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BULLETIN OF THE 
DEPARTMENT OF 
SECON DARY-SCHOOL 
PRINCIPALS 


OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


Issued Five Times a Year 
January, March, April, May, and December 


MARCH, 1937 


Serial Number 65 








BULLETIN NUMBER 65 


Proceedings of the 
Twenty-first Annual Meeting of the 
Department of 
Secondary-School Principals 


of the National Education Association 


NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 
February 18, 19, 20, and 21, 1937 








THE CONTENTS OF THIS BULLETIN ARE LISTED IN EDUCATION INDEX 


Published by 


‘ THE DEPARTMENT OF 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


H. V. CHURCH, Executive Secretary 
5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago 








Proceedings of the 
Twenty-first Annual Meeting of the 
Department of 
Secondary-School Principals 
of the 


National Education Association 2 


“ 


at 


NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 


on 


February 18, 19, 20, and 21, 1937 


58 


Edited by 


H. V. CHURCH 
Secretary of the Association 


Published by the Department, 1957 








THE OFFICERS OF THE DEPARTMENT 









President: MCCLELLAN G. JONES 


Principal of Union High School and Junior College 
Huntington Beach, California 


























First Vice President : PAUL E. ELICKER 
Principal Newton High School 
Newtonville, Massachusetts 


Second Vice President: H. V. KEPNER 


Principal West Side High School 
Denver, Colorado 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


K. J. CLARK 
Principal Murphy High School 
Mobile, Alabama 


V. M. HARDIN 


Principal Reed Junior High School 
Springfield, Missouri 


JOHN E. WELLWOOD 


Principal Central High School 
Flint, Michigan 


WILLARD N. VAN SLYCK 


Principal High School 
Topeka, Kansas 


H. V. CHURCH 
Executive Secretary 
5835 Kimbark Avenue 

Chicago 


Sramo. POO 
\y ALD 


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Secretaries of State Organizations 
Affiliated with the 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


W. L. SPENCER, 
Department of Education, 
Montgomery, Alabama. 


V. E. SAMMONS, 
Senior High School, 
Hot Springs National Park, 
Arkansas. 
* HARRY G. HANSELL, 
2694 Twenty-third Avenue, 
San Francisco, California. 


J. FRED Essic, 
Junior-Senior High School, 
Longmont, Colorado. 

EDSON M. BAILEY, 

High School, 
Manchester, Connecticut. 

R. E. Hoop, 

Glynn Academy, 
Brunswick, Georgia. 

CHARLES D. LUTZ, 

Horace Mann School, 
Gary, Indiana. 

JAMES E. BLUE, 

Senior High School, 
Rockford, Illinois. 

JAMES M. STERRETT, 
Warren Harding Junior 
High School, Des Moines, 
Iowa. 

G. C. DouTzourR, 

Wichita High School North, 
Wichita, Kansas. 

DUKE W. YOUNG, 

Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. 

HARRISON C. LYSETH, 

State House, 
Augusta, Maine. 

EDWARD G. STAPLETON, 
High School, 

Towson, Maryland. 

WILLIAM D. SPRAGUE, 

High School, 
Melrose, Massachusetts. 

STEPHEN MEAD, 

Junior High School, 

Grand Haven, Michigan. 
OLIVER R. FLOYD, 
University High School, 


University of Minnesota, 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
J. D. HULL, 
Senior High School, 
Springfield, Missouri. 
PAUL THURSTON, 
Overton, Nevada. 
DAVID G. ALLEN, 
Lake Placid, New York. 
G. HARVEY NICHOLLS, 
High School, 
Bound Brook, New Jersey. 
B. C. TIGHE, 
High School, 
Fargo, North Dakota. 
S. E. JAMESON, 
High School, 
Ashland, Ohio. 
CARL E. CRESS, 
Harding Junior High 
School, Oklahoma City, 
Oklahoma. 
S. F. BALL, 
Franklin School, 
Portland, Oregon. 
J. E. NANCARROW, 
High School, 
Williamsport, Pennsylvania. 
FRANK FORCHTNER, 
Superintendent of Schools, 
Waconda, South Dakota. 
ELIZABETH FITZGERALD, 
West High School, 
Salt Lake City, Utah. 
ROBERT N. MILLETT, 
High School, 
Springfield, Vermont. 
G. N. PORTER, 
Garfield High School, 
Seattle, Washington. 
CLARENCE G. PEREGOY, 
Wilson High School, 
Beckley, W. Va. 
JOSEPH KRAUS, 
High School, 
Stevens Point, Wisconsin. 
LESTER T. WALTER, 
Powell Junior High School, 
Washington, D. C. 











TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION 
of the 


Department of 
Secondary-School Principals 
of the 


NATIONAL 
EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


The twenty-first annual meeting of the Department of Sec- 
ondary-School Principals met in New Orleans, Thursday, Fri- 
day, Saturday, and Sunday, February 18, 19, 20, and 21, 1937. 


THE FIRST GENERAL SESSION 


The first session of the twenty-first annual meeting of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals was called to order 
by President Willard N. Van Slyck, Principal of Topeka High 
School, Topeka, Kansas, and President of the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals at 8:30 P. M. in the Roof Garden 
of the Jung Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana. 


The audience had been entertained by the Fortier Alcee 
High School Orchestra before the President introduced United 
States Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, who spoke on 
the subject, Preparedness for Peace. The senator emphasized 
the statement that he had no panacea to end war, but he 
wanted no one to rest easy in the belief that the objects for 
which our country entered the World War were achieved. 
These war aims he reviewed and showed that not one of the 
ends we sought in entering the war were accomplished. “Every 
cause that took us into war was lost,” he said. 


In preparing for peace we must be careful to draw the line 
between keeping war out of this country, and getting into war 
in another country. One of the efforts of the government in the 
guise of keeping war out of this country is the present prepar- 


7 















8 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





ation for transporting three million soldiers overseas. This 
looks like preparedness for war, but for war in another coun- 
try. 


The senator suggested ten propositions to keep before the 
people of this country: (1) To keep in war time the profit to 
munition makers and to other industrialists out of their manu- 
facture by making the income tax on war industries so high 
that gain disappears. (2) To take the profit out of the 
making of war materials in time of peace. (3) Turn the mak- 
ing of all munitions over to the government. (4) Destroy the 
double standard, so that a citizen’s life shall be held as sacred 
and inviolable as a citizen’s property. (5) Gird ourselves to 
forego the prosperity that could come to us by supplying mu- 
nitions and other products to nations at war. (6) Forego the 
“freedom of the seas.”” (7) Make no loans to foreign countries 
at war. (8) Keep our citizens off ships of nations at war. (9) 
Enforce on warring nations the cash-and-carry plan. (10) 
Give the people, not the president, the dicision whether we 
shall go to war or not. “If automatically with the entry of the 
United States into a foreign war, income taxes would be raised 
so high that the revenue return would finance the country’s 
participation in the conflict, our international banks and our 
munition makers would not be so intent on having war.” “And 
most of all there should be a referendum of the people on the 
question of entrance into war, for if such a staunch advocate 
of peace as Woodrow Wilson could not keep us out of war, 
how could we expect any other man to do it.” 


SECOND GENERAL SESSION 


Friday, February 19 


The second general session of the convention was called 
to order by President of the Department at 9:50 A. M. in the 
toof Garden of Jung Hotel. He at once introduced Francis L. 
Bacon of Township High School, Evanston, Illinois, who is 
chairman of the Committee on Planning, who made a report 
of progress. 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON PLANNING 


The Executive Committee appointed the Committee on 
Planning at the St. Louis meeting, February, 1936, as the re- 
sult of repeated suggestions which pointed to the need of a 
central planning body. For some time there had seemed to be 
the feeling that the status and future work of the Department 
demanded analysis, consideration, planning, and functional op- 
eration. Thus the long-time job of the Committee was gen- 
erally indicated. 


The membership of the committee consists of Dr. Thomas 
H. Briggs, Teachers College, Columbia University; Dr. Rudolph 
D. Lindquist, Director, The University School, The Ohio State 
University; John H. Tyson, Principal, Upper Darby Senior 
High School, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania; Dr. W. C. Reavis, 
Department of Education, The University of Chicago, and 
Francis L. Bacon, Principal, Township High School, Evanston, 
Illinois, Chairman. 


The Committee by means of correspondence and meetings 
has arrived at what appears to be a difficult but challenging 
program. Of the many problems suggested for consideration, 
a few have been tentatively chosen as especially illustrative of 
the need for planning. These are herewith briefly set forth 
as committee objectives: 


1. To stimulate discussion, evaluation, and study of the 
report of the Committee on Orientation on the Issues and 
Functions of Secondary Education. 

2. To bring the problems, issues, functions, and goals of 
secondary education to the attention of the public in order 
that citizens will be aware of the fundamental matters of edu- 
cational policy. 

3. To develop plans for dealing with certain specific needs 
and problems in secondary education which were brought to 
light by the report of the Committee on Orientation. 

- 4, To stimulate realistic, long-range planning in secon- 
dary education, looking toward the establishment of a national 
plan or program adapted to present-day social needs. 

5. To encourage and develop discussion groups in secon- 
dary education and to extend services to such groups. 










einen SEE 


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10 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


6. To discover the most acute field problems in secondary 
education and to develop concrete suggestions for their solu- 


tion. 

7. To suggest projects where further experimentation is 
needed to discover more appropriate procedures in dealing with 
certain specific situations which now exist in secondary edu- 


cation. 

8. To encourage and coérdinate projects which are being 
carried on by local and state organizations affiliated with the 
Department and to work for better understanding and coéper- 
ation among all agencies working in the secondary-school field. 


9. To sponsor projects in secondary education designed to 
(1) enlist the enthusiasms of high-school youth in coéperative 
activities for school and community improvement, (2) to lead 
youth to care about the future of democracy and the institu- 
tions which characterize it, and (3) to develop a sound edu- 
cational philosophy on certain school activities. 

10. To develop plans to unite under the leadership of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals a codperative at- 
tack upon the difficult problems now facing secondary educa- 
tion with a participation which will make for a wider under- 
standing, not only of the more important problems but of the 
basic principles by which they may be solved. 

11. To develop whatever techniques, devices, plans, or 
publications as are found necessary in carrying out the fore- 
going objectives. 


Program of Work. Once these objectives had been indi- 
cated, work was begun upon their realization. For the first 
time a national report received specific follow-up. The inter- 
pretation and evaluation of the Jsswes in Secondary Education 
became the immediate concern of the committee’s program. 
Under this plan more than thirty special articles of varying 
form and content have been published in educational periodi- 


cals. 

Publicity relations were established and services rendered 
to all of the journals of state associations and state Depart- 
ments of Education. Other interpretative material was pre- 
pared for the use of the National Congress of Parents and 
Teachers. A news service has also been started with material 





























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 11 


carried in such newspapers as The New York Times and The 
Christian Science Monitor and the news bulletins of city school 


organizations. 

Upon request the members of the Committee on Orienta- 
tion prepared study topics based upon. problems and interpre- 
tations suggested by the Issues. The committee worked these 
suggestions into study outline form and made them available 
for teachers’ colleges and for groups of principals. 

Contact was made with a large number of professors of 
secondary education, requesting that they indicate further de- 
velopment of these topics and propose others which might be 
appropriate for use by discussion groups. Using the returns 
as a basis six topics or themes were selected for initial pres- 
entation. 

Suggestions were also developed for use by groups in 
studying and discussing each of the six topics. The plan in- 
cluded: (1) A statement of the importance of the topic, 
(2) Related or subordinate topics with concrete suggestions for 
presentation, and (3) A selected list of references. 

A list of additional problems or topics which may be 
available for similar development in the future is being com- 
piled. This list to date has been taken from recent publica- 
tions on secondary education, from reports received of studies 
and investigations and from the members of the Department. 
As interest develops in this new service it is hoped that mem- 
bers will send in a large number of suggestions. 


Committee Term of Office—That there might be a con- 
tinuity of terms of office as well as the advantage of new points 
of view from time to time the Executive Committee has ac- 
cepted the planning Committee’s recommendation that one 
new member be appointed by the Planning Committee each 


year. 


Future Program.—The experience of the Committee dur- 
ing its few months of existence has shown conclusively enough 
that there is a real need for its services. The work to date has 
brought to light many needs of secondary education and has 
established already the groundwork upon which a highly im- 
portant and constructive program may be built. 

The initial success of the Committee in making the profes- 
sion and the public conscious of certain problems of secondary 























12 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


education through the interpretation and discussion of the 
report on the Jssues, is evidence that a new service is needed 
in the field of public relations. One of the problems which the 
Committee will undertake next will be the interpretation of 
the report on the Functions of Secondary Education. This 
should result in a better understanding of the significant part 
secondary schools have come to play in the entire social pro- 
gram for America. A more general knowledge of the special 
functions of secondary education should also result in many 
improvements in the school program such as better articulation 
of administrative units, a new and more vital curriculum, em- 
phasis upon vocational, civic, and character education, and the 


like. 


The Development of Discussion Groups.—One of the most 
significant developments in secondary education in recent times 
is the growth of discussion groups among secondary-school 
people. Such groups have been started in many sections of 
the country. The new emphasis which is being placed on this 
method of dealing with significant problems in secondary edu- 
cation is having far-reaching results. The rapid growth of 
discussion groups among secondary-school teachers and ad- 
ministrators has grown out of a number of factors. First, 
the obstacles in the way of educational progress during the 
depression taught educators the great need for codperative 
endeavor. Second, at the present time there is greater need 
of inter-school coéperation and exchange of ideas on mutual 
problems than ever before. Third, in the development and 
encouragement of these groups, the Department has played a 
considerable part, especially during the past year. One of the 
initial projects of the Committee was the further development 
of these groups. It is hoped to develop this movement to a 
point where the work will be a significant means of dealing 
effectively with some of the acute problems in secondary edu- 
cation. It is planned to urge groups to make studies of cer- 
tain topics and forward results to the Department. 


New Committees.—Out of joint consideration by the Com- 
mittee on Planning and the Executive Committee will be the 
formulation of a new committee on publications and a new 
committee on pupil activities. The first committee will study 
the form, character and frequency of issue of the existing 
publications and make recommendations as to changes or new 



































13 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


proposals. The second committee will consider especially the 
problems of pupil activities, as they are related to state and 
national organizations, and will suggest policies as to Depart- 
ment considerations and services. 


Final Report on Orientation—From the beginning the 
Committee on Orientation has believed that the problems with 
which it was concerned were three-fold in character: one, 
tne Issues; two, the Functions; three, Implications and Prac- 
tices. The Committee on Planning is of the opinion that the 
third report or study is especially important and has recom- 
mended that a special committee be appointed to complete the 
final report on Orientation. 


In the foregoing only a few of the possibilities have been 
briefly indicated. It is hoped that this report will be suggestive 
of the important services which this new committee may bring 
to the Department. If the needed financial assistance can be 
secured to permit the Committee to continue its program, 
many additional projects could be added for which there is 
a definite need and demand. In some form or other certain 
needs in secondary education are going to be met. If some or- 
ganization such as the Department of Secondary-School Prin- 
cipals which can focus on the development of a program all the 
insight, imagination, and experience that the professional 
background of teachers and school administrators affords, does 
not assume positive leadership by meeting these needs with a 
real program, haphazard plans are certain to emerge and seri- 
ous obstacles are sure to be placed in the way of the future de- 
velopment of secondary education. 


FRANCIS L. BACON, Chairman 
THOMAS H. BRIGGS 

RUDOLPH D. LINDQUIST 
WILLIAM C. REAVIS 

JOHN H. TYSON 














a in 


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14 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


The Director of Demonstration School of Peabody College 
for Teachers, Mr. Joseph Roemer, of Nashville, Tennessee, 
read a Report of Progress of the Committee on Codperative 
Study of Secondary-School Standards. 


NATIONAL COOPERATIVE STUDY OF 
SECONDARY SCHOOL STANDARDS 


By JOSEPH ROEMER 
Dean of the Junior College and Demonstration School 
(Member of Administrative Committee which has this Study 
in Charge) 


There has been a growing feeling of discontent with the 
traditional high-school standards of the various regional stand- 
ardizing agencies for a number of years. This feeling was 
crystallized at the Chicago meeting of the National Education 
Association in July, 1932. Representatives from practically 
all of the regional associations came together voluntarily for 
a day’s frank discussion of the situation. At the close of the 
meeting it was the general opinion of the men present that 
something could be done about the situation and agreed that 
another meeting of a similar nature should be held the next 
month in the office of the Commissioner of Education in Wash- 
ington, D. C. When the men came together for this confer- 
ence, which lasted for two days, the whole attitude again was 
one of deep-seated discontent with present standards and an 
eagerness through a free and frank discussion to explore all 
the possible ways and means by which we might improve the 
situation. Practically every one of the regional associations 
was represented at this conference. At the conclusion of this 
meeting a permanent organization has been formed which 
made it possible for a revision program to be started in a lim- 
ited way. Early in the fall, the executive committee of the 
newly formed organization came together in Cincinnati for 
the purpose of planning out a very comprehensive study and 
looking about for a means of financing it. At this Cincinnati 
meeting very definite plans were laid for the pursuits of the 
program in a small way until substantial assistance could be 
secured from one of the foundations. 

For the next two years the study moved forward slowly 
but surely. We had to depend largely upon voluntary help. 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 15 


All of the six regional associations in the meantime were ap- 
proached for two purposes: first, for an official endorsement 
of the proposed study; second, for some very definite financial 
assistance. Each association approved the program and gave 
all the financial assistance its limited funds would permit. 


The executive committee felt the first step in the study 
should be the abstracting of all materials on the subject and a 
summary of these made in such a way as to enable us to know 
exactly what had been done by individuals, groups, committees 
or organizations that would be of use or significance to the 
study. Some dozen or more interested men in the graduate 
schools of the country gave freely of their time and labor in 
the making up of bibliographies and in the abstracting of the 
material in the field. With the limited funds that the com- 
mittee had been voted by the regional associations, two per- 
sons were employed to give their full time to the study. In 
this way, the abstracting and summarizing of the materials 
were pushed to completion and the ground work of the study 
finished. 


By the time this was completed one of the foundations 
had come to the assistance of the study, which enabled it to be 
launched, in September, 1935, in a vigorous way. Headquar- 
ters were then opened in Washington, a coérdinator, an edu- 
cational specialist, and a secretarial staff were employed. 
The headquarters spent from September 1935 to September 
1936 in evolving a tentative set of standards or criteria to be 
used in a new program of standardization or evaluation. In- 
stead of taking the old standards and patching them up, the 
committee has proceeded on the assumption that it was possi- 
ble to start from the very ground and evolve a new set of 
standards or criteria which would probably be very different 
from those now in use. Of course, it was the ultimate plan 
of the committee to take all materials out of the old standards 
that could be used in the new program. 


By September 1936, a set of tentative standards had been 
eVolved as stated above. The committee then decided that a 
year’s time should be used in a field project whereby the tenta- 
tive criteria could be applied to typical secondary schools, by 
a group of trained men, in order to see if they are practicable 
and workable. With that in view eight trained men in the 


























16 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


fall of 1936 were employed for field services. They were 
formed in four committees of two each with the thought that 
the third member of each committee would be some man in 
each state in which the schools are located. During the spring 
and summer of 1936, two hundred secondary schools were 
carefully selected from over the nation for the purpose of a 
year’s experimentation and try-out. Very careful plans were 
perfected so that every detail would be thoroughly understood 
and ready for work at the opening of school in the beginning 
of the fall term of 1936-37. 


Another phase of this experimental year is a testing pro- 
gram carried on in these same two hundred try-out schools. 
The first phase of the testing program was carried out early in 
the fall. These test papers are now being scored and handled 
in the headquarters at Washington. In the spring, the second 
phase of the testing program will be put through. By the end 
of the summer of 1937, it is hoped that this part of the work 
will be rather well along toward completion. 


From the above it is seen that we are now in the midst of 
our year of experimentation and try-out of these two hundred 
schools. The field work for all the committees will be over, 
practically, by the first of June. Some of the men doing the 
field work will be called to headquarters to assist in compiling 
and summarizing the data and experiences gained from the 
year’s study. When this has all been completed and the test- 
ing program has been carried through, it will be the task of 
the research staff at headquarters to evolve, as a result of the 
experiences of the committees in the field, the outcome of the 
testing program, and the researches of the committee in every 
form over the whole term of the study, a final set of criteria. 
In other words, the final year of the study will be devoted to 
the matter of refinement of standards and criteria and the 
publication of such blanks, work-sheets, check-lists, hand- 
books, and other materials as will be helpful in putting the 
new program into effect. 


May I say a final word as a plea for patience. It is the 
hope of the Committee that those of you who are administer- 
ing schools will realize what a stupendous task this has been, 
and realize also that the committee has very purposely gone 
slowly and cautiously in the matter in order to avoid every 
mistake possible. It looks now as if it is going to be the end 























17 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


of the scholatsic year 1937-1938 before the study is completed 
and the material ready for presentation to the various associ- 
ations. We have gone far enough already in the study to feel 
absolutely certain that a new type of standard or criteria and 
a new method of procedure for accreditation are being evolved. 
The Committee feels quite certain that when the study is com- 
pleted that we will have a new set of standards or criteria and 
a new method of procedure to recommend which will in a 
measure swing from the wholly objective over to the sub- 
jective; from measuring the set-up in a school to evaluating 
the program and outcome of the institution. 


Professor Charles H. Judd, chairman of the Department 
of Education of the University of Chicago, read his paper en- 
titled, The Preparation and In-Service Training of Secondary- 
School Teachers 


PREPARATORY AND IN-SERVICE EDUCATION 
OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL TEACHERS 


By CHARLEs H. JUDD 
University of Chicago 


There are many evidences that secondary-school teachers 
will be required in the future to attain a level of scholarship 
higher than that which they have reached on the average in 
times past. The better secondary schools are recruiting their 
faculties from among those who have advanced academic de- 
grees. The example of California, which requires of all sec- 
ondary-school teachers a year of study beyond college gradua- 
tion, is having a marked effect on other states and on stand- 
ardizing agencies. Professional courses in addition to courses 
in subject-matter fields are now commonly required for certi- 
fication by state departments of education. The new require- 
ments are putting pressure on colleges and universities. In- 
deed, some college authorities are complaining that they can- 
not provide in four years the many different preparatory 
courses which prospective secondary-school teachers are called 
upon to take. The liberal-arts colleges are urging that the 
required professional courses be reduced in number, while the 
teachers’ colleges are frequently neglecting the academic edu- 











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18 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


cation of their students and holding tenaciously to elaborate 
programs of professional preparation. 


Such evidences of increasing demands on secondary- 
school teachers as have been cited can be supplemented by 
pointing out that in some parts of the United States there are 
so many individuals seeking teaching positions that the 
teacher market is overstocked and the effects of competition 
for places are beginning to be seen. If there are several col- 
lege graduates seeking appointment where there is only one 
vacancy, it is natural that the individual with the best aca- 
demic credentials be chosen. There are, to be sure, considera- 
tions other than academic records which determine who is ap- 
pointed in certain instances, but, in general, advanced degrees 
and other similar conventional evidences of educational at- 
tainment are gaining recognition. 


For the past two decades the trend toward higher require- 
ments for appointment to teaching positions in secondary 
schools has been in some measure counteracted by the phenom- 
enal increase in the pupil population of the secondary schools. 
Teachers had to be employed even though the preparation of 
the individuals appointed was inadequate. It has been espe- 
cially true of the newer subjects introduced into the curricu- 
lum, such as the technical subjects, that individuals only re- 
motely competent to teach these subjects have often been ac- 
cepted. The National Survey of the Education of ‘Teachers is 
authority for the statement that 13 per cent of the teachers 
in the senior high schools of the United States have had less 
than four years of college education. Undoubtedly this 13 per 
cent includes many shop teachers who have been imported 
into the schools from industry. 


The influx of young people into the secondary schools is 
quite certain to be less in the future than it has been in the 
past. There is now registered in these schools approximately 
two-thirds of the population of secondary-school age. While 
social and industrial conditions are likely to favor a continued 
increase in the number of pupils during the coming years, 
there will certainly be no such change in the pupil population 
as has occurred since 1914. If the secondary schools reach 
the point where their population becomes even approximately 
stable, competition and other effective forces will push up the 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 19 


requirements imposed on candidates for teaching positions in 
these schools. 

Some of the forces working in the direction indicated are 
so subtle that they often escape detection. One of these is the 
gradual change which is taking place in the concept of schol- 
arship as a means of preparing the individual for success in 
the modern world. So long as society was in a state approxi- 
mating equilibrium, with fairly constant industrial and edu- 
cational conditions, scholarship was thought of in terms of 
certain fixed units of conventional knowledge. For example, 
geometry and algebra have long held unquestioned places in 
the secondary-school curriculum. They are subjects which 
have the prestige that comes from long historical acceptance 
and from service-ability for a selected body of pupils. The 
ancient and modern foreign languages have for generations 
been thought of as indispensable possessions of a cultured in- 
dividual. It was not until Herbert Spencer in 1855 made a 
vigorous plea for instruction in science in his now famous 
essay entitled “What Knowledge Is of Most Worth?” that any- 
one questioned the conventional curriculum of the secondary 
schools. In recent years, when the equilibrium of society has 
been disturbed and new social and industrial conditions have 
created demands for knowledge and skills not formerly in- 
cluded in the secondary-school curriculum—especially since 
1906, when Massachusetts organized a special board of edu- 
cation to supervise the development of vocational schools— 
there has been a gradual change in the concept of scholarship. 
There has been a growing tolerance for new types of scholar- 
ship and new lines of intellectual endeavor. Any subject 
which can lay claim to utilitarian value and seems to be of 
interest to even a small group of pupils is sure of acceptance 
in the minds of some educators as a legitimate subject of in- 
struction and is also sure of a place in the program of some 
school. While the sciences and the vocational subjects are 
elbowing the older subjects out of the secondary-school cur- 
riculum, the defenders of ancient faiths are crying out in con- 
demnation of what they call “loose and unworthy forms of 
scholarship.” These critics of present-day efforts to expand 
the curriculum to meet the demands of all the people are being 
answered by enthusiastic advocates of the newer lines of in- 
struction who say that the older, linguistic-mathematical 
courses are barren and formal. 























20 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


In the days when the linguistic-mathematical curriculum 
was unquestioned, it was fairly easy to select teachers. He 
who knew his Euclid or his Greek grammar and had passed 
through Caesar and Virgil could drill pupils if only he had a 
certain persistence. He was not called on to make any con- 
cessions to pupils of limited ability. There was no such de- 
mand for pupil guidance as there is to-day. The formula of 
instruction was direct and simple. The pupil must learn the 
rules of accepted procedure and conform to fixed standards or 
else leave the secondary school. 


The concept of scholarship which was accepted seventy- 
five or even fifty years ago is no longer acceptable. All the 
world goes to school in our time, and a narrow curriculum is 
no longer possible. Compulsory school attendance laws are 
driving into the secondary schools large numbers of young 
people who are unwilling to study the subjects that made up 
the whole curriculum as late as 1890. The faculty of a sec- 
ondary school must be intelligent these days, not merely 
learned. Scholarship is now coming to be thought of as a 
quality of mind rather than a certain body of remembered 
content. Scholarship must be dynamic, not static. It must 
be effective in improving the world. It cannot rest content 
with a mere recording of what has been. 

We find a striking example of the baneful influence of the 
older concept of scholarship as mastery of a fixed body of 
knowledge if we study the history of the teaching profession. 
Some adherent of this older concept invented that iniquitous 
thing, the life certificate to teach. Whoever he was, we can 
well believe that he had been brought up to have faith in the 
theological doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Lest 
some of you be backward in your theology, it may be well to 
interrupt this discussion long enough to say that the doctrine 
1eferred to can be expressed in vulgar language as follows: 
Once a saint, always a saint. So it was conceived to be in 


teaching: Once a teacher, always a teacher. The life certifi- 
cate meant that a given individual had filled his mind with a 
certain freightage of nouns, verbs, and geometrical formulas 
and could at any time in the future exhibit his wares—with 
moderate hesitation at the worst and with alacrity at the best. 


Standardizing associations adopted the life-certificate 
idea with but slight change. They have been strenuous in the 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 21 


assertion that no one should be allowed to teach a subject un- 
less he majored or minored in that subject in college. The 
idea that intelligence can be exercised in the mastery of new 
subjects after one leaves college is abhorrent to a mind full of 
the life-certificate idea. When a teacher wants any new knowl- 
edge, he should go back to the authorized knowledge factory 
and take courses. 

Far be it from the present speaker to minimize the value 
of university courses. The easiest. and certainly the most ex- 
peditious way to add to one’s equipment as a teacher is to go 
to an institution which deals in courses and fill up on ideas. 
The only trouble with approval of this method of adding to 
one’s knowledge is that it tends to strengthen the impression 
which many teachers have that intellectual effort of the high- 
est type consists in jotting down notes and perusing textbooks. 


Perhaps enough has been said to make it clear that the 
present speaker does not have much faith in the kind of schol- 
arship that is now, and has long been, prevalent among sec- 
ondary-school teachers. Indeed, if one were disposed to be 
brutally frank, one would be compelled to say that scholarship 
in American secondary schools is pitifully low. Here and 
there some exceptional teacher bestirs himself and invents 
something new in the way of instructional materials or in- 
structional methods, but, in the main, secondary-school teach- 
ers are routinists, imitators of those who taught them, slavish 
adherents to textbooks, complacent repeaters of formulated 


ideas. 

The effect of the earlier concept of scholarship on the 
teacher’s own mental life is bad enough, but far worse is the 
effect of this concept on the mental lives of pupils. The teacher 
tends to draw his pupils into the path that he has himself fol- 
lowed. Pupils think of scholarship as conformity to author- 
ized formulas of belief and statement. They get into the habit 
of doing no intellectual work beyond that which is prescribed. 
The idea that the world of intelligence is a free world in which 
one may follow new and untrodden paths is seldom understood 
by a secondary-school pupil. Original investigation—a search 
for truth in new lines—is supposed to be the opportunity only 
of students well advanced toward the highest academic degree. 


If we turn to the future and ask what is to be the accepted 
definition of scholarship for both pupils and teachers, we be- 








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22 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


come aware of a movement which is of the highest importance. 
The best teachers of our day are teachers who have learned 
how to make their pupils independent. The single textbook to 
be learned verbatim is being banished from the schools. Pu- 
pils are being sent to libraries, where they can compare the 
views of different writers and develop individual judgments 
which do not follow the lead of any single authority. Pupils 
are being asked to discover interests which are strong enough 
to induce them to study in out-of-school hours. The negative 
statement that there is to be no home work is being replaced in 
the best schools by the positive statement that each pupil is 
expected to adopt and follow some line of intellectual endeavor 
independently and enthusiastically for the sake of mastering 
a field of experience that may have been opened up in school 
but was not there treated exhaustively. 


The older belief that classes must be small so that each 
pupil will be closely watched by the teacher is beginning to 
weaken in view of repeated demonstrations of the fact that 
teaching often attains the highest success in large classes 
where the function of the teacher is to inspire rather than 
coerce, to arouse rather than drive. 


If a generation of young people could be so educated in 
secondary schools and colleges that they would be able to think 
independently, to analyze situations, and to form sound judg- 
ments, it would be possible to select from among them teachers 
who would exhibit a new and higher type of scholarship. The 
difficulty in this case is the difficulty which confronts all social 
reforms, namely, the impossibility of starting with individuals 
of the kind necessary to make the reform immediately effec- 
tive. Reform in education must begin with teachers who were 
on the whole inadequately prepared and with pupils who have 
too often been educated in the conventional, formal ways of 
studying and reciting. 

A promising attack on the problem which confronts the 
secondary schools is for principals to undertake a far more 
vigorous program of in-service education of teachers than has 
been common in the past. Every investigation which has been 
made of the way in which principals of secondary schools 
spend their time has shown that administration and not super- 
vision of instruction is their chief concern. Principals say 
that they have neither energy nor opportunity to visit classes 

















0 iy AON 














23 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


after they have taken care of all the public relations and ad- 
ministrative duties which society imposes on them. The prin- 
cipal thinks he must be in his office to answer every call made 
on the telephone by influential] citizens or by parents of his 
pupils. He must visa all orders for supplies and must attend 
to every case of discipline. 


So long as principals devote themselves entirely to admin- 
istration and public relations, instruction will tend to be of 
the formal recitation type. To be sure, there will always be 
some teachers who will develop new and dynamic methods of 
conducting their class work, but, in the main, teachers, like 
pupils, do what they know is demanded of them and little or 
nothing more. The scholarly atmosphere of a secondary school 
is a very substantial influence in governing the activity of the 
teachers. If the atmosphere is of low scholarly barometric 
pressure, the work of every individual in the school will slow 
down and become bare routine. The atmosphere of an educa- 
tional institytion either stimulates or retards scholarly effort. 


The extent to which a scholarly atmosphere affects the 
whole personnel of an institution can be illustrated. The story 
is told of one of the leading universities of the country that 
on one occasion just after the president’s report had appeared 
containing a list of the publications of members of the faculty 
during the previous year a janitor remarked to one of the pro- 
fessors: ‘Professor, I do not see in the president's report any 
mention of books written by you last year.” 


The problem which confronts ‘the secondary schools of 
the United States is the problem of creating a scholarly at- 
mosphere. This problem cannot be solved merely by com- 
pelling teachers to take extension courses. An atmosphere of 
scholarly activity must exist in the school itself; it cannot be 
imported in small packages. The principal and the teachers 
must be of a certain type and must go about their work in a 
certain spirit. 

If the proper atmosphere exists in a school, a new teacher 
will grow even more than he grew during his preparation in 
college. The fact is that the assumption that a young teacher 
will receive little or no stimulation after he enters upon his 
professional duties has reacted in a curious way on the pre- 
paratory program. 


















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24 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Because there is no adequate supervision of instruction 
in secondary schools, there is a strong disposition in many 
state departments of education to compel all colleges which 
prepare secondary-school teachers to conduct a liberal amount 
of practice teaching. The theory is that a teacher-in-prepara- 
tion who has taught a few classes will avoid the mistakes that 
a novice is likely to make. 


Far be it from the present speaker to make condemna- 
tory remarks about all practice teaching. Some of the prac- 
tice teaching administered in American colleges is undoubtedly 
useful. On the other hand, it is a fact well known to every 
careful observer that much so-called “practice teaching” is a 
farce. There is probably no more demoralizing requirement 
imposed on colleges than the requirement that they make re- 
ports to state departments of education on the amount and 
character of the practice teaching done by students. Hours 
become days in these reports, and days become weeks, not be- 
cause the facts justify the extensions of time but, because in- 
stitutions must comply with certification requirements. Lone- 
some blundering or mere imitation of unworthy examples is 
reported as closely supervised practice teaching. 


The only effective way to give classroom experience is to 
put a young teacher in a real teaching situation under the sym- 
pathetic supervision of an intelligent principal. There ought 
to be continuity between the preparation given to prospective 
teachers in academic institutions and the supervision given 
them when they begin to teach. The idea that a college can 
make a teacher is fundamentally wrong. A college can equip 
a prospective teacher with knowledge of subject matter and 
can supply a background of information about school organiza- 
tion and classroom methods, but the first few years of teach- 
ing experience, if properly supervised, can do for a teacher 
what no institution can possibly accomplish. Teachers are not 
prepared in colleges; they are merely started on their careers. 


Lack of supervision of teachers is one of the great defi- 
ciencies of the American educational system. Supervision 
can be and should be in part purely personal. All teachers, 
especially young teachers, are at times in need of suggestions 
which only an intelligent supervisor can give. Above and be- 
yond personal supervision, however, is what, for want of a 
better descriptive term, has been called earlier in this paper 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 25 
the “scholarly atmosphere” of an institution. If the whole 
body of teachers in a school can be brought together from time 
to time for the purpose of discussing educational problems, a 
scholarly atmosphere can be developed. 


If, for example, the faculty of a secondary school consid- 
ered at one of its meetings the social and economic status of 
the community in which it is situated, would not the new 
teacher in that school go into his classroom with a spirit far 
more helpful to the pupils than that which could be cultivated 
by a course in sociology dealing with such an abstraction as 
“the family’? 


If the faculty of a secondary school met for discussions of 
the curriculum, each specialist listening as sympathetically 
as possible to the presentation of the claims of the subjects 
with which he has little acquaintance, would there not be de- 
veloped a tolerance for the work of others which is now too 
frequently lacking? 

These suggestions are intended to make concrete the state- 
ment that a principal ought to try to create a scholarly at- 
mosphere in his school. Instead of thinking of in-service edu- 
cation of teachers as a commodity to be purchased from insti- 
tutions of higher learning, principals ought to recognize in- 
service education as a part of their obligation to their teach- 
ers. There would be no need of dishonest reporting of prac- 
tice teaching or of sham insistence on practice teaching by 
state departments of education if there were effective super- 
vision in the secondary schools of this country. 


There is another reason, which has been hinted at in this 
paper, why a new type of scholarship is demanded of secon- 
dary-school teachers. Knowledge has taken on a scope and 
range in modern times which make it essential that a group of 
intelligent teachers select and arrange what young people 
learn in courses. When there were only nine major lines of 
instruction in secondary schools, as the United States Com- 
misstoner of Education reports that there were in 1890, the 
organization of courses was comparatively simple. Further- 
more, when one thinks of the thousands of teachers who have 
taught Latin and geometry, it is easy to understand that these 
subjects have been refined for teaching purposes until almost 
anyone can administer them—at least, after a fashion. The 














26 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


situation with regard to the sciences, natural and social, is en- 
tirely different. The century-old landmarks are lacking. The 
mass of material is well-nigh unlimited. New contributions 
to these sciences are pouring in every day. There is no possi- 
bility of relying on tradition and convention. Not only so, but 
the new subjects, when properly taught, are never exhaustive 
in the sense in which a course in a dead language can be ex- 
haustive. A modern subject, when well organized and well 
taught, aims, as indicated earlier, to cultivate powers of think- 
ing and judging. 

Instruction in the sciences has not commonly served the 
high purposes described as appropriate to modern teaching. 
Ordinary instruction in science in the secondary schools is un- 
doubtedly the clumsiest and most ineffective teaching that is 
done in these schools. It requires an exceptional teacher to 
make a success of a course in science. What is needed in order 
to raise science-teaching in American secondary schools to a 
high level is a coéperative effort on the part of teachers who 
are real scholars in the sciences. The courses in the sciences 
in the colleges are no better than the courses in the secondary 
schools. They all attempt to crowd into the minds of learners 
hundreds of statements which are the findings of science. 
Most courses in the sciences fail almost completely to convey 
either understanding or appreciation of scientific methods of 
thinking. 

What has been said makes possible the statement in a sin- 
gle summary sentence of the main thesis of this paper. The 
most effective method of cultivating scholarship of the right 
kind among secondary-school teachers is to institute in-service 
study on the part of these teachers which consists in vigorous 
intellectual attack on the problems of reorganizing the mate- 
rials of instruction of the secondary-school curriculum. The 
best in-service education results from that kind of intellectual 
effort which issues in creative productivity on the part of 
teachers. Education of teachers has too long been thought of 
as an external process. Teachers, like pupils, have been con- 
tent to take on formulated ideas. Teachers have seldom 
thought of themselves as responsible for aggressive scholarly 
activity which goes beyond their college and university majors 
or minors. Teachers have looked upon creative scholarship as 
something belonging to a sphere of activity entirely outside 




















27 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


the range of their possible attainment. If the demand were 
made on secondary-school teachers that they write interesting 
articles on topics in the special fields in which they give in- 
struction, most of them would be utterly unprepared to com- 
ply with the demand. Yet ability to organize intellectual ma- 
terial is the surest evidence of genuine scholarship. 


