition, to 


achieve for himself 


[1] A sound mind in a strong and healthy body 

[2] A home life that is happy, unselfish, and democratic 
[3] The ability to read and write, to think, study, and act 
[4] The knowledge and skill needed to earn a good living 
[5] The use of free time for worthy activities and pleasures 


[6] An informed citizenship dedicated to the common good 


[7] Fine spiritual character that is trusted and admired. 


This enriched plan of education has been officially adopted by the 
National Education Association and the National Congress of Parents and 
It helps to make possible America’s ideal of a fair start in life 


Teachers. 


for every child. 


It begins by helping young children 
It continues to develop these 


The Journal of the National Education Association 


AS THE 
SCHOOLS GO 
the nation will go. 
Are you doing 
your part 

in interpreting 
educational service 
to the people? 


The 


ORDER NOW 
enough copies 

of this leaflet 

to send 

into every home 

in your community. 


Use the order blank 
on the reverse side 
of this page. 








even F 


ords 
and 
and 
how 
ent. 
was 
Cia- 
tate 
rib- 
The 
‘lub 
the 
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iced 
the 


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The Legion and the Schools 


RussELL Cooxk 


Director, National Americanism Commission, The American Legion 


LITTLE over a year ago an office 
A was opened in Washington, D. C. 

Highly paid press agents were 
placed in charge. An avalanche of gifted 
orators swept the nation. The office oper- 
ated under the misleading nom de plume 
of the National Economy League. The 
League’s objective, at least it was so 
stated in the press, was economy in gov- 
ernment. The big, all-convincing argu- 
ment was “to save the pocketbooks of 
the American taxpayers.” 

A very popular battle cry indeed, but 
it seems, when Economy League mem- 
bers succeeded in reducing school budgets 
and curtailing veterans’ benefits, they 
immediately shut up shop and called it a 
day. In the final analysis their entire 
fight was directed at the schools of Amer- 
ica and the American veteran. It was 
centered upon the American teachers, 
the peace time defenders of the nation, 
and American Legionnaires, the war 
time defenders of the nation. 

The highly specialized publicity men 
and gifted orators of the socalled Na- 
tional Economy League painted startling 
pictures of the enormous amount of the 
taxpayer’s money spent in the mainte- 
nance of our school system. They painted 
pictures of the veteran which led the 
general public of the nation to believe 
that the men who served America in 
time of need were “a menace to the eco- 
nomic welfare of the nation” and “treas- 
ury-raiding racketeers.” A popular public 
appeal, yes! A truthful statement, no! 

The National Economy League at- 
tempted to leave the impression that all 
the American Legion was organized for 
was veterans’ benefits. Its battle, prob- 
ably unkrown to its highly paid execu- 
tives, was directed at the Legion from 
two different flanks, because the Legion 
is vitally interested in Americanism and 
community service projects as well as 
veterans’ legislation. The League’s pub- 
licity did not tell of the hundreds of un- 
selfish projects of the Legion, such as the 
educational activities, the community 
service work, and the youth activities 
program. Only one side of the story was 
presented to the American public. 

And yet, the National Economy 
League won its first battle! At least it 
took its first objective and now is open- 
ing up with a new counter attack; with 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





big guns at the present time leveled at 
the veteran. However, we assume that a 
goodly portion of their barrage will also 
be directed at our school budgets. 


es 


Russell Cook 





The educators of America are com- 
bining forces with the American Legion 
in a great battle to defeat any plan which 
seeks to curtail the activities of our 
schools. To the educators of the nation 
it is not necessary to go into detail and 
give reasons why we must keep our 
schools operating normally. To the mem- 
bers of the teaching profession, however, 
we do wish to carry a message setting 
forth the Legion’s interest in education. 

Realizing that “education is the chief 
defense of the nation,” the American 
Legion, which has as one of its most im- 
portant activities the sponsoring of an 
adequate system of national defense, 
early in its career offered its services to 
the National Education Association and 
the United States Office of Education. 
As a result of this early combination of 
forces, the eyes of all America have been 
for a number of years directed upon our 
public schools, their. needs, accomplish- 
ments, and aims, during American Edu- 
cation Week. 

To give a better idea of the mission 
of the American Legion’s education pro- 
gram, we quote the following two para- 
graphs from the Americanism manual: 


In education, which is the first of the three 
major objectives, our mission is to promote in- 
terest in our schools, stimulate a greater edu- 
cational effort, to have taught to our children 
lessons in loyalty and patriotism, and to pre- 
pare the foreign-born for American citizenship. 

The American Legion is dedicated to the 
highest patriotic ideals and is vitally interested 
and concerned with any program or activity 
that makes for the advancement of the nation 
and develops a higher type of American citizen- 
ship. Education is the cornerstone upon which 
the future of this nation is built. Where there 
are good schools, we also find the good citizen. 
Education is the first requisite of good citizen- 
ship and it is the first of the three major 
objectives of the national Americanism pro- 
gram. 


The Great War disclosed the extent to 
which the human resources of the nation 
were handicapped by lack of knowledge 
and skill to serve the country adequately 
in a crisis. Soldiers particularly were 
impressed by the large number of their 
comrades who could not understand com- 
mands given in the English language, 
read a newspaper, or write a letter home. 
Immediately following the war, the re- 
turned soldiers themselves took the ini- 
tial steps in proposing a plan for stimu- 
lating interest in the work of the schools. 
The American Legion provided in its 
charter for the Americanism Commis- 
sion to pay particular attention to the 
education of the foreign-born and the 
elimination of illiteracy in the nation. 
This Commission sought the assistance 
of the National Education Association 
in establishing an annual event which 
would become a great nationwide fes- 
tival in which the American people might 
rededicate themselves to the ideal of 
self-government based upon an enlight- 
ened citizenry. Thus American Educa- 
tion Week began. In this project, the 
American Legion and the National Edu- 
cation Association invited the coopera- 
tion of the United States Office of Edu- 
cation, which is now one of the sponsors 
of the event. 

Immediately after getting plans under 
way for American Education Week, the 
National Americanism Commission of 
the Legion developed plans for the Amer- 
icanization of the foreign-born. The 
Commission realized that aliens in this 
country must have help in fitting them- 
selves to accept the responsibilities of 
American citizenship and in meeting and 
solving the problems of everyday life in 


89 



















America. American Legion posts in 
cities with foreign-born population were, 
therefore, urged to establish schools for 
these people where they might prepare 
themselves for intelligent citizenship. 
These schools have been established by 
a great number of Legion posts over a 
period of years. In 1933, 1415 of our 
posts interested themselves in this par- 
ticular activity. 

In 1923, the American Legion school 
award plan was launched as a national 
activity. There are five qualities which 
every good citizen should possess: honor, 
courage, scholarship, leadership, and 
service. The objective in the American- 
ism work of the Legion is the building 
of good citizens, and these five qualities 
are the bases upon which is awarded the 
American Legion school award medal. 
Approximately 5000 of these medals are 
awarded by Legion posts each year. 

Flag education is another important 
activity in the Legion’s educational pro- 
gram. Its purpose is to build patriotism 
in our boys and girls and to develop a 
thoro understanding of proper flag 
etiquette. 

A few years ago a course of eighteen 
weeks’ study on flag history and flag 
etiquette was outlined by the National 
Americanism Commission. This course 
has proved popular and a great number 
of posts have been successful in making 
it a part of the regular course of study 
in the schools in their communities. The 
plan is designed not only for the upper 
grades of the grammar schools, but 
with very little change can be arranged 
by the teachers for presentation to the 
lower grades. In 1933, 108,176 copies of 
the flag code were distributed by Amer- 
ican Legion posts in an attempt to build 
a greater respect for the Stars and 
Stripes. The Legion is also interested in 
a greater study of the Constitution of 
the United States and cooperates each 
year with the Constitution Educational 
Association in the observance of Con- 
stitution Week. Legion posts have also 
furnished parttime employment for boys 
to enable them to continue their school- 
ing. Occupational introduction for boys 
is also an important part of the program. 

Let me give you two examples of the 
many ways in which our posts over the 
country are daily helping to further 
education: 

Last March when it became apparent 
that the schools in Winter Haven, 
Florida, could not operate for the full 
term, the local American Legion post 
enlisted the service of unemployed teach- 
ers within the post and, together with 


90 








the principal of the grammar schools, 
worked out an educational program and 
enlisted in their own school three hun- 
dred pupils. At the end of the term, the 
regular school examinations were given, 
and approximately 88 percent of the 
pupils passed. 

Post No. 103 of Mount Hope, West 
Virginia, found that twenty highschool 
students, because of lack of financial 
help, could not complete their education. 
The post from its own funds pur- 
chased the necessary textbooks and in- 
sured the education of these students. 

And now we come to the present emer- 
gency in education! 

Last year when the National Economy 
League set its snipers at work shooting 
at educational budgets and veteran ex- 
penditures, the National Education As- 
sociation and the American Legion im- 
mediately joined forces again. 

