Bulletin of th the Hiepetueec o of Secondary-School Prineipals: NATIONAL EDUGAMON AssocttON. 9 CONTENTS What Is General Education, CHARLES H. Jupp High-Sehool Parent-Teacher Associations Discussion Group Project. Committee Report on Publications Committee Report on Time, Place, and Name. Paragraphs from the Detroit (aly If 4) Convention. from Professional Digest Magasines: ge tibioe oer of Standardisation of © Now-Verbal T intelligence Test Cis ep vteh Aireccnt to Bike i Are Your ——e Buildings? _.. : in 0 World... News. Notes Bulletin of the Department of SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS of the National Education Association Issued Eight Times a Year October to May VOLUME 21 OCTOBER, 1937 NUMBER 68 BULLETIN NO. 68 CONTENTS What Is General Education, CHARLES H. JUDD High-School Parent-Teacher Associations Discussion Group Project Committee Report on Publications Committee Report on Time, Place, and Name Paragraphs from the Detroit (July 1937) Convention Digests from Professional Periodicals: An Experiment in Expressive Living Teacher-Librarian Codéperation The Homework Report Digests from Lay Magazines: The Development of Standardization of a Non-Verbal 39 Intelligence Test Making Civie Service Attractive to School Pupils How Safe Are Your School Buildings ?.....................----- 41 Education in a Changing World = Bright Children Can Take Care of Themselves I Like to Teach A Memorandum on Rote Learning America’s Educational Retreat Communications News Notes THE CONTENTS OF THIS BULLETIN ARE LISTED IN EDUCATION INDEX Published at "132 North Walnut Street, Danville, Illinois, by the Department of Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Association 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago $2.00 A YEAR FIFTY CENTS DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS iy of the ie NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION * OFFICERS 1937-1938 President: McCie.ian G. JonEs Principal of Union High School, Huntington Beach, California First Vice President: Pau. E. E1icker Principal of Newton High School, Newtonville, Massachusetts Second Vice President: H. V. Kepner Principal of West Side High School, Denver, Colorado Executive Secretary: H. V. Cuurcnu 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE , K. J. CLark ' Principal Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama a Virci, M. Harpin Principal of Pipkin and of Reed Junior High School, Springfield, Missouri Wiiarp N. Van Styck Principal of High School, Topeka, Kansas Joun E. WeEtLwoop Principal Central High School, Flint, Michigan NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY M. R. McDantet, President 4 Principal of Oak Park and River Forest Township High School, a Oak Park, Illinois CHARLES Forrest ALLEN K Supervisor of Secondary Education, Little Rock, Arkansas ig L. W. Brooks q Principal of Wichita High School North, Wichita, Kansas FS. Paut E. ELicKer Principal of Newton High School, Newtonville, Massachusetts H. V. Kepner Principal of West a High School, Denver, Colorado ~ A. E. MacQuarrigE Principal of Washburn High School, Minneapolis, Minnesota H. J. PARKER Principal of High School, Corvallis, Oregon Louis E. PLUMMER Principal of Fullerton Union High School and Junior College, Fullerton, California W. L. SPENCER State Director of Secondary Education, Montgomery, Alabama H. V. Cuurcn, Secretary 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago Bulletin of the Department of SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS of the National Education Association Issued Eight Times a Year October to May VOLUME 21 OCTOBER, 1937 NUMBER 68 BULLETIN NO. 68 CONTENTS What Is General Education, CHARLES H. JUDD.......................- 5 High-School Parent-Teacher Associations.... 17 Discussion Group Project.................00.--es0ec---eecesecereeceseecseeeneeesee 22 Committee Report on Publications.... 25 Committee Report on Time, Place, and Name.................--------- 26 Paragraphs from the Detroit (July 1937) Convention.......... 27 Digests from Professional Periodicals: An Experiment in Expressive Living..... 36 Teacher-Librarian Coéperation............. 34 The Homework Report..... 33 Digests from Lay Magazines: The Development of Standardization of a Non-Verbal Intelligence Test .................--2--.c.ccee----c--eceseceseseseeneceenecees 39 Making Civic Service Attractive to School Pupils.......... 40 How Safe Are Your School Buildings? 41 Education in a Changing World. 42 Bright Children Can Take Care of Themselves............. 44 I Like to Teach. 47 A Memorandum on Rote Learning 50 America’s Educational Retreat 53 Communications -57 News Notes 59 Book Notices eg 65 THE CONTENTS OF THIS BULLETIN ARE LISTED IN EDUCATION INDEX Published at 182 North Walnut Street, Danville, Illinois, by the Department of Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Association 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago $2.00 A YEAR FIFTY CENTS DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS of the NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OFFICERS 1937-1938 President: McCie.tan G. Jones Principal of Union High School, Huntington Beach, California First Vice President: Paut E. ELicker Principal of Newton High School, Newtonville, Massachusetts Second Vice President: H. V. Kepner Principal of West Side High School, Denver, Colorado Executive Secretary: H. V. Cuurcu 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE K. J. CLARK Principal Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama Virci, M. Harvin Principal of Pipkin and of Reed Junior High School, Springfield, Missouri Wii.arp N. Van Stiyck Principal of High School, Topeka, Kansas Joun E. WELLWwoop Principal Central High School, Flint, Michigan NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY M. R. McDanieEt, President Principal of Oak Park and River Forest Township High School, Oak Park, Illinois CHARLES Forrest ALLEN Supervisor of Secondary Education, Little Rock, Arkansas L. W. Brooxs Principal of Wichita High School North, Wichita, Kansas Paut, E. ELicKeR Principal of Newton High School, Newtonville, Massachusetts H. V. KEPNER Principal of West Side High School, Denver, Colorado A. E. MacQuarriE Principal of Washburn High School, Minneapolis, Minnesota H. J. PARKER Principal of High School, Corvallis, Oregon Louis E. PLUMMER Principal of Fullerton Union High School and Junior College, Fullerton, California W. L. SPENCER State Director of Secondary Education, Montgomery, Alabama H. V. Cuurcu, Secretary 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago 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 EssIG, Junior-Senior High School, Longmont, Colorado. EDSON M. BAILEY, High School, Manchester, Connecticut. R. E. Hoop, Glynn Academy, Brunswick, Georgia. JAMES E. BLUE, Senior High School, Rockford, Illinois. CHARLES D. LUTZ, Horace Mann School, Gary, Indiana. JAMES M. STERRETT, Warren Harding Junior High School, Des Moines, Iowa. G. C. DOUTZOUR, Wichita High School North, Wichita, Kansas. C. D. REDDING, High School, Frankfort, 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. FRANK C. JENKINS, Natchez, Mississippi. J. D. HULL, Senior High School, Springfield, Missouri. VAN MILLER, Overton, Nebraska. PAUL THURSTON, Overton, Nevada. G. HARVEY NICHOLLS, High School, Bound Brook, New Jersey. DAVID G. ALLEN, Central School, Lake Placid, New York. B. C. TIGHE, High School, Fargo, North Dakota. S. F. 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. FRANK JONES CLARK, Roosevelt High School, Seattle, Washington. CLARENCE G. PEREGOY, Wilson High School, Beckley, West Virginia JOSEPH KRAUS, High School, Stevens Point, Wisconsin. LESTER T. WALTER, Powell Junior High School, Washington, D. C. WHAT IS GENERAL EDUCATION? CHARLES H. JUDD University of Chicago The secondary schools of the United States are engaged in performing a service which no other educational institu- tions in the world have ever ventured to undertake. They are trying to raise the intelligence of all the young people of all classes of society to a level above that which can be reached through elementary schooling. The extent to which the sec- ondary schools are succeeding is indicated by the number of young people now enrolled in these schools. The latest avail- able figures show that in 1933-34 the total registration in the secondary schools of the United States, public and private, was 6,090,749. The corresponding figure for 1900 was 695,903. Some people are critica] of the secondary schools because they believe that the effort to educate so large a part of the population has resulted in deplorable deterioration of scholar- ship. Criticism is expressed in many different forms. It is said that the educational system of this country is not supply- ing intellectual leaders, that the common people are so stirred up by the little learning which they acquire that they are rest- less and dissatisfied with the conditions under which they live, and that popular thinking is banal and popular taste perverted. One critic has expressed his contempt for the American edu- cational system in the statement that the whole nation is a “sprawling mass of mediocrity.” It is possible to supply answers to many of the criticisms made and to produce evidence that the intellectual achieve- ments of the American people are of no mean order. It is easy to attribute the deficiencies of the schools to agencies and circumstances over which the schools themselves have no con- trol. In the first place, the demand for well-prepared and na- tively well-endowed teachers imposes on each generation a bur- den which it is well-nigh impossible to carry. The schools have to compete with the professions, industry, commerce, and government, and, in the case of women teachers, with matri- mony. The secondary schools of the country required in 5 WuHaAT Is GENERAL EDUCATION? 6 1933-34 250,695 teachers. It is hardly to be wondered at that there are some incompetent teachers in the schools. In the second place, it is by no means easy to decide what phases of science and letters are appropriate for the education of the great numbers of young people who throng the secon- dary schools. A few decades ago it was possible to select with some assurance the lines of instruction which were suited to the needs of the comparatively small population of the secon- dary schools. When a young man intends to enter the clergy or the profession of law or medicine, the curriculum which he should follow is fairly obvious. To be sure, there is by no means complete agreement with respect to the subjects which should be pursued even by those who are looking forward to specialization in strictly professional lines. When to the so- called “learned professions” are added all the callings requir- ing high intellectual preparation—engineering, business, agri- culture, and public service—the problem of organizing a cur- riculum or a series of curriculums that can be relied on to give suitable preparation for these many lines becomes overwhelm- ingly complex. In the third place, the conditions of life in modern society are unstable. Every year—indeed, every day—new policies of government or new industrial devices disturb the equilibrium of the social order and render intelligent planning for the fu- ture difficult. No one knows the kind of training necessary in a constantly changing society. The only sure formula that can be adopted by education is one which emphasizes the import- ance of cultivating adaptability to the highest possible degree. If individuals can be prepared to adjust themselves to new situations, they will be far better equipped for the future than they will be if they are taught by the long-established tradi- tional formula. One might offer other explanations in the effort to ex- tenuate the shortcomings of the educational system, but it is certainly wiser and far more profitable to accept criticism even if it is extreme and devote energy to overcoming the defects pointed out than to seek consolation in self-adulation or to seek relief by shifting responsibility to conditions outside the school system. It can be admitted without hesitation and without shame that there are many possibilities of improving the educational system of this country. a a ee a DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 7 In order to open the way for an unprejudiced discussion of the measures which must be taken to make secondary schools thoroughly serviceable, it is necessary to point out the inadequacies of two generally accepted views regarding schol- arship which exercise a powerful influence on the thinking of the present generation. First, the definition of the highest scholarship which is widely accepted emphasizes specialization far more than breadth. There was a time when the men who were thought of as the most competent scholars were men of extensive acquaintance with the literatures of their own and other languages. These were the universal geniuses of their day. It is recognized that the time has passed when anyone can hope to compass the whole or any large part of human learning. Despairing of knowing all things, the present gen- eration has magnified the importance of exhaustive knowledge in a narrow field. So thoroughly is the present scholarly world committed to specialization that no devotee of a particular field has the slightest hesitation in acknowledging his ignorance of what is going on in lines of inquiry and thought other than those which he pursues. It cannot be denied that the world owes much to the ef- forts of specialists. The minute investigations of those who concentrate on a single restricted field of research have added to the sum total of human experience in much the same cumu- lative way that coral polyps contribute to the building of the islands of the sea. In spite of all that is to be said in praise of specialization, however, it must be admitted that modern concentration of attention on narrow fields often results in atrophied personalities. Somewhere in life there must be breadth and comprehensiveness of thinking, and there must be inclusiveness in action which gives full recognition to more than one limited interest. The most productive specialist ought to give attention to the duties of good citizenship and to all that makes life wholesome in the family and in the com- munity. The second view which is commonly accepted with respect to scholarship is a heritage traceable to the European origins of the American people. Europe began the cultivation of in- tellectual life in institutions of learning at a time when the only spheres of scholarly endeavor were certain aristrocratic _ professions. The first schools of Europe were not for the com- 8 WHAT IS GENERAL EDUCATION? mon people. Whether one thinks of the educational institu- tions that developed in the aristocratic societies of ancient Greece and Rome or of the centers of learning which grew up under the protection of the church in the medieval period, it is evident that scholarship was designed to perpetuate the ex- clusiveness and the power of the aristocracy. The slaves of ancient civilizations and the peasants of medieval Europe who tilled the soil and provided food and luxuries for the aristoc- racy were not expected to use their intellects. Their activities were limited to the manual crafts. The traditions of aristoc- racy hold sway in some measure over the thinking even of this democratic country. It is scholarly to preach sermons, how- ever vapid they may be. It is scholarly to plead before a judge and jury, however misleading the plea may be. It is scholarly to know the names of many drugs even though one uses noth- ing in practice but bread pills. Skill in mechanical lines and success in trade are thought of as minor achievements re- quiring less dignified forms of intelligence than the traditional professions. Tradition is still very strong though not entirely dom- inant on the other side of the Atlantic. There, peasants toil and the aristocracy issues orders which must be obeyed. There, society separates the common people from the upper classes, the comparatively ignorant from those who have en- joyed the privileges of a higher education. In every country of Europe access to education above the rudimentary level is accorded almost exclusively to the upper classes. The coun- tries of Europe have to-day dual school systems. The common people attend lower schools entirely separate from the upper schools, which prepare for the professions and for govern- mental positions. To be sure, the European dual school sys- tems and the European class society begin to show signs of change. France has made free the lycée, which, like all Euro- pean secondary schools, was once a tuition school. Germany has organized special secondary schools for the populace par- alleling the old aristocratic secondary schools. Russia is open- ing to all workers the treasure house of science and letters al- though no one expects the sodden