The period of tolerance of low-grade scholarship in sec- 
ondary schools is passing. The signs point definitely in the 
upward direction. It is sometimes difficult in the chaotic sit- 
uation which rapid expansion has produced to see clearly how 
a new kind of scholarship is to evolve and reach a level as high 
as that which the older scholarship reached in its limited 
sphere. To know a foreign language was indeed an achieve- 
ment and undoubtedly extended the mental horizon of the in- 
dividual who mastered the language. In this day and age 
there are other and more significant extensions of personal 
experience than those which result from contact with foreign 
literatures. Scholarship is of a new and dynamic type. Our 
generation is somewhat vaguely conscious of the new horizons 
which are opening up before society and the individual. 
The first reaction which this aroused consciousness leads men 
to make is to try to get greater quantities of the older and 
familiar types of knowledge. Standardizing agencies, state 
departments of education, and school boards are all asking 
teachers to take more courses. Course credits seem to be 
tangible guarantees of the new something which is demanded. 
Gradually the realization will mature that the demand is for 
a new quality of scholarship. The leaders in education ought 
to be the first to recognize clearly the nature of this demand 
for a qualitatively different kind of scholarship. Mere taking 
of more courses and acquiring of advanced academic degrees 
will not meet the needs of the future. Scholarship must be 
vital and productive. It must be of a type which will continue 
as an active force after a teacher secures a license to teach. 
It must operate to make a secondary-school faculty an asso- 
ciation of energetic thinkers constructively mastering the 
problems of the institution which they serve. 


At the risk of needless repetition, it may be added that 
the new demand rests not only on teachers but also on princi- 
pals. The day is fortunately passing when the educational 
politician is to be preferred to the real leader in the secondary- 








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28 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


school principal’s office. The organization of a secondary 
school is as yet an unsolved problem. It cannot be effectively 
accomplished without exercise of the kind of genius which 
grasps the significance of new social demands and meets these 
demands by discovering and making effective the fundamental 
principles on which the social order of the modern era rests. 

The best schools, by substituting independent study for 
slavish learning of set lessons, are inaugurating a movement 
which promises to transform the whole educational system. 
When this movement becomes fully effective, prospective teach- 
ers will gain from their secondary-school and college education 
the kind of intellectual stimulation which will make it unnec- 
essary to draw the sharp line now drawn between preparatory 
education and in-service education. In-service education will 
be a continuation, through association with experienced col- 
leagues and under suitable leadership, of the independent in- 
tellectual effort cultivated throughout the period of prepara- 
tory education. 


THE THIRD GENERAL SESSION 
Friday, February 19, 1937 


The third general session was called to order by the Chair- 
man of the Committee on Planning, Principal of Township 
High School, Evanston, Illinois, Francis L. Bacon, at 1:25 


P. M. 


Miss Agnes Samuelson, State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction of Iowa, read her paper, Safety Education on the 
Secondary Level 


NEXT STEPS IN TEACHING SAFETY ON 
SECONDARY LEVEL 


By AGNES SAMUELSON, 
First Vice President, National Education Association and 
Superintendent of Public Instruction for Iowa 


Whether or not you came to this meeting via a new 
streamline model, you are following the exciting records being 























29 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


made in transportation history by the streamline developments. 
Whether or not you are intrigued with the streamline pattern, 
you see how it is influencing advertising. Streamline hairbobs, 
French toes on your air-conditioned shoes, recipes, footballs, 
toys, streamline your hip-line, and so on. Even Toonerville 
Trolley has gone streamlined. Flem Proddy, local inventor, 
was recently streamlining a derby hat so he would not lose it 
when running to catch the trolley! 

But why bring this up? What does it have to do with edu- 
cation? safety instruction? this program? Let’s take a look 
at the claims made for the new streamlines—greater speed, 
less wind resistance, added comfort, finer design, and more 
heautiful styling. In a nutshell—better performance. Isn’t 
that exactly what we are seeking in our school—better per- 
formance ? 

The new streamlines arrive at their better performance 
through creative engineering and exhaustive research. Are 
we not using the same methods in education? Is not every 
aspect of the educational program under the microscope? Are 
we not constantly subjecting the content, procedure, and out- 
comes to careful investigation and severe testing to the end 
that there may be constant improvement? Is not the science 
of education developing? What are nursery schools, junior 
high schools, junior college, and adult education extensions, 
if not examples of creative engineering? 

Where are more fascinating chapters than those in the 
story of the way education is being streamlined for better 
performance? The need is for an interpreter to write them 
in the best-seller style. Schoolhouse construction from log 
cabin to modern school building, curriculum from jawbreaker 
words in spelling to those commonly used in daily life or the 
names of the bones of the body to health habits, dunce cap 
and birch rod to achievement test and pupil participation, 
Horn Book to children’s literature and the modern textbook, 
represent significant advancement in educational history. For 
the epochs described by the Covered Wagon, Iron Horse, Spirit 
of St. Louis, and latest model may. be paralleled by the New 
England Primer, Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller, Thorndike’s 
Word List, and any modern textbook used in your schools. 

In the chapter dealing with the enrichment of the con- 
tent-and relating the program more closely to the needs of 


























30 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


life outside the school, safety education may take a front seat. 
We no longer need to plead the importance of the subject mat- 
ter. The record in the news is a fresh exhibit A each day. 
The safety forces have pioneered the work to the point where 
it is now a curriculum matter. 

The emphasis given safety at this conference shows that 
the educational profession is not in the sidelines but in the 
thick of the campaign for human safety. We will participate 
by our own conduct as pedestrians and drivers. We will exert 
leadership by moving into this area with streamline speed. 
We will introduce safety programs even if we have to sacri- 
fice some of our interesting academic arguments. We cannot 
add any more days to the week but we can perhaps find some 
more outworn subject matter to scrap, if we take a continuous 
inventory of changing life needs. 

The schoo] program must expand to include safety in- 
struction, especially on the secondary and teacher-training 
levels, if the war on accidents is to be won. The annual death 
toll of thirty-six thousand lives and over a million injured in 
highway accidents is exactly that many too many. It cannot 
be postponed if the young learners are to have the experi- 
ences that will guide them for safe and adventurous living. If 
the school is to train for life—and that is the nucleus of our 
favorite definitions—it dare not blind its eyes to the educa- 
tional aspects of the highway safety problem or shift the re- 
sponsibility of tackling them. It is part of the process of 
streamlining education for better performance. If the school- 
house is to be a service station for the procession of humanity 
—old and young—on the highway of life, it must develop the 
right kind of safety attitudes and habits. It cannot overlook 
the environment in which these young learners live—twenty- 
seven million motor vehicles with forty million drivers burning 
up sixteen billion gallons of gasoline to travel two hundred 
billion miles a year. This young generation must be safe as it 
goes places and sees things en route to take its place as adults 
in a world where time and distance have been conquered by 
radio and the streamline. 

To teach these young learners the proper use of the great 
new instruments of modern civilization is one of the tasks 
of education. Call it values, discrimination, or control, as you 
prefer—the best way to freedom is through intelligent dis- 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 31 


cipline. Guidance in the right use of the movie, radio, auto- 
mobile, and literature is a new frontier in secondary education. 
These new tools can take us to greater heights or lower depths 
depending upon their use or their abuse. The young drivers 
and airplane pilots must have attitudes, knowledges, and skills 
if they are to sit at the wheel and the controls. 


We are not here to argue that it should be done. That 
argument is closed. The question now is how to do it. There are 
no ready-made plans to put into your hands. We cannot ship 
the parts for you to put together in a given pattern. We can- 
not supply blueprints. There is need for much exploring in 
this area. Some of you have already made significant progress. 
Many schools are off to a good start. 


The task resolves itself into two large aspects. What is 
the instructional significance of safety education in secondary 
schools? How shall safety activities be articulated with other 
educational units? There are technical problems involving 
new solutions. The answers are not in the back of the book. 
Their solution requires intensive research and creative en- 
gineering by the educator just as the production of the ma- 
chine does on the part of the manufacturer. 

To develop a systematic program and the right kind of 
safety instruction is more than a scissors and paste proposi- 
tion. There are no precedents to follow, but some excellent 
work is being done here and there. The task requires mastery 
of the rules of the road, mechanism of mechanical power, 
human relations involved, coéperation of community and traf- 
fic agencies, and new procedures. It depends upon experimen- 
tation. There is little experience to draw from because of the 
suddenness with which the automobile is displacing the horse 
in transportation. Forty-five years ago there were no auto- 
mobiles. 

I toss this curriculum problem into your lap, knowing you 
will not stop except for red light until you have a program of 
action. If the curriculum is to be organized into several 
groups, where is safety to be found? in science? in the social 
studies? citizenship? industrial courses? Will safety instruc- 
tion fall into different fields with overlapping areas? Will it 
be an integral part of all groups? Will it be a separate safety 
unit? Is it the mechanism on the human relations that will 











32 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


determine where it goes? Such questions as these along with 
age growth and time for supervised practice are not as easy to 
answer as to raise. In other words the problem is well de- 
fined. There is nothing nebulous nor fantastic about the high- 
way traffic safety problem. It is much too real. 


The important thing is that we move forward. Our fore- 
fathers did not sit upon the banks of the stream waiting for 
all the waters to rush by before attempting to cross. So we, 
too, must be inventive and resourceful as we pioneer in un- 
tried areas. Building bridges upon which to carry the program 
will follow in due time as we make advancement. 

It can be done. Without any well-formed program the 
results are already conspicuous. Mr. Albert W. Whitney of 
the National Safety Council reports that, in 1922, when the 
national safety program began, the accidental death rate for 
elementary school children was 40.8%. In a thirteen-year 
period it was reduced 26%. During that same period the acci- 
dental death rate among adults increased 20%. 


That there is a tremendous interest in developing safety 
instruction is shown by the fact that almost every state and 
city of any size has committees at work on the course of 
study. Safety councils are offering assistance. Here is a field 
where the possibilities for codperation are unlimited. The 
booklet on “Common Traffic Problems” is the most recent ex- 
ample of codperation in my state. It was prepared jointly by 
our trade and industrial supervisor and the chief examiner of 
the motor vehicle department. Our course of study in safety 
education was previously made possible through assistance 
of the Iowa Department of the American Legion and other 
groups interested in safety. 

Under the direction of a small committee some materials 
are to be ready in the near future which are intended to meet 
the calls that constantly reach the Childhood Education Sec- 
tion of the National Safety Council for immediate course of 
study helps. 

Now as to the psychological aspects, remember these ado- 
lescents have the imagination and enthusiasm to conquer. 
They are burning with the ambition to unscrew the inscrut- 
able. Let them enlist in the war to prevent accidents and go 
as far as it leads them. Is it too much to hope that the im- 











eth Qa fn =o os -... 


Ff @ ZB, 




















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 33 
plications of the human safety will carry them beyond the 
highways to the boundaries between nations? to the necessity 
of protecting human life through world friendliness and peace? 

We are relying upon you to take the next steps. Call 
your faculty together and challenge each teacher to build 
safety units in his subject. That has been well done in the 
matter of guidance in some of our high schools. If you prefer 
to follow the most common practice of organizing separate 
safety units, do it that way. Remember that incidental in- 
struction does not produce results in any field. There is ample 
evidence on that point. Do not hesitate to be inventive and 
try out new patterns. 

While mechanical genius is fashioning automobiles with 
increased safety protection; lawmakers providing sounder 
traffic regulations; engineers improving streets and highways; 
organizations of all kinds promoting safety-mindedness ; motor 
vehicle departments, police and patrols becoming more skillful 
in handling the traffic problems, it behooves the school, es- 
pecially the high school, to impress the young learners with 
their responsibilities as drivers and as pedestrians. As we 
speed up our performance in this area, we are helping to make 
ancient history out of traffic accidents. Yes, you are equal 
to it. 


Mr. Albert W. Whitney of the Education Division of the 
National Safety Council, read his paper on The Secondary- 
School and the Traffic Safety Problem. 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL AND THE TRAFFIC 
SAFETY PROBLEM 


By ALBERT W. WHITNEY, 
Chairman, Education Division, National Safety Council, New 
York, before meeting of the National Department of 
Secondary-School Principals, New Orleans, Feb. 19, 1937. 


The entrance of the high school into the traffic field is 
significant because of what it means both to society and to 
education. We have failed completely to realize what we needed 
to do to accommodate ourselves to the automobile age. If we 
had visualized our problem as the domestication of the loco- 











34 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


motive upon our streets rather than the glorification of the 
horse and buggy, we should have got off to a more realistic 
and adequate start. 

In our mentality and psychology regarding the automobile 
we are still in the horse and buggy stage. This shows not only 
in our failure to make the driver responsible through adequate 
drivers license laws, but in our failure to provide training not 
merely for living in the automobile age but even training for 
driving. Our delinquencies go even deeper than that however. 
We don’t even understand how to approach the problem. We 
are at a standstill at the present time because we believe that 
it cannot be solved. The problem can be solved, but if it is to 
be solved training courses for living in the automobile age 
must be given, together with actual instruction in driving. 

Such courses not only belong in the field of education, but 
they belong in the high school. This is a job that the high 
school must perform for society. The gain will not all be on 
the side of society however; for such courses will have a pro- 
found effect upon the high school itself. 

There is no part of our educational system that more needs 
to be taken out of the treadmill routine that tradition and the 
exigencies of preparing young people for college have imposed. 
Here is a chance to do some of the tasks that education should 
be performing during the period of adolesence when the need 
and opportunities are so remarkable. 


Miss Marian Telford, Consultant on Child Safety and Di- 
rector of Field Activities of the Education Division of the Na- 
tional Safety Council presented A Balanced Safety Program 
for the Secondary-School, 


A BALANCED SAFETY PROGRAM FOR THE 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL 


Marian Telford, Consultant on Child Safety and Director of 
Field Activities, Education Division, National Safety 
Council, New York, N. Y. 

Introduction 


My part in this session is the presentation of a balanced 
safety program for the high school. Due to time limitations I 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 35 
ask permission to do so largely in a written rather than an 
oral form. 


By way of introduction I desire to make just two points. 
First, the preparation of this balanced program was not a one- 
man job. I have had the unselfish assistance of experts in the 
educational, recreational, traffic and safety fields. I wish to 
express my grateful appreciation for that assistance. Second, 
I wish to direct your attention to some of the sad facts in the 
accident case. There were 111,000 accidental deaths in the 
United States last year. That’s a new high. But it is to certain 
trends that I wish to direct your attention. Until 1929 acci- 
dents were second in frequency as a cause of death in the 15 
to 19 age group, surpassed only by tuberculosis. In 1930, how- 
ever, accidents became the most frequent cause of death in 
this age group. They have remained so every year since. In 
fact, in 1934, accidents were the most frequent cause of death 
between 3 and 18 years and by 1935 between 3 and 20 years. 


A Check List for High School Principals 


If the safety program of your school is adequate you are 
able to check the following items. Others may be included, 
these are essential. 


1. The school building is inspected periodically. Special 
attention is given the gymnasiums, shops and laboratories. 
Complete codperation is given local and state authorities re- 
sponsible for the inspection of school buildings. 


(In a detailed study covering 700,000 students it was 
found that 25% to 35%.of the reportable accidents in the 
grades higher than the seventh occurred in school build- 
ings. These accidents occurred in the following places: 
gymnasium 35%, corridors and stairs 20%, vocational 
shops 14%, class rooms 13%, others 18%.) 


2. The athletic program is under the direction of a full- 
time athletic teacher or coach, medical examinations are re- 
quired before students are allowed to participate in intramural 
or interschool school competition, the playing floor or field is 
adequate in size and in good condition, personal equipment is 
suitable to the needs of individual players, participants are 
properly conditioned and aided in the development of the skills 
required in the various activities in which they take part, stu- 























36 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


dent leaders are used and properly trained, first aid and medi- 
cal service and, if necessary, hospital service are available. 
(“Approximately 87 school years are lost every year 
as a result of accidents in physical education activities in 
high schools.”—Safety in Athletics. Lloyd, Deaver and 
Eastwood.) 


3. Students are aided in the development of skills in cer- 
tain recreational activities that may be largely non-school ac- 
tivities yet known to be hazardous to individuals of high school 
age. 

(Firearms, for example, rank as the fourth cause of 
accidental death in the 15 to 24 age group. Drowning 
ranks as the second most frequent cause of accidental 
death from 5 to 24 years and reaches a peak between 15 
and 19.) 

4. Procedures have been established for the collection of 
data on student accidents resulting in absence from school and 
the full use of this data in the development of the safety pro- 
gram. 

(The high school participates if the city school sys- 
tem has adopted the Standard Student Accident Report- 
ing System, makes an independent study if the city has 
not.) 


5. The development of safety skills is a recognized part 
of all vocational or manual arts courses, including physical 
education. 

(This was recommended to the Department by Sid- 
ney Williams at the St. Louis meeting.) 


6. The development of attitudes and skills essential to 
safety is considered in those courses that deal with character 
and social relationships, including courses in citizenship and 
Problems of Democracy. 

(Also recommended by Mr. Williams last year.) 


7. Basic information on highway, home, recreational and 
occupational hazards is given to all students through carefully 
prepared units in related courses. The development of driver 
training courses is recognized as a desirable outgrowth of in- 
troductory class room discussions of traffic safety, such driver 























37 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


training to be included in the program of the school when the 
technics of driver training have been developed, teachers 
trained and equipment made available. 

8. A student safety committee or council has been or- 
ganized, provided with the assistance and guidance of an in- 
terested member of the faculty and aided in the development 
of channels through which to reach the entire school enroll- 
ment. 

9. The principal has assumed responsibility for the in- 
terpretation of the philosophy of the safety movement to the 
members of his faculty and encourages and aids them in se- 
curing the necessary training for effective work in this field. 

10. Helpful published safety materials are made avail- 
able to students and teachers. 

11. Patrons are kept informed on and interested in the 
safety program of the school. 

12. Contact has been established between the high school 
and the official and private agencies working for safety in the 
community. 


SELECTED SOURCES OF INFORMATION 


Organizations 


National Safety Council (Education Division), 1 Park’ 
Avenue, New York, N. Y. 

National Bureau of Casualty and Surety Underwriters, 1 
Park Avenue, New York, N. Y. 

American Automobile Association, Mills Building, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 


Published Material 


Education for Safety in America’s Secondary Schools. 
Williams, Department of Secondary School Principals, NEA 
Bulletin No. 60. 

Man and the Motor Car. Whitney. National Bureau of 
Casualty and Surety Underwriters. 

Accident Facts. National Safety Council. (Annual Sta- 


tistical Report.) 








ase 











38 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Student Accident Reporting. National Safety Council. 
(Sample report blanks, instructions for use.) 

Organized Safety for Organized Parents and Teachers. 
Telford. National Congress of Parents and Teachers. 

Parents and the Automobile. Reisner. Bureau of Pub- 
lications, Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Sportsmanlike Driving Series. American Automobile 
Association. 

Safety in Athletics: the Prevention and Treatment of 
Athletic Injuries. Lloyd, Deaver and Eastwood. W. B. Saun- 


ders Company, Philadelphia. 


Mr. Amos E. Neyhart, Driver Training Specialist of the 
American Automobile Association, spoke briefly but vividly 
on Teaching Good Driving Through Classroom Study and 


Driver Instruction in High Schools. 


TEACHING GOOD DRIVING THROUGH CLASS- 
ROOM STUDY AND DRIVER INSTRUCTION 
IN HIGH SCHOOLS 


Amos E. Neyhart, Driver Training Specialist, American Auto- 
mobile Association, on leave of absence from Pennsylvania 
State College 


Perhaps no new educational activity in many years has 
created such widespread interest as driver education and 
driver training in the high schools. That educators have been 
quick to see its advantages is more evidence of the universal 
demands for safer conditions on the streets and highways. 
Thus the schools are joining forces with legislators, law en- 
forcement agencies, traffic engineers and others engaged in 
the mass attack on the greatest humanitarian problem of the 
age—the steadily rising toll of motor deaths and injuries. 


Why should schools take on this added responsibility at 
a time when their facilities are already taxed? The answer is 
simple. The age requirements for new drivers in the various 
states are, on the average, about sixteen years, although lower 
in some states. Therefore, it is obvious that driver education 
and training in high schools is the proper approach to reach 














hig 
der 
ins 


the 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 39 
new drivers and those who will drive in the future. In addi- 
tion, there is growing appreciation for the fact that drivng 
an automobile has become an essential feature of almost every 
profession or means of earning a livelihood. 


From the standpoint of the educator, an important fea- 
ture of driver education and training is that it is easily adapted 
to regular courses of study or extra-curriculum work. It re- 
quires only a limited time in the classroom and on the road. 
Thus while it is significant from the viewpoint of benefits and 
results it does not require the extensive preparation and ad- 
vance planning that is required by some other courses of 
study. 

One of the most widely accepted courses of driver in- 
struction is that offered by the American Automobile Asso- 
ciation. It combines the experience of traffic engineers with 
that of educators in the classroom. The basis of the course 
is a series of textbooks under the title of Sportsmanlike Driv- 
ing, which is also the theme of the text material, now in use 
in approximately 2,800 high schools. Demands for these text- 
books have been such that our printing resources have been 
taxed to fill orders. A great number of high schools are sup- 
plementing classroom study on the fundamentals of safe driv- 
ing and safe walking, with actual road training. 


Dual control cars are now used for road training’ in many 
high schools and offer an effective means of preventing acci- 
dents during the training period. The dual control gives the 
instructor a clutch and brake pedal conveniently located so that 
he has full control of the car, should the student fail to operate 
the automobile properly. 


The value of this high-school training in indirectly reach- 
ing adults should not be overlooked. Surely when the younger 
generation becomes conscious of the tremendous responsibility 
attached to driving, they will help carry the message to par- 
ents who, in turn, will reappraise their own driving habits. 
Another important feature is the fact that students who have 
received driver training find tests for a drivers’ license a com- 
paratively easy matter. 

There is no greater contribution that our schools can make 
to the cause of better citizenship in the future than to help 
develop proficient and responsible drivers of motor vehicles. 




















40 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Mr. Leslie R. Silvernale, Supervisor of Instruction of the 
Public School of Cleveland, Ohio, presented his paper. 


SAFETY INSTRUCTION IN CLEVELAND 
SECONDARY SCHOOLS 


By LESLIE R. SILVERNALE, 
Supervisor, Public Schools, Cleveland, Ohio. 


In the junior and senior high schools of Cleveland, safety 
instruction is incorporated in the various subjects of the cur- 
riculum. This means that there is some repetition and over- 
lapping, for a safety unit in a social studies course may include 
some of the material found in a safety, unit in science, but the 
approach is different and the pupil has a broader understand- 
ing as a result of considering the problem from these varying 


angles. 

The industrial arts department is giving much thought 
and devoting much time to the teaching of safety. Shop bul- 
letin boards feature safety material. Each machine has its 
special set of safety rules which must be mastered before the 
boy begins to operate it. Student safety inspectors are ap- 
pointed to inspect safety devices, to see that proper guards 
are used, and to see that other safety precautions are followed. 
In some schools, these student safety officers are given special 
training for this type of work in classes set up for this pur- 
pose. Many industrial arts teachers have broadened their 
safety program to include more than just shop safety and cer- 
tain periods each week are used to stress other phases of the 
subject. Teachers of home economics have developed instruc- 
tion in home safety comparable to the stop safety program 
followed in industrial arts courses. 

The physical education department is giving much at- 
tention to safety instruction. Two safety committees, one com- 
posed of teachers of boys and the other of teachers of girls, 
have carefully worked over their respective courses of study. 
They have set up general safety procedures, and precautions 
for specific activities, which have been included in the course 
of study. 

The number of academic subjects in which safety units 
have been incorporated is continually increasing. In seventh 
grade mathematics there is a unit entitled “Accident Graphs.” 











ee WB tt we we tt or —_ aS oS lhCULelCUCO 


ss j&¢ — 


-_ a Ye is 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 41 


Pupils are presented a wide variety of accident graphs and in 
this way they gain some appreciation of the present accident 
situation as well as drill in the interpretation and construction 
of graphs. In the ninth grade social studies unit entitled “Con- 
serving and Improving Human Resources” there is a section 
devoted to accident prevention. In senior science, a course or- 
ganized for pupils who do not elect chemistry or physics, 
there is a four-weeks unit entitled, Accident Prevention Be- 
comes Scientific. It includes material on safety at home, at 
school, in outdoor recreation, in industry, and in traffic. 


In addition to teaching safety in correlation with other 
subjects, in all junior high schools and in some senior high 
schools specific safety lessons based in general upon seasonal 
hazards, are taught. These lessons are usually presented dur- 
ing the homeroom period. To provide teachers with up-to-date 
material, monthly safety bulletins are prepared and distributed 
with the codperation of the Cleveland Safety Council. The 
topics stressed are: September, school safety; October, fire 
prevention; November, street safety; January, winter safety; 
February and March, first aid; April, safety in spring sports 
and the annual spring clean-up; May and June, water safety, 
hiking, fireworks and the like. 

In senior high schools, an increasing emphasis is being 
given to instruction in safe driving. Units in this topic have 
been incorporated in various spots in the curriculum. In some 
schools such a unit is taught in the personal regimen course; 
in others, in science; and in others, programs for presenting 
traffic safety have been instituted for all seniors shortly 
before graduation. A safe driving unit has been included in a 
course in Problems of Democracy which is now being intro- 
duced and which is intended eventually to be required of all 
twelfth grade students. In several schools, full semester 
courses in safe driving, meeting daily, are offered. At one high 
school a teacher is spending his full time in actual road in- 
struction. This experiment is being financed by the Cleveland 
Automobile Club. 

In the junior and senior high schools as in the elementary 
schools, safety education is linked with training in active 
citizenship by giving the student government the task of look- 
ing out for the safety of others in the school building and on 
the schoo: grounds. School safety councils or safety commit- 














42 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


tees of student councils have been organized, and it is their 
responsibility to take charge of safety assemblies, safety bul- 
letin boards, building inspection, accident reports, and conduct 
in corridors and on the school grounds, 


Mr. E. W. Montgomery, Superintendent of Union High 
School and Junior College, Phoenix, Arizona, presented his 
paper entitled Safety Education in the Phoenix Union High 


School. 


SAFETY EDUCATION IN THE PHOENIX UNION 
HIGH SCHOOL 


By E. W. MONTGOMERY, 
Superintendent of Union High School and Junior College, 
Phoenix, Arizona 


Two features of the Phoenix Union High School safety 
program are unique. One is that we are giving a semester’s 
credit toward graduation for successful completion of the au- 
tomobile driving class work, which, by the way, is a real driver 
training program in fact and not in name only. Granting such 
credit calls for no defense on any score. It is simply admitting 
that a vital need has existed and that we in the Phoenix Union 
High School are beginning to meet that need. The question has 
been raised as to whether there is sufficient content to war- 
rant granting such credit. The answer is emphatically, “yes”. 
That is true both for the ninety hours of the classroom time 
and the actual road work. Each student in the latter is be- 
hind the wheel from eight to fourteen hours, according to his 
individual needs. The limited time allotted to me permits nei- 
ther an explanation of the two divisions of the classroom pro- 
cedure, nor the driver’s training. 

The second feature in the Phoenix plan is unquestionably 
an innovation. It has great significance in states with oper- 
ator’s license laws or in those where such legislation is con- 
templated. We have been granted this year the privilege and 
have been given the authority by the Superintendent of the 
Motor Vehicle Division of the Arizona Highway Department to 
give the three tests required by the operator’s license law for 
our high-school] students. In fact, due to the recognition of the 








i ie Be ae i 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 43 


high educational features and the thoroughness of procedure, 
all high-school students are required to appear before our ex- 
aminers. Therein lies a great, a tremendous responsibility 
and a magnificent challenge. We have accepted it. Further- 
more, should any student by reckless driving or for other 
cause so conduct himself that his driving endangers the lives 
or property of others, our recommendation alone is sufficient 
to suspend that student’s license. Both our city magistrate 
and the highway patrol assist in making this regulatory meas- 
ure possible. The enforcement agencies are pleased to have 
our aid. 

We had not budgeted for expenditures such as gas, cars, 
or insurance. Therefore it became imperative to call upon our 
community’s resources when a survey showed that we had 
nearly two hundred juniors and seniors sixteen years of age, 
who were driving without licenses. Each of our car dealers 
agreed to furnish a car for a week. An insurance company 
covers the cars with public liability, property damage, and col- 
lision insurance, and so far, not even a fender has been nicked. 
Oil companies have supplied the gasoline. Films and slide 
film machines have also been made available for our use. The 
city of Phoenix furnishes paint crews, the Arizona Highway 
Department and the Parent-Teacher Association, in fact, every 
individual or company approached have given us absolute co- 
6peration in everything. 

The examination consists of a vision check made by our 
public health nurse. The driving test is over a route five miles 
in length. Every condition that the adult meets in ordinary 
driving, the students meet, except heavy hill and night driving. 
Abrupt stops, backing, parallel parking, turning in the street, 
stop signs, traffic signals, heavy traffic, country road, con- 
crete, oil cake and dirt roads, both rough and smooth, are en- 
countered. The attitude toward pedestrians, the speed at in- 
tersections, his kind of observation—all are noted and checked 
by the faculty examiner. A student must make thirty out of 
forty-five points to be approved. If he does not, he is advised 
to see the duiving class teacher for further instruction, either 
on the family car or the one used at school, upon the specific 
points in which he needs improvement. He is never told that 
he has failed. That would not be a true picture of what has 
happened to him. It would not be proper educational proce- 
dure. 

















44 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


The third part of the examination is a written test upon 
the Phoenix traffic ordinance, the Arizona motor vehicle code, 
local accident facts and methods of preventing accidents, and 
driving problems. The last are made up from the informa- 
tion found in the A.A.A. Sportsmanlike Driving Series. 

Before the boys and girls (and the number is almost 
equally divided between them) can take this test, they must 
attend four one-hour lessons in which the above matters are 
carefully discussed. The object, of course, is that they not 
only be prepared to answer intelligently questions relative to 
controlled speed at intersections, the shape and meaning of 
standard signs, the type of situations that must be avoided in 
Phoenix and Arizona to reduce our accident rate, but that 
they shall continue to be impressed with the fact that a license 
gives them only the privilege to practice how to become skill- 
ful drivers. We plan to follow up the drivers that we license 
to find out the number of accident-free miles they drive and 
whether or not they are cited for traffic violations. 

We are not sure just where this experimentation will lead 
us. Probably our dealers will be willing to continue in the 
future to lend us cars, for in addition to the safety features 
involved, which are of course, uppermost in our minds they 
consider the matter as good advertising. Other loads, insur- 
ance and gasoline, for example, will have to be assumed as a 
logical tax burden. The licensing and training in automobile 
driving are two of the most real and positive ways of solving 
our difficult national traffic problems. Phoenix is convinced 
that our safe driving program is sound youth guidance and 
sound education. 


Mrs. B. F. Langworthy, President of the National Con- 
gress of Parents and Teachers, read her paper, entitled, Par- 
ents and Safety. 


PARENTS AND SAFETY 


By Mrs. B. F. LANGWORTHY, 
President, National Congress of Parents and Teachers, 
Washington, D. C. 


Only a soothsayer could answer the question which your 
program chairman asked me—“How much interest have par- 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 45 
ents and the public in teaching safety in the high schools?” 
One much less wise, however, might easily judge how much 
interest they ought to have for the general public is made up 
largely of the parents of the children who may kill or be killed 
for want of this education. 


As a matter of fact, the parent teacher body, which is 
fairly representative of the community anywhere, has for 
many years conducted an educational campaign for safety in 
the home as well as on the highways; for it was a great blow 
to parents to discover that “safe at home” meant about what 
“safe on the highways” meant, and no more. 


A traffic safety program can be studied only in codpera- 
tion with school and municipal authorities and this we are 
trying to do under the leadership of our National Chairman 
of Safety Education, Miss Marian Telford, of the Educational 
Division of the National Safety Council. 


There is much that we must learn outside the emotional 
drive which we can always count on for motivation, some- 
times long before we have had the necessary learning to 
direct it. For instance, we have been strongly interested since 
its inception in the School Safety Patrol and have raised thou- 
sands of dollars to buy Sam Brown belts and other equipment 
for these young monitors. Then we discovered that we knew 
little about the best rules governing this activity and we went 
about to study them, with the result that now we insist that 
if our children are to be patrols they must stand on the curb, 
and not in the street; that they are there to control the chil- 
dren and not traffic and, finally, that it is to be regarded not 
as the best method but only as a stop-gap until the municipal- 
ity is financially able to use adult officers for all traffic control. 
We know that it is bad, psychologically, to give to children of 
the same age level, constituted authority over each other and 
we look forward to the day when this apparently necessary 
form of control may be abolished. 


We recognize that, when we equip our children with roller 
skates and bicycles we must also teach them the rules for 
their use. Most children have been so protected that they can 
see no danger in darting in and out of traffic in these swiftly 
moving instruments of disaster and are often resentful of par- 
ental provisions for their safety. But we do urge the use of 

















46 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


some brilliant tail-piece so that like a firefly they are automatic- 
ally protected by a signal light, also we urge the use of the 
extreme outside lane, going with the traffic, and we do try to 
make them understand the danger of using roller skates in 
traffic, when the slightest obstacle may make them trip and 


fall under an automobile. 

It is understood that these rules are given in school safety 
lessons but, after all, the control must come from the home 
where the vehicles are provided. 


; The teaching of driving in the high schools is only now 
being recognized by parents as an essential subject. Two years 
back one heard it spoken of as a fad and a luxury, almost as 
“class education” because only the rich could own cars. The 
expansion of car ownership, coupled with the comprehension 
of the commercial value of motor knowledge has changed 
sentiment vastly and there is much commendation of this ad- 
dition to the high-school curriculum. If parents have any op- 
position to the introduction of this new course it would, per- 
haps, tend to be dissipated by classifying the course under 
physics or some other traditional subject, which would satisfy 
taxpayers with the sense of factual education. True, the ac- 
curate knowledge of driving technics may deprive parents of 
one of their last vestiges of superiority in the realization that 
John or Mary drives better and more scientifically than they 
do. The remedy for this would be in a carry-over of the knowl- 
edge from the school to the home and the possession in the 
home of such an invaluable text book as Whitney’s Man and 
the Motor Car. There could be not more timely bit of adult 
education than this, for what shall it profit a boy to save his 
father’s automobile for his father to wreck the next day be- 
cause he did not know the science of good driving? 


In many states it has been so long possible for a man to 
buy a car and drive it home under his own power and he has 
done it so often without being killed that parents have grown 
to feel in the main that motor-driving came by grace rather 
than by education. The ghastly number of accidents of the 
last few years have shaken our complacency, however, and 
we are all beginning to wish that we had not only a knowl- 
edge of the beneficent, but also of the dangerous power of the 
machine. At present, most people know only what the sales- 




























































47 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


man has told them when buying’ the car or what the policeman 
has said when giving them a ticket. 


Parents are, in the main, honest and law abiding but have 
not seen the necessity of learning the law and do not therefore 
abide by it. For this reason, again, there should be a carry- 
over of the new study from the school to the home. 


I feel that I should miss an opportunity if I did not point 
out to this body of educators that parent-teacher associations 
would be better able to take up such studies if they could be 
released from the burden of money raising for material bene- 
fits to the school. This has assumed such proportions that in 
some cases it has been allowed entirely to obscure the object 
of the organization, which is the education of parents for their 
job of bringing up children. If school administrators would 
only forbid such money-raising activities, providing instead 
opportunities for learning what the school is trying to do for 
the children, great good would come to the educational sys- 
tem in creating public opinion or adequate schools, adequate 
teaching, and adequate financing. The teaching of motor driv- 
ing is a particularly attractive avenue for such education for 
intelligent parenthood and the schools would reap far greater 
benefits from it than from the buying of any number of pianos 
and stage curtains. 


The Congress of Parents and Teachers has distributed in 
the campaign of the last year, through the generosity of the 
automotive industry over a million dodgers with compact in- 
formation about safety in addition to a pamphlet called Or- 
ganized Safety by Organized Parents and Teachers. These 
have been sent out through the 26,000 units of the National 
Congress. 

I have the honor in representing this organization to-day 
to pledge to the educators our support of your new motor 
driving curriculum course. We would gladly hold up your 
hands in this effort to teach our children what we, ourselves, 
ought to know. 


The session adjourned at 3:00 P. M. to go sight-seeing in 
Vieux Carre. 























48 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


THE FOURTH GENERAL SESSION 


The Friday evening session of the Department, called to 
order at 8 P. M. in the Roof Garden of Jung Hotel, by the pre- 
siding officer, Paul E. Elicker, Principal, Newton High School, 
Newtonville, Massachusetts, and Second Vice President of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals, was devoted to 
the first five of the Functions of the Report of the Committee 


on Orientation. 


The first paper, on Function I, was prepared by Professor 
Joseph H. Butterweck of Temple University of Philadelphia, 
was read by George A. Muzzey. (An abstract of Professor 


Butterweck’s paper follows :) 


This address is concerned with a critical analysis of the 
report of the Functions Committee of the National Association 
of Secondary-School Principals, and deals with Function I, In- 
tegration. 

Any statement of the integrative function of secondary 
education must concern itself with the following four factors: 


1. What are the essential elements of a dynamic democ- 
racy? Until these are clearly stated it is impossible to indicate 
the nature of the integration which any school program should 
undertake. The Committee has not been quite clear in its 
statement of these essential elements. 


2. What should be the chief concern of an educational 
program designed for a dynamic democracy? Should it be 
that of teaching individuals to accept truth, or to guide them 
in ways and means of searching for truth? The Committee’s 
report is not entirely clear on this point, probably due to the 
fact that it has evaded the more difficult responsibility of 
stating the characteristics of successful citizenship in a de- 


mocracy. 
38. What type of product should the secondary school ex- 


pect from the elementary school since its success is conditioned 
by the type of individual entering its doors? It has a right to 

















49 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


suggest the type of product which it would like to receive, and 
to give a general prescription for the creation of such a prod- 
uct. 

The conventional elementary school has done an effective 
job in teaching’ truth, but has this prepared effective citizens 
in a social order where change of values constantly takes 
place? Can the secondary school build an effective program 
in preparation for a democracy if those who enter its doors 
have already been conditioned to accept rather than to seek 
truth? 


4. It is impossible to select with a high degree of accu- 
racy the integrative elements of a curriculum at this time. 
We have as yet no scientific measures for their selection. If 
the Committee’s report is to become a foundation for the erec- 
tion of future programs, it should set down criteria to be used 
in selecting the integrative elements for a secondary education 
program and should state these criteria in terms which are so 
general and yet so clear that they can be applied as the condi- 
tions in society change. 


The rejoinder to this criticism was presented by Will J. 
French, Superintendent of Schools of Long Beach, California. 


Professor of Education of the University of Missouri, 
read a paper devoted to Function II as follows: 


The position taken in Function II is so sound, so clearly 
set forth, and so ably defended that it would appear to need 
no additional defense. Such support as has already been pro- 
vided for public secondary education in America has, at least 
in a large measure, been based upon the belief that the public 
secondary school ministered to the needs of its pupils. Al- 
though this faith has all too frequently been vague, unreason- 
ing, or even blind, it has been a persistent and impelling force 
im American life. To it may well be attributed much of the 
demand for more and more schools and for the general expan- 
sion of educational opportunities. 

Unfortunately, “the schools have not fully justified the 
confidence of their supporters.” In the first place, the tradi- 





























50 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


tional school neither admitted nor accepted this responsibility 
for serving human needs. It is easy to sustain this charge 
against the private secondary school. It deliberately chose 
to exalt “learning for the sake of learning” and to neglect the 
needs of every-day living. Even the best private schools of 
the past were relatively isolated from life and did little to pre- 
pare their pupils for its realities. 

The autobiography of Henry Adams furnishes an excel- 
lent case in point.. A member of one of the most distinguished 
families of New England, he was, as a matter of course, given 
the finest educational opportunities that money could buy. His 
schools were carfeully selected and upon leaving Harvard Uni- 
versity, he was given the advantages of study of travel abroad. 
Years later he sought to evaluate the education afforded him 
by the institutions he had attended. He looked back at his 
schooling. With respect to his long and expensive period of 
formal training he asked himself, “What proved to be useful 
and what did not?” Listen to his melancholy verdict. “My 
education, splendid as it was, came nearer preparing me to live 
in the day of Julius Caesar than in the day of Theodore Roose- 
velt.” 

As Sullivan has pointed out, this figure of speech was not 
the exaggeration it appears to be. In number and significance 
the changes that had taken place in the material world during 
the lifetime of Theodore Roosevelt were greater than the sum 
of all of the changes that had occurred in the 2,000 years that 
had preceded it. These changes had brought new problems 
which his schooling had not prepared him to solve. To quote 
his own words, he “felt like a man who had come down from 
centuries before”. 

But this tendency neglect to-day and its needs has not 
been limited to private institutions. Indeed, public secondary 
schools have in many cases, been equally culpable. Judged by 
their offerings and procedures, few of them have given serious 
consideration to the special obligations which their public char- 
acter clearly involves. From time to time there have been 
vigorous attempts to bring about reform. The academy as 
projected by Franklin was one. The development of the four- 
year public high school, the junior high school and the junior 
college were others. All of these movements began bravely; 




















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 51 


all had some positive accomplishments to their credit, but all 
fell short of the hopes of their promoters. 