The American Legion believes that 
“the security and perpetuity of the na- 
tion depends upon the patriotic educa- 
tion of its youth” and, therefore, at the 
Chicago national convention passed the 
following resolution: 


WHEREAS, education is a prime requisite 
to good citizenship and a thoro program of 
education is even more essential in troubled 
times like the present than usual, and 

WHEREAS, there seems to be a tendency 
in some quarters to make educational appro- 
priations carry more than their share of re- 
ductions for the sake of economy; therefore 
be it 

RESOLVED, by the American Legion, in 
its Fifteenth Annual Corvention assembled, 
that it is the sense of this organization that 
education should be given its proper considera- 
tion by legislative bodies and should not be 


made to bear a major part of the sacrifices for 
economy. 


The National Americanism Commis- 
sion in its meeting in Indianapolis, 
Indiana, November 19, 1933, asked that 
full support be given by the 10,842 
American Legion posts thruout the na- 
tion to relieve the critical situation with 
which our schools are now confronted. 
The Commission recommended _ that 
every department and every post of the 
American Legion immediately appoint 
a standing committee on education to 
cooperate with school authorities and 
to pay particular attention to the budget- 
ary condition of our schools within the 
department or area served by our posts 
and cooperate to the end that education 
may not be hampered by reason of the 
present financial crisis. 

A great national campaign is now 
under way within the ranks of the Amer- 
ican Legion in the formation of these 
post committees in 10,842 communities 


thruout the land. The education com- 
mittee will work with and thru the 
superintendent of schools and board of 
education in the development of sound 
educational policies. 

A printed leaflet sets forth the follow- 
ing suggestions for the post committee: 


[1] Let the committee on education be 
organized immediately. Let it include from 
three to five of the ablest men in the post. 

[2] Let the committee meet and consider 
the educational situation in the community. 

[3] Let the committee confer with the super- 
intendent of schools and the board of educa- 
tion to discover ways in which it can be most 
helpful. 

[4] Let the members of the committee make 
themselves thoroly familiar with conditions 
in the schools. 

[5] Let the committee be active in carrying 
this information to the public and in mobiliz- 
ing public sentiment behind a sound and 
worthy educational program. 

[6] Hold joint meetings of your American 
Legion post, auxiliary unit, parent-teacher as- 
sociation, and school officials. 

[7] Get speakers before all civic and lunch- 
eon clubs and on all radio broadcasts. 

[8] Enlist the aid of local newspapers and 
ask editors to publish articles calling the atten- 
tion of the general public to the condition of 
our schools. 


Already a number of state depart- 
ments of the American Legion have the 
campaign under way. As early as August 
1933, the department of Kentucky threw 
the full force of the Legion in that state 
into the fight. At the department’s 
annual meeting in Owensboro a resolu- 
tion was adopted stating 


That every post in the department of Ken- 
tucky shall foster a properly directed program 
in the interest of the school children to the 
end that education and the public schools 
of the state may not deteriorate, but that 
they on the contrary may be built up to 
glorify a greater Kentucky. 


Within the last two months the Amer- 
ican Legion department of Alabama has 
circulated resolutions thruout the entire 
state asking for a special session of the 
state legislature to devise ways and 
means of keeping open the schools of 
their state. The department of Wiscon- 
sin now has its state setup completed 
and the campaign is moving forward 
successfully. Hundreds of letters have 
been received in the office of the Na- 
tional Americanism Commission from 
various agencies thruout the country 
showing a splendid spirit of cooperation 
in this drive to save our schools. 

I want to assure the members of the 
teaching profession in the United States 
that our organization will do all within 
its power to see that every child under 
the American flag is given a full school 
opportunity. We are in this fight to win! 


The Journal of the National Education Association 

















































W- 
Pe: 


be 
der 
ity. 


Ca- 
ost 


ike 
ing 


nd 


n o a 








A Dental 
Clinic 
on Wheels 


HELEN HALL 


Instructor, Little Rock, 


Arkansas, Junior College 


IMMY, it’s your turn to report to the 
dentist. You will find him parked 
at the Fourteenth Street entrance.” 

Jimmy closes his book, and rushes out 
into the dentist office-on-wheels that 
only this morning has been drawn up 
before the entrance. 

“This is Jimmy Smith, Dr. Pitcock,” 
the nurse explains as she hands over 
Jimmy’s card to the doctor. On the card 
are recorded the defects of Jimmy’s 
teeth. In a short time Jimmy emerges 
from the dental den to greet John, his 
classmate, with these words: “Aw, don’t 
be worried. You ought to see what a 
nifty office the doc has.” 

Thus are the Little Rock public 
schools solving the dental problem of 
the hundreds of children whose parents 
are unable to have the children’s major 
teeth defects corrected. The dental clinic- 
on-wheels is pulled up to the door of the 
school, where plumbing apparatus and 
electrical connections are available to 
set the office in action. All Jimmy has 
to do now to have sound teeth is to take 
a few minutes off from the classroom 
and report to the clinic. 





Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


And what a thrill he gets from being 
“serviced” in this new office! “It’s not 
like going to a dentist’s office at all,” he 
explains. Of course, he admits that some 
of it is not so much fun, but just the 
same he considers it a novel privilege to 
have his teeth cared for in this clinic. 

Little Rock schools have long stressed 
the necessity of good health. In all the 
details of the school’s health program 
as it advanced, nothing caused the offi- 
cials more concern than that of the large 
percentage of children who possessed un- 
sound teeth, and who because of pe- 
cuniary circumstances of their home life 
were unable to have the defects cor- 
rected. When reports came in showing 
25 percent of the children had poor 
teeth, it was deemed time to concentrate 
on some method of correction. 

The idea of the present unique dental 
clinic was conceived by Superintendent 
R. C. Hall. The realization of the idea 
was made possible thru the cooperation 
of the Red Cross and the Women’s City 
Federated Clubs. The blue print was 
drawn up by the drafting arts class of 
the local high school and placed in the 
hands of the instructors of the manual 
arts and mechanical divisions of the 
vocational department. 

The beginning of the year saw the 
culmination of many years of planning 
and executing—a modern uptodate den- 
tist office at the door of every school in 
the city, as the necessity demands. 

At the beginning of this school year 
a corps of six dentists worked several 
weeks, examining the teeth of every 
child. Warning notices were sent to those 
parents whose children suffered major 
trouble, and in case response was not 
forthcoming, the school nurses—there 
are five of them—made home visits. The 
nurses report that the parents cooperate 








excellently and take care of the dental 
work needed for the children if at all 
possible; if not, the omnibus clinic be- 
comes the Santa Claus. Of course, work 
is done only after the parent has given 
permission but there is not a case on 
record where a parent has objected. 

The school maintains an efficient den- 
tist and an assistant, who make the teeth 
corrections and give treatments. The 
omnibus clinic remains at one school 
until approximately 10 percent of its 
children have had corrections made. It 
then moves on to the next school sched- 
uled. Quickly and easily the children re- 
port to the clinic, to be gone but a short 
time from the classrooms. 

Before the end of the school year all 
the Jimmies will have an opportunity to 
find out the intricate workings of the 
clinic-on-wheels and to experience the 
joy and comfort which come from hav- 
ing sound teeth. 


| 
I’ 
“ 














The Washington 


Convention 


June 30-July 6, 1934 


Wire ONE clear call sounds 
the invitation to the Washing- 
ton convention! Here we shall see a 
great activity program set up, in which 
we must do a fair share to vindicate 
national faith in education as the cor- 
nerstone of democracy. Here, also, 
we shall visit places forever hallowed 
by the memory of great givers of a 
service that has made democracy 
minister to better citizenship; and here, 
too, we may be inspired to increased 
devotion that our profession may trans- 
mit our worthy heritage untarnished to 


posterity. Respond to the call !— 
Jessie Gray, president, N. E. A. 


© C. O. Buckingham. 












© Underwood & Underwood Studios. © Underwood & Underwood Studios. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 











© Harris & Ewing 
Honorable Walter F. George 


Senator from Georgia 





OME OF THE achieve- 
S ments in the six-point 

program—The work of 
the National Committee for 
Federal Emergency Aid for 
Education, under the chair- 
manship of James H. Rich- 
mond, is moving forward 
rapidly. 

Point One*—February 1, 
Federal Relief Administra- 
tor Hopkins made the fol- 
lowing announcement: 

To provide relief for more unemployed teach- 
ers in communities up to five thousand popula- 
tion where existing funds are insufficient, addi- 
tional grants are authorized. The funds will go 
to teachers in local districts which have already 
made maximum but unavailing efforts to keep 
their schools in operation. The funds are to 
be used to maintain elementary and secondary 
schools in such areas and localities, for the 
normal school term, with approximately the 
same teaching load as the present school year. 

Funds are available only for salaries of cer- 
tified teachers, for teaching the regular school 
work already under way this school year, on 
and after the date upon which the school had 
been discontinued for lack of its own funds. 