mass of the peasantry to rise suddenly out of its abject ignorance. In spite of the changes which are beginning to take place, Europe still draws a sharp line of separation between the schools for the common people and the schools for their betters. OU SN i ee i a ee ek | | DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 9 The European tradition came in Colonial days to the North American continent. It is still intrenched in the thinking and organized life of the American people. It is true to-day, as it was in Colonial times, that the professions arrogate to themselves a higher place in the social order than they are willing to concede to other callings. There are many people in the United States who are unwilling to recognize the fact that business is becoming, if it has not already become, quite as aristocratic as preaching. On the other hand, tradition is having difficulty in maintaining itself. Agriculture is receiv- ing far more attention in the universities of this country than is theology. Engineering is on an equal footing with law and medicine. Some of the greatest endowments of recent times have gone to institutions which prepare for the new profes- sions. It is becoming necessary for those who are disposed to perpetuate aristocratic traditions to adopt a new technique of supporting the kind of education which they favor. It would not do in this country for the would-be aristocrats frankly to assert their determination to maintain themselves against the lower classes. The lower classes are becoming aggressive, and they are numerous. The aristocrats have been wise enough to employ a high-sounding democratic name for the peculiar brand of education which they regard as appropriate for them- selves and for their children—they call it “liberal education.” They use a word which in Rome referred to the free citizen. Literally, the term “liberal education” means the education of the free citizen. All other kinds of education have been labeled by modern aristocrats “vocational”—an adjective reminiscent of ancient slavery. They forget that the subjects which they now describe as liberal were at one time clearly recognized as pre-professional and in this sense vocational. For example, what can be more liberal than courses in grammar and rhet- oric? If the dictionary is correct in its statement of the deri- vation of the word “rhetoric,” that word comes from the Greek word rhetor meaning “orator.” The sons of Greek and Roman aristocratic families gained prominence in the councils of the state and made headway in the practical profession of politics only after they had studied rhetoric and had become proficient in oratory. Dialectic and the other subjects of the division of the liberal arts known as the “trivium” had the same practical purpose as rhetoric. WHAT Is GENERAL EDUCATION? 10 As for geometry, the major unit of the division of the lib- eral arts known as the “quadrivium,” it has long been the car- rier of logic. The medieval universities taught geometry as a means of training the minds of the leaders in the social order. No one thought in earlier times that the common man would ever study geometry. It was assumed that such logic as the common man needed he would gain from practical experience. When the change came and the young people of all classes of society in the United States entered institutions of education above the elementary school, why was geometry retained in the curriculum? Did the friends of geometry acknowledge that the subject belongs to the vocational preparation of the pro- fessional class? Not at all. The role which geometry is to-day advertised as filling is that of contributing to the improvement of the mind of anyone who will study it. Latin might be traced, if one were interested in studying origins, to the time when most young men attending secondary schools and institutions of higher education were preparing for the clergy. The church, it will be recalled, found it neces- sary to employ an international language. No one had at that time thought of Esperanto; Latin was readily at hand. To be sure, Medieval Latin was not very good Latin. It was a cor- rupt form the language of Cicero and Vergil. A few enthusi- asts tried to improve it by cultivating Ciceronian style. Latin was international, and it ought, so the reformers thought, to be improved if it was to be worthy of aristocratic use. To-day, Latin serves a very humble purpose as compared with that which it served when it first came into the schools. Its com- panions in clerical education, Hebrew and Greek, have, so far as public education is concerned, long since gone the way of all outworn relics of the past, but Latin itself holds a place of social prestige not as an international medium of communica- tion but as a subject suited to the training of all minds. Asa subject reputed to be liberal, it consumes one or two years of a pupil’s time and leaves a very thin veneer over his otherwise | plebeian mind. Someday the people of the United States will realize that the European tradition and the European definition of liberal education have no more place in America than has a mon- archical form of government or its illegitimate descendant, Fascism. They will recognize the fact that the American edu- ar- 3a er. ld he ce. of on he at AY nt cre CD pw DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 11 cational institution which attempts to maintain a Latin-geom- etry curriculum is deceiving itself and its patrons by wearing the last tattered fragments of the toga of aristocracy. What this country needs, and needs sorely, is liberal education ap- propriate to present-day life. From this point on it will be well to avoid the complica- tions and the conflict of emotions which often result from the use of the term “liberal” in describing one type of education. The contrast which is drawn when the terms “liberal” and “vocational” are used for the purpose of marking off from each other two aspects of education is far better expressed by the terms “general education” and “vocational education.” There is one division of the educational system which is not seriously questioned by anyone as to its purposes and con- tents—the lowest division, or what is commonly called the “ele- mentary school.” This school is devoted entirely to general education. In it, children learn those fundamental arts of civilized life which make it possible for them to share in the culture of the race. They learn, above all, the art of reading, which vastly extends their intellectual contacts. They learn something of the number system, which is a device for thinking and expressing one’s self with precision. They gain some rudi- mentary knowledge of geography and of the history of man- kind. All these are elements of an education which can prop- erly be described as general. Why does the secondary school fail to take the natural course of continuing general education? The answer is that until recently the secondary school of the United States, like the secondary schools of European countries, was not a general school; it was an exclusive school, consciously directing its efforts to the preparation of a few young people who were ex- pecting to enter the learned professions. If the secondary school were now to turn about and say that it intends to administer general education in keeping with the new, non-European ideals of the United States, what ob- stacles would it encounter? First, instruction in the secon- dary schools of the United States is being conducted by teachers who never had education that can properly be called “general.” The teachers in these schools are all specialists, and most of them are acquainted only with the subjects handed down by tradition from a secondary school that originated under con- 12 WHAT Is GENERAL EDUCATION ? ditions wholy different from those which constitute the present social order of this country. Second, the parents who were brought up under the influence of tradition have a lingering desire to see their children initiated into some kind of aris- tocracy. Parents usually insist that their children study what European upper classes have always studied. There are other obstacles which stand in the way of gen- eral education. It is lamentable, but nevertheless a fact, that no one knows exactly what ought to be included in general education above the elementary-school level. There will have to be invention of new subject matter, and invention is ardu- ous. The teaching of Latin requires no invention. The art of instruction in Latin has been refined by centuries of trial. There is not a difficult passage in Caesar’s Gallic Wars that has not been gone over so frequently that the Latin peda- gogical fraternity knows exactly where confusion will result from inability to understand Caesar’s indirect discourse or his use in certain connections of subjunctives and gerunds. The road to glory in Latin is beaten hard with the tread of many young feet. If a new kind of general education is introduced including something besides Latin and geometry, something appropriate to the common man, such as economics and polit- ical science, the trial] will certainly be so obscure that many pupils will go astray; the points at which they will leave the trail are, however, matters of pure conjecture. Pathfinders of extraordinary genius will have to open up the way and guide the learners. One reason why American secondary schools have failed to develop an appropriate type of general education is that there was once another agency which assumed responsibility for general education. That agency was the family. In by- gone days the father told his son never to vote a certain ticket at election time because all candidates on that ticket were ipso facto crooks. The ipso facto was a concession to Euro- pean tradition. The word “crook” was vernacular and consti- tuted the major element of the father’s instruction. Parents are even now somewhat reluctant to acknowledge that they are not competent to direct the thinking of their offspring. Since, however, the economic and political worlds are far more com- plex than they were in earlier days, parents can no longer de- scribe in short, dogmatic terms the way in which young people DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 13 should discharge their duties as citizens. General education must cope with new lines of thinking and new problems. Who is to invent the contents of this new education? There are two negative answers that can be given to this question. The family cannot. The ordinary teacher in a secondary school trained in the conventional, so-called “liberal-arts” curriculum cannot. The problem which confronts the educational system of this country is clear. There must be invented and installed a new kind of general education, and the relation of general education to vocational education must be made clear. It is fortunately possible to draw from current practices some con- crete examples of inventions which seem to indicate the lines of evolution likely to be followed in solving the problem of post-elementary general education. In 1917 a sudden realization of a great social need came vividly into the consciousness of American college teachers. © The United States had entered into the conflict which was driv- ing the world toward the brink of destruction. The young people of the nation, to say nothing of the old people, did not understand very clearly what was happening to European civi- lization or why this country was involved. There was organ- ized in the colleges a course different from any of the older courses; it was called the War Issues course. It was at once evident that there were no specialists in this country on war issues. The colleges did the best they could. They mobilized professors of ethics to teach the immorality of war and the high motives that led this country to enter the war, professors of economics to explain how the war started and the real rea- sons why the United States had taken the virtuous step of send- ing an army across the Atlantic, and professors of foreign languages to tell students, without requiring them to read strange tongues, why the French provinces did not want to learn to speak German. Wise men from many departments joined in giving a course designed to serve the students and to explain the issues of the war. America thus launched one of its earliest well-sponsored courses in general education. When the war issues were settled, as they were supposed to be at Versailles, someone suggested that it might be well to mobilize professors to tell about the issues of peaceful civiliza- - tion. Courses on contemporary civilization and on the nature 14 WHAT Is GENERAL EDUCATION? of the world and of man were organized. These courses elbowed their way into the curriculum to the distress of those who held tenaciously to the curriculum inherited from aristo- cratic Europe. In the meantime, industry, somewhat frightened by the fact that Europe was not likely to send any more skilled me- chanics and glass blowers to this country, persuaded Congress to launch on a national scale a new program of vocational edu- cation. There had been some handwork in the schools ever since 1876, when Swedish sloyd was exhibited at the Centen- nial Exposition in Philadelphia. In 1917 handwork took an official position in the secondary-school curriculum and felt that it must make its arrival known by emitting a blast of criticism against all brainwork. The Federal Board for Voca- tional Education, created and subsidized by Congress in 1917, evidently believed that the only way it could become respectable was by combating the curriculum then taught in the secondary schools. In fact, the new federal board and its represenatives proceded on the assumption that vocational education is gen- eral education and every other kind of education is evil, born of iniquity and cultivated in sin. As one looks back on the history of 1917 and contemplates the forces which created the educational] situation that then came into existence, one wonders why this country, which ha: long struggled with the problem of educating its young people for American civilization, has failed to realize that the only possible solution of its problems is a radical revision of the secondary-school program borrowed from Europe. A new plan of education must be devised suitable for children from all classes of society. , There ought to be no conflict between general education and vocational education. General] educaion at the secondary- school level has the same purpose as general education at the elementary-school level. It is the education which everyone must have in order to live intelligently in a modern commu- nity. General means “belonging to everyone.” Quite as in- sistent as the demand for general education is the demand that each individual be prepared by education to carry on efficiently his or her share of the world’s' work. Vocational education is not general; it is special, aimed at the perfection of individual powers. Some kind of vocational education should be admin- mn y- 1e 1- Ne at ly is al DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 15 istered to every pupil. The trouble up to this time has arisen because general education has been confused with traditional preparation for the professions. A moment’s consideration makes it clear that traditional secondary education is voca- tional education of a pre-professional type. What should be the contents of a program of secondary ed- ucation suited to American conditions? The new curriculum should include, first, certain general courses needed by all mem- bers of a modern democratic society—a compact review of the sciences, natural and social; a course or series of courses on the duties of a member of a community; a course or series of courses in the literature which records the experiences and ideals of the race; and a course in social psychology describing individuals and the place of individuals in the social order. The curriculum should include, second, vocational education, or the cultivation of the skills and techniques of operation necessary in the trades and the professions. General education and voca- tional education are not antagonistic. Properly related, they do not conflict or compete with each other. There are a number of levels in both general education and vocational education. The lower levels will suffice for some individuals, but the lower levels should not be narrowly vocational. General education, or education for participation in civilized thinking, is quite as essential for those who aitend secondary schools for a year or two as for those who go from these schools to institutions of higher education. General edu- cation should be administered in some degree to those who leave school early. That the present so-called liberal-arts curriculum is in reality a pre-professional curriculum is shown by the fact that even now it is breaking up into several subdivisions. Boys who are going into engineering are being guided into courses in physical science and mathematics; boys and girls who are pre- paring for commercial positions are being guided into courses in accounting and business management; and those who are thinking of entering medicine are advised to take courses in the natural sciences. The traditional secondary-school program in all its divisions is a mere prelude to specialization which is of a strictly vocational type. Someone will perhaps say that the secondary schools are now engaged in the double task of providing both general edu- 16 WHAT IS GENERAL EDUCATION? cation and vocational education. To this assertion it can be answered that there is a vast difference between a unified pro- gram of general and special education and the present dis- tracting, competitive struggle going on under the elective sys- tem in secondary schools. General education and vocational education must unite. The spirit of general education as de- fined in this paper is totaly different from that of specialization and totally different from that of the traditional curriculum. The spirit of courses preparing for vocations is not opposed to that of general education. Vocational education need not be inferior in scholarship. Courses preparing for vocations can be made as suitable for the cultivation of human minds as any courses in the curriculum. All that is necessary to make possible a rational organization of the curriculum is a clear recognition of what the individual needs in his two capacities— first, in his capacity as a participating unit in community gov- ernment and in community social life and, second, in his capacity as a productive worker playing his peculiar aan in trade, commerce, or a profession. 