Their failures and shoricomings may be attributed to 
several causes. Complacence, inertia, and the natural ten- 
dency to attack traditional tasks in a traditional way combined 
to defeat these movements looking toward change and im- 
provement. But probably the greatest obstacle to real reform 
has been our failure to perceive this particular objective 
clearly, to accept it as one of the inescapable obligations of 
public secondary education and to then proceed whole-heart- 
edly toward its realization. To put it bluntly, the typical pub- 
lie secondary school fails lamentably to fulfill this function be- 
cause we, the administrators and teachers charged with lead- 
ership in this field, have failed to exert adequate leadership. 
In a large measure its failure is our failure. It is true that we 
have been forced to do our work under extreme difficulties. 
Harassed by the pressure of expanding enrollments and gen- 
erally bedeviled by pressing but frequently petty problems, 
we have concentrated our best efforts on the improvement of 
administrative practices. We have refined our procedures and 
geared up our administrative machinery but in so doing have 
neglected the basic problem of clarifying our philosophy and 
redefining our objectives. Confused in our purposes, we have 
redoubled our energies and, in at least some instances, we have 
become highly proficient at tasks which subsequently proved 
to be of doubtful value in the first place. 


In spite of this confusion and lost motion, at least some 
progress has been made. As the report has pointed out, “the 
modern trend is very definitely toward bringing’ education 
more directly into the service of human needs.” Powerful 
forces outside the school are exerting their influence. At least 
some administrators and teachers have become alert to the 
problem and have begun their attack on it. Hence it may 
fairly be said that at least some of our secondary schools are 
now attempting, more zealously and more intelligently than 
ever before to discover youth’s problems and to assist in their 
solution. 

Once this significant objective is clearly perceived and 
whole-heartedly accepted, our progress should be much more 
rapid. Hence, an important first step is to stimulate study of 
this problem and thereby popularize this concept among those 











52 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


responsible for administration and instruction in our secondary 
schools. 


It is precisely in this connection that Dr. Ryan’s report 
should prove to be extremely valuable. His statement is clear 
and convincing. Although the principle he defends has been 
rather generally ignored in practice, it is still sound. As he 
has succinctly pointed out, “There is no other defensible rea- 
son for educational effort than its ultimate power to serve the 
needs of mankind.” The thoughtful consideration of this the- 
ory should prove highly stimulating to all workers in this field. 
A critical but open-minded consideration of the philosophy un- 
derlying this function should, and in my judgment will, lead 
to its acceptance in general. Upon what other premise is a 
public high school warranted in taking money from the public 
for the education of all? 


But the mere acceptance of this theory of education is not 
enough. Essential though that is, it represents only the be- 
ginning of reform. The Committee is to be congratulated upon 
the fact that it has not been content to stop with the state- 
ment and defense of a general proposition. Insisting that the 
term “needs” be used in its broad sense, and that the maturity 
of the learner be kept constantly in mind the Committee then 
proceeds to suggest the outlines of an attack upon the prob- 
lem. Four categories of needs are offered as illustrative mate- 
rial and urgent necessity for a systematic and continuous sur- 
vey is emphasized. Such a survey culminating in the discov- 
ery, formulation, and classification of pupil needs obviously 
can not be effectively carried on at odd moments by teachers 
and staff members who are already handling a full schedule of 
official duties. The task is far too difficult and important. 
The question, ‘What are the important immediate and proba- 
ble future needs of the students?” is not easy to answer, and 
the Committee is wise in urging that “a body of experts be set 
up to prepare the best possible answer to the question.” In 
the meantime, each and every high-school teacher can make a 
modest but significant beginning. By critically examining both 
the content and method of his own courses and determining 
their relation to pupil needs, he can then make at least some 
modifications which will definitely increase his effectiveness as 
a teacher of modern youth. A codperative effort by groups of 
teachers follows as a second logical step leading eventually to 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 53 
a continuing study of the problem by a body of experts. The 
word “continuing” is used advisedly because, as the report 
points out, “There is no end to the problem. Broad as the 
whole range of human activities, deep as the nature of man, 
it will keep renewing itself as fast as people alter their modes 
of living.” 


As a further suggestion, it is emphatically urged that this 
report be given wide publicity. It deserves the most careful 
study, particularly by those who choose to serve in this field. 
To all teachers and administrators who share in the respon- 
sibility for providing public education, the report presents not 
only a challenge but a call to prompt and vigorous action. 





Principal Matthew P. Gaffney of New Trier Township 
High School of Winnetka, Illinois, presented the following on 
Function III: 


I. What are higher activities? 


(a) Those that have to do with the betterment of human 
life, that are socially valuable. This point is stressed 
often in the report, as such quotations as the follow- 
ing indicate: 

“The teacher has the opportunity of pointing out that 
professions carry their social obligations.” 

“This implies the pupil seeing the implications for 
society of the work he plans to do.” 

“Higher activities do not mean a hierarchy of knowl- 
edge as displayed in sequence of courses. The term 


9 99 


means ‘higher’ in the sense of ‘power’. 


“The ablest boys and girls are often those who get the 
least revelation and stimulation in a high-school cur- 
riculum.” 

“The ultimate solution of this problem of revealing 

. higher activities centers around the curriculum.” 


The study of any such report becomes real only as we illus- 
trate it with our own experiences, and it is important that 
we should do this in order to clarify the picture. The fol- 
lowing examples of higher activity came to my mind: 

















54 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


(1) In a sociology class, twelve or fifteen pupils took over 

regular assignments at a Chicago settlement house, 

| and worked with them one day a week for a period of 

three or four months. The course in sociology opened 

the way to the work in the settlement, but the contact 

in the settlement house in return led to a higher ac- 

tivity by adding a drive to the study of sociology and 
added interest in social work. 


(2) A boy who was scheduled for Annapolis became inter- 
ested in a League of Nations contest in American his- 
tory. This led to his electing a course in social science 
in his senior year, which again led to a complete 
change of plans, a different choice of college, and a 
pre-medical course. 


(3) A boy who became interested in the radio club was 
influenced thereby to elect physics in his senior year, 
which in turn continued his interest in engineering 
and its application to the field of radio. 


(4) A boy who was casually interested in music had a 
radio and purchased only records of popular nature 
and jazz. He played in the high-school orchestra, 
which was working on a movement from the Caesar 
Franck symphony for its Christmas concert. This 
boy received money for a Christmas present to spend 
in any way he desired. He used his Christmas money 
entirely on symphony records. Later he worked on 
a committee which brought the Illinois Symphony 
Orchestra to the school for one performance a month. 


(5) An ancient history class collected material for an ex- 
hibit. This led to the foundation of a museum. This 
created interest in the neighborhood, and resulted in 
a valuable gift of archaeological material. Interest 
in the museum in turn has led to the formation of an 
archaeology club, and the club brings many valuable 
programs to the history classes, recently a speaker 
who discussed archaeology as a career. 


II. How can such interests be revealed ? 
Quotations from the report again indicate answers to this 
question: . 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 55 
“Teachers need to have wider horizons than just more 
courses in education.” 

“There is need of better type teachers, and better condi- 
tions, if this function is to be realized.” 

“There is need of larger units and community contacts.” 

’ “Pupils must see work in its relation to society.” 


“This presupposes a broad field of offerings, so that the 
pupil may have a chance to explore his interests.” 


“This function emphasizes the school as the means where- 
by the student, through very enriching and stimulating 
experiences, may understand and feel the significance of 
possibilities latent in activities lying beyond.” 

“We neglect this function because, instead of understand- 
ing the basis of this function, we have just added 
courses.” 

“We do not possess the technique whereby the problem 
can be solved.” These techniques, by the way, seem to 
consist of a study of the individual on one hand, and a 
study of the society on the other. 


There is plenty of evidence that schools have not suc- 
ceeded in revealing these higher activities to students. 
Subjects are often taught by men and women who have 
lost faith in them as a functional method in secondary 
education. The student must learn “in terms of his own 
problem in present day living.” “It is the duty of all per- 
sons entrusted with guidance, of all teachers insofar as 
opportunity presents itself, to point out to students those 
existing conditions which will affect the higher activity.” 
“Secondary education cannot reveal higher activity of 
an increasingly differentiated type in the major fields 
unless they can provide activities of sufficient diversity 
to meet the needs of students.” 


“The ultimate solution of revealing higher activities cen- 
ters around the curriculum.” The importance of using 
the community as a laboratory is stressed. 


1. The point of view is developed that we must provide 
more and more activity and activities of an increas- 
ingly differentiated type. On the other hand it is made 
clear that the mere adding of courses is no solution. 














56 





PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


The added activities must function. As I apply this 
to my own situation, I take it to mean that adding an 
industrial arts department to an academic high school 
is no solution unless the industrial arts department 
functions differently from an academic department. It 
must reveal a completely different type of activity, and 
on a different basis. 


The present rather widespread movement which some 
refer to as correlation has been of great value in re- 
vealing new activities to students in the light of older 
activities. A pupil, who, in studying the period of the 
Renaissance in history can be given a picture at the 
same time of the art of the period, of the music of 
the period, of the literature of the period, has new 
revelations that illuminate all fields concerned. 


A great range of interest is revealed by clubs, and 
temporary activities growing out of the pupil’s im- 
mediate interest. I know of situations where radio 
club work, lens club work, shop work in stagecraft, 
school publications, school councils, information organ- 
izations and committees, large school projects and 
drives of various types have revealed many interests 
to students that were outside of their previous experi- 
ence. Work in the school museum, contacts with 
adults, seeing good plays, hearing good music, have 
done the same thing. The Globe Players have given 
Shakesperean plays. College musical organizations 
come to us, and reduced rates are arranged for various 
artist series in the community and in Chicago, but 
more important are those activities in which the pupils 
themselves participate. 


One or two boys took a course in cooking for a very 
special purpose, and thus almost accidentally the value 
of this course for boys was revealed to the boys them- 
selves. Now we have an entire course given over to 
boys in the home economics department. 

One boy for whom music had had no interest whatso- 


ever, and who had actively avoided such contact, tried 
out for a chorus part in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera 

















Il. 


- 





57 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


because his friends were also in the chorus. This was 
the beginning of more definite musical interest. 


6. I visited a class recently which was studying poetry. 
The subject was “Rabbi Ben Ezra” by Browning. It 
was, without any exception, the best English class I 
have visited in years from the point of view of pupil 
activity and pupil accomplishment. Yet this same 
class had come to the teacher at the beginning of the 
unit and said, “We want it distinctly understood that 
we do not like poetry and do not wish to study it.” 
They were antagonistic to anything which might be 
called poetry. The teacher was able to approach this 
particular class of superior pupils from the point of 
view of the ideas that were involved. The boys and 
girls became so interested in discussing the ideas that 
before long, in spite of themselves, they admitted an 
admiration for the form in which the ideas were ex- 
pressed, and with this as a beginning, poetry came to 
mean something entirely different to this group. 


How do these higher activities become desired ? 


The report is discouragingly frank in pointing out how 
often they do not. 


“Evidences of CCC camps indicate that the work of the 
prvailing public school type has been distasteful to many, 
and is adapted to neither the needs or interests of the 
group.” 

“By any reasonable audit, secondary education for the 
masses is bankrupt.” 


The report makes no attempt to sugar-coat the fail- 
ures of high schools in this regard, and puts its finger 
very clearly on the reason: 

“Interests can come only through matching abilities of 
children at any level with activities that can challenge 
them at that level.” 

“Only as schools provide for pupils teachers with these 
broad interests and broad visions, and stimulating per- 
sonalities with compelling interest can the spark catch.” 

“Studies of adolescence indicate that the problems of con- 




















58 





PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


temporary life which are most insistent are personal, and 
not social in the larger sense of the word.” 


“If each successive adventure in a higher field is to prove 
satisfying, the initial experience must be successful.” 


The report stresses the point of view of contagion of 
interest, and emphasizes again the fact that the capable 
challenging teacher is the most important solution to the 
problem. We probably all admit this, and yet as admin- 
istrators do too little about it. We can contribute toward 
making teachers’ personalities more stimulating by the 
philosophy of administration that we accept, and the at- 
mosphere that we help to create in the schools under our 
charge. We all know schools where the administration is 
so autocratic as to choke any development of initiative on 
the part of the teachers. A teacher who stays in such a 
system for many years loses just that quality which is 
necessary to reveal higher activities, and particularly to 
make them desired. The whole atmosphere of a school 
system can be such as to either encourage these qualities 
in teachers, or practically eliminate them. Some schools 
have encouraged exchange teachers, or through salary 
schedule provisions, have encouraged travel, social con- 
tacts, and participation in community life. The teacher is 
influenced in these regards by the attitude held by the 
board of education and the superintendent or principal. 


From the pupil’s point of view, higher activities be- 
come desired if the school gives them prominence. 

We all know that a certain amount of recognition is 
necessary for students in order to make them feel that 
their work on councils, committees, and monitor boards is 
of real value to the school. Purely material considerations 
sometimes make the difference as to whether an activity 
is desired or not from the student point of view, for ex- 
ample, new uniforms for a band, or a central location for 
the radio installation or the radio club. 


One of the most important elements, however, in hav- 
ing an activity desired is presenting it at the right level 
for the pupil. I have in my school a group of senior boys 
and another group of senior girls who are meeting one 
night a week to discuss and plan school problems that deal 




















59 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


with the life of boys and girls in school, and they are def- 
initely considering it from the point of view of character 
education and the morale of the school. Any such at- 
tempt would have been fatal at any level below the senior 
year, and it might be fatal some other year with a group 
of senior boys and girls who have not reached the partic- 
ular social point of view of this group. 

Recently I gave a talk on European cathedrals be- 
fore a sophomore class in art appreciation. This was at 
their own invitation because I had given the talk to a 
senior group at another time. The talk was a great mis- 
take as far as the sophomores were concerned. If you 
grant that a knowledge of cathedrals and cathedral build- 
ing is a higher activity, this talk did nothing toward mak- 
ing it desired, because it did not meet the sophomore class 
at a level on which they were thinking. 

The question of the proper grade for subject place- 
ment is concerned, of course, with this very point. 
Whether or not poetry should be taught in grades 9 and 
10, whether certain types of literature should be taught 
in the early high-school years, are vital considerations. 


Grades, honors, award assemblies, awards—these are 
all frowned on by the progressive educator. Yet there is 
no question that for pupils at a certain level in develop- 
ment, they do make an activity desired, even though there 
may be a question whether we welcome desire for these 
reasons. 
A panel discussion in an American history class deal- 
ing with the Constitution and the Supreme Court seemed 
to take an entirely different place in the interests of the 
pupils when they were invited to repeat it before certain 
community groups. 


. To what extent are higher activities possible? 


“This implies a study of individuals at every level, a study 
of methods, materials, and activities appropriate to every 
level in order to lead pupils to higher levels, and a study 
of society in order to find levels at which these people 


can function.” 

















| “ 








PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


“Interest can come only through matching abilities of 
children at a level with activities that can challenge them 
at that level.” 

“The learner, and not what is to be learned, should be the 
center of interest.” 

“The initial experience must be successful.” 


“Revelation of higher activities that are worth while must 
be made in terms of the capacities of the learner.” 


This report, then, makes very definite the fact that 
the answer to the questions, “when possible,” and “as far 
as possible,” deals with the level of the pupils’ abilities 
and implies a careful study of the pupil in his abilities, 
capacities, and interests. 


A few years ago we took in thirty or forty pupils on 
special diplomas who were old enough to be in high school 
but were not prepared. They were maladjusted in many 
ways, but the main difficulty was lack of reading ability. 
Standard tests gave many of them reading ability and vo- 
cabulary knowledge on a fifth grade level. Textbooks, 
particularly the books read in English, were anathema to 
them, and their remarks were of this nature: “I do not 
like to read’’; “I am not interested in books”; “I don’t see 
any use in reading.” ‘They were reacting against a situ- 
ation entirely beyond their level. A very wise English 
teacher collected hundreds of books that he thought would 
appeal to them and would be on their level, put all the 
books in one room and took the class there, For about a 
month the pupils were given no assignments. They were 
told they might read if they cared to, but they would not 
be checked on their reading. At intervals the teacher 
would read aloud some very interesting and exciting book, 
but it always happened that he had to stop before the cli- 
max was reached because of some emergency, and the 
book would be put back on the shelf. It was not long be- 
fore all these pupils were reading, and for a year, the 
teacher studied carefully to see what they read—the type 
of books, the type of print, whether with or without illus- 
trations, whether heavy books or light books, large books 
or small books, stories of the sea, or stories of the west- 
ward movement. 




















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 61 
This study has continued for four or five years, and 
it has shown definitely that pupils of this class like to read 
when they can find material where the subject matter is 
mature enough to be of interest and the mechanics easy 
enough to be possible for them. Moreover, the success 
that they have attained here has made possible interest 
at a higher level toward which they have been striving. 


Charles F. Allen, Supervisor of Secondary Education of 
Little Rock, Arkansas, read his paper at this time. 


Miss Bertie Backus, Principal of Alice Deal Junior High 
School of Washington, D. C., gave her attitude toward Func- 
tion IV. 


May I express my pleasure in participating in what seems 
to be to me one of the most important meetings our depart- 
ment has ever held. Our committee, in presenting for our dis- 
cussion a statement of the function of secondary education, 
has performed a much needed service. May I join with our 
chairman in the hope that this is the beginning of a nation- 
wide series of discussion of the functions of education—and 
that from this discussion may come clearly defined goals to- 
ward which all may work. I am very happy to be the spokes- 
man for the junior high school in the discussion of exploration 
as one of its major functions. 


Exploration was one of the functions envisaged for the 
junior high school at its very beginning. Presumably; then, 
we have been “exploring” for a decade. It is well that we stop 
and evaluate our experience. I shall not soon forget the wave 
of indignation and incredulity that swept over a group of 
junior high school principals met in a similar convention in 
Washington, D. C., 1932, when Dr. Spaulding reported the 
findings of his committee on the effectiveness of the junior 
high school organization. Dr. Spaulding told us in effect that 
there was no evidence that the junior high school was doing 
any better job than the old 8-4 school organization had done— 
that instead of one gap in the educational program of the 
child, the junior high school had created two. Such a report 














62 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


was certainly a blow to the pride of junior high-school prin- 
cipals. I think I can say, however, that we are doing a better 
job as a result of that study and of Dr. Spaulding’s report. I 
am glad that in this discussion you have given us a chance to 
admit our shortcomings before having them pointed out to us. 


“If this function—the function of exploration—is valid,” 
writes Mr. Reed in the report for the committee, “it follows 
that a reorganization of the school, the curriculum, and the 
teacher’s functions must be effected. Courses of study and 
pupil activities and experiences in the junior high school must 
assume the exploratory function as a major purpose.” Courses 
of study have been reorganized, changes in school life have 
been effected, teachers’ functions have been redefined and yet 
any thoughtful student of the junior high school must feel 
disappointment at the meager success of the junior high 
school in performing this function. Courses in language in 
mathematics, in the practical arts, introduced for exploratory 
purposes, have all but been abandoned; general science alone 
seems to have established itself as an integral part of the 
junior high-school curriculum. Changes in school life have 
met with little more success. Pupils have moved from the 
small unit of the single class in the elementary school to the 
departmentalized life of the junior high school; enrollments 
have increased; teachers’ loads have mounted until the in- 
dividual child has been lost in the crowd. It is doubtful whether 
the pupil leaves the average junior high school with any very 
clear conception of the “major fields of the racial heritage of 
experience and culture and their significant values for social 
living” or with any reasoned conclusions concerning his own 
interests, aptitudes and capacities with respect to this herit- 
age. Shall we conclude, then that “exploration” as a function 
of the junior high school is not practical and direct our atten- 
tion toward the realization of more practical functions? Be- 
fore reaching such a conclusion let us examine our efforts at 
exploration. It may well be that failure is the result of our 
method and not indicative of the impracticability of explora- 
tion itself. 


The school presents to its pupils two major areas of ac- 
tivity by means of which each may explore his own interests, 
aptitudes and capacities; the communal life of the school it- 
self, and the curriculum. I shall not discuss the life of the 

















PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 63 


school though its potentialities for disclosing to pupils their 
powers and limitations are very great—much greater than 
have been realized in practice. But the ordering of school life 
is largely in the hands of this group represented here. Success 
or failure will be determined by the vision and skill of the ad-. 
ministrator. Not so with the curriculum. I shall, therefore, 
limit my discussion to what seem to me causes for our failure 
to eliminate which we shall have to call to our assistance those 
interested in achieving other functions of secondary educa- 
tion. 


Courses of study have not been organized in such a way 
as to yield exploratory data concerning either the contribution 
of the subject to the “social heritage” or the abilities and ca- 
pacities of pupils themselves. Let us take language as an illus- 
tration. An exploratory course in language commonly called 
for nine weeks study of each of four languages. The pupil was 
expected to acquire a vocabulary, glimpse something of the 
structure of the language, learn some facts concerning the life 
and contribution to civilization of the people using the lan- 
guage and on the basis of this information to choose the lan- 
guage he wished to study further. Such a procedure was predi- 
cated on the assumption that all pupils can and should study 
a foreign language with profit to themselves and to society 
and that the important question is which language? If, on the 
other hand, the function of the school is to enable each pupil 
to explore his own interests, aptitudes, and capacities with 
courses of study as means to this end it matters little which 
language the pupil chooses for his initial experience in lan- 
guage study so long as he (1) discovers the technique of work 
required for successful language study (2) estimates fairly his 
own abilities with respect to language study (3) and knows 
with certainty the place which language study holds in his 
further pursuit of the “Major fields of our racial heritage of 
experience and culture.” 


Whether the school has offered courses in general lan-, 
gauge or courses in Latin or French for exploratory pur- 
poses the method has been the same. Information and not ex- 
ploration has been the goal, with the result that neither the 
pupil nor the school has acquired any dependable knowledge 
concerning the pupil’s interests, aptitudes, and capacities, 
with respect to this major division of the curriculum. What 

















64 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


has been said of language may be said with equal truth about 
each of the major fields in which exploratory courses have 
been offered. Mathematics courses have dished out bits of 
geometry, of trigonometry, and of algebra. General science 
offers a unit of astronomy, another of geology, still another of 
chemistry, and of physics. The emphasis quite generally has 
been placed upon the acquisition of information with the ex- 
pectation, when the exploratory function has been recognized 
at all, that the pupil would become so fascinated by the in- 
formation itself that he would want more of it. Before we 
can determine the practicability of the exploratory function 
of the junior high school those competent in subject matter 
must organize for use in the junior high school courses of 
study designed to yield exploratory data. 


“Every pupil is interested in finding a place in the world 
where he can use his energy and talents with profit to society 
and to himself.” Before he can find his place however he must 
know something of the quest which has lured man since the 
dawn of civilization—must see all subject matter as a revela- 
tion of varying aspects of that quest—must view his own pos- 
sible contribution as a part of the total whole. Courses of 
study must be written which will make possible this broad 
view of subjects. Units of work that have the greatest ex- 
ploratory potentiality must be selected by men that have 
thought through the revelation which a mastery of the unit 
can make to the pupil—a revelation both of the subject matter 
itself and of the pupil’s own interest, aptitudes and capacities. 
Here and there we find materials that give promise of such 
results. The unit on measurement as a function of mathe- 
matics published by the World Book Company—the survey of 
history entitled ‘“Man’s Achievement to the Age of Steam” 
seems to me herald a new treatment of material valuable for 
realizing this function in the junior high school. 


If our purpose is really exploration, when our materials 
and our methods have been directed toward a realization of 
this function, we shall still have the problem of determining 
what such study reveals, and how to make the best possible use 
of the revelation. Just as we have turned to those interested 
in Function III for writing courses that have exploratory 
value, we must now turn to those interested in Function VII 
for techniques that will enable us to conserve and to use the 














65 





PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


results of exploration in directing the future course of the 
individual. Some of the failure in our attempts at explora- 
tion is undoubtedly due to the inability of the school to make 
clear to parents and to pupils, themselves, the implications 
for further education of such exploration as they have made. 
So imbued is our society with the idea of equality that we fail 
to make clear the relationship between cause and effect even 
in situations where the implications are unmistakable. One 
very definite part of every exploratory course must be the 
pupil’s analysis of the self which the study has revealed to 
him. I doubt very much that we shall ever be able to reach 
the goal set forth by the committee. When “the school can 
explore to the satisfaction of the pupil, the parents and the 
school, what each can do and what he cannot do”—but cer- 
tainly we can do a better job than we are now doing. 


The success of exploration depends quite as much upon 
proper recording and interpretation of date as upon selection 
of subject matter itself. Exploration and guidance are twin 
functions that cannot be assigned to two distinct departments 
as is now attempted in practice. The present practice of hav- 
ing courses of study written by one group of people, admin- 
istered by another, supervised by another, taught by another, 
evaluated by another, and guidance based upon the outcome 
of all of these activities—administered, if at all, by still an- 
other group can never result in a program of education that 
will enable each pupil to find his niche in the world. Schools 
are suffering from over specialization of function. For this 
reason, I cannot agree with the committee that the small 
junior high school suffers a handicap in performing its func- 
tions of exploration. Pupils of a small school have a much 
better chance of “trying themselves out” in a variety of life 
situations than have the pupils of a large institution. They 
have a much better chance to achieve that sense of belonging, 
that sense of participation in a worthwhile enterprise than 
have the pupils in a large school. Nor need the revelation of 
the nfajor fields of our social heritage be neglected. Any 
teacher competent to direct the educational activity of boys 
and girls can easily make himself competent in two or more 
fields of related learning. The major problem, as the com- 
mittee points out, is in the training and selection of teachers 
to whom subject matter is both a means and an end. 


























66 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Of course large city school systems cannot return to the 
small school as a unit. They can however, create small schools 
within the large school, assign any group of pupils at any 
given level to a small group of teachers responsible for their 
educational program, their guidance, and their activities ; keep 
this organization intact for at least a year, develop a program 
of teacher study and activity that will yield to the school and 
to each pupil the maximum of integration in thought and ac- 
tivity ; make each pupil’s experience a matter of record to be 
passed on as a basis for planning his next unit of school ex- 
perience. By some such functional departmentalization it 
seems to me we may approximate for our pupils the ideal of 
the school as a laboratory in which each finds himself. 


I would like however to issue a word of caution lest the 
school take too literally the findings of exploration at any one 
stage of the pupil’s growth and development. General educa- 
tional programs can never be set up with the exactness of a 
laboratory study. Too many factors contribute to a pupil’s 
interest at any one time to make interest an infallible index 
to aptitude and capacity. The personality of the teacher, his 
associates, the individual’s own stage of growth all operate to 
create a gap between capacity and performance which the 
school must take into account in deciding what a pupil can 
and cannot do. In fact I am a bit skeptical of any conclusion 
which the school may reach with respect to the limits that 
any given pupil of normal intelligence can or cannot do. 


Exploration—certainly, but the pupil himself—the ex- 
plorer—finding his own interests, discovering his own apti- 
tudes, testing his own capacities, reaching his own conclusions 
as to future activities. It is only as a pupil explores his own 
environment, discovers his own heritage past and present, and 
evolves for himself a program of living that he becomes an 
educated individual ready to take his place in society. To 
facilitate this growth let the school provide a program rich in 
materials that feed interests. Let its courses be taught by 
teachers who have discovered for themselves deep and abiding 
interests. Let there be opportunity for much comradship be- 
tween teachers and pupils that youth may draw upon the ex- 
perience and wisdom of maturity in moments of perplexity 
and hours of need. Let the school provide these settings and 
the pupils themselves will take care of the exploratory func- 


CS i ok me x Ck 


co 





PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 67 


tion of the school, whether it be in enlarging interests and ex- 
tending horizons, in deciding upon subjects for further study 
or in evaluating their own interests, aptitudes, and capacities. 


The Principal of Wichita High School, east of Wichita, 
Kansas, Truman G. Reed, strongly set forth his reply to Miss 


Backus’s paper. 


Mr. H. C. Mills, Assistant Professor of Education of the 
University of Rochester, discussed Function V. 


One of the legitimate and fundamental functions of the 
secondary school calls for the systematization and organiza- 
tion of knowledge. The fundamental problem here is the 
nature of the organization of knowledge which is appropriate 
at the secondary-school level. This is the challenge which is 
submitted to the leaders in secondary education in this country. 

That this function should be brought to the attention of 
this group is justified on two grounds: (1) On the one hand 
there has been a growing dissatisfaction on the part of many 
thoughtful educators with those more traditional secondary- 
school subjects whose organization has been sanctioned by 
the approval of many generations of students and teachers; 
(2) On the other, there is the desire, usually associated with 
the progressive movement in education, to approach the whole 
problem of teaching and learning from the point of view of 
the student and to make what is learned subsidiary to his 
interests and needs—to the confusion of logically organized 
subject matter. Each group has attacked the conventional 
organization of knowledge characteristic of our secondary- 
school courses of study: neither group, however, has denied 
that some system or principle of organization is necessary. 
The problem is, what principles or criteria should determine 
the organization of knowledge on the secondary-school level? 

As pointed out in the report, organization of knowledge 
is necessary if there is to be any appreciation of laws and 
principles, any development of either scientific knowledge or 
the scientific attitude, any capacity to generalize, and any ef- 
ficient application of the knowledge acquired. In short, there 








i 








a Sr ae 





68 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


is little likelihood that without organization there can be any 
genuinely functional knowledge. 

From the purely practical point of view a recognition of 
this fact is important. Whether the pupil is going to college 
as a preparation for professional study, or whether he is tak- 
ing a course designed to supply the specific training necessary 
to fit him to enter a trade, organization of knowledge is a 
practical necessity if the individual is to function optimally in 
his chosen vocation. The systematization may not be of the 
same type on the two levels: nevertheless, unless there is or- 
ganization, the individual’s efforts are bound to be somewhat 
circumscribed, to be less intelligent than they would be had 
he made some acquaintance with general principles and their 
ramifications both generally and within the field of his special 
interest. 

Traditional systems of knowledge as given expression in 
secondary-school curricula have been found definitely unsatis- 
factory. The bases of organization have been such as to make 
them incompatible with the present purposes of the school. In 
many cases the organization may be traced to pure accident 
which through the inertia of tradition has frozen the subject 
into the form which it at present enjoys. The demands of 
preparation, either for college or for vocations, have been re- 
sponsible in some instances for the organization which certain 
subjects have assumed. Another factor which has made for 
the perpetuation of systematizations of knowledge which have 
ceased to be functional has been the belief, only recently dis- 
carded, in faculty psychology and in the correlative theroy of 
transfer of training. The combination of these various fac- 
tors has resulted in the survival of subjects in the curriculum 
which are generally recognized as nonfunctional. 

To be genuinely functional knowledge should be readily 
available, interrelationships should be obvious, relevant data 
and principles should be recognized, and it should be applied. 
To a certain extent the traditionally organized knowledge of 
the secondary school could meet these criteria. While it is true 
that the point of reference was always the subject per se, that 
the logical organization of these subjects tended to exalt or- 
ganization at the expense of content, that authoritarianism 
was rampant, and that logic-tight compartments were all too 


prevalent, many subjects, in the hands of skilled teachers who - 























PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 69 


were fortunate enough to be blessed with intelligent pupils, 
did result in the development of knowledge which was func- 
tional within the field of the subject. The difficulty lay in the 
fact that the knowledge did not function in other fields or in 
the pupil’s post-school experience. This remoteness from real- 
ity, the failure to be useful in life although functional within 
the field in which the knowledge was acquired, suggests that 
the function of systematization cannot stand alone: it needs 
the clarification afforded by other principles which will state 
the end to which knowledge is to be systematized. 


What are the principles on which the new organization of 
materials is to be founded? In his discussion of this function 
Mr. Bacon suggests that “the nature, the needs, and the func- 
tions of society and youth are the most significant and com- 
pelling principles for determining the organization and sys- 
tematization of knowledge.” This is, of course, a very general 
principle and needs further analysis. A much more specific 
criterion is suggested by Mr. Bacon in the following: ‘“Sys- 
tematization is effective only to the degree that it produces 
attitudes, concepts, skills, appreciations, meanings, and from 
the synthesis of all these the ability to generalize as new situ- 
ations appear.” Further criteria might be added: adequate 
systematization should “clarify and extend the possibilities for 
application”; it should make some contribution to the indi- 
vidual’s capacity to reason; it should further the development 
of the scientific attitude; it should make provision for the par- 
ticipation of the pupil in the process of organization and, as 
a result, should have, for him, organic unity. 


It is evident that these criteria imply that the approach 
to the systematization of knowledge is to be through the indi- 
vidual, his interests, aptitudes, and needs, rather than through 
the formal organization of subject matter which has been tra- 
ditional in the secondary school. This, of course, is a some- 
what debatable matter. Each approach has its enthusiastic 
proponents and the issue between the logical and psychological 
organization of subject matter is still a lively one. Although 
the principles listed do suggest that the pupil must be the 
starting point, this does not mean that traditional subject mat- 
ter is of no value and should be completely eliminated from 
consideration, nor that making the pupil’s interests and needs 
the point of departure will solve all problems. There is much 











70 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


of value in the former, values of order and unity which have 
not always been found when the latter approach has been used. 
While the predominant emphasis will perhaps be placed on the 
pupil and his needs in the light of the society of which he will 
eventually form a part, the content and the organization of 
the traditional subject matter fields cannot be entirely neg- 
lected. As Mr. Bacon points out, some synthesis of these two 
positions is necessary—a synthesis which may well be left 
to “competent research and study.” 


Whatever the ultimate synthesis of these two points of 
view may be, when it is remembered that pupils differ tremen- 
dously in their potentialities for learning and that the capacity 
to generalize, to perceive relationships, and to think reflectively 
is definitely conditioned by the individual’s native abilities, 
any organization of knowledge which neglects the individual 
would be defeating its own purpose. Mr. Bacon is perhaps un- 
warrantably pessimistic in this connection when he says: “It 
must be recognized that the so-called natural students are rela- 
tively few: that those who are seeking and able to recognize 
the systematization within knowledge are fewer; and that 
those able to underst4hd and interpret the relationships of the 
various fields of organized learning are even fewer.” Never- 
theless the kind and degree of systematization possible is un- 
ouestionably a function of the pupil’s abilities and interests. 
The secondary school cannot hope to further the systematiza- 
tion of knowledge which is appropriate for its pupils unless 
this is clearly perceived and utilized as an important guiding 
principle. 

Obstacles which stand in the way of the application of 
these principles in organizing the materials of secondary-school 
curricula are numerous and obvious. Until there is some 
agreement as to optimal curriculum organization and a recog- 
nition of the value of each of the current approaches to this 
problem and until there is an adequately trained teaching 
force, progress will be slow and uncertain. Much good may 
result from the use of techniques already available and for 
that reason Mr. Bacon concludes his discussion with a list of 
suggestions which may contribute to making this function 
effective. These are all valuable and their use by the secondary 
school would unquestionably improve the quality of instruction 
and the consequent development of the individual. In time, 








Oo ™M 














PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 71 
perhaps, there may be a more basic approach, the outlines for 
which are implicit in Mr. Bacon’s discussion of this function. 
This approach will involve a more searching analysis of the 
individual, particularly the way he learns, a truer appreciation 
of the role of subject matter, and a keener insight into the 
relationship of the two, particularly as they make for the de- 
velopment of a genuinely democratic society—one in which all 
elements in the education of youth contribute to the creation 
of the scientific point of view, the attitude that organized and 
functional knowledge, complete objectivity, and intelligence 
will help fashion a better world. 


Mr. Francis L. Bacon, Principal of Township High 
School of Evanston, Illinois, closed the discussion. 


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 


Breakfast 


Sixty-seven members went Saturday morning at 7:45 A. 
M. to breakfast in the old French Quarter at the famous 
French restaurant La Louisiane. President Willard N. Van 
Slyck presided. 


The guests of honor were Superintendent A. C. Pratt of 
Portland, Oregon, President of the National Education Asso- 
ciation, and Superintendent A. L. Threlkeld, President of the 
Department of Superintendence. 


FIFTH GENERAL SESSION 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 


The fifth general session of the convention met for the 
business session in Roof Garden of the Jung Hotel. Principal 
K. J. Clark of Murphy High School of Mobile, Alabama, and 
member of the Executive Committee of the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals called the meeting to order at 
9:40 A. M. 











72 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Mr. Roy Breg of 1201 Sixteenth St. N. W., Washington, 
D. C., made a brief announcement in regard to the posts of 
Allied Youth, an organization devoted to educating and direct- 
ing the youth of this country as to the liquor question. 


The National Honor Society ballot was distributed. 


BALLOT 


NATIONAL COUNCIL 
of 
NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY 


(Vote for three) 
Charles F. Allen 
R. L. Butterfield 
S. M. Brame 
Ernest B. Comstock 
H. A. Ferguson 
V. M. Hardin 
A. W. Johnson 
Fannie Lowenstein 
S. E. Nelson 
H. S. Parker 
A. E. Scruggs 
W. L. Spencer 


OOOOOOOOOO000 


Principal Louis E. Plummer of Union High School of Hunt- 
ington Beach, California, presented the following report: 


REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LIQUOR AND TOBACCO 
ADVERTISEMENTS 


Findings 
1. The list of magazines in common use in secondary 
schools that carry liquor or tobacco advertisements is com- 
paratively small. 
2. Both liquor and tobacco advertisements are designed 
to be particularly attractive to youth of high-school and col- 
lege age. 


























PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 73 


3. A large per cent (33) of the magazines carrying ob- 
jectionable advertising are planned for girls and women. 


4. Liquor and tobacco advertisers are particularly at- 
tracted to magazines designed for leisure activities. 


5. Principals are inclined to be sympathetic to elimina- 
tion of the objectionable material. 


6. Teachers are willing to eliminate but regret the loss 
of valuable material. 


Recommendations 


The following recommendations are made as a partial so- 
lution of the problem studied: 


1. Cancel the subscriptions to those magazines which of- 
fend most, particularly if they can be replaced by others that 
do not offend. 


2. Hold offending magazines from free circulation, check- 
ing same out only on request of teacher. 


3. Notify other advertisers in the same magazine of dis- 
continued subscriptions. 


4. Seek the codperation of sympathetic organizations, 
such as parent-teacher and ministerial associations in carrying 
out these recommendations. 


5. Seek codperation of all secondary schools by appealing 
to them through the publications of the Department of Sec- 
ondary-School Principals of the National Education Associa- 
tion. 


It was moved that the report be carried as read, and the 
committee continued. Carried. 


L. W. BROOKS 
A. E. MACQUARRIE 
Louis E. PLUMMER, Chairman 











74 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Mr. James M. Deacon, Principal of Morton Junior High 
School of Lexington, Kentucky, presented the report of the 
Nominating Committee as follows: 


The Nominating Committee wishes to present to the De- 


partment of Secondary-School Principals the following names 
for its consideration in the election of its officers: 


For President: 
Mr. M. G. Jones 


Principal High School 
Huntington Beach, California. 


First Vice President: 


Mr. Paul E. Elicker 
Principal Newton High School 
Newtonville, Massachusetts. 





Second Vice President: 


Mr. H. V. Kepner 
Principal West High School 
Denver, Colorado. 


Member of the Executive Committee: 


Mr. V. M. Hardin 
Principal Reed Junior High School 
Springfield, Missouri. 


J. M. DEACON, 
Chairman Nominating Committee: ' 


On motion, the report of the committee was approved and 
accepted. 


The election of members of the National Council of the 
National Honor Society resulted as follows: Charles F. Allen, 
H. S. Parker, and W. L. Spencer. 


The meeting adjourned. 























75 





PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


PANELS 
At 10 A. M. three groups met for panel discussions. 


Improvement of Instruction—Loggia. Dr. Doak S. Camp- 
bell introduced Professor J. Paul Leonard who presented the 
Possibilities for Improving Instruction Within Subject Fields. 