None of these funds can be used to pay back 
salaries due, or to redeem warrants, scrip, or 
other evidence of debt. 

Teachers already employed in the schools, 
whose sole source of income is their salary, may 
be continued in their positions. 

Point Two**—The George-Ellzey bill 
reproduced on this page is an important 
step toward securing point two of the 
program. The bill proposes $100,000,000 
to keep school doors open during 1934- 
35, and seeks to make a definite alloca- 
tion of $50,000,000 for the remainder 
of 1933-34. 

Point Six***—On the same day on 
which the Administration made provi- 


grade. 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 


Government Takes Steps to Aid Schools 


The George-Ellzey Bill [S. 2402—H. R. 7479] 


A Bill to provide for the cooperation by the federal government with 
the several states and territories and the District of Columbia in 
meeting the crisis in public education. 


Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress 
hereby declares that the present economic depression has created a 
crisis in public education and that the cooperation of the federal gov- 
ernment with the several states, territories, and the District of Colum- 
bia is essential in order to make available to the youth of the nation 
those educational opportunities which are necessary for the training of 
citizens in a democratic government. 

Sec. 2. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation is authorized and 
directed to make. available, out of the funds of the Corporation, 
$50,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1934, and $100,000,000 
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1935, for the purpose of carrying 
out the provisions of this Act. 

Sec. 3. The funds provided in section 2 are to be disbursed to the 
several states, territories, and the District of Columbia upon the certifi- 
cation of the United States Commissioner of Education and shall be 
allotted on the basis of need as determined by the ability of the several 
states and territories to maintain a term of normal length in the public 
schools of less than college grade. All moneys available under the 
provisions of this Act are to be paid monthly to the state treasurer 
of the several states and territories, except that upon the passage of 
this Act three-fourths of the fund provided for the present fiscal year 
shall be paid immediately. 

Sec. 4. The state school superintendent or commissioner and/or 
state board of education shall administer the funds within the several 
states and territories in accordance with the school laws governing 
the maintenance and operation of schools of elementary and secondary 


This bill, now before Congress, is an important item in the plan to 
relieve the schools. 
Write to your Senators and Congressmen now to support it. 


sions for keeping open the doors of 
schools in small communities, a plan 
to assist needy college students was an- 
nounced by Federal Relief .Administra- 
tor Hopkins. The principal items of the 


student aid program follow: 

A hundred thousand young men and women 
in need will be helped to attend college and 
universities thruout the country during the 
second semester this year. 

State emergency relief administrations have 
been authorized to provide parttime jobs at 
the colleges for needy students up to 10 percent 
of their regular enrolment of fulltime students 
as of October 15, 1933. The program provides 
for parttime employment to the end of the 
current academic year, but not including the 
1934 summer session. It is expected that the 
program will require between $5,000,000 and 
$7,000,000, the exact amount depending on the 
number of students who qualify. The students 
will apply to authorities of the various institu- 
tions. Regulations for aid include students who 
have been compeled to drop out of college for 
financial reasons and students who have not 
been able to enter because of no funds. 

To qualify under the program the institutions 
must be of collegiate or university character and 
non-profit making. 

The students will be paid from $10 to $20 a 
month for socially desirable work on the kind 
of jobs customarily done in the institution by 
students working their way thru college. 





© Harris & Ewing 
Honorable Russell Ellzey 
Congressman from Mississippi 


Additional measures— 
A number of bills have been 
introduced into Congress 
which would provide funds 
for other purposes set forth 
in the six-point program of 
Chairman Richmond’s Com- 
mittee. These bills are listed 
in Notes and Announce- 
ments. Teachers may help by 
writing to the sponsors of 
these bills, to other members 
of Congress, and to the Pres- 
ident of the United States, showing how 
these measures will assist the schools in 
their present difficulties. 

The six-point program—The Na- 
tional Committee for Federal Emer- 
gency Aid for Education, James H. 
Richmond, chairman, was appointed by 
the Federal Advisory Committee on 
Emergency Aid in Education, called by 
U.S. Commissioner of Education George 
F. Zook. The latter committee, com- 
posed of representatives of thirty-two 
national organizations, proposed the fol- 
lowing program for federal aid: 

*[1] $50,000,000 to keep schools open dur- 
ing 1933-34. 
$100,000,000 to keep schools open dur- 
ing 1934-35. 

[3] A substantial additional appropriation 
to insure normal operation of schools 
during 1934-35. 

[4] Federal loans to school districts on the 

security of delinquent taxes, frozen as 

sets in closed banks, etc. 

Not less than 10 percent of any new 

appropriations for public works to be 

allocated for school and college build 
ings, and buildings for other educational 
enterprises. 

$30,000,000 to assist students to attend 

institutions of higher education. 


**T2] 


[5 


—_ 


***T GH] 









TROM THIS REVIEW of the Recovery 


Program, it is necessary or possible 
to record new things that mark or 
seem to mark a departure from 
the past—the opening of an- 


other period in American his- T 1S to the eternal credit of the American peo- 
| ple that this tremendous readjustment of our na- 
tional life is being accomplished peacefully, without 
serious dislocation, with only a minimum t 
and with a great, willing spirit of cooperation thruout 
the country. ... The program itself 
American people. It is an integrated program, na- 
tional in scope. Wiewed in the large, it is designed 
to save from destruction and to keep for the future 
the genuinely important values created by modern 
We would save useful mechanical in- 
vention, machine production, industrial efficiency, 
modern means of communication, broad education. 
But the unnecessary expansion of industrial plants, 
the waste of natural resources, the exploitation of the 
consumers of natural monopolies, the accumulation 
of stagnant surpluses, child labor, and the ruthless ex- 
ploitation of all labor, the encouragement of specula- 
tion with other people's money; these were consumed 
in the fires that they themselves kindled.—President 
Roosevelt's message to Congress, January 3, 1934. 


tory; and, if so, what is their 
nature? 

[1] The Recovery Program 
accepts the inexorable develop- 
ment of combination in indus- 
try, abandons all faith in the 
healing power of dissolution and 
prosecution; and makes use of 
combination in planning, fixing 
responsibility, and seeking to 
hold down monopoly profiteer- 
ing. 

[2] The Recovery Program 
recognizes the right of labor to 
organize, to be represented in 
industry, and to participate in 
the administration of the Pro- 
gram. 

{3} The Recovery Program 
calls upon millions of individuals 
in industry and agriculture, who have 
hitherto been pursuing their own inter- 
ests at pleasure, to cooperate in adjust- 
ing production, setting prices, and main- 
taining standards—thus making impera- 
tive a new economic education on a 
colossal scale. 

[4] The Recovery Program attacks 
the historic method of distributing 
wealth thru the system of price and wage 
competition, and substitutes, in part at 
least, price and wage fixing, haltingly and 
tentatively, no doubt, but still positively. 

[5] In attacking the historic price 
system, the administrators of the Recov- 
ery Program are coming to recognize the 
fact that advance in this direction in- 
volves throwing daylight thruout the en- 
tire structure of industry and agricul- 
ture, illuminating the dark recesses where 
secrecy and manipulation accompany the 
struggle over the distribution of wealth, 
which arises from the conflict between 
private property and social needs. 

[6] In giving to agriculture an equal- 
ity in principle with industry, the Recov- 
ery Program recognizes its present in- 
equality in the battle with highly organ- 
ized capitalism over prices and profits— 
its inequality in organization, in wealth, 
in educational equipment, and leadership, 
and its incapacity to defend itself against 
the cramping and draining effect of 
highly organized machine industries. For 


94 


society... 


The Future Comes 


years students of economy have been 
pointing out that “agriculture is doomed” 
in this deadly competition. Erich Zim- 


merman, in his excellent work on World 
Resources, has revealed with startling 
precision the handwriting on the wall. 
Now the government of the United States 
attacks the problem thus presented. 

[7] Implicit in all this is a call, in the 
Recovery Program, for a changed con- 
ception of economy and life. For more 
than a hundred years American economy 
has been essentially speculative and a 
dominant national ideal has been that of 
getting rich as quickly as possible. Even 
agriculture has been a huge venture in 
land speculation rather than a way of 
life. The stock market has been a kind 
of national shrine. It has been not the 
few but the many that have taken part 
in this grand gamble. At this hour there 
is no way of knowing in advance the out- 
come of a national plebiscite on the fol- 
lowing proposition: Would you rather 
have a gambler’s chance of becoming a 
millionaire or a guarantee of a reasonable 
security and modest way of life? In in- 
sisting upon stabilization, steady price 
levels, competition in service only, and 
reasonable security for all, the Recovery 
Program runs contrary to a powerful 
American tradition and demands for its 
realization a reversal of attitude in the 
minds of the millions who have had as 
their ideal the lucky wheat or stock 
speculator, with his town and country 
houses, his yachts and jewels, and his 


of injustice 


comes from the 


place in the affections of the great news- 
papers. In other words, the Recovery 
Program places a strain on human na- 
ture as long revealed in Ameri- 
can conceptions of economy. 