3ys- nal de- tion um. sed not ions 3 as ake lear rOV- his t in HIGH-SCHOOL PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIA- TIONS By WILLIAM H. BrRIsTow, General Secretary National Congress of Parents and Teachers The aims of the Parent-Teachers Association, as stated in the by-laws of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers are: To promote the welfare of children and youth in home, school, church, and community; to raise the stand- ards of home life; to secure adequate laws for the care and protection of children and youth. To bring into closer relation the home and the school, that parents and teachers may coéperate intelligently in the training of the child, and to develop between educators and the general public such united efforts as will secure for every child the highest advantages in physical, mental, social, and spiritual education. The high-school parent-teacher association is an important fac- tor in realizing these aims. High-school pupils can be of much assistance in laying a basis for the development of the objec- tives which have been set forth in these by-laws. A high- school parent-teacher association which is effective must have the codperation, support, and interest of the high-school stu- dent body in whose interest the organization is formed. Programs and activities of the high-school associations are concerned with the problems and needs of pupils of high-school age and with plans for bringing about desirable codperative relationships in home, school, and community. Some of the problems considered by high-school associations are :* The opportunity for parents to work efficiently with the youth of to-day in establishing and maintaining a basis for successful family living. Opportunity for parents to learn how they may work with their children at the high-school age level. Establishment of a practical basis for pupil-parent- teacher relationships through home-school coéperation. 1The High School Association, National Congress of Parents and Teachers, 1201 Sixteenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C 17 IMPROVING EDUCATION THROUGH DISCUSSION Interpretation to the parents of home study, extra- curriculum activities, and scholastic standards. A consideration of curriculum problems. The basis of support and development of secondary education. An interpretation of modern methods of teaching. Interpretation of the problems of the home to the school and to the community. The development of an understanding of community influences as they affect the interests of youth—including social life, recreation, motion pictures, radio, library serv- ice—and the establishment of proper environmental con- ditions to meet the needs of youth. There are a number of differences between elementary-school associations and high-school associations which are sometimes not recognized. The fact that the membership of the high- school parent-teacher association is more scattered and that it more nearly represents a cross-section of the entire community than does the membership of most elementary schools, makes the problem of the high-school association somewhat different. The program of the high-school association differs in relation to meetings, inasmuch as in a great many associations oppor- tunities are also provided for the meeting of parents in various class sections. The activities of the high-school association re- volve around the problems of high-school pupils. High-school associations also provide for a great degree of pupil participa- tion. In discussing the problem of pupil participation, a publica- tion? of the Congress says: “The contribution made by high-school pupils in the association will depend largely upon community and school factors. The high-school association provides opportuni- ties whereby youth may participate actively in committees, planning school and community programs for youth. In the committee work, youth has an opportunity to counsel with adults ; to express its opinions concerning youth prob- lems; to evaluate plans which are being made for youth; and to bring to the attention of adults the important and pressing problems facing youth of the community as they see them. Through this channel youth may have a place in community planning and in the cultural, social, and civic development of the community.” 2The High Schoool Association, National Congress of Parents and Teachers, 1201 Sixteenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C xtra- dary » the nity ding serv- con- -hool imes igh- at it nity akes rent. tion por- ious 1 re- hool ipa- lica- the hool uni- ees, In nsel rob- ith; and hey lace and and 19 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS In carrying out the work of the association this same publica- tion’ lists the following suggestive service projects: The promotion of summer activities—summer camps, hostels, and pilgrimages; these activities facilitate an ex- change of experiences on the part of youth. The support of a codrdinated recreation program in communities, including a consideration of such problems as commercialized amusements, the movies, pool rooms, dance halls, beer parlors. Establishment of student aid funds to assist students to continue at school such as books, clothes, and carfare. Codperation in the development of adequate high- school libraries. Coédperation in promotion of a program of school beautification, including both the interior and exterior of buildings. The encouragement of school journeys and commu- nity intervisitation as an educational measure, and for the purpose of bringing youth from various communities to- gether to consider subjects of mutual interest. Codperation in the establishment of codrdinated health programs, clinics, and periodical examination of high-school youth, and the development of an integrated program of health service for youth in the community. Activities which have been carried on by high-school parent- teacher associations and reported to the National Congress of Parents and Teachers are summarized in the mimeographed publication, “A Digest of Information for High-School Associ- ations.” A few of these activities are as follows: + Parent-teacher associations are participating in open school night, the parent-teacher association serving as hostess in codperation with teachers and pupils. Home room representatives are appointed by the par- ent-teacher association, codperating with teachers and parents in developing school activities and projects relat- ing to parents-teachers-pupils. Parent-teacher associations codperate with school au- thorities and other agencies in developing a community recreation program. __ Parent-teacher associations participate in an organ- ized program of safety for the community, working with both pupils and teacher. Father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother- daughter nights are sponsored. 3] bid. IMPROVING EDUCATION THROUGH DISCUSSION Problems such as curriculum, supervised study, home study are investigated by committees composed of parent- teacher members, teachers, and pupils. Reports are made to parent-teacher associations. Ways of preventing failures and ways in which the home and school can codperate with pupils in failure pre- vention have been discussed and plans worked out. The parent-teacher associations codperate with par- ents and teacher in connection with the use and develop- ment of libraries. Representatives of the student body attend parent- , teacher meetings and present needs of pupils or their at- ‘titudes on important problems of mutual interest. Pupil representatives of the student body are invited to sit in on committees and meetings of the parent-teacher associations. Four sets of parents and teachers from each of the four classes in a rural consolidated school helped to plan the activities in their respective class. A guidance round-up for high-school seniors was planned, organized by parent-teacher associations codper- ating with teachers and pupils. A question box on high-school problems, to which high-school pupils contributed, brought out many import- ant subjects and problems for discussion at a parent- teacher meeting. A “Know Your School” campaign was developed by the parent-teacher association, enlisting the codperation of both parents and pupils. Pupils participate in the development and organiza- tion of a parent-teacher library, assisting parents in se- curing books on subjects which they would like to know about. Parent-teacher associations, codperating with teach- ers and pupils, have organized community meetings to pre- sent the problems of youth. A “Standards of Dress” conference was suggested by the faculty and high-school girls in codperation with the parent-teacher association. Youth service projects were encouraged and employ- ment opportunities have been developed by parent-teacher associations to assist high-school graduates and out-of- school youth. Panel discussions have been held in many schools in which parents, pupils, and teachers discussed the general theme, “Problems of Youth.” Out of these discussions have come many suggestions for community development. ie le r )- t. t- Yr le iS Po t- t- ly rf DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 21 A nature trail was developed jointly by a parent- teeanes association and pupils in a high-school biology class. A social standards conference, participated in by par- ents, teachers, and pupils, the purpose of which was to help high-school boys and girls with their own problems. This conference involved the whole student body and many parents. A high-school parent-teacher association, in codpera- tion with the Board of Education, has developed a pro- gram on sex education, operating throughout the schools and the community. One city council, through its high-school survey com- mittee, made a study of employment conditions within the community with the idea of assisting high-school pupils in their efforts to secure jobs. Many organizations in the community, in codperation with both parents and pupils, have been able to assist many worthy students. The opportunities provided in the parent-teacher associations for developing participation whereby parents and teachers may work together with pupils, makes the high-school association one of the most significant developments in modern life. The parent-teacher association is democratic, brings together all types of interest in the community, is organized to improve home-school-community relationships and environment. It provides one of the few opportunities for pupil participation in community activities, where high-school youth are accepted for their true value and worth. High-school pupils, through their relationships with both parents and teachers, form an import- ant link in home-school codperation. In fact, they are the es- sential link. Through their participation in high-school par- ent-teacher activities they have an opportunity to share in com- munity development and in community responsibility. Here parents, teachers, and pupils may sit down to discuss common problems of youth. Here pupils may present their side of the case and secure a sympathetic and understanding hearing from both parents and teachers. DISCUSSION GROUP PROJECT The Planning Committee of the Department of Secondary School Principals has its Discussion Group Project well under way. The purpose is to encourage the formation of discussion groups among executives and teachers and to codperate with groups which are already functioning. It is thought to be im- portant that those responsible for the determination of educa- tional policies should meet frequently to discuss their common problems, especially the problems which are vital and funda- mental. This effort to foster the development of discussion groups is under the general supervision of Francis L. Bacon, Chairman of the Planning Committee. A Washington office was established during the summer at the N. E. A. headquarters for the purpose of furthering the discussion group activities. The Director of the Discus- sion Group Project is Walter E. Myer, Director of the Civic Education Service; and Walter E. Hess, lately Senior Adviser on Secondary Education in the Pennsylvania State Depart- ment of Education has been appointed to assist in the work. The national office has prepared outlines for the study of the Orientation Committee’s Reports on the “Issues” and “Functions” of Secondary Education. Sets of questions for the discussion of a number of problems of secondary education are under preparation. These outlines may be obtained with- out charge for the use of discussion groups. State organizations are being set up to further the for- mation of discussion groups and to codperate with those al- ready in existence. A Coordinator is to be at the head of each state organization. The following Codrdinators have already been appointed: Mr. Matthew P. Gaffney, Prin. New Trier Township High School Winnetka, Illinois Mr. M. L. Knapp, Prin. Isaac C. Elston Senior High School Michigan City, Indiana 22 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 23 Mr. B. R. Miller, Prin. Senior High School Marshalltown, Iowa Mr. W. N. Van Slyck, Prin. Senior High School Topeka, Kansas Mr. Harrison C, Lyseth Director of Secondary Education Augusta, Maine Dr. Charles W. Boardman Professor of Education University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota Mr. Crawford S. McGivaren, Prin. Carr Central High School Vicksburg, Mississippi Dr. Fred Dixon, Prin. Hickman High School Columbia, Missouri Mr. Roy Butterfield, Prin. Benjamin Franklin High School Rochester, New York Mr. John G. Kelly, Registrar Winthrop College Rock Hill, South Carolina Mr. E. L. Bersagel, Director Department of Extension The Northern Normal and Industrial School Aberdeen, South Dakota Mr. James Francis Smith, Prin. Poultney High School Poultney, Vermont Mr. Karl Winchell, Prin. Rock Springs High School Rock Springs, Wyoming A number of the states already have very effectively or- ganized discussion groups, and conspicuous among them is the 24 DISCUSSION GROUP PROJECT State of Pennsylvania. There are fifty-five local associations of the Pennsylvania High-School Principals Association, and these local groups reach into every section of the state. Some of them have been operating for nearly twenty years. Over two-thirds have been in operation for ten years or more. In some cases all the principals of a county associate themselves into a group for discussion purposes, while in other cases county lines are crossed. The meetings are rather informal and in most cases no dues are charged. The number of meetings per year in these local groups ranges from two to ten, with seven times‘a year being a popular frequency. In some cases the programs are planned a year in advance, while in other places the plans are made for but one meeting at a time. It is a very common practice for the principals to have dinner meetings, with discussion afterward, The idea of a meeting which combines social elements with the professional seems to be popular. It frequently happens that speakers are brought in from the outside to discuss important educational problems. In many cases, however, outside speakers are not present, but some member of the local group leads in a