POSSIBILITIES FOR IMPROVING INSTRUCTION 
IN THE SUBJECT FIELDS 


J. PAUL LEONARD 
Professor of Education, College of William and Mary, 
Williamsburg, Virginia 

The improvement of instruction depends upon the growth 
of the teacher; hence my remarks are suggestions for him. I 
make the following four suggestions for improving the 
teacher and the teaching act: 

First. Keep up with life about you. The average teacher 
knows far more about the past than the present. Nowhere in 
his training has he had even a course on what social or polit- 
ical conditions are like to-day (or even the state of modern 
literature). Furthermore, he couldn’t teach from experience 
units on such things as share-cropping, lower class housing, 
political organization, dissemination of propaganda, or labor 
conditions. The teacher should be a student of human affairs, 
for we can’t trust the thinking of a man in a field in which he 
has had no experience. Membership in an entire community, 
not in a select social area of it, is decidedly advantageous; at 
least some experience with all is essential. The teacher should 
know the homes of his children, the desires and struggles of 
the parents, and he should be able to live with and minister 
to all groups. He must be a citizen with views and tolerance 
and a teacher with understanding and information. The fields 
of social science, natural science, and literature especially re- 
quire a teacher sensitive to modern life. 

Second, Keep up with the changes in your profession. The 
psychology of unified growth and the philosophy that learning 
is an active process are changing the content and procedure 
of the curriculum. The teacher is obligated to understand the 
meaning of these proposals, translate them into his classroom 
experience and become familiar with how others, especially 

















76 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


national commissions and curriculum workers are doing it. 
He must have criteria for choosing from the printed page 
and from the record of pupil experience those aspects of sub- 
ject matter appropriate to the learning under consideration. 


Third, Be an experimentalist. To do this he must first 
find out such things as the growth levels of his children, their 
interests and desires, the equipment of his community for the 
education of children, the causes of individual difficulties, the 
plans of his children and their parents, and the research others 
have made on problems similar to his. He must then be will- 
ing to try out new syntheses of content, the educational forces 
of the community, new arrangement of content (the unit plan 
is particulary helpful here for securing certain values) and 
new methods of drilling, establishing appreciations and of 
thinking. Most of our conventional procedures neglect think- 
ing. We are better supplied with information than with power 
to use it. The fields of science and social studies hold great 
possibilities for practice in the process of thinking. The ex- 
perimentalist then will evaluate his experience to make certain 
he has planned adequately for all desired growth. He knows 
the common subject matter tests won’t measure growth in 
understanding, appreciations, and skills, so he is more coura- 
geous than the Commission on the Social Studies, he seeks to 
devise new instruments to measure such growth. He uses not 
only periodic check ups but continous daily observations. 

Fourth, Be an extrovert. Do things. The whole emphasis 
of modern psychology is upon works. This doctrine implies, 
first, live with people. “Act with others” is better philosophy 
than “know thyself.” The process of analyzing the behavior 
of your friends produces less dividends than having experi- 
ences with them. As a profession educators read too much and 
observe too little. The doctrine implies second, Be unselfish. 
Do it not alone because it is the basis of codperative living, 
but because of what it will do for you in causing you to lose 
yourself in the job of teaching. Seeing worthiness in others 
is an essential of modern education. Modern psychology has 
abundant proof of the necessity of self-sacrifice for self-reali- 
zation. It implies in the third place the establishment of di- 
versified interests. Such interests are not alone a measure of 
the extent and depth of your education, but they are the best 
prophylactic for boredom and introversion. 


; 


























PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 17 


Improvement in the teaching of subjects is in direct pro- 
portion to the improvement of the teacher. 


There followed a presentation of the Social Implication 
for Improving Instruction by Dr. Edgar G. Johnston. 


SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR INSTRUCTION 


Dr. EDGAR G. JOHNSTON 
Principal University High School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 


Social implications cannot be considered in a vacuum. 
They have significance only as they are related to a particular 
society at a particular period. Any meaningful discussion of 
the topic assigned to me must then take its start from a con- 
sideration of the kind of society America provides to-day and 
is likely to provide in the future. At the risk of indulging in 
platitude I wish to stress this point—that we are not prepar- 
ing young people to live in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany or 
Communist Russia, or in the United States in which we grew 
up. We are not even preparing them to live in a United States 
which will remain exactly what it is to-day. To equip young 
people adequately for the world of to-day and of to-morrow 
is the task which the school shares with other agencies, but 
for which it must undertake certain peculiar responsibilities. 

Two characteristics of that contemporary society are 
especially significant for education. One is the dominating 
fact of developing technology and social change, constantly 
increasing in momentum and in the magnitude of the problems 
presented. 

That these problems transcend local or sectional efforts 
for their solution is illustrated by a half dozen headlines 
gleaned from the front page of this morning’s paper—“Five 
States Hit by Dust Storms,” “Broad Farm Tenant Program 
Suggested,” “House Group Considers Supreme Court Plan,” 
“Program for Flood Control Proposed,” “Negotiators Seek 
Agreement on Sit-Down Strike.” Here are problems which, 
starting locally, affect the citizens of every state. Only nation- 
wide planning is adequate for their solution. 

I am sure that it is not necessary to elaborate this point 
which has been voluminously developed in the publications of 














78 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


recent years. The important fact to point out here is that how- 
ever much we may have talked about a changing society, we 
have done amazingly little about it in our schools. In the ver- 
nacular of the high-school youth with whom we are concerned: 
“It’s a changing world, and so what?” 


The other consideration which must govern any attempt 
to adapt instruction more adequately to social needs is the 
American concept of democracy. As conceived in the early 
days of our Republic and cherished by millions of Americans, 
democracy has meant something more than a kind of political 
machinery. It has meant essentially a way of life—one which 
places the common good above sectional or selfishly individual 
interests and which recognizes the inherent right of each citi- 
zen to a chance to develop his qualities to the full. 


We may grant readily that the democratic ideal has been 
imperfectly achieved, that selfish interests have frequently 
influenced government to their ends. Throughout our history 
there has remained this ideal, against which practices could 
be measured and through appeals to which abuses could be 
corrected. With all its faults of omission and commission the 
fact remains that the commitment to a democratic form of 
government has made a tremendous difffference in the op- 
portunities and responsibilities of the average citizen. The 
time has passed when a man could carry on his economic and 
social activities in relative isolation. Modern culture is es- 
sentially and irrevocably codperative. The question is not 
whether we shall work collectively or not; it is, rather, “who 
shall determine the nature and direction of collective activity.” 
The rising tide of dictatorship proposes one answer to this 
question. In Europe whole peoples have been regimented into 
unified and aggressive action under the direction of a dictator 
or a forceful minority group. We in America have chosen an- 
other path—that of free decision by popular will. We must 
recognize that our choice makes far greater demands on the 
intelligence and good will of the average man. The implica- 
tions of this acceptance have been admirably discussed by 
Will French on pages 26 and 27 of the second report of the 
committee on Orientation.* 


*Bulletin 64, Department of Secondary-School Principals. 


























PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 79 


It is against this background of social change and the 
democratic tradition that the responsibilities of the school 
and the implications for instruction must be considered. Many 
considerations suggest themselves. Four seem outstanding 
both for their urgency if schools are to contribute significantly 
to the problems of our day, and because they have been so 
largely neglected. 


Education in the high school must be more realistic. 
Pupils must be led to know at first hand the dynamic civiliza- 
tion of which they are a part. Important at anytime. if schools 
are not to be mere repositories of book-learning, this becomes 
imperative during periods of rapid change. This means that 
the classroom must be in continuous and vital contact with 
the realities of contemporary life. You will remember that 
Henry Adams at the close of his period of formal education 
found himself better equipped for life in the Rome of Julius 
Caesar than in the United States of Theodore Roosevelt. Only 
last December an “ex-teacher” writing in the Forum has this 
to say: “Is there one person in 100,000 who cares whether utor 
takes the ablative or the ablative takes wtor? Do you actually 
know one person who uses cube root or quadratic equations in 
his daily business, or a radio listener who cares two whoops 
what a radio wave or vacuum tube is, or a housewife who is 
solicitous as to whether Alexander conquered Darius or Darius 
conquered Alexander? The answer is no, but we have as- 
sumed that it is yes. The people into whom we have tried to 
ram all this knowledge have no use for it and, therefore, no 
interest in it. This situation obtains as regards about 99 per 
cent of the curriculum.” We are still a long way from stream- 
lined education. 


Many of the most vital instructional materials are not to 
be found between the covers of any textbook. Pupils have 
studied maps of Ancient Greece or of the Napoleonic Wars 
who have never mapped their own communities as a means 
of understanding civic problems. They have studied principles 
of physics and chemical formulae and never visited a modern 
industrial plant to see those principles in operation. They 
have studied facts of history and government, but have had no 
first hand contact with the actual operation of government in 
the tax collector’s office, the traffic court, the school board 
meeting, or the state legislature. It must be emphasized that 











80 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


“excursions” in the educational sense don’t mean pleasure 
trips. As used by some of the more progressive schools they 
are carefully planned features of the curriculum with pupils 
seeking at their sources the data necessary to solve problems 
which are real to the pupils. The illustration of a sociology 
class participating in the work of a social center which M. P. 
Gaffney described in his excellent discussion of Issue III pre- 
sents a splendid example of the functional realism for which 
I am pleading. 


Realism also means bringing the community into the 
school in the use of those environmental agencies which hav’ 
educational significance. The motion picture, the radio, and 
the daily press are important educational instruments which 
have been largely overlooked by formal education. They exert 
a powerful effect on educational outcomes, whether we do any- 
thing about it or not. There is here a challenge to the school 
to use the resources of these powerful, new instruments where 
they are constructive, to participate in their development as 
cultural agencies, and to develop in pupils a sense of discrim- 
ination toward the offerings of radio, press, and screen. 


Young people need to receive increasing opportunities to 
participate in planning, in making decisions and evaluating 
the results of their effort. This demands a shift in the teach- 
er’s role. He becomes a partner in a codperative enterprise 
rather than a dictator who assigns the exercises and knows 
all the answers. There is not time to develop in detail the 
changes which would result from acceptance of this obligation, 
but it is safe to say that it would represent nothing short of a 
revolution in most high schools. In many schools extra-cur- 
riculum activities have served a vital need in giving an outlet 
for pupil initiative and responsibility, and in providing an 
opportunity for pupils to learn tolerance and codperation 
through the give and take of community life. The social de- 
mands which we are considering, however, require something 
much more far-reaching than this. In terms of growing ma- 
turity the pupil should be an active partner in all activities of 
the school. His participation should permeate the schoolroom 
and the laboratory as well as the playground. It should not 
stop there, if education is to be vitally linked with community 
life. His experiences in school should be made vital through 




















PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 81 
application to real community problems. That encouraging 
beginning has been made through the activities of youth or- 
ganizations (including the school) is evident in the recent 
volume, “Youth Serves the Community,” by Paul Hanna. 
What more effective education can there be than active partici- 
pation in service to the community? 


The high school should help pupils develop the ability to 
sift fact from propaganda and to make decisions in the light . 
of evidence. Modern invention has placed tremendous power 
in the hands of those who control the instruments of public 
opinion. We cannot turn the radio dial or pick up a newspaper 
without exposing ourselves to the special pleading of an in- 
terested individual or group. This presents a serious problem 
in a democracy. 


The path of censorship is fraught with dangers as great 
as those it seeks to control. The only solution consistent with 
democratic theory is that based on providing the average 
citizen with the means of intelligent choice. The high school 
has an important role to play. Pupils should be led to be in- 
telligently critical of statements presented for their approval. 
How valid are the claims for an advertised product? What are 
the arguments presented by spokesmen of each side in a labor 
dispute? What interests does a given newspaper, organization, 
or broadcaster represent? The school must be free to consider 
similar questions in the light of public interest alone. It has 
an obligation to prepare its pupils to protect themselves from 
misleading advertising and from the propaganda of pressure 
groups. 


Instruction must help to develop a sense of social respon- 
sibility and a loyalty to the democratic ideal. It is here that 
education conceived as acquisition of facts breaks down. In 
the field of social relationship, we are interested not only in 
what an individual knows but in what he does and in his at- 
titude toward his partners in the social enterprise. No longer 
is it a sufficient qualification of the good citizen to “mind his 
own business.” His business is inevitably linked with yours 
and mine. The field of rugged individualism is narrowed with 
each new invention and each advance in social thinking. In a 
simpler era the young blood might come home from a convivial 
evening in high spirits with the lines wrapped around the whip 














82 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


and no one much the worse for his escapade. Turn him loose 
on a modern highway in a high powered car and he becomes a 
social menace. We may apply this analogy to every phase of 
our complicated social, economic, and political life. Limitation 
of freedom is the price we pay for modern civilization. In the 
words of C. A. Dykstra, the efficient and public spirited city 
manager of Cincinnati, “We must ask our schools to produce 
adults with self control, self discipline, and the ability to put 
themselves in the other fellow’s place.” 


How develop this social sense? Certainly the answer is 
not to be found in moralizing—in the handing out of ready 
made precepts. The solution is not simple but unquestionably 
some schools are making marked progress in developing pupils 
who are socially sensitive and intelligently responsible. The 
school will make its chief contribution as it provides situations 
in which pupils are faced with problems involving social con- 
sequences and where the issue is put squarely up to them. The 
pupils imagination—and the teachers—must be quickened 
to think through solutions in terms of consequences to the 
individual and to the group. The school environment is rich 
in such inherent situations. The skillful teacher will be alert 
to see and use them. 


The European dictatorships have captured the imagina- 
tion of youth with high devotion and loyalty to a leader, a 
cause, an ideal. All the glamor of pageantry and the psychol- 
ogy of mass action have been used to hypnotize the populace 
into unswerving loyalty to the national ideal. We distrust the 
aims and the methods of the dictators but we can not afford 
to be less intelligent than they. It is our task as teachers to 
capture the loyalty and idealism of American youth for the 
American ideal—to build in them a sense of dignity, high ad- 
venture and stirring drama in the struggle for democracy. 
Such a concept presents a tremendous challenge to the school 
but we can accept no less if instruction is to play its part in 
preserving the values we cherish for the America of today and 
tomorrow. 

















PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 83 

Mr. Paul R. Pierce, Supervisor of Secondary Education 
of the City of Chicago gave his paper, entitled, Administra- 
tive Provision for Effective Improvement of Instruction. 


ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISION FOR EFFECTIVE 
IMPROVEMENT OF INSTRUCTION 


PAUL R. PIERCE 
Principal Wells High School, Chicago, II. 


In meetings of this type it is usually the practice, owing 
to limitations of time, to emphasize the general rather than the 
concrete in educational procedures. In the short time I am 
allotted it will not be possible to discuss all of the provisions 
which the high-school principal should make in initiating and 
carrying out an effective program for the improvement of in- 
struction. However, six provisions may be regarded as a spe- 
cial significance. These will be discussed with the inclusion of 
such concrete examples as time permits. 


I. Showing Teachers Why Basic Principles Should Determine 
Instructional Procedures and How to Apply Them. 


The use of principles provides principal and teachers with 
sound, impersonal, and common grounds for the determination 
of instructional procedures. Principles give balance and con- 
tinuity to the educational program. Without adherence to 
them a fragmentary program or merely a series of innovating 
practices having little permanence is likely to develop. They 
prevent rule-of-thumb procedures and consequent waste of 
time and effort. Principles also aid in integrating various ele- 
ments of the school program, such as the extra-curriculum and 
classroom work. It is not easy for the principal to show teach- 
ers how to put principles into practice, but it is necessary if a 
program having permanence and effectiveness is to be devel- 
oped. 


IJ. Helping Teachers. First, with a concrete and practical as- 
pect of their work—materials of instruction. 


There are many types of approach which the principal 
may use in attacking the problem of improvement of instruc- 
tion, notably, study of pupil interests, testing pupil abilities, 
and initiating new techniques of teaching. However, the most 











84 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


effective approach consists in all probability in assisting the 
teacher to improve the materials of instruction. This proce- 
dure effectively orients a principal with respect to the teach- 
ers’ everyday problems and results in actual aid for the teach- 
ers. When the principal, for example, assists the teacher in 
organizing new units of learning, both begin to discover pupil 
needs, such as remedial instruction in reading and special em- 
phasis on technical vocabularies, and the like. Dealing with 
the materials of instruction usually results in interesting the 
teacher in improved methods of presenting the materials and 
developing effective learning situations for the pupils. 


III. Using Basic Social Functions or Centers of Interest, to 
Eliminate Over-Emphasis on Formalized Subject Matter. 


Centers of interest challenge teachers to justify study of 
their subject fields from the point of view of the pupils’ every- 
day-living needs. They break down subject-matter boundaries 
and turn teachers toward the community as a source of in- 
structional materials; moreover, they act as an effective vehicle 
in integrating learning activities. 


IV. Providing Teacher Participation in a Program for Improv- 
ing Instruction: 


The principal with a committee of key teachers should pro- 
vide the basic outlines for the school’s program in the form of 
concise unit leads. The subdivisions or elements of these leads 
provide a measurable degree of integration and prevent over- 
lapping of classroom work. : Permitting teachers and pupils to 
work together in constructing the units from the leads pro- 
vided gives the teacher desired freedom and pupils ample op- 
portunity for initiative in developing the materials of instruc- 
tion. Often the principal can assist teachers and pupils in the 
organization of units by providing outline forms for the pur- 


pose. 


V. Providing a Laboratory Atmosphere to Stimulate Improve- 
ment of Instruction: 

The principal should provide a laboratory atmosphere 
throughout the school by helping teachers to organize room 
libraries developing techniques for studying the community 
and assisting pupils and teachers to organize and duplicate for 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 85 





classroom use the materials brought in by pupils. This per- 
mits classroom work to proceed in a true laboratory atmos- 
phere. 


VI. Evaluating the Instruction Systematically in the Light of 
Educational Principles: 


It is essential that teachers be trained to gauge the out- 
comes of new instructional procedures in the light of sound 
educational principles rather than outworn conventional meth- 
ods. This is especially essential with respect to the general 
education aspects of the school program. It will be found help- 
ful for the teacher aided by the pupils to keep a careful clin- 
ical record of learning activities occurring under new proce- 
dures in addition to the results of objective tests covering skill 
and information aspects of the work. Records may at first be 
kept of the effect of new procedures on pupil interest, attend- 
ance, and acceptance of responsibility, and the interest of par- 
ents in the school’s work. An important advance will have 
been made when pupils begin to take an active interest in and 
keep accurate records of the results of their individual activi- 
ties. 


PANEL, SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY 
RELATIONSHIP 


In the Roof Garden Professor George C. Galphin at 10 
A. M. introduced the members of the Panel and discussion fol- 
lowed. 


MEETING OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF 
THE NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY 


THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1937 


The National Council met at Jung Hotel at 10 A. M. Pres- 
ent: Members Allen, Brooks, Elicker, Kepner, MacQuarrie, Mc- 
Daniel, Plummer, and Church. 

The terms of the following members of National Council 
expire: Allen, McKown, Roemer. 

The nominations of the list below were approved on mo- 
tion of Member Kepner and second of Member Plummer.: 





: 
| 
| 
| 














86 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Charles F. Allen, Supervisor of Secondary Education, Little 
Rock, Arkansas; R. L. Butterfield, Principal Franklin High 
School, Rochester, New York; S. M. Brame, Principal Bolton 
High School, Alexandria, Louisiana; Ernest B. Comstock, 
Principal North Dallas High School, Dallas, Texas; Harold A. 
Ferguson, Principal Senior High School, Montclair, New Jer- 
sey; Virgil M. Hardin, Principal Reed Junior High School, 
Springfield, Missouri; A. W. Johnson, Principal Junior High 
School, Minot, North Dakota; Fannie H. Lowenstein, Princi- 
pal Southern Junior High School, Louisville, Kentucky; S. E. 
Nelson, Principal Central High School, Chattanooga, Tennes- 
see; H. S. Parker, Principal High School, Corvallis, Oregon; 
O. E. Scruggs, Principal High School, Biloxi, Mississippi; and 
W. L. Spencer, State Director of Secondary Education, Mont- 
gomery, Alabama. 

Proposals for a Scholarship Revolving Loan Fund for 
members of chapters of the National Honor Society were con- 
sidered at great length and on motion of Member Brooks with 
second of Member Kepner it was recommended to the Execu- 
tive Committee and to the Finance Committee that these pro- 
posals (with modifications as the needs require) be adopted 
and plans be made to carry them to maturity. Carried. 


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1937 


The National Council met in the Jung Hotel at 10:15 P. M. 
Present: Members Allen, Brooks, Kepner, McDaniel, and 


Church. 
On motion Member McDaniel was elected president of the 


National Honor Society. 
On motion of Member Kepner, second of Member Brooks 


the Council adjourned. 


SIXTH GENERAL SESSION 


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 


Principal John E. Wellwood of Central High School opened 
the Saturday afternoon session at 1:05 P. M. by introducing 
the chairman, Thomas H. Briggs, of the Committee on Orien- 


tation. 


a ee ee ee 


» > 


s 0g 











87 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Dean Earl Hudelson of the University of West Virginia 
read his criticism of Function VI. 


Principal Oliver R. Floyd, University High School of the 
University of Minnesota, read his discussion of Function VII. 


Professor C. W. Knudsen of Harvard University presented 
his discussion of Function VIII. 


The last part of the statement of Function VIII implies, 
in terms of pupil growth, a remote goal of achievement. This 
goal is described in terms of adult activities. Moreover, these 
adult activities are characterized as the “appropriate” and 
“desirable” activities of an educated person. The bearings of 
this function should be considered in the light of Function X 
in which it is suggested that only a part of the pupils in the 
secondary school are capable of attaining the status of an edu- 
cated person. 


The report does not state explicitly the meaning the Com- 
mittee attaches to the expression, “an educated person.” Its 
reference to the secondary school as terminal in the formal edu- 
cation of many persons indicates that the kind of person re- 
ferred to as “educated” is typical of a large number of indi- 
viduals whose formal education ends with graduation from 
high school. This typical person, it is assumed, will continue 
to grow intellectually. If this assumption is well founded, the 
elementary research activities in which such an individual en- 
gages will exhibit progressive development. Reliable studies 
to indicate the variety and kind of elementary research prin- 
ciples used by a typical high-school graduate are not available. 
Neither are studies available to indicate the rate at which a 
typical high-school graduate develops the abilities to use ele- 
mentary research principles. Therefore, we can only crudely 
estimate the nature and variety of such principles and the rate 
at which they develop. 


Nothing is more evident than the fact that the high-school 
graduate cannot take with him many of the necessary appur- 
tenances of the elementary researcher when he leaves high 
school. This is particularly true with respect to laboratory ap- 














88 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


paratus and library reference materials. He will not take with — 


him the apparatus and materials necessary for obtaining’ the 
facts that he should have in making intelligent purchases of 
the goods of every-day consumption, for example, even though 
he knows how to use such materials and apparatus. Actually, 
he is not in a position to test the milk he uses for either butter 
fat or bacteria. He cannot analyze the bread he eats. He can- 
not test the quality of his canned foods intelligently. He can- 
not test his tobacco for nicotine or arsenic, or test his liquor 
for the presence of materials more poisonous than alcohol. He 
may choose his milk because it comes from contented cows, 
his bread because it has the endorsement of an advertising 
agency, his canned foods because they are sold by his nearest 
grocer, and his tobacco and liquor because they are endorsed 
by outstanding representatives of our First Families. He will 
not make his choices in these ways, however, if he applies an 
elementary research principle that should be used in the ab- 
sence of ways to determine directly all pertinent facts for 
oneself. This elementary principle has to do with the appro- 
priation of facts from unbiased sources. If his high-school ex- 
perience has acquainted him with the practical importance of 
this elementary principle, he will be likely to seek more relia- 
ble evidences than those mentioned above, and furthermore, as 
a matter of good citizenship, he will become increasingly active 
in trying to bring about the creation of agencies by which 
needed but unavailable data may be supplied to consumers. 


The series of consumers’ problems to which the above ele- 
mentary research principle applies is but a part of the picture, 
however. In general it is true that each consumer is also a 
producer. Application of the research principle just mentioned 
creates at the same time a whole series of problems relating 
to production. These problems involve more than a concilia- 
tion of differences in points of view between two groups. They 
involve a resolution of conflicts in individual thinking. To date 
we have been much more concerned with helping pupils to dis- 
cover problems than we have with ways of helping them to 
solve these problems. Perhaps one reason for our attitude in 
this instance is that we do not know much about methods of 
solving these problems ourselves. Consider, for example, one 
problem created when we have succeeded in getting pupils to 
apply in life after high-school graduation the elementary re- 





SS. | —— oe 


Thr as ana 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 89 
search principle described above. It must be evident that if we 
succeed in this undertaking we shall at the same time have de- 
stroyed a number of the important bases of taxation from 
which comes a large part of the funds with which to operate 
schools. What will take the place of the things destroyed? 
Where may those thrown out of employment be re-employed? 
Probably we have not given very serious consideration to the 
implications of some of our theories. The criticism of the Com- 
mittee with respect to the divorcement of thought from action 
applies fully as well to those of us who work in the secondary 
field as it does to the pupils we try to teach. 


The problems that grow out of the application of an ele- 
mentary research principle relating to the use of data from 
reliable sources in consumers’ problems plunge us immedi- 
ately into questions about social values. The nature of the 
process by which human beings arrive at decisions respecting 
social values is often only remotely related to rational proc- 
esses. Intelligent definition of values is a process in which a 
great many persons should participate. If the high-school 
graduate is to participate intelligently in this codperative 
process, he must have access to a great many facts, and he 
must also have access to critical interpretations of facts that 
have a bearing on the determination of social values. He must 
therefore be a discriminative reader. Under the economic con- 
ditions that surround many high-school graduates, it will not 
be possible for them to purchase good books, reports, and peri- 
odicals in any considerable number. What services are avail- 
able to these individuals who, because they must purchase 
sparingly, should choose what they purchase with great care? 
The services of public libraries are available in many places, 
and pupils have an opportunity in the high school to become 
acquainted with the nature of these services. They are as yet 
too infrequently used. Acquaintance with and use of such 
services are characteristics of another elementary research 
principle appropriate for use by the typical high-school gradu- 
ate. The recent report of the National Survey of the Education 
of Teachers included a study of the reading interests of teach- 
ers themselves. The findings give us little cause for rejoicing, 
but they do indicate something’ of the distance we have yet to 
go if we succeed in helping pupils to acquire facility in use of 
an important elementary principle of research. 














90 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


The function as stated suggests three ways of getting 
pupils to acquire such elementary research principles as are 
implied in the utilization of sources of dependable data, and 
the utilization of references to good discussions relating to so- 
cial values. The methods suggested are: (1) to demand inde- 
pendent thought; (2) to require the use of elementary re- 
search principles in school; and (3) to require self-directed 
practice. It is much more difficult to meet these requirements 
with respect to questions about social values than it is to meet 
them with respect to scientific questions. The nature of this 
difficulty becomes all the more apparent in the light of a trend 
which indicates that the attention to social attiudes is increas- 
ing and the attention of science is decreasing. It is not possible 
to do independent thinking about social questions without run- 
ning immediately into matters of controversy. During periods 
of marked social unrest, many conflicting interests are active 
in the process of re-defining social values and social goals. 
These periods are accompanied by confusion in school systems 
with respect to goals, to teaching practices, and to choice of 
materials. The requirement of independent thinking in the 
secondary school appears to represent a goal that can be at- 
tained only partially, particularly with respect to thinking 
about social values. 


It should be pointed out that the function as stated quali- 
fies the requirement of independent thought with the phrase, 
“as far as possible.” Just how far is this? The extent to 
which a secondary school may encourage independent thought 
will be conditioned by a number of practical considerations. 
First among these may be mentioned the type of community in 
which the school exists—whether it is a community torn by 
disputes among warring factions, or one that welcomes the dis- 
cussion of controversial questions. If it is of the latter type, 
it will not fear to have its secondary-school pupils exposed to 
controversy. Another practical consideration relates to the 
type of teacher employed. If the teacher delights in the mar- 
tyrdom that inevitably follows blatant announcement of one’s 
position as a self-chosen apostle of the New Social Order, he 
will encourage independent thinking far less than if he belongs 
to that larger group of teachers who calmly and dispassion- 
ately present the facts and evidence on controversial issues, 
trying all the while to get pupils to see the desirability of set- 




















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 91 


tling such issues on the basis of reason rather than on the use 
of force and passion. Still another consideration relates to the 
manner in which a school manages its public relationships— 
whether it tries to win public support for its program by estab- 
lishing contacts with every decent element in a community, or 
whether it assumes an attitude of detachment from the com- 
munity. 


With respect to the limitation that Function X seems to 
place on a realization of Function VIII, two observations may 
be in order. First, if the kind of curriculum which this report 
envisions ever becomes a reality, it is not unlikely that the per- 
centage of pupils who can profit by high-school experience will 
be materially increased. It appears probable that many of the 
failures at the present time are partly traceable to a lack of 
relationship between the needs of secondary-school pupils and 
the kind of experiences they are required to undergo, rather 
than to a lack of innate capacity. Second, curriculum changes 
of the kind proposed in the present report are likely to be at- 
tended by a revision of our definition of an educated person so 
as to allow for inclusion within that definition of persons other 
than those who labor in the cloistered atmosphere of institu- 
tions of higher learning. This revision will require a catho- 
licity of viewpoint with respect to education that is markedly 
absent in some quarters. 


Function VIII is highly important in helping to define the 
goals of the secondary school. If succeeding years witness a 
whole-hearted attempt to translate this function into practice, 
the value of the secondary school for those whose formal edu- 
cation ends with high-school graduation will be greatly en- 
hanced. It will follow as a matter of course that the social 
functions of the American secondary school will then represent 
something cther than pious hopes. 


Assistant Superintendent of Schools Lloyd N. Morrissett 
of Yonkers, New York, in the absence of Principal James E. 
Blue, Rockford, Illinois, read Mr. Blue’s paper on Function IX. 


May we share with Dr. Judd his feeling of pride in the 
cosmopolitan curriculum and the inclusive population of our 
secondary schools. May we also recognize with him our duty 

















92 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


to perfect the type of secondary education which we now have. 
Our heritage in secondary education is one worthy of preserv- 
ing and perfecting. This is the one principle which the com- 
mittee has adhered to in the formulation of Function IX, the 
same as other Functions. 

The statement of Function IX presents the problem of 
beginning and gradually increasing differentiated education on 
the evidence of capacities, aptitudes, and interests demon- 
strated in earlier years and providing previous to and along 
with differentiation as balanced and extended a general edu- 
cation as is possible and profitable. 

In the introductory paragraph the place of general edu- 
cation is clearly recognized. 

“The first concern of the school is to help pupils un- 
derstand their cultural heritage and participate success- 
fully in the common activities of life. Schools therefore 
devote a large share of their efforts to providing a ‘gen- 
eral’ education for all. Even in secondary education, as 
distinguished from elementary education, there is a strong 
tendency to emphasize the universal rather than the spe- 
cialized aspects of formal training. This tendency is in- 
creasing with the years.” 


Two principal reasons are assigned for the current trend 
toward a more “general” education on the secondary level. 
First, modern life demands a higher degree of competence in 
a wider variety of activities. Second, since pupils are with- 
held from gainful employment longer, we have more time to 
devote to the general aims of education, and greater oppor- 
tunity to develop essential fundamental] skills. 

These reasons were recognized in 1918 in the “Cardinal 
Principles of Secondary Education.” 

“The school is the one agency that may be controlled defin- 
itely and consciously by our democracy for the purpose of 
unifying its people. In this process the secondary school must 
play an important part because the elementary school with its 
immature pupils cannot alone develop the common knowledge, 
common ideals, and common interests essential to American 


1Functions of Secondary Education. Report of the Committee on 
Issues in Secondary Education, Bulletin of Department of Secondary 
Education, N.E.A. No. 64, January, 1937, p. 225. 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 93 


democracy.”? The increased demands of modern life upon the 
individual in the last twenty years have accentuated rather 
than diminished the need for general education. This need is 
clearly recognized by the committee in their development of 
Function I as outlined in the following statement: “To the 
secondary school period falls the obligation of continuing 
social integration on an increasingly social level until the 
desired knowledge, appreciations, ideals, and practices are 
firmly fixed, accepted, and appreciated because seen and un- 
derstood as important in continuing the processes of Ameri- 
can life.’’ 

In interpreting the nature of integration essential in 
“general” educational program of the secondary schools, the 
committee includes the following: a common acceptance and 
understanding of the scientific point of view; a social outlook 
colored by clearly understood democratic ideals; a standard 
speech, capable of expressing ideas and feelings as well as 
essential information; adult reading interests; respect for the 
arts and some understanding and appreciation of them; a 
deeper, more scientific understanding of the conditions of 
good health; a “world picture” based upon intimate knowledge 
and infused with social purposes. 

In addition to the essential characteristics of the extended 
“general” educational program outlined above, we must also 
include the improvement of certain fundamental skills. Among 
these skills are the following: greater facility in the use of our 
common language, improvement in rate and comprehension 
in reading, accuracy in the use of numbers, correct spelling, 
and a higher standard of penmanship. These skills although 
developed to a certain standard in the elementary school de- 
mand further improvement on the secondary level. With the 
reduction of the elementary school from an eight to a six year 
program this need is increased rather than diminished. 


Accepting the reasons outlined for the current trend to- 
ward a more “general” education in the secondary schools, 
modern life demands and society provides the time for the 
development of a higher degree of competence in a wide 
variety of activities, the secondary schools must accept and 


2Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, U. S. Bureau of Edu- 


cation Bulletin, November, 1918. 
3Functions of Secondary Education, p. 31. 














94 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


adopt an educational program based upon the general prin- 
ciples outlined above or develop as good or better principles 


for their guidance. 

However, the statement of reasons and the enumeration 
of principles are not enough. It remains for the fusionists or 
subject specialists to collect, evaluate, and select the content, 
to outline the teaching activities, and to determine the con- 
tinuity and sequence necessary for the continuous growth and 
achievement of secondary pupils. 

This problem the committee has left to future committees, 
accrediting agencies, state departments of education, and in- 
dividual secondary schools for a satisfactory solution. For 
our broad general principles the committee has provided a 
guide. For our patterns we must determine the needs of our 
pupils, and select our subject content and teaching procedures 
on the basis of the general principles presented by the com- 


mittee. 

The arguments outlined for providing previous to and 
along with differentiation as balanced and extended a general 
education as is possible and profitable are equally valid and con- 
clusive for beginning and gradually increasing differentiated 
education on the basis of capacities, aptitudes, and interests 
demonstrated in earlier years. Modern life does demand and 
society does provide the time for a gradual increase in dif- 
ferentiated educational activities on the secondary level. 


Even in the general educational program, differentiated 
materials and methods are used in order to approximate the 
same outcome. We have in our secondary schools pupils of 
varying degrees of mental and vocational maturity. Some who 
are mentally and vocationally immature will continue until 
graduation, but will not desire to enter the specialized fields. 
Others, keen and alert mentally, will find the whole realm of 
human experienee fascinating and stimulating. For the im- 
mature as well as the more mature, general education should 
provide more than the bare necessities essential to social unity 
and coherence. In the language of the committee, “Let us 
open for these minds the rich storehouses of the past and the 
present and invite them to walk with us as far as they can 
or will and help themselves generously. From among these 
will come some of our leaders. For these, general education 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 95 


will go far beyond those constants in the curriculum which 
defines only that general education which is needed as the 
equipment of every member of the whole citizen group. Such 
education may give a broader culture, a wider horizon, and a 
deeper interest in the affairs of men.’””* 

In addition, it is highly important that the secondary 
school help young people to understand the essential physical 
facts and principles underlying invention and production in all 
fields. The rapid increase in the number of mechanical inven- 
tions and our dependence upon the use of these inventions in- 
creases the necessity of a better understanding of physical 
facts. This duty lies clearly beyond the realm of the elemen- 
tary school. 

Differentiation, as an expression of individualism, is 
limited to the development of individuals more capable of liv- 
ing together successfully because special “interests, aptitudes, 
and capacities” have been ministered to. The committee holds 
that to-day’s great need in education is to emphasize common 
heritage, common understandings, and common problems, and 
that even specialized education must have in the foreground 
of its development continually the need of more thinking to- 


gether. 

The committee very properly points out that possibly we 
are changing from individualism to collectivism a bit too 
rapidly. However, they have not set any standards by which 
we may be able to correct the deficiencies of collectivism. We 
all admit that individualism had its weaknesses. We tried in- 
dividualism long enough to understand it and correct some of 
its deficiencies. In swinging from a program of individualism 
in the directon of broader assumption of community respon- 
sibility on the part of all governmental units, should we study 
past experience and attempt to find some basis by which we 
may help the pupils to judge the new reforms, and to avoid 
some of the pitfalls that the new program may bring? 


The following reasons are advanced for differentiation in 
the secondary educational program. 


First, evidences of differences in capacities, aptitudes, 
and interests especially pronounced during the adolescent 


*Functions of Secondary Education, page 235. 














96 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


period necessitate some degree of differentiation in content 
and teaching methods if we expect similar educational out- 
comes. Some pupils face the problem of an early selection of 
a vocation. Others express a distinct dissatisfaction with the 
more academic side of school work. The early desire to engage 
in remunerative employment is also another factor which 
causes pupils either to leave school at an early age or to be- 
come dissatisfied with their work. To meet these needs neces- 
sitates setting up training program providing opportunity 
for vocational exploration under the observation and guidance 
of trained leadership. 

Vocational interests that look toward preparation for col- 
lege also necessitate differentiation. Since colleges differ in 
requirements for admission, it is necessary that the school 
assist the boy or girl in preparing for the college which he or 
she elects. 

Interest in the arts, in science, in other subject fields, or 
in subject areas of those fields, may justify providing oppor- 
tunity for the pupil to do some specific or specialized work. 
Quite naturally there are limits on this provision: the pupil’s 
own ability in the field, and the ability of the school to provide 
the training and at the same time respect the rights of other 
pupils. 

Second, the fact that the secondary school is the terminal 
educational institution for a large percentage of pupils en- 
rolled makes necessary provision for specialization of per- 
sonal talents in the beginning stages of some vocational field. 
Any survey of the types of high schools found in the Amer- 
ican cities to-day shows a tendency to set up secondary schools 
with special functions. Comprehensive, academic, agricultural, 
commercial, technical, and trade high schools are found scat- 
tered throughout the country. It is easy to see that the aca- 
demic high school may lose sight of vocational needs of boys 
and girls, while the specialized high school may neglect the 
development of the general educational program. In the spe- 
cialized school the acquisition of certain vocational skills is 
emphasized. These schools undoubtedly have ministered to a 
very definite need of boys and girls. 

The Committee comments as follows: “If the great pur- 
pose of this specialized education is to enable boys and girls 





ff > ee a 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 97 
in such schools ultimately to take their places in a normal 
coéperating society, then the business of such schools is large- 
ly correction of attitude and understanding in order that, 
after a shorter or longer period, the children may return to a 
normal school environment with reasonable hope of making 
satisfactory adjustment there. The tendency of such schools, 
however, has been to remove children from their normal school 
environment permanently and become an end _ institution, 
graduating such children or placing them on jobs of one sort 
or another. This tendency is one that administrators must 
watch and check.””® 


It is quite apparent that some pupils may desire to enter 
special fields as soon as their interests and the pressure of 
their parents, economic necessity, or the influence of friends 
begins to be felt. These pupils may attempt to specialize be- 
fore receiving foundation or background enough to go further 
than a few steps in the chosen field. Quick access to a small 
salary may blind the pupil to all other possibilities. The pupil 
may enter the specialized work without any knowledge of his 
social need for a further general education. This is the place 
where there is a definite need for the guidance activities of the 
school. 


The beginning and the extent of the differentiated pro- 
gram will be determined by many factors: the size of the 
school, the financial resources of the district; and the con- 
fidence of the citizens of the district in the secondary educa- 
tional program. Possibly even greater than these is the social 
vision of the educational leaders who are responsible for the 
school. Powerful business and industrial groups may seek to 
foster commerce or trade education while labor groups will 
strive just as strongly to control the supply of labor. 


In the realization of improvement in content and teach- 
ing methods, the school will have need for teachers who have 
much broader training. In this connection it will probably be 
necessary for colleges and universities to reverse the policy 
of majors and minors, and to recommend that those who pre- 
pare for teaching should be trained extensively. This will 
demand a longer period of preparation for the work of teach- 
ing and will include a wider acquaintance with many fields of 


5Functions of Secondary Education, page 239. 









98 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


interest. In November, 1936, the Committee on Program of 
Graduate Study Which Institutions of Higher Education 
Should Organize for the Preparation of Secondary-School 
Teachers presented to the Annual Meeting of the Association 
of American Universities the following recommendations: 


1. “The trend toward the requirement of study beyond 
the baccalaureate degree for all teachers in secondary 
schools is to be highly commended.” 