[8] The Recovery Program 
repudiates the idea that the 
misery of the unemployed poor 
is due to their improvidence and 
provides government assurance 
of maintenance, at least, and 
government assistance in de- 
veloping employment opportun- 
ities. 

[9] Thru its banking, credit, 
public-corporation, process-tax- 
ing, and railroad measures, the 
Recovery Program is moving in 
the direction of a new economic 
sequence which subjects private 
interests to a broad nationaliza- 
tion. 

[10] The Recovery Program 
surrenders the official thesis, 
long held, that foreign trade is 
the only outlet for “surpluses,” 
that such an outlet is possible, arid that 
it must be secured by using all engines 
of state in the field of foreign relations. 
For this thesis it substitutes the proposi- 
tion that domestic economy must be 
made to function in a manner to keep 
industry at a high tempo and effect an 
efficient distribution of the fruits of in- 
dustry in the home market. 

If in these things clear-cut novelty is 
not discernible, there is in them a sharp- 
ness and weight of emphasis sufficient to 
make the New Deal signalize a break 
with the historic past and the coming of 
a future collectivist in character. .. . 

History, of which the New Deal is a 
phase in brief time, is a movement of 
ideas and interests ever evolving to- 
gether, reciprocally affecting each other, 
with interests now advancing far ahead 
of ideas and ideas now advancing far 
ahead of interests, ever producing ten- 
sions in society—tensions which must be 
adjusted either by reason or force. . . 
This movement of ideas and interests 
will continue, for of such is the nature of 
history. . . . At best the Program can 
only be regarded as the beginning of 
a transition—From The Future Comes, 
A Study of the New Deal by Charles 
A. Beard and George H. E. Smith. 
Copyright 1933 by the Macmillan Com- 
pany, New York, and reprinted by their 
courteous permission. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 









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EMBERSHIP MEANS—An opportunity to 
M contribute to the welfare of the 
schools. 

An opportunity to show that you are 
neither indifferent nor mercenary when the 
interests of many others, closely linked with 
yours, are concerned. 

An opportunity to exhibit the esprit de 
corps we all find so encouraging and valuable 
in our life relationships. 

We believe our aims an~ the opportunities 
they present will enlist the indorsement and 
support of all those worthy of a place in a 
splendid calling.—Pittsburgh School Bulletin. 


7 IS an organized attempt, highly fi- 
nanced, to destroy our free public schools. 
If you do not believe that this is true, ponder 
over the vicious attacks made upon educators 
and upon school costs. Consider the many un- 
truths, half-truths, mis-statements and mis- 
representations that have been made time and 
again by individuals and organizations in 
regard to the efforts of educators, school costs, 
and school budgets. These attacks seem to 
originate with the group known as interna- 
tional bankers, stock market speculators, and 
others who render little or no service, but 
prey upon an uninformed public to sever them 
from their hard-earned dollars. 

The public must be informed and no other 
group is better situated than the teachers to 
perform this task. We owe this, not only to 
our profession, but to the childhood of Mon- 
tana and to our fair nation. 

Your state association and the National 
Education Association stand ready to fight 
to the last trench to protect the heritage of 
youth. But, our association will be only as 
strong as its membership. Never in the history 
of our state and nation have we faced as 
strenuous a fight as we are now facing; never 
before have we needed as united a profession 
as we do today.—Editorial by M. P. Moe in 
Montana Education. 


New Life Enlistments 


HE NUMBER of life members enroled in 

the National Education Association on 
February 1 was 5170. A life membership 
was presented as a Christmas gift to B. C. 
Shulkey, superintendent, Borger Independent 
School District, Borger, Texas. The presenta- 
tion was made by the trustees of the Borger 
schools. The following life members have 
been reported since the list was published in 
the February JouRNAL. 
ILL1Nois—Eugene LaRowe. 
MAssaCcHUSETTS—Katherine 

Charlotte E. Williams. 

On1o—William A. Evans. 


TENNESSEE—Walter D. Cocking. 
Texas—B. C. Shulkey. 


M. O'Donnell, Mrs. 


Master Builders of Our 











HE FOLLOWING STATES have normal 
schools and teachers colleges en- 
roled 100 percent in the National 
Education Association. The president’s 
name is given following that of the 
school. 











Cotorapo—Hesperus, Ft. Lewis School, 
Colo. Agricultural College, G. F. 
Snyder 

IpaHo—Albion, State Normal School, 
R. H. Snyder 

ILLinois—C e nt ral Normal College, 
N. W. Pinkerton 

KeNTucKy—Richmond, Eastern Ken- 
tucky State Teachers College, H. L. | 
Donovan | 

Loutsiana—Natchitoches, State Nor- 
mal College, W. W. Tison. 

Maine—Lewiston, Dingley Normal 
Training School, Adelaide V. Finch; 
Machias, Washington State Normal 
School, P. H. Kimball; Presque Isle, 
Aroostook State Normal, S. L. 
Merriman 

MICHIGAN—Dowagiac, County Normal 
School, Minnie Rouaan 

Missourr—St. Louis, Harris Teachers | 
College, J. L. Purdom 

NesprasKA—Kearney, State Teachers 
College, G. E. Martin 


New Jersey—Paterson, State Normal 



















































School, J. H. Fox 


New York—Geneseo, State Normal 
School, W. A. Holcomb; New Paltz, | 
State Normal and Training School, | 
L. H. van den Berg 

North Dakota — Mayville, State 
Teachers College, C. C. Swain 


PENNSYLVANIA — Bloomsburg, State 
Teachers College, F. B. Haas; Cali- 
fornia, State Teachers College, R. M. 
Steele; Clarion, State Teachers Col- 
lege, G. C. L. Riemer; Indiana, 
State Teachers College, C. R. 
Foster; Philadelphia, I1lman Train- 
ing School, Adelaide T. Illman; 
Slippery Rock, State Teachers Col- 
lege, J. L. Eisenberg 

SoutH Daxota—Aberdeen, Northern 
Normal and Industrial School, C. G. 
Lawrence 


VeERMONT—Castleton, State Normal 
School, Caroline S. Woodruff 


Wisconsin—Ashland, County Rural 
Normal School, J. M. Lorchester; 
Manitowoc, County Rural Normal 
School, F. C. Christiansen 















Profession 


Completed Enrolments 


Sb FOLLOWING SCHOOLS have maintained 
their 100 percent enrolment in the Na- 
tional Education Association for ten years 
or more. Many of these schools are also 
working on the problems of the profession 
thru regular faculty meetings for vitalized 
group study. The list includes schools which 
have reported since the list was published 
in the February JouRNAL. 


Fifteen Years 


Georcia—A mericus, High. 
Missouri—Sedalia, Mark Twain, 


Fourteen Years 


Ca.irorNiA—Long Beach, John C. Fremont. 

Missour!—Sedalia, Sedalia Public Schools, Smith 
Cotton High, Jefferson, Mark Twain, Washington, 
Whittier. 

NepraskA—Lincoln, Bancroft, 
Junior High, Hawthorne, 
Junior High, Willard. 


Everett 
Whittier 


Capitol, 
Hayward, 


Thirteen Years 


Itutinois—East St. Louis, Hawthorne. 

NepraskA—Lincoln, Belmont, Elliott, Hartley, Nor- 
mal, Park, Randolph, Saratoga. 

New Jersev—Rumson, Rumson Public Schools; 
West New York, Public Number 3. 


Twelve Years 


Connecticut—East Hartford, Meadow. 

INDIANA—Wabash, Wabash Public Schools, Century, 
East Ward, Junior High, Miami, Senior High, 
South Side, West Ward. 


Eleven Years 


CatirorNiA—Long Beach, George Washington Ele- 
mentary. 

GeorGia—A mericus, Furlow Grammar. 

NeBRASKA—Lincoln, Lake View, Prescott. 

PENNSYLVANIA—EFrie, Burns. 


VirciniA—Winchester, Winchester Public Schools, 
Elementary, High, Primary. 


Ten Years 


Ca.irorniA—Berkeley, Whittier; Los Angeles, Third 
Street. 

INDIANA—La Porte, La Porte Public Schools, Central 
Junior High, High, Lincoln, Maple, Park, Riley, 
Washington. 

Nesraska—Lincoln, Lincoln Public Schools, Ban- 
croft, Belmont, Bethany, Capitol, Clinton, Elliott, 
Everett Junior High, Hartley, Hawthorne, Hay- 
ward, Huntington, Irving Junior High, Jackson 
High, Lake View, Lincoln High, Normal, Park, 
Prescott, Randolph, Riley, Saratoga, Sheridan, 
Special Teachers and Supervisors, Twenty-sixth 
and “O”’ Streets Junior High, Van Fleet, Whittier 
Junior High, Willard. 