general discussion of the problem which has been assigned for con- sideration. In other instances, the panel discussion method is used. Among the problems which have been most frequently selected as topics for discussion in the local meetings are: Phases of guidance, records and reports, testing programs, marking systems, curriculum, supervision, and character edu- cation. It frequently happens that an association will ap- point a committee to make a detailed study of some specific problem. There is a state planning committee which outlines sub- jects for study by the local groups. The local groups are in correspondence with the planning committee and the state coérdinator. When studies are made, the results or con- clusions are sent to the state committee and in some cases the studies are published. A local association may appoint committees and carry on research with respect to the topic under consideration, or subjects may be taken up for discus- sion rather than research. COMMITTEE REPORT ON PUBLICATIONS At the New Orleans (February, 1937) meeting the Ex- ecutive Committee appointed Professor W. C. Reavis as chair- man of a committee on the Department Publications. In pur- suance of this commission Professor Reavis prepared a re- port which, in part, was published (pp. 60 and 61) in the Supplement to BULLETIN 65. In this report, return replies to the question, “Do you favor increasing the number of issues of the BULLETIN to eight a year?” were requested of the members, A summation of the returns is as follows: 91.8% favored issuing the BULLETIN eight times (Oc- tober to May) a year. (In response to this vote BULLETINS of the Department will be issued October to May inclusive.) The second part of the referendum read, “Do you favor the publication of the student magazine proposed by the Department?” Of the returns on the student publication, 80.3% were in favor of the publication. The first issue of this publication will appear in October under the title, STUDENT LIFE. COMMITTEE REPORT ON TIME, PLACE, AND NAME The committee appointed at New Orleans to obtain the consensus of opinion of the members of the Department of Secondary-School Principals relative to the time and place of the annual meeting, and to ascertain the attitude in re- gard to the name of the organization, proposed, under the leadership of Paul B. Jacobson, a differential questionaire, which was published in the Supplement to BULLETIN 65. A summary of the replies received follows: 71% favored meeting at the same place as the Ameri- can Association of School Administrators (Department of Superintendence). 29°. preferred to meet in some central place, and at an- other time. 35% should like to have the session begin Sunday evening. 21% on Friday evening. 19% on Saturday morning. 18% Saturday evening. 7% exactly concurrent with those of the American As- sociation of School Administrators. 66% favored four sessions of the convention, 29% favored three sessions of the convention. 5% favored five sessions of the convention. In regard to the name: 54% favored, The National Association of Secondary- School Principals, a Department of the National Education Association. 22% The National Society of Secondary Education. 24% favored the present name. 26 eo ore te PARAGRAPHS FROM THE DETROIT CONVENTION America can afford to pay reasonable salaries to its teach- ers. We should bow our heads in shame when we realize that in 1933-34 one teacher out of every three received less than $750 for the year’s service. During this same time the aver- age salary paid city teachers ranged from $961 to $1922 in elementary schools and from $1260 to $2436 in high schools, depending upon the size of the city. The rural teacher in 1933-34 received $787 on the average. Approximately 80,000 teachers of more than 2,000,000 rural school children received less than $500 a year.—Eugene B. Elliott, State Superintend- ent of Schools in Michigan. The most definite preparation for life in a democracy is living in a democracy. The best opportunity for citizenship training in the high school is to make each hour of the pupil’s life in that school a laboratory period for citizenship training. The most neglected opportunities for citizenship training in the high school are the opportunities which come daily in the usual school routine and which afford teachers and principals the chance to direct immature youths in making wise choices of conduct. A more complete utilization of these opportunities should be the challenge to every teacher and principal if the public school is to fulfill its chief obligation to society.—Virgil Stinebaugh, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Indianapolis, Indiana. These schools are teaching practical politics: In the little town of Weld, Maine, the high-school stu- dents discuss the warrant of the annual town meeting and vote on it. Later they attend the town meeting itself and compare their ideals with their parents’ action. In New York City a Civics class of the Julia Richman High School did prop- aganda for the new City Charter which was adopted last No- vember. The campaign for a City Manager in Des Moines, Iowa, was started by two or three seniors in Theodore Roose- velt High School. The enthusiastic work of a group of Tulsa 27 28 PARAGRAPHS FROM THE DETROIT CONVENTION students defeated the political machine when they elected their professor, Col. Oscar W. Hoop, Police Commissioner of Tulsa.—Sophie Pollack, Secretary, National Self Government Committee, New York. We must find some way to make clear thinking the surest criterion of the educated man. Knowledge is good and culture is good, but the highest excellence is the power to think straight and to the point, to think through and into and around the subject. The vigorous thinker in action is, in my opinion, the most impressive spectacle in the intellectual life of mankind. The aim of education is to produce a man, a master of himself, capable of initiating his own acts, respon- sible for his acts, able to discern and assimilate the ideas which he accepts and professes, so that whatever he says, thinks, or does, really comes from him. This calls for action plus reflection which constitutes true education.—Lester K. Ade, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. How will the study or work in adult education go on? In every conceivable way, depending on what is being studied. The most common may be a small discussion-study group. It may be, however, a machine shop in which vocational re-edu- cation is going on. It may be a class working at wood-carv- ing under the guidance of some expert. It may be chorus singing under a leader. It may be group working’ with boys and girls in the cellar clubs of the poorer districts. It may be a class in English for foreigners. It may, be a group of for- eign-born wives and mothers learning better how to care for their children and families under American conditions. It may be a group of lawyers and business men study our money system.—William Heard Kilpatrick, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. The first question the average young person is asked when he applies for a job is, “Are you a high-school gradu- ate?” Thousands of employers refuse to hire anyone to-day unless he or she has at least a high-school education. Yet we deny millions of them the opportunity to secure a high-school education and this too in face of the fact that we have passed ast ire nk nd ny ife yn- aS DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 29 legislation, child labor legislation, denying young people under eighteen years of age a chance to work. Is it any wonder, in view of these facts, that our penitentiaries are filling up. The Federal Department of Justice reports that crime costs more than twelve billion dollars annually and most of the criminals belong to the ignorant, illiterate, uneducated class. Why not spend some of the money for education that we spend to fi- nance crime ?—Hon. Brooks Fletcher, United States Congress- man from Ohio. While adequate and accurate figures for the country as a whole are not available, conservative estimates indicate that approximately 85% of our rural school teachers have had less than two years training’ beyond high school. When it is re- membered that this is the largest single group of professional educators, this fact should produce serious thought in the minds of every member of the educational profession. With respect to formal education training secondary-school teachers reflect the highest levels of attainment. It is impossible in most states, for a teacher to receive an appointment in an ac- credited high school unless he has four years of college train- ing. However, as yet, we still insinuate that the elementary teacher does not need as much training as a secondary teacher—Dr. John Guy Fowlkes, Professor of Education, University of Wisconsin. It might interest you to know that one million of your school children are destined for State Hospitals and many more will go to prisons. More of your school children will go to State Hospitals suffering from a mental disease than will graduate from colleges and universities. The cost to the tax- payer to educate each one of the twenty-six million children in the United States is approximately $85 annually per capita. It costs the taxpayers of the State of Michigan $278 per capita each year to care for the insane. I believe that one-half of the cases of mental disease can be prevented and that a definite educational program in each school and each home will aid in the prevention of crime and mental difficulty and will therefore be an enormous saving to the taxpayers.—O. R. Yoder, Asst. Medical Superintendent, Ypsilanti State Hospital, Ypsilanti, Michigan. 30 PARAGRAPHS FROM THE DETROIT CONVENTION The rise of the new technology both on the farm and in the factory will always furnish one of the finest subjects for teaching. The rise of the corporation, the labor union and the farm organization furnishes an equally fine subject. So why not let our children know in the most dramatic way pos- sible the resources, the inventions, and the human organiza- tions which dominate the town, the state, and the nation in which they live? Undoubtedly also every child passing through our schools should know something about the signi- ficance of the frontier during the nineteenth century and the way in which its passing during the twentieth century in- creased the significance of the corporation, the labor union, and the farm organization. Each of the twelve years in our primary and secondary schools can contribute in some measure to enabling children when they finally graduate from high school to have a much better comprehension of the kind of world in which they find themselves.—Henry A. Wallace, Sec- retary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. Just what has the type of county unit organization ac- complished? First, picture if you will, a good portion of the counties in the State of Florida, up until four years ago, pay- ing their teachers three, four, and five hundred dollars a year. There was only one thing to do. The Classroom Teach- ers Association being of a professional nature and open only to teachers, necessitated setting up a new organization of a political nature, open to anyone interested in schools, that could vote. This was accomplished in every county in the State. It did not take long for the legislators to recognize our voting strength, for we had business men and women as well as teachers in “The Florida League for Better Schools.” The results! They changed the school plank from last on their list to first. Their becoming school minded made this year’s appropriation from the State well over ten million dollars for the schools as compared with five million, not many years ago. Every teacher received at least a living wage and every school remained open for the full term.—P. W. Seagren, President, Classroom Teachers Association, Miami, Florida, Centuries ago the Chinese drilled salt wells and oil wells much as we do now, with ingenious but primitive equipment. cc. weeerTSelUm | di, TE dl 't DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 31 When the oil-bearing formation was known to be two thou- sand feet below the surface, the drilling of a well might be a project extending over generations, since primitive tools made slow progress. For.many years the surplus energies of a family would be spent in boring deep into the earth. Those who began a drilling knew that they, and perhaps their chil- dren, would never see it finished. When finally the oil sands would be reached, the family would be economically secure, thanks to the work of parents and grandparents. That proc- ess required forethought, a family loyalty, and sustained persistence of purpose. It would be well if we should achieve similar forethought and purpose, not limited to immediate family welfare, applied not only to economic competence, but to all those factors of human interest which makes life have value. Nothing less than an inclusive pattern for education will serve that purpose, and seldom has the world needed that pattern more than today.—Arthur E. Morgan, Chairman, Tennessee Valley Authority. Highway transportation is America’s biggest business. Its elements are that familiar triology—the cart, the driver, and the highway. They are mentioned lightly, blithely, by al- most every speaker whose subject is “Highway Safety.” However, those simple little nouns take on new meaning when we realize that by car, we mean 28,000,000 cars and trucks. When we talk about the driver, picture, if you can an army of 40,000,000 men, women, boys and girls. When we speak of the highway, try to visualize 3,000,000 miles of good, bad, and indifferent roads. Then try to wrap your mind around this significant fact. Those 28,000,000 cars and trucks, driven at one time or another by those 40,000,000 men, women, boys and girls, covered more than 225,000,000,000 miles in 1936. This is equivalent to approximately 9,035,418 trips around the earth. Measured in terms of passenger miles, the total was 450,000,000,000 because the motor cars averaged two pass- engers. The railroads accounted for approximately 30,000,- 000,000 passenger miles in 1936, just one-fifteenth of fhe motor car passenger miles, so when I say that highway trans- portation is our biggest business, I am putting it most con- servatively—Paul G. Hoffman, President, The Studebaker Corporation, South Bend, Indiana. 32 PARAGRAPHS FROM THE DETROIT CONVENTION The two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Augus- tus Caesar is celebrated this year because 63, the year of his birth B. C., added to 1987 makes 2000. The month of August was named in his honor because it was his lucky month; he was born in September. In order that August might not be inferior in respect of number of days to July, which was named for Julius, a day was taken from September and added to it. It was he and not Julius who founded the Roman Em- pire; Julius left the world in chaos; Augustus left it in peace and order. He has never been one of the heroes of the na- tions because he was not a military man. Unlike Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and his famous uncle Julius, he possessed no skill with arms or horses and suffered from recurrent ill- ness all his life, including hay fever. His success was chiefly due to his unconquerable faith in himself, his patience, and his extraordinary ability to get his way with other men. He was a financial genius and instituted the first regular census of the Empire. He was a master of propaganda and enlisted the skill of engineers, architects, artists and writers to glorify his rule, It is his Rome that tourists still throng to behold and it is his regime that the present government of Italy aspires to revive-—Norman W. DeWitt, Chairman, Department of Classics, Victoria College, Toronto, Canada. Digests from Professional Periodicals THE HOMEWORK REPORT By COLONEL E. A. LOFTUS, Headmaster of Barking Abbey School Condensed from The Journal of Education, July, 1937, pp. 470-472 Published by Mr. Wm. Rice, Ludgate Broadway, E.C. 4, London, England. Two years ago, as a result of articles concerned with the apparently excessive amount of homework set in the secondary schools, the Board of Education requested the Inspectorate to investigate. The resulting Report, known as Education Pamphlet No. 110, has been dubbed, The Children’s Charter. It proves without any shadow of doubt that there was good reason for the complaints. The report recommends that homework shall not be set on more than five nights a week—four preferably, with a free night mid-week—and that the time nightly shall not exceed one hour up to fourteen years of age and one and one-half hours up to sixteen years of age. About one-sixth of the secondary schools of England and Wales were visited. The following facts are outstanding: 1. A few schools were experimenting. In one or two homework had been abolished in all but the School Certificate form. Others reduced it during the summer term. A third group arranged for some or all homework to be done at school after hours. Another had no set homework on two or three nights a week. 2. In about a third of the schools visited, there was a homework timetable arranged by the headmaster or headmis- tress. 