2. “The systematic program of study beginning with the 
Junior year of college should be recommended to all 
candidates for teaching positions in secondary 
schools. Such a program should be based on a broad 
foundation of cultural studies largely completed by 
the end of the Sophomore year. It should include (a) 
preparation in one or more fields of study rather 
than intensive specialization in a single department 
and (b) special professional preparation adequate 
to insure that the candidate will be able to conduct 
secondary-school classes intelligently.” 

“Each institution engaged in the preparation of sec- 

ondary-school teachers should undertake a study of 
the problem of assisting secondary schools in the 
light of its local conditions. Such a study should be 
a joint effort on the part of members of subject- 
matter departments and those interested in, and ac- 
quainted with, the professional aspects of education.” 
“Educational institutions which prepare teachers for 
secondary schools should be equipped to give courses 
of high scholarly grade. Such institutions should in- 
sure the cultivation in students of a professional at- 
titude and a profound respect for the teaching pro- 
fession.” 

5. “No institution which tolerates lack of co-ordination, 
or exchange of petty recriminations, between the de- 
partments concerned with the preparation of sec- 
ondary-school teachers should be regarded as com- 
petent to prepare teachers.’””* 


*Report of the Committee on Program of Graduate Study Which In- 
stitutions of Higher Education Should Organize for the Preparation of 
Secondary-School Teachers, presented to the Annual Meeting of the As- 
sociation of American Universities, p. 20. 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 99 
The recommendations of the above committee are quite 
in accord with those of the committee on Functions. In addi- 
tion, the committee on Functions hold that some of the prep- 
aration for teaching may conceivably and properly take place 
outside the collegiate institutions in the fields of business, in- 
dustry, or the arts. Broadening and extending the training of 
teachers in college, and in business, industry and the arts will 
not mean the teachers are masters of anything; it will mean 
that both through intensive and extensive training they will 
be better qualified to prepare and guide youth for the business 
of living. 

The committee notes that some of the most difficult prob- 
lems which secondary education has faced in the past have 
arisen from extreme diversification of curriculum. These 
problems include employing highly specialized teachers with 
sufficient skill, finding sufficient pupils to keep such highly 
prepared specialists busy, and the finding of enough money to 
purchase adequate equipment for the specialized work. They 
hold that with increased emphasis upon general education and 
diminished emphasis on the highly specialized activities, the 
problem of the secondary-school has been somewhat simpli- 
fied. They recognize that with the return of prosperity par- 
ents, children, and employers may demand a higher degree of 
diversification than we now have. 

Possibly the solution to this problem lies partially within 
the school and partially in certain lines of industry and busi- 
ness which demand a greater differentiation and a higher 
degree of specialization. Some schools have found a partial 
solution to this problem by working with industry in devising 
plans of codperation. Under these plans, boys recieve highly 
skilled technical training in shops under trained technicians 
and training in related subjects, such as Science, Mathematics, 
and Drawing in the schools. Opportunity is also provided for 
boys to continue in the general educational program in sub- 
jects of English, Social Studies, Mathematics, and Science. 
In some cases, at least, industry has accepted the general pro- 
gram of the ‘school and has set up a highly specialized pro- 
gram to the mutual advantage of the boys and the employers. 

In conclusion, we find that the committee has given us a 
broad basis for gradually increasing differentiated education 
on evidence of capacities, aptitudes and interests demonstrated 









100 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


in earlier years. At the same time, they have pointed out the 
necessity of providing previous to and along with differentia- 
tion as balanced and extended a general education as is possi- 
ble and profitable. The problems of selecting the content, 
determining the continuity and sequence, and refining the 
teaching methods are very properly left to future committees. 


In the solution of these problems lies our contribution to 
the program of perfecting secondary education. 


Function X was discussed by Principal W. L. Loggin of 
the High school of Greenville, South Carolina. 


Functionally speaking, the school has a three-fold task— 
the selection, the retention, and the elimination of pupils. The 
ideal, with respect to the selection and retention, has been ap- 
proximated for the reasons outlined in the report; but the 
problem of elimination has been complicated, making it dif- 
ficult to terminate a pupil’s schooling when it is felt that the 
school has done all it can for the pupil. The point of view of 
the committee, expressed in this function, is that the public 
supports the school to make the pupil better able and more 
disposed to perpetuate and to improve society. It is believed 
that the interests of society can not be promoted unless each 
individual is bettered. It is maintained further that public 
funds can not be spent honestly on education unless such 
spending enables the individual to contribute to the better- 
ment of society. 

This function emphasizes the necessity of retaining each 
and every normal pupil in school as long as he and society 
profit by his remaining, but, when it is clearly shown that the 
individual is not profiting from what the school is able to offer, 
then the individual should be directed into other institutions, 
into more profitable and encouraging pursuits for himself, or 
back to society. It is understood, however, before such an 
action is taken, that all the available facilities of the school 
will have been utilized in obtaining facts which will give a 
basis for decision. 

It can not be stated too strongly that the function must 
be accomplished slowly. A good beginning will have been 
made when the profession approve this function as an ideal, 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 101 


and is willing to seek its realization in practice. Only through 
a general understanding can a whole-hearted approval and 
backing be expected. 

The adoption of such a course of action will encounter 
difficulties. The elimination of pupils under present condi- 
tions will bring loud and strong protests from parents, re- 
gardless of how justifiable the action the school takes in the 
elimination of children. 

As a beginning the school could study society with the 
idea in mind of eliminating over-lapping functions, institut- 
ing new functions, and codrdinating contributing functional 
institutions. Better trained teachers will prove a decided as- 
set in the accomplishment of the worthy purpose. All phases 
of guidance should be provided for, and this implies an ef- 
ficient guidance staff. It must not be overlooked, as has been 
indicated in the report “that the best possible continuous ef- 
fort on the part of the school to learn all the pertinent facts 
about each student must be sought and recorded.” Hence, a 
comprehensive, cumulative, and permanent record of each 
student must be maintained, if intelligent decisions are to be 
made. 


SEVENTH GENERAL SESSION 


Saturday, February 20 


The session opened with an orchestral concert by the 
Alcee Fortier High School Orchestra. 


Principal McClellan G. Jones of Union High School and 
Junior College of Huntington Beach, California, and First 
Vice President of the Department of Secondary-School Prin- 
cipals, introduced National Commander Harry W. Colmery, 
who delivered the following address: 


I am grateful for the honor which has been accorded me 
in permitting me to discuss with you, who, on this occasion 
represent the principals of the Secondary-Schools of this 
country, the point of view of The American Legion on the 
“Teacher and Americanism”; and it is a source of personal 








102 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


satisfaction that I appear here at the invitation of a friend, 
who knows me for what I am or am not in my own community, 
and for whom I entertain a high regard as a teacher, a con- 
fidence as a worthwhile example for the student, and a respect 
as a citizen—Willard Van Slyck, Principal of the Topeka High 
School and President of this Association. And that honor and 
personal satisfaction are intensified by my consciousness of 
the responsibility which is mine in speaking for approximately 
one million men whose devotion to the principles of democracy 
has been tested in both war and peace—and has not been 
found wanting. 


Here as I contemplate that as principals of America’s 
schools, you are the custodians of our country’s future, I ex- 
press the hope that together we may look into the future with 
common thoughts and aspirations, conscious of a heavy duty 
and a grave responsibility. 

To your keeping is entrusted the most precious possession 
of the mothers and fathers of America—their children. 1. 
You who take the children of America when they have entered 
the most formative period of their lives. 2. You who take 
them when they have passed from childhood to the age of 
youth and begin for the first time to think facts through for 
themselves. 3. You, who take America’s childhood in its 
earliest experience of mental discipline in search for knowl- 
edge. 4. You, who later take that mental field, plowed and 
fertile, and ready for the sowing of the seed which will deter- 
mine the kind of flower that will bloom. 5. You, who take 
America’s childhood as they anticipate the experience of 
squaring off for the great game of life; conscious of that re- 
sponsibility which is theirs of determining what they are going 
to do, how they are going to do it, and the plan which they 
shall adopt to make a life worth living and a life worthwhile. 
6. You, who direct their basic instruction upon which will be 
builded not merely their personal fortunes and accomplish- 
ments in life, but also what their contribution will be to the 
progress of our system and what shall be their conception of 
good government. 7. You who in many instances give the 
only guided education which some of America’s youth have 
before they step from the classroom and stand face to face 
with a world filled with perplexities as well as great opportun- 
ities for service, joy, and achievement. Yes, for these reasons, 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 103 


you are the custodians of the kind of citizenship and the kind 
of country this nation shall have when we, who assume the 
duty to-day shall have turned it over to the generation which 
we now call our boys and girls. 

The American Legion shares that duty with you. Not 
only are we parents with a substantial stake in the childhood 
of America, but as an organized group we have a mission to 
foster, promote, and preserve the American institutions to 
protect which we were called forth two decades ago, as the 
armored hope of humanity, to give our lives if need be, for 
that cause. God, in his mercy spared us, and if we are to 
justify our claim to an enlightened citizenship, we have a 
duty to perform with you in the preservation of the purity of 
American institutions. 

In the fulfillment of that duty membership in the Amer- 
ican Legion pledges the individual, for God and country, to 
uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, to 
foster and promote a 100% Americanism, to inculcate a sense 
of individual obligation to the community, state, and nation, 
to make right the master of might; (to combat the autocracy 
of both the classes and the masses), to promote peace and 
good will on earth, and to safeguard and transmit to posterity 
the principles of justice, freedom, and democracy. In the sup- 
port of these principles the American Legion has adopted 
and has been accomplishing a program which for scope and 
unselfish purpose has never been equalled by any organization 
in this country. And although it might seem that the only 
common bond between the teachers of America and the Amer- 
ican Legion would begin and end with that phase of our pro- 
gram which has to do with the support of the schools and the 
educational system of America, J have a definite conviction 
that we stand together on the question of Americanism; on 
national defense, and on every phase of the Legion’s program 
which is calculated to build into the fibre of America a proper 
appreciation of the responsibilities of American citizenship, 
and of thee beneficence of living under the American flag which 
gives so much and asks so little. 

Possibly you can see no connection between interest in 
education and wearing the uniform. Ours was the opportunity 
to know the cross section of American youth. Service on the 
battlefield awakened us as rudely to the necessity of a more 














104 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


general education for the youth of our land. In almost every 
Amcrican outfit we saw American boys, unable to read the 
letters they received from home, unable to write, unable to 
read the orders issued to them. It was a pitiful sight to wit- 
ness a young fellow, holding a newspaper from home, standing 
around with longing eyes, hesitant to ask someone to give him 
the news because he could not read. More than one tragedy 
resulted from the inability of a soldier properly to understand 
his orders. Men there were—yes 20% of those called to the 
colors, who could neither read nor write, who had never at- 
tended public school, but who were loyal and patriotic, and, 
though conscious of their handicap, looked upon the chance 
to volunteer and go “over the top” as an opportunity to render 
a service to their country. It was quite natural, therefore, that 
the men of the service should have come back home imbued 
with a conviction that this handicap must be removed if equal- 
ity of opportunity was to exist in America. 

Then again we realize that the Great War did not make 
the world safe for democracy. Content as we are to let other 
nations carve out their own future, we are intensely interested 
in the perpetuation of the American system of government, 
and of that unique and ingenious constitutional democracy 
which is the social heritage of the American people, because 
it is calculated to insure the greatest degree of life, liberty, 
and happiness for the American people. We recall that prior 
to the founding of the American republic, that everywhere it 
was conceded that there was on earth a class of men ordained 
by Providence to rule, and that “the vassal’s obedience was the 
inheritance of the many; that the American colonists threw 
down this defiance to the world; that there was no heaven 
ordained class to govern men; that man by reason of his crea- 
tion, by virtue of his existence, was a sovereign in his own 
right, and that all just rights in government were derived, 
not from the will of the ruler, but from the consent of the 
people who were governed. So the founders of this republic 
delivered this new nation from a system in which the people 
looked to the government as the directing and controlling 
agency in the affairs of life, and conferred upon the citizen— 
the individual, the right, and power to work out his own 
destiny according to his own desires and abilities, and to enjoy 
the fruits of his labor, whether by brain or hand, and gave 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 105 


to the status of a citizen a stability never attained before or 
since. For it picked up the individual, placed him on a plane 
of self-reliance, self-respect, and self-control, and made it 
possible for him to act for himself, think for himself and be- 
lieve in himself. “Individual rights” is America’s contribution 
to the science of government. And the system of constitutional 
democracy set up to protect them transformed democracy 
from a dream to a reality, and created a barrier to the tyranny 
of demagogues and popular majorities which had ruined 
popular governments of the past. And under this system the 
world has looked on while we have grown in population, 
wealth, power, comfort, and happiness, unexampled in the an- 
nals of history. 

But: with that citizenship there came a responsibility. 
The people became the reservoir of power. Government was 
made for man and not man for government. With this change 
there came the expression “American institutions.” “Amer- 
ican institutions” are its citizens in action—the American peo- 
ple in the process of governing themselves. The people are 
the government. The fireside of the American home became 
the political unit. Men and measures, candidates and policies 
are there discussed, and their fate and that of the state and 
nation determined. Such peace time service demands intelli- 
gent action, because democracy stands or falls on public 
opinion. The essence of popular government is the fulfillment 
of the will of the people; its success depends on the literacy 
of the citizenship that maintains it. If the people are to rule 
themselves they must be sufficiently educated to know how. 
They can only have the kind of a government they give to 
themselves. And the people must be able to study, understand, 
and solve the questions affecting their welfare and that of the 
country if they hope to continue to live under a free govern- 
ment and under a fiag which pledges to them freedom, oppor- 
tunity, and security. 

Education is the cornerstone upon which the future of the 
nation ‘s builded. The Legion believes that the free public 
school system crystallizes the American ideal that every boy 
and girl is entitled to a fair and equal opportunity in life; that 
the common schools of America have been a vital force in the 
rapid rise of America to national greatness; in establishing 
women on the highest plane ever accorded them; in increasing 

















106 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


our standard of living; and in attaining the higher intellectual 
level ever attained by the common people; and that the public 
school system, providing as it does the physical fitness to 
withstand the rigors of life, and mental training to furnish 
a background for the enjoyment of life, and the social contact 
to broaden the boy and girl, builds into their lives the best 
ideals of health, home, vocation, learning, and citizenship. 


Putting these ideals into practical application the Amer- 
ican Legion last year conducted during the year 1,800 citizen- 
ship schools teaching the foreign born the history, traditions, 
aims, and ideals of America; awarded over 8,000 American 
Legion School Medal Awards—on the basis of honor, courage, 
scholarship, leadership, and service—qualities which every 
good citizen should possess; has outlined an eighteen weeks 
course of study in the history and etiquette of the flag, which 
has become a part of the regular course of study in many 
schools; and in late years has helped to meet the emergency 
in education to the end that the education of America’s boys 
and girls should not be sacrificed unfairly in the interest of 
economy. Thousands of terms were continued, schools kept 
open, and appropriations maintained through this effort. And 
then you know of the sponsorship of National Education Week 
by the American Legion, for the purpose of acquainting the 
public with the work of the schools and their significance in 
the life of the boy and girl and the community, state and na- 
tion. 

Thus recognizing the value of education in maintaining 
this as a government “of, by, and for the people,” may I proj- 
ect to you the definite conviction which the men of the Legion 
have in the maintenance of the freedom upon which America 
was founded and the principles of liberty to which she is 
dedicated. The soldiers of the Revolution founded this nation 
and gave it this American form of constitutional government. 
It is the pride and boast of American veterans that never in 
the history of the nation have the liberties of the people been 
placed in jeopardy by the men who wore the uniform. And 
again to-day, it is well for you to note that, whereas in all the 
nations which engaged in the Great War are the two English 
speaking nations, every revolution, overthrow of government, 
riot, and bloodshed has been led by the men who had so re- 
cently worn the uniforms in defense of their country. But 





Mh 9 0 om a we . 























































DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


on the contrary, the 4,500,000 men of the American army 
came home, took off their uniforms, went to work as best they 
could, helped their more unfortunate comrades, and have ab- 
sorbed themselves gracefully into the civilian pursuits of 
America without any danger to American institutions or the 
peace and good order of American society. Why ?—because 
they believed that those who founded this nation had an ideal; 
that it was worthwhile. They believed in it when they went 
to war. They believed in it when they came home. They are 
satisfied with the blessings of justice, freedom, and democracy 
under the American system. 


They note that in Europe what we know as freedom and 
liberty in America have been shackled to a chariot of force, 
as ten centuries of progress face destruction in the welter of 
war’s aftermath. They note the growth of Communism, Fasc- 
ism, Hitlerism and the rest. They are opposed to the adoption 
of all of them in this country or any other concept or phil- 
osophy which harks back to the arbitrary absolution against 
which the English people rebelled in the thirteenth century, 
and to protect the citizens against which such a constitutional 
democracy as we have in America was founded. They note 
that in other countries freedom of speech, freedom of the 
press, of religious worshop, and the right to assemble peace- 
ably and petition for grievances, and the other civil liberties 
are gone; and that jails are overflowing with political offen- 
ders—those who for the time being are not in accord with the 
group in power. They want Americans to remain free men; 
free to speak, to act, to believe, to assemble peaceably, to save 
and accumulate, and to own property, and be protected in that 
ownership. They want tolerance to prevail, and democracy 
of opportunity to continue. They want America to remain 
American for Americans. 

They do not oppose progress in government, on the con- 
trary, they recognize the traditional American principle that 
the citizen has an inalienable right to support or oppose 
changesy proceeding in the orderly way provided by the Con- 
stitution. Their method is by pursuasion and education. Now 
as education is vital to Americanism, then only one type of 
education can serve the future of our free government—an 
American education that is free and untrammelled. Educa- 
tion should be real not false; interesting not dull. The teacher 


107 












108 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


should make an effort to guide the pupil in getting all per- 
tinent facts on a given subject, organizing them, discussing 
them, and helping them think out their own conclusions. Give 
them the whole truth about other philosophies of government 
—about Communism if you please. But hold back nothing. 
Tell them how other peoples have struggled for liberty, 
gained it, and lost it to dictators. Thell them all about it— 
about its destruction of church and home, its bigotry and in- 
tolerance, and class hatred. 

But since young people are easily indoctrinated by adults 
it is very important that teachers in the public schools believe 
in and subscribe to American ideals and principles. In fact tf 
there is to be any indoctrination it should be with American 
ideals. The ideals of our American way of life should be in- 
stilled in America’s school children. Every pupil attending 
the public schools has the right to have a full and complete 
picture of the history of the struggle of the human race for 
liberty, the development of the American ideal of democracy, 
and understanding of and loyalty to our ideals, principles, and 
the responsibilities of individual citizenship; America’s ad- 
vantages, opportunities, rights, achievements, and glories, and 
also her problems and conflicts which make a genuine democ- 
racy difficult. 

It would be impossible for me to formulate words which 
would better present my opinion than to repeat the statement 
of Dr. Orville C. Pratt, President of the National Education 
Association, on the subject when he said: 

“Teachers who attempt to indoctrinate their students 
with un-American doctrines, have no place in the public 
schools. The sooner they are detected and unceremoniously 
fired, the better it will be for the schools and for America. 
I say this, because I am convinced that our American way of 
life is the best which human ingenuity has as yet devised. 

“Teachers are citizens and have precisely the same rights 
as other citizens to hold political opinions and to express 
them. No citizen, and therefore, no teacher, is free to intro- 
duce into the schools his own peculiar belief or brand of 
propaganda. In the school the teacher has no right, and should 
have no desire to indoctrinate children, except with the funda- 
mental ideals of the American way; but they should have the 
right, for the sake of making education realistic, interesting, 




















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 109 
and worthwhile, to have facts gathered, presented, and dis- 
cussed impartially and scientifically for the sole purpose of 
revealing as much as possible the truth.” 

We want to preserve academic freedom—as do you— 
that is an important part of Americanism. It can only be de- 
stroyed through the destruction of Americanism. I am not 
inclined to duck issues. You probably expect me to comment 
on the “Teacher’s Oath.” I shall give you my views. There 
can be no intelligent discussion of the teacher’s oath, no meet- 
ing of the minds on issues, without knowing the exact lan- 
guage of the oath involved. If it pledges you, to uphold and 
defend the Constitution of the United States and of your state 
—as has been the fact in some cases—the regular oath of a 
public office holder—there is no sound reason why you should 
not subscribe to it in the same manner as others who are paid 
for their service from the public funds. I have taken it on 
more than one occasion and am proud of it. What is there so 
sacred in the teaching profession in America as to cause such 
a furor? Do I hear you say—‘“Academic Freedom?” The 
teacher who would retain his academic freedom should look 
well to his defense of Americanism. There is no academic 
freedom without the protection of the Constitution of the 
United States. Why not swear to uphold or defend the only 
bulwark which preserves academic freedom? Although, per- 
sonally, I have never been concerned about a teacher’s oath, 
the disturbance which has been created against the signing 
of the constitutional oath, justifies the conclusion that either 
a substantial percentage of the teaching profession are ignor- 
ant of the source of academic freedom, or that there is a situa- 
tion prevalent which justifies the suspicion that there are 
those who desire to use your profession for indoctrination of 
ideas foreign to America. 


If on the other hand the contemplated oath involved the 
prohibition of the teaching of Communism or any other con- 
troversial subject, then the teacher is entitled to reasonable 
safeguards provided he uses scientific methods of teaching. 
He should not be subject to the hazards and uncertainties 
present while there is no well defined standard by which to 
determine whether the teacher is teaching or indoctrinating. 
Otherwise the teacher may be done an injustice by the over 
zeal and intolerance and unfairness of the members of a board 

















110 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


of education. And I have not yet seen an oath of that char- 
cter which clearly and fairly defined such a standard. 


But the great percentage of American school teachers are 
loyal, patriotic, good Americans, performing an under paid, 
unselfish service to the nation. I wonder if it has ever oc- 
curred to them that they need the protection against the small 
minority of their profession who hiding behind the protection 
of America’s freedom, claim the license to advocate the over- 
throw of the American form of government. I wonder if it 
has ever occurred to the great majority of right thinking 
American teachers that they might formulate and insist upon 
a proper and fair oath—to protect their academic freedom, and 
make the small group inimical to America subscribe to it or 
fly their two colors. 

Then, there is another medium through which the teach- 
ers may play a vital parf in the perpetuation of Americanism. 
T have stated to you that American citizenship carries with it 
responsibilities. No citizen has a right to enjoy the privileges 
of a free government without sharing its responsibilities. Yet, 
there are those who circulate in our schools and colleges advo- 
cating the nefarious doctrine that there is too much responsi- 
bility and urging the youth to sign “the slacker’s pledge” that 
under no circumstances will they ever don the uniform or bear 
arms in defense of their country. The first duty of a democratic 
government is to maintain itself in sufficient strength to fos- 
ter, promote, protect the life, unity, and happiness of the indi- 
vidual citizen. The government cannot meet the obligation to 
the citizens unless the latter perform whatever service is nec- 
essary to carry out that obligation. That means national de- 
fense. That means bearing arms in defense of the nation. 
If there ever comes a day that the youth of the nation are no 
longer willing to meet the common defense, that day will see 
the end of free institutions—the setting of the sun, whose 
rays during the existence of this might have been the hope of 
a liberty-loving people. 

My friends, since the day it was born, the American Le- 
gion has supported the schools, the teachers, and the Ameri- 
can educational system. We have sought to improve and 
broaden our coéperation with you. We believe in you—we 
have faith in you—we stand with you. We want boys and girls 
to have the intelligence to do their own thinking. We knew 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 111 
that if they understood the struggle of the human race against 
tyranny, and for independence, we would have no fear that 
their minds would be twisted by those who say there is no God, 
who defy the ethics of religion, who would destroy the sacred 
laws of home and family; the freedom, opportunity, and secur- 
ity which every true American holds dear and which have 
made us the envy of the civilized world. This we shall continue 
to enjoy so long’ as the schools of America give us an enlight- 
ening citizenship. 

For education makes a people easy to lead, difficult to 
drive, easy to govern, impossible to enslave. 

May you continue to perform with fidelity your trust as 
guardian of America’s future citizens, so that a great liberty 
loving people with faith in American youth, may pass on to 
others the torch which lights the way to preserve justice, free- 
dom. and democracy. 


SATURDAY EVENING 
February 20. 


Dinner in honor of Dr. Thomas H. Briggs. 


At Patio Royal in the old French Quarter of New Or- 
leans two hundred forty-four members of the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals gathered to honor Dr. Thomas 
H. Briggs, Chairman of the Committee on Orientation of 
Secondary Education. Dr. William F. Russell, Dean Teachers 
College, Columbia University, and Francis T. Spaulding, Pro- 
fessor of Education, Harvard University, were the guests of 
honor. Dr. Briggs closed the occasion with an extended ad- 
dress to his ardent friends. 


THE EIGHTH GENERAL SESSION 
Sunday, February 21 


The-closing session of the convention was held in the 
Rayne Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South at 11 A. 
M. The sermon was preached by Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam on 
the theme, The Sense of What Is Vital. The President of the 
Department, Willard N. Van Slyck, introduced the speaker of 
the morning. 


















112 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


PANEL, NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY 


The meeting of the National Honor Society was called to 
order Saturday, February 20th, 1937, at 10:00 o’clock A. M. 
in the Colonial Room of the Jung Hotel at New Orleans. 

Presiding was Mr. Charles F. Allen, Supervisor of Secon- 
dary Education, Little Rock, Arkansas. 

MR. ALLEN: This is the meeting of the National Honor 
Society. We have five speakers and the time will have to be 
limited to twelve minutes each. May I introduce our Chair- 
man, Mr. L. W. Brooks, Principal of the Wichita High School, 
North, Wichita, Kansas? 

MR. BROOKS: I shall not make a speech at all. I am 
going to tell you a little story and then leave the meeting open 
to you. The story is told of a young flapper who got on a 
crowded street car. First she simpered up at a callow youth 
on one side and then simpered up at a callow youth on the other 
side. “I guess I am the rose between two thorns,” she said, to 
which one of the youths replied, “No, this is a tongue sand- 
wich.” My position here is rather similar, I shall try to sand- 
wich in a little conversation between your speeches. 

As most of you know, the National Honor Society has 
something like twenty-one hundred chapters now, and around 
two hundred thousand members. We find people raising objec- 
tions to this organization because of the methods of selecting 
students who shall become members of the National Honor So- 
ciety. Most of these criticisms are valid, I think. The ques- 
tion comes up whether they are valid enough to banish the 
Honor Society or whether there are arguments to advance 
which will overbalance these criticisms. We think it is most 
wholesome to get together and discuss these problems with the 
utmost frankness and to work out what is best for the boys and 
girls of this country. 

I have been identified with this group for some time. I 
have met most of these objections as they arose, I think, but 
they may not all have been brought forward. This is the place 
where they may be expressed with the utmost freedom. May 
we hear from Mr. J. H. McNeel of Beloit, Wisconsin? 

MR. McNEEL: Mr. Brooks wrote me a letter in January 
and submitted to me a list of five questions. I don’t know 












DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 113 


whether he expected me to select one of them and talk to that 
question or not, but I propose to look at the second question: 
Is there any way to select students for the National Honor So- 
ciety without alienating the friendship of a large number of 
parents whose children do not make the Society? 


Probably all of you who have chapters of the Honor Soci- 
ety in your schools have, at some time or other, encountered 
just the situation that is indicated by Mr. Brooks’ question. I 
know we have in our school. We have had a chapter since 
1923. We have always elected some from the junior class and 
the balance from the senior class and I have found in my own 
experience a way to avoid the difficulty of parents being disap- 
pointed because their sons or daughters were not selected. 


I think possibly there isn’t any school recognition that is 
awarded to a pupil that does not bring up that problem. For 
instance, the class play. Now, unfortunately, we have found it 
impossible to put everyone who is in the class in the class play. 
We throw it open to everyone who would like to try out for it 
but some have to be passed by. We always find that that creates 
hard feeling or at least some disappointment and heartache, 
so this problem is not unique with the National Honor Society. 
All recognitions cause the same difficulty. Now, with regard 
to the method of selecting the students for the National Honor 
Society, we try to make it clear to everyone in the school how 
the members are selected. We, of course, tell them very 
plainly that those who are eligible first must fall within a cer- 
tain group in scholarship and then we have stressed repeat- 
edly the other elements considered. We go further and explain 
to them just what machinery we put into the operation. That 
has seemed to me to be the most effective way of reducing the 
number of people who feel hurt and disappointed. 


There is one troublesome factor that must be looked after. 
Frequently we have in school a teacher who likes to be a “good 
fellow” and the “good fellow” isn’t always a man either, and 
after the election he says, “Why, congratulations.” And the 
youngster says, “I wasn’t selected.” And the teacher says, 
“Oh, I thought you were.” Whenever that happens you have 
real trouble on your hands. 

Of course, when there is a parent who feels aggrieved I 
like to meet that parent face to face in the office, go into all the 
details with the parent and I very seldom find that the parent 











114 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


can’t be shown, at least that there is a reason why this one was 


selected rather than the other. 
Now that is my own experience with question No. 2. 


MR. ALLEN: I like the way Mr. McNeel presents his 
case, * * * That was a fine job, McNeel. 

We will hear now from Mr. Portwood. He is the Super- 
intendent of Schools at San Antonio, Texas. 


MR. PORTWOOD: I rather deliberately agreed to take 
the negative side of this question. The fact of the matter is 
I blow hot and cold on the National Honor Society, and, at pres- 
ent, I confess I have a feeling of coldness for the National 
Honor Society. It is known as a scholarship organization. 
Now we attempt to explain away this idea and to substitute 
one of leadership or citizenship and tell the parent and child 
about a lot of intangible things that we know we cannot meas- 
ure. I fully realize that I have no legal ground on which to 
stand to attempt to contradict any remarks against the idea of 
the scholarship side being a stimulus and incentive. I am not 
so certain that it has not gone far beyond the dreams of the 
founder and of his intentions. I had a sixth grade boy ask me 
how to go about getting ready to become a member of the Na- 
tional Honor Society when he got to high school. I asked him 
why he felt that he wanted to become a member and he said 
it was because his mother was very anxious that he should 
make the Honor Society. What are the tricks of this business 
is what he meant. Now you can laugh over the idea that 
around this National Honor Society has grown up a set of no- 
tions in the minds of the public as to how to go about doing 
this. I am not rabid against this but I have had some experi- 
ences in dealing with it which were not educational] in any de- 
gree whatsoever. If anyone here can send me home feeling 
that I am wrong, I would be glad to admit it. 

I had a job a few years ago in which we had a senior class 
of five hundred and thirty-two students and the idea of check- 
ing out of that class about a hundred and thirty-three eligibles 
and out of that number some sixty-nine to be elected at that 
particular time. I knew those boys and girls rather intimately. 
I could take that list of a hundred and thirty-three and there 
was no individual that would not rank very high in percentage 
as boys and girls go. Parents came to me and asked, “Mr. 
Portwood, how do you determine character?” I don’t know 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


what you ladies and gentlemen would say. I didn’t know. We 
are dealing with intangible things. The best argument I ever 
found to allay the suspicions of parents and have them con- 
tinue to believe in public schools is to convince them that the 
National Honor Society has nothing whatever to do with the 
probable success of their children later on in public life. When 
you come to deal with some forty-nine cases of this kind, it 
can’t be gotten at by means of arithmetic. I am speaking of 
borderline cases. I don’t believe that anyone can determine 
their eligibility with any degree of accuracy and we are deal- 
ing with sacred things about which we know very little. Take 
the marking of pupils. What do we do in school that is more 
inefficient than the marking of pupils? The A, B, C, D,’s, or 
the 6, 7, 8’s or the 80, 90’s—I don’t care what method you use. 
I don’t know of anything we do that is more inefficient than 
that, yet when we are dealing with the National Honor So- 
ciety, we admit that we don’t have much trouble in marking 
them. We have no standard except the judgment of our peo- 
ple which amounts to a great deal, of course. We are magni- 
fying this matter of academic marks and we are magnifying 
our position. I think this brings about an artificial relation- 
ship between teachers and pupils. 

I doubt if a large high school ever has a National Honor 
Society election in which there are not grave doubts in the 
minds of pupils, teachers, and others who participate regard- 
ing certain people. We always feel that there were those in- 
cluded who might have well been excluded and others excluded 
who should have been included and as long as we have that 
doubt we cannot conduct this election with the feeling of hav- 
ing done overly well. 

The idea of a student trying to find out the way to do this 
job so that he may please his mother may mean that he is de- 
parting from the path of his great desire. I find that this idea 
of the Honor Society has a good deal to do with student issues 
beyond as well as through school. How is the best way to get 
over hurdfes and get into this society? How can I make it 
easier if I do another way? Perhaps you will find it if you 
are talking to a large number of senior boys and girls who are 
thinking of this society and have assumed that it has a great 
deal to do with their future. I don’t have any particular pro- 

gram to offer. If I had the authority to include every boy and 


115 











































eee 
rena NREARE 












116 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


girl in this country who, in my mind, is proper timber for the 
National Honor Society, it might solve the problem. If any- 
one has an opinion, I should be happy to have it. 


MR. BROOKS: Mr. Portwood gives us much food for 
thought on this subject, I should say. In my own school I 
never fail to state to my own student body that the chances 
are that there are some who are not elected who are equal or 
superior to some who are elected. Students understand that. 
I believe it is only fair to them to say it. They ought to know 
it is a human institution and, as such, is no more infallible 
than any other institution. 

We will now have a few words from the most outlying 
State of the nation, Mr. A. R. Clifton of California. 


MR. CLIFTON: When Mr. Brooks sent me a telegram 
asking me to discuss this question I had to scurry to the library 
and later sent my librarian there. For the past six years my 
job has been other than handling a high school so I have not 
been dealing with this particular problem. Prior to that the 
scholarship award in which I was most interested was in the 
state Honor Society. As I studied the constitutions of both, 
I didn’t find any differences that were essential so I have my 
own attitude in regard to such organizations. The two, I be- 
lieve, were born about the same time. In the first place, as I 
view it from the outside, these organizations and this one in 
particular that we are discussing, has had an awfully good 
start. It hasn’t been living long enough to have many tradi- 
tions, it is true, and some of the machinery might be changed 
but I feel the ideals are splendid. 

I was tremendously interested in finding out that scholar- 
ship perhaps ranks first. I don’t know whether it does or not. 
Elements of leadership, service, and character are so neces- 
sary that it is not a one-sided proposition. I gives an oppor- 
tunity there I think if each of these factors are properly evalu- 
ated in giving more pupils an opportunity to belong than if it 
were based upon leadership alone. In studying the reports of 
several schools, I find that some elevate one and some another. 
In other words, although the rules and regulations may be dif- 
ferent, there is leeway allowed to principals and faculty. In 
the first place an organization like this affords an opportunity 
for young people to let off some of their steam. They’ve got to 
use their energy in good ways or bad ways. We all under- 




















117 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


stand that. It gives them an opportunity to do some creating of 
their own. It gives them an opportunity to express originality. 
They have some objectives which have been spoken of and so 
are getting ready to get into this organization, looking toward 
it as an ideal. Maybe they are going out to overcome handi- 
caps but anyhow it is a good objective. They must have some 
and why shouldn’t they start talking about it in the grades 
and as they go higher? It means an outlet for the individual. 


Now I confess that I feel quite strongly on the affirmative 
side of the question but in reading I found more arguments on 
the negative side but those arguments didn’t convince me. I 
don’t think they were as good as the ones on the affirmative 
side of the question. I found, of course, that it created some- 
thing of a class and, as some said, an aristocracy. It may. I 
don’t know, but what of it? You get it in athletics. Some are 
not qualified to compete in athletic contests. We get it in the 
dramatic field, music, art. What of it? Put them off into groups 
and certainly if the organization is properly handled in any 
high school and the principals have direct responsibility for it, 
it isn’t going to develop aristocracy. 

In our country we have some athletic organizations that 
dominate things in high school. We recognize that. Some of us 
belong to college or other fraternities. We don’t want every- 
body in our neighborhood to come into those organizations. 
That’s life. It can’t help but be that way. We belong to clubs 
—university clubs, service clubs. There are politics, certainly 
there are classes but what of it? I am not discouraged about 
that at all. 

Argument opines that it discourages a large group of stu- 
dents. Why should it? Certainly they cannot all belong to the 
National Honor Society but in a wise school, maybe they can 
belong to other groups where they can function perhaps with 
more distinction. These outlets are magnificent, as they should 
be, but there are others. It’s life. Lots of people cannot be 
classified as they would like to be. I myself like to be classified 
financially or some other way. That is no reason for me to be- 
come introspective because I cannot soar along with the rest. 

The argument has been advanced that it leads to over- 
work. I expect that it does in some cases. It depends on the 
principal and faculty back of the honor society and then too, 
I think that would be very definitely the case if the school 








118 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


thinks that twenty-five per cent of the objective is scholarship. 
Why not stress leadership? That doesn’t belong only to one 
society, it may belong to the other groups and it doesn’t neces- 
sarily lead to overwork with a large number of students. Some 
overwork anyway but more underwork, in my estimation at 
least. ‘ 

The argument is offered that it provides wrong incen- 
tives. We want to advance our scholarship records because 
they are good. We' don’t want any false incentives. I grant 
you that but if I buy a lumber yard I have a very different per- 
sonal incentive in working out the problems of that lumber 
yard. I want some profit out of it. I may render a service— 
all well and good but I want to know how I’m going to come 
out. 


I went into my present position through civil service. I 
had to compete with a large group and was finally selected. I 
wasn’t thinking altogether of the service I might render in 
that position. I was thinking that it might be a fairly good 


thing for me personally to acquire that position. It brought 
larger financial compensation, larger (what shall we call it?) 
educational opportunities. There we are. It was personal. 
Was that a wrong incentive? Maybe it was. I admit it but 
what can we do about eliminating the personal element? 

I find this morning that I am wearing a pin. Some of you 
have one like it. Yes, I accomplished a purpose that made it 
possible for me to be elected to this particular fraternity. Well, 
that’s a mighty nice thing to have. I like belonging to that 
group which does represent a certain amount of accomplish- 
ment in the educational field. A personal element—yes. A 
wrong incentive—perhaps. 

A superintendents’ meeting will be held here now very 
soon. I expect that some of them come to get the benefits of 
a great conference, to carry back ideas that they can use to 
advantage but some of them you know just like the publicity 
the newspapers give them. Been to New Orleans to the great 
convention and they like to strut around among the other 
members of the faculty. All right, there is the service angle 
but there is also the personal. So that argument doesn’t bother 
me much. I know I have opened myself up to an awful pan- 
ning here in a few minutes but that’s all right. Now, I don’t 
feel that this whole set-up is so bad. I'd like to see lots of 





i 


met 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 119 


people remodeled after a more ideal pattern and the schools 
have a very different responsibility but I think people are going 
to be pretty much as they have been for quite a while. I don’t 
expect to see much change in them in my time. We have con- 
tributions to make but after these generations and more gen- 
erations, we are not going to change people essentially. I 
think we are still going to have to deal with some of these per- 
sonal matters. Incentive may be a bit wrong but I think, as 
I view it, it’s theoretical with them. In a good many schools 
the scholarship angle of this thing has been too much empha- 
sized and perhaps that is the thing that has brought on the 
differences and criticisms and I am going to suggest simply 
this: Change the machine a little, put the emphasis in differ- 
ent places. It is going to work if it is made to work. 


MR. BROOKS: When I sent out night letters to the men 
participating in this panel, I thought I might catch an even 
uumber of pros and cons. I figured Clifton would probably be 
acon since he is in the atmosphere of conference organization 
and is not so definitely identified with the National Honor So- 
ciety as some other people are, but I know we are glad to have 
his message, whether pro or con. 

The next speaker lives in a city not so low down as Los 
Angeles nor so outlying, but it is up in the air. I don’t think 
we will find Kepner up in the air though, whatever we may 
say about his home town—Mr. Harry V. Kepner of Denver, 
Colorado. 


MR. KEPNER: Well, we are up in the air in a good many 
things educational. It pays to be up in the air. We feel as 
though things had not been settled but we have begun by try- 
ing to settle them better at least. I am not going to argue. The 
arguments have been well presented, particularly the pros but 
it might invite some questioning. I take it for granted every- 
body is interested or they wouldn’t be here. They want some 
help and that is, of course, the object of this meeting. 