New Jersey — Hackensack, Wackensack Public 
Schools, State Street Number 3. 

New York—Yonkers, Public Number 14. 

On10—Logan County, Belle Center Village, Bokes- 
creek Rural, DeGraff Village, Huntsville Village, 
Iron City Rural, Jefferson Rural, Monroe Rural, 
Perry Rural, Quincy Village, Rushcreek Village, 
Washington Rural, Zane Rural; Mansfield, Western. 


PENNSYLVANIA—Chester, Morton. 
Texas—Waco, Brook Avenue. 





HE SCHOOLS are going to have a desperate struggle to hold their own for at least a decade. The most effective instruments thru which 

to work are our professional organizations, both state and national. The logic of the situation convinces me that those of us who 
are engaged in the preparation of teachers should belong to our professional organizations. We should also endeavor to imbue our’ 
graduates with the necessity of their being members of the NEA and their state association. Would not the presidents and deans of 
teachers colleges, colleges of education, and normal schools render the profession a great service at this crucial time if they could enlist 
all members of their staffs in the NEA?P—H. L. Donovan, president, Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College, Richmond. 





Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 



































































Builders of Our Profession 


f & FOLLOWING SCHOOLS have completed 
their 100 percent enrolment in the Na- 
tional Education Association since the list 
was published in the February JOURNAL. 


Nine Years 


CatirorNiA—Long Beach, Horace Mann, Naples, 
Theodore Roosevelt; Los Angeles, Loreto Street. 

ILtinois—Watseka, Community High, Watseka Grade 
Public Schools, North Side, South Side. 

MicHIGAN—Grand Rapids, Straight Street. 

Missourt—Kansas City, Leeds. 

New Jersey—Atlantic City, 
Bridgeton, Pearl Street. 

PeNNSYLVANIA—Chester, Howell; Warren, Jefferson; 
Wayne, Primary. 


Eight Years 


Boys’ Vocational; 


CaLirorNiA—-Anaheim, George Washington; Long 
Beach, James Russell Lowell. 

INDIANA—Fort Wayne, Hanna. 

MASSACHUSETTS—Plymouth, Knapp. 

MINNESOTA—Minneapolis, Loring. 

New Jexsey—Hightstown, Hightstown Primary; 


Kearny, Roosevelt. 

Ou1o—McDonald, McDonald Public Schools, Grade, 
High. 

a ny Braddock Public Schools, 
Carnegie, Copeland, Hamilton, Henning, High. 

Ruope IsLaNnp—Westerly, Bradford. 

WISCONSIN—I wo Rivers, Two Rivers Public Schools, 
Hamilton, Koenig, Washington Grade, Washington 
High. 


Seven Years 


CALirorNIA—Long Beach, Jane Adams; Los Angeles, 
Center Avenue. 

Hawau—Maunaloa, Molokai, Maunaloa. 

ILtinois—East St. Louis, Woodrow Wilson; Evans- 
ton, Larimer. 

Missourit—Kansas City, Foster Opportunity. 

New JerseYy—Vineland and Landis Township, Chest- 
nut and East Street, East Avenue, South Vineland. 

Uran—Wasatch County, Wasatch County Public 
Schools, Charleston, Daniel, Heber Central, Heber 
North, Midway, Soldier Summit, Wallsburg, 
Wasatch High, Wasatch Junior High. 

VirGINIA—Richmond, Grace Arents. 

WiIsCcONSIN—Whitefish Bay, Milwaukee, High. 


Six Years 


CaLirorNiA—Long Beach, Longfellow; Pasadena, 
Andrew Jackson; Walnut Creek, Grammar. 

ILtinois—Des Plaines, West. 

Iowa—Council Bluffs, Walnut Grove. 

KANSAS—Lawrence, Pinckney. 

Ouio—Lake County, Willoughby District, Willoughby 
District Public Schools, Browning, Lincoln, Memo- 
rial Junior High, Union High. 

PENNSYLVANIA — Dauphin County, 
Borough; Pittsburgh, Fort Pitt; 
mar. 

Texas—Texarkana, Akin. 


Hummelstown 
Wayne, Gram- 


Five Years 


Districr or Co_tumBia—Washington, Blake. 
Georcia-—Atlanta, Atlanta Opportunity. 
Hawau—Kaunakakai, Molokai, Kaunakakai. 


Ittinois—DeKalb, Township High; Des Plaines, 
Central. 

INDIANA—I ndianapolis, Taylor Number 83. 
MARYLAND—Frederick County, Liberty High and 


Elementary. 
Nepraska—Lincoln, 

View South. 
PENNSYLVANIA—Arnold, Arnold Public Schools, 


Fourth Avenue, Leishman Avenue, Platoon, Senior 
High. 


College View High, College 


Four Years 


CacirorniA—Encinitas, Encinitas District; 
Orange Street; Stockton, Jefferson. 
GrorGiAa—A mericus, East Americus; Atlanta, More- 
land; Fulton County, Lena H. Cox, Mount Vernon. 
ILuinois—Hillsboro, Edison; Stockton, Stockton Pub- 
lic Schools. 

Maine—Waterville, Brook Street. 

MICHIGAN—Flint, Roosevelt. 

New JerseY—Bridgeton, Junior High. 

On1o—Lodi, Lodi Public Schools; Sandusky County, 
Helena Special, Rollersville Consolidated; Worth- 
ington, Worthington Public Schools, Grade, High, 
Special Teachers and Supervisors. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Dauphin County, Dauphin Borough, 
Halifax Borough, Halifax Township, South Han- 
over Township, Lower Swatara Township, Wil- 
liams Township. 


Three Years 


CacirornirA—Belvedere, Belvedere; Guasti, Pied- 
mont; Hawthorne, Williams Street; Long Beach, 
Seaside; Los Angeles, Roscoe; Pasadena, Roose- 
velt School for Handicapped Children; Wilmington, 
Fries Avenue. 


Lomita, 





96 





MINNESOTA—Minneapolis, Dowling. 


Missourt—Kansas City, Allen, J. K. Stark, Thacher. 
NesBRASKA—Lincoln, Havelock Central, Norwood 
Park. 


New YorK—Elmira, Public Number 5, Public Num- 
ber 9, Public Number 10; Solvay, Intermediate. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Tioga County, Blossburg Borough, 
Brookfield Township, Charleston Township, Chat- 
ham Township, Clymer Township, Duncan Town- 
ship, Elkland Borough, Hamilton Township, Knox- 
ville Borough, Lawrenceville Borough, Nelson 
Township, Putnam Township, East Rutland [ Rut- 
land Township], Tioga Borough, Tioga Township, 
Westfield Borough, Westfield Township. 

SoutH CArROLINA—Goldville, Joanna, 

Vircinta—Norfolk, Norview High. 

WASHINGTON—Spokane County, West Valley High. 

WyYoMING—Superior, South Superior, Superior. 


Two Years 


ARIZONA—Patagonia, Patagonia Grammar. 

CALIrFORNIA—Fresno, Lowell; Pasadena, Arroyo Seco; 
Santa Ana, Spurgeon; Santa Barbara, Administra- 
tion Building. 

Hawat—Pukoo, Molokai, Kaluaaha. 

ILtinois—Chicago Heights, Chicago Heights Public 
Schools, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Jefferson, Lin- 
coln, McKinley, Roosevelt, Washington; Des 
Plaines, Des Plaines Public Schools, Central, 
Junior High, North, West; Riverside, Riverside 
Public Schools, A. F. Ames, Central, Hollywood, 
Intermediate. 

TIowa—Council Bluffs, Gunn, James B. Rue. 

Missourt—Kansas City, Gladstone, Lowell, William 
Rockhill Nelson. 

NeEBRASKA—Lincoln, Havelock Senior High. 

Nevapa—Boulder City, Boulder City Public Schools. 

New Hampsuire—Derry Village, Pinkerton Academy. 

New Jersey—Elizabeth, William Livingston Num- 
ber 10; Princeton, Elementary. 

New YorkK—Port Jervis, East Main Street. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Arnold, Junior High; Chester, 
Dewey-Mann; Montgomery County, Ambler 
Borough Public Schools, Grade, High; Newport, 
Fourth Street; Pittsburgh, Fulton. 


Current Year 


ArRIzONA—Miami, Miami Public Schools. 

CaLirorNia—Livingston, High; Long Beach, William 
Cullen Bryant, Thomas A. Edison Elementary, 
James A. Garfield, Lincoln, Los Cerritos, Music 
Department, John G. Whittier; Los Angeles, 
Cabrillo Avenue, Canoga Park Elementary, Central 
Avenue, Cortez Street, Gardena Elementary, Ham- 
mel Street, Home Gardens, Speech Correction; 
Modesto, Lincoln; Pasadena, Grant Elementary; 
Redondo Beach, Redondo Beach Public Schools, 


Administration Building, Beryl Heights, Centra} 
Departmental, Central Elementary, South; Ripley, 
Elementary; San Bernardino, Burbank, Cajon; Say 
Francisco, West Portal. 
CoNNECTICUT—Stratford, Nichols Avenue. 
FLoriwA—Dade County, Redland Elementary, Red. 


land High. 
ILLiNnois—Galesburg, Bateman, Cooke, Douglas, 
Farnham, Hitchcock Junior High, Lincoln, Lom. 


bard Junior High, L. T. Stone, Mary Allen West, 
Western, Silas Willard; Toulon, Toulon Township 
High. 