33 34 DIGESTS FROM PROFESSIONAL PERIODICALS 3. In the remaining sixty per cent of the schools, home- work is unorganized or inadequately organized. Here, pre- sumably, excessive homework is the rule. The report, in speaking of these schools, says, “Four subjects per night are set to fifth-form pupils” and “As a rule the maximum nightly demand is two hours with an additional thirty to forty minute period at the week end. In more than twenty-eight per cent of the schools, the demand exceeded two hours. In one area forty-eight per cent of the pupils spend at least thirty minutes more than the time allotted.” Any teacher can set work in his subject if he takes the form the next day, so that five or six subjects may be set on one night. Such schools should have been utterly condemned by the Board in this aspect of their organization. : The Report implies that few educationists condemn the idea of homework. It is recognized that a little helps to foster initiative and self-reliance. Children, themselves like a little homework. The suggestions of the Board could be made more effective by attempting to alter the School Certificate Examination—the chief cause of the bother—e.g. by allowing any five subjects to qualify for the Certificate. But this is a matter for the Uni- versities, not the Board. Whether the Board’s recommenda- tions will be effective only time will show—but the report proves that the investigation was overdue. TEACHER-LIBRARIAN CO-OPERATION By MARION HORTON Condensed from Bulletin of the American Library Association, June, 1937, pp. 336-339. Published by the American Library Association, 520 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago. The close relationship between teacher and librarian re- sults in creative achievement when they work together. In the choice of books for the school library, both teachers and librarians have definite contributions to make. Gear De- sign Simplified (Industrial Press) is tested by the mechanical department. The librarian recommends Rusty Pete of the Lazy AB (Macmillan) for the boy who has never read any- thing. A @® =~ re DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 35 Recent analyses of the vocabulary difficulty of books used by young people make it possible to meet the needs of slow readers. By the Lewerenz scale, hundreds of books have been evaluated. The librarian can avoid discouraging slow readers with books too difficult. In Los Angeles lists prepared by the library in codpera- tion with the curriculum division serve the teacher as guides in choosing books for classroom use. These she selects ac- cording to the interest and reading ability of her pupils. The librarian must be informed of assignments far enough in advance to have materials ready. Helen Carpenter of New York City outlines the desirable procedure: 1. Whenever the children need library instruction, the teacher gets help from the librarian. 2. The librarian calls the teacher’s attention to materials of interest to the teacher. 3. The teacher calls the librarian’s attention to materials she may know. 4, The librarian attends faculty meetings. 5. The teacher appoints a pupil to keep the librarian in- formed of assignments. 6. The librarian helps in curriculum revision. Special shelves are often set apart for a class studying a certain subject. For the eleventh grade English class, the Los Angeles Public Library has prepared a list of novels and biographies depicting American family life. The librarian ex- plores the interests of the students and no one capable of ap- preciating My Antonia takes home Prudence of the Parsonage. The simple books are there, however. In making the subject cards in the catalog, the librarian has in mind the topics studied in each class. She uses terms intelligible to teachers and students, with unorthodox cross ref- erences if necessary. Another field is the indexing of magazines not indexed in the periodical indexes. In the Frank Wiggins Trade School in Los Angeles, technical magazines used in the electrical depart- ment are indexed by the department staff. The household arts department indexes pictures of costumes and collects pictures, which are turned over to the library. In many schools the students in the art department de- sign posters displaying the resources of the library. 36 DIGESTS FROM PROFESSIONAL PERIODICALS Instead of formal lessons in the use of the library, the present tendency is toward incidental instruction when it is needed. “The librarian goes to the classroom to make clear some difficult point or to introduce some aid, as the Reader’s Guide, or Granger’s Index to Poetry and Recitations. A little later she will follow this up in answering pupils’ questions con- cerning their difficulties.”* To codperate successfully, teachers and librarians must understand one another’s problems. AN EXPERIMENT IN EXPRESSIVE LIVING By BELLE MCKENZIE, Head of the English Department of the West Seattle High School, West Seattle, Washington. Condensed from The English Journal, June, 1937, pp. 461-466. Published by The University Chicago Press, 5750 Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. My interest in this experiment grew out of trying to help high-school students in creating their own standards of appre- ciation. I made it a business to know my students and kept notes on my findings. I found them afraid of what others would think. They were victims of an environment of hypoc- risy. High school was to them a matter of subjects and grades —a getting-by. There was no joy or unity in work. Each sub- ject was in a pigeon-hole by itself. Everyone was out for him- self. They felt a sense of inferiority and did their best to cover it; they refused to face reality. They credited others with their own faults. There was desire for new experiences but there was confusion and bad adjustment with their families, their friends, and the school. Most of the teachers accepted these conditions, talked about character building and about stimulating competition for better grades. They talked about honesty while each teacher saw his subject in no way related to other departments. These problems I carried with me all one summer. In the fall I went to my principal and asked to teach a class in cre- ative writing. 1From Aldrich, G. L and Flemming, C. W., A Librarian in Action in the Modern World.” Teacher’s College Record. 38 pp., 397-98. Feb., 1937. the t is lear er’s ttle ust alp pt TS es b- or th it S, DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 37 I wanted to give these students an opportunity to be them- selves, to have confidence in themselves, to look at things realistically, to see through and uproot prejudices and dogmas, to welcome responsibility, to feel a sense of wholeness rather than of confusion, and to find in an activity not an escape from reality, but reality satisfyingly expressed. Any student from the senior high school was eligible to enter the class. There was a class chairman and a secretary. The teacher was not to dominate, but to guide, encourage, and let them have a chance. There were just two requirements— that the student write honestly, and about what he knew. There were no definite assignments. Grammar usage and punc- tuation were regarded merely as tools. Their writings were read before the class for group discussion, on the theory that the hearer is an indispensable partner. They wrote about their own experiences, analyzing their own emotions. They were quick to detect insincerity. They dug and found something real. They felt cheated when they found someone writing for effect. They began to see that good writing was a product of a man’s living. Out of the group criticism came better adjustment with the school and with the home. They expanded in the exchange of experiences. They struggled to see clearly, to get at the meaning of the experience, and to put down for classmates what they saw or felt. Criticism was eagerly sought. The class decided not to mention outside anything that was said in the classroom. The classes were a cross section of America. The boy who spent the summer in the engine room of a big steamship, the one who spent six months on an old sailing freighter, the girl whose family had owned a carnival before the depression, who dug in the sawdust for stray coins to help out on the fam- ily rations—all made contributions. So did the girl who had closed her eyes while crossing the bridge so she wouldn’t see how people lived on the flats. The class accepted her experi- ence and went about helping her and before the year was over she was not running away from reality. Much of the material was crude stuff, but the class was a workshop where vague im- pressions could be made clear. As they grew in ability to ex- press themselves, they began to look about the community for material. 38 DIGESTS FROM PROFESSIONAL PERIODICALS Groups of three or four studied the unemployment situa- tion, some wrote honest criticisms of movies, others studied and wrote about the community chest, city hospital, or long- shoreman’s strike. When, on a resettlement plan, the gov- ernment sent Minnesota and Michigan farmers to Alaska, many of the students met the train, took them about the city, to their homes for dinner, and to the dock. The list of prob- lems that these students saw would convince you that they were thinking. When the educational department of the university sent prospective teachers to observe these students, the students taught them how to teach. They were eager to share with their visitors and learn from them. When asked what of most value they got from the course, they said, the social side, get- ting “wise” to themselves, getting some idea what it was all about. Many students kept repeating the course without credit until we just dropped the idea of credit or grade. aska, city, prob- were sent lents with most get- S all ‘edit Digests from Lay Magazines THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDIZATION OF A NON-VERBAL INTELLIGENCE TEST . By ANDREW W. Brown, Ph.D. Chief Psychologist Institute of Juvenile Research Condensed from Welfare Bulletin, June, 1937, pp. 1,7. Published by Illinois State Department of Public Welfare, Springfield, Illinois. It has become increasingly clear that mental ratings de- rived from the usual type of intelligence tests, are influenced to a large degree by language facility. In child guidance, an accurate determination of intelligence is important. Deci- sions very important to the child, such as whether he should be placed in a special class, whether he should attempt high school or college, whether he should take a manual arts, or an academic course, whether he should have special help in reading, frequently depend upon the score he makes on the so-called intelligence tests. These tests are the best instru- ments available for the determination of intelligence and have proved more reliable than even experienced opinion. Never- theless what these tests measure may be largely the ability to deal with language concepts. Other types of ability may be present. Other types of tests should be developed. Such tests would have value in the examination of chil- dren not verbally minded and of deaf children and those with foreign background. The work of constructing and standardizing such a test has been going on at the Institute for Juvenile Research for some time. A preliminary form of the test has been tried out on a fairly large number of both deaf and hearing chil- 39 40 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES dren, It was found to have a fairly high reliability and a fair correlation with other tests, such as the Pinter Non-Language Test, which is poor in construction, the Arthur Performance Test, which is devised for individual tests, and others. The third revision of the test has been standardized for both ver- bal and pantomime directions. There are ten sub-tests, and the whole takes about an hour to administer. The test, in a preliminary form, has been prepared for distribution. A detailed description of the construction and standardization of the test will appear in a forthcoming issue of one of the psychological journals. MAKING CIVIC SERVICE ATTRACTIVE TO SCHOOL PUPILS By WILLIAM ROGER GREELEY Condensed from The American City, July, 1937, p. 54. Published by American City Magazine Corporation, 470 Fourth Avenue, New York City. Civics teachers have welcomed our suggestion that courses in civics emphasize community service. A few hours spent in absorbing the stories of citizens of high purpose in each community would give the pupil a sense of the dignity and value and even the glamor of civic service. Our next suggestion has been the use of the project method in carrying civic interest further. A project in Town Planning brings into practical play almost all the academic subjects taught in our high schools: drawing (the map or plan), mathematics (the calculations upon which all parts of the plan depend), geometry (the construction of the various diagrams), history (the background of the plan), English (the means of expressing the report), typewriting or penmanship (the means of presenting the report), etc. The submission of a youthful but brilliant solution of a local planning problem has in one of our experiences determined a career for a young man. That a definite interest in the community and its future is established prophesies better citizenship. (From New England Planning Bulletin.) _ fair uage ance The ver- and for and ing Seg nt ch nd two hundred questions concerning safety and health conditions DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 41 HOW SAFE ARE YOUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS By FLORENCE NELSON, Editor, Safety Education Magazine, New York City Condensed from Hygeia, July, 1937, pp. 654-655. Published by The American Medical Association, 535 North Dearborn St., Chicago. The school disaster in New London, Texas, emphasized the need for expert advice and workmanship in all matters relat- ing to repairs and alterations in the school plant. According to T. Alfred Fleming, conservation engineer of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, over sixty per cent of the school buildings in the country lack proper safeguards against fire and explosion. In many the heating plant and fuel supply rooms are not cut off from the main corridors by fire- resistant walls, ceiling, and doors. Thus superheated air can rise from the basement and travel through the structure. Inside stairways should be fireproof. There should be con- necting doors in the classrooms so that if a corridor is men- aced by fire, pupils can go through the rooms to a fire-resistant stairway. While the responsibility rests with the school board, the principal and teachers can do much to focus attention on exist- ing hazards. A principal recently remarked: “In the past we have made too much of a virtue of economy. We have felt rather proud over making the best of bad conditions, instead of admitting that children were in grave danger.” The National Board of Fire Underwriters has prepared a self-inspection blank for schools which has been approved and adopted by the National Association of Public School Business Officials and the International Association of Fire Chiefs. The Board suggests that monthly inspections be made by a group comprising a teacher, the janitor, and a representative of the local fire department. This blank, on which reports should be filed with the local board of education, may be obtained with- out charge from the National Board of Fire Underwriters, 85 John St., New York City; 222 W. Adams St., Chicago; and Merchant’s Exchange Building, San Francisco. The United States Office of Education has a publication, “Safety and Health of the School Child”, which lists more than 42 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES in schools. The education division of the National Safety Council, 1 Park Avenue, New York City, has a bulletin offer- ing suggestions for a non-technical survey, prepared with the assistance of Dr. George Strayer of Teachers’ College, Colum- bia University. Both of these are free in single copies. EDUCATION IN A CHANGING WORLD By CHARLEs C. ELLIS, President of Juanita College Condensed from Christian Education, June, 1937, pp. 326-333. Published by The Council of Church Boards of Education, in the United States of America, 744 Jackson Place, N. W., Washington, D. C. President Hutchins of the University of Chicago, has called attention to thastate of confusion in the realm of higher education. It occurs to me, however, that he assumes a defini- tion of education too narrow in the light of history. Educa- tion