In Denver we have five Senior High Schools and we have 
five chapters of National Honor Society and we have eight 
Junior High Schools and eight chapters of the Junior Honor 
Society. I think in all of these schools we have also local honor 
societies; not so seclusive, but more general. They are splen- 
did feeders for the National Honor Society. I presume that 
every principal of these schools has had the experience—some 


















120 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





more than others because of the location of their high schools 
in certain parts of the city—of visits from parents, asking why 
my daughter or son didn’t get into the National Honor Society. 
‘I have talked with each principal and they have all had these 
experiences but never any trouble we couldn’t smooth out. I 
think in the ten years we have had a chapter there was but one 
case in all that time when the parent came to talk it over that 
we were not able to satisfy him and I think we satisfied this 
parent at least partially. As a class, parents are pretty hard 
to satisfy. I, of course, believe in looking toward a millenium. 
I wish it would come but until it does come there’s going to be 
competition. It’s in the blood. It’s life. Our boys and girls 
are going out of school and entering competitive occupations, 
they meet it on the football field, and we honor them with their 
letter and when they get that letter, they just swell up with 
pride until they almost burst. You know you can play a bet- 
ter game of golf if you are playing with someone who is just 
a little better than you are. I can’t play golf, but I can’t quit. 
I like to have somebody to play with that’s just a little better 
and if I’m all alone I can have a great thrill out of competing 
with Old Man Bogey. Competition is experience and life. 


I believe these various problems are going to be solved 
differently in every high school and counsel cannot suggest a 
panacea for these ills. I cannot suggest how to eliminate these 
troubles. You are going to solve yours differently than I am 
going to. The personality of your organization is largely 
solved by the pupils. The pupils are deciding very largely who 
these leaders are. I was recently interested in a contest in 
most of the high schools of the country when the Daughters 
of the American Revolution were going to select some out- 
standing pupil to send to Washington. I announced it three 
months before and gave them the problem to solve at that 
time. I told them it was up to them to select someone to rep- 
resent their class. There was a chance for cliques, political 
work, etc. The day came and they were presented with anony- 
mous ballots and handed them in and the teachers did the 
same thing and the three pupils chosen from those four hun- 
dred students tallied exactly with what the teachers did. 

We had a young man who stood in the upper two per cent 
but he didn’t get elected to the Naional Honor Society. His 
scholarship was there, he was a brilliant scholar, but his citi- 











DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 121 


zenship wasn’t there to be a leader in any sense of the word. 
We formerly took twenty-five per cent but now take twenty- 
tive per cent and yet we select fifteen per cent from them and 
can take in easily all that ought to be considered when we boil 
it down to fifteen per cent. Then it begins to wear down to 
good citizenship and that is what we are trying to prepare 
these boys and girls for when they get out into life and 
that is shown in so many ways. I have had pupils come to me 
and say, “Tell me something about the National Honor Soci- 
ety,” and they ask in all earnestness and all sincerity, “What 
can I do or what should I do to attain this goal?” They did 
not have any idea of political pull but it did give me a chance 
to talk to that one and I have talked to others. How can you 
best stand out in your school as a good citizen? Are you finding 
places to render service? Are you doing something for your 
teachers or schoolmates that you have not been told to do? 
Pretty fine ideas! If they get that into their blood they are 
going to be fine citizens. They will stand out in high school. 
We put stress upon service and we pull that chestnut out of the 
fire. We stress that in our school in other ways, too. We 
honor every boy and girl in school—not just in the senior class 
—but every boy or girl who has found some way to render 
service and they get recognition cards like the old fashioned 
Sunday school card for perfect attendance, but a little more 
dignified. They are very eager for these things and study 
ways and means of rendering service. I could point out a num- 
ber of pupils who won this honor who, before they planned to 
do it, were long at the bottom. 

MR. BROOKS: Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is 
yours. I wish when you speak you would give your name and 
to what work you are assigned. There are no restrictions ex- 
cept that profanity is barred. 

MR. BACON (Illinois): I would like to ask Mr. Kepner 
whether he finds it a problem to distinguish between pupils 
who acquire a smooth way of doing service, or, who, not think- 
ing of the Honor Society, do it sincerely. Is that a problem? 

MR. KEPNER: We submit the lists to the present mem- 
bers of the National Honor Society and let them go through | 
and talk about it. 

MR. ADAMS (Pittsburgh): We have found that the 
student ballot goes just about exactly with the teachers’ ballot. 














122 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


So what? I find myself thinking about how these same boys 
and girls are going’ to be selected after they cease being boys 
and girls. There may be a number but only a specified number 
can be chosen. Most of us have acquired our positions by elec- 
tion. There might be plenty of people who wanted a job in 
South America but somebody believed someone was the best 
man and voted for him. 

Does anyone allow the whole membership of the class to 

vote? 
MR. MACQUARRIE: I think if you want to kill off this 
organization you should have it known the “Teachers’ Pet 
Group” or “Principals’ Pet Group.” We have felt that the pres- 
ent members are the best informed group as to the eligibility 
of incoming candidates. We have given the same power over 
the eligible group as we have to the faculty. For instance, 
they can vote on the candidates and the things that would be 
presented would be talked about—leadership, character, serv- 
ice. There can be no scientific test to determine ratings but it 
is simply to say, we will rate these, selecting the twenty, we 
will say, in the order in which they should be elected and giv- 
ing them these tests of fundamental honor and unselfishness. 
Then we combine that report with the faculty rating and scho- 
lastic rating, take the three and don’t deviate from that unless 
someone can point out to the National Honor Society commit- 
tee that some defect in character has been overlooked but who- 
ever makes the cmplaint has to take the case to the committee. 
The only one who does have a vote on this in our school is the 
principal. 

QUESTION: I wonder to what extent the students take 
into consideration the relationship between student and prin- 
cipal. Do the students put more emphasis on leadership or 
other qualities? 

MR. ADAMS: The number of citizenship points that 
have been earned and the composite citizenship rating have 
been given each candidate and those are pretty carefully 
worked out as it applies to our particular school and are in the 
hands of the students when they vote. 

MR. WHEELER: The membership may not know all the 
eligibles. They haven’t immediate contact so that they may 
know all of them and the ones who are not known would suf- 
fer a handicap. We find institutions also forbidding those 
things. Elections must be by the faculty. 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 123 


MR. ADAMS: I also should have said that we elect them 
for the purpose of service, not just to be a joiner, and they are 
given an opportunity to-work for membership. They don’t be- 
come permanent members until the night of graduation. They 
must maintain the standards the National Honor Society ex- 
pects of them. 

MR. MACQUARRIE: There is nothing in the constitu- 
tion to prevent the faculty from taking the school selections as 
their own selections. They can act in a sort of advisory capac- 
ity except that their vote is appreciated. 

MR. BROOKS: No protest from the faculty would mean 
approval. It is a simple matter, I think, and need not be a 
technical barrier at all. 

MR. STEVENS (Houston): I wouldn’t like to change the 
point of discussion here but what I would like to get at here 
is not so much about the selection of members but what I can 
do with them after they are in the organization. I am not 
having much trouble in selecting the members but it is a chal- 
lenge as to what we are going to do with them after bringing 
them in. Our chapter is only two years old and I would like 
to hear from some of you who have had more experience with 
an active type of chapter. 

MR. BACON: Mr. Chairman, I can give a piece of infor- 
mation on this. The Committee on Planning has already started 
a catalogue or pamphlet on practices that will answer your 
question. The material is being’ gathered from all the country 
and eventually will be published and available to every person 
who has an Honor Society chapter. 

MR. HARDIN: Also in answer to your question, we have 
done this with one of our National Honor Societies. The stu- 
tents have made themselves available to help other students, 
students having trouble with algebra or science or any other 
subject. This student says “I will be glad to sit with you dur- 
ing a certain period and will help you with your particular 
problem.” And then again there have been personal problems 
—students have differences and members have made them- 
selves available to help them out. 

MR. ALLEN: We have a study hall that is looked after 
by members of the Honor Society, about four for each hour of 
the day. They run that. In addition we have a free reading 
room run by members and a committee to meet people and take 











124 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


them through and show them the building and things like that. 
It is a service organization in our school, getting as far away 
from the external side as possible. 


MR. PORTWOOD: I seem to be the only one here who 
nas ever stood on the other side of this thing to say anything 
about it. Of course, we are always comparing some of these 
intangibles with other things. For instance, to athletics. It’s 
a very different leadership. There’s nothing intangible about 
it. I am not out gunning for the National Honor Society but 
its greatest weakness is this percentage business of rating. 
There’s nothing convincing about it. There are certain types 
of teachers who look for service out of pupils. There’s nothing 
educational about it. As long as we say, and have to say to 
a parent that comes to see us that we are not dead certain that 
we have the group in that ought to be in, we cannot say we 
are doing a good job. I am of the opinion that if a school, 
through some form of study, could be given leeway to say that 
we believe students to be of the caliber desired and we want to 
include them in the organization, it would be a more perfect 
thing. I like the student partnership idea. I agree that they 
won’t be wrong very often but just often enough to throw a 
cold blanket over the whole proposition. 

Do you have any way of being certain that you are getting 
the proper group in this organization? You ought to be able 
to say yes or no. You are sponsoring the thing. If you say 
no, then someone will say don’t you believe you ought to find 
some way of remedying that situation? I think it is a prac- 
tical problem. National Honor Society has been and is now 
one of the things that could be remedied. I’m not as much 
against it as I may seem but I think someone ought to present 
the other side. I think we have reaped the harvest in our 
community of all the questions that can come up about it but 
{ am not ready yet to admit that all the machinery set up is as 
good as it could be. There is a bag of tricks that can be played 
on the National Honor Society. 

MR. BROOKS: We ought to respect every man’s opinio: 

MR. MACQUARRIE: I happen to know my National 
Honor Society pretty well. I ought to. I meet them every 
Thursday morning at eight o’clock and I say that every time 
we have an announcement about the honor quorum of new 
members, I ask for criticism of it. I have never had a parent 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 125 


come to me to inquire about the election because we first have 
to convince the group as to who is eligible. This isn’t a per- 
fect plan but it is the most perfect we can set up. If this 
organization is supposed to be a morale builder, are we going to 
tie them down to petty duties of administration and then rate 
them for it? 

MR. BROOKS: But you do rate them, don’t you? 

MR. MACQUARRIE: Yes, and we can show you exactly 
why you went in or were left out. If you have been in close con- 
tact with your National Honor Society, you have a feeling that 
they do measure up or fail to measure up. I can say that we 
are recognizing the right type and the right type gets in. 

MR. BROOKS: You have been more fortunate than I 
have been. I had a threat of being run out of town. Parents 
may have no vote but nevertheless there are parents, regard- 
less of logic, regardless of reason, who are leaders in high 
pressure groups, that come to my office and called me names 
and swore loudly enough for everyone in the school to hear 
that they would run me out of town. 

MR. MACQUARRIE: I come from the state of Minne- 
sota, where that could never happen. 

MR. JACOBSON: I think that scholarship is given en- 
tirely too much weight. There are, as everyone knows, a con- 
siderable group of boys and girls in your school who have given 
generously of their time, service, and leadership who are 
anonymously barred from what in many schools has become a 
clique, and not necessarily a desirable clique. I think they 
should be allowed to carry on without a high rating in schol- 
arship for their qualities that merit consideration. I would 
like to push this point a little further and say the organization 
has become a vested interest and needs careful consideration. 

Lest you think I am entirely opposed to the National 
Honor Society, I might say that I have established four chap- 
ters in four different schools over the past decade. I would 
like to see it reorganized to be democratic rather than aristo- 


° 


cratic. 

VOICE: Scholarship has been mentioned several] times 
as something that ought to be eliminated. Membership should 
be an honor conferred for recognized service and outstanding 
citizenship and certainly this would include scholarship if you 
think of scholarship in terms of being accomplished within 





126 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


the capacity of the individual and certainly some of the pupils 
who render service can be rated according to their capacity if 
the school itself has a developed plan for recognizing individual 
differences. This affords an opportunity to show accomplish- 
ment with regard to capacity. The elimination or reduction of 
the low in scholarship is undesirable—leadership, character 
and service ought to come in for consideration. 

QUESTION: I wonder what this group would feel—that 
if this question as to what shall be the minimum scholarship 
requirement to make a person eligible were to come up before 
the student body, whether they would say it would be fair to 
lower it? 

MR. BROOKS: Personally I should have to hazard a 
guess. What is your opinion? 

MR. MACQUARRIE: They don’t want it lowered. I of- 
fered this suggestion and they say no. 


The Executive Secretary desires to express his apprecia- 
tion to the management of the Jung Hotel for the many cour- 
tesies shown the officers and members of the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals during the convention of Febru- 
ary 18-21. 


REPORT OF TREASURER 
December 31, 1936. 


Receipts 

Cash on hand Jan. 1, 1936... $ 1,057.75 

$ 5,447.63 
Sale of Bulletins 1,814.07 
Sale of Blanks 630.30 
Sale of Magazines 657.70 
Consumers Union 539.70 
Insurance Premiums 3,940.04 
Interest on Bonds & Sec 2,059.05 
Miscellaneous 19 
Book-of-the-Quarter Club.... 87.75 
Honor Societies 45,765.90 
Sales Tax 





Securities 533.06 61,572.14 $ 62,629.89 











Disbursements 
Secretary’s Office ................ $ 1,357.39 
Honor Societies & Shop........ 36,990.86 








Bulletins ....... 5,368.91 
Conventions -.....................-.-. 457.41 
Planning Committee.............. 587.24 
Insurance .... . 4,721.89 
Konds & Securities................ 10,298.71 


Cash on hand Dec. 31, 1936 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





127 


2,847.48 $ 62,629.89 


STATEMENT OF CONDITION 
December 31, 1936 








Resources 

Cash in Bank 
Securities : 

(All carried at par value) 

Real Estate Loans............ $28,000.00 

Edgecomb Place Apts. 

(stock) 500.00 
Public Utility Bonds.......... 8,000.00 


U. S. Treas. 3’s of 1951.... 10,000.00 
U. S. Treas. 2% of 1955... 1,000.00 
Cons. Fed. Farm 3’s, 1955 5,000.00 


H.0.L.C. 3’s of 1952.......... 7,000.00 

H.0.L.C. 234’s of 1949...... 16,825.00 
Inventory : 

Bulletins -..........2....0...2...---- 24,440.70 


Honor Societies & Shop.... 13,274.22 


Department ...................-.. 574.35 

Furniture & Fixtures...... 531.67 

Bills Receivable.................. 
Liabilities 


Bills Payable.......................... 
Net Werth............1..2..:....... 





$ 2,847.48 


71,325.00 


38,820.94 


1,008.17 $113,996.59 


1,952.75 
112,043.84 $113,996.50 











128 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


CONSTITUTION 
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL 
PRINCIPALS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION 


ARTICLE I—NAME 
The name of this organization shall be the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Asso- 
ciation. 


ARTICLE II—AIM 
The aim of this department shall be the advancement of 
secondary education by providing a clearing house of discus- 
sion bearing upon the problems of administration and super- 
vision, by encouraging research, by upholding acceptable 
standards, by fostering professional ideals, and by. formulat- 
ing a working philosophy of secondary education. 


ARTICLE III—MEMBERSHIP 

SECTION 1—The membership in the Department of a 
dary-School Principals shall consist of two classes: active and 
associate. 

SECTION 2—All individuals shall be eligible to active mem- 
bership who are members of the National Education Associa- 
tion and who are engaged in administrating supervision, and 
teaching secondary education, upon payment of the annual fee 
of $2.00 to the executive secretary. 

SECTION 3—Members of state organizations of secondary- 
school principals shall be eligible to active membership in the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals, by the payment 
of the annual fee of $1.00 to the executive secretary. 

SECTION 4—All other persons interested in secondary edu- 
cation, who are members of the National Education Associa- 
tion, shall be eligible to associate membership upon payment 
of the annual fee of $2.00 to the executive secretary. 

SECTION 5—Only active members shall have the privilege 
of voting or holding office. 

SECTION 6—AIl members, both active and associate, shall 
receive the publications of the Department. 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 129 


ARTICLE [V—OFFICERS 


SECTION 1—The elective officers of the Department shall 
be a president, a first vice-president, and a second vice-presi- 
dent. 

SECTION 2—The president and the vice-presidents shall 
hold office for one year. 

SECTION 3—The executive committee shall consist of the 
officers, the retiring president, and three other members each 
elected for a term of three years. At the first election, one 
member shall be elected for only one year and one other for 
two years. The executive committee shall be representative 
of junior high schools, the several types of senior high schools, 
and junior colleges. 

SECTION 4—The executive secretary shall be selected by 
the executive committee; his duties and compensation shall be 
determined by the executive committee. 


ARTICLE V 
SECTION 1—The president shall, sixty days in advance of 


the annual meeting, ask each of the state associations of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals to name a repre- 
sentative who shall then be appointed by the president as a 
member of the nominating committee. 


SECTION 2—Eighteen members of the nominating com- 
mittee shall constitute a quorum with not fewer than three 
from each of the following regional associations of colleges 
and Secondary Schools: New Engand Association of Colleges 
and Secondary-Schools, the Association of Colleges and Sec- 
ondary Schools of the Middle States, the Association of Col- 
leges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, the North 
Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the 
Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools, and 
the Western Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 
Any lack in the representation herein provided shall be filled 
by nomination from the floor. 

SECTION 3—The nominating committee so constituted 
shall meet following its selection and after electing a chair- 
man, shall prepare a list of candidates for the several offices, 
to be submitted to the Department at its final business meet- 


Ing. 











130 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


ARTICLE VI—FINANCE 


The president shall appoint, subject to the approval of 
the executive committee, two members who shall, with the ex- 
ecutive secretary, constitute a board of finance to act in the 
capacity of trustees, to have custody of the funds of the De- 
partment, to have same properly audited, and to submit an- 
nually a report to the Department. Bills shall be paid by the 
executive secretary upon the authorization of the president. 


ARTICLE VII—MEETINGS 


SECTION 1—The Department of Secondary-School Prin- 
cipals shall hold two meetings yearly. The regular annual 
meeting shall be held at the time and place of the meetings of 
the Department of Superintendence of the National Education 
Association, unless arranged for otherwise by the executive 
committee of the Department. 

SECTION 2—The second meeting of the Department shall 
be held at the time and place of the annual summer meeting 
of the National Education Association. 


ARTICLE VIII—AMENDMENTS 


The Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds major- 
ity vote of those present and voting at the annual mid-winter 
meetings. A proposed amendment must be submitted in writ- 
ing at the preceding annual meeting, or must be submitted in 
printed form to all members of the Department thirty days 
before the annual meeting. In case the latter method is used, 
such amendment must receive the approval of the executive 
committee before it can be printed and sent to the members 


of the Department. 


ARTICLE IX 
Roberts’ Rules of Order shall govern in all meetings of the 
Department. 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 181 















POSTAL INSURANCE 


The bulletin is insured 


If the property contained in this package is damaged, or 
any part of the contents lost, please report the extent of loss 
or damage at once to the Department, together with the orig- 
inal wrapper of the parcel. 





This insurance covers all parcels, as well as the Bulletins 
shipped by the Department of Secondary-School Principals, 
whether mailed first class, registered, unregistered, or parcel 
post. 


Send all reports of loss with the original wrapper of the 
package to 


THE DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL 
PRINCIPALS 


5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. 





Supplement 


to 


Bulletin No. 65 


CONTENTS 


Referendum 


Panel—School and Community Relationships 


Discussion: 
Function VI—Earl Hudelson 
Function VII—Oliver R. Floyd 





Papers at Dinner Meeting: 
Francis T. Spaulding 
Thomas H. Briggs 


What Secondary Schools Should Do—Thomas H. Briggs.... 46 


Notices of Summer Administrative Conferences 


Committee Report and Referendum........................--.---.------- .. 60 


- 


















































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REFERENDUM 


At the New Orleans meeting a committee was appointed 
by the President of the Department of Secondary-School Prin- 
cipals to circularize the membership relative to the time and 
place of the annual meeting, and to find out sentiment regard- 
ing the name of the organization. 


In order to formulate a report the committee desires to ob- 
tain the opinions of the members, hence we hope you will, on 
receiving this supplement, at once fill in the blanks and mail 
your observations to the Executive Secretary, H. V. Church, 
5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. If you delay, your sugges- 
tions cannot be considered, for the committee plans to make a 
definite report in the May (1937) Bulletin, No. 67. 


COMMITTEE: 
P. B. Jacobson, Chairman. 


M. P. Gaffney. 
Paul V. Pierce. 








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Se Oe sr cath rincteettccoichnsstnnctnciocicesatdnsaasconstcammseciahinccasinemnadiccesincs 





Did you attend the New Orleans Convention? Yes... ............-..- Di iichidinnnises: sein 
How many national conventions of the department have you attended in the past five 


FORE G Fccncicicarsntsinscistitinitenns 


1. Place. Some members feel that the meeting should be held at a different place and 
time than the meeting of the American Association of School Administrators, pre- 
viously called the Department of Superintendence. Some men cannot attend the mid- 
winter meeting because the high-school principal and superintendent in a community 
cannot be gone at the same time. Some men attend because the meetings are held 
concurrently. 


Cheeks ome: .....-......-..<0-<- Meet at the same place as the American Association of School 
Administrators 


eceinnewiaetiae Gola Meet at a central place at another time (Chicago, St. Louis, or 
Cleveland). 


ENG Se ENTE LIT EME HELE OS WCE CR ITE SOP Rea 








2. If the meeting is held at the same time as the American Association of School Ad- 


ministrators, some feel it should precede this meeting, others think our sessions should 
run concurrently. 


Cheeks O9€S .nccccccceccsconse Begin Friday evening preceding the American Association of 
School Administrators. 
(See p. 2 





een we wenn cnc eeenensccccccccoss 








PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


(Please fill blank below. The lower half of page 1 and of 
page 2 are parts of the same referendum.) 


Begin Saturday morning (general meeting, A. M.;_ sectional 
meeting, P. M.; dinner, evening). 


Begin Saturday evening preceding American Association of 
School Administrators. 


..Begin Sunday evening. 





3. How many general sessions should the Department of Secondary-School Principals 
hold at the annual meeting? 


Check one: ............-... Three; 
Suggestions: 


Some members of the Department feel the name of the organization should be 
changed to show its national scope. 


Check one: ..... -The National Association of Secondary-School Principals—a De- 
partment of the N. E. A. 


he National Society of Secondary Education—a Department 
of the N. E. A 


The Department of Secondary-School Principals (present 


The National — 7 of Secondary-School Administrators 
—a Department of the N. 





Suggestions: 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


SUPPLEMENT 


The following reports and papers were received too late 
to be included in BULLETIN NO. 65. 


SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIP 


The meeting of the Panel on School and Community Rela- 
tionships was called to order by Oscar Granger, Principal, 
Haverford Township High School, Upper Darby, Pennsylva- 
nia, and member, Executive Committee, Department of Sec- 
ondary-School Principals, at ten o’clock Saturday morning 
February 2, 1937. Mr. Granger immediately turned the chair 
over to the Chairman of the Panel, Dr. George C. Galphin, 
Professor of Education, Drexel Institute of Technology, Phil- 
adelphia. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 


This question of School and Community Relationships is 
certainly full of problems. We feel that in a study of this kind 
it is absolutely necessary that we first identify the problems of 
youth. In trying to do this, a Committee surveyed some thou- 
sand high-school students in the Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
vania for the purpose of identifying their problems and as a 
result of that survey they have listed not all the problems but 
have listed for your consideration four of them. 


We have asked Mr. Morrisett, in the absence of Mr. Fos- 
ter, to open the discussion of this subject. I might say in his 
behalf that he was asked to pinch-hit for Mr. Foster yester- 
day afternoon at about five o’clock and to tell us in fifteen min- 
utes what schools are doing to help our boys and girls solve 
their problems. 


MR. MORRISETT: 


Chairman, Panel, fellow teachers: In reference to 
what the schools are doing, I might say I haven’t had 
an opportunity since five o’clock yesterday to find out 
what other schools are doing, so I know very little about 








4 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


what schools outside of my own community are doing. 
For that reason I wish you to excuse me if I seem to talk 
about what is being done in our community and at the same 
time I don’t want you to get the idea that I think we are doing 
the best work. I realize that there are many schools doing 
much more and much better work and yet there may be other 
schools doing nothing. 


I want to bring to your attention certain problems that 
face the schools and face youth. One of those problems is so- 
cial adjustment. In our schools we are trying to face this 
problem with the community for we believe that education is 
not a function of the school but a function of the community 
and the school. The community should know and perform 
some work in connection with social adjustment. We feel that 
the teachers should know the community. The teachers should 
know the community resources and then in turn the pupils 
should be brought face to face with the situation as it really is. 
In order to facilitate this we have formed a council composed 
of two members of each of the social agencies. There are 
about ten social agencies in the community. These social agen- 
cies are familiar with the social problems which many of the 
people in the community face every day. The social agencies 
confer with the teachers. They take us on trips; they show us 
housing problems and they show us the social problems in the 
matter of social hygiene. We study these situations and then 
in the light of these facts endeavor to correct these conditions. 
Some classes have been held in which social problems were 
studied, surveys made, and trips were taken. Consultations 
were held with housing authorities and the boys and girls 
studied houses in relation to health improvement problems. 
They also studied juvenile delinquency and its relation to 
crime; its relation to education and school opportunities and 
school attendance; its relation to employment; its relation to 
economic and social living, and out of this study, which was 
intended to help the boys and girls evaluate conditions and es- 
tablish high ideals of citizenship and social living, came much 


good. 
Another thing that we are doing is stressing the idea 


that all children must be trained in good citizenship. For this 
reason, we have organized our schools on a plan of democra- 





= 2h @¢0 So Gt oe 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 5 


cy. The schools have problems just as a community has and 
the boys and girls face these problems, study them, and at- 
tempt to solve them, and in this way get practice in the fine 
art of citizenship. Now this depends, to a large extent,— 
this participation and control in management of the schools— 
on certain courses in the curriculum. It extends largely over 
the field of character-building activities. We teach boys and 
girls to realize that fine qualities are required for good citizen- 
ship. 

We have organized in most of the schools what we call a 
community council. A school in a certain area of the city has 
a council composed of teachers, boys and girls in the school, 
and a number of parents, who meet regularly, some once a 
month and some meet once a week. This council meets in the 
school in the evening and they bring up problems which the 
boys and girls, men and women in the community face and 
which they feel should be solved and improved in the life of 
the community. This council sponsors dances and other activi- 
ties in the community with the object of making entertain- 
ment in the schools and community more wholesome. 


We are also trying to face in our schools, squarely, the 
problem of guidance. Now we are facing this as a community 
responsibility as well as a school responsibility. Guidance as 
we think of it in the broad sense is education, vocational, emo- 
tional, and social. We are calling in a group of citizens, who 
are particularly interested in certain phases of life in the com- 
munity. Some of them are industrialists and some of them 
are professional men and some laboring men but all are 
interested and have a wealth of information that they have ac- 
cumulated by experience and they come into our schools and 
meet groups of students who are interested in particular prob- 


lems. 


Now there is just one other thing that I wish to speak about 
and that is that we are trying to solve the social problems by 
opening the schools in the evening any where from one to 
three times a week and inviting the boys and girls to come 
back to school at night and do things they would like to do. 
We open the handwork rooms, music rooms, art rooms,, and 
auditorium for their use. This as I stated before, is to help 











6 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


boys and girls solve social problems by using spare time for 
wholesome purposes. 

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity of filling in 
for Mr. Foster but I know that if he had been here he would 
have given a much better presentation of this subject. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 

Some people in trying to solve the problems of School and 
Community Relationships think only in terms of telling the 
public what we are doing in the schools. We asked Mr. Bris- 
tow, General Secretary of the National Congress of Parents 
and teachers, to come here this morning and tell us what the 
community would like for us to do and is willing to help us do. 


MR. BRISTOW: 


Mr. Chairman, I should like to address my remarks to a 
rather narrow interpretation of this whole area of thinking. 
The title under which I should like to address these few re- 
marks is THE PLACE OF PARENTS IN SCHOOL AND 


COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS. 


Relationships can be of two kinds—mechanistic or or- 
ganic. Mechanistic relationships are ONE-WAY; they are on 
the master and servant level. The dominance of administrators 
over teachers, teachers over children, parents over children, 
teachers over parents, parents over teachers is an example of 
mechanistic relationships in human affairs. Organic relation- 
ships are TWO-WAY and are fostered by mutual confidence 
and respect, by discussion, and by the sharing of responsibili- 
ties. Organic relationships serve to develop the best that is in 
teachers, parents, and pupils. They tend to develop self-direc- 
tion, security and confidence. 


Parents are interested in education and are vitally in- 
terested in their children. Their seeming lack of interest is 
due more to the fact that they do not know how to show this 
interest or how to codperate as effectively as they might. They 
also fear that the showing of too great interest may be con- 
strued on the part of the school as interference. This seeming 
lack of interest may be compared to the nonchalant attitude 
which is frequently assumed by a high-school youngster when 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 7 





he is in a tight place, when he does not know the assignment, 
when he has to cover up some deficiency. 


What is the place of the parents in this problem of home- 
school-community relationships and what are some of the 
points which need to be considered? 


1. Education needs to be thought of in the large. The 
effect of home and community environment upon the 
education of youth is quite as important as what is 
done in the school. No educational program to-day 
can be said to be complete which considers only the 
six hours of the time that the pupil spends in school. 


Parents have _ responsibilities, opportunities, and 
rights in connection with the education of their 
children. Their responsibilities do not end with the 
creation of favorable public opinion for education, 
the voting of taxes to pay teachers salaries, the elec- 
tion of school boards,’ and the sending of their chil- 
dren to school properly clothed and fed. These are 
but the EXTERNA with reference to parents’ place 
in education. The INTERNA are such things as 
cooperative educational enterprises in the home and 
the community. The development of a favorable at- 
titude on the part of children and youth toward edu- 
cation, conduct in the home of such a character that 
children will have the physical, emotional, and intelli- 
gent balance necessary to profit from the. offerings 
of the school. 


Individual parents working alone and without the aid 
of teachers find it extremely difficult to develop the 
kind of home and community conditions which are 
hospitable to the most effective education and growth 
of their children. Organized parents and teachers 
working together are able to plan, develop, project, 
extend, and codrdinate educational programs in home- 
school-community. 


Just as individual parents and teachers find the need 
for organized, codperative effort, so have the organ- 
ized groups in various communities found it neces- 
sary to band themselves together in the National 











8 





PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Congress of Parents and Teachers for the purposes of 
mutual support, assistance, inspiration. Ignorance, 
crime, social instability cannot be quarantined in any 
one community and consequently no single community 
is any safer than the larger community of state and 
nation. Since modern social conditions require or- 
ganization for social action the parent-teacher associ- 
ation readily forms the basis for social planning. 


Education for family life and parenthood is a joint re- 
sponsibility of home-school-community. The home 


. and the community are a laboratory for this import- 


ant educational enterprise. The school, too, has re- 
sponsibilities for developing a definite instructional 
program which will assist pupils in adjusting them- 
selves to their present family situation and to help 
them to create increasingly high levels of family life. 


Some of the areas in which home-school-community re- 
lationships can be extended, improved, and enriched are: 


1. 


Children and youth need to have concrete experiences 
in community activities and with community enter- 
prises, both from the standpoint of study and parti- 
cipation. The excellent program projected by the 
Civics Institute commends itself to every secondary- 
school principal. It is a type of instructional pro- 
gram which must be more extensively used. From 
the standpoint of activities and participation the defi- 
nite inclusion of high-school youth upon community 
committees and their active participation in commu- 
nity-wide enterprises is much to be desired. Parents 
and teachers working together can develop a senti- 
ment in the community for such a program. 


There needs to be an active constructive program of 
interpretation of modern education. Teachers may 
well cultivate this important activity. Education needs 
to be interpreted to children. It needs also to be in- 
terpreted to adults. Here is one of the most fertile 
areas for the parent-teacher movement. This inter- 
pretation should be through the press, through indi- 
dividual contacts, and especially through study 
groups, meetings, and conferences. 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 9 


3. The school is more and more assuming a share of re- 
sponsibility for recreation and social activities. Less 
emphasis is needed upon athletics and more upon the 
kinds of activities which will carry over into home 
and community and carry on long after the pupil has 
left the secondary school. Social activities need spe- 
cial consideration at the present time. The activities 
of the school should not encroach upon activities of 
the home and community. Activities in school and 
community should allow for family nights at home. 
Parents and teachers may well work together with 
pupils and teachers in social standards conferences 
setting up desirable standards for social activities in 
the community. Parents should plan for such activi- 
ties on a community basis. 


The Community Chest Drives have placed emphasis 
upon certain collateral agencies and organizations as 
character building agencies. The home, the school, 
and the church are the three most important charac- 
ter building agencies in any community but they need 
to be integrated with each other and with other com- 
munity agencies. 


In mapping out programs of home study the school 
should take into consideration the physical strength of 
children. Home study activities should not be con- 
fined entirely to disagreeable tasks. They may very 
appropriately include activities which can be par- 
ticipated in by other members of the family and which 
have a part of leisure time nature. Insofar as home is 
concerned it would seem quite appropriate that child 
labor laws should be observed in education quite as 
much as in industry. Parents can help in planning 
with reference to this and other like problems. 


An effective personnel program in the school depends 
upon an accurate and complete knowledge of the pu- 
pil’s interests, capacities, emotional life, his hopes, his 
aspirations. Full knowledge of these can hardly be 
acquired without consideration of the pupil’s home 
life and community contacts. Guidance, then, should 
be a joint responsibility of home and school. The ex- 











10 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


cellent results which have been achieved in many 
schools should commend this to us for study. Par- 
ticularly inspiring is the program of the University 
High School at Oakland, California. 


At the moment one of the most important things for those 
of us interested in education and children and youth is to de- 
velop in each community channels through which parents and 
teachers can work together on problems vitally affecting the 
education, growth, and welfare of children. There needs to be 
mutual understanding and respect on the part of parents and 
teachers. Parents and teachers need to come to a point where 
they can work together without either being uncomfortable 
in the presence of the other. We need also to recognize the 
place which children themselves might rightfully occupy in 
planning these enterprises. Especially important to parents 
and teachers is the problem of worthy use of leisure. With 
fewer home responsibilities there needs to be developed kinds 
of constructive social activities which will challenge the imagi- 
nation, intelligence, and physical efforts of older youth. The 
younger youth plans for constructive play opportunities are 
just as pressing. 

When we see education as a whole, it becomes increasing- 
ly apparent that every factor of home-school-community which 
impinges upon children and youth must be evaluated with ref- 
erence to its educational worth. This calls for united and 
coérdinated community effort. Parents are looking to edu- 
cators to take the lead since they have the training and the con- 
ception of the program as a whole. 


On the other hand they want to do their share. They want 
to serve. They are not seeking to push on the school responsi- 
bilities which the school cannot carry. They are, however, ex- 
pecting the school to help them in planning the programs 
which will permit them to do their part well. Intelligent shar- 
ing should be the keynote of such a program. 


There are also problems in connection with curriculum in 
which parents are interested and concerning which they would 
be of help in assisting the school in thinking through its prob- 
lem. Some states and individual schools and school systems 
are undertaking codperative curriculum programs with lay 
groups. These are familiar to you. In local communities in 





i 6 ok oe oe ee ek ek. 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 11 


such fields as motion pictures and radio there have been devel- 
opments which are most helpful. 

Once we are able to develop a modus operandi which will 
make use of the tremendous unharnessed but willing resources 
of home and community our program of education will move 
forward at a greatly accelerated pace. Such a working plan 
will develop a deepening of understanding and appreciation on 
the part of parents of the work of teachers, and of the prob- 
lems of parents on the part of teachers. Out of this will cer- 
tainly come the organic or two-way relationships essential to 
shared experience. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 

We are grateful to Mr. Morrisett and Mr. Bristow for giv- 
ing the school side and the community side of this question of 
school and community relationships. We have with us this 
morning representatives from various lay groups which we 
would like to hear from on this subject. At this time we would 
like to call on Mr. James M. Thomson, publisher of the Item- 
Tribune of New Orleans. We also have with us Mr. Harvey 
of the.Central Trade and Labor Council whom we shall call on 
a little later. I have some questions which I should like to 
ask these gentlemen in reference to school problems. I had the 
pleasure of going to Mr. Thomson’s office recently and enjoyed 
very much talking with him and appreciate all the courtesies 
shown me by him since arriving in the city of New Orleans. 
Mr. Thomson, what do you think of the school program as you 
know it? 


MR. THOMSON: 
I don’t exactly understand the question. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 


Mr. Morrisett stated some of the problems facing the 
schools and mentioned several things that are being done in 
attempting to solve these problems. We should like to know 
if you, representing a lay group, agree with what we are try- 
ing to do. 


MR. THOMSON: 
Yes, with what you are trying to do. (Laughter.) 

















12 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 
Do you feel that we are trying to do the right thing? 


MR. THOMSON: 


My ignorance of school systems is most profound. I 
speak as one who came from school forty years ago. Most of 
what I have heard lately has been that school boards, parent- 
teachers associations, and superintendents of schools, are al- 
ways asking for more money. I think this idea should be sup- 
ported as schools do good work for society, however, in our 
part of the world we lack support for our schools, in a financial 
way, due to the fact that this part of the world is having to 
build back from restoration days and is rather backward in 
school standards. We feel that support of appropriations for 
schools and colleges is overdone. I don’t say we have overdone 
it in a positive sense but overdone it in forcing the taxpayers 
to support the schools. Here in this community, for instance, 
we have seen nearly a third of our population on unemploy- 
ment rolls. Thousands and thousands of people have been sold 
out of their homes. Sold out for taxes. Taxes which are go- 
ing, in part, to the support of the educational system. . Some 
of us who don’t look at the question from a school standpoint 
have wondered what is happening to that group of people 
who have been put out of their homes. How much good is the 
school system doing them? I think, however, that we are now 
building back and hope we are building back all of our schools, 
churches, industry, and agriculture to a better day. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 
Mr. Thomson, are you satisfied with the health program, 
as you know it now in the schools? 


MR. THOMSON: 


I don’t know the health program in the schools, however 
I have been profoundly impressed with some of the things that 
have been mentioned here. One is the accidents that occur. 
I saw some figures recently from the largest accident insurance 
company in this country in reference to accidents. People are 
always a little nervous about statistics and about quoting them 
from memory, but damages from accidents injure society in a 
material way, not only by killing people but keeping them out 




























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 13 


of employment due to injury, therefore this seems to me to be 
a very important matter. It was stated by this company that 
something like three billion seven hundred million dollars, or 
some such figure as that, was spent as a result of accidents. 
This amounts to about as much as the whole cost of our school 
systems throughout this country. In wandering around in my 
mind for something to say, it just occurred to me that a good 
bit could be accomplished if we could teach these boys and girls 
how to run automobiles. This would avoid many accidents. 
This is one factor that just came to my mind when the ques- 
tion was brought out a little while ago about attempting to get 
together the parents and the children. Suppose that in this 
community there was called, not a teachers’ meeting, but that 
the parents of the children in a certain neighborhood were 
invited in and for a couple of hours would discuss this subject 
in the schools and try to have this accident problem eliminat- 
ed. Suppose there were held two meetings on this subject 
each month. I think that in a year we would get rid of a great 
deal of this problem. 


Speaking as a man entirely outside of the school system, 


I think exercise is essential for good health in schools. When I 
went to school I got most of my exercise outside of school. I 
went to a country school and drove in every day on an old 
war horse. A country boy, as a rule, gets plenty of exercise. 
I don’t know, however, that he gets the right type of physical 
training if he is a little off normal—a little subnormal. Now 
looking back at life over a good many years of living, there is 
no use in the world and it doesn’t matter how much you put in 
boys and girls heads, if you don’t build them up physically— 
girls for motherhood and boys to grow to manhood and fit to 
meet the requirements of life and hit the ball regularly. At 
the time the World War figures showed that there were a 
great many of the men who came up to go in the army who 
were physically unfit to be soldiers. The statistics were not a 
reflection on the school system but on the society of which we 
are all a part. The thought I would leave is, if it can be 
worked out, that there should be physical training for young- 
sters directing them in some line which will improve them 
physically and put them in the habit of systematic exercise. 
In my opinion, this is most important. More important, in 
some ways, particularly for those boys and girls who are 





14 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


growing up in cities, than trying to teach them something in 
the school classes. I think the idea should be that each stu- 
dent, each pupil, should be taken and it should be seen that he 
gets the maximum physical development. I think this has 
been neglected in the school systems. At least it hasn’t been 
overdone, in my opinion, in the school systems. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 


We would now like to have an expression from Mr. Har- 
vey, who is with us this morning, in reference to the work 
which we are atempting to do. 