INDIANA—Danville, Central Normal College; Evans. 
ville, Baker, Delaware, Fulton, Henry Reis, Howard 
Roosa; South Bend, South Bend Public Schools; 
Sullivan, Central; Vand County, Highland [Center 
Township]. 

Iowa—Council Bluffs, Eighth Street, George Wash- 
ington. 

MaryYLAND—Carroll County, Charles Carroll, Pleas- 
ant Valley, Woodbine. 

MASSACHUSETTS — Auburn, Pakachoag; Clinton, 
Greeley; Dalton, High; Gloucester, Eastern Ave. 
nue, Stone Court; Sangus, Felton; Waltham, Nahun 
Hardy; Wellesley Hills, L. Allen Kingsbury. 

Missouri—Joplin, Jefferson; Kirkwood, Adams 
Avenue. 

NEBRASKA—Kearney, State Teachers College. 

New HaAmpsHireE—Ashuelot, Ashuelot. 

New Jerstey—Atlantic City, Richmond Avenue, Spe- 
cial Class Department [Texas Avenue]; Neptune 
Township, Bradley Park; Pitman, Pitman High. 

New YorK—Elmira, Parley Coburn, Public Num- 
ber 7; Geneva, Prospect Avenue. 

Oun10—Akron, Seiberling; Cleveland, Louisa M. 
Alcott; Marion County, Pleasant Township, Waldo 
Village; Sandusky County, Rice Township, Riley 
Township; Toronto, Lincoln. 

PENNSYLVANIA—Chester, Lincoln; Grindstone, Mad- 
ison Elementary; Lancaster, Strawberry Street; 
Nazareth, Junior High; Pittsburgh, Liberty; 
Tioga County, Delmar Township, Elk Township, 
Farmington Township, Jackson Township, Lawrence 
Township, Liberty Borough, Liberty Township, 
Mansfield Senior High, Morris Township, Osceola 
Township, Shippen Township, Sullivan Township, 
Union Township, Ward Township, Wellsboro 
Borough. 

TENNESSEE—K noxville, Mynders. 

Texas—El Paso, Lamar. 

Utran—Granite District, Woodstock; Jordan Dis- 
trict, Jordan District Public Schools, Bingham 
Central Elementary, Bingham High, Bluffdale Ele- 
mentary, Butler, Copperton, Crescent, Draper 
Junior High and Elementary, Granite, Herriman, 
Highland Boy, Jordan High, Lark, Midvale Junior 
High and Elementary, Riverton Junior High and 
Elementary Sandy Junior High and Elementary, 
South Jordan, Union Junior High and Elementary, 
Upper Bingham, West Jordan Junior High and Ele- 
mentary. 

West Vircinta—Elkview, Elkview Grade. 

WISCcONSIN—Two Rivers, Vocational. 

Wyrominc-—Bairoil, Bairoil. 


OL ART SEZ: 


reheated 
“| wishes that our Government 
would show jest half as much int 


ret in the 


ds of millions of 


our schoolless children as it does 
our highways.” 


















































yan 


[- 
he: 








HIS CARTOON was drawn by R. T. Morgan, a brother of County Superintendent Lewis V. 


Morgan of DuPage County, Illinois. 


The Journal of the National Education Association 































RECENT SOCIAL TRENDS IN THE 
UNITED STATES 


A Report of the President’s Research 
Committee on Social Trends 


A single volume textbook edition prepared especially for 
teachers and school officials. An authentic array of find- 
ings that describe the changed conditions of life as they 
| affect child growth and school responsibility. A complete 
| survey in thirty-nine chapters as presented by a committee 
| authorized by former President Hoover to study the social 


field. 







The original two-volume edition of this Report sells at $10 a set. 
The special textbook edition, available only to school people, is 
priced at $5 less 15 percent discount—a net cost of $4.25. The 
Joint Commission on the Emergency in Education is providing 
for the distribution of this special edition solely as a service and 
cannot open credit accounts for its sale. All orders must be on 
a cash basis. 


JOINT COMMISSION ON THE EMERGENCY 
IN EDUCATION 


1201 Sixteenth Street, Washington, D. C. 


Joint Commission on the Emergency in Education, 
| 201 Sixteenth Street, Washington, D. C. 
Enclosed is $4.25 (cash—check—money order) for which send me immediately 
one copy of SOCIAL TRENDS in the United States. 





































EKconomies— 


TO HAVE your printing handled in- 


telligently—that is economy in time. 


TO HAVE your printing handled ex- 
pertly—that is economy in cost of get- 
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TO HAVE your presswork handled on 
a properly planned production basis— 


that is economy in actual outlay for the 


job. 


GET ALL your printing where facili- 


ties make economies. 








Consult us—any size job interests 
the “Master Printer” 


Jupp & DETWEILER 


INCORPORATED 


ECKINGTON PLACE AND FLORIDA AVENUE 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 























OF IMPORTANCE 





There is a reason, a time and a place for Chewing Gum. And it is 


well to bear in mind that teeth require not only proper nutrition, 


personal care and dentist’s care but plenty of chewing exercise . . 








Chewing Gum is good for Children’s teeth. Let 
them chew it as soon as they can learn to. 


salsoet 


Curwine gum helps guard first 
teeth. Upon their regularity and 
spacing, permanent teeth come in 
straight or crooked. One of the great 
difficulties with soft food is that 
children get so little to exercise their 
teeth on. More and more, the baby 
teeth are crowding and this is tragedy 
for the second teeth. Crusts and cer- 
tain raw vegetables offer help but 
children generally have to be forced 


to chew them. Many dentists today 


recommend chewing gum. No forc- 
ing here—all children enjoy it. A 
fresh stick of gum 5 to 10 minutes 


after meals is excellent. 


Forward Looking 


. . . business groups shun extravagant 
statements. They call upon great Univer- 
sities to make impartial investigations of 
their products. Results of such research 
form the basis of our advertising. What 


you read over our signature about 
chewing gum, you can believe. 


The National Association of Chewing 
Gum Manufacturers. 
Pier 23, Rosebank, 
Staten Island, New York 








Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 





Mention THE JouRNAL © 
when writing our advertisers A-27 














This issue of THE JOURNAL is go- 
ing into the mails during the convention 
of the Department of Superintendence 
in Cleveland. The report of that con- 
vention will appear in THE JOURNAL 
for April. 

In the February issue of THE 
JouRNAL, the Joint Commission on the 
Emergency in Education sounded the 
call for a general advance toward educa- 
tional recovery and reconstruction. In 
the article on page 66 the Commission 
briefly describes the purpose of a pam- 
phiet entitled Evaluating the Public 
School Program,which is destined to play 
an important role in encouraging and 
indicating the direction of this advance. 

March 20, 1934, is the centenary of 
the birth of one of America’s great edu- 
cators and citizens—Charles W. Eliot, 
president of Harvard University from 
1868 to 1909. Dr. Eliot was president of 
the National Education Association dur- 
ing 1902-3 and presided over the Boston 
convention, which was one of the largest 








in the Association’s history. In his presi- 
dential address at this meeting, Dr. 
Eliot gave his famous “New definition 
of the cultivated man” as “A man of 
quick perceptions, broad sympathies, 
and wide affinities; responsive, but in- 
dependent; self-reliant, but deferential; 
loving truth and candor, but also mod- 
eration and proportion; courageous, but 
gentle; not finished, but perfecting.” 

As chairman of the Committee of Ten 
appointed by the NEA in 1892, Dr. Eliot 
recommended that the highschool cur- 
riculum be enriched by practical subjects 
which would make it worthwhile to those 
who did not go to college. 

THE JOURNAL is especially interested 
in the teaching of the economics of the 
local community and would appreciate 
hearing from teachers who are working 
on this problem. 

Interpretation—Take the address 
by Secretary Ickes [pages 67-68] to 
your local editor, pastor, or some other 
citizen who will make public use of it. 





Help Education Recover— 
Manifest Your Support 


Have it put on school bulletin boards 
and read in civics classes. It is an unusu- 
ally strong statement. 

Have you planned your gradua- 
tion program for 1934? If not, you 
will wish to secure a special packet of 
materials which has been prepared by 
the Division of Publications to be used 
in making the graduation program an 
effective means of interpreting the school 
to the community. It contains sum- 
maries of twenty-five of the best pro- 
grams which were used for this purpose 
in 1933; the actual text of one junior 
and one senior highschool program de- 
signed for this purpose; and other valu- 
able materials. From the orders already 
received—more than 500—it may be 
seen that interest thruout the country 
in this type of program is increasing. If 
you wish one of these packets, send 50¢ 
—to cover the cost—to the Division of 
Publications, National Education Asso- 
ciation, 1201 16th Street, N. W., Wash- 
ington, D. C. 