antedates universities, even elementary schools. Dr. Paul Munroe explains that to the primitive man every object had an immaterial “double”. The education of the prim- itive boy consisted in learning how to get food, clothing, and shelter without offending the spirits of the woods or the stream. The dominant environment of China was family, so ancestor worship is of the essence of education. The ancient classics were revered. In India education involves adjust- ment to caste; in Sparta warfare fills the horizon, and the boy is educated to be a soldier. Across all the years we find the effort to train the young into an adjustment to the environ- ment. In the pre-scientific ages, however, when the time-span of important changes was considerably longer than that of a human life, mankind was trained to adapt itself to fixed con- ditions. To-day education involves the factor of adjustment to a rapidly changing environment. This fact has led some to the conclusion that the educa- tional job is to make the youth sufficiently agile mentally to keep up with these changes. With this point of view Hutchins has no sympathy, saying, “The notion of educating a man to adjust him to any particular environment is foreign to a true —_ «+ at a ft Ww y [- ie DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 43 conception of education.” This can be true only on the as- sumption of a definition of education which ignores the prac- tical historic meaning. Nearly fifty years ago William James made the remark that the test of one’s education is not when he does something he has been specifically trained to do, but when he meets ade- quately an unexpected situation. This is a point of view essen- tial to those who must prepare youth to live in a changing world. The question is whether this is a matter of forming life after the patterns of changes as they come. Are all the changes of environment desirable? All life is change, but not all change is progress. Change itself must be evaluated. Are even the better conditions of life satisfactory for the period in which they exist? Can education do nothing but re- veal the commonplaces of the here and now? To see visions of a cleaner and happier world is not outside the function of the education that refuses to narrow its scope into the confines of the real and now. “Where there is no vision the people per- ish.” The emphasis upon changing environment has left us al- most ready to concede that life is naught but change. And now President Hutchins has made the intellectually permanent dominant in education, but his content of permanence is too limited. When Roger Babson asserted that the thing America needed to learn in 1928 was that two times two equal four and stealing still continues stealing, he was asserting the perma- nence of the unchanging. The intellect cannot compass all the eternal verities. We agree with the assertion of Paul Shorey quoted by Hutchins, “If the good, the true, and the beautiful— re-embody themselves from age to age—in the world’s best books, our reading and study are redeemed from the obsessions of the hour”; but it is also true that our education is saved from inadequacy in the conception of adjustment to a chang- ing environment. This does not repudiate the historic concep- tion of adjustment, but recognizes in the midst of change the elements that are changeless. With a faculty alert to the movements of the world in which they live, coupled with an assurance that the multipli- 44 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES cation table is not likely to be outmoded and that the new mo- rality which aspires to displace the ten commandments, is often only the old immorality—the college justifies itself in the up- to-date educational scheme. What then may we summarize as characteristic of the education for a changing world, whether it be higher or lower, public or private? First in method it should be scientific. A teacher needs to know his subject and his subjects, and their mode of reac- tion to his own antics. Again, education must be social in its goal. We have trained men to be experts in control of knowledge, but not in control of social forces. Education should be builded upon a moral foundation. If we concede that education must accept any responsibility for the world, then there ought to be something sobering to us as we contemplate conditions. Education needed for a changing world ought to be Chris- tian. There has been something radically wrong in our educa- tional philosophy of recent years. To conserve the permanent values we need more than scientific procedures and more than social goals; we need teachers whose feet are moving towards the goals of God. “BRIGHT CHILDREN CAN TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES” By LeEtTA S. HOLLINGSWORTH Condensed from The North American Review, Summer, 1937, pp. 261-273. Published by The North American Review Corporation, Rumford Building, Concord, Conn. It is the duty of educators to offer suggestions for the conservation of gifted children. But education must first be come a science. The science fundamental to education is psychology. Psychology has to develop mental measurement before there could be accurate or human dealing in education. Without such measurement education is as wasteful as en- gineering without measurements of the sort which physics and mathematics supply. ow — J — | DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 45 It is thought by foundations established to promote hu- man welfare that “bright children take care of themselves.” They do to the extent that they seldom become burdensome on society, but it would be an impossibly able child who could conduct his own education, make money to live on, and ac- cumulate a fund for his own higher education, all in the first sixteen or eighteen years of life. Consider for example an eight-year-old boy, whose father died when his son was four years old. The mother receives a widow’s pension of forty-five dollars a month for herself and two children. They have no other income. How will this boy _ “take care of himself” during the next ten years, so as to in- sure the maximum development of which he is capable? His intelligence quotient is 150. A little more than thirty years ago Alfred Binet with Th. Simon, published his Scale for Measuring the Intelligence of Children, the first service of which was to measure the minds of mental defectives. In 1922 psychologists began to test gifted children and to file the records. The knowledge thus accumulated is true in the engineering sense because it is based on mathematically verifiable measurements. Mental measurement has enabled us to define the gifted child as the most intelligent one in a hundred. This one per cent includes those with an IQ of 130 to those with an IQ of 200, who are the topmost limit of human genius. Upon them society must depend for the conservation and advance- ment of that abstract knowledge which underlies all human concerns that call for competent abstract thinking about com- plex matters. We cannot afford to waste any of them, few as they are. In our efforts to understand them, we need answers to these questions: 1. What do they look like? 2. What in- terests them? 3. How do they learn? 4. What do they do? 5. What becomes of them under present conditions? 1. The popular superstition that beauty and brains do not go together is the opposite of the truth. It has been proved by measurement that highly intelligent children are taller, heavier, stronger, healthier, and finer-looking as a group than are the generality of children. The popular super- stition perhaps explains why teachers do not identify the gifted with greater accuracy. Another reason for thinking 46 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES of the gifted as small is that, through extra promotions in school, they are likely to be younger than their classmates. 2. We find from a study of the “three main wishes” of the highly intelligent that they want what all others de- sire—comforts, security, friends, play, affection—and in ad- dition the “ability to know what is true,” “to abolish pov- erty,” “to improve humanity,” “to do away with war.” These abstract wishes are outside the scope of the average child’s desire. The naive desire for others’ good may lead to strug- gles which, if they continue without insight, may bring com- plete alienation from contemporaries in childhood, and “‘mis- anthropy in adulthood. Failure to learn to suffer fools gladly - may cripple the usefulness of the highly intelligent. It is not easy for gifted children to find real friendship. Terman says, “The child of 170 or 180 IQ stands in an ex- tremely sparcely populated region of intelligence. Only one child in two hundred or more comes within the range of over 140 IQ. If promoted to a school grade of even nearly like in- telligence, the highly gifted child is too immature in size, strength and emotional development to function as a member. These difficulties decrease with age, but in childhood the gifted cannot “take care of themselves.” 3. Gifted children learn rapidly, and the more gifted they are the more subtle the abstractions that they can master. Those who test find that one in about a quarter of a million persons can make combinations of ideas never made before— and this is creative thinking. The number of these cannot be increased, but it may be decreased by withholding the proper education. 4. Records of those observed since 1922 show that only the children whose IQ is above 170 have done creative work. Those below do not seem interested. Of those with an IQ above 180, every one has produced at least one piece of orig- inal intellectual work before the twenty-third birthday. 5. Gifted children observed the longest are now about twenty-three years old. They do not become mediocre as they mature. Those tested in 1922 have matured under severe economic conditions, The majority have found a way to channels opening into the learned professions and business id- Se DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 47 management. But a considerable minority, including some of the most intelligent, were held in an unavoidable environ- ment so that but for external aid, they could not have devel- oped their abilities. American education needs to measure the capacity of pupils, and to give to each in accordance with his capacity for learning and serving. The gifted child needs an education that will challenge his interest and will utilize to the full his power of learning. At maturity he needs the chance to be assimilated to that part of the world’s work which he alone is capable of doing. Under present conditions, there is assurance of neither of these things. I LIKE TO TEACH By BRooKsS SHEPARD Condensed from Harper’s Monthly Magazine, pp. 299-306. Published by Harper and Brothers, 49 East 33rd Street, New York, N. Y. When I left manufacturing, my friends were startled. One or two have wondered when I would climb back on the band-wagon. I’ve no intention of climbing back. I like to teach. Last Saturday a prep school senior asked me: “Is there any test that will tell me whether I’m lazy or just plain dumb?” He told me of three wasted years in a high school where nobody really had to work in order to pass. He wanted to know whether he had brains enough to cope with the exactions of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This teaching job places one in the position of goad, guide, and God. A teacher who has banged about a bit has a certain ad- vantage over the man who has never been out of school, but any teacher has an advantage over a mere parent, because his classroom dominance gives him a certain spurious prestige. The teacher is obviouisly The Man Who Knows Things; and if outside the classroom, he happens to be friendly, he is hunted out for advice on careers, college choice, whether to abide by the conventional code of sex morals,—in short, the matters in 48 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES which the adolescent of 1937 wants to be guided in order that he may be the Edison or the Don Juan of 1950. When I wavered between preparatory school and college teaching, Dr. Henry Canby wrote me that “the last two years of prep school are the terra incognita of education.” That de- cided the matter. I enjoy exploration. While I have found that the average adolescent boy is ig- norant, indolent, amorphus, half-baked, over-sexed, over-emo- tional, and self-conscious, nevertheless in the midst of this thicket in which he has hidden himself sits an honest and sim- ple creature, a little timid, but with a friendly grin if you can come upon him without too great a crashing of branches. And he likes to come out of this Caliban’s garden. The explorer can blaze the trail both ways—in and out. These horrendous qualities can be the source of pleasure. Take ignorance. I recall a vocabulary test. One boy guessed that a martinet was “a fledgling martin”, another fancied it was “a small cocktail’. Chastisement was “sexual purity” and husbandry, “male dominance”, The boys were smart but ig- norant. The bright but unformed boy soon develops a sort of shrewdness. During my novitiate I assigned my sophomore students the job of analyzing a book read outside of the class- room. Our schoolbook store had a supply of pamphlets to guide students in their book reports. The pupil was to list and analyze the characters, to outline the plot, and to set down de- tails of literary vivisection. I issued these to my sophomores, who examined them with unseemly exuberance. Unfortun- ately I had overlooked a certain “vital” printed heading. “What moral lesson did you derive from reading this book?” Now that group of boys, with few exceptions, was of the type known in school circles as “of superior ability.” The few exceptions struggled to extract ethical values from the books. George F. Babbitt became, incomprehensibly, the hero of a struggle between the old order and the new. The boy who chose Babbitt was of the type known as “hard-minded”, but his more intellectual companions were less sure of their foun- dations. One of them wrote, “A moral principle I learned from this book was to love work. I can’t do that, but it’s a good moral principle, anyhow.” Another chose to read Frances Hackett’s that lege ears , de- 3 ig- mo- this sim- can And rer ure. sed 1 it and of ore SS- ind DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 49 Henry VIII. An excellent teacher had fascinated him with English history, which he had added to his two other hobbies— model airplanes and a young lady named (he thought) Mary Loo. When he reached the question, “What Moral lesson—?” he wrote in the center of the blank page—“Oh, my God!” He really ran no risk; for when a teacher’s classes are de- cently small he deals with individual human beings and they know it. He accompanies his students on hikes, and he shares his waffles with them at nine o’clock of a Sunday morning. He and they learn much from each other. God help the teacher who cannot be as honest as his students in these moments of intimacy, and as silent as the sphinx afterward. He ought to be selling ground grippers. I am not talking of what is called “progressive education”, with its emphasis upon “freedom” and the “release of indi- vidual powers”. I know, of course, that there is a lot of dead- wood in the time-honored curriculum. In fact, I am doing something about it. But my own experience under the im- pacts of modern productive life convinces me that intellectual discipline is a necessary part of training—the kind of disci- pline which drives one to attack the uninteresting or unpleas- ant job with the full momentum of a mind inexorably driven— discipline applied first from without, then transferred to the student and always merciless in its intellectual exactions. There are times when the weary teacher balks at forcing his students; there are other times when the student’s friendship wavers under the goad. But it never quite breaks. At length he may suddenly grow up. To be sure, the young mind is reluctant to begin this proc- ess, and since the teacher is enormously interested in the sub- "ject he teaches he is a bit annoyed by the disdain with which each new batch of students regards this subject, but because he is enormously interested in students, he is amused by their gingerly efforts to handle the subject without becoming irrevo- cably smutched by it. For so long as education is compulsory —and I believe it should be, despite the difficulty of making it effective—so long as it is a matter of social or legal compul- sion rather than of privilege, the less mature student will con- tinue to learn as little as he can, and will glory in his resist- ance. DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES 50 The teacher’s business of course is to bring together his two loves—his students and his subject; to introduce Minerva to the boys, as it were, and hope they will get along. The host’s task is not easy, for