MR. HARVEY: 

Mr. Thomson and I have been sitting on the opposite sides 
of the table in New Orleans quite a bit. He is a publisher of a 
regular newspaper and I am an organizer of American labor. 
Naturally our minds run in different trends. I don’t think 
school systems could ever be overdone from the strain on tax- 
payers for the simple reason that I would rather see the tax- 
payer’s money go to improve the school systems than to spend 
millions of dollars prosecuting criminals and for the expense 
of sending “G’” men over the country. I think it is essential 
that we educate our youth to-day to meet the requirements of 
a certain line of life instead of going into life unprepared. 

For eight years I have noticed a greater improvement in 
community ideas. We have here in New Orleans, during re- 
cent times, opened the school grounds in the afternoon in 
neighborhoods where the children were not provided with 
playgrounds. Parents know, in this way, that their children 
are safe. The Federal Government has also appropriated 
money to pay attendants to supervise play on school grounds 
after school hours. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 
I would like to ask this question—On what basis should 
appointment for community jobs be based? 


MR. HARVEY: 
Academic scholarship, I think is most important. 


MR. THOMSON: 
Basically of course I am a firm believer in the American 








Referenda 
on pp. 1, 2 and 61 


Please Answer at Once 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 15 


system that would entail some kind of regulation and scholar- 
ship and that the boy or girl, man or woman that passed the 
best examination would have the first shot at the job. Does 
this answer your question? 


MR. ROLAND: 


American education is for the welfare of the children and 
for no other reason whatsoever. Following this thought, the 
children deserve the best teachers that the community can af- 
ford and those best teachers might be characterized as the 
teachers with the necessary scholastic training, or scholarship, 
with good experience and personality and leadership and when 
I look for a teacher for children I take these facts into consider- 
ation. It doesn’t make any difference whether a teacher is red 
headed, blonde or brunette, whether she is fat or not, or wheth- 
er she lives in the community or not, but the thing is, has this 
teacher the personality, the love of children, the teaching urge, 
professional experience, etc. 


MR. THOMSON: 


I'd like to differ with you. I don’t think that a communi- 
ty or society supports the school system for the benefit of the 
children alone. It supports the school system for the benefit 
of society. There’s a question in my mind whether we are 
teaching the average kids in the schools the things that are 
going to be most useful to them as members of society when 
they finish school. Somebody has said that you have not 
changed your reports for twenty years. Looking at the prod- 
ucts of the schools, as far as I see, I don’t think that we are 
teaching our girls over this country how to cook, wash, and 
iron, and other things which will make them useful as house- 
wives and that is going to be what those girls are going to do. 
Young people should be taught to do something with their 
hands and trained to start to make a living instead of having 
to serve long apprenticeships, and to be useful in lines that 
they are necessarily going to follow. The community would 
then be better off. Thirty years ago we had to send out of 
town to get a good mechanic. We need trained people to do the 
things that eighteen out of twenty are necessarily going to do. 
We now have a good trade school here in New Orleans 
which trains boys in the various trades. I don’t think that 

















16 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





Latin, Greek and classical stuff prepares them for the posi- 
tions they are going to occupy in life. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 


We have Father Roy of one of the New Orleans churches 
with us and I would like to ask him a question. Father Roy, 
what supervision do you think the school should have over out- 
side activities ? 


FATHER ROY: 

Mr. Chairman I can’t speak authoritatively for all church 
groups any more than any one man can speak for all public 
schools. I believe that too often in our discussion of these 
matters we forget that we are talking about human beings. 
It strikes me that sometimes we are talking about animals or 
something. I don’t think you can make any general laws with 
regard to education for all children because every individual is 
just as different physically, mentally, and emotionally as every 
individual is different in his finger prints. Therefore, you 
can’t put down any fixed laws about how you are going to edu- 
cate children. I don’t agree that every child should receive all 
his work in school or that every child should be made to 
study at home in the evening. I think that you have got to 
take into consideration what kind of community the children 
are living in. Suppose that a public school or a church school 
is located in an extremely poor and dilapidated part of the city 
where you know that the children have no facilities for study- 
ing at home. No place to sit down and be quiet. Not sufficient 
lighting facilities. That reacts to a vastly different problem 
than if you have a school, for instance located up in the up- 
town section of New Orleans in the wealthy section of the city 
where there is every convenience in the home and where there 
is no reason in the world why a student should not have an 
opportunity to do his work at home. In the first case, I think 
that the schools should provide for all the work done in the 
schools. In the second case I don’t think they should. Be- 
cause we find, wealthy people do not stay at home at night and 
therefore you are not going to have anybody at home at night, 
but the children can study and the parents will know where 
they are. The poor people stay at home at night. If the poor 
children do not stay in school most of the time their parents do 















ain ee a aa a ak a i a es 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 17 


not know where they are. There should be some sort of work 
assigned, in the school, to those children so that we can be 
more or less assured that they are not going to run wild around 
the streets at night. My opinion is that this question varies 
according to situations. I don’t think that it’s an entirely 
proven statement that it is better to have work in the after- 
noon and let them free at night. We know that boys, for in- 
stance, like to play baseball or football. When do they get: 
their exercise—at night or in the afternoon? Most sports are 
engaged in in the afternoon. We want the children in the 
schools to have healthy exercise, then why keep them in school 
until late? They can’t get this exercise after dark. Due to 
these facts, I would be inclined to be rather slow in approving 
a six or seven hour system. I think it a very good idea to let 
students out very early, say two or three o’clock and let them 
go out and get healthy exercise. This can be done by super- 
vised play on school grounds, which should be the case in 
poorer sections. The children should be free to play and then 
let them do their work when they can’t get out to play. 


MR. ROLAND: 


I do not disagree with Father Roy. In fact I agree with 
him with the exception of one point. I am not sure about the 
boys and girls in the homes of the wealthy. I agree with the 
program providing for after school recreation, wholesome rec- 
reation, but I want to include in that program the education 
of the church and other character activities available in most 
communities and primarily the use of the school as Mr. Mor- 
risett has pointed out, not leaving that program of after school 
education entirely to those parents who go out to parties and 
dances. This is the responsibility also of the community—the 
responsibility for recognizing that as a part of the completed 
education of boys and girls and making adequate provisions 
for it and therefore including that in the program of education 
which should be furnished in a constructive way. We know 
that boys and girls left to themselves without supervision of 
those parents who insist on going to card parties, etc., leaving 
children to themselves, to do what they please, do not get the 
proper recreation. I feel that we ought to recognize and pro- 
vide for those natural desires on the part of boys and girls of 
high-school age to engage in these activities. We don’t make 








18 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


this important at the present time because we still think of ed- 
ucation and schooling as mathematics, history, and English lit- 
erature, whereas we ought to recognize the child’s developing 
character traits as a result of scouting, church activities, read- 
ing, etc. Most teachers now realize that stimulation of free 
reading is far more important than the few classics in schoc!. 
The athletic program to be sure is important and should be 
made to include every boy and girl. 


MR. MORRISETT: 


Mr, Thomson has said that he asked a question which 
hasn’t been answered. That was “Should edtication of the sec- 
ondary level be of the traditional type or should it be an educa- 
tion designed to serve boys and girls at points of need?” 


The secondary education, the glorified, the traditional, is 
passed, minimized, and neglected. We know full well that all 
boys and girls and all people need certain things. First they 
need to be able to control and adjust themselves to their social 
environment, where they live and what they know. They have 
to adjust themselves to control their physical environment. 
There is the need for all boys and girls to be given the incen- 
tive, the desire and some training, in order that they may be- 
come economically competent. They should have the ability to 
appreciate the cultural environments in which they live and to 
gradually learn to appreciate a higher cultural environment in 
terms of actual living in the community in which they live. 
All boys and girls should take art. Art influences the emo- 
tional life and happiness of everyone and music and literature 
do the same thing. They need to be equipped to control their 
leisure time. The last thing I will name is that some boys and 
girls need the opportunity to pursue what I call intellectual 
curiosity. There are some people who have it. All schools 
should provide opportunity for those who are interested in ad- 
vanced science, art, etc. There are really only a few that have 
this curiosity. There are many places where I think a pro- 
gram of secondary education could and is being, in some 
places, developed that may serve the boys and girls at this 
point of need. Out of that should come a social order which 
would result in a better place to live and a better place in 
which to raise children. 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 19 


MR. BRISTOW: 


It looks as if we have come to the place where we want 
some different kinds of education. You have got to protect 
education in its teaching, for instance in reference to the 
health program. The worse enemy to health now is syphilis 
but you can’t mention the question in the schools. The educa- 
tional program that has been mentioned by some is much 
more costly sort of thing than schools are costing at the pres- 
ent time and we are going to have to rely on the community to 
support the kind of education which does the things which we 
have in mind. 


CHAIRMAN GALPHIN: 

We will have to close this discussion now and turn the 
meeting over to the President of this Section so that we may be 
able to get back to attend the afternoon session which will 
start at one o’clock. 


MR. OSCAR GRANGER: 

If we have got nothing else out of the program this morn- 
ing, I think that we are all convinced of the fact that we must 
know what kind of schools the community wants and what are 
the community agencies that we may use for the development 
of these boys and girls for whom we are responsible. We need 
not only an informed public but a coéperating public as well. 

I want to thank the Chairman of this Panel for conduct- 
ing this discussion. 


The meeting will now adjourn. 














20 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





FUNCTION VI 


To establish and to develop interests in the major 
fields of human activity as means to happiness, to 
social progress, and to continued growth. 


Discussion by Dean Ear] Hudelson, of the College of Ed- 
ucation, West Virginia University, of Function VI of the 
Functions of Secondary Education. 


I wish, as I suspect your Committee does, that there were 
some simple, all-inclusive term to explain this function. I 
think that poets have come nearest to expressing it, but to our 
prosaic minds their conceptions are too ethereal to be admin- 
istered. One calls to mind, of course, such intangible expres- 
sions as “the good life,” “abundant life,” and “the complete 
life,” but these, too, are more euphonious than practical. To 
do it well—and I think your Committee has done it well— 
they have therefore had to go to considerable length to make 
objective this liberalizing, liberating, debrutalizing, quicken- 
ing, ennobling, upward-and-outward-looking possibility in ed- 
ucation. Mr. Diederich has, moreover, got right down to brass 
tacks and offered feasible suggestions for employing this func- 
tion in schools. It is known to be practicable; now, as Dr. 
Spaulding asserts, if the secondary schools neglect it, they do 
so at their own and society’s risk. 

The Committe has taken pains to distinguish between this 
and other functions. The word “needs” has been used several 
times in defining the scope of Function VI. Since “needs” 
is so often associated with such life-sustaining essentials as 
food, clothing, and shelter, I wonder whether it would not be 
better to limit our use of the word “needs” to the more voca- 
tional functions, and to associate Function VI with some such 
term as “desires” or “aspirations,” or perhaps “wants.” 

Your Committee has wisely cautioned us that this func- 
tion of modern education will not be eagerly embraced and 
supported by society. Zest-engendering, soul-satisfying, altru- 
istic, leisure-time opportunities are not popularly associated 
with institutions supported by taxation. Each parent tends 
to think what schooling will do to and for his boy or girl, not 
what his boy or girl will to do and for society. Yet laymen 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 21 


must be brought to see that whether or not they owe a child 
a liberating education for his own sake, they at least owe it to 
him for the sake of those with whom he must live. No inter- 
est can be wholly individual. Every interest that is explored 
and pursued helps to resolve the mysteries of life, and this 
makes everybody better adjusted and happier. 


Several of the authors of the Bulletin seem to have been 
exercised over the difficulty of discriminating between the 
various functions, particularly between Functions III and VI 
and Functions IV and VI. As for the reasons for these vari- 
ous functions, it is well jealously to differentiate them, else the 
less tangible ones are apt to be neglected; but as far as out- 
comes are concerned, I don’t think we need to worry if there 
is overlapping. In fact, it seems to me that the surest way of 
arriving at a wise vocational choice is through taking the 
fullest advantage of the opportunities offered by Function VI. 
We all know instances of people who have discovered their 
bents through the apparently aimless pursuit of mere interests 
or even the mere plumbing of possibilities. But let us not for- 
get that if these do not lead to a vocational choice, the explora- 
tion and the pursuit will not have been in vain. We can no 
more suppress interests than we can dam the stream of 
consciousness. If wholesome interests are inhibited, less de- 
sirable ones will flourish. The wooing of any abiding interest 
is satisfying; and a child who is deprived of the opportunity 
and encouragement to cultivate the highest interests of which 
he is capable will get the satisfaction out of pursuing sordid 
interests that he might have had out of nobler ones. 


These ten functions have been explained and justified. 
Our common obligation is to improve upon them, if we can, 
and to suggest ways in which they may be exercised in the 
schools. ° 


The Bulletin reiterates that the interests with which 
Function VI is concerned are acquired rather than inborn. 
Mr. Diederich has accordingly recounted effective administra- 
tive provisions whereby these competing leisure-time interests 
may each have a reasonable place in the sun. It seems to me 
that an equally serious responsibility of the administrator is to 
see to it that opportunities for indulging these acquired inter- 
ests do not conflict with activities which are instinctively sat- 








22 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


isfying. Providing pupils with the facilities for gaining pro- 
ficiency in some form of physical recreation which they can 
and will pursue in after years is rightly cited as an example of 
desirable educational service. I know a school where oppor- 
tunities for such recreation are unexcelled, but they lie most- 
ly idle because they are in competition with the jigger-shop 
down town. That same school has a sumptuous library, but 
the only time it is open in the evening is during the idle hour 
when couples may dance in the dining-hall and stags may con- 
gregate in the tool-house to chew the rag and smoke. 


I take it that the Committe considers all of these ten func- 
tions equally important. If they are, they should be impar- 
tially recognized. To accord some of them curriculum credit, 
and not others, is to invite the disintegration or unbalancing 
of the whole functional design. As fast as we can carry the 
public with us, we should have the intestinal fortitude to ac- 
credit every worthy and effective means of performing these 
various functions. 


If the seeds of interest envisaged in Function VI are to 
be nurtured, I think that opportunities for their growth will 
have to have more continuity than our highly departmentalized 
programs afford. A child goes to a classroom, laboratory, or 
shop where he becomes imbued with an interest in some 
worthy pursuit; but before the teacher recognizes the symp- 
toms or has time to cultivate the enthusiasm, the child is 
yanked out from under his charge and sent to another special- 
ist who is unaware of the budding interest. All day long the 
child is jerked this way and that, till every stimulus is diluted 
by a conflicting one. 


I think that some time during each day which the child 
spends in trotting from a specialist in this to a specialist in 
that, he ought to spend with a specialist in children. I am not 
averse to breaking down the conventional five-day-a-week 
courses into three-, two-, or even one-day-a-week sessions for 
some purposes; but I believe that before Function VI can be 
made to operate fully, every child will have to come under the 
nurturing influence of an alert and sympathetic teacher long 
enough each day for that teacher to detect these embryonic in- 
terests and mother them. Mr. Diederich suggests noon-hour 
conferences with advisers. I don’t think these are enough. 








te 06 4A >: 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 23 


Every child is entitled to sit at the feet of some great teacher 
long enough and frequently enough for that teacher to discov- 
er and direct the child’s tendencies. ‘There is promise in the 
integrated program which permits children to remain with 
the same teacher for several periods a day, provided that 
teacher sees beyond a mere integrated curriculum and visions 
integrated lives. 


It need hardly be said that such Gamaliels are as rare as 
they are priceless; but I believe they will have to be found and 
given opportunity if Function VI is to be made to realize its 
full possibilities. Such teachers will not try to determine a pu- 
pil’s interests in terms of their own. They will be catholic in 
their interests and universal in their sympathies. 


Let a generation receive the careful but kindly ministra- 
tions of such teachers, and in adulthood that generation will 
sing with the shepherd in the tent of his disconsolate king: 
“How good is man’s life, the mere living! How fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!” 


America is this year commemorating the services of a 
great educator who gave this farewell message to youth: 


“Be ashamed to die till you have won some victory for 
humanity.” I believe that the inspiration for such victories 
will come, not from training for the sweaty toil of earning 
one’s bread, but from the idealistic interests engendered by 
the schools in the exercise of Function VI. 

















24 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





FUNCTION VII 


To guide students on the basis of exploratory and 
revealing courses and of other information gathered 
from personnel studies, as wisely as possible into 
wholesome and worth-while social relationships, maxi- 
mum personality adjustment, and advanced study or 
vocations in which they are most likely to be success- 


ful and happy. 


Discussion of Function VII by Oliver R. Floyd, Principal 
of University High School of University of Minnesota: 


In briefly introducing the discussion of this important 
function, I would call your attention to a single sentence in this 
section of the report as a point of departure or sort of text 
upon which to base what I have to say. 

“Sufficient emphasis may have been put upon the value of 
guidance procedures in directing the development of the pu- 
pil, but certainly too little has been put upon their value in di- 
recting the development of the school.’ 


While much yet remains to be done in the development of 
instruments and techniques for assaying the interests, abili- 
ties, capacities, and needs of secondary-school pupils, it is this 
phase of guidance in which the most marked progress has been 
made. Principals, counselors, teachers, psychiatrists, psy- 
chologists, and other research workers have been actively at 
work upon this problem. Tests, cumulative records, interest 
blanks, exploratory courses, home room organizations, per- 
sonnel and counselor service, and many other agencies have 
been devised and widely accepted in our schools, all function- 
ing to accumulate information about the pupil, to help him to 
learn more about himself and his capabilities, and to assist 
him in the decisions both educational and vocational which he 
must make. In passing over this part of the guidance pro- 
cedure without extended discussion, I have, of course, no in- 
tention of minimizing its importance. On the contrary, this 





1Functions of Secondary Education, Report of the Committee on the Orien- 
tation of Secondary Education, Bulletin of the Department of Secondary 
School Principals, 21:200 (Jan. 1937.) 





















a Se es 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 25 


work deserves in the future even more recognition and support 
than it has received up to the present time. I feel, however, 
that there are pertinent problems implicit in the latter half 
of the quotation which demand attention if this guidance 
function is to be effective in influencing practice. 


The value of guidance procedures in directing the develon- 
ment of the school might be characterized as the neglected as- 
pect of guidance. Yet this aspect of guidance is highly sig- 
nificant. There is little value in studying the pupil as a basis 
for guidance if educational opportunities can not be made to 
fit the individual. Every counselor has probably time and 
again had to face the realization that the program of the 
school does not provide the kinds of educational experiences 
which would appear to be valuable and satisfying to a partic- 
ular pupil. Many factors, among them increased costs, lack 
of appreciation of the real ‘purposes of education on the part 
of the public (and frequently on the part of the staff as well), 
inertia, conservatism, the tendency to confuse education with 
the acquisition of facts usually of a highly academic flavor, in- 
experience in meeting the problem of providing for the great 
variety of needs represented by the mass of the pupils now 
in school as contrasted with those of the relatively select 
group of scarcely a generation ago, have contributed to this 
situation. While it is easy to see why this phase of the guid- 
ance program has lagged, it is evident that something must be 
done about it. Properly interpreted, the information accu- 
mulated about individual pupils and the experience gained 
through the functioning of an effective guidance procedure 
should form the basis for the modification of the entire pro- 
gram. 

While these modifications will differ from school to school 
according to the needs and capacities revealed, it is possible 
to distinguish certain general directions in which marked 
reform is called for. In the first place, the information which 
has been accumulated about individual pupils shows clearly 
that the secondary school must develop a greatly diversified 
program of education. That the present restricted offering does 
not adequately meet the present or future needs of a large pro- 
portion, probably of the majority, of those whom the school 
should serve, is readily apparent. It is estimated that there 








26 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





are in this country to-day three or four million people of 
high-school age or slightly older who are both out of school 
and unemployed. These young people include those who 
dropped out of school largely either because they found little 
in the school program which could satisfy their needs or be- 
cause they did not receive adequate guidance in adjusting 
to such appropriate opportunities for their education as did 
exist. Also included are many who were graduated but who 
find themselves in an economic order which can not, for the 
moment at least, use their services. We must not, however, 
conclude that the program of the school was satisfactory for 
any great proportion of the graduates. In fact, there is 
abundant evidence which, to say the least, suggests that this is 
not the case. To cite only a single example—a survey was re- 
cently completed under the direction of the Minnesota State 
Department of Education which reveals what approximately 
20,000 pupils who were graduated from the high schools of 
the state of Minnesota in June, 1935, were doing one year 
later... Only about twenty per cent of these graduates were 
enrolled in a college, university or other institution which re- 
quires a high-school diploma for entrance. In the face of this 
fact, the offerings of the high schools in the state are predom- 
inantly college preparatory in nature. From what we know of 
the diversified interests, abilities, and capacities of high-school 
pupils, it is not reasonable to suppose that we have served by 
this program the best interests of the eighty per cent who did 
not go to college, or, for that matter, that all of those who did 
find their way to higher institutions had received appropriate 
training. Many of these graduates would still be in our 
schools except for the fact that we have fallen into the habit of 
thinking of education in terms of the passing of courses and 
the acquisition of credits. When a pupil in a four-year high 
school has accumulated sixteen or seventeen credits we award 
him a diploma. The student thinks he is educated, his parents 
think he is educated, and, while we are usually not at all sure 
of it, we do not reveal our doubts. We should drop all such 
notions as “keeping up to the grade” and “graduating with the 
class.” It is the responsibility of the school to provide a 
diversified program to meet the needs of all the pupils and the 






'The Status of the June, 1935, High School Graduates One Year After Their 
Graduation, Department of Education, State of Minnesota, St. Paul, 1936, 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 27 


pupil should feel that he is expected to remain in school for an 
indefinite period until he can be absorbed into profitable em- 
ployment or be transferred to a college or other institution 
which can more fully satisfy his expanding requirements. 
What sort of program should this be? Time does not permit 
even brief speculation on this point. The answer will be found 
in the evaluation of the school in terms of the guidance pro- 
gram. Current attempts to build curricula of the type dis- 
cussed in issue VII, the effort to identify all the resources of 
the community with the educational program, the tendency to 
admit to full standing in the school the so-called extra-curricu- 
lum, the emphasis upon the interests of the child in curriculum 
construction are all suggestive of the general character of the 
modifications that are demanded. 

When the program of the school is surveyed in reference 
to the guidance procedure, there is also indicated the necessity 
for improving the value of this program as an instrument for 
guidance. Emphasis has been placed upon the importance of 
exploratory courses as a basis for guidance. The statement 
of the function under consideration contains this recommen- 
dation. Evidence can be assembled to show that these courses 
have not proved as successful as we had hoped. Kaulfers' 
after an extended study of the general Janguage course which 
was developed with the prognostic value as a primary aim, 
was forced to conclude that the course was not effective for 
this purpose. I have completed two investigations of general 
science, as yet unpublished, which indicate that this subject 
can not be justified either upon its preparatory or predictive 
value. In the first of these investigations the method was to 
compare in each science—biology, chemistry, and physics— 
matched groups, one of which was composed of pupils who had 
completed the course in general science at the University of 
Minnesota High School. The other group had not had this 
course. No significant difference in achievement in advanced 
science was found between the general science and non-gen- 
eral science groups. The result was similar whether teach- 
ers marks or performance upon standardized tests were used 
as the measure of achievement. 


1Kaulfers, Walter. The Prognostic Value of General Language, School and 


Soctety, 28 :664, (Nov. 14, 1928.) 
Observations on the Question of General Language, 


School Review, 36:275-285, (April, 1928). 








28 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


The second study dealt with the use of marks in general 
science to predict probable success in science courses in the 
senior high school.' In the interest of brevity, only a summary 
of the conclusions may be presented. 


(1) Achievement in general science is not signifi- 
cantly superior as a predictive instrument to a meas- 
ure of total achievement in all ninth grade subjects. 


(2) General science has no significantly greater pre- 
dictive value than has ninth grade English or mathe- 
matics. 


(3) None of these factors, even when supported by 
intelligence quotient, are sufficiently accurate for 
prediction in individual cases. 


These investigations are of course limited in scope but 
they at least suggest the necessity of carefully surveying the 
results of these and similar courses to determine how well 
they fulfill the purposes for which they were designed. Gen- 
eral science, for example, probably can not be justified as pre- 
paration for the study of sciences in the senior high school 


and very likely should not be expected to perform this func- 
tion. If one of the goals of this course is to “orient the pupil 
in a world made over by science,” emphasis upon this prepara- 
tory function might very well inhibit rather than advance 
such an outcome. The course, like all exploratory courses, 
should have value in itself, not simply a deferred value which 
appears for those who do more advanced work in the field. 


The fact that the general science course has little predic- 
tive value as at present administered should not be surpris- 
ing. Instead of concentrating almost solely on assuring him- 
self that the pupil learns a respectable amount of subject-mat- 
ter, the teacher must study the pupil and the course must yield 
a detailed record of individual prograss and reaction. 


If approached from this point of view, all of the subjects 
may have a guidance value, both in helping the pupil to dis- 
cover his interests and capacities and in contributing to his 
adjustment. For example, as pointed out in the discussion of 
this function in the Committee’s report, changes in the social 


1The second study is the work jointly of R. B. Embree, Jr. and the present 
writer. 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 29 


and economic order are the primary cause of a large number 
of cases of individual maladjustment. Due to the complexity 
of social organization and the increasing rapidity of change, 
it has become impossible for the average individual to under- 
stand modern economic, political, and social institutions and 
their interrelationship without guidance from the school or 
other agencies. The greatest handicap to the discharge of this 
responsibility on the part of the school is the tendency to con- 
ceive the aims of education in terms of subject matter. Each 
of the subject fields represents a valuable means for interpret- 
ing social institutions. Each possesses a unique method, 
point-of-view, and organized body of information. When 
these subjects are employed as instruments to assist the pupil 
in interpreting appropriate aspects of modern society, when 
teachers quit teaching subjects as such and codperate with 
other subject-fields in assisting pupils to make a reasonable 
adjustment to a world which, for the adolescent, is particularly 
baffling, then the total curriculum will begin to be effective in 
the guidance procedure. We must abandon our present prac- 
tice of teaching the facts apart from their social setting with 
the expectation that the pupil can make the application for 
himself. A few of the more able can do this no doubt. But to 
proceed upon this basis constitutes an evasion of the guidance 
function. 


-Evaluating the program of the school in terms of the 
guidance of the individual pupil reveals a third area in which 
modification is called for, namely, in the philosophy and prac- 
tice of administration. In this social adjustment or orienta- 
tion of which we have been speaking, the pupil needs more 
than insights and understandings. He faces a dynamic society. 
Thé problems of to-morrow will be different in important as- 
pects from those of to-day. Decisions and choices involved in 
this relationship are not final but must be continually changed 
and revised or new decisions must be made. The pupil needs 
also to gain experience and self-reliance in making choices 
and adjustments. Democracy requires the participation of the 
largest possible number in the decisions upon which the de- 
velopment of society depends. In our schools we must pro- 
vide this practice in democracy. It is the only way in which 
individuals may be assisted to become reasonably well adjusted 
in a democratic, dynamic society. One of the greatest incon- 

















30 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


sistencies in our educational organization is that we attempt 
to train for democracy by autocratic means. School organiza- 
tion and administration is too closely patterned up on the 
autocracy of big business or the army. An administrative 
philosophy and practice must be developed which will be dem- 
ocratic in character. Both teachers and pupils must be per- 
mitted to participate democratically with administrators in 
carrying on significant aspects of the school program. This 
philosophy does not call for the abdication of the superin- 
tendent and the principal. But it does require that the atti- 
tude between administrator, teacher, and pupil should be one 
of codperation rather than of dictation. The whole field of 
administration needs to be thought through from this point- 
of-view and responsibility for self-direction accorded to pu- 
pils in appropriate areas as rapidly as they evidence a will- 
ingness and competence to accept and to satisfactorily dis- 
charge these increased responsibilities. Upon some such 
basis the pupils (and their instructors, too) may become bet- 
ter prepared to face the problems of a democracy outside the 
school. 

Finally, from our experience in guiding individual pu- 
pils, it should become evident that the school should take its 
part in the effort to improve the social order. What this part 
should be is, of course, debatable. But this debate should not 
be permitted to obscure the fact that a contribution to this 
improvement is a responsibility which the school should not 
attempt to shed if it is to have a worthwhile program of guid- 
ance. Guidance should consist not only in adjusting the indi- 
vidual to society but also in modifying society in terms of the 
needs of the individual. Guidance should be more than a stop- 
gap for the present social order. Confronted with a society 
which denies to millions the opportunity for remunerative, 
socially useful employment, in which want exists in the face 
of plenty, in which economic competition carries us to the 
verge of war,—to cite only a few examples—it follows that 
until these conditions are modified satisfactory adjustment is 
impossible for many, perhaps for most, individuals. The 
school must at least be accorded the opportunity for a critical 
and realistic evaluation of social institutions within the 
classroom. 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 31 


To summarize, the value of guidance in directing the de- 
velopment of the school lies in the opportunity which it pre- 
sents for evaluating the program of education in terms of the 
interests, capacities, abilities, and needs of the individual pu- 
pils. Such an evaluation should serve to emphasize: (1) The 
need for a greatly diversified program of education, (2) The 
opportunity to improve the guidance value of all the subjects, 
(3) The necessity for the development of a democratic theory 
and practice of administration, and (4) The social responsi- 
bility of the school. 





32 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


DINNER 
in honor of 


DR. THOMAS H. BRIGGS 


The two following papers were read at the dinner at Patio 
Royal, Saturday evening, February 20, in honor of Dr. Thomas 
H. Briggs. 


Professor Francis T. Spaulding, of the Department of Ed- 
ucation, Harvard University, read his paper: 


Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: 


It is intentionally, and not through oversight, that I ig- 
nore Dr. Briggs in addressing you. There is a story told of 
President Eliot, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday cele- 
bration, which illustrates my present position with respect to 
Dr. Briggs. After the conclusion of the program in his honor 
President Eliot is said to have been talking over the events of 
the day with Mrs. Eliot, and to have remarked with pleasure 


that in all the speeches to which he had listened he had been 
able to hear every word except for a part of Dr. Peabody’s 
prayer. “My dear,” replied Mrs. Eliot, “Dr. Peabody was not 
talking to you.” 

Nor in most of what I have to say shall I be talking to 
Dr. Briggs. I prefer not to talk to him because I am about to 
dissect his character—a thing which it would require a hardy 
soul to do to his face. 

There is reason enough for taking Dr. Briggs’ character 
apart if, by so doing, we can discover the qualities that have 
made him what we recognize him to be—a leader in educa- 
tional thinking to-day, with a record of influence on American 
schools to which few men can aspire. My purpose in dis- 
secting him is not, however, merely to explain the position he 
now holds. Instead, I am much more concerned with the part 
which must inevitably be his in stimulating and guiding our 
thinking from now on. It is from this latter standpoint—a 
hopeful concern with what he will be up to next—that I invite 
you to look at him as he is. 





DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 33 


First of all, he has about him an extraordinary quality of 
disinterested—but very far from un-interested—detachment. 
All of us who have known him for a long time have seen that 
quality again and again in the anecdotes he is so fond of tell- 
ing. Do you recall his tale of the East Indian loin-cloths used 
as portieres in a New England cottage, or his story of the four 
puncture-proof tires and the puncture-proof spare, or his ac- 
count of the penniless old lady who planned to spend her birth- 
day money on having her Jane Austens rebound? If you re- 
member these stories or others, you will remember also the 
manner in which Dr. Briggs tells them. As often as not, he 
himself may have taken an active part in the episodes which he 
describes, yet he recounts them as if, in the telling, he were an 
unconcerned spectator at an interesting and amusing happen- 
ing. 

This quality of detachment—perhaps perspective is a 
better name for it—colors Dr. Briggs’ professional outlook to 
such an extent that it has made him one of our most whole- 
some and incisive critics. No more amusing or more penetrat- 
ing commentaries on American education have ever appeared 
than were published in School and Society some years ago, in 
a series of communications from one Quintus H. Flaccus. 
There is evidence that Quintus H. Flaccus and Thomas H. 
Briggs occupied the same office. Read again Flaccus’s be- 
wildered account of the high coefficients of correlation which 
he found between the percentages of high-school pupils study- 
ing Latin, state by state, and the homicide rates in those same 
states. Then read the address which Dr. Briggs delivered be- 
fore the North Central Association a little later, entitled, “Jer- 
emiah Was Right.” The letter from Flaccus is satirically 
amusing, and the speech by Dr. Briggs in his own name is 
forcefully direct, but both are concerned with the question of 
what sort of education we are providing and why we provide 
it, and in both appear that quality of critical detachment which 
belongs to Dr. Briggs in special measure. 


Dr. Briggs has a second quality without which his sense 
of perspective might be far less searching than it is—his un- 
usually active and catholic interest in people and in things. 


His interest in people expresses itself in a variety of ways. 
Perhaps it finds most frequent outlet in his habit of keeping 





34 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


in touch with friends at a distance through brief notes on cor- 
respondence cards. The notes he writes are sometimes thor- 
oughly business-like: “On page such-and-such of this or that 
report you will find the data for which you were looking.” 
At other times he writes for quite unbusinesslike reasons, as 
in the case of a card I once had from him, on which appeared 
simply: “Advertisement: Opening for Yale graduate or equiv- 
alent. Applicant: Does your ad mean two Princeton men, or 
a Harvard part-time?” But correspondence cards are not 
his sole means of expressing his interest in people, nor are the 
persons in whom he is interested restricted to his acquaint- 
ances in schools and universities. One need only hear him 
arguing with his New Hampshire handy-man over the best 
method of repairing a leaky roof, or listen to him discussing 
the state of the nation with the colored elevator-operator in a 
hotel in which he happens to be staying, to realize how strong- 
ly he is attracted to all kinds of people. 

His interests in things are no less numerous and varied. 
I imagine that he still talks to his classes about the beauty of 
New York’s annual flower show, and describes to them the 
treasures that are to be found for the looking in the Metropol- 
itan Museum, and offers to excuse them from a class assign- 
ment if they will attend his favorite opera. I know that each 
summer he has some new project on foot—to discover whether 
a female spider will realize that he has substituted a ball of 
cotton for her sack of eggs, to find out by the use of a sextant 
and a Geological Survey map just which of two distant peaks 
he can see past the shoulder of Red Hill, to demonstrate that 
his own private formula for mixing concrete will make a more 
durable set of steps to his boathouse than the mixture which 
the local experts would have him use. 

All these interests, and his interest in interests for their 
own sake, have led him to think in terms of a type of educa- 
tion rich beyond any that we now have. The breadth of his 
own interests has no doubt contributed to his vision of schools 
which will seek to broaden the horizons of all their pupils, 
without falsely assuming that only academic interests are re- 
spectable, or that only academic pupils are capable of interests. 
Seventeen years ago his book on the junior high school gave a 
clue to one of his hopes for American education: that it might 
serve “to reveal higher types of activities and to make these 















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 35 


both desired and to an extent possible.” As time has gone on he 
has expanded this conception, dealing with it again, in terms 
of educational method, in his monograph on Curriculum Prob- 
lems, and discussing it even more fully and persuasively in his 
book called Secondary Education. Standing as one of his 
unique qualities, his interest in interests has made Dr. Briggs 
notably imaginative in his planning and stimulating in his 
proposals for the future of American secondary schools. 


One further quality which is prominent in his make-up 
is Dr. Briggs’ thorough belief in rational thinking as the only 
sound basis for progress. Perhaps this quality more than any 
other has given him his widespread reputation for caustic wis- 
dom. I say “caustic” advisedly; for sound thinking on the 
part of any one person may hurt those who have neglected to 
think, and there have been numerous occasions in the past 
when Dr. Briggs has thought and others have not. At least 
one occasion I doubt that I myself shall forget. That occa- 
sion was the first meeting of his major course in the year 
when I was one of his students. At that meeting he pro- 
claimed himself a dentist, chairman of the board of educa- 
tion in a small town in which each one of his students was to 
imagine himself recently elected principal of the high school. 
We were paying a courtesy call on the chairman, he told us, 
to make his acquaintance before taking up our work. In re- 
sponse to our fatuously polite remarks he led each of us in 
turn into a damning revelation of how little we knew about ed- 
ucation. He hurt, as might have been expected of a dentist, 
but he showed us how to avoid getting hurt in the future, 
which is seldom characteristic of dentists. 

It is this reliance on thinking that has made Dr. Briggs 
the implacable critic of those who defend conventional pro- 
grams on emotional grounds, or try to find the answers to edu- 
cational problems by a mere counting of current practices, or 
rest their faith on the abstruse tricks that can be done with 
statistics. But Dr. Briggs reliance on thinking goes beyond 
mere criticism. As the primary basis for his own constructive 
contributions, it underlies all the books and articles in which 
he has sought to deal positively with the future of American 
education. It appears in every line of the recommendations 
which he presented in his Inglis Lecture, The Great Invest- 
ment. It furnished the chief reason-for-being of the Com- 





















36 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





mittee on Orientation in Secondary Education. It informs the 
whole of the extraordinary article, “If There Were Millions,” 
in which, in advance of the creation of the American Youth 
Commission, Dr. Briggs outlined the program through which 
such an organization might render the most constructive serv- 
ice to American youth—a program of which thus far the Com- 
mission itself has seemed almost oblivious. In a profession in 
which the noise of counting has too often distracted attention 
from the need for putting our minds to work, Dr. Briggs’ in- 
sistence that thinking is of paramount importance stands out 
as a major contribution. 


So we have in Dr. Briggs these qualities—a rare detach- 
ment and sense of perspective, an interest in people and things 
which makes him exceptionally imaginative in his vision of the 
future, a whole-souled devotion to intelligent thought as the 
soundest guide to constructive action. If these qualities are 
indeed the key to his leadership, we may look to him in the im- 
mediate future for an even more unique guidance than he has 
given us in the past. 


For I do not think I am wrong in believing that the pres- 
ent educational situation contains factors entirely new to our 
experience, and that these factors need to be dealt with in the 
light of just such a point of view as Dr. Briggs can best bring 
to them. To put the situation quite bluntly, I believe that the 
secondary school, even in the best form in which we know it, 
has come to the end of its rope in meeting certain educational 
problems. Let me describe for you the kind of evidence which 
prompts this conclusion. 


A year ago two of our graduate students at Harvard were 
invited to supervise a group of fifty boys under the National 
Youth Administration, for whom an experimental educational 
program was being provided by the Boston Y. M. C. A. The 
boys were all above the age-limit for school attendance; they 
had all left school. Some few had barely completed the ele- 
mentary school; one had finished the second year of a liberal- 
arts college; the others had school histories ranging between 
these extremes. The program originally set up for them by 
the Y. M. C. A. comprised a considerable amount of shop work, 
laboratory work, and clerical practice, planned according to 
the supposed interests of the individual boys. To this was 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 37 
added a systematic course in vocational guidance. As a means 
of earning his N. Y. A. allowance, each boy was assigned a 
minimum number of hours of work on the type of special proj- 
ect to which we have grown accustomed as a part of the made- 
work system—“spotting” illegible street-signs and house- 
numbers, tabulating columns of figures for some one else’s re- 
search study, making censuses of various kinds and for vari- 
ous purposes. 


Shortly after our students became associated with it, the 
directors of this undertaking threatened to withdraw their 
support because of the apparent ineffectiveness of the whole 
program. They were persuaded to continue the venture for a 
few months longer in order to allow trial of a new plan. The 
latter consisted of finding out, through individual interviews, 
just what each boy most wanted to do, and in them providing 
for him as close an approximation as possible to the kind of 
experience that he was interested in. 


The students who were supervising this plan believed at 
first that the boys might not know what they wanted to do, or, 
if they did, that their desires might be fantastic. They were 
surprisingly mistaken on both counts. Approached one by 
one, the boys announced without hesitation that they wanted 
real jobs. If possible, they wanted jobs that would “get them 
somewhere” ; but in any case the jobs had to be real. 


On another point also—and to this point I would ask your 
particular attention—the boys were unanimous. In a number 
of cases, it was apparent that they were not prepared for the 
kinds of jobs they wanted, and it was suggested that they en- 
roll in a school course which would give them the necessary 
skills. To this they replied with fervor: “Nothing doing! 
I’m fed up on school stuff, and you can’t get me back!” 