Mr. J. W. Crastrez, Secretary, National Education Association, 


We are beginning the year with a new outlook, a new faith in 
our educational institutions. We are entering a new era during 
which the educational birthright of every child will be secure. 
By universal cooperation, President Roosevelt is bringing the 
country out of the throes of the worst depression of all time. 
The teaching profession must cooperate in the same whole-hearted 
fashion as all citizens are cooperating with the President. By 
enroling as a life member, you indicate your permanent interest 
in the profession and it places you solidly back of the program of 
the N. E. A. We need you. Enlist now, if at all possible. 

We cannot recall the past year, but we can make amends for 
some of the thoughtless mistakes and see that the child is not 


deprived of his rightful heritage. Financial debts can be paid 
later, but you cannot repay a year or even six months of a child’s 
life. We, of this generation, are enjoying a great heritage of 
public conveniences and social institutions, including our educa- 
tional system, which our forefathers gave us and we are under 
deep obligation to pass these along with all possible improvements 
to the next generation. 

We are dealing with citizens of to-morrow. If leaders are to 
be created, let us look now to our schools. Life membership 
dividends never fail, but increase in value every year. Manifest 
your interest in the youth of the land by enroling as a life member. 


Lire MEMBERSHIP IN THE N. E. A. 


1201 Sixteenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Dear Mr. Crabtree: 


I wish to do my part by becoming a life member, making my first payment April 2, 1934. 





WE DO OUR PaRT 


I understand the entire amount of 


$100 can be paid in equal annual instalments of $10 each, and that membership dues already paid for the current year may be applied 


on the first payment. 


Name 





A-28 


Mention THe JourRNAL 


when writing our advertisers 











The Journal of the National Education Association 


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School relief bills now before Congress 
[See page 931—H. R. 6570 [Referred to Com- 
mittee on Banking and Currency] Representa- 
tive Adolph J. Sabath of Illinois. Authorized 
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to 
make loans to public-school districts for a 
period not to exceed ten years at such rates 
as the Corporation may approve. 

H. R. 7520 [Referred to Committee on Edu- 
cation] Representative Wilburn Cartwright of 
Oklahoma. Authorizes the appropriation of “an 
amount equal to not less than $2 per enum- 
erated school child.” This bill provides also 
that school warrants shall be considered eligible 
for purchase or loans by the Reconstruction 
Finance Corporation. 

S. 2402 [Referred to Committee on Edu- 
cation and Labor] Senator Walter F. George 
of Georgia. H. R. 7479 [Referred to Commit- 
tee on Education] Representative Russell 
Elizey of Mississippi. H. R. 7525 [Referred to 
Committee on Education] Representative John 
Young Brown of Kentucky. Provide that “the 
Reconstruction Finance Corporation is author- 
ized and directed to make available out of 
funds of the Corporation, $50,000,000 for the 
fiscal year ending June 30, 1934, and $100,- 
000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 
1935.” 

§. 2522 [Referred to Committee on Educa- 
tion and Labor] Senator Walter F. George of 
Georgia. H. R. 7477 [Referred to Committee 
on Education] Representative Ross A. Collins 
of Mississippi. Authorizes to be made available 
out of funds appropriated for the Civil Works 
Administration, $50,000,000 for the fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1934. 


H. R. 6621 [Referred to Committee on Edu- | 


cation] Representative Matthew A. Dunn of 
Pennsylvania. “A bill to reimburse all unpaid 
school teachers of the United States and its 
possessions.” 

H. R. 6533 [Referred to Committee on Edu- 
cation] Representative Fletcher B. Swank of 
Oklahoma. Provides for the allocation “to such 
public schools as are unable to maintain their 
regular school terms such sums as are sufficient 
to maintain their regular school systems as 
they were maintained: on an average for the 
school years of 1931, 1932, and 1933.” Provides 
also that all warrants for payment of teachers’ 
salaries in the public schools issued between 
July 1, 1932, and July 1, 1934, shall be con- 
sidered eligible for loans by any department 
or branch of government as designated by the 
Secretary of Interior. Loans to be made at full 
face value as not to exceed 1 percent per 
annum interest. 

H. R. 6971 [Referred to Committee on 
Banking and Currency] Representative James 
V. McClintic of Oklahoma. Authorizes “the 
Reconstruction Finance Corporation to pur- 
chase school warrants issued in payment of 
teachers’ salaries,” and would enable teachers 
who hold warrants to cash them at no dis- 
count. 

H. R. 6367 [Referred to Committee on Bank- 
ing and Currency] Representative D. D. Glover 
of Arkansas. Provides that “all teachers’ war- 
rants regularly issued between January 1933 
and January 1934 for services actually rendered 
in teaching in the public schools of the United 
States are hereby declared to be eligible paper, 


for a loan from the Reconstruction Finance | 


Corporation.” 

H. R. 6968 [Referred to the Committee on 
Education] Representative John H. Hoeppel 
of California. A bill “to apply the principles 
of the Civil Works Administration to create 
employment for tech- [Cont. on page A-30] 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 











Thadnt figured 
on being | 


‘ ick= 


How discouraging is 
the period of convales- 
cence, when the unpaid 
bills keep piling up and 
there is nothing coming 
in with which to pay 
them. A single illness 
or accident often dissi- 


pates the savings of 
many years—all be- 
cause the teacher 


“hadn’t figured on” be- 
ing disabled. 


No Place in the Budget for Doctors’ Bills 


Many a teacher, like Anna Irene Jenkins, Los Angeles, Calif., 
make it seem unnecessary to provide for doctors’ bills. 
T. C. U. provision. We quote from her letter: 

“I deeply appreciate your courtesy in caring for my claim. I am so used to being well I had 


left no place in my budget for doctors’ bills, and the check received from the T. C. U. was cer- 
tainly a Godsend.” 


Get on the T. C. U. Payroll Before It Is Too Late 


Our records for many years prove that one teacher in five suffers enforced idleness and loss of 
year because of Accident, Sickness or Quarantine. Your turn may come 


While you are still in good health, and free from injury 


enjoys such good health as to 
Fortunately, however, she did make 


salary every 
it often does—when you least expect it 


before it is too late—get your name on the “T. C. U 


Payroll.’ Enjoy that comfortable feeling of knowing that the Teachers Casualty Underwriters stands ready to 
guarantee you an income when your regular income is cut off by reason of Accident, Sickness or Quarantine. 
Don’t put it off—don’t wait until it is too late to 


protect yourself under the T. C. U. umbrella. 
Send Coupon for Details—Today 


We will then mail 
protect teachers. Please 


Just fill out and mail the coupon. 
you full particulars of how we 
do it today. 


Teachers Casualty Underwriters 
640 T. C. U. Building 


Lincoln, Nebr. 





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ECONOMICAL ENRICHMENT OF THE 
SMALL SECONDARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM 


Annual Bulletin of the 
Department of Rural Education 





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The facts which this Bulletin contain are needed by every worker in this field. It 
will be especially helpful for State Departments of Education, County Superintendents 
and rural secondary school principals. 


ORDER NOW 


Cash must accompany single orders—Discounts on quantities 


National Education Association 


1201 Sixteenth Street Washington, D. C. 








Mention THe JourRNAL 
when writing our advertisers 













































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A View of Victoria Falls 


Attend the South Afri- 
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ence at Cape Town, July 
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burg, July 16-27, and 


also see 


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Cape Peninsula — charming 
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Kimberley’s famed Valley of 
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The mile-and-a-half-deep gold 


mines at Johannesburg 


Rock Paintings of ancient 
Bushmen 
Victoria Falls—stupendous and 


magnificent! 
And Zulus, Basutos, Pondos and 
Matabeles living in their origi- 
nal native state! 
And you can play golf and 
tennis and fish almost every- 
where. The country clubs and 
the coast resorts are delightful! 
South Africa is easy to reach 
by “the world’s fair-weather 
voyage,” and modern train 
service and good hotels assure 

ample travel comfort. 


@lor full information, address: 
THOS. COOK & SON-WAGONS-LITS., Inc. 
587 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y.—or 
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65 Broadway New York, N. Y. 
Or any office of Thos. Cook & Son-Wagons-Lits, 
inc., or of the American Express Company. 
(A LT KS 


A-30 


[Cont. from page 
viduals thru the establishment of Federal Re- 
search Fellowships in the institutions of higher 
learning in the United States and to give finan- 
cial aid to colleges and universities.” 

S. 2350 [Referred to Committee on Bank- 
ing and Currency] Senator James J. Davis of 
Pennsylvania. Authorized loans by the Recon- 
struction Finance Corporation to religious and 
educational institutions, for use in building 
construction. 