Minerva wears spectacles and often speaks in riddles. In the exercise of his art, the teacher finds one of his greatest pleasures and his chief justification. But some respites of solitude he must have or go mad; and such interludes the long school vacations provide—unless the goal of preferment drives him to pile up educational “credits” in some teachers’ college. Yet when summer has restored his soul, he finds himself wanting his students again—if he really likes to teach. A MEMORANDUM ON ROTE LEARNING By ROBERT E. PARK Condensed from American Journal of Sociology, July, 1937, pp. 23-36, Published by University of Chicago Press 5750 Ellis Avenue, Chicago. George Axtell, of Northwestern University, told me that the whole educational policy of their department of education revolved around the problem of rote learning. He was inter- ested in my observation on Negro education in the South. It seems that no studies have thus far been made to reveal the nature and function of learning by rote in the total educa- tional process. It is mainly by classroom discussion that it is possible for either the pupil or the teacher to find out what things learned by rote actually mean. I have found it difficult to in- duce students to ask questions, to get them to admit they did not understand what they had read in the textbook. But they were eager to get correct answers to questions they might meet on examination, and they were adept in formulating vague replies to such questions as I asked. It seemed to me that what I encountered at Fisk had its sources partly in the historic condition under which Negro education has grown up, partly in the lack of books and of a tradition of education in the homes of Negro children. They and their teachers have relied too much on the authority of textbooks, and too little on personal experience, observation, and common sense. his rva The ften inds But uch r0al his ally lat on = i le O'S n- id y it oo - Se ee DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 51 There is scarcely anything that cannot be learned in a natural way at home, if parents encourage children to ask questions and to pursue the inquiries that their native curi- osity suggests. But that is not the way of formal education in the schools, which, on the other hand, presupposes the informal education of the home. The success of formal education will probably depend on the ability of the teacher to integrate the knowledge which the school seeks to inculcate with the tradition of the local community. When this knowledge is remote from the ex- perience of the pupil, the task of translating it into language that the pupil understands is difficult, but it is just where the divorce between the school and the local community is most obvious that the tendency to relapse into rote learning is most likely to prevail. Unintelligible words tend to assume the character of something mystical and education to assume ‘the character of ritual, but there is danger that intellectual curiosity and natural incentives to pursue knowledge will be rooted out. Rote learning kills the excitement in the pursuit of knowledge. The fact that Dr. Axtell seems to regard it as the fundamental problem of education everywhere leads me to believe that rote learning is not confined to Negro schools. But since the historic background of Negro education has made rote learning inevitable, it is in these schools that it might most effectively be studied. One can learn almost anything by rote, but this sort of knowledge is relatively of little value in a dynamic world where reference books supersede memory and the important thing is to apply general principles to particular cases. One thing that makes conditions in the classroom seem artificial is that in the classroom it is the teacher, while out- side it is the pupil, who asks the questions. But even at that, the questions of the pupil are not those of one seeking to understand the pupil. The individual cannot, at once, under- stand the significance and meaning of all that he “learns.” To do so involves a lot of experimentation, reflection, and rumi- nation, in the course of which he is likely to have moments in which familiar things appear suddenly in a new light. When learning involves no reflection or experimentation, it tends to become pedantry with a lack of sound judgment and common sense. 52 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES Negro rural schools, like city schools in the case of immi- grants, are handicapped by the fact that parents and chil- dren live in different worlds. The children of immigrants, however, pick up an immense amount of knowledge in the city streets. The result of pupils’ efforts to meet the artificial require- ments of the school and to get through and out in the easiest way is to make even those who have ability appear stupid in the classroom. The fate of the “good” student is often worse since his natural destiny is to become a teacher condemned to inflict upon pupils the pedantries he learned in school. Dr. George Hall once said about Negro education: “We thought of education as purely personal distinction. We had no notion that education had any practical value. That was a later discovery.” The man in the city must have an educa- tion; he must at least know how to read the newspaper, but in. the village the newspaper is not a necessity. It marks an epoch in the history of any people, when it begins to lose in- terest in folk tales and learns to read the news. This change seems to be going on in the port cities of China, but in consid- erable areas in the United States it has not taken place. In view of these considerations, I suggest a novel experi- ment. We might discover a public school in which it would be possible to set up a form of education with a method the opposite of those in rural Negro schools or elsewhere for that matter. In this school pupils and teachers might conceive themselves engaged in a joint enterprise—to interest the adults in a communal program—public health, for example. Teacher and pupils would acquaint themselves with the local needs, and with sources of disease and methods of combat- ting them. The local health board and civil authorities would presumably wish to assist such a project. The school might prepare a primer dealing with the sub- ject of public health. The teacher with the assistance of the pupils would make a study of local medical practices and tra- ditional folk beliefs and usages. In this project the training in reading, writing, and arithmetic would be incidental to the main task. It would be advisable to publish, once a week per- haps, a news bulletin, reporting progress. sti DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 53 In a school that is intended to educate the community first, it would be possible to base instruction largely on news —local and foreign. “News,” as Dana of the Sun once re- marked, “is anything that makes people talk.” As soon as it is generally understood, it ceases to be news. One purpose of such a school would be to widen the intellectual horizon of the community. This might be done in part by the use of the radio, by week-end excursions, and by weekly meetings for discussion of events of the wider world outside. News, un- like history as taught in the classroom, must be interpreted rather than remembered and repeated merely. Such an experiment would throw light upon rote learn- ing, because it is just those things we “learn” but cannot assimilate that constitute the knowledge we call “pedantry,” and this is responsible for many of the present difficulties in Negro schools and formal education everywhere. AMERICA’S EDUCATIONAL RETREAT By JEROME DAVIS Condensed from The Christian Century, July 7, 1937, pp. 868, 869. Published by The Christian Century Press, 440 South Dearborn Street, Chicago. Humanity is on the march even if it sometimes does move in circles. Fascism, communism, imperialism, revolu- tion, war—all are characteristic of our epoch. In such a period education can hardly afford to stand still. Listen to what the past decade has done to our educational liberty: 1. A larger number of laws have been enacted interfer- ing with teaching than in all the other decades of American history combined. 2. Many schools compel formal instruction in the Con- stitution and expel those whose religious scruples prevent them from saluting the flag. 3. Special loyalty oaths are required of teachers in twenty states, and until a few weeks ago in Washington, D. C., they were required to swear, every two weeks before receiving their pay checks, that they had not even referred to communism. 54 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES 4. College administrators have censored more student papers and liberal clubs than in any other decade. 5. More college professors have been dismissed than in any similar period in our history. 6. Teachers’ unions are being vigorously opposed and in many cases outlawed, as has happened in Memphis and St. Louis. 7. Freedom to hear the truth is often blocked. At one of our largest universities Ferdinand Pecora, counsel for the United States Senate, was debarred, and even United States Senator Nye was officially asked to postpone his coming. All of this sounds more like a totalitarian state in Europe than the United States of America. But vigilance is the price of liberty. America has long believed in the fundamental necessity of education. Washington in his first inaugural address urged Congress to provide national aid for the schools. Jefferson desired to have a schoolhouse within the reach of every child. He urged a system of subsidies such that the best children would always be educated at the public expense even through the university. America has never entirely carried out these ideals. Instead the encroachments of a money culture has brought changes which threaten our educational liberty. Technical discovery has made possible the great modern mass production factory. This mean an ur' anization of life with a great horde of propertyless citizens dependent on the whims of the machine for a livelihood. Corporations rule the economic life and threaten security, tenure, and freedom of the teacher. In 1932 two hundred large corporations con- trolled over fifty-six per cent of all the assets of manufac- turing concerns. The majority of stockholders no longer rule. Through manipulative devices a small inner ring controls eighty-nine per cent of the two hundred largest corporations. Those who dominate the corporate life of the nation tend to control our boards of education. Fifty-two per cent of the members of public boards of education belong to the com- mercial, managerial, or proprietor class. As a result of the industrial revolution and corporation rule, the factory has displaced the home as the economic unit. The educational anaowvrs ~~ Ss a< ft Ph (ODO (ODO DO WH DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 55 and protective responsibilities of the home have been largely transferred to the state. All this has made a difference with education. The school is asked to solve problems that used to be the province of the home, To-day crime, disease, drinking, immorality, even the unrest of the younger generation are considered the concern of the school. But we have not matched these growing responsibilities with the requisite in- crease of educational opportunity. The extent to which materialism threatens the national life is shown by our willingness to curtail education when profits are menaced. The depression which increased the re- sponsibilities of the schools resulted in cutting their expendi- tures in half or more. Michigan, for instance, reduced appro- priations from $109,000,000 to $49,000,000. Actually during the first four years of the depression there was a $2,100,000 decrease in educational expenditures on the average every day. In 1933 100,000 more school children than usual were denied all educational opportunities because of closed schools. In a single year, 25,000 teachers were dropped. One out of every two cities has now had to reduce or eliminate such important services as art, music, home economics, or health. At least 20,000 schools have closed their doors because of lack of funds. In the public school system the depression has placed a strain on the politicians. They have needed positions for their friends. In city after city they placed their henchmen in important positions in the public schools. The Columbia University survey of the Chicago school system, for instance, showed that, in contrast to instruction, the costs of business management were outrageously high. Building maintenance and operation were often being used to provide political pa- tronage. Actually it was found that many of the engineering custodians in Chicago received more compensation than the principals of the schools. America probably does not realize what all this is doing to her national life. Big mines and big mills attract great masses of workers. As a result in some localities the people can afford a great deal of money to provide good schools. In others they are poor, not through any fault of their own, but because of the lack of natural resources. These differences 56 DIGESTS FROM LAY MAGAZINES threaten the basic principle of equality of opportunity on which American democracy was built. In the depression the schools in the poor states suffered much more than the others. Contrast, for instance, New York and South Carolina. In 1929 New York was spending five times as much per pupil as South Carolina. In spite of this, during the depression, South Carolina cut her school expenditures four times as much as New York. Mississippi is able to raise only $18.39 per capita, while Nevada can raise $109.33. If Mississippi were to bring her school system even up to the average standard of the other states, it would use up 96.5 per cent of all her tax revenue. This is obviously impossible. By way of contrast, Nevada with her vast mineral wealth would only have to spend 16.5 per cent. Whether children are educated adequately thus depends on the accident of geological deposits made millions of years ago. All this simply means that we need national aid for our schools and a national education program. The Fletcher- Harrison bill proposes a federal appropriation of $100,000,- 000. This is a good beginning, but if the educational needs of the nation were really placed first we should appropriate from three to five times this amount. Citizens can be oblivious to educational needs but only by paying a price. To ignore the necessity of adequate salaries, adequate tenure, and freedom in the educational world is to court disaster nationally. Yet, on this issue, the country shows an ominous quiesence. ile ler ler ue, da 6.5 ds irs ur oY- by aS, ry COMUNICATIONS WILLIAM McANDREW William McAndrew, our great crusader, has left us, and when we are asked what was the great quality of his character that we shall always remember him by, at once the answer is courage. His was the kind of courage that never faltered even in the face of an all-powerful politician of the Mayor Thomp- son type. When this Mayor of Chicago threw him out as Su- perintendent of Schools on the ridiculous charge that he was insubordinate and also a stool pigeon of King George of Eng- land, McAndrew brought suit in the Illinois Superior Court which vindicated him completely, and he could have collected his salary for the balance of his term as Superintendent, but he let the matter drop. In New York as Assistant Superintendent of Schools he became embroiled with certain politicians who opposed his con- tinuance in office, although his attitude was most defiant, he was unanimously re-elected. He often felt that school teachers underestimated the force of a righteous public opinion in a de- mocracy. His courage was not mere physical bravado, but it had that moral quality felt by a leader who feels behind him and surrounding him the sustaining force of public opinion. Accordingly, it is only natural in these days when politics has such a bad name that among all the tributes heaped upon him at his death, his courage is placed first. But what was the actual content of his teaching? That schools should fit youth for the alert citizenship needed in a democracy, and he preached this doctrine of the Fathers of our country. These men foresaw every danger to which our repub- lican form of government was liable, and with equal foresight they outlined a program of school work that would save us from the pitfalls. Forty years ago, before he was called to Washington Irv- ing High School, I attended a school of which he was principal and watched a class in newspaper reading. One pupil came forward and reported the news in local politics and affairs generally. Another followed with affairs of New York State. 