What was eventually done for these boys was to provide 
them with jobs in the various city departments of Boston. 
No boy was placed in a job until he had shown through a two- 
weeks’ try-out in a school shop, drafting room, laboratory, or 
accounting room that he could be recommended for the kind 
of work the job entailed. Once the boys got them, the jobs 
were “real.” Not one was “made” work; each one represented 
work which the head of the department concerned wanted to 
have done, but which did not fall within his regular budget. 















38 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





Furthermore, the jobs were “real” in another sense—any boy 
who did not make good was liable to be summarily discharged 
and returned to the school try-out program. 


But less significant for the moment than what was done 
for these boys was, I think, the attitude which they held in 
common toward school. It would be easy to explain such an 
attitude by asserting that the schools to which the boys had 
gone were not the best that might have been provided, and to 
conclude that a cure for the future could be found merely in 
improving the schools. That these schools were imperfect can 
hardly be doubted. Yet consider again that the boys were of 
various backgrounds, various levels of ability, various inter- 
ests, various school histories—united, nevertheless, by their 
“fed-upness” with school. Is it not conceivable that any school, 
however admirable its educational program, would have pro- 
duced a corresponding result? 


The environment which any school provides for its pupils 
must of necessity be largely artificial. In fact, the furnishing 
of an artificial environment is exactly the purpose for which 
we have schools. Schools supposedly make possible for boys 
and girls a short-cut to the abilities and understandings need- 
ed outside of school—a short-cut intended to save each new 
generation the enormous expenditures of time and effort which 
they would have to put forth if they were to try to learn only 
from “real” life. To accomplish the desirable short-cut, 
schools must condense, select, abbreviate, modify in all man- 
ner of particulars the processes by which people unguided by 
schools have mastered the abilities which boys and girls must 
now acquire. Every school must see to it that the environ- 
ment which it sets up “makes sense” for its pupils in terms of 
life outside the school. But one of the school’s primary re- 
sponsibilities is to strive for all the short-cutting its pupils 
can stand—that is, for all possible economical artificiality— 
in the experiences which it provides. 


Now it is probable that there comes a time in the growth 
of every normal boy or girl when he rebels against this kind 
of artificial environment. To continue in such an environment 
means to him to continue in a sort of psychological infancy; 
and he is ready, psychologically, to play his part in what he 
properly looks on as the “real” world. If this rebellion is in- 






















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 39 
deed an actual phenomenon, we can find anologies for it in 
other phases of life than education. Adolescent boys and girls 
rebel openly and strenuously against long-continued economic 
dependency, resorting to crime or to less extreme subterfuge 
to escape from it. Young men and young women, kept from 
marriage until after they have reached biological maturity, re- 
volt against the conventions of the traditional moral code. 
“I’m fed up with school stuff and you can’t get me back!”— 
may not this be the password of a similar revolt against school 
as school, spoken by boys who have “grown up” psychological- 
ly? 


That we have not earlier realized the nature of this revolt 
represents no sound argument against the view that it does 
occur. Only within the last seven years have schools had to be 
seriously concerned with it. Boys and girls are not likely to 
mature psychologically before they are well along in adoles- 
cence, and prior to the depression an effective psychological 
safety-valve existed for almost every adolescent: he could, if 
he wanted to, go out and get himself a job. He can no longer 
escape so easily from the school environment. Consequently, 
schools everywhere are being confronted with a discouraging 
number of boys and girls whom they find it hard to recognize 
—pupils who can learn but will not, who evade what the school 
calls responsibility, whom no feasible readjustment in the 
school’s program seems to prod into anything resembling the 
whole-hearted interest that schools are constantly urged to en- 
courage in their pupils. 


Nor is the problem likely to be solved simply by readjust- 
ments in school programs. Some boys and girls may no doubt 
be saved from revolt by improvements in teaching methods 
and in the curriculum; certainly every practical improve- 
ment ought to be made, and made quickly. But it would seem 
to be precisely because the school is a school that it has come 
to the end of its rope with certain of its pupils. And if this is 
thc case no mere internal reform will provide an adequate - 
remedy. 


Here stands what I believe to be the unique problem which 
we now face in secondary education. Whether I have stated it 
in just the terms in which Dr. Briggs would interpret it, I am 
not sure. I know, however, that he looks on it as one of the 


















PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





40 


major concerns which lie ahead of us; I cannot forget his in- 
sistence that it be squarely considered in the deliberations of 
the Committee on Orientation. 


What the final solution of this problem is to be necessarily 
remains for the future. Yet Dr. Briggs has himself antici- 
pated what the future may bring. In one of the meetings 
of the Committee on Orientation he drew an illuminating par- 
allel between the state of education to-day and its circum- 
stances a hundred years ago, when the academy was revolu- 
tionizing American schools. The pioneer academy was in 
many respects like no institution that had preceded it. It was 
the outgrowth of social need for a type of education which the 
Latin grammar school did not offer, and which no internal 
reorganization could allow the grammar school to offer. Start- 
ing as nearly afresh as any human invention can start, the 
academy established an educational pattern which has been 
modified, but never wholly reconstructed, in the succeeding 
century. 


It is possible that the pattern set by the academy is now 
about to be supplemented, if not actually overthrown, because 
of urgent social need for an institution which will meet re- 
quirements hitherto unrecognized. Such an institution can- 
not be a school in the sense in which we now think of schools; 
it must start afresh, meeting new needs in new ways. It is not 
likely to appear as the product of random research, or the re- 
sult of uncoérdinated experimentation with this and that. Still 
less likely is it to be the outcome of uncritical acceptance of 
every educational novelty. If the new institution is to come, it 
will come most quickly and effectively through systematic plan- 
ning, under the leadership of some one of broad perspective, 
abundant imagination, and energetic faith in hard and critical 
thinking. 


* * * 


Dr. Briggs followed with his paper: 


Although in some respects Pestalozzi was mistaken in 
identifying the education of a child with the natural devel- 
opment of a plant, there are many similarities between the 
work of the teacher and that of the gardener. Instead of 
choosing and planting seed in the most favorable soil, the 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 41 


teacher every year receives a heterogeneous number of plants 
already well along in their development. Others have deter- 
mined their natural characteristics; many others have in- 
fluenced their growth for good or for ill. 


At first the gardener does not even know what these 
plants are. But a deep seated faith grown out of experience 
makes and keeps him confident, despite his first ignorance and 
his later difficulties in learning, that each and every one has 
potentialities for good. This one may bear succulent, nourish- 
ing fruit; that may hold the promise of beautiful foliage or 
fiower ; and this scraggly dwarf may have in its cells the bitter 
medicine to cure disease. The genius of the teacher is mani- 
fested first in the quickness and certainty with which he dis- 
covers the possibilities for good in each individual. 


At first the gardener works with his new plants en masse. 
He has joy in his work because there is always joy in doing 
what one can do skilfully. He loosens the soil, he removes 
obstructions, he brings food for growth, he provides water 
and sun and shade according to his judgment, and he trains 
and prunes the branches to develop so far as nature permits 
the form that he wishes. Sometimes he even takes credit for 
what nature has predetermined or for the results of those who 
have worked before him. But always it is an exciting ad- 
venture, for he is on the constant alert to discover the highest 
possibilities in each developing life. 


Under the system that we have, when the gardener has 
learned something of his plants, when he has developed in some 
degree an affection for each one of them, when through knowl- 
edge and understanding sympathy the conditions are best for 
most effective work, there comes the chilling frost of exam- 
inations. The season is always too short. The weaker plants, 
so far as the gardener is concerned, are killed; the more hardy 
survive for cultivation and growth elsewhere. All of them 
pass from his ministrations. He has no chance to correct with 
them his errors of judgment or his imperfections of technique. 
He can only hope and try to do better with the new and un- 
known plants that will come to him next season. 

One of the most unsatisfactory features of our work 


is that we never know what we have accomplished. At the 
end of a day or a year or a life we cannot be certain of the de- 









42 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





gree of success resulting from our efforts, or even whether 
the total is good or bad. The gardener at times envies the 
mason who builds the wall or the helper who rakes the paths, 
each doing as he is bid and accomplishing so many obvious 
feet or yards before noon or before being released at night to 
do those things that he really wants to do. Not being able 
ever to know what he has accomplished, the teacher must have 
a constantly renewed high faith in himself and in his work. 


The mason or the helper will drudge under direction all 
day that he may be free to do in the evening or on holidays 
what he wants to do. The gardener wants to cultivate his 
plants. He thinks of them as he labors through the day; he 
dreams of them at night. When he dresses in the morning he 
is refining the plans that he has made for helping them 
to grow better, rapidly and assuredly toward the perfection of 
their separate possibilities. More than most people, the teach- 
er must develop several diverse personalities into which he can 
translate himself from time to time in order that he may him- 
self have a well-rounded life, that he may be able to see his 
work in perspective, and that he may return to it with 
renewed enthusiasm and zest. 


The gardener is a lonely person. He knows little of 
those who have created the seed or of those who have wrought 
lovingly, patiently, skilfully, or blunderingly before him. He 
is inclined to be suspicious and jealous of others who are at 
the same time influencing the plants for which he cares. He 
is concerned little with those who will take up the work when 
he leaves off. He has a supreme confidence in the importance 
of his own work, even in the superiority of it over that of all 
others. And so long as he works in comparative isolation that 
is quite as it should be. Without confidence in his own work 
and a sustaining faith in the ultimate certainty of beneficent 
results he too would become a drudge. But he is never sat- 
isfied. Always with a realization of “the petty done, the 
undone vast,” he plans that he may work better in the future. 


The gardener is a lonely person too, because just as he is 
becoming fond of his plants and proud of them the season is 
over. The hardiest are transplanted to other plots to be tend- 
ed by what he is inclined to think are alien hands. It is hard 
to give up one’s children even though one knows that they 












































DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 43 


will grow better and achieve greater fruition when their roots 
extend in better soil and when others, for whom he must stifle 
jealousy, provide guidance and ministration. However hard 
he or they may try, the separation increases with distance 
and the continuing years. The gardener has to steel himself 
to adjust to this. But he never forgets and he never wholly 
loses the affection and the interests that have developed. 

He gets his greatest comfort when he has the ability to 
look through the individuals to civilization itself. His vision 
must encompass the universe. Far down the vista he sees 
this one contributing beauty, that one nourishing food, and 
this other one leadership, each one serving according to his na- 
ture. Knowing the necessity of varied service in the great 
cosmos, he appreciates that each and every individual has a 
value. What that value is he may not always know. But deep 
in his heart there is faith, which vacillates from deadening 
doubt to supreme confidence, that somewhere at some time the 
fruition will be good. 

From this and from experience the gardener gets renewed 
courage and strength, too, for working with the new plants 
that every year are delivered into his hands. The next season 
and the next there are new plants to tend, new characteristics 
to learn, new hopes to encourage, new discouragements to 
overcome, new procedures to try, and, thank God! new signs 
of expanding power. When that ceases it is time for him him- 
self to enter a Greisengarten or even an Alternheim. 

From time to time there come to the gardener reports of 
fruits that are garnered, of recognition and of praise of the 
plant that has justified its mission. Occasionally, alag, the re- 
ports are of plants that have disappointed and are in conse- 
quence uprooted, justly or unjustly. Some have withered and 
died because of lack of strength in themselves, some because 
the gardener had given them the wrong cultivation, some be- 
cause they were transplanted to harsh soil, and some because 
the fruit or flower expected of them was by nature impossible. 
The people who want food may despise beauty, or wanting 
beauty may spurn the gift of food. How difficult and bitter 
it is for the gardener to charge himself with the blame, or 
for any part of it, when the report is of disaster. How easy it 
is for him to flatter himself by accepting more credit than 


he has earned. 








44 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


Reports of fruition are gratifying, but they are not what 
causes the greatest joy to the gardener. That comes from 
learning of continued self-directed growth, which assures more 
abundant harvests as long as there is life—and perhaps be- 
yond. The power to continue growth without the direction 
and encouragement of others is the supreme evidence of suc- 
cess, whether the fruit at the time is abundant or not. 

I have long ago come to believe that nobody ever told 
anyone else anything of value. Most people would like to 
have authoritative direction as to what they should do in a spe- 
cific situation at a given time. But there is no omniscience, es- 
pecially about immediate, peculiar needs; and if there were, 
specific situations never recur exactly as they originally were. 
The help that was at first efficacious will later prove a danger- 
ous pattern to follow when circumstances change. The only 
really important thing that one person can do for another 
is to inculcate in him an idea, to impart understanding of a 
principle which he assimilates so that having become a part of 
his being it constantly directs his thinking and his consequent 
action, or to reveal an ideal that becomes a constant guiding 
star. Most important is this help when the source of the sug- 
gestion is forgotten, when the idea becomes so wholly a part of 
the individual that he considers it original and peculiarly his 
own. 

It has been stimulatingly pleasing when from time to 
time there have come from the field expression of appreciation 
and gratitude. But, if within the bounds of courtesy it may 
be said, that is not important. The gardener may get some 
temporary elation from the expressions, but better than others 
he should know the mistakes he has made; happily neither he 
nor anyone else knows the opportunities he has failed to seize. 
And he knows that for every conspicuous achievement there 
has been much labor in vain. While rejoicing in the reported 
success, he is saddened by a recognition of what he has failed 
to do. If he has perspective, he knows that the credit to him 
is exaggerated. He may have watered the drooping plant or 
loosened the constricting soil about its roots or pruned away 
disease or trained a sagging stem to grow upward; he may 
even have fertilized it with nourishing food. But the growth 
was in the plant itself. The credit belongs to its innate char- 
acteristics, to its assimilative power, and to the growth that 











' 


ce EY 











DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 45 


came from within. Only as it learned to stand by itself and 
to develop the genes that nature gave it is there real success. 

As I stand here this evening and look into the faces of 
scores to whom I have ministered and who are now minister- 
ing to others I should like to flatter myself that even a small 
part of the credit for your success or mine. But deep in my 
heart I know that what I have done is small in comparison 
with what I hoped to do and of little significance when com- 
pared with what your own genius has enabled you to do. What 
you or I have done is of small importance anyway. The par- 
amount thing is what we are going to do. And what we are 
going to do depends in largest measure on principles that we 
have assimilated or developed, on their soundness, on their 
consistency with each other, all together making our philoso- 
phy of life and our philosophy of education; what we are go- 
ing to do depends also on the consequent ideals which never 
attained always lead on, not an ignis fatuus but a pillar of 
cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. A man is proved 
by his increasing faith in his principles and his ideals. You 
have seen many a wreck because the pilot allowed his eyes to 
wander from his guiding star. Intoxicated by progress and 
by praise, he lost his course, and the very momentum of as- 
sumed success plunged him into the mire of failure. “It is not 
what man does that exalts him, but what man Would do.” 
He may do mightly or ill. “Our deeds are dreadful because 
our minds are dark;” they become beneficient and glorious 
only as our minds are cleared by a pragmatic and at the same 
time an idealized philosophy. 

I should be among the last to discredit accomplishment. 
Only the impotent dreamer can be satisfied with wishful 
thinking unaccompanied by action. I am merely emphasizing 
that action without the direction of ideals and without the 
foundation of principles is the most dangerous thing in the 
world The hope of education and the hope consequently of 
civilization lies in the high ideals that you have and in the con- 
sistency with which you keep them uncompromised as you do 
your necessary tasks to-day always looking to them as a guide 
to what you hope and strive to do to-morrow. Ideals deter- 
mine principles, and principles are the foundation on which 
every one who aspires to leave a contribution to the ever grow- 
ing structure of civilization must build. 











46 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





THE FUNCTIONS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 


The following paper was presented before the Department 
of Superintendence at New Orleans: 


WHAT SECONDARY SCHOOLS SHOULD DO 


THOMAS H. BRIGGs 
Teachers College, Columbia University 


Criticizing secondary education is one of the commonest 
of indoor sports. Anyone can play, for the sport requires lit- 
tle information, and the high schools have been hammered so 
much that conscious of their own deficiencies, they seldom fight 
back so as to embarrass their critics. 


One peculiarity of this sport is that the player confines 
himself to criticism, seldom feeling an obligation to propose 
with any degree of practical defiiniteness what the secondary 
schools ought to do. Ideals of vague generalization—like 
preparation for citizenship, the inculcation of culture, and 
teaching youth how to think—are stated as if they were orig- 
inal and novel, whereas high-school teachers have from time 
immemorial professed these same ideals and have with vary- 
ing degrees of skill attempted to achieve them. 


Another peculiarity of this sport is that it is apparently 
enjoyed even by the teachers who are indirectly criticized. 
They applaud the eloquence of those who condemn the prac- 
tices of high schools, attributing blame for conditions to the 
public, to requirements of state departments and of colleges, 
to the students themselves, and to other teachers. They may 
at times feel a certain sense of personal responsibility and of 
resentment; but they have heard the criticisms many times be- 
fore and they know that they do not need to do anything 
about them. Everybody criticizes, but nobody follows up the 
criticism with insistent and effective pressure that radical 
changes in the program be made. 


It is only fair to recognize that thousands of principals 
and teachers have been and still are continuously trying to im- 






















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 47 


prove the practices of really educating American youth. Their 
efforts have borne fruit, too, as anyone can see who will visit 
modern schools and observe the work that is being done. 
There is an immense amount, of course, that is conventionally 
wooden, manifesting nowhere evidence that anyone—teacher 
or students—is aware even of the original justification of 
what is being presented. But this prosaic drudgery is light- 
ened in innumerable instances by skill in instruction, by con- 
creteness, and by illuminating application to current life that 
justifies a belief that even the teaching of conventional topics 
is better than it was one or more generations ago and that 
progress is on the way. Secondary education to-day may be 
less thorough than in the past for the few, but it has other vir- 
tues that the old teaching seldom even sought. 

There are also other commendable evidences of effort to 
improve the efficiency of secondary education through plans 
for reorganization, provisions for students of differing inter- 
ests and abilities, and enrichment of the curriculum, to say 
nothing of the supplementary activities that have been intro- 
duced without the lure of formal credit. 

All of these efforts we should recognize and give generous 
credit. The more ingenious they are, the more likely they are 
to contribute to progress. The more numerous they are, the 
more readiness is evidenced to participate in preparing the 
new program and to work intelligently toward making it prac- 
tically effective. 

The weakness in the attempts to improve the practices of 
secondary education lies in the fact that there exists no gener- 
ally known and generally approved outline of a program that 
should be developed. When every man does what is right in 
his own sight, often skilfully overcoming the obstacles of tra- 
dition, he is feeling his way in a fog rather than intelligently 
contributing to the erection of a structure for which compre- 
hensive plans have been made. In Sea Lore Stanley Rogers 
writes that “When a ship is rolling down to her scuppers in a 
heavy gale her passengers grow nervous and begin to regret 
their past sins, but when the same ship is groping her way 
slowly through a thick fog the passengers go to bed and 
sleep soundly. Yet, paradoxically enough, the greatest peril at 
sea is the fog. It has been the cause of more disasters than all 
the storms that ever blew.” 















48 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





The greatest peril at sea is the fog. And the greatest 
peril in education is the fog of uncertainty in which we move. 
In it destinations cannot be seen; activities must be largely un- 
coérdinated; progress can be only guessed at rather than 
known. However uncomfortable it might be for administrators 
and teachers alike, far better would be a storm of criticism 
that blew away the fog and forced every member of the crew 
to put forth his best efforts toward developing codperatively 
a comprehensive program for the care and the education of 
youth. 

It is a plan that is needed, based fundamentally on the 
soundest of principles of society as well as of education, and 
sufficiently comprehensive to provide for the care of all youth 
as well as for their education. A program for secondary edu- 
cation can never be satisfactorily developed unless it includes 
provisions for boys and girls who are outside the formal 
schools and unless it articulates harmoniously with the pro- 
grams for the care and education of children, on the one hand, 
and on the other, of the young men and women who have ad- 
vanced beyond the provinces of the secondary schools. Such a 
plan must provide for every individual. In a democracy there 
is no one who is not educable. 

The main foundation stones of the new program already 
exist in current ideals of education. There have been three 
obstacles to the effectiveness of our philosophy of education. 
One is that seldom has it been stated so simply that all who are 
expected to apply it to practice can understand what it means. 
There is nothing important in education that cannot be stated 
in words of one syllable. Turgid and mystifying language 
usually evidences a lack of clarity and completeness in think- 
ing; it certainly evidences a failure to realize an obligation to 
influence others. A second obstacle is that much of our phil- 
osophy is presented in isolated units with the result that few 
practitioners acquire understanding of and devotion to a com- 
prehensive and harmonious set of ideals that together must 
constitute the foundation for any sound building. And the 
third obstacle, probably the consequence of the first two, is that 
there has never been developed among American educators a 
conviction that they should constantly and consistently build 
on such foundations as they understand and of which they 
have professed approval. Much of the blame for this nega- 






































DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 49 


tive attitude must be attributed to teachers of education, who 
have confined their efforts mainly to exposition and abstract 
evangelicism and have neglected to work out codperatively 
with prospective administrators and teachers ways in which 
the principles can be applied in practice. 


It would be unfortunate if the proposed fundamental and 
comprehensive program were considered final and restrictive 
in nature. We shall never be ready to approve a program that 
cannot be amended and extended so as to provide for changes 
in civilization and also for changes in social ideals. But a 
tentative program developed in outline would indicate the di- 
rections in which we should go and would give significance to 
any unit of procedure, which could then be seen in relation to 
the whole and thus be evaluated. Nothing has meaning in iso- 
lation. Significance is indicated only when a proposal is seen 
in relation to other means of achieving a clearly perceived 
objective. 


The Committee on the Orientation of Secondary Educa- 
tion of the Department of Secondary-School Principals has in 
its reports presented no comprehensive, well-rounded, and 
fundamentally justified program for the care and education 
of youth, but it has attempted to make two contributions of 
materials out of which such a program can eventually be built. 
A year ago it presented its report on the Issues of Secondary 
Education,* the ten unresolved conflicts between theory and 
theory or between theory and practice, a report that has been 
widely read and discussed. The hope is that as a result there 
will not be only a greater unity of professional opinion regard- 
ing the desirable alternative of each issue but also that there 
will emerge consciousness of an obligation to develop practices 
that are indicated by the several positions taken. 


The Committee this year is presenting in Bulletin 64 of 
the Department of Secondary-School Principals another con- 
tribution, The Functions of Secondary Education. Briefly 
stated, the ten functions are as follows: 

1. To continue by definite program, though in a dimin- 
ishing degree, the integration of students on an increasingly 
intellectual level until the desired common knowledge, appre- 
ciations, ideals, attitudes, and abilities are firmly fixed. 


2. To satisfy the important immediate and probable fu- 
ture needs of the students in so far as adolescent maturity per- 























50 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





mits, guiding the behavior of youth in the light of increasingly 
remote, but always clearly perceived and appreciated, social 
and personal values. 


8. To reveal higher activities of an increasingly special- 
ized type in the major fields of the racial heritage of experi- 
ence and culture, their significant values for social living, the 
problems in them of contemporary life, the privileges and du- 
ties of each person as an individual and as a member of so- 
cial groups; to make these fields satisfying and desired by 
those naturally gifted for success in them, and to give infor- 
mation as to the requirements for success in their fields and in- 
formation as to where further training may be secured. 


... 4. To explore higher and increasingly specialized levels 
of interests, aptitudes, and capacities, looking toward the di- 
rection of students into avenues of study or of work for which 
they have manifested peculiar fitness. 


5. To systematize knowledge previously acquired or be- 
ing acquired in courses in such ways as to show the signifi- 
cance both of this knowledge and especially of laws and prin- 
ciples, with understanding of wider ranges of application than 
would otherwise be perceived. 


6. To establish and to develop interests in the major 
fields of human activity as means to happiness, to social prog- 
ress, and to continued growth. 


7. To guide students on the basis of exploratory and 
revealing courses and of other information gathered from 
personnel studies, as wisely as possible into wholesome and 
worthwhile social relationships, maximum personality adjust- 
ment, and advanced study or vocations in which they are most 
likely to be successful and happy. 


8. To use in all courses as largely as possible methods 
that demand independent thought, involve ‘the elementary 
principles of research, and provide intelligent and somewhat 
self-directed: practice, individual and codperative, in the ap- 
propriate desirable activities of the educated person. 


9. To begin and gradually to increase differentiated ed- 
ucation on the evidence of capacities, aptitudes, and interests 
demonstrated in earlier years. Care must be taken to provide 
previous to and along with differentiation as balanced and ex- 
tended a general education as is possible and profitable. 

10. To retain each student until the law of diminishing 


returns begins to operate, or until he is ready for more inde- 
pendent study in a higher institution; and when it is manifest 





*“Tssues of Secondary Education,” Report of the Committee on the Orienta- 
tion of Secondary Education, Bulletin 59, Department of Secondary-School 
Principals, 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. 




































DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 51 


that he cannot or will not materially profit from further study 
of what can be offered, to eliminate him promptly, if possible 
directing him into some other school or into work for which 


he seems most fit. 

Some of these functions as stated will seem to you con- 
troversial and others will seem obvious. That is quite as it 
should be. But it is not sufficient to say that this or that stat- 
ed function is open to question; the challenge after recogniz- 
ing the need of the formulation of statements of functions 
of special emphasis is to decide what each function ideally 
ought to be. The arguments for the recommendation may not 
convince you, but they should at least be thoroughly consid- 
ered. Only then will a reader be in a position to propose an 
amended or a substitute statement that he thinks sound by his 
educational philosophy. Nor is it sufficient to agree with the 
functions as presented. Merely to understand or to restate 
the functions is not enough. They must be used. The sev- 
eral more important uses to which they may be put will not be 
stated. 


These ten functions are not all peculiar to secondary edu- 
cation. Several may in varying degrees begin in the 
elementary school and continue beyond the junior college. 
Each one, however, the Committee believes, is important, one 
of the most important, for the school that has responsibility 
for the education which normally begins about the age of 
twelve and continues for some six or eight years. Reiterating 
its belief that education should be “a gradual, continuous, 
unitary process,” as argued in its discussion of Issue Ten, the 
Committee recognizes that for practical purposes of adminis- 
tration an educational system will be divided into units of or- 
ganization, and it maintains that such units can be logically de- 
termined and effectively planned only when there is recogni- 
tion of the functions that are peculiar or at least of peculiar 
emphasis in each division. Decision as to the groups that 
should be taught together should be made in terms of the spe- 
cial educational responsibilities rather than of administra- 
tive convenience. One value, then, of agreement on the spe- 
cial functions of a period of education is to enable us to de- 
cide logically what the administrative units ought to be. 


A second value of agreement on the functions of special 
emphasis in any administrative unit is that it makes possible 



























PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





52 


the preparation of a real program of articulation. Everyone 

familiar with educational practices is aware that many inartic- 
ulations at present exist, and that the efforts to remove them 
by the various proposed devices have been only in part suc- 
cessful. Most of the inarticulations that have caused misun- 
derstandings, duplications, conflicts, and uneconomical prac- 
tice have been caused chiefly by a failure to agree on the pe- 
culiar responsibilities of each administrative unit. On the 
one hand, secondary schools have suffered from demands that 
they adjust themselves to the work of the elementary school 
below and to that of the college above, and on the other they 
have often been arrogant in demanding that all adjustments 
should be made to their conventional practices. Obviously 
both demands are bad in that they neglect consideration of ed- 
ucation as a gradual, continuous, unitary process toward 
which each administrative unit should be planned to contrib- 
ute. It is impossible satisfactorily to articulate units that are 
independent in purposes, or indefinite and variable. Ideally a 
program for the whole of the educative process should be 
worked out first. But that has not yet been done with any 
degree of practical satisfaction. Pending achievement of the 
ideal and contributing to it, this report proposes the special 
responsibilities of secondary schools. Similar proposals 
should be made of functions for special emphasis in the lower 
and in the more advanced schools. Only when there is agree- 
ment on the distribution of educational responsibilities can an 
articulated program for the entire educational process as pre- 
sented by separate administrative units be prepared. 


A third value of the proposed functions is that they will 
stimulate the profession to clarify its philosophy of secondary 
education. That every teacher, to say nothing of principals 
and other leaders, should have a philosophy—that is, an or- 
ganized and consistent body of principles fundamental to 
clearly formulated social ideals—is a truism. It is impossible 
for one to go far toward the development of such a philosophy 
without considering such matters as the proposed functions. 
The Committee in its report has given some reasons why the 
definitions and ideals that it advocates should be accepted, but 
it has all the time consistently recognized that other points of 
view, other ideals, and other philosophies may cogently lead to 
somewhat different conclusions. The most important profes- 


























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 53 


sional desideratum is not agreement, especially thoughtless 
agreement with an “official” recommendation, but a stimulus 
to each worker to recognize his individual responsibility thor- 
oughly to consider these fundamental matters and thus to come 
to such conclusions as will result in a more nearly complete and 
better rounded philososphy, which, in turn, should stimulate 
and direct the development of definite and justifiable pro- 
grams of action. 

A fourth value of the proposed functions is that when they 
are understood and approved, with such modifications as may 
seem wise, they will furnish criteria by which the practices of 
any secondary school may be evaluated. We are altogether 
too prone to judge details of practice without consideration of 
the entire program and of the principles underlying it. 
“How,” asks H. G. Wells in The Anatomy of Frustration, “can 
we know whether a part of a living body is functioning prop- 
erly or needs treatment or correction until we have something 
like an idea of the general physiological process?” The value 
of any detail of practice is found only in its contribution to one 
or more functions of the institution. If the detail cannot be 
justified by its direct or indirect contribution to the proposed 
functions, either it should be eliminated or the functions 
should be revised. 

The fifth and final value of the special functions of sec- 
ondary education is that they will give direction to the formu- 
lation of new programs of organization, administration, cur- 
riculum reconstruction, and methods of learning. The im- 
portant phases of the new program of secondary education can- 
not be formulated and soundly based without reference to 
some such functions as are stated as directive of the roads to 
desired goals. Great waste and disappointing proposals have 
resulted from the failure to begin reconstruction by clarifying 
the special functions of the period of education for which a 
program was to be made. Untold economies and more as- 
suredly sound programs are probable only if the functions 
to be emphasized are soundly established and convincingly 
popularized before detailed programs are attempted. If the 
functions as stated are not satisfactory, they should be modi- 
fied or replaced by those that seem better. 

These ten functions are proposed by a representative 
committee who devoted itself assiduously to its responsibility 
























54 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





through three years. In addition to attending six meetings 
of each of approximately a week in length, the members have 
contributed much time generously granted by their employers 
or unselfishly drawn from their own leisure. The committee 
has profited from the advice of many others whom they con- 
sulted, and especially from two expert representatives of the 
field of elementary education. Several members adequately 
represented higher education. But the Committee wishes to 
emphasize that the report has no official sanction. It is not 
desired that it should have. It presents an ideal that should be 
worked toward, not a series of proposals that should receive 
legislation before the profession first and then the laiety un- 
derstand and are ready to support them. The purpose of the 
report is to arouse a consciousness of the need of the formu- 
lation of statements of the functions that should receive 
special emphasis, to stimulate discussion that leads to agree- 
ment, and finally to furnish some degree of direction for the 
preparation of a more comprehensive and soundly based pro- 
gram of secondary education than now exists. 


You leaders of public education are urged first of all to 
familiarize yourself with the reports on both the Issues and 
the Functions. The constant pressure of problems of admin- 
istration and of public relations is recognized, but they can 
never be so important as to absolve you from the more funda- 
mental responsibility for leadership in education. It is your 
responsibility not merely to take care of the machinery and 
thus to make the running of the schools possible, but also to 
lead your subordinates to the understanding and approval of 
fundamental principles and to the building on them of soundly 
based programs of procedure. These reports furnish you 
material for educational leadership. You should initiate con- 
sideration of both reports by the staffs of your secondary 
schools and challenge them first to evaluate their present prac- 
tices by the conclusions reached and then to propose a well- 
rounded new program that will look toward making the sec- 
ondary schools the effective social agency that everyone rec- 
ognizes they should be. Out of local discussions and proposals 
will eventually come pressure for a state-wide or even a na- 
tional program. 

The reports of the Committee on the Orientation of Sec- 
ondary Education are, as previously stated, only a contri- 
























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 55 


bution to the comprehensive and fundamental program that 
should be prepared for the care and education of all youth. 
This program will be a part of the larger program for the 
care and education of all individuals in our society, whatever 
their age, abilities, maturity, or environment. The formula- 
tion of such programs are a challenge to this most powerful 
organization of educators in the last great democracy. Un- 
less you accept this challenge there is no assurance that even 
this democracy will endure. The laying of foundations is not 
spectacular ; it offers no opportunities for oratory; not leading 
to immediate direction for detailed changes in practice, it is 
not popular; and it is exceedingly difficult and tedious. But 
what prospect for an effective educational structure can there 
be without it? Leaders are far-sighted and must envisage 
the whole from the foundation upward. You have been en- 
trusted with leadership, and I have faith that sooner or later 
the Department of Superintendence will provide committees 
of its ablest minds furnished with all necessary resources to 
undertake this most important responsibility, the foundation 
of the outlines of a comprehensive and fundamental program 
for education in our nation. 


f 
i 
‘ 
' 
i 

















EIGHTH ANNUAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS 


CONFERENCE 


George Peabody College for Teachers 
June 10, 11, and 12 


The eighth annual School Administrators Conference will 
be held in Nashville, Tennessee, at Peabody College, June 
10-12, according to announcement by Drs. Dennis H. Cooke 
and Ray L. Hamon, professors of school administration at this 
institution. 


A number of leading educators from over the South will 
take part on the program which has as its general theme, 
“New Administrative Philosophies for Schools in a New So- 
cial Order.” Superintendent Nicholas Bauer, New Orleans, 
Louisiana, will be principal speaker at the closing banquet on 
the night of June 12. 


Other eminent school officials scheduled to deliver the 
main addresses include: Dr. E. W. Knight, University of 
North Carolina; Superintendent J. A. True, Council Bluffs, 
Iowa; Mrs. L. W. Hughes, president Tennessee Congress of 
Parents and Teachers, Arlington, Tennessee; Dr. William H. 
Bristow, general secretary, National Congress of Parents and 
Teachers, Washington, D. C.; Superintendent Edward D. 
Roberts, Cincinnati, Ohio; State Superintendent Clyde A. 
Erwin, Raleigh, North Carolina; and Dr. Louis Stanley, Chief 
of Bureau of Home Economics, Washington, D. C. 


Panel discussions will be led by many educators in which 
an attempt will be made to find solutions to the most signifi- 
cant problems facing schools in the South to-day. 

















CONFERENCE OF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS 


OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS 


During the week of July 19-23, 1987, a conference of ad- 
ministrative officers of public and private schools will be held 
by the Department of Education of the University of Chicago 
in the Club Room of Judson Court, College Residence Halls for 
Men, for the discussion of important problems in school or- 
ganization, administration, and supervision. The morning 
programs will consist of lectures by members of the Depart- 
ment of Education and visiting instructors and the afternoon 
programs of separate round-table discussions for superin- 
tendents and principals. Programs of the conference will be 
mailed to anyone applying to Professor W. C. Reavis, Depart- 
ment of Education, University of Chicago. 


Room and board will be provided, to the extent of the 
available capacity, in Judson Court for the week, Monday to 
Friday, for sixteen dollars. Reservations may be made 
through William J. Mather, Bursar of the University of Chi- 
cago. 


The conference is open without fee to students registered 
in the summer quarter and to administrative officers of pub- 
lic and private schools who desire to attend. The general 
theme of the institute is “Improvement of Instruction.” The 
complete program follows: 


MONDAY, JULY 19 


Through the Mobilization of the Potential Abilities 
of the Entire Teaching Staff 


“The School Principal and Modern Supervision,” Paul B. 
Jacobson, Principal, University High School, University of 
Chicago; Assistant Professor of Education; Assistant Dean of 
the College. 


“Faculty Mobilization for the Improvement of Instruc- 
tion,” Wesley E. Peik, Professor of Education, University of 
Minnesota, Minneapolis. 





57 











58 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 


“The Central Office and Modern Supervision,” Ben G. 
Graham, Superintendent of Schools, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 


TUESDAY, JULY 20 


Through the Improvement of Instructional Materials 


“The Development of Special Units of Curriculum Ma- 
terial,” Charles H. Judd, Professor of Education; Head of the 
Department of Education, University of Chicago. 

“The Contribution of the Administrator to the School 
Curriculum,” William C. Reavis, Professor of Education, 
University of Chicago. 

“The Enrichment of the Curriculum through the Wider 
Use of Library Materials,” Rollo L. Lyman, Professor of the 
Teaching of English, University. 


WEDNESDAY, JULY 21 


Through New Types of Supplementary Aids to 
Instruction 

“Use of Pictures, Maps, and Graphic Material in Instruc- 
tion,” Edith P. Parker, Assistant Professor of the Teaching of 
Geography, University of Chicago. 

“Use of Guide Sheets and Workbooks in Social Studies,” 
Rolla M. Tryon, Professor of the Teaching of History, Univer- 
sity of Chicago. 

“Use of Motion-Picture and Sound Films,” (Illustrated), 
Frank N. Freeman, Professor of Educational Psychology, 
University of Chicago. 


WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 21 


Program arranged by the Educational Policies Commis- 
sion of the American Association of School Adminstrators. 


THURSDAY, JULY 22 


Through the Efficient Selection and Use of 
Equipment and Supplies 
“Improved Methods of Selecting Equipment and Sup- 
plies,” Robert W. Hibbert, Director, Books-Supplies-Equip- 
ment, Department of Instruction, St. Louis Public Schools, St. 
Louis. 








DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 59 


“Stimulating the Teaching Staff to Make a Better Utiliza- 
tion of Equipment and Supplies,” John A. True, Superinten- 
dent of Schools, Council Bluffs. 

“Efficient Methods of Administering Supplies in City 
School Systems,” Nelson B. Henry, Associate Professor of Ed- 
ucation, University. 


FRIDAY, JULY 23 


Through the Refined Measurement of Pupil 
Ability and Achievement 


“A Program of Refined Measurement for City School 
Systems,” Paul T. Rankin, Supervising Director, Department 
of Curriculum and Research, Detroit Public Schools, Detroit. 

“Measurement in Progressive Secondary Schools,” Ralph 
W. Tyler, Professor of Education, Ohio State University, 
Columbus. 

“Clinical Study of Pupils with Learning Disabilities,” 
William S. Gray, Professor of Education; Executive Secretary, 
Committee on the Preparation of Teachers, University of Chi- 
cago. 



















60 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 





COMMITTEE REPORT ON PUBLICATIONS 






The following report of Committee on Publications, ap- 
proved by the President of the Department, McClellan G. 
Jones, is submitted to the members of the Department. Please 
fill in your response and return promptly. 









To the Executive Committee 


Department of Secondary-School Principals: 


The committee appointed by the President to submit plans 
for the publications of the Department submits the following 
report: 










1. Werecommend that the Bulletin of the Department be 
published eight times during the school year, October 
to May, inclusive. 















2. With the exception of the March issue, which should 
contain the proceedings of the annual meeting of the 
Department, the Bulletin should be an organ of the 
Department, to advance secondary education. 


a) Scope of the Bulletin: 


To cover the entire field of secondary educa- 
with emphasis especially on administration. 


b) Special features of the Bulletin are sections de- 
voted to: 

(1) Study and discussion groups. 

(2) News and short items about organiza- 
tions, schools, projects, events, and the 
like. 

(3) Books and materials for administrators 
and teachers. 

(4) Adult education in the secondary field. 


3. We recommend that the Department take over the 
magazine now being published under the title Student 
Leader to encourage the development of better prac- 
tices in student activities in the member schools. This 





















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 61 


magazine is to be published eight times during the 
school year. 


Scope of the magazine should include all basic 
student activities in secondary schools, 


Respectfully submitted, 


COMMITTEE FRANCIS L. BACON 
H. V. CHURCH 
W. C. REAVIS 


Chairman 


Detach and Return to 4 


H. V. CHURCH 
5835 Kimbark Avenue 
Chicago, Illinois 


4. Questions for referendum of membership: 


a) Do you favor increasing the number of issues to 
eight a year? 


YES [] No [_] 
If answer is “NO’’, send letter of constructive criti- 
cisms. 


b) Do you favor the publication of the student maga- 
zine proposed by the Department? 


YES CJ NO C] : 
If answer is “NO”, send letter of constructive criti- 
cisms.