H. R. 7059 [Referred to Committee on Edu- 
cation] Representative Russell Ellzey of Mis- 
sissippi. S. 2119 [Referred to Committee on 
Agriculture and Forestry] Senator Walter F. 
George of Georgia. H. R. 7089 [Referred to 
Committee on Education] Representative 
Lamar Jeffers of Alabama. Provides “for the 
further development of vocational education 
in the several states and territories.” 

H. R. 7546 [Referred to Committee on 
Banking and Currency] Representative David 
D. Terry of Arkansas. Provides for the re- 
financing by the Reconstruction Finance Corp- 
oration of bonds and other outstanding in- 
debtedness of school districts. 

S. 2436 [Referred to Committee on Bank- 
ing and Currency] Senator F. Ryan Duffy of 
Wisconsin. Authorizes loans by the Reconstruc- 
tion Finance Corporation to public and private 
colleges, universities, and institutions of higher 
learning. 

In addition to these bills there are many 
other bills pending that include provisions 
touching upon various phases of education. 
There are also several bills of this type that 
were introduced during the first session of the 
present Congress. 


World Goodwill Day materials— 
Because of the unusual significance 
which is being placed upon World Good- 
will Day this year both in its general 
aspects for world friendship and its op- 
portunities for interpreting the schools 
to the public, the Division of Publica- 
tions of the National Education Associa- 
tion has prepared a packet of special 
materials to assist teachers and school 
administrators. This packet contains 
world goodwill messages, timely articles, 
statements by political and educational 
leaders, posters, suggested programs, 
plays and pageants, and many other 
helps. These packets are now available 
at the cost price of 50¢ each and may 
be obtained from the Division of Pub- 
lications, National Education Associa- 
tion, 1201 16th Street, N. W., Washing- 
ton, D. C. 


Dates to be remembered— 

April 5-7—Citizen’s Conference on the Crisis 
in Education, Ohio State University. 

April 8-13—Twenty-third meeting of the 
Music Supervisors National Conference to be 
held in Chicago. Information may be obtained 
from the M. S. N. C. headquarters, 64 E. 
Jackson Blvd., Chicago. 

April 14—Pan-American Day. The Pan- 
American Union of Washington, D. C., has 
prepared material which is now available for 
distribution. 

May 18—World Goodwill Day. 

June 27-28—Second Conference on Business 
Education to be held at the School of Business 


Mention THe JourRNAL 
when writing our advertisers 


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try where travel service rates IN 
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The Open Road offers special services 
based on years of experience, resident 
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The Journal of the National Education Association 


















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of the University of Chicago. The subject of 
the conference will be “Business Education and 
the Consumer.” 

June 30-July 6—Washington meeting of the 
National Education Association. 

July 2-13—South African Education Con- 
ference of the New Education Fellowship to be 
held at Cape Town. July 16-27—South African 
Education Conference to be held at Johannes- 
burg. Overseas visitors are required to register 
with the secretary, New Education Fellowship 
Headquarters, 29 Tavistock Square, London, 
W. C. 1, not later than May 1, 1934. 

September 9-16—First Inter-American Con- 
ference on Education ever held in a Latin 
American country will take place in Santiago, 
Chile. 


A project of farreaching in- 


fluence—Encourage children to make | 


cartoons picturing their love of school, 
the happy conditions of school, and the 








like—the best cartoons to be given to 
local newspapers, displayed in the school- 
room, or sent home to parents. Such a 
project is appropriate at any time in the 
year. The best could be selected for use 
during American Education Week. News- 
paper cartoons of schools usually do not 
picture true conditions. 

Is this true P—The following state- 
ment suggests a tendency to limit free- 
dom of speech and to prevent the kind 
of civic teaching which is necessary if 
the nation is to face its problems in- 
telligently and honestly. The editor 
would appreciate hearing from teachers 
who are interested in this problem. Let- 
ters will be kept confidential so that 
teachers may feel free to write frankly. 


I have not found any teachers who were en- 
tirely free to unravel with their pupils the 
tangle of industrial and political relations that 
have led to the disordered family life, the 
physical, mental, and moral deterioration we 
have described in this book—James M. Wil- 
liams in Human Aspects of Unemployment and 
Relief. 


Public Schools Week will be cele- 
brated in California the week beginning 
April 23, 1934. This will be the fifteenth 
annual observance. The purposes of this 
occasion are similar to those of American 
Education Week, which is widely ob- 
served thruout the nation in November 
of each year. A recent release announc- 
ing Public Schools Week states: 


In California, while some educational op- 
portunities have been discontinued or materially 
curtailed, we have thus far escaped the dis- 
astrous situation elsewhere prevailing. There 
can be no question that this is due to the wide- 
spread interest of our people resulting from the 
knowledge they have of the aims, purposes, and 
achievements of their public schools; and there 
is no movement better calculated to maintain 
that interest than the annual observance of 
Public Schools Week, when parents and the 
public are afforded an opportunity of obtain- 
ing firsthand information with respect to their 
local schools. [Cont. on page A-32] 


Volume 23, Number 3; March 1934 











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535-Sth Ave., N.Y. Spokane 





TEACHER AND 
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A handbook of interpretation 
for teachers 


EIGHTH YEARBOOK 


Department of Classroom 
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TIMELY guide in school pub- 
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organization leaders and publicity 

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(Funds should accompany orders for 
single copies.) 


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National Education Association 
1201 16th Street N. W. 
Washington, D.C. 





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Every type of school in every state is carefully analyzed 
also maintain departments for librarians, institu 


48th Year. Many thousands of men and women placed 
in desirable positions. Conditions in Middle West 
greatly improved. Bulletin free. 


LCont. from page A-31] 

Lucy E. Hall, superintendent of 
Jasper county, Iowa, schools for four- 
teen years, was presented with a life 
membership in the National Education 
Association in December. The award 
was made in appreciation of her efforts 
in directing educational activities in the 
county. Ruth Altemeier, teacher of New- 
ton school No. 6, made the presentation 
in behalf of a large group of associates 
and friends, including superintendents 
of city schools in the county, the deputy 
superintendent, the county nurse, rural 
teachers, and persons who formerly 
taught under her direction. 

The following recommendations 
in regard to textbooks were made by the 
conference on this subject, called on Jan- 
uary 10 by Commissioner Zook: 

The conference would urge: 

[a] That no reduction should be made from 
the usual expenditures for school books, and 
that a sufficient supply be purchased to assure 
the child of reasonably clean copies. 

[b] That facilities for cleanliness, including 


hot water, soap, and towels be supplied in every 
school. 


[c] That the use of these facilities should 
not only be taught but insisted upon. 

[d] That the practise of mouthing the fingers 
while handling books be reduced by precept 
and persuasion to a minimum. 

[e] That all children be taugh to avoid 
coughing or sneezing over books. 

[f] That adequate medical inspection be 
furnished with exclusion of active tuberculosis. 

[g] That teachers be given instruction in 


the prompt detection and exclusion of all cases 
of communicable disease. 


[h] That school books be stored during the 
summer in a dry, light, warm place so that 
pathogenic organisms will be most likely to 
perish before the next session. 

Restoration of salaries—By unani- 
mous vote, the board of education of 
Seattle, has directed that a partial res- 
toration of salaries and wages be made 
to all employees of the school district. 
The teachers of Mansfield, Ohio, city 
school district, will receive a 5 percent 
increase in their salaries for the second 
half of the current school year. The 
boards of education in these two cities 
believe their action in making an upward 
adjustment of compensation at the pres- 
ent time to be in line with the general 
movement toward recovery. 


Mention THe JouRNAL 
when writing our advertisers 










Aids 
to Meet the 
Emergency 


The National Education Associa- 
tion through the Joint Commission 
on the Emergency in Education has 
published several important and 
useful pamphlets as aids in solving 
the problems arising in the emer- 
gency. 




















Report of 






National Conference 
on the 
Financing of Education 
| 78 pages $.25 each 





Ways and means of financing edu- 
cation in this emergency. 
















Evaluating 


the Public School 


48 pages 


$.15 





A manual for use by conference 
groups discussing problems of pub- 
lic education. 


This up-to-date and useful report is 


invaluable in our drive to save the 
schools. 














Essentials of 








| Taxation 
| By Harley L. Lutz and William G. Carr 
| 16 pages $.15 each 





A series of articles reprinted from 
the Journal of the National Educa- 
tion Association. They are so com- 
prehensive and simply written that 


they may be considered a primer 
on taxation. 









Emergency Federal 
Aid for Education 
Imperative 

8 pages . $.15 each 


A plea for aid for education in 
the crisis. 













ORDER NOW 


All orders amounting to less than $1.00 
should be accompanied by funds. 


Discount on quantities of same book. 










National Education Association 
1201 Sixteenth Street 
Washington, D. C. 





The Journal of the National Education Association