57 58 COMMUNICATIONS A third discussed at length the Federal Government, and a fourth concluded with a most intelligent report on interna- tional relations. As a co-editor of School and Society and the Educational Review there was a pungent and direct quality in his style— never wordy nor diffuse but with a knack of hitting the nail on the head and never missing it. He had a loveliness of charac: ter, a total lack of malice, and a noble simplicity beyond the power of words to describe. Only if some admirer succeeds in following his example may we hope to find his like again. —RICHARD WELLING. NEWS NOTES tonal With this number the BULLETIN is starting a new section, yle— which will be devoted to news items and short announcements il on of interest to secondary-school administrators. arac: In almost every school in the country is to be found some , 7 practice, device, or activity which is unique and which is of _m interest to other schools. The members of the editorial staff of the Department will welcome contributions from your high school for use in this section. DEWITT S. MORGAN, principal of Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis, Indiana, since 1931, was elected superintendent of schools of Indianapolis, on the death of Su- perintendent Paul C. Stetson. OBERLIN COLLEGE, the institution which was first to accept young women for a standard college course, will devote October 8, 1937, to ceremonies celebrating the Centennial of the beginning of college educaton for women and of coeduca- tion on the college level. IN WASHINGTON in July the administrators, directors, and leaders who have participated in the demonstration forum project held a conference under the leadership of the United States Office of Education. This forum project has been con- ducted in nineteen states. TO PROVIDE information to guide the Territorial Legis- lature in enacting social security laws, thirty high-school stu- dents last year made a census of the unemployed in Honolulu. Sponsored by the Governor’s Welfare Advisory Committee and the Department of Public Instruction, the survey accumulated data which otherwise would not have been available until the next federal census in 1940. REPORT CARDS in the Milford, Iowa, Junior-Senior High School carry two marks in each subject. One is the usual scholastic mark; the other a rating in citizenship. As a basis for determining the rating in citizenship, the students and the faculty coéperated in setting up standards of citizenship in the school community. 59 NEws NOTES DR. FLOYD W. REEVES, Professor of Education at the University of Chicago, is the Chairman of the Advisory Com- mittee on Education appointed by President Roosevelt. The Committee consists of twenty-two members and a staff of con- sultants and directors of studies from the fields of business, or- ganized labor, agencies of the Federal Government, and educa- tion. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES is one hundred and fifty years old this year. During the year va- rious means will be used to interpret to all citizens the signifi- cant part which the constitution plays in our civilization. The seventy-fourth Congress appropriated $200,000 for the cele- bration. Material for high-school projects may be obtained from the Sesqui-Centennial Commission, House Office Build- ing, Washington, D. C. ACCORDING to official government statistics, the num- ber of young delinquents throughout the nation in 1936 totaled more than 700,000, while the total strength of last year’s “army of crime” (criminals of all ages) was 4,300,000. Should these criminals be concentrated in a given spot, it would re- quire a territory twice the size of the District of Columbia to provide a tented city for them. Seventeen out of every hun- dred persons arrested last year were under the age of twenty- one. THE COOPERATIVE Study of Secondary-School Stand- ards has developed a series of fourteen pamphlets which in- clude extensive checklists, criteria, and statements of princi- ples for the evaluation of secondary schools with respect to staff, plant, administration, educational program, and _ out- comes. The Central Office of the Codperative Study, 744 Jack- son Place, Washington, D. C., will distribute this material to individuals who have a special interest in the criteria, and who by their criticisms and suggestions may aid the Committee still further in refinement and improvement of them. Individuals who receive sets of the criteria are expected to study them carefully and to send constructive criticisms to the Washing- ton office. THE AMERICAN EDUCATION WEEK program for 1937 is built around two special observances of nation-wide interest and certain educational issues of vital concern at the XUM at the Com- . The f con- Ss, or- >duca- ES is ur Va- gnifi- The cele- ained 3uild- num- taled ear’s 10uld d re- ia to hun- nty- and- | in- inci- t to out- 1ck- ] to who still als em ng- for ide DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 61 present time. This special week has been celebrated for more than a score of years under the sponsorship of the National Education Association, the American Legion, and the United States Office of Education is expected to be the final and most significant occasion of the Horace Mann Centennial. The topic for Education Week, Schools and the Constitution, is timely because the Constitutional Sesqui-Centennial will be in prog- ress at that time and because of intense public interest in con- stitutional issues. TO THOSE SCHOOLS which are interested in having students begin correspondence with boys and girls of their own ages all over the world, a number of agencies offer their services. Among these are the Junior Red Cross and the Pan- American Union, whose headquarters are located in Washing- ton, D. C. Another is the World Peace Foundation with of- fices in New York and Boston. The International Friendship League has on hand names, ages, and addresses of boys and girls in forty-six different countries and territories. All the names have been certified by the Ministries of Education of the various countries. Full information may be obtained from Miss Edna McDonough, Executive Secrtary, International Friendship League, 41 Mt. Vernon St., Boston, Massachusetts. THE CIVIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 3506 Paterson St., Washington, D. C., has been founded to conduct a num- ber of research studies with a view of bringing about more general and more intelligent participation in government. The technique which has been developed in civic classes in a number of schools is to turn the civics class into a club forum and to provide a procedure by which boys and girls secure first-hand information in regard to conditions and activities in their community. The Institute publishes The Na- tional Civics Clubs News Letter. Members of the Board of Advisers are: L. J. O’Rourke, U. S. Civil Service Commission; Charles H. Judd, University of Chicago; Arthur E. Morgan, Tennessee Valley Authority; Harold G. Moulton, Brookings Institution; and George F. Zook, American Council on Edu- cation. THE HORACE MANN CENTENNIAL will come to a close during American Education Week, November 7-13. The 62 NEWS NOTES Centennial movement has developed a number of books on the life and works of Horace Mann. Among these are: Life of Horace Mann by his wife. Committee on the Horace Mann Centennial, 1937. $1 postpaid. Pp. 600. Horace Mann: His Ideas and Ideals by Joy Elmer Morgan. Prepared especially fer the Centennial; published by Na- tional Home Librar« »%undation, Washington, D. C., 1937. Pp. 150. 25c singi. .upy plus 5c postage. Chautauqua Text-Book on Horace Mann by Wm. F. Phelps. Centennial Committee, 1937. Single copy 15c, quantity discounts. Horace Mann, Educational Statesman by I. I. F. Williams. Macmillan, New York, N. Y., 1937. Pp. 367. $2. Educating for Democracy. Antioch Press, Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1937. Pp. 148. $1. Horace Mann and Our Schools by Payson Smith, A. E. Win- ship, and Wm. T. Harris. American Book Co., New York, N. Y., 1937. Pp. 100. $1. Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the U. S. by B. A. Hinsdale. Scribner’s, New York, N. Y., 1937. Pp. 236. $2. Testament of Faith, a new Horace Mann play by the Antioch College Faculty. Dramatists Play Service, 6 East 39th St., New York, N. Y. Pp. 100. 75c. THE PRINCIPLES adopted by American Youth Com- mission on the Care and Education of Youth are: 1. It being understood that young people should receive formal education or training at least until the age of sixteen, the Commission accepts the principle that so- ciety has a further, peculiar, and increasing responsi- bility for the education, welfare, and development of young people up to the age at which they may be able to enter gainful occupations. 2. “An education for the common life,” with a core of common materials for all, but adapted to the varying abilities and aptitudes of youth, should be the basis for the formal educational program. From the end of the period of formal education to the age of twenty-one the responsibility may be met by less formal and more flexible means. After the age of twenty-one the responsibility of society may become 4 special part of its relation to adults generally. It is obvious that the time must come when the indi- vidual acceprs the primary responsibility for his own = the ‘ace an, Na- 37, ps. ity ns, 38, DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 63 education and welfare. Economic and other conditions affect this period. Under existing conditions the ages suggested above are believed to be proper. 3. The problems arising out of the acceptance of these principles are: (a) That of the necessity of building new curricula in the schools and the organization of the educational system to meet modern needs. (b) That of the creation of appropriate agencies for less formal training. (c) That of financing the program. On the death of Joseph H. Corns, Principal of Central High School, Detroit, Thomas Gunn, of Eastern High School, was appointed his successor. John H. Powels, assistant prin- cipal of Northern High School, succeeded to the principalship of Eastern High School, and Arthur McGrath was named as assistant principal of Northern High School. L. W. BROOKS, formerly principal of Wichita High School North, Wichita, Kansas, has been appointed principal of Wichita High School East, with the added position of Di- rector of Secondary Education. Truman G. Reed, who previ- ously had been principal of Wichita High School East, has ac- cepted the position of principal of the Lewis and Clark High School of Spokane, Washington. Book Notices McKown, Harry C. Extra-Curricular Activities. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. Pp. xv+734. Here is a compendium, or better an encyclopedia, of the best activities for secondary schools. Those who are familiar with the first edition will recognize in this an almost new book. Wynne, John P. The Teacher and the Curriculum. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937. Pp. xxiv+440. $2.50. This work is designed to integrate the treatment of the principles of education, curriculum-making, and method of teaching in one volume, a procedure justified, in the opinion of the author, in view of current trends in professional education for teachers. Garrison, S. C., and Garrison, K.C. Fundamentals of Psychol- ogy in Secondary Education. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1936. Pp. xx +599. This book is designed to present a definite and clear ap- plication of the principles of psychology to the problems of learning and personality growth in the high school. Pringle, Ralph W. The Junior High School. New York: Mc- Graw-Hill Book Company, 1937. Pp. xii+408. $3.00. This volume provides a psychological approach to the early secondary period in dealing with problems relating to the selection and organization of subject content, methods of presentation, extracurriculum activities, pupil control, and lines of advance in the junior-high-school movement. Wetzel, William A. Biography of a High School. New York: American Book Company, 1937. Pp. viii+327. In the sixty years since the Trenton, New Jersey, High School was established, it has been under the direction of but 65 Book NOTICES 66 two principals. For more than half this period it had Dr, Wetzel as principal, and 7916 of its 8534 graduates have come under his influence. For these reasons, if for none of the many others which might be given, Dr. Wetzel is eminently qualified to record the progress of his school as a record that few American secondary schools have been able to achieve. Douglass, Harl R. Secondary Education for Youth in Modern America. Report of the American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education. Washington: The Council, 1937. Pp. x+187. Now $1.00. This first report of the American Youth Commission should be read by everyone concerned with the problems of sec- ondary education. The program recommended in the report is not one upon which all experts are agreed, but is rather in- tended as (1) a simple, concise statement of the major influ- ences and conditions which must give direction to a readjust- ment of secondary education, and (2) an outline of attractive, concrete possibilities for experimentation, study, and demon- stration. Educating for Democracy. A Symposium. Yellow Springs, Ohio: The Antioch Press, 19387. Pp. x+148. $1.50. Myers, Alonzo F., and Williams, Clarence O. Education in a Democracy. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937. Pp. xxvit+ 434. $3.00. Although these two books are quite similar in name, they differ considerably in execution. The first is a symposium of prominent educators and friends arranged at Antioch College to celebrate the centennial of Horace Mann’s work in educa- tion. Most noteworthy among the addresses given are those of John Dewey on Education, the Foundation for Social Or- ganization, and of Kar] T. Compon on Education and Social Progress. The volume by Myers and Williams is designed as an intro- duction to the study of education, primarily for students new in the field. Parent-Teacher Manual. A Guidebook for Congress Parent- Teacher Associations. Washington: National Congress of Parents and Teachers, 1937. Pp. ii+142. $.30. (Quan- tity rates.) XUM yr. me tly lat ion t is in- flu- ist- ive, on- ngs, in a vit they n of lege uca- hose Or- ocial itro- new rent- rress uan- DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 67 The book is divided into four sections, the first three giv- ing valuable suggestions on the general program, essential structure and procedure, and types of organization for local units. The concluding section discusses the policies and proce- dures which should guide an association, and gives information to assist officers, committee chairmen, and members. RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT The Issues of Secondary Education. Bulletin No. 59, January, 1936. The Department of Secondary-School Principals, 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. Pp. 372. $1.10. The Functions of Secondary Education. Bulletin No. 64, Jan- uary, 1937. The Department of Secondary-School Princi- pals, 5885 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. Pp. 267. $1.10. The two reports of the Committee on the Orientation of Secondary Education on the “Issues” and “Functions” have been reprinted by the Department because of the widespread demand for them since their respective publications. They have been widely used by discussion groups, curriculum revision groups, and in courses on the problems of secondary education. A number of colleges have reported that courses entitled “Is- sues of Secondary Education” and “Functions of Secondary Education” have been instituted. Relations of School Principals to the Central Administrative Offices in Large Cities, Bulletin No. 66, by Reavis, Wil- liam C., Bolmeier, Edward C., and Stumpf, W. A., April, 1937. The Department of Secondary-School Principals, 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. Pp. 368. $1.50. This monograph presents the practices found to exist in the relations of principals and the central-office executives in seventeen large cities in the United States and Canada. The monograph is of special interest to secondary-school princi- pals, but is also valuable to teachers and administrators in other fields of education. Fifth Handbook of the National Honor Society, Bulletin No. 67, May, 1937. The Department of Secondary-School Principals, 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. Pp. 175. $1.00. Book NOTICES This handbook is indispensable to schools having either junior or senior chapters of the Society. Most helpful to local chapters will be the reports of methods of selecting members, rituals of induction, and the many activities which member chapters have undertaken as part of their programs of further- ing scholarship, leadership, character, and service in their schools. FEBRUARY MEETING, 1938 ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS February 26-March 2, 1938 Atlantic City, New Jersey Headquarters